Three Families
by James Golen
Summary: Three Families seek the Avatar. Three Families find the Avatar. Three Families use the Avatar. The story of how three sets of siblings are changed by the Avatar, amidst an endless war. AU, Want of A Nail.
1. The Girl and The Iceberg

**Got that bug again. Had to write me some Avatar. A story of three pairs of siblings, brother and sister each, and their interactions with Aang over the course of what would have otherwise been a normal Books 1-3. Now, in a way, I'm cheating, because I'm using a lot of elements from the world I created in Children-Verse, but in an effort to not be hopelessly self-referential, I make a habit of starting from scratch, as though one had not even seen the show, let alone read my gargantuan novel based on it. But I'm also introducing new stuff, stuff that will be explained in the fullness of time. And I have thought out the shippings, in case you were wondering. None of them are canon, which is fitting in its way.**

**The only thing I fudged, strictly speaking, was Toph's age, because she just never reads as 12 to my mind. Thus, she's a year older, because _somehow_ that makes it all better. Everything else can be figured out through reading. And yes, things might not make sense right away, but once again, I write with stuff down the line in mind, so things will become clear. My great concern is that I get the characterizations if not right - because getting them wrong the proper way is the intention - then at least believable. Unlike the last one, which was more of an In Spite of a Nail, this one is a clearer For Want. There is one, clearly defined nail that changes the map significantly as it butterflies out... Well, two, but one of them happened a hundred years ago, and was barely noticable. I don't doubt you'll spot them pretty much immediately. Also, made this one a lot more light and all-ages-appropriate, more in keeping with the original story... only the world seems a bit worse to live in. But there's a reason for that, too.**

**I have been told that I tend to be too verbose in my Lead Ins. You know what I say to that? LONGER LEAD INS! {/Cave Johnson} The fact is, lacking a community, this is usually my only way to communicate with the readers that I do accrue, and I'll be damned if I lose that channel. Now, sadly, I won't be keeping to my slaughterous update schedule that I managed before. I know how nice it was to get three 10,000 word updates in a single week, but that just isn't feasible... or outright possible... considering my employment and mental health demands. Sad to say, it will get updated whenever I can do so. That's the best I can offer.**

**Three Familes Seek The Avatar. Three Families Find The Avatar. Three Families Use The Avatar.**

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><p>The weather was unpleasant, but not surprising for this time of year. Wind screamed past his flaring ears, numbing them despite his best efforts to keep the protective bubble of warmer air around him intact. The truth was, flying in this sort of weather was the last thing he should have been doing. It took a grand master, like Monk Gyatso or Elder Tengeh to attempt such daring with any hope of success. Aang was anything but. He was considered by most to be an extraordinarily gifted amateur at best, to have coasted his way to airbending mastery. Right now, he was wishing that he'd spent more time paying attention to monks other than Gyatso, absorbing their lessons.<p>

Because he didn't like his chances in this storm.

"I know, buddy! I'm taking us down!" Aang shouted over the wind. Appa, ever the faithful companion, let out a rumble as it moved lower, shaking its head and trying to throw off the ice which had covered it. This had been a bad decision. Bad and stupid. Yeah, he had to visit her on her birthday, because he promised he would, but he should have just accepted the invitation and waited out the weather. After all, the worst he would have gotten when he got back was a caning, and flitting off for a few days was not a caning offense. Dare say, it was actually part of Air Nomad culture. They wouldn't laud him, but they'd understand.

If he survived to get back.

"I know, Appa. That's what I get for making friends with Tribesmen," he said. Appa let its opinion be known in another bass bellow. The sleet and ice began to sting at Aang's face, now flying with such velocity that it was able to punch through his defenses with ease. That was becoming increasingly distracting. "Do you see anywhere to land?" Aang shouted over that gale. The twisting of the reins was the answer Aang had hoped for. His own eyes, pulled tight to keep out the stinging ice, obviously missed something the sky bison's keener senses did not. The great white beast descended, and a shape began to loom up out of the waters. It didn't make sense. They were way too far south to be at Gwynt, and the time of year was wrong for icebergs. The shape eluded Aang until the beast finally pulled up, and spread its six pillar-like legs under it, landing with a terrific thud onto the metal plating of a ship. A metal ship.

Aang pelted off of the creature's brow, and pulled it along the deck. The cold now even seeped up through his feet, numbing them. He was quite glad that he accepted the boots, at least. Boots weren't a prideful gift, they were practical. And their practicality right now was in that his feet weren't blocks of ice. A great tower loomed about a third of the way forward of the back of the boat, just as dark and dreary as the rest of the ship. There was a hatch, one which seemed to be sealed, because no amount of tugging on it would loosen it. Aang scraped his fingernails along his shaved head. Bad enough that he couldn't figure out where he was, he was also trapped outside. Appa let out another bellow, and the airbender turned back to face him. "What is it, buddy?" Aang asked with hope in his voice. The beast plodded to the center of the deck, and began to dig at it with its great paws.

Aang pelted over quickly, and could see what the beast was aiming at; there was a hatch of some sort, massive in size, just under the ice. He looked to Appa. "This isn't going to be easy, but it's going to be warmer than out here," he said. He blew on his hands, trying to get some warmth into them, and then wormed them into the crack. A heave yielded nothing. Not surprising, since his frame was not built for strength. He tried again, and was again stymied. "Come on! If there wasn't ice I could..."

Aang let out a groan, slumping to the deck. Appa nudged him, and he looked up. He nodded. If Appa wasn't going to give up, then neither was he. Aang blew down into that crack, and began to wheel his arms, a cushion of airbending pressing up from below. It wouldn't be enough, but it was worth a shot.

Only it was. Somehow, the ice spontaneously decided to release it's unforgiving grip. There was a great creak, and the doors opened just a foot, barely enough for Appa to hook a horn under it and heave, sending the door upward. With that done, the other was much more easily opened, and then both beast and bender descended into the ship.

For just a moment, it felt like all of Aang's skin caught on fire. But that sensation faded as he began to regain feeling in his extremities. But truth be told, this ship _was_ far warmer than any that he'd ever been in before. Appa shook vigorously, and great chunks of ice and sluices of melt flew about, hissing as they struck some of the pipes around. Aang glanced about, but couldn't find any lanterns by which to see. He sighed. It would just be tapping around in the dark, then. It was somewhat embarrassing to use his glider, a precision instrument of great worth, to feel around him for things he would trip over, but given he had no alternative, he took it. Appa, quite content where it was, simply lied down with a grumble of contentment.

"Let's see who these people are," Aang said to himself in the darkness. "If nothing else, I've got to thank them for their hospitality."

Aang's tapping finally revealed another door, but this one actually moved to his command, opening into a hall lit with a faint red light. He could hear voices somewhere, talking quietly in Huojian, the language of the Fire Nation. Aang was fluent in a great many tongues; most Air Nomads were. It was counterproductive to be the kind of person who never stopped traveling, and be unable to communicate with the people that one met. With an easy smile on his face, he sauntered through the halls, whisking away the damp and ice from his kavi. Damp clothes would be the death of him. But on the plus side, on a Fire Nation ship, he wouldn't die of hypothermia. He slowly moved toward the source of those voices.

A bulkhead opened nearby, and an amber-eyed man left a room, turning behind him. "_Yeah, and they've got the weapons of the Storm Kings waiting for us, so keep alert,_" he shouted back. A couple of sarcastic laughs followed him. He turned, and fell absolutely still and silent upon seeing Aang. That silence stretched out for rather a long while.

Aang raised a hand. "Hello," he offered.

"_Air Nomad?_" he asked.

"Yup!" Aang said enthusiastically.

"_You... you're going to have to talk to the... the captain,_" he said, pointing down the halls. "_I'll, I'll take you to him._"

Aang thanked him, but couldn't shake that there was something weird about this guy. The way the man stared at him, you'd think Aang was some sort of serial killer or something. Aang did enjoy the warmth, though. It dried him and left him feeling optimistic for the first time since that storm overtook him. He had mixed luck with storms. There was a nasty one not long after his twelfth birthday. If he'd have flown out in that one, he'd have been a goner for sure.

Aang was in a much better mood by the time he reached the identical door to the captain's chamber than he had been when he had landed on the hull. Being warm and dry would do that for a person. The door swung open with a creak and a clang, showing three Fire Nationals inside, all huddled around a map of Great Whales. Oh, so they must have been close to the islands after all. "_I found this spy infiltrating the ship,_" the soldier said.

"What? Spy? I'm not a spy," Aang protested.

"_Air Nomads? Here?_" the captain jumped to his feet. "_Sozin was right. They're everywhere. It was too much to hope that we would catch them unawares. What was your mission, urchin?_" he said, looming over the airbender.

Aang shrunk back, but didn't have very far to retreat before bumping into the soldier behind him. The other two had odd armor, all spiky points and a mask which looked like they were staring out of a skull. Aang's grey eyes flit about. "_I don't have a mission!_" he said. "_I was just caught in the storm and I needed some place to land!_"

"_That is preposterous. You were sent to scout us, weren't you?_"

"_Are you guys pirates or something?_" Aang asked.

"_Answer my questions, child!_" the captain made to slap Aang, but the airbender panickedly threw up a blast of air, which sent the man flying back into the far wall. Terror coursed through Aang's very veins as he had to dive aside, as a blast of flame seared past him. They had to be pirates! Aang never had this trouble in the Fire Nation before! He twisted again, sending out a wave of air which lifted the soldier behind him and smashed him against the wall. But the captain was recovering, and with the other two masked firebenders beside him, the three surged forward, erupting a pillar of flame.

**Let the energy flow**.

As usual, Aang hadn't the first idea where the thought came from. But he couldn't afford to be distracted. Despite the fact that air was hardly the best counter to fire, he managed to spin his staff before him, a vacuum pocket starving the flames before they could overtake him. Fear was every drop of his blood, now, ever twitch of his muscles accelerated by self-preservation and panic in equal measure. He bounded out of the halls, as a roar of "_Kill the airbender! Kill the spy!_" tore through the ship behind him. He could hear them coming. Dozens of pirates. He could deal with two, three, even four, but against those numbers?

He was very much regretting flitting off, right now. He needed to move faster, faster than he ever had before. His feet weren't good enough, because things kept getting in his way, the lips at the bottom of the doors, pipes, detritus thrown down by the storm...

**The ball has balance**.

Without really understanding why or how, Aang twisted the air under him into a ball, and like he had practiced it all his life, he was now shooting along the halls atop a scooter of air. He knew the trick, now, despite having no idea how panic and fear could teach it to him. He had much better things to do. Like duck. He almost hinged backward trying to get under an arm which was attempting to clothesline him. Speed was now working against him. He almost shot past the door he'd entered, and used his airbending once again to spin the handle, opening the door just in time to smash one of the pirates in the face.

"Oh! Sorry!" Aang winced, before shooting into the door and slamming it shut behind him. There was a discontented grumble from the hold. "Come on, Appa! It's not safe here!"

Appa let out another bellow, and Aang navigated the dark, until he could feel the breath from the beast's nose, and guessed well enough to jump up to the brow even blind. "Alright, this isn't going to be good, but we have to run. Are you up for that, buddy?" Appa seemed unsure, but bellowed. "Yip yip!"

The beast slammed upward, badly jarring Aang as it broke its way up through the ice once again, and the hold's doors swung open. Again, the airbender and the bison were exposed to the driving sleet, but this time, even above the whistle of the wind, there was another sound. Klaxons and horns. An alarm had gone up. "What does that mean?" Aang asked.

The answer came in the form of a boulder covered in burning pitch a few seconds later. Aang let out a scream and sawed on the reins, barely pulling Appa away from the projectile. It was followed shortly by more of them. Whoever these pirates were, they were well armed. But worse than that, Aang's dodging and weaving was wreaking marry hell with his sense of direction. It was only a matter of seconds before he was lost. By the end of the three minutes it took to finally leave those flaming boulders in his wake, he had no idea which way he was going, where he was... or how high from the ocean he was.

"We should pull up!" Aang shouted.

Appa bellowed, but it was a tired, weary thing. Aang tugged again, but the beast couldn't even respond.

"We're going to crash!" the airbender pleaded. "Please buddy! Don't give–"

That was when they hit the frigid waters. The shock of it drove the air from Aang's lungs, even as his eyes snapped open and his entire body felt like it had been both pummeled and set on fire. The cold was beyond shocking. One numbed hand clung to the reins, as he took his first breath of water. It went just about as well as one might imagine it would. Panic took over, and Aang's hand slipped from the reins.

**There is enough air in water**.

So far beyond reason was he that the words were a beacon of hope. Aang didn't know what was happening. He just wanted the pain to stop. He just wanted the fear to stop. And then, the water flew out of his lungs with a wracking cough, and a breath came in in its stead. It was a shallow breath... but the was still entirely under the water. How? How had that happened? No. He was drowning, wasn't he? There had to be a way. He had to save Appa! Appa must be so afraid...

**How much are you willing to lose?**

Anything, he thought. Just don't let him die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die.

**Then let the power flow.**

The world became white.

.

.

.

There was a rush of air, and Aang found himself kneeling on ice, his fists pressed together. He breathed in, and it came as a great gasp. Something was strange about the world. The colors were almost too vivid, too bright. As he stood, there were whispers on the breeze, a thousand voices murmuring quietly under the sun. It was cold, brutally cold, but this time, the bubble of air around him held firm, and he was warm. He slowly got to his feet, and scaled what looked like a half-sphere of ice, coming to a lip and staring down. At the base of that hollow sphere there was a girl. She was about his age, maybe a year or two older, and unsteady on her feet. Her hair was a lustrous black, falling in bangs that framed her face. Her golden eyes were wide and incredulous, shocked... and hopeful.

"_I can't believe it,_" that girl whispered, a strange accent to her voice. "_You're actually here._"

Aang took a step forward, and the girl rose two fingers toward him.

"_I searched for so long,_" she said, her voice phlegmatic and wet. Come to think of it, she looked quite sick. "_I finally... found..._"

She trailed off as she pitched forward onto her face in the snow. When she did, that whispering vanished, the vividness faded, and Aang felt like he finally came to his senses in the snow. He looked up in the sky. The sun was up. That meant that he must have been out for hours! Oh no; Gyatso was going to be so angry with him. He looked down at her, though. She didn't look good. He jumped off the lip and slid down to where she had fallen. He turned her over, and saw that her eyes had rolled up, and she was shaking violently.

"Oh, man," Aang said. "What do I do now?"

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><p><strong>Three Families<strong>

**The Story of Avatar Aang**

**Chapter 1: The Girl and the Iceberg**

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><p>Sharif had long been called a boy lost in his own little world. Most people used that as an insult. To be totally honest, Sharif didn't care. His sister did, though. She had been quite vocal throughout all of her life that they shouldn't make fun of him. That was apparently her job. In a lot of ways, Sharif wished he could voice how he appreciated her looking out for him, but the words never came. Besides, if he could not look to his twin to care for him, then who could he?<p>

"You're doing it again," Nila Badesh bin Seema din Nassar said. Despite the fact that the two of them were born on the same day, and shared the same eyes and gross facial feature, most people saw her as the older sibling. It wasn't surprising as why: Nila had taken after Mother, and Mother was a figure of authority, even in backwards Si Wong.

"Doing what?" Sharif answered.

"Staring," Nila said, her tattooed hands dexterously working with a flask, ever so carefully measuring things out.

"Sorry, Sis," Sharif said. And then immediately went back to staring to the south. All his life he had that buzzing sensation, that humming in the back of his mind that he could neither understand nor completely tune out. If he had been a more astute or diligent person, it might have driven him mad. Mother blamed it on his wound, but in truth, it had started long before the incident with the Tribesman. So he kept staring south.

"Ugh, you're doing it again!" Nila complained.

"Sorry sis."

"Stop being sorry and do something useful," Nila ordered. She threw him a leather skin. "I need some more water. The water from the distillery mind, not the well."

"Distillery water, alright," Sharif parroted.

"I don't know why I put up with you," she muttered to herself, more annoyed than harsh. In truth, he didn't mind doing these things. The problem was, he easily got distracted. That's why, at an age when a tradesman or warrior was usually under the wing of their master, finding a suitor, preparing to start his own family, he was still lazing about home, with Nila and Mother. Even the shaman from Misty Palms threw up his hands in defeat after trying to tutor Sharif for a month. As far as most could tell, there might well be no occupation in the world that Sharif could hold. Nila, though, was an odd case. She was just as guilty as he was, although from a different angle.

And that didn't bother him. He didn't even realize that it should have. Sharif whistled a formless tune to himself as he ducked out of the weathered house and into the glare of the Si Wong sun. This place was as close to the equator as the Fire Nation, so it was no less hot, all year round. Of course, it had the dubious distinction of also being the most harsh environment to live in outside of Azul, and the only reason it was surpassed was because _everything_ in Azul was actively trying to kill you. The shif-shif of sand under his feet was an undertone to that song that he whistled, as he walked right past the tent in the back yard, where Nila kept her distillery and several of her more explosive substances, and pulled water up from the well.

"Wow, it looks like Sativa let the freak out again," a voice came from the path that ran between Mother's house and the neighbors. They always had harsh words for all of that family. Then again, a family of bastards, without any noble standing, yet possessing a house like this was supposedly quite scandalous to Si Wongi. "I'm surprised she didn't do the smart thing and just abandon him on a sand dune."

"You are being too harsh, Gashuin," the youth's father chastised. He was the chieftain of the tribe, and dwelled in the greatest manor. "She has proven herself enough to make some questionable choices."

"I can hear you, you know?" Sharif pointed out, looking directly at them. The father rolled his eyes, while the son leveled a significant glare. What significance it held was lost to Sharif, who got distracted by an interesting whirl of the sand down on the Grit Ocean. Huh. That must have been some odd winds to make the dunes pile like that. There wasn't much to look at in Si Wong.

"Freak," Gashuin muttered one last time, before leaving the balcony and reentering the chief's manor. Sharif shook his head, taking a swig of the water he'd collected so deep that he ended up refilling it. Once again, from the well. He started walking back toward Mother's house, and suddenly, the buzzing stopped.

Sharif turned south immediately, all of the focus he had forfeited all of his life slamming into place in one moment of pristine clarity. Something enormous had happened. All his life, he thought he just inherently knew which direction south was. But that wasn't it. It dawned on him like revelation itself. Something was happening to the south. Something he needed to see.

Sharif quickly moved into the house, out of the sun and into the sweltering heat. He walked past Mother, who was scratching notes onto paper. She turned to him as he shot through the room, opening her mouth to ask him something, but not managing to get it out in time before he'd moved on. Sharif heard a sigh from behind him, but he was already in his room. He shoved his mattress to one side, and picked up a box that had been secreted underneath it. It was extremely heavy for its size, as though the box had been form fitted with a block of iron. Well, silver and gold, actually, but that wasn't the point. He slipped it into the sling on his back and looked around the room.

It would be a long journey. He had to see what had made that buzz in his head all his life. He considered telling Nila and Mother about it, but by the time he resolved to inform them, he realized that he was missing his shroud and veil. It wouldn't do to have his eyes gouged out by blowing sand, after all. He quickly wrapped it 'round his head, almost obscuring the vertical scar which started at his hairline and ended just above his eyebrow. Keeping the sun off of his head was important. Heat stroke could kill quickly in the desert. And he probably had far to go.

Telling his sister and mother once again came to his mind as he was throwing together a few items of food, but he was distracted once again by picking out which block of cheese seemed the most palatable. Throwing caution to the wind, he took both. Mother could always get more. It wasn't like she was impoverished or something. He strode out again, leaving the pale stone walls, and past Mother a second time.

"Sharif, where are you going?" Mother asked, her dark green eyes on him.

"Out. See you in a while," Sharif said, and continued out the door. There was a creaking of wood at the desk, but Sharif was already closing the door behind him. Mother always told him not to let the cool air out. When he did, he could see something shift in that wood; a portal spirit, quietly twisting the wood. When Mother tried to open the door and follow him, she found that it was wedged closed. Sharif didn't question why that had happened. He didn't question much about what he saw. For all he knew, it was the same thing everybody saw. In fact, he wondered why everybody wasn't walking south. The spirits cajoled him, urged him. Find the anomaly. Find the broken piece.

Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar continued whistling that formless tune as he descended the sentinel rock, upon which the entire town had been built, and began to walk across the Grit Ocean, with the sun drifting toward setting in the West. Behind him, the spirits ensured he would not be seen, as they pulled the sand up into a storm at his heels. And as he walked, so too walked the spirits, so he was not alone.

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><p>Iroh carefully set down a tile, its clack grating ever more on Zuko's nerves. The way it slid danced up his spine and settled into a throbbing pain at the back of his jaw. Uncle stared at the piece under his finger, then, to the rest of the board. It was bad enough that they had to play a game that neither particularly knew the rules to – Gack was a Tribesman's game, not a proper National one – but to be doing it now? Zuko's nerve was very, very strained, and his patience was very, very sparse. "Yes, that will do nicely," the man said.<p>

"We shouldn't be wasting our time like this," Zuko muttered darkly, grasping a piece and slamming it down hard enough to make those yet present dance on the board. "We should be out there, searching. Before..."

"You have been awake for two days already, Nephew," Uncle said calmingly. Perhaps morosely. The quivering anger didn't leave Zuko's jaw or his voice, but that niggling little voice in the back of his mind told him to back off. Uncle was still wearing his mourning whites. Auntie was not even long to the pyre, and she had died out here, instead of comfortable at home, because of him. Because Uncle wouldn't let him wander alone.

But he wasn't alone.

"And I'll stay awake another two days if I have to," Zuko said. "I'm not losing the trail."

"Sometimes, you simply have to have faith that the universe will provide. You can't afford to get yourself worked up over nothing," Iroh said.

Zuko lept to his feet, kicking the game board aside and scattering its pieces across the floor. "NOTHING?" he roared, his face transformed into a mask of wrath. "How dare you say that! Don't you realize what will happen if I don't find the trail in time?"

"You have already searched for two years for the Avatar," Iroh pointed out. Zuko just stared at his father's brother. If that was the point Uncle was trying to make, then Zuko _did not_ appreciate it. Iroh sighed, then got to his feet, meandering over to a pot which had been set aside, steam wafting lazily from its spout into the chilly air of the cabin. "Perhaps you should have some calming jasmine tea. If you are frayed and reckless, you may overlook some critical clue."

Zuko stared at the man for a long moment, before releasing a breath which felt like defeat. His eyes, the color of burnished gold, fell to the deck panels and he nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah that might be for the best," Zuko admitted, choking that frustrated rage. It was very small comfort that the smell brought when it wafted to Zuko's nose, as a cup was forced into his hand. He stared at it for a long moment, considering drinking it, maybe even getting some sleep.

"Agni's blood, why is this never easy?" Zuko asked nobody, or maybe Uncle, or maybe even the universe itself. "Why can't anything ever be simple?"

"You must have faith, Prince Zuko," Iroh stressed. "She can't have gotten..."

Both were cut off when a blinding light filled the cabin, leaving both squinting against it, for the moment it took both to abandon tea and decorum and spring out of the bulkhead doors, onto the balcony which ringed the tower of this admittedly puny ship. He leaned hard on the rail, his eyes locked on a pillar of light which rose between the drifting mountains of ice in the sea, to the southeast. Zuko gaped at it for a long moment.

In that moment, a thousand thoughts hounded him. Thoughts of finding the Avatar. Thoughts of bringing the Avatar before his father. An end to the quest, an end to this endless journey. Honor restored. Succession returned, the title of Crown Prince restored to him. All of the wealth and power of the Fire Nation, finally standing behind his name once again. He would stride the Long Walk as a champion and a hero, and the crowds would scream his name. Not in revulsion and hatred, but in awe and reverence. He would be home again. He would be back with his family.

And even as that thought wormed through his head, it was overwhelmed by a mass, an interminable weight of shame. Yes, if – if – he captured the Avatar, then he would have his honor back, his throne, his home. But what about her? Shame turned to anger as he thought about those words he heard, on the day when Father finally showed his true face. Idly, Zuko adjusted the hair which fell over his left ear, making sure it covered it completely.

"Do you think that was...?" Iroh began.

"It doesn't matter," Zuko muttered. He stared up again. He made a promise, that night he stayed up until the morning. She made him promise, and he would not betray that vow. Whatever honor he had left was bound in that. "It was obviously immense power, but even if it was the Avatar, he is a man with command of all four elements, and could have as much as a century of experience with them. If I face him alone, it would be a slaughter."

Iroh nodded. "I must admit, I am surprised to hear this much caution from you, Prince Zuko," he said.

Zuko shook his head. "I promised Mom," he said quietly, too quietly for his uncle to hear him. "We've drifted too long as it is. This isn't our land, we don't know it. We need somebody who does."

Iroh nodded, and returned to the ship, to give word to the helmsman. Zuko hated having to rely on others, because he had to be the supportive one. He needed to be strong enough to keep her safe. But he knew when he was beat. He needed a guide, and that meant finding somebody who knew the land. Still, Zuko's fists tightened on the rail, and his breath puffed out with flame.

"I'm coming for you, Azula," Zuko promised. "I _will_ find you."

* * *

><p>She was shaking far to much to be simple cold, Aang knew that much. This Fire Nation girl had to be very, very lost to be down this far on the planet, and feeling the cold far more than he was. The Fire Nation was pretty much right on the equator; this latitude must have been torturous for her. He turned from her, unable to think of what to do. "Come on, think man! Urg!"<p>

His eyes fell upon the half-sphere. It was a massive construct, its outer surface all waves and whorls,and it looked to be half-buried in an iceberg. He frowned for a moment. Wait. How had he gotten inside that thing? The sound of displaced snow, as the girl behind him twitched, drove such inquisitive thought from his mind. He had far more important things to worry about. Like keeping the pretty National alive. But then he remembered what else he had smelled, rather than seen, in those brilliant moments. Wet bison.

Brightening as he vaulted up the wall of that ice, airbending sending his bounds ten feet to a step, he beheld what he had desperately hoped he would find. He threw himself at the great beast's brow, and nuzzled into the fur. But then he realized that it was quite still. A shard of panic worked its way in beside the others that Aang was working very hard not to think about, and he clambered lower. "Appa, are you alright?" he asked. He heaved up on one of the massive eyelids, and it slid down again. "Oh, no," Aang said, his voice perilously close to tears. "Don't do this, Appa. Please, wake up!"

Aang bounded lower, and planted both feet on the ground, putting his back into giving the great beast a shove on the nose. The indignant snort Appa released was as music to the airbender's ears. Aang lit up like the sun. "Appa! You're alright!" he said. Well, tried to, because half way through the second word, the great beast opened its maw and licked Aang aside. Aang whisked the drool away from him with a quick blast of airbending, then bounced up onto the brow once more. The reins on one side were off, so he would have to do this one-handed. But considering the situation, he probably would have had to anyway. "Alright, buddy, we've got to get home fast. Monk Gyatso will know how to help her, I know it."

The bison plodded lethargically out of the sphere, and nudged the National on the snow. "Yeah, we're bringing her with us," Aang confirmed. Appa let out a rumble that didn't sound too disagreeable.

Aang bounded down, and tried to scoop the girl up. She was actually a bit heavier than he expected, despite being very lean of build. All of her shape must have been carved of muscle, to be so dense. She muttered something angry, in a language the he hadn't even heard of, and weakly slapped at him, before coughing violently and wetly. "Just hold on, alright. I'm going to take you some place where they can take care of you."

Aang took the remaining rein in one hand and gave it a flap. "Yip yip, boy!"

Appa took one heady bound...

And belly flopped onto the ice. Aang was so startled by this that he was actually unseated, and had to twist in mid air to not land on the National. As she coughed, she seemed to be disgorging a pink froth. Since he doubted severely that she'd inhaled one of Gyatso's pies, that meant that it was filled with blood. A hand to her brow found that, despite her constant shaking, she was running a deadly fever. He turned and sawed the reins again. "Come on, Appa, this isn't funny! Yip yip!"

The great bison grumbled loudly, put its legs under it, and began to shuffle a short distance, before stopping, lying down, and letting out a loud snort. No. No no no no no! "Are you alright?"

Appa just rumbled lightly, its eyes sliding shut. It still breathed, and Aang could feel its great heart beating even through his posterior, but for the moment, Appa was grounded. "What do I do?" Aang asked. "I mean, what do I do? I..."

Aang glanced to one side, and the girl was staring at him again. That was an odd look in her eyes. Like she half-way recognized him, which didn't make sense, because he was fairly certain he'd remember somebody who looked like her. Well, a more healthy her, anyway. "What is your name?" Aang said, helping her down.

"Don't. I will..." she tried, before falling to more wet coughing. She stared at him for a long moment, and then said one word which he really didn't expect to hear.

"Avatar."

With that, her eyes drifted shut, and she fell limp. Aang set her amidst the fur on Appa's leg, as warm a place as he was likely to find any time soon. Aang turned to the bison. "My gods," Aang said to the great beast. "I think she's the Avatar!"

* * *

><p>Nila actually stopped her decanting when she started hearing the axe tearing apart the door. Shaking her head, she wondered what idiocy Sharif got into his head today, but found herself a bit gobsmacked when she wandered out into Mother's study, and found her wielding the axe. Mother was not a frail woman; she was lean and tough, a form hardened by decades in the desert and years at war. So when she hurled axe, it was not daintily. After burying the weapon of warfare into the reluctant wood for the fifth time, she turned back, noticing the presence of her daughter.<p>

"What did you say to your brother?" Sativa immediately demanded.

"What?" Nila asked. Sativa's wide mouth curled into a scowl.

"Don't play innocent with me. You said something which upset your brother. What was it?" she demanded.

"I didn't say anything," Nila complained.

Mother responded by shoving hard on Nila's chest, shoving her back against the wall, disapproval clear on her features. "I will not suffer you lying to me, Nila."

"I'm not lying, Mother!" Nila said, outrage quaking in her voice. "What did he do? Where has that idiot gone now?"

The slap across her face was very light, compared to what Nila was well aware Mother was capable of. Were Nila a Tribesman, or a National, or some pampered Continental, she would have been stunned by the assault. She was Si Wongi, though, and filial chastisement was just something she was used to. It was not abuse. It was a warning, which was followed by a finger thrust under her nose. "You will not speak about your brother that way. Have some respect."

"Respect? For him?" Nila asked, rubbing her cheek. Sativa shook her head, then returned to the door. Nila sighed. "I don't know what's going on. What did Sharif do?"

"He sicced the spirits on me to keep me from following," Sativa said, spitting into her hands, grasping the axe handle, heaving the weapon out, then sending another swing at it, to a resounding thunk and an explosion of splinters.

"Spirits? Really?" Nila asked. "I didn't think you believed in that garbage."

"I believe in what I see before my eyes," Sativa said. "This door is jammed. There is no reason for that, and it jammed the instant after Sharif passed through it."

"You talk about him like he's..."

"A shaman?" Mother asked, taking a pause, to examine the door. "It has been obvious for a very long time."

Nila rolled her eyes. "He's dense because his brain was injured, that's all there is to it," she stressed.

"Your memory is remarkably short, all things considered," Mother said. She gave the door one final swing, and now, the great boards freed from the hinges, it fell outward onto the grit. She stared down at it like some fallen foe, with scorn and derision.

"I could have just climbed out the upper window," Nila pointed out.

"That's not the point," Mother said. "It's the principle of the matter. This door has disobeyed me. Its spirit thought it could deny me. I have proven otherwise."

"That's just magical thinking, Mother," Nila said.

"Go after him," Sativa said, storming back into the house and restoring the ornate battle axe to the rack where it had hung for almost a decade. Nila put on an expression of utmost distaste.

"Excuse me?"

"Your brother has a notion in his head. Go and find him, and keep him safe," Sativa said, sitting down hard enough in her chair that it creaked, before turning back to the table.

"What? Why me? Can't you do it?" Nila asked. "I mean, you've always been complaining that you want to get out and see the world again, so why are you saddling me with this?"

"Two reasons," Sativa said, twisting around once more and ticking them off of her fingers. "I did not break the Fire Nation's will completely and eternally. They will turn their eyes to the Continent and to the Earth Kingdoms again, and when they do, it will fall to people like me to stop them from burning everything to the ground. Two, you are lazy and rudderless. You need some direction in your life. Perhaps this will help you find it. Besides, I can claim something without being truthful. Much as I'd like to see rivers and grass again, I have duties to attend to."

Nila shook her head. The stinging in her cheek had faded – for what it was worth, considering she was nothing other than headstrong even at the worst of times – and she glared at her mother again. "So hire a tracker to deal with him. Hell, Ashan would do it for a pat on the head!"

"No. It must be you."

"I am not my brother's keeper," Nila said petulantly. Well, she tried to make sure it didn't sound petulant, but she obviously failed in that, because Sativa stood again, and stared her daughter in the eye.

"Yes. You are," Mother said, and the tone of her voice said that there was no arguing that point or snaking out of it. She glanced toward one of the windows, which was more of a fortification's arrow-slit than a proper vantage. "There is a wide world out there, and you do yourself disservice and disrepute by sequestering yourself in your room all day. Reading tomes and scrolls is all well and good, but it is a pale shade to the real world. It's time you had an education in life, and this will be a part of it."

"So you're just going to kick me out and send me after my idiot brother?" Nila complained. "I mean, he'll probably get himself killed long before I reach him."

"Spirits look after drunks, fools and shamans," Sativa said, facing the wall of armament she had accrued over her years throughout the East Continent and beyond in her youth. "You would certainly agree that Sharif is two of those three."

Nila pouted for a moment, before the anger returned. "And how am I supposed to find him? He could have gone in any direction!"

"He went south," Mother said.

Nila glared. Had they worked that out between them when she wasn't looking? "What do you m..."

"He went south," Mother repeated, more sternly. She didn't turn from the armory. "Believe it or not, I actually do listen to you and your brother. If he wanders at random, random always turns out to be south. So he is going south."

Nila slumped a bit, defeated by logic. Damn her and her scientific outlook on life! "Still feels like a fool's errand," Nila complained.

"Yes, in essence. Everybody has to suffer a few fool's errands in life," Mother said. She turned, ran her finger along the many other weapons, most ornamental, but some quite functional, which adorned her study. Mother's hands, the tattoos on her fingers so old that they had faded into almost illegibility, slid past the curved katanas of Great Whales, the scimitars of the Big Empty, and a narrow, double edged blade with a white flower etched into its handle. It was a common flower around this house, obviously one of Mother's favorites. Nila preferred more red when it came to flowers, which it seldom did. Finally, past the spears and the war clubs and even a commandeered Water Tribe boomerang, she pulled up something which had no ornamentation, no rack. Just a case made of unadorned leather. Mother grabbed it and tossed it to Nila. Nila scowled at the offering.

"Really?" Nila asked, pulling the recurve bow out a bit.

"You're not going out there unarmed," she said. She paused for a moment, staring at her daughter. "I want you to know something, Nila. You haven't done much that I've approved of. You've done less that's made me proud. But you turned your back on war, and that alone tells me that you have a working mind."

"Thanks, Mom," Nila said sarcastically.

"Hm," Mother grunted. "Get enough water to last to the edge of the desert."

"And the money?"

"Really? If I give you money, you'll just lark off and I'll have to drag you back home, after I have to track down my son on my own," Sativa pointed out. "You're a clever girl. You'll make due."

"It sounds like you're sending me out there to die," Nila said.

"No," Sativa said. "I have faith in you. If nothing else, you'll do this just to prove to me that you're better than I think you are."

Mother was right about that, at least. "So..."

"Find your brother, bring him home," Sativa said, turning back to her tome and muttering something dark about the wasp-vulture quill she wrote with, she let Nila vanish from her view. "Oh, and if you happen to have yourself an adventure along the way, make sure to rub it in Gashuin's face when you get back. That little shit has been getting on my nerves."

"No arguments there, Mom," Nila said. "What about my other stuff?"

"Food, water, anything but money," Sativa said, not looking up. Nila considered once again pointing out how unfair this was, but knew that fighting Mother at this point was just banging her head into a wall. It achieved nothing, and gave her a headache besides. Besides, some small part of Nila knew that Mother was right. And she did want Mother to be proud of her. And it was embarrassing even to hold that thought in her head.

Nila went back into her room, marked by the distinct change in odor as much as the sudden starkness of décor. There was so much stuff that she would simply be unable to bring with her. Her alembics and her calcinator were just too fragile. That meant that she was probably going to have to make due with the hopeless essentials. She quickly loaded herself on what she could carry under her robe, and spared just a glance at the mirror on the wall. Her skin was quite dark, darker than Mother's, but she had gotten Mother's green eyes and big lips. And ostensibly her hair as well, but Nila kept it shaved, because that way it wouldn't catch on fire. She pursed her lips, and strode out into Mother's study one more time.

"Water?" Mother asked, not looking up. Nila hefted the heavy jug which would ride her back. "Food? Of course you have food."

"Goodbye, I guess," Nila said. She walked toward that sundered door, and as she crossed the threshold, she felt a stab of worry. "Mother, what if I can't..."

"You'll find him," Mother said, not turning back. Nila stared at her mother for a long moment, the only sounds being the wind and the scratching of the quill. Nila hoped Mother was right. The only thing worse than finding her brother, would be not, and having to come home. That was not something Nila wanted to think about.

* * *

><p>"I'm going to bed," Iroh said, looking upon his nephew as he stared out over the waters, the ice beginning to mount higher and higher around them. He exaggerated a yawn a little, which backfired when it became a very deep, very long, very real yawn. "Yes. A man needs his sleep."<p>

"I won't be able to sleep," Zuko said, eyes on the horizon, the spy glass under one hand. "Not now. Not when she could be out there."

"Worrying about her won't bring her back or keep her safe, Prince Zuko," Iroh said softly. "And if you do not sleep, your mind will suffer."

"I know, Uncle," Zuko said quietly.

"Then come to bed."

"I won't be able to sleep," Zuko repeated. He let out a sigh, and not a despondent one. It was frustrated. Angry. He pulled the lens to his eye once more, staring out across the ice. "There's got to be something I can do. How do people navigate this barren hell-hole?"

"The stars, I'd imagine," Iroh said. He took a few steps toward his nephew, the young man who he had watched grow up so much in the last two years. "I must say, Prince Zuko, I'm a little surprised at you."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought that any sign of the Avatar would have you," he let out a chuckle, "foaming at the mouth, surging against the chains trying to get to him."

"And if that wasn't the Avatar?" Zuko asked. Iroh saw the look on the young man's face. It was the look he got when he was being devious. "For all we know, it was just the celestial lights, and while I waste time looking for him, Azula freezes to death. Face it, my great grandfather, my grandfather, and my father have all searched for the Avatar. Sometimes for decades."

"Are you saying..." Iroh asked, since the boy seemed dangerously close to broaching a topic which made Iroh very uncomfortable, to have to broach so soon.

"I'm saying that I have my priorities straight," Zuko said, his eyes closing, his face tipping down. "_If_ I find the Avatar, then I find him. My honor is restored and I return home a champion. But that's a big if. Right now, there are more important things."

Iroh nodded. Zuko being sensible was always a welcome change. This was not the first time Azula had run off, and Iroh doubted it would be the last. His niece had a tendency for trouble. As they had taken to saying in recent years, Zuko lived lucky, but Azula was lucky to be alive.

Zuko looked up again, and brought the telescope up. Zuko's left eye widened in surprise, and he thrust the scope toward his uncle. Iroh took it, and followed the out thrust finger. There, at the very edge of the horizon, Iroh saw what Zuko had noted. A thin wisp, almost invisible, almost mistaken for a cloud. Smoke. Smoke meant human habitation. Humans meant Tribesmen, Tribesmen meant guides.

"Helmsman!" Zuko shouted, his voice full of fire once more. "Set a course to the smoke! Pull it up two miles out!"

"Prince Zuko, what are you doing?" Iroh asked carefully, handing the lens back.

"What you taught me best, Uncle," Zuko said, moving to the doors into the cabin. "Being discreet."

Iroh smiled at that, privately. He just hoped that his nephew could carry through on his promises. He didn't doubt it, though. Zuko loved his sister, after all.

* * *

><p>There were about a thousand places she'd rather be than right here. At least it wasn't cold. Well, to most people, it would be deadly freezing, but having lived here all of her life, she understood the subtleties of a polar winter. Yes, it was still hypothermia inducing, but summer time gave her, and anybody else, a much larger margin for carelessness and error. The only other passenger on the boat needed both, desperately.<p>

"Will you just admit that we're lost?" Katara asked.

"We're not lost, we're fishing," Sokka answered, waving idly back at her. "You wouldn't know the difference, anyway."

Katara grunted with disgust while Sokka just kept peering into the water outside the canoe. Gran Gran didn't have to saddle her with Sokka. Well, saddle him with her, in the matriarch's words. She could have been doing something much more productive. With a glance at her older brother's back, she admitted to herself that at this moment, just about anything would be more productive. There was a tremor in the boat, and even without being able to see her brother's face, she could tell he was brightening up.

"There you are," he said quietly. "You're not getting away from me this time."

"Really? Is it the same fish as before?" Katara asked, her tones over-sweet. "Or the one before that?"

"Tut tut," Sokka said patronizingly, waving back at her once more. "What would a girl know about catching a fish anyway?"

"I know not to store my fish hooks in my thumb," Katara pointed out. Sokka actually turned back to her, a very unamused look on his face. They were both alike and not alike, she and he. Both were darkly complected, possessing the same bright blue eyes, and the same dark, wavy hair. There ended the similarity, though. Sokka was gangly, all elbows and angles, where Katara managed to be just thin enough to be judged unattractive. Of course, most of the children were on the same ration she was; weight loss was sort of inevitable when the village starved. As well, he'd taken the Tribal haircut to its logical extreme, shaving the sides of his head to make it stand out more. A ridiculous look, compared to her 'hair loopies' and braid.

"Everybody's a comedian today," Sokka posited.

"Just taking up the slack," Katara answered. He shook his head, turning back to the fish. Katara too looked away. There was no point complaining about Sokka's chauvinism. Food was food, no matter how he got it. She looked down, and she could see something moving through the brine below. Just a shimmer of movement against the dark. She glanced to her brother.

"Mmmm. I can already smell it cooking," Sokka whispered, spear leveled down. She pulled off her thick, warm gloves and reached out. It wasn't going to work. She knew that. It took a waterbender of some skill to...

A tail formed in the water behind the canoe, as she could feel the energy vortexing up from the surface of the brine, pulling the water with it. The fish, too close to that vacuum, was pulled up and into the blob which snapped off, and floated in the air. Katara's eyes grew quite large. She almost didn't want to breathe. This had never happened before. She was holding the water up, completely apart from the sea!

"Sokka look!" she exclaimed, as she tenderly moved that orb of dripping water toward her.

"Not now, Katara!" Sokka hissed. "You're gonna scare it away!"

"But I've caught one!" she said, a wide grin on her face as she brought it slowly above...

"HYAH!" Sokka shouted, thrusting the spear first up, then down into the water. The positive side of things was that he did manage to lance the fish. The bad part was that in doing so, he had also lanced her tenuous globe of water during his back swing, so when he struck, the frigid water burst from her control, and poured down his back. His warrior cry was followed immediately by a fairly girlish shriek, as his back arched and he tried to flail against the cold and the wet. He turned to her, his eyes so wide they almost looked like they were about to fall out of his head. "Katara, what did–"

She reached down between them and picked up the flapping ice bass. "I caught a fish."

Sokka seethed at that. "Why is it every time _you_ play with your magic water, _I'm_ the one who ends up getting soaked?" he asked.

"It's not magic! It's waterbending," she said, a twitch of bitterness in her voice.

"Yeah, ancient artform lost for generations, stolen from the youths of the Water Tribes," Sokka said. "All I know is if I had weird powers, I'd keep them to myself."

"How could you be so heartless?" Katara asked. "You know what they did to the other waterbenders," Sokka wilted a bit at that, turning toward the water. She was on a roll, though. "Besides, I'm not the one who keeps making muscles at myself in the mirror."

"You swore you wouldn't tell anybody about that," Sokka said, pointing a warning finger at her.

"Please, you're the most immature, nut brained, sexist twit left in the village," Katara said, standing to loom over her older brother. "I'm _embarrassed_ to be related to you! And ever since Mom died and our family was torn apart, I had to do _everything_ while you mooned around with the others playing soldier!"

She barely registered that the canoe had bumped into the slowly drifting flow of ice, and no force on this Earth could stop her from continuing.

"I mean, I even clean all the clothes!" Katara ranted. With every flick of gesticulation, unheard but ominous cracks sounded behind her. "Have you ever smelled yourself? How do you even _produce_ that kind of stink? It is _not_ pleasant!"

"Yeah, well maybe you should just be a bit more appreciative that I've managed to keep you fed for the last two years," Sokka was now standing himself. "It's not like you've been doing much to keep food on the table!"

"Yeah, that's because I've been doing everything else! Like cooking that food! Like cleaning up after all of the mess you make with your 'recruits'!" Katara kept shouting.

"Well at least I'm still trying to keep this Tribe standing!" Sokka shouted back. "If it wasn't for me, then there'd be no male influences left in this village!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing!"

"You know what? You're on your own. Go and starve for all I care," Sokka said, turning away, his arms crossed.

She glared at his back for a long while, before turning to the ice shore, and letting out a scream of alarm.

The youth standing there gave a glance to each of them in turn, before nervously raising a hand. "Hey," he said, his words oddly accented but in her own language. His voice was quite soft, perhaps even a bit lisping. "I... uh... heard you two screaming. I thought something was wrong."

He was quite unlike anybody she'd seen before. A bit taller than Sokka, his skin was almost white as the ice under his boots. His clothes were quite dark, which was sensible because they would stand out against the ice, and very thick. It was his eyes, though, which struck Katara the hardest. They looked like burnished gold, staring out over an uneasy smile.

"Well, since I'm on my own, I guess I'll just go with the weird stranger," Katara said, bounding onto the shore and looping her arm around his.

"Katara, don't be stupid," Sokka said, pulling her away, giving him a wary glare. "For all we know he could be a Fire Nation spy!"

"Um... I'm not?" the stranger said.

"See? He's not a spy!"

Sokka palmed his brow. "That's exactly what a spy would say!"

"Why would anybody want to spy on you?" the stranger asked.

"Because my sister's weird and crazy," Sokka said, with a bizarre gesture.

"Yeah, I can see that," he said with a soft smirk, pointing over his shoulder to great cracks in the wall of the moving water. Unlike when Sokka said it, she could tell he was being jovial, rather than closeminded. But when Katara saw the extent of what her wild flailing had caused, her jaw dropped.

"I did that?"

"Yup. You've graduated from weird to freakish," Sokka said.

"I need some help," the stranger finally broke in. Sokka let out a braying laugh.

"Well, you've found the best warrior, hunter, and tracker in the South Water Tribe," Sokka said proudly, his chest puffed up.

"Yeah, he inherited that title by default," Katara pointed out.

"Why do you have to ruin these moments for me, Katara?"

"Because you make it too easy."

The stranger glanced between them. "I need somebody who knows the land," he said.

"I know this ice like the back of my hand," Sokka said, stripping off a glove to make his point. Then, he actually looked at the back of his hand, and got a querulous expression. "What the hell is that?"

Katara sighed, palming her own face. "Much as I hate to admit it, Sokka does know his way around," she said. She looked up, forcing a warm smile to shove aside the annoyance at her goon of a brother. "So the goon is Sokka and my name is..."

"Katara. Like I said, I could hear you two screaming at each other," the stranger said. "My name is... Zuko," he said, giving her a respectful nod. He then turned to Sokka, who was now picking at that unknown thing with a fingernail. "I need to find my sister."

"Did she run off on you?" Sokka asked, shooting Katara a significant glance which was about as subtle as a rock to the skull.

"Actually, yes," Zuko admitted. "She's not well. And after all the time down here, she could be deathly ill by now. I need to find her before... before it's too late."

"You came all this way to find your sister?" Katara asked. Zuko let out a sigh, his gaze becoming distant.

"I promised I'd keep her safe," he said quietly. With more gusto, he continued. "I don't intend to betray that promise. I can pay. Not much, but silver is silver."

"You can't eat silver," Katara pointed out dejectedly.

"I also have a bunch of food back with my ship," Zuko offered. At that, Katara felt herself shoved aside by a grinning Sokka.

"Then you've found yourself a guide."

* * *

><p>In the north, a girl looks back, to the form of a rock that stood against the horizon. She had never been out of sight of her own home, not anywhere but in her mind. Another mile, out into the Grit Ocean, and she would be farther than she had ever been in her life. Dispatched on a fools errand to hunt down an idiot, with nothing but some food, some water, and her own wits.<p>

And about thirty pounds of hazardous chemicals and materials.

She lets out a sigh, her eyes pressing shut, as she turns to the south, and considers the long path ahead. She is entering another world. And she is afraid.

On the ice, an airbender tucks another blanket around a girl who he doesn't even know. He never even got to learn her name. Appa grumbled with exhaustion, trying to get sleep days overdue, trying to summon the strength to fly. He had already been up there, in the biting winds, but there was nothing but ice. So the airbender sat next to the girl, against the side of the great, six legged beast. Her breathing had become weak, wet, and rattling.

He lets out a weary sigh, his eyes pressing shut, as he looks to the north, to his home at De-Aer Island, where the South Air Temple perched hidden amongst the clouds of the mountain's peak. It was so far, right now. Almost unreachable. She needs help, help he can't give her. And he is afraid.

Not far away, but a lifetime away, two Tribesmen walk the ice, a stranger at their backs. If they knew more, beyond the soft words and unsure smile, they would be afraid. But instead, they power on, in ignorance. The would-be hunter moves out ahead, scaling a mount of snow-covered ice, tilting his head back. He breathes deeply of the South Polar air, his eyes pressing shut, and a goofy smile on his face. The other, the stranger, though, looked on in caution. He had things to hide, things he dare not let them learn. How long would their largess last when the truth came out?

"This way!" Sokka shouted, and bounded from the block. The hunt was on. Three families, hunting.

And thousands of miles away, in a cleft between mountains, a figure rose to her feet. Her body was a girl's, barely into her teens, but it had been that way for a very long time. Tatters of clothing, yellow and orange, fluttered in the wind that whistled through the rough terrain she felt most at home in. Grey eyes, flat and stony, stared across a worldly distance, but with unerring accuracy. There was a time, long, long ago, that people once gave offerings to her, as though to a benign spirit. But then came the Hunger, and the World War. Offerings became supplications. She devoured them all, but could not be sated. She tilted her head to a side. Maybe now, she could finally have her fill. Maybe now, after all of these long, hungry decades, Malu could finally know satiation. And if not, then the world would burn.

* * *

><p><strong>To Be Continued.<strong>


	2. The Old War

**A bit before I would have otherwise put this up, but it's not fair to leave folk hanging on a two-parter, especially when that two parter starts the story.**

* * *

><p>Aang's tongue stuck out 'twixt his teeth as he furiously twisted the stick between his hands. Appa was looking a bit more sprightly this morning than he had last night, but then, Appa never was one to showcase its emotions. Aang put a lot of his connection with the great beast to lucky guesswork and empathy. It was for that reason only that they managed to plod a short way to the north with the relatively warm winds at their backs. It had been much colder yesterday. It had also been storming. He let himself pause for a moment of that stick-twisting, trying to figure out what had happened. One moment, he was going lower, Appa so tired he could barely stay aloft. Then, he remembered hitting the water... but after that, the only thing he could recall was meeting his unknown companion, who had slipped even further into her fever and chills. Managing to be burning up while suffering hypothermia was a neat trick.<p>

"Man, what I wouldn't give to have a firebender right now," Aang said, before setting to twist the sticks once more. Of course, since he hadn't planned on staying in the South Pole, he had neglected to take anything useful for the out-of-doors, like his flint and tinder. He'd had to make due with a stick, some of Appa's fuzzy inner hair, and some of the seal jerky that had been foist upon him as he was leaving. While he was understandably grossed out by it, at least now it could serve some purpose, if he could get it lit.

Letting out a growl of frustration, he let the stick drop, and turned to the girl in the dark red cloak. She was actually quite pretty, and probably would be more so if she wasn't pale as a sheet and sweating ice. She muttered now, as she did from time to time, in a language that Aang couldn't interpret, and that made it a rare language indeed. He knew dozens. Every major language on this Earth, in point of fact, and quite a few minor ones. He got a smile on his face.

"You know, you look like you're from the Fire Nation, so I'll just use that one," he said, slipping instantly into her language. "I bet you've never seen one of the Air Temples before. Not many outsiders do. We keep them hidden away, so that we won't be bothered or interrupted. They're really beautiful. I think you'd like them."

The girl's answer was babble. Her eyes slid open for a moment, but they didn't focus on anything, and she let out a sound which called to mind an angry growl, but since that didn't make a lick of sense, Aang just chalked it up to his imagination. "I've been to all of them," Aang continued, sitting next to her. Firestarting was a task which was direly necessary, but for the moment out of his hands. As well bend the water around him into an igloo. Aang let out a laugh. "What am I saying? If you're the Avatar, then you must have seen the Air Temples. So I'm just wasting my breath. But you know what? I bet you wouldn't mind going back."

Aang frowned for a moment. "Wait a minute," he pondered. "You must have just... Oh, I get it. You haven't trained in the other elements yet, have you?" the girl muttered something. "Don't worry, I'll bring you to the Air Nomads. The Elders will know what to do, and then you can help me with those pirates I found south of my home. They must be scaring the locals to death!"

Aang glanced around. "Come to think of it, how did I get so far south?" he asked her, or the universe, or whatever. He shook his head, kipping to his feet. When he did, he could feel something pulling him back to earth. Her eyes were open, now, but their gaze was bleary. Her hand had caught his wrist in a death grip, and she was sweating even more profusely now, somehow managing to beat the cold wind and keep it liquid. A helpful smile came to his face. "What is it?"

"I... have you now," the girl said, but then her face screwed up in a rictus of pain, and she doubled on herself, coughing up even more of that froth and mucus. He patted her hand, and then pried it off and rebundled her.

"Yeah, I'm going to make sure you're alright," Aang said. His grin returned. "You know what? When you're better, we should come back here and go penguin sledding!"

He was answered by more coughing.

Aang returned to his duty, of setting a fire alight. He already had a blister on one hand from this, but since he lacked any other means, it was his option. He kept spinning it, grinding friction into heat, heat into sparks. Perchance, sparks into flames. But more likely than not, his sweat, dripping down that stick, kept snuffing it, or else he was just doing it wrong, because nothing would catch. He let out another frustrated growl.

"Come on! I've done this before!" he said. "Can't I just start a fire right now?"

He ground even harder, even faster, his eyes wide, focused, on that point right at the bottom of the stick where it met the portion of his saddle he'd pulled off. Harder. Faster. A curl of smoke began, and Aang finally felt hope. Faster than he even expected, that smoke turned into cinders, which he piled his makeshift tinder onto. He glanced over his shoulder at Appa and the girl. "See? I told you I'd take care of you."

The girl had lapsed back into uneasy sleep, but Appa seemed enthused. Aang began throwing the jerky onto the fire, which finally began to swell to something which would cut the chill. He began humming a happy song as he basked in the warmth. He had made fire.

He just didn't realize exactly how he had.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

**The Old War**

* * *

><p>The sand died down to a billowing around his ankles as the lights of Misty Palms began to wink on, one by one, as the sun finally vanished and night took hold. It was farther than Sharif had ever walked in his entire life, but oddly, he felt invigorated. It also felt a lot shorter a time than he could understand. As far as he knew, Misty Palms was days away. And he'd only been walking for a few hours. Still, he wasn't the kind of person to worry and fuss over those sorts of things, so he simply took the good fortune at face value and walked past the gates, which stood wedged open by the sand which poured through them. The Ice Oasis glimmered faintly, catching the last of the crimson sun and the manifold points of torches and sending it at random. As Sharif walked past it, he ran a hand along it, feeling the song of its spirit.<p>

"You're a long way from home," he noted. The spirit of the cold let out a single chime, something which was lonely but settled, comfortable. He licked the water off of his hand, to parch his thirst. His inability to ration whatsoever had meant that he ran out of water almost immediately, so it was a welcome sensation to not have a mouth which tasted like sand.

"Hey, stop there, boy," one of the guards said. Sharif turned to him, looking up at the gap-toothed sandbender who towered over him. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No. Just heading south," Sharif answered. The sandbender didn't look impressed.

"We don't take kindly to strangers in these parts," he said.

"That's sad," Sharif noted. "The Oasis would like to see more people."

"The what?" the sandbender asked. When he turned away, Sharif put him out of his mind and walked away. He made it about five steps before the sandbender let out an angry shout and rushed back in front of the wandering youth. "Don't you walk away from me!"

"I've got a long way to go," Sharif said, looking past the sandbender, far to the south. Over the horizon to Dakong, the Big Empty. Most likely far beyond that, too. "You keep standing in my way."

"You're disrespecting me."

"How?" Sharif asked, genuinely confused. "You keep standing in my way. I would already be gone by now."

"I don't like your tone."

"It's the one I have to use," Sharif offered. Really, this was just getting annoying. "Are you going to stand there glaring at me? Or are you going to let me go on."

The sandbender scowled to himself, then shook his head. "Freak," he muttered. Sharif shrugged, and started walking once more. It wasn't until he'd actually passed the threshold, that he remembered that he was out of water. He didn't like the look of his chances without water.

With a sigh offered to his own absent-mindedness, he turned and went back into the village. There were quite a few Si Wongi around, but these ones all had the comparatively pale flesh of people who had been interbreeding with the people of Dakong and other more southerly cultures for quite a few generations. A lot of people from the Sentinel Rock would have spat in disgust at this miscegenation. Since Sharif didn't even know the meaning of the word, he didn't even bat an eye at it. He ducked into the public house, an act which drew a raised eyebrow from the doorman, who stood just inside with a wooden mallet at his belt. Probably to give troublemakers a drubbing before they were pitched into the grit. Heedless of the dark and wary eyes on him, he strode up to the bar.

"Oooh," Sharif said, finally noticing all of the many things, be they fruity or alcoholic, hanging on the back wall. "That looks tasty."

The barkeeper followed the boy's finger back to something which rested on a shelf. "I don't sell that to kids. Barrel Peyote is an adult beverage. If that," the bartender answered. Sharif wondered briefly what he should order, but then remembered why he'd come in here in the first place.

"Right. I need water," he said. A glance to the barkeep, and to the spirits which wafted around him, was comforting. Greed, yes, but nothing worse. Sharif pulled out that heavy box and slid open the lid, pulling out a few silver coins and letting them fall onto the surface. It was far, far more than the water was worth, but the barkeep took them, giving the youth a significant nod, which Sharif completely overlooked. He had just unknowingly bought the man's silence, which was handy. He slid the box back into his robes, and took the skin, now refilled back. He also picked up the jug offered him, and gave a nod to the barkeep, before moving toward the door.

"Should you really be wandering the sands at night?" the barkeep asked.

"Oh, right, it's night now," Sharif said.

"You... aren't very bright, are you?" the barkeep asked.

"I wonder where I'm going to sleep," he muttered to himself. "I've always had my own room, my own bed. That'll be different."

The barkeep sighed, running a hand down the jaw-hugging beard which left his upper lip bare, and nodded to one side. "Look, you've already payed enough for a room. It's around back."

"What f... Oh. Oh, I see," Sharif said. "That's very kind of you. I'll try not to make a mess of the place."

Sharif let his feet carry him through the narrow corridors to where strangers bedded down under a strange roof. As he did, he felt just a tinge, a spike from the south. He glanced that direction, for a moment considering just setting off south again, but this time, he managed to put that notion aside as a bad one. It was night, he was tired, and Dakong was still a long way away, let alone however far he still had to walk. He opened his door, and found it already inhabited by a Si Wongi mother and child, who were curled up on the mattress that lay on the floor. Sharif shrugged, set down his things, and plopped himself down on the other side of that mattress. There wasn't much else in the room. He thought about what he was going to do when he found that... thing... he was looking for. His ideas didn't get very far, and even shorter, because he slipped into sleep.

* * *

><p>Keeping his anger at a low boil was actually easier now. With a task at hand and a path under his feet, he could focus and direct himself to an end, rather than lash out idiotically at everything around him. Zuko realized it even as he was doing it that he was being childish and impatient, but control was not something which came easily to the children of Ozai and Ursa. And without a doubt, Zuko had it far easier than his sister. There were days, precious days when he was a big brother the likes of which she deserved. He could see it in her eyes. Not cutting and hateful or confused, not like they had become. And then...<p>

"Why did you have to run off down here?" he muttered to himself, an angry edge to his voice, despite his attempts to temper it.

"Did you say something?" the girl asked him. Come to think of it, she was staying quite close to him.

"No, nothing," Zuko lied, shifting uncomfortably. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable lying; it was a personal taboo that he'd had to excise from himself for the greater good long ago. No, he was uneasy because if she heard him say the wrong thing, or more importantly, anything at all in the wrong language, then he would find their help come to an abrupt and unhelpful end. "I didn't see many villages down here when I sailed in."

"Our villages don't get very big anymore," she said with a sad sigh. "Ever since the Fire Nation broke us, our numbers have dwindled."

"That's unfortunate," Zuko said neutrally.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to find a waterbending master," she shook her head. "Dad talked to all of the other tribes out on the ice, but it looks like there's nobody left in the entire South Pole who could teach me."

"Waterbender?" Zuko asked. "I thought they'd been wiped out like the Air Nomads."

"Would you to cut the chatter? I'm trying to listen to the wind here!" the boy snapped from his place, with his ear pressed to the handle of his knife into a wall of ice. Zuko raised a brow at the odd behavior, but hey, they were barbarians. Some of the things they did were bound to be odd.

"It feels like we've been wandering in circles," Zuko muttered.

"Don't you start with that," the boy snapped, his blue eyes flashing. "I know where I'm going. I'm the..."

"Best hunter in the tribe, can we please move this along?" Zuko asked. Sokka didn't look too pleased, but went back to his task. He gave a shrug to Katara, who looked on the edge of giving some sharp words of her own. "What? I'm worried we're taking too much time."

"It's nice to know that _somebody_ out there still cares about family values," Katara said, her voice pitched just so to inflict a barb at her older brother.

Zuko sighed, though, his eyes drifting toward the ice under his boots. "I just want her to be alright."

It hadn't been the first time that Azula had run off. Sometimes, it had been to do something which Zuko couldn't understand, like leaving a barrel of waxed-up blasting jelly in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, even she didn't know what she was doing by the time she reached her destination, and he had to gently bring her back to Uncle's ship, while she kept asking him where she was. What she was doing. It was enough to break his heart. She had fallen so far.

"So what's she like?" Katara asked when Sokka had finally announced that he heard nothing, and opted to move on to the next bit of high ground.

Zuko considered an alternative, but a version of the truth sufficed best. "She's an artist. Ever since she was a child, she's been writing and painting with incredible skill and zeal," he shook his head. "She's not built for this kind of living, but it's the best I can do for her. She needs some place with stability, with certainty. Not all of this moving around."

"What do you do anyway?" Sokka asked.

"I work on Uncle's boat," Zuko answered. A truth calculated to deceive. "We travel around, picking up things, sometimes selling them. It's not much, but it keeps us afloat."

"So you're treasure hunters, are you?" Sokka asked, brightening. Zuko groaned and palmed his forehead. "I hear there's a big one buried inside Chimney Mountain. Did you come here to steal our treasure right out from under us?"

Sokka said that with a spear leveled at Zuko's chest. A flare of outrage, of unbelievable power roared through him. How dare he? How dare this peasant, this nobody, this nothing, level weapons at his royal person? He wanted so badly to just let his fists fly with a grunt of angry effort, to let the fire sear. But he shoved that impulse down, right into his stomach, which was starting to ache from all of the repression he was undertaking for the sake of his sister's safety. He hated being somebody else. But there were more important things at stake than his authenticity.

Zuko lightly batted the spear away. "I'm only here because Azula left the ship in the night and wandered out onto the ice. Nothing else. Is that clear?"

"Yeah but..."

"IS THAT CLEAR!" Zuko shouted. Both siblings flinched back at that.

"Yeah, yeah, it's clear," Sokka said.

"Hey, what makes you think you can talk to us like that?" Katara demanded, crossing her arms as a dark look came to her already dark face.

Zuko sighed, and shook his head. "I'm just... worried."

That seemed to be exactly the right thing to say, because he felt a hand touch lightly on his shoulder. Katara's look had softened greatly. "It's alright. We all know what it's like to lose family. Maybe we can get yours back, though."

Zuko nodded. "That'd be nice."

As they were talking, Sokka had clambered up to the top of a pillar of ice, which jutted at an angle from what passed for the ground in this frozen hell-hole. It was beyond Zuko's comprehension how people could live here. "We're not that far from home," Sokka said, panning across the horizon. But Zuko was losing patience.

"Stay here for a moment," Zuko said, peeling the hand from his shoulder, and beginning to run up the ice, with much greater grace and alacrity than had the Tribesman. Being quick of foot and deed was useful. Especially when dark times fell, and he needed to put Zuko aside, and become somebody capable of doing what Zuko could not. In a matter of a few moments, Zuko was standing at the Tribesman's side. Sokka turned, and let out a clipped yelp and started away at finding himself no longer alone.

"You shouldn't sneak up on me," Sokka said petulantly. "I might mistake you for a tiger seal, or for a Fire Nation spy," he took up what he obviously thought was a fighting stance. "And trust me, you wouldn't want that."

"What do you see?" Zuko said flatly.

Sokka turned back to the plains of jutting, cracking, shifting ice. He pointed to one solid landmark, a mountain that rose from the ice. Zuko could barely see some smoke rising past its slopes. "Our village is over there, so if she can get around the mountain, she'll see it," Sokka said. He paused, rubbing his chin. "Are you sure she was coming this way?"

Zuko nodded, impatient. "This was the way her bootprints went until we lost the trail."

Partially true, partially a lie. Her path had not been left by boots, but by the drawings on her walls, like landmarks left in advance upon paper. He'd gotten close to her, a few days ago, but then that damned snowstorm blew up and sent the boat against the ice. It was already moving at half-speed because of the damage. And he could only hope that his guide knew enough to find her again. Sokka pointed to something in the distance, an exultant grin coming to his face. "There!"

"Where? Do you see her?" Zuko said, shielding his eyes and peering into the distance. The grunting and muttering of Katara as she slowly made her way to the top was almost lost to him, despite his still very keep hearing.

"No!" Sokka looked way to pleased with that word. "I see a trail, something big! Big and made of meat!"

Zuko stared at the Tribesman for a moment. "Are you really thinking about food at a time like this?"

"Of course I am!" he said, and with that, he bounded down and began to sprint through the ice. Zuko and the Tribesman's sister shared a glance, full of the exact same exasperation, before they both slid down and followed. They caught up to him at the spot that the Tribesman had pointed to, not far from that peak above the confounding ice. There was yet more, crowding out his vision, but now, they stood amongst tracks, the likes of which Zuko had never seen. The largest he had ever seen belonged to some particularly hearty specimens of Rhino, or else, badgermoles, but badgermoles never came to the poles, because there was no earth, and these were far larger and of different aspect than Komodo Rhino prints. Bison maybe? But what would sky bison be doing this far south?

"What are we..."

"Alright, the gait is weird, but if I was a massive meat-creature, that footprint would mean I was going..." Sokka made as though to point one direction, then immediately spun to the other. "That way! It's going that way!"

"Yeah, but what about Azula?"

"She can wait!" Sokka said, running past, his spear in hand, leaving Zuko to stare agape, that surge of anger rising ever higher. Gritting his teeth, and forcing his fists not to clench and have fire begin to flare from them, he set after the Tribesman at a run. When he finally caught up, he grabbed Sokka by the shoulder and turned him to Zuko's face.

"What are you doing, you dumb peasant?" Zuko roared. "Azula is out here some..."

Zuko trailed off when he looked past the Tribesman, and his eyes fell upon what lay at the end of the trail. Sokka let out some angry responses of his own, but at the moment, they fell on deaf ear. Zuko took a step past the Tribesman, and beheld something which had come out of a dream. It had been her first. When first her sickness came in strength, before the bleakness which was to come, he remembered it. How even she didn't know what it meant, but she knew its name. That, she knew as though it were the sole incontrovertible fact in the universe. And as surreal as her painting had been, it didn't do justice.

It was a sphere of pale blue ice, its surface wavy and swirling, translucent and of a whole other sort than the unimpressive and ordinary white ice around it. A great cleft ran down its center, from its peak straight down its back. Unlike the rendition, a portion at the front had collapsed out onto the flow, leaving chunks of blue, and exposing a hollow within. In her portrait, it was at the heart of a blinding pillar of light. He asked her then what it was called, and the look on her face when she answered chilled his blood.

"What is it?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know," Zuko responded. "But whatever it is, you can't eat it, so get back on the job and find my sister!"

Sokka set his jaw, obviously intending to be obtuse about this. "Whatever caused these tracks must have headed in the other direction. I'm still getting my dinner."

"Sokka, you have to be realistic..." Katara said, but Sokka was already at a run again. She reached toward him, and Zuko shook his head.

"I'll find her on my own."

"Just give him some time. He never was good at thinking with his brain," Katara said with a chuckle.

As she walked away, Zuko cast one last glance at that thing behind him. He didn't like it. He felt now, as he did then, when he asked her what it was called. Azula had called that portrait 'The Avatar Awakens'. He shook his head, casting the memory aside, and crossing the broken, obscuring ice.

* * *

><p>The sand and heat pressed in on Nila, first forcing her to sweat, then caking it with grit. Every few steps, she had to scrape a layer of it off of her head and face. If there was one small mercy to the artificial twilight in the Grit Ocean, at least it wasn't bright, so she could let her hood down, and radiate her heat off of her entire head instead of stifling inside her clothes. The walk was interminable, and she knew that she still had days of it before she even reached the edge of the Ocean and reached civilization, even if it was the mongrel folk of Misty Palms. With the sheer distance ahead of her, she once again considered sitting down and sulking, railing against Mother's decision to send her out here, to exile her from her home. But the rational part of her mind kicked in and reminded her that if she did it out here, she'd be dead by sunrise tomorrow.<p>

She had no intention of dying out here.

"So many things I could be doing right now," Nila muttered darkly, regardless. Of course, it was threw clenched teeth, so that the grit wouldn't fly down her gullet and choke her. "Could be reading. Could be doing... I don't know... Science. Not walking around god knows where looking for my idiot of a brother. Slogging through sand when I could be sitting in comfort. But no. Sharif has to go and run off, and Mom has to kick me out the door."

Nila shook her head, spitting onto the sand in anger. With a shout, she kicked a rock hard enough to send it out of her sphere of vision, which admittedly was not large. "Just not fair!" she roared. But with that vented from her system, after a purging breath, she continued stomping along the sand.

She was so angry, so irritated, that she almost missed the shift in the winds. When it did come to desert climes, very very few could match a Si Wongi. Maybe a fraction of Fire Nationals, but only that. So when the wind eddied out of her face for a moment, she stopped dead, her gaze flicking around in the obscuring sand, before she began to paw at her waist under her robes. Her hands flit across no few pots and vials, until she found the tube she needed. Mother had said no money, but there was no mention of things which were as good as cash. Pity she wouldn't be able to get the silver out of this, but being alive to earn diminished returns was well worth the loss that this one fire work would fetch.

She pointed it straight up, since she couldn't tell which direction the eddy had come from. She didn't doubt that Mother, or Ashan or quite a few others from the Sentinel Rock could have known in an instant, but she focused her learning on things that mattered. Namely, everything but sand. It came as no great surprise that she never became a sandbender. She pulled the tab which ran down into the tube, which rubbed against the rough phosphorous within. The sparks instantly ignited the powdered blasting jelly within, sending the projectile soaring into the air with an ear-splitting shriek, audible even over the wind and rat-a-tat of the grit. Then, she dropped the spent tube, and waited.

For a long moment, there was nothing.

Then, she heard something. A heavy object, sliding across sand. A smirk came to her face as the sand glider began to loom out of the darkness, exactly as she had hoped. To say she would have been embarrassed if her hunch proved inaccurate was not the word. She would have been... well, dead in the morning, obviously. It only slowed, not stop, so her eyes went wide and she let out a humiliating squeak of terror, before diving to the ground so that the front platform of the catamaran craft slid over her head. Even still, the clearance was measured in hairsbreadths, which made it fortunate she didn't have any.

She kipped to her feet quickly enough, and then immediately had to throw herself with absolutely no dignity up the side of the craft, because directly past the front platform was the sand devil that sandbenders used to propel the craft. As she inelegantly heaved herself up onto the pontoon, she turned and cast a finger out at the sandbender who was still working his craft, albeit slower and more cautiously.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Nila demanded.

The man's swirling arms halted, and the sand devil dropped away, as the ship lurched to a halt. The sudden deceleration pulled Nila off of her feet with a squawk. She picked herself up for the third time in thirty seconds, as the bender made his way down the pontoon.

"You're a long way out in the middle of nowhere, boy," the sandbender said, grabbing Nila's arm and dragging her down the pontoon.

"Boy? Do I sound like a boy to you?"

"You look like one," the sandbender noted.

Nila scowled for all she was worth, making a point of not rubbing a hand over her shaven pate. "What are you doing out in a sandstorm?" she demanded.

"I'm the one asking questions here," the captain of this ship countered.

"On what grounds?" Nila cross-countered. "Any sane sandbender knows by rote not to pilot during the brown-outs, because it'd get in the way of his bending, blind him, and make it likely he'd drive the glider into an errant rock, or off a dune and into a long plummet. That means you're somebody who's either desperate, or doing something illegal. And since I can see no sign of somebody injured, ill, or giving birth, I must assume it is the latter."

"You've got a smart mouth, boy."

"Girl, you idiot!" Nila shouted, balling her fists.

"Sit down!" the man shouted. "Maybe this little side-track will earn me some coin after all."

"Threats to sell me on the slave market are not helping your position."

"You're one little boy," girl, you idiot, she thought, "in the middle of the Grit Ocean, and I don't see your daddy to protect you."

Nila smirked at that. "I don't need my daddy, which is fitting, because I've never met him. I've got somebody much more helpful at my side," she reached under her robes and extracted a different tube. "He's called Trinitrotoluene. I pull this tab, three seconds later, this goes boom, and we're both walking home. I'm guessing you've got a much harsher greeting waiting for you than I do," she said.

"You're bluffing," he said.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Am I?"

The man seemed to be weighing his option, so she reached for the tab. "Alright alright!" he said, his hands out before him. "I'm a smuggler, alright? I'm not dying out here for somebody else's contraband."

"Smart man," Nila said. She nodded away. "I'm heading south. By my logic, as of this moment, so are you."

The man glared at her through the smoked lenses intended to ward off desert blindness. "I'm not going to forget this, child."

"I should hope not," Nila said snarkily. "It might encourage you to take up an alternate occupation."

Angrily but with impotence, the sandbender set about his bending, and the sand devil swelled up once more, pressing at the sail that flapped aimlessly over the frame of the sand glider, and giving motion once more. This would take days off of her travel time. And it would keep her from becoming dead, so doubly a bonus. And she got to do it by making a man look like an idiot. Triple bonus.

For the first time since she was kicked out of Mother's house, Nila got a grin on her face. A grin she immediately regretted, when she started to feel the grit cake into her teeth.

* * *

><p>Appa's grumbling continued, growing louder and louder until Aang finally conceded and let the great bison rest. The storm had exhausted Appa far more than Aang liked to think about. Even after more than a day, they were both still sluggish. But Aang didn't want to stop, didn't want to leave, because of the girl who had finally stopped squirming upon the bison's brow, and now stared blankly at nothing, as her breath grew weaker. Aang had always wondered why those foreign stories of war and hardship included such a concept as a 'death rattle'. He always thought it was some sort of morbid or martial instrument. The girl sitting next to him was giving an education on the death rattle's true meaning.<p>

Aang didn't like what he was feeling.

Helpless.

Frustrated.

Angry...

**Do you want to help her?**

"Of course I do!" Aang said. "But what can I do? I'm not a healer. I don't know medicine... so wh..."

**It is all inside you. Look back.**

Aang should well have been disturbed by the words that seemed to surge up from the unknown places, trickling into his perception like spiders crawling across a pane of glass. They weren't new; he'd heard them most of his life, but now, they were getting louder. More insistent. More clear. Some would have called it madness, but Aang payed them no mind. So what if his brain was sometimes host to queer thoughts? Wasn't everybody's? As Appa lowered itself to lie on the floor, Aang winced as he heard a groan of discomfort coming from the girl beside him. He looked up at the sky, at the sun which was drifting, low in the sky, toward the western horizon. Actually, Aang was a bit surprised that it was still up. Winter in the south made for some quite short days. And come to think of it, it was way warmer than it should have been for the season.

With a moan of dismay, he gently set the girl into the crook of Appa's neck, and snapped open his glider. He hated leaving her, but he was disorientated, and needed an overhead view. He hopped off of Appa's head, turning back to the girl. "Don't worry, I'm coming back."

Aang turned, and his dismay turned to an airy grin as he beheld somebody skidding along the ice, wearing the pale blue of the Water Tribesmen. He raced toward him, a spear in hand, and when he got close, a war cry sprang from him, and the spear rose. Aang's eyes widened... and then the Tribesman trailed off, slowing down, the spear lowering, until he came to a halt about a dozen paces away, staring at Aang. No, past Aang. The dark complected Tribesman was only a youth, teenager at best, and his bright blue eyes were locked on Appa, pulling his mobile mug into an expression of utter bafflement.

"Um... Katara? I don't think I can kill that," the Tribesman shouted over his shoulder. Aang looked past him, and saw two others following. One of them looked much like this one, and was close on the first's trail. The other was much darker garbed, and seemed to be hanging back.

"Kill what?"

The Tribesman shook his head slowly, his eyes locked on Appa. "Wh... what is that thing?"

"That?" Aang asked, looking at the great beast which was grumbling lightly on the ground. "That's Appa. He's my flying Bison!"

The Tribesman stared flatly for a moment, before pointing to his side with his spear, indicating the girl with him. "Yeah, and this is Katara. She's my flying sister."

"Sokka!" Katara said. "You'll have to forgive my idiot brother. I'm just amazed he didn't instantly accuse you of being a Fire Nation spy."

"He might be," Sokka seemed to set himself stubbornly. Of course, Appa chose that exact moment to let out a gargantuan sneeze, which rebounded off of the unconscious protective bubble that Aang was using to keep the cold away, but struck Sokka with such power as to knock him back a step. His face pulled into a rictus of utter disgust and horror, before emitting a series of embarrassingly high-pitched 'ew-ew-ew's and trying to wipe the mucous off.

"Don't worry, it'll wash right out," Aang said brightly. "Does anybody know if there's a healer around..."

"AZULA!" the other shouted, shoving both siblings aside and running past Aang. Without a thought of caution or concern, he bounded up onto Appa's head and leaned stooped over the girl. He turned quickly, the hood of his cloak falling away from his long, black hair and angry golden eyes. "What did you do to her!"

"I..." Aang began.

"Did you hurt her?" he screamed, eyes flashing. Aang backed a step away.

"I found her out on the ice. She just pitched over and started shaking," Aang said, his hands up before him. "I think she's sick. Really sick."

The golden eyed boy seemed to quiver for a moment, before he clenched his fists, closing his eyes, and heaving a great breath. "Then I... owe you thanks. You probably saved her life."

"That's Zuko," Katara said. "And you never told me your name."

"Aang," he answered. "Where am I? For a while, there, I thought I knew where I was, but," he shrugged.

"She needs a healer," Zuko pressed, fire in his voice.

"We can bring her back to Gran Gran!" Katara said. "She'll know what to do!"

"What? We're just going to trust the weirdo with the big white fluffy monster?" Sokka asked. When Katara didn't look to be backing down, he sighed, throwing his hands in the air. "Fine. Just fine. Next we'll find the Avatar inside a wheel of cheese and have dinner with the Fire Lord. This is obviously Arctic Madness. I've lost my mind. I'm going some place where my life makes sense."

Katara cuffed him in the shoulder. "Stop being so... you!" she said with a grunt of dismay. "Our village isn't far from here. We can show you the way. Can that thing walk?"

"Yeah," Aang said. "Ordinarily, he'd be flying, but he's still tuckered out from the storm we flew through the day before yesterday."

Zuko rose a brow at that. "The last storm I saw was almost a week ago."

"And the weather's been fine out here. How long have you been out here anyway?" Katara asked.

"A day or so, I guess," Aang said. "Come on, buddy! The Tribesmen know the way."

Appa shook its head, almost dislodging the brother and sister atop it, before letting out a groan and casually walking toward the mucus covered Tribesman. It gave him a healthy sniff, then tilted its head, waiting. "Well, Sokka? Let's see this village of yours!"

"Aren't you the enthusiastic one?" Sokka said with a grumble under his breath. But they were moving again, and that meant that Aang would be back home soon enough, that this girl, Azula, would be alright. And that was just great. He found himself smiling at her as he walked.

Zuko must have noticed that, because he glared down at the airbender. "What are you smiling at?" he demanded.

"Oh, nothing," Aang said, turning away. Boy, did that Zuko ever have a chip on his shoulder.

* * *

><p>Udu couldn't believe his luck. Yeah, having to match wits with a mental-defective and still somehow coming up short was humiliating to no end, but he was a cunning one. When the scatter-brained child bedded down for the night, Udu went to work. Sandbending was of limited use in most places; in fact, outside of the desert, his kind were vanishingly rare. Not surprising. But still, he was adept at taking what he had, and using it to its best. So when he sent out his feelers, through the sand that ran along the ground of that back room, he had been quite pleasantly surprised when he felt the gold, the silver, in that box.<p>

He wasn't the kind of person to consider himself a thief, but if a brain-dead freak was going to leave out money like that, then he was a fool not to take it. Besides, he was a stranger. Nobody was going to help him when he awoke to find himself impoverished. So Udu crept into the room, ignoring his snoring, and the sleeping mumbles of the woman bedded opposite him. His eyes, keen for the dark, spotted the boy's things immediately. He didn't have much time. If he had been more astute, he would have tried this hours ago, but the notion had only just come to see what recompense he could exact from the outsider. Who would know it would be so... lucrative. He opened the back, and his hand fell upon the heavy box, with its sliding lid.

There was a snort, and Udu paused. He turned, and the boy was turning away. No longer snoring, but still asleep. Good enough. Udu pulled the box from the bag, dislodging two chunks of different cheeses, which he hastily shoved back into place. Udu grinned behind his dust veil, backing out of the room. Just as he passed by the door, he heard a yawn from within. The boy's no doubt. Udu felt a surge of glee as he forced himself to calmly walk out into the den, and took a seat in one corner. A few scant minutes were all it took before the vague-eyed boy sauntered out. He looked to the bar, and gave a 'thank you for the hospitality' to the keeper, before making for the exit, without once checking the integrity of his things.

Udu had gotten away with it.

Then the boy stopped.

Then the boy turned.

Then the boy waved.

Udu felt himself growing pale as an Easterner behind his veil, as the boy's eyes were locked onto his. They seemed to stare into him, and they didn't like what they saw. But if the boy had anything to say, he didn't say it. He simply turned, and left. But that made Udu concerned. So he pulled the box up that he had been secreting under the table. It was panels of wood so thickly treated with oils that they were practically black. It was quite heavy in his hand, and the lid slid out only with resistance. Finally, he opened it, and was confused. The bottom of the thing was a lead weight, and sitting atop that, was an oddly discolored lemon.

"What the f..."

Then the lemon exploded, sending a payload of curry powder into Udu's eyes.

* * *

><p>"I'll admit it, you were right," Sharif said as he passed the ice spring. The spirit within it let out a chime, which was both an acknowledgment and a sort of un-human laugh. "Lucky thing I accidentally grabbed one of Nila's lemons. Luckier that I didn't try to eat it."<p>

The spirit let out another chime, before starting to buzz. Sharif turned his head.

"What do you mean?"

It continued to buzz, its pitch rising and lowering.

"Do the others know that?" Sharif asked.

The buzzing halted. Sharif turned to the south once again. Then, it let out a sound, like chips of ice falling from a rooftop and landing on more ice. It was a sound he held in his mind, only because it provided it to him. Sharif's eyes widened.

"How could they have not told him?" Sharif asked. There was a moment of silence, the spiritual equivalent of a shrug. "Wow. That's bad. That's really bad. Do you know where he is now?"

There was a sound of ice melting.

"Okay, that doesn't help me very much," Sharif said flatly. He sighed. "But it'll have to do. Good luck."

The spirit of cold, encased in ice so very very far from home, let out one last chirp, before falling silent. Sharif nodded for a moment, before turning to the south once again. "I guess it's time to go."

Sharif walked to the south, as the sun rose in the east, and the spirits walked with him.

* * *

><p>The beast landed on its belly with a thud and a groan, but the rest of the village stared at it like they had never seen its like. Appropriate, since they hadn't. As it was, Katara was still a bit baffled by the whole situation. First the stranger looking for his sister, then the odd youth in the orange and yellow kavi, and the blue arrow tattooes; the day had shaped up strange from the jump. She'd almost completely forgotten about the row she'd had with Sokka. Almost.<p>

"Why are they all staring at me like that?" Aang asked. "Did Appa sneeze on me?"

Gran Gran stepped forward from the crowd of women, young and old, who were shepherding the youngest children in close. Even the youngest of those women was over thirty, though. Everybody between that age and little Benell's was gone. "Nobody has seen an airbender in over a hundred years," she said succinctly, her lined face vacant of expression. "Most people just think they're extinct."

"Aang, this is the entire village, entire village, this is Aang," Sokka said hurriedly, cutting off what was obviously a question from Aang.

"Gran Gran, we need Seni here right now," Katara spoke over him. The woman perked up a bit. Having no children of her own, she was wrangling the younger of Sedna's two children instead. "There's a girl who's very sick. She sounds like she has wet lung."

"Pneumonia," Seni corrected. "Bring her here."

Zuko carefully brought his sister down to the ground, where Seni gave her a looking over. Zuko grew more impatient with every passing moment. Sokka, though, scoffed loudly. "Man, we wouldn't be having this problem if the real healer was around."

"Now is not the time, Sokka," Katara said.

"I mean, he really knew his stuff. Like that time I got hypothermia and almost lost my toes. Or the time Bato got kicked by an elk and had to get trepanned. He knows his stuff," Sokka said. He crossed his arms. "What can I say? Education is a man's world."

"Sokka, shut it! I swear I'll..."

"Take her inside," Seni cut both bickering siblings off. Zuko was moving almost as soon as the apprentice to the tribe's medicine man spoke, bringing the girl into the cut-ice hut which Sokka, Katara, and Gran Gran all shared. Aang finally seemed to have a moment to get a word in, and he took a step toward Katara. Sokka got in his way, snatching the staff from his hand.

"What is this thing? What use is a spear without a tip? You can't stab anything with this," He pointed out. A gesture saw the stave fly back into Aang's hand.

"It's not a weapon. It's a tool for airbending," Aang said, giving the stave a twirl. With a loud clack, a pair of broad wings, one far larger than the other and spanned with red fabric, opened from the staff.

"Oooh! Magic trick!" the younger of Sedna's children shouted.

"Not magic, airbending," Aang said, but then he twirled it back shut and turned to Katara. "What do you mean, you haven't seen an airbender in a hundred years? I mean, you must have seen me flying over to Chimney Mountain City a few days ago," he said.

"Chimney Mountain City?" Katara asked. She turned to Gran Gran, who sighed.

"This village is built on the bones of our lost glory," she said. "When I was young, there was a city here. And when I was young, it fell."

"What are you saying?" Aang asked, looking more and more uncomfortable.

"There hasn't _been_ a Chimney Mountain City for almost sixty years," Gran Gran said.

"Yeah, and everybody says that the Air Nomads vanished a century ago," Sokka pointed out, somewhat needlessly, and a bit unkindly.

"That can't be right," Aang said. "Sixty years? I was at a party there – here! – the day before yesterday! And the Air Nomads... I mean, they must have just... I mean, they'd need to train the next Avatar at some point."

Katara brightened at that word. It was something Gran Gran used to talk about, a story of happier more hopeful times. The Avatar, the sole bender of the four elements. The bridge between worlds. The protector of the balance, force for good and liberator of the oppressed. "If you're an Air Nomad, that must mean you must have heard something about the Avatar," she posited.

Aang looked a bit uncomfortable. "I don't know," he said. "I mean, when I was a kid, they tested everybody, but after that, there wasn't anything said about it. Everybody kept watching Malu, though, since she was pretty much the best airbender sense... ever, I guess," he paused. "Wait... The girl said something about the Avatar. Maybe she knows more!"

"Aang, what happened to you?" Katara asked carefully.

"I mean, that storm was really bad," Aang said, rubbing the back of his bald head. "But if I was really asleep for sixty years, wouldn't I be old and wrinkly?"

"I don't know what to say. The South is a spiritually awakened place. Maybe they... What are you looking at, Aang?" Katara trailed off when she saw the youth was brightening with every passing moment, a huge grin growing onto his face. His answer came in the form of an ear-drum rupturing cry of glee, which sounded something to the tune of:

"**PENGUIN!**"

And then he was off like a shot, kicking up a bow wave of snow as he raced toward the horizon at a speed which Katara couldn't comprehend. The four flippered creature casually tipped itself into the water, causing the airbender to stop short. But then he turned back.

"**THERE'S MORE OF THEM!**" he shouted, his voice easily crossing the distance. Another flash amongst the snow, and he was gone.

"That kid's weird," Sokka said. He turned to the village still assembled nearby. "Alright, nothing to see here. Everybody get back to work."

Katara rolled her eyes and walked away from her domineering and overbearing brother, and ducked into their home. Unlike the outside, it was quite warm within, which was good for those dwelling inside, because one of them looked on death's doorstep. Seni had never been accounted an attractive Tribeswoman. By Dad's opinion, that would make her a more-attractive-than-average specimen somewhere else in the world, but here, her big nose and pocked complexion were enough to keep her single. Luckily for those around her, it also made her focused and careful.

"Her breathing is very wet," Seni said. Katara could hear that.

"Is there anything you can do?" Zuko asked.

"The water in her lungs is drowning her. I could give her medicine which would keep more from manifesting, but it would not remove the water already there," she said. She gave a glance to Katara. Katara flinched a bit at that.

Zuko caught the glance. "What is this?" he demanded, an edge coming to his voice. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I... I mean, there's a chance I could... pull the water out," Katara said. "I'm a waterbender. The last in the South Water Tribe. But I've never done anything like this before. I can barely bend water I can see, but to pull water out of somebody else's body? That's..."

"Are you willing to try?" Seni asked.

"Will it save her?"

"She will be able to breathe. That is the most important thing at this point."

"Then do it," Zuko ordered.

"You don't get to order me."

"My sister's life is at stake here!" he shouted, fire coming to his golden eyes. He faltered and flinched, almost looking ashamed. "I promised I'd keep her safe. Please. Help Azula."

Katara still had doubt wormed into her brain, but she could see that he was begging, and she wasn't cruel. She sighed, pulling off her mittens, and holding a hand above this Azula's chest. She closed her eyes, and tried to feel water. Instantly, she could feel the water under the ice shelf, and even the ice of the house itself. She shook her head, and tried to focus. It was like trying to separate one atom of sand from the ocean.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I can do it," Katara said. He felt the stranger's hand close onto hers. His eyes were desperate.

"Please."

She let out a groan, before pressing her hand directly onto the skin of the sick girl. Close water. Almost close enough to touch. So close, she could almost taste it. Diseased water. Foul water. Water where it didn't belong. She didn't even realize that her hand was moving up, but there was a different sound to the breathing, now. It had gone from labored to outright impossible. Azula was gasping, but nothing was getting in. Her lips were turning blue. No, don't get distracted, Katara thought. Focus. Keep going. She pulled that water, as the moon pulls the tides, until it was at Azula's throat, then she opened her eyes, and made a more familiar gesture, streaming water.

A sickly green and fetid yellow, stinking stream of mucus came out of her maw, all in one great mass. It floated above Azula for a moment, slowly pulling into an orb. Azula, though, started to breathe again. Evenly, strongly. Seni nodded, then moved to the girl's mouth. Zuko caught her hand before she forced something down it. "It is a mass of lichen mold in lard for ease of swallowing. It helps fight pneumonia."

Zuko frowned at that. "How?"

"Not sure," Seni admitted. "It just does."

"She's going to be alright?" Katara asked.

"She stands a much better chance now. We'll see by tomorrow. If her fever breaks, then she will be alright."

Katara smiled, then noticed that she was still maintaining an orb of liquid illness that she had pulled from Azula's lungs. "Ew," she said, before directing that orb out of the door and into something with a loud splat.

"Ew ew ew ew! That's disgusting!" Sokka shouted. "KATARA!"

Even Zuko, who was clutching his sister's hand with a relieved look on his face, chuckled at that one.

* * *

><p>Aang crawled out of the toilet with a grin on his face. While his attempts at penguin sledding had been a monumental failure, the fun of running around with an entire creche of penguins more than made up for the lack of companionship and Aang's inability to rope in one of the rodent-faced birds. He had a natural way with animals, so even his flopping about trying to mount and sled atop one didn't do much more than momentarily raise the feathers of even the sourest one. In all, it was an hour well wasted. With all of the stress he'd had to endure since that storm, which might well have been sixty years ago, he needed the release.<p>

"Wow, **everything** freezes in there," Aang said, pointing over his shoulder. The children gathered outside let out a peal of laughter at that.

"Do the magic trick again!" Benell shouted. She looked white different from the others of the tribe; much paler of complexion was she, and her eyes were a Fire Nation amber rather than a chocolate brown or bright blue. Aang smiled, pulling his staff toward him on a puff of breeze.

"Is this really the time for more crazy weirdness?" Sokka said petulantly. "For all we know, the Fire Nation is waiting just over the horizon at this very moment."

"What do you have against the Fire Nation anyway?" Aang asked, slowly twirling his staff in one hand as the other patted the odd girl in the thick Water Tribe parka.

"They've been attacking us for almost eighty years," Sokka said pointedly, and no small bit bitterly. "Because of them... my family got torn in half."

"Where is everybody?" Aang followed up. "I mean, I see a lot of mothers, but where are the fathers? And all of the teenagers?"

"Dad took them all up north, to fight the Fire Nation," Sokka said, briefly turning toward the young boys behind him. "And that's what you'll all have to do someday, as well. This war has already gone on for a century. As for the teenagers... It's just me and my sister."

"A century? I doubt it," Aang said, forcing himself to be positive. "I think I would have heard if there was a hundred year old war going on."

But there was a niggling doubt in his mind. He couldn't place it. First, the city. Then, everybody becoming derogatory towards the Fire Nation. Sixty years in the ice? How was that even possible? And then, a new thought dawned upon him. What if it was longer? Forcing the unease and doubt from his mind, he moved toward the biggest of the tiny homes, all cut ice blocks covered in snow, and ducked inside. Within, Katara remained with the stranger and his sister Azula. "Is she alright?" Aang immediately asked.

"She is breathing better," Zuko said, his entire frame wilted slightly, not from any loss of hope or focus, but because he finally seemed to be allowing himself to relax. "I think she's going to be alright."

"Why did she wander out onto the ice, anyway?" Katara asked. Zuko sighed, tugging at the hair which hung to his shoulders, as though adjusting how it sat.

"She gets... confused sometimes," Zuko said. He sighed, shaking his head. "Confused isn't the word. She gets focused on things that don't make sense. This is the worst it has ever been. But she's getting better. That's all that matters. As soon as she's able to walk, I'll bring her back to Uncle, and we'll leave this forsaken land behind us... no offense," he said hastily to Katara. And it was probably lucky that he did, because she was just starting to darken at his offhand comment.

"Forsaken land?" she asked.

"I'm used to warmer weather," Zuko said with a shrug.

"Heh, you sound like Kuzon from Azul City. He complained from sun up to sun down when I brought him as far as Great Whales. Some people just can't take the cold. Fire Nation are the worst for that."

Katara's face pulled in, into an expression between anger and bitterness, much like her brother's. "So you knew people from the Fire Nation?"

"I knew people from all over the world. A couple of... decades... ago, I was at a party right here. Well, here-ish. Is it really as bad as that? Is there really a war going on out there?"

Zuko sighed. "Yeah," he said quietly. "A hundred years of it."

"How is that possible?" Aang asked. "The Fire Nation wasn't like that!"

"Maybe a century ago," Zuko answered. "Maybe before Sozin."

Sozin. That name brought a memory directly to mind. The pirates... what if they weren't pirates? The heat had been stifling. Only Fire Nation would spend so much effort to make the inside of a ship that hot. "Why?" Aang asked.

"Nobody knows. All they know is that when the Old War started, it spread into a war of the whole wide world," Katara said. "Dad says that..." she trailed off, and grabbed at Zuko's arm. "Zuko, look!"

Azula's eyes were fluttering, like she was trying to open them. With her steady breath and much improved appearance, Aang was hopeful that this day would end on a grand note. And when they opened, bright and gold like her brother's, and locked on Zuko, a wide and bright grin came to the airbender's face. "She's going to be alright!" Aang exclaimed.

The instant he spoke, her gaze turned from Zuko to him, its aspect darkening very quickly. But then, it flicked over to Katara, and it curdled further. From darkness, to brutal, unspeakable, and violent wrath. Aang's own grey eyes widened as he watched that transformation, from sick, weak girl, to brutal beast. The metamorphosis was not lost on her brother, who grabbed at Katara's shoulder. Azula's hand sprang forward, two fingers leading, just as Zuko hurled Katara aside into one of the ice walls, while a twisting and violent helix of scarlet flame slammed up from the girl on the ground, obliterating and unmaking the shelter where Katara had been kneeling an instant before.

Reacting with a speed which even Aang, an airbender, couldn't believe, she twisted on the ground, sending out a wave of fire which Aang's panicked airbending could only barely snuff before it consumed both he and the Tribeswoman behind him. The rest of it blasted the shelter to bits as she kipped up, her hair falling before her face in wild streamers.

She stared at Aang, and said something which he couldn't for the life of him translate, before ramming forward another two-fingered strike, and fire obeyed her. Aang pulled his stave to hand and twirled it, to much the same effect it had granted on that ship; snuffing the flames before they could overwhelm him. She took a stomping step forward, then twisted, letting out an arc kick from which flame sprang from the heel. Aang could stop the part from hitting him... but the rest of the village?

Aang found his concern well founded, but unnecessary. Zuko darted in front of her, slashing up and away, fire from his own hands cutting into her attack and diverting it above the heads of those gathered. "_Azula stop!_" he shouted in Huojian, the native tongue of the Fire Nation.

"_He's the one!_" she shrieked, pointing at Aang. Even in her foreign tongue, Aang could hear an odd accent, one he couldn't quite place. "_He's the one who destroyed me! Father will welcome us back!_"

"_Azula, you're sick and you need to stop!_" Zuko stressed. Azula's chest heaved, as she stood, her stance stable and strong, but her chest was heaving entirely too hard, like she had already just about burned up all of her stamina. Zuko could see this. "_These people saved your life. You would be dead if it wasn't for them._"

"_They are barbarians and idiots,_" she said caustically, as her legs began to wobble. "_Find... Bring the Avatar. Father will be so proud of me._"

At that, Azula's leg buckled, dropping her to one knee. As though losing her stance was excuse enough, she began to cradle her chest as though even breathing were an act involving great pain. Aang glanced between the fallen firebender and her still standing firebending brother, unsure of what just happened, or why everybody nearby looked terrified out of their minds.

"You're a bad man!" one of the children shouted, throwing a snowball at Zuko. It hit him in the side of the head, drawing a low growl from him, but he studiously ignored the Tribesmen, moving to Azula's side. Aang carefully approached as well.

"I knew it!" Sokka's voice came in from the crowd as he shoved his way to the fore, an accusing finger leveled at Aang. "I knew you couldn't be trusted. You brought firebenders to our village!"

"I did?" Aang asked.

"Don't be an idiot, Sokka," Katara said, taking a moment to shake the stars from her eyes. "Aang didn't..."

"We're leaving," Zuko interrupted. He leaned down and scooped the wheezing girl up off of the snow. "Come on, Azula. We're going back."

"I want to go home," she whispered. The way she said it, the longing of it, melted Aang's heart. What happened to her? But when she opened her eyes, there was a flicker of utter malice in them as she turned them to the airbender. "This isn't over. This has barely even begun."

"It'll be nice to see you again!" Aang said brightly. The girl stared at him like she had no idea what he was.

Zuko gave a nod to him, before walking silently away, the girl folded up in his arms. At the 'gate' of the village, he paused, looking back over his right shoulder, catching his face in profile against the sun. "I didn't mean for this to happen," he said. "I just want her to be safe."

"Get out of here, you devil!" one of the mothers shrieked, pulling her children close. The firebender sighed, then walked on, into the distance.

"Katara, I'm sorry," Aang began, although he wasn't exactly sure what he was apologizing for.

"Apologies aren't going to cut it, buster," Sokka said, puffing himself up. "Because of you, we need to relocate the entire village so the Fire Nation won't be able to track us down! You gave up every tactical advantage that we have!"

"What tactical advantage?" Katara shouted back. "Your 'soldiers' still need to take potty breaks every ten minutes! Besides, what was Aang supposed to do? Leave her to die in the snow?"

"She deserved it. She's a firebender!"

"Well, you had a much higher opinion of them while you were bringing them back!" Katara shouted... then she paled a bit.

Gran Gran looked between the two of them. "Is this true?"

"Well, it wasn't... It didn't exactly happen like..." Gran Gran's expression did not alter one whit, a mask of quiet disapproval. "Yes, Gran Gran."

"Gran Gran, you can't..."

"I'm afraid I have no choice," she said quietly. "You two, even unwittingly, have jeopardized the village. You brought enemies of the whole world into our homes. The airbender is innocent of this. His kind have no side in this conflict, and would take none. But you two?"

The old woman sighed. "You must leave," she said quietly. Katara's eyes welled up, and Sokka just seemed flabbergasted.

"You're... exiling us?" Sokka asked.

Gran Gran pitched her voice lower. "It is not permanent, my little warrior. Give me time, and I can bring them around. But this is a dire thing you two have done."

"But where will we go?" Sokka asked.

Aang felt Katara grab his arm. "You're an airbender," she said. Aang nodded. "So you can teach me to be a waterbender!"

"It doesn't work like that," Aang said gently. "The only airbender who could teach a waterbender to waterbend is the Avatar. You'll need to find a master, which shouldn't be too..." he trailed off when a defeated look started to settle onto her frame. "Right. I'm guessing that Masters Gallu, Apkallu, Asog, and Tiama are all really really old and retired by now."

Sokka turned between a bemused gape to his village, to a more stern look at his sister. He took a breath, like what he was about to say was going against everything he believed in. "Well, if we can't stay here, there's no reason we shouldn't look for one," he said.

"Sokka, are you saying...?"

Sokka nodded. "There's gotta be a waterbender out there to teach you how to be weird and freakish, and it's not like I've got much else to do. I'll get the canoe."

"Why use a canoe?" Aang said. "You can just use my flying bison. I'm sure the monks will understand if I've got to make a trip to the North Temple."

"Kid, you do realize that..."

Katara silenced him with a glare. She turned back to him, a much warmer look on her face. "I can't thank you enough for this."

"It's going to be a long way, especially if we have to ride a giant meat-thing as slow as this," Sokka said, casting a thumb over his shoulder at Appa. The beast, recognizing it had been mentioned, let out a loud but neutral bellow. It was a hopeful sign. It might mean Appa was back to flying trim.

"You've never flown on an air bison before, have you?" Aang asked. Sokka just looked at Aang like he had two heads. "Come on, put your stuff inside and climb on!"

"You're entirely too happy about this," Sokka grumbled, clambering inelegantly into the howdah. The beast rose from its lay and shook slightly. Sokka slid along the howdah, his arms crossed before him, looking extremely unimpressed. "Wee. We're flying majestically through the air like a bird."

"Sokka stop being such a... you!" Katara said. "Come on, Aang."

Aang looked down at the villagers, milling around inside snow cut walls barely taller than Appa. He saw Gran Gran, who was looking up at them sadly. "I'm sorry I brought all of this trouble to your village," Aang said.

"You have nothing to apologize for," the old woman said kindly. "Don't let Katara and Sokka get you into trouble. I'll see to it that you have a warm welcome, whenever you can come back."

Aang smiled at that. It was a weary smile. But the sun was still up, and the breeze was warm for the locale. He took a deep breath. "Appa?" the beast answered with a rising grunt. "Yip-yip."

Appa took three long strides, then a hop, and then rose upon the winds.

"WE'RE FLYING! WE'RE ACTUALLY FL..." Sokka halted when he saw both his sister and the airbender staring back at him. "Yeah, we're flying. Whatever," he attempted with nonchalance. But it didn't keep Aang from laughing.

"Thank you," Katara said, giving his hand a squeeze before carefully pulling herself into the Howdah with her brother. But Aang's mind was on another girl. A different set of eyes.

* * *

><p>Azula was muttering to herself, in that language she sometimes spoke. Zuko accounted himself a young man of many tongues, but this one left him stumped. He'd even tried to get an associate in the Academy at Kad Deid to translate it, but only got scraps and tidbits. She wasn't struggling, though. She wasn't trying to get away from him and run back out onto the ice. That either meant she was coming back to her senses, or she was much more sick than he feared.<p>

"She is safe, Prince Zuko," Iroh's voice came from the door. "You don't need to watch her sleep."

"If I'd been paying closer attention, none of this would have happened," Zuko said testily.

"You cannot blame yourself for the things that are out of your control," Iroh said sagely. "That way lies a hard path, harder than one your age should have to walk. You are not a martyr for her, Zuko. You are only her brother."

"I made a promise," Zuko began.

"And you do honor to that promise in the lengths you go to uphold it," Iroh interrupted. He looked at his niece for a long moment. "She actually looks at peace when she sleeps."

Zuko couldn't do anything but nod. He turned, and spotted something on her wall. While the room's construction was identical to any chamber in this ship, all dark iron bulkheads, Azula's room was a stark change, in that it was covered from ceiling to floor with portraiture, all drawn or painted by her hand. A hundred scenes. Some of them, places that they'd been. But others? Zuko couldn't say. He reached up, and pulled one from its place, half buried under others which had been pinned up over it. "Do you remember when she made this?"

"It was her first, wasn't it?" Iroh asked. He looked over the picture, the sphere of ice, bisected by the shaft of light. "I have seen it before."

"So have I. Out there," he said, pointing toward the ice which they moved away from as they steamed north. "It was real. I saw it with my own eyes."

"And the title?"

Zuko nodded. He let the drawing fall, and guided his uncle away from Azula's room. At the door, he looked his uncle in the eye. "The Avatar has returned," he confirmed. "And I believe I know who it is."

Unseen by either of them, Azula, even as barely conscious as she was, began to smirk.

* * *

><p><strong>When writing this story, I had two nails that needed to be addressed. One of them happened six or seven years before Aang was born, and the other, three or so years before the Iceberg. After establishing the nails, you need to see how the changes in history butterfly out. Chasing butterflies lead to much of the concept of this story before I put one word to page. For instance: In canon, Ozai had at least one heir after his coronation as Fire Lord which he considered a worthy successor. Therefore, he felt a sense of confidence which let him deal leniently with his political enemies. In 3F, Ozai had no confidence in any of his children, and wanted to put on a show of strength, which altered the political landscape of the Fire Nation in ways which will quickly become obvious, as well as drastically changing the relative situations of both the Earth Kingdoms and the Water Tribes. The early nail had one other result: Nobody ever announced that a new Avatar had been located. Many simply assumed that it never came. So it wasn't a matter of waiting for the Avatar to return. Rather, it will be surprise that there is still such a thing as the Avatar.<strong>

**Predictions at this juncture were premature. Y'all haven't seen enough to know where I'm going with this. Good effort, though. To answer questions:**

**The 'din' of 'din Nassar' is an Avatarization, using it as a 'faithful to' rather than, 'of the religion'. In that sense, the Si Wongi name consists of given name, followed by surname - Sharif Badesh - followed by which Si Wongi originator they ascribe descent from - Seema, rather than her husband Ahmoud - followed by the settlement to which they pledged service. Nassar is an interesting case, since Sativa, Nila, and Sharif are the last people who still ascribe to it, because it no longer exists. Also, in Si Wongi, 'I' is always either a short I - ih as in clip - or a long E, like in Japanese. Consider then that Nila's name is pronounced with a long I. Hmmm. Also: Sativa's role in the history of this 'verse will be explored in much further detail. I like to believe that people like her could have been running around even in canon.**

**The reason for Zuko's unusual wisdom? Azula. Why does she have it? Also will be explored in depth. That's why there's the 'Supernatural' tag. Also, Crack Pairings ahoy! And brace yourself for spirit world shenanigans, because with two of the focus characters as powerful shaman, there will be a much deeper focus on it. Anyway. Enjoy.**

_Leave a review._


	3. Wind, Snow, Sand, and Fire

**I'll answer a few questions here, and address the rest at the end. Azula's physical weakness was solely caused by the bad case of pneumonia she was suffering. When she recovers, physically, she'll be the Azula you remember. The Malu Aang knows and the Malu from the mountain are the same girl... more or less. Ursa is still gone, but Iroh's wife was with Zuko and Azula when their exile began. She died very recently, thus Iroh's mourning. Ozai is... dealing with the lack-of-an-heir situation. And most importantly: Azula is not a shaman. She believes in spirits as much as Sokka believes in vegetarianism. One of the things I just said is a lie.**

* * *

><p>The glider scudded to a stop just outside the walls, with the sun pounding down from on high. Neither the passenger nor the pilot had said anything in about half a day. Considering everything needing saying had been said, that was something of a windfall. Nila, at least, didn't feel like dragging this out any longer than she needed to. And considering that a sand glider wouldn't be of much use if her idiot of a brother made it into Dakong, that meant that Misty Palm was as far as this took her. She glared at the smuggler who finally let his arms drop. He was, no doubt, every bit as tired as she was, and probably more, because she could rest, if vigilantly, while he had to spent the last twelve hours bending.<p>

Yeah, it was not the most comfortable trip, but better, and faster, than walking.

"Well, I guess this is where I get off," Nila said.

"If I never see you again, boy, it'll be too soon," the smuggler said with a harsh tone.

"Girl, you idiot!" Nila shouted. "I'm a girl!"

"I don't care if you're the Avatar herself. Just go away and leave me to come up with a better story of why I'm two days late than that I got hijacked by a little freak," he said, crossing his arms before his chest. Nila put on an uneven grin and hopped off the craft. To the man's credit, that he could move off again spoke to his stamina: Sandbenders were close to earthbenders, so the focus on ungodly resilience and fortitude seemed to be something they shared in common. Nila had put quite a bit of thought into those sorts of things. It beat having to deal with the eventualities of living on the Sentinel Rock.

Misty Palms looked... well, about nothing how she read it would. In all of the tomes and scrolls that Mother had been able to provide on the subject of foreign lands, they always painted a certain kind of picture. And about Misty Palms, the story was about a wayward spirit from the North Pole, which got lost and ended up stranded here. Utter poppycock, but it still played host to Air Nomad pilgrimages between the Temples for generations, so it was a well trodden place. And the tomes also told of how the place shined like gold in the sun, how its great gates could cast a shadow a mile long.

Reality was making a damned poor showing, then.

Misty Palms Oasis looked like just about any other water-town that Nila had the misfortune of getting dragged to, save it was even more dilapidated, if that could be believed. Its 'great gates' were wedged open by sand-dunes which intruded into the town proper, and everything was the color of dried mud. It was almost as though all of reality decided to reconstitute itself in various unappealing shades of brown. So Nila let out a low growl, quietly cursing both her mother for putting her here, and the universe on general principle, before moving into the crumbling town.

Of course, with her unexpected ride, she might well have come here ahead of him, if he was indeed heading south. "I guess I'll have to ask somebody then," she said to herself as she passed the low, misshapen lump of ice which this two-bit town took as its prime attraction. "I mean, he can't stop being a freak for five minutes. If he's been here, they'd have noticed him."

Despite being almost tired enough to fall asleep standing, she tried asking at any of a few places which that idiot would have gravitated toward; namely, anything that looked 'interesting' to somebody with an attention span of not more than three minutes. Her attempts were fruitless, aggravating, and time-consuming. So it was with something between an irritated growl and a scream at the heavens that she finally ducked out of the afternoon sun and into a drinking house. It was dim and murmured quietly in more than a dozen voices, of people who knew better than to be out in the oven of noon-time. No few sets of brown eyes – and no few green like her own, strange to notice – turned to mark her entrance, before returning to whatever it was they were doing or speaking of before.

Shaking the sand from her robes with a grumble which might have been obscene if it were in a coherent language, she moved to the bar, only too late trying to put on an innocent expression. The bartender eyed her askance when she tried batting her eyelashes. "Would you be willing to spare some water for an impoverished, parched girl?" she asked.

"Sure. Where is she?" the bartender asked. Her innocent expression turned sour, just as he let out a chuckle. "Just messing with you, child. Water is free, so long as it keeps flowing."

"That's an odd charity you're showing," she said, handing over her jug, which even from only a day under the sun, was more than half empty.

"There's no point in charging for what trickles up for free in the oasis," the bartender pointed out, before hooking a thumb over his shoulder. "If you want it to taste like something, that's when it'll cost ya."

"Not very shrewd," she said. He dunked her jug in a barrel which was as wide as he was tall, before handing it back. She sent a glance around the room. "Tell me, do you keep track of strangers?"

"It's been my habit. Strangers sometimes bring trouble with them," the bartender noted.

"Well, I've got a particular kind of trouble," Nila said. "Green eyes, about my height, a scar over one eye. Thick as a lead brick. You see anybody like that?"

She could have sworn he flinched at that description. "No, ma'am. Can't say that I have."

"Ma'am?" Nila asked. "I'm not forty years old."

"If you don't mind, I've got work to do," the bartender said abruptly, shooing her away. Nila eyed the man narrowly, before taking a step away. She knew he was giving her short shrift. She hadn't the first clue why, though. Sharif wasn't nearly clever enough to pay people to shut up about him. Most times, he left a wake of scandalized conversation behind him everywhere he went. She shook her head, hefting the jug onto her shoulder once more.

"What about the rest of you? Anybody seen him?" she asked again, addressing the room. Most of the people shook their heads, but one of them, who was wiping at his eyes like he'd gotten some mild acid in them, let out an angry but affirmative grunt.

"Yeah, I've seen that little freak," the man with the bloodshot eyes said. That was a hopeful sign; He knew Sharif by the same name as just about everybody else would.

"When did he get here? Which way did he go?" Nila asked tersely, and rather a lot like how Mother would speak, which was in a way both surprising, and a touch disturbing.

"Little bastard smote my eyes," the man continued. "I mean, who does that to a person? He owes me big."

"I'm sure he does. Now which way did he go?" Nila asked.

"You want him too? What'd he do to you?" the man asked.

"Years and years of aggravation," Nila answered.

He chuckled darkly. "How about that. I guess that makes us kindred spirits," he said.

"Hm. Not even," she said. "Are you going to tell me which way he went, or are you just going to sit here and waste my time?"

"Tell you? I'll do you one better," the man rose. "I'll show you."

"That's magnanimous of you."

"Magna-wha?" he asked.

"Gracious. Gods, does anybody out here read?" she asked.

"You've got a smart lip, boy."

"GIRL!"

"...I don't see it," he said with a shake of his head. "My name's Udu, and I'll be your guide for this vengeance quest."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

**Wind, Snow, Sand and Fire**

* * *

><p>Frankly, it was a miracle that the ramp went down at all. Zuko stood at the docks, looking up at the battered shell of the ship and couldn't help but shake his head at the folly which had befallen it. Not that it was the ship's fault. In fact, if Azula hadn't run off near the South Pole, much of this wouldn't have happened. "See to it that these repairs go through immediately," Zuko said to his uncle, as Iroh descended that slightly warped ramp. "We're too close as it is, and I don't want her to find his trail until she's healed."<p>

"What, do you mean the Avatar?" Iroh asked distractedly.

"Don't say that name on these docks!" Zuko whispered harshly. "He is an opportunity which I will not see squandered. Without the Avatar, I have no bargaining position, and every firebender on this base would jump at the chance for my father's rewards. I can't afford being distracted by all that competition."

"Competition over what?" another man's voice cut in, causing Zuko to flinch inside. But only inside. He turned with a forced sort of casualness which belied his true annoyance and aggravation at having to find Zhao standing in his shadow.

"Captain Zhao," Zuko said flatly, but not harshly. Zhao was a blunt instrument, but he was also one of the three most powerful firebenders alive, and a master of his art. The smug smirk on his face grew, pushing out the thick mutton-chop sideburns that edged his jawline.

"Admiral, now," Zhao countered. "Your father has invested a great deal of faith in my abilities and my insights. Why, if it weren't for me, we would never have occupied Great Whales so quickly. _Almost_ bloodlessly, I hasten to add," his smirk grew dark. "Personally, I would have preferred if those orange haired heathens put up more of a fight."

"I'm sure my father holds you in great esteem," Zuko didn't invest that with any emotion at all. Let the fool think what he would.

"Oh, he does. I must say, it _is_ an honor to have his brother and his son visit this quaint little bastion on the fringes of utter barbarism. So tell me, General Iroh, what brings you to my base?" Zhao said, turning away from Zuko completely. The snub brought a puff of fire from his breath, but he restrained himself otherwise.

"Retired," Iroh interrupted half way through Zhao's question.

"I see," Zhao offered. "Regardless, you are welcome guests in the newest lands of the Fire Nation. So I repeat; what brings you to this humble harbor?"

"Resupply and refit," Zuko said.

"Yes, that ship does seem to have taken a lot of damage," Zhao admitted, addressing Iroh still. "How did you say that happened, again?"

"It was amazing. Almost unbelievable," Iroh said with a grand gesture, before leaning a bit closer. "Did we crash or something?"

"Yes," Zuko took up the lie quickly. "We were rammed by pirates off the coast of Gwynt. We managed to run them off, but they did some serious harm."

"You'll have to regale me with the story in full," Zhao said with a patronizing look to Zuko. "Perhaps you and your uncle can have a drink with me. Whatever did become of your sister, by the way?"

"We have to go," Zuko said flatly. "This ship isn't going to repair itself."

"My offer was not optional, Zuko," Zhao said harshly, looming down. "I have business with your sister, and you will oblige."

That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Zuko stomped into Zhao's face, staring up into the man's dark, amber eyes with fury in his own. "You will stay away from my sister," Zuko said clearly and wrathfully.

"Prince Zuko, please," Iroh said, ever the soft touch. "Forgive my nephew. He has had much on his mind recently. I would love to have some tea with you. Do you have any Ginseng tea? I've always wanted to try it."

Iroh walked away, his hands folded inside white sleeves. Zhao shot a look over his shoulder at the snubbed royal. Not a face, not even an expression, just a look. A look which spoke to contempt so clearly that it made Zuko want to pound his face in. Zuko waited until Zhao had turned back, before flaring out with his hands in the briefest tantrum of fire, scouring the strange white sands of this foreign land, before taking a calming breath, and heading into the ship. The crew gave cautious nods to him as he passed. They could tell he was in one of his dark moods. When that was the case, each knew the best option was to stay away from the other. So he made his way to his sister's room in silence. Inside, he found her painting again.

"Are you feeling better?" Zuko asked. She looked up at him. Her skin was covered in sweat and her eyes were underlined by thick dark circles.

"Do I look better?" Azula asked caustically, that unplaceable accent still strong in her voice. He often wondered where it came from, and why it appeared as and when it did.

"I was being polite," Zuko said. "We've been invited to tea."

"I'm not going," Azula answered, dipping her brush into the malachite based paint and using it to describe something crisp and green against blackness. There were also two figures that he could see, but they lacked definition.

"We weren't given the option to bow out," Zuko said. "Zhao is drunk with authority."

"Zhao?" Azula asked. Zuko nodded. "That smug, sanctimonious jackass, Zhao?"

"How many other Zhao's do you know?"

"They aren't as common as Lee, but there are a few," Azula said. She stood, then winced as though she still ached in movement. "Very well. Let's see what the idiot wants from us now."

"You aren't going to set him on fire again, are you?" Zuko asked, a smirk finally coming to his face genuinely.

"I make no promises, Zuzu," Azula answered crisply, a mirror to his own smirk appearing on her face.

* * *

><p>Fog hung low, nestled in the great cleft which split the Batola Mountain range into two islands, spreading out over the waters and the lowlands of Da-Aer Island. Nestled above them was another fluffy layer, this one the low lying clouds. Weather was not kind to Great Whales, whereupon the Southern Air Temple rested; most islands only saw sunlight a hundred days a year. It was no great surprise that they produced waterbenders, if infrequently, or that they were so pale, nor even that they were so humorless. Aang had had a heck of a time trying to get along with the locals, before he just stopped bothering. Despite sharing the same island, the two cultures, Whalesh and Air Nomad, couldn't be further apart.<p>

The rumbling of a stomach called the airbender's attention back. "Shut up, stomach, we all know you're empty," Sokka pointed out, upending a bag. "Wait a second... Aang, did you eat my jerky?"

"I'm a vegetarian, Sokka. I don't eat anything that used to have a face," Aang pointed out. "I think I've got some left-overs from the party in the back, though."

The sound of girlish glee from Sokka was all the thanks Aang got.

"Are you sure you want to eat that?" Katara asked, half way out of the howdah, coming to join the bison's pilot. "It _is_ almost a hundred years old, after all."

"It's food. How bad could it get?" Sokka asked.

"He's going to eat something that's going to break his little mind one day," Katara said wearily. She settled down next to him, pulling her parka in on herself a bit. "Aang, there's something we need to talk about."

"Can it wait? We're almost home!" Aang said, his excitement bleeding through his words.

"Yes, but nobody's seen an airbender for almost a century. I just want you to be prepared for what's up there," she said calmly. Aang raised an eyebrow at her.

"Prepared for what?" he asked.

"The Fire Nation is ruthless," Katara said, a dark and virulent pyre of hatred in her voice. "When I was little, it was just the five of us. We didn't have much, but our family was whole. The Fire Nation changed that. They killed my mother, they took away all of the children besides Sokka and I. Even my sister. There's no telling what they did to your people."

Aang frowned at that. "I don't know why everybody hates the Fire Nation so much," he said. "Most of my best friends were from there. Besides, we met Zuko and he's from the Fire Nation. He's not that bad."

"Just you wait," she said. "He's probably plotting at this very moment how to get his claws on you."

"Look, just because nobody's seen an airbender in a century doesn't mean they're all gone. We have air bison; the Fire Nation would never be able to keep up. Heck, if you don't have one, you can't even get to this temple!" he said. He began to urge the beast upward, and it heeded his commands quietly and contentedly. It knew the way home, and was just as eager to return as Aang was.

The beast soared up through the cloud, rippling it away like a skipperfly raking its legs across the stillness of the pond, only in three dimensions and much fluffier. Come to think of it, the metaphor didn't really work, but it was where Aang's mind went, so it would have to do until he could come up with a better one. The ascent crept closer and closer to vertical, until Katara beside him had a rictus of quite genuine fear on her face, and behind, he could hear Sokka swearing in his native tongue. Finally, with a blast of south-summer heat pressing upon them, even at this high altitude, they broke from the obscuring second mist of the clouds, and the peaks of the mountain came into view. While the true peak of the Batoma Range was several thousand feet higher, daring to build up there was folly; it took years to build up the airbending mastery to survive at such extreme altitudes. Building in the 'kill zone' as it was so inelegantly put, would have made the South Temple sterile, stagnant, and bereft of the voices of a young generation. Exactly what its founders did not want.

But still, it was a palace on the roof of the world.

It gleamed of silver and orange and white. Not a pristine white, but something set and faded, a natural color, the groundedness which was an inescapable part of the lives of most Air Nomads. Only the very wisest could wear the faded whites, showing what they had moved past in their meditations and studies. A smile came to Aang's face as he thought of all the things he had seen, not only here but in each sister temple. The life he'd had.

"It's... amazing," Katara said.

"I know. Pretty neat, huh?" Aang said with a note of pride.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Sokka shouted. "I almost fell out of the saddle!"

"Sokka, have some respect," Katara snapped. "We're the first outsiders to visit this temple in a century."

"So... there's not going to be fresh meat there, is there?" Sokka asked, slightly crestfallen.

"Unbelievable," Katara said with a shake of her head.

"What? I'm just a guy with a boomerang. I have simple needs," he said, crossing his arms. Aang turned away from that, though, and swooped toward the bison stables. As he did, a mounting unease began to thread through him. They were vacant. There was no reason they should be vacant. Appa landed light as a leaf, and Aang let the reins drop as he vaulted to the ground.

"Welcome to the South Air Temple," he announced. More privately, he patted his bison on its massive head. "We're home, buddy."

"Yeah, that's great," Sokka said, dripping with sarcasm. "Big old palace in the sky and no food to eat for miles."

"You're not the only one who's hungry, Sokka," Katara pointed out. She then turned to Aang. "You don't look so great. What's wrong?"

"This place used to be full of bison and lemurs and monks," Aang said, his grey eyes flitting around furtively, almost like middle creature mentioned. "Now there's just weeds. I'm going to go check some things out. Feel free to make yourself at home."

Aang bounded, airbending hoisting his every leap, up to the picnic spot he had frequented in his youth. It wasn't much, just a bit of the mountain which the Temple had twisted around, a bit higher than its surroundings. He looked down, and beheld the palace in all its majesty. And nothing else. Not gliders nor bison nor monks. He closed his eyes, and he listened. There was the slow drone of the wind, the constant companion of every Air Nomad, as it made its easy way past this great prominence. And nothing else. Not music, not voices. The entire Temple was silent. Like it was dead. Or maybe, it was just waiting for something.

"Man, I can't believe how much has changed," Aang said sadly. Then, he perked up for an instant. "Man, I can't believe I haven't cleaned my room in a hundred years!"

* * *

><p>Zuko was, for lack of a better term, amazed at Azula's restraint. Although she had broken the stream of Zhao's monologue from time to time with obviously unintentional phlegmatic coughing, disgorging that foul gunk which was now coming up out of her lungs with a frequency and volume which made Zuko wonder where she was storing it all, Zhao took the distractions in stride. Of course, Zuko was also annoyed, impatient, and well outside his comfort zone.<p>

"Per my arrangements, by the coming of the spring, the great walls will fall and we will walk their streets triumphant," Zhao finished off, dragging his hand across the large, if embarrassingly inaccurate map of the world as he did so. Zuko had spent enough time on Uncle's ship to know a good map. This wasn't. "With that, they can sweep south and mop up the Earth Kingdoms with ease, secure that we cannot be set upon from behind. The Fire Nation will claim total victory in this war."

"If you really think the rest of the world will follow Father willingly, then you are a fool," Zuko said bitingly.

"Excuse me?" Azula snapped.

"Don't. You know his reputation as much as I do," Zuko said.

"Father is strong and decisive," Azula instantly jumped to his defense. For the life of him, Zuko couldn't understand where her attitude toward Father came from. He was brutal to both of them. And the things he said... they couldn't ever be forgotten, nor forgiven. "They will follow because he is the only man capable of leading them into a new age."

"I doubt the Water Tribes will bow to any Fire Lord," Zuko countered.

"They wouldn't be," Azula began, but was cut off when her face pulled into a pained rictus, and she started coughing once more, contaminating and forcing the discarding of the seventh handkerchief since she'd been dragged into this tent. That alone set Zuko's teeth to grind. She shouldn't be here. She should be resting.

"You should heed your sister, Zuko. She shows uncommon wisdom," Zhao answered, a smug smirk on his face. Iroh, standing behind him, began to inspect a few polearms stacked haphazardly about.

"My sister has her _opinions_. So do I," Zuko said, giving a look which dared her sister to answer him. The glare she returned told him she desperately wanted to, if her diaphragm would cooperate.

"True, but her opinions have an uncanniness to them that I much appreciate," Zhao said. And from behind there came a great crash as the weaponry that Uncle had been fiddling with all toppled to the floor. He looked up, a sheepish look on his broad face.

"My fault, entirely," he said, before moving back to a short chair next to a tea-pot.

Zhao shot the old man a contemptuous look, then turned back to Zuko. "So, young prince. How is your little search for the Avatar going?"

"We..."

"There is no sign of him," Azula interjected. "But we will persevere."

Zuko tried to give his little sister a warning look, but it was lost to her. Zhao, on the other hand, took the opportunity to turn his attentions to the ill-girl wearing the uncommonly thick clothes in Fire Nation style. In truth, they were just Tribesman's clothes, redyed and slightly altered, but they did the job. Zhao smiled then, and it was not a smile that Zuko liked.

"I'm surprised you show such fire and verve in this task, Princess," Zhao said. "The Avatar has been missing for a hundred years. Your own family has searched generations for him in vain."

"And mine is the generation which will find him," Azula said plainly, and no small bit sharply. "Uncle searched for the Avatar on a lark. Father was only at sea for a month before a more important task called. Azulon was too old, too comfortable, by the time he tried. I, on the other hand, will stop at nothing until my hand can close around his throat."

"I like your fire," Zhao said, with a glance toward Zuko. "Fitting for Fire Nation royalty. Not guttering and simpering and fitful. Strong, bold, and blazing. Such a pity that your birthright was taken from you."

"I will be Fire Lord!" Azula roared, fire following her words as she bolted to her feet. Her chest heaved as she stared up at the amused man opposite her. "I _will_ bring the Avatar to Father, and he will restore my place on the throne. And when you bow to me, Zhao, I will not forget this impudence."

"Such a pity that you have no idea where he is," Zhao said neutrally. "Because he is the only person on this Earth who could end our glorious expansion. So if you have an ounce of loyalty left to your father and your nation, young prince, then you had best tell me the truth. Did you find the Avatar?"

"No," Zuko said plainly, a lie. He feigned a sigh. "For all we know, he died with the rest of the airbenders. And since we own the waterbenders, and he hasn't broken the Siege yet, he's probably some Earth Kingdom peasant, which means _you_ will never find him."

"Like I said," Azula said, getting breath back in after her outburst. "We will persevere. Uncle, put down that cup. We're leaving."

Zuko rose, and turned for the door, but somebody was entering. He was not particularly tall, and had the tilted eyes and a trimmed but drooping mustache that made him look eternally mopey. "We searched her chamber as you ordered," Zhao's lackey said. "We found it."

Zuko's eyes widened as the lackey tossed Zhao Azula's journal. Zhao casually flipped to the last page, a grin growing on his features. "'At long last, I have found him. Damn this frail body for betraying me, when I should have slain the Avatar. He will not escape me again'," Zhao snapped the book closed, as Zuko's teeth started to grind so hard that he could almost feel them crack. Beside him, he could see the outrage plain on his sister's features.

"It is treason to steal from the royal family," Zuko said venomously.

Zhao snorted with derision. "Please. You are exiles from your Father's house. You hold _no_ position in Fire Nation society. I am well within my rights to take the clothes from your backs if it suited my needs. The only reason I do not is out of respect to the war hero who considers you his ward."

"You have betrayed my hospitality, Zhao," Iroh said, his own gruff tones drawing down. "You have no right to do this to the guests aboard my ship."

"I may act in whatever way best serves the Fire Nation, Your own brother saw to that." Zhao answered, staring down the much shorter, fairly older man. He turned to the siblings, the journal in hand. "So tell me again, young exiles. What happened to your ship?"

A glance to his side showed Zuko that Azula's fists had become so tight, that her nails now cut into her palms. It was an rage they shared in common.

And they were powerless.

* * *

><p>The landscape on the far side of the river was far more lush than that which Sharif had just left. Shaking the water off of his shoes, he peered out across the great expanse before him. The Earth Kingdoms were vast, it was often said, but not densely populated. The great void of Dakong, the fairly aptly named 'Big Empty', was all the proof one needed of that fact. Nothing but slowly rolling hills stretching for hundreds of miles in every direction, covered in short, wild grains and bitter but useful grasses. It was more color, besides the gratuitous browns and blues, than Sharif had ever seen in his waking life.<p>

"I've really come a long way," Sharif said to nobody, or perhaps the universe, or maybe even the spirits which wafted around him. These were not developed, their bodies immaterial. More motes of dust in a ray of sunshine than a creature, but they were every single one of them alive, and they whirled around him, curious and unafraid. Most spirits never got very strong, just a wisp of emotion, a shade of concept, a whisper of ideal. Some, though, became terrifyingly strong. It was the only lie that Sharif ever told his mother when he claimed he didn't know where Wan Shi Tong's library was, when she brought it up in idle conversation. He could feel that old entity, out there in the sands. Old, powerful, bitter, and suspicious. While it hurt to lie to Mother, he didn't like to think about what would happen if she went to that place.

A chorus of trills and chimes flowed around him, a dozen questions, most of which were variations of 'a long way from what?'. Spirits didn't have a strong grasp of distance in the Inner Sphere. It was just their way. They could have no other. And neither could he.

"Well, no time to doddle. Gotta see what all the fuss is about," Sharif continued, letting his hood fall back, now that the air held some moisture in it, and he didn't suffer the constant and deadly threat of heatstroke. He breathed deep, the new and fascinating smells of the grass and the wheat. Then, he promptly sneezed. "I'm not impressed with the grass, so far. Don't see what the big deal with that is."

Sharif walked, and the spirits walked with him. Sometimes, old companions broke off and drifted back into the Outer Sphere; sometimes, new spirits slid down to take their place. Their aspect was changing, Sharif could tell. Heat, sand, and void were the most common before. While void remained in equal measure, heat and sand had been replaced with plant and rain. Habitats for spirits had odd interactions with the world. Sometimes it fit like a tailor-made glove. Sometimes, the relation was well off. That was how an ice spirit ended up in the desert, it was said. Sharif, though, was lost in his own thoughts, as he walked through shin-high grasses, over rolling hills.

There was a great thundering of feet, which was finally enough to pull Sharif out of his inner world and return his attention, however incompletely and inexactly, to the world around him. He had walked far to the south, the river which separated desert from grassland long behind him despite his not even noticing fording it. He even found himself to be eating cheese when his attention returned. But what caught his attention, was the vast troop of ostrich horses, running wild and feral in the grasslands. They numbered almost a hundred, a herd that could make a rustler's lifetime if captured. But Sharif had no interest in ranching the massive fowl. He stood back, a small smile on his dark face, and watched with quiet wonder as they moved past.

It was a force of nature. Thunder across the plains. Poultry in motion. Dark eyes turned to him as they passed, but they had other intentions. Water, most likely, with the river so close, relatively speaking. One, though, slowed, turning away from the troop and moving toward Sharif with its vestigial wings flared open, his great head with heavy beak lowered to roughly eye level. A rancher or hunter would recognize that as an attack posture. Sharif just watched as the grizzled old bird came closer. Closer.

"Hello," Sharif said innocently. The bird halted, its dark eyes blinking. It tilted its head to the side for a moment. "Why would I?" Sharif asked. "They look like they're perfectly fine as they are."

The wings flapped in, and the ostrich horse took on an almost contrite appearance. "Don't worry. I understand. You have to protect the ones you care about," Sharif nodded. It was then his turn to tilt his head. The male was old, the oldest in the troop, well past his prime. Many of the young in that herd were not his, but the descendants of his descendants. "Well, it was nice seeing you. They're quite impressive."

The bird fluttered its wings with a note of something akin to pride, before taking one stride away. It then turned, letting out a warbling cry. Sharif's eyes widened. "What?" he asked. "Where?"

The bird turned again, and Sharif let out a sigh. "Right, well, I can't expect miracles. How did you know about him? Did somebody tell you?"

There came a chime of quite a different sort. One of the void spirits, so much like a tiny robin without feet or a head... or wings for that matter. Sharif turned to the south once more. "But I can still feel him that way. Why turn west?"

The silence was an answer all of its own.

"I guess you'd know better than I would," Sharif admitted. He looked to the great bird once again. "I know it's a bit much to ask, but Dakong is big, and apparently, I need to hurry."

The bird let out an annoyed grunt, but moved closer lowering its head toward Sharif. Sharif reached into his pack and pulled out the last of his cheese. The patriarch accepted the morsel without a moment's hesitation. "You have my thanks, Patriarch," Sharif said. The bird lowered itself, enough that Sharif could crawl onto its strong back, and take ahold of of the matted mounds of down on the beast's body. It was slim purchase, but Patriarch was old, and only somewhat faster than a human afoot. But it would be fast enough.

As the bird began to walk, away from its herd on the simple request of a humble shaman, Sharif realized something. "Huh. Maybe I should have told Mother where I was going," he said. Even the bird laughed at him for that.

* * *

><p>Airball turned out to be about as much fun as Sokka expected. A figure that would require a negative sign to be accurate. After the seventh goal, as he lay on the ground in the snow and scrub, he muttered angrily to himself that there were far, far better things he could be doing with his day. Like finding something to eat. He'd tested some of the leaves of the plants that he'd found, and noted how unpalatable they were. However, they didn't seem to be poisonous, and the sated his hunger for the moment. He regretted that decision now, because it made it so there was actually something to come up if his nausea pressed much further.<p>

"Remind me not to try to make Aang feel better again," Sokka said, levering himself up.

"Come on, Sokka! Games run until eleven!" Aang's excited voice came from the court, a forest of poles set perilously high above the ground. Truth be told, it was a miracle that Sokka hadn't broken his head after the falls he'd taken. He chose to chalk it up to his might, South Water Tribe physique.

"Sokka, come on. We both agreed to take his mind off of things," Katara chimed in, moving to help him to his feet.

"So why is it me who has to get bombarded by... airballs?" Sokka demanded testily.

"I threw earth, you threw fire. That's the way it works," she said primly. Oh, there were days he wished he wasn't above hitting a girl. He shook his head, turning away from both the airbender and his weird sister... and he saw something on the ground. His eyes narrowed, as he stooped down, trying to figure out what this odd thing was. "What is it?"

"There's something half-buried, here," Sokka said. He grabbed, and he heaved, and something dark red, shaped like some sort of metal, burning skull came up. He looked at his sister warily. "I don't think this thing is Air Nomad, do you?"

"Are you saying that's... Fire Nation?" she asked. Both turned from each other, then back down to the battered, discarded helm in Sokka's hands. Neither had the memory long enough to recall what the Raiders had looked like. Nobody in the village would talk about it. It was an old wound, true, but still raw after more than a decade.

"I think Aang needs to see this," Sokka said. The look in their eyes as they turned back to the airbender, who was still trying to cajole Sokka back up onto the pillars was one of perfect understanding. They didn't even need to share a nod.

"Aang, you should take a look at this," Sokka shouted up. Katara glanced between the two youths, one bounding down, the other inspecting the helm. She got a resigned look on her face, as the airbender drew close, and then swept her arms down. Sokka barely had time for a shocked yelp before all of the snow clinging to an overhang dropped down and buried him. After a few moments, he floundered his way to the surface, to find a laughing airbender pointing at him.

"I just had a new waterbending move I wanted to show you," Katara said innocently, but her blue eyes flashed a warning to her brother.

"Yeah, that's a good one. You should really practice more. You could get really good one day," Aang said, before turning to Sokka. "I assume this means you forfeit?"

"Yeah, you win. Good game," Sokka said flatly. Aang, quite pleased with himself, strutted away. Sokka twisted back to his sister. "You can't hide this from him forever. If that was Fire Nation, then he didn't come alone, and Aang's going to find out from something else."

"Well, maybe we don't have the right to break his heart," Katara said quietly. "If it's going to happen, let's just let him have a few minutes more hope, alright?"

Sokka sighed as he pulled himself out of the snowbank. "He deserves to know," was all Sokka said on that matter.

* * *

><p>Zhao was pacing the width of his tent, casually flipping through Azula's private journal, chuckling to himself. He must have been consciously trying not to hear the combined gnashing of teeth of two thirds of the present royal family. "So, not only is the Avatar the last airbender, but he is also a teenage boy. A withered old senior, even for his frailty of body, would have been a worthy opponent. But a child? That's just disappointing," Zhao clucked his tongue, before turning to Zuko. "And somehow, you managed to let him slip through your fingers."<p>

"It won't happen again," Zuko swore.

"The Avatar will not escape me," Azula added.

"Of course he won't," Zhao said. "Because you're going to help me catch him."

"What? Why?" Zuko demanded.

"Not you, boy, you are worthless to me," Zhao spat. When he turned to Azula, though, his eyes held a much more calculating look. "But you? Your insights have proven utterly invaluable. While your brother proved himself a failure, inept in catching the child, I know you will not falter nor fail."

"Oh?" Azula asked.

"Azula, don't..."

"Don't interrupt your host," Azula cut him off, but while her tones were honeyed, her eyes were fire. "Please, do tell more pleasing things about me."

"It is not flattery, young princess," Zhao said, snapping the journal closed and using it to point at Zuko. "This is a task not suited for a teenager. Your search for the Avatar has come to an end, because the responsibility is too great to be leveled upon a useless child."

"But I, on the other hand, have shown much greater capacity," Azula said, a smirk upon her lips. "I am ruthless, efficient, and cunning, and he will not escape two of the greatest minds in the Fire Nation."

When Zhao scoffed, he could see his sister's left eye twitch a bit. "It is not your cunning nor your efficiency which interests me, little girl," Zhao said. He pointed at her down the spine of her own journal. "Five years ago, you predicted the siege of Fan Shui. You even had the names of those responsible for that upset. More telling, you even predicted the precise tactics that the generals employed to turn the tide."

Zuko shot a nervous look to his sister. Iroh was the one who rose his voice into that silence, his tones gruff and displeased. "What are you saying, Zhao?" Uncle demanded.

"I am saying," Zhao said with finality, "that Azula is an oracle."

Azula and Zuko shared a look, before the former burst into a peal of laughter. It went on, until she started coughing, hugging her ribs as her weakened state caught up with her. "Agni's blood, I shouldn't have done that," Azula muttered as she regained her breath.

"Oracles are tricksters and charlatans," Zuko powered in, taking up the gap that his sister had unwillingly left. "Anybody who believes them, or believes in them, is a fool."

"It is not folly to believe what I have seen," Zhao said. "Your sister sees the future. In snippets and disjointed images, perhaps, but I have no doubt that I can turn that great gift to my advantage."

"You have no right," Uncle said. "My brother will..."

"I have every right. In fact, I think I will inform the Fire Lord right now of my intention. He will no doubt give me full license to my task," Zhao said. He leaned down to the two royals. "I am going to destroy the Avatar, and she is going to help me. And there is nothing _you,_ Zuko, can do to stop me."

Zhao, smug as ever, turned and left, tossing the journal over his shoulder as he did so. Zuko waited until he was just out of the threshold, then kicked the table in the center of the room, an arc of fire splitting it in half and destroying all that lay atop it. Zuko stormed away, and Uncle sighed.

"More tea, please?" the old man asked.

* * *

><p>Katara had stayed quite close to Aang since that unsettling discovery near the airball court. Her brother, on the other hand, had ranged far and wide, claiming that he was 'looking for firebenders or things he could eat', as though the two didn't overlap. A moment of pondering 'Sokka, the cannibal' had her shaking her head. He might be a dedicated carnivore, but she doubted he would go <em>that<em> far. Time and time again, she considered broaching the topic of that helm they found, but her nerve kept failing her. What if he lashed out? What if he abandoned them? Not only would the be exiled, cut off from home, but without any means of reaching another waterbender. All of that they'd lost would have been for nothing.

She was just getting steeled again when she saw the airbender brighten like a lamp, as he shot a bit ahead of her. "Katara! Sokka! Look at this!" he exclaimed, his enthusiasm seeming to burn away his earlier moments of melancholy. He might have been only a year younger than her, but sometimes, he seemed younger still. Brother and sister converged on the bald monk in a patio garden, columns rising in a slightly bowed out line holding the scraps of a long ago collapsed roof. Katara and Sokka shared a look. Where was the rubble? The place seemed swept clean, but for a thick plinth in the center of the space, and atop it, a wooden sculpture.

"I want you to meet my friend. Monk Gyatso," Aang said, bowing to the cracked wood, depicting a very old man with long, full mustaches and kind, tired eyes. The depiction wasn't the best, she might have even called it slightly amateurish, but it seemed to capture the man; she felt like she knew him, despite never having met him. There was even a hint of a smile on those carved lips. "He was my teacher back when I lived in the South Temple. He was like a father to me."

"Aang, they don't make statues of living people," Sokka said.

"Sokka!" Katara chastised. She set a comforting hand on Aang's shoulder. "You must miss him, dreadfully."

"I do, but... I'm not really surprised," Aang said quietly, a strong smile on his face. "He was an old man, and I've been gone for a long time. At least I got to say goodbye to him," he reached out, laying reverant fingers upon a medallion which hung upon the wooden chest, carved with whorls like blowing wind. "I'm starting to realize just how long it's been. There's nobody here. It's like everybody just left."

The way that Aang's eyes looked, grey and full of pain, it made Katara want to give him a hug. "Tell me about him," she said. He brightened a bit at that, if not to the radiance he had shown earlier. Sokka, though, rolled his eyes and put on a face like he expected to be bored.

"We got into all kinds of trouble," Aang said quickly. "One time, he and I baked forty cakes, but then the lemurs came and stole them all, and that was just terrible. So we baked forty more, but we used salt instead of sugar, and when the lemurs tried to eat those, they got a rude awakening!" he let out a ready laugh. "He seemed like he wanted to tell me something, back then. But he never did. He just told me that, whatever it was, it could wait until I was older. Must have been about girls or something," he shook his head with a chuckle. "Heh, like I hadn't learned all of that stuff from the other kids!"

"You learned about...?" Sokka asked, a bit baffled.

"Couldn't have been very helpful," Katara muttered. "What do little boys know about women anyway?"

"You'd be surprised!" Aang said brightly, then he quickly strode away, leaving the siblings to share a slightly uncomfortable glance, then follow after. After a bit of jogging, they caught up to the airbender, entering a long hallway which seemed to move down into the heart of the Temple.

"Aang, where are you going?" Katara asked.

"The Air Temple's Sanctuary," Aang said. "They say that only the Avatar or the eldest of the Temple Monks are allowed to enter there. Since I'm technically a hundred and thirteen, I'm pretty sure I qualify."

"I can't see fault in the kid's arguments," Sokka noted. "So what's in there?"

"I don't know," Aang answered. "Could be anything."

"Like gold? Or precious jewels?" Sokka brightened with each guess, but rubbed his hands with glee at the last, "Or a delectable selection of cured meats?"

"Meat? Really?" Katara asked. "Unbelievable."

Of course, her exasperation was nothing compared to her brother's appetite, and he hurled himself bodily at the great door, with its massive, intricate central boss that spanned both panels with twisting whorls, much like adorned much of the rest of the temple. There were even a pair of horn shapes bending out from the face. Despite Sokka's best efforts, he came up in vain. "Tell me, do they keep the keys to this thing lying around somewhere?" he asked.

"The key, Sokka, is airbending," Aang pointed out, gathering himself, then jumping forward, hands flared, and a gale moved with him. It slammed Sokka against the door, granted, but it also shot into the horns, and traveled through the tubes which made up the boss. One by one, what she assumed were just colorful decorative panels flipped open, releasing a procession of musical notes, until there came a loud clunk, and the door started to open, sending Sokka rolling into the room.

The Tribesman bounded to his feet, and pointed an accusing finger at Aang. "Alright, I'll let you have this one. But don't make a habit of smacking me around, or I'll give ya one right back!"

"Whatever you say, Sokka," Aang said, not threatened in the least. Sokka wilted at having his capacity at intimidation utterly ignored. She pushed the doors open more, and beheld with the light that slipped through them, that the room was laid out in a great spiral. "Wow. Look at that!"

"What? Statues?" Sokka said, despairing. "WHERE'S THE MEAT? What's the point of having all these rock people staring at me when..." he trailed off into something that wasn't quite language, but contained a healthy dose of frustration and disappointment.

"Aang, who are these people?" she asked.

"They..." Aang seemed as baffled as she was for a moment, but his eyes widened. "Wait a second. Look at these ones," he pointed to a woman with an arrow-like-shape carved into her brow. "Airbender," to a man wearing Tribal armor, "waterbender," to a hulking, massive woman bearing a pair of fans, "earthbender... and firebender. It's a pattern, and it goes all the way out."

"These are the Avatars," Sokka said, snapping back to reality. "All of his past lives, up until when they stopped making statues of him."

"What?" Katara asked, perplexed how he'd know this.

"That's Avatar Yangchen," he said, pointing to the airbender woman. "She's the woman who broke the South Water Tribe almost six hundred years ago. She's why we still live in homes you can lick away."

Katara nodded, as that tidbit of Water Tribe history returned to her. "That means that he's Avatar Kuruk," she said, pointing to the man beside her. "I don't know who those two are, though."

"Oh, man, get a load of this chick!" Sokka said, leaning against a statue which seemed utterly odd, compared to those around it. "She must have dressed herself while blind and drunk!"

Katara ignored her brother for the moment, and turned to Aang. He was standing before the statue at the heart of the spiral. He seemed transfixed upon the face of an old man, his beard long and flowing. The stylized headpiece carved into stone hair bore a flame motif, which put Katara's teeth to grinding before she remembered there was something more important to consider. "Aang? What's wrong? Who is that?"

Aang gave a start, and turned to her. "This is Avatar Roku. He was the last Avatar. Or the Avatar a bit over a hundred years ago. What happened to the Avatar after him?" he asked, a bit urgently.

"After the last Avatar vanished, the world waited for the next one to be reborn into the Air Nomads. But then, the war started, and the Nomads... were scattered. After that, I guess people just assumed that the Fire Nation had done him in," Sokka said. She glared at her brother for being so uncouth, but Aang's eye had returned to the firebender.

"I feel like I know this man somehow," Aang said quietly.

"The last Avatar was a firebender, eh?" Sokka said. "Well, I guess we can't trust him, whoever he is. Firebenders are just bad news."

"I used to have a lot of friends who were firebenders," Aang pointed out.

"You also grew up when Chimney Mountain had a city next to it," Sokka pointed out. Then, he tensed, spinning on his heel.

"Sokka, what..."

"SHH!" he hissed urgently, before racing to the foot of one of the statues. Sokka might be a fool, but he had a canny instinct... sometimes. It always served better to assume the worst, so she and Aang both hunkered down behind another statue.

"Don't make a sound!" he whispered loudly.

"You're making a sound!" she pointed out.

"SHH!" both males hissed at once. She glanced into the gap between statues, and beheld something approaching. Something with a unique profile, great horn shapes moving up as it bobbed into view. It was almost like that helm from the field. Sokka pulled his club out, and readied himself.

"Firebender won't know what hit him," he whispered, before jumping out of hiding. He then stood still, a befuddled look on his face. Aang leaned out, and Katara peeked out over his head. There was something small, monkey like in stance and stature, with large green eyes, and black and white fur. Its tail was long, and striped. Aang started to grin so wide that Katara could practically smell it.

"Lemur!" Aang exclaimed.

"Dinner!" Sokka countered, and he was off like a shot. The lemur let out a shriek, and skittered away.

"Don't run away! You're going to be my new pet!" Aang called out at he raced after the Tribesman and the creature.

"Stop! I wanna eat you!" Sokka's voice came from further ahead. Katara took a deep breath, which she released as a sigh.

"Well," she said. "At least it won't be a boring trip."

* * *

><p>Zuko turned to the flap as it was whisked away, and the man in charge strutted in, full up on his own authority and power. Brother and sister stood shoulder to shoulder, a wall of solidarity. Uncle, on the other hand, stayed back, a dark look on his usually placid face.<p>

"By all means, read it," Zhao said, throwing a scroll to Azula. She didn't. She just burned it in her hand. That made Zhao smirk. "Oh, don't think that will change your fate. I have copies, and personal dispatch from the Fire Lord holds much weight."

"He would not sell his daughter," Azula said.

"He told me to take what steps I deemed necessary," Zhao said with a sweeping out of hands. He then gestured to Zuko. "Your ship has been repaired, and you and your doddering uncle can leave whenever you please. But the girl is coming with me."

"The girl?" Azula asked, rage darkening her otherwise sallow complexion.

"You have no right," Zuko pressed. "This is kidnapping."

"My nephew is right," Iroh agreed. "I will not stand for this treason against the royal house."

Zhao laughed at that. "Your brother made it perfectly clear that your word holds no weight. Now waddle away to your ship, and let the man in charge bring down the Avatar."

"I _will_ find the Avatar before you," both siblings managed to say in almost perfect unison.

"One of you might," Zhao agreed. "But then, the other won't have hundreds of warships at his command. He will be blind, deaf, and enfeebled. But you two? Banished children, useless children."

"Zhao, I am coming very close to losing my temper," Iroh said quietly.

"Shut your mouth, you senile old man!" Zhao shouted. "You have nothing to say that matters here."

"When we find the Avatar, we will be welcomed back into the Fire Nation and restored to our rightful place," Zuko said, taking an aggressive stride forward. It didn't have the effect he desired, though. Zhao started smirking again.

"Oh, really?" Zhao asked. "The banished prince thinks that his father still values him? Well, if that were the case, don't you think he would have let you return to the Fire Nation by now, Avatar or no Avatar?" he rubbed his chin, feigning pensiveness. "Face it, boy, to him, you are nothing but a disgrace and a failure, and she a mad dog needing constant supervision, so it doesn't bite somebody important."

Zuko's voice quavered, as his left eye twitched. "That isn't true."

"You know it is," Zhao said, reaching past him and grabbing Azula's arm. "You have the scar to prove it.

Zuko pointedly did not reach to his left ear, instead, kicking at the wrist that grasped his sister, even as she snapped her hand away. "MAYBE YOU'D LIKE ONE TO MATCH!" Zuko roared, his hands dripping scarlet flame onto the dirt. Zhao waved the pain out of his hand as Zuko took a moment to pull some semblance of composure back into him. "You have insulted my family and committed crimes against them. I demand restitution by Agni Kai."

"Really?" Zhao asked. He let out a put-upon sigh. "Very well. Although it will be a shame that your father won't be here to witness your _second_ defeat and humiliation. Your uncle will have to do."

"Have you ever fought the Fire Lord, Zhao?" Zuko asked.

"Very few have, and lived," Azula answered the question he raised.

"Unlike your father, I won't bother toying with you," Zhao said. "Sunrise, in the training fields. I will be waiting for you."

With that, the contemptuous presence of the man finally vanished as he ducked back out of the tent. With that done, Zuko backed up until he was before a seat rather like his Uncle's, and sat back in it, letting his head loll back, his hair draping behind his shoulders.

"I must admit, I'm somewhat pleasantly surprised you didn't lose your nerve," Azula said.

"Nobody hurts my family," Zuko said.

"This is not wise," Iroh pointed out. "Don't you remember what happened last time you fought a firebending master?"

Zuko's hand reached up, feeling the bubbling scar on the side of his neck, the withered, defunct scrap of flesh, more a curl of over-cooked bacon than a left ear, and sighed. "I will never forget."

* * *

><p>Chasing lemurs instantly threw Aang back from the melancholy of the abandoned temple to his childhood. Lemurs were quick, cunning, and maneuverable, which made them fun to run after. That they could escape in literally any direction but down, it required quite a bit of skill to even touch one, if it didn't want to be touched. And this one was doing its very best not to get touched. In fact, the young, spry lemur was proving itself perhaps too quick even to spot, especially since Aang had opted to leave his glider staff with Appa. But still, for those wonderful minutes, he wasn't the last airbender in the South Temple. He was just Aang, a kid, chasing a lemur.<p>

Even as he moved at a flash, the complaining voice of Sokka trailing well behind, he knew every place that the lemur's panicked flight took him through. The derby rink, the infirmary, the library, its tomes rotted away to dust. The nursery. The children's quarters. There, though, the sly creature finally ducked Aang's attention, so he had to slow, looking through the rubble.

This building looked different to the others. Much of the temple was still standing, unblemished. Parts of it, though, had fallen into neglect. This building, on the other hand, seemed to have been actively punished. Scorches and scree abounded, and the entire place seemed to be trapped in a hush, not of waiting, but of hiding. Aang looked hither and to, but every shadow seemed to hold fear, an animal terror unwillingly pressed into human form. He didn't even know why he felt these things. It was just a ruined building, if one he'd spent quite a few years living in. But still, he could _smell_ pain. He could _taste_ fear. Hatred and anger ran along him like the delicate footsteps of a spider walking along some part of him that he couldn't see, nor reach to swat.

Something bad had happened here.

"Don't worry about Sokka, little guy," Aang said. "I won't let him eat you."

He rounded a mound of fallen roof, and banged his toe hard on something almost lost under the scree. He hopped around for a minute, trying very hard not to swear, before he looked at what had stubbed him. It was armor. Red, rusted armor. His eyes widened as he recognized it. He'd seen it before. A century ago, and a week ago. Those 'pirates'. They weren't pirates. "Firebenders came here," Aang said quietly.

Then, he started seeing the bones.

At first, he thought them chips of rock, but now that he understood them, he couldn't un-see them. Pulverized bones. Hundreds of them. Small, smashed skeletons. The children. All of the children, gathered into this one last defensible spot, as though they had been beset from all sides, and in the end, huddled around their last bastion. Aang carefully walked around the bones, as much as it was possible, to what lay past them. The armors weren't empty. Firebenders had died here. But who would kill them? Who would have the strength, the skill?

The saffron robes, around a ossified figure at the corner of the room was Aang's answer. A monk had broken the greatest of all vows, not to end a human life. Who would do that? And why? "A monk would never kill. Who would..."

Aang reached out to the form, and pushed the weathered skull back. Splayed out on its chest was a wooden medallion, adorned with whorls like the wind. Aang fell back onto his bottom. "Monk Gyatso?" he asked. "Why? Why would you..."

**They killed them**.

"Why did they do this?" Aang asked. "What kind of monsters were they to make you – _you_ – break your vows of peace?"

**The fire erased the sky.**

"Why did they do this?" Aang repeated, his voice getting louder. "We aren't a threat to anybody! We're peaceful! Why would the Fire Nation want to hurt the Air Nomads?"

**So much pain. So many innocents, snuffed out.**

"What did we do to deserve this?" Aang screamed.

**The Avatar returned, as an airbender's son**.

With that, the whole world vanished into white.

* * *

><p>"You're remarkably calm about all of this, Zuzu," Azula noted. And to tell the truth, he was. His life when he was a child was complicated, complex, and demanding. Now, all that he was could be distilled into one duty, one ongoing task. And there was a comfort in that.<p>

"Uncle always says to go into a battle with a clear head," Zuko said placidly. He gave a glance to Iroh, but the man began to snore lightly, rolling over to put his back to them. It was bad enough that they had to sleep on cots on the shore. What did Zhao think, that Zuko was going to run away? That wasn't an option. It never was. "I think Zhao's trying to rattle me. Make me sleep out here so I won't be at full strength for the fight."

"Zhao always was one to cheat his way to victory. It's one of the very few qualities about that man that I approve of," Azula said. She let out an annoyed grunt as she wiped her face for the fifth time that minute. "Agni's blood, where is all this sweat coming from? I'm not even that hot!"

"Your fever's breaking. That's a good sign," Zuko said, taking a sip of the tea at his side.

"It's filthy and I feel like some unwashed peasant," Azula countered, pouring another measure for him. "Why did you do that?"

"I have to protect my sister."

She glared at him for a moment, before she shook her head. "I don't _need_ you to protect me."

"Then consider it my privilege," Zuko said smoothly, taking another sip. His wan smile soured. "I will not allow that pompous windbag one inch. He will take nothing from me, not without paying for it a dozen times over in blood," Azula smiled at that, a small, private smile. "What?"

"Sometimes, you actually sound like a worthwhile sibling," Azula said. She sat back, wiping her sweating face once again, as a frown overtook her. "Uncle said you fought a firebending master before. Who?"

Zuko's brow drew down. "What do you mean, 'who'?" Zuko asked. "You were there!"

"Do I frequently ask questions that I already know the answers to?" Azula asked cuttingly.

"All the time. Usually to make somebody else look like an idiot," Zuko answered.

"Well pretend for the sake of conversation that I'm not," Azula prompted.

"It was Dad," Zuko said.

"Father?" She leaned a bit, as though trying to see his left side, and he turned away. "I don't remember that day."

"I'm not surprised. It was a bad day. But you were there. I don't know when you got there, but at the end, when he was closing in for the kill, you shouted something. What was it you shouted? Do you remember?"

"I haven't the first clue," Azula admitted, shame darkening her features. "Fire and flame, I hate being like this. Not being able to trust my own memories. I used to be stronger. I used to have focus. I used to be useful."

"Don't start that Azzulll..." the word slurred on his tongue. "Azzuuu..."

"What is it, Zuzu?" she asked, her tones innocent.

"Poiss'n," Zuko said, as his body began to sway, his vision blurring. "He p-p-poi..."

"No, not poison, Zuzu. I don't intend to kill you, after all. And not Zhao, either," Azula said, gently pushing him over onto his bedroll. She leaned over him, a smirk pulling at her lips. "You never were good at all of these power politics, were you? Don't worry, it's just a strong sedative, so you'll wake up... a bit after sunrise," that smirk became a cold, expressionless mask. "I don't need _anybody_ to fight my battles for me."

The last thing Zuko saw was his sister opening a small box, and extracting a panel of cosmetic paints. He couldn't even speak as she settled herself in front of the mirror, and soon, even his vision fled, and he was catapulted down into a nightmare of invalidity.

* * *

><p>"Aang? Where'd you go?" Sokka shouted as he wandered the ruins of the South Air Temple. He'd managed to fall so far behind the airbender that he abandoned the hunt as futile. If anybody was going to get that little meat-thing, it would be Aang and his airbending trickery. It simply wasn't fair that the kid could run on the ceiling if it suited him. So he wandered.<p>

First, he'd come back to the statue of Gyatso. He knew something struck him strangely about that thing, the moment he laid eyes on it. This time, since the airbender's path had been positively break-neck and reckless, he shot through there leaving a bow wave in his wake. It was enough to dislodge the statue just a bit. Sokka had turned back, giving it an idle shove back into position, when he saw that the statue wasn't even attatched to the plinth. It had been obscuring a plaque, also inexpertly made, and engraved with a message.

"In memory of the Teacher, on the anniversary of the death of his final student," he'd read, and then did the math in his head. The date was less than thirty years ago. Whoever installed this thing, had done so long, long after the Air Nomads were wiped out. And Sokka continued to wander.

"Look, I promise I'm not going to eat the flying thing, alright?" Sokka shouted. "Unless he ticks me off or something," he added under his breath. Picking a random direction and walking was a terrible idea, and one which Sokka ordinarily wouldn't entertain, but given he had no clue which way the mercurial airbender – if that wasn't a redundancy in terms – had gone, he didn't have any other options. So he set out toward a building, and distracted himself from the tedium of the hunt by focusing on the loud, ominous noises coming from his guts. "Yeah, I know you're hungry. I'm workin' on it!" he said.

Sokka shook his head as he entered the large building, and then his eyes widened as he beheld devastation. This place had been put through the wringer a few times, then set on fire to add injury to insult. Despite his sister calling him thick-witted and dull, his eyes were more than keen enough to pick out the dead, not just soldiers in that red armor, but also smaller ones, long turned to crumbling bones. And at the far end of a chamber, almost hidden by a scree of rubble, one more form. The slight form of an airbender, on his knees before a skeleton.

"Oh, man," Sokka said. "Are you alright?"

Aang didn't speak. He was utterly silent, his eyes pressed shut. "Look," Sokka attempted, "how about we go back to Katara? She'll know what to do."

He didn't move. Sokka gave him a tug. "Come on, Aang. We can't stay here all..." He trailed off, when the blue tattooes on the kid's body turned white. "Aang, what are you..."

That was when a roar emitted from the child, not of a boy's voice, but of a chorus. A thousand voices, all shouting out in rage and pain and hatred. A wall of wind almost as solid as flesh smashed Sokka aside, dashing him against the back wall, before it too was blown down. He wanted to shout at the airbender to stop, that the roof would fall in, but Aang didn't seem to care. So when the roof did fall in, Sokka could only watch helplessly as the rocks fell... and then stopped. Not held aloft by air, but by a flick of the airbender's hands. He rose, not on his feet but a sphere of solid air, and tilted his head back. The entire building came apart, rotating around him in a perverse mockery of gravity, as he thrust out his hands, feet, and voice, and screamed.

The scream lit with fire.

Five pillars of flame shot out, bathing the building, only stopping short of barbequing Sokka by another flexing of fists, and the pillars drew into five globes of burning death, which orbited opposite the former-temple-outbuilding. The snow, which was now flying about in a stinging barrage, flowed next, snapping closer to him, heaving up from the outside and compressing in until it was a cruel, segmented and serrated blade which spun around him

"Aang! What's going on!"

The boy turned, slowly rotating on an invisible axis, until white glowing eyes fell to the northwest, long past Sokka. That scream stopped, and the head dipped low.

"**There will come a reckoning,**" the thousand voices intoned. "**The Balance is gone. Death walks in dream, a dark avatar of terrible hunger. There will come a reckoning.**"

The wall which Sokka had been, not to besmirch his manhood, cowering behind, was beginning to crumble, to rise and strive to join its revolving brethren. Damning his luck, for landing between whatever the hell this was, and wherever the hell it was going, he could only brace himself a moment, before Aang, or whatever it was that Aang had become, cast out an arm, and the entire remaining ruins of that building were smashed into the naked sky, and Sokka flew with it. There was a sort of stunned wonder, looking down and seeing a drop of a sheer vertical mile, with nothing between him and the clouds below. The sort of stunned wonder which didn't last nearly long enough as he started to fall.

* * *

><p>The sunrise over the edge of the walls bathed the battleground in scarlet light, bathing across the two which had gathered there. Well, three, but the third had given a start as he walked past the cloaked figure, facing toward left of the rising sun. He had reason to. What he'd seen was unexpected, and he'd run off to make sure that nothing tragic had transpired. In truth, it was all part of her plan.<p>

"Heh, I thought you were going to run away," Zhao's voice came from the far side of the arena. "No matter. You are but a child. I am the master, here, and this will be over quickly."

Azula turned, letting the cloak fall away and pool behind her. Clad in a halter and shorts that stopped well short of the knee, she looked like she ought be on a sick-bed, not on the battlefield, but she didn't care. This was the only work of art of hers that she ever took pride in. She had started working on it even before she regained the ability to speak, honing her body from the frail and weak vessel it had been, into one of refinement and power. Her shoulders, pale as they were, were broad and strong, and hard muscle corded down her arms, her back and her legs. She didn't doubt she could beat a grown man in an honest fist-fight. She would never be weak again. And her lips, so long benuded, now finally showed their proper bright red luster. They had gone so long without, that she was starting to forget what it felt like to be complete. Zhao started, flinching back, his own robe falling away to reveal his muscular frame. "You are right about that, Zhao. This _will_ be over quickly."

"What is the meaning of this?" Zhao asked.

"You insulted Zuko's honor in there, but you failed to take into account that you leveled a far crueler insult on me. I am not property. I am not a tool; I am not your compass or astrolabe or sextant. You picked a fight with Zuko. _I_ chose to be his champion," she said, twisting those words into a denigration of the highest order, punctuated by her smirk, that trademark smirk which only Zuko could approximate.

"So Zuko thinks he can stay my hand by making me fight my prize?"

"I AM NOT YOUR PRIZE!" Azula roared, rage swelling up in her. "You fight _me_ because _I_ demand reparation. Or you can slink away like the coward you are, and leave the Avatar to somebody capable of taking him. Your choice."

Zhao sighed, in a long-suffering sort of way. "Very well. If you require a lesson from your betters, then I shall give it to you. And when I'm done, you will do your duty to me with enthusiasm and verve."

"Are you going to blather, or are you going to fight?" Azula demanded.

"Ladies first."

"That's why I'm waiting for you," Azula said. He let out a growl, and sent forward a surge from his fists. As the fire bore down on her, a peace settled onto her. No more confusion. No more grinding of thoughts against each other. No more whispers seeding doubt and fear. Just herself, and the fire, and the fight. Azula side-stepped the hasty blast with little effort. That was probably for the best, because despite her strong showing, she was still terribly weak. Her long illness had sapped her badly, and only her years of preparation for this most portentous year had saved her from becoming a cripple. She answered with a bound into the air, a graceful and deadly arc of fire sweeping off of her bare toes, and searing its way across the distance toward Zhao, scarlet against the scarlet morn.

Even as the fire raged, there was a purity, a clarity which swelled in Azula. It was almost the exact opposite of that horrible feeling she got, when she lost who she was and fell into the blackness. In the fight, as her body moved in motions nobody taught her to fight somebody nobody expected her to, she actually knew who she was. And having finally tasted that sweetest, most rarest and most necessary of fruits, Azula knew she would do anything to hold onto it. For the first time in years, there was no confusion, no fear, no doubt. There was just Azula and the battle, and she could almost weep for joy at the feel of it.

Zhao stood his ground, twisting his arms through a root-break, smashing the wave around him, before surging up and around with his own arch kick with seared toward her. She slashed through it, parting red flame with red, and powered forward. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Uncle returning, giving a shoulder to Zuko, who looked like he could barely stand. Fitting. Neither could she, but she did so anyway. He redoubled his efforts as the distance between them closed. Usually, Agni Kai didn't even begin until they were this close, but Zhao was a powerful bender. And contrary to popular belief and opinion, so was Azula. She lashed forward, her hand a knife-edge which sent a discrete blast of flame toward the Admiral, one he swatted aside. She had to admit, he was very good. They both paused, standing perhaps ten yards apart, having crossed the great expanse through attack and counterattack. Each gazed upon their opponent, she with a withering glare, he with a calculating smile. Then, she felt a shudder run through her, as her weakness surged up for a moment, breaking her concentration. Zhao took that instant of hesitation and turned it to his advantage, moving forward with a barrage which drove Azula back, as she began to defend with greater vigor. In truth, defense was her greatest weakness. She always ascribed to the quintessential Fire Nation military doctrine, that the only worthwhile defense was overwhelming offense. So when she started losing ground, the momentum swung distinctly and violently into Zhao's favor.

With a final blast, the impact was too much for her weary form to take, and she lost her balance, falling supine onto the stone. Zhao quickly mounted, staring down his fist at her. "Don't make me mar that pretty face of yours, girl," Zhao warned.

"Azula!" Uncle shouted from the sidelines. "The fire is in the breath! Not the muscles!"

Inwardly she kicked herself. How could she possibly have forgotten that, put it to the side? Whatever the reason, as soon as the lesson was returned to her, it returned with passion and flame. She took a deep breath, then surged up with both feet, a blast of fire which Zhao only barely managed to contain, but at the expense of being thrown across the arena. Azula pulled herself to her feet, her chest heaving, sweat dripping off of her sallow, pale skin. The power of fire came from the trinity; fuel, from her pool of chi, heat, from her body and from Agni above, and air, from her lungs. With those three pillars in place, she was unstoppable. She sent forth a blast from a kick, and then began to spin, every kick sending out another curling wave of golden fire. Zhao, now under constant and withering assault, found himself driven back, and she advanced, unstoppable, indefatigable, a force of nature. She might not beat him for power – why not? – but he couldn't keep up with her technique. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and every wave that he had to block or have consume him drained his stamina.

No firebender trained for stamina. That was why they failed. That was why she succeeded. That was why she could still stand, still fight. That was why she would have the Avatar. Much like Zhao under her assault, the Avatar would have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and would crumble under her flames. Zhao fell to a knee, and she surged forward a great pillar of fire, feeling her energy flowing out of her faster than she could recuperate it. He split that wave, but it was pushing him back, back, back. Finally, Zhao's balance gave out, and he fell supine. She finally released the wave, which was ideal, because much more, and it would have likely made her black out. She leveled a hand, golden flames playing along her nails, toward him, her other fist cocked back.

"You are going to let us leave," Azula said. "And you are going to limp back to my father and tell him that his little girl is a better fighter, a better strategist, and a better heir than you will ever be."

"I..."

"I know full well you want to be plenipotentiary, but Father will not share power with a worthless waste of skin, waste of bones, and waste of breath like you," Azula said. She turned, masking the fatigued shudder that ran through her. "And you can forget the Avatar. That prize is mine alone."

"I'm not through with you," Zhao shouted.

"I really wonder what Father ever saw in you," Azula said derisively as she walked away. Zuko was smiling at her, with genuine awe on his face. Iroh, too, had a strong note of surprise to his features. She disregarded the man on the ground, fighting the urge to shiver. Despite the flush of victory, she was so cold. Perhaps she'd pushed herself too far? Well, if she didn't she'd never know how far she could go. She smirked, looking at her family and preparing to ask a sarcastic question, but Zuko's eyes widened in alarm.

Azula didn't even think. One moment, she was walking away. The next, she was twisting, one leg sweeping out and chi flowing down her hands. The blast of fire which had been sent to sear her posterior and legs was smashed aside, and two fingers lanced forward. The fire which shot from that stance, that unusual, unconscious flow of movements, was not scarlet, nor golden. It was bright, hot, electric blue. Zhao's eyes widened as that burst of blue flame shot toward him, and he brought up his own shield of fire. Her azure flame smashed straight through it and seared along the side of Zhao's face. He let out a scream of pain and dropped, cradling the left eye and ear, rolling on the ground. Azula slowly rose up out of the stance she'd dropped into. "Consider that a warning," Azula said lightly. "Next time, I'll aim three inches your right."

"Azula, that was... unwise," Iroh said.

"You poisoned me," Zuko said.

"It was for the best," Azula said. She moved past them, so that Zhao was now out of sight, and finally allowed herself to slump. "I think I'm going to pass out in a second here."

"Where did you learn to fight like that?" Iroh asked, a querulous look on his face.

"I..." Azula said, finally taking his offered arm to keep her able to move. She was so, so very tired. "I'm not sure," she admitted. Together, the family limped back to the ship.

* * *

><p>The crash was her first sign that something had gone terribly wrong. The second was the rumble which ran through the very floor under her feet. The third, and most ominous, was that the eyes of all of the many, many statues had begin to shine with an eerie white light. She started to stumble, then run at full sprint, away from the room and the unknown, the unimaginable, the inexplicable, and try to find her brother and Aang. Somebody who would know what was going on. Well, not Sokka, in that case, but possibly Aang.<p>

She was shouting his name when an entire building lifted off of its foundation, crumbling into blocks which spiraled slowly inward. Every rational part of her mind was telling her to flee, to pick a direction as directly away from this as possible and sprint that way. But her heart wouldn't let her. Her heart spurred her feet into motion, and she was moving toward this anomaly, this unthinkable thing.

"Aang? Sokka? Where are you?" Katara screamed against the wailing of the wind. It was tearing across the mountain at a gale, where before there had been but a whisper. Harsh, angry, red light filtered up, glaring off of the chunks which still hung suspended in the air, slowly revolving around an unseen point. She felt something fly past her, and ducked as quite a bit of the snow from the banks nearby flew up past her, into the center of that maelstrom. She raced along the paths as fast as her feet would take her.

"Aang? What's going on?" she could hear her brother shout. And then, there was another voice. A voice both recognizable and not, its words blasting in the wind indistinct but of undeniable power and anger. And then, she could hear her brother scream. Her eyes went wide as she could see Sokka in his pale blue parka flying through the air, set against the dark blue sky of the rising sun. The way he was going, would send him over the cliff. With a flick of her wrists, her gloves flew off and landed on the ground, and she flowed through a motion she had practiced for years, despite having none better.

The water, the snow and the ice yet on the ground listened to her desperate plea. It surged out, a tongue of thick slush that lashed into the distance, anchored at the cliffside. At the exact moment that Sokka dropped through it, she slammed her fists shut, and her eyes as well. She couldn't bear to watch this if it didn't... "Katara!" Sokka screamed. "Did you do that?"

She opened her eyes. Sokka was in the process of crawling up himself, and then hacking his leg free of the ice she had formed. The shock, that she had managed to do all of that, caused her control to waver, though. As he took his first free step, his foot sunk far lower. He didn't bother looking surprised. He just broke out into a panicked sprint, his last pace a bound for the comforting rock as she finally lost all control and the slush turned to water, which slipped from her control. "Are you alright?"

"I think I pulled my ankle!" Sokka complained. "It's Aang! He's gone all... Glowing badass on us!"

Katara, her attention no longer fixated on her kin, finally saw it. Him. It was Aang, there was no doubt about that, but he hung suspended inside a sphere of fire, ringed by broken discs of flame, of jagged ice, and orbiting stone. "Tui La," Katara said quietly. "He's bending all four at once..."

"Make him stop! He's going to blow us off the mountain!" Sokka demanded. Katara wasn't sure how to do that. "It's the airbenders. He found their bodies!"

She glanced to her brother, then back to Aang. To the bender of all four elements. To the Avatar. "Aang," she shouted over the gale. "I know what you're feeling. I've felt that pain. Sokka and I both have!"

She took a hard step against the wind, and Aang stared impassively onward, to the northwest. "We know how much it hurts to lose the people that you love," she continued forward, despite the wind trying to blow her away. "When the Fire Nation killed our Mom, when they took our sister, it seemed like there was nothing but anger and rage! And we weren't alone: Almost everybody lost family that day. And Monk Gyatso and the airbenders were your family..."

She paused in her strides, just outside that ring of swirling death that separated them. One step. She closed her eyes, and trusted in faith, faith that Aang was still the kind, warm-hearted boy they met on the ice. Still the young man who valued people, who remembered how to love. That he wasn't _just_ the Avatar. She took the last step, eyes shut, and trusted that he would be there, and that he wouldn't hurt her.

And he didn't.

She took his hand, and pulled him down, wrapping him in an embrace. "We know how much it hurts to lose family, but you're not alone anymore. We're your family too, now," Katara said. "You're the younger brother we never had. We're family, and we are never going to leave you."

The brilliant white light faded, disappearing from the tattoos and his eyes, until he slumped against her. He straightened after a moment, blinking in fear. "Katara?" he asked, his voice small. "What just happened?"

"It's alright," Katara said. "Nobody's hurt."

"No, I mean, what happened?" he pushed her back a bit, his grey eyes flitting around the ruins. "How did this happen?"

"You did it, Aang," Sokka said, limping in.

Aang stared at him for a long moment, mouth agape. "That was _real_?" he asked. "That really _happened_?"

"Aang, why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?" Katara asked. The boy took a long step back.

"I'm not the Avatar," he claimed. "I can't be. Somebody would have _told_ me if I was the Avatar."

"I saw some earthbending and firebending," Sokka pointed out with an odd sort of sarcastic calm that seemed a bit out of place. It was likely that Sokka was shaken up just as the rest of them were. "As far as I know, there's not something airbenders can do."

"I'm... I can't be the Avatar, I just can't!" Aang curled up on himself.

"Aang, it's alright," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, to comfort him.

"Why didn't Gyatso tell me?" Aang asked quietly. "I don't know anything about being the Avatar. I'm just an airbender. A lazy, coasting-on-his-talent airbender. I can't be this... mythical guy."

"Y'know, I bet quite a few Avatars have said that about themselves," Sokka pointed out, squatting opposite Katara, at Aang's other shoulder. "And they've probably all had somebody like me point out the fact that every other Avatar got where they were the same way I get to the outhouse; one step at a time."

"Sokka, that's disgusting."

"What? I'm trying to be helpful."

"Thanks, Sokka," Aang said, nodding to himself. "I'm... I'm the Avatar."

He looked up, and a pair of big, green eyes was looking back at him. Seeing the lemur brought a long-overdue smile to the airbender... the Avatar's face, as the creature moved a bit closer and glanced between them. Katara shot her brother a warning glance so absolute that it could have melted ice in a winter blizzard. And Sokka heeded it. The creature seemed to pick its target, and quickly scampered up Aang's kavi and settled onto the youth's shoulder, chattering quietly into the airbender's ear and picking at Aang's flaring ears with its cunning fingers.

"Looks like you made a new friend," Sokka said sarcastically.

"Yeah, it really does," Aang said. He stood, looking at what remained of the South Air Temple. "He and I are pretty much all that's left of the Air Nomads, aren't we?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "But that's alright. I've got a purpose, now."

"What purpose?" Katara asked.

Aang looked back, a befuddled look on his face. "I'm not really sure. Avatar stuff, I guess. I'll figure it out as I go."

"That's the spirit," Sokka said, clapping the airbender on the back. "By the way, did you find anything to eat?"

Katara rolled her eyes. "Unbelievable."

* * *

><p>Nila glared at her so-called partner. "What do you mean, the trail ends?" she demanded.<p>

"It is shaped like itself, boy," Udu said sharply. Nila once again ground her teeth. "I could track him for a thousand miles across desert, but in this scrub, I'm as blind as a badgermole."

"And the trail?" she prompted.

"He was walking south until here," Udu said, pointing where he was standing. He squinted around, but shook his head. "After that, there are no trail-signs, at least not anything made since last rainfall."

She looked around the ground, at the barely noticeable scuffs which were the sole portent of Sharif's passage. There was also something else, a two-pronged mark which repeated back and away. She pointed it out. "What is this?"

"Ostrich Horse," Udu said. As he moved to the tracks, though, he let out a growl. "And a big one, by the look of the foot. Probably a bull male," Udu let out a bitter laugh. "Probably came on that little runt and ran him down. Body got dragged off by predators. More's the pity. I wanted to tear his skin off and make a necklace of his tongue."

"You need some _serious_ help with that anger of yours," Nila said, slowly looking around the great expanse of outer Dakong. Sharif wasn't dead. She knew it as well as she knew that she continued breathing. She looked down at the Ostrich Horse tracks again. "What are the chances somebody picked him up?"

"Picked him up? Dakong is huge, and not very well populated," he said. "Besides, look at the toes. Domesticated Ostrich Horses have their talons clipped. This one was feral. Feral beasts will kick you to death as quick as look at you. The boy is dead. Accept this, and part company."

Nila didn't say a word. Her gaze continued to sweep the horizon, until it seemed to hitch on the west. She wasn't sure what it was or why she felt it, but she was sure beyond all scientific sensibility or doubt that if Sharif was still alive – and there was no way that he would release her from his inanity by dying – then he had to be that way. There was no other way to put it, than that direction annoyed her more than any other. Udu started singing a traveling song to himself as he walked back to the north, away from the sparse grasses and toward more familiar sand dunes. She sighed to herself, rubbing at her shoulders where the straps dug in. It wasn't the first time she regretted carrying around excess weight, but she was damnably hard pressed to rid herself of it. The entire situation reeked of defeat, and she didn't like the feeling.

For a moment, she continued following him. Returning home, telling Mother the same line that Udu had told her. It wasn't even lying, not really. It could have happened, for all Nila knew. But as much as she would have liked the easy way out, there was another aspect to her personality, one which drove her to shave her own head after two successive attempts at a new combustible set her hair afire. It wasn't until the thirty fifth that she got one that was to her liking, and by then, she'd also lost her eyebrows. Those, at least, grew back. Nila was many things. Smart, slothful, sharp, sarcastic, but of all the s-words that could be used to describe her, the one which rose head and shoulders above all the rest was 'stubborn'.

With a quiet growl against the universe for saddling her with a demanding mother and an idiot brother, she stalked toward the west, with the noon sun beating down on her with a fraction of the force it did in her homeland. It occurred to her if she traveled much further south, she might start getting extremely cold.

"If I freeze to death trying to hunt you down, Sharif, I swear that I'll find a way to haunt you," Nila said, an set out afoot over the great expanse of Dakong.

* * *

><p><strong>I fairly unabashedly steal characters from pretty much anywhere I can get them. Malu, for example, was part of the A:tLA Collectable Card Game, where she was an Air Nomad who survived the purge before she could be recognized for her airbending mastery, living as a figure of myth in the mountains. I take characters and play with them; it's a favorite tactic of mine. Just a list for disclosure's sake, for the point that I've reached in tacking out the narrative, I'm also taking Keung from Equivalent Exchange, and Rufftoon's Kwan. Yes, Benell was a reference to Children, but it is only that. It's worth a chuckle if you know what it means, but if you don't, it's something to be ignored and moved passed without detriment. Another example of a self-imported character is Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar. She was a RoguePaladin (Heavy on the Rogue) from a Pathfinder campaign I played a few years back. Since I never managed to reach the point where I could consider her story complete, I see no reason in not reusing her, and creating her non-existent fictional progeny to do as I need them to.**

**That actually set in motion something that amused me greatly. Since Sativa was created as a D&D adventurer, why not make her a retired adventurer, who had her own party back in the day? Yes, you will be forced to endure her as well; I know that OC's burn like acid to the skin of a purist, but what can I say, besides that if she were voiced in the cartoon, it would be by Shohreh Aghdashloo, and she gives me options?**

**Regarding Sharif in particular. Nila's twin wasn't dull by nature. He is only the way he is because he suffered a traumatic brain injury and subsequent infection which gave him an ad-hoc total frontal lobotamy. Mental retardation isn't a term I use lightly given my vocation, but Sharif is fifteen years old, and has the mind of a nine-year-old; that isn't going to change. Ten years old at best. The only upshot of that, if it can be said to be an upshot, is that Spirits find Sharif extremely pleasant to be around. He is the spiritual equivalent of a warm bath after a cold day, and his instincts are more or less intact, so his ability as a Shaman is not completely wrecked as it would be if he were a bender (he's not, by the way).**

**One final tack: Quantifying shamanism is like nailing jello to a wall. Pointless and messy. But if I have to rate power to make a point, I do it thus. Making Sharif equal 1.0 on a scale has the following effects. Average shamans equal 0.3, while 'named' spirits such as Heibei or Irukandji usually come in the 1.1 to 1.4 range. Animals, which unlike humans have spirits instead of souls, come in at around 0.01 to 0.1; Some spirits, like Koh, equal 1.6 on that scale. Aang, being Avatar, is 1.5.**

**That thing inside Malu is a 4.**

**Yeah.**

_Leave a Review._


	4. The Broken Fan

**New chapter. Running out of summer. Bugger. Ah, well, at least the new series of Doctor Who is coming soon.**  
><strong>Q&amp;A: Azula <span>always<span> has the accent, it's just the intensity which varies. Good spot on the Spirit World observation. (Much) More on that later. You'll see why each sibling got banished in due time. Azula didn't try to bump off Zhao because she was dead on her feet. Azula's relationship with her brother is... healthier than it was in Canon. She's just prickly. Oh, and one more thing:**

**Vindictive Zuko can be vindictive.**

* * *

><p>Azula didn't enjoy drawing, painting, composing poetry. The acts did not appease some deep and peaceful part of her soul which she would loathe to express to others. They did not satiate some deep-seated need for expression that her life otherwise stifled. They did not give an outlet for a creative soul. No, she painted, she drew, she wrote, because she had to. It brought her no comfort, no joy; only a release of that pressure which built up inside her head. A thousand images, some crude and incomplete, even before she bothered to set them to page. Others, works of art worth being hung in the halls of the Fire Palace. A few of hers probably still were.<p>

She wasn't even sure what it was she was drawing right now. The scene was dark, lit only by some source of low, red light, showing two women fighting. Waterbenders, most likely from the abundance of blue in the picture. Why she, a firebender, would even subconsciously want to depict this scene, confounded her to no small part. Waterbenders didn't have anything worth portraying or talking about. They were barely-literate savages who lived in perpetual cold and dark, outside even the fringes of polite society. And yet, here she was, showing the woman in black and gold fight the woman in blue.

"I should just burn this like all the others," Azula said to herself. It was an idle threat. The one time that anybody actually went through with destroying one of her works, she ended up exactly replicating it a few weeks later. When _that _one got burnt, half-way done, she found herself redoing it from scratch the next morning, without a single detail altered from any iteration to the next. If there was any fortune to her craft, it was that once an idea had found its way into the world, it was not retread. Every picture, every line of poetry was unique, even if she didn't know what it meant. She slumped a bit, her posture less that of a girl approaching fifteen years, but rather that of a woman four times her age.

Azula let out a weary sigh, twisting her neck until it emitted an audible crack, which sent a surge of relief to her headache racing up her spine and into the backs of her eyes. Every time she did that around her brother, Zuko would squirm, complaining that one day she'd do that, and her head would fall off. It amused her to unsettle him. She rose, forcing a small flare of golden fire into her palm. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be," she muttered to herself. "I'm supposed to be the Crown Princess. Not some vagabond living on a boat with my brother and our doddering uncle!"

But that was exactly what she was. She let out a sigh, and when she did, the flame started to gutter in her hand. She forced more energy into it. Firebending had once been so easy for her. It came to her more naturally than breathing. It wasn't that she bent fire. It was that she _was_ fire. But then, the illness. Then, the hardships. Then the art and the confusion, and her grasp on the element which defined her existence, thoughts, and soul moved further and further out of her reach. At least, it hadn't left her completely. She didn't want to think about what would happen to her if it did.

Azula didn't want to lose her fire.

As she pondered that, staring into the fire, a darkness started to lower over her. Usually, it brought confusion, a state of loss-of-self. She would forget who people were, where she was. What she was doing. She would stop being herself, and become something... useless. Even as it pressed in on her, tears were forming in her eyes. She refused. She fought it as hard and as long as she could, but it was like gravity, or tide, or death. It would not be denied forever. One, solitary sob sounded from her throat, and then the darkness swept over her.

But when she opened her golden eyes again, it was not to confusion. It was to rock-solid certainty. The fire flared up in her hand, brighter than it had been, more solid and sure, but she wasn't paying attention to it. She was just using it. Her eyes raced across the layers of her own works which adorned every free surface in the room, until they fell upon a landscape that she'd drawn when she first came onto this boat. Mountains plunging down into the sea, and the hints of a village nestled into the hills. She tugged it down, a smirk coming to her face. This was it. This was what she was looking for.

She threw open her door, and took the single step across the hall to where Zuzu's door lay, and pounded on it with her fist, until she got impatient and kicked it. After that kick, which hurt her foot – though she refused to show that it had – the door pulled in, and a bleary eyed, bare chested older brother looked out. "Azula? What's wrong?" he asked, real concern in his voice. She disregarded it.

"I know where the Avatar is going," Azula said. She held up the picture. "Here. To this island."

"Didn't you draw that back..."

"Just listen to me!" Azula snapped. "The Avatar is heading here. We can catch him if we change course immediately. I will not lose the Avatar again! Not after the humiliating loss at the South Pole."

Zuko sighed, then closed his door. Azula's eyes widened with wrath. "What is the meaning of this?" she bellowed.

"I'm getting pants on," Zuko shouted back through the bulkhead. A grimacing scowl pulled at Azula's lips.

"Where we're going, you don't need pants! Now just wake Jee and set the course," Azula ordered. "I have a date with destiny, and I have no intention of missing it."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

**The Broken Fan**

* * *

><p>"You know," Sokka mushed around a mouthful of fish, "compared to the last two places, this one ain't half bad."<p>

Katara couldn't help but agree with her older brother. "I know what you mean. It's nice to see Aang finally get his mind off this Avatar stuff and have some fun for a change," she said, as a fish roughly five times the size of Appa crested the surface, the almost imperceptible speck of the airbender holding its fin.

"Nah, that's not it. I'm referring to the fact that pretty much everything here's edible," Sokka said.

"Really? That's your criterion for a good landing place?" she asked, a sarcastic undertone to her voice. "I suppose the time you ate the poison berries was all the reason needed to hate that island to the south."

"Look, I've got a system. If its juices don't give me a rash, I eat it," Sokka said evenly. "It's served me pretty well so far."

"You're like a child."

"A child who lets you know you can eat things," Sokka said. Then he scowled. "Wait a minute..."

"Sure. That's exactly what you are," she said, patting his cheek patronizingly, as she waved to the airbender atop the monumental fish. Even at the great distance, she could hear him laughing. Good. If anybody needed to laugh, it was Aang.

"You know, you could have cooked this a bit better," Sokka complained idly, as he nevertheless dug into the cooked fish with a gusto usually reserved for people who dying of starvation. Not that she could complain. The recent, and massive, increase in what she could eat was actually putting weight back onto her, and not having to go to sleep feeling like her stomach was trying to burrow through her spine made it easier for her to get her rest. All in all, despite the worry in the back of her mind that she might never get to go home, she felt better than she had in years.

She heard a chirping and felt a weight settle onto her shoulder. "Oh, there you are, lemur-thing," she said softly, patting it on the head. It let out a squawk and wrapped its tail 'round her neck. "One of these days, we're going to have to come up with an name for you."

The lemur chattered in its oddly cognizant way before settling down to rest its chin on her head. The sight must have been amusing, because Sokka started laughing at it. "She might not be able to cook, but she's a good sofa for a lemur," Sokka said.

"And why exactly is it my job to cook? I caught the fish."

"What? Women cook, that's just the way things go," Sokka said. "It's the natural order: Men hunt and protect the town and the defenseless, and women do the cooking and cleaning and whatnot."

Katara glared at him. "Well, if I'm doing such a terrible job at cooking, maybe you want to do it yourself from now on."

"Whoa whoa whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Sokka said, with a placating motion. "I'm just saying that the world works this way, and there's not really much point in fighting it. It's much easier to just do what you're good at, and let men do the important stuff."

"Important?" she asked, her voice taking on a razor edge. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be wallowing in your own filth! Your pants would be tatters! You wouldn't even be eating right now! What have you done that's more important than keeping the clothes on our backs and food in our stomachs, Sokka? What is so important that it's been keeping you distracted from that?"

"I don't know, keeping the Fire Nation from finding the Avatar?" Sokka hazarded.

"Please, Aang was the one keeping them behind. You just sat in the howdah being paranoid!"

Sokka's eyes widened, and he pointed behind her. "Katara..."

"No, I'm sick of this. I thought you'd left this stupidity behind when we got exiled, but no, it just comes shining through every time you open your mouth!"

"KATARA!" Sokka shouted, reaching for his boomerang. Katara turned, and when she saw what he was indicating, she felt a real need for panic. That need for panic massively dwarfed the fish in the bay, its body a great grey serpent which shone wet in the sun. Its maw was filled with teeth each three times the height of a man, sharp as blades. Two great whiskers extended from the great eel's face. Dangling precariously from one of them was that barely visible speck which was Aang, clinging for dear life to the monstrosity from the deep.

"Aang! Get to the shore!" she screamed over the water. The great beast flailed and thrashed, trying to dislodge the airbender from its face, but having remarkably little success. Finally, it bent up on itself and blasted out a jet of water which smashed Aang off of its whisker, and sent him skittering across the top of the surf like a flat stone across smooth a pond. So much velocity was had by this, that his last skip was right at the crashing of the water against the shore, and his momentum carried him directly into her brother, sending both into the side of a snow-covered tree.

Aang, who stared up at her inverted, his legs dangling over his head, still had an unsteady grin on his face. "Katara?" he asked.

"What is it, Aang?"

"Whatever that thing is, don't ride it. Not as much fun as the Elephant Koi."

"What was that thing?" Sokka asked, pushing himself up and brushing the fallen snow off of his head and shoulders.

"I'm not sure," Aang said quickly pulling his kavi back on. "It wasn't here last time I came to this island."

"Wasn't that a hundred years ago?" Katara asked. "A lot can happen in that much time."

"Yeah, but I think even he would have remembered if somebody said 'oh, and there's a big sea monster out here somewhere' to him," Sokka pointed out. "Let's just keep going before something else unpleasant happens to us. Don't you want to reach the North Pole _before_ next spring?"

She sighed. "Sokka's right. We should keep moving."

"No complaints here. I'll just go call Appa," Aang said. She nodded to herself, but then had a thought.

"Aang, what ab..." she said, trailing off when there was no sign of the Avatar. She heard Sokka mutter something behind her. "Sokka, did you see where Aang went?"

She turned just in time to see something green drop onto her brother, and a moment later, her hood was yanked down over her head, along with a great expanse of her parka, and she was brusquely flipped to the floor. She could feel furious action about her hands and feet and face, and then, the unmistakable feel of rope being pulled tight. When she finally got the coat away, she noted she still couldn't see. There was a silk binding blocking her vision.

"Nothing else unpleasant, eh?" Katara asked wanly.

"I was just... shut up."

"We... ah... come in peace?" Aang offered from somewhere out of sight.

"You three have some explaining to do," a whispered voice reached Katara, and then, they were being lifted, and dragged along the sand. Struggle as she might, she couldn't slip the bonds nor get away from their assailants. They were being brought, whether they wanted it or not.

Of course, that didn't stop her from fighting the entire way.

* * *

><p>Iroh sat with his back to the tower which was the cabins of his his ship. He let out a tired sigh, one of several he sometimes released throughout the day. Sometimes, they had a cause, sometimes they just were. He was amazed how much it still hurt that Qiao was gone. She had been a part of his life so long, that Iroh wasn't exactly who he was now that she was gone. Inside his mind, he always wondered, what if he had asked her to stay home, in the Fire Nation. Would she still be alive?<p>

"Again," Iroh said out of rote, his tones disinterested and distracted.

He looked up, and saw the three firebenders arranged around his niece, all preparing to advance as one. The first grunt of angry effort came from Azula's back, and she twisted up with a sweeping kick which surged with fire, smashing the attack, and the attacker, away and almost over the rail. She then bounded, sweeping out a knife-hand blade of fire which the other two had to hurl themselves aside to avoid. She landed with a twist on her nimble feet, and glanced at her fallen adversaries.

"Wrong," Iroh said.

"Wrong? How is it wrong? It worked!" Azula said.

"It was not what I am trying to teach you. Therefore, it is wrong," Iroh said. Qiao had been a calming presence to him. Now that she wasn't here, all of the hurts were raw, all of the angers surged. All of the disappointments grated. And all of the annoyances danced on his nerves. "Firebending requires a solid root, a connection for stability and balance. You have some flashy moves, but in a real fight, flash will fail you."

"It worked against Zhao," Azula pointed out.

"Zhao drastically underestimated you. He will not do so again," Iroh answered. "Your attacks cover broad areas, but are flimsy. Anybody standing their ground can easily punch through them," Iroh turned, seeing Zuko approach with a bowl in his hand. "Zuko, show your sister how the set is done. Now!"

The men instantly turned from Azula to Zuko, and launched into attack. Zuko, with barely a glance and not so much as a batted eyelash, twisted, letting the flare shoot past him, before kicking out with a blast of fire and an grunt of effort, before twisting and kicking himself up into the air and smashing down the other two with a pair of discrete fireballs. He then swung his arm around, preventing the contents of the bowl from falling onto the deck. When he rose to his full height again, he had a fairly bored look on his face. "Basics, again?" Zuko asked.

"The basics are important, Nephew," Iroh said. "They instill reflexes, which can save us when the mind is too busy to think. Zuko's way is focused, powerful, and surgical. Yours is sloppy. You will set alight anything nearby."

"You might not have noticed this, Uncle," Azula said darkly, scowling from the word 'sloppy' onward, "but the Avatar is an airbender, with none of the training he needs in the other elements. The primary edict of airbending is avoid and evade. He will not stand his ground. It isn't in his nature. He will move and flee, and my fire will find him."

"And as for collateral damage?" Iroh asked, accepting the offered bowl.

"Irrelevant, as long as I can procure the Avatar," Azula said.

"That is dangerous thinking," Iroh said harshly. "Much of the reason the Fire Nation is where it is right now is because of such beliefs. I can see why my brother named you after our father. You are more alike than I had hoped."

"Don't insult Grandfather," Azula said.

"My father was a bloody minded man who turned an expansion into a world-war," Iroh pointed out. He tilted his head to a side. "Still, you're a lot better than I thought you'd be. Especially considering you haven't drilled in more than three years."

"I was lax and lazy. It's not a mistake I'm going to make again," she said. She glared to the three firebenders who were just picking themselves up from where Zuko had put them. "Well? Don't just lay there like a bunch of earthbenders; back to work!"

"Basics," Iroh cautioned.

"The Avatar isn't going to care if I know the basic forms, Uncle," Azula snapped. "He will use everything in his power to destroy me, and your precious Zuko, and this ship, and the Fire Nation itself. It is our duty as Fire Nation royalty to see that he is put down quickly and decisively. And to do that, I will need the higher forms. You will show them to me."

"Azula, don't talk to Uncle that way," Zuko said, his eyes flitting between sibling and uncle. "If it wasn't for..."

"I would have found a way," Azula said. She glared at Iroh. For a moment, Iroh could sense an enmity in those golden eyes of hers, something beyond mere frustration. A bloody-handed hatred that lurked in the very backs of her eyes. He saw it, and he didn't know what it meant. And that concerned him greatly. Iroh was not a man who liked being in ignorance of anything, not when it was as important as his own family.

"Even if you did, that's not something worth worrying about," Zuko said firmly, playing peace-keeper once again. It was not a role Zuko was well suited to, with his own fiery temper and short fuse, but one he often took. That was partly Iroh's fault. His own temper was frayed as well. It had been for quite a while, now. He took a calming breath, which to his great benefit pulled in the smell of the roast duck in the bowl. "Uncle, maybe you should show her the next set. See how she does with it."

"Maybe you're right, Prince Zuko," Iroh said, a smile appearing on his face. "After I eat this roast duck."

As Iroh settled to merrily consume the dinner, Zuko gave his sister a baffled shrug, and Azula turned away with a golden flare of anger.

* * *

><p>The muffled sounds coming from his left didn't abate as Sokka felt himself being lashed to a large, cylindrical object. Most likely a pole. "Why don't you take this blindfold of me and fight me like a real man?" Sokka snapped, straining pointlessly against his bonds. There were things which Sokka knew well, and knotwork was one of them. It would take a badgermole to pop these ropes, or a putrifying eel-hound to slip them. Since Sokka was a man and not either of those two things, he would remain bound.<p>

"Fighting like a man is what got you into this mess," Aang oh-so-unhelpfully pointed out.

"Show yourselves, you cowards!" Sokka ordered. He heard a sigh, and then the bag which had been cinched over his head was indelicately removed. He blinked at the sudden light, which baffled his vision. When it cleared, he was no less baffled. The only people nearby were four women, three of them in a bizarre outfit. The last was older, her auburn hair greying, and wore more traditional attire. He looked across those gathered. "Alright, now where are the men who attacked us?"

"Men?" one of the odd looking ones asked. "_We_ were the ones who arrested you. Now, tell us what you are doing on this island."

"Are you joking?" Sokka asked. "There's no way that we got beaten by a bunch of girls."

"A bunch of girls?" she answered, outrage plain in her voice. "Let's see how glib you are in the Unagi's maw, you..."

"Suki, please," the older woman chastised. "I hope you will forgive my daughter. She takes her duties very seriously. Considering the peril we live under, it's understandable."

"Mother, I..."

"Nevertheless, I recommend you speak with greater respect, Tribesman," the matriarch cautioned. "I do expect you to answer her questions."

"I'm sorry, it's my fault," Aang said shame-facedly. "I wanted to ride the elephant koi and, well, things kinda got out of control. Isn't that right, Katara? Katara?" Sokka turned, and saw that his sister was staring daggers at the girls in the weird dresses. It was easy to see why, though. Of all three of them, only she had been gagged.

"What?" Suki's companion asked to his querulous glance. "She bit me."

"That's my sister," Sokka muttered with a note of pride.

"How do we know you three aren't Fire Nation spies?" Suki asked.

"Suki, that's preposterous," her mother answered. "The Fire Nation does many things, but it does not use children as spies. _Especially_ not Water Tribe children. However, they could bring trouble in their wake. Our involvement in the World War has been secret thus far, and the safety of all of Kyoshi Island hinges on that."

"Kyoshi Island?" Aang asked, perking up. "Is that named after the Avatar? Avatar Kyoshi?"

"Of course," the matriarch said, pointing up above their heads. Sokka craned his neck around, and could just barely make out a female statue bearing a pair of fans. "All of us carry some measure of her blood in our veins. Some more than others."

"Well, that's handy, because Aang here used to be Kyoshi," Sokka blurted out. All four women slowly turned to him and stared at him like he'd grown a second head.

"What."

"Aang is the Avatar," Sokka quickly improvised. "So you can't hurt him, because doing that would be the same as hurting the namesake for your Island. And I know you're not going to do that."

"The last Avatar was a firebender who died more than a century ago. When the Air Nomads were wiped out, the cycle was broken. The Avatar is gone, and only pretenders for that title ever appear these days. You speak a brave blasphemy, Tribesman," the matriarch said.

"Well, that's where you're wrong, missy," Sokka was on a roll, now. "Because Aang's an airbender, and the Avatar," he looked over to Aang. "Come on, do some airbending!"

"Oh, right!" Aang said, and then he blew straight down with such force that he snapped himself free of the ropes and catapulted some thirty feet into the air, before drifting gently back down like a leaf on the wind. With the bonds loosened, Sokka was able to shrug his way out. Katara was next, pulling her gag out and letting fly a string of profanity which would make a hunter proud, some of which even enlightened Sokka. When she finally calmed down a bit, she could see that the four women were staring in awe.

Well, three were. The older woman just cocked an eyebrow.

"So you are an airbender," she said. "That doesn't make you the Avatar. Earthbend."

"Yeah... I don't know how to do that," Aang said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Then waterbend."

"I haven't learned that, either," he admitted. "I just learned that I was the Avatar about a week ago. Nobody ever told me. Maybe in a place like this, I might be able to figure out what I'm supposed to do with all my... Avatar-i-ness."

"You claim to be Avatar and then in the same breath state you are limited to airbending," the matriarch summarized. "You have got to be the saddest Avatar I have ever heard of."

"Leave Aang alone," Katara cut in, taking Aang's hand. "He's afraid and confused. How would you feel if you had to find out on your own that you were the Avatar? He needs our help, not to be picked on."

"The girl has a point, Elder Ohka," the bitten warrioress commented.

"Quiet, Zhen," Suki snapped. She turned back to Aang, all business once again. "Very well. If you are the Avatar, as you claim to be, then you can have free access to the village and the environs of Kyoshi Island. But if there is any treachery in your heart, believe me, I will find it."

"Treachery? In that heart?" Katara asked, pointing to Aang, who was sporting just about the most guileless expression ever donned by Man.

"So, who's in charge around this village?" Sokka asked.

"I am," Ohka answered.

"No, seriously. Who is in charge?" Sokka prodded.

Ohka sighed, and turned to Katara. "Your traveling companion is a moron."

"I'm well aware what a goon my brother is," Katara said evenly. Ohka nodded wearily.

"Brother? You have my _deepest_ condolences."

Sokka glared at the sibling and the elder before stomping off. The village, as they put it, was closer to a modest town, which confused Sokka a bit. Not that more than a hundred people could live in one place; he wasn't some uneducated, naïve rube. He'd read enough to know that people would gather in the tens of thousands at the drop of a hat. And in the case of Duoluo Maozi, it was literally the case. No, it baffled him, because there were this many people, and no wharf. Fishermen needed some place to moor their craft, traders to unload. These people had a naked beach, and no obvious sign that there were people living here at all. That was why this all came upon them so unexpectedly: they had no reason to believe they weren't alone.

He still couldn't figure out who had to die to leave a woman in charge, though. Eventually he found his way to a nice, quiet place to ponder. Well, sulk, actually, if he was being totally honest with himself. Girls! He'd gotten his ass kicked by a bunch of girls! What was going on with this island, anyway? The town elder is a woman, the soldiers are girls, and the whole shebang is named after a dead avatar, also a chick. Was this place like the polar opposite of the rest of the world? Was up down and left right? Yeah right, he thought to himself. And flying boars swim.

Sokka's instincts turned out to be spot on, because eventually, a modest spread came up the stairs in the arms of his sister and Aang. "I mean, I know it's nice to not have to get eaten by the Unagi and all, but is it really alright to just take this stuff?" Aang asked nervously. "I mean, I can't sell 'being the Avatar', can I?"

"They wanted to give you food because you gave them hope," Katara said evenly. "It's a fair trade. A lot of people lived their whole lives without any glimmer of hope that the Avatar would return. You gave these people something precious."

Aang crossed his legs under him, but shook his head. "It still feels... weird." he scratched at his head, as if trying to pick the words out of where they'd gotten stuck. "I mean, I'm just a simple monk. I never thought I'd be famous or anything. I'm not sure if I'm up to this whole 'fame and fortune' business."

"Don't worry, Aang. We'll be right there with you, to help you figure everything out," Katara said warmly. "Aren't you going to eat, Sokka? It looks great."

"Not hungry," Sokka declared. Well, pouted, actually.

"But you're always hungry," Aang pointed out.

"Oh, he's just upset because he got captured by a girl."

"Three girls! And I'm not upset! And they snuck up on me!" Sokka belted, knowing that he wasn't helping his case, but his ego wouldn't let this slide.

"Right. They snuck up on you, _then_ they captured you," she said, far-too-sweetly.

"Sneak attacks don't count! Even a child can hit you in the head if you're not looking at them!" he said, starting to pace.

"So you're saying that you've lost against children, too?"

"I was outnumbered!" Sokka shouted. "There were, like, eight of them!"

"There were only three girls," Aang said, confused.

"He's talking about something that happened a few months ago," Katara helpfully pointed out.

"Oooooh," Aang said, before letting out a laugh. It made Sokka growl.

"Well, I'll show them, who's a real warrior and who's just playing dress-up," Sokka declared. He turned to leave, but his nose betrayed him. He turned, reached down, and scooped up a goodly portion of the food that had been laid out. "Man needs a full stomach," he muttered to himself, beginning to eat as he went. "...yeah this is really tasty."

Behind him, out of his gaze, Aang gave Katara a baffled look. She shrugged, with a grunt which roughly said 'I dunno', before they began to eat as well.

* * *

><p>The building seemed to be painted with two different brushes. The first was bright, garish, with muted greens and brown trim, set off against vibrant crimson and yellow as though to assault the senses. It could have been any building of affluence in all of the East Continent, well, except for the fact that it was quite a bit larger than most that people lived in. More unusual was the fact that for all its size, only two people lived there, or at least, lived there permanently. He had already been seen in by the younger, but she lost interest in him almost instantly. He didn't exactly know why. The older was sitting before him now, and was the reason for the second palette. Over and under and around all of that contrasting drab and garish, the subdued art, the simple mats and benches and tables, there was such a blizzard of colors and motion that he had first stopped to stare in wonder at it.<p>

It had very briefly bothered Sharif that everybody else seemed inured to the otherworldly beauty of this place, where the spirits swirled around one human being and rested just outside the Inner Sphere.

"I'm glad to see you're enjoying my hospitality," Wu said. "Truth be told, I thought you might be in a bit of trouble. Your steed doesn't look in the best of health."

"Oh, don't worry about Patriarch," Sharif said easily, leaning aside to let a flow of void spirits past him. Utterly unnecessary, since he was a man of flesh, and they spirit, but he knew that in their own, unusual way, they appreciated the gesture. She had more void spirits around her than any human Sharif had ever seen. "He's lived a good life. He's got lots of stories."

"I don't doubt he has," Wu said kindly. She was an older woman, grey streaking along her hair. She also had a tendency toward wearing far too much makeup, but he couldn't fault her for it. "He did give the farriers some difficulty, though."

"He's never been shoed before. He thought they were trying to wrangle him. Don't worry, I explained things to him," Sharif said idly, before continuing to eat in earnest. His food had run out yesterday, so he was at a state beyond usual hunger.

"You share an odd bond with that creature," Wu said. She tilted her head for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to be a shaman, would you?"

"Everybody says no," Sharif answered.

"So you don't see the spirit world?"

Sharif paused for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Can you see the spirits?"

"Can't you?" he asked, also earnestly. Wu rose a brow, but he was already setting back to the task of eating. Patriarch had, at the very least, made the trip interesting. He'd hate to think what he'd have had to do if he was walking alone. He felt her fingers trace the furrowed line of the scar on his forehead. "Stop that. It tickles."

"How did you get this?"

"I don't remember," Sharif answered honestly, his face pulling into distant and futile concentration. "Mother said it was only a few years ago, but I don't really know what happened."

Wu nodded for a moment, then slowly got to her feet. "I you don't mind, I would like to try something."

Sharif motioned for her to go ahead, and she shuffled off into a side room. He leaned back, feeling as his food settled into his belly and quelling the hunger pangs he had felt for an uncomfortably long time. As he was doing so, he came face to face with something orange, small, and furry. "What are you doing here? You're far from home," he said.

"**I follow knowledge,**" the fox answered.

Sharif nodded. Of course it did. The foxes always followed knowledge. That was their duty to Wan Shi Tong. "So where are you going?"

"**I follow knowledge.**"

"Well, good luck," Sharif said, managing not to become annoyed by its limited ability to respond. As he was turning away, a new question came to him. The fox had almost exited the room, walking straight through a wall, and Sharif let out a low whistle. The cunning face turned back toward him. "Who's knowledge?"

"**The Four-Soul Mind,**" the fox answered. Sharif didn't have the first clue what that meant. "**The lightning shows the way.**"

"Oh... Well, good luck," Sharif said.

"Good luck with what?" Wu answered as she returned, a box of something in her hands.

"Just seeing the fox off," Sharif said serenely. Wu let out a chuckle at that.

"There haven't been foxes in the East Continent for centuries. Choose one, please," she said. Sharif reached into the box and extracted a long sliver of bone, delicately etched with a symbol he didn't understand on it. "Ah, a destiny rod. Set it onto the fire, and we will see what the future holds for you."

Sharif dutifully did as the older woman said, and they waited, as fire played along its narrow length. He quickly grew bored and started picking at his ears and lazily watching the spirits as they swirled around the room. The void in particular were ablur with activity. He wondered what was up with that. It might be rude to interrupt them to ask, though.

Finally, there was a slight pop, and she extracted the bone from the fire with a pair of tongs. She looked it over for a moment, but got a concerned expression on her face. She set it down, looked through a tome of some sort, then held the box up again. "Please, take another, and set it on the fire."

Sharif quickly plucked a second rod out, and found it had the same symbol on it. He set it on the fire. This time, it was barely on for a few seconds before it emitted a pop and a lattice of fine fissures sprouted across its surface. She picked it up and set it down beside the first. She then held the box up a third time. "Again, please," and he did as she asked. This time, the instant it was out of his fingers, there was a pop. This time, he had been watching. As soon as the bone left his hand, a void spirit burst into motes of nothingess, spreading over the bone. It was behavior he had never seen in the usually aloof and uninvolved void.

"This is... something I have never seen before in my entire life," she said. "You know what the people of Makapu value me for?" Sharif shook his head. "I am a fortune teller. I have been for many years. My predictions always ring true."

"Oh, that explains all of the void spirits!" Sharif said brightly. Wu raised a brow for a moment, but did not chastise him. "I'm sorry, what was..."

"As I was saying, I have seen thousands of different fortunes. I employ osteomancy, as you have seen, and nephomancy, the study of clouds, as well as lithomancy. Many have condemned me as a firebender, or a renegade airbender, or a lazy earthbender. I just see the signs, and know their importance. But I have never had three lots of sortilege drawn and cracked, and had _exactly the same answer_ all three times."

"What are they telling you?"

Wu looked up, a sober look on her face. "That you live in dangerous times. That you will stand with your toes to the abyss and face down the heart of darkness. That doom and horror will follow in your wake, and peril will set your path. A family torn apart will be restored, a family whole will be rent asunder. This is a danger that is beyond my ability to say for good or ill, young wanderer. If you fight in this battle, you may not survive it."

Sharif swallowed nervously. "Are you sure it was me?"

She turned the bones over and sighed. "You... but not you alone," she said. She laid a comforting hand on Sharif's shoulder. It was sort of like how Mother used to do it when he'd wake up screaming, after the scar. Firm, warm, solid. "There is something else that I have not seen yet. Perhaps in time I will understand this portrait better."

* * *

><p>Sokka slid the door open and peered inside the dojo, just as the whole clique of women finished their movement, snapping open a bevy of metal fans. He got a smirk on his face as he sauntered in on the painted-faced girls, limbering up his arms. He'd been looking for a place like this, but this was all Kyoshi Island had to offer. "Oh, sorry ladies," Sokka said, letting his hands flare out and give a placating gesture. "Didn't mean to interrupt your little dance lesson."<p>

"Dance lesson?" one of them asked with a shocked tone.

"Zhen," Suki's voice was calm, flat, and silenced the other girl.

"I was just looking for some place to do a workout, and this was all I had to work with. So why don't you all clear some room for a real man to get some exercising done?"

Suki smiled then, though it was tight and not particularly sweet. "Well, I must say you've come to the right place. Come on in. We'll just... get out of your way."

She gestured in, and Sokka took his place in the center of the dojo. It was very bright, for all it lacked torches or sconces. He picked up the fairly pathetic lifting-weight that the girls were using and cast a glance over his shoulder. The girls were all as impassive and unmoving as a forest of dolls. He started working with it, anyway. It wasn't long, though, until he could hear the tittering of girls' voices behind him, and a smug smirk began to spread across his face.

"Say," Suki said, suddenly directly behind him. He managed to hide his yelp of alarm, but only just. "I do feel I should apologize for this morning. We hadn't realized you were friends with the Avatar."

"Well, me and my sister were pretty surprised when we found out... although, actually, so was Aang. Kinda sideswiped the lot of us," Sokka shrugged. "But you're forgiven. I mean, there's not much point holding a grudge against a bunch of little girls, is there?"

"Little girls?" the one at the front, Zhen, said again.

"Zhen..." Suki said over her shoulder. Zhen stewed. When she turned back, there was a smoky smile on her face. "Well, aren't we lucky, then, to have a big strong man like you to keep us all safe from the big bad Fire Nation?"

Now, Sokka was many things, but a keen detector of female sarcasm? Not. Especially once his pride kicked his common sense out of the helmsman's stoop and put hands to the tiller. "Well, you all have nothing to worry about. I _am_ the best warrior in my entire village, after all," not mentioning that he was exiled from said village. That was an embarrassment that he felt no desire to share.

"Best? Must have gotten that by def..."

"Zhen, leave," Suki said flatly.

"But!"

"Now," Suki stressed, and Zhen let out a growl of anger before stomping away.

"Yeah, thanks for that. She really didn't know her place," Sokka said.

There was just an instant where she was about to scowl, but it became a sultry smile before he could notice it. "Best warrior in your entire village, hm? Maybe you could give us a little demonstration of those phenomenal skills?"

"What are a bunch of girls going to do with my skills?" Sokka asked. She gave him bunny eyes and he let out a put-upon sigh. "I really don't want to hurt any of you so..."

"Oh come on," she said. She turned to the other white-faced girls. "Don't you all want to see what the great warrior is capable of?"

A chorus of affirmatives spurred his smugness to a tipping point. "Fine, fine," Sokka said. "If that's what you really want, then who am I to say no? Suki, you just stand right there," Sokka took a step back, and readied a punch. "And it might be tough, but try to block this!"

Sokka let out his warrior's cry, and cast that fist forward... and found himself twisting away, a sharp pain in his shoulder. He let out a yelp and staggered back. Suki, ever so calmly, lowered the closed fan that she'd rebuked him with. "So difficult," she confirmed flatly.

"Yeah, well, I was just going easy on ya', you know, so I could know what you were capable of," he said, somewhat disingenuously. "Let's see how you handle this!"

Sokka threw himself at her again, a cry on his lips, only to find her slide through his nascent flurry, to plant both fists into his stomach, and then with surprising leverage and power, push backward, casting Sokka right off of his feet. When he popped back up, outrage flowed through him. How dare they? They were just a bunch of girls! What did they know about fighting? Suki just stood there, calm as you please, without even the decency to look amused. The girls in the back saw no end tot he comedy, however, and that made his blood boil. Nobody makes a fool of Sokka!

"That does it," Sokka said, and ran at Suki. Once again, she almost looked bored as he bore down on her. But as he tried to grab her, to put her into those clever locks that Dad had taught him all those years ago, she just wasn't there anymore. He felt something tug at him, and he turned, before running toward her again. He made it one step before his pants fell down. His cry of wrath quickly curdle, and even faster when she grabbed his arm, twisted it back painfully, and kicked his entangled feet out from under him. He landed face first on the ground, and before he even got the stars out of his eyes, he felt a knot pull tight on his wrist... and ankle. She hogtied him, with his own belt!

Suki walked in front of him, finally smiling again, and this time, even Sokka couldn't mistake her expression for anything but condescension. "Was there anything else you wanted to show us?" she asked, snapping open a metal fan. Sokka buried his face in the floor, if only to hide as he flushed darkly with embarrassment.

Beaten by girls.

Oh, there would be no living this one down.

* * *

><p>Azula tapped her nails, long and sharp as her wit needed to be, against the rail as the crane ever-so-slowly rotated and dumped its load of coal into the hoppers which fed the engines. She could sense, as much as see, Zuzu standing vigil nearby. She didn't say a word, though. She wouldn't acknowledge his presence right now. Everything she had must be put into the hunt. She knew where the Avatar was. She <em>knew<em> it was right. She _knew_ he was weak, distracted. She _knew_ she would face him again. But time, as everything else in her life, seemed to stack against her. How ironic that she had once been considered the luckier of the children of Ozai?

"Azula, you should rest. Glaring at the dock workers isn't going to make them work any faster," Zuko pointed out.

"If I don't watch them, then they will slack off, and we will miss our opportunity," Azula countered. Zuko sighed, but didn't press his point. Years on this accursed ship, waiting for this glorious moment. Drifting, shiftless and directionless. But that was changing, now. If only these peasants would shift their collective asses and get their job done! She clenched her hand into a fist, her fingernails cutting into her palm, as she emitted a growl and stomped toward the gangway. Zuko raised a protest, but her golden-eyed glare silenced him... or at least, made him wait for a better opportunity, because he quietly started to follow her. She left the familiar and unloved sensation of slowly bobbing on the tides and returned to solid land, and marched into the face of the foreman of these lazy, shiftless workers.

"Why is this taking so long?" she demanded.

"We can only work so fast. Our main crane is broken and this one doesn't have much left in her either," he said, not even looking her in the eye, instead scanning along lines which were tacked to a piece of board.

"You impudent peon! Do you have any idea who I am?" she demanded. He looked up at that, a bit confused, and an equal measure annoyed.

"A preferred client who is getting preferential treatment," he answered. "Are you going to stand here and try to knock heads with fate? Because that'll be a lot more useful that shouting at anybody under my watch."

"Which is why I'm yelling at you," Azula said.

"Azula, come on. Let the man do his job."

"No, he isn't doing his job, obviously, or we would be refueled and gone by now!" Azula countered. Zuko, though, turned to the foreman.

"Why is the machinery here in such disrepair?" he asked.

"All the money goes toward building new ships, not maintaining the ones we have," he answered with a sigh. "Especially not in occupied territory. Agni's blood, and I thought Ozai was supposed to be better than his father was."

"Ozai is twice the Fire Lord Azulon was," Azula snapped.

"And half the Fire Lord we need," the foreman finished.

Azula gaped for a moment, before her face darkened with wrath. "How dare you, you trait..."

"Azula, please," Zuko said, dragging her out of her tirade before she could even get sufficient momentum to become unstoppable. Damn it, Zuko! He got an easy smile on his face, false, she was well aware, but disarming nonetheless. "Forgive my sister. She has strong feelings about the current leadership."

"Everybody's got a right to their opinion," he said, his bright grey eyes looking over the ship. "We'll likely be done in about an hour. If you think that's too long, take it up with the Viceroy, once Fire Lord Ozai ever gets around to choosing one."

"Much obliged," Zuko said.

"What is your name, stranger?"

"Lee," Zuko lied. Azula cast a glance to Zuko. "Please, do your job. The rest is in the hands of Agni."

Zuko turned away, walking along the wharf, and Azula stormed after him. "You kowtow to some peasant?" she asked.

"Distracting him would consume time he would better spend getting our ship restocked," Zuko pointed out evenly.

Azula had to see the logic in that, even if she was still angry enough to twist an iron bar into knots. "And what was this 'Lee' nonsense?"

"Zuko is the Prince. Nobody has that name but me. There are a million Lee's in West, another million Li's in the East, and a few hundred thousand Leigh's here in Great Whales. Azula's about as ubiquitous a name as you'll find in Azul. No reason to give Zhao a trail to follow, as I see it."

She stewed at that. He had a point. A good point. And she hated that she hadn't thought of it first. Damn this infernal confusion, damn this doubt, and thrice-damn this illness of her mind! She had to be better than this. "So you have things well in hand. I'm surprised that you even bother listening to me if I can't get even something this simple right."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Zuko consoled. "If the Avatar is really on that island, then you need to be focused so that we can capture him. And if he isn't, then no harm done. We know he has to go North eventually, since he'll find no masters here."

Azula looked around, and for a moment, there was a cloud of doubt in her eyes. Not that she could do what she needed to; there was utter certainty of that. No, the doubt was about... this. For some reason, every fiber of her being told her that all of this wasn't right. That something about this dock, this wharf, this town, didn't belong here. But it was just another unwanted fancy of a diseased mind. An unwanted fancy that she luckily had the strength of will to ignore. If only all of her problems were so easily dealt with. Zuko stopped at a fishmonger, and half-mindedly pointed out a few admittedly impressive and tasty looking specimens.

"We have good reason to hide from Zhao," Zuko pointed out. "He's fixated on you to an unhealthy degree. You heard him, he thinks you're precognitive. And that's just ridiculous. There's no such thing as precognition."

The vendor boxed Zuko's fish, and turned to the prince with a smile. "Thank you. Oh, have you heard the news? They say the Avatar is on Kyoshi Island!"

Zuko went pale, his jaw dropped. He turned, the most hilarious stunned expression on his face. Azula answered him with the most smug smirk that she was capable of producing, as she tapped her fingers against her crossed arm. He looked down at the fish, then to the east, before back to Azula. He then pointed somewhat listlessly off to the side.

"We should... probably get back to the ship," Zuko said, his voice flat and a bit hollow.

"That's a good boy," Azula said, patting his shoulder before moving ahead of him. Zuko would learn, sooner or later, to doubt her at his own peril. The Avatar was on Kyoshi Island, yes... but not for long. Because soon one or the other wouldn't be. She would see to that.

She felt quite a bit better about herself as she strode back toward the ship.

* * *

><p>Sokka was muttering to himself outside. He hated this. He hated being beaten by a bunch of girls. He hated being beaten by one girl on her own even more. But what burned hottest, harshest, and brightest out of all that? Sokka hated being wrong. But the problem with hating being wrong, was that it made sure you kept being wrong. That was why Sokka was here, fighting a tug-of-war between pride and sensibility. He kicked a rock, and let out a yelp which cut into his dark grumbling as it painfully stubbed his toe. Some days, it seemed like the universe just had it in for him. And it was the last sign that he needed to make up his mind. What sort of warrior was he? He was half-trained at best. It was time he admitted that to himself.<p>

With a sigh, Sokka moved toward the door of Ohka's dojo and slid it open. Within, still training even with the sun setting behind the hills, was Suki, their leader. He felt a shard of hesitation press at his spine like a dagger made of ice. Every shard of his manliness told him to not do this. Every shard of his common sense kicked his manliness in the face with an iron boot. He let out a nervous chuckle. "Uh... Hi, Suki," Sokka said with a weak wave. Suki broke off of a rapid kata to stare at him, her expression invisible behind the makeup. But she didn't mock, jeer... she just watched, as though watching an uninteresting bird standing on a roof eave.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Trying to interrupt another dancing lesson?"

"No... well, I can explain that," Sokka said uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. She raised a brow at this, crossing her arms before her armored breast.

"Then do so," she pressed neutrally. Man, she was a weird chick. Come on, show some sort of emotion! Even annoyance, like you did that first time! "What do you want from us?"

Swallowing his pride, Sokka lowered himself to the floor, kneeling before Suki. "I wish to learn to fight as you do," he said. He heard a surprised grunt, and when he glanced up, he beheld a genuinely surprised expression on Suki's face. She obviously hadn't judged him capable of this. Well, Sokka just lived to defy expectations. "I would be honored if you would teach me."

"Even if I'm 'just some chick'?" she said sarcastically, tapping a foot on the ground.

"I'm... a bit of an ass sometimes," Sokka admitted. "My mouth goes faster than my brain sometimes, and I have a bad tendency of putting my foot into the former and the latter up another part of my anatomy. I shouldn't have said any of that."

She now regarded him like some interesting bird on a roof eave. "Teach you. You might have noticed that all of the Kyoshi Warriors were women? It, like using non-benders, was a conscious choice by Kyoshi's daughter Koko. Do you expect us to reverse all of that?"

Sokka sighed with defeat. "I understand. I can't make you turn against your traditions for some outsider. I'll just leave," he said.

"Wait a second," Suki said quickly. "Just because you can't be a Kyoshi Warrior doesn't mean you can't learn something. You've already proved me wrong once today, since I'd pegged you as a sexist, feather-brained idiot who would sulk the rest of his stay here away. Perhaps you may surprise me yet again?"

A grin stretched across Sokka's face, and he lowered himself into a fighting stance. "Alright, so how do we do this?"

Suki tapped her closed fan against her arm. "First of all, your stance," she said.

"What's wrong with my stance?" Sokka asked.

"You're too low. Ordinarily low is good, but you're power low. That's almost earthbending low. You need to be mobile low. Not to get power from the legs, but to have maneuverability from a stance. Like this," she took up a stance of her own, which was almost like standing uninterested, leaning forward ever so slightly. Sokka emulated it. "From this, you can move in any direction. Try to hit me."

"Do I have to?" Sokka said. "I don't like hitting a girl."

Suki answered by hurling her fan and braining Sokka with it. He blinked away stars in his eyes. She smirked at him. "How about now?"

"I'm not going to be able to hit you," Sokka pointed out.

"Not the point. The point is to try, and learn from why you can't," Suki answered. Sokka shrugged, then honestly tried to get a grip on her. But the punches were easily shifted past, her feet not even lifting from the floor, just a bend at the hips and knees. When he tried to grab her, she took one step back, levering his arm down and almost hurling him face first into the floor. "You fight with your own strength. Plenty of styles use that. Ours uses our enemy's strength."

"What?"

"Using the opponent's strength against him is a valuable skill. One you'd do well to learn," she said. She released Sokka, and he staggered back, rubbing his shoulder which now ached from her abuse of it. "I can show you a few things, but you will have to adhere to our traditions. All of them."

"Meaning?" Sokka asked. She turned, reached down, and threw a dress at him. He stared at her. "You're nuts, you know that?"

"Put it on," Suki said, smirking. Sokka rolled his eyes, then started disrobing. Her eyes went wide at that. "What, here?"

"Why not?" he asked, dropping his pants. She blushed hard enough that he could see it right through the makeup on her face, although he couldn't see why. It wasn't like he was even naked. He stepped into the dress and started pulling it up. "I don't see the point of this. It's all... girly."

"It's not girly," Suki said, still facing away. "It's a warrior's garment."

"Really?" Sokka asked.

Of course, the universe couldn't resist an opportunity to mess with him, because at that exact moment, his sister popped her head into the dojo, and let out a loud laugh. "Hey there, big sister," she said. "Nice dress."

Sokka glared at Katara as she chuckled to herself, settling against the doorframe. "I will not kill my sister. I will not kill my sister," Sokka muttered to himself.

"Is he dressed yet?" Suki asked. Oh, this was going to be a _wonderful_ day.

* * *

><p>"Here's one that I've been working on for a little while now," Aang said, squatting down before his audience of children, most of whom aged between six and ten. He gave a whistle to the lemur that he'd taken to calling 'Momo' over the last few days, and the little creature swooped down and rummaged through Aang's kavi, which elicited no few titters of laughter from the audience. Not Aang's intended effect, obviously, but it made them happy, and the lemur quickly deposited a handful of marbles into Aang's palm. He pressed both hands together, taking a calming breath, then opened his hands, and the marbles now spun at incredible speed in an intricate pattern between his palms.<p>

"ooooooooh," was the most common reaction. Katara couldn't help but smile at the whole affair, though. A few days ago, he had been hiding in Ohka's upper room, too uncomfortable with the whole 'he's the Avatar' thing to even face people. But time passed, and he started talking to people. Seeing the effect just his very presence had to this beleaguered place. Within hours of Aang's arrival, they were repainting the statue of Kyoshi for the first time in a century. Within a few more, people were lining up outside the house trying to get in and see him, be blessed by him, even simply touch him. One of them got so excited that he frothed at the mouth and collapsed into an insensate heap the moment Aang stepped past the threshold. That pushed him back into a dark corner for hours. But still, he glanced toward her, finally noticing her presence, and got to his feet.

"I've got to go for a while, alright?"

"But you just got here, Aangy!" one of the girls complained.

"It's alright. In a way, I'm right here with you," he said, casting a hand toward the statue of Kyoshi. The girl took that with an ounce of bewilderment, but Aang was already moving spritely toward her.

"Aangy?" Katara asked with amusement, as she shifted her grip on the basket. Aang instantly took it from her grasp and balanced it neatly atop his crown. Aang shrugged, and the two of them started walking. "Although, I have to admit, it's nice seeing you have fun again. You were sort of in a bad way for a while, there."

"Yeah, I know," Aang admitted. "There's a lot of stuff that I've had to deal with. I mean, why do _I_ have to be the Avatar? What did I do to earn this kind of responsibility?" he paused, looking across the village. "But that doesn't really matter, does it. I am what I am. And you know something? It's not really that bad. These people have hope again for the first time in years, and it's all because of me. Well, what I am, anyway," he said, scratching his bald pate.

"You _are_ spending a lot of time out here with these people," Katara pointed out lightly. Aang grinned.

"What, are you jealous?" he asked with a grin.

"Jealous of what?" Katara asked. Aang feigned a wound and a look of shock. "I just hope this doesn't all go to your head. Considering how far the North Pole is already, I shudder to think what'll happen if you have to stop to stoke your ego every time we land Appa."

"I'm not going to be that bad," Aang said brightly. "I like helping people. There's nothing wrong with that."

Katara couldn't help but agree with that point. And in his way, he had. The entire village had reawakened in the last few days. The Kyoshi Warriors, once stone faced and introverted, now laughed like the girls they were as Appa licked one of them hard enough to send her flat on her back. This had been an island steeped in paranoid fear for far too long. In a way, it was kinda like home. Oh, now didn't that just sting at the heart. Banished from the land of her birth. She would never get used to that. A part of her would have dearly loved to hate Aang for putting her in this position, sending her to this place. But she just couldn't. He was too bright, too innocent, too... good.

"You never did say where we're going next," Katara asked. "I mean, we've been all over the place down here in the south, but we have to head north eventually."

"Well, Omashu is to the northeast, and we just _have_ to visit there," Aang said. "From there, we can just follow the west coast all the way to the Heel of Ru Nan. Clear sailing from there!"

"What's in Omashu?" Katara asked. Then, after a moment to ponder, she amended her question. "What is Omashu?"

"A city. A great, earthbender city. You'll love it," Aang said. She let out an exasperated sigh, and shook her head. He had an enthusiasm that would either elevate or enervate a person. She was hard pressed to decide which it was. She glanced back toward the water, far behind them, and for a split second, she could have sworn she saw something move out there. Just a flicker of darkness near the sweeping cliffs, before it vanished from sight.

"Did you see that?" Katara asked. Aang turned suddenly, having to steady the basket of food atop his head when he did so. He peered with those keen grey eyes of his out into the bay, but he let out a cluck of the tongue which sufficed for his current inability to nod nor shake his head. "Maybe it was just the Unagi."

"I don't know why they put up with that thing," Aang said. "I mean, I'm all for letting animals have their way, but that thing's a menace!"

"It keeps big ships away," Katara pointed out. "It's good for their privacy."

"It shouldn't have to be like this," Aang said, his tones growing oddly dark for him. "People shouldn't have to live in fear."

"Well, maybe now that you're back, they won't have to."

Aang let out a sigh, not defeated, but tired, and the rest of their walk back to their temporarily overtaken abode was made in silence.

* * *

><p>The thin scrap of parchment slid easily into the tube, which her tattooed fingers slid onto the bird's back with an efficiency born of years of practice. Falconry was widely considered a Fire Nation art, but she had learned that it had utility that she refused to abandon. She pulled the hood from the bird, and shooed it out the window, noting how the brown and red bird flapped vigorously toward the north. The one before had gone a much shorter distance, and to the south. Truth be told, she was rapidly running out of reasons to put this off. She had already contacted everybody... well, everybody but one, and he was notoriously hard to get into contact with.<p>

Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar rubbed her hands together, feeling how dry and callused they were. They were a fighter's hands, pure and simple. When she came back, fifteen years ago, the people reviled her. No great surprise, considering it was nursing a head-wound, and eight months pregnant. Even had she not born a pair of bastard twins – whom all considered a portent of infidelity atop her lechery, mostly because they had no conception that _twins didn't work that way!_ – her cold, rough manner, hard hands, and incisive eyes practically assured that she would remain unwed. As well jump and touch the moon as alter that, though; she had neither inclination nor motivation to change. She had better things to worry about.

She turned back to the stairs, heading down toward her study. She paused briefly, looking into the higher of the two rooms Nila had claimed for her own. This one was darkened, its shutters nailed closed, and cluttered almost to the point where there was no easy entrance. Sativa looked at that room, and listened. Nothing. Not the quiet words that Nila always muttered to herself when she was concentrating. Not the formless and rambling song that Sharif would hum, or outright sing, any time he was alone. The house was silent. She let out a quiet sigh, vanishing into that silence. It had been a very long time since this house had been silent. She didn't quite like that.

Sativa turned away from Nila's laboratory, and headed down to the lower floor. Fifteen years in this house. Well, thirteen, with all of her absences tallied in. It had been a cruelty to leave Nila and Sharif alone those years past, and for so long. But the Dragon of the West was rampaging unchecked, and even managed to penetrate the Impenetrable City, a feat even Chin the Conqueror couldn't match. They needed somebody capable of throwing him back. And it was about damned time when they finally put her in charge of those incompetents and let her do the job that needed doing.

She looked at the banner, which spread across her wall. Two of them, in fact. The higher was her battle standard, the ring of green chain against red. That was something she earned years upon years ago, back during her youth. But it was that which hung below it, the white flower against black, that gave her a greater sense of accomplishment. Which was she? The simplest answer was that she was both. But she feared that soon, they would be coming into conflict. She reached up, and pulled her standard, won in blood and battle, and draped it across her desk. She shook her head. Then she spun and hurled a dagger from her thigh toward the doorway.

A metal ping sounded sharply in the room, as the blade was batted aside by a narrow knife-edge shield of metal. A smirk came to Sativa's face. "Most would have dodged that," she said smoothly. "Very few could have parried it. Welcome to my home, Piandao."

The man rose to his full stance, his head almost brushing the ceiling, and sheathed his midnight black sword. The gulf in heights between the master of the house and the visitor was immense, well over a foot of difference. "I was beginning to think you would never invite me," he answered, with a smirk of his own. She nodded toward her desk, and he quickly spun a chair toward it.

"I was going to write to you, but it seems that the practice has become more or less moot," Sativa pointed out. "Come. Share kaffe with me."

"I would prefer tea," Piandao said.

"I have kaffe."

"Very well," he answered, rubbing at his untended beard. In all, he was a much more ragged person that she remembered, back all those years before. But then, the last few years had not been kind to quite a few people, Piandao included. While he was somewhat scruffy of appearance, he was not dirty; Piandao wouldn't allow that of himself, even in exile. But his clothes were tatters, and his skin was almost as dark as hers, for it had seen much sun and exposure in recent years. He was a rough man, now. He had to be. He took a cup of kaffe and sipped at it, giving it a twisting of his face in displeasure. "Hm. More bitter than I'm used to."

"Beggars shouldn't be choosers." Sativa answered. She leaned back in her seat. "It has been a long time, since we met face to face."

"Indeed. Not since that night..."

"But now isn't the time to think about that," Sativa tried to divert him, but he got a focused expression.

"I've done the math, Sati," she stared at him. "I deserve to know, so please, tell me. Who is it?"

She let out a sigh. "To tell the truth, I have done the math as well. Nila, my daughter, is already as tall as I am, and she still has years of growing. That excludes _the pig_ out of hand. With him out of contention, that leaves the Tribesman, or you."

"So I could be their..."

"I make no claims, as I didn't then," Sativa cut him off. "And _that is all_ that topic needs discussing. I thought I would have to find you. Since I do not, that makes things significantly easier for all parties involved."

Piandao leaned forward. "Did you really send them away?" he asked.

"I didn't have to," Sativa said. "Sharif did what the Grand Lotus said he would, and I knew that Nila would follow after him. I didn't expect that she would drag her heels quite so drastically, but I made sure to spur her. She will be a fine woman, if I have to drag her, kicking and screaming, into it."

"You sound like you're proud of them," Piandao said.

"Of course I am. They are my children," she said. "Why did you come to me, Piandao?"

"The North. It's not holding out," Piandao said. "I spoke to the Grand Lotus in the North. Liberal estimates state that the North will fall by the end of winter. We're losing ground at an alarming rate, Sativa. Something has to be done."

She nodded. "To think, two decades ago, I could fight at their side. Now, it is war to the last man. What has become of this world?"

"A people governed by a warrior become a people of warriors. Their lives, thus governed, inevitably become harsh, brutish, violent, and short, because that is the only way that a warrior king can hold his throne," Piandao said.

"Ozai is no warrior king," Sativa said, rising from her chair. "He's too cunning. He's not building some fragile empire of personality. If he wins, he could build an eternal empire of Fire."

"Then we must ensure he fails," Piandao said, raising his glass, but not drinking from it. He paused for a moment. "You must have heard the news."

"What news is this?" she asked.

"The Avatar has returned," Piandao said, setting that cup aside. "Perhaps things will not be so grim as I fear. If the Avatar can be brought to our side..."

"That is assuming the Avatar is not a firebender. If he or she is a waterbender, then she is trapped. If an earthbender, then that will be for the best. But I doubt we can last the fifteen or sixteen years for the child to grow," she said.

Piandao smiled then, a cunning smile behind a straggly beard. "Oh, but that his the best part. The Avatar is not an infant. He is an airbender."

"An airbender?" she asked. She considered for a long moment, as the knowns and estimates of the entire World War shifted in her mind. And when they ceased, there was an almost audible clunk. "This is momentous news," she said. "We need to leave."

"I thought..."

"No," she said, dismissing their shared and now irrelevant plan. "We need to inform the others of this change of plans immediately. An airbender Avatar changes everything. And as soon as the word is out, we must set out ourselves."

"To what end?"

"Wan Shi Tong," she said, quite simply, and Piandao turned a bit grey at that. "It is our only option."

"That doesn't make it a good one, Sati," he pointed out. "But I swear you will not have to undertake it alone."

She smiled, for a moment. "Always such a gentleman," she cooed.

"A man should always treat a woman well," Piandao said.

"Now go and shave. You look like a bandit," Sativa pointed into the lavatory.

"Yes, ma'am," the swordsman said with a tone of sarcasm. By the gods, it was good to see old friends. Even if she didn't show it on her face.

* * *

><p>"They didn't see us," Zuko announced, setting the spyglass back onto its rack. "Otherwise, there would have been some response. We have them completely unawares."<p>

"Good," Azula said, limbering her back in the red and black, two piece armor that left her muscular midriff bare. While the armor was utterly ridiculous for any serious combat, and would have been an invitation of effortless murder if worn against an earthbender, she knew what her opponent was capable of. Against an airbender opponent, or a waterbender, she required absolute flexibility. Armor would get in the way. "Saddle the rhinos. We attack at once."

Zuko glanced back to her. "What rhinos?" he asked. She glared at him. "We put those off two months ago. We couldn't afford to keep feeding them."

"Are we that impoverished that we cannot maintain _three_ Komodo Rhinos?" she asked caustically.

"In a word, yes," Zuko said. "That coal in our burners means we're going to be eking out our dinners with fish for a while."

She ground her teeth. "If we have no rhinos, what was all that noise below decks?"

Zuko uncomfortably ran his fingers through his hair. "Uncle is trying to start a 'music night'. It's going about as well as you'd expect."

"So no rhinos. Fine. The two of us will be able to capture the Avatar ourselves," Azula declared.

"And if they have allies?"

She gave him a wan glance. "Please, like the rising star of the Burning Court would have problems with a few villagers?"

Zuko sighed. "Be that as it may, what about you?"

"I'll improvise," she said simply. After a silent moment where he stood stock still, she let out a growl. "Well? Are we going to stand there or are we going to capture the Avatar?"

Zuko rolled his eyes, and made his way down into the bowels of the ship. Had she really not been below in two months? Time seemed to keep slipping away from her. And it infuriated her. Maybe, when the Avatar was in chains, and she was restored to her rightful place, she would finally be able to shake that sense of being unshackled from herself, of flapping in the storm. That was her hope, at least. She paused as she strode toward the stairwell, and threw open a door which she could hear snoring behind. She shoved the door hard, letting its clang startle the old man out of his slumber, if only momentarily. Uncle turned toward her, glancing to her with only one golden eye. "We're going to catch the Avatar," she stated.

"I see," Uncle said, before turning back toward the wall. Around a yawn, he continued. "Try to be home before dinner."

It beggared her imagination how her father could be related to _that_.

* * *

><p>"Alright, now don't try to block, just force me to move past you," Suki said. She lashed forward without any other indication, but this time, Sokka's body practically moved of its own accord, his arms sweeping up and his leg moving forward to tip her over and land her hard on her side. She took a moment to catch the breath which had been knocked from her, before shooting a glare at him. "I just did that to make you feel better."<p>

Sokka broke out into a wide, honest grin at that. "I got you! I totally got you, didn't I?" he cheered.

"Maybe."

"What was that? Did Sokka finally knock down the Kyoshi Warrior?" Sokka said, cupping a hand to his ear and leaning toward her. She made him regret doing that, when she grabbed his last two fingers and levered, pulling him painfully off of balance. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow..."

"Congratulations. You've finally proved yourself worthy of a first lesson," she said not unkindly, before releasing his hand. "Ordinarily, what you've shown is the base level requirement for training."

Sokka wilted at that. "So I'm not even as good as a first day student?"

"Our standards are what outsiders would call ridiculously high," Suki admitted. "With what you've shown, you could probably apply to any dojo in the East, and possibly enroll at Sergeant in an army."

"Really?"

"Kyoshi was an Avatar in an age of war, much like Aang is," she said. "Her legacy was, for the most part, martial."

"I still can't believe she lived to be two hundred and thirty," Sokka pointed out, rubbing his fingers to get the pain out of them.

"That's nothing. My mother is ninety."

Sokka stared at her. "You're kidding, right?"

"My older sister is a grandmother," she calmly stated.

"That makeup makes it very hard to tell if you're messing with me."

"That's part of the fun of it," Suki said flatly, a wry smirk on her face. "I trust you'll be here tomorrow? Perhaps the 'greatest warrior of the South Water Tribe' might actually have something to show us after all."

"Maybe," Sokka said, hauling the dress he was wearing over his head, using the motion to wipe the paint off of his own face. While it was undeniably and chaffingly girly to get all dolled up like that, he couldn't deny the results. That, and he thought Suki might have a thing for him. Maybe.

Or it could just be that he couldn't tell for the makeup.

"Do you _have_ to do that right here?" Suki asked, unease creeping into her voice.

"What?" Sokka asked, standing in his skivvies. "It's not like I'm even naked."

"You're close enough!" she squawked. "I swear, you Tribesmen are... weird!"

"How so?"

"Your sister bathed in the men's bath without batting an eyelash!"

"You have separate baths?" Sokka asked. He scratched at his head. "I guess that explains why Zhen chased me around with a bucket for an hour yesterday."

Suki just shook her head, probably consigning herself to whatever oddness she assigned to this situation. Sokka just couldn't get it. Between the close quarters and the sweat-tent being the only means of sanitation, Sokka had about as much call to being ashamed of nudity as a shaman did to be taken seriously.

"So what now? Dinner at Ohka's?" Sokka asked. Suki opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted when Zhen, her makeup in the process of application even as she spoke burst in on the scene. She cast one scandalized glance at Sokka, before shaking her head and facing Suki.

"Suki! There are firebenders in the village!" she said urgently as she painted red over white, creating the ghastly mask of black and white, eyes seeming to trail like flames or blood. "They've finally come!"

"How many?" Suki asked.

"Well, just two, but..."

"Two?" Sokka asked. "One of them a pale girl, kinda pretty, the other a dark haired guy, kinda man-pretty?"

"That... do you know them?"

"What are they doing here?" Sokka asked, confused. He shook his head and headed out to figure out for himself.

"What are you doing?" Zhen asked. "He can't go out without..."

"Nevermind that. Gather the girls," Suki said to Sokka's vanishing back. "It looks like the World War has finally landed on Kyoshi Island."

* * *

><p>The scene that lay before the Prince's eyes was one he didn't see often. Silence, stillness, and tension. Of course, he didn't have a tendency to announce at full lung who he was every time he happened across human civilization, so he found it relatively easy to go incognito. His black, red and gold armor, his flame-motifed helm, though, were currently doing the speaking for him. He gave a glance to his sister, who was scanning the street, wary as a cat in a hound kennel.<p>

"Far be it for me to doubt your hunch, but..." Zuko began.

"This is Kyoshi Island," Azula said sharply. "They are here. The Avatar is here."

"Well then, perhaps we should recruit some local assistance?" Zuko asked smugly.

"That's your answer for everything."

"Because it usually works."

"There are some days that I hate you, Zuzu."

Zuko gave his little sister a smirk, and took one aggressive step forward, before taking a deep breath, and letting his voice carry down the abandoned streets. "I am Prince Zuko, heir and plenipotentiary of the Fire Nation. You are harboring an enemy of the state and fugitive in your midst. Release him immediately, or face the consequences!"

Silence followed, broken only by the sound of the wind.

"Did they...?"

"They heard you," Azula answered. She took her place beside him, and joined him, her mocking tones projecting through the rows of buildings. "Do you really want us to go in there and look for him ourselves? I relish the opportunity. I dare say it would be..." she opened her hands, and globes of golden flames erupted in her palms. "...illuminating."

"That was terrible."

"Shut up, Zuzu."

A creak brought the attention of both royal siblings to a building not far away. A girl, maybe ten years old at the most, darted out, and hurled a mostly fileted fish at Zuko. He deftly bent aside, but that only served to see it slap Azula in the neck and drape along her shoulder. "Go away! You're a bad man!" the girl shouted.

Azula very slowly, very deliberately, pulled that fish of off her shoulder; even as she did, it began to spontaneously combust. "Zuzu here isn't a bad man. He's got too many rules. I don't."

"Azula..."

"Enough of this. The Avatar is some moon-eyed pacifist? Let's destroy his beloved peace."

And with that, she lashed out with a knife-handed chop, which sent an arc of flame directly into the thatched roof of the building the girl emerged from. The child let out a squeal of terror and ran back to the door, only to have it burst open and knock her off of her patio, as a woman ran out, carrying to younger children as she fled the destruction. Zuko grabbed his sister's arm and spun her to him. "Azula, what the hell are you doing?"

"Drawing out the prey," she said. "Some targets need to be flushed out."

No sooner had the words fled her mouth than Zuko felt something slam into the side of his head. It staggered him, and he clutched his helm, which had saved him from the worst of the blow, and looked to see where it had come from. Nobody was there. He dropped low, fists forming as he scanned the surroundings, Azula instantly taking his back. "Do you see them?"

"Look up, dum-dum," Azula chastised. When he shifted his gaze from the streets to the roofs, he could see them. Well, as much as they allowed themselves to be seen. Girls, clad in green and black, flashing down from above, surrounding them both. "That's it?" Azula then asked. "I thought you might have prepared a much finer reception for your future overlord."

"We do not bend knee to the Fire Nation or your Fire Lord," an auburn haired woman before Zuko shouted.

"I was referring to me," Azula answered, and then he could feel her move forward, advancing in fire. Zuko did much the same. There was a time where he had chafed under Uncle's teachings. But now, he could understand them. The girls instantly snapped to try to surround him, cut him off. But it just produced what Uncle had called 'a target rich environment'. The girls rushed toward him, and he flicked a blast of fire at them, small, controlled blasts which he blasted out with a staccato rhythm, keeping his feet in constant motion, keeping his breath deep and full. Only the first blast had the intended effect though, blasting a long haired brunette onto her back, whence another quickly vaulted past and shielded her long enough to rise, even if with seared armor.

With a synchronized movement that could only have come with years of practice and utmost mutual familiarity, all of the girls snapped open fans in perfect unison, rotating in and around him, trying to keep him off guard. But he had trained for this. He would not be denied. Not with the Avatar so close.

He knew that the auburn girl was their leader, and that she would give away their first move. So it was she that Zuko watched. It was for that reason, and that reason alone, that the boomerang hit him in the back of the head with complete surprise. This time, the blow knocked him onto his face, but he didn't dare hesitate, spinning himself to his feet with a wash of flame to keep those who would approach from getting to close. He was a good firebender, yes, but he was not immortal. But when he beheld who had levied such a martial insult upon him, he allowed himself a moment of shocked gaping. It was Sokka, that Tribesman from the South Pole... and he was practically naked.

"What are you doing here?" Zuko asked. But his opportunity to get an answer was cut off when he heard the slightest change in the patter of their footsteps, and had to spin into a vigorous defense. Fire and flame danced at his command, blades in the aether that he could shape to his whims. Of course, those whims were somewhat cut short, by the skill of the girls with their fans. How they could deflect those searing blows with such small shields, how they could hurl them with such crippling accuracy, how they could move so fluidly, caused great concern in the Prince. Luckily, he didn't need to engage them hand-to-hand. If he had, he probably would have been unconscious by now. The one factor which kept things from swinging directly into their favor was the Tribesman, since he seemed to get in their way. The interruption was enough to catch one of the girls by surprise, and ignite a blast of fire between his hands and her chest, sending her rocketing away into a window. "Where is the Avatar, Sokka? This doesn't have to concern you!"

"This has everything to do with you!" another familiar voice shouted. He saw the other Tribesman, this one _not_ practically nude, but in this case, that was unfortunate, because Katara was admittedly a bit of a looker. "We got exiled because of you! We can't go home because of you!"

"Just give us the Avatar, and that will be the end of it," Zuko stressed. He opened his hands, letting the girls catch their balance and their breath. "You are no enemy of the Fire Nation. What you do is no matter of mine."

Zuko gave a glance to where Azula was fighting, expecting the worst. And finding about as far from it as he could imagine. His sister, so frail, so confused, so scattered, had obliterated the force which had been arrayed against her. The girls of the Kyoshi Warriors were either rolling out burning armor, limping, or unconscious in the street. And more tellingly, Azula didn't look the least bit out of breath. "Why are you talking to them, Zuzu? They're too dumb to figure out their best course is to surrender the Avatar. So we find him by force."

"Why do you even want him? What's so important that it's worth destroying the world's last shred of hope?" Katara now shouted at Azula. Upon hearing the Tribeswoman's voice, though, a change came over Azula. Instead of facing away, in a stance of martial readiness... she slowly turned, and a darkness fell over her. Her golden eyes became murky, not like the veil of confusion that often beset her, left her weeping in frustration and fear; no this was a whole other beast. This was pure, savage, almost bestial and untenable rage.

"Azula, what are...?" he managed to ask.

And then Azula attacked. She hurled herself a remarkable distance, firebending creating a rocket under one foot as the other twisted up and cast out in an axe kick with flame growing from the heel. But this wasn't golden flame. This was a harsh and snapping electric blue, like the flames from the pits of some Adamite vision of Hell. The wave of flame swept down toward the blue-eyed girl, and she could only stare, terrified, as it crashed down toward her.

Until a flash of orange and yellow. The airbender gave a great sweep of his staff, and a billow of wind smashed into the descending wave of fire, cutting it off before it could reach he and his Tribesman ward. "I'm here!" the Avatar shouted. "I'll be your prisoner. Just leave these people in peace!"

"Who said anything about prisoner?" Azula's voice didn't sound normal. The accent was much thicker, like she was losing her command of even a common language like Tianxia. Zuko's eyes went wide at that, and she threw herself into a twisting whirlwind of lethal fire. And the others took that to mean that Zuko's truce had been shattered, and he found himself under pressure once more.

He dodged and weaved, avoiding the grapples, the locks, the fan-strikes of the Kyoshi Warriors. Not easily, but with enough aplomb, and mostly due to that they fought in a way which was, in its heart, predictable. The Tribesman, though, was a different story. Just fast enough to be a nuisance, unpredictable enough to get shots in past Zuko's guard, it was not the Warriors, but a mostly naked youth, thousands of miles from his home and proper place, who was slamming cudgel into armor. As much as it galled to be even momentarily bested by such a peasant, Zuko had to admit, it was just damned lucky that the Tribesman favored the war-club instead of something much more deadly, like those machetes that they purportedly used to great effect in the North.

Even as Zuko fought, a small part of his mind kept trying to tell him that the Tribesman must be predictable. He must have a pattern. But every time that small portion thought it was on to something, the Tribesman did something insane, which would have gotten any canny or self-preserving fighter killed, which Zuko had to recoil from, and break his momentum. It was not for the four girls that Zuko lost his flow, but for one Tribesman. So, with a rictus of anger on his lips and a grunt of angry effort in his throat, Zuko endeavored to balance the equation. A blast of fire directly at the utterly unprotected chest of the Tribesman. But even as it flew, the auburn girl jumped out and intercepted it, and the blast blew both she and Sokka back into an alley, away from Zuko's present concern. Two birds with one stone, as the Eastern saying went.

* * *

><p>Sokka didn't think that the first time he was mostly naked with a hot girl on top of him that his mind would be on physics and firepower, and yet here he was. Of course, the girl was hot because part of her clothing was on fire, and she was on top of him, because she prevented at cost of her outfit what could have been Sokka's chest cavity. "Are you alright?" Suki asked urgently, as she batted out the flames with only half a mind.<p>

"Am _I_ alright? You just jumped in front of a_ fireball!_" Sokka pointed out in something between bafflement and awe. "Are you _insane_?"

"I'd do the same for any student, or anybody who fights to protect my home," she said.

"I don't get you, I really don't," Sokka muttered. He tried to get to his feet, but she forced him back down through simple leverage. "Hey, I'm not done yet!"

She pointed out into the street, and Sokka saw that his claim was very much moot. While Zuko was holding off four of the Kyoshi Warriors by himself, Azula was going toe-to-toe with the Avatar... and she was winning. Aang tried to dodge around her attacks, to get to her back where she couldn't attack him. But the one time he did take her back, her spinning, whirling, chaotic attacks just became faster and faster, until he couldn't keep up with her. And then, she would stop attacking Aang and turn her attention back toward Katara, who was trying to herd the unhomed families into safer places. When Azula did that, Aang had to jump betwixt them and regain the firebending woman's attention, and when he did, it cost him. A singe here. A shockwave knocking him back a few steps there. She was driving him back. While Zuko's attacks were powerful, they were easy to dodge. Azula's lacked that weakness.

"You need to get onto your bison and go. They won't stay here when you leave," Suki said... but was that a note of regret that Sokka could hear in her voice?

"I'm sorry we brought this to you."

"Don't be sorry. You couldn't have known," Suki said tenderly.

"I've got a lot of things to be sorry for. I shouldn't have acted like I did when I got here. I shouldn't have treated you and your girls... Well, like I did."

She bent down before him. "We _are_ girls," she said, pressing a point. "We're _also_ warriors. Women are half the population of this Earth, and damned if we are going to sit back and let our home get conquered. So you were an arse when you got here. What matters is that you aren't now," she said. She glanced over her shoulder, and then quickly leaned forward to lay a peck on Sokka's cheek. "Now, basically... run."

And with that, Suki, the bravest woman that Sokka had ever known in his entire life, charged with nothing but burnt armor and a pair of fans, into the fiery maw of death, courtesy of two Nationals who once offered heartfelt thanks. Sokka didn't know when, but at some point, his life had gotten unforgiveably weird. All the more so, because he was now going to go wrangle a ten tonne, six legged, fuzzy magical monster while he was wearing nothing but his underpants. And most of that thought, Sokka realized as he ran toward the silo where Appa preferred to sleep, could have been a wonderful double entendre. He would have to remember it for later.

* * *

><p>There was such purity in her movements. Azula didn't understand how she had ever had problems with this, how she had ever been slower, weaker, worse, than her brother. But in the back of her mind, she knew that this would fade. That the veil would move forward once more, and shut away the parts of herself that she wanted so desperately to hold on to. The power, the confidence. The surety. The identity. It was only right now, as she twisted with great arcs of remarkable blue fire searing away from her fingers, from her feet, that she knew exactly who she was. Azula. Pure, absolute, certain.<p>

And it would go away, abandon her again. So she lived in the moment, and lived wholly in the fight. Even as she shifted back to attacking the airbender once again, she tried to understand why she kept shifting toward the waterbender any time he exited her line of fire. She wanted to believe it was because doing that kept the Avatar completely off balance. It kept him blocking, when every fiber of his being told him to dodge. It was just a matter of time.

"Azula, you don't need to do this, I'm willing to surrender!" Aan... the Avatar shouted after dissipating another of Azula's barrages. "Just swear you'll leave these people and..."

"No conditions, no promises," Azula said. "No pulse."

"You don't mean that," Aang – the Avatar, damn it! The Avatar! – said, but there was a weird tone to his voice. "You're just afraid."

With that second utterance, Aang's lips hadn't moved.

"I will be Princess again," Azula said. "I will have my place!"

"And who decides what your place is?" the twisted voice of the Avatar asked, one tone innocent, the other mocking. "What do _you_ want, Azula?"

"Enough!" Azula shouted, and lashed forward with two fingers leading... and there was a crack sound, almost like a thunder clap. An explosion sounded before her fingers, driving her back a few steps. Luckily, the airbender had been close enough that the detonation, accidental though it had been, suffered from it as she had. Once again, that tickling scratched at Azula's mind. Why did she even _try_ that? Why did she think _she_ could bend lightning?

Azula took a moment to try to shake both the stars, and that voice, into submission inside her head. But the time that it took to do so proved disastrous; the Avatar recovered quite before she did, and by the time she was aware again, he was already half-way through his kata, which smashed her in the unprotected stomach with a ball of wind that slammed her back into a building, then somehow managed to drive her up until she was pinned between a wall and the overhanging eaves, unable to catch her breath from the pressure.

"You're better than this, Azula," the Avatar said, a sad look on his young face. "You deserve better than this."

And with that, he twirled open his glider staff, grabbed the waterbender, and swooped up into the sky. Only after the great white beast caught the two of them, did the ball of air holding Azula in place dissipate, dropping her unceremoniously to the patio. She glared up at the beast, and even sent a bolt of red flames after them, but gravity took its toll and the thing began its inevitable arc down toward the sweeping beach.

"I had him," Azula muttered. "He was right here and I had him. This is your fault, Zuko! Why didn't you..."

She trailed off when she saw that he was unsteady on his feet, and glaring down a fist at a girl in that odd makeup. So they had hit him harder than her? A foolish mistake. It's not like she could blame Zuko for flagging compared to her when they had incomparable threats levied against them. "I was kind of busy," Zuko answered.

"You can't keep us under steel for long," the girl said. Suki. That was her name. For a moment, a flare of confusion shot through Azula's mind. _How_ did she know that name? But even as the thought came to her, she violently suppressed it. The veil would fall, and she would lose herself, and she wanted to be as strong as she was right now for as long as possible. She must have just heard it somewhere. "You might not have noticed, but we still outnumber you."

"Not even close," A gruff voice came up the hill, toward the village. Uncle. And at his back, all of the marines from the ship.

The veil dropped.

And Azula started to slip away again.

* * *

><p>The cloudiness in Azula's eyes was a cause for concern, one which pressed at her older brother, but Zuko had other things to concern himself with. Uncle's sudden appearance, despite it being much needed backup, was one of them. "Uncle! What are you doing here?"<p>

"After a few minutes, I realized what Azula said to me, and I made sure you didn't run off and do something stupid," he said tersely. Then, he sighed, most likely taking in the village in flames. Iroh opened up his stance, and raised his hands high, before forcing them down like trying to close an over-packed traveling case. As he did, all of the flames caused by Zuko and Azula fighting the combined might of the Kyoshi Warriors and the Avatar all grew smaller, weaker, and finally snuffed completely. "I really thought I had taught you better than this, Nephew."

"What, you're blaming me for this?" Zuko asked, just as testily.

"Why did Azula do it?" Iroh asked.

"That's... not the point," Zuko redirected, once he realized that he was impugning his sister; even though it was true, he still didn't want to do it.

Iroh looked around, and saw what Zuko did. That Azula was starting to falter, her eyes becoming shifting, dulled, how she would rub her head as though it could dislodge something she desperately needed but couldn't quite bring to mind. Uncle's fierce, humorless expression softened. "I understand. But a problem remains. What do we do now?"

Zuko looked down at the Kyoshi warriors on the ground, unconscious, or just exhausted to the point of collapse. "They assaulted the royal person. There is only one punishment for that," Zuko said.

A voice cried out in despair from one of the larger houses, and a middle-aged woman rushed to the Warrior that Zuko had a blast of fire aimed at. She put herself between the girl and the firebender, her arms spread out. "_Don't you dare,_" she said hotly, and in her own tongue. "_I know what your kind do. You can't take my daughter away from me._"

Zuko raised a brow. "_Are you the leader of this settlement?_" he asked, sharing a glance with Azula. She looked at him like even she didn't know what he was doing. The woman glanced aside, but then nodded. "_So you are responsible for the actions of the village as a whole. Good,_" Zuko let his fist fall, but began to pace, with a forced casualness. "_Law has me in a bit of a quandary, Elder. On the one hand, we were assaulted without provocation or reason by these fighters. On the other, you claim that you would be responsible for their actions. Did they act by your word, or without it?_"

The auburn woman glared at him. "_What is the difference?_" she demanded.

"_If they acted on your word, then you've committed an act of war against the Fire Nation, and you will be occupied, and annexed, your soldiers stripped of arms and standards and imprisoned. If they did not, then they are obviously anarchist terrorists, and will be executed on sight. So which is it, __Elder? Are they soldiers, or terrorists?_"

The girl looked up at her elder. "_Mother, don't do it. It's not worth it!_"

The woman looked back, tears forming in her eyes. "_Anything is worth it,_" she said, then turned back to Zuko. "_They acted on my orders. I will take responsibility for them._"

"_It is good that you saw fit to be honest,_" Zuko said. He glanced to the firebenders and soldiery that marched into the streets. "Imprison them, and send word to the Navy. They will want to establish a permanent garrison here."

"Zuko, why are you doing this?" Iroh asked carefully. "I never thought you would be one to expand Fire Nation territories any further than they already were."

"They attacked my sister," was the long and short of Zuko's answer. He gave one last glance to woman and child, and both glared seething hatred at him. "_You will both be remanded to Ashfall prison in Sozin City, along with every soldier under your command. Be thankful I am not a cruel man; I could have sent you to Boiling Rock._"

Zuko then turned and pulled Azula along, since her eyes, distant and unfocused, were now directed to the ground. He got a look from his uncle, one which clearly said 'I do not approve of this', but Zuko's course was clear. And he would be damned if he was going to abandon it. They hurt his sister, so he hurt them. There was a lovely symmetry in that. Azula muttered something viciously, in that language that she sometimes babbled in. Zuko wasn't the best educated on it, doubly so since nobody had ever seen it before. But he had learned enough to understand this, if not know what it meant.

She had said, "Let's see how that bastard fights without his heart."

He guided her toward the shore, slowly. She finally looked up at him, and spoke again. "I want to go home," she said, her voice small, like a little girl.

"We will. One day, we will," he promised. And with Agni as his witness, she would stand on black sand again.

* * *

><p><strong>Much the same way that C!Zuko would flip out on anybody who got between him and the Avatar, be it his crew, his uncle, his sister, whathaveyou, TF!Zuko reacts similarly to anybody who threatens Azula. Since he sees Aang as a means to keeping Azula safe and making her well, he's just about as driven as C!Zuko ever was. But since he had some of Azula rub off on him from years looking after her, and since he actually LISTENED to Iroh during his exile, he takes a different approach to it than 'attack attack attack'. He uses the law to his advantage. And that's actually kinda dangerous to the people he doesn't like. That was another thing which was tricky; making it seem like Zuko and Azula were actually siblings. It was a fine line to walk, only tread once in the series (the Beach, naturally), so extending that sort of mutally but prickly dorkiness between them took some doing. I still wonder if I got it right.<strong>

**I admit, as much as I liked Canon's Suki/Sokka pairing, I can't find any new ground to tread with it. Thus, it is one ship which I tend to blow out of the water at the first possible opportunity. It's not done vindictively. In this case, it serves much the same purpose as I sunk the Kataang 'ship. Making it abundantly clear that this little trip through the Earth won't be what everybody's used to. The fact that much of the action follows the Badesh family (especially in early chapters, because they actually have to be created ex nihilo, whereas people have an understanding of what the Canon characters are like which only needs to be tweaked) is central to this. I will admit, hearing Shohreh Agdashloo and Robert Patrick talking about the World War is the sweetest thing to hold in one's mind if you can pull it off. Sooner or later, you'll meet her entire adventuring party from the old days. It has some familiar faces in it. And Nila starts getting an adventuring party of her own soon, so... like mother like daughter?**

**One more thing: Nobody's come close to guessing the big surprise of this series. Let's see how long before my observant viewers pick it out.**

_Leave a review._


	5. Through Clouded Lens

**Quick Answers: My world of Avatar is the size of a planet. Thus, Kyoshi Island's much farther away. Appa is just a fast mover. Sativa managed to copulate with three people in one very specific three day period. It's not something she'd make a habit of. There is no cross-over with Children-verse in this story. Children-verse hasn't happened yet, according to one perspective.**

* * *

><p>The dream began as all dreams had; in darkness.<p>

He opened his eyes, but there wasn't anything there to be seen. Just a pristine, empty void. But he took two steps, and then, there was light. Green eyes slowly panned around this place that he would come to in his sleeping. He remembered this place. He called it the orchard, even if nothing grew here.

Nothing could grow in this place. Nothing he didn't plant himself.

What would have struck a lay observer was how desaturated everything was in this place, that all things were either white, black, or some shade of grey between them. There was no color in this place. And there was no sound. He glanced to his side, and only there was there even a wisp of hue, and even then, it was a tiny, almost vanishingly small scrap of silver. This was a dead place. So Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar walked alone. In his dreams, he didn't always come here. Some dreams were flights of fancy, but they faded swiftly after he awoke. But these dreams? They stuck, and they would not be forgotten. He walked along dead soil, to where a bridge all in metal and stone, not so much crumbling as half-completed and then abandoned, crossed a steep crevasse. He knew he had nothing to fear of the drop. There was water down there, and it would break his fall. He had been there before. This was an old and familiar place to the young shaman.

"Don't worry. It'll be alright," he said to the tiny wisp of a void spirit which accompanied him. In the Outer Sphere, the void spirits could be any shape, any form, almost impossible to identify by any sense other than smell. Here, though, they were all silver. The haughty, the arrogant, the indifferent, now much more humble.

**I didn't want to come here**.

Sharif tilted his head. "Then why did you come to the orchard?"

**You were dreaming**.

As if that was enough of an answer. Sharif sat, dangling his legs over the edge of the bridge. Nearby, the black, twisted forms of tree-trunks made great efforts to soar into the sky, but their strength had left them long ago. Now, they were but withered reflections of what once was. Their bark was hardened almost to stone. Their few branches stood permanently benuded. They stood as still and silent as everything else in this place. Even the water below was silent, still. The void spirit floated around Sharif, as he just took in the calm of the place. The peacefulness. But unlike in the waking world, where his mind was stunted and faulty, here he could think, could concentrate, could _know_. Pointedly, he knew that this was not idyllic or serene. No, this was the cold and bitter silence of something beautiful fallen into death. There were no birds here, no insects, no people, no pets. There was no whisper of wind as it moved from horizon to horizon.

Sharif looked up, and beheld a black sky. Not even any stars. "I never had one of you come with me. Maybe you'd know. Why are there no stars here? I know that there are stars when I wake up. So why not here?"

**We were stars once. But that time is over. We have lost too many, too much**.

Sharif leaned forward a bit, his hands clenched on his knees. His mind might have been damaged, but it was not destroyed. And for some reason, when he was here, he recognized what had happened to him, how far he had fallen. Here, he could _think_. And he knew that there was an important question he needed to ask. "Is this place real? Or is it just a dream?"

**Yes. No. Both**.

"That's not very helpful."

**We are weak. The center has fallen. The fringes cannot hold**.

Sharif had no idea what that meant, so he got to his feet and walked to the tree trunk, skirting around places in the interum which for all senses but his were utterly empty. Sharif knew better. "I've seen these trees other places. Not awake, but here. Do they mean something to you?" The silver spirit just floated, but Sharif could smell something like mourning in it. Something like regret. "Why did you come here with me?"

**I needed you**.

Sharif was confused. "What? You needed me?"

**The Avatar does not understand. He fumbles in ignorance. I needed you**.

"You're not making sense."

**We are dying. This world is dying, a long, slow death. Its dark avatar walks the mortal world, and its hunger is insatiable. Someone must restore the balance. Someone must rebirth this place**.

The sprite flew into Sharif's outstretched palm, and flared brightly. Sharif, not even fully understanding what he was doing, pressed that hand against the bark of the tree. As he did, veins of silver shot up the trunk, and a groaning of wood sounded in the emptiness. The silver reached to the stillborn leaf-buds and twisted them open, glowing white and pure as they shifted slowly, despite the absence of breeze. Soon, the entire tree was alight and alive, it's bark smooth and white, its leaves casting a pool of light. Sharif didn't know what this meant, but in his heart, he knew_ it was good_.

Sharif pulled his hand away, and saw that it had been covering a knot-hole in the tree. He looked up at the silver boughs. "Is this for me?" he asked. But the tree answered him as trees would answer anybody, in that it both didn't, and couldn't. He slipped his fingers inside, and felt something hard and smooth in there. He pulled it out, and it popped out like it had been attached to a stem. It was a fruit, or something, but it was roughly the size and shape of his big toe, and a lustrous green, like jade, besides. And, it was as hard as any stone he had ever felt. He looked back up to the tree, and placed his other hand on it. "Thank you," he said.

He took a step away, but stopped dead when he felt a whisper of breeze against his ear. He turned, and saw that one horizon had turned brightly the hue of an old bruise, after it had faded away from purple but before it vanished completely. It was a sickly, horrid yellow, its color finally washing over the dead greyness, but skirting around the edge of the pool of light left by this tree, like it could not go there. Then, there was that sound, a sound against silence that would drive men mad. It was Nila's pressure-cooker, but set too high, all the valves in the wrong places. It was that groaning of metal, stressed almost, but not quite to rupturing. Well, if Nila's pressure-cooker were the size of a mountain, anyway. Then, a rumble, which started in the earth, rippling the water below the bridge and sending a shard of primordial terror through Sharif's mind. He knew this, too. There was a blast, Nila's pressure-cooker rupturing at last, but that groaning continued, unabated. Then, a banging, like smashing a pair of enormous, cracked bells into each other. Again. He looked to that orange horizon, and beheld how it turned red, like the flesh of an inflamed wound. And then, a final crash, a thunderbolt the length of the Chameleon River, but only its sound.

Then, he could see something moving toward him. There was color there. Horrifying color. Wrong color. And it swept across the not-places, and surged over the high walls of the orchard without pity or mercy; all of its blackness and redness and blueness snapping as it advanced in a wave. The sound of its approach defied any attempts of his to metaphorize it. The closest he could come up with was 'an evil hum'. He knew that if that wave touched him, he would die, his soul obliterated beyond any reclamation. It bore closer. Closer. He could hear screaming of metal, of mountains exploding and being worn down into sand. He could hear a great wind. And it bore down on him. Closer. And it touched...

…

Sharif woke up with a start, which jostled Patriarch enough to get the old bird to swing its big head toward Sharif with a note of query in its weary eyes. "It's alright," Sharif said, patting it on its large beak. "I just had one of those dreams again."

The bird let out a snort, which Sharif frowned at. "Well, you'd be startled too, if you were there."

The bird practically rolled its eyes, and settled its head back down on the earth. "Well, maybe you shouldn't judge me without experiencing it yourself," Sharif noted. But this time, Patriarch was staunchly ignoring him, so that he could get his own sleep. Sharif crossed his arms, but noted an odd feeling; there was something in his hand. He opened it, and saw that same lumpy thing he had held in the dream. He looked at it for a moment. What did that mean?

Exhaustion won out over curiosity, aided by the fact that Sharif's attention, while awake, at least, was outright pitiful. He pulled the blanket over himself, tucked himself against Patriarch's flank, and fell into a more random, but more restful, dream.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

**Through Clouded Lens**

* * *

><p>Nila started, swaying on her feet as she almost fell over. Great. Not only was she seeing things, but she was starting to fall asleep standing up. She kept walking, though. She had to. She would not fail in this. She would prove Mother wrong. She would prove that she was worth something. So she ignored the terrible grinding of her empty guts and kept trudging, one foot before another, heading toward the horizon, the moon at her back. Keep walking.<p>

If she had more of her faculties remaining to her, she would have wondered how Sharif had managed to get as much of a time-advantage as he had. She had to have been walking faster than he was. And she didn't stop for more than an hour or two of sleep a night. Hell, she hadn't shaved her head in days! Or eaten, for that matter. And come to think of it, she had drank out of a puddle yesterday. Not very civilized, but then again, she _was_ Si Wongi. They would drink the blood of the dead if it kept them alive.

One foot, and then the other. At this point, it came as a note of pride that most anybody else would have collapsed of hunger and fatigue. But Nila kept walking, even as the seams of her robe began to pull apart. She kept walking, even as her shoes began to wear through. She kept walking, even as she dreamed while walking of that weird place where everything was grey and dead. She'd been having nightmares like that for ages. And the worst part about them is that they would linger, pressing in on her mind like some sort of memetic cancer. At some point, she was going to have to do some reading on mental illnesses... well, more reading, because she'd exhausted all of the literature available to the Sentinel Rock.

"Where are you little brother?" her rasping voice came out, even without her strictly intending it to. For the eighth time in this same night, she considered trying to shed some weight. But she dare not. It might be the only thing keeping her from death. Of course, the irony of the extra weight exhausting her to the point of heart-failure somewhat flew over her sleep-and-food-deprived mind at the moment. "I'm not mad at you. Really I'm not. Just come on out. I'll bring us back home."

Ha. The ruthlessly intellectual part of her brain chided her for being so whimsical. Not only was she engaged in a fool's errand, chasing down her mentally damaged twin brother, but she had long since completely lost track of where she was. All she knew was that she had to walk west. Maybe a little southwest. But mostly west. "Mother is going to be proud of me when I get home," she whispered. Ah, so there it is, that little voice in her mind snarked. Little Nila is desperate for approval.

"Shut up... me!" Nila shouted. "I don't need anybody's approval!"

Then go home, that little voice said.

"Not until I'm finished," she swore, her brow drawing down. If she was no other thing in this world, more than intelligent, more than unpleasant, she was implacable. Her mind, however that little piece of her seemed to want her sabotaged, was set. It was strong. It was willing. Pity her body wasn't. A few steps after she made that oath, her knees buckled, and she levered face first into the sod, her sudden drop only slightly deadened by the mat of long grasses which covered this western fringe of Dakong.

"Get up," she snarled at herself. "I'm not done yet. Get up!"

Her arms pressed on the ground, slowly, slowly pushing it away despite the weight on her back struggling to reunite them. And finally, she was on hands and knees. She let out a laugh. She wasn't done yet. She was still...

At which point she flopped back down to the ground and started snoring.

* * *

><p>"Be more careful," his voice sounded gravely even to his own ear, but then again, ever since Whale Tail, he only had the one to work with. Lieutenant Kwon let out a world-weary sigh, his face taking on much of the same droopiness that his mustache held, but he obeyed his superior officer, more gingerly pulling at the gauze which bound 'round half of Zhao's head. Zhao let out a grunt, then a "that's better."<p>

"The physician once again insists that you remain in bed," Kwon said in that same, flat tone that he took with all things. It made it very hard for Zhao, or anybody, in fact, to tell if Kwon was being sarcastic. Of course, with Kwon, the line between honest and sarcastic was vanishingly fuzzy. Zhao gave Kwon a glare with his still working right eye. Well, truth told, he'd find out if his left eye worked in a few minutes. "I informed him that your duties are more important than his medical advice."

"Very good, Lieutenant," Zhao said, turning the tome so that the light fell across it better. Ever since Whale Tail, he had been doing much reading. More than he had before. He had underestimated Azula's capabilities. He would not do that again. And just to make sure of it, she had oh-so-helpfully branded a reminder onto his face. But he wasn't out for revenge, oh no. She was far, far too useful to be fodder for revenge. So he poured over her journals, over the copies of the paintings that she had started making when she was eight years old. Every scrap, every doodle, every ow ow OW!

"I TOLD YOU TO BE MORE CAREFUL!" Zhao roared as the bandages tugged painfully at the burn. Kwon, though, was about as easy to intimidate as an iron bulkhead. He just stared flatly, his drooping mustache making him seem a straightman in some comedy of errors.

"I'll get the releaser. This will sting," Kwon said neutrally. Zhao shot a glare at the man as he trundled away, but reread a passage which she had drafted over the three days that would have been Azula's ninth birthday celebration, if anybody but the young Prince had remembered it. This was one of the first things he'd read that convinced him of her nature. A complete map and disposition of forces inside Ba Sing Se, an impossible thing, especially with General Iroh's great failure at the wall. A step-by-step guide in manipulating their abominable secret police. Written at a time in her life that nobody had even mentioned the existence of those infernal spy-catchers to her.

Extraordinary.

He sat back, glaring out the port hole, as the sun rose over the horizon. He could feel the power of Agni flowing into him, reinvigorating him even despite his fatigue. Azula would show him absolute victory, whether she wanted to or not. Even if she was aware of it or not. He had the most access that anybody outside of the impudent prince and the Fire Lord's lazy, moronic brother possibly could. It was just a matter of leveraging it.

There was a knock on the door to his chamber. He let out a sigh, and put the tome aside, sitting back in the swiveling chair which was otherwise screwed to the floor. Allowing himself a ginger touch of the bandages, he noted that yes, they still hurt more than just about anything he'd felt in his life. Zhao was one of the three greatest firebenders of the modern age. And yet she had punched through is defenses like they weren't even there. It was criminally hard to burn a firebender. And she did it without second thought. He pulled his attention back to the task at hand, setting the girl aside. "Enter."

The door opened with a squeak of metal and it was not Kwon who ducked into the room, but Hu. Hu was a skittish fellow, all knees and elbows. Zhao was fairly certain that, despite the Fire Nation's policy of not recruiting teenagers for the navy or army, Hu had managed to slip under their gaze. If he was older than fifteen, Zhao would eat his own bandages. "News from Kyoshi Island, sir."

Zhao snatched the offered scroll from the youth and skimmed along it with his amber eye. That eye widened at what he beheld. "The prince has annexed Kyoshi?" he asked. "That's bold. And not what she predicted."

"Admiral?" Hu asked. This was a matter of concern. Either she wasn't as potent has he assumed, or, more likely, he wasn't as observant as he hoped. Somehow, despite his pride, he hoped it was the latter.

"Is there anything else?" Zhao asked testily.

"General Iroh's ship was seen heading north, sir," Hu said. "To Hanyi Port."

"A wretched hive of scum and villainy," Zhao scoffed, before raising his knuckles to his chin. "So I wonder what straight-laced Zuko is going there for?"

"Sir?"

"Orders for the helmsman, Hu," Zhao said. "Set a course for the fleet to shadow General Iroh's ship. I want to see what they're up to."

"What about your duty in Great Whales?" Kwon asked as he entered the room.

"What duty? Great Whales is a prison, and I have better things to do than to play warden," Zhao pointed out with annoyance. He turned to Hu. "Well? Are you going to stand here until your feet rust? Go!"

Hu gave a start and ran off, only half-completing a salute before he did. Zhao shook his head slowly. "See to it that he has disciplinary action. He is sloppy. I do not abide sloppiness on my fleet."

"Yes, Admiral Zhao," Kwon said in his long-suffering way. Zhao tented his fingers and considered. Maybe there was more to this. Maybe it wasn't just that Azula could tell the future... maybe she was trying to alter it? Oh, now that would be an interesting thing to behold. But he would do so with her in his safe keeping. She was far too valuable a prize to run free. It was just a matter of opportunity.

Zhao had braced himself, so when that honey-textured goop rolled down the bandages over his face, he managed not to do more than grumble angrily in pain. But the pain was significantly less, he was aware, than it would have been if his subordinate were to simply rip this thing off. So when the stinging abated somewhat, he did the honors himself, peeling off the bandages, and feeling the shocking sting of the tiny shifts of breeze against his raw flesh. He closed his right eye... and opened his left. Everything was fuzzy, indistinct, and a bit dark, but he could still see movement, basic shapes. It was an inconvenience, but he would survive. Oh, yes, and it hurt like hell.

Just being open to the air, that wound hurt like being burnt all over again. But he clenched his jaw and rose to his feet, taking the two steps over to the mirror which hung over a water basin. He opened his eyes once more. His face, once unblemished by age or misfortune, now held a burn which erased almost a quarter of it. The brand was roughly the same shape of a flame in the wind, a raw, bloody red where it swallowed his left eyebrow, where it swooped down and then back up from his cheekbones. Nearer his eye, it was a darker red, like an old scab, and the eye seemed to have been frozen into a perpetual glower. Fitting. Zhao gingerly touched the wound, and made a promise to himself. He would not fail. Not for his own arrogance. Not for his own ignorance. He would never forget. And as he opened his eyes and turned from that mirror, he swore that one day, he would stand at the top of the world, and laugh as the last enemies of the Fire Nation broke themselves against the walls of their betters.

He even had the battle plan ready for it.

"Would you like a pain killer?" Kwon asked, producing a bottle of whiskey from Agni only knew where. Zhao, for once, didn't feel like chastising the man for his sarcastic tones.

Zhao snatched the bottle then pointed to the door. "I have a destiny awaiting me. See that Hu's incompetence doesn't render me late."

"Yes, sir."

As Kwon left, Zhao just stood there, stripped to the chest, a smirk on his face which couldn't shift the shape of his wounded left eye. "And now, we see what surprises the Princess has planned."

* * *

><p>Zuko could feel eyes boring into the back of his head, and feel the impatient tapping of Azula's foot behind him. While it was a relief that she'd managed to throw off that funk which sometimes took her more swiftly than usual, it meant that she was capable of jumping straight into being a brat. That meant that Zuko was torn between being glad that Azula was safe and well, and being annoyed at her antics. Not that she'd call them antics. Despite her being a bit more than a year younger than he, she seemed to strive with every whit of effort to be the older of them. Needless to say, in her state, she wasn't up to the task.<p>

"Forty," Zuko repeated flatly, staring at the vendor. "I could buy five times this much for forty. This is just insulting."

"Times are hard. The benders are having to put up a lot more earthworks to irrigate the fields," the vendor rationalized, rubbing at a short scar on the side of his jaw. "Prices go up so that..."

"People like you can gouge people like me. Ten. That's more than what it's worth."

"You're stealing the bread from my children's mouths!" the vendor shouted.

"On the contrary, I'm buying it for its fair price," Zuko countered. He gave a glance to his sister, who was now inspecting her nails, but used the facade to inspect the vendor caustically.

"_I_ doubt he has a wife, let alone children," Azula pointed out.

"Twenty," the vendor hedged.

"Ten. You won't find anybody with that much to spend, let alone willing to spend it," Zuko asserted.

"_Why don't you just pay this twit the twenty and go?_" she asked in Whalesh, which oddly she could pull off _without_ the accent which plagued her every other spoken word. The oddness came from how her normal 'accent' wasn't even close to Whalesh.

"_We don't __have__ twenty gold. And besides, it's the principle,_" Zuko answered in the same tongue.

"_Bloody savages; why can't they run under the silver standard like we do?_"

"Because some people don't know what money is worth," he said in Tianxia, the vendor's tongue, and let the man think of that what he would. Zuko leaned on the counter. "Now, I am going to offer ten, and you are going to accept it. Considering how few others have come by here, I wager this is more business than you've seen in a month, let alone in this week. And if you don't accept the ten, then you will get nothing, and a burnt-down store besides."

"Is that a threat?"

Zuko smirked at that, a smirk which he and his sister shared very much in common. "No," he answered. "But I will feel morally obligated to tell all of the people out there that you're withholding valuable provisions and consumables that some of them are on the streets begging for and charging an exorbitant price. Racketeering, I believe the practice is called. As I see it, you have two choices. Either I have it, or you lose it. But I guarantee you, you won't the same inventory as when I walked in when the sun rises again tomorrow."

"...ten?" he said weakly.

"Nine," Zuko countered.

"But you just said!"

"Consider the lost gold a personal stupidity tax," Zuko said, leaning back. The vendor glared, but it withered until his shoulders slumped and he nodded, defeat in his posture and in his voice.

"Nine. Very well. It will be on the dock before supper time," Zuko shook his head at people, at peasants, trying to gouge him. They should know better. He was royalty. He was trained in squeezing blood from a metaphorical stone. Of course, he had learned very early on from his father that the easiest way to get blood from a stone was to hurl it very hard at somebody who had too much to begin with. Besides, his need was far more important than this nobody's.

He turned, a quip on his lips, but it died when he saw that he was alone in the store. He quickly turned back around. "Where did she go?" he asked, an accent of his own slipping into his words.

"What? The girl?" the vendor asked.

"Yes, of course the girl!" Zuko shouted.

"I... I wasn't paying attention. Maybe she went for a stroll?" he said. But Zuko was already storming away. He should have known better than to ask this peon. Nobody would look for Azula. She was very good at vanishing when she wanted to. He didn't even know how she had picked up such a proficiency. Zuko stormed out into the street, his hair flicking as he turned one way, then the other, trying to spot her. Of course, trying to find a black-haired teenage girl in the East Continent was akin to finding a particular grain of sand in Si Wong, or an individual snowflake in the Poles. Nearby, a muttering woman was gathering up fallen radishes from a cart. Zuko grabbed her and dragged her attention to him.

"You. Did you see a golden eyed girl move past here?" he asked. She glanced aside. Amber eyes, eh? He tried that again, this time in his native tongue. When he did, he noted that her eyes went wide as the radishes, which had been teetering on the brink of spilling into the mud, finally abandoned their perch and made haste into muck. She winced at that.

"_A rude girl? She knocked over my radishes! Somebody should scold her for that!_" she said, outrage flooding in where trepidation had vanished. Zuko set his jaw, though, so that he didn't explode into an unhelpful display of firebending and violence. "_She ran off that way, the road to Gaoling. Give her a proper caning when you catch her. Nobody should abuse radishes!_"

Zuko released her and began to run, not toward Gaoling, but to the seedy wharfs that this entire town abounded. He severely doubted that this city ever truly had a golden era. From every splinter and glob of dirt, it seemed that this place had been built a crap-hole, and would live the centuries as a crap-hole, until the Great Crap-Hole Fire swept it into crap-hole ashes. And it took a great deal of self restraint not to start that fire. Especially now. He thundered up the waving, unsteady and uneven boards of the wharf, up the metal gangway, and threw open the outer door to the cabins. He confronted the first crewman he saw, a grey-haired man with respectable sideburns. Jee, if his memory didn't completely desert him. "Where is my uncle?" Zuko demanded.

"In his quarters, sir," Jee said, a weary eyebrow raised.

"Prepare my armor and a cloak," Zuko ordered, before storming past. The subordinate had something on his lips, but the way Zuko brusquely disregarded him told him whatever it was, it could wait. Zuko moved to the heart of the ship and threw open the door to Uncle's room. Much like his own, it was by and large naked metal, with only a few decorations from home. Most jarring, though, was that Uncle had taken down the three point flame of the Fire Nation. That felt like treason... but Zuko wasn't going to call Uncle on it. Auntie Shou was too recently passed to tear at her widower like that. And just as he suspected, he found Iroh in his mourning whites. The old man – for in this moment, he appeared ancient, not merely the older brother to Zuko's father – wiped his face with a billowing sleeve, before turning to Zuko. There was an expression of annoyance to him.

"Azula has run off," Zuko began.

"Again?" Iroh cut him off.

"...yes, again," Zuko admitted. Iroh let out a laugh, but it was not happy. A part of Zuko missed the Iroh that used to be. So care-free, so humorous. There was a levity that the man brought to the trip which made it seem some sort of adventure, rather than an ignominious exile. But now, that man was gone. Or at least, away for a while. "She was spotted heading for Gaoling. What's in Gaoling?"

"Gaoling?" Iroh asked. "Nothing is in Gaoling. We tried burning it down a few decades ago, but we were thrown back. Why do you ask?"

"Azula wouldn't head there for no reason, but it's the only place she could reach without heading through a swamp. And if I know my sister, she would rather drown in a bucket than walk through a bog. So we need to catch her in Gaoling before she heads off somewhere else."

"You have thought this through," Iroh noted. "Good."

The old man rose, shrugging in his white robes. He let out a sigh. "It is a relief that you started to think things through," he continued. "You were rash when we started. Headstrong. But you have grown. And I haven't," he turned, and Zuko could see that Auntie's picture was on a small shrine he'd put together. "I've been mourning long enough. It's time I pulled my own weight. And that'll be tough, because I've got a lot more of it than you do!" Iroh finished with a booming laugh. It petered out into a sigh, and his expression wasn't quite so bleak when he took Zuko's eye again. "Well? Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to find your sister?"

"Meet me on the gangway in five minutes," Zuko said, relieved that Iroh was going to be working with him. Much as he had experience working alone, he knew from his own history that when his family worked together, they were practically unstoppable.

Zuko descended the floor to his own chamber, pausing only briefly to glance into Azula's uninhabited room. Together, they were unstoppable. And with Agni as his witness, Zuko _would not_ see his family torn apart.

* * *

><p>The stomping of feet was something between a wake-up and a lullaby. It was a confusing thing to conflate, but it seemed to hold two different meanings depending on if one was just about to descend into sleep against if one were only just rising out of it. The wind was brutally dry, but she had long been used to such weather. There was more than one desert in the world, after all. Her form, atop the saddle of the ostrich horse, was covered from head to feet in a long robe, dark red in color, and divided for riding. The way the legs of the beast moved, 'twixt her own, served to keep her awake in that weary first few hours, as the sun shyly crept up over the horizon.<p>

Of course, even as it did, she rose with it.

Every passing moment saw her feel a bit more lucid, a bit more aware. The sun was important to her. It was important to all of her sisters, as well, but for vastly different reasons, and none of them as personal as it was for her. For one, it was a thing to be avoided, another, a sign of good seas. One of them just like basking in it. But her? The sun fueled her. The bird strutted along the unbeaten, invisible trails that she couldn't see through the grass, but the bird followed without question or comment. She didn't doubt that this was some sort of Ostrich Horse track, something marked by something she was blind to. It didn't matter to her, though, as long as she could reach the West Coast, what matter the path to get there?

Even as she rode, she thought about her sisters. It had been a very long time since she saw them. She owed much to them. Well, to one sister in particular. The bravest of them. And oddly the dumbest. Possibly, the two were interrelated. She made a good point, though; if any of them wanted to have a life of their own, they would have to strike out and claim it. So that was what Tzu Zi did. And so did everybody else.

Tzu Zi thought she spotted something, and sawed on the reins, pulling up the Ostrich Horse before it trampled the figure on the ground. She raised a brow at the form, before sighing and dismounting her bird. "Don't run off on me. I hope you learned your lesson from last time."

The bird let out an apprehensive 'kweh', and settled down onto its belly, looking around the horizon as Tzu Zi approached the body on the ground. Brown eyes surveyed the form. It was in a robe, much like her own, only this one not divided, and colored stark black. Well, it obviously _had_ been black, before it got caked with so much grit and sand that it was now an off-brown color. She bent down, and gave the boy a shove. When she did so, she had to amend her estimation of the figure's gender. While she had assumed from the shaved head and swelling body-shape a male, the features were far too fine, the lips too full, to be masculine. She leaned back, wondering what backwards society had the girls shave their head. Of course, she would be the last to know; Tzu Zi wasn't even a native of this continent. Most of its customs went quite above her head.

Tzu Zi pressed a hand to the face of the girl on the ground. There was an odd texture to the skin. When she pinched the cheek, it was very slow to pulling back to its native position. Badly dehydrated, then. From the gauntness, probably starving as well. She gave a glance behind her, to the sun rising up over the plains. "This is your doing, isn't it?" she asked. Agni, the god of the sun, was as usual silent. She let out a sigh, and stooped down. "Well, don't say I've never done a good deed in my life."

She tried to lift the girl, but found it a much harder proposition than she had bargained for. Despite the slenderness of her arms and neck, and the boniness of her besides, she seemed to weigh a tonne. As well, her body felt... oddly solid. But she was still breathing. And she muttered something in no tongue that Tzu Zi could translate when shifted, so she wasn't a corpse. Not yet, anyway. And lucky that Tzu Zi had come when she did. With a heave, she flopped the odd girl over the front of the saddle. Aki let out an unhappy noise at now having to bear the added weight, but Tzu Zi clucked her tongue, and the Ostrich Horse silenced itself. Tzu Zi poured some water against the girl's lips, and she seemed to drink it even in her stupor. A good sign... well, better than the alternative. With that done, she climbed aboard.

"I know, it's not pleasant, but we can't just leave her to die," she said, remounting the bird. Aki swung her head around, and Tzu Zi could have sworn that the great bird was giving her a disparaging glare. "I refuse to be countermanded on my own horse, _**by**_ my own horse. Get moving!"

Aki let out a snort, then began to walk, away from the rising sun.

* * *

><p>Bored.<p>

She had the best education that money could provide. She could speak almost every language on the planet, knew the provincial etiquette of every culture in the East Continent, and even some of the West besides. She could play songs on flute and biwa by ear – although that was mostly because she had no other options – and knew things far and beyond even what her parents were aware of. For example, they didn't have any concept of what kind of bender she was. Of course, all of this was underlining the fact that she had a monumental vocabulary, whether or not she liked to employ it. But for all her manifold tongues both foreign and domestic, the simplest word encapsulated her position best.

Bored.

Criminally bored.

Murderously bored.

Psychotically bored.

She let out a world-weary sigh, rolling useless eyes as she planted her chin on the heel of an upturned hand, and 'watched' as the celebration went on without her. It was a double irony, that she was bored out of her mind. This party was, supposedly, for her. Her birthday, no less. But Mom and Dad had spent the last twelve years of her life making sure she was utterly isolated from people her own age, so why would her thirteenth be any different? As it was, the party in the vast and cavernous chamber was mostly songs released into void. Nobody came. Hell, if Toph Beifong were to guess, she'd reckon that there might be seven or eight people outside the immediate family and house retainers that even knew she existed.

"Is something wrong, Tuofu? Are you tired?" Dad asked. Toph allowed herself to roll her defunct eyes, because as much of a shrewd businessman as Lao Beifong was, he remained casually oblivious to her capabilities.

"I'm not tired, Dad. Just bored."

"How can you be bored?" Poppy asked, her tone concerned. Of course it was. Mom was always a twitch away from flying into panic, it seemed like. "We have some of the best performers from the Earth Kingdoms here."

"Yeah, and who are they performing for?" Toph asked. "Nobody's here."

"Of course there are, Toph," Dad said. Lied. Even if she lacked the ability to feel the tremors through the stone up through her feet, which showed not only the a-vasting emptiness of the chamber, but also things which lay beyond through solid stone, even if she couldn't feel the heartbeats of everybody present, she'd still know, because when it came to her, Dad was a terrible liar. "All of your friends are here."

"What friends?" Toph asked cuttingly. "When have I ever had an opportunity to make friends? When have you ever let me out of your sight long enough?"

"Toph, we've been over this," Mom said.

"We're just trying to keep you safe, Tuofu," Dad placated, but Toph slumped in her chair, crossing her arms before her chest in annoyance. That was always their excuse. Any attempt at independence was brutally shut down, all because they couldn't get past the fact that Toph Beifong had been born blind.

One, though, caught Toph's attention. Somebody who she couldn't immediately recognize, before she even came into toe-shot. Toph shifted in her seat to rest both soles upon the surface, clearing the resolution as that unknown girl approached. Mother started saying something, but Toph tuned it out completely, cocking her head to one side as she focused not only to her earthbending, but to the sense of hearing that she'd cultivated from the cradle. She could hear voices out there. There was too much distance, too many layers of stone to pick out the words, but she had the tone. Weariness and boredom. Anger from the girl, which made Toph frown in confusion. The guards became alarmed, and began to shout. And then, heat.

Toph's clouded eyes widened as she slammed her hands down on the table and turned to her father. "Dad, somebody's attacking the guards!"

"What? Don't be preposterous, nobody would..."

Another explosion, this one far louder, as the outer doors to the manor were blasted off of their hinges. Still two halls away.

"What's going on?" Lao asked, but Mother got an odd calm to her. Toph couldn't spend any time wondering why Mom didn't pass out from shock and panic, and actually seemed more stable now. She had other things to worry about. More voices. The guards were rushing to the entry hall. This time, she could make out the gist of their message, to the tune of 'stand down and surrender and you will not be killed'. And answering that? The girl laughed. Laughed!

"Dad, we've got a problem here," she said, pushing herself out of her chair and standing atop the broad granite surface of the table.

"Tuofu, get down! You'll fall and hurt yourself!" Dad said, but she could tell that he kept glancing toward the door. Toph did hop down, but this time to put herself between her parents and that stranger, and the sounds of violence which were becoming clearer, crisper, with every passing moment. Finally, the laughing stopped, and she could feel the girl just outside, breathing deep, but not from exhaustion. From anticipation. The girl said something that even Toph couldn't interpret, despite the close proximity, then launched forward with a kick, and it seared with flame.

"FIREBENDER!" Toph screamed. She heaved, brusquely upending the entire table behind her, sending the dinner that had been prepared scattering and pooling around her bare feet. Her parents shouted out in fear and alarm, but they would thank her in a second. Well, two seconds, because that was all the time it took for the girl to get her footing again, and charge a last time. This time, the marble doors exploded into the room, and fire billowed in with them.

With a practiced shift, something far smoother than any earthbender Toph had ever 'seen' or trained with, she called up the stone of the floors into a wedge, which the doors smashed against and rebounded off of. The heat was stifling, but in her protective lee, it flowed past her, searing and spalling the back wall. She could 'see' both of her parents now cowering behind that helpfully upended table. Well, Mother's hair did look like it was on fire, but she swatted it out with half a mind. Despite how stifling and suffocating they were, they were family. Nobody hurt Toph Beifong's family.

The simplest of all earthbending moves; move a rock.

A great chunk of the wedge which had protected her shot forward with her motion, and the firebender easily kipped away from it, landing on her toes and the fingertips of one hand. Despite having no eyes, and a damned poor sense of facial feature, Toph could swear that this girl was smirking.

"Who the hell are you?" Toph shouted.

"_Inevitability,_" The girl answered, an odd accent to her voice. Toph just couldn't place it. And she didn't have the time to, because the firebender immediately surged forward into flame, a sweeping kick which seemed to bathe the room in flames. Of course, it was postponing the inevitable as it was; Despite blindness, despite her tiny stature, Toph doubted there was a greater earthbender on the face of this planet than she. So after calling up a pillar to cut the stream, she let it drop... and then she waited.

Her foot, sliding across the soup-coated, almost stingingly hot stone, sent out a ripple that no eyes could ever see. It was not with those useless orbs that her world entered her. It was by earthbending alone, and she could see everything. The firebender before her, her parents behind her, the musicians who were well off to one side, and still playing, if badly off key. She could see at least one of them edging for a side door. And she could see where this firebender _was going to_ touch the ground.

Toph sent out a kick with a foot, and a new ripple moved out, but this one was of a different sort. This wasn't to give her 'vision'. This was weaponized. The firebender girl landed, and instantly her footing was lost, as the earthbending Toph instigated caught her heel and sent it for a ride. With a smirk of her own, Toph began to sweep in with a precise, three fingered strike... but then the firebender did something quite remarkable. Even off balance... no, because she was off balance... she used the unwanted motion to launch her into more attack. Toph panicked, bringing up a barrier, which was actually smashed to bits by the kinetic force of the firebender's attack. The heat began to sting and crack at her, it began to press against her skin and steal the breath from her lungs.

"I'm gonna whup you for ruining my party!" Toph shouted, twisting and flaring out her arms. The very floor surged toward the firebender, who still hadn't completely regained her balance. But then the girl did... something. Something looping and unstable... but it ended with a loud bang, and the attack flowed past her, smashing into the wall. Of course, the girl had been thrown back against that same wall with some force. But obviously, not nearly enough.

"_A party? Well, forgive me,_" the girl said sarcastically. "_Allow me to deliver a present on behalf of my father, the Fire Lord. Would you like to see it? Oh, right. You __**can't**__ see, can you?_"

Toph instantly ransacked the lessons of diplomacy and politics that she had been force-fed, and the answer that came to her didn't make a whole lot of sense. There was no way this was Azula. She didn't sound like a National, for one. And Princess Azula was some sort of victimized artist, not a firebending warrior. "Is that a cheap shot?"

"_I'm sorry, did that go __**over your head**__?_"

"YOU CALLIN' ME SHORT?" Toph shouted.

"_Oh, I've missed this,_" the firebender said with something almost like a laugh. She finally settled, glancing at her nails. "_In case you were wondering, earthbender, your present is __**fiery death!**_"

She lashed forward again, and this time, with such fury that Toph knew that it was going to end in blood and charred bodies if she didn't do something drastic. Mom and Dad were probably already diving into the deeper stages of denial that their little girl was in a pitched battle for their collective lives, so it fell to the frail, weak, tiny, blind, helpless, unknown daughter of the Beifong family to set things right.

Besides, it wasn't like Dad didn't have the money to repair the east half of the house.

Because as the firebender launched forward, Toph caused a huge wave of stone to hurl both of them through half of the building, and dump them both outside.

* * *

><p>"They've headed further ashore, Admiral," Kwon said wearily. Zhao squinted, and idly noted how only half of his face really obeyed his command anymore.<p>

"What is past Hanyi?" he asked.

"Gaoling, sir," Kwon answered.

"Why does that name sound familiar to me?" Zhao pondered.

"Mining town, quite wealthy," Kwon said idly. "It is the domain of the Beifong families, if memory serves."

"Beifong are ridiculously wealthy, aren't they?" Zhao asked, a smirk coming to his face. He rubbed at the mutton-chop sideburns which now were woefully asymmetric with his maiming. Still, a good idea was a good idea, no matter where it came from. "I suppose you heard the rumor that Kyoshi fell because the Princess happened upon its shores? Well, I believe it is no rumor, but Agni's honest truth. Gather the men and moor above the marsh. I think it time that we gain a stronghold in the Southern Earth Kingdoms for the Fire Lord."

"I didn't see any orders," Kwon noted.

"I don't need orders," Zhao said, that smirk blossoming into a harsh smile. "I think it's time to redistribute some wealth. Take from the rich, give to the Fire Nation."

"And by the Fire Nation, you mean yourself, right?" Kwon asked flatly.

Zhao shot him a glare.

"As I suspected," Kwon finished, but offered no comment, no commendation or condemnation, and ducked out of the room to fulfill Zhao's orders. If Kwon were one whit less useful than he was, Zhao would have had him demoted and cast aside long ago, if not simply executed for treason. Not that Kwon had a treasonous bone in his body; Zhao just knew the right people.

As much as he liked the idea of conquering some land, the greater part of him was his curiosity. What was going on in Gaoling. Was she there? He wanted to know. And he would find out.

* * *

><p>Zuko's eyes widened when he heard the first bang, rippling and distant across the plains. The gates of Gaoling were only a minute or so away, but the sound had been quite extreme. He turned, giving a glance to his uncle, who had an expression of tight worry as his own golden eyes latched onto a spot well ahead. Unconsciously, he tugged the robes a little closer so they could better conceal the armor he wore. "What do you see, Uncle?"<p>

"Fire," Iroh answered quite simply. "Whatever Azula came here for she has obviously found it. We need to hurry."

Zuko turned once again to the rippling of head that he could see in the air. Why would she come here? Why would she attack? He wished he could figure it out, but he had far more important things to worry about. Keeping his sister safe was chief among them. "You don't need to tell me twice, Uncle."

Nephew and Uncle both made haste into the city of Gaoling, as the alarm klaxons began to scream the terror which was showing itself in its midst.

* * *

><p>Toph wasn't one to second guess her decisions. If she had, she might have regretted taking the fight outside. While it did give her a bit more room to move, and a lot less people to protect, it also meant that this firebender chick was setting the gardens, the outbuildings, and a not-insubstantial portion of Gaoling on fire. Her parents were safe, so that was a good thing, but whoever this girl was, she fought with a single-minded mania which defied not only common sense, but simple sanity. And Toph was exactly the sort of person to understand single-mindedness; it was one of the pillars of earthbending.<p>

She then rerouted her stream of consciousness before it became a stream of deadness, because the firebender hadn't ceased, or slowed, or even relented one iota. Toph rolled in the dirt, pulling it up around her into a shell which the blast of flame that was sent against her broke against. It instantly crumbled, no longer resilient enough to sustain itself, but she only needed it for a moment. With a shift of a foot, a flick of the hand, a chunk of stone roughly the same size as her body rose up and surged toward the firebender. Toph waited, listened. Which way was she going to dodge? She could work with either.

She didn't dodge. Rooting like an earthbender herself, the firebender surged forward, two fists leading, and a shockwave pounded through the air as her fire burst the rock before it could even reach her. That was an outcome Toph hadn't seen coming. Firebenders never stood their ground against earth. That was why the East had held its own so long. But this one did.

Toph surged up, pulling the great weight of the sod from behind her opponent, trying to bury her under its massive weight. But there was a blast of heat, and the girl vaulted up onto the crumbling crest, surfing it down to the grounds and blasting out with another wave of heat. This one, Toph simply dove behind a present boulder to avoid. Gods damn it, this wasn't the way this fight was supposed to work! Earthbenders stand their ground, and firebenders dodge! Like waterbenders and, supposedly, airbenders! And somehow, this chick had inverted the whole paradigm!

"You're pretty good at this, whoever you are!" Toph shouted over the rock in her most insulting tone, even as she began to bend. "You might even be able to keep up with me, if you practice real hard, real long!"

"Whoever I am?" the answer came back. Toph flicked her fingers one last measure, and a portion of the boulder slid away from the rest of its bulk, slotting around Toph in a complete mannequin, a suit of armor from the earth. "You must be deaf as well as incompetent. I am Azula. Crown Princess of the Fire Nation. And you are an enemy of the Fire Nation. I'm just doing my duty, in killing you."

Toph frowned at that. When the hell had _she_ ever done something to be the national enemy of the Fire Nation? Inwardly, she kicked herself, rolling her useless eyes inside their stone cage. Obviously it wasn't about her. She turned her thoughts briefly to her parents. Yeah, Dad was richer than most gods of the Underworld, but he was about as threatening as a penguin and as antagonistic as a hare. Mom, maybe? Nah, that just didn't fit into Toph's world-view that Mom would fight the Fire Nation.

"Well, y'ain't doin' it very well!" Toph shouted, surging out from behind the stone, her limbs, encased as they were, still flowing through bending motions. The first Toph attempted was disrupted, interrupted, because the instant she jumped clear, she was intercepted by a blast from... Azula. How she pulled that shot, Toph didn't know. Doubly so, because nothing Toph had ever heard of Azula even mentioned that she was an adequate firebender, let alone... this! Toph regained her balance, thankful for the armor which prevented her gruesome mauling, and counterattacked, thrusting forward both fists, then again with a flair. This time, the wave of stone which raced toward this impossible Azula was far too large, too massive to interrupt, to burst. So she didn't. As the stone began to leap up, trying to pin, to capture her, she managed to shift her foot right onto the stone as it rose, using its momentum to send her flying into the air. And utterly out of Toph's 'sight'.

While she could feel heat, for that one, pristine, critical moment, Azula might as well be invisible.

Therefore, it would come as no surprise, that Toph was taken utterly unawares. Without any warning from her earthbending, nor her ears, suddenly Azula was just there, right in front of Toph. Toph thrust forward a hand, to blast Azula away, but Azula was faster, as she twisted from her landing, two fingers leading as they drove into the armor, and then ignited an explosion. Toph was lifted off of the ground, her armor cracked and shattering. Even before she landed, she pulled as much of it back into place as she could, but before she could even get back to her feet, Azula had bounded onto her, one foot on her chest, the other pinning down Toph's good right hand under a knee.

Toph tried to sweep her off, but Azula idly backhanded, and another explosion flung Toph's hand painfully back to the ground, shattering the armor. Toph bit back tears of pain. Gods, she never even took this kind of lumps when she was training with the badgermoles, and they weren't exactly gentle. Azula punched downward, her fist stopping a bare inch from Toph's face, but that inch filled with fire. At first, Toph thought she could withstand it. Firebenders didn't have stamina. She couldn't keep it up for long. But she did.

And it was getting very, very hot inside Toph's stone helmet. First, it stung. Then, it seared. When her skin felt like it was going to start to blister, to catch aflame of its own volition, she finally and quite unintentionally let out the most pathetically girly scream of pain and fear that had ever come from her throat in her entire life. With just the muscles of her face alone, she burst that helmet, releasing her head from the oven that she had created, and the instant she did, Azula stopped, a smirk on her face that even Toph could 'see'.

"And now, I..." Azula began, but that smirk curdled slowly. Toph could tell, from the way Azula's heart was hammering, that she wasn't calm, but Toph also knew the difference between rage and fear. Azula was quickly transitioning from the former to the latter. "Wh...why am I...?"

"Get off me, ya crazy bitch!" Toph ordered, and attempted to shove Azula aside. More than attempted, even, but Toph hadn't expected to succeed. Azula sat on the dirt, her heart racing harder and harder, as she began to sway in place. "Why did you..."

"I don't know," Azula interrupted. "I don't know I don't know I don't know..."

She was practically starting to hyperventilate. Toph staggered to her feet. Gods damn, that was the most one-sided fight she ever got into, and it ended like this? The fates had a weird sense of humor, it seemed. "What is wrong with you?"

"Run," Azula said, her voice changing, the accent becoming thicker, almost unintelligible. "Run away while you still can."

"Why did you do this?" Toph screamed.

"I..." she shook her head. "I'm sorry. You were my only..."

Toph turned, but could hear something coming. From far away, she could feel an approach. Many, many feet, pounding on the ground. "Is that an army?" she asked.

"Very likely," Azula said quietly, bitterly. "Run."

Toph glared down at the Princess, who was now pulling her knees up to her chest, hyperventilating... and crying? "Screw this. You're the least of my problems."

So Toph left the closest thing she'd ever found to a proper opponent behind, and dashed unerringly back into her burning house. After all, her family needed her. Even if they would never admit that fact.

* * *

><p>"Is that what I think it is, Uncle?" Zuko asked, as he could see the fireballs begin to arc up into the sky. Iroh nodded grimly.<p>

"It seems Zhao has more than his fair share of timing. Or luck," Uncle chimed in. "It is worrying, that he would chose now to strike, and so far inland."

"If he's trying to go by Azula's 'predictions' then it's luck," Zuko pointed out angrily. Mostly because he rejected the alternative utterly. Azula was sick. She needed help. Not more people keeping her sick so that they could worm out a prophecy or two.

"Whatever it is, we must hurry. We are nearing the heart of this," Iroh said. Zuko nodded, pulling his broad hat down to cover his face just a little bit more as he began to wade through the crowds. Many were running away from the heart of the blaze, but they would swiftly find that they had nowhere to run. Only Zuko and Iroh headed in.

"How are we going to find her?" Zuko asked.

"Follow the trail of rubble," Iroh offered with a shrug and a smirk. Zuko glared at his uncle, but Iroh then cast a hand toward one of the buildings at the very heart of the conflagration. Even the carved motif of the flying bore was charring, the gilt dropping off as the wood underneath was consumed. Zuko made it a point to know the important political figures in the East, but he couldn't conjure up the flying boar. They were either new, or unimportant. Which begged a question, as to why Azula would come here. And when he turned a corner in the wall, and saw that a massive portion of it was scree in the street, his fears had been confirmed. There was an earthbender here, and by the looks of it a powerful one. Zuko had no intention to tangle with some brawny man from the east. Just get his sister and get out.

Luckily, the hole made it quite easy to get inside. Zuko had to take a moment to take in the scene before him. There was a vast garden. Great and exotic trees grew, each a punctuation mark on a poem crafted in botany. More local flora was cut and crafted into pleasing shapes, or in mimicry of animals. A stream passed through a corner of it, spanned by a brief, rounded bridge. Great paths of flowers abounded, from roses to tulips, and a great many lotuses and orchids besides.

And with the exception of the stream and the bridge, every single bit of it was on fire.

Zuko rushed through the grounds, screaming his sister's name. The place looked like it had been torn apart by an entire squad of the Earth Kingdom's best benders. Every inch of him was prepared for the worst, the news he hoped he would never have to bear. Then, he could hear his Uncle calling, not for her, but for him. His stomach settled in his feet. His hands became numb, even against the pounding heat from the fires around him. He swallowed, dryly. And then he was running. Please, Agni, don't do this. Not to her. She doesn't deserve this. Not her. Please.

When Zuko stumbled into that secluded corner of the gardens, and saw Uncle kneeling next to Azula, and that she was filthy but otherwise not-dead, he could have wept with relief. But another instinct sadly got in the way first. "What did you do?" Zuko shouted over the din. "Why did you come here?"

"Prince Zuko, this isn't the time for..."

"This was a mistake," Azula said. "I shouldn't have done this. W-Why did I do this?"

Zuko had harsh words that begged for release. Begged. But this was his sister. "Let's get you home," he said wearily. "Zhao's army is coming. They're probably going to invade, now that the militia is spread thin."

"It's just like that smug, sanctimonious bastard to attack when the wonder by necessary," she said sarcastically. Then, she grew pale. And so did Zuko. "He can't surf when nothing heavy. Words and parchment... Zuko, I can't... No no no no..."

And Zuko was helpless, as Azula released the worst sound he remembered ever hearing. That groan from the back of her throat, as her entire body folded on itself. Her eyes were wide and desperate, before tightening. She tipped over and almost landed hard on her face, but Zuko managed to prevent that, at least. But there was nothing he could do about what would come next. So when Azula's eyes rolled back in her head, and her body began to spasm like an entire army of demons had slipped inside of her and were fighting amongst themselves over the best way to torture her. Zuko turned a panicked glance to Iroh, who could only shake his head and sigh. Not with disdain, though; Uncle would never judge her for that. This was a sigh of powerlessness. So the two princes, once and current, gently held the flailing girl until slowly the spasms began to quiet, her movements began to smooth.

She started blinking again, but from her eyes, there was no thought going on in there. She was in a state of perfect confusion, blood leaking from the corner of her lip where she must have bitten either her tongue or the inside of her cheek during her seizure. "Ghuh," she managed, her head swaying. Zuko looked to Iroh, and the two quickly hoisted her up onto their shoulders. Six months. Six months since the last fit. Zuko hoped, beyond all hope, that they had finally stopped. This proved that it was a hopeless dream. "We've got to go. I will not let Zhao have my sister, and I won't let these peasants have her either."

"Then we had better move fast," Iroh agreed.

"You'd better not slow us down," Zuko muttered, but Iroh laughed at that, the jolly laugh he used to use, back when Auntie was still alive.

"Prince Zuko, you will someday discover that it is _you_ who has to keep up with _me_."

And with that, the Fire Nation royalty limped away from the burning garden, and for the moment, not a single one of them knew what transpired here, or why.

* * *

><p>Consciousness slid back into Nila's form much the same way that mystics climbed mountains of broken glass. Slowly, with great difficulty, and no small amount of pain. Rather than the slow, numbing bleed of a thousand cuts on the hands and feet, her pain came in the form of a terrible headache and a feeling rather like the ground was drunkenly fighting with itself as to which direction constituted down. She smacked her lips, noting the taste. "<em>Ugh. My mouth tastes like mud,<em>" she muttered to herself in her native tongue.

"Ah, so you weren't babbling incoherently. Being the case, that's some crazy language you've got there," the perky voice instantly set her on edge. Her hands flashed to her side, where the case would dig into her hip when she slept. But it wasn't there. Neither was her robe. Who had done this? What sort of pervert would strip a teenager to her nickers? Her tattooed hands instantly flashed to conceal her rail slender form, somewhat ineffectively. The answer to both of the previous questions came when Nila focused her vision across the fire which burned against the night. Night, eh? She must have been out for a while. "You were out for a while," the stranger pointed out. Yes, idiot, I'd already deduced that, Nila thought to herself.

"Where are my things?" she demanded in Tianxia, since it seemed to be a language in common. The stranger was a girl, by the voice, and dressed in a robe even more concealing than Nila's own. Only a pair of big, brown eyes could be seen through a part in the cowl. The girl nodded to one side, and Nila could see her robe, pristine and black once again, but draped over a misshapen lump near a mound which was obviously a sleeping Ostrich Horse. Her eyes narrowed.

"I didn't touch anything," the girl assured. "Well, except for this."

Nila's eyes went wide when the stranger hefted the plain leather case for her bow, but she quickly switched surprise for derision. What did she care about that thing, anyway? "Is that a threat?" Nila demanded, as the stranger toyed with the weapon.

"Aren't you a paranoid one?" she chirped. Nila could tell she wasn't being perky for the sake of perky; it was just the way her voice was. Much like Mother's always sounded like she was impatiently waiting for you to do what she wanted. "No, I just wanted to take a look at it. I've never seen one of these things in person."

"Si Wongi don't let their weapons fall into outsiders' hands very often," Nila said dismissively. It wasn't a topic she was interested in. "Where are we?"

"A couple dozen miles west of where I found you," she answered. "What's your name?"

"Why?"

"Am I not allowed to know? Is it some sort of tribal taboo thing, like if I know, I'll steal your soul or something?"

"No, it's because you practically stripped me naked and kidnapped me!"

"You spent most of the day sleeping, and if I didn't force water down your throat, you probably wouldn't have bothered waking up," came the response, in the same perky voice, if with a sarcastic undertone. "I'm Tzu Zi."

"Why did you take my clothes?"

"They stank, and we passed a river six hours ago. I figured no point in not cleaning them."

"You had me ride naked in the saddle for how long?" she asked.

Tzu Zi sighed. "First of all, you're not naked. Second of all, would you rather be dressed in filth?" she countered with what Nila could only assume was a smirk under that cowl. Nila tried to answer that, but the only answers either agreed with this stranger, or made Nila seem like some sort of mad derelict. So instead, she glared for all she was worth. "Where are you going?"

"Give me back my bow," Nila said. Tzu Zi shrugged, slipped the weapon back into its case, and idly tossed it over the fire. Nila caught it easily enough, but she was extremely uncomfortable about this whole situation. She was not used to being this exposed. As such, she practically hid behind the case. "What do you want from me? I don't have any money, and I'll open my own arteries before letting you drag me to the auction block!"

"Slavery? Really?" Tzu Zi asked. She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Mom was right, you people are barbarians."

Nila let out a bit of a laugh at that. "Yeah, we really are."

"So I reiterate. Where are you heading?"

"Funny you use the word reiterate. I doubt many would even know its meaning," Nila said.

"I don't assume everybody I meet is a moron. Is there something wrong with that?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila actually appreciated it, but she wouldn't say as much.

"West. Beyond that, I can't really say."

"Can't or won't?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I ask the same of you," Nila said. Oddly, this was probably the longest conversation she'd ever had with somebody near her own age. Mostly because this Tzu Zi wasn't an ill-educated, vapid trollop, or a muscle-brained, glory-addicted thug.

"I'm going to meet my sister on the coast," Tzu Zi said. She shrugged. "I don't see any reason we can't share a bird as long as it's effective. Aki won't mind. Won't you, Aki?"

The bird let out a snort at that, as though it had been listening in.

"Your sister. On the coast."

"They're running around all over the place," Tzu Zi said idly. "I've got another one somewhere in the north, one joined a circus, I think... and I'm pretty sure one's hiding in Ba Sing Se."

"...How many sisters do you have?"

"Six."

"All older?"

"Technically, we're all the same age," Tzu Zi said with a shrug. Nila tried to figure out how that could possibly work, outside of some truly bizarre calendar manipulation, and failed. After all, it's not like seven children could be born in one... litter? Is that the term? She was going to have to look that up. "So what do you think?"

"About what?"

"Taking the bird to the coast?"

"With you, the pervert who stripped me naked and kidnapped me."

"Sure, why not?"

She looked to the west. Still, despite every whit of her rational mind telling her that she must have overtaken Sharif, that inkling in the back of her mind told her that he had yet outpaced them. "Fine. Fine! But if you try anything else weird, and I'll... Do something unpleasant to you."

"I think the girl doth protest too much," Tzu Zi said lightly, and there was a merry grin in her eyes. Nila answered it by throwing her boot at her.

* * *

><p>A man clearing his throat behind her was all the warning that Sativa got. She pulled the last cinch tight on the lizard hound, so that her things wouldn't shift on the creature's broad, low back. While useless for riding, they made good pack animals. Especially since she would dare not hire a sandbender to take her where she needed to go. She turned, clapping the sand and grit off of her callused hands. Sha-Mo, the chief of Sentinel Rock, was barring the path to the winding road down into the Grit Ocean. She stared impassively at him, green eyes meeting green.<p>

"What is the meaning of this?" Sha-Mo asked.

"I was hoping to see you before I left," Sativa said. "It is fortunate you came. This way, I didn't have to seek you out."

"Who is the outsider?" Gashuin demanded with a harsh tone.

"You will still your tongue lest I nail it to the wall, child!" Sativa snapped, a tattooed hand sliding toward the ornate case that rode at her hip. Gashuin only looked more incensed by that, but Sativa honestly didn't care. She turned to Sha-Mo, and gave a shrug, before waving her hand toward her companion. "Since it is obviously your question put through ignorant and ill-tempered lips, this is Piandao, a swordsman, artist, philosopher, and tutor of some repute."

"I haven't heard of him," Gashuin muttered.

"I doubt your generation would," Piandao said evenly. How he looked now was a vast improvement over how he was when he'd arrived. His beard, now trimmed, hugged his jawline, rather than dominating his face. His hair, once straggly, was tied back. Despite the decades, she could see why she had thought him such a handsome man. In a way, he still was. "Are we done here?"

"We have everything of value," she said. She turned back to Sha-Mo. "In three days, somebody will come to collect the contents of my shed. When they do, you will not hinder them in any way. I will be displeased if you do."

"Who do you think you are, ordering a man around?" Gashuin sneered. Sativa silenced him by casually unclasping the flap of her case, letting it droop open. Gashuin wisely shut the hell up.

"A war is coming," Sativa said. "And this is a war the likes of which you have never seen and have no preparation for," Gashuin opened his mouth, so she cast a warning finger at him. "You might have seen battle. You all might have seen battle, blood on the sands and people crying for their mothers. But I promise you, Sha-Mo, you have not seen _anything_ like war. You have not seen the tides of forty thousand men surging through a breach in a line two hundred thousand strong. You have not stood in the fire and the flames, the only smell of blood and ash. You are ignorant children, playing at a game you know almost nothing about, and I have far better things to do than to coach you in the grown-up rules."

"How dare you..." Gashuin began, but this time, when he was silenced, it was for good, because in the space of time between 'dare' and 'you', she pulled the recurve bow from its case, nocked an arrow, and drew it, its point at Gashuin's chest. Just before her knuckles, a wad of cloth clung behind the point.

"This is a crime, Badesh," Sha-Mo pointed out coldly.

"Sativa, is this wise?" Piandao asked.

"_What is a crime_ is the way that my family has been treated for the last decade and a half," Sativa said. "_What is a crime_ is that I have sacrificed much of my life for the safety of my people, and they spit on me. They spit on my children. They spit on my accomplishments, and they spit on my house. I have given you everything I had. You mock my shortcomings, you belittle my gains. You threaten and ostracize my friends, you incite and enrage my enemies. And what is your reason? I am a woman. An unmarried mother."

"Killing us won't change any of that," Sha-Mo said cautiously.

"Why would I kill you? What revenge would that be? I have traveled far, Sha-Mo, far beyond the tiny world with its tiny throne that you sit upon," she said, relaxing her bow and turning it into a brazier. The oiled cloth caught alight. "I have learned many flavors of revenge, in my years. Some of them cold, some hot, some bitter, some sweet. But the greatest revenge – _my_ greatest revenge – is that you are no longer relevant. My revenge is to ignore everything that you are, everything that you stand for. My revenge is being so much better than you in every way, that your every gift becomes an insult, your every word a blasphemy. You have nothing I want. And if I'd been a wiser woman fifteen years ago, I would never have come back. So take back what you gave me, Sha-Mo," She turned, and loosed the arrow back into the house. There was a moment of pristine silence. And then came the explosion, vast and abounding, a fireball rising into the sky, as most of the building was instantly gutted by the spare explosives that Nila had left lying around.

Now wasn't _that_ an odd thing for a mother to be thankful for?

"By all means, collect it at your leisure," she said, sliding the bow back into its case. She gave the lizard hound a cluck of the tongue, and the low beast began to sidle down the path, Piandao giving a wry smirk at the destruction she left in her wake. Without turning back, she shouted. "And don't try to steal the shed's contents for yourself. It's booby-trapped."

"It isn't really, is it?" Piandao asked quietly as the rest of the town rose in alarm at the cacaphony they were leaving in their wake. She spared him a glance, before reaching up and tearing off the coif which she had worn every day for the last three years, and for a contiguous eleven before that. She tossed it idly into somebody's garden, and let her hair, still black as it was when she was a child, fly in the wind. It felt good not to be bound by this stupidity anymore.

"Of course not, but now they won't dare call my bluff," she admitted with a small smirk of her own. It was an odd form to her face. She hadn't smiled much in the last fifteen years. Far less than she had in her youth.

"And the house, was that strictly necessary?" he pressed. She nodded slowly, a sigh leaking from her throat.

"I had many happy memories in that place. But it was vital, because there is now no going back. Thus begins the saving of the world, not with a whisper, but a bang."

"I forgot how poetic you got when the mood took you," Piandao offered.

"It's been a long time since I had an adventure," Sativa said, that smirk growing into a weary smile. "I just hope I'm still up to it."

"I have no doubts in my mind," Piandao said staunchly.

The people must not have wanted what Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar left behind very much, because there wasn't so much as a token effort to snuff the blaze, and it raged for several hours into the mid noon, before the last remnants of wood and volatile chemicals finally burnt away. With the sun directly overhead, it would have been impossible for the shadows of that now-roofless building to hide anything. And yet, somehow, they did.

She stepped out of the shadow, the ragged edges of her yellow and orange kavi fluttering in the updrafts, of hot air rising away from the ruined home. She didn't feel it, not strongly. Not just because of what she was, but because of the unconscious bubble of airbending which now surrounded her. Grey eyes swept across the Inner and Outer Sphere, and beheld the hundreds of newborn fire spirits, motes of red light, dancing heat, disembodied flame. She opened her mouth, and revealed the horrible blackness that was her maw. The spirits knew little in their short existence, and the last thing they knew was terror, as they were dragged by an inexorable gravity into the gullet of something far larger and hungrier than they. Her lips moved, as they always did when she stopped feeding, speaking unconscious and blasphemous prayers which tore the spirits into nothing.

**RAVAGING FIRE, DESTROYER OF LIFE, SEARING WHIP, STARVATION OF FORESTS**

**GEAR OF ANNIHILATION;**

**FALL TO THE HUNGER OF YOUR RIGHTEOUS MASTER.**

**BURN, AND BE ****FORGOTTEN**.

Not much of a prayer, but it sated the hunger of that thing which lived inside Malu now. A little, anyway. She had already come far, but the Spirit World was a hungry place. She needed to feed. And this place was... convenient. Most fires only created a trifle. This place was teeming. She looked around, flat grey eyes taking in the building. Something... unusual happened here. She moved, not by walking, but by folding in and out of the world which few others could ever reach. She looked at this room, this husk from fire. It was a smell, a memory of a smell. Void. She tilted her head, like a confused animal. Why would the void come here? She perked up. Unless... unless there was another. A shaman like the Avatar, but less protected? If the thing inside Malu knew how to smile, it would have. But as it was, it simply felt the hunger return. Malu took a step back, into the tiny pool of a noon-day shadow, and her body vanished once more from the mortal world.

* * *

><p><strong>Spirits and Souls are very different things. The best way to describe a soul would be a perfectly frictionless sphere, whereas a spirit is more like a 4 year old golf ball. While the golf ball has a lot of useful applications which simply cannot happen with a frictionless sphere, it is also vulnerable to manipulations which the sphere is immune to. That is why shamans can control spirits, but spirits can't (with a few <em>very<em> specific exceptions) cannot control souls. The shaman's soul is also an interesting case; a frictionless sphere cannot meaningfully interact with a golf-ball, since there's not enough grip. But if that sphere has even a patch of it which is 'roughed up', then interaction can take place. A shaman's soul is at least a little bit like a spirit, just enough to give them traction. This can happen because they were born that way, as Sharif was, or because of a traumatic experience with the Spirit World, as Iroh's was. What's the biggest advantage of not being a shaman in 3F-Verse? That thing inside Malu can't eat you.**

**I'd initially intended for Tzu Zi to be a one-off character, to show up in a couple of chapters, and then get bussed until the end of Book Three (_If_ I get that far, don't get your hopes up). But as I wrote her, it became obvious to me that she had a lot more potential as a foil for Nila, and a means for her to slowly start developing her character. Plus, it helped set up a personal exploration arc for Nila which I'm probably going to enjoy more than some people are. And yes, Nila is more like her mother than either of them is willing to admit. For Sativa's F-U speach, I kinda cribbed from Shylock, but you take what you can get, right? If I can't steal from The Bard, then who can I steal from? I'm already snatching enough from the Russians as it is, considering the amount of Turgor/Tension/The Void and Roadside Picnic that I've been up in lately.**

**Oh yes, and Azula: That's what happened to her when she was little. Only that time was WAY worse. More will get explained about it as things go on, but you notice how Azula's diction was broken in chapter 2, how she didn't seem to make a lot of sense, and spoke in something approaching word-salad? That's because she was recovering from a milder version of what she faced here. See? Always thinkin' ahead.**

_Leave a review._


	6. The Freedom Fighters

**This is the longest single chapter I have ever wrote. Oh, and one more thing:**

**Jai.**

* * *

><p>"I won't forget this, Bumi," Aang said gratefully as he hugged the stooped-yet-musclebound super-centenarian. Aang had just about given up hope that he would find any link to his old life, and yet here one was, larger than life, and most importantly, still alive. Sure, he'd had to jump through some ridiculous hoops in order to figure that out, but that was just the way Bumi always operated. And they did enjoy riding the mail system again.<p>

Although, if looks could kill, that one cabbage merchant would have committed regicide.

"It was nice meeting you... until you tried to kill us," Sokka said offhandedly, fidgeting with his clothing.

"Sokka, stop picking at it. People will think you've got a pox or something," Katara pointed out.

"This is why I always hated having to get new clothes. They're never broken in!" Sokka whined. Although, he didn't he didn't have much of a choice in the matter, since pretty much all of his clothing managed to get left behind on Kyoshi island, and there was no going back for it. Aang and Katara had likewise lost much; Katara only had the clothes on her back. Everything else needed to be replaced. It made it more than fortunate that Aang's old friend Bumi managed to spend the last hundred years becoming King.

And the story of how that happened strained the very bounds of narrative sanity. When Aang tried to sort out some of the more unlikely bits of the story with Bumi's 'advisors', they just shrugged and pointed out that yeah, it was kinda impossible, and yet happened anyway. So seeing Sokka muttering to himself in those green and brown clothes was actually something of a return to sanity. A bright grin came back to the young Avatar's face, because for a few days, he managed to put that title, which he had neither asked for nor expected to hold, aside, and be the person he felt he was supposed to be. Fun, lazy, and the best kinds of stupid.

"When I learn waterbending, I'll probably be coming back. I can't think of a better earthbending teacher than you," Aang said. But at this, Bumi shook his head lightly.

"I can think of twenty," he said gently. "Besides, I have a city to run, and you will probably need to keep moving so the Fire Nation doesn't land on you like a mail-cart on a cabbage stand," his smile was warm and genuine, and hopeful, though. "You just have to trust that you'll find the right teacher when the time comes. Somebody who has mastered the neutral jin."

"The what?"

"You'll figure it out when the time is right," Bumi said, patting Aang on the shoulder. "One more thing. If you see a crazy middle-aged guy living in a shack on the mountain, tell him 'lotus to Intercept 3'. He'll know what it means. Now get going. Your friends won't wait forever."

Appa let out a bellow as the two Tribesmen clambered into its howdah, and Aang lightly bounded up to its brow. He waved down at his – in both senses of the term – oldest remaining friend, and uttered the words which caused Appa to rise into the air. As Appa lazily paddled toward the north, he whispered a 'steady on' command into the big ear of the beast, then bounced up into the saddle himself.

"So, now that we've managed to escape the worst insanity that we're going to suffer on this trip, where are we going now?" Sokka asked.

"Yes, what about the North Pole? It's still really far away," Katara pressed.

"Well, as long as we're heading north, I figure we'll get there eventually, and having all this food and money can't hurt," Sokka pointed out.

"He's right. We're on the right course. We should just enjoy the ride until we get there."

"Says you," Katara muttered. "You can airbend whenever you want. But I'm pretty much hopeless unless I'm surrounded by an ocean."

Aang gave Sokka a glance. "If you want, we can stop at a lake or something, to get your bend on?" her older brother offered with a nudge and a grin.

"Sokka, not now," she said.

"What's wrong, Katara?"

She sighed. "I just feel... useless. I mean, even Sokka managed to be pretty useful in Omashu. But me? I was just..."

"Damsel-in-distress-y?" Sokka offered. She glared at him. "What? You wanted a word!"

"Well, have you thought about teaching me?" Aang asked. "I mean, I can't waterbend _at all_, and I need to learn in order to..." he paused. "What exactly is the Avatar supposed to do again?"

The two siblings shared a glance, then both shrugged in unison. "Something about bringing peace and keeping balance, or something," Sokka said.

"That's... kinda vague," Aang pointed out.

"Well, we're with you, when whatever happens, happens," Sokka said.

"But teaching you waterbending? I don't really know anything."

"Maybe you know more than you think you do?" Aang pressed. He grinned. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

"I get soaked, dragged under and drowned."

Both turned to Sokka.

"What?"

"You need to lighten up," Katara pointed out.

"I just know how my luck tends to run when you play with the magic water," Sokka said. He leaned back, trying to find a comfortable position. "So how far do you think we'll make before we land?"

"Well, we'll probably cross Misty Swamp easily enough. But there's still lots of forests on the other side. We're probably roughing it for a few days," Aang said, scratching his bald head as he tried to call to mind anything more distinct. It had been a while, not just the century that passed in the blink of an eye, but also in his own youth, since he'd taken this precise path from South Air Temple to North. "I'm pretty sure that nothing can go wrong at this point."

At that, Sokka groaned all the louder.

* * *

><p>He squatted in the boughs of the drooping, wavering willow tree. There wasn't as much footing as he was used to; but then again, he was also used to running around quite a bit north of here. Down here, everything was warm, everything was wet, and everything smelled funny. But he'd been through worse. He'd been through it longer than most would have believed. For all he was only sixteen years old, Jet had seen a lifetime of war.<p>

A dark figure was perched beside him. Narrow, pale fingers passed over the spy-glass, which had been carefully stolen months ago, and kept meticulously safe ever since. There was practically no chance whatsoever that he could replace it. He accepted the lens with a grunt of appreciation, and brought it to his eye. "Yup, just like Longshot said. We've got Fire Nation in Hanyi."

His counterpart let out a weary sigh, but otherwise didn't weigh in.

"Yeah, I know, it's like they're everywhere these days," he agreed. He brought the lens up again, and began scanning the port. The entire town was built atop piles which had been driven into the bog, such that the streets were truly canals, and the whole thing seemed to perch like some really ugly and misproportioned birds, or drunken and leaning stilt-walkers.

"Well, we're going to have to do something about this, now aren't we?" he asked. His companion just cast a glance his way, a questioning look with those bright grey eyes. Not exactly the most talkative person, this one, but the most faithful and enduring companion that he had ever found. Hell, the two of them were the reason the Freedom Fighters even got started.

"Do you see 'em?" the voice came from below. It was so raspy and ragged that one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a boy with a throat infection. Rather, it was just the way that Smellerbee talked all the time.

"Yeah, we see 'em, Bee," he said, swinging down from the branch. His counterpart, all dressed in dark-patch work robes, remained above, almost becoming invisible as soon as he stopped actively trying to track. Bee, though, was fairly easy to spot. She wasn't very tall, but her hair made up the difference, sticking out in all directions all of its own accord. She was oddly proportioned, but quicker than anybody he'd ever known. "We've got our work cut out for us. There's an entire army out there. And some of 'em are coming this way."

"We've faced armies before," Smellerbee said confidently. The teenage boy with them, though, only gave Jet a look. That look said 'yeah, and when we did, we wisely ran the hell away from them'. Longshot's looks could contain entire conversations.

"It's not going to be like last time," he promised. "This time, we're going to run the Fire Nation out of this part of the Earth Kingdoms for good."

"Strong words, Jet," The booming voice of Pipsqueak sounded from nearby.

"What can I say? I've got a way with them," Jet said with a smirk, biting on a sprig of wheat that he held 'twixt his teeth. "This isn't going to be easy. But that's why it's going to be so much fun."

"I hope you're right about this, Jet," Smellerbee said, a tension in her voice.

Jet turned up to the tree. "Well, you haven't weighed in, Shadow. What do you think?"

Shadow's whole answer was to jump down from the tree, glance in his direction, and then give an ambivalent shrug. Of course Shadow would do that. Shadow cared about very little, besides the cause. Jet doubted that any believed it stronger. When Shadow walked back toward the encampment, Jet addressed the others.

"Alright, we all know what we've got to do. Take everything that ain't nailed down, and pry up the nails for the rest," he ordered. He might not have been the best warrior for the freedom of the East, but with the gods as his witnesses, he would see the Fire Nation gone.

Maybe then the dreams of fire would stop.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**The Freedom Fighters**

* * *

><p>"How is she?" Uncle asked gently as Zuko closed the bulkhead. Zuko could only shake his head, weariness practically the sole inhabitant of his affect. "That bad, huh?"<p>

"She still can't even speak," Zuko said, leaning against that door. "She can barely walk, her hands won't stop shaking. It's like her first episode, all over again."

"We both know that was far worse. She couldn't speak for a month."

"It's already been a week," Zuko said. His eyes dropped to the deck. "What if this is it? What if she never recovers from this one?"

"Prince Zuko, I have known you to be many things," Iroh said. "But never one to surrender. You remember the message on the blade?"

Zuko idly tapped at his belt, to the gift that Uncle had sent him, so many years ago. It was a bitter gift, because by the time it arrived, Azula had already slipped into her illness. In a way, there was a good side; if Azula had been cogent, she likely would have burnt the doll Iroh sent her. "I will never forget."

"Good," Iroh said. "Take heart. She is a strong girl. Stronger than we give her credit. She will recover."

Zuko sighed, walking toward the stairs. "I just wish she'd be _alright_. Not just recovered, but healthy."

"This is something which you are going to have to face one day at a time," Iroh advised. "Just be the brother she needs. In that, you have no equal on this entire planet."

"Thank you, Uncle," Zuko said, as Iroh turned off toward the mess. While the older man was still wearing his mourning whites, he was ever-so-slowly returning to the habits he'd held before Auntie passed away. Chief among them? Walking the path his stomach set for him. Zuko had a small smirk on his face as he ascended up to the helm. When the door squealed open, Jee turned back briskly, leveling a long look on Zuko, before giving a peremptory salute, before returning to his charts.

"I didn't expect to see you up here," Jee said. Usually, Zuko would have been incensed that Jee neglected any even minor nod toward Zuko's nobility, but at the moment, he was just too drained to care. And too worried about his sister to bother.

"I could say the same of you. Why aren't we moving?" he asked.

"The straits are polluted with Zhao's ships," Jee said with a muttered curse. He turned to Zuko. "It was your orders to keep well clear of him."

"I'm aware of my orders," Zuko said snappishly. He'd momentarily forgotten them, true, but he knew why he'd ordered it. Zhao wasn't just hunting the Avatar, with far more resources than Zuko had at his disposal. He was also dead-set on 'collecting' Azula. That was something that would only happen over Zuko's cold corpse. "Has there been any sign of the Avatar?"

Jee sighed. "We wouldn't have the first clue of where to start looking. Occasional bison sightings, but they're all feral. I'm sorry, Prince, but we have nothing."

Zuko turned with a growl, an arc of fire flashing from his hand across the metal deck. He took a moment to collect himself, then turned to Jee once more. "Keep looking for a way out of this bay, nice and quiet. We can't hunt the Avatar if we're trapped in a hole."

"As soon as I've got a path, you'll be the first to know it," Jee said distractedly, as he began to flip between maps, before shaking his head with a frustrated grumble and kneading his brow. Zuko stepped out onto the balcony which circled the tower wherein lied the cabins. It was still cold here, but far warmer than he'd been for the last few months. Agni's blood, what he wouldn't give to be home again, standing on black sands, looking out on the harshly beautiful volcanic terrain. He ran his fingers over the mounted telescope, thinking of the friends he'd once had. They were actually embarrassingly few in number. Even Azula managed to outdo him in that. He wondered whatever became of bubbly Ty Lee, of somber Mai. He kinda had a thing for her, way back in the day. But too many years had passed. He likely wouldn't even recognize her anymore... assuming she wasn't dead with all the rest of her family.

Out of the corner of his eye, far to the south, he could see something descending. It was white as the clouds, but clouds didn't move as that thing did. Another bison? He sighed, wheeling the scope around and putting his eye to it. Big, white, fuzzy, like every other one of those great beasts that wandered the hard-to-reach places of the world. But there was also a flash of other color. Yellow, orange, green, and blue. Zuko's eye widened, and his head snapped up. He watched that tiny white blip sink into the canopy of trees.

Zuko turned back toward the cabins. Had Azula predicted this, too? Was that why she came here, to set some sort of trap? If it was, then it was a damned shame she sunk to the level she was at so critical a time. And it therefore fell to Zuko to salvage what he could from it. He looked out there, at the trees, and he took a moment to think. So many ways he could approach this. But which was the best?

* * *

><p>It wasn't the most scenic of spots that Sokka had picked to land. Listening to his 'instincts' seldom ended well for anybody. It as a boggy bit of land, drooping trees rising up out of the marshland, and stagnant water lying between them in broad, shallow, still pools. If there was one thing going for it, though, it was that it didn't lack for privacy. The only way that anybody could see them would be if they were flying overhead, and nobody but Aang had managed to tame an air bison in the last hundred years or so. If one had, she probably would have heard about it. The sun set quickly, as the long shadows of the trees ate the ground and plunged the camp into darkness at a fairly early hour, but with all of the little tasks dealt with, it gave her time to train.<p>

As much use as she'd be at training, anyway.

"Alright, this is the first one I figured out," Katara said, having doffed her thick and almost stifling parka in the howdah. Truth told, it didn't leave her wearing much, but with the insufferable heat the way it was in this bog, she wondered how bad it would get if they went any further north. She might melt into a pile of sweat. Oddly, the airbender seemed to be most put-off by it. Thus, she snapped her fingers, to get his attention. "Aang, come on, focus!"

"I'm sorry, it's just... you're almost..." he blushed furiously.

"Family does this all the time," she pointed out. "You're family. Now come on."

He looked a bit leery at the concept, but he turned his eyes to the water before her, since it was obviously easier for him to deal with than her. "Alright. Focused. On water."

"The first thing I learned was that if you're working with water, you've got to be aware of the push-and-pull of it. You can't just send it anywhere you want. You've got to coax it," She gently pushed forward, "and then, you can use its own reaction to you to get it where you want it," she continued, pulling back. As she repeated the motion, a wave began to form, small, but distinct against the otherwise still pond, moving to and fro with her motions. She released it, and the water grew still again. Aang nodded, and then cast out his arms. A wind blew across the surface, and ripples danced outward, forced by it.

"That was easy!"

"That was doing it wrong," Katara pointed out.

"She says that about everything," Sokka chimed in.

"He wasn't waterbending, he was just airbending!" Katara hollered at him. She turned back to her pupil. "You can't rush it. You have to be calm, centered."

"Calm and centered, fine," Aang said, but once again, he was a darker pallor than usual. If he blushed much harder, he might pop a vessel. Poor kid. This time, he moved his arms much slower. No wind, this time. He began to pull back, then forward again, but the water was still. Finally, he started to sweat, his tongue caught 'twixt his teeth, as more and more effort went into his slow, even motions. Finally, he let out a sigh, his arms dropping. "I don't get it! It doesn't want to work!"

"Do it again," She said, moving closer to him. To his credit, he was now so focused on his task that he barely even noticed her now hovering over his shoulder. When he began to bend once more, she finally saw his problem. It was in the wrists. "I see. You expect the water to flow away when you push, and to surge in when you pull. It's not that easy. You have to let the water do what it wants. It's coaxing it, not commanding it. Try it again, and loosen those wrists."

Aang nodded, and tried again. She didn't expect him to pick it up quickly. It had taken her weeks to get even the most basic motions down, enough to cause the water to spill over the side of a bucket. Of course, she'd apparently done more, entirely by accident, starting when she was two, but that was the first time that she was in control. She prepared to sidle back to the campfire and leave Aang to his lesson, but he let out an exultant cry. She turned back, and saw that he was, indeed, causing the water to flow in waves... and his waves were much bigger than hers were.

"I'm doing it, Katara! I'm a waterbender!" he said. But as the words left his mouth, his arms fell still, and the water splashed into motionlessness, as the ripples rebounded against the shores before reducing into nothing. He finally lowered his head, and let out a sigh, like a vast weight had finally, after such anticipation, dropped onto his shoulders. "I really am the Avatar. There's no getting around it, is there?"

"I don't blame ya'," Sokka said from the fire. "It's kinda depressing to play with the magic water at the best of times."

"Sokka, shut up!" Katara shouted. But he was grinning too wide for it to affect him. She turned back to her own pupil and laid a kind hand on his shoulder. "I know this isn't easy for you. But it's what you have to do at some point. At least this way, you get to be who you are around family."

"Thanks, Katara," Aang said distantly. He took a deep breath, and the looked up again. "Well, no point in moping over it. What's next?"

"Well, I call this next one 'streaming the water'," Katara said, pulling up on the pond, coaxing up the water into a tendril which wavered to and fro as her control grew tighter or weaker. "If you do it really carefully, you can even pull the water right off of the pond, and..." she concentrated hard enough that the sweat that she was already releasing redoubled, and with a grunt of mental effort, snapped the connection to the pond, holding up a sphere of water in the air. "The problem... with this... is that it's... hard to keep... a handle on it..." Katara said, as she struggled to keep the bending from slipping from her grasp. She then looked over, and saw that Aang had pulled one up, and was now actively playing with it. Her shocked glance caused her own water sphere to drop and splash her feet and calves. "Wow. You sure picked that up fast."

"I must have a great teacher!" Aang said. He held it before him, and then made a swift motion, whereupon the blob lashed out quickly and smashed into Katara, knocking her from her feet into the bog. "Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry," Aang blurted, rushing to her as she tried to blink away the stars and confusion which came in such an impact's wake.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"I just kinda... did," he said. "It was like pulling on rubber."

"What's rubber?"

"I'll explain later," Aang muttered, idly tossing the water which he'd still, infuriatingly enough, held control over. "I didn't mean to do that."

"I know, I know," Katara said, getting slowly to her feet. She winced as she raised an arm, seeing the dark welt on her ribs which would probably darken further into a spectacular bruise. "Hey, you should try to figure that one out. I mean, it'd make a great weapon."

"Weapon? Why would I need a weapon?" Aang asked.

"Maybe because the combined forces of the entire Fire Nation army and navy both want to make you dead?" Sokka said idly as he poked his growing fire with a stick. Katara started to chastise him, but actually didn't disagree in the slightest.

"What my oaf of a brother lacks in tact, he makes up for in accuracy," Katara admitted. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to bring the fight to the Fire Nation if this war is ever going to stop. That means, you need to have weapons."

Aang just stared at her, such a tension in his form that he almost seemed ready to split himself apart. "That doesn't mean I have to like it," Aang whispered, before walking away, to enjoy the seclusion of the bog.

* * *

><p>"That town was stupid."<p>

"I know, Nila," Tzu Zi said, warmly.

"Everybody in that town was stupid!" the Si Wongi complained once again.

"I know, Nila."

"I hope that volcano blows up and burns that entire place down!" she said sourly. Tzu Zi rolled her eyes, shaking her head from her seat before Nila on Aki's saddle. She initially tried to convince Nila to ride up front, but she had absolutely flipped out when Tzu Zi tried to hold on after Aki started moving. Nila was either badly creeped-out by touch in general, or else just militantly and exclusively heterosexual to a point of parody. Tzu Zi, having been raised with her sisters as she had, was far less bothered by all that. And, of course, _where_ she was raised probably had some influence as well.

"You don't mean that," Tzu Zi said, but from the tension of Nila's arms around Tzu Zi's waist – something Nila only agreed to after falling off the saddle five times in the space of an hour – told Aki's owner that she was angry enough to breathe fire.

"You heard what she said to me! Who says that to people?"

"What, the whole 'the path you walk will be filled with suffering and hardship, most of it self-inflicted' thing?" Tzu Zi asked. "You can't let that get to you."

"She didn't even read my palm or anything. She said it was written all over my face!" Nila spat. "I'd like to write something all over _her_ face..."

Tzu Zi frowned at that. "Is that supposed to be threatening?"

"It's supp... Shut up!" Nila said. Tzu Zi just smiled behind her veil. The weather was growing steadily better, and by that, she meant wetter, so soon she would have to abandon the robe for the time being. But until then, let the little barbarian girl simmer. "Of course, it _is_ going to explode."

"What is?"

"That volcano," she said. "Those people are all idiots."

"Be that as it may, it's no reason to get all worked up," She glanced back, and saw that Nila was starting to glare to the southwest. "What is it?"

"He's somewhere that way," Nila said with a grim sort of certainty.

Tzu Zi squinted, trying to make out what Nila was looking at, but couldn't see anything. "Wow, you people are excellent trackers if you can make out a trail in this," she muttered. "I assume you want off?"

"No," Nila said with a brisk shake of her head. "The angle of inflection is too small. He's not far to the south. Not yet. We're still better served heading west first."

"The what?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Oh, gods, don't tell me they never educated you in trigonometry?" Nila said. She muttered something probably blasphemous in her barbarian tongue, but just pointed on a tangent. "If that's the direction he went," she then pointed on a line down Aki's forward-facing beak, "and that's the way we're going, then there's no real disadvantage in keeping on this track. The hypotenuse will not be such a massive increase in..."

Tzu Zi's blank look stopped her dead.

"Gods help me, did you take mathematics _at all_?" she said, rubbing her shaven temple in frustration.

"That was more Zhu Di's thing," Tzu Zi admitted. "I was more into... practical things."

"You're not some aspiring housewife, are you?" Nila said, somehow inflicting 'housewife' with a degree of venom which Tzu Zi didn't think possible.

"No... I was groomed for military service, but I didn't like the looks of it," she said.

"Teenager in the military?" Nila said. "So you're a bender."

"What?"

"People waive age when applicants are benders. You're my age. Maybe even younger. People my age don't get groomed for military. By simple logic, you must be a bender."

Tzu Zi cast an uneasy glance back at her. She had a very precarious cover on this continent, and this barbarian unmasked it in five seconds and a puff of logic. So Tzu Zi took a lesson from another sister, and lied through her teeth. "That's some good logic, pity I was always a terrible earthbender, so I don't think anybody's losing anything."

"Yeah," Nila said. "There are so much better things to do with your time than play with magic dirt, or magic water, or magic fire."

"It's not magic," Tzu Zi said.

Nila was about to say something, but she paused, as though considering. "In a way, you're right. Bending's pretty much technology. Now shamanism, that's just magic and misdirection..."

Tzu Zi sighed with relief, now that Nila was on a tangent in a direction which wouldn't see Tzu Zi handed over to the army, or worse, the Cultural Authority. Suddenly, being the only bender of the Miracle Children weighed a lot heavier on her sense of security than had before. For all she was a barbarian, this girl knew things. Tzu Zi would have to keep her wits about her. Which was a shame, because when she wasn't being caustic, Nila was quite interesting.

Thus walked the disgruntled Ostrich Horse, and atop it, one girl from the desert bearing a dark secret, and the second girl from another desert rambling at length about things so complicated that most would have thought her making it up. Just another day on the road. Tzu Zi felt a smile come to her lips, the big, bright, overpowering smile of the bravest of them. This was her life, now. And to tell the truth, she actually rather enjoyed it.

* * *

><p>"That's a lot of them, Jet," Smellerbee pointed out the obvious. "I don't like the odds."<p>

Longshot gave the leader of his merry band a look, which said 'there are too many of them. We can't fight if we're that badly outnumbered'. To which, Jet nodded, and admitted "Then we'll have to find something to thin the herd a bit," Jet turned to the even-more laconic companion to his other side. Shadow was absolutely mum. "You haven't weighed in. What's your take on this?"

Shadow just let long fingers drop out of a black sleeve, knives held lightly between knuckles. Jet didn't really need to ask once to know Shadow's take on the Fire Nation. Between he and Shadow, Jet wondered which of them had lost more.

"Guys, I think I see something," Sneers said, waving Jet over. He scampered across the unsteady branch as easily as would a squirrel-fox. Jet grabbed the spyglass from his younger and pressed it to his eye. "There's somebody else out there. See the smoke?"

Jet let out a grunt, spotting, barely, that wisp that almost escaped all notice in the early morning. It was near a clearing, which wasn't so much a clearing as a pool. He turned to call to his companions, but Shadow was already right next to him, taking the glass and managing to lock onto the location he had struggled to find. Say what one would of Shadow, Jet strongly doubted there was anybody more perceptive. Shadow drew back, casting a glance to Jet. "Bison," Shadow uttered, voice high but somehow gravely, almost completely devoid of intonation, especially any which would be construed as passion. Shadow had three states of being, it seemed like; uninterested, disinterested, and enraged. Only the latter two came in handy.

"So? There's bison all over the place," Sneers said.

Shadow rolled bright grey eyes and pointed once more. Jet looked down the scope, as the gravely announcement of "_Saddled_ bison," drew his attention to the relevant fact. Well I'll be damned, Jet considered. A domesticated bison. Never thought I'd see the day. He turned to Shadow, who was already gliding past as silently as a spider across glass. Jet turned, and he could see the movement in the trees, the bird-calls of the others as they tracked the force. "The Fire Nation is heading right for them."

"Somebody with a saddled bison?" Smellerbee asked.

"Yeah, that looks like something we could use ourselves," Jet said with a smirk, rolling the sprig along his teeth. "Come on. Let's deny the Fire Nation its prize. Move out!"

And with that, the Freedom Fighters became ghosts in the trees.

* * *

><p>Aang still winced every time he looked at Katara. The bruise he'd given her now welled up a fantastic purple, the color of kings. But all things considered, it could have been so much worse. Nothing broken, nothing wounded except Aang's cockiness and Katara's pride. Although it grated on Katara that Sokka had managed to spend the rest of the night jibing them mercilessly. Aang didn't think it was right, either. She was having a really hard time with this waterbending stuff. Now she had to face facts that her student had gotten better than her over the course of one evening.<p>

Katara was first up, and Aang not long after, but still he woke to a small fire cooking breakfast. Sokka, though, was fast asleep, wrapped in his sleeping bag and snoring like somebody cutting wood with a rusty _cat_. Aang got a grin on his face as he grabbed up a stick Katara was about to use for tinder, and crept up on the Tribesman. Katara started to ask a question, but when she saw what was afoot, she remained silent. Aang ever so carefully lowered the stick's point to the opening of the bag, right under Sokka's chin. Then, he let out a terrified scream.

"Sokka! Wake up! There's a pricklesnake crawling into your sleeping bag!" Aang shouted, making a slithering path down toward Sokka's covered belly

In a heartbeat, Sokka was bolt upright, screaming with girlish terror, bouncing around while still contained in his sleeping bag, a chorus of 'get it off get it off' repeating with amusing frequency, until he finally overbalanced himself and fell onto his chest. When he did, he finally fell silent. He twisted onto his side, staring at Aang. "I suddenly realize what it would have been like to have a little brother."

"Really?" Aang asked.

"I don't recommend it," he said bitterly, before letting out a yawn and starting to shrug his way out of his bag. He was still fully dressed, which was a broad departure from his sister. Well, dressed in a sleevesless green vest and brown pants, since all of his native blues were long gone, anyway. He stretched his arms over his head, and then returned to his usual slump as he sauntered over to the fire. "So, what's cooking?"

"Bacon," she said. Aang let out a gag at that. One of these days, he was going to have to get them to see the virtues of a vegetarian diet. Upon a second consideration of Sokka's eating habits, though, he amended that to showing _Katara_ the virtues of a vegetarian diet. Sokka would stop eating meat five days after he died. "Oh, right, you don't eat meat, do you?"

"It's alright, I'll just have some of last night's soup," Aang said brightly, focusing anywhere but on the sizzling strips of dead animal. He pulled out the canteen that they'd stored it in and settled it onto the edge of the fire to heat up. Aang perked up. "You know, at the rate we're going, we'll probably be most of the way to the North Pole by the time the Solstice hits."

Katara gazed longingly to the north. "I never thought I'd even get this far. I'm finally going to be a proper waterbender."

"And I'm sure you'll make a great one, now could you please keep an eye on the meat?" Sokka begged. "Not all of us like it black as coal."

"You'd eat it raw if you had to," Katara said snidely.

"Of course, it's got the best flavor when it's rare."

"I didn't say rare, I said raw."

"This coming from the girl who doesn't eat anything unless it's burnt. I swear, some days I wonder if you're not a firebender in disguise," Sokka said offhandedly.

"How could you say that?" Katara asked, hurt in her voice.

"Because you're entirely too easy to wind up," Sokka said casually. "You really do make it too easy."

Katara glared at him for a moment, and then raised a finger to make a point, but the point she was about to make was lost in the fact that five men barged into view fairly close to their campfire. All three teenagers turned, and took in the five in silence. They were grown men, quite large, and decked head to foot in blood red armor. The teenagers looked at the men. The men looked at the teenagers. The men then turned to look exclusively at Aang. Aang looked down, and noted that they were probably taking stock of the blue arrow tattoos visible on his brow and the backs of his hands. They then looked amongst each other.

"_Is that... the Avatar?_" one of them asked in Huojian.

"_If he ain't, he's close enough. Get him!_"

"What are they saying?" Katara asked. Her question was answered when first the five men, then another seven more came charging, swords leaving scabbards and fire wreathing fists. Aang let out a panicked yelp, bounding backward to avoid being split from crown to crotch by a sword, and when he landed, he hurled a blast of wind at the man, but he was well rooted, so only staggered back a few steps. Aang then reached behind him, feeling the motions come as naturally as if he'd spent decades learning them rather than mere hours, and pulled the water up out of the pool, snapping the wrists and sending the tentacle he created crashing into the staggered soldier, smashing him against a tree.

Katara bounded to her own feet, and clenched her fists at the treed soldier, and Aang was delighted to notice that the water flash froze itself, trapping the soldier. A firebender tried to hurl a bolt of flame at Aang, but if there was one thing airbenders excelled at, it was getting out of the way. The bolt missed him, narrowly, but enough, and it left the firebender off balance long enough for Sokka whip out the boomerang from his back and send it slashing across the distance, rebounding off of the firebender's head and sending him down in a heap.

The boomerang circled back to the Tribesman, but the three teens quickly found themselves back to back to back, as the overwhelming mass of the Fire Nationals pressed in, encircling them. Aang's first instinct was to flee. His second was to call Appa. But neither would work, since the first would abandon Katara and Sokka, and the latter might get Appa hurt. There had to be another way. Any other way.

**There is always another way.**

Aang quickly amended that to 'almost' any other way. As much as the power of the Avatar State could probably get him out of this bind, quite frankly, it scared him in a way few other things ever did.

"What do we do?" Katara asked.

"I'll take the ugly one, Aang, you get the big one," Sokka said.

"Which one's the ugly one?" Aang asked.

The one before Aang, who was fairly unattractive by most standards but hardly what one would strictly classify as 'the ugly one', took an aggressive step inward from that ring which encircled them, his fists thrusting forward... and then he spun down, his fire searing into the ground, as a black shaft appeared in the back of his shoulder. He pitched onto the ground, screaming in pain, and Aang had to share a glance with the others of his own group, trying to figure out how they – with Sokka being the most likely candidate – pulled that off.

The question was answered in a manner that Aang didn't see coming when a barrage of bolts shot out of the trees, pinning a man's boots to the ground. When he lost his balance, he bent down to pull the bolts, and when he did, a knife pinned his sleeve to the sod. Finally, he tipped over with a spluck of displaced mud, and a final knife hitched his shirt at the collar to a tree root. At the same moment, two other forms raced into the back of the circle, one of them too quick for Aang to track without trying harder, the other sweeping the legs out from under the soldiers with a pair of hook swords. Their introduction to the ground was abrupt and final.

"Looked like you could use a hand," the teenage boy said confidently. Then he ducked, and a log, hurled by somebody bare-chested and gargantuan, flew over his head. Aang used his own mobility and flexibility to hinge backward, and force the other two down with him, so that that same log spun above his nose on its way past him and smashing into the barely armored knees of the Nationals behind him. Sokka turned and spun, trying to meaningfully add himself to the melee, but at every turn, finding that youth preempting him and cutting off a chance for contribution.

"Come on, leave at least one for me!" Sokka said.

"Gotta be quicker, Tribesman," came the smug answer.

As quickly as the slaughter had begun, it turned into a rout. Twelve Nationals, once in every single position of superiority, now unconscious, battered, broken, and immobile. The wild-haired youth shot a smile at Katara as he shifted both blades into one hand. "I must say, I should save passing strangers more often," he said, taking her hand delicately in one of his own. "I'd get a chance to meet such... interesting people."

Oh, how Katara did blush at that. Of course, she probably didn't realize he was probably reacting to her relatively unclothed state as most teenagers would.

"We could have handled that!" Sokka complained.

"And now, you won't have to," the stranger said smugly. He gave a glance to his own companions who dropped from the foliage, before nodding to the black cloaked figure which was slipping back into the trees. "These guys aren't going to be out forever. We should get moving."

"Moving where?" Sokka asked, suspicion heavy in his tone.

"Sokka, he just saved our lives. It's gotta be better than here," Aang pointed out.

"I like your spirit, kid," he said. "Come with me. We've got a fairly safe camp pegged out. It's not much, but it has good views and you can't see it from any direction but up. And nobody sees from up."

"I can," Aang pointed out.

"And what are you, some sort of airbender?" the youth asked. And then, he fell quiet when Appa lumbered into view, giving a bare, unamused glance to the Nationals, before stomping close to Aang and giving his bald head a big lick.

"Yeah, something like that," Aang said. "I'm Aang. I'm the Avatar."

"Really? Well, I guess that means I'm Jet, and I'm the Earth King."

"Yeah, and I'm the uncrowned queen of Three Hills," an equally wild-haired, odd looking girl bearing face paint said. Aang frowned for a moment.

"Isn't Three Hills a republic?"

"And points for the bald one," the girl said, casting her thumb at him.

"He really is the Avatar," Sokka pointed out. "Bender of four elements and all that nonsense."

"Really? So you're a firebender, too?"

Aang scratched his head uncomfortably. "Not really... I don't even know how to earthbend, yet."

That seemed to placate this Jet quite a bit. "Well, then, there's no point in dawdling. Come on. Let's get some place where there are less people trying to kill us."

Aang liked the sound of that, and followed after. Behind him, Sokka stared at their departing backs for a moment, before saying "Less?"

* * *

><p>As camps go, it was pretty piddly. Of course, Sokka would have been a bit more suspicious if this group of stragglers and youths had somehow managed to construct some sort of tree-top utopia in this low, damp, and crowded wilderness. Which wasn't to say that Sokka wasn't suspicious. Their timing had been perhaps a bit <em>too<em> fortuitous, their arrival perhaps a bit _too_ lucky. The common saying was never look a gift Ostrich Horse in the gizzard, and Sokka was prone to doing exactly that.

One time he'd done it, back when he was barely more than two, it saved his sister's life.

The tents, if they could be called that, were all built under the drooping limbs of the willows. Most were little better than a piece of tarp pegged to the trunk, flaring out so that the water would roll away from the rains. But then again, in the entire time that Sokka had been inland on this continent, he couldn't recall a single shower, let alone a rain which would require so much effort. That was odd, because he had been told that they were on the tail-end of what was supposed to be a stormy season now that they'd actually entered the tropics. The 'tents' themselves were of many colors, their cloth from many sources. One of them looked to have been stolen whole from a circus, and it was their destination. Others looked to be nothing more than oiled tarps. One appeared to be a knicked tapestry. Yeesh. If its owner knew what it was being used for now, he'd probably die of an art-hernia.

"So this is my camp," Jet said with a note of pride. Sokka didn't see much to be proud of in the structures, but the rest?

Beyond the ramshackle tents, there was one other facet of the camp which was suspicious. Children abounded. They ranged from the ages of four to ten, and ran the gamut in apparent race and nationality. Some were almost as pale as Fire Nationals, others, darker than Sokka himself. Katara picked up on this oddity as quickly as Sokka had. "Jet, who are all these children?" she asked.

"They're what we fight for," Jet said. He pointed out one dark-eyed boy, maybe six, talking with a few others around his age. "See him? We call him The Duke. We found him stealing our food one day. And her? That's Irene; she's Whalesh and she lost her family last year when the Fire Nation occupied. I still don't think she can speak our language, yet. Some of these kids never really had a family," he finished with a bitter tone.

"So what do you do with them?" Sokka asked.

"We get them food, some place safe to sleep," Jet gestured around. "This isn't much, but it's more then some of them have ever had."

"See, Sokka? Jet's a good guy," Aang said brightly. But Sokka already had his head inside the beak, and was tapping uvula with his nose. He wouldn't let this go easily.

"So what is it you do, besides taking care of the children?" Katara asked, warming up to him fairly quickly.

"We fight the Fire Nation," Jet said. "You've already seen some of my Freedom Fighters."

"Not really, there was a lot going on," Aang admitted. Jet let out a grunt, then turned, pointing behind them.

"Well, then I should introduce you. This one's Longshot. He's a chatty one," The dark eyed lad with the big ears and conical hat nodded, but remained silent. "Smellerbee's beside him."

"What kind 'a name is Smellerbee for a boy?" Sokka asked. At that, Smellerbee scowled darkly.

"I'm a girl!" she exclaimed, but neither her appearance nor her voice seemed to support that exclamation. Jet just chuckled and pointed to the next one, a squat fellow with a weird hair style.

"That's Sneers. I've seen him punch a house down before."

"Hey," Sneers said neutrally, before breaking off from the path and heading under one of the tarps.

"And the perky one is Shadow," Jet said, as the black-cloaked figure glided past without making so much as a sound. So quiet was Shadow that Sokka actually started away with a yelp when he realized that the fairly tall figure had sidled behind him without his noticing. "Yeah, Shadow doesn't really say much. Do you Shadow?"

Shadow paused, half turning from the circus tent, and sighed wearily. "I say enough," the voice was high, but had a bit of rasp to it. Seemingly having exhausted the reservoir of words for the day, Shadow departed.

"And the last of us is Pipsqueak," Jet idly waved behind him. Aang sauntered up to a kid who was tugging at the belt loop of a massive individual, a huge grin on his airbender face.

"Pipsqueak? That's a funny name," Aang declared. The kid tilted his head, but the massive person turned slowly. He was easily taller than Dad, and weighed considerably more as well. If he was a teenager, Sokka hated to think of what he'd look like when he was twenty.

"Are you saying there's something funny about my name?" The giant inquired, his voice deeper than most grown mens'.

"Yup. It's hilarious!" Aang said brightly. The horribly inaccurately named Pipsqueak glared at the Avatar for a long moment, before bursting into raucous laughter, which Aang joined, until a 'light' pat on the back from the giant sent Aang face first into the muck.

"I like this kid, Jet," Pipsqueak announced. "Can we keep him?"

"That's entirely up to him," Jet said, before turning back with a hand toward Sokka's sister. "If you would accompany me?"

"Alright," she said a bit too quickly. Oh, this wasn't going to end well. And it fell to Sokka to make sure that nobody did any sort of funny business with his sister.

"It wouldn't hurt to see more of your operation," Sokka offered as he invited himself along with the young anarchist and his besotted sister. If Jet was put off by this, he didn't show it.

Well, aren't you smooth?

Upon ducking into the tent, Sokka actually took a moment to just stand there, in a bit of awe. Far be it to claim that he was uncultured, Sokka probably had a much better education than most people on this continent, let alone back home. So he recognized what lay within this tent as an absolutely priceless collection of art from everywhere in the world. Painted vases, carved figurines, paintings, portraits, Si Wongi carpets, such treasures that had Sokka trying to run calculations in his head. One could sell a trove like this and live like a king.

"Wh...wh..." Sokka stammered. "Where did you get all of this?"

"The Fire Nation," Jet said as he ducked in. "They steal everything they come across, so we do the world a favor and steal it back. It's not worth anything to us, but everything we pry from the hands of the Fire Nation is a victory for the cultures of the oppressed, the conquered, and the destitute," he gave a glance toward the Water Tribe girl. "And if nothing else, then it means the little ones always have something nice to look at."

"Oh, wow," she said. "You're so sensitive, Jet."

"Sensitive, yeah, he's a sensitive petty thief," Sokka said.

"What was that?" Jet asked.

"Nothing," Sokka said innocently. Jet shrugged, and sat on a chair which lay in the middle of that hoard. It looked nothing less than a king lounging on a throne.

"One day, we'll drive the Fire Nation from this continent once and for all, and maybe then, we'll start to show them what it's like being conquered, being in fear," Jet said, an edge entering his voice. It departed quickly, and the smooth, slick persona he was showing slid back into place. "But until then, we just find ways to make their lives miserable enough that they don't feel like fighting anymore. We managed to drive the Fire Nation out of Gaipan, up in the north, a few months ago. It cost us, but it was worth it."

"You're so brave, Jet," Katara said. Sokka raised a finger to start prodding away at this facade, as his worst instincts demanded that he must, but was interrupted by a pale, dark haired, green eyed girl ducking into the tent.

"Jet, we found something in the train of that patrol you flattened," she said enthusiastically.

"What is it, Bug?"

"Bug?" Sokka asked.

"She eats them," Jet said idly. Bug, though grew a bit red, though with either embarrassment or anger, Sokka couldn't immediately tell.

"That was _one time_!" she said. After a moment to recompose herself, she pointed into the center of the camp again. "They had a bunch of those glass barrels with them, you know, the ones that have that burning water in 'em."

"Burning water?" Sokka asked. "Like 'on fire' burning or 'ow what happened to the skin on my hand' burning?"

"The second one," she answered. Sokka rubbed his chin.

"What would the Fire Nation be dragging Aqua Regia through the woods for?" Sokka asked.

"It's acid?" Jet asked. Sokka gave a cautious nod, and he broke out into a smirk. "Good haul, Bug."

"We also found some Aqua Vitae," Bug pointed out.

"Also a good haul. Keep it away from the kids, though," he mentioned. "Guys, I'd love to stop and chat some more, but I'm pretty much all that's standing between the Fire Nation and uncontested victory in Hanyi. Oh, and Sokka, keep yourself free. I think I've got a mission that you'd be perfect at."

"Yeah, it's a miracle they didn't attack us sooner," Bug said. "I can't think of the last time the Earth Kingdoms won a battle."

"Ba Sing Se," Sokka and Katara managed to say as one.

"Besides that one."

At that, both children fell silent, both trying to rack their brains for the history – and current events – that Hakoda and Gran Gran had taught them. And both came up empty. Aang, though, didn't have to ponder long. "Well, there was some guy named Chin who almost took over the entire continent, there was Yuan Hai, who invaded the West a couple hundred years before that, and there was Chatatong Hu, and he drove the Water Tribes out of Omashu a few centuries before that.

"We took over Omashu?" Katara asked.

"Yeah," Sokka said. "For a long while, we were kinda the bad guys of the world. Funny how quick that changed, eh?"

Sokka's mind, having drifted off its tack, and with the oh-so-unbearably-smarmy Jet no longer demanding his absolute and scrutinous attention, started to wonder about the really big, really important question. Namely: What would the Fire Nation need concentrated acid for, all the way out here?

* * *

><p>To say Sharif was enraptured by the sea was doing it disservice.<p>

He had passed water on his way here. He had seen water as he grew up. Sentinel Rock was still, even with all of those other oases drying up throughout the desert, home to a pool roughly a bison's-length across, pure and fresh as it erupted from the ground and was capped before it could run off, wasted on greedy sand. As he journeyed he saw other waters. The surging rivers. The tranquil ponds. But there were two things which those lesser waters lacked which made the ocean so spellbinding. First, was that even if a river flowed, it did not wave. The sounds of the waves, breaking against the rocks was a symphony, played in the most valuable substance a Si Wongi would hold dear. Well, if it wasn't salty to the point of poison, anyway.

The other was that it was vast. Until this day, until this hour, Sharif had never seen a body of water for which he couldn't perceive the far side. But this water, this ocean, reached out its blue-green body until it touched the soft blue of the sky at the horizon, two lovers forbidden, but finally reunited. And it brought a smile to Sharif's face, watching as the water flowed, and as the spirits flowed with it. Patriarch let out another snort, dragging Sharif's attention away from the absolute in the distance, that line where ocean met heaven.

"That's not the point," Sharif said patiently, idly patting the old bird as he took a deep breath of that salt-air. "You have never seen the sea either."

The bird practically rolled its eyes.

"Well, that's a bad attitude to keep," Sharif pointed out, mildly annoyed. "If you're like that all the time, who knows what you'll overlook?"

The bird let out what would have been a chirp if it was about one tenth its current size. As it was, it was a geriatric bleat.

"Who else ever has?" Sharif asked. "You have probably gone farther than any ever have. Is that not an accomplishment?"

It just stared at the Si Wongi shaman.

Sharif sighed. "You're right," he admitted. "Priorities are important. But it still shouldn't jade you like that. You're not too old to have an adventure. There's still more you can pass along."

Patriarch's derisive snort didn't require a shaman's mind to translate. In fact, just about anybody with working ears would have figured it meant the exact same thing. "Oh, very well," Sharif said. He turned, and he found he couldn't sense that presence. After the buzzing stopped, there was another flare of it, far to the south, telling him he was still on the right path. But since then, he might as well be deaf for all it was telling him. "Well, we've gone about as far west as we can. No reason not to head south now."

The bird blinked slowly.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that," Sharif said. He pulled himself up onto Patriarch's back once again, and the great bird began to saunter south, toward the faint shapes and colors which lay on the horizon; a town, almost out of view, pressed up against the sea. As Patriarch confidently stomped his way forward, Sharif started humming that song again, as he always did when nothing else occupied his time or attention.

The day pressed on, but without bird nor shaman, it passed unnoticed. Until _it_ came, at least.

It was not a sound, but there was a tearing. Like shoving an entire arm through a hole the size of a finger in a bolt of cloth, less auditory and more visceral. Without the boundary edge of a shadow to ease the transition, it had to brute force its way. The thing inside Malu appeared seemingly out of nowhere. To a lay observer, in one heartbeat the vista was vacant, and the next, there was a teenage girl in tattered nun's robes overlooking the sea. Hard grey eyes swept around. Things weren't as vibrant as they had been last time it descended from its dying world into this starving one. Not as teeming. But there were spirits, and that meant it could feed.

Malu's maw opened, and the spirits of tide and ocean, of fish and sand and death, all flew into her, and she trapped them inside. She could speak the words, but it didn't feel a need to start digesting. Not yet. As terrible as its hunger was, its feast was coming. Malu's gaze turned first one direction, to the north. There was a morsel up there, a powerful spirit who could sate it... for a while. But to the south? To the south lay treasures. Treasures it would collect.

Malu's gaze once more turned upon the sea. Deprived of its spirits, the waters ceased their crashing waves, now lapping listlessly against the sand. Where the girl walked, she left in her wake a dead sea, a parched land, a stilled sky. And its hunger was everlasting. But the edge of the water was an efficient opportunity. Malu tilted her head back, and tilted forward, letting gravity carry her off the cliffs and toward the packed, wet sand where the surf lapped at it. But rather than impact, with a heavy thwap and a displacement of sand, she simply vanished, the instant she touched where the sea met the land.

Malu opened her eyes to a dead and hopeless world. All things were grey, and silent, and dark. But this time, there was light. Malu had a shiver of hope run through her. But the hunger, that remained as wary as a beast, and it pulled control tighter.

That tree wasn't like that before.

It had a tenuous grasp of concepts, like 'before', 'now', 'alive', 'dead'. The only things it knew with absolute certainty were 'edible' and 'not edible', and much of that came from the fact that almost nothing lay in the latter category. Its memory was clouded. But it knew that this place hadn't looked like that. Malu's body slunk across the imported structure, and glared at the silver light beating down at her. Malu's hand reached forward, to touch the bark, even as it demanded she stop. And when she touched it, it seared with brutal pain. It forced itself back into absolute control, as Malu's entire being twisted away, a feral growl erupting from her throat, as it clutched a wounded hand. Not edible.

A new fact stored in its mind, it walked to the edge of this place, where it floated in a sea of chaos, and cast Malu over it. There was another way, a better way. It would feed. That shaman would feed it well.

* * *

><p>The sun was starting to set when Tzu Zi finally called Aki to a halt, and she was visibly starting to wilt. Nila could have gone for hours longer, but that would have meant Tzu Zi all... pressed against her. From behind. And as much of a rapport as she was developing with her fellow desert-dweller, she didn't feel that was anything like appropriate. And Tzu Zi wasn't hearing about longer hours. Apparently, for all the vitriol she showed to the Ostrich Horse which bore her along, she cared deeply for it, and would not see Aki taxed.<p>

Which is why with the sun barely touching the horizon, they were putting up camp. It was getting colder every day, which made her thankful that she'd brought proper robes. It was like the further west they went, the colder and damper it got – even if it didn't get very damp. Nila let out a yawn, feeling the weight pulling down on her shoulders until she finally sat and let it spread. One of these days, she'd shed this weight. Likely against her will. She gave a glance toward her companion, who was fumbling around with spark rocks.

"You're not doing it right, you'll never start a fire like..." Nila began, but was cut off when a healthy flame started to grow in the tinder, despite her expectations. "W...How did that happen? You weren't using them right."

"Things happen," Tzu Zi said. "And I must have been doing it right, because otherwise, there'd be no fire."

Nila hated the simple logic of it, but had to admit it was valid.

"You know, you never talk about your family. Why is that?" Tzu Zi asked.

"You don't talk much about yours," Nila said off-handedly.

Tzu Zi stared at her like Nila said that the Avatar was filled with chocolate and cookies. "That's pretty much all I talk about."

"Yeah, but you don't _say_ much about them,"

"What?" she asked. Nila just shook her head. "Well, I'm interested, so spill it. What's up with your family, anyway? Who's your father?"

"Haven't got the first clue," Nila said without a hint of shame or guilt. She was a bastard, and that was the end of it. Mother made no bones about Nila's conception, so Nila didn't either. "He had a fling with Mom about sixteen years ago, and she hasn't made any attempt to contact him since, so I figure he's got to be some kind of loser or another."

"That's a harsh thing to say," Tzu Zi said, itching at herself.

"Well, that's the way it is," Nila said.

"What about your mom? What was she like?"

"Hard," Nila said. Tzu Zi stared at her for a moment. "Everybody in Si Wong is hard. We have to be. It's how we keep the desert from wearing us away. Mother was hard. She taught me to be hard. And that's about it."

"Wow, from the sound of it, you and your mom don't get along at all," Tzu Zi said.

Nila shook her head, staring into the growing fire. "We have never seen eye to eye on practically anything. She liked that I was educating myself, but then got annoyed that I bothered beyond basic mathematics, calculus, and integration. She pushed me toward plant lore, I study biology. She never complimented me on anything I did. Nothing was ever good enough for her. Gods, but I just wanted to punch her in the nose, if I didn't know for a fact I'd break my fist more likely than her nose!"

"You can't mean that! She's your mother!"

"I can mean it if I want to!" Nila said harshly. "You didn't grow up with a woman who... who..."

She trailed off, because Tzu Zi had pulled off her robe and was now scratching herself between the shoulder blades. While Nila was not one to partake in the sentiment, she suddenly understood why Sapphicism existed. Nila was fifteen years old, and Tzu Zi claimed to be a year younger. Nila wondered what fourteen-year-olds ever got bodies like _that_. She was a study in feminine curves, nimble and supple and – Nila, stop staring!

"What was that?" Tzu Zi asked, confusion plain on her heart-shaped face. "You kinda trailed off there."

No big surprise. Nila shook herself. She wasn't a _man_. She shouldn't be distracted like _this_. And yet she was, by the open and genuine features, the wide, expressive mouth that always seemed to twitch toward smiling, the big, melting chocolate eyes, the dark hair pulled back into a low tail... Nila, you're a girl and so is she! Think about something else!

"I'm just saying that Mother was cold and distant and heartless, and the less said about her, the better, because that's about the kindest that I can think of," Nila said.

"That's really sad," Tzu Zi said genuinely. "I mean, having no dad is bad enough, but not even getting to have a mom? That just isn't fair."

"Life is seldom fair," Nila said.

"What about that brother?" Tzu Zi asked, lounging. Nila once again found herself watching the way the girl moved. It wasn't lust, though. More like... envy. Which the rational part of Nila instantly railed and thrashed about, claiming that this girl had nothing that Nila didn't. She had all the same parts, the same organs, the same functions, the same dimensions... it's just that Tzu Zi's were _better_. The last time Nila was called anything feminine was back when she still had baby fat. After that...

"He's an idiot and one day he's going to get himself killed," Nila said. Well, unless she did something about it, which was her intention.

"Nila, he's your brother!"

"Yeah, well, siblings exist to push each other's buttons," Nila answered. She pulled her knees as close as she could against the hard bulk under her robes. "But the shame was, I used to be able to talk to him. Yeah, he was dumb, but we could still talk. Now, it's like talking to a door. He's just... not all there anymore."

"What happened?" Tzu Zi asked.

"We were in Ibn-Atal, about four years ago. Mom had gotten back from Ba Sing Se, and she was trying to use that clout to sort out some petty rivalry or something. But things went south in a hurry, and what was a regional squabble turned into a blood feud," she took a breath. "Bad enough that she had to drag us along. She should have left us at home."

"Why?"

"Well, one side thought it'd be a dandy idea to bring in some mercenaries," Nila continued. "Things had been tense, but not exactly violent, so we were still left to our own devices. I was ransacking the library as I usually do, and Sharif was wandering around the oasis, and then I started to hear a noise," she paused, looking up at Tzu Zi. "Do you know what it sounds like when hate turns to rage? There's a sound to it. I can't quantify it or categorize it, but there is this moment, so pristine and clear that I will probably remember it for the rest of my life, where that shouting and those angry words, they turned into blood, and violence. And you can hear it, like breaking glass in an empty house. I didn't even know what it was, and I knew it was bad news. So I dropped what I was doing and ran out. Just as the violence was spilling into the streets."

She shifted her weight, letting the silence fill the void as she pulled up the harsh memories of that day. The day the Sharif she actually cared about died. "As I hear it, the mercenaries got antsy, since some of them couldn't speak the language. They started to look for a sign to shed blood. And they found one... or imagined one. So they started attacking anything on two legs with testicles. Any man is a viable target, apparently. And Sharif? Sharif was close enough. I remember his face, his skin dark as wood, eyes blue as the sky. And his expression was so calm, so indifferent. He could have been putting away cutlery for all the c-care he had, as he bu-buried a hatchet into Sharif's face."

"That's terrible," Tzu Zi said, sadness plain on her face. "Are you alright, talking about this?"

Truth be told, Nila wasn't sure why her lips fluttered, why her tongue felt like lead. This happened a long time ago. So why were her eyes burning? Why did tears threaten to fall? Damn it all! She would not weep! Si Wongi do not weep! It is a waste of water! She took a deep breath, forcing the unwelcome and unpleasant emotions aside. Whatever made her this way would have to be looked at later, dealt with later.

"We survived. Sharif... the parts of Sharif which mattered... didn't," she said. "He got a bad infection; not surprising really. Mother and everybody was sure he was going to die. But he didn't. He lived, despite the wound and the infection in his brain. But he wasn't himself anymore. He's... he's essentially a child who will never grow up. He used to be my brother. Now, he's just my burden."

"Nila," Tzu Zi said, but didn't follow it up with anything. Which was probably for the best, because Nila didn't want anything else said on the matter. "I'll... I'll just let you rest."

Tzu Zi flung out a bedroll and crashed atop it, curling a blanket over her and fairly quickly falling into sleep. But Nila stayed awake, staring at the fire. Come to think of it, this was probably the first time she told anybody about Sharif. Everybody she grew up with just _knew_ about him. Scorned him and spat on him as well. Silently, she wiped her eyes against the tears she didn't want to shed. Sharif, _her_ Sharif, was long gone. And nothing would ever bring him back. So she would have to do the next best thing, and bring back his shattered husk to the family... as much of a family as Nila ever got to know.

* * *

><p>Sokka watched from the foliage as the rest of Jet's gang spread into obscurity. In a way, it was impressive. He hadn't seen cohesion of this order since Bato's hunters left the South Pole. They knew their business, and with the Fire Nation on their doorstep, business was good. A part of Sokka was just glad to be part of the action again. Omashu had left him feeling particularly useless, since all he did was almost die, get captured, almost suffocate inside candy, and then wander back out at the end. This time, it was Sokka's turn to shine. Yeah, he pondered to himself. Maybe if I repeat that enough times in my head, I'll start to believe it. Of the initial corps, only Shadow still remained within Sokka's ability to notice, and mostly because she was very close by.<p>

"How long are we going to be here?" Sokka asked. Shadow just turned and regarded him with a cool stare. "What? It's a valid question."

"Until the enemy shows up," Shadow answered. Terse as always, Shadow was. There was an excitement running through Sokka, though, and when he was excited, he tended to get chatty, much to the dismay of those around him. So he went back to fiddling with his club for a long moment, picturing in his head another battle against the many as they had fallen upon the Avatar's camp a day ago. Kicking butt and taking names, Water Tribe style.

Sokka resisted for all he was worth, but his nature couldn't be denied. He was a carnivore, he was a sarcastic twit, and come hell or desert, he was chatty. "So, Shadow, you got a girlfriend in that band of yours?"

"Why would I?" Shadow's voice took on a somewhat annoyed tone, grey eyes flat as usual.

"Well, I just figured that you'd want to... you know... do the kind of wild rebel things that young men do."

"Young men. Right," Shadow answered. "Wrong assumption, Tribesman."

"What is?" Sokka asked. "That you are a wild rebel? That you like girls?" Sokka broke off. "Ooooh, are you one of those guys who likes other guys? What's up with that, anyway? Don't you realize the parts don't match up?"

Shadow just stared at Sokka for a long moment, expression exasperated, before releasing another sigh. "Moron."

"Who's a..." Sokka began, but he broke off when a whisper of sound pulled him away. Quickly, he leaned back into the knife he'd buried into the trunk of the tree, listening for the vibrations through the earth. It would have been more effective in a drier climate, but here, it would work well enough. And he could hear walking. Not a steady gait, so it had to be more than one. "We got movement... coming this way."

Shadow turned and let out an owl-pigeon's hoot-coo, which was answered by a different 'bird call' in the distance. Clever system. If there were more – or in fact, any – birds in the South Pole, it could have been useful back home. And with that, Sokka felt a wave of homesickness. It still felt so surreal, that he was banished from his home, cast out like that. All because he got tricked by a firebender, who later attempted to murder him. Life just wasn't fair some times. But as the voices started to reach through the foliage, as those words in the language of the East, but accented from the West, reached out, his mind cleared. The Fire Nation was here. And it was Sokka's job to take them down.

There was a last chirp of bird-call, and then, Sokka was jumping out of the drooping boughs of the tree. He landed at a roll, bringing up his war club before him, expecting an army. What he got was two people. Two people who were now surrounded on all sides. Jet landed last, pulling those hook swords from his back and brandishing forward at the man in the red armor, and the woman in green dress. "What are you doing in our forest, you murderer?" Jet demanded of the National. The National reacted exactly the way that Sokka expected him to; with fear and violence.

The National surged forward with a pair of short blasts of flame, which Jet nimbly dodged around, but as he moved, he drew closer, until he finally brought up his two blades, their hooks catching around the wrist and heaving back, sending the National off his footing. The Westerner tried to answer his loss of accuracy by kicking a last arc of flame at Jet, but as he tried to bring his foot up, an arrow pinned his boot to the ground, and he wobbled. He tried to push himself off the ground with his free hand, but Shadow's hand whipped forward, and two knives now held it in place as Longshot's arrow did his foot. Jet wrenched harder, and the National let out a cry of pain, before Jet kicked him hard in the face. The woman's eyes went wide, and she backed away, right into a hammer-lock by Sneers.

"How do you like that?" Jet shouted. "Do you like destroying towns? Destroying families? How does it feel now that you're on the other side?"

"Jet, what are you doing?" Sokka asked. "We beat him, now let's get on with it."

But Jet seemed to be in his own world, now. "And you," He turned, leveling the hooked weapon at the woman in green. "What are you doing here? A slave would have run away, would have kicked him while he was down, but you? You were running for help, weren't you? WEREN'T YOU?"

"Stop this, she's just an innocent girl," Sokka said, trying to get between Jet and the object of Jet's anger. Jet just shoved him aside.

"Don't hurt him, he's a good man!" she begged, as the National groaned groggily from the head injury on the ground.

"There's _no such thing_ as a good Fire National!" Jet declared. At that, Shadow turned to face Jet, a glare plain in bright grey eyes. But he didn't notice. "You're not some innocent bystander in this. You're the scum of the earth. You're a collaborator. And there's only one punishment for collaborators."

Jet raised a blade, ready for a lethal blow, but Sokka was quick. It was a talent he nurtured from a young age, which more than likely explained why he was still alive, considering his luck. As Jet swung down, Sokka swung up. In a way, it was much like Suki had taught him. Use the enemy's strength against him. So he didn't even need to have power in his blow to cause a painful, numbing strike to Jet's wrist, forcing him to drop one of his blades before it could cause drastic and irreparable harm.

"That's enough!" Sokka declared. "She's not hurting anybody! She's not even Fire Nation!"

Jet was obviously fighting off a curse as he shook feeling back into his hand. He leveled the other sword at Sokka. "Really? And you're just going to ignore all that the Fire Nation has done to me? To you? Do you even remember how they murdered your mother? This woman might not be Fire Nation, but she still betrayed us."

"Who's us?" Sokka asked. "People do what they want to. As I hear it, Hanyi isn't the nicest place at the best of times. Sure, she could have picked better, but that's no reason to kill her!"

"I don't care what you think."

"But you care what _I_ think," Shadow interrupted. The glare shifted to Smellerbee, who had pilfered the fallen firebender while the Tribesman and the renegade were arguing. "Is that everything? Good. We're leaving."

"But..."

"**Don't** think you can order me around, Jet," Shadow answered coldly. That gaze turned to the others, and Sneer twisted her away, tossing her to the ground but otherwise leaving her unharmed. Jet shot one last glare to the National and the lady who he'd taken up with, but that glare withered under the chilling intensity of Shadow's.

"Fine. Whatever. Let's go, Sokka," he said with a bitter tone, stomping away without any joy left to him, for all his tone. Sokka turned to Shadow, and the latter gave the former a single, solemn nod. Approval, perhaps. Whatever its meaning, Sokka followed after the rebel, but only after everybody else, and not before casting one last, regretful glance to the Easterner who was now tending to the Westerner, and kept looking up at him, as though asking 'why? Why did you do this to us?' And Sokka had no answer to that.

What he'd seen just now, was more than a little disturbing.

* * *

><p>From what he could see, the harbor town wasn't very big, clinging to the strip of low land with cliffs reaching behind it. While many ports in the Earth Kingdoms were by simple necessity of this formation, it struck Sharif as odd, like a man hunching over a candle to contain its heat and light, rather than sitting back and enjoying the glow. The wash of people was quite dull and low, for this wasn't a major port by any means. It was just a place where the beleaguered fishermen of the East could moor their crafts between the storms, hoping to eke a living upon turbulent seas. There was a hardness in their eyes, those seamen, that even Sharif could see. They had made their choice, and damn it all, they were going to stand by it. And even if a boat or two didn't make it back sometimes, at least they weren't starving, which was more than they could say about some of their more continental counterparts.<p>

Still, the sound of people drew out Sharif, who now looked around the relatively pitiful structures and landscape as though it were the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se. Patriarch let his displeasure be known, both in its body language and in the grudging way it clacked along the cobbled roads. More than a few askance glances were levied at the odd paring, the distant-focused youth on the old, grizzled, and obviously wild Ostrich Horse. "Don't worry about it, we won't be staying here long," Sharif offered, and Patriarch's response was as dull and lusterless as his plumage.

Sharif spotted what he needed; food. He pulled out the purse of coins that he now kept dangling from his neck and extracted a few of the gold bits, marked only by their center hole, the strike-date and ruling Earth King, and let the rest fall back into the leather bag. In truth, the amount he had in his hand was enough to outfit a decent sized ship for months, but of all Sharif's faculties destroyed by his wound, monetary sense was worst afflicted. He knew that gold was what they wanted, so he gave them gold. And often, he forgot to stick around for them to make change. The purse was far lighter now than it had been when he left Sentinel Rock, and also far lighter than it should have been. The only deal he'd made was when he inadvertently haggled for the light saddle that he now rested upon Patriarch's back, and that was by simple measure of him offering half its price, then slowly working up until the vendor handed over the goods at a reasonable bargain.

"Don't worry, I'll let him know about your stomach," Sharif said as Patriarch lowered himself. Sharif shifted out of the saddle and walked up to the provisioner. "I need food."

"Really?" the man said, leaning to one side to look at Patriarch. "If it was me, I wouldn't bother. That old cockerel has seen the last of its running days."

"He has a sensitive stomach, and he prefers rice and millet to barley," Sharif continued, placing a couple of coins onto the bench before him. It never occurred to Sharif that he was bigger than quite a few of the people around him. While still growing, he already had a build which some would attribute to either earthbenders or the most brutal depictions of Water Tribesmen. So it was with a sense of unease that the provisioner moved a glance from bird to nomad.

"I guess he does," the man answered, green eyes flitting. He obviously thought there was something more to this conversation, that Sharif was only approaching through innuendo and vagueness. In truth, Sharif meant exactly what he said. So when the man accepted one of the coins and laid a bag each of millet and rice onto the desk, he did so with the obvious desire to have this transaction be done quickly. Of course, Sharif was just glad that he didn't have to haggle again. That was time consuming, and he needed to find what he was looking for.

"Thank you," Sharif said, before taking the bags under one arm and lugging them over to where Patriarch was lying on his belly. The bird turned to him. "Yes, he had millet. It'll take a while to get the rice ready, so it'll be dinner for that," Patriarch seemed somewhat mollified by that. "Don't worry, I won't be keeping you forever. I just need to go a bit further. I think it's coming north, so we're bound to meet each other sooner or later."

Patriarch let out a snort, before nimbly pulling the string out of the top of the millet bag, and chowing down for a moment on its contents. It turned to Sharif, and Sharif frowned. "I don't like the sound of that... But it's something I'll have to deal with when it happens. It's not like that sensation's never going to happen again. And when it does, I'll have a direction."

Sharif took the strand which Patriarch had pulled and resewed it. It was one of the few talents that remained from before his injury; he had dexterous hands before and now. He was much like his sister in that respect, but where she had turned her fingers to science, to making things catch on fire, eat through metal, and explode, he was always more interested in making things whole. He'd made the robes he was wearing. And Nila's as well, but he didn't know if she was wearing it or not. It was just an impulse he had. If he saw something broken, no matter what, he was compelled to make it whole.

In his dreams, he sometimes even felt that way about himself.

"Sir, sir!" the vendor shouted, coming out of the stall which had overgrown itself and become a building. He looked between bird and youth again, before pointing west, toward the horizon. "I felt I should tell you, you'd better find some shelter. They say a storm's due in from the ocean."

"That's good to know," Sharif said. "But it won't bother me."

Quite true. He got along well with both air and water, so they didn't feel any need to assail him.

"What do you mean by –" he began, but to Sharif's mind, the world slowed. He could feel a tearing in the fabric of what was real, as something too large shoved its way through. The vendor had the worst of it, though, because one moment, he was speaking to Sharif in a zone of otherwise unpeopled street, but the next, there was somebody else there right in front of him. Sharif saw the truth of it though. This thing, this unspeakable thing, had shoved its way through, from a place that was far away and unfamiliar. "Where did you come fr..."

The intruder raised a hand, and a blast of wind slammed into the vendor sending him through the closed door of his stall-shop, sending it crashing down under his weight. Sharif's eyes told him that this thing was a girl, maybe a year or two older than he was, with black hair and grey eyes, and tattered clothing of a make he couldn't place. His sense of smell, taste, said otherwise. And even his eyes, fed through that shattered mind, could see _something else_ behind her, like it was trying to conceal itself behind her form, waiting to leap out and show its whole and horrific majesty to him.

"You don't belong here," Sharif said, taking a step back. Patriarch bolted to his feet as well, backing away with that same animal wariness which all fauna possessed, that intrinsic understanding when something was fundamentally wrong. She answered by opening her left hand.

**RAVAGING BEAST, DESPOILER OF LANDS, BATH OF BLOOD, WANDERING HUNGER**

**GEAR OF CHAOS;**

**DARK VOICE IN THE BACK OF MENS' MINDS, HEED!**

**OBEY THE COMMAND OF THE DEADLIER PREDATOR.**

**STRIKE DOWN THE OBJECT OF ITS HUNGER AND PREVENT THE GAZE OF DESTRUCTION FROM FALLING UPON YOU.**

Her voice was a girl's voice, but as there was something hiding behind her body, there was a voice hiding behind her's as well. And it was terrible, great and wrong. Sharif turned, and saw that a cloud had fallen over Patriarch's eyes, that the fish, long dead and hung in the shops nearby, began to twitch and flail. That the cats and hounds began to circle, hissing and growling in turn. She was a shaman, like he was. And she had just opened The Beast into her left hand.

But Sharif was a shaman too, and he was not defenseless. He opened his right hand, and began to intone.

Patriarch, oldest of the proudest brood. Walker of the Long Path. Defender of Youth

He of Wisdom and Endurance

Shake off those cruel bindings and remember yourself.

Proudest ancestor, wisest adviser, surest talon, strike!

Cut through the horde of that which would demand your slavery!

There were rules. Sharif had never been taught them, but he knew them for they were a part of his very bones. If one invoked the general, than one could do much. If one invoked the specific, one could overrule. The specific always trumped the general insofar as control of that same specific. The cloud which had fallen over Patriarch's eyes parted, and the bird dropped its head, its vestigial wings flaring out as it glared across the circling, flailing, gnashing beasts which now sought to do as this thing demanded. The first of the hounds threw itself at Sharif, only to be kicked away by Patriarch's clawed foot. There was a look, almost like frustration, in the enemy's eyes. It opened its right hand.

**IRUKANDJI, GOD OF TERROR, CHAOS OF THE MAELSTROM, PRINCE OF MADNESS**

**HE OF SIGHT AND MIND,**

**BOW BEFORE THE WILL OF THAT WHICH BINDS YOU!**

There was a flash of light, and a crack of thunder. Even as Patriarch tirelessly pounded away the beasts that encroached, now stood a new figure between the shaman and that thing hiding behind the teenaged girl. This figure was a man-like shape, but composed entirely of lightning bolts, which snapped and hummed electric as it glanced around, confusion plain on its lack of a face. Then, it spoke. "Whoa, wait a minute. How did I get here?" Irukandji asked.

**BODY THUNDER, MIND LIGHTNING, TWISTED AND INSANE, BEAR AGAINST AN UNFAMILIAR FOE.**

"Hey, I'm not insane, what are you..." Irukandji complained, but then it dawned on him, and he contracted inward just a little bit. "Oh... oh, this ain't good."

**OBEY!**

**HEED THE WARNINGS OF THE MESSENGER, VOICE TO MY HUNGER;**

**STRIKE THE LIFE FROM THE ENEMY'S BODY, STRIKE THE LIGHT FROM HIS EYES.**

That Irukandji turned to Sharif. "Look, kid, I probably want to be doin' this as much as you do, but if I don't listen to ugly over there, I'm..."

**CRUSH THE RESISTANCE OF THE ENEMY, AND SEE HIS WILL SHATTER, HIS WALLS CRUMBLE,**

**HIS HOPE, BURN.**

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Irukandji said, as now his body was obviously obeying commands not his own. "Please don't eat me! I'm too old to die!"

In the area, every bit of metal began to surge with cruel electricity, and the thruming of pulses climbed up Sharif's feet with every beat of his heart. A crack in the heavens, a bolt from blue skies, slamming down near Patriarch, but the bird was unfazed. Luckily. Irukandji would continue this barrage, though. It was not his purview, but it was his nature. That was actually to Sharif's advantage. So Sharif opened up his right hand, and intoned his own. Irukandji was a creature of thunder, of lightning. And that meant it had one obvious weakness, even to Sharif's wounded mind. He opened his left hand amongst the lightning.

Indomitable Earth, invulnerable shield, scale of the dragon, bone-breaking pressure;

Gear of Perseverance.

Pure as silver, heavy as gold, reach down to this humble supplicant

Withstand!

When mine foe sets blade upon thine barrier, let him shatter

When one beats against thine majesty, let him break

When one seeks the flaw in thine protection, let him falter

When one cleaves to strength, let him be buried.

As the words spilled unbidden by any but instinct from Sharif's lips, the ground began to shift. But it was not earthbending, or anything like it. The soil, baked and dry brown, became dark as coal, lush and vibrant, and iron ore began to mass upward, pushing through that suddenly fertile soil and snatching the lightning out of the sky harmlessly. Irukandji was straining, both against his captivity and from his strength being sapped by the unforgiving and indomitable earth. He was flagging, and that thing knew it. The girl began to sweat, a shudder passing through her. A rumble of a monster in her stomach. She hungered. She came hungry, expecting easy food. She was not prepared. And with a voice that spoke in storms, it roared.

**CAPRICIOUS AIR, BEARER OF THE HURRICANE, RIDER OF THE VORTEX'S EDGE, GAPING WOUND;**

**GEAR OF EMPTINESS.**

**SEND FORTH YOUR FURY UPON THIS SLOW AND PITIFUL FOE.**

**CAST A STORM TO BATTER HIM.**

**CAST A CALM TO STIFLE HIM.**

**STEAL HIS BREATH AND HIS WILL, AND LEAVE HIM HOLLOW AND AFRAID.**

Even as the wind began to rip at Sharif's robes, he could feel that the prayer she invoked in the throat wasn't nearly as effective as it could have been. The wind here was already prone to storms. It resented being ordered. And that gave Sharif an opportunity. He turned to Patriarch, as the great bird was casting off a hound who had managed to catch ahold of one of its flanks, and gave it a good stomping to dissuade it from further aggression. "How are you holding up?" Sharif asked.

**I am weary and old. But this is a fight I know well.**

"Can you keep it up?" Sharif asked.

**Not for long, Scarred Child. Not for long.**

That sealed it. Sharif hoped he wouldn't have to call on them, but the situation was dire. He tilted his head back, and invoked the throat, the last of his weapons, and intoned.

Silent Void, unspoken question, infinity of paper's-edge, arbiter of balance, pain of death

Gear of Soul.

Seeker of the lost and arcane; whisper.

Penetrate!

As thine cunning fights the wicked and unfamiliar foe, be wise.

When the foe, blasphemous and insane strikes, be swift.

When his weakness rises to the surface, be true.

When he falters, be ruthless.

When he is crippled... be cautious.

To all outside observers, nothing new happened. But that thing started screaming, pain tearing through the girl's body as the quiet of the void began to settle onto her. The emptiness chewed at her. It dug deeper. It asked the questions that thing could not bear asked. It learned the things it wanted never learned. It shot through to the deepest parts of that thing, and the girl shared in its pain. Finally, the scream changed its aspect, as control drifted, as the reins slipped, and as the girl slid a little closer to the fore.

"**This is not a victory,**" the girl said, her voice hosting a terrible reverberation, the rattling of an avalanche of bones. "**It will return, and next time, It will not be unprepared.**"

A new tearing in the world, and the girl pushed herself out of the inner sphere, through the outer sphere, and into what lay beyond. To a lay observer, she just vanished in a blink. And the instant they did, the animals bolted in every direction, freed from its profane influence. The winds grew dead, the lightning stalled. That Irukandji looked up to him, from where it was being pulled into the ground by the lodes of raw iron. Something like a grin flashed on its face.

"Whew. That was a close one. And I'm outta here," he said, regrowing his lost legs. "And I am never leaving my meatsuit EVER AGAIN!"

A crash of thunder, and Sharif was standing almost alone in a ruined street, Patriarch battered and a bit bloody at his side. He turned to Patriarch, as the void slipped out of his throat. It wasn't good for anything but passing invocations anyway. At the same time, he released the prayer to earth, and the soil stopped spreading in its rich blackness, but didn't revert. Soil didn't work that way. But for a moment, he held onto Patriarch.

**They are afraid, and will lash out at you.**

"They don't understand. If I explain to them..."

**Humans are all like that. You will discover this in time. We should leave.**

"But what about that feeling?"

**You can feel it as we move to the south. Either we ride into the hot wind this hour, Scarred Child, or you walk it alone.**

Sharif sighed, and nodded. He opened his hand, and let the invocation slip, causing a shudder to pass through the old Ostrich Horse. The vigor of the prayer faded quickly, unlike the soil. Around, Sharif could see people, many people, staring in wary fear. Like they were waiting for him to attack them at any moment. He wanted to tell them that they were safe, now. That he wasn't going to harm them. But Patriarch was right. And he felt a need to walk again. Just like he had for years, his feet demanded south. And this time, he had old and powerful feet to bear him there. Sharif threw his leg up over the saddle and pulled himself up onto Patriarch's back. With a bag of rice riding over his shoulder, he gave a last look at this village on the coast.

He somehow knew he would never see it again. And so it was, and so he rode.

* * *

><p>Katara followed the sound of Yqanuac profanity until she finally located her brother, who was swearing and muttering to himself as he angrily threw his things into a bundle. Since he neither had many things, nor cared about their placement in that bundle, it was a very fast task. Katara, though, leaned against the doorframe. "I assume your little mission with Jet didn't go so well," she said. Her tone far too honey-sweet, she prodded. "Did you lose a fight to a crack in the ground?"<p>

Sokka turned to her, and her sarcastic smile took a knock from his expression. She'd seen Sokka angry. Enraged, even. But this was a new animal. He glared, then turned, heaving the sack onto his shoulder. "That 'boyfriend' of yours is a thug and a psychopath," Sokka said.

A reddening came to Katara's cheeks which she studiously ignored. "He's not my boyfriend! And he's not a thug, he's a freedom fighter."

Aang, who had been listening in, dangled himself from the branch supporting the tent, making it look like he was standing upside down outside the flap. "Yeah, we can't judge him just because he's got a different way of life than we do," Aang said.

"He's messed up, Katara," Sokka stressed. "He almost killed a couple out on a stroll in the woods, in cold blood!"

Katara knew he wasn't one to lie except when it made him look like less of an idiot, but she couldn't conceive of how that applied here. And besides, she didn't like his tone, his implication. Sokka had a tendency to fly off of any handle in the area, sometimes twice. There had to be more to this. "And I bet there's a perfectly reasonable explanation to what you think you saw," Katara said tersely. Aang, though, dropped down, and looked between the two Tribesmen.

"Can we not fight about this?" Aang said. "I don't like it when you two fight. It get's scary."

"WE'RE NOT FIGHTING!" Both siblings managed to scream at once. Aang practically folded into himself like a hermit crab.

"Don't yell at me!" Aang said tentatively, backing away from both. Katara sighed, then turned on her brother.

"Do you see what you did?" she demanded.

"What I did? You were screaming too!"

"Maybe Katara's right," Aang broke in, physically interposing himself between the siblings. "Maybe we should hear Jet's side of this."

"See, the Avatar agrees with _me_," Katara said with a deserved degree of smugness. Sokka, though, just glared darkly, before shrugging that bag onto the ground.

"I don't see what he could possibly say which would explain that," Sokka muttered. The march into the large, lavish tent which Jet was using as his command center was as funereal as a death-march.

The older of Jet's group, his Freedom Fighters, were all arrayed around the tent, listening as he outlined some plan or another. He looked up and flashed that slick smile that he had, and Katara instantly couldn't see what Sokka was so worked up about. He couldn't be a bad guy. Jet just couldn't. She took a moment to give her brother a derisive look before turning to Jet once again. Oddly, one figure was absent, the tall one in the dark cloak. She shook the distraction away. "My goony brother says that you tried to kill some people in the woods."

"Yes, and?" Jet said. She stared at him for a moment, slack-jawed. He sighed. "Sokka, didn't you tell her they were Fire Nation?"

"Only one of them was!" Sokka said.

"See, there's my point. It was fight or die," Jet said, before turning his attention back to the task at hand. But Sokka had a bone in his teeth and he wasn't letting it go, even though the problem had already been sorted.

"So you conveniently forgot to mention that the people he 'almost murdered' were the enemy?" Katara asked.

"One of them was an Easterner, a girl from the town a few miles north," Sokka stressed. "Was she secretly Fire Nation too, or was I imagining the green eyes I saw?"

"She was an assassin," Jet said without bothering to look up. Sokka sputtered outright at the allegation. "She was likely conspiring with the soldier to kill me."

"Are you _insane_?" Sokka asked.

Jet shrugged, then reached back and set a cruel dagger onto the table. He pointed at a crust on its blade. "It's coated in contact poison. One nick and that'd be the end of me. You saved my life, Sokka."

Katara crossed her arms before her chest. "See? I told you there was a reasonable explanation for this?"

"There was _no_ knife!" Sokka shouted. "She _wasn't_ an assassin! Why are you believing his lies?"

"She was concealing it."

"You never checked her! Shadow and I were the last ones to leave, and she didn't have a knife!"

"Maybe you just didn't notice when they found it?" Katara asked. Sokka just growled.

"You know what? Fine. Believe him. Follow him wherever he goes like a loyal little puppy. Believe every cockamamie thing he tells you just because he says it. I'm done. I'm heading home before your rock-headedness gets me killed, most likely by somebody like him," Sokka said, jabbing a finger toward Jet. Jet raised an eyebrow in either alarm or consternation, probably the latter, as Sokka stormed out.

"Sokka, wait, don't go," Aang pleaded. Sokka paused. "We've still got to get the Fire Nation out of the town, and then we've got to reach the North Pole. I don't want to do that without you."

"And if it were up to me, you wouldn't have to," Sokka said, staring at his sister. "But it isn't. So I'm gone."

And with that, he slipped away. And even as a portion of Katara said 'good riddance', the far greater part felt like it was making a monumental mistake.

* * *

><p>A few minutes after the outsiders departed, Jet halted his line of thought in mid-track and turned to Smellerbee. Of those present, she had been with him the longest. Only Shadow could claim a longer tenure, but only because they had founded this little organization. And Shadow probably wouldn't be willing to do this. "He's going to calm down and come back. Make sure that doesn't happen," Jet said. Smellerbee nodded grimly, then she darted out of the tent. He turned back to those that remained, and a smirk came to him.<p>

"And for the rest of you, rest up this afternoon. After dark, we've got a lot of hauling to do. Forty barrels of acid aren't going to move themselves."

* * *

><p>Aang paced endlessly, wearing a rut into the peat of the bog as he wracked his brain for a way to somehow make this all better. Sokka couldn't be leaving! He was the meat and sarcasm guy! To Aang's terrified and irrational mind, it felt like he was suddenly losing his family again, and the feeling burned at him in a way that few other feelings would. When he was in the Southern Air Temple, he might not have known whatever siblings he might have had, but he always knew Gyatso. Gyatso was a constant to his life, as sure as a father. It had been the sure and horrible loss of Gyatso which catapulted Aang out of control into the Avatar State. And he was terrified he might do it again.<p>

"You're overreacting, Aang," Katara said, which was of no comfort. "Sokka gets like this all the time. He blows up over something stupid, claims that he's the victim, and then storms off until he's willing to admit he's wrong. It's just the way he gets sometimes. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised he hasn't done this sooner."

"But what if this time's different?" Aang asked. "I mean, he looked _really_ angry, and _really_ sure of himself."

"That's my brother, master of self delusion," Katara said off-handedly.

"You shouldn't talk about him that way," Aang said. "He's your brother. He's probably the only one you're ever going to have. And even if he wasn't, he's the only Sokka you're ever going to have."

"And thank Tui and La for that," she said lightly.

"I can't believe you'd talk like this," Aang said, resuming his pacing. Yes, while Sokka sometimes made a fool of himself, he did so with a transparent heart. But Katara by times could just be _mean_. And with very little reason, too. "You know what? I'm going to to find him."

"Aang, you don't need to do that," Katara placated. "In a couple of hours, he'll realize how far from home he is, that we're the only ride around, and come crawling back."

Aang just stared at her. "You're a bad sister," he said simply, and Katara gaped outright at him. He pulled his staff to his hand and moved to the door, flicking the glider open and preparing to launch into the skies, surveying eyes be damned. Before he did, though, he heard Katara calling his name. He turned to her. "What?"

"If this means so much to you, I'll come with you," Katara said, her eyes somewhat downcast. Aang looked up, noting the indigo stain of the sky, of a night soon approaching. "It might be good to keep him from tripping over a root and knocking himself senseless. I'll go get Appa."

"We can't take Appa," Aang stressed. "The Fire Nation is only a few miles away. If they see Appa, they'll come down on us like... something that comes down really hard. Rocks or something."

"I see your point. More or less," she said. "But then how are we going to find Sokka?"

Aang turned around, and held out an arm. "Hold on, and don't let go."

She locked her arms around his waist. With a bound empowered by his airbending, and a gust of gale wind under the cloth wing, he was soaring through the sky, seeking a needle in a haystack. Or worse, a splinter in a woodlot.

* * *

><p>The slog was every bit as horrible as Sokka imagined it would be. He wasn't an idiot. As much as he hated the very thought of walking amongst the Fire Nation, the only other alternative was to trek for weeks, maybe as much as a month, back through the bog towards the southern Earth Kingdoms, and then another week to find civilization. With a town so handy, he would have to be an utter idiot to pass it up. It was just finding a way to get away from it quickly which was the problem which currently beset Sokka's brain.<p>

Well, one of two problems. The other regarded why the Fire Nation needed so much acid, delivered secretly.

It wasn't for the tenth time today that he thanked Dad for showing how to oil boots properly, to keep the water from getting into them no matter the conditions. It was probably the only thing preventing a nasty case of trench-foot. Why they called the affliction trench-foot was a question lost to history, since it would take a special kind of moron to fight in a trench during a battle. But still, his legs pulled the familiar strain of walking against inclement condition. A year ago, it had been groin-deep snow and brutal wind; now it was sucking mud and vines. He was going to have to whittle a machete one of these days, especially if he ever ended up in conditions like these again.

Sokka paused, looking toward the north. It was a fool's errand, heading for the North Pole. Of course, sticking with the Avatar was putting the world's biggest bull's-eye on his back, and that didn't bother him very much. No, the North Pole bothered him because he knew that, in a few days, he would be getting farther away from Dad again. It was irrational, he knew that; since Dad could be just about anywhere in the East Continent, Sokka had no way of knowing when he would stop approaching the man, but he just felt like he was missing a chance to see family again. And it grated at him.

"Well, then I guess that's where I'm going," Sokka said to himself as he set out again, shaking off the moment of paralysis. "He could always use another warrior."

Yeah, right. Sokka the warrior. For some reason, ever since Kyoshi Island, that image was harder and harder for Sokka to hold in his head. Had they humiliated him that badly? Or was it just that he was finally seeing himself without his pride clouding the lens? In either case, there was a world out there, and he had a fair degree of certainty that he was going to be seeing a goodly chunk of it before this wild misadventure was over. It wasn't like the universe was going to keep his life simple and pleasant, after all.

Sokka kept walking, wishing once again that he'd brought money to arrange passage. But he'd left it with Aang and Katara. Yes, they were working with a thug, but they'd see what he saw sooner or later, and when they did, they'd need it much more than he did. After all, Katara was a girl; people didn't hire girls for coolie work. Sokka paused. Tui La, this was going to get unpleasant. Sokka enjoyed coolie work about as much as most people enjoyed having their hair ripped out, one strand at a time. He turned back, contemplating whether he should just try to make peace. But even as that thought came to his head, his jaw set and his eyes darkened. No. There was no working with Jet. He was a murderer waiting to happen and Sokka didn't want to be anywhere near him when he snapped.

"No point waiting," he said, turning one last time toward the north and preparing to walk. But when he did, he heard something. A creak of wood. Instantly, his body went still. There was no followup. That was actually worse. Natural things happened in patterns. A gust of wind might blow a branch, make it creak. An animal might step on a limb. But silence, especially silence like this, this was deliberate. Somebody was stalking him.

Sokka tossed his bag over a limb to keep it out of the water, and pulled his club and boomerang in a practiced and fluid motion, turning in a slow circle, trying to spot his would-be assailant. He wasn't getting captured today.

"I know you're out there," Sokka said.

The response came in the form of a knife. With a yelp of alarm which was only a little bit unmanly, he managed to hurl himself into the muck so that it didn't embed in his person. He looked back up, and saw something darting through the underbrush, in the darkness of the approaching night. Sokka pushed himself out of the mud and ran. "I'm onto you, Shadow!" he shouted. Shadow was the knife-thrower, after all. He ran, and almost lost his head for his trouble. Only a fortunate placement of his boomerang, a twist of metal against metal kept the sword's edge from slashing into his throat. Sokka quickly twisted away, and found himself facing not the black-cloaked form of Shadow, but the wild-haired, face-painted visage of Smellerbee.

"Alright, killers coming out of the woodwork," Sokka commented.

"Jet said you can't go to the Fire Nation. You're a liability. We don't take liabilities lightly," she said quietly.

She rushed forward, a sword in each hand, and Sokka found himself falling back fast. He couldn't match steel with what he had. Not for long, anyway. So he flailed and he stumbled, saved only by the fact that while Smellerbee had more experience fighting than he did, it was against opponents who would never fight as Sokka needed to. She kept aiming for openings that Sokka didn't give, expecting counterattacks that never came. It bought Sokka time, but that was just deficit spending. Soon, either by his exhaustion or by sheer bad luck, the debt would be called due.

And the question of when and how was answered when Sokka's backswing, which sent Smellerbee staggering back as it clanged off her crossed blades, suddenly found itself pinned to a tree-trunk, a barrage of short arrows caging it in place. Not so much emerging as materializing from the shadows came a black-cloaked figure.

"What's this?" Shadow asked.

"He's going to betray Jet to the Fire Nation," Smellerbee said. Shadow frowned at that.

"Why?"

"Don't know, don't need to. Jet wants him out of the picture."

"And you don't ask questions," Shadow pressed.

"I don't need to."

"Then you're a fool," Shadow turned to Sokka. In approach, the hood caught on a branch and Shadow was caught up for a moment, before finally throwing back the hood in annoyance. Sokka suddenly realized why that voice sounded high. Shadow was a she. A very fine-featured, very pale she. Her hair might have been quite short, almost boyish and ragged, but the rest of her features made it seem quintessentially girly. "What's going on?"

"Jet tried to kill somebody," Sokka said. "An innocent woman and a soldier he'd already beaten. You saw it! You were there!"

"I was," Shadow answered.

"Come on, think about it! If he's going to do things like that in front of you, imagine what he'd try when your back was turned!" Sokka stressed.

"Jet heeds my advice," Shadow said. "But he has been... unstable lately."

"Shadow, come on, just do it and let's go," Smellerbee urged. Shadow answered Smellerbee with a flat glare, before turning back to Sokka. She seemed to be thinking, deep. Finally, she let out a weary sigh and shook her head slowly.

"The Tribesman is right. He's going over the deep end," Shadow briskly glided up to him and yanked the quarrels from the trunk, freeing his arm. She turned to Smellerbee. "Where is Jet?"

"What? You're taking his side?" the other girl sounded outright betrayed.

"Answer my question."

"No. I'm loyal to Jet, you... you bimbo!" Smellerbee shouted, before rushing forward again. Shadow darted to a side, letting the attack carry Smellerbee against the same tree that Sokka had just pulled himself off of. Then, with a flick of long-fingered hands, Smellerbee was entombed in a cage of metal blades as Sokka had. The Tribesman let out a low whistle of respect at the spectacle.

"Gotta say, it seems like all the most effective people I meet nowadays are women. Suki, my sister, that Princess Azula chick..." he muttered to himself.

Shadow gave him an aside glance. "There's a name I didn't think I'd hear again," she said.

"What?"

"Nothing," she corrected. "Where is Jet?"

"I don't know," Sokka admitted, pondering to himself against the background of Smellerbee promising brutal and bloody retribution upon both Shadow and Sokka for what the former had done. Finally, the second of the two riddles didn't so much as fall into place, so much as rise into focus. "Wait a minute, Shadow, if you were Jet, and you wanted to wipe out a Fire Nation garrison, what would you do with more than three dozen barrels of concentrated acid?"

Shadow pondered for a moment, before a moment of alarm alighted on her face. "No. Damn it, Jet!"

"What is it?"

"The river," she said. "It travels slow. He's going to dump it into the river and eat the hulls of the boats."

"That's a good thin..." Sokka trailed off. "But it'll eat the pylons that the town's built on, won't it?"

Shadow just stared at him, letting the answer sink in slowly.

"We gotta move."

She nodded, then the two of them were sprinting through the underbrush. In their wake, Smellerbee let out one last good thrash, and then became still. She still muttered to herself, but she knew that for the time being, she was well and truly stuck. So it was that she was unable to stop a parrot lizard from scampering down the tree trunk and roosting in her hair. Oh, the Tribesman was going to pay for this.

* * *

><p>"I don't see him," Katara shouted against the winds as they flew. It was bloody uncomfortable, and her arms were getting extremely tired, but they covered far more ground than they ever would have afoot. Only Momo, who had been flapping along side of them, seemed to be having an easy go of it, but then again, it was a lemur, and lemurs were natural fliers.<p>

They hadn't been flying long, but the only reasonable thing to do was to circle out, so they weren't very far from where they started. It was when they'd circled north again that Aang saw something, and began to bring the glider down without saying a word to her. Not surprising, considering the level of concentration that he was showing just to keep this thing airborne. As tired as her arms were, she imagined that his exhaustion outweighed hers fourfold. That he didn't complain was a testament to his desperation.

It never occurred to Katara how much he valued having Sokka and Katara with him. And it hurt to think that she'd so cavalierly cast that aside. It wasn't just herself she was dealing with anymore, now she had to look after Aang, too. The trees approached with somewhat alarming speed, and Katara found herself tugging at the collar of Aang's kavi. "Aang, are we supposed to be going this fast?"

"Hold on!" Aang answered, before pulling up, but even so, it only slowed their decent, rather than reversing it. And it was the trees which broke the fall, rather than Aang's airbending. After a few moments shaking the stars from her eyes and pulling the vines off of her face, she looked around to see a fairly astounded looking Pipsqueak with a barrel under his arm. The massive youth gave a nervous glance aside, and Katara followed it to where she could see many other such barrels, stacked on the side of a stream, Jet perched atop them.

"Katara, what are you doing here?" Jet asked, hopping off.

"I'm looking for my brother," She said, rotating some pain out of her arms. She then frowned at the freedom fighter. "What are you do..."

"I had a talk with Sokka a little while ago," Jet said, sweeping an arm over her shoulder and turning her away from the barrels. "He just needed to blow off a little steam, so I sent him and Smellerbee out on recon, to make sure the Fire Nation doesn't have any surprises lined up for us."

Katara wanted to believe him. But she knew her brother. She pulled that arm off of her shoulder and stared at the man. Yes, he was attractive, and brave, and dashing, but it was all too... slick. "What are you doing with those barrels, Jet?" Katara asked.

"Burying them, where the Fire Nation will never find them," he said. This time, she felt no urge to believe him. Aang came stumbling out of the foliage, dragging a somewhat tattered glider behind him. He let out a moan upon noticing its condition, and snapped it shut. He looked at Jet, then the stream, then his eyes grew wide.

"Katara, this river runs into that town," he said.

"You can't know that," Jet said. Aang gave Jet an expression of such derision that Katara couldn't believe Aang's face capable of it.

"I've been gauging terrain while your great grandfather was in diapers," Aang said with a level of confidence. He pointed at the river, at the barrels. "Anything that goes into that water will get swept right out into the bay. I'd bet my arrows on it!"

"Jet, what are you doing with those barrels?" Katara continued, taking a step back toward the airbender.

Jet's mouth pursed, his eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched. "I thought you'd understand. You know how much I've lost. We're the same, you and I! We both lost our families to the Fire Nation!"

"No, I lost my mother and my sister to the Fire Nation," Katara shouted back, her hands spreading out and urging the water in the boggy terrain to obey her. "But I'm beginning to think you lost your _mind_."

"This is a victory, Katara! We're freeing them from the Fire Nation once and for all!"

"Who will be free?" Katara shouted. "That vitriol would bring down the entire village, kill hundreds of innocent people!"

"So you'd leave them in slavery?" Jet asked, his hands creeping back to his blades. Katara surged her hands up, and water leapt up in a pair of waving tendrils from the damp peat and tepid pools.

"How is death better?" she demanded.

"Jet, you can still stop this," Aang pleaded.

"There's no stopping this," Jet said, and he cocked a hand to hurl his hook-sword at the nearest of the barrels. Only Aang's swift blast of airbending knocked the weapon aside before it could rupture the barrel and begin leaking its deadly cargo into the waters. The others, though, took the attack and parry as a signal to attack in force. Instantly, she had to twist and inexpertly catch the cask that Pipsqueak had been lugging with the water she was streaming. All of those months of practice now finally paid off, because she was able to drop it inelegantly, but without breaking it, against a tree-root. She then had to send the whole lot of it against the massive youth, because otherwise, he would have simply bull-rushed her and pinned her.

Aang wasn't faring as well as would be hoped either. Without his glider nor any significant high ground, he was forced to fight on Jet's terms, and he was obviously the worse for it. While he could keep Jet away from the barrels, and keep those cruel, razor sharp blades from gashing him open, Aang couldn't slip out of complete defense for more than an instant without Jet surging forward once more.

Katara focused on Pipsqueak to such an extent that she completely forgot that he might have been the largest, but he was hardly the only of Jet's goons. She quickly felt one of her arms begin twisted up painfully, her eyes watering as she could feel her shoulder tearing in its socket. Tui La, she never knew a hammer lock could hurt so much. She didn't need to look back to see Sneers behind her. She could feel him. He was soaking wet. And that was to her advantage. She stomped downward onto his foot, which didn't release his painful lock but did give Katara a bit of maneuvering room. She then reached forward with a foot and pulled back hard, similar to when she emulated the tide, but utilizing a different part of her body. The water surged up out of the pool just as Sneers' lock hoisted her off her feet again. She then clenched her fingers and toes, forcing out a breath despite her pain. The water that surged over Sneers' ankles flash froze, and she finally had leverage now that he couldn't move with her.

Taking the opportunity Katara's immobility gave him, Pipsqueak began to rush forward, but a streak dropped from the heavens and smashed into his face, screeching and clubbing for all its twenty pound body was worth. Pipsqueak's battle-cry became a chorus of 'get it off get it off' as he fell to the ground and flailed, trying to dislodge the protective lemur which had decided to make itself useful.

Katara reached with her remaining arm and slammed a ball of water up out of the damp soil and into Sneers' face. It was enough to knock the both of them backward, with was a pain all anew, but since she'd landed atop him, he lost his grip, and she was able to pull loose and use the water which saturated his clothes to freeze him to the forest floor. Of course, rising to her feet only had her see Longshot's paddy hat rise up out of the woods. She reflexively pulled water to her, but there wasn't enough nearby. So she dove past a tree, an instant before an arrow split her. He might be good at range, but for moving targets, thankfully not as much. She needed water, but between smashing Pipsqueak down and freezing Sneers' to the ground, she was running out.

She peeked aside, and saw that Aang had taken a place atop the barrels themselves, and was airbending furiously, a stream of wind so profound that she could see how it flowed by the twisting of the trees. But Jet was rooted through it, his blades dug into roots and peat, his face a mask of concentration and anger. Almost outrage. If only she were closer to that stream. She set out another glance, and saw that hat again, this time a split second's warning to move or be feathered. She ducked to a new position behind the tree, and once again cursed herself for not preparing more completely. But she could feel something. There was still water. She couldn't see it, but she knew there was still water in this bog. She couldn't deplete it so quickly. It was just _deeper_.

Putting faith in her perception, because it was all she had at this point, she bolted out of cover, catching a glance of those flaring ears, that paddy hat. His gaze snapped to hers, and his arm drew back, an arrow nocked and drawn. But she pulled up, her hands tearing as through trying to rip a sheet out from under Sokka while he was still sleeping. And water obeyed her. A substantial body rose up as the arrow loosed. Her eyes widened with a yelp as she quickly slammed her fists shut, and the water turned to ice in a heartbeat. The arrow was half-way through it, and now, was stopped dead. She smirked, then shoved forward with both fists, and the entire frozen mass snapped away from its base and smashed Longshot against a tree, pinning him there under its weight, where he would remain until it melted.

She turned, prepared to help Aang, but after a single step, she felt her legs twist back of their own accord, and she face planted onto the muck. She looked back, and saw Bug whirling the other end of her poi, focus on her face. "Just try it, Tribesman," she said. Katara twisted, trying to break free, but the effort was too much, and she was quite handily caught. A glance toward Aang showed the worst had come to pass. Jet, having slogged ahead through that maelstrom, had finally lashed forward with both blades, hooking them behind each of Aang's ankles, and heaved, managing to pull the Avatar off his feet with such vigor that his head bounced against the ground, and the great wind stopped as his consciousness parted for a moment.

"Jet, don't do it!" Katara screamed.

"It's already done," Jet said, then he turned to the barrels, all lined up on the side of the river. He took a breath, cocked back a hand, and swung that hooksword down...

Only to be interrupted by a boomerang to the face.

Jet staggered back, clutching his forehead, which now had a rivulet of blood streaming down where the weapon had cut him near his hairline. He leveled his one still-held blade at Sokka as he stomped out of the woods, club to his hand and thundercloud his expression. Even having the angry lemur land on his shoulder didn't break the impressiveness of Sokka's display. In her entire life, Katara had never been so happy to see her older brother. "You can't stop me, Sokka. I have control here!"

And his statement was proved patently false when a barrage of knives and quarrels slammed him to the ground and pinned him there as though a specimen in a scientific exhibition. Gliding out of the woods behind Sokka was the last of Jet's gang, and at this moment, Shadow was staring murder at Jet just as Sokka was. Shadow turned her glare to Bug.

"Let her go," Shadow ordered.

"But Jet said..."

"I don't care," Shadow countered. "Let her go, now."

Bug glanced between both of her 'superiors', but seeing how one of them was now immobilized and helpless, and the other was angry and without-a-doubt still armed, Bug made the wise decision of letting the strand which had caught Katara's legs loosen, and the Tribesman quickly shrugged free of bondage. Shadow walked a bit closer to Jet, shaking her head in dismay. "What were you thinking, Jet?"

"I was going to drive them away!" Jet answered. "Put the run to the Fire Nation!"

"And what about all of the people in the town? You know, the people who just got _invaded_ by the Fire Nation?" Shadow asked. She seemed a lot more vocal now, since anger had slipped into her voice.

"Acceptable casualties," Jet's tone was grim.

Shadow rolled her grey eyes and let out a long profanity in Huojian, which made Katara's eyes bug out a bit. "I thought we were past this, Jet," Shadow said harshly. "We attack the Fire Nation military. Not their civilians, and not the people they enslave."

"What do you care? They're just Fire Nation!"

"So was I!" Shadow screamed. "And yet, here I am. You lost your parents to the Fire Nation? Mine were personally killed by Fire Lord Ozai himself. You have no home? I was kicked off of my own continent! Damn it, Jet, we have to be _better_ than them! If we sink down to their level, then what's the point, Jet? If we look into that abyss, and we see ourselves in it, then what good have we done? I've seen the face of the enemy, Jet, and his eyes are golden, not green."

Jet tipped his head back, and let out a groan. A sigh, then he looked back up at her. "I messed this up, didn't I?"

"Pretty badly," Shadow answered. She turned to Katara. "You should thank your brother. If it wasn't for him, there'd be a lot of dead innocents today."

"You're right," Katara said with humility. "You were right, Sokka. Jet was off the deep end, and I wouldn't listen. I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

"Nice to know I'm appreciated," Sokka said, but without his usual smugness. "Now if you all don't mind, I think we should probably leave. I've had enough of this bog to last two lifetimes."

"Yeah," Aang said unsteadily as he limped over to Sokka, who took an arm over his shoulder and helped him. "This place is no fun anymore."

"Go with them," Shadow said, tilting her head toward Sokka and Aang. "They need somebody to fight for them, now more than ever."

"I'm not much of a fighter," Katara said quietly. Shadow looked past Katara, to the three men Katara had put down using nothing but her will and her waterbending, with an assist by an angry lemur.

"Then I'd hate to see what you consider a good one," Shadow said.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Go south. Maybe see if we can get the children dropped off some place safer," Shadow responded, kneeling down toward Jet. "They've already seen enough war. They deserve to have childhoods."

Katara could empathize with that. She gave a nod to the dark, grim woman and slowly set off after her brother and Aang. As much as she'd like to beat a hasty retreat, she hurt, pretty much everywhere, and moving would be slow or nonexistent.

As she walked, the voices of Sokka and Aang got a bit more distant, fading into the din of the bog, and she took a moment to stop, leaning against a tree. She'd been in a real fight, and she won! Dad would either be proud, or horrified. She was wagering on proud. She let out a crooked, tired smile at the thought, at the memory. Two years since she last saw Dad. Tui La, how long would it be now? What if he was already back, and now they were gone?

No, there was no point thinking like that. She'd see Dad again. Possibly sooner rather than later. But she would keep going, to the North, toward the sister Tribe, toward a teacher. She pushed off of the tree, straightening her now hopelessly soiled dress, and took about three steps before she noticed that she was not alone in the gap between five trees. She turned, her hands spread out, and when she saw the other party, she paled a bit. "No... Impossible."

Golden eyes stared back at her.

He opened his hands to his sides. "I'm not here to start a fight. I just want to talk," Zuko said calmly.

"About what? How you're going to kidnap the Avatar?"

Zuko gestured toward his belt, and then slowly pulled out a scroll from the loop. With a caution akin to trying to domesticate a feral animal, he took a step closer, then gently tossed it toward her. She caught it, but her eyes never left him. "What is this?"

"You're looking for a waterbending master, am I right?" Zuko asked. He shook his head. "You're not going to find what you're hoping to in the North. _Believe_ me on that."

"What do you want, Zuko?" she demanded. He gestured toward the scroll now in her hand.

"There are other ways to learn. Uncle had this in his things, I don't think he'll miss it."

Katara finally looked down at the scroll. The ends were capped in the blue wave of the Water Tribes. Her eyes widened in shock and amazement as she quickly unfurled it, hearing that subtle creak of oiled skin, rather than paper, and the images carefully burnt on rather than inked. The figures on the page showed forms of waterbending, things she had never even thought of trying. She looked back up at him, confusion plain. "How did you find this?"

"I wasn't lying about what Uncle did," Zuko said. "There are more. I know that much."

"Is this a... a bribe?" Katara asked.

"I'm not asking you to betray him. I'm just telling you there is another way. He is not your only option. He's not even your best option, if you're really heading north," Zuko said with a chuckle, but cut it when he noted that it drew a darker expression from her.

"I'm not betraying Aang. And I'm not taking your blood-money either," she said, preparing to throw the scroll, but he made a placating gesture.

"Wait wait... Just keep it," Zuko said. "And remember, there is another way. I'm not doing this for myself, Katara. I'm trying to help my sister. She needs help, and the Avatar is the only way she's going to get it."

"Your sister's a piece of work, Zuko!"

Zuko's calm expression faltered at that, rage leaking through his placid veneer. "Yes, she is. She had another fit a few days ago. This one was so bad that even today she hasn't regained the capacity to _SPEAK_! You have NO RIGHT to insult her!"

The two benders glared at each other, but it was Zuko who backed down first. "You have nothing I want, Zuko," Katara said coldly.

"Maybe, someday, you'll find that I do," Zuko said, taking a step back. She clutched the scroll, her eyes pulling tight in her effort not to simply lash out at him. But when she opened them again, Zuko was gone. The only evidence that he had ever been here was the scroll in her hand. She wouldn't trust him. He was Fire Nation, and that made him her enemy.

But then again... so was Shadow, and she had saved Earth Kingdom lives. She stared at that scroll. This whole thing just got terribly confusing.

* * *

><p>Jet watched as the bison lifted off over the trees, keeping low under ominous clouds. He shook his head. "I can't believe that kid's the Avatar," he said.<p>

"I can't believe you almost killed all those people," she answered him. He sighed.

"Are we still on that, Shadow?"

"Are the kids around?" she asked lightly, sitting close to him.

"No, why?"

"Then why are you still using my pseudonym?" she asked with a smirk.

Jet shook his head. "You know, it's a damned lucky thing we met. Can you imagine what would have happened if I never met you?"

"Well, you would probably still be farting around in Gaipan, trying to get the Fire Nation out of the woods," she offered.

"At least I wouldn't have killed a bunch of people," he said.

She turned a glance toward him. "Really, Jet? Are you sure you wouldn't get desperate enough?"

Jet shrugged, as the two of them overlooked the rest of the camp going about their business. What she did with the barrels, Jet didn't know, and the better for it. "I don't think there's any point looking at what might have been. This is what we've got now. So we've got to make the best of it," Jet said, waving toward the children.

"You do have a way with words, Jet," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. He smiled, taking her cool hand in his.

"And you have a way with me, Mai."

* * *

><p><strong>I promised you crack pairings, and I deliver crack. In this case, it's carefully considered crack. In canon, Mai's parents got relocated to what most considered to be a bit of a hell-hole (Omashu, naturally). Not exactly the plum of assignments. That indicates to me at least that Ozai had very little regard for Mai's parents. And justifiably so, considering the bungling that they made of the management of the city. But that was because Ozai was secure in his rule. In 3F, he wasn't. And the first rule of taking leadership, lampooned by Machiavelli in his satire The Prince, is that an ascendant monarch must take the first few weeks of his rule to kill all of his political enemies. To do so after that would set the tone of his rule as a bloodthirsty monster, but at the beginning? That's just the tides of succession. So Ozai had his political enemies (including the aforementioned parents, and a few others that may get mentioned) lined up against a wall and shot. Not kind, definitely. And has the added butterfly that Mai is very much an only child: They died long before Tom-Tom would have been born.<strong>

**Why have Mai hook up with Jet? It amused me. They both have reasons to hate the Fire Nation, but each serves as a mirror to the other, a check and a balance. So Jet doesn't get quite as crazy, and Mai doesn't get quite as cold. Of course, we've got a jealous Smellerbee to worry about but... well, let's just leave that for (the entirely hypothetical at this point) book 2.**

**Now, regarding Shamanism. If a shaman fights another shaman, or a spirit, the way they do so is through prayers. As Sharif will eventually explain (complicated), the prayers are invocations of the spirits in question. If you're powerful enough, you can just demand that a spirit does something, and it will... begrudgingly. And you don't want the spirits begrudged. If, instead, you butter them up a bit, then you can get them to do things you wouldn't believe, things which are strictly outside the circle of possibility with bending the elements alone. This is mostly because spirits are much more varied; while there are spirits of the bendable elements, there are also spirits of life, death, greed, luck, and many other concepts, each with their own particular strengths and weaknesses. Void is a wildcard, because it's so rare that somebody can sucessfully invoke them. Now, if a shaman invokes the same spirits as a bender, if the bender is in any way competant, then s/he can press through fairly easily, since technology trumps asking nicely most of the time.**

**Why are spirits so much more powerful in this 'verse than in canon? Well... Yeah, I'll get to that in due time. And if anybody feels like Troping me, go right ahead.**

_Leave a review._


	7. Darkened Skies

**Sorry for the gap. Family stuff happened, and I'm picking up the last course I need in Uni. Answers: Haru isn't in this story. Since Ozai diverted manpower away from the East after Iroh's failed invasion, Tyro was never captured, and there was no reason for Imprisoned to happen. Of note is that Katara never lost her necklace, so no scent trail for Jun. Haru is just another earthbender in the background.  
>Oh... and who <em>ever<em> said that this was heading for Zutara? Ha!**

* * *

><p>To say Nila was entranced by the sea would be doing it disservice.<p>

She had read countless books describing it, the way that the waves pushed up and down, crashing against rocks or sliding to their demise against sand. How in the grim times, the waves could stand as tall as Sentinel Rock itself, a brutal, cruel, and punishing reprisal for mankind's hubris in claiming to have conquered its vast reaches. She had even read treatises in how the tides follow the moon, a spiritual dance bereft of real physics, since any body of matter so close to the planet would have broken apart and crashed down millions of years before. She had read much, and learned much, but standing here, overlooking the breathtaking _majesty_ of it, she was caught in awe.

Of course, it wasn't the perfect day to be watching the ocean. After all, the winds were tearing, the sky was grey, and the waves crashed with white froth at their caps. But even so, even with the horizon so artificially hemmed, it was like a mouse beholding the handiwork of a god.

"Man, the weather sucks," Tzu Zi broke into Nila's reverie. "I hope Rai Lee is somewhere safe."

"Rai Lee, she's which one again?" Nila asked, her eyes not drifting away from the spectacle which was the ocean.

"She's the one who was obsessed with the ocean," Tzu Zi answered, concern plain in her voice. "I just hope she made it to port. This looks like a bad one."

"What do you know about ocean storms?" Nila asked.

"Just that they happen all the time, and they hit like an Avatar," Tzu Zi said. She tugged on Aki's reins. "As I understand it, they come in big waves, smashing against all the coasts of the East Continent over and over again, like some sort of heathen ocean god is angry at the Earth Kingdoms for something."

"Tell me you don't believe that tripe," Nila asked, glancing toward her companion. Tzu Zi just smiled.

"I'm not that uneducated. I know better. But I also know that it shouldn't be possible for storms to hit like they do. Weird stuff just happens sometimes."

"It's 'weird stuff' because nobody puts enough effort into understanding it," Nila corrected. Tzu Zi shrugged.

"We should probably head south. That's where you were headed, right?" she asked. Nila nodded. "Well, come on up."

Nila nodded, giving a last glance to the ocean. It was ridiculous, considering it would be at her side the entire trek south, but even tearing her eyes away from it for a moment felt like a betrayal of its grandeur. Still, she clambered up and put her arms around Tzu Zi's waist, managing not to be off put by the fact that they now circled a bare midriff. Really, Tzu Zi might have been a decent, respectable girl, but she dressed like an absolute prostitute! Not that a small part of her mind was complaining. She studiously fought to ignore that part.

"So are we heading the right direction?" Tzu Zi asked as Aki bounced along.

"Oh, yes. He's heading south, alright. I can feel it in my bones," Nila said grimly. Sharif couldn't be too far ahead of her. He was afoot, and she had been riding an Ostrich Horse for days. How she hadn't overtaken him already was a mystery, but one that she would uncover in due time. As the pair rode, though, Nila slowly got the impression that something was on her counterpart's mind. It was possibly the none-too-subtle signals that the girl was dropping, which were only being utilized now that the more unobtrusive ones had obviously flown over Nila's head. She rolled her eyes, and asked. "What?"

"Oh, nothing, it's just that I was supposed to meet one of my sisters here," Tzu Zi turned to the west, toward the storm which seemed to be gathering on every horizon and pressing in. "And with that storm... I'm worried."

"Where were you supposed to meet her?"

"Right here," Tzu Zi said. "Sure, I might have fallen behind a bit when I picked you up, but..."

"Fallen behind? I've been spurring you constantly to catch up with my idiot brother!" Nila complained.

"You shouldn't call him that. It's not his fault what happened to him," Tzu Zi said. Nila didn't answer that claim. It usually would have been countered with 'you don't know anything about my brother', but Tzu Zi now knew more about Sharif than anybody outside the family, which was a situation Nila had no experience with.

"Maybe you're right," Nila admitted. "So when were you supposed to meet your sister?"

"About six hours ago," Tzu Zi said uncomfortably. "Give or take."

"So we can catch up. Where? Right, on a cliff. How?" she amended.

"She would pick me up as she sailed past."

"I thought you said..."

"I said I hoped she hadn't, but let's face it, if you cut Rai Lee, brine would come out," Tzu Zi said with a roll of her eyes and a distant smile. She then frowned, worry crossing her features. "Where could she have gone?"

"Are there any ports nearby?"

"Well, there's one to the south, but that's a long way, and the winds are wrong," Tzu Zi said. "We could hope that... that..."

"What is it?" Nila asked, craning her neck around. Aki came to a stop, and Nila beheld that they were overlooking a sharp decline, heading down to a slightly sheltered bit of moorage. That was the proper word for that, right? Moorage? Anyway, it was little more than a warp in the shape of the cliff, but it played host to several small vessels, and one slightly larger one, all almost close enough that one could spit from one and hit another. Nila scowled. "Well, they've probably got the right idea, but won't the waves smash the boats together?"

She muttered something which Nila couldn't catch, which sounded less like a curse and more like a wondrous exclamation. "Nila!" she finally returned to a common tongue. "That's the Nuwa! That's my sister's boat!"

"Here? Why wouldn't they just head for port?"

"Maybe they couldn't make it," Tzu Zi said, and then tugged on the reins. Aki let out an annoyed warble, but began to pelt down the scree. Doing so elicited a shriek of alarm from Nila, despite her best intentions to the opposite. She clung even tighter to Tzu Zi, her hands digging into the soft skin of her otherwise taut belly... Nila! You're going to die and you're thinking about her abs! Focus!

"What are you doing?" Nila screamed.

"I've gotta make sure Rai Lee's alright!" Tzu Zi shouted back, spurring the bird into even more suicidal descent, to the point that it was now bounding down between cracks in boulders. Every landing brought another yelp of terror from the desert-born traveler, who dug in tighter until the only thing she could both see, and smell, was Tzu Zi's hair. "Don't worry, Aki's not a Plains steed. She's from Ru Nan! They're trained for mountains!"

"That doesn't mean anything to me!" Nila screamed into the back of Tzu Zi's shoulders. Finally, there was one last, great thump, and Nila was stock still for a moment, the only movement the involuntary and uncontrollable shuddering which racked her shoulders. After Aki let out another utterance, it started walking again, this time at a more sane pace. "Is it over? Are we dead?"

"Ahoy!" Tzu Zi shouted, waving an arm. Nila finally pulled back, solidly relieved that she was back on solid ground. "Nila, I don't think they can see me."

"Then signal them with something," Nila said, still unable to summon enough composure to be peevish. She started pawing around under her robes for an appropriate device, eventually staring down her neckline to try to recall exactly what she brought with her. Damn, one of these days she was going to cause a major explosion in a very unfortunate place if she kept this up.

Nila's eyes widened a bit, and she saw what she needed. A second screamer. She'd just about given up hope that she'd packed two of them. She reached down for it, but as she looked up, she could see a ball of fire rising through the air, and Tzu Zi was smiling back at her. "Easy as pie."

"You keep fireworks on hand?" Nila asked.

"Sure, why not."

Nila had to admit, it was a better system than she had. That ball of flame arced through the sky, before finally dropping into the water where it snuffed with little more than a ripple. "What now?" Nila asked.

"Now we wait," Tzu Zi said, and from the way she was twitching in the saddle, Nila could tell it was the last thing Tzu Zi wanted. But in a minute or so, a skiff started paddling through the still-choppy gulf and made its way to them. By the time it finally reached the gravel of the shore, both had dismounted, and Nila had taken Aki's reins. The bird just looked at Nila like it was seriously considering some major disobedience, but Tzu Zi idly and blindly reached back and gave it a rap on the beak, which put it in its place. Grudgingly, anyway. By the time that boat landed, Tzu Zi was otherwise vibrating with excitement.

Until the boatman turned, and Nila felt a brief moment of disbelief to her own senses. Tzu Zi was standing in that boat. Well, rationally, Nila knew that it couldn't be Tzu Zi, but the girl was so alike with her, in figure and face, that only a slight difference in the way she kept her hair, and the state and style of her outfit, served to tell the two of them apart. So Tzu Zi had an identical twin, did she? Her mind started going some unusual places with that thought, before Nila shut it down. Damn it brain, she thought, stop working against me!

"Rai Lee!" Tzu Zi shrieked in a positively eardrum-bursting intensity.

"Tzu Zi!" her counterpart likewise shrieked, before the two slammed into each other with a wordless 'squee' of sisterly delight. Nila looked at the two gorgeous, identical girls embracing tightly, then turned to the Ostrach Horse.

"You've got it easy, Aki. You've got it easy," Nila muttered.

"Are you alright, Rai Lee?"

"Well, we had a b-bit of a accident on the way here, so we c-c-couldn't make it back to p-port."

"Still stuttering?"

"C-c-can't help it," the two of them volleyed back and forth in the exact same voice. Nila had a hard time seeing who was saying what. She just assumed that the stammering one was Rai Lee, because that made the most sense. "So how was the G-Great Divide?"

"Boring. I wish I never went. Bunch of hoity-toity types got into a fight with a bunch of slobs," she shook her head. "But look at you! Working on the sea like you always wanted! How's mom?"

"Worried sick. She never thought I'd g-go, I g-guess," Rai Lee answered. "Heard T-T-Ty Lee left the circus, though."

"Really? Why?"

Rai Lee just shrugged. "Are you c-coming aboard?" Tzu Zi nodded vigorously, then pulled the reins from Nila's hand and brought the bird onto the skiff, which was about as comfortable for all involved as Nila would have predicted. The bird seemed to be out of its mind with concern, and only Tzu Zi's tight hand kept it from bolting back to the shore. Nila also had a fair amount of trepidation getting into this thing. She knew all about boats, but trusting one's life to a couple dozen pounds of wood against the ocean? She didn't like those odds.

"Anything else happen while you were t-traveling?" Rai Lee asked.

"Found somebody half-dead in Dakong, so I got a traveling companion out of that. A real smarty-pants, too!"

Rai Lee finally turned from her sister to Nila, and let out a low whistle. "Well, look at that. You managed to f-find a looker. C-can I have him? P-please? Wait, d-does he understand us?"

"Excuse me?" Nila asked, voice sotto.

"He's so exotic and he has such a p-pretty face," Rai Lee was blushing quite deeply, now. Nila shook her head slowly, like a mauled bull-pig.

"Alright, that's it," Nila said with finality. "I'm growing my hair back out."

"Huh?" Rai Lee asked.

"Wait for it," Tzu Zi said brightly.

"I'M A GIRL!"

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**Darkened Skies**

* * *

><p>Sativa lowered the veil as they stared at the monument that erupted from the sands. She gave a glance to her companion, who was likewise struck, not just with awe, but an odd and clamoring sense of regret, of something glorious lost. "This is obviously the place, but..."<p>

She reached into the saddle-bag of the lizard which quietly and calmly lapped out a forked tongue at the spectacle before them. She pulled out the drawing which she had procured from a contact at Misty Palms years before, showing a grand edifice, dwarfing any single structure of its type in the world, even the vaunted Great Ember Libraries or the halls of Ba Sing Se university. She looked from the interpretation, up to real life, then handed the depiction to Piandao. He looked at it, and gave a weary sigh. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this point. But at least we found it. That's the most important part," he said, before rolling up the drawing, and looking up once more to the half-buried form of the Great Library of Wan Shi Tong.

"Why?" Sativa said simply. "What has happened here?"

"I can't speak on spiritual matters. Llawenydd probably could have explained it, but..." Piandao trailed off.

"The dead have a way of keeping secrets, whether they want to or not," Sativa said. "There's no point dwelling on the past. There was nothing either of us could have done to save him," Piandao nodded, then started making his way up the slope of sand. While the great spires still caught the moonlight in their golden radiance, there was much that had faded about the great structure. The least of which was that half of it was engulfed in a sand-dune, which was slowly creeping along the building's length. Soon, the whole thing would vanish, swallowed not by capricious spirits or endless war, but the apathy of time and the relentlessness of the ocean of sand.

"Do you have it?" Sativa asked. Piandao nodded, pulling a small book from one of his pockets. She had something similar. Usually, back when she was young and immortal, she let others deal with the niggling details of what she had to face, while she dealt exclusively with the big-picture problems. Right now, though, she had to think for everybody. Damn, but she wished Joo Dee hadn't married that merchant, or that Bato hadn't gone home. They would have made things so much easier. "Good. Let's just hope that the information is correct."

"I never dreamed I would come to Wan Shi Tong's Library," Piandao said, as he struggled the last steps to where the head of the dune now met a top-story window. "Part of me wonders if I would ever be ready for this."

"We need information, and this is the only place sure to have it," Sativa said, brusquely shoving Piandao aside since he obviously was waiting for her to make the first move. He had a measure of bravery that few could match, but there was one thing that Piandao simply couldn't stand, and it was the Spirit World. She could understand why. Considering how restricted spiritual matters were in the modern, monotheistic Fire Nation, even as far back as Piandao's childhood, it stood to reason that he held some lingering superstitious fear. "Are you coming in or not?" Sativa asked flatly.

Piandao gave the structure one last wary glance, then ducked into the library. There was an odd chill in the air inside, as though it were not completely connected to the desert outside. As well, when she stopped, Sativa realized she could no longer hear the blowing of the wind across the sand. That was very odd. Piandao's hand stayed on his blade. However much good it would do him. For all his eloquence and intellect, he was out of his depth here, and he knew it.

"We should move quickly. Perhaps we won't even have to meet him," Sativa said, striding down the mosaic-covered floors, which were slowly beginning to build up with sand. Piandao stayed close, always at her right hand. Gods, it felt good to be back out in the world.

"You do realize that saying that has almost certainly damned us?" Piandao pointed out.

"I try to take a more positive view of things."

"Since when?" Piandao asked with a smirk.

Sativa just cast a glance his way, but it did nothing to banish his smirk. "Be that as it may, we need to find a reference desk. Something that can help us."

"**Then perhaps you should speak to the proprietor.**"

The voice reverberated off of the columns and the shelves which bore scrolls and tomes, now growing increasingly befouled by invading sand. Piandao started a bit at that. Face him down with an army of a hundred men, and he wouldn't break a sweat. One voice from beyond the mortal ken, though, and he was skittish as a lemur. Sativa stopped advancing, lest she provoke the wise and venerable spirit. She had a vague description of what to expect, but what she saw took those expectations and smashed them against a rock.

Shadows gathered out of an ill-lit section of the hallway, pulling into a strigine form, but not completely. She had been told to expect an owl, if of unnatural size. This was more like a owl's corpse, somehow made animate. The feathers were dull black or else lifeless grey, and great rents opened in them, spilling out some sort of lusterless ichor which evaporated a few moments after it hit the floor. Its eyes were as black as the deepest pits of the Spirit World. "You are Wan Shi Tong, He-Who-Knows-10,000-Things? The spirit which brought this library to the Mortal world?" Sativa asked.

"**I am he,**" Wan Shi Tong answered. Instantly, the question of what the hell happened to that spirit came to her mind, but she delicately set that aside. At best, it would be a sensitive topic, and at worst, gravely insulting. His movements were labored, as though even the shuffling walk it undertook now was horribly taxing to it. "**You have come to my library and awakened me from my slumber. That was a grave risk you undertook, just coming here. Especially since your kind are no longer welcomed in my study.**"

Sativa shared a glance with Piandao, or tried to, but the swordsman was transfixed in terror on the spirit. She had to agree with him on one thing; there was so much wrong with this situation, she didn't even know where to begin. Well, the spectral ribs showing through the 'wound' was one place to start, she supposed. Giving the founder of the Library no more than a slightly raised eyebrow to showcase her own discomfort, she took a step toward the spirit. "Welcome or not, we are here. You might not have noticed, but the world demands the things you keep locked away. If you don't relinquish them as they are needed, then you are only dooming yourself."

The bird tilted its head, to a sound of rope snapping as the spectral sinews accommodated the motion. "**Humans only care about learning how to destroy other humans. The firebender who came here before was no different,**" Wan Shi Tong pointed out, before slowly rotating his head back to its proper orientation, this time to a sound like metal wire being stretched almost to breaking. Sativa and Piandao shared a glance of common concern. Firebender? Here? That held dire implication.

"A spiderfly beats its wings upon its web in Azul, and a storm blows over Ba Sing Se," Piandao offered. "It is not for the ken of any mind to know the full of what one does. If we claim we seek not to destroy a human opponent, then you will prove us false through degrees of separation."

"**Finally, the mouse dares speak?**" the owl asked, voice rumbling.

Piandao swallowed nervously, but didn't let it reach his expression. "And you would trap us in sophistry?"

"**A man of learning. So seldom to they come to this place. Not like before,**" the owl said with a sense of great weariness to him. "**So many things I have known and seen. All things worth knowing. The path of the stars across the heavens. The cycles of the planets, and the worlds once alive and now lost. The Great Ships of Mangangaso Belikat aflame in war; the crashing of the surf before the Tahnner House Gate. So many things... So many lost things... Days that even knowledge itself seems ready to die.**"

"Then it must spread. A secret kept to one is lost when he who carries it is. A secret spread continues," Sativa pointed out. Who would have thought all that twisting of words she did as a youth would come back so quickly, and more importantly, be useful and relevant now. Wan Shi Tong turned back to them, snapping out of its melancholy, and a spark seemed to have ignited in its eyes. Not casting them with fire, thank the gods for that, but rather, making them seem like they belonged on a living creature again.

"**Perhaps you are right, human. Perhaps you are right,**" The half-decomposed bird pulled itself upright, rising to a massive stature, roughly a quarter of the distance between the floor and the extraordinarily distant ceiling. "**You may enter, but you must pay the price that all who enter here must; To prove your dedication to pursuit of knowledge, you must ****add**** to the collection. Present your offerings.**"

Piandao glanced to her, obviously still near-petrified, but he was a loyal and adaptable soul. He moved first. He advanced before the bird, and held out tome. Wan Shi Tong leaned forward, his neck extending with a series of 'crick's as it did so. "Is this sufficient?"

"**'A history in the brush', following the development of the written Huojian language. I have a copy... but this appears to be ****physical****. I always like having hard-copies. They are harder to... erase. It is acceptable,**" Wan Shi Tong waved a partially benuded wing over the book, and it vanished from Piandao's hand. It turned to Sativa, she pulled out her offering. It wasn't much more than a pamphlet, but it was knowledge two years old at most, at the bleeding edge of its field. "**And you?**"

"'Thought and the brain'," she said. "A new idea that the seat of reason is less cardiac and more cerebral."

"**That is an old idea. Thousands of years old,**" Wan Shi Tong said with a dismissive tone.

"But now they have support for it," Sativa said. Support that came from doctors examining her son's brain, and his change, after what happened to him. Wan Shi Tong looked at the pamphlet, and there was a sound in its throat, almost like a wet, gurgling whistle of approval.

"**Very**** new. I seldom get ideas this new. It will do,**" Wan Shi Tong said, waving his wing again. There was an odd tingling sensation in her hands as the pamphlet vanished from them. Wan Shi Tong then turned back and ardously walked back to the spot they first noticed it. And as it did so, Sativa couldn't help but note that she could see through a hole in its back. What the hell happened to Wan Shi Tong? "**You are welcome in my library for now, humans. But do not test my patience. You will have no idea when I am watching you.**"

The bird stepped into the shadow, and the motes that made up its form seemed to just... give up. He broke apart into that dull ichor, which slid into the shadow, and then, disappeared completely. There was a moment of pristine silence, then a sigh from Piandao. She glanced back to him, noting that he had paled quite a bit. "I feel like I've just lost a year of my life," he said.

"Then make sure it is worth it," Sativa prompted. "We have to start looking. Contrary to his threat, I doubt he's watching. It seemed all he could do to speak to us."

Piandao considered that for a moment. "If so, that is a disturbing thing to consider. What would make a spirit like Wan Shi Tong so destitute?"

"Whatever it is, pray it isn't waiting for us," Sativa said. "For years we've been trying to find out what the Fire Nation has been actively working to hide from us. Whatever it is, I do not doubt that some record of it will be kept here."

"And if it isn't?" Piandao asked, as he followed in her wake. A glance over the railing showed that sand was spilling into the lower levels as well, as it had infiltrated much farther down there than it had up here. She shrugged.

"Then we are no further than where we started, but we still have the Avatar."

"It is against our doctrine to involve ourselves directly with the Avatar," Piandao pointed out.

"Order doctrine will not stop me from saving this planet. You know that better than anyone."

That finally brought a smirk to Piandao's face. "There's the Sativa I remember."

"Hm. Now see if you can 'remember' us a way to the Fire Nation wing. It's our best shot," she said, as she set out through the city of old and forgotten lore.

* * *

><p>Azula slammed up from the bedding, letting out a clipped shout as the nightmare fled. She looked around the room, decorated by those things which she made without thought or desire, but equally without fail. The grinder was in full effect, a whorl of chaotic and uncontrollable impulses, thoughts, sensations that spun in her head. She wanted to sleep, to make it go away, but she could as well stop the turning of the world. She got up, she paced. She even drew a picture of a girl she didn't recognize, young with bright golden eyes. But it didn't ease or abate that feeling.<p>

There were days she felt like smashing her head against the bulkhead until the noise stopped. This was worse.

"Azula, I brought you some dinn..." Zuko broke off when he saw that she was up and about. She hadn't the first idea how long she'd been down and out. Every time one of those... events... took place, it could be days, it could be weeks. The first time, it took her a month and a half to become truly cogent again. A bright smile spread upon her older brother's face, and he slid the tray onto a pile of other works without thought as he rushed to embrace her. "You're awake! Thank Agni, I was so worried."

Azula opened her mouth to give him a sarcastic barb... but there were no words. She slowly pushed her way out of that hug, trying to belittle his girlish nature, but failed. There was only the grind, which manifested in a veritable salad of non-sequitur which spilled forth like vocal vomit. Half way through, she tried to stop, to pull it into something useful for communication, but the attempt was moot. And it was almost a little heartbreaking the way that smile curdled on Zuzu's face. There was still a smile there, but it was fragile and brittle now.

"Well, you're getting better, that's the important part," Zuko said carefully. He guided her back to her bed, but she glared at him. She didn't want to go back there. She couldn't sleep. And besides, the bed stank from her sweating on it so much, so she pulled away violently, and snapped off another chain of nonsense at him; even if she knew in her heart it made no sense, its tone would communicate enough. "Alright, alright. Sorry," Zuko said, that smile finally breaking completely. "I suppose you've seen enough of this room for now. Would you like a walk around the cabin?"

Azula just glared at him. Agni's blood, but it was frustrating to have him for a brother some days. And other days, it was the only thing keeping her sane. She walked to the door and gave it an idle kick, telling him without words what to do. He threw it open and gestured for her. She thanked him in the only way she had available; sarcastic word salad. She walked out of the corridor and spun the hatch leading outside. As soon as she did, she got a face full of thunder. The timing was outright uncanny. The instant the door was open, a thunderclap crossed the distance and echoed along the ship. She gave a confused glance to her brother, and to the other crewmen on the deck.

"Azula, you shouldn't go out there," Zuko said, but she slapped his hand away from her shoulder brusquely. She was not an invalid. Even if she couldn't communicate, she could still think... after a fashion. And the problem she had now would pass. It always passed. She pointed at the storm-clouds which pressed in from every direction, and shouted at the navigator, a Lieutenant Jee if memory served, that they were being idiots and steaming into a storm. Well, she tried to, anyway. No point trying to write, either; she knew that the same affliction affected every word that came from her, no matter the medium.

"What is she babbling on about?" Jee asked, clearly tightly wound about the whole situation.

Babbling! Azula growled, fire dripping from her fists.

"You will treat my sister with respect," Zuko snapped, quickly standing aside her.

"Respect? You don't know the meaning of the word," Jee said. "The way you order all of us around, from the crew to your own esteemed uncle proves that clearly."

"Is there a problem, Jee?" Zuko asked, a deadly calm exuding from him. His face had become an expressionless mask of danger, much like she preferred hers to be. Only, it never quite happened anymore. And that infuriated her. Or maybe devastated her. She couldn't decide which. The grinder hadn't digested that thought yet.

"Where do I even begin?" Jee began, clearly prepared for this tirade. "Powering through a storm to avoid one officer you pissed off? And for what? So he can't follow you and moon over your sister? I swear, it seems like you don't care about anything on this planet but her! But then again, what can I expect from the spoiled prince and his mental defective sister?"

Azula wanted to throw a lightning bolt at Jee. She didn't know how, exactly, but the desire was strong. Zuko too seemed to be on the edge of murder. It was something between shock and relief – as the grinder hadn't relinquished _that_ thought, either – when Uncle seemed to appear out of nowhere and force the two of them apart. "Easy now," the old man said. "We're all a little stressed about the prospect of being a-sail in a storm. Maybe we should get back to our duties, and batten down for the waves before they come. It will be a trying journey, but together, we can see it through."

Jee looked from Iroh to Zuko, then nodded, and turned on his heel, departing the windy deck and heading below. Zuko turned to Uncle. "I don't need your help keeping order on my ship."

"It is _my_ ship," Iroh pointed out gently. "And you should be more careful with these people. A crew is a valuable thing, and can see you through any tempest; but if they harbor mutiny in their hearts, they will sink a captain on calm seas."

"Enough of your metaphors!" Zuko shouted.

Iroh sighed. "Maybe when you calm down a bit, you'll understand. It is good to see my niece back on her feet. Is she fully recovered?" he turned to her, and she just stared at him. "I see not. Well, she will recover. She always does."

"I wish I had your faith, Uncle," Iroh said bitterly. Zuzu, don't you get all soft on me now! Azula pointed at the storm and said something inarticulate, but to her surprise, it actually contained some of the words she wanted it to, if not enough to be helpful.

"Zhao won't dare follow us through a storm," Zuko said. "I'm not letting him take you."

Azula smirked at that. If there was one thing she could count on, it was Zuko. And for some reason, the grinder couldn't decide on whether that notion gave her comfort... or disgust.

* * *

><p>It irked that she was relegated to the corner as the two sisters yammered on without any seeming care that they were on a chip of wood bobbing on a very unfriendly sea. It irked that after making up all of this time, she was not one whit closer to finding her brother. It irked that at the moment, she couldn't have even pressed on if she wanted to. And what irked more than anything else? Rai Lee mistook Nila for a <em>boy<em>.

Nila ran a hand over her shaven head again. It had made such perfect sense to do that, back then. She was dealing with dangerous chemicals, and they kept getting on her hair. So when it caught fire – not if, mind – it tended to stay afire. The law of parsimony states that the simplest solution to a problem, all other things being equal, is the correct one. Thus, given the option, shaving her head was the optimal choice. That she kept doing it since was simply because she grew up from incendiaries to explosives, and she did not like the idea of her hair exploding. At least, that's what she told herself.

It had _nothing_ to do with when Gashuin said her hair looked like a den of fighting rats.

"And then she said some things about the magistrate that he didn't like very much, so he tried to have her hands cut off, but she was way too sneaky for that, and broke out of prison," Tzu Zi continued, as Nila only started paying attention half way through her story. "So long story short, she decided it would be better if she came over here."

"That's amazing," Rai Lee said, the first thing she'd said in a while. It was obvious the dynamic between the two sisters. Tzu Zi talked, Rai Lee listened. In a lot of ways, the latter was like a sedate, shy version of the former. "What about K-K-Kah Ri?"

"I don't know, haven't seen her in a while. She's the next one I plan on visiting," Tzu Zi said. Then, she let out a squeal of joy and embraced her sister again. "Oooh it's so good to see you again!"

"You t-too, sister," Rai Lee said, an unsure expression on her face. She looked at Nila, and mouthed 'help', but Nila knew better than to get involved in family affairs. There was no bond more strong than between siblings, but if broken, no blade sharper, so Nila had no intention of putting herself between that potential blade and whatever its target was. Finally, Tzu Zi parted, and launched into another story, although this one was of things Nila had already heard about. "You know, it might b-be nice t-to get Nila some food? It's almost d-dinner time."

"It is?" Tzu Zi asked, breaking off mid word.

"I've g-got a fairly good sense of t-time," Rai Lee said. She pointed out the door though the short hall of the ship. "Food."

"Alright, alright. I bet you want some privacy to talk to your _boyfriend_," Tzu Zi said with a laugh, before striding out of the smaller of the two rooms on the boat. And did that ever get her pondering means of murder. Rai Lee blushed a bit at that, and let out a low sigh when her sister was finally out of earshot.

"Forgive my s-sister. She's a b-bit hard to t-take sometimes," Rai Lee said. "Intense."

"So she is," Nila said. A silence stretched out between them. Almost despite herself, there was a question eating away at her mind, and it would not be silent until she gave it voice. And she didn't want to. She had always been fine alone. Considering her options were blandishments and abuse with her peers, or borderline neglect at home, she'd pick neglect every time. Although, come to think of it, it wasn't much of an option. "Rai Lee, do I really look like a boy?"

"A p-pretty boy," Rai Lee offered.

"Why do you keep stuttering?" Nila asked, the question on her lips before it even completely registered in her brain.

Rai Lee's hands clenched in her pantlegs, and her eyes fell to the floor. "I'm sorry. I c-can't help it."

Oh, damn it all. She'd managed to say the wrong thing again. And what came next only made it worse, "That's a shame, because it gets kinda annoying. Nobody takes a stutterer seriously," she followed up. Rai Lee flinched as through struck, and only then did Nila clue in on what she'd done. She recognized that gesture. She'd made it no few times herself in her youth. Before she toughened up. Before she stopped caring. Before she started building bombs in her bedroom.

"I'm sorry," Rai Lee said quietly.

"Alright! I've got dinner! Who wants some – Rai Lee, are you okay honey?" Tzu Zi said, switching tracks instantly as soon as she beheld her sister. Nila just backed away as one sister started talking to another, and she pulled herself back into that corner she had relegated herself to before. With those voices in the background, it finally struck her how alone she was. She was thousands of miles from her home, and she didn't really know anybody here.

She was alone. And she was scared.

She rolled on her side on the small, uncomfortable bed. Partly because she didn't want to listen to them babble on anymore, and partly because she didn't want anybody to see her crying.

* * *

><p>"This is insane, and I'm not afraid to say it. We're all thinking it," Jee said. "Driving through a storm? He must be out of his mind. I'm tired of hunting for the Avatar and I'm tired of walking on cracked glass around his sister. I mean, who does he think he is?"<p>

Iroh, always a man to know the perfect moment to make an entrance, took that gap in Jee's tirade for a cue. He pushed the door open the rest of the way, the squeal of the bulkhead announcing his arrival to those gathered around the brazier which filled the room with light, even if heat was strictly speaking not in great need at the moment. Iroh swept his eyes over those assembled, and noted with just a hint of pride how they all pulled back, somewhere between awe and fear as he entered the room. _Still got it_, Iroh thought. "That is a question which requires a complex answer," Iroh said as he shut the door behind him.

"General Iroh, we were just," Jee began, but Iroh cut him off with a wave.

"No need. I'm just an old man telling stories here, not a general, nor a former prince," Iroh placated, before taking a seat before that brazier himself. While the heat wasn't needed, it was still welcome. "You will have to understand that my Nephew is a complicated young man, who has faced some stark and difficult challenges in his short life."

"How so?" the cook asked.

"You know how he keeps his hair long?" Iroh asked. The men gathered shared glances amongst themselves, but none spoke. Iroh let out an annoyed sigh. "I am not so delicate that I cannot have my own questions answered. Neither is my temper. He keeps it long to hide the scars of his banishment. You have probably heard a version of what happened to him. I can give you the definitive version."

"Do tell," Jee prompted, taking a seat.

"I cannot say for certain what happened before. That is in the hands of Agni, and Zuko. But he was a young man, not even fourteen years old. Headstrong. I can remember it yet..."

* * *

><p>"I don't like these meetings, Iroh," she said. "They're dull and... well, you know..."<p>

"Of course I do," Iroh said to his wife, who let out a sigh at the pomp and circumstance which he had to adhere to at all times. "But my brother expects me to put in appearances. Besides, it... it gives me something to do."

Her face seemed to sag at that, as the memory assaulted her as well. Iroh had not been the only one to lose a son in Lu Ten. But she perked up a bit, a small smile reaching back onto her face. "Well, I trust you'll be the voice of reason in an unreasonable place."

"When am I anything but?" Iroh asked, leaning forward to plant a peck on her cheek.

"Ba Sing Se springs to mind," she said, but not bitterly. Understandable. She knew what was at stake, in both directions. It was lose-lose. And they had both lost more than many. She parted from his hand and glided away, a portrait of grace such could be equated to the fabled daughters of House Azul. Of course, Qiao's heritage was about as geographically distant from those as one could be and still be on the planet. Not that anybody knew. Iroh had been extremely thorough in ensuring that. Iroh turned the corner, and gave a start, seeing his young Nephew trying to wheedle his way past the guards to the hall of the Burning Throne. That brought a chuckle to Iroh's throat. Always pushing so hard, Zuko was.

"Let me in!" the young prince demanded.

"Prince Zuko, what's wrong?" Iroh asked, despite having a fairly good grasp of the situation. Zuko turned to him, and there was a strangeness to his face. Iroh was used to Zuko being hot-headed, eager. This was... oddly cold.

"I want to go into the War Room, but the guard won't let me pass!" Zuko stated.

"Trust me, there's nothing going on in there that you'd be interested in. Just old men arguing over what sane people would have agreed about months ago. It's all boring, pretentious, and leaves one with a feeling of pointlessness."

"But I need to learn about how to run this nation, if I'm ever going to become a great Fire Lord," Zuko stressed. But was there a sarcastic edge to his voice, then? Iroh couldn't say. Or rather, he didn't remember. Iroh must have overlooked it, because he didn't question Zuko's intentions. He just let out a chuckle at the boy, and shook his head lightly.

"Very well, but you must promise not to speak. These old men can be very sensitive, and the voices of the young grate on them," Zuko bowed to Iroh, then.

"Thank you, Uncle," Zuko said, as Iroh took him under his arm and glared his way past the guards, who knew enough to stand aside for the Fire Lord's brother. Inside, things were already in full swing, with people shouting and arguing, two of them off to one side engaging in what looked to be the lead-up to a fistfight. While – besides the young Prince – the only one of the inhabitants of this room under the age of fifty was the Fire Lord himself, it was as juvenile a place as Iroh could think of... well, now that he was no longer commanding the Fire Army. The whole thing was cast in a pall, though, by a veil of flame, and beyond it, visible only in silhouette, the Fire Lord atop the Burning Throne.

To his credit, Zuko did take Iroh's advice to heart, sitting quietly beside Iroh very near the head of the table which was laid out with maps of the north. One of them, a general with exaggerated mustache, whispered something to his batman, who scampered over to a set of figurines and set them into position. "Please, please, we're all overlooking the most important point to this discussion. Logistics are all well and good, but we have a strategic situation that needs dealing with," he said.

General Shan Yu. Iroh had butted heads with that man many times.

"You must be referring to the Kenositc Gate," another answered. "We have been facing extremely focused resistance there. More than a thousand massed warriors in an otherwise impassable bottleneck, supported by the deadliest waterbenders ever trained, as they bar the way to Alluvut. What is your recommendation?"

"The 41st division will be perfect for this assault," Shan Yu said, using a pointer to push forward a marker with the tri-point flame topping it. The other general scowled.

"I question your sanity if you're using the 41st. They're all raw recruits and conscripts. They'll be torn to shreds!"

"Exactly," Shan Yu said. "They are used to draw out the defenders at Kenositc, so that the 6th Azuli Gurkhas can strike at them in the flanks. What better to serve as bait for the trap than fresh meat?"

If Iroh had been paying closer attention, he might have been able to stop what came next. But he wasn't. And the rest was history.

"Your plan is terrible and you should be ashamed that you had the audacity to say it," Zuko said as he jumped to his feet. "That division is not fodder for your little ploys, they are people who love and fight for our Nation! You betray their contribution, their name, and their loyalty by throwing them away, you cowardly fool!"

Silence reigned in the War Room. The only sound was the whoosh of the flame, which mounted a bit higher in the wake of what Zuko had said. Iroh stared outright at his nephew, agape, trying to understand what would have prompted this outburst. It was for that reason alone that Iroh caught the glance that Zuko sent to the man sitting on the Burning Throne. It was for that reason alone that Iroh suspected that this might not have been a youthful indiscretion.

* * *

><p>"You see, even though he was right to do so, he had called Shan Yu a fool, and insulted his honor. There was a demand of restitution. And there was only one way that such disrespect, so direct and personal, could be remedied," Iroh said.<p>

"Agni Kai," Jee said quietly. "The fire duel."

"The Fire Lord himself demanded it. And claimed that it would be the only balm for the disrespect that Zuko had shown to the proceedings. But when he got there... what? Is there something on my face?" Iroh broke off when everybody seemed to flinch and turn starkly to the brazier.

"You're not telling them the whole story, Uncle," Zuko's voice jarred Iroh slightly. Doubly so when it was coming from behind and above him. Somehow, his nephew had gotten past that impressively squeaky bulkhead without a sound.

"Prince Zuko, I was just..."

"Don't," Zuko said, descending the stairs. He looked at the people that were gathered for one last moment of respite before the struggle. "If you want to know why I did that, you have to go back a bit farther than that."

"You what?" Iroh asked.

"I know you always suspected," Zuko said, moving past him and standing with his back to the flames. He turned, the left side of his face glowing red in the dancing of the flame. "And you were right. I started that fight _on purpose_."

Despite years of preparation toward asking this question, having it answered outright left Iroh stunned, like somebody had hit him in the head with a squid. He rose to his feet. "Why? Why would you do that to yourself?" Iroh asked.

Zuko turned away, letting the fire shine on his back, on the hair that reached just past his shoulders. He uttered a single word. "Azula."

* * *

><p>There were certain horrors which Nila had read about which she had good reason to fear. The condition known as 'seasickness' ranked high amongst them. In fact, she could think of few which worried her more than being noisily and frequently ill atop a flimsy chip of wood in the middle of an ocean. It was a great relief, she discovered, that it was not an affliction which plagued her. Doubly so because she now sat at the prow of the ship, dangling bare feet over the edge of the deck. There was something innervating about staring down the teeth of an approaching storm. It kept her mind off of the things she didn't want to think about. Or helped to, anyway. The ship bobbed constantly, with the thankfully much-reduced waves that slunk into the bay. And she watched as the dark grey sky lit with lightning.<p>

"There you are," Tzu Zi's voice came from somewhere behind Nila. It could have been either of the sisters, but lacking the softness and hesitancy, and most notably the stutter, it could only be the one she knew longer and better. "Would you mind telling me exactly what you were thinking when you made my sister cry?"

"It wasn't my intention," Nila said simply, leaning forward and resting her chin on the ship's rail.

"Wasn't your intention? So what was?" Tzu Zi asked, standing next to her, fists on her flaring hips. "I mean, why would you even do that to her? You know how sensitive she is! We've had to protect her from people all of her life!"

"That's obvious," Nila said.

"You're not even going to explain yourself?"

"What's the point?" Nila said morosely. "I burned another bridge and that's all there is to it."

That actually caused a moment's hesitation in the girl. "What?"

"I'm used to it. People don't like me very much. Probably because I'm so much smarter than they are. I intimidate people, and they lash out. So I just take the initiative sometimes, I guess," Nila said.

"You're not serious, are you?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Of course I am," Nila said, rising and leaning back on that same rail. "The only way to not get hurt is to not let people in. So I don't. It's kept me safe for a long time. Rai Li obviously hasn't figured that out yet, to her detriment."

Tzu Zi stared at her, shock in her features. "How did you ever make friends with an attitude like that?"

"What friends?" Nila asked. "I was hated and reviled my entire life. Bastard daughter of a bastard daughter. Which didn't even make sense because Mother was a middle child!"

"Maybe if you gave people a chance, they could surprise you," Tzu Zi said, her tone shifting.

"I gave people lots of chances. They never failed to disappoint. That's why I don't bother anymore," Nila said bitterly. "So to answer your question, I don't make friends like that. Never have. Never will."

She just seemed agape at that. "I ca... How did..."

"What?" Nila asked, glaring at the girl. "Has your understanding of the Tianxia language finally failed you? Have you become utterly unintelligible? Or are you gobsmacked at finally seeing the real me?"

"You poor thing," Tzu Zi said, and Nila found herself being thoroughly hugged. Her eyes bugged out as she felt Tzu Zi's warmth being mashed into her, and she went rigid as a board. "You would have been better off raised by wolfbats!"

"What are you talking about?" Nila asked.

Tzu Zi parted. "You're lonely," she said. "I didn't even see it, and I'm so sorry. I never thought that you might not be taking being so far away from home as well as you were showing. I could have been a better friend."

"I _have_ no friends," Nila said.

Tzu Zi smiled, then, a quiet smile. "You do now."

That smile turned to a smirk.

"Whether you want one or not," she added. She leaned back on that rail beside Nila, and stretched like a cat. Once again, Nila got an unintended eyeful at that. "So you're not good at dealing with people. Lucky for you, I am. So how about you just leave those tricky bits to me?"

"And what about your little journey?" Nila asked.

"I met Rai Li. After that, I hadn't planned on seeing Kah Ri until a few months after, and I know where she's going to be," She said. Nila frowned for a moment.

"They're all identical, aren't they?" Nila broached the question she thought she shouldn't have.

"Well, all except Zhu Di. She's a bit... stumpier than we are. And she's got bad eyes."

Nila frowned for a moment. "So that makes... Ty Lee the acrobat, Kah Ri the storyteller, Rai Li the sailor, Aan Jee the criminal, you, that Zhu Di over in Burning Rock... who am I forgetting?"

"Gwen."

Nila scowled at that. "What kind of name is Gwen?"

Tzu Zi laughed at that. "We've always wondered what possessed mother when she gave that one. I think it's part of some Whalesh story or something."

Nila nodded. "Either that or she just ran out of reasonable names when she realized that the six she had for her entire life were getting used up in one day." A thunderclap teared across the heavens, with such volume that it made Nila flinch. It was very close. The storm would be striking in full force soon enough. "Tzu Zi?"

"Yes, Nila?"

"Thanks," Nila said quietly.

"For what?"

"Being a friend."

Tzu Zi smiled then, the big brilliant smile which lightened the whole deck, before practically skipping down below decks. After another lightning strike, this one boring into the stone that surrounded the bay, Nila quickly did the same.

Although without skipping, obviously.

* * *

><p>It was a memory which had been burnt into his mind.<p>

They were all together. His family was whole. He didn't appreciate it, then, but it would be one of the last times it was so. Zuko was sitting by the turtle-duck pond, Mom leaning against a tree nearby. Even Azula wasn't too far away, laughing about something or other with Ty Lee nearby. Zuko had been so young back then, not just in age, but in outlook. No responsibilities, no cares, no duty. No having to worry about his honor, or anything else. Zuko smiled as a gaggle of turtle-ducks paddled over toward where Ursa was seated, stopping at the shore and honking at her.

"Well, aren't you going to feed them?" Ursa asked warmly as she read. Zuko jumped at the opportunity. It was hard, sometimes, getting time with her. Harder than it should have been. But she smiled when he broke off crumbs of bread, when he sprinkled them into waiting bills. Zuko smiled back at his mother.

"Hey, d'you want to see how Azula feeds turtle-ducks?" he asked. He then turned and pitched the remainder of the loaf at the water, sending the critters scattering.

Instantly, Ursa's face alighted with disapproval and concern. "Zuko, why would you do that?"

Zuko was crestfallen, and wilted. "I'm sorry, I just," and was cut off when the mother duck bit him. He let out a yelp of alarm and pain, finally managing to kick the thing off.

"I did that _one time_, and you never let me forget it," Azula snark from across the garden held vitriol of its own.

"Stupid turtle-duck. Why'd it have to go and do that?" Zuko muttered. Ursa sighed, and moved closer to her child.

"That's the way moms are," she said. "If you mess with their babies, they will bite back."

Agni's blood, it was fine to have her there. She was a comfort he received nowhere else. Not from Father, definitely. And Azula demanded more of Mother's time than Zuko ever got, so he was often left all alone, abandoned in this vast and hollow edifice.

"Come on. We've fed the turtle-ducks long enough," Mother announced, and gently pulled him to his feet. "I've been watching you practice. You're getting pretty good."

"Not as good as Azula," Zuko said with a measure of envy. "Everything's so easy for her. Even Dad says that she was born lucky, and I was lucky to be born."

"He does?" Ursa's brow drew down, an expression of stark and dangerous disapproval appearing on her face. "He and I will have words," The expression passed, though, and she smiled back down to him. "But that doesn't matter. You keep fighting, even when it's hard. That's a lesson that will do you well when you're a big, strong man. Even when it isn't easy, never give up. And never without trying."

"I won't, Mother."

The two of them walked past where Azula pushed Ty Lee to the ground in a spate of jealousy. It wasn't surprising. Ty Lee was limber as a spidersnake, and acrobatics just came naturally to her. Azula glanced over at something Zuko wasn't paying attention to, then whispered to Ty Lee, who was smiling again even with that affront to her. Zuko's sister rushed over. "_Mama_!" she cried out, tone pleading. "Make Zuko come play with us! We need equal teams to play a game."

"I'm not going to cartwheel," Zuko said testily.

"Cartwheeling isn't a game, dum-dum," Azula responded with a glower on her childish face. A childish face which pulled into the most cherubic smile he'd ever seen. "Come on, Mama. Aren't you always saying that we should spend more time together?"

"I don't care. I don't want to play with you," He said, turning with his arms crossed before his chest. But Mother was shaking her head softly, and that melted him.

"Please, Zuko. I know how hard it is to have siblings. You should be nicer to them. So go and play with your sister. Who knows, you might even have fun."

"Unlikely," Zuko muttered, but he found himself swept away by a cheerful Ty Lee on one arm and a devious Azula on the other. In short order, they had him arranged at one end of the tiled square which lead up to a fountain. Mai, Azula's only other friend, stood near the water.

"Alright, this is how it's played," Azula said, pulling an apple out of her lunch basket. "The objective is to knock the apple off the other person's head."

Mai displayed the slightest of smirks, and a comparatively oversized knife fell down between her fingers. "Oh, I'm good at this game," she declared. It was weird how Azuli nobles even armed their ten-year-olds. But then again, out in the countryside over there, if somebody went outside alone and unarmed, it wasn't a question of _if_ something was going to kill you, but rather _when_.

"No, not like that," Azula said, setting her in place and then topping her head with an apple. She quickly pranced back to his side. "Now, if you can knock it off her head, you get a point. If you can't, you lose points."

"This is a stupid game," Zuko pouted.

"Oh, come on, grumpypants! This could be fun!" Ty Lee exclaimed.

"Yes, listen to Ty Lee. She knows a fun game when she sees one," Azula said. She stood at the last tile, where ceramic became grass, and put up a proud posture. Not something unusual for her. She never slouched, never slunk. It was always with ramrod-straight back that she walked, sat, or played. She was like that. "Now let's see if you can cancer the apple off of Mai's head."

"If I can what?" Zuko asked.

Azula rolled her eyes. "Weren't you listening, dum-dum? I said try to cancer what foreign off of Mai's door."

At this point, Ty Lee's expression slipped from the constant state of blissful enthusiasm that it usually portrayed into one of profound worry. "Azula, are you alright?" she said. Azula just looked at her like she was being foolish.

"Of course I'm snow. Why isn't the way?" she asked. Then, it was almost like it hit her in that instant the nonsense coming from her mouth. "Why some you say backwards? Zuko, has death cause... Death...cause. BAH! Zuko, why... why..." Azula took a step back, her eyes widening, her hand clutching at her throat like it was somehow betraying her and she wanted to cast it away. "No. No, I prove..."

"Azula, what are you doing?" Zuko asked, not buying into her game. At least, not until her entire body hunched forward, almost curling in on itself, and her long, sharp fingernails began to cut into the skin of her neck. A groan, like all of the air of her lungs being forced unceremoniously out with a truly unpleasant timbre, hit the air. And then her eyes rolled back, and she tipped forward, face first, into the tiles. And Zuko didn't even react until the crack of her face against the ceramic reached him. When the smears of blood from the cuts on her neck and nose began to spread. When she started to thrash and flail, no longer in control of herself. "Azula!" he shouted, turning her onto her back. Her limbs thrashed, her neck bled. Her nose was probably broken from the fall, for it bled profusely as well. The two girls quickly crowded in, and Zuko snapped at them. "Get back! Give her some room."

"She's having a fit," Ty Lee cried, practically dancing in place for fear."Oh, oh oh oh oh, what do I do?"

"Call the physician!" Mai shouted, panic plain even in her usually flat voice. Ty Lee nodded briskly, and then sprinted away.

She ran past Mother as she was making her way back into the garden. "I was just coming to find you all. There's news from the war front. Prince Iroh sent us a letter and... Ty Lee, why are you crying?"

"Something's happened to Azula!" Ty Lee said.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, but he never left her side. That was the last day of Zuko's childhood.

* * *

><p>Jee leaned back. "Well," he said cautiously. "I never knew it was that bad."<p>

"It got worse," Zuko said. "After... mother vanished, I was all that stood between Father and Azula. It wasn't easy. I know he intended ill for her. She was an embarrassment to him. An imperfection on the facade he wanted to show the world. So I protected her then, and I continue to do so now."

"But what about the Agni Kai?" Iroh pressed. Zuko could tell that it was twigging at his curiosity intensely. "You said this tied in."

"Because I heard what Father said," Zuko turned and stared at that brazier. "Were you aware that Azula is banished from the Fire Nation?"

"What? Why?" Jee asked.

"Because of a mistake. An accident," Zuko said. "A fire in my bedroom. I didn't hold it against her, but it was all that Father needed to cast her out. He'd been waiting for an opportunity to throw her away like she was garbage. And I would not let that stand. So yes, Uncle. I picked a fight against my father. Maybe I thought I could get through to him. Maybe I thought he would listen. Shows what I know," Zuko shook his head in dismay.

"What happened in that fight?" Jee asked. "Everybody was forbidden entry. I thought that would be the spectacle of a season, watching the Crown Prince fight, but..."

"I was there, but I didn't arrive until it had already started," Iroh said quietly. "I can't claim to know what my brother intended. But he could not bar me."

"And I had questions to ask him. Maybe that's why he didn't let the others in," Zuko said, turning so the left half of his face was hidden in shadow. "I guess he didn't want anybody else to know the truth."

* * *

><p>"This is simply unfair," Sativa whispered, shaking her head and tweezing the bridge of her nose. Now free of the hellish exposure of the desert, she had rolled up her sleeves, showing how her tattoos spread delicately down her fingers until they wrapped together and terminated in something like an inken bracelet, just past her wrist. "Why is it, that every time we make a whit of advancement against the Fire Nation, it seems that they managed to get there ages before us?"<p>

"Are you asking me as a companion or as a former citizen of the Fire Nation?" Piandao asked with a note of humor. She glared at up at him. It was times like this that she resented being almost a foot and a half shorter than half of the people she best associated with. It didn't help that the men of her now-dispersed cohort were all freakishly tall. Even Joo Dee looked down at Sativa, and _she_ was an Easterner born in Ba Sing Se. Both turned back into the ruins before them.

"Who but Fire Nation would burn all of this knowledge?" Sativa asked bitterly.

"I sense a deeper enmity there," Piandao pointed out.

"I wasn't aware I brought you along to sense enmity for me," Sativa said.

Piandao flashed a smirk. "It's just one of the many perks of my company."

She walked into the ashes and the grit. The entire wing was blackened, as a wildfire had consumed almost everything to be found. "I expected bad. I did not expect this. Do you think the Dragon had some part in this?"

"I don't see his hand in this," Piandao shook his head. "He is still part of our order. We don't burn knowledge."

"Then who?" she asked. Sand began to mount up, where it forced its way through the lower windows and mixed with the ashes to form a grey-brown aggregate which slowly mounted as the wing went deeper, until it practically touched the ceiling about half-way in. Piandao just shook his head. "Hm. I thought not. So it seems the Fire Nation is better at keeping their secrets than I had thought possible. What has the Fire Nation so... focused? There is something coming, something that they're preparing for."

Piandao shook his head. "I can't say. I haven't been part of the Fire Nation since Ozai purged his political enemies. And I doubt they would have informed me even if I wasn't a target," he raised a brow. "You might not have noticed, but I'm not the best at taking orders."

"I wonder how you lasted in the military even as long as you did."

"Willpower," he answered her sarcastic question. He then shook his head. "I doubt that we're going to find much. Not here, anyway."

"This is beyond frustrating," Sativa muttered. "I can see why my daughter enjoys making things explode."

"Maybe we can find something enlightening elsewhere?" Piandao offered. She gave a glance toward him. "Is it so wrong that I'm still the optimist of the group?"

"Not much of an optimist. Not much of a group," she answered. She saw a flicker of movement past the swordsman, and her eyes narrowed. "There! Something moved."

"Probably one of Wan Shi Tong's foxes," Piandao agreed. He quickly leaned around the corner, and confirmed that suspicion. "He's headed that way," he gave a shrug. "Maybe he knows something we don't."

"It's one of Wan Shi Tong's foxes. _Of course it does_," she said, incredulously. Piandao just rolled his eyes and followed after her as she quickly made up the gap between her and the spirit. Despite the vast disparity in height, it was actually Piandao who had to quicken his step to keep up with her. As the path took her out of the ruins of the Western Continent wing and back through the main atrium, she had a thought. She paused, reached over, and tugged a book from a shelf. She couldn't help herself but raise an eyebrow at the motes of silvery light which hung in the place that the book had left. She turned, still walking, and gave a glance toward the silhouetted gap behind them. "What do you make of that?"

"I wouldn't have the first clue," Piandao said. "Just... put the book down."

"Why?" she asked, with a mischievous tone, before tossing it to him. He dropped it like it was on fire. "Oh, calm down. We're not in Azul. Not everything is trying to kill us."

"I still prefer to take a cautious approach," he said measuredly, following a step behind her. Unnoticed by either of them, a fox quickly grabbed the book and pelted back to where she'd removed it. "This whole thing is mad, you know. We should just talk to the Grand Lotus."

"He is a traitor to our order," Sativa said with a twist of rage. "I will trust the words that come from his mouth when the moon falls from the sky, and not before."

"Sati, this is getting out of hand. He has resources we can use," Piandao said.

"No. He took two years of my life. He is a lapdog to the forces we are trying to eliminate. I will hear no more of this," Sativa said. And she resented that he called her Sati. That was a long time ago. She was a different woman now.

The fox seemed to blur, before breaking apart into silvery motes before a great door. The Si Wongi and the Fire National shared a look, then both grabbed a handle and heaved back. The door barely opened. Between their combined efforts, there was enough room for each to move through sideways, one at a time. While further exertion might have created a wider portal, between the sand on the floor and the amount of effort to heave it that far, both wordlessly decided against it. They slipped into the chamber, which was black as an Air Nomad's idea of hell. "A moment," Piandao said, and she could hear him working with a flint and steel. After a few seconds, he had a lantern lit, and it cast light into the chamber.

Both stared agog. "This is extraordinary," Sativa said, walking through the enormous contraption. It was all brass, finely crafted orbs which even in their solid metal state seemed to indicate terrain, or else a swirling of a storm, but resting upon needle-slender steel rods plunging down into the floor. As she walked toward the center of the room, she first passed a great brass orb which was in the most distant track, and before her, three more like it, although they much smaller than this. "Nila would stab a man in the neck for a chance to see this."

"I'm surprised you hadn't offered to bring her at some point," Piandao said, honest appreciation in his eyes. This wasn't spirit magic. Even he could see that. It was simple, straightforward, and understandable mechanics. In this case, a mechanical representation of the solar system. There was a faint hum from the body at the center, and it emitted a very weak glow, not even enough to see by without the lantern. Like the orb at the center was supposed to burn with a light like the sun, but for some reason, could not.

"I did not bring her here because I do not wish to see my daughter die," Sativa said, passing the orbit of the Eye of the Dark, the farthest and largest planet in the system. "We both know that knowledge can be dangerous if not tempered by wisdom. She is smart, my daughter, but wise?" she shook her head. She looked back up for a moment. "I wonder if things like this place haunted her dreams."

"What do you mean?" Piandao asked.

"She had night terrors when she was young. Terrible dreams which she would awake screaming and weeping from. She would never tell me their contents, but she was unusually... clingy afterwords," she said, running fingers along the magnificent brasswork of the machine.

"That's the way children are," Piandao said simply. She raised a brow at him.

"You have children?" she asked.

"Had."

She sighed. "My condolences."

"They're still alive," Piandao said. "They live with their mother."

"You got married?"

Piandao just looked at her, and there was something in his eyes, a look so much like he used to gaze upon her, decades ago. His answer came at a distant whisper. "How could I?"

"It's too late for such things," Sativa said plainly. "We are both old, and the path cannot be retread. There are no second chances."

"How do you think this can help us?" Piandao changed topics, since he could tell this wasn't one either of them wished to talk about. He quickly made his way to the control panel, which rested at the base of the 'sun'. "I see. This can manipulate their positions by calendar date. Let's see if it still works, first."

Piandao manipulated the device, and the orbs began to slowly move. It wasn't just the planets that rotated 'round the sun. The moon, represented by a white disc, also rotated around the world, and the burning worlds of Big Demon and Little Demon, a bit closer to the sun, rotated around each other as they made the circuit. And there were many other things that moved with them. Several times as the planets continued their dance, Sativa had to move aside as a rod moved past her, tracking even comets, meteors, and other heavenly bodies. Some of which, she didn't even know existed. She shook her head with a wondrous smile, but that smile faded to a wince when she heard a grinding sound. She looked up, and saw that one of the bodies had scraped along the World.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Piandao asked, bringing the machine to a stop. Sativa moved to the World, and ran her finger along its surface. A portion of it had been rubbed smoother than the rest. A notion occurred to her.

"What day did this happen?"

"Let's see," Piandao looked a few things over. "This is ancient. I believe it is the spring equinox of... Hmmm. Twenty to the... and then... I believe this was approximately a hundred years ago."

"Wait, I know my history," Sativa said. She moved closer. "One hundred and two years ago, on the spring equinox, correct?"

"Thereabouts."

"That's when the Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads. They called it the coming of Sozin's Comet. Piandao, run it forward," she ordered. Piandao did as she asked, and the thing sped into frantic motion. Only because she was standing at his side, next to 'the sun', where no rods moved, did she not be slashed to ribbons by the blurring machinery. Finally, he rocked back on the controls, and it started to slow down again. "Slowly now," she directed. And she tracked that rod as it moved again. Closer. Closer. She stepped out, taking her place right beside the World. It couldn't be. It just couldn't. Then, to confirm her fears, a whine of metal scraping against metal.

"The last day of summer," Piandao said somberly. "This summer."

Sativa nodded slowly. "We have eight months, and then Sozin's Comet will return."

"And Agni have mercy on us when it does," Piandao finished for her.

* * *

><p>Zuko was in a tight rage as Uncle brought him to the Fire Court. "Prince Zuko, please, there must be another way," Iroh pleaded.<p>

"I will defend my honor," Zuko stated. But this wasn't about honor. He shrugged his robe off, and handed it to his uncle. "Don't worry, Uncle. It's just Shan Yu. What's the worst he can do? Wheeze at me?"

"Zuko, you insulted one of the Fire Lord's great generals and advisors. That was an act of great disrespect."

"He earned it," Zuko said. "Sending those men to their deaths was unconscionable. Especially since the plan wouldn't work anyway."

Uncle gave a shrug at that, like he knew, but wasn't going to say anything. "It isn't too late to apologize."

Zuko stopped for a moment, then turned to Iroh. "Wait, Azula? Who's watching Azula?"

"What do you mean?"

"Somebody's got to look out for her," Zuko said strongly. While he did want somebody to watch over her, especially today, more than that, he needed privacy. He wanted to talk to his opponent alone.

"You're right, Nephew. Please, don't do anything rash. I'll make sure she is safe," Iroh said, before departing. As soon as Iroh rounded the corner, Zuko took a different path than he had been indicating. Rather than head out into the Fire Court, he descended below it, and past its sluiceworks to where the path from the palace spilled forth into the arena.

His timing couldn't have been better.

Zuko took one step out of the side-hall, turned, and was face to face with the Fire Lord. Golden eyes, so much like his own, stared down at him, a hint of surprise registering in them. Like Zuko, the Fire Lord, his father, was stripped to the waist. Unlike Zuko, Father had an impressive and intimidating build. "What is the meaning of this?" Ozai demanded.

"I heard what you said. What you're about to do," Zuko pointed out, standing tall, despite his lack of height compared to his forebearer.

"It was a matter of simple political expediency," Ozai said with a dismissive wave. He leaned forward slightly, running fingers down the long strand of beard which hung from his chin. "Azula is very, _very_ lucky to even be alive right now. After all, she did try to assassinate the royal heir in his own room."

"That was an accident and you know it. You're twisting the truth."

"I am recounting events," Ozai answered his charge. "Azula is mad. She is unfit to be a part of this family and will never be a worthy ruler. Having her as part of the line of succession causes unease amongst the Fire Nation's lower class. She is a political liability."

"She is your daughter, my sister!" Zuko stressed.

"I have sacrificed much for the glory of the Fire Nation," Ozai's voice became quite flat, quite solemn. "I may yet sacrifice much more. So you started that little fight to prove a point, did you?"

"I won't let you get away with what you've done," Zuko said. "Azula doesn't deserve banishment. She needs help."

"And she is welcome to it. Anywhere but in the Fire Nation," Ozai said glibly.

"You son of a bitch," Zuko muttered.

"Please, do not speak of Ilah that way. It does dishonor to her memory," he laughed. Zuko's teeth ground. "Do you think I would hesitate to sacrifice both of my children for my nation?"

"Would you hesitate to become a leader without an heir?" Zuko asked. That finally shook Ozai. "Call off the banishment."

"Too late," Ozai said. "She is leaving. No force on this earth can stop that. And mark my words, _my child_," he somehow twisted those words into something of utter contempt, "she will never set foot in this palace again. She has embarrassed me enough. Now, slink out there and beg forgiveness, and I may let you off with just a scar to remind you of your impudence."

Zuko stared at his father. Then, he spat on his foot. "Work for it, old man."

Ozai stared down at the spittle which had landed on his foot, then back up. And then, there was a roar, and fire.

* * *

><p>"He never thought I'd actually fight him," Zuko finished. He rubbed at his left ear. "He was going to kill me. But something stayed his hand. Azula had gotten to the arena somehow, gotten past Iroh, and she screamed something at the Fire Lord. It made him hesitate. Just enough so that a killing blow became a near miss."<p>

"The scar," Jee said.

Zuko nodded. "He said if I was so desperate to share Azula's punishment, then he wouldn't deny me. We were both banished, cast out from the Royal Family, unless we could redeem ourselves. And nothing less than the Avatar in chains at the foot of the Burning Throne would suffice. So yes, I am occupied with my sister. I have to be. I'm all she has left."

"I didn't know," Jee said simply.

"Now you do," Zuko said. He took a deep breath. As he did, the brazier flared slightly, before dying back down. "There's a storm brewing. We need to push through it. It's the only way I can keep my family whole."

"Yes, Prince Zuko," Jee said, before heading above deck. Thunder began to sound like hammers against the forges in Azul City. The worst would be upon them soon.

"Why didn't you tell me this, Nephew?" Iroh asked quietly as the others filed out.

"I don't know," Zuko said. "Maybe I was ashamed that I lost."

"Against my brother?" Iroh let out a laugh. "Be thankful you weren't burnt to a cinder! You had nothing to be ashamed of."

"He needed to be punished for what he did."

"That is something which will have to be left in the hands of fate," Iroh said gently. "Come. You should look after your sister. She needs you."

Zuko nodded. "I know, Uncle. I know."

* * *

><p>"I knew that son-of-a-bitch was leading us on," Sativa spat as she stomped back out of the planetarium. "He <em>had<em> to know that this was coming, and he said _nothing_!"

"There is a chance he doesn't know," Piandao pointed out. "After all, the only people who are privy to that sort of information are the Fire Sages, and the Fire Lord has them tightly under his control."

"I refuse to believe that. The Dragon is cunning, I know that beyond any doubt. He would have figured it out, even if they didn't tell him. I swear, I'm going to _murder_ that fat old man!" Sativa didn't bother restraining her outrage. For years, she had been stifled and stymied, living in a culture where she had to be proper, even though every whit of her being demanded pragmatism, action, and efficacy. Properness just got in the way of getting things done.

"Be careful. You remember Wan Shi Tong's warning?"

"To hell with that rotting bird," Sativa declared. "Whatever plague has afflicted him can well claim him," she came to a stop, and leaned forlornly upon a tipping shelf, all of its books dumped into a pile underneath it. She let out a very, very weary sigh. "Tell me something, Piandao. Why does it always seem that those who have the knowledge to change the world for the better never, ever share it?"

"I don't know, Sati. I just don't know," the swordsman shook his head.

"We should probably leave," Sativa said, pulling herself back up. A moment or two to bemoan the universe was all fine and good, but she wasn't about to make a habit of it. Moaning, like propriety, ran withershins to productiveness. Leave it to the Whalesh to complain. She had work to do. "The last thing we need is that Stygian strigine hovering over our backs."

"Clever," Piandao noted.

"**Yes, It was,**" a third, rumbling voice came from the darkness. "**I am disappointed. And I make my disappointment known with great clarity.**"

In an instant, Piandao broke out into a cold sweat, and Sativa glanced around, until she could see motes of desaturated silvery light pull together into the towering form of Wan Shi Tong. It shuffled arduously over, and loomed over the two humans who came to its domain. "Sati?" the swordsman began, but she cut him off sharply.

"Not now."

"**Your kind always seek out the destruction of others of your species. Sometimes, I wonder how a race as bloody minded as yours ever managed to clamber up from the primordial chaos,**" Wan Shi Tong said harshly, leaning down, those dull, lifeless eyes blinking sharply before Sativa. She managed to no more than lean back in discomfort. Truth told, she was quite disturbed, but letting an enemy see that he'd rattled you never worked out for the best. "**If you came in search of weapons to use against your enemies, like the firebender who came before you, then you had best leave now. I do not take kindly to those who rouse me from my slumber for such ignorant purposes.**"

Sativa gave Piandao a glance. Didn't the spirit already go over this?

"We do not seek to unmake our enemies. Just to make sure that knowledge doesn't fade away, like so much has even in this vaunted hall," Sativa said measuredly, gesturing to the ruins of the library.

"**You're right. You might be humans, but you're right. I have been letting this place... crumble. I am so tired. I have seen so much, learned so much.** **All things worth knowing. The path of the stars across the heavens. The cycles of the planets, and the worlds once alive and now lost. The Great Ships of Mangangaso Belikat aflame in war...**" Wan Shi Tong began to ramble, and the two humans shared a second, confounded glance.

"Doesn't he recognize us?" Piandao whispered to her.

"I don't think he does," she said.

"**...before the Tahnner House Gate. So many things... So many lost things... Days that even ****knowledge itself seems ready to die,**" Wan Shi Tong trailed off. It looked back up at them. "**But if you truly are scholars, men of learning and wisdom, then you must add to the collection of knowledge in these halls. Only then will you be granted admittance.**"

Sativa felt sweat beading on her brow, and it was not from the heat. "I am sorry, Wan Shi Tong, but we are... unprepared. Perhaps we can retrieve something suitable for you?"

"**Yes, yes,**" Wan Shi Tong said. "**But be sure it is new knowledge. There is so much room here. So much room for knowledge...**" the bird trailed off one final time, as its body broke down into motes like the ooze that suppurated from the wounds in its form, and faded away completely. The two middle-aged humans shared one final glance, then broke out in a sprint up the mound of sand which spilled in through a partially buried window. Not the one they entered from, but the sheer joy of stars overhead and hot wind on her face made up for the inglorious scrabbling up the shifting tide. Despite being far smaller than Piandao, Sativa was up that cliff in half the time. She reached back and heaved, pulling Piandao through the hole she forced through, and he landed atop her, before they both rolled down the dune to where the lizard-hound was calmly waiting for them.

Sativa pushed herself off of Piandao's chest, and lay on the sand for a moment. "Well, that was terrifying," she noted.

"I'm shocked," Piandao uttered.

"About what?"

"I was certain Wan Shi Tong was going to try to kill us," he offered.

Sativa shook her head, slowly sitting up. "Everything about this place was wrong," Sativa said. "Wan Shi Tong is supposed to be He Who Knows All Worth Knowing. But he felt like a senile old tutor that we used to keep around the manor in Nassar out of respect – his usefulness has long ago dried up. He still thinks he knows everything, but each day, he wakes up with less and less," She stood, striking the sand from her blouse. "Again I find myself missing Llawenydd. We need a shaman's perspective on this."

Piandao simply shook his head. "Whatever the case may be, we need to find other sympathetic ears. If Sozin's Comet is really returning, something has to be done."

"Of course it does," Sativa said. "Which is why we need to head north."

"Why north?" Piandao asked.

"Two reasons," she said, ticking them off her fingers. "One, Ba Sing Se is to the north, and with it lies the greatest military not under the control of the Fire Lord. The only problem is the Grand Secretariat."

"I remember him," Piandao said bitterly.

"Indeed," she nodded. "The other, is that I have been keeping track of an old friend of ours. He should be not far from here. If we're swift, we might reach him before he heads back out to sea."

"You can't be talking about Joo Dee or the Mountain King," Piandao noted, a scowl coming to his face.

"No," she answered. A smirk came to her face as she goaded the lizard hound to start walking again. "Why? Are you jealous?"

"It was a decade and a half ago," Piandao said testily. So he was, was he? That smirk grew a bit. This was going to be a barrel of fun. Most of it hers.

* * *

><p>The storm raged overhead, and it hurled itself against the hull as Zuko lunged the last inch, barely catching Jee's hand and swinging him back to the relative safety of the ladder. "Don't stand so close to the edge next time!" Zuko chastised against the howling of the wind and the driving rain. It wasn't the first storm that they'd been through. Jee should have known better. But the man just nodded, a quiet thanks in his eyes, and clambered back into the cabins, heading to help the helmsman.<p>

"We're coming to the wall!" Iroh's voice sounded from below. Zuko was already climbing down, but he could feel a tingling start to run through his feet, through his hands. Oh, this wasn't good.

He could see lightning starting to pull down toward him. Contrary to his past experiences, where lightning bolts were instantaneous, this one seemed to be taking its time, stalking him down. But at the last instant, when it was about to blast him off the ladder, dozens of feet down to the hard, iron deck, the bolt veered away, seeming to suddenly prefer Uncle to Zuko. It raced along his body, and flew off into an unattended part of the hull, but left Iroh smoking. Zuko scrambled down the rest of the distance, and almost fell trying to reach the old man, but Iroh was waving him off and rising to his feet even by the time Zuko arrived.

"Don't worry about me," Iroh said raggedly. "Look!"

The storm seemed to hit an all time high... and then stopped. The rain ended abruptly, like it was a veil of water which had been pulled back. The sun coming down into the eye of the storm was diffuse, but so much stronger than it had been even moments before that it was practically blinding. The seas calmed, and the ship powered onward. Zuko turned back to one of the crew.

"Are they following us?" he asked.

"They'd be fools to," the answer came. "I don't think they even could have."

"Good," Zuko said. "We're free again. Free to hunt the Avatar."

"Zuko, that can't be the only thing which drives you."

"I know, Uncle. But without the Avatar, Azula has no hope," Zuko said, turning back toward the cabins. "And I refuse to be the one who takes away Azula's hope."

"And what about after him?" Iroh asked. Zuko turned for a moment. "When you have the Avatar, what then?"

"Then I hope I have become as silver-tongued as you, Uncle," Zuko said with a smirk. He opened the doors and headed up to his sister's room, but found it vacant. He pondered a moment, then rolled his eyes and ascended into the helm, and found her standing near the hole which a previous lightning bolt had bored into the superstructure. "There you are. I was worried about you."

Azula rolled her eyes. She took a deep breath, then nodded forward. "Are we out of the storm?" she asked, that accent stronger than it had been before.

Zuko couldn't help but smile, though, that she had her voice again. That she had her words again. He looped an arm over her shoulder, and looked out at the clouds before them, around them. "Yes we have, Azula. Yes we have."

Azula glared at his hand and briskly slapped it off. But Zuko didn't care. She was recovering. That was all that mattered.

* * *

><p>Her mouth tasted like death. She smacked her lips, trying to dispel taste, even so far as leaning up and spitting. But the taste wouldn't leave her. Gods, what could she have eaten to leave that kind of aftertaste in her mouth? She really had to be more careful about noting when those offerings got left out. Yeah, they helped eke out her diet, but if they were out there for a week, they tended to... ferment.<p>

Come to think of it, where the hell was she?

She slowly pulled herself to her feet, having to shake off some prickly seed-pods of some sort which were hanging to her arms and legs. "Ah, man, what happened to my clothes?" She complained, looking down at the tatters she was wearing. "Note to self, whatever I ate, don't eat it again."

It was days like this that Malu was glad she didn't drink, because this was very much like what she imagined a hang-over would be like. Walking on bare feet down a dirt road, she looked around, trying to ignore the pounding in her head and the growling of her belly. Where were the mountains? She'd spent the last two years a couple hundred miles from her childhood home, in the Eastern Air Temple. But this place? She looked over at the sun, which appeared to be setting into the sea. She stood there and watched as it slipped under the mass of clouds, until it was almost gone. Only then did she believe it.

"What am I doing on the west coast?" Malu asked. "And why am I talking to myself?"

She shook her head. It didn't really matter where she was. It just mattered that she got back to doing what she did best; making the Fire Nation regret burning her home down. She wandered, and quickly found lights guiding her path. A town! That was just the thing! She made to pull the hood over her head, but found that only a scrap of it remained. Man, she must have gotten mauled by a platypus-bear last night or something. Ah, well.

She made her way into the sea-side community, and got a good look-around. Quaint place, very rural. They probably had vegetables as well as fish, so she wouldn't have to break her vegetarian habits. As she thought about food, a terrible rumbling shot through her guts. Oooh. Don't think about food. So hungry! Her clothes needed mending far more than she needed a meal, anyway. But she didn't exactly have money, now did she? So she walked up to a door, which looked like it had only been put back up in the last day or so, and gave it a sturdy knocking-on.

The door opened, and a man grew still and pale when he saw her. "Hello!" Malu said brightly, sporting her winningest smile. "You wouldn't happen to have a sewing needle and some thread, would you?"

The man let out a scream of terror and slammed the door shut in her face.

"What's his problem?" she asked, before walking away on thick, rich black dirt, toward some place less xenophobic. Maybe that old lady's house over there? That might do the trick! She smiled to herself as she jaunted over to the door, and the wind parted around her airbending so it didn't blow at her. "Hello? Is anybody home? I'm kind of lost!"

An old woman cracked the door, and looked her up and down. Silence reigned for a moment. "Do you like cats?" the woman demanded.

"Cats are great!" Malu said.

"Good. Then you can come in."

Malu gratefully stepped out of the cold and the dark. As she stood at the threshold, she got an odd feeling, like she hadn't done this in a long time. But she dismissed that thought. She was just grateful to have shelter and food. Especially after _whatever_ happened last night.

* * *

><p><strong>Bet y'all didn't see that coming. Truth told, I didn't either when I started chapter one, but when I realized that Tzu Zi worked as a nurturing presence for Nila, I needed somebody to act as a foil. And instead of using her brother (who is suffering from a chronic case of Completely Missing The Point), and unwilling to invent new characters when old would suffice, I decided that Malu could fill that gap swimmingly. Of course, there's still <em>stuff<em> that's going to make her life interesting. And by her life, I mean the whole damned worlds'. And by interesting, I mean... well, you'll see. The very least of that stuff is her mistaken belief that she's the Avatar.**

**You might have gathered by now that there's something extremely fricken wrong with the Spirit World. If you did, bonus points. If not, well, Wan Shi Tong's having a rough century. There are things in this story which are inadvertant but add to the narrative. I'm trying to keep those sweet mistakes to a minimum, though, and actually have the bits I want planned goodness rather than accidental goodness.**

**Chief amongst these intentional bits that seem thrown in but aren't: The North. Yup. Things aren't going well up there. And the duel. Zuko actually fought his father when he was thirteen. It ended surprisingly. You'll see how soon enough.**

**Hopefully the next chapter I write will be easier than the one I just finished. Damn that was rough.**

_Leave a review. Your Fanfiction God demands it!_


	8. The Storm Kings

**You wanted action? You'll get action.**

* * *

><p>Another sneeze, and Malu was glad she was an airbender. If she wasn't this would be utterly interminable. As it stood, there was still enough dander getting through her bubble to have her eyes start to water and her nose start to itch. While she hadn't lied to her hostess, in that cats really were great, they didn't get on well with Malu. That was somewhat surprising, actually. Malu had played with Elder Tengeh's cat all the time, and never had anything like this happen to her. Of course, the other facet of the situation was that all of the cats were watching her, all of the time. Even she couldn't stand up to that kind of brutal scrutiny. Not like she was a mouse they were ready to pounce on, though. They stared at her like she was something bigger, meaner, and angrier than they ever could be. They huddled in a distant corner, and watched in fear.<p>

"You made short work of breakfast," the old lady said. "Did you forget to chew?"

"Nah, I was just really hungry," Malu answered. And truth be told, she still was. The portions had been enough to feed a grown man, and they barely put a dent in her hunger. Ah, well, she'd gone hungry before. But even as that rationalization came to her, she found herself asking. "You wouldn't happen to have more, would you?"

"I'm not about to let a guest eat me out of house and home," the woman said in her crotchety way. She wasn't too bitter, the lady, but she was worried. There was a bad storm, and her husband hadn't come back yet. She feared the worst. It was good to talk to people again. Malu had been up in the Eastern Mountains so long that the words started to falter her sometimes. It was only herself, and a few birds that came around, that she had any conversation with. And talking to yourself was a sure sign of catching the crazy. "I suppose you'll be heading on, now. Off on the road again."

"Well, I'm a long way from home," she said, honestly. An entire continent, more or less.

"It's good to have young people traveling about. Gives them some perspective. A lot of the young don't have that nowadays. They're just lazy and shiftless," she said. After a moment, she turned back. "No, don't claw at that! Bad Foo-Foo Cuddlypoops!"

"You come up with the weirdest names," Malu noted, around a mouthful of food. She glanced down, and saw that she had grabbed one of her host's breakfast rolls without even realizing it. She quickly hid it behind her back as the old lady turned.

"It keeps the boredom away," The woman responded brightly, a cat dangling from her arms. She paused once more. "Say, you've been around? Is it true what people have been saying?"

"About what?" Malu asked.

"That the Avatar has come back?" she asked.

Malu frowned for a moment. While her hands and brow didn't bear the marks of airbending mastery – entirely because she hadn't decided that she was yet worthy of them – she was the last airbender alive. She wasn't a fool. She knew the attention that she'd garnered from all of the elders, and the dreams she had in her childhood weren't simple dreams. "Well, I don't know what to say about that," she said carefully. A rogue airbender was enough for the Fire Nation to empty an entire garrison to swat. But a rogue Avatar? "I mean, nobody's heard anything from the Avatar in years."

"I know," the woman said, chucking the cat into a room where it let out an angry squawk, before she closed the door in its face. "And then, all of a sudden, there's all this 'Oh, the Avatar is on Kyoshi Island!', and 'The Avatar is allied with Omashu!' It's all nonsense."

"What was that?" Malu asked, as though the bottom had fallen out of her world. _She_ was the Avatar... Wasn't she?

"I'll believe the Avatar's really back when I see him with my own eyes," the woman said starkly.

Malu stared for a moment. "Him?" she asked.

"The Avatar! Haven't you been paying attention?"

"I've been kinda distracted lately," Malu said, scratching her hair. Gods, but it felt good to wash it; how many weeks had it been since she last had access to a proper basin? And when she woke up in that ditch, it seemed even dirtier, like she'd taken a nose-dive into a sty! "But you know what? If I find out anything about the Avatar, I'll send you a message. I know a few pidgeons who are willing to work for me."

"Well isn't that a thoughtful gesture?" the old woman said, as she slowly guided Malu to the door. "The world would be a better place if there were more people like you in it."

Oh, you don't know the half of it, Malu thought. She stepped out into the dim, dreary morning. The rattling winds which succeeded after that lull in last night's storm had more or less passed, but now a cold rain was falling. Not hard, just enough to be dispiriting. "Ah, well," she said to herself, finishing her proffered roll in a single bite. Her stomach growled loudly at her. "I _just_ fed you! How can you still be hungry?"

She shook her head, walking out to the pier and hanging her feet over the edge. Until she got proper footwear, it was going to be an uncomfortable walk back east. She considered for a moment. What point was there to going back east? She really didn't have anything holding her back anymore. She could visit the temples again, if she wanted to. But, she had to admit to herself, that would be somewhat hampered by the facts both that she hadn't managed to wrangle a sky bison long enough to tame one, and that at some point during that blackout, she'd misplaced her staff. "Man, Tengeh would have hided me for that," she muttered to herself. Never lose your staff was one of the first things that the elders taught. It was more than just a tool for airbending. It was a part of an airbender's soul.

But she was free. As free as any airbender could ever wish to be. She was the last. She was the Avatar. And she wasn't finished. She stood, resigning herself to her decision. She would head north. As much as the Water Tribes could be sexist prigs, they would teach the Avatar. And besides, on the way, maybe she could scrounge up a staff from the North Air Temple? That'd just work like candy and pie.

Now, she just needed to figure out a way to get there. The North Air Temple was very far away, and for the first time in her life, she was completely grounded. She looked out to the sea, at the boats which seemed to be limping into harbor, and nodded. A boat would do nicely. Next would come the tricky part. How to get them to let her stow aboard without handing her over to the Fire Nation. This was either going to be a lot of fun, or very, very sad. And she couldn't wait to see which it was. She'd laid low long enough. Her parents – in that terrible night of fire and fear, the last she would ever share with them – begged her not to get involved. But she couldn't stay out of it anymore.

Rumor or not, the Avatar was back.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

**The Storm Kings**

* * *

><p>"Long ago, the five nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, the master of all four elements could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished."<p>

"I know this story, lady!" the child interrupted. "It's why th' Fire Nation invaded and did bad stuff!"

Katara rolled her eyes, and gave a patient smile to the boy in the tiny green hanbok. "Yes, you probably have. But what you didn't hear was that after a hundred years, my brother and I discovered the new Avatar. He's an airbender named Aang," she said, giving a glance to the person in question, who was gabbing animatedly with other, younger children. He really seemed to be in his element out there. Well, his element being air, hardly surprising, given their altitude. "He's the last airbender, and he is our last hope for peace."

"He doesn't look like much," the petulant youth stated. Outside, Aang pulled air into a ball, and began to scoot around on it.

"Well, his airbending skills are great, but admittedly, he's got a lot to learn before he can save everybody. Be that as it may, I believe that Aang can save the world."

And to punctuate her words, Aang managed to scoot face-first into one of the many stone heads which littered the landscape. He made an impressive pratfall, which she was sure wasn't entirely staged. The children outside took it with great humor, though, laughing uproariously.

"I never thought I'd ever see an airbender again," the old woman at the back of the room said. "My, it's been so, so long. The last airbender, the last real one, anyway, that must have been fifty years ago. It's hard to worry about the world, my child, when there's so much else in the way. If he's the Avatar..."

"Oh, he is," Sokka commented around a mouthful of food. "Glowing tattoos and everything."

"...Then he chose to ignore his duty for the last century. Look at what became of it," she said, with a note of bitterness. "We were once affluent and prosperous. Now, we live on a hill with strange heads on it. Three generations lived in fear and poverty because of the Avatar's laziness."

"Aang isn't like that! He didn't have a choice!" Katara interrupted. "It wasn't his fault he was frozen away."

"And if it isn't his fault, then who's?" the elderly woman asked. "Can he look into the eyes of the war orphans this war left, or the mothers who will never see their sons, and tell them that he was just and right in not intervening for a century?"

"Aang needs our support, not condemnation," Katara pointed out. "He's pretty much the last hope any of us have got."

The woman looked up, and the light caught against that one grey, blinded eye. "Then I hope for all our sakes that your faith is not misplaced, little girl."

Katara scowled at the old crone, and took her feet. "Come on, Sokka. It's clear we aren't wanted here."

"But I'm not done eating!"

"Can you please not think with your stomach for five minutes!" she answered him. He looked at the plain but plentiful fare with a sigh, and allowed himself to be dragged out of the hut on the hillside. "I can't believe that old hag. Who does she think she is?"

"Well, she's kinda got a point there Kat..." he trailed off when she shot back a glare at him. "Never mind. Keep erupting."

"Aang is the most selfless and brave person we know! It's not like he chose to run away, after all."

Aang perked up a notch higher as Katara approached, seemingly ignoring her grim mood. "Hey Katara! This place is great!"

"We're leaving," Katara announced. Aang frowned slightly at that.

"Why? We were having fun! I was going to show them that whirlwind trick I've been working on."

"Well, maybe they can see it if you come back," Katara said. "We can't stay here. That woman said some very unkind things."

"But..." the Avatar complained.

"That's final," she said. Both her brother and the airbender shared a look, but in truth, she didn't want to go back there. It had been surprisingly common to find reactions like this. While most were jubilant to have the Avatar alive once again, a fair number resented his absence so long from the world. As though all of the blame for the last century of warfare fell on his narrow shoulders alone. She quickly tossed those things of her's she'd brought down back into the howdah, but when she tried to clamber up Appa's leg, the bison shook her off, sending her onto her back.

"Appa, what's wrong?" Aang asked. The bison let out a low bellow, taking a step back from the decline. Aang glanced back. "Oh, wow, that storm's _really_ pressing up here."

"I thought we outran it," Sokka asked.

"Storms have a way of finding you. We need to reach higher ground," Aang said. He scanned the skyline, grey and bleak thought it was, and smiled as he beheld his target. "Over there! That hill goes above the clouds. The storm could never follow us up there."

"But what about Appa?" Katara asked, rubbing her bum.

"You understand, don't you buddy? That we're going above the storm?"

The sky bison let out a grumble which didn't seem entirely willing, but even the beast could see its options were between standing during a storm and heading for unknown pastures. It seemed positively glum about it, though. They all quickly scrabbled up its pelt while the going was good, and Aang bounded onto its brow with a single jump. "Alright, Appa. Let's go some place nice and safe. Yip-yip!"

The bison rose from the ground with a level of begrudgedness that even Katara could feel, moving toward that peak. It tried to turn away, but Aang corrected its course. "He doesn't do that very often, does he?" Sokka asked, leaning against the front of the howdah next to her. "He's usually glad to go wherever."

"Who said Appa was a he? Appa's obviously a girl," Katara interjected.

"Says who?"

"It's a woman's intuition. We share that in common. _She_ must think there's something wrong with that peak."

"Or maybe _he_ is just trying to vie for dominance, like the elk do," Sokka contended.

"Guys, do you see what I see?" Aang asked. Both turned, and couldn't... at first. But as the dim grey parted and more came into focus, it became obvious what Aang was talking about. The mountain up there was perpetually wreathed in clouds, which made it almost impossible to see its top. And that was because its top was clearly sculpted by Man's hands.

"Have you ever heard of anything like this?" Katara asked. Her brother was always one to read Dad's books whenever he brought them home. He just shook his head. The peak had been cut into an overhang, but atop that, was a fortress. A fortress long beset by the forces of time and erosion, but a fortress obviously even still. Appa seemed to grow more and more sluggish the closer it went to that place, more and more unwilling. Even Momo seemed off-put by it, clinging to Katara's neck, its ears folded back on its head.

"Appa, what's wrong? Are you scared, buddy?"

Appa just let out a deep whimper as an answer, before landing at a parapet on the outer wall. It groaned under the weight of bison and cargo, but held up. Sokka was the first off of the beast. "What is this place?" he asked. The question had been snatched right out of Katara's mind. The structure was massive. Far larger than this mere landing area, and cut right into the stone of the mountain. She looked to one side, and her eyes widened.

"Aang look at that!" she pointed. "Doesn't that look like the stables back in the South Air Temple?"

Aang looked as she pointed, and found himself nodding. "Yeah, they really do. What is this place? Why is it so... familiar?"

"Maybe one of your past lives had something to do with this?" she offered. "It could be a memory of a different Avatar."

"Guys, I found something," Sokka's voice rose above the winds. Appa had curled up on the ground, obviously miserable, leaving the others to move around it and to where Sokka had made his discovery. He was still moving rocks when they found him, but the source of his outcry was clear. Above where he was standing, a great wound stood in the stone-work. Something had fallen down, and become buried under scree. Scree which Sokka now worked to displace. As he did, shining gold revealed to the sky. It was a half-circle, with something like a whip coiled at its center, all rendered in gold.

"I don't recognize that symbol," Aang said, but Sokka kept excavating, and it became clear that the half-circle was actually a whole one, and that the whip was joined by two others. He took a step back, and Sokka met Aang's eyes. Aang started breathing deeper and deeper, stepping back until he bumped into Katara.

"What is it?" Katara asked.

"Remember the necklace that Monk Gyatso's statue had?" Sokka asked. Katara thought back, and when the image came to her, it was a bolt of lightning. They were identical. The only difference was what were whorls of wind in one iteration were cruel scourges in this one. Aang looked at them.

"What is this place?" he asked, worry clear in his voice.

"Maybe we should find out," Sokka said, and sparked a torch, before heading into the darkness of the keep.

* * *

><p>"What do you mean, you're kicking us out?" Lao's voice was half scandalized, and half whiny. Toph knew the various tones that her father could produce, but this was new to her. She sat, off to the side, ignored by all present, her chin on her fists, as her life got laid out without any say-so from her. Pretty much business as usual, actually, even though the family home was burnt to the ground and Dad was trying to make for his holdings in the north.<p>

And not very successfully.

"I'm not kicking you out, Loa," Keung said gently. "I have my own people to think about you realize?"

"You owe me better than that," Lao, his tone pouting. Toph just shook her head. Keung had been one of the best supporters that the Beifong family could ask for. In fact, he'd been the only one who stuck his neck out for them when it became obvious that Lao and his money had become parted. It was startling to see how many of Dad's friends were just in it for the cash. More than even Toph had realized, and she was a fairly good judge of character. It came with not needing eyes; it was likely why she treated Keung as well as she did. He was an ugly bugger by most people's professing, but since she couldn't see that, it didn't matter. In a way, her blindness was a capability that most lacked; she could judge a man by the content of his mind and his actions rather than the layout of his face.

If she'd judged Keung as most would, they'd have been sleeping in bushes from the day Gaoling burned.

"Lao, this is the best I can do," Keung said more sternly. "If I shelter you any longer, they're going to find you. I know this man, Zhao. He is the kind of man to make examples. If he gets ahold of you... of your daughter..."

Toph could 'see' her father glancing her way, his heart missing a beat. She shook her head. It was bad enough that she managed to save her entire family from a schizoid firebender, but when she tried to explain what was going on, her father just treated her like he always did; like she was made of delicate glass, and would shatter if mishandled in the slightest. Never mind that she tore a hole in the house. No, that was the sort of thing which wasn't spoken of.

"You're right, Keung. You're right," Lao admitted in defeat. He shook his head, sighing. "What am I going to do?"

"I don't know what to tell you. Only that you'd better go now," Keung gave Dad's shoulder a squeeze. "Maybe, you'll make it north between storms. It's supposed to be good weather up there, I hear. And nobody uses the Mountain King's pass anymore."

"I swore I'd never go back to the Heel," Dad said dejectedly.

"There is a war on, and we all have to do things we'd rather not," Keung said. Keung looked toward Toph, then released a sigh of his own. He reached down and pulled something from his belt. He laid it in Lao's hand. "Now this isn't a hand-out. My finances are being screened with a fine-comb, but a bag of gold-dust can slip through. It isn't much, but it should afford you something."

"This wouldn't last a day," Lao said with a tone of annoyance, before realized he was insulting the scholar. "I mean... It's more than I could have asked for."

"Take care of Toph," Keung said.

"Don't worry. I'll find some way to keep her safe," Dad said determinedly.

Keung chuckled at that. Of all the people who knew Toph existed, he was just about the only one who knew the truth about her. "For some reason, I'm fairly sure _she'll_ be keeping _you_ safe. Good luck, Lao. May the spirits be kind to you, the heavens placid, and the roads easy."

"I think I'll need all the help I can get," Lao said as he turned, pitched low enough that Keung wouldn't be able to make it out. Only Toph's splendid hearing could make it out. For some reason, this whole situation called to mind the three act play. A few weeks ago, they'd been in the first act, life as they knew it. Now, she was thrown heedless and against her will into the second act, with drama, tension, and apparently, poverty. It was going to eat Dad alive, she could just predict it.

She tipped her head for a moment, trying to imagine what the third act would hold. Father finally admitting that his delicate, frail, weak, fragile, blind little girl was not just an earthbender, but a great one? Her departing her family on some grand quest and adventure, perhaps to save the world? Or maybe it would be a much more personal narrative, and it would come down to her against that insane girl who burnt the house down. After a moment's consideration, Toph scowled. No, that was too obvious. Only an idiot wrote so blandly. A brow arched as she considered instead that crazed firebender for some reason ending up on her side. Now _there_ was a twist for the third act.

"Has he been robbing Keung blind again?" Mom's voice interrupted Toph's dissection of the situation, with such suddenness and unexpectedness that Toph practically jumped out of her skin. Toph hadn't 'seen' Mom coming. She could always 'see' everybody coming. Her senses, not through eyes but by the vibrations of the ground, could see everything, in every direction, all the time.

"Gods, Mom, where'd you come from?" Toph asked, before continuing at a mutter. "Almost gave me a damned heart-attack."

"Saying goodbye to the rest of his parents and family, thanking them for their hospitality. The _wife's duty_," Poppy said. But the way she said it seemed to indicate she held a different view of things.

"How did you sneak up on me?" Toph asked.

"You must not have been listening. I can be very sneaky," she said, pinching Toph's cheek. Toph angrily waved her mother away.

"Ugh! Enough, Mom! Bad enough we've got to live off four pounds of gold-dust for the next however many months, but I've got to get pinched, too?" Toph complained.

"Four pounds?" Mother's countenance changed for a moment, her back hunching down slightly, a more skulker's pose. But the change was momentary, only. "And he complained?"

"When doesn't Dad complain about money?" Toph asked snarkily.

"Well, I'll have words with him about this," she promised. She took a step away, then turned back. "Did he give you the purse?"

"What? Why would he?"

"How did you know it had four pounds of gold-dust in it?" she asked, her tone idle, but Toph could, not so much 'see' as utterly sense that there was a weight behind that question utterly unrelated to the different scales for precious metals versus non-precious resources.

"Lucky guess?" Toph offered. But even she could tell Mom wasn't buying it. Man, what was up with her family today?

"Come on, Toph, we have a long journey ahead of us," she said, reaching back and directing Toph forward. But oddly, she didn't try to take Toph's hand. The gesture was negated almost instantly when Dad did in her stead.

"Dad, you don't need to..." Toph began.

"It's all going to be alright, Tuofu, I promise," he said, worry plain in his voice. "I'll keep you safe."

Yeah. That was _exactly_ what Toph wanted. To be safe. Heh, and flying pigs could swim, too.

* * *

><p>A winning smile wasn't working out as well as Malu had hoped. In fact, it had slipped quite a bit as the conversation went on. "Yes, that's nice, but could you tell me when the next boat is heading <em>north<em>?"

The interrupted man, wearing a floppy hat which almost covered his almost-Tribesman-blue eyes, looked mildly offended. "North? Nobody goes north anymore. Storms are too frequent and too bad to go north unless you've got a better ship than I've got."

"But you came from the north!"

"I came from my fishing grounds. I can make it there in a day, and come back in a day. Enough places to hide from a storm besides. But past that? That's utter suicide."

"So in this entire pier, there's no place where a girl could get a ride north?"

"Well, you could ask them," the man pointed down the pier, but had to step aside as a pair of almost identical girls sauntered between the fisherman and the airbender. One of them was talking a mile a minute, and the man shook his head at the sight, before pointing definitively. "But I don't like their element. They make me nervous."

"Well, maybe they just need somebody to brighten their day," Malu said, trying to force some positivity into the universe. Whether it wanted it or not! She bowed, unsure whether to thank him as one would a Tribesman or an Easterner, so she did a little of both. He seemed utterly confounded, but Malu was already moving along the long docks which abounded this place. Well in from the protective rocks, the wharf was lined with shops and stalls, some of them continuing down the streets which followed the sweep of the cliffs until they parted onto easier terrain, and the town as a whole grew, leaving the wharf behind. The town wasn't splendid, nor pretty. In truth, everything seemed a bit... seedy. A bit run down, dirty, and desperate. But that was something for a different time. She had a duty to the world at the moment, and she was going to see it through.

She took a few steps before jostling somebody. It felt more like she walked into a wagon than a person. For all she grunted and reacted, Malu could have sworn she'd walked into a wagon. "Watch where you're going!" the girl said, a Si Wongi accent punctuating her obviously very Si Wongi appearance. The shaved head was a bit odd, though.

"I'm sorry, I was a bit distracted," Malu said. "I'm Malu. What's your name?"

"None of your concern," the girl said, turning toward the vendor. "I know how much this is worth. You won't find this for even four times what your asking anywhere outside the Fire Nation."

"Yeah, and how do I even know it works?" the man asked, rubbing an unshaven chin. "For all I know, it's just paper and wax."

"Paper and wax? Paper and wax, he says," the girl said, turning to Malu as though to prove her point. "And you'd be the expert on paper and wax, I suppose? Well, tell me, does paper and wax do this?"

She reached up, tapped the top of that thing she was carrying to a torch, then full-arm heaved it toward the water. It landed with a plorp, and there was a moment of silence. Then, a massive boom sounded across the harbor, and the water erupted up in a pillar of foam and waves. The girl turned back. "That was a demonstration. My price just went up ten percent."

"And I'll take whatever you've got," the man said, obviously awed. The girl reached into her robes, and then set out four sticks like the one she'd hurled onto the man's table. She received a pittance of coins, but Malu's eyes practically bugged out when she beheld that those coins weren't copper, like she'd expected, but gold.

"That's a lot of money," Malu said.

"Mother was right. I made due."

Malu had a notion, though. "Aren't you worried about what he's going to do with them?"

The girl shrugged idly. "As soon as I got the cash, it was no longer my problem."

"What if he uses them to hurt somebody?" Malu asked,

"Not. My. Problem," she answered.

"Well... what if he uses them to try to hurt you?"

"Then he's an idiot," she offered with a smirk. "I know my own bombs."

"Are you going to keep up or not?" one of the two identical girls shouted. Then, there was a pause. "Oooooh, who's your new friend?"

"She's not my friend. She's a blathering moralizer," the girl tried to contend, but the more active of the two twins came rushing back to them.

"Aw, you're so adorable when you're trying to be stubborn," the bubbly one said. "I'm Tzu Zi. That's my sister Rai Lee over there."

"I'm Malu. She hasn't said her name yet," Malu offered.

The dark girl rolled her brilliant green eyes and shook her head. "Fine. I am Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar. Does that assuage your curiosity?"

"How much of that was your name?" Malu asked. "'Cause I'm just Malu."

"All of it is my name," Nila answered as though it were both obvious and odd that somebody would ask. Then she glanced toward the closer of the sisters. "Although you do raise a valid point. You never mentioned your surname."

"Oh, it's not important," Tzu Zi said dismissively. "You don't look like you're from around here. Are you lost? What happened to your shoes? Isn't it cold walking around like that? Was that your stomach growling? When was the last time you ate?"

Malu leaned back from the barrage of questions and turned to Nila, who could only offer an idle shrug. "She gets this way sometimes. Just stare flatly at her long enough and she eventually stops."

"You're kind of unpleasant, sometimes," Malu said.

"And you're saccharine and naïve," Nila said without malice. She turned to Tzu Zi. "Can we go now? We've got enough for feed."

"Already? What did you do, rob a merchant?" Tzu Zi said with a nudge from an elbow.

"No, she sold weapons," Malu said.

"Nila?"

"I don't carry weapons. I carry tools," Nila contended. Tzu Zi reached out and tugged at the case which hung at Nila's hip. Nila scowled at that. "It wasn't my choice to bring that."

"Anyway, Malu, have you been here long?" the brown-eyed girl asked with genuine interest.

"No," Malu answered. "I'm just trying to charter a boat north. But nobody seems to be going."

"Oh, they wouldn't be. Not from here. You'll need to get all the way down to Hanyi before you can find transoceanic ships. And most of those are chartered from the Fire Nation."

Malu cringed a bit at the thought of having to share a boat at sea with the Fire Nation. Well, Fire Nation military, anyway. A National trading boat wouldn't be so bad. "So I have to go south to go north?"

"Pretty much," Tzu Zi nodded. "You should show us around. It's not like we're going to miss anything poking around in the shops!"

"Sometimes, I really wonder if you're paying attention to me at all," Nila said with a roll of the eyes, following after the girl. Malu, having not strictly been rejected, opted to follow along. This was good. She was with people again. She was still hungry, but having people around her took the edge off of that. Her years of solitude were over. They had to be. Avatars couldn't afford to live in the hills like hermits. She paused inwardly at the thought of that. She was going to be a celebrity. She wondered what _that_ was going to be like.

* * *

><p>"Guys, I'm really not comfortable about this," Aang's voice carried forward. Sokka, though, was leading. A year ago, he'd have said he was up here because he was a man, and men were leaders. Now, he was just at the front because he had the presence of mind to rig a torch, and no other connotations occurred to him. "I mean, Appa's really scared and to tell the truth, I am too."<p>

"It's alright, Aang," Sokka shouted back over his shoulder. "It's just an abandoned keep in the mountains."

"What if it's haunted?" Aang asked.

"No such things as ghosts," Sokka said plainly.

"But what about Nini?" Katara asked.

"That didn't happen," Sokka answered.

"Gran Gran says she saw her."

"Gran Gran must have been hallucinating," Sokka retorted, turning to them. "Do the math, Katara. There are about two and a half billion people on the world, right? And the population is increasing at a rate of what? One and a sixteenth births per death? Simple mathematics says that if the souls of the dead could interact with the world in a meaningful way, the world would be absolutely buried under billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of dead people. Since that isn't the case, there must not be ghosts."

"Just because you haven't found something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Katara said. "We found a living airbender, after all, and everybody said they were extinct."

"That's different," Sokka dismissed.

"How?" Aang asked.

"You weren't dead."

"Real comforting, Sokka," Katara said.

"Math is on my side," Sokka remained resolute and peeked down another corridor. This one, luckily, fell into scree and a dead end within the pool of light the torch cast. That meant one less wild goose-hawk chase. "Is it just me, or does this place feel like a fort?"

"Gee, and I wonder if all the ramparts and gates were somehow clues to him?" Katara asked Aang sweetly.

"Why would somebody make a fort up here?" Aang asked, obviously missing Katara's barb at Sokka. "I mean, how could they even reach it? It took me and Appa to get up here. Anybody who's quartering an army wouldn't have bison."

"Then why were there bison stables?" Sokka asked. Aang seemed to be preparing an answer, but it died in his throat. "Anyway, whoever left these ruins is long gone, and as long as they didn't leave boobytraps, we should be fine."

"You do realize that you just demanded the universe put a trap in front of us," Katara asked nicely.

"This is a military installation. You don't put traps in them unless you're trying to establish a killing zone," Sokka said.

"How do you know so much about military stuff?" Aang asked.

"Whenever Dad and Bato talked, I'd always listen. Bato knew some interesting stuff," Sokka said. He paused, having almost walked past a closed door. He scrutinized the panel which hung over it, but it didn't appear to be any language he knew. "Aang, can you read that?"

"I... Can't," Aang said, with a note of wonder in his voice. "Wow. That doesn't happen very often."

Sokka gave a glance to the kid with the arrow tattooes, then delivered a stiff kick to the door. The net result of this was one door remaining stubbornly closed, and one Water Tribesman flying backward through the door opposite it. The laws of motion could be a harsh mistress. Sokka picked himself up off the floor of the room he was in. It was more like a cell, quite small and dark. There wasn't even a sconce in the room, so Sokka wondered how it was supposed to be lit.

"Hah! Good one Sokka," Aang offered, before poking his head in. "What's this?"

"I don't know," Sokka said, dusting himself off. Luckily, even the spider-webs were ossified, and not particularly sticky. He looked at the tiny dwelling, and had a notion. The cot seemed a bit askew. He handed the torch to the Avatar and heaved upward, and grunted with appreciation when his suspicions were confirmed. There was something in this place. He hooked it out with a toe, then leaned down. "It's a book. I wonder how old it is?"

"Careful with it, Sokka," Aang said. Katara joined them, standing in silence as he carefully turned the cover, and winced as several of the pages, stuck together, came with it. It seemed to be the way of things; if they weren't smudge to illegibility or ruined by tears, the sheets were so long dry that they dissolved if looked at funny. "Hey, that looks like Huojian," Aang cut in, leaning closer.

"This place was Fire Nation?" Katara asked.

"No... no this is weird. It looks like Huojian, the symbols and stuff... but it seems to be put together like Whalesh. It's all left to right instead of the proper way. Let me see... 'Broke another one. Had to put it down," Aang said. He shook his head, and bade Sokka turn the page. This one managed to not crumble as it flopped over. "Two more over the cliff, and one of my handlers. Need to find a better way. The beasts are unreliable."

"What was he talking about?" Katara asked.

"I don't know. That word 'beast' isn't like the Fire Nation write it. Fire Nation beasts are all scaly, and the symbol reflects it. This is more... pilous than it is squamous."

"What?" Katara asked.

"Furry, not scaly," Sokka clarified. "You can tell that just by looking at the word?"

"Huojian's a fun language. You should give it a try some time."

"I know enough," Sokka said uncomfortably. "Can we move on?"

"I still don't like this place."

Sokka noted Aang's opinion, but moved on. That door still bugged Sokka. Something was past it, he could just feel it. He knocked on the door, and glanced into the key hole. He let out an 'a-ha!' when he saw that there was something in the lock. He stuck a daub of stick-paste onto a twig and jammed it into the lock, waited for a few seconds, then gave a heave. There was a loud clunk as the locked, jammed for the key broken off inside it, finally gave way and opened.

"That was kinda impressive," Aang admitted.

"Thank you, thank you," Sokka took a bow.

"Leave it to my brother to showcase how good a criminal he'd be," Katara said sweetly as she moved through the door."

"You're welc...Hey!" Sokka shouted. She loved to yank him, she really did.

Aang moved out ahead of him, bearing the torch and throwing light into the chamber. This place was half-collapsed, which did little to disguise how massive it had once been. By Sokka's estimation, if one went on a straight path through one of the piles of scree, one would arrive right outside. "This is amazing," Katara said.

It really was. While much of the gold had fallen from the stone, especially where the stone itself had given way, enough of it remained gilded to the walls, to the ceiling, to leave them standing in awe. Sokka noted a more proper torch, if one long dried, sitting against a block of fallen roof. A quick dollop of lamp-oil and Sokka had a second source of light. It was truly impressive that, despite how much of the room gave way, it was neither exposed to the heavens nor reduced to pitiful size. Half of it was probably gone, but the half that remained was big enough to make King Bumi's throne-room seem like a closet. As well, chains, almost lost completely to rust, littered the floor in seemingly random piles.

"What is this place?" Aang asked.

"Maybe those have something to do with it," Katara offered, pointing to one of the walls. Sokka moved closer. The paint on this wall was badly faded; only the blues remained vibrant, and for that reason alone could Sokka figure out what the mural was communicating. There were Air Nomads depicted, shaven headed and blue arrowed, but they seemed to be toiling, and oddly dressed people cracked whips above them. The picture was quite incomplete. This section had only survived because it was so far away from the devastation.

"What does this mean?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know," Aang said, but he looked quite disturbed at seeing his people seemingly enslaved.

"I don't remember ever hearing about something like this," Katara said. "Was this part of the Fire Nation's plan?"

"I don't know," Aang's voice became more agitated.

"I don't think this was the Fire Nation," Sokka said, as much as he hated saying the words. "I mean, look at this place. There isn't a scorch anywhere. And this place was like this for a lot longer than a century, I can tell you that much. Aang, did anything else happen to the Air Nomads before the Fire Nation..."

"**I DON'T KNOW!**"

Both siblings took a step back, because when Aang shouted, it was with a chorus of a thousand voices, and the blue arrow on his head flared white for a moment.

"It's alright, Aang," Katara quickly set in. "We don't know either. But we're going to help you find out, alright?"

The white light faded, and Aang seemed to slump a little. Wow. This was affecting the kid a lot more than Sokka would have guessed. Since he was fairly sure anything he said at this point would just make things worse, he wandered to where the scree started, cutting the room in half. He shook his head. How many wonders like this were lost to the modern age, because people never bothered to write about them? As he turned, his eye caught just a glimmer of reflection. He turned back, and noted yes, there was metal. Carefully, he moved up that scree, and found that when he stepped, it was with a metallic clank rather than a stony crackle. Where his footsteps left, bright bronze showed through from centuries, perhaps millennia of dust. He took a step back, then began to wipe the surface with his hand. Under that dust was masterful bronzework, still intact after all these years. At first, he thought it a dome, if one with a weird growth near one side of it. But then, he found the holes, leading under it.

"Katara, Aang, take a look at this," Sokka said, leaning down to see what was underneath.

"Can it wait, Sokka?" Katara asked.

"I don't know," Sokka said honestly. He heard them approach, and cast a glance at them, "Aang, how big would you say Appa's head is?"

"About as big as..." Aang said, beginning to point toward the dome. "Wait..."

Sokka pointed into the blackness which ran under it. All looked down and beheld what he had: A bridle. A bridle for something massive, with a furry, round head.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Sokka said, resting a hand on the bronze, "but doesn't this look like a war-helmet for a sky bison?"

The three siblings in deed, if not in blood, all pondered that in silence. The room seemed to get a bit smaller as they did.

* * *

><p>It was galling how that strange girl in the patched yellow clothing had so swiftly overtaken them. One moment, she was hovering over Nila's shoulder while she made herself some cash, and the next, she was horning in with the sisters and joining their conversations like she had some sort of right to be there. She wanted to say it was because she didn't like the idea of somebody sticking their nose in where it didn't belong. But the truth of it was, she just didn't like being pushed aside again.<p>

It had quickly gotten to the point where that Malu girl had gotten both of the twins... wrong term, Nila, she thought to herself. Two of the septuplets, rather... off ahead, an arm around each, talking with a sort of animation and energy which was usually ascribed only to lemurs and earnest drunks. That left her, trailing behind, further as the girls drifted ahead. Nila could have caught up if she wanted to, but that would have made her appear desperate. And she would not appear desperate. She had her pride.

Pity her pride was consigning her to loneliness again.

She sighed, glancing toward the south again. She knew that Sharif was that direction somewhere. How she knew, she couldn't say for the life of her. She hadn't seen any physical trail of him, nor any description in the longest time. But then again, very few were willing to talk to her. Something massively destructive and unpleasant had occurred in this town not too long ago, and had left the locals rattled. And yet she knew her brother was South. For all she was a believer in science and the observable, that she unswervingly put her faith into what was nothing more tangible than an intuition ought have aggravated her to profanity, but for some reason it did not. To her, it was as immutable as the laws of mathematics. Numbers made sense, and Sharif being south made sense.

"I guess I'm on my own again," Nila said with a fairly unexpected note of despondency. To tell the truth, she had come to truly enjoy Tzu Zi's presence. It was something that she'd never had before; a friend and a peer. Somebody who, even in disagreement, could be civil, kind, and considerate. And now, Tzu Zi had found somebody better. Nila wasn't about to fool herself and believe she as an easy person to get along with. That Tzu Zi had stuck so far was a matter of lack of options. And now, Nila had been replaced. Well, good for her.

In time, the bitter taste in her mouth would go away, right?

She turned from the street where she could now barely see the brightness of _that girl_ and her only friend ahead, and began to put the sun to her side, and to walk. She had already walked miles upon miles, and done so alone. So she would again. It wouldn't be that hard.

"Is that her?" a voice asked in the shadows of the alley.

"Yeah, the lippy one," a familiar tone answered. Nila turned.

"What do you want?" she asked, taking a step back. Straight back, in fact, into a man's chest.

"Doesn't look like much of a bombsmith," that first voice said again. Nila turned and reached into her robes, pulling out a roughly rust-colored lemon.

"Don't do anything stupid, boy," the well-built man said.

"I'M A GIRL!" Nila shouted, and then hurled the lemon at him. It bounced off his head, which stunned him for the moment it took to detonate and sent a cloud of curry powder into his face. He fell with a snarl, clawing at his searing eyes, and she bounded over him. This had gone from bleak to dangerous faster than she had predicted, and things went from dangerous to deadly faster still.

Stepping out from the mouth of the alley she'd ducked into came two others. One of them was a wiry man in a green, somewhat shiny vest. He had a patchy mustache and womanish lips and eyes. The other hosted a broad scar crossing most of his face. Both had weapons drawn. She reached in for another lemon.

As her hand came out, there was a screech, and something green and fast slammed into her hand, knocking it away. Nila pulled back, trying to throw the lizard parrot away from her face before it could claw her eyes out, but the distraction proved long enough that a thick hand leveled upon her shoulder, and she felt her legs get kicked out from under her. She managed to land with her nose to the lemon she'd just dropped, and at the proper instant for it to explode into her face. Her first reaction was to let out a scream of pain, but that was cut off when that same thick hand covered her mouth.

The pain was outstanding, but not unfamiliar. This wasn't the first time one of her incendiary lemons had gone off in her face. But quite alarmingly, she was having a very hard time breathing, because her mouth was covered. That she was effectively blinded only made the whole situation worse. A level of panic began to well up in Nila. She had to find a way to get free, but now her arms were being torqued up and bound, and she was finally heaved up off of the muck.

"I hear you can make explosives. I like what I see," the threatening voice in her face said. She considered herself somewhat lucky that she couldn't smell right now, even if it was due to unspeakable pain and a state of loss-of-breath that might become terminal if he didn't remove his hand soon. "I have need of somebody with your skills. I can offer you a pittance for your troubles, if it's to your liking."

He finally removed his hand.

"Go to hell," Nila spat at him.

"So that's your answer?" the man asked. "Pity. Then I guess I'll amend my deal. You either make explosives for me, or I kill you."

"Open my veins, _lohtri_, I am not afraid!"

"Not yet, maybe," he answered. "But we'll see about that."

* * *

><p>Aang had reached a point of cold, numb sweat as they plumbed yet deeper. He couldn't deny what Sokka had found. A cursory excavation showed that the rest of a bison's armor was buried near the helm. That raised implications which Aang not only thought impossible, but desperately didn't want to think about. Airbenders outfitting for war? It was inconceivable!<p>

"Aang, are you alright? You look a big green," Katara asked, moving the torch a bit closer to him. "Do you need to sit down? Or is this that altitude sickness you were talking about?"

It wasn't altitude sickness. Aang could practically fly into outer space, if it weren't for the cold and the need for Appa to breathe in order to fly. "I just don't like this place," Aang said simply, and quietly. They couldn't be airbenders. They simply couldn't.

"Guys, I found something else," Sokka called from ahead, in the darkness. Katara reached to him, and gave his hand a comforting squeeze.

"Don't worry. Whatever it is, we're right here for you. You don't need to be afraid," she said. He nodded, but that numb feeling didn't leave him. This wasn't right.

He followed the calls of Katara's brother, and swiftly noticed that they were entering a place much brighter than the forges behind them. This one was open to the air, and glacial snow heaped out of a doorway, marred by the tracks of a scrabbling Tribesman. Aang, his humor and patience at dangerously low levels, simply lashed out with a blast of wind, and smashed the snow out of the doorway, if at the cost of spreading it quite a ways back the hall as well. There was a lot of snow, apparently. Katara pulled him up, more than stood with him, because whatever was up here, he wasn't sure if he could stand to see it.

Which was why he blinked in confusion when he beheld an all too familiar sight. Pillars of wood, so soaked in creosote that they were intact, notably black, and possibly petrified after however many years facing the elements, poked up in a recognizable pattern from the snow. Aang guessed that they were probably twelve feet off the surface of the ground. A glance to either end of the open space showed that there were rings of bronze spiked into the stone. Aang brightened a bit at the sight. "Airball?" he asked. "There's airball here? This place must have been a Temple, once!"

"Aang, that isn't all I found," Sokka said, his tone grim. He pulled something out of the snow and held it at arm's length. At first, Aang thought it was just another ball for the game, but the gingerly way Sokka held it told him otherwise. The hollow sphere was not hardened leather stretched over yew wood, but razor-sharp bronze. He wagered if he sent that spinning and somebody didn't catch it just right, it would take a hand off.

"Why would somebody make something like this? It's a hazard!"

"I think I'm starting to see a pattern here," Sokka said quietly, setting the dangerous play-implement aside.

"Sokka," Katara said in a warning tone

Her brother didn't even get indignant. He just looked at her, like he knew that something was going to go wrong, and knew that he was being cruel for remaining silent. "Come on. The storm is blowing past below. We should probably go back."

**The Avatar returned, as an airbender's child.**

At that moment, Aang didn't much like those voices that whispered in his mind. Part of him wanted them to just be quiet. Another part wanted them to tell him what they knew. It was confusing. It was confusing and painful, and Aang really didn't know whether he was better off with a painful truth, or wandering in ignorance.

**There were airbenders before the Air Nomads.**

"Since when?" Aang asked. Both siblings turned to him.

"Since what?" Sokka asked.

"Never mind," Aang dismissed, rubbing the back of his bald head. He moved down the snow-caked airball field, trying to put this madness behind him. It would be so simple to open his glider and run away. Every whit of his being demanded it. But there were those voices, those quiet voices, that demanded no. That demanded resolve. That demanded endurance. But still, he was practically shaking as he walked under another of those tri-scourge standards, wrought in long forgotten gold, and returned to the fortress in the mountain.

"Aang, you don't need to do this alone," Sokka said.

"Sokka, leave him alone. He's..."

"He needs to see this," Sokka said. "Obviously he believes it too, or he'd have said otherwise, right?"

"I don't know what all this means," Aang said, walking the claustrophobic stone halls. No airbender would live like this. To be enclosed was to be in hell. It was why the greatest blasphemy which could befall an Air Nomad was burial; to be encroached by earth against their skin for all eternity? There could be no greater indignity. It was why the Air Temples were all so open, so broad. Even if they did get unreasonably cold quite often, the fact that nobody was ever hemmed in was far more important than how much wood needed to burn to keep the little ones warm. Everything that he knew about himself, about his own culture told him that this had to be some sort of hoax. He almost passed a broad corridor before stopping, and letting the light from Sokka's torch cast more clearly. No. It couldn't be.

**Our greatest sin. Our greatest failure.**

This time, it was one voice in particular that stood out. A voice of a woman. A voice ashamed. He walked toward the ornate boss, practically identical to the one which had adorned the heart of the South Air Temple, its horns and sweeping colors knotting around the door. This time, though, the colors were not soft and warm, but sanguinary and harsh. His face drew into a scowl, and he took a launching stride forward, and released a roaring wind which slammed up those horns. Where the song of the South was a trill of a bird announcing the arrival of spring after a long winter, the song which played here, as the locks popped open one-by-one was a cadence for war.

The door swung open.

This was an airbender fortress.

"Aang, I thought the Air Nomads were peaceful," Katara said, concern plain in her voice.

"We are. We were. I am!" Aang said, not really sure which tense or plurality to employ. "This doesn't make any sense! We were pacifist monks; we cared about enlightenment and spirituality, about completeness and peace. Not... this," he waved around him broadly.

"Then what is going on here?" Sokka asked. "I saw that mural. Were the Air Nomads ever enslaved?"

"I don't know," Aang said.

"You don't know your own history?" Sokka asked.

"I slept through a lot of history courses," Aang said, walking to the threshold. "It used to drive the Elders up the walls. Now I... I wish I hadn't."

The smell of this room was musty and dull. The fire's light reached the walls, but only just. And only then, to show that this place, unlike the heart of the Temple of the South, was not a spiritual center. It had a very clear function. A function made absolutely certain by the thick, crumbling chains which hung from great rings dug hard into the stone of the mountain. Even so fallen to rust, Aang wagered that it would take all three of them to lift one degraded link of such a chain. It was a chain meant to restrain something of unbelievable strength and size. Sokka moved off, and the light grew dimmer around him. This was a prison. For bison.

"It's alright, Aang. We're here with you."

"I just don't understand," Aang said, tears fighting very hard to get out of his eyes. He'd never been this confused in his life. The Air Nomads were peaceful! They never fought anybody!

**I did what I had to do.**

"Now I _can_ read this," Sokka announced. He started to flip through a book which he'd plucked from an assortment shelved, carefully of course since it was in about as bad shape as the previous tome. "Man, this is crazy dialect. Um... Yeah! 'Cow eighteen gave three. One worth keeping. The rest culled," Sokka said.

"Culled?" Aang asked, his stomach rattling about his feet.

Sokka just gave him a glance, which told him that he _really_ didn't want to know. He turned down to the book again. "'Cow five had a null litter. Her third. No longer producing usefully. Cull her. Cow eleven produced two bulls. Sent for battle-hardening."

"No," Aang said, moving to Sokka. He turned the book over, looking at the binding. He knew that skin. The leather backs of the books was the skin of a bison. "No airbender would **ever treat the bison like that.**"

"Aang, calm down!" Katara stressed, taking his hand.

"**This is a lie! It has to be!**" Aang's voice now echoed a chorus.

"Oh, crap. Katara, he's starting to glow again!"

"**WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?**" the chorus demanded, and the world faded to white.

But it was not a complete white. This time, there was another with him. A woman, dressed in a wrapping dress of violet and red and gold, with a hood pulled forward over her brow. Her skin was dark, like a Tribesman's, but there was something quite different about the shape of her face. Something... somewhat familiar. A chain ran from a ring in her nostril to a second ring in her ear. Red markings peeked from the neckline, a pair of scarlet arrows with their points touching right at the base of her neck. Her eyes were very, very tired.

"The great shame of the airbenders," the woman said. "_My_ great shame. And your history, young Avatar."

"Who are you?" Aang's voice echoed, quite unlike hers, in that blank expanse.

"I am Avatar Vajrapata," she said, raising dark grey eyes, much like his own. "The _final_ Avatar of the Storm Kings."

* * *

><p>Tzu Zi stepped away from the stall, gleefully nibbling on the candy-on-a-stick that her sister's money had provided. Of course, Rai Lee was being as quiet as usual, so it was actually Tzu Zi and the new girl, Malu, who dominated the conversation. "And then, I'm running from a mob of angry, superstitious villagers, trying to keep a badger hare balanced on my head and holding my pants up with one hand, and it occurs to me... Where did I leave my walking stick?" Malu let out a peal of laughter at that, before aggressively biting into her own confection. "That had to have been one of my crazier afternoons."<p>

"Um, g-girls? What happened t-to Nila?" Rai Lee asked, her dark eyes flitting around.

"What do you mean? She's right behind us," Tzu Zi said, but when she turned, it was obvious that she wasn't. There wasn't nearly enough crowd to conceal her, but there was no evidence of her despite that. "Oh. Oh, she's not behind us. Who saw her last?"

The two girls, despite their differences in height, complexion, and coloring, both sported almost identical expressions of contrition. "Are you telling me we lost our friend?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Friend?" Malu asked. "Are you sure she's your friend? She had some fairly harsh things to say about you."

"That's just Nila's way. She's like a puppy who never learned a better way to show affection than to bite people. If you understand her, she's actually really sweet."

"I'll take your word for it," Malu said. "Hm... Maybe the buildings are in the way."

"If only T-Ty Lee were here, she could get a b-bird's eye view of the whole t-town!" Rai Lee bemoaned.

"That's a great idea!" Malu perked up. Then, she twisted on her ankle, and shot up an impressive distance, straight up in the air, spinning a full turn before drifting down toward the ground, far slower than she should have. She shook her head. "I don't see her, girls."

Tzu Zi just stared at her, agog. "You just jumped... and went fifteen feet in the air!"

Malu scratched her hair, looking up. "Really? I thought it was more like twenty."

"How did you do that?" Tzu Zi asked, but Rai Lee grew a bit pale.

"She's... are you an airbender?" the quiet girl asked.

"Maybe," Malu said. "Well? Are we going to stand around, or are we going to save your vitriolic best buddy?"

"Can't disagree with her enthusiasm," Tzu Zi noted.

"I'm... I'm sorry, but I c-can't," Rai Lee said, taking a step back.

"It's alright, little sister," Tzu Zi said, pulling her twin into a hug. "I know how much this stuff freaks you out. Just let me and... the airbender... work it out. Besides, we had our visit, didn't we?"

"It was g-great seeing you. I wish K-Kah Ri could come my way more often. I miss her, t-too."

"We all do, Sis. We all do," Tzu Zi kissed her sister on the cheeks. "Good luck, and try to stay away from the storms."

"And t-try not to get yourself k-k-killed," Rai Lee said helpfully, before moving back toward the wharf where her boat was docked. Tzu Zi turned to Malu.

"I can't ask you to come along. I've only known you for... well, about an hour, but..."

"It's my job to help people," Malu said plainly, nibbling on the now benuded stick which once held a candy the size of a grapefruit. Tzu Zi hadn't even licked a hairsbreadth off of hers, yet. "Besides, if I can't help people who need me, then what kind of example and I showing?"

"Well, I appreciate your help. The question is, did she get lost, or get kidnapped?"

"Probably the second one," Malu said. Tzu Zi paused, turning to her.

"What makes you think that?"

"Have you met her?" Malu asked. A frown came to her, when she realized that her food was gone. "Why am I still hungry?"

"Well, if she was kidnapped, who could have been involved? She didn't do anything after leaving the ship!"

Malu shook her head. "No, she sold bombs to that man on the docks. Maybe he knows something. He might have been the last one to see her."

"Well, it looks like we've got a lead!" Tzu Zi said, her enthusiasm returning with gusto.

* * *

><p>Nila blinked past tears which she didn't wish to create, but flowed freely from her wounded eyes. Everything was blurry, so she could make out the shapes of the people, but none of the fine features. She could also feel the heavy manacle which circled her neck and the chain which secured her to the wall. Her breath came at a wheeze, since quite a bit of that powdered pepper went up her nose, and since they had been quite unkind about not providing her with milk to ease the burn, it was remarkably unpleasant to be her at this moment.<p>

"Good gods, look at all of this booty," the pirates said, their backs to her. Which was probably for the best, because they hadn't left her a stitch to wear, and she'd had to drag a tattered blanket over herself for some semblance of decency. That they immediately went about pillaging and ransacking her stockpile of explosives, combustibles and volatiles which she kept strapped under her robes spoke to her that their greed was in far excess of their rapacity, a fact that she was quite thankful for at the moment. "We could sell this and be in wenches and grog for years!"

"Yes, and we have a source for more," the captain, obvious for the broad hat if nothing else, intoned. He walked over to her, causing her to clutch that blanket a bit closer. "Now, have you changed your mind? Working for us won't be so bad. And if you agree now, we might give you something more than a moldy blanket for those cold, cold nights."

"I spit on your grandfathers' graves!" Nila said. Her hands hitched higher, exposing the tattooes which started at her fingertips spreading up her forearms like an untempered fire, licking at but failing to reach her elbow before they finally tapered to nothing.

He stared at her for a moment, the complexity of his expression lost on her wounded eyes, before a hand flashed out of nowhere and smashed her across the face. "Alright. Since you're not going to listen to reason, I'll just let you stew for a bit. After that, I'm going to ask you again, and if you still say no, then I'm going to start taking things away from you," he pushed her head back against the wood behind her. "Since somebody's already got your hair, I'm probably going to start with that blanket and work from there. So think nice and hard, little girl."

Nila glared, as best she could with running eyes, at the man, until he gave her one last shove which pushed her off onto the floor. He laughed as they ransacked the pinnacle of her alchemical career, and for nothing but profit. And most gallingly, not hers.

If she were a more introspective woman, Nila would have wondered why she cried on one boat and not another. Or perhaps not, because the two ships were wholly different. There, it had been a crisis of heart. This was simple bondage. She felt no need to weep, here. She would fight to the bitter end, without consideration to dignity or shame; she had something to prove. She was stronger than the worst the world had to throw at her. And she would endure what came.

Because above all other things, all other attributes, all other descriptive words that happened to start with 's', Nila was stubborn, and she would survive this. She caught a whiff of something. She moved to the end of her chain, and sniffed again. One of the barrels of ale had gone off, turned to malt vinegar. She looked behind her, as a stubborn smirk came to her face. She wouldn't _just_ survive this. Now, she had a plan.

* * *

><p>Toph wasn't about to complain about walking. To have bare feet against earth was a particular and often-neglected joy of hers. Shoe-edness was a trial that she had managed to avoid by simple luck, on the part that Dad didn't manage to find any of her footwear in his mad, panicked dash from their burning house. Of course, he'd left behind most of everything. It had been Mom who made sure they had enough to make it even to Keung's abode, on the outskirts of Gaoling. That surprised the hell out of Toph, to be honest. She'd thought her mother would fall absolutely apart when the slightest misfortune befell them. Instead, she just... changed.<p>

"Toph, have you finished eating?" Mom asked.

"Yes, mother," Toph said idly.

"Have you seen your father?"

"I haven't seen _anything_," Toph answered sarcastically, before part of her brain lurched to a halt. Why would Mom, of all people, ask her that?

"Well, do you know where he went? He was complaining about his feet a moment ago," she said. Toph idly pointed to where she could 'see' him, talking to another man at great volume and vivacity. "Thank you."

"Mom," Toph quickly interrupted. "Are you alright?"

"Why do you ask, my dear?" Mom asked.

"You just... You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would," Toph said.

"Lao would probably say the exact same thing about you," Poppy Beifong said, running a hand down Toph's hair.

"You're dodging my question, Mom," Toph said, without humor.

"No I'm not," she said. And it was a lie. Toph could tell a lot of things with her unique 'vision'. She could see everything near her, from the Ostrich Horses all the way down to the ants under the ground. She could see in every direction at once. And she could tell when somebody was trying to lie to her.

"Mom..." she said, intolerant.

"Well," Poppy answered, leaning down before Toph. "Between you and me... I've done this before."

"What? When?"

"I wasn't always a trophy wife," she intimated. "I wasn't even always Yingsu."

"What?" Toph asked.

"I know," Mom said, and then turned away. The way she said that, the intonation, the surety, struck Toph. She couldn't mean what Toph thought she meant. There was no way fragile, delicate, frail Yingsu Beifong – no way Mom – could know. No way she could have even come to know! "Oh, I swear to gods, what is he doing?"

"He's talking to a valet," Toph said, picking out the gist of the conversation.

"A valet? He's... Oh, gods, he's going to rent a carriage, isn't he?" she shook her head, palming her face.

"Four pounds of gold isn't going to take us very far, is it?"

"The next town," Mother confirmed. "Well, it looks like I need to put my foot down."

Oh, there was no way Toph was going to miss this. After her mother stormed toward Dad, Toph crept a bit closer, keeping an ear toward them, if not her eyes. Mostly because her eyes were only useful to sense the changes of the wind.

"Lao, what are you doing?" Mother asked, annoyance plain in her tone.

"I'm getting us passage north," Dad said patiently. "You don't need to worry. We'll get to..."

"To what? We won't even reach Pojiu De Shangren if we rent that thing," Mom pointed out.

"Well, I'm sure I can come to some agreement with..."

"And what about food, Lao?" Mom asked. "Is the wagonneer going to feed us as well? And what if we become ill, or hurt? Is he going to tend to our wounds and illnesses?"

"I don't understand, Poppy. What's brought this out in you?"

"Lao, as much as I do love you, there are times I want to strangle you," Mother said in a kindly tone. "You are good with vast sums of money, but with a pittance, you are hopeless."

"Well... Are you saying you could do better?" Lao asked, somewhat insulted.

To answer Dad's question, Mom turned to somebody not too far away, who was hitching a pair of birds to his own cart, and addressed him, switching from the metropolitan dialect of Ba Sing Se Tianxia to the atonal, local Gaoling version. "Excuse me, are you heading north?"

"Yeah, back to my home in Makapu," the stranger answered.

"Would you mind if we ride in the back? My daughter is blind, and I don't know if she could make the journey on foot," Toph could feel the lie in that. Wait... did that mean that Mom knew Toph was fully capable of legging it from one side of the continent to the other? All earthbenders trained for stamina, and she was no exception. But how did Mom know that?

"Is that her?" the stranger asked, pointing at Toph. Toph made a point of looking good and helpless. Mom nodded. "Well, it'd be criminal not to. Go ahead. Lots of room, just try not to crush the cabbages. I had enough trouble getting them. The vendor is a touchy old guy."

"Bless you, good sir, bless you," Mom said, bowing to him. She then took a few steps back to Dad, crossed her arms before her bust, and stood defiant. "There. Transport to Makapu village for nothing. We still have four pounds of gold for food, medicine, shelter, and everything else that could go wrong."

"But... we'll be riding in the back of a cabbage wagon," Dad said weakly.

"Would you rather walk? Would you rather _Toph_ walked?" Mom asked. Dad seemed to wilt at that.

"No, dear," he said. She leaned forward, and patted him on the cheek.

"See, all we have to do is make some little sacrifices, and we'll be at our estate in the Heel before we know it."

"But what about Tuofu? Won't this hurt her constitution?" Dad asked. Oh, thanks, dad. I'm so weak that even riding would kill me. Toph stuck her tongue out at her father from that place where Dad couldn't see her.

"Toph will be alright," Mom said calmly. "She's tougher than she looks. After all, she is my daughter."

"That doesn't reassure me," Lao said quietly.

"Then believe me. She'll be fine. We'll all be fine," she said, leaning closer. "Trust me."

"I do trust you," he said. "I just... Don't know what I'm doing right now."

"That's alright, beloved," Mom said. "_I_ do."

* * *

><p>The hunger was setting her on edge. There were no two ways about that. But she had to focus. Tzu Zi was a sweet girl, and Malu had promised to find her friend. Malu kept her word, as often as she could, anyway. Tzu Zi's dark eyes managed to be somehow – oxymoronically, even – bright as she scanned the region of the harborfront where Malu had first bumped into them. Even though she was fairly sure she'd been here before, the place had gotten big. It sprawled without rhythm or plan, that much was obvious. "What about him?" Tzu Zi asked, the tenth time so far.<p>

"No, he had a better complexion than that," Malu said. "I'll know him when I see him. Just calm down."

"I can't calm down. I'm worried about Nila."

"Nila's a big girl; she can take care of herself," Malu said. After standing on her tip-toes for a moment, she broke out into her own grin. "Ah, that's the one! Right over there."

"What if she can't, though?" Tzu Zi asked.

"How long have you been out in the world?" Malu asked.

"A bit more than a year. I miss my home, but I can't go back there," Tzu Zi said.

"Yeah, Ember can be a bit oppressive sometimes," Malu admitted, as she moved closer to the vendor whom she had hovered over the Si Wongi girl, hours before. She'd made it more than half way there before she realized she was bridging the distance alone. She turned back, and Tzu Zi had gone pale as an Azuli. "What's wrong? Did you see a centipede?"

"H...how did you know?" Tzu Zi asked quietly when Malu returned to her.

"I've known a lot of Nationals," Malu said. "A lot of them tried to kill me. Since you haven't, I have to assume you're one of the good ones."

"I...see..." Tzu Zi said. "Are you going to tell anybody?"

"Why?" Malu asked. "You're not hurting anybody, are you?"

"No."

"Then I've got no problem with you," Malu said brightly turning away. "And be glad. The last thing you want is someone like me mad at you."

"I can well imagine," Tzu Zi said, patronizing. She walked up to the man, who was in the process of closing his shop, even though the others looked like they could go another hour or so with the light as it was. "Hello. Have you seen a friend of mine? She's about my height? Really dark skin? Shaved head?"

The man glanced up at her, before shaking her head. "No. Never saw anybody like that," he answered, before ducking back down. Malu glared at him.

"That's a lie," Malu said. "You spoke to her for quite a while, and she even came within a foot of blowing up somebody's boat thing out there," Malu cast a finger behind her.

"I don't remember," He said, blithely lying to her face. On most days, she would have sparred with him, cracked his story apart piece by piece. The monks had taught her all of the tools of logic and rhetoric for just that reason. But today, there was a hunger threatening to eat her stomach right through her spine and out the back of her, and that made her testy. She cleared her throat, causing him to stand again, before casting forward a hand, and with it, a blast of wind. He was blasted back into his wares and pinned there while she quickly vaulted the counter. She clenched her fists, and when she did, the air solidified into bonds far stronger than any steel produced by Man, holding him in place, silencing him.

"Whoa, that's some stuff you got there," Tzu Zi noted, bounding over after the airbender.

"He does have some interesting trinkets," Malu noted.

"I was talking about you," Tzu Zi said. "I've never seen an airbender... airbend... before."

"That's odd," Malu muttered. She turned, and her keen eyes spotted what the man had been trying to hide, likely for resale after the two of them had left. It was a tube, as thick as two thumbs and as long as her handspan. On its surface were symbols in the flowing letters of the Si Wongi language, but since alchemy was one of the few areas which Malu had felt no need to attend to, their meaning evaded her. She held the stick up. "And so is this. Does this look familiar, Tzu Zi?"

Tzu Zi's dark eyes widened. "Ag... She had that under her robes!" she exclaimed. She turned to the vendor, who was still helplessly pinned. "Tell us the truth! Did you see what happened to her?"

He shook his head furiously, and as Malu watched, a change swept over Tzu Zi. Sweetness and light gave way to heat and wrath. The warm smile had given way to a heated glower. "I wouldn't lie to her again. I can't guarantee she won't snap," Malu said, releasing the bar of solidified air which had clamped his mouth shut.

"I didn't do anything to her," he said.

"You see, I don't believe that," Malu said. Tzu Zi took one step closer.

"Not myself! I just told the captain about her!" he stressed.

"What captain?" Malu asked, something of a growl behind her voice as her stomach rumbled for sustenance. Gods, it was like she hadn't eaten in years or something!

"The captain of the Emperor Chin's Revenge," he blurted. "He wanted somebody to making blasting jelly. The girl had something better. I took his money and I looked the other way."

"Where is that ship?" Tzu Zi demanded, righteous rage plain in her still otherwise perky voice.

"It's probably too late. He's likely into the shallows by now. You won't catch a rig like his on open water."

"Try me," Malu said. She chucked the stick of explosive to Tzu Zi. "And word of advice? Don't prey on strange girls. You might find they have powerful friends."

"I got my eye on you," Tzu Zi promised, pointing from her own eyes to his, and managing to scowl her way back out of the stall, as though scowling had become a means of transit. When she did, she let out a weary, desperate sigh. "Oh... what do we do? We can't follow them out to sea!"

"Why not?" Malu said. "We've still got light, he can't be more than two or three miles away."

"But the water! I don't know about you, but I don't think I can swim faster than a sail-ship."

"Oh, right," Malu said. "Man, losing my staff keeps coming around to bite me in the butt," she looked at the stall again, and an idea occurred to her. She leaned back in, grasping the tarpaulin which formed a goodly section of the roof. The proprietor was barely getting to his feet, and flinched back in terror when she returned. "One more thing. I'm going to have to borrow this."

"Borrow what?" he asked carefully. She answered him by heaving down, and stripping the tarp away from the frame which supported it. He let out a yelp of alarm as the structure teetered, and then fell in on him, burying him under a light scree of his own greed.

"What are you doing?" Tzu Zi asked.

"You're going to want to hold onto my waist," Malu said, flapping and folding the tarp into the proper shape. She'd never tried this exact trick before, but she wagered it would work. To her credit, Tzu Zi complied immediately and without question, locking her wrists around Malu's waist. The airbender twisted, gathering up the air into a ball hard enough to put through a brick wall, which she then hurled back against the stone which lay between two stalls. The stone cracked a bit with the impact, but the ball of spinning air stalled just a bit, as she needed and wanted it to. "Oh, and you're going to want to not look down for a little while."

"Why not?" Tzu Zi asked, glancing up with one big, brown eye.

The answer came when the spinning of the ball finally slowed just enough to launch it back off the wall, into the waiting bag that Malu had rigged of the tarp. Instantly, inertia became momentum, momentum which Malu angled upward as the two of them streaked above the water, held aloft by a ball of air in a cloth trap, the ingenuity of an airbender, and the screams of the two girls riding it. One of them screamed with delight, the other terror.

After the first minute, both had turned to overwhelmed laughter. And Tzu Zi didn't let go.

* * *

><p>"Avatar Vajrapata?" Aang asked. The woman nodded once, before shifting back the robe which had concealed part of her face. Her head had been shaved, and on her dark flesh a sweep of scarlet lines seemed to descend from behind her ears, meeting on the collar bones before their points converged at the base of her neck. "You're one of my past lives?"<p>

"There are many like me, you will come to find," Vajrapata said evenly. "Avatar Geet or Yangchen might be more familiar to you, perhaps?"

"I know that last one. She was the last airbender Avatar, wasn't she?" Aang asked. "She was an Air Nomad. What are you?"

"Weren't you listening, child? I am a... Well, I _was_ a Storm King," she answered, somewhat testy that he had forgotten. Or not understood. "You stand on the bones of a dead empire, child, one which the world held no mourning for its passing. Many great evils once took place here. Many great evils were perpetrated in its name. I was the first of my kind to stand against the indignities, the insanities which took place here. And that opposition cost me much."

"Wait... If I'm talking to you," Aang began, and then he clutched at his face. "Oh gods! I'm in the Avatar State right now, aren't I? What am I doing?"

"Relax, child, the others stay your hand," Vajrapata placated, showing that the arrows on her arms held a tight spiral, and split to point down her thumb and smallest finger, rather than ending on the back of her hand. She seemed to gaze somewhere else a moment. "But the one you find a sister in is also doing much to bear away your confusion and fear. It is good that you found one such as she, child. The path is bleak indeed for those who cannot."

"So I'm not hurting them?" Aang pressed.

"Do you want to?" she asked.

"No!"

"Then you have your answer," Vajrapata stated.

Aang shook his head. "What are the Storm Kings?"

"We are a reaction against what came before us, just as you are a reaction against what came before you," she said. "You admire peace above all other things, you live in harmony with the beasts of the land. We... Did not."

"This place is a fortress," Aang said. "A fortress for airbenders."

"We had many," she nodded. "Most lost to time. And unmourned. As the passing of evil should be."

"If you were one of them, how did you become Avatar?"

"The Avatar was born a Storm King, not the other way around," Vajrapata said with a grunt of annoyance. "Did you not learn anything of your history?" when he just shrugged sheepishly, she palmed her face. "I see. We were a blight on the world, created from a promise never to be enslaved again. This is what became of that 'lofty' goal. From slaves to slavers, from prisoners to wardens. Because of the tyranny of the Storm Kings, five of the eight avatars before and after me had almost no use of airbending at all. We guarded our secrets jealously, vehemently. But in me, an unexpected thing occurred," she said.

"What?"

She opened her eyes, and they blazed with brilliant white light as a new arrow came into being, pointing white and strong down from the center of her brow. She closed her eyes, and the arrow went away. "The Avatar was born as the daughter of slaves."

"Wait, that's an airbender's mastery! But... What do _those_ mean?"

"These are markings of war," she said, showing her hand. "I had little choice but to take them, to slough my proper heritage, to abandon my mother and my father, even my very name. I was a daughter of a bison-keeper, not a prince, nor a warrior. And that meant that others saw in me a chance for change. A chance I took."

"What kind of change?"

"I struck the wound which festered until it destroyed the Storm Kings," she said. "I freed the slaves. I let the underclass, the bearers of the reviled Blue Mark, be free. And they took with them the secrets the Storm King needed kept. It withered, and it died. Because I demanded my people be free. The name of my birth was once an ironic thing, but in time, proved to be quite apt. Because I _did_ bring freedom to my people. Your people, Aang."

"Are you saying that you're my ancestor?"

"Perhaps, although probably not," she admitted. "But the Air Nomads, those peaceful monks, they are my children in more ways than simple biology."

"My people were enslaved," Aang said. "By other airbenders, even."

"Your path is one that other Avatars have walked, the liberator, the chain-breaker. You will bring down a tyrant, and you will do so soon."

"But I don't know anything about being the Avatar," Aang said, shame in his voice and the down-cast of his eyes.

"You will learn, child. We all learn," she said, gazing down at the markings on her own hands. "No matter how much it costs us."

* * *

><p>Nila looked up as she heard a rattling at her the door to the cell. Her hand closed, shifting under her, as the other pulled that stinking blanket to her chest. The captain stepped in, preceded by his hat, and looked upon her with eyes impassionate. For a moment, it was like the way that Mother would look at people she found irrelevant. It could have been far worse. Simple calculation was a good thing, in Nila's situation. Lust would have been far worse.<p>

"You've had some time to think things over," the man said, tucking his thumbs behind his belt. "We're now far enough from shore that nobody could catch us unless they were riding the very winds, so you can forget whatever rescue you thought was coming for you. Your options are dwindling."

"And yet you still deign to give me a choice," Nila said, trying to get to her feet, but the chain around her neck prevented it, so she could only manage a stoop. "Do you believe yourself a good man, pirate? Or at least, a fair one?"

"If I did, I would have taken another job," the man said with a smirk.

"Which baffles me," Nila said, one hand still pressed closed behind her. "Why even offer? And then, why offer something against something so light as humiliation?"

The captain scowled, tilting his head. "Are you _trying_ to make this worse for yourself?"

"I'm just confused. A pirate would have demanded I work for him, or he'd strip me naked and throw me to the scant mercies of the crew. And yet you offer me payment first. Why is that? What do you have to prove?" Nila asked.

"You've been mulling, but not about the right thing," the captain said.

"I do all my best mulling when I'm in chains," Nila answered sarcastically.

"Then maybe a few more would be to your liking?" he countered. Then, a slow smile spread across his face. "Oh, I see what you're doing. You think stalling will somehow, magically make help appear? Well, you're out of luck. Like I said, we're at sea. You're all alone. And all the stalling in the world won't change that."

A bead of sweat began to slide down Nila's temple. So he figured her out, did he? Well, he missed one very important thing, and when he took a step toward her, she readied herself to use it. Just one crunch, and then the burning would begin. She just had to make sure she wasn't the only one who got it. She had just about started when the captain paused, leaning back behind him.

"What is that racket?" he shouted behind him from the door.

"Helmsman's not at his post," the answer came from that womanish one outside.

"Then find him!"

"Aye, captain."

The captain turned back to her. "Now, where were we on the matter of my new weapons?"

It was all about timing. And Nila had excellent timing.

* * *

><p>The ship was quiet. Just the way that sailors liked it at night. They were a superstitious lot, but considering the state of the oceans these days, superstition or not, anything which brought them home from the wild seas was accepted with open and willing arms. There had been a time when just about any man could turn to the sea and earn a living upon it. In recent decades, that number had been winnowed down to the barest, hardiest of numbers, men with brine in their veins and the sea in their souls. Men and women who, even with their thousand years of ancestry in the Earth Kingdoms, were but one whit away from producing waterbenders. Pirates were no less, and in many ways more than those fishermen and traders; not only did they have to brave the seas which were wrathful and cruel at best, they had to endure the cruelties of man atop them, forgoing safe harbor in storms for fear of the gibbet. Thus, it could not be said that pirates did not keep an eye to the horizon.<p>

But they never looked straight up.

One of them was standing next to the helm, his hand upon the wheel as he checked the chart which rest under waxed and air-tight glass. Sailing these shallows was treacherous in the day. In the night, it was a whole other nightmare. If they ran aground, there was practically no hope of getting dislodged before another storm came to swamp them. So his focus was keen, and careful. But even so, it was not so absolute that he didn't hear the thump of something moderately light landing behind him.

He turned, with a querulous expression, and saw a girl with black hair regaining her balance, a bucket in her hands. She looked down at the bucket, then back to him, and a guilty smile came to her face. "Wow," she said. "This ship really does rock about, doesn't it?"

The man took a deep breath, preparing to shout 'Intruders' no doubt, so Tzu Zi beat him to the punch by smashing him in the stomach with a paddle from the boat that they'd landed in the first time Malu touched down on the ship. The blow knocked the air from the pirate's lungs, enabling Malu to succeed in her second attempt to bucket the man's head, before sweeping her arms in a broad motion, and the wind howled briefly as a springboard of air flipped the man over the rail and into the waters.

"See, I told you we should have just done that first," Tzu Zi said.

"He would have shouted," Malu pointed out.

"He almost did anyway!"

"Shh!" Malu said. "Oh, bugger, I think they saw him go..."

"Man overboard!" the call raised up.

"...Bugger!" Malu hissed. She took a deep breath, obviously forcing calm into herself so that her face became a mask of tranquility. "Alright. This is good. They'll be distracted looking for him."

"We need to find Nila," Tzu Zi stressed. "We can't skulk about all night. Can you imagine what they're doing to her?"

"Then we'd better get moving," Malu said. "At least they haven't seen us yet."

"Who's that at the helm?" a man's voice came from the center of the ship.

"...BUGGER!" Malu shouted. Once again, she calmed herself. More quietly, she whispered. "Alright. This is good. They'll be looking for me and they won't notice you when you look for your friend."

"Are you going to be alright?"

"I survived the Day of Fire. I can survive some pirates," Malu said. "Go!"

Tzu Zi nodded. "Thank you," she whispered, before she darted out of sight as the sound of footfalls began to stamp up the stairwell leading up to the helm deck. With almost complete silence, she slid off the overhang opposite the stairs, watching as two of them stomped up to Malu.

"Excuse me, could you help me? I think I've gotten a bit lost. Was I supposed to turn _left_ to reach Ba Sing Se?" Malu asked.

Oh, you cheeky girl, Tzu Zi thought as she slipped through the door. The guts of the ship were probably filled with loot and booty... if there was a difference between the two, she didn't know for sure... but Tzu Zi would be searching for human cargo. That she hadn't found Nila lashed to the mast or tied over the catapult was a good enough sign to start with.

"Maybe there's some sort of hold for prisoners?" Tzu Zi said to herself, as she heard a loud thump above her. Well, it looked like diplomacy had failed. She needed to go deeper. She spotted the first ladder heading down and glanced down it. She could hear people rising from below her, and she quickly ducked around a corner, back flat against the wall.

"Well, the captain wants it looked after, so we look after it," a man with a voice like a parrot said.

"If he's drunk and fell off again, I'm going to leave him, I swear to the Deep," came the response, in a hoarse voice, almost like its range of tones were restricted to whispering loudly.

"If he's drunk and riled the Captain, he might let you."

The second let out a guffaw at that, before she heard a door close to the deck. She quickly glanced about, before descending that ladder. She turned, seeing hammocks lining behind her, people talking. People who slowly looked to her, and fell silent. She glanced over her shoulder. The door to the inner hold was open, and she could tell something lay beyond it. She put on her most innocent smile.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was the way to the bathroom," she said.

"Stowaway," One pirate said.

"GET 'ER!" a chorus sounded, which Tzu Zi could only respond with a panicked 'eep' before darting into the hold. The thunder of their footsteps as they followed didn't help her navigate through the forest of cargo. Once again, she wished she had Ty Lee's nimbleness. That acrobat would be across this morass in a matter of seconds, but Tzu Zi's training had come in a different course. She ran, and she could hear them spreading out. Penning her in. She skidded to a stop on the slime and murk as the path she was running turned into a dead end.

She spun, and immediately started running back the way she came, even as she gauged by ear that one was right in front of her. She let out a growl, one foot digging into the lip of a barrel and throwing her up. She bounded at the near-toothless pirate, feet at face-level, and remedied the 'near' part of his descriptor with two feet to the mouth. She landed awkwardly, and with such momentum that she shoulder checked into a second one, which in the unsteady footing sent him to the deck. She quickly gathered herself and started sprinting in a new course. This one revealed itself after two snap turns to be the right one, and she felt her hopes soar.

Until an arm shot out like a beam and caught her across the chest, with such power that it reversed her course and sent her flat on her back, sliding through the muck of the bilge. She took a long moment to start breathing again, which she did with a hard gasp. Mostly because she was fairly sure that her heard stopped beating for a moment, there.

"Well, looks like we found another pretty," a gravely voice said from behind her.

"Ghm Mamn namn bemn teef ghem!" one answered.

"...What?" the first one said.

"Sh' kck mnm teef!"

"See a dentist, seriously."

"Where is Nila?" Tzu Zi asked, slowly pushing herself up, as she beheld that she was surrounded on three sides by large men with short but sharp weapons.

"What, the ugly girl?"

"She's not ugly!" Tzu Zi contended. If Nila had hair, she'd probably be kinda cute, for a girl, anyway. "What have you done with her?"

"Captain's... talkin' to her right now. Maybe she'll be in a more... agreeable mood when he's done."

Tzu Zi felt something sparking in her. All her life they said she'd never be any good at what she did, because she didn't have the right mentality for it. To bend, you needed to have the proper spirit, they said. Tzu Zi figured that meant that earthbenders had to be stubborn in her time abroad. But her problem wasn't stubbornness, because she wasn't an earthbender. Her problem was that she never got angry, truly angry, at anybody. While she could learn the little things, they would always be weak, because without understanding rage, she could never understand fire.

In that moment, she felt rage.

And the rage lit her scream into a wildfire.

The eyes of the pirates near her widened as she twisted and thrust out a fist with a roar of angry effort, and felt the chi flow through her freely, smoothly, openly, and easily for the first time in her life. And from before her knuckles washed the flames, golden and pure as Tzu Zi's righteous anger. The blast struck a pirate in the chest, blasting him back, but failing to set anything alight in the damp of the hold. She ducked, on instinct more than training, and heard a cutlass slash into wood where her neck had been a moment before. She lashed forward with a foot, and caught the offender right in the stomach. An instant after she did, the chi flowed again, and an explosion in the air went off in that slim space, sending him flying back and into a third, sending both down in a heap.

Tzu Zi twisted with another shout of anger, and an arc of flame followed her fist, causing the target to duck low under it. He struck forward with lightning speed, some sort of trident hooking one of her arms and pinning it to the bulkhead behind her. But she wasn't about to lose now. Not to this. Not to them. Not after what they did to her friend.

She twisted her feet, using the leverage of being pinned to the deck to send a wash of flames down two of the paths that the pirates tried to converge on her from. Some of the pirates got away. Others didn't, and were thrown aside by her wrath, personified in golden fire. She clasped her free hand on the haft of that pole, and inside, willed it to heat. The wood began to smoke, as her dark eyes locked on the similarly dark eyes of the pirate trying to hold her down. His eyes began to dart between her, and her hand. How it smoked. How the wood beyond her began to smolder, burst into naked flame. Finally, she wrenched down, and the weapon snapped apart, her fist closed around nothing but ashes. With a heave, she pulled her hand free of the tines and then let out one last shout, before launching a wave of fire forward, smashing the man down and bathing the rest of the hold.

Tzu Zi breathed deep of the stinking, foul air. She'd never done that before. She'd practiced plenty, but actually bending fire to hurt people? That was new. And she didn't feel the slightest bit of regret. She looked up, and noticed that much of the hold had caught afire for her little struggle. Okay, maybe a little regret, but not for the anger and not for the firebending per se. "Nila," she croaked. She then cleared her throat and repeated it louder.

"Back here!"

A grin shot across Tzu Zi's face, as she raced toward the voice. Maybe today wasn't unsalvageable after all?

* * *

><p>"What is that noise?" the captain muttered.<p>

"Alright," Nila said, her voice low. "I'll make your stupid bombs."

"What was that?"

"I said I'd make your bombs," Nila said, her eyes to the floor. He would think it shame. She was actually just biding her time. She needed to do this right, or she might lose a hand.

"Good to see you're finally seeing reason," He said.

"Could you... undo my neck," she asked.

"What? Are you stupid or something? No. You're staying right there," he said.

"I can't make bombs from this... hole," she said.

"You'll make bombs wherever I want you to," he said, taking ahold of her chain and pulling her face up toward his. "And if I want you to make them in a hole, you'll make them in a hole."

"Like this hole?" she asked, a bright grin pulling across her face despite herself.

"What hole?" he asked, angrily.

She answered him by slamming her hand into his face, managing to drive the hand full of unmixed volatiles she'd managed to scrounge from the pittance of dinner they'd given her and some interesting growths on the wood. It wasn't much, but it was strongly alkaline, and when mixed by her mashing them against the sweat on his skin, became utterly caustic. And now, it was playing party to the captain's eye.

He reeled with a shriek of pain, clawing at his face. Nila took the opportunity to strain her utmost, and hook the stool at the other side of the room with a toe and drag it to herself. When he turned, it was only to receive a stool to the face. He crumpled, and she followed the first blow to his head with two others. He still fought her, showing a remarkable amount of resilience, and caught her arm. She heaved on his arm, and tore his sleeve off before prying his fingers loose, then smashing him a fourth and final time, this time driving his head into the bench she had been squatting on for the last few hours. That finally took the fight from him.

She smirked smugly, for just a moment. Then, she let out a shout of pain. Her hand felt like it was on fire! She grabbed at his key loop, but to her great chagrin it was stitched to his belt. She fumbled it loose, and in her haste to get the keys to her neck, she somehow managed to pants him. She twisted, and the manacle at her neck fell away. She ran, her good hand still clutching pants and sleeve as she fought to press through the pain, and threw open the door. It was lucky that the other pirate had left, because at the moment, the only thing she could see was that one runny barrel. She favored its sagging wood with a kick, and holed it, stink wafting out. Without a hesitation, she thrust her hand into the acid, and her eyes practically rolled with ecstasy at feeling the pain ebb, at the alkaline burn being neutralized.

"Oh, that's so much better," she said. She looked down at herself, and realized that at some point in her struggle, she'd lost that towel. She still had his pants, though. She pulled them on one-handed and cinched the belt three times tighter than it likely had ever been before to keep them on her hips. But that still left her _half_-naked.

Nila pulled her hand out of the vinegar. Yeah, it was probably going to sting in the morning, but the mild acid burn would certainly be far kinder than the severe base burn she would have suffered. She looked at the sleeve in her hand, then down at herself. Well, it wasn't much, but the long sleeve, with some tugging, knotted at her back and covering over her bosom, afforded her a measure of decency. Well, a prostitute's measure of decency, but it was better than none.

"Nila? Nila!" a familiar voice called. Did her ears decieve her? She thought she'd have to find a way off of this ship on her own.

"I'm back here!" She shouted. She sniffed the air again. Was that smoke? Burning creosote? Tzu Zi came skidding to a stop near Nila a few moments after Nila tore off the captain's other sleeve, since it was the cleanest cloth she had on hand, and began to wrap her burned hand with it. Tzu Zi was a sight to behold. Her hair was stuck to the sweat on her face, her chest heaved with breath, and her clothing was singed in places. But when Tzu Zi beheld Nila, she loosed the brightest smile Nila had ever seen. Then, she crashed into Nila with a hug which knocked Nila back a step.

"I was so worried! And I shouldn't have been because you managed to get out and I hope you gave that pirate a nasty beating oh you did well I'm sure he deserved it we need to get out of here because there's others and I don't think I took care of..."

"Wh...whoa, what?" Nila asked. "I can only hear so much in a three second period, Tzu Zi."

"Oh, I'm so glad you're alright," Tzu Zi said with another hug. She then grabbed Nila's hand. "Come on! The ship caught fire in the fighting! We need to get out before we choke!"

"Suffocate," Nila corrected, before regretting opening her mouth because the smoke began to fill it. Nila looked around and a thought came to her. "Wait, my things!"

"We don't have time!" Tzu Zi stressed, pulling her past the groaning, crawling forms of pirates in the spaces between the cargo.

As they ran, though, Nila suddenly stopped, tearing her hand away from Tzu Zi's... however much a part of her mind moaned at the loss of contact. "Wait a moment!" she snapped, then hauled herself up a stack of tumbled debris, and managed to tip a leather case back down to herself. She flipped the lid open just a moment, and confirmed that the recurved bow was still inside. "Alright, now we can leave," Nila said, and was dragged once more through the wreckage. And there was a lot of it. Well, Tzu Zi must have had some talent to pull this off. And Nila had a suspicion that her earlier beliefs had been... incorrect. But this wasn't the time for that kind of thinking. She effortfully turned off the dissecting part of her mind and let instinct take over. And thus, she was dragged up through the ship, until cold, wet air bathed her when she emerged onto the deck. Pirates were ringed around the stairs leading up to the upper deck, but every time one of them tried to mount it, they were unceremoniously cast down. Nila's eyes widened as she beheld Malu, that interloper girl, twisting about with a paddle in her hands. And as she moved, so moved the winds.

"She's an airbender!" Nila said with surprise.

"She's also our only way out," Malu said, pointing behind them. "Into the boat!"

Nila glanced over the rail and beheld that there was, indeed, a skiff in the water. She bounded into boat, Tzu Zi's presence the only factor which prevented her from wussing out and staying on the deck. She really didn't want to lose contact with the other girl right now. The situation in the boat was like on the ship, but worse. She felt like any movement at all would send her right into the water. Since she could swim about as well as a hammer, she didn't like that idea one bit. "Do you know how to use this thing?" Nila asked.

"Who doesn't?" Tzu Zi asked, taking the oars. While Nila had read about them, how they operate, it was a far cry from actually doing it. Within moments of paddling, a gulf began to grow between the pirates' ship and the craft. Nila looked up.

"Wait, what about Malu?"

"She'll be..." Tzu Zi's answer was interrupted when a great hoot of glee came through the darkness of the night, and a flash of orange and yellow struck through the air, before landing easily as a feather on the seat next to Nila. Malu actually had a smile on her face as she turned, seemed to gauge something, then reached back with one hand. With a snap of the wrist, like throwing a knife, a ripple seemed to dig across the water, before splintering the base of the rudder. Malu smiled at that, then sank down into the seat next to Nila.

"Man, that takes me back," Malu said with a level of enthusiasm that seemed utterly out of place.

"To what? Fighting pirates?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Not my first time," Malu said.

"You're weird," Nila said.

"_You're_ weird," Malu retorted, giving Nila a shove. Nila just took it, though, because Malu did save her life, and she was too tired to fight back. If she were a traditionalist, she would have had to swear some sort of life-debt to Malu, but Nila didn't buy into that cultural claptrap. Probably for the best, too. Being life-bound to somebody like Malu was probably a death sentence. She was an airbender after all. The Fire Nation was looking for them with a burning passion, if she could forgive an internal pun. That just raised more questions. She started shivering, as the cold spray and the night air started to afflict Nila for her near nudity. "Yeah, you're showing a lot more skin than you did before. How 'bout you take this for now," Malu said, pulling the dark orange cloak from her back and settling it on Nila's shoulders.

"...Thank you," Nila said grudgingly. She couldn't have done it alone. She knew that. She was so tired. But at least she wasn't alone. Her eyes drew down, and she slowly fell into sleep, rocked on the waves, as three girls... three friends... slowly paddled back to land.

* * *

><p>It felt like they'd forgotten how to breathe for the longest time. When Aang's eyes finally stopped glowing, and he slumped down a bit before each sibling arrested his fall, the air finally returned to them. It was lucky, in Sokka's humble opinion, that he hadn't gone as starkly Glowing Badass as he had the first time. That time, there'd only been one building over them. If he'd done the same here, it'd probably have buried them so completely that Yer Tonri the Farmer could have dug for ten thousand years and never found their bodies. "See? We're right here with you," Katara said. "You don't need to be afraid."<p>

"I'm not afraid," Aang said, his voice small. "I can't believe what happened here."

"What _did_ happen here? You freaked out, and then you didn't do anything," Sokka said, letting Katara support the Avatar as he moved to regain his torch.

"I... I spoke to one of the other Avatars," Aang said.

"You can do that?" Katara asked.

"Apparently," Aang said with an uneasy smirk. "Her name was Vajrapata, and she..."

"You were a woman in a past life?" Sokka said. And then he stopped, and mentally kicked himself. "Of course you were. You were Kyoshi and Yangchen, too."

"Yeah, it kinda alternates," Aang said. "Except after the fire Avatar... it's a cycle inside a cycle."

"What did this Vajrapata tell you?" Katara asked. It never failed to astound Sokka that she could rattle off names like that. Of course, she'd also managed to repeat 'Pipinpadaloxicopolis' without a second breath, so it wasn't that surprising.

"You were right. The Air Nomads were slaves, once. They were the underclass of these people. They were called the Storm Kings," he said.

"That name sounds vaguely familiar," Sokka rubbed his chin.

"They were bad. Like, worse than Fire Nation bad," Aang said. "And apparently, I'm running out of time for some reason."

"What do you mean, Aang?" Katara asked.

"I don't know for certain," Aang's brow drew down in annoyance. "She said the truth would come soon, and my task would be at hand. I tried to get more out of her, but she said she was not the guide I needed, that another would make himself known."

"Him?" Sokka asked. "Well, if you can talk to your past selves, then that's probably either Kuruk or Roku. I'm hoping the former."

"Yeah, I can see why," Aang said with an uneasy laugh. He looked around the rooms, abandoned so long to the ravages of time. "We don't belong here. We should leave."

"Yeah, the storm should be breaking soon, if it hasn't already," Katara said. "Let's go."

Aang nodded, and allowed himself to be led down the paths which reached out into the stables for the bison outside. Sokka, though, lingered for a moment on something that caught his eye. Like most of the art in this place, it was badly faded, but there was still enough of the red left to see what the thing was trying to communicate. Men with whips upon the backs of bison, and below them, fire. These Storm Kings were bad news, that was obvious. He'd just about walked past when he looked a bit closer. The flames weren't going down, it seemed. They were flying up. A rebellion by the Fire Nation against these Storm Kings? He took a step back, and saw an odd red smudge near the top of the picture. Hm. It was probably just water damage. Whatever the case was, the group was leaving, and considering what Aang said about this place, good riddance.

"With any luck, we'll be in Senlin by the time the next storm hits," Sokka said, as darkness and emptiness returned to the lost hall of the Storm Kings.

* * *

><p>"Final reports are in," Kwon said, humorless voice plain as always. "There are no further uprisings in the outlands. Gaoling is now under Fire Nation control."<p>

"Excellent," Zhao said, looking down at the two books arrayed one in his lap and the other on the table before him. "And what of the assets?"

"The Beifong family's assets have... mysteriously vanished, Admiral Zhao," Kwon answered. But the way he said it made it sure that there was no mystery there at all. "I'm sure they will turn up in due time."

Zhao grunted, and returned his attention fully to the journal in his lap. Piecing together Azula's ramblings was an arduous task, one which had no translation key to default to. He'd had to carefully piece everything together, several times even, since new information sometimes disrupted what he'd thought he'd managed to decrypt. But decryption wasn't really the nature of this task. It was more like transliteration.

"Are you making headway with the girl's writings?" Kwon asked, his flat tones concealing any curiosity he did hold.

"I will let you know if anything comes of it," Zhao said. In recent days, the pain had dimmed significantly on his face. Now, he could prod at it without feeling like he'd been set afire anew. It felt like rough leather, that skin. Azula had unwittingly given him a valuable lesson,. Don't be complacent. Don't be ignorant. So he worked, slowly working between two books, and making notes in a third. He raised an eyebrow as one particular word came into focus. Solstice. That word meant solstice. He looked into the distance for a moment as his mind cast back over the many things of Azula's that he'd read over the years. That word was central to one of them.

Zhao pushed away from the desk, throwing open the door and stomping into the hall not far behind Kwon. The lieutenant turned, raising a brow in question if Zhao wanted something, but Zhao didn't answer him, instead throwing open the next door in the ship. While he would have preferred the comforts of bivouacking in Gaoling, he couldn't bring all of his work with him. And now, it was paying off. He lit a fire in his hand, small and controlled so it wouldn't set ablaze the flammable contents of the room. It was piled high with replications of everything Azula had ever made since she was eight years old. He ran a finger down the spines of her journals, one of her older ones, from the year before her exile. With a smirk which pulled tightly at the burn over his left eye, he pulled that journal out, and flipped to a part near the back of it.

His lips moved as he translated her ramble, her nonsense language back into something useful. He looked up again, that smirk turning into a grin.

"Azula, you magnificent girl," he said. He snapped the journal closed and stepped back out of the records room. Kwon was, as Zhao had fairly expected, standing right there. "Kwon, what was the last known location of the Fire Lord?"

"His itinerary has him visiting the Fire Academy on Grand Ember for the next two weeks," Kwon said without hesitation. "Graduations."

"Set a course to Grand Ember, all possible speed, and send a hawk ahead of us to inform him of my return," Zhao ordered.

"To what effect, sir?"

Zhao smirked. "I'm about to hand him the Avatar and his worthless exile of a son at the same time."

* * *

><p><strong>Nila and her mother both share one specific character flaw; they both think that they are right. All the time. Now, this belief has caused almost all of Sativa's trials and tribulations which happened over the course of the last fifteen years, and was much of the reason why the bad things which happened before did. They were mitigated by the presence of others who could beat her with the clue stick, but the problem of believing oneself more intelligent than those around one - even if that is a valid belief - is that one seldom listens to very good advice. If Sativa had listened to good advice a long time ago, she wouldn't have been a single mother. If Nila listend to good advice, she wouldn't alienate people and get captured by pirates. The great thing about youth, though, is that it gives a developing mind a chance to weigh whether a trait is adaptive or maladaptive. Or to put it another way, if Nila gets hit with the clue stick often enough, she might start to listen to it.<strong>

**Tzu Zi is something which doesn't happen very often. Because of the way the Fire Nation works at present, there is a constant stream of propaganda which turns ordinary and pleasant people into sneering imperialists. They are fed hate until they start to regurgitate it, fed anger until the start to burn with it. While the ordinary person doesn't bear much of this treatment, those who get sent into military positions have to put up with rather alot. There is a notion of elemental superiority in fire, as espoused by Zhao in the Blue Spirit, which says that they're better than everybody else. Tzu Zi doesn't see it that way. She's too warm to be a firebender. It isn't until she learns how to be angry, really angry, that she starts firebending 'right'. She's a very innocent person, and it shows in a lot of things she does, namely how willing she is to befriend, and how much she's willing to put up with from Nila. Innocence and firebending don't really go together very well, until they don't.**

**One more thing: Malu holds two mistaken beliefs. One is that she's the Avatar. The second is what year it is.**

_Leave a review. I can take critiques._


	9. Longest Night, Part 1: The Beast

**How do I make this abundantly clear that there's some fairly high stakes involved? How about showcase just how screwed up have been in the background since the story started? Sorry for the delay. The later chapters are...well... getting large. Also, I didn't do this Zuko as I did without reason. Give it a chance to unfold. And finally, the veil Azula refers to and the one everybody else do are two different things. Just to keep people from drawing the wrong conclusions.**

* * *

><p>The forest around him soothed his mind with songs of birds and beasts, the wind gently pushing through the leaves and sending them fluttering. It was a forest which Sharif pondered probably stood from the beginning of time, and would likely live to see it's end. His own song joined that gentle orchestra, humming into the noise as he swayed, eyes closed, on the Ostrich Horse's back. Patriarch was silent, as he usually was when he traveled, and for a long moment, there was peace in the world. No war, no fear, no hate. Sharif's mouth began to frown, though. He took a deep breath, and smelled... nothing. That was odd. While the strike to his brain had destroyed his sense of smell and taste, he could still bring in something from his nose. It was a sense of spirit, sliding into the emptiness that his destroyed perception left. So to be able to breathe deep and smell nothing? That was an unusual thing.<p>

"Do you know what that means, Patriarch?"

The bird gave a grunt, and continued walking. Sharif sighed. "I felt him again. He's close. Very close. What do you think about that?"

Patriarch tilted his head slightly, favoring the youth with one black eye, before continuing as though not disturbed. Sharif frowned. "What? Have I done something to offend you?"

The bird twisted its neck back again, but this time, its eyes bulged and it let out a horrible cry, its entire mass shifting to one side and hurling Sharif from its back.

**OW OW OW!**

Sharif took just a moment to shake the stars from his sight, to pull breath back into his lungs, and beheld Patriarch limping in a slow circle. "What's wrong, Patriarch?" Sharif said, getting to his feet heedless of the dust now on his black robes.

**I stepped on something, and it's stuck in my foot!**

"You don't need to shout, Patriarch, I can hear you just fine."

Patriarch paused in its circling, leveling a glare upon Sharif. **I'm not shouting. The Longest ****Night approaches. My voice is clearer when the veil grows thin.**

"Alright, calm down. Just stand still for a moment," Sharif said, stooping toward the feet.

**Back off, human! Nobody touches my feet!**

"If you don't let me get it out, you'll be hobbled. Please, Patriarch," Sharif pleaded. The bird stared at him for a long moment, before letting out a grumble and turning. Sharif put his back under the bird, so that it could lean against him as he picked up the foot. The weight shifted, and Sharif found himself straining to hold the weight up. But he had a clear sight of the foot, now. There was something wedged in there. It was a chip of metal, tarnished and dull. He reached for it, and when he jostled it even the slightest bit, Patriarch let out a yelp of pain and kicked, which sent Sharif skidding down the road on his back.

**You should have warned me, Scarred Child. I was unprepared.**

"I'm sorry, I forgot," Sharif said. He retook the position, heedless of the fact that he'd just gotten kicked by an Ostrich Horse, a condition most considered worthy of at least a moment's recovery. "I'm pulling it out now." He grabbed that shard and gave it a yank. It slid out of the wound, leaving a bit of blood in Sharif's hand. He shook his head at it, then thoughtlessly put it into his pocket next to the Jade Toe. "You're still bleeding. Can you walk?"

**Every step hurts. I am old. I doubt it will heal.**

"We need to take you to a farrier," Sharif declared. "He's probably seen worse. He'll have you back in running trim in no time."

**And why would they tend to an old bird?**

"Because people are good," Sharif declared. The bird let out a grunt at that, its equivalent of sarcastic laughter.

**It is obvious you have not many kinds of humans, Scarred Child.**

Sharif stared down at the foot, at the pool of blood surrounding it. He looked back up, then tipped the jug of water on Patriarch's back onto the dirt. Even the bird looked askance at that. Sharif dropped to his knees in the mud, and closed his eyes, opening his throat and intoning to the swiftly fleeing spirits of water that now tried to slip into the Outer Sphere.

Adaptable Water, nectar of gods, meandering road, whisper of the morning.

Gear of Regeneration.

Walker of the old and familiar path, flow through this meager form and fill it with majesty.

Renew!

As life rises up from the water, so shall life return to the waters.

As flesh withers, it returns to waters, and waters return to renew the flesh.

Rebuild what has been damaged. Restore what has been lost.

Even then, Sharif could still feel the tiny beings sliding toward the veil, but they hesitated. Some of them turned back, heeding his prayer and slipping into the fissure of flesh on the sole of Patriarch's foot. The spirits sewed themselves into the injury, knitting flesh through the blood which flowed into the soil. He had an option of siding with blood spirits but... frankly, they scared him a little.

_**It is not safe here. We depart.**_

Sharif frowned. "Why isn't it safe?" he asked the water spirits, but their answer was lost as they vanished beyond the veil, and drifted away. Now that his attention fell wholly on the Outer Sphere, he could finally understand why he couldn't smell anything. There was nothing out there to smell. He looked through the veil of one world to the next, and there was nothing there. His eyes told him that there were trees, that there were animals, but past that barrier... nothing.

"We should get out of this forest," Sharif said, patting Patriarch on the flank. Patriarch didn't say a word, deferring to the resident shaman. "I think there's a village nearby. Senlin, or something."

**Then we had better leave before nightfall. The veil is weak when the moon rises near the Longest Night.**

"Do you think you can make it to Senlin?" Sharif asked, as the bird began to limp his way along, if with better ability than he had a moment before.

**We shall see, Scarred Child.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

**Longest Night, Part 1: The Beast**

* * *

><p>Nila was on the ground, her fingers running along the dirt. "What is it, Nila?" Tzu Zi asked her.<p>

"Somebody came this way very recently. I know these footprints. I've seen them before," Nila answered.

Malu raised a brow. "Really? You recognize one particular set of Ostrich Horse tracks?" she asked.

"Snapped talon on left foot has a distinct shape. Right foot deeper at the heel, indicating a hip injury. The last time I saw these footprints was the last concrete sign I had of my brother's presence. That bird is here," Nila clapped her hands, sending the dust off of them. "And so is Sharif."

"You say that with a lot of certainty... What if you're wrong?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila turned back to her.

"These are tracks so obvious that a _blind_ Si Wongi could follow them. I'm not wrong," Nila said. She looked south, and she knew in her guts that he was there. As sure as the sun set in the west, as sure as the stars were masses of incandescent gas, as sure as Mother was the meanest wolfbat on Sentinel Rock. "Since these are relatively fresh, we must not be far behind. A day at most. We need to pick up the pace."

"We can't keep doing this to poor Aki," Tzu Zi fussed, though. Nila raised her brow. "She's tired from carrying all of us."

"We could leave the airbender," Nila offered.

"Oh, that's great. Soon as I slow you down you pitch me into the gutter?" Malu asked, annoyance plain in her tone.

"Well, I'm still puzzled why you bothered to come with us at all," Nila said.

"You were heading south. I need to get to Hanyi if I want passage north. I figured, 'why not?'."

"'Why not?' is seldom a worthwhile motivator," Nila said.

"Can we please stop fighting?" Tzu Zi urged.

"We weren't fighting," Nila said. "If I was fighting, one of us would be bleeding right now."

"You're a real pain sometimes, you know that?" Malu asked. She threw up her hands. "Fine. You want me to leave, just say so."

"Go away," Nila pointed.

"Nila!" Tzu Zi chastised. She turned to Malu. "Please, don't rush into this. It's great having more people around, and you don't need to..."

"It's alright, Tzu Zi," Malu said. "I know when I'm not welcome."

"But you're welcome! You really are," Tzu Zi said.

Nila harrumphed, and pulled the dark orange shirt tighter at the waist. With her proper, warmer robes now probably burnt along with most of the cargo of that sailing ship, she had to make do with a brassier made of a shirt sleeve and an ad hoc shirt rigged from a tattered cloak. As it was, the buttons that Tzu Zi had inexpertly put on didn't quite match up, so it usually hung open, leaving her navel scandalously exposed. At least the pirate-captain's pants, once properly cinched, worked without issue. It was actually far more comfortable to ride, now; her robes had a tendency to ride up when she had to sit astride the back of Aki.

"You know, maybe when pouty finds her brother, you and me can have some adventures together," Malu said, giving the girl a hug. Nila wasn't sure why she felt a sting of anger at that. "Good luck," she said to Tzu Zi. She pointed at Nila. "Find your brother. Now, I think I heard of a shaman who lives not too far from here, and I think I should probably have a word with him."

"Have fun," Tzu Zi said, with a warm smile. Malu grinned as she took a direct line off of the path and vanished into the thick woods. Much further in, and it would become almost impenetrable. Tzu Zi then turned to Nila. "What was that about?"

"I don't like her," Nila said.

"That's obvious. Why?"

"I don't need a reason. I simply don't," Nila said, turning down the road, as it wound through the forest. Lying to herself now, was she? "She's an airbender. That's bad news. They're irresponsible and daft, and they've got a bounty on their heads that would make the most temperate man water at the mouth. We are far safer with her far away from us."

"Well, that's... like... you're opinion," Tzu Zi said. "Maybe you wouldn't be so judgmental if you actually tried to get to know her a bit better. You might learn some things that surprise you."

"Such as?" Nila asked. She shook her head. "I'm just relieved that you managed to put aside your nationalism long enough to rescue me. Seeing an airbender must set your blood afire."

"My what?"

"You're a firebender, aren't you?" Nila asked, glancing over her shoulder. Tzu Zi stammered, but Nila shook her head. "Well, we're all born something."

"...You're not holding it against me?" Tzu Zi asked, incredulous.

"Why would I? Twelve of the greatest twenty minds of the last five hundred years came from the Fire Nation. Designer of the steam engine, the electric battery, revolutions in materials science, the list goes on. As much damage as they've done in the war, they've done far more good for the scientific community than they've done harm."

"That's... an unusual way to look at things," Tzu Zi said.

"I believe that anybody that can turn a place like Azul into a sustainable compound, let alone its thriving metropolis, deserves a degree of respect," she said.

"I'm not Azuli, you know," Tzu Zi said.

"You're not?" Nila asked. "Huh. Didn't realize."

Nila kept walking, and the stomp of Aki's feet behind her kept her company. The trees were reaching over her head, blocking out the sun, and yet there was a degree of light which Nila found confusing. It ought to be dark as night under the canopy, but it was bright as the dawn. She shook her head. It must have been a trick of the leaves above her, slipping around in the wind to let enough light through. That was the ticket.

A shadow passed overhead, and Nila didn't give it more than a passing glance. Probably just another bison wandering the skies... if a bit low for their usual habits. For all they were wild beasts, they learned swiftly enough that flying low was a good way to get fire thrown at them. She wondered how Sharif had even managed to stay ahead of her as long as he had. Sure, that he'd gotten a ride aboard an Ostrich Horse explained how she hadn't gained, but he set out from Sentinel Rock afoot, and she should have beaten him to the Oasis. It was a question which twigged at her mind constantly, demanding answers from her that she could not provide.

That way lay down a different road than science.

"You're being oddly silent back there," Nila said, turning over her shoulder. Her smirk dropped away when she saw that Aki was indeed still following her, but of Tzu Zi, there was no sign. "Tzu Zi? Where'd you go?"

Nila stopped Aki, and began to look around the edges of the path. Not only was there no sign of Tzu Zi, there was no sign anybody had passed this way, other than she and her brother, in weeks. And the din of animals began to grow oddly, threateningly loud. Aki let out some plaintive cries, which Nila tried ignoring. When that attempt failed, she clucked her tongue loudly. "Not now, stupid bird! I'm trying to find your master!"

Aki shifted on its feet, and Nila turned back to the woods. "This isn't funny, Tzu Zi. Is this because of Malu? Alright, fine. I'm sorry I was... rude... with Malu. But she is a danger to us, you have to see that."

Silence, but for the wind and the birds.

So she knew, did she? "Fine. Fine!" her eyes dropped to her feet. "I didn't like the way she... commanded your attention. I'm... not especially well versed in having friends. I got jealous, alright? She just has it so damned easy, and I can't seem to say anything right. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Silence.

Nila shook her head slowly. "Please, don't do this to me. I don't want to be alone again."

Aki finally pulled free of Nila, half-spinning her as it pelted down the trail in what was obviously a panicked gallop. "Oh, come on!" she shouted.

Then, she realized that the silence had become absolute. She turned, and had to hold her hand up for the glare. Her mind instantly picked out two reasons why that shouldn't be. First, the sun should have been at her back, and second, there was a forest in the way. But the glare was almost blinding. She glanced away, and felt her blood run cold as the shadows, those that she saw, didn't move away from that light. They flowed. In every direction, like worms on the soil, writhing their way toward her. She let out a clipped shriek of panic as they moved past her. She felt a chill when they came close; she didn't want to know what would have happened if they touched her. She looked forward again, and the glare had dimmed, as the shadows had covered it.

The shadows slid along the light, until edges seemed to form, and then, reflections. It was like mirrors, rotating through themselves as they hung in the air, reflecting everything there was behind and around Nila. Except, not Nila herself. She stared, in open confusion and awe as a high-pitched whine began to build up in that tesseracting mass. Then, the tone dropped much lower, a base rumble that began to set the very ground to shaking, as the panes snapped into a vibrating configuration which seemed to hold blocks of solid shadow in their midst.

"Oh..." she said. "This isn't even fair."

Then, there was a scream, all of the sound in the world forced through a single throat, and for Nila, the whole world vanished into nothingness.

* * *

><p>Zuko cracked an eye at a pounding at his door. The electric crackle and the distinctive odor of ozone quickly began to dissipate as he considered if, this time, somebody was knocking on the wrong door. Not likely, he considered. He let out a sigh, since it was obvious his meditations were going to be curtailed again. He shook his head, and as he exhaled, the flames of the meditative candles receded to their native height. It was probably Uncle telling him that dinner was served, or maybe Jee with the latest news – more than likely none at all – of the Avatar's whereabouts. He rose, rolling his shoulders and opened the door, his brows drawing down in confusion when he saw his little sister pacing to and fro before the portal.<p>

"Azula? Is something wrong?"

"I know where he is," Azula cut through all preamble.

"What? Who?" Zuko asked. Then he glanced aside, and sighed. "The Avatar, right?"

"_Of course_ the Avatar, dum-dum!" Azula said, barreling past him into his room. "The whole reason we're out on this lunatic crusade! The reason I... why do I smell lilies?"

"Uncle got new meditative candles for us. Obviously you haven't been using yours," Zuko said evenly. "Now how did you discover the Avatar's position?"

Azula glanced to him, then away. "I just know, alright. Who cares how?"

"I do," Zuko said. "He was going to Gaoling, wasn't he?"

"No... no he wasn't," Azula answered, her frenzy starting to leak away.

"So why did you go there?"

"I'm... not sure. I don't remember. But it seemed so important. Like I could finally do something of _worth_. Like I could finally make things better, easier. And instead, I end up assaulting a blind girl and burning her house down, and handing the town over to _Zhao_," she slumped to the floor before his bed, shaking her head slowly. "Agni's blood, I hate my mind. I hate that I can't seem to think straight. And I hate that I don't know what I'm doing anymore!"

Zuko could see tears welling at the corners of his eyes, and let out another sigh, squatting down next to her. "Its alright, Azula. We'll catch the Avatar. If you hadn't run off to Gaoling, I wouldn't have even known to look in the swamp."

"Swamp?" she asked, trying powerfully to crush a sob in her voice. Almost succeeding.

"I think, with a bit of time, I might be able to get the Tribal girl to our way of thinking," Zuko said measuredly. But that was probably the wrong thing to say, because there was a flash of wrath in her eyes.

"You should have killed her!" Azula snapped.

"What? Why?"

"Because she... she..." Azula turned away, a lost look overtaking her. "I don't know... What is wrong with me?"

He looped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her a bit closer. She didn't even try to fight him, which let him know that Azula was in a very bad way right now. Even at the best, she always made a show of being prickly. "It's going to be alright, Azula. I promise."

"I know where Aang... the Avatar is," she repeated, almost like she was trying to convince him. "I do. I don't know how or why but I know it so clearly, like it's trying to strangle me."

He sighed. "You knew he was going to be on Kyoshi Island" he said. "Maybe Zhao wasn't such an idiot as we assumed."

"Oracles don't exist," Azula said with a certain amount of force.

"Be that as it may," Zuko said. "Where do you 'know' he is?"

"Not now. But he's going to be in the Fire Nation on the day of the Winter Solstice," she said. "On Crescent Island."

"Well, that's suicide," Zuko said. "The Avatar isn't that big of an idiot. Besides, there's nothing on Crescent Island."

"What about Avatar Roku's Temple?" she asked.

"Well, yes, but..." Zuko admitted, but his eyes bulged for a moment. "Azula, you're a genius."

"Of course I am."

"I need to talk with Uncle. If you're right, and my suspicions are correct, we might actually get ahead of the Avatar for once!" Zuko said, hope finally starting to worm into his mind. "He won't be able to escape us this time, because he'll be all alone against two of the best firebenders in the Fire Nation."

"Let's hope not," Azula said with a dire chuckle. Then she paused. "You mean the two of us, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Zuko said. "Dum-dum."

"Call me that again and I set your hair on fire," Azula warned.

"Whatever you say, dum-dum," Zuko teased.

And then he had to start running, because a promise from Azula was not a thing she made lightly.

* * *

><p>"What do you make of this?" he asked, waving a white gloved hand to the portrait before him. Qin glanced to the work, then back to his master before clearing his throat. "Please, be frank. I value honesty."<p>

"I see," Qin said, obviously still nervous. But as long as Qin fulfilled his duty and kept that earthbender in the hills in line, then he had nothing to worry about. "Well, the landscape showcased is obviously Great Whales. No other place has those particular chalk-cliffs. If I were to guess where that was, I would wager on the far side of the bay from the city of Torius. The house isn't especially elaborate, indicating that it is the dwelling of a common peasant."

"And?" his superior asked.

Qin swallowed, and leaned a bit closer to the work. "Well, there is a child in the distance. Indications that this is a living place, not abandoned. And... Oh, I see. It's almost out of the frame, but I can see the Fire Nation standard in the corner! This is a Fire Nation citizen, living proudly and freely, with all dignity and respect on the conquered islands to the south. A clear indication that we have a manifest destiny to spread our greatness across the world."

"Well put, War Minister Qin," came the response. The others milling about gave 'oooh's of appreciation. Ozai smirked at the hubbub, lacing his gloved fingers before him as he turned. "You are probably aware that this is the work of my now lost and mourned daughter, Azula. Her mind and her body may be gone, but she left something behind for the Fire Nation to be inspired by. This is one of several pieces of art which I have thoughtfully donated to the Fire Academy, in thanks for what they did in trying to sustain her. Alas, it was for nothing, but without such enterprising minds, without such will and drive, we would be nothing," Ozai opened his arms, and the teenagers all took a step back, out of awe or fear, Ozai didn't particularly care. "Please, observe and contemplate the vision for the future that our lost Princess gave to the Fire Nation. Even in her dark days, she threw a light into the future, for our people to follow to a better day."

Ozai turned, looking at the portrait again. It was all nonsense, but it was nonsense which appealed to the common folk. Considering how difficult things were going, since the mastery of the seas acquired under his father had fallen into shambles in the last decade – as the oceans became absolutely unpatrollable – he could use any edge or rhetoric he could concoct. He flexed his right fist, feeling the creak of the hard hide crinkling. Not all of it was his glove.

"I should be returning to the North," Qin said. "I've been too long away as it is. Zha Yu is a dangerous man to leave unobserved."

"Do not fail me in this," Ozai said simply, and sent Qin scurrying away like the overemployed rat that he was. He looked at that painting. It was aesthetically pleasing enough, which was why he never felt a need to destroy it. It was not always the case. That little quisling of a girl had been a revolutionary after her illness took hold, and it came through in her art. He could still remember that work she called 'Black Sun', of a rampaging horde of Tribesmen and Easterners ransacking the hallowed streets of the Crater City. He burned it before his daughter, forbidding her to depict such blasphemy, and she spoke not one word to her defense. And then, immediately set about reproducing it, so he burned that, too.

"Forgive my intrusion, Fire Lord, but I..." a voice came from Ozai's side.

"And who said you were invited to this showcase?" Ozai asked calmly, glancing aside to the source of that voice. He rose a brow when he took in Zhao's face. It had changed somewhat since last Ozai saw it. Now, there was an angry burn, almost like a flame branded onto Zhao's left eye and cheek.

"This was important enough to warrant certain breaches of etiquette," Zhao insisted.

"You are Admiral at my patience and pleasure, Zhao. Remember that."

"I am Admiral because I conquered Great Whales with fifty thousand men and half the Southern Fleet," Zhao said. Ozai just turned to him, his hands clasped behind his back. His glare could have melted granite.

"I'm sorry, did _I_ become one of _your_ minions at some point?" Ozai asked harshly. "Remember your place, Zhao, lest I remind you of it and give you another scar as a permanent lesson."

Zhao blanched at that, and looked away. Good. Ozai found he had to take a very direct hand in affairs to keep them pointed the way he wanted them, nowadays. In fact, it was very much since the children were cast out that things became more... rebellious around the Fire Nation. It was almost as though the Coordinator over in that Agni-forsaken hellhole on the other side of the continent could smell Ozai's blood in the water, and was beginning to circle. This was not the reign he wanted. But he would be damned if he was going to give it up out of disappointment.

"I bear news which is of extreme importance," Zhao said, dropping to a knee. Ozai bade him stay there for a long moment, glaring at the top of his head, before he grunted.

"Rise, and walk with me," Ozai ordered. Zhao fell in with Ozai as he began to walk through the vaunted and hallowed halls of the Fire Academy. With commencements underway, and classes completed for the rest of this month at least, the halls were relatively empty. "What is this 'desperately needed information' you bring to me," Ozai glanced at Zhao, and in particular the two-toned burn on his face. "This wouldn't have anything to do with that insipid plan with the Moon, would it?" Ozai asked, his dark humor clear in his tone.

"No, my lord," Zhao said. "My sources have informed me of the Avatar's itinerary. I know where he is going, and when, and who will be with him."

"And you felt I needed to know this?" Ozai said. "Am I so starved for reports on this vanity project of yours that you have to come and deliver them yourself?"

"It is not a vanity project," Zhao stressed. "The Avatar is a danger to the Fire Nation."

"As I hear it, the Avatar is a teenager, and an incomplete one at that," Ozai noted. "It takes years for an Avatar to realize his potential. This war will be over in a matter of months, then we can crush him like a bug."

Zhao scowled for a moment. "I don't believe that is prudent. Need I remind you of Yangchen? She rose from nobody to Destroyer of the South in a matter of months. I fear this child may possess her same dangerous momentum."

"Watch your tone around me, Zhao. I am not a fool," Ozai said.

"My lord, please heed me. The Avatar is going to be on Crescent Island on the day of the Summer Solstice. He will have only a pair of negligible Tribesmen for bodyguards. We can take this opportunity to nip the danger which the Avatar represents in the bud!" Zhao smirked, then, and Ozai's lips pulled down into a scowl. So Zhao thought he knew something clever, did he?

"You are holding something back from me Zhao. You are fully aware how little I appreciate that."

"I also have word from my sources that your exiled children will be behind him. But give me the order, and I will take the troops and not only crush the Avatar once and for all, but also bring down the seeds for rebellion I do not doubt lie in the heart of the 'Crown Prince'," Zhao said. Ozai contemplated it for a moment. Then he backhanded Zhao hard enough to make him stagger two steps.

"You are advocating that I allow you to levy harm against bearers of royal blood?" Ozai demanded.

"I am asking you to be cunning, to be as ruthless as you showed yourself to be when you brought the House of Loyo Lah burning to the ground," Zhao offered. "If you don't believe me capable of it, then allow me to prove myself."

Ozai glared at his admiral but shook his head. "That will not be necessary, Zhao. You and your 'informants' have always seemed oddly convenient to me. They always seem to know exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. If I was a more paranoid man, I would think that the only way such information would fall into your hands would be either if you were in league with the Avatar, or if he was playing you for a fool."

"I have never betrayed the trust you have put in me," Zhao stated. "And I always bring results."

"That you do, that you do," Ozai admitted. "Very well. How much of your armada has come to Grand Ember?"

"Only the three fastest cutters, proof against mechanical failure on the seas," Zhao said. Ozai had to admit, it was a good policy.

"Empty one of them. I will crew it with my personal staff."

"Would you like some of my soldiers to serve as an honor guard?" Zhao asked. Ozai smirked, lowering one gloved hand and crooking a finger slightly. After a scant moment, Ozai could see somebody tall and slender standing behind Zhao, the point of a slender knife pressed against the side of his neck.

"That will not be necessary. The Children will be all the bodyguards I require," Ozai said, waving his hand. The lanky teenager backed away, sheathing the blade and letting Zhao relax from his moment of tension.

"The what?" Zhao asked, tapping a finger to the spot of blood the knife had left. He turned, but the Child was already gone.

"You have not met the Children before, have you?" Ozai asked. "They are my greatest success to the Great Dream of Fire Lord Sozin. Proof that the greatness of the Fire Nation can spread across all boundaries, nations, and creeds."

"As you say, my lord," Zhao said. "I will prepare for immediate departure."

"Satisfactory," Ozai said. Zhao then turned and departed, walking with pride in his step. Zhao was a useful tool, but Ozai knew there was an ambition in him that would likely see him killed by his own overreaching. Thus, there was little point in investing in him. Not unless that scar on his face came with a lesson all its own. Appearing almost out of nothing, a group of teenagers, the oldest nearing twenty, gathered around their master. The were all identical in very few respects. Their complexions and hair marked them as inhabitants of almost any place on this planet. But they all wore the same armor, red and gold like the dragons of old. They all wore the same smoked lenses before their eyes. And they were all Fire Nation. Well, they were now, anyway.

"Yoji," he said, pointing out one girl in particular, this one with skin as white as sun-bleached bone. "Select two of your most capable. We leave for Crescent Island at once."

"Omo and Kori will serve you well, Fire Lord," Yoji said, before slipping away. In a very real way, Yoji was his greatest triumph and his greatest pride. Answer to a question nobody _dared_ to ask. Ozai had a smile on his face as the rest of the Children slipped away, back into the shadows as their duties demanded. The smile was not just for the potential death of an Avatar, but because Zhao had unwittingly delivered salvation into Ozai's hands. An end to this interminable stalemate against Montoya. Ozai glanced down to his right hand, feeling the quiet sting of it as he flexed it in his glove. Zuko had shown Ozai something, on the day he was banished, that Ozai couldn't shake. Perhaps, there _was_ strength in the boy after all? Perhaps he hadn't been as corrupted by the woman as Ozai had feared?

Whatever the case may be, Ozai would know for certain if the boy showed himself on Crescent Island.

* * *

><p>The white should have been a dead giveaway.<p>

Usually, when Appa appeared in a town, there was a lot of hubbub, since domesticated bison were utterly unheard of in this day and age. Usually, they were skittish at best, and murderously paranoid at worst, so many, especially the younger, relished in an opportunity to harmlessly play with the fuzzy white monster. But Senlin obviously had problems of its own to deal with. And the wailing was worse than they'd heard in a long time.

It was a testament to the mood of the town that Sokka had managed to keep his big mouth shut. Katara, though, kept pace with Aang as they left the bison behind them. "What's going on?" Aang asked as soon as he was close enough to anybody. An old man, bald but framed with a mighty beard, turned away from the inconsolable woman and the field of white-garbed townsmen.

"We are mourning a loss, young one," he began, but when he finally took in the person he was talking to, he had a double take. He turned to Katara, the question clear in his eyes. "Can it be? Is it possible?"

"Is what possible?" Katara asked.

"Those marks... I haven't seen those since I was a child," he said. He took a few steps toward Aang. The youth gave Katara a nervous glance, so she gave is hand a squeeze, a silent reminder that he was not alone, and would not be abandoned. "Are you... the Avatar?"

"Yeah," Aang said. "I am. So be... uplifted I guess. 'Cause hope has returned!"

"Smooth, Aang," Sokka piped up.

"There is little call for hope in these dark days," the old man said, waving a hand toward the grieving. "Several days ago, several of our children vanished into the woods. When we sent out our best to find them, they, too, did not return. We are beginning to lose hope that they can ever be found."

"Well, that's not a problem for me!" Aang said brightly. "I can just search from the air!"

"And what about that ginormous forest in the way?" Sokka asked.

"Oh... right," Aang wilted. Another man, somewhat younger but wearing the whites of the bereaved, approached. He looked the group up and down, but his eyes lingered longest on Aang.

"Are those what I think they are?" he asked.

"They are," the old man confirmed. "The Avatar has returned, at long last."

"I get it, I'm a bit late," Aang said guiltily, rubbing the back of his head. But the man bowed deeply at the waist, a relieved sigh on his breath.

"So the rumors were true. I had begun to give up hope," the man said. "It is the greatest honor of a lifetime to meet you, young Avatar. I am Chief Tso, the leader of Senlin."

"I'm Aang," the response came in its usual, sprightly manner. "I might not be the best equipped to help, but is there anything _I_ can do? I don't like seeing people in pain, and if the old man is right, then kids are probably in a lot of trouble."

"It is not just the children," Tso said. He motioned for them to follow him, away from the main streets, and toward one of the gates opposite where they'd come in. The greet wooden artifice was reduced to splinters, which idly shifted back and forth in the breeze. "Something destroyed our gates in the night. We feared it was a Fire Nation attack, but nothing ever materialized. And worse, our sentries reported hearing screams in the night."

"People trying to get help?" Katara asked.

"No. Not anything of this world," Tso said. "Some say that is a monster from the Spirit World. None have been able to contact Jubei, the Shaman of the Unknown Spirit in the woods. We fear whatever fate befell our children, and those that followed after them, that the same befell him. We are very much alone, Avatar, and the situation will only grow more dire."

"What do you mean?" Sokka asked. "This seems pretty dire to me."

"The solstice is approaching," the old man, who remained quite close to the Chief, piped up somberly. "As it grows closer and closer, the barrier between the mortal world and the Spirit World fades away, until the two realms are for all intents and purposes the same place. We have learned to fear this day. Ill tides always befall the solstice."

"So you're saying that if Aang doesn't figure out the whole spirit-nonsense thing, then when the solstice comes, the town will get eaten by a spirit thing?" Sokka asked, obviously believing roughly none of it. He even nudged Katara with a smirk. She just scowled at him.

"We do not know," the old man said. "In the many years since the ill fortunes came, never has something like this occurred," he said, waving toward the gates.

"There is great fear that a monster preys upon us, and is simply waiting for the solstice for its powers to be most fully leveraged into the world," Tso said. "Our town is in crisis, and only you can solve this problem."

Aang pulled back at that. "Why me? What's so special about me?"

"You are the Avatar," the old man said, as though that were enough. When it was met with three blank stares, he continued tentatively. "The great bridge between the mortal and Spirit worlds?"

"Oh, yeah, right. That," Aang said, nervously. "I'm sure I'll be all kinds of helpful."

"Hey, great bridge guy," Sokka said, hooking an arm around Aang's neck. "You mind talkin' over here for a second?"

"What is it, Sokka?" Aang asked when the three had moved away from the old man and the Chief.

"Do you really know what you're doing here?" Sokka asked.

"Not even a little bit," Aang admitted. "I mean, I didn't know I _was_ the Avatar two months ago! It's not like anybody can teach me this stuff!"

"Aang, it'll be alright," Katara said. "It's just a matter of finding a shaman who can show you how to do... shaman things."

"Yeah, and then we can teach him fortune telling and metal bending," Sokka said with a laugh.

"Really?" Aang said hopefully. Sokka palmed his face.

"It's lucky I'm here, Aang, 'cause the real world would eat you alive," he said with amusement.

"Aang, if you don't think you can," Katara began, but Aang was shaking his head.

"No. I have to try. Even if I can't do it, somebody has to try to help. I'm the Avatar. I'm supposed to help people," he said.

"Not if it gets you killed," Katara said.

"Please, it's probably just... slavers or bandits or something. Maybe the kids are running away and the adults got sidelined with something," Sokka said. "For all we know, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this stuff. No reason to worry about 'spirits' and 'shamans' if it's just a bunch of normal stuff with normal solutions."

"And if it isn't?" Katara asked.

"I severely doubt that."

"Yeah," Aang agreed. "If it's just normal stuff, then we can solve the problem. If it's really a spirit... well, maybe the solution will just come to me!"

"I believe you can do it, Aang," Katara said solidly. She then nudged her brother, who had an odd look on his face.

"Yeeeaaah," Sokka said. "Or we could get eaten by a spirit monster."

"When was the last time you saw... heard it?" Aang asked.

"Not long ago," Tso said, pointing through the gates that lead into the uninterrupted forest. "There was a great scream which came from the north. After that, an Ostrich Horse ran into town. We put it in with the farriers, but we fear the worst for whoever owned it."

"That's bad... but I think I can work with it," Aang said solidly, hefting his glider staff. "Then I guess I go north."

"Aang, be careful," Katara said, giving him a brief hug.

"I will," Aang offered. Sokka just looked into the distance, watching the north as though daring it to be anything but natural phenomena. Aang strode toward the gates, back straight and posture proud, and she felt as though she were watching one of the legendary Avatars of old, embarking on some arduous quest. But then, he started to list slightly, tipping to the left until he started to spiral. He seemed to half-correct himself, but then his feet crumpled out from under him, and he collapsed onto the dirt of the path, just before the gates. Her eyes went wide, and she started running toward him.

"AANG!" she screamed, but she only got four steps before she felt herself getting tackled to the ground. She stared agog at who'd done it. "Sokka? What are you doing? Aang is hurt or something!"

"Katara, look at the ground!" he shouted at her. She looked at the path ahead of them again. It didn't seem that weird. Just the shadows of the buildings over the thoroughfare.

"What?" she demanded.

"Look closer," Sokka said. And he pointed at the spot where Aang started listing. It was at the edge of a shadow.

And then she understood. She looked straight up, at the noon sun, then down at the shadows which lay long, as though at the end of the day.

"What is going on with the shadows, Sokka?" Katara asked.

"I don't know," Sokka said, pulling rope from his pack. "But I don't think we can risk touching them either. Chief Tso! Tell the others in the village to be very careful around strange shadows. I've got a feeling that whatever 'monster' you feared was coming to Senlin is already here."

Katara just felt helpless and cold as she watched her brother lasso the Avatar and drag him out of the shadow. And when he did, Aang remained motionless, his eyes half-open and staring at nothing. "What do we do now?" she asked. But nobody had any answers for her.

* * *

><p>"Uncle!" Zuko shouted ahead of himself as he moved through the woods. The men said that he'd come inland somewhat after they moored in a bay to bang the dents out of the hull. All told, Uncle's ship had suffered an embarrassingly large amount of harm in the last few months, to an extent that it was now being held together by rope, hasty rivets, and the collective faith of its crew. "We have to speak to you! Where are you, Uncle?"<p>

"I swear that man lives to make us miserable," Azula muttered.

"I'm over here," Iroh's endlessly calm voice called from somewhere ahead. Zuko turned to his sister.

"Now let me do the talking. I know you and Uncle sometimes rub each other the wrong way," Zuko said.

"It's not my fault I'm abrasive," Azula stated, crossing her arms.

"Yeah, it kinda is," Zuko contended, but didn't bother pressing the point. "Uncle, we think we know where the Avatar is..." he trailed off when he reached the clearing, and the pools of water that lazily worked their way down from a steaming spring.

"Can you believe it? A natural hot springs in the East Continent!" Iroh seemed quite pleased with himself, as he lounged back against the wall of one of the lower pools. "This is a luxury I _couldn't_ let pass me by."

"Really? We're going to give up the Avatar so Uncle Dum-Dum can soak?" Azula asked.

"Azula, please," Zuko sighed. She shut her mouth, but didn't contract the frown on her lips. "Uncle, I'm sure that's very nice, but..."

"You should join me. I know you like your pools hotter, and the upper ones," he cast a thumb behind him, "have a wonderful temperature. I didn't even have to heat it myself. Soak away your troubles, let go and enjoy yourselves for once."

"My troubles cannot be 'soaked away'!" Azula shouted. "Uncle, the Avatar is..."

"You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the pharmaceutical advantages of a warm soak, Azula," Iroh said evenly, lolling his head back. "You should take your elder's advice and relax. If you don't, you could get... bad skin, or grey hairs. And I know plenty about both!"

Iroh launched into a belly laugh which sent the water rippling.

"Uncle," Zuko broke in. "The Avatar is going to Crescent Island."

"Now why would the Avatar do something so reckless?" he asked, still blissed out.

"What would happen if the Avatar can make it there before the end of the Winter Solstice?" Zuko asked, leaning against the rim of that pool. "What happens if he reaches the place purported to house the spirit of Avatar Roku's... spirit... on the day when the realms overlap?"

"Then... He might be able to contact his precursor directly," Iroh said, his head coming back up. "How did you come to this information?"

"It doesn't matter," Zuko said. Iroh turned to Azula, though.

"What?"

"You told him this, didn't you?" he asked, but not harshly.

"What does it matter?" Azula demanded. "You had a vision of marching triumphant on Ba Sing Se, and you may still have your chance. Are you going to stand in the way of my destiny?"

"Not only was that _not_ my vision, it isn't your destiny I'm worried about," Iroh said. "Why do you place such faith in your premonitions? You were never a girl to believe in such superstitions."

Azula started something, but snapped her mouth shut with a growl. "It isn't superstition. It isn't magic, and it isn't charlatanism. I just know it. I know it like I know fire. Like I know the beat of my own heart," her voice was very low, like she didn't like to admit it. "This is a fact for me. I can't ignore it. I know that he's going to be there. And this is a chance to end my exile, to return home. To regain Father's love."

Iroh sighed. "If it means so much to you, then I will come," Iroh said. He looked back to Zuko. "But surely five more minutes couldn't hurt?"

"Uncle, please," Zuko said, placing hands on Azula's shoulders. It was a good thing that she wasn't a good enough actor to look that battered, exhausted, and honest when she wasn't, because it had a definite effect on those around her. "We should go now. We can finally lay a trap for the Avatar, instead of constantly coming to him when he's ready for us."

Iroh released another, sadder sigh. "Very well," he said, and the he stood from the pool. Azula released a strangled yelp and Zuko quickly turned away, holding a hand to block his pudgy uncle's nudity. "Could you be a good nephew and retrieve my clothes?"

"For Agni's sake, give him some pants!" Azula shouted. And Zuko felt a strong desire to follow her command.

* * *

><p>Nila grunted as the blinding pain started to leave her ears and her eyes. Her face also had a degree of discomfort, because it felt like she was laying on a jagged rock. She pushed up from that unpleasant surface, then her hand went to her face as the world still seemed blurry and indistinct. She grumbled to herself as the headache started to fade, sitting with her face in her hands, her elbows on her knees. What the hell happened? What was that thing? She shook her head, and tried opening her eyes again, hopeful that she would be better able to see this time than she had been before.<p>

"Oh, this isn't even fair," she muttered when she opened her eyes and beheld the grey and desaturated, the dead and devastated landscape of her most prolific and persistent nightmares. She got to her feet, looking around this lifeless abyss, at the stunted, practically petrified trees which broke up through the rocky crust of this place. She looked up, and rubbed her head at the unfairness of it. Either she'd been knocked unconscious and was now dreaming, or she was dead, and now in hell.

There was a suffused light which had no source, but managed to illuminate. But there was no color here. That was what stuck Nila hardest, then and now. The only color in this place was the darkness of her skin. And, evidently, the orangeness of her shirt, and the greenness of her pants. "Huh," she pondered. "I've never had that happen before."

She shook her head and glanced around her. She had come to rest on the highest spot of the 'Observatory', a columnar structure which was open to an emptiness which ought have been the sky. She didn't bother wondering about it now. She'd spent many a night over the years cursing rationality and demanding it make sense, but those nights were years behind her now. At this point, she had learned to simply accept what she couldn't change. And when she did that, she started doing what she did best; learning the rules. Nila bent down and grabbed some pebbles of the scree which littered the Observatory. She'd never appeared at the top of it before. The only time she ever reached it, she'd had to start at the bottom. So that was where the exit was.

She walked, idly chucking pebbles ahead of her as she did so. There was a lethargy about this whole place which clawed at her back then. Now, though, it seemed like the entire place was... afraid of her? No, that wasn't it. She couldn't quantify or measure it, but she knew in her guts that there was something different now, as compared to the times she'd been here before. It was one of the rules she ruthlessly abode; when your gut talks in this place, listen. She couldn't count the number of times she ignored her instinct, and ended up waking with a sensation of her skin being afire, or wasps tunneling through her brain. It was unpleasant enough to serve as a very persuasive teacher. She descended one of those twisting, metal staircases, which by any law of physics wouldn't have been able to support their own weight, let alone hers, but she didn't question it. There was no point. This place wasn't real, after all.

She stopped near the foot of the stairs, her skin going clammy. Yes, she had seen that. She chucked a second pebble ahead of her, and noted how when it flew, it took an immediate down turn and smashed hard into the floor. "Great," she said sarcastically. "They moved again."

She hopped off the side of the stairwell and landed in the ankle deep water of the lowermost level, feeling for the crevasse which led to the High River. She always felt uncomfortable going by the Low River. And she couldn't say why, but as she insisted to herself, it didn't matter. This place wasn't real. As much as she loathed having to come here, loathed the sensation of being constantly picked apart by unseen fingers, she couldn't help herself but wonder. What else was here? It was that curiosity, birthed in this horrible place, which set her down the path of the natural sciences. There was an profound juxtaposition that her oppressive realism was born of such a surreal place. So she wandered, seeing if there was something she hadn't seen before. Maybe something that she could use. After all, for all this place wasn't real, it didn't prevent her from remembering it as vividly as anything which happened when she was awake.

To call the High River a river was something of a misnomer. The water was still, like a long, silent puddle. A wide puddle, no mistake there, but a puddle nonetheless. If there was one place she knew she was safe, though, it was standing in the water. The dangerous things never appeared near the water, although she hadn't the first clue why. As she walked, she used the time to think. Yes, she'd managed to offend the only two peers that she'd managed to befriend – even if one of them was strictly a marginal case – and now she had to do something about it. Since Tzu Zi hadn't heard the amends that Nila offered, her luck considered, she would have time to do it properly this time. And by properly, she intended not weak and sniveling like a naughty child. There had to be a way to build bridges without sacrificing her pride. It was just up to finding it.

She pondered then what could have put her out. Yes, she'd seen something strictly outside the mortal ken, but that could have simply been the brain's reaction to a strong blow with a rock. For all she knew, she had a concussion and was hallucinating that thing. That wasn't exactly pleasing to the mind, though. There were few things that she feared more than damaging her mind. It was why Mother never even bothered to hide her whiskey – even though Mother herself ought not have had it, considering how Si Wongi treat the drink – because it was plainly known that Nila was not in the business of wrecking her brain intentionally.

She would never say it aloud, but she desperately didn't want to end up like Sharif.

She walked the High River, and thought to herself. The silence was a welcome companion. She so seldom got to have quiet, nowadays. At least, that was a redeeming characteristic of this place. The loneliness was starting to bug her, though. She'd never get lonely before. It was almost like Tzu Zi had opened a vulnerability in Nila that she didn't even know existed before. And to be honest with herself, she wasn't sure she was better off before. She stepped toward the shore, and had to take a slightly different path when one of her pebbles changed color upon landing.

Silence, darkness, and loneliness. The three constants of this place. There was a reason she hated it.

She sighed, slumping against a rock. "Why am I even doing this?" Nila asked the void. "If I get Sharif, then I go home and everything goes back to exactly the way it was. No friends, no family that I care about. So why am I even doing this?"

And the only answer she could come up with, was because Mother entrusted her with the task. Nila just shook her head, running a hand along the very short, black hair that was beginning to appear on her scalp. "It always comes back to her, doesn't it," Nila said. "I'm just never good enough for her."

As she shook her head, something hit her ear. It wasn't the Blowout, that was too... natural. This was something artificial, something broken and staccato. It was the cadence of human speech. But that couldn't be. This empty place never had anybody but her. Instantly, her eyes narrowed, her back straightened, and her curiosity took hold. She had to know. What had changed? And so, she followed her ears.

The fissure in the rocks was the way into the Smugglers' Den. Years of coming to this place quite against her will had given her ample opportunity to name and classify much of what she'd encountered here. Much, but not all. Every now and then, when she had one of these nightmares, something would surprise her. The water 'flowing' past her into the High River seemed to originate from a bay, lit by a pale, translucent shadow of the moon. Flotsam littered the white sands, and the only waves were generated by her approach. Beyond the bay was a cave, wet but concealed. But _not_ safe from a Blowout.

"I must have been hearing things," Nila said, panning her gaze across the Den.

"HYAH!"

Nila flinched down, as somebody leapt from behind a stalagmite, fists thrust forward. Nila raised an eyebrow. "Huh. That's new."

Tzu Zi looked down at her fists, then back up at Nila, before tucking them behind her back, as though trying to conceal something she had or was doing. "That wasn't what it looked like!" Tzu Zi claimed.

"I've never had you in one of my dreams before," Nila said evenly. Then she stopped, and nodded, "well, one of _these_ dreams, anyway."

"Nila, where am I?"

"One of my nightmares. I'm wondering what role you play in the narrative," Nila said, turning back toward the bay.

"Nila, I'm scared. I don't like this place," Tzu Zi said, instantly latching onto Nila's arm and glancing around with furtive eyes. The way that Tzu Zi's fingernails dug into Nila's arms was... different.

"Not a problem. Sooner or later I'll wake up and this will all vanish," Nila said.

"Would you stop thinking this is all about you for one second!" Tzu Zi shouted, tears welling in her eyes. "I don't know where I am, I don't know how I got here, and you're acting all crazy, and I'm really really scared!"

The pain radiating from where Tzu Zi had begun to nervously twist at Nila's forearm was uncanny. And it was quite unlike anything Nila had felt before. "Tzu Zi. Do something I would not expect you to do," Nila said.

Tzu Zi took a step back, pondered, then kicked Nila in the shin.

"Ow!"

"I guess that's for being mean to Malu," Tzu Zi said. "And why did you want that?"

Nila rubbed her shin for a moment, but a cold sweat had begun to prickle forth from her skin. "I'm not asleep," Nila said. She looked around, back to Tzu Zi, then slapped herself very hard in the face. Yes, it felt exactly like being slapped very hard in the face, not the slow, dull, and burning pain that this place usually gave her if she did something ill-conceived or stupid. The other flinched at that. "Definitely not asleep. Which leads to one of two possibilities. Either we're both sharing the same multisensory delusion, or this... isn't a dream, and this place is real."

"Nila," Tzu Zi's voice was very small. "Where are we?"

Nila looked around, swallowing past a lump in her throat. Suddenly, even the relative safe-haven of the Smugglers' Den was as dangerous as the Back Country of Azul. "I don't know," Nila said. "And I don't know how we get out."

* * *

><p>Aang shook his head, trying to shake the stars from his eyes. He didn't usually stumble like that. Airbender training was extremely good at whacking the clumsiness out of people; if it wasn't, then there'd be a lot of dead monks at the bottom of small craters in remote areas. But all of the sudden it was like Aang couldn't keep his feet under him. That was embarrassing on one hand, and slightly unsettling on another. He could balance on one toe on an airscooter, on one fingertip on a windowsill. To trip over his own feet was patently impossible.<p>

He rubbed his eyes, and reached for his glider. Those eyes shot open when he couldn't find it. He turned, his hands scrabbling at the dirt of the path. But it wasn't there. But there was something else. Something he didn't expect. Something green. As he scraped the surface of the soil, something viscous and dim pulsed there. He recoiled a moment, thinking he'd dug up some sort of disgusting worm, but when he stepped back, he realized that those green things were everywhere in the ground. "What happened? Did I hit my head or something, Sokka?" Aang asked.

"Is the Avatar alive?" a worried voice came from behind him.

"Of course I am," Aang said, turning to those who'd gathered behind him. "See, I'm even on my fee..."

He trailed off because he could see that his companions were clustered around his immobile body. "Oh," Aang said, slumping slightly. "What's going on? Am I dead or something?"

He took a half-step toward them, when he felt every molecule of his being scream out danger, and demand he stop. He'd almost stepped onto a shadow. He scrutinized the edge of that shadow. It didn't look right. It rippled and wavered, like a mirage above a desert. The shadow also wasn't portraying anything nearby. "What is this?" Aang said, reaching toward it.

The answer came in the form of a scream.

The roar bathed Aang in blue light and knocked him back a step. Aang instantly spun and cast out his hands, to throw the yet-unseen thing away with a ball of air. But no air came to his command. He looked down at his hands, then cast them out again. Nothing. "No way," he said, as the one thing that he'd managed to learn in his schooling drifted to the surface. There was only one place in all of existence where bending was impossible. "I'm in the spirit world!"

"I think it's angry!" Sokka said, heaving Aang over his shoulder. "We need to find shelter."

"How? Where will we be sheltered?" Chief Tso asked.

"Anywhere that's not in the middle of a street!" Sokka answered, running back toward the middle of the town. Katara and the other two joined him with almost no hesitation.

"What are you?" Aang shouted into the air. "What do you want?"

The shadows raised up from the ground, seeming to grow edges as they did so, like a mirror which only reflected inky blackness. Panes of that mirror started to rotate, splitting and a glaring light appearing to surround and separate them. A sound began, first high pitched and raising higher, but then suddenly dropping very low. Aang's instinct was to dodge, and he wasn't one to ignore his instinct. It saved him from a bolt of... something, something blue and brutal that slammed into the ground where he had been, sending those green things flying into the air, where they dissolved into verdant motes. He couldn't help but feel like he was watching something die.

"Stop this! I'm the Avatar, I can help you, just tell me what you need!" Aang screamed, trying to take a proud stance. Which was a bit ridiculous considering his body was somewhere that way.

The light pulsed brighter, the darks grew darker, and the mirrors twisted, their edge slashing through a roof nearby, cutting the corner of the building to slag. He could hear the family within screaming in fear, as the building came crumbling down on them. "No! Please, stop destroying things! We can help each other!" Aang pleaded with the unknowable thing. The panes began to spin faster, so quickly that they shattered, their jagged, brutal edges tearing at the dirt, tearing at the buildings that lined the street. The tone rose, then dropped, and this time, Aang was ready for it.

NO MORE!

The scream from Aang's mouth seemed to overwhelm the blast of blue light which the monster sent forth, and and it deflected off of a shell of unknown energy. "Whatever you are, you have to stop hurting these people! They've done nothing wrong. Just tell me who you are and what you want, and I can help you!"

The thing seemed to turn, its panes reforming, slowing slightly. Aang got a sensation of hope in his heart. Maybe this could be settled peacefully. A hope which was dashed when it continued to turn, so that it had done a half-revolution. Despite there being no real change in how it looked, Aang felt that it was now facing away from him. Staring down the building at the heart of the town. The building where Katara and Sokka were taking cover.

"No," Aang said.

He started running, feeling the drag of the air against his skin. The clouded mirrors began to spin again, slashing through dirt and wood alike with equal contemptuous ease, sending up a spray of dust and a hale of debris as it closed in on the town center. Despite the burning of his legs, struggling against wind resistance for the first time in recent memory, he was overtaking it. But the blades...

"**No,**" Aang repeated, throwing himself through the blades at a roll. He let out a clipped scream as he felt that non-glass scour along the surface of his back, but it was a very shallow thing. He would survive. And now, he was in front of this creature. He sprinted up from his roll, and only stopped, and turned, when he was at the foot of the doors. His eyes went wide as the doors were thrown open, and Sokka took the threshold.

"Sokka! No!" Katara screamed.

"Somebody's gotta stop this thing!" Sokka said, but although his voice was strong, his face clearly said that he expected to die in the next few seconds. He pulled the boomerang from his bag, but what good it would do against this incorporeal monstrosity? Aang estimated its chances of success somewhere between zero and a negative number. And Sokka didn't even know that he wasn't alone. So he was going to die afraid and for nothing. The whine began to drop, and the panes of glass aligned in the air. Aang raised his head, and raised his voice, and when he spoke, he spoke with the chorus.

NO

THIS FRAIL BODY MAY FALTER

THIS MEAGER MIND MAY FLOUNDER IN IGNORANCE

BUT IN ATTACKING THOSE I CARE FOR, YOU HAVE ATTACKED AN ARMY.

UNKNOWN BEAST, STRANGE AND UNFAMILIAR,

YOU SHALL TAKE NOT ONE MORE STEP.

THIS PLACE IS DENIED YOU.

THE AVATAR SAYS YOU 'NAY'.

The scream rebounded from the building, and tore off the weather vein of a house nearby as it sailed into the air. Aang looked to his left and right, and beheld that he now stood with a legion, all of different age and ethnicity. But at the same time, they were indistinct, like they were half-made, then abandoned. But the pattern was obvious. Fire, air, water, earth. They were the Avatars. All of them.

"How did you do that, Sokka?" Katara asked, noting only that the whirling blades of death were slowly pushed back, not the force which demanded thus.

"Instinct?" Sokka guessed, but he didn't step away from the threshold. How a normal teenager could be so suicidally brave, Aang couldn't comprehend.

"Did I do this?" Aang asked.

"Yes," a voice said to him. He turned, and beheld that one of the shapes seemed to gain definition, rather than the amorphous but human forms that now formed a dense ring around the core of the city. He was dark, like Vajrapata, but the airbender arrow on his brow was a more familiar blue, his robes orange and yellow. "Roku is looking for you. He needs to speak to you."

"Is he here?"

"Couldn't come," the Avatar said. "Not enough words."

"Who are you?" Aang asked.

"Avatar Geet," the monk bowed slightly. "Can't talk. Running out of words."

"Wait, how do I beat this thing? What is it?"

"Don't know. Talk to Roku."

"Why? Why can't you just tell me what he was going to?"

"Don't know what Roku knows," Geet said, his words becoming more and more leaden, his form becoming insubstantial the longer he went on. He glanced into the distance, and nodded. "Fang is coming. Fang says more. Talk to Roku."

"Thank you, Avatar Geet," Aang bowed to his past self, who nodded once, then became as indistinct as any of the rest of them. He wondered who Fang was. And then he amended to wondering _what_ Fang was. And then he further amended that he hoped that this barrier stayed up after he talked to Fang, because that thing was still out there, spinning and waiting.

He got the answer when he saw something massive slam down onto the ground. It was a sight he'd only beheld once, despite his many visits to the Fire Nation in his youth. The body was long, covered in bright scales. Its eyes shone with a clear and cunning intellect. Great whiskers drooped from its maw, which glistened with sharp teeth. A dragon? Man, this town had all the bad luck, it looked like. But then, Aang noticed that he could see things through that dragon. The glass and shadow turned, as though looking at the dragon. There was the whine, and the drop, but the dragon held its ground. When the scream sounded once again, the dragon responded with a roar of its own, but this roar sounded with spectral fire. The fire overwhelmed the blue light, and with a sound of breaking glass, the being of light and shadows scattered. But Aang knew that it wasn't done for. Just rebuffed, for the moment. Aang took a step beyond the line of the Avatars, which he noted was starting to drift away like baked dust exposed to a draft. No more protection there, but hopefully, they wouldn't need it. Aang looked up at the great beast, which in return craned its long neck down to him.

"You did it, Sokka!" Chief Tso said.

"I'm not so sure," the Tribesman said, taking a step back from the door.

"Are you Fang?" Aang asked, ignoring the interplay behind him.

The creature reached forward with its whisker, and a vision blasted through Aang's mind. A creature, born from an egg made of solid flame, into the hand of a young man with black hair. The same beast, now grown from the length of a forearm to the length of Appa, with a black bearded man trying awkwardly to ride it. The same beast, the same man. A sudden vision of it sticking its head through a window, and drawing a yelp of alarm from the same man, though now grey-bearded, while he was in the bath. Then finally, one which even Aang could figure out. An old man, long beard gone white, bestride the beast as the wind took his hair. That man was Avatar Roku.

"You must have been his spirit guide," Aang said, before bowing to the creature. "Thank you for what you've done. I don't know how I was supposed to deal with that creature. But why is everybody so desperate to talk to me?"

The whisker returned to Aang's brow, and this time, he was given a vision of fire, burning across the sky, and a sense of both overwhelming dread, and that something _good_ was coming to an ignominious and undeserved end. Then, there was a sense, almost tentative, a fear in the beast. A fear of the end of all things. A fear that the future would no longer exist.

"But I don't know how to talk to Roku!" Aang shouted. "Everybody keeps telling me to, but he's dead, and I was never told how to contact him! I didn't even know I was an Avatar until... I don't know what to do! I never know what to do!"

The beast lay down, and beckoned toward the sun. Another tap upon the brow, and this time, Aang could see the sun zip through the sky, then rise and set again, this time halting right as it was on the horizon. He could then see land, black stone with black sand beaches, a temple rising from the volcanic rock.

"That island's in the Fire Nation," Aang said. "Why would I need to go there?"

The dragon practically rolled its eyes. Another tap, and this time, it showed a statue, a beam of light striking a stone set in its chest. Aang finally understood. He needed to be in a chamber, at the heart of Avatar Roku's temple by the hour of sunset on the Winter Solstice. That was how he could talk to Roku. The beast left one last sensation, one of desperation. It said, if you can do nothing else, you must do this. "I'll do it. I'll find a way... somehow," Aang said. Then he turned back to the building. His eyes shot wide. "Wait? How do I get back into my body?"

The dragon gave a sigh which was obviously annoyed, and then flicked its tail at Aang. Before he could even react, he felt himself being catapulted through the walls and slammed headfirst into himself.

The odd colors in the sky and the dirt all vanished, as he felt his eyes open, his heart beating in his chest. It was a very strange sensation to miss ones own circulatory system, but now Aang was grateful for all of his various bits. He sat up, sweat on his brow. "Guys, we have a problem," Aang said, before Katara even got her first word of joy at his sudden rise from torpor.

"Aang, you're alright!" Sokka managed to beat her out as well, giving Aang a hug and then pulling him to his feet.

"It's not gone," Aang said. "We were able to drive it back, but it'll return."

"How did you do it? You were unconscious the whole time," Katara pointed out.

"I had some help. A lot of it, actually," Aang said. He pondered how he was going to explain what he saw, when the door to one of the back rooms opened, and a youth with a stark scar on his forehead poked out.

"What is all the noise out here?" the youth asked, his Tianxia slurring, inexact, and broken by long pauses and mumblings in another language.

"We almost got eaten by some spirit monster," Sokka said.

"Oh, alright," he said, turning away like that was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, he paused, and turned back, staring at Aang with a distant expression. Well, this young man's expressions _all_ seemed to be distant. "You're the Avatar, aren't you?"

"Yes," Aang said, preparing for the onslaught, or the requests. But this one just nodded, as though he'd thought as much.

"I see," he said. "And you didn't ask it its name?"

"What?" Aang asked.

"Hmm, they're all right. You really are clueless," he said. "That's unfortunate."

"And why are you being so smug?" Katara demanded. "Aang is the only reason that thing didn't kill everybody here!"

"But it'll come back," the scarred lad said. "I'll deal with it. After the nap. They still have some time left."

"We don't have time to put this off," Aang said. "We have to leave as soon as possible."

"What? Oh. Right. The dragon," he shook his head. "Well, no reason to dawdle."

"Who are you, anyway?" Sokka asked.

"I am Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar," he answered. He then turned to Aang. "And I think I'm about ready to go home."

"But what about," Aang began.

"Oh, right, the monster," Sharif said. He let out a guilty laugh. "My mind, it wanders sometimes."

"So we're depending on a goofy kid and a guy with a five second memory," Sokka summed up concisely. "Yep, we're all gonna die."

* * *

><p>"Where are we going, anyway?" Tzu Zi asked, walking at Nila's side. Nila gave her a glance, and then shepherded her back into her wake. Walking abreast was never a situation that Nila gained experience with, but common sense said that it was a foolish one. With Tzu Zi put back behind her, she continued walking along the gravel along the edge of the High River. The center was now too deep to wade, now that they approached the Upper Cataract. That meant that she resumed her pebble-tossing.<p>

"The Havens are a safe place to appear," Nila said. "The problem with them is that while they never manifest Traps, there are other dangers which can overtake them."

"Traps? Havens? What is this place?"

Nila shook her head at how absurd she was fully aware the next words from her mouth would be. "It is an old and familiar companion. It is a nightmare that I have had most of my life. I learned the rules, and now it is far less painful."

"Yeah but... how do you know this place? This place is crazy! And nuts! And bonkers! And it doesn't make any frickin' sense!"

"I have come here once a week, on average, every week since I was six," Nila said. "I have much experience with this place. I have learned many harsh lessons. Luckily, their effects proved impermanent once I awoke."

"You're starting to sound a bit spooky, Nila," Tzu Zi said. Nila glanced back at her friend, and then realized with a degree of existential horror that she was beginning to talk like _Mother_. As Nila shuddered at that sudden realization, she neglected to notice that Tzu Zi had moved past her, and was facing back at her as she retreated up a path. "Besides, there's nothing here. Nothing threatening anywa–"

Luck, as it would have it, chose to interrupt her mid-word. It was something that luck often attempted at every opportunity. Nila's eyes shot wide, and she cast out a hand, trying to stop Tzu Zi from taking a single extra step. But she was a bit too slow. There was a bang, like a bladder filled with air until it ruptured, and Tzu Zi was hurled forward at Nila with a startling degree of velocity. Tzu Zi collided with Nila, hurling the latter hard onto the gravel, and sprawling the former out atop her. Nila could feel the harsh gravel digging into her back, a groaning pain spreading from where two sets of rib-cages collided. She could feel pin-pricks – of blood quite possibly – welling at the back of her head where it struck the ground. And she could also feel a face full of Tzu Zi's breasts.

Not that the last part was particularly unpleasant.

"Wuuuaaahu... What was that?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Rhr bhbs rr nn mn fsc," Nila attempted to point out, mostly because she was otherwise paralyzed by the situation. This was something she didn't have _any_ experience with. Most notably the part where she didn't particularly hate it. The implications were... enlightening.

"What? Oh, sorry," Tzu Zi said, removing her envy-inducing bust from Nila's face and standing, if unsteadily and kneading at her back. "What was that?"

"oh... don't go..."

"What did you say, Nila?"

"Nothing. I didn't say anything," Nila shook her head. She didn't have time to deal with this right now. "You are an incredibly lucky girl, Tzu Zi."

"Lucky? If you weren't standing there, I'd probably be a smear along the gravel!"

"You're lucky, because you triggered a 'Mosquito Mange' and didn't get thrown straight down," Nila said, getting to her feet.

"Two things. One, what's so bad about that, and second... Mosquito Mange?"

"It's a pun in my language," Nila said with a dismissive shrug, as she began chucking pebbles at the thing. After a few, she had a fairly good idea where it was, and its outer edge. "Because Si Wongi seems utterly incapable of scientific parlance, I chose the ones which sound most like 'gravitational insanity.' Bringing them to Tianxia turns that pun into 'mosquito mange', which I admit, does seem a bit non-sequitur. As for why its a bad thing, I have personal experience with getting thrown down by Mosquito Mange. The problem is, if you don't get out of its radius, it _keeps_ throwing you down. And if there's ground in the way, then it keeps trying, until you're reduced to a paste. And still, not nearly as bad as a Blowout."

"How do you _possibly_ have personal experience with that?" she asked. "The paste, thing, I mean."

"It's happened to me... once or twice. _Maybe_ five times."

Tzu Zi just stared at her.

"When I dream, I wake up in horrible pain, but the pain fades, and it never results in real injury. I remember I frequently sent Mother into a foul mood when I couldn't stop screaming because it felt like my entire lower body had been dissolved in acid. That was because I stumbled into a Fruit Punch."

"Another pun?"

"Of course. We don't have proper names for Acids."

"Si Wongi sounds very backward."

"They are," Nila confirmed angrily. "You have _been to_ Azul, yes?"

"Well, once when I was little," Tzu Zi said unsteadily, as Nila grabbed her hand and pulled her behind her carefully, edging around the patch of Mosquito Mange.

"You will find many of the same rules your guardian gave you there will serve you here," Nila said. "If you don't know what it is, don't touch it, it will probably kill you. If I stop, you stop, or you will stumble into something that will probably kill you. If I tell you do do something, you should do it immediately..."

"Or something will probably kill me?" Tzu Zi asked.

"You're catching on," Nila said, releasing Tzu Zi's hand. Of course, they'd been clear of the Trap for a while by the time she did. She just liked the feeling.

"Why would you come to a place this dangerous?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Not by my choice, Tzu Zi, I can promise you that," she said, flattening her back to a wall and giving _very_ wide berth to a silver spiderweb that hung to one dead branch of one dead tree five yards away. Tzu Zi gave her a questioning look. "The spider web makes your heart explode. And _that_ _one_ carries over when you wake up."

"How do you...?"

"I woke up and my heart wasn't beating," Nila said. "Did you know that heavy blows to the chest can restart a heart? I didn't. I wonder how Mother did. Or perhaps she just got lucky."

"I already hate this place."

"Give it nine years. You'd come to accept it as I have," Nila said.

"...where are we going again?"

"One of the other places, some place more fortified than a Haven."

Nila hadn't noticed that Tzu Zi had started walking beside her again. So when the thud sounded through the sky, and Nila's hand shot out to the side, she unexpectedly found she had a palm full of Fire Nation boob. There seemed to be something of a trend to this excursion. "No. No, not now," Nila said, as her blood ran cold, quite the opposite reaction to the embarrassment she was well aware her inadvertent grope of her best friend ought to have inspired. "Gods no, the only one nearby is the Bridge Orchard!"

"Nila, you're holding my boobie," Tzu Zi said.

"Why did it have to be now?" Nila shouted.

"OW! Nila, you're squeezing!" Nila released her panicked grip only then, turning to Tzu Zi. Her expression of embarrassment and anger sloughed quickly. Probably because Nila's was one of unbridled terror. "Oh no, what happened?"

The groaning began to sound in the air, and the sky began to color a sickly, diseased yellow along its 'southern' edge. "We have to run. The only safe place that we can reach is in the Bridge Orchard."

"Why? What's going on?"

Nila made sure that all of the dread due the term was injected into her single spoken word. "Blowout."

* * *

><p>Malu rapped on the door to the building, which was dark even under the canopy. "Maybe he's taking a nap," Malu pondered, and pounded the door a bit harder. The building was an odd one, somehow built with seven sides all of equal proportion, coming to a dome at the top. The whole thing was made out of wood, which was aged and dry. It was quaint and rural. Kind of like the shack she'd had to live in for the last two years. It was odd how attached to that hut she'd gotten. Then again, it contained everything that she had left from before the Day of Fire. How little that was.<p>

"He-e-e-lloooooo~o!" Malu said, letting her airbending amplify it. Still, no response. Which didn't make much sense considering that there was smoke coming from the pipe that sat in the center of the roof. "Well, he might be deaf or something. Old people can get like that," A smile came to her face. "Xin Fei? I'm coming in!"

She tugged at the door, and noted that it opened not with a squeak of a well-oiled hinge, but rather the shriek of rusted metal and the groan of warped wood. That didn't make too much sense. She'd come here only three years ago, to visit the shaman who lived here. Mostly, she visited because a forest fire destroyed the old building and he needed some cheering up. It would be nice to see that old face again. Man, wouldn't he be surprised to know that airbenders survived the Day of Fire? "Hey, guess what? Remember how the fi... fire..."

She trailed off, because the inside of the building was not how she remembered it at all. There was a ring of forms, seven appropriately enough, surrounding one which rose up, but the forms were now indistinct. "Well, that's weird," she muttered. Doubly weird was that everything seemed to reek of age and abandonment. There was enough guck on the walls to make it look like this place had only just become dwelled in again. That was patently impossible, though. She looked at the pillar in the center of the structure, above which the smoke from a small fire wafted. That wasn't supposed to be smooth. In fact, she knew with absolute certainty that she'd seen it looking distinctly like something else, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what that block of stone used to portray. "Xin Fei? What happened to the big thing?"

She began to hear rambling at the other end of the large first room. It had been a simple mistake of construction that ended up putting the entrance door on the wrong side of... whatever that central thing used to be, so that one had to circle it to view it from the front. So when she poked her head around that pillar, a smile on her face, she found that smile quickly dropping off, when the man she saw kneeling before the fire was not her old friend. In fact, he was forty years younger than Xin Fei, and had a weathered, haggared look to him that spoke to years of unpleasant conditions and hard living. "Who are you?" Malu asked.

"I guard the temple," the man said at a mutter, his green eyes not leaving the fire.

"Well, what happened to Xin Fei? Is he on vacation or something?"

"I do not know a Xin Fei," the man said, his head bobbing as sunken eyes yet defied to look at her. "I came here because I was called by... I can't remember its name. I think it's lost its name."

"Well, I think somebody vandalized the statue," she admitted. "It used to look different."

"It fell apart by inches, child," he said. "What do you want?"

"Why are you so worried?" Malu asked, leaning against the pillar.

"The Solstice approaches, and it reacts with an uncharacteristic rage. It was... content... before. Now it is angry. I don't know why," He answered.

"Why won't you look at me?"

"I'm trying to find the answer," he snapped. "What do you want? Tell me or leave me to my task!"

"I need somebody to teach me to become a shaman," Malu said. "It's a matter of grave importance."

"And the fate of Senlin isn't?" he asked, glancing to her. When he did, there was something of a catch to his gaze, before he shook his head and turned back to the fire. "I can't teach you anything. You'll need somebody who's... better. And most wouldn't teach you anyway. Teaching means you have to enter the Spirit World. That's dangerous."

"It's only dangerous if you aren't prepared," Malu parroted the line Brother Pathik told her.

"Heh. Maybe a century ago. Now, the place is a death-trap inside another, deadlier death-trap."

Malu didn't like the way he was talking. She'd been into the Spirit World fairly recently. At least, if those extremely vivid dreams were the Spirit World, as the Elders told her. It was weird, yes, but that dangerous? Hardly.

"Well, maybe I can help you with this thing you're looking for?" she offered. "Would you teach me then?"

"Little lady, nobody short of the Avatar could help me," he said. She flashed a grin at him.

"Well, it's your lucky day!" she declared. He glanced up to her.

"And why would that..."

"I'm the Avatar!" she said with a chuckle. But the expression on his face had gone from weary concentration to deepening horror.

"What? Is something behind me?" she asked, turning quickly.

"What is that?" he asked.

"I don't see anything," Malu said. She heard a whisper of metal against leather, and when she glanced back, the shaman was rushing her with a dagger. She cast out a hand and a bolt of air slammed him away. "What was that for?" she shouted.

"You won't have me, demon! Not today!" he screamed.

"Demon? but I'm the Av–" she tried to say, but he interrupted her as his voice seemed to resonate through the ground.

"Effervescent Life, boundless horizon, order from out chaos, perpetual flame, reach down and heed your desperate messenger!" he prayed. "Sap the strength from the flesh of the beast! Wither his legs so that he may not chase. Gnarl his claws so that he may not sunder. Cloud his eyes that he may not hunt. Hollow his lungs that he may not breathe!"

Even as he spoke, Malu could feel a lethargy begin to settle onto her, her legs starting to cramp, her fingers twisting like those of an ancient spinster woman. Even as her vision began to blur, she swept out a hand, and a wave of air smashed him to the ground again.

"What are you doing? I want to help you!" Malu cried. But she regretted it, because the air in her lungs was running short. She started having to force it down with her airbending just so she could have enough to not pass out from hypoxia.

"I've heard stories about you, monster!" he shouted, crawling for his knife. With a flick of her airbending, she punted it away. "How you approach them so innocent, so lost, and then EAT THEM!"

"Eat who? People? That's impossible! I'm a _vegetarian_!" Malu countered in a wheeze.

"You won't fool me," he spat. "Indomitable earth, eternal beacon, unquestioned truth, unwavering aegis, heed your desperate servant! Wherever the beast steps, shall there be no footing! Whenever the beast strikes, there shall be no force! Whenever the beast defies, it will be weakly! Whenever the beast denies, it will be silent!

Malu took a step back, and her feet went right out from under her. She took a moment to get the air forced back into her weakened lungs. Nobody told her that shamans could be this... unbalanced. Or dangerous, coincidentally. She tried to scramble her way up, but found that there was no friction to the ground under her. Her grey eyes went wide as she beheld the shaman take a flying leap and land atop the dagger, before scrabbling it out from under him and taking a step toward her.

"Please, I don't mean any harm," Malu wheezed. "I just want to stop Sozin from taking over the world!"

"A likely story, monster," the shaman sneered as he came closer. "You haven't even bothered to keep up with history, have you? Not surprising. Beasts don't tend to be very... smart!"

"I'm not a beast! I'm the Avatar!"

"Lies and lies and lies," he said, almost with a calm in his voice, as he raised that dagger high. She heaved with both of her bone-tired arms and legs, and cast out a blast of air which, given ideal conditions, could possibly have launched the shaman into low orbit. But as it was, all it managed to do was blast him into the roof, and send her sliding along the ground to the door. With her gnarled fingers, she clawed her way past the threshold. As she did, though, the air began to return to her lungs, a welcome respite from the uncomfortable sensation of suffocation that pervaded her a moment ago.

"No, I'm not letting you take me in the night, Beast!" he shouted from the room. "Capricious air, blood of the sail, lord of the morning, eternal song, reach down to your humble supplicant! And the air shall stand dead as the grave, and provide no succor to the Beast; and the winds shall buffet the bearer of false tidings and ill intentions into submission; and the paths once open shall be found closed to the that which has naught but hunger! She will be starved for..."

"Alright, you don't like me! I get it, I'll leave!" Malu shouted as she finally got back to her feet, and then ran. She made it three steps before she rebounded off of a springy mass of nothing but air. Her eyes bugged out at that. She pressed a hand into that mush, awed how she knew it wasn't airbending, but it could still hold her. She regretted not learning the trick of World Eyes, but knew spirits of air were barring her way. "I'm sorry about this, little guys, but that dude is CRAZY!"

She then cast her hands open, and the air which had tried to hold her in, now parted under her bending. She then started to run. Xin Fei was gone. She didn't know where. And she didn't know what could possibly happen to inspire that reaction form the crazy dude living there. But there were things she couldn't account for, things which kept her mind in a dark place even when the threat was behind her.

Naught but hunger? The grinding of her guts called to her even now. How did he know? _What_ _else_ did he know?

Malu came to a stop, wiping a palm's worth of sweat away from her brow. "What's going on with me?" she asked. But the universe had no answers for her this day.

* * *

><p>"Nila? Nila! What's a blowout?" Tzu Zi asked as Nila dragged her through the crack in the High Road into the bottom of the gulch. It was a deep and sheer drop into this lower water, but the waters were still even as the ominous groaning grew louder and clearer.<p>

"I don't know. It's one of the only things I haven't experienced about this place," Nila said rapidly.

"I didn't catch all of that," Tzu Zi said.

"I have experienced death in this place somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred and ten times. But I always knew to hide from the Blowout. That is something so dangerous that I cannot even quantify it."

"What does it do?" she asked.

"I just said, I don't know! All I know is that it's incredibly dangerous!"

"Well, why don't we go back?" she said. "We could hide in that cave..."

"The Havens aren't safe from Blowouts. Only the Mines, the Orchards, and the Pits are. Even then, not all of them."

"I don't understand! You're talking too fast and some of your words are all goobly!"

Instead of answering her, which in Nila's admitted state of panic would have come out all the faster and as a mixture of Si Wongi, Huojian and Tianxia, Nila shoved her up the spiraling mess of metal which corkscrewed haphazardly into the bottom of the gorge. It also meant that it also went up to the top. She knew that there had to be some reason why this place had a bridge, and metal debris in it. But whatever history this place had was lost to time.

"Tzu Zi, we have about two minutes before the Blowout hits," she said. "Run!"

"Where are we going?" Nila shouted back. Luckily, though, she was doing as Nila demanded and throwing rocks ahead of her as she ascended. The downside was that they seemed to go out of their way to bounce down and harry Nila as she rose behind her.

"There's a hole in the ground that you can hide out a Blowout in here," Nila said, but even as she mentioned it, she was running the measurements in her head. She didn't like what those measurements said.

"Nila I'm scared!"

"Good! You should be!" Nila shouted up, even as her legs burned from the pace, spinning their way up to the top where the grey, lifeless ground opened up to the foot of the dull stone bridge which crossed the gully. Tzu Zi was practically dancing in place for fear as Nila came up and grabbed her hand, dragging her toward and across that bridge. But there was something odd, this time, something that distracted Nila as she ran, let Tzu Zi's hand slip from hers. Was that light ahead?

"What is..."

The third word in her question was interrupted as she felt gravity reverse itself, and she went flying up in the air with a sound like two great, planed sticks smacking into each other. She landed hard on her chest, and shook the stars from her eyes. "Springboard!" she shouted back. But there was another crack, and Nila rolled to one side as Tzu Zi landed ungracefully but still on her feet.

"Springboard?" Tzu Zi asked, helping Nila up.

"It is shaped like itself," Nila said. She turned to that source of light, and confusion ruled her. The hole was in the roots of a tree on this side of the bridge. But that tree had changed. That was something that never happened. Things were always exactly the same. But for some reason she couldn't ponder, the tree she hid under was now awash with silvery light. She shook her head, and grabbed Tzu Zi by the shoulders. "Now in those roots is a hole. Go inside."

"What about you?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila just glanced away. "No. No!"

"You didn't deserve this, so you shouldn't have to die for it!" Nila said. "Get in the hole!"

"Why aren't you getting into the hole?"

"BECAUSE IT'S NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US!" Nila screamed.

Nila began to drag Tzu Zi toward that hole, but Tzu Zi broke free. As she did the sky began to shift from the sickly yellow, to the angry red of an eye filled with pepper powder. "No! You need to find your brother!"

Nila growled, and grabbed Tzu Zi's arm. "You have family that loves you, right?" Tzu Zi nodded. "Then you've got a lot more to go back for than I do."

"That can't be true, Nila. There's got to be a way we can..."

"We're running out of time. Go in there, Tzu Zi. Get away from here, somehow."

"I don't know how!"

"You know all the lessons I needed to keep from dying," Nila said. "You'll find a way."

"Nila, please, don't do this."

Nila ordinarily wouldn't. It was strange to think that only a month or so ago, she would have bolted into that hole without a single consideration for others at all. But now, she was trying to force another into safety, and face down certain death. Part of her thought it was because that was the kind of person Nila wanted Tzu Zi to remember her as. Part of her thought that this was still some sick dream, and that at least this way, in her own mind at least, she could be a better person than anybody thought she was. Or maybe, deepest of all, she simply would rather die a friend then live alone.

"I have to," Nila said. There was a great crash, and the whirlwind hum of the approaching shockwave put urgency to words. "Please, Tzu Zi. Don't die here," she stopped, staring at her feet. "When you get out of here... find Sharif. Bring him home. Tell my mother... Something. Make something up."

"Nila..." Tzu Zi said, tears in her eye.

"Please, don't die today," Nila said, a sob in her own throat. She felt herself pulled into a hug again, one she didn't even feel a desire to pull free from, and then Tzu Zi was on her hands and knees, trying to worm into that hollow. It was an odd peace which settled onto Nila as the color and fury began to spill down into the canyon. She leaned against the wood of the tree, and waited.

The flash and noise and power thundered toward her, and she met it with eyes open. Even if she could never describe what she was about to see, she wanted to see it. That deadly shockwave tore closer, throwing the chips of dead earth into the air as it passed, the only wind and erosion this place ever got. It bore down on that tree, on that hiding place, and Nila watched with a smile on her face, and peace in her heart.

And then it parted at the edge of the pool of light that was cast down by the brilliant tree. Confusion broke the peace, as her mind then tried to figure out _why_. The tree was different, that was obvious enough, but how had it become different enough to survive a Blowout? The storm of color and lightning and devastation raged around her, pressing in on the silvery pool under the tree, but the soft light refused to give an inch of ground to the wrongness. In fact, with every passing moment, the silvery light actually seemed to get stronger, brighter, more clear. She watched, and she wondered, and she felt...

Something she couldn't describe.

Joy, maybe?

The shockwave moved past, its back edge pressing past the gully and throughout the rest of this place. She watched it leave, one hand on the warmth of the bark. Even as she stood there, she could have sworn she felt a tiny heartbeat inside that tree. She then heard sobbing, and scuffling. Tzu Zi poked her head up from the hole, tears pouring freely down her face. Her eyes were pressed closed, though, as though she couldn't bear to look.

"Tzu Zi! It's not done!"

"Nila?" she said, a grin breaking through the tears as she tackled Nila with a hug. Nila quickly pushed the both of them back inside the pool of light, and ended with herself half supine with Tzu Zi yammering very quickly and unintelligibly in Huojian into Tzu Zi's shirt. What she did pick out, though, was 'you're alright' and various sentiments of the like.

"There's another wave coming," Nila said. "They always come in pairs."

And as she watched, the red deepened, into the festering purple-green of a putrifying wound. There was another bang in the sky. She often wondered what would have created such a loud, metallic sound, but she had never been able to find it. Thank the gods for small miracles. Tzu Zi just clung tight as the second wave began to spill forward across the distance, and slam hard against that pool of light under the tree. But as before, the light was stalwart, and would not relent its place. In time, it too passed. And all that was left was the darkening sky, the encroaching silence, the glowing tree, and two frightened girls clinging together for mutual comfort.

"Is... is it over?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Yes. It's over," Nila said. She looked up, and then pulled a glowing leaf from a low lying branch. "Until I figure a way out of here, nothing can hurt us."

"You shouldn't scare me like that," Tzu Zi said, but her tone was much more relieved than angry, even Nila could tell that much.

"I'll make a note not to," she said. She then showed that glowing leaf to Tzu Zi. She delicately plucked it from Nila's hand, cupping it in her palm.

"It's so beautiful," Tzu Zi said, staring at the leaf. But Nila found herself staring at something else. Tzu Zi.

"Yeah... it is," she said, idly rubbing Tzu Zi's back in what she assumed was a calming manner.

And now, Nila had _something else_ that she needed to think about.

* * *

><p>"I'm confused, you want to do what again?" Aang asked, scratching his bald pate.<p>

"I..." Sharif shook his head, like he was trying to call forward an idea and failing. "We, rather... we have to stop that thing before it hurts somebody."

"It's already abducted, and from the looks of things, killed, a bunch of kids and the people who went after them," Sokka pointed out.

"Killed?" Sharif asked. Aang nodded. But Sharif looked all the more puzzled. "They're fine. They're standing right over there."

Aang followed Sharif's pointing finger, but it was aimed at a vacant spot in the vast hall. Sokka raised a brow. "There's nothing there. Aang, I know you've got it in you. You'll find a way to deal with that spirit monster."

"They're right there!" Sharif repeated.

"Nobody's standing there," Katara said gently. At that point, the dark boy with the prominent facial scar slapped his forehead.

"Right! Of course you can't see them. They're in the Outer Sphere."

"The what?"

"Have you learned the World Eyes yet?" Sharif asked the Avatar. Aang took a step back, and thought about it. No, nobody ever taught him anything like that. Or if they had, he wasn't paying attention when they did it. Damn it, it was days like this that he wished he'd had Malu's work ethic back when the Air Nomads were still a people and not a memory! If he had, he'd have a lot better airbending, and all of the other stuff she knew as well. But it was neither here nor there at this point.

"Nobody taught me anything about spirits. I didn't even know I was a shaman until I figured out I was the Avatar. I just thought I had vivid dreams and a conscience which was skilled in ventriloquism," Aang said. Sharif sighed, then reached over and flattened a palm on the arrow that adorned Aang's brow. Even as Sokka let out a yelp at its inappropriateness, Aang felt that the sound became... hollowed. Like it was reflecting in a tinny sort of room. Then, the sounds smoothed out, and Aang looked around again.

"Katara, what just happened?" Sokka said, glancing around in alarm. Sharif looked like he was about to say something, then looked around himself and groaned.

"Damn it, too far," he said. He winced as he turned to Aang, and seemed to be stretching something across his forehead. As he did, the scar above his eye started to glow slightly. "Okay, that's better. Now I can think again."

"What?"

"Brain damage," Sharif said, pointing at his head. "In the Outer Sphere I can... bridge... the damage somewhat. But I'm not built to stay here long, and I'm a lot weaker here. Just give me a second. I'll get you back into the Inner Sphere."

The palm returned to Aang's head, and this time shifted slightly, and Sokka let out a sigh of relief. "Where did you go?" Sokka asked. Aang noted that he still had his club out. "And where's the weird kid?"

"He's right in front of you," Aang said.

"Technically, I'm not," Sharif said with a shrug. "I'm still in the Outer Sphere."

"But I can see you!" Aang said.

"Because you're using the World Eyes," Sharif answered with a nod.

"Who are you talking to?" Katara asked.

"You promised you'd get his attention!" a man's voice cut in, and Aang turned. There was a gruff, unshaven man who was lingering nearby, as two others were keeping a gaggle of children collected and calm. Each and every one of them wasn't there an instant ago.

"I did, calm down," Sharif said.

"I can see you all," Aang said with a note of wonder.

"Oh, great. The Avatar went crazy," Sokka noted deadpan.

"Sokka, I think I know what happened," Aang said. He turned to Sharif. "When that thing attacked, it must have pulled them into this... Outer Sphere and left them stranded there. Why would it do that?"

"Because it doesn't remember what it is," Sharif said. He turned to the window, leaning against the sill. "The Spirit World is a dangerous place. Deadly to everything that lives there, even its own inhabitants. This spirit tried to live here, in the Outer Sphere, but at some point, it lost its name, its very identity."

"Somebody must remember it," Aang said.

"That's the point. When a spirit loses its name, it's gone completely. Nobody can remember it, because it's as if it never had one. It loses everything that it was, its shape, its purpose, its nature. And in its confusion and fear, it lashes out. It's not malicious. It's just scared and confused."

"What if somebody were to find its name?" Aang asked.

"Are you following any of this?" Sokka asked.

"Not really," Katara admitted.

Sharif made to dismiss the notion, but caught himself. "That's a good idea, actually. Not all spirits are angry buggers. If it remembers who it is, it might stop all on its own."

"That's great."

"...or it could remember that it's a spirit of murder and exterminate the entire village," Sharif continued.

"Thats... not so great," Aang amended. "How will we know?"

"That's the tricky part. We don't. Do you know how to work spirits?"

"Not really?"

"That's odd, because I heard you do it before. The prayers are the thing. It's half instinctual at the least, so you're in the same boat as most shamans. Just call out to what you need, ask for its help. If you ask them properly, they will," Sharif said.

"Well, there'll be plenty of time for you to teach me when I get back," Aang said.

"We're going somewhere?" Sokka asked.

"No," Sharif said sternly. He pointed at the children. "They won't survive another day."

"What? Why?"

"They might look like they're at 100 percent but in reality, they're much closer to around 5. Three days in the Outer Sphere, then you die of dehydration the instant you step out. They've been in here for two and a half. They're held here by that thing's will," Sharif stressed.

"How do you know so much about the Spirit World and stuff?" Aang asked, alarm clearly creeping into his voice.

"I've been doing this all my life. The brain injury just made me worse at it," Sharif said. He sighed for a moment. "You're not going to be doing this alone. I can still help you... but when I step back into the Inner Sphere, chances are I _might_ remember a _tiny_ fraction of what you and I just spoke about. Everything we discuss or plan will fall entirely on you."

"Why?" Aang asked.

Sharif pointed at his scar. "This won't follow me back into the World. I'm thinking with a fake brain, and everything on it stops existing when it does. I can help, but it'll be your show. You're the hero today, Avatar."

"That's not a vote of confidence," Aang said.

Sharif just smiled, though. "I must say, I'm glad it's somebody like you that's Avatar. We need somebody still innocent enough to try to fix the world, rather than somebody ruthless enough to burn it down and rebuild on its bones. There's been enough death."

"I'll do whatever I can," Aang promised. And then, he noted that Katara started back a bit.

"How did he do that?" Katara asked.

"I... Are you the Avatar?" Sharif asked, the glow vanishing from his scar, and his eyes becoming distant and unfocused.

"Of course, we just talked and... oh. Oh I get it," Aang said. "Wow. That's really sad."

"No, I feel alright," Sharif noted, but he turned slowly to the grieving, and pointed idly toward the children huddled in the Outer Sphere. "I don't know why they're so upset. They're standing right there."

"Sharif, I need your help," Aang said, recalling what Sharif had just told him. The youth turned to him. "We need to confront the spirit outside, and get it to reveal its name."

"A name? Yes, that's important. Everything has a name. Mine's Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar. What's yours?"

"You already told us your name. Did you forget already or something?" Sokka asked.

"I'm Aang, remember?" but the answer was an obvious no. "Look, how do you find out answers to things, using spirit magic?"

"It's not magic. You just need to ask the right people," Sharif said casually. "Usually void works best."

Aang stared, then picked at his ear for a moment. "...What's void?"

"It's... void," Sharif said, obviously lacking the cognition to explain further. "Well, what's the plan?"

"I don't have much of one. Do you know how to fight spirits?"

"I've done it before," he said. "The details are a bit fuzzy, but I know I've done it."

"Then I need you to help me," Aang said, pointing toward the front doors, which still stood ajar. This just felt weird. One moment, Sharif is telling Aang what to do, and the next, Sharif needs Aang to tell _him_ what to do. It was like one of those strange comedies he saw down in Great Whales when he was a tyke. He didn't get it then, but it was weird and off-beat and made him laugh, even with the cultural divide working against him. He was about to ask where the thing was, but the question became moot as the World Eyes made it far easier to see than he had without them. Hovering near the gates to Senlin was an eldrich abomination of smoke and glass, darkness pulled into two great and adjacent pools surrounded by a mask of brilliant light. "Wow. That thing looks really ang–"

Aang was cut off when he felt his face connect with a door.

Aang took a step back, rubbing his nose. "Aang, what happened? You just walked right into that!" Katara said.

"I thought it was open," Aang said.

"How could you make a mistake like that?" Sokka asked, reaching toward the obviously open space before Aang and pulling at it, as though opening a door. This time, Aang moved forward a bit more cautiously, and still managed to clip his shoulder on something that, for all his eyes told him, wasn't there. Apparently there were a lot of little things about Shamans that needed explaining at some point. But now wasn't it. The spiraling mess turned toward Aang, as he held out both arms, and shouted.

"O, Void Spirits! Tell me the name of this... thing!" Aang demanded.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Anything?" Sokka asked from the other side of the threshold, his tone speaking volumes of his doubt.

"You're not asking them right. You have to invoke them," Sharif said. He turned to the thing which was beginning to spin faster. "Oh, well, that's unusual. What do you think it's doing?"

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Aang repeated as he rushed a bit closer. A high whine began to sound from the thing, generated where light scraped along darkness. Then, the tone dropped as the darkness began to swell, an ephemeral energy growing inside those shadow pools, begging for release.

Then came a scream, and a wash of blue light, which lifted Aang and threw him hard into the side of the building. So hard, in fact, that it bent the wood of the walls inward a bit. Aang's head spun as he felt Sharif pull him to his feet. "Wow, that thing's not very nice, is it?" Sharif said. He walked toward the creature.

"You should be nicer to the Avatar. He just wants to help you," Sharif said. The spinning of the panes slowed slightly, almost as though it was scrutinizing the scarred shaman. But then, the whine and the drone repeated, and a scream began to build up, crackling along the faces of those mirrors of light and darkness. Sharif's eyes went wide, and he opened his left hand.

Indomitable Earth, immovable object, unbreakable shield, scale of the dragon;

Gear of Endurance.

Chain the

Sharif got that far before the scream announced in full, sending the shaman flying across the street and slamming him into the stairs. The youth let out a groan of pain, and tapped a hand to the back of his head. It came back bloody. "That really hurt," Sharif complained.

"I think I know how to do this now," Aang said. It was a matter of coaxing the spirits into action, asking, not demanding. Finding the right words. So he opened his mind, and his heart, and he spoke, his right hand opening.

UNBROKEN VIRTUE, IMPENETRABLE BARRIER, UNWAVERING PROMISE, IMPLICIT VOW;

GEAR OF THE MOTHER.

HEED THE CALL OF A TIRED AND FRIGHTENED ORPHAN OF A NEVER ENDING WAR!

WHAT CARNAGE COMES, BECOME THE BARRIER WHICH SHELTERS THE INNOCENT!

WHAT MADNESS COMES, CLEANSE THE MINDS AND SHOW THE TRUTH!

WHEN ONE FALLS, ANOTHER TAKES HIS PLACE;

MORE RESILIENT THAN IRON AND STRONGER THAN ARMIES.

DRAW OUT THE BATTLE LINES; NOT ONE STEP FURTHER TRAVELED!

As Aang spoke, a shimmer seemed to float in the air, settling like goose-down on the buildings in Senlin. It was not feathers, that fluff. Even as Aang felt the knot of something pressed in the palm of his right hand, he knew he was looking at spirits of virtue and duty rising up, and protecting those who had no guilt in this conflict. That was the power of spirits. Now, when the beast's rotation brought its whirling edges to a building, it was not the building which crumbled and fell, but rather, the glass which shattered and fell into purple motes which wafted away. The beast let out another scream, and Aang bounded away, but only after using his airbending to send Sharif rolling out of the path of that blast.

Most tellingly, the assault only rattled the window frames slightly on the great building standing at the heart of town. Virtue held strong, it seemed. But that just seemed to enrage the beast more, and it screamed with increasing frequency, focusing solely on Aang to the point where if the Avatar stopped moving for more than two seconds, he was going to get blasted.

So it was a distinct relief when Aang could see Sharif approaching from 'behind' that whirling monstrosity, his left hand clutching above him. And when Sharif spoke, it was like he had in the Outer Sphere.

Indomitable Earth, immovable object, unbreakable shield, unslippable chain;

Gear of Confinement.

Heavy as lead and absolute as death. To it which raised a wrathful claw;

BIND!

As Aang watched, bondage began to reach up into the naked sky, lashing the spinning mass with chains made of verdant spirits, a growing and suffocating cage of green. The spinning slowed, and this time, what had begun as a scream died out before even reaching its crescendo.

As it strikes against those who seek its good fortune;

CONTAIN!

As it struggles to lash out against the innocent;

DENY!

The thing began to struggle in its bondage, and azure light began to lance through the chains of green that held it. Aang knew that he only had one chance to do this right, and that window for opportunity was closing fast. He bounded up to the building nearest it, close enough that he could reach forward his left hand and lay it upon the momentarily stilled pane of brilliant white that lay between pools of darkness. There was something in there, he could sense it. Something afraid, but not malicious. He had to trust his instincts. That was what mattered, right now. So he spoke.

SILENT VOID, UNSPOKEN QUESTION, WHISPER IN THE DARK, ESSENCE OF PROPHETS;

GEAR OF DISCOVERY.

THE WORD WHICH ONCE STOOD PROUD HAS FALLEN, AND TRUTH LIES IN DUST.

THE STORY WHICH ONCE GUIDED MAN TO GREATNESS HAS FALLEN INTO MYTH.

THE NAME WHICH ONCE BESPOKE EXISTENCE HAS VANISHED INTO AETHER.

REVEAL!

As Aang's voice rang out in a chorus, the thing began to snap the chains which held it. The pane under his hand began to twist, but he kept the pressure to it. He was running out of time. He had to do this faster!

KEEPER OF LOST AND FORGOTTEN LORE, STRIKE BACK AGAINST THE DARKNESS!

KNOWER OF ABANDONED LEGEND, SET FORTH A NEW AND BETTER PATH!

INSPIRER OF ORACLES, LOOK INTO THE CREATURE WHICH LOST ITSELF AND SHOW:

THE NAME, THE FACE, THE NATURE.

SHOW ME YOUR NAME, FRIGHTENED BEAST!

TELL ME YOUR NAME!

* * *

><p>Miles away, nursing a bruise which spread across his back, Jubei looked up as the pillar, so long formless and amorphous that he had practically given up hope on revealing its true face, suddenly began to change. The lumpy mass gained definition, an ursine form standing back, mounted high under the wooden roof. And a name, so long forgotten that minds could not contain it, began to slip back into memories thought buried.<p>

"Heibai?" Jubei said, as the face returned to that statue. There was a tiny growl, not angry, just... afraid, and lonely. Asking. And Jubei felt no need to deny it. "It's alright, Heibai. You are welcome here."

* * *

><p>The chains broke, but even as they did, the figure under Aang's hand ceased to be a swirling collection of razor glass and brilliant light and impenetrable darkness. In its place, there was a panda. A very, very large panda, but a panda nonetheless. Aang's hands fell open, as that beast tilted its head passively at him. It stared at him with those button eyes, almost hidden inside the patches of black against the white face, and there was a recognition in that look. Even though it was a creature, it knew that Aang was the Avatar. And because of Aang, it knew peace. As Aang's hands finally opened, and the prayer's he held in them slipped, the sheen lifted from the buildings, but too did the panda before him break apart into indigo motes, which blew toward the gates.<p>

"Is that it?" Aang asked. "Was that... Heibai?"

"Yes. He remembers himself now. Good for him," Sharif said placidly. He tapped his head again, then looked at his hand with a start. "Augh! When did I get cut?"

"During the fight with Heibai," Aang said.

"What fight? Oh. Right," Sharif gave a sheepish expression. "My mind, it wanders sometimes."

"So you've told me," Aang said. "Come on. You are a hero today."

"Maybe, but I feel there's something missing," Sharif said, his expression still distant, but slightly more focused. He tilted his head to one side, then turned toward the road leading into town.

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"...or a pumkiiiiiiin!" a girl's voice trailed off into a scream for the second it took her to appear out of mid air and land flat on her face. She had scarcely rolled over from the pratfall, when another girl with very short hair appeared likewise from the thin air and landed atop her, her face embedded in the first's bosom. The second girl looked up, then sat back, still straddling the first, and let out a laugh, before shouting something in a dialect of Si Wongi Aang wasn't aware of, while shaking her fist defiantly at the sky.

"Well, our day's looking up," Sokka said, joining Aang and looping an arm around his shoulder. "We beat a spirit monster by turning it into a panda, and then pretty girls start falling out of the sky!"

"Sokka! The children are back!" Katara came running, excitement plain in her voice. It twisted somewhat when she beheld the scene before her. "What are they doing?"

"Oh," Sharif said with mild surprise. "Hello there, sister. I was going to tell you and Mother about..."

"Sharif, you ASSHOLE!" the short haired girl shouted. "Do you know how much crap I had to go through to find you? I almost died of dehydration! I almost got capsized in a storm! Pirates stole my tools! And my robes! I'm wearing PIRATE PANTS!" Then she paused, turning toward Sokka. "Wait, pretty girl_**s**_?"

"Who is she?" Aang asked.

"That's my sister," Sharif said without any real concern.

"Nila, you're still sitting on my belly," the perky girl under the Si Wongi girl pointed out. Nila let out a squawk and stood, but Sharif tilted his head.

"You call her Nila too?" he asked.

"Call... Isn't Nila your name?" the girl asked.

"It's... a nickname that stuck," Nila said with begrudging tones. She held up two fingers. "Two things. First, you're coming back to Mother, right now. Second," she took a step toward Sokka. "You knew I was a girl."

"It was pretty obvious," Sokka said.

"Hm. Dark, tall, blue eyes. Tribesman. Pity, I hoped that it'd be somebody more intellectually stimulating."

"Excuse me?" Sokka asked.

"Tribesmen are uneducated. That's just the way it is," Nila dismissed.

"Really? Then answer me a technical question. You've got forty barrels of acid that you're delivering in secret. What are they used for?"

"Industrial?" Nila asked.

"Military," Sokka countered.

"Intriguing," she tapped her lip with a finger. "Forty barrels, I'm assuming twenty quarts per barrel, glass barrels to prevent reaction. Did they have lead?"

"I am not aware."

"Hm," She got a cunning look in her brilliant green eyes. "Quickly. Chemical formula for vitriol."

Sokka smirked. "Eastern or Western Standard?"

"Western of course," Nila said peevishly. "Everything's base ten."

"H2SO4," Sokka rattled off.

"Heaviest known element on Earth."

"Big 'E' or little 'e'?" Sokka asked, smugly. She smirked at that. "Refined pitchblende."

"Good answer, most would say lead, or at best, bismuth."

"We've been making bronze with bismuth for hundreds of years," Sokka said.

"What's going on?" Aang asked, but Sharif shushed him.

"You make bronze with bismuth? Why?"

"It's great at withstanding corrosion. Ideal if you spend time at sea," Sokka said simply.

"Guys, we have to..."

Both Nila and Sharif both shushed Aang harshly, before she turned to Sokka again. "Laws of Motion."

Sokka ticked them off his fingers. "Velocity is constant without outside interference, force equals mass times acceleration, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Nila turned to her companion and pointed idly at Sokka. "Tzu Zi, I demand we bring him with us. Can we keep him?"

"By all means," Katara said.

"Katara!"

"What?" She asked. "We've just seen the mating dance of the budding over-intellectual. Isn't it cute?"

Aang laughed at bit at that. But when he did, he remembered the important task before him. "Guys, we've done some good here, but I have to go," Aang said, whistling for Appa.

"_You_ have to go?" Sokka asked, now turned away from the siblings and their perky, buxom and half-dressed... guide? "What about us?"

"I can't take you with us. It's too dangerous," Aang said.

"How is that?" Katara inquired.

"I have to go to the Fire Nation," Aang said. "And I have to be there before tomorrow at sundown."

"Why would _that_ be dangerous?" Tzu Zi asked. "It's not like you're an airbender or something..."

All eyes turned to her. She looked at them, then turned her eyes to the ground and sighed. "He's an airbender, isn't he?"

"Did the arrows not give it away?"

"Well, the last one I met didn't have arrows!" she said.

"You met another airbender?" Aang said. Then he shook his head. "No! No, I can't get distracted by this. I need to reach Crescent Island."

"Why, Aang?" Katara asked.

"Because that's the only place I can talk to Roku," he said.

"The previous Avatar?" Sokka asked. "Why do you need to talk to him?"

"Remember that something bad I mentioned earlier?" Aang asked. Sokka shrugged. "They said Roku can explain more. I'm scared, but I have to go, and I don't want anybody else getting hurt. I have to go alone."

"The four-soul mind!" Sharif interrupted. All turned to him.

"Don't mind him, he does that sometimes," Nila dismissed.

"Of course! The lightning shows the way," Sharif seemed giddy for some reason. "Nila, I'll be back."

"Back? Oh no. You're not going anywhere," Nila said. And Sharif proved her patently wrong by vanishing into thin air. Even Aang, who's World Eyes hadn't quite faded, couldn't see what became of him. Nila took a step back, stammering. "What? WHAT? No! NO THAT ISN'T EVEN FAIR!" she roared.

But Aang's attention turned to the west. To the trials which awaited him. He was going to the Fire Nation. He was going into the jaws of the beast, and this time, the beast wasn't a panda. He didn't like his odds. Come to think of it, he didn't like much of anything about this solstice. But he was the Avatar, and he had duty. His eyes closed, as the sun began to set, and night fell awaiting the arrival of the shortest day, and the longest night.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, I've been reading far too much Russian literature and playing too many Russian video-games, I admit. Between Roadside Picnic, and Rebuild of Evangelion, it was pretty much an inevitability that the Heibai fight was going to look like that. Another thing that you'll probably notice is that I do thoroughly enjoy the careful and thoughtful creation of absolute cluster####s. The slamming of personalities into one another is part of what literature is. Sure, poetry doesn't need that, but since poetry has always been as clear as mud to me, you won't get much out of this guy. There's a reason why I've said that Azula is a poet, but never actually shown anything she created; mostly because even as a fictional construct of multiple imaginations (one version of which is my own), she is undoubtedly a better poet than I.<strong>

**You wanted to know what was up with Sharif? There's your answer. The stark change in voice comes about because I have to write him to very different ways depending on whether he's 'got his brain in'. Why, you ask, does he not just keep his brain in all the time in the Spirit World? Because of how brains work; specifically, that memory is a whole brain process. Since much of Sharif's forebrain is outright missing, it was a miracle he even relearned how to speak. Chalk that up to neural plasticity and youth. But since he's got something of his faculties back, anything that he does learn with that crippled brain, will probably stay in that crippled brain. But if he thinks with a fake brain, he can access everything that was on the crippled brain, and manipulate it much more effectively, but any memories which form while he has the fake brain don't actually leave any physical trace on his crippled brain. So when the fake brain fades, so too do any memories it might have stored. Simply put, Sharif has the choice of 'Think well in the OS and SW, but remember nothing', or 'Think terribly in the OS and SW, and maybe remember something'. Not fun, I can only assume.**

**Also, by bearing in mind that Nila and Tzu Zi got chucked into the Spirit World (And more importantly, what the Spirit world has become in a century), you can get a handle on why being a shaman is so bloody dangerous. It's something which will be touched on repeatedly in the future, both in the narrative and from the corner of your metaphorical eye. I don't doubt that you've already started forming opinions about The Children. If you want to guess, you've probably got enough information that you might be able to give a good one, if you so please.**

_Also, leave a review._


	10. Longest Night, Part 2: Sozin's Comet

**This is going up a bit earlier than I suspected it would. Chp.14 grew all out of my ability to control it, so I split it. **

* * *

><p>Angry ranting gave way to grumbling conversation quickly enough, as the understandably riled Si Wongi girl railed against circumstance and luck. It was a stance that he himself had quite a bit of experience with. "You know," Sokka said, "he did say he'd be back."<p>

"And when he left, he said 'I'll be out for a while'," Nila broke off in a growl. "Sharif is simple and while he doesn't lie, he is about as honest as a broken arrow."

Sokka raised a brow at that. "Man, what'd he do to make you this ticked at him?" he asked.

"He died," Nila said.

"You have to forgive Nila," Tzu Zi said warmly from Sokka's other side. "She's been under a lot of stress lately. We almost got killed in a weird storm-thing in one of her nightmares. That's got to... wow, that sounded a lot crazier out loud than it did in my head."

"Trust me, when you putter around with the Avatar," Sokka cast at thumb toward Aang, "that sort of thing becomes 'regular'."

"You've met the Avatar?" Tzu Zi asked, her brown eyes brightening.

"Of course, the Air Nomad child," Nila said impatiently. "Personally, I thought that 'the Avatar' would be more impressive. Taller maybe. And have a beard. Gods, for once it looked like a day was going to end in my favor, and then he has to vanish into _sachif_ air!"

"Um, Nila, what did that second last word mean?" Tzu Zi asked.

"It's... never mind," Nila said. She shook her head. "It figures the first time I meet a boy who isn't a muscle brained lout that..."

Sokka turned back. "My ears are burning," he said.

"Then I _suggest_ you dunk them in water," Nila shot back. Sokka just stared at her back as she muttered angrily to her companion. Sokka just couldn't figure her out. Yes, she was smart, but she was also kind of a bitch. But it wasn't the intentionally hurtful bitch that Sokka had met from time to time. It just seemed like she didn't have the first notion of how to deal with other people.

"You know what, when this whole 'waterbending master' thing is over, maybe you and I should exchange letters," Sokka said diplomatically. "It's not often I meet somebody who can keep up with me."

"Then you've been talking to idiots," Nila pointed out, not even turning to him.

"Sokka, stop flirting with the ball of hate and anger and get over here," Katara called to him. Sokka sighed at an opportunity missed. In truth, there was a lot about the Si Wongi girl which reminded him of Suki; of course, ever since he found himself enamored of a girl who could kick his ass without really trying, his standard for what constituted an appealing woman took a hard shift into territory he would never have predicted. So it was that he and Katara came upon Aang, who was heaving at his Bison as though the Avatar's frail physical form could move the massive, six legged beast.

"Come on, buddy! We've got to go!" Aang pleaded. "I know you don't want to go to the Fire Nation any more than I do, but we've got no choice, now get off your big fat butt and let's goooo!"

Finally, Aang's footing gave out and he slid to the ground. Sokka couldn't help but shake his head. "You know, maybe his big fat butt is trying to tell you something," Sokka pointed out. "Appa's not dumb for a fuzzy magical monster. He knows that if you go to the Fire Nation alone, you're not coming back."

"The world needs you too much to have you throw yourself away like this," Katara said quietly. "I need you too."

"We both do," Sokka agreed, and without sarcasm. "So the only solution that I see is to not go alone."

"But you could get hurt!"

"We're well aware of that," Sokka pointed out. He turned to his sister. "Tell me, little sister. Does it at all bother you to think that we're flying directly into enemy territory on an obviously suicidal mission to help out the Avatar?"

"Not even a little," she primly replied. "If you're going west, then we are too."

"You guys..." Aang said, but he couldn't come up with any way to finish it. "I'm glad I've got you. I really am."

"Awww, it's so sweet! They really do love each other..."

"Tzu Zi, stop commenting on what doesn't concern us!"

Katara giggled at that. "I think we've made our point," she said. But she frowned as she stared to the western horizon. "But how are we possibly going to make it to the Fire Nation by the coming sundown? That's almost a thousand miles away!"

Aang smirked as he motioned the others to join him in the saddle. "I've heard that bison can go two hundred miles in a single hour," Aang claimed. "It'll be a bumpy ride, and it'll tire Appa out, but I'm pretty sure we'll get there on time."

"Then we don't have any time to lose," Katara goaded.

"Avatar, just a moment," Chief Tso broke in. He approached them with a bundle, and handed it up to them. "The seas will be treacherous and wild, and the heat of the West will be stifling. These clothes will keep you from broiling when you reach your destination, and the salts will help your sweat wick in the humidity."

"Thanks, but I don't think we're going to need them. We don't intend on staying there long," Sokka said.

"It won't matter," Tso said. "You'll understand when you get there."

"Thank you, Chief. And I'm relieved that we found a way to calm Heibai before he could..."

"GO!" Tso shouted, pointing west. Aang swallowed, gave a glance back to the Tribesmen behind him, and then gave a 'yip-yip' that brought the beast into the skies.

Left on the ground, Tzu Zi watched as the beast rose into the sky. "I think I want one of those," she declared. "As a pet, you know?"

She turned, and saw that Nila had just slumped on a bench next to a building. "What's wrong, Nila?"

She looked up, and fatigue was clear in those green eyes. "I'm... tired," she said. "I have him, then I don't have him... I'm just tired. And I think I need a hug right now."

"Oh, Nila, don't worry," Tzu Zi said, embracing her friend. "We'll find your brother. Just you wait."

It was a good thing Tzu Zi didn't know the kind of pleasure Nila got from that embrace. That would have been awkward.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

**Longest Night II: Sozin's Comet**

* * *

><p>There was silence in the Spirit World as Sharif walked the paths that few others dared. It was a tricky business walking the Spirit. While it could take you a thousand miles in an hour if the destination and the departure were in the right places, it also had a distinct possibility of getting dead on the way. Usually, Sharif just allowed himself to think as he would in this place, but right now, he knew he didn't have time to flounder about as he often did. He had to stay focused. And if that meant that he'd forget everything that happened in this trip, so be it. He could feel the hairs on his arms raising, and he let out an annoyed grunt, before sweeping the electrical bubble aside. It still gave him an unpleasant zap as he passed, but he had better things to deal with. Like finding the Four-Soul Mind. He didn't need to look back to see the silvery motes prodding him. Not that they'd prod him here. Void was afraid of this place. Rightfully so.<p>

Sharif knew the end of his walk was at hand. He thrust his hands into his pockets, taking a deep breath of the stillness. "More's the pity," Sharif said. "Nila deserves a better answer than I can give."

Some things needed to be said, even if they weren't ever heard. As he clenched his fist, he felt a prick, and extracted it distastefully. It was the shard of metal, still slightly discolored from Patriarch's blood. With a sigh, he tossed it over his shoulder, at the mouth of the hollowed tree in the middle of a forsaken garden. That was what he called this place. The Forsaken Garden. He knew that if he took one 'gate', he could step out in freezing cold and blasting winds, and the other, driving rain and stifling heat. He opted for the latter, today. But he took a moment to look at the quiet, unassuming beauty of this place. Even in death, there was a capacity for beauty. He let out a weary sigh, and then stated sarcastically. "Well, I can't keep farting about. So long, higher cognitive processes."

Sharif stepped through the gate, and as he did, he felt a blood-warm rain beginning to pelt him. The heat went from lukewarm to unpleasant in an instant, as his eyes took in the path before him. Even as his false-brain left him, and he looked upon the scene with the naïvety of a child, he knew the danger here. The driving rains under iron-grey clouds fought an endless battle against the liquid hot stone, ending in stalemate with the magma giving way to mounds of dark volcanic stone and soil, while the waters' dead rose up in a curtain of steam which surrounded the walkway which he approached. It was the World. And from the heat and the rain, it was the Fire Nation. Sharif pulled his hood up, if only to keep the water from drumming his head into insanity, and began to walk up that path. The Avatar's Temple was where they told him to go. They had something for him to see. Something important.

Sharif wanted to know what it was.

* * *

><p>"Do you think he's actually going to show up?" the dark complected Child asked.<p>

"Does it matter?" Yoji answered him, keeping close behind Ozai as he glared at the Fire Sages.

"If we had been made aware of your arrival, we would have made preparations," Sage Deng offered.

"And you would have announced my presence to the entire archipelago," Ozai finished, with an unkind tone. "Am I the only one who thinks before he acts?"

"I apologize, Fire Lord," the eldest of the Sages said, bowing down and tapping his brow to the stone of the floor at Ozai's feet. Ozai considered kicking his face purely on the grounds for being an idiot lackey, but the momentary joy and relief from his frustration that it would have brought him was far outweighed by the need of having loyal servitors, even in distant and inhospitable places.

"Don't be sorry," Ozai said. "'Sorry' does nothing to help the Fire Nation remove one of its greatest remaining threats. I came to this place unannounced for a very specific reason, Deng."

"What is it, Fire Lord?" Deng asked.

"Tell your Fire Sages to prepare for a most unwelcome guest," Ozai ordered. "The Avatar himself."

"He will be given the harshest of welcomes," Deng offered without a whisper of hesitation. That was the kind of man that Ozai preferred to deal with. While the intelligent ones had ways of acting well outside and above Ozai's expectations of them, they also had an unpleasant tendency to act against his wishes as well. It was only those rare few who could combine both cunning and zeal that Ozai bothered to trust. And most of those now numbered amongst the Children. He gave a glance back, to the deathly-pale Yoji as she waited behind him.

"What is your opinion?" Ozai asked.

"I don't have enough information to make an opinion," Yoji said simply. Ozai couldn't help but smirk at that. It was odd how a teenager, especially one such as she, could have reached his 'inner circle'. But she did not do it out of avarice. That was why she was useful to him.

"It's good you know your place."

"I am Fire Nation," Yoji answered. "My place is behind the Fire Lord."

"Good," Ozai said. "Do you remember the Princess?"

"Vaguely, Fire Lord," Yoji said, following as he walked away from the entry halls. "She was weak and a traitor to our Nation."

"And you have heard that she is coming here?"

"Of course, Fire Lord. What do you wish of her?" Yoji asked.

Ozai stopped, pondering that question. While killing her was an option, it wasn't one which sat well with him, politically. As much trouble as he would have with an instigator in the family, he would face far more if it became known that he had spilled the blood of his own daughter. Kinslayers seldom ruled long, when their enemies were as strong as Ozai's were. But a notion occurred to him. "Of course, Zhao is the answer," he turned to the greatest of the Children. "The Admiral has an unhealthy fixation on the Princess. I say, let him. If she comes, give her to him."

"She will not go willingly. Does it bother you to chain her?" Yoji asked.

"Why would it?" Ozai asked. "Prepare yourselves. And if the Prince comes... Make sure he comes before me. He and I have... business to attend to."

"As you wish, Fire Lord," Yoji said, before vanishing in the maze of halls and chambers. In many ways, Yoji reminded Ozai of his departed wife, albeit when they had first met. Firebenders, of ruthless personality and a cunning to know whom and how best to serve. Again, Ozai entertained the notion of adding Yoji to his concubines. But as usual, he discarded the notion swiftly. She was _much_ more useful on her feet than on her back. He cracked his knuckles as he stared out the rain-battered window. Zhao had better be right, he thought as the last two fingers of his right glove crumpled on themselves. If he wasn't, then he would find that Ozai was _not_ the kind of man who enjoyed being waylaid.

* * *

><p>"I still have to stress how dangerous this is," Iroh said, fretting as he stood under pounding rain. "If they take you here, there will be nothing I can do!"<p>

"We won't be caught," Zuko said. He took a breath, smelling the unmistakable fragrance of the volcano, the sulphur and the ash. The black stone and blacker soil, that stretched along the broken circle which the island comprised. Once, it was said that Crescent Island was much larger, a ring of volcanic cone around a raised pond. Now, half of it was blasted away. He wasn't sure which of the fire Avatars did that, but it was one of them, he was certain.

"You're wasting time, Zuzu! Come on! The Avatar could be there by now!"

Zuko sighed, and turned to his uncle. "Keep the engines ready."

"You said you weren't going to get caught," Iroh pointed out.

"Getting away means not getting caught," Zuko said quietly. "So does being victorious. I just want to have all options open to me for a change."

Iroh let out a sigh, then set his hand on the unburned side of Zuko's neck. "Don't worry, Nephew, I'll keep the ship out of harms' way until you need it. But tell me, and be honest; do you really think this has a chance of working? Do you think you could take the Avatar in battle?"

Zuko turned to where his sister was impatiently pacing around the skiff, muttering to herself as she did so. "Not alone," Zuko said. "Lucky that I'm not, then."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Iroh said. He looked his nephew in the eyes. "Promise me you will err on the side of caution. I have already lost much of my family. I would hate to think of losing rest of it. Not like this."

"Of course, Uncle," Zuko said. He bounded over the low rail of the skiff, and Azula bounded in next to him.

"Why were you wasting so much time?" Azula asked.

"We're probably here ahead of them," Zuko said. "Even if that bison can travel at extraordinary speeds, it still couldn't erase a whole day's head start."

Azula just stared off over the choppy, grey waters. "I just want one of my plans to work for once," Azula said, her voice quiet. "No mistakes or... or..." she shook her head, unable to come up with a better way of communicating her wish.

"This time will be different," Zuko promised. "It's just us and a bunch of old Fire Sages, and all the Avatar has are his Tribesmen. We've got him trapped."

She let out a bitter laugh. "That'd be a change," she muttered. And with a rumble, the skiff's engines churned to life and sent the iron-hulled craft powering along the weather beaten landscape of Crescent Island.

* * *

><p>"Tui La, it's hot down here," Sokka muttered, having doffed everything but his vest and pants for the heat as they approached the continent to the west. "How is it so hot when it's both cloudy and raining?"<p>

Aang looked around as the weather pounded at the bison. "It was never this wet when I used to come here," he answered from the beast's brow. "It _was_ this hot, though."

"Are you sure we couldn't just fight them some other place?" Katara asked, leaning over the edge of the howdah, sweating like her life depended on it. Or to put it as she had, melting away into a puddle of salty water. "Like... Whales or something?"

"This is where we have to go," Aang stressed, as the weary beast began to slip lower into the featureless grey. Only above the clouds could they mark the sun, and it had traveled far to the west in their mad sprint here.

"Besides, you've gotta figure that we're going to be bringing the fight to the Fire Nation sooner or later," Sokka added with a casual tone. "Might as well get used to it before something important happens."

"Your fatalism astounds me," Katara said flatly. Appa began to drop all the faster, which made Aang's eyes bug wide.

"Appa! Slow down! We're going to crash!"

Appa must have heeded the words, because short of crashing into the coastline, it flared out its legs, slowing suddenly. There was a grunt behind Aang as Katara got the wind knocked out of her from her stance half-across the rail, but there was no other injury. That was something Aang was quite pleased with. What he wasn't pleased with was how, upon inspection, Appa was blowing foam. "Appa, are you alright?" he asked.

"He just crossed eight hundred miles in a day," Katara said calmly. "He's probably just tired. Aren't you, big fella?" Appa let out a grumble and then rolled over onto its side. "See? Just give him some time to rest, and he'll be right as... well, rain."

"I hope you're right," Aang said. "Get strong for me, buddy."

"Guys, we probably don't have too much time left in the day," Sokka pointed out. "We should probably get moving."

"You're right," Aang noted, then started up the long path to the great, tiered structure which dominated this portion of the island. Oddly, he could see that they were beginning to cut terraces into the slopes. They hadn't done that when Aang flew past before. But, he thought to himself with a nod, that was a century ago. This much fertile soil was begging to be utilized. "Why is it raining so hard?" he put voice to thought. "The Fire Nation was pretty much all sun, all the time."

"Couldn't tell ya," Sokka said. "All I know is that the clouds rolled in about sixty years ago, and they've been here ever since. And good riddance, I say. Let the Fire Nation feel the damp on their necks for a change!"

Aang didn't respond to that as he skirted around the half-open doors leading to the walkway. Once, it had stood over flowing magma. Now, it was a respite from a deluge of steam. Hot did not begin to describe it. But they crossed quickly, passed the place where the hot rock gave way to the rain, and Aang stared up at the temple to Roku, and to the Avatars from the Fire Nation which came before him. "Was it Kyoko?" Aang asked.

"What?" Katara asked.

"The Avatar before Roku?"

"Kyoshi."

"No, the one from the _Fire Nation_ before Roku," Aang asked. The two siblings shared a glance, then both shrugged.

Aang shook his head. It didn't really matter. The courtyard was fairly large, but it had a claustrophobic feel to it; it was littered with various icons and statues and gates. Still, they didn't tarry, because they had a place to be and dead people to talk to. As they crossed, Aang felt like he was being watched. So strongly, in fact, that he called the Tribesmen to a halt, and swept his eyes around the rain battered stone. "What is it, Aang?" Sokka asked.

"We're being followed," Aang said, turning. Behind him stood a figure in a saturated cloak.

"Half right," the Fire Nation Prince's voice came from that figure. "Not so much followed... as surrounded."

Aang turned again, to see Azula slink out of her own hiding place, behind one of the many torii which dotted the expanse. As she walked, cloak hanging wet around her, Aang couldn't help but watch how she moved. Her hips seemed to slide, graceful and smooth and deadly as a venomous snake. He wasn't ashamed to admit that seeing her like that, wet and... mobile... caused some distinctly un-monk-like thoughts in the young monk.

"Welcome to the Fire Temple," Azula said, a smirk on her face. "Ordinarily, there would be a greeting party, but it looks like you're going to have to settle for us."

"That doesn't bother me," Sokka said. "We all know you're getting your butts kicked at the end of the day."

Azula's smirk curdled at that. Damn it, Sokka! Don't antagonize the pretty pretty villainess! "Proud words from the boy who doesn't even factor into the fight," Azula said snidely. "Zuko, take care of..._ that girl_," for reasons Aang didn't quite understand, there was a deep seated and vile hatred in those words, "but the Avatar? He's mine."

With a splat of feet across rain-soaked stone, the royalty charged forward, fire in their fists and in their voices and their intentions. As Aang rushed forward to meet his foe, he hoped desperately, for all she was trying to kill him, that he didn't hurt her.

* * *

><p>Zuko, on the other hand, advanced slowly, his eyes narrowed against the blood-warm rain that fell. The waterbender stared back at him. Zuko's eyes flicked to Sokka. To discount him would be done at his peril. The Tribesman had a way of pulling surprises out of thin air. "Don't come any closer, Zuko!" she snapped at him. "I'm warning you!"<p>

"No, I'm warning you," Zuko said with forced calm. "You can still walk away from this fight and not be branded an enemy of the Fire Nation. You can live your lives, however you see fit. But if you don't leave, right now, then I promise you that you will never know a peaceful day for the rest of your lives. Is that what you want, Katara? Do you want to be a criminal with a bounty on your head so large that even your own father would be tempted to turn you in for it?"

"You don't know anything about our father," Sokka shouted.

"Admittedly, I don't," Zuko said. "If he's anything like mine, then I consider it fortunate he's gone."

Fire began to flare behind the Tribesmen, as Azula and the airbender met and began to blaze and blow. "Last chance," Zuko offered. "Walk away."

"Never," Katara seethed. "I will NEVER walk away from the people who need me!"

"So be it," Zuko muttered, then with an angry grunt of effort, he lashed forward with a fist. Zuko had learned much about fire from Uncle, during their time on the ship. How it was weaker in the dark, in the cold. How it lost its focus and its direction in the wet. And he had specifically been training for years to counteract those difficulties. Considering how Azula, from when she was six, dominated the Fire Court, and pushed Zuko to the sidelines, he often found himself training in the omnipresent rain of Sozin City. He wasn't going to be so bold as to claim he was as skilled as the greatest firebenders alive, but when it came to firebending in the most adverse of conditions, he doubted any could equal him.

The flame seared out, slower than he would have preferred, and both siblings managed to dodge it. Sokka hurled that boomerang at Zuko as he rolled to his feet, while Katara began to wheel her arms, the slickness of the stone beginning to pull up to her command. Zuko ducked the flying weapon, then twisted into another blast of flame, before ducking low again so that the boomerang wouldn't clip him in the back of the head. Katara then started to surge out with powerful and swift strands of fallen rain, trying smash Zuko aside, bash him off of his feet. When Zuko cut that strand down, rendering it into steam with his golden flames, she swept low and cast out her hand, and the plane of water on the ground began to leap at him, turning into ice as it went.

Zuko quickly twisted on his feet and sent a fan of fire almost straight down, baking away the water into vapor just as the wave of ice was almost upon him. For a fraction of a second, the ground around and under him was dry. In that fraction of a second, Zuko managed not to get frozen to the ground. "That's a neat trick," Zuko noted with a smirk, as the rain erased his efforts, and began to eat at the ice.

"You should never have given me that scroll," Katara said, eyes locked on his. "Dad always said 'never arm your enemy with a working spear'. I guess you never got that lesson from your parents, now did you?"

"Uncle has said something similar," Zuko noted. Then, he started running. He bounded up onto that ice, and let his momentum carry him toward the siblings. He immediately had to shift to avoid a club to the ribs, and favored Sokka with a hip-toss which sent the Tribesman skidding on the slick stone. He then turned to the waterbender, and when she tried to grapple him with her watery tendrils, he began to cut at them. She was a fast study, obviously, but he had been doing this since he was old enough to read. "You learn fast," Zuko noted as the two of them parted briefly under the rain. "My offer still stands, Katara."

"What could you possibly offer her?" Sokka asked, as he carefully advanced. "All your kind has ever given us is terror and death!" Her gambit with the ice had made the terrain even more treacherous than it needed to be. So it made it quite easy to duck the Tribesman's attack and send him back onto that ice with nothing more than a boot to the chest.

"You don't need the Avatar," Zuko said. "I do. And I can repay you in a bounty the likes of which you cannot imagine."

"Aang is not for sale!" Katara screamed at him, then slammed her fists down, and Zuko suddenly felt himself very cold. And locked in place. His eyes could move, but nothing else. All of the rain, falling and fallen, had flash frozen into a mound of ice twice the height of a man. He could see Katara go limp, and then start to move, as she worked her way out of the trap she had sprung around herself. When she had finally bent a way out of that prison. "You don't know anything about family, Zuko. You don't know what it means. If I cared enough, I'd pity you."

Sokka was now limping back up, and gave the ice casing around Zuko a prod with his club. Confident for the moment that Zuko was stuck, he turned to Katara and pointed. "Come on! Aang probably needs our help!"

And they ran, toward the Fire Temple. But behind them, unnoticed by either, the ice was beginning to crack. Zuko pressed out a breath, despite his brain telling him desperately to hold it in. Fire needed the trinity, and his breath was useless trapped in his lungs. So he forced it out, and set it ablaze. The heat of it pressed out ruthlessly, like Agni himself over Zuko's homeland, and the ice sluiced away in great chunks. When Zuko's chest and head suddenly became free again, he took in a deep breath. "This isn't even close to over, Tribesmen," he swore, under the pounding rain.

* * *

><p>The feeling of battle was glorious and clear, and true.<p>

As that sensation, that glorious pressure, that surge of adrenaline and righteous anger flowed through every vein in Azula's body, that clarity returned to her. Nothing else sufficed but honest and open combat. She wondered if she might be becoming addicted to fighting the Avatar, or just fighting in general, but decided it didn't matter. She knew who she was in the fight, and that was the only thing that really mattered. Well, almost.

The other was right in front of her. The Avatar darted around the various detritus in the courtyard, following the inextricable Air Nomad instinct to run away at the first opportunity. Azula felt no desire to allow him. Her feet splashed in the standing water as she threw herself at the cracked, warped, wooden torii that the Avatar had taken behind. With a triumphant cry, she sent forward both fists, and a pillar of golden flames slashed through its structure, managing to ignite it briefly before the rain put that down again. If she made the blue fire, it wouldn't have gone out.

She felt a twitch in her body. Blue fire?

NO! She forced the offending thought down, out of the way, as she caught a glimpse of orange and yellow darting away from the ruin. The clarity settled back upon her like a mantle, and a smirk came to her face as she charged after him. He turned, saw her, and snapped his glider open. Oh no you don't, Avatar, she thought as she blasted herself into the sky, kicking a fan of fire above him, converting water into stinging steam which assailed him from above. When she landed, her sweeping kick scouring the water away from the ground and steaming him from below, too.

The Avatar twirled that glider staff, and a great bubble of air pushed the steam away before it could braise him, and landed on briefly dry stone. "Why are you doing this?" Aang asked. "Why do you want me so badly?"

"You are the way I will show Father that I am worthy," Azula said, advancing. She hated when he talked. It... shifted things inside her. Things she wanted to remain exactly as they were. "You will restore my honor."

"Honor isn't something that needs defending, and it's not something anybody can give you," the Avatar tried to point out. "You're just letting other people hurt you."

That last sentence seemed to hit a lot harder than Azula expected it to. She lashed out with a wrathful cry, and a fiery whip lashed, but did so wildly, without focus or attention to destination. Because of that, he saw it coming, and with a twist of one hand, sent a tendril of water to snuff it before it came close to hitting him.

"So you've already started waterbending, have you?" Azula asked, forcing composure back into her mind. The battle came with truth, and she would cling to that truth. Not be waylaid. Not be confused. "Such a pity, that makes you two kinds of criminal to the Fire Nation. Not that you ever had much chance otherwise."

"Azula, look into your heart. Do you really want to do this?" Aang said, still backing away as she advanced. "I know that there's good in you!"

"You don't know anything about me, Avatar," Azula said, a quiet but remarkable anger flowing into her. "I know exactly what you'd do to me if the tables were turned, if our places were reversed. You'd tear my very _soul_ out without a moment's hesitation, and tell your precious friends that you were in the right to do so. I know your kind. Just self-righteous justification, hypocrisy, and self delusion. You think you're better than us, Air Nomad? Well, at least the Fire Nation never bothered lying about _its_ nature. How many Airbenders have destroyed _nations_?"

That question, which had appeared out of nowhere in her mind, rattled the Avatar badly, his eyes widening and becoming haunted. His slump in posture, his moment of indecision was all of the prompting Azula needed to take the initiative again, to push with lunatic verve and grasp hard at the truth that the battle gave her. She was Azula, and Azula was going to win.

The Avatar quickly found himself falling back, under the brutal waves of fire which pressed him up the stairs and into the great atrium of the Fire Temple. Finally, free of the pounding rain, she could aim properly again, and had just lashed out with a brutal searing wave of flame, when she noticed something. The lanterns were all lit. The Sages were in. The Avatar managed to cut through that wave, if tiring himself in the process. A clap of sandals against stone drew the attention of both combatants to a passage to their side, where now five elder figures stood.

"Who are you?" the Avatar asked. But Azula was already starting to smirk.

"We... are the Fire Sages," the eldest of them said, his voice deep as thunder.

"Excellent," Azula said. "I am Princess Azula, and you will aid me in..."

"We know who you are," the Great Sage intoned, and then, all five of them lashed out with blasts of fire. Aimed at Azula and the Avatar in equal measure.

It was so surprising that Azula felt a great lurch in herself. No, no no no no, not now, she pleaded with herself, as she stared at that approaching fire like a stunned ox. It was to something between relief and disgust at herself when the Avatar raced between the sages and Azula, and with a great billow of wind, smashed that flame aside. Why? Why would he do that? She felt numb in her hands; they were shaking. Please, not now. Not when he's right there. "Azula RUN!" Aang shouted. But she could as much run as fight. The truth was leaving her. The veil would move forward and she would lose herself again...

Aang obviously noted that she was unable to defend herself, and lashed out with a blast of wind which sent her rolling down a side corridor. As she lay in a heap, the numbness faded. The veil rescinded, and the truth returned to her. No matter what, the Avatar was still her enemy. Nothing would change that. Even the treason of the Fire Sages could not undo that fact. She growled to herself, pushing up off of the floor and looking out at the hall she had been blasted away from. The sages were already in pursuit of the Avatar, save one, who was advancing on her. She growled, fire pooling in her hands, and he, stoic faced, raised up his own to fight her.

And then a door opened directly into his face, knocking him out with a stunning blow. Somebody in a different kind of robe poked his head out, and saw the unconscious Fire Sage on the floor. "Oooh. Sorry," he said. But Azula didn't care. She started stomping toward where the Avatar left. As she did, though, the dark complected youth, who had a remarkably unpleasant looking scar above one eye, stood in her way, an innocent if dim-witted expression on his face. "Wow. How do you keep track of all that?" he asked.

"Get out of my way, moron!" Azula ordered, shoving him hard into a wall and stomping past. The last thing she needed today was the sanction of fools.

* * *

><p>Zuko had seen his sister get sideswiped by the flames, and that was all he needed to know about the situation. The Fire Sages were against him. Well, damn them all, then. He would fight the lot of them, if he had to. Of course, by the time he was completely free of the ice, the Avatar and his cronies had gained a significant lead on him. It didn't help that the internal layout of the temple was more a maze than anything else. But Zuko knew where they would head, given time. It was just a matter of getting there before they knew which way to go. After all, as they'd taken to saying after Azula's illness; Zuko lived lucky.<p>

It worked in extremes. He was either lucky beyond all belief, or else so misfortunate that it was a stark wonder he wasn't dead. Much about this situation made Zuko weaker; there was nobody here he could bribe, intimidate, or hire. It was just him and his sister. But she was all the luck he needed. Especially now that he could admit to himself that she was a deserving, and effective fighter. If her target hadn't been the Avatar, she would likely have flattened anybody she came across.

"We've lost him," an older man's voice said.

"Where is Shyu?"

"I don't know, Great Sage. Maybe he tried to cut them off?"

Zuko skidded to a halt, then flattened himself into the arch of a doorframe. The Fire Sages were all firebenders or shamans. At the moment, Zuko couldn't decide which was more dangerous. And having them drastically outnumber him didn't look well with Zuko's luck. "What about the other ones? Is there any sign of them?"

"No. But our orders are clear," the Great Sage answered. Zuko started running options through his head, but none of them ended with him other than a smoking corpse. Sweat began to pour off of him, mixing with the general and absolute wet which he already embodied. This wasn't good. He felt something land nearby, and he cast a fist toward the sconce above the alcove.

A pair of big, green eyes was staring down at him. Zuko took just a moment to stare at it. A lemur? Here? There was a time where lemurs were considered a sign of good luck, if seen in the swelling light of day. Of course, that had been a century ago, and the time of day was much closer to dusk than dawn. And the creature finally made its regards to his luck known by chattering loudly at Zuko as it dangled.

"What was that noise?" one of the sages asked.

"Check it out!" the Great Sage ordered. Zuko took a calming breath, preparing for the worst, as the footfalls advanced on him. But as they reached the corner of that alcove, the lemur bound off of the sconce with a screech, and began to harry the Great Sage, going so far as to commandeer the old man's ridiculous hat. Zuko, never one to give up an opportunity, leapt out after the creature, twisting through the air and using his firebending to blast the other three Sages to the ground, before sprinting away. As he ran, the lemur swooped past him, _wearing_ the Great Sage's hat.

"I guess I owe you one," Zuko noted sarcastically.

"It's the Prince! After him!" the Great Sage shouted, and he was pursued once again. He just had to make it a bit further, and then lose them. After that, it would be a straight shot to the temple's heart, the chamber of the Avatars. He rounded corners, and the sounds of the Sages grew further behind. He might not even need to ditch them by anything but his own pace. He considered, as he rounded a corner, that it was just a matter of keeping his wind; needless to say, with the breath training he received from Uncle, that wasn't going to be a problem.

What was, however, was the sound of crackling which swelled suddenly. Zuko had heard lightning gather that fast only one time in his entire life. He dove forward, sliding on his chest across the stone of the floor, as a bolt of lightning raked along the wall. For just a moment, Zuko's mind utterly rejected what it saw, even as he bolted to his feet, his fists before him, fire begging for release. There was simply no way that this could be. And yet, here he was, staring at golden eyes.

The golden eyes of Fire Lord Ozai. The grown man smirked, and laced his fingers together before his robes. "I see that I have your attention," Ozai said, not even bothering to flick away the smoke that curled up from the first two fingers of his gloved right hand. Zuko's teeth ground. Father and son stared, the distance between them both a scarce ten yards and simultaneously a continent. That smirk darkened slightly. "Well? Aren't you going to say hello to your beloved father?" Ozai asked.

Zuko didn't so much as blink. "What are you doing here?" Zuko asked.

"Such rudeness. I see that your exile has done no favors to your manners," Ozai said smugly. Ozai began to pace. "Of course, that is part of the issue."

"What?" Zuko asked, his fists lowering a hair.

Ozai shrugged, innocently. "Quite simply, my son... I'm here because of you."

* * *

><p>"Wait!" the middle aged man said, as he skidded to a halt at the corner, boxing them all in. Aang had his fists before him, a futile gesture, but with their backs to a boarded window, they had nowhere left to run. "I don't want to fight you!"<p>

"That'd be a first," Sokka noted. But to Aang's amazement, he lowered himself to his knees, and bowed his head to the floor.

"You are the Avatar, and I am a Fire Sage. I have not forgotten my duty," he said. He glanced to a side from that uncomfortable posture as he heard voices echoing through the hallways. "Come, they will find you soon enough. You must hurry!"

"Why should we trust you?" Sokka demanded. He answered that question by pulling himself to his feet, then shifting aside a wall-lamp, whence it emitted a click. Triggered, a panel of the wall slid back and away, revealing a path that lead inward and up.

"I know why you're here," the man said. "Please, trust an old man who dared to hope."

Aang looked at those amber eyes, the sincerity in them, the pleading, and his fists lowered. "I think we can trust him," Aang said, as he began to walk toward the opening. After the three of them were inside, the Fire Sage joined them, shutting the path behind them. The corridor was extremely cramped, and seemed to be traveling inexorably upward.

"Why are you the only one not trying to kill us?" Katara asked.

"Because I am the only one left who remembers what the Fire Sages were supposed to remember, and the only one who serves the Avatar, as we are supposed to," he said.

"What's your..."

"I am Shyu, young Avatar," the man seemed to predict the question. "And I have waited for this opportunity for all of my life. We once served only the Avatar, and this place was a testament to the Avatars which came before Roku from our Fire Nation. Roku trained here, many decades ago, on how to master the Avatar State, so that he could slip into and out of it as he willed. His is the only statue of the Avatars that is left, since Azulon had the others destroyed; it's locked in the Avatar's Sanctum. Nobody has been able to unlock it in a hundred years, since the next Avatar... you... disappeared."

"Wow, it must be pretty dirty in there," Aang noted.

"We can only assume," Shyu agreed.

"Did you know Avatar Roku?"

"No, he died long before I was born," Shyu answered. "But my grandfather knew him. And I never gave up hope that one day, I would be able to fulfill the duty that so many others forgot. When you didn't appear, the other Fire Sages lost hope. They turned to Sozin for direction, and he led them down a dark and twisted path. Once, the Fire Lord was one of us. Now, we are his slaves."

Aang felt that weight of unimaginable guilt pressing down on him again. "They were waiting for me all that time? It's my fault that they're trying to kill us..."

"Hey, don't feel bad," Sokka said gamely, giving Aang a punch in the arm. "A century late is a lot better than never, am I right?"

"Sokka..."

"What? it is!" Sokka contended, to the exasperated sigh of his sister.

Shyu shook his head, pausing briefly. "I never wanted to serve the Fire Lord. And I knew that if you ever returned, I would have to betray them. But the world needs you, and I still have my duty, as my father had, and his before him."

Aang bowed to the sage. "Thank you," he said. "For helping us, even though it cost you so much."

Shyu smiled at that, a weary, weathered smile. "If it restores balance to this world, then anything is worth the price. Fire is not the superior element; you will remind them that it is part of a whole."

Shyu gently moved past them, in that passage which pressed in on them, and ran his fingers along a particular stone, which moved inward with a click. The stone slid aside, and emptied into a room which was cluttered with various weapons and armor stands, some of them vacant. Shyu's face dropped a bit when he saw this. "What's wrong, Shyu?" Katara asked.

"These things weren't here before," Shyu said carefully, as the teenagers moved past him. "Something is wrong."

"And that is your first clue?" A smug voice came from the darkness. An orb of light appeared above a palm, casting scarlet illumination. It showed a grown man, with thick mutton chop sideburns, which stood interrupted by an angry red burn over his left eye. And he had a very pleased smirk on his face. "Ah, Shyu. She even predicted your betrayal by name. I am so pleased."

"Stand aside, Zhao," Shyu said, raising his fists before him. "This is more important than you know!"

"Oh, but it is," this Zhao said, casting out his other hand to ignite a line of torches along the wall, if at the expense of singed paint. "This is the day when the Avatar finally falls forever, and the Fire Nation sees the inevitability of its victory."

"You will not harm the Avatar," Shyu said. "Not as long as I draw breath."

"Then we shall have to see about that," Zhao said. And then, he lashed forward in flames. Aang tried to get between the two firebenders, but Katara knocked him aside. When Aang looked up at the pillar of flames which Zhao had produced to slam into Shyu, Aang could see why she had. It would have reduced him to ashes if he just tried to snuff it. It slammed into Shyu and sent him hurtling back into that path, before Zhao twisted the fury down and the teenagers had to scatter before it could blast them as well. As Aang tried to get his bearing and his reflexes back in check, he couldn't do anything but watch in horror as Zhao almost casually picked up a bomb from a rack, ignited its wick, then idly tossed it into the secret passage. Then, with contemptuous ease, he shut the panel, just before the thud of the blast filled the room.

"Now, where were we?" Zhao asked, his tones those of some Azuli serpent, just waiting for the right moment to strike.

"You killed him!"

"Of course. He _was_ a traitor to the Fire Nation," Zhao said conversationally. "Ozai will be quite pleased when I show him what I leave of you, Avatar."

"Aang?" Katara asked, fear plain in her voice.

Zhao let out a laugh as he spun his arms, and fire began to well between his palms. But as he took the aggressive stride toward them, his gait faltered, and his amber eyes went wide with shock as he suddenly found himself falling aside, knocked off his stride by a Tribesman's club. He landed on his side with a thud, and the fire which had been welling vanished into smoke.

"Why does EVERYBODY overlook me?" Sokka asked.

And then immediately regretted it, because Zhao kipped to his feet with a wash of flame blasting away from his fist, which flashed over Sokka's saturated clothing.

* * *

><p>"What do you mean, you're here for me?" Zuko asked, his gaze still hard upon his father. His mind still fought with that knowledge. It shouldn't be possible for him to be here. Shouldn't.<p>

"I have had... a change of heart," Ozai said, shrugging innocently. "There is a place for you in the Fire Nation, my son."

"I thought you'd made your position fairly clear," Zuko said, casting a thumb at the left side of his neck. Ozai smirked, and tugged the white glove off his right hand, revealing how the skin of it was mostly reddened and twisted, and the last two fingers of it were either a misshapen single knuckle, or else absent entirely.

"And you have made yours," Ozai agreed. "And that is much of it. You know how... poorly relations with the West have become in recent years. The Coordinator is no doubt fomenting rebellion even as we speak. Come home, Zuko. Return to the Burning Throne as its proper heir, and we can cast this revolt into the pyre where it belongs."

"You never struck me as the forgiving type," Zuko said darkly.

"And I don't remember you being this... sarcastic," Ozai countered, his timber lowering, becoming more gravely. Zuko smirked, that smirk only Azula could mimic.

"Family does that to a person," Zuko offered. His brow drew down. "You cast me out in dishonor, said that I was no longer part of the family. And now you want me back? Well, are you going to offer Azula the same thing?"

Ozai's face twitched at that. "Azula has no part or place in this offer, Zuko. _You_ are the Prince. You were the first born and the inheritor of the Burning Throne. You are the solidity and solidarity that the Fire Nation is crying out for. You must still harbor the love of your nation in your heart, my son? They need you, now more than ever."

"What about Azula?" Zuko stressed, taking an aggressive step toward his father.

Ozai just glared at him. "The offer is for you, Zuko. You alone."

"I will only accept if she is part of it," Zuko dug in.

"Azula is a weakling and an anarchist and I should have strangled her when she was born!" Ozai shouted. Zuko retreated that aggressive step, shock on his face. He knew his father held enmity toward Azula, but to hear it aloud? "She is everything that is wrong and weak about your mother's side of the family. I once held hope that she would be the strength to bear this nation forward, but instead, she becomes feeble and her mind becomes broken. She is useless as an heir, useless as a daughter, and useless as a human being. You would do yourself great favor by simply forgetting her."

"I can't believe you'd say that about your own daughter," Zuko said. Then, his smirk returned, as dark as any expression his father was capable of. "Oh, wait, yes I can. Because you offered to kill her to Grandfather the day before he died."

"You are walking on very unstable ground, my son," Ozai said.

"Really? Am I?" Zuko pressed. "By your own declaration, we – WE – would not be allowed back until the Avatar is at the foot of the Burning Throne in chains. I will hold you to those words."

"You idiot child! I never intended to see Azula come home!" Ozai snapped. "She has been erased from the family records, her figure removed from the portraits. In time, I will make it so that her embarrassing presence as well had never been born."

"What?" Zuko asked, his stomach fluttering.

"You are not stupid, my son," Ozai said. "You are intelligent. You are useful. Your exile has strengthened you, and proved that you are deserving of the cold-blooded fire that you have mastered."

Zuko glanced away. In truth, he had never even attempted to bend the lightnings until that desperate moment, while his skin was still afire from Ozai's nearly lethal blow. Azula's words were still in the air, indistinct for the pounding of Zuko's heart, and then, he twisted his arms up and before him, his fingers clawing out, and the lightning followed them. One near miss begat another. But apparently, not nearly enough. Ozai had marked Zuko, and Zuko had marked Ozai.

"But... the law..."

"I _am_ the law in the Fire Nation," Ozai pressed, forcing Zuko back another step. "Think of yourself, Zuko. Leave that burden behind. She is dead to this family. She will NEVER return to the Fire Nation, she will NEVER be heir, and with Agni as my witness, I will _burn my very nation to the ground_ before I see it in her hands."

Zuko was a stubborn young man. It was one of his basic principles, the central tenets of his existence. Keep fighting, even when you can't. But to hear it said, with such unbelievable irrevocability and spite, it finally, _finally_ sank in. There was no going home. Not for Azula. And he had a golden-bricked path leading him back to the Burning Throne, to power, to glory, to wealth and prestige. But it came at a cost of such betrayal to his honor that he practically vomited at the thought of it. Four years ago, Zuko would have jumped at the chance, even _just_ to get away from his sister. Now? Now, there was no home without Azula. He would be trading his soul for trinkets.

There was no going home.

And despair settled onto the Fire Nation Prince. He looked up at his father, golden eyes so much like his own staring back at him, and there were no words. And no actions. Just numbness, and crushing, crushing weight. His decision was already absolute, but how would he tell Azula? _Could_ he even tell her?

"What is your answer, my son?" Ozai asked.

* * *

><p>There were two things about the Fire Temple that Azula loathed. One was that it was built like a maze. The other was that it seemed to conduct sound splendidly; the combined effect was that she never knew where she was, but always had a fairly good idea where her quarry was. She could hear them somewhere ahead of her, fighting Zhao, if her ear for smug sons-of-bitches held true. The purest thought in her mind, which was coming under increasing strain with every moment that she wasn't trying to kill something, was that she was <em>not<em> going to let Zhao walk away with the Avatar. Not as long as she had breath in her body. And since she had plenty of that, she had no trouble sprinting through the halls, following the ghosts of sound which taunted her. Sometimes, she would simply roar in frustrated rage, and smash flames into the walls, and the crumbling of stone gave her a new path. Or else, a new window for the rain to get in. One time, as she did so, she found herself paralyzed. Not by any feat of arms or injury, but by a simple question, that repeated itself psychotically in her mind.

Why was it raining?

It was almost five minutes before she could tear that question out of her apperception, and resume the hunt. In a way, it was almost as bad as the seizures, in that those episodes could come on with almost no warning whatsoever. And she refused to tell Zuzu about them. He already coddled her enough as it was; if he knew of this, he'd lock her in her room 'for her own safety', and she'd never see the sun again. There was a tingling in her, like her body was rising against her but she denied it. Not today. Even Agni wouldn't stop her.

The voices grew more clear. _That Girl_ shouting something in panic to the Avatar. The Avatar... angry? Zhao being a smug bastard, as usual. It didn't matter. If Zhao beat them, Azula would just beat him. She'd done it before. And it would be much more energy efficient than fighting the Avatar and Zhao at once. "I'm coming for you Avatar, and not even Fate can stop me!"

"Convenient," A voice said, nearby. She spun to it, fire leaking from her fists as she glared at a young man, maybe two or three years older than Azula, who leaned on a wall. He was wearing red and gold armor, but it seemed especially crafted, suited for him specifically. She knew armor, as she'd had to have her own made special as well. His glided over him like the scales of a snake. He turned to her, and dark lenses of smoked glass concealed his eyes. "We've never claimed to be agents of Fate."

"Yeah, just inevitability," an answer came from Azula's other side. How the hell had she not noticed _two_ of them? This one was a girl, maybe the same age as Zuzu, but it was hard to tell because she had skin like a three-day-old corpse, and her eyes were hidden behind those smoked-glass lenses. Azula wracked her mind, trying to understand this, but that numbness actually abated for a moment, in her confusion, rather than growing stronger.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Azula demanded.

The girl smirked, and then lashed forward, searing with golden flames. Azula wheeled as she deflected the assault away. A firebender, obviously, but no Fire Sage. Come to think of it, the girl had similar armor to the man. She dropped low, preparing for his gout of flames. But instead, he spun along the wall, and cast out a wide back-fist, and a section of that wall shot away with it. Azula had to throw herself flat to duck that belt of stone which flashed toward her, and then immediately kip herself up, propelled by a blast of flame, over the synchronized attack by the girl.

"She's a quick one," the youth noted.

"Good. I was worried she'd be a pushover," the girl answered. Why did that voice sound... familiar? No, no no no no the numbness was coming back. Push it down, push it down!

Azula was a student of the Sozin school of firebending. It claimed that the only worthwhile defense was overwhelming offense. As long as she kept letting these two... _unknown opponents_... direct her tempo, she would almost certainly lose. So she twisted and sent out an arcing kick of flame at the girl, before slamming down an ax-kick wave of flames at the man. But even as she did, the girl was bursting through her assault with one of her own, and the earthbender simply ducked into the lee of a barrier he erected as he needed it. Azula turned and bounded, another flare of fire coming off her heel. Not just to keep the earthbender suppressed, but also to give her a measure of velocity as she hurled herself past the girl and further down the hall. Now, they weren't surrounding her anymore. The youth didn't even bother lowering the barrier. He just ripped it from the ground, and cast it out in a fan of large stones, which she furiously had to bend an explosion before her to deflect. But defending from that, itself a terrible idea, meant that she had to hurl herself bodily aside when the girl's twisting rope of fire shot out over his head, as the girl bounded over the stone. Azula rolled up behind a pillar, and pulled herself to her feet.

Damn it all, those who fought like they were one brain controlling two bodies, and used elements together the way that only Avatars were purported to. Azula twisted and lashed out with a short barrage of two-fingered bolts of flame, but the youth spun before the girl and raised his hands. The floor rose to swallow those attacks, even if it did crumble into debris doing so. And just as Azula had come to expect, his defense gave the girl an opening to press her own attack, this time her arms sweeping wide and scouring the walls with seeming wings of fire which soared down and began to fill the entire hallway. She hurled herself backward, and then twisted in mid air, using a blast of her own fire to blunt the attack from advancing, even if she couldn't stop it entirely. As she landed, though, she didn't even have enough time to blink before a block of stone, roughly the size of Azula's head, shot through that conflagration and struck Azula in the center of the chest.

Azula was thrown back, the wind knocked from her. It had struck cruelly at her leather breastplate; while firebenders' armor was typically made to withstand flames, her own had been specialized against air and water, allowing greater mobility in exchange for protection. But that didn't matter one whit, because against a flying stone, even an Imperial firebender might as well be wearing a loin cloth and a decorative hat. She likely broke a rib, but she wasn't done by a half. She pulled air furiously into her lungs, and pushed herself to her feet. This was too much. She'd never seen a fight like this in her life.

Had she?

Damn it, not now, she screamed inside her own head, as her breathing quickened. It wasn't bad enough that suddenly she had to fight opponents that she had never even heard of before, but that they fought together better than any that Azula could believe. The girl fought on a level with Zuzu or Azula herself, and the young man with all the lightning reflex and killer instinct of a Dai Li. And with that, the numbness spread beyond her ability to control it.

Where had she heard of the Dai Li before?

What _was_ a Dai Li?

"Excuse me, Princess?" a very pleasant voice said beside her. She had just enough in her to turn, and behold another – but this one with the darkened skin of a Tribesman – in red and gold armor, and those same smoked glass lenses, idly reach a hand to her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw that the hand he extended was swelling with some sort of disgusting, blackened water. The instant it touched her, she felt all of her energy sap away, flowing away from her like water out of a bottomless bucket. Her knees buckled instantly, and a quiet roaring filled her ears as she crumpled in a heap onto the floor. She didn't even have the strength to close her eyes, and could see and hear as the flames snuffed, and the footfalls came closer.

"You sure took your time," the youth said.

"I was making sure I was in the right position," the Tribesman said.

"Bullshit, Kori, you were just being a lazy f..."

"Omo, enough," the girl said. She moved before Azula and stooped down. "She's not harmed, I presume?"

Azula felt something cool and comforting on her neck. "Of course not, Yoji. Just a cracked rib, but he didn't say we had to deliver her unharmed. Just alive. Besides, that's an easy fix."

"Good," the one identified as Yoji agreed. "Have her bound and delivered. Zhao deserves a reward for his foresight today."

"Why do you want me to bind her?" Omo complained. "Get Kori to do it."

Azula felt herself rolled onto her back, her chest propped up from where it rested against a wall. The Tribesman glanced over the top of his spectacles at her. His eyes were very dark blue. "You know," Kori – and what kind of Tribesman's name was that, a fairly calm portion of the chaos that was Azula's mind asked? – said , "it's kind of a pity she's a traitor. She's cute."

"Oh, here we go," Omo muttered.

"What? I'd ask her out, is that so bad?"

"She's royalty."

"...So?"

"_Zip it_ and send her to Zhao," Yoji said. Kori sighed and began to pull manacles from somewhere she couldn't spot, and began to shackle her into immobility.

Inside her own mind, at least, Azula thrashed, screamed and flailed. But in the world, she was as helpless as an infant. Unable even to look away, she could forgive herself for the frustrated tears that rolled down her cheeks.

* * *

><p>"Give up Avatar; come out and face me! Your situation is hopeless!" that voice screamed at him, but Aang didn't care. He ducked in cover, his hand clamped over Sokka's mouth as Katara carefully picked the burnt remnants of Sokka's vest off of the burn which now covered part of his chest and arm. It was beyond fortunate that Sokka had been soaking wet when the attack hit. Much of the heat was wasted on the water, but it still looked like it hurt like madness.<p>

"I'm so sorry," Aang whispered.

"Aang, you're running out of time," Katara whispered back. "This is more important than us. You have to talk to Roku before it's too late."

"But what about..."

Sokka pried the hand from his mouth, and let out a low grumble. "Do it, Aang. I'll be... fine."

Aang severely doubted that.

**You can make him whole.**

"But how?" Aang asked.

"Who are you talking to?" Katara asked.

**It is in her blood.**

Since Aang wasn't about to cut Katara to find out what the voices of the Avatars Long Since meant, he just took a breath, and pushed aside all of the fear. He simply had to trust that Katara knew what she was doing. It wasn't abandoning friends, it was fulfilling his duty. And if he told himself that hard enough and often enough, he might believe it. "Sokka, stay strong. I'll find something to help you."

Sokka, who's pallor was either burnt red or else pallid grey, just nodded at that. And with that, Aang burst out of hiding, a wave of wind blasting across the store-room and managing to clip Zhao out of the room. Aang by necessity followed; there were no other entrances which hadn't been at least slightly blown up. Aang landed at the threshold, and immediately had to duck a knife-edged chop of flame from Zhao. Aang channeled all of the frustration, the fear, and the anger through his body, and when he did, his roar sounded the chorus.

If his tattoos didn't glow, then he was a fish.

The blast of air which resulted didn't just hurl Zhao away from Aang, it hurled him into a wall. And then through that wall, and across that hallway, before sending him through that wall as well. But Zhao was still moving, even as the structure failed and the hole created began to fill with debris. The glow faded, and Aang couldn't help but wonder what had come of this Zhao's life to make him so unspeakably _tough_. The Fire Sanctum was close. He just had to get there in time.

* * *

><p>"We could not find the Avatar," Great Sage Deng said, his drawling voice dripping with frustration. Ozai didn't care. "Perhaps Zhao had more luck."<p>

Ozai managed to barely bat an eyelash as he heard the great crash of somebody being thrown bodily through a pair of walls. "Luck is a relative term, Fire Sage," Ozai said.

"Were you able to find Zuko?" Deng asked.

"I left him to ponder his decision," Ozai said. "I have confidence he'll see where his long-term best interests lie."

Ozai wasn't lying. He knew that Zuko would be desperate to come home. The world outside was strange and unfamiliar, and poverty would suit him as well as an anvil for a rucksack. It had taken a bit of doing, not all of it legal, to keep Ozai's brother away from the family purse-strings. He wished he had a more compelling reason for resenting his brother than 'because he existed', but when it came down to it, he had hated the man far longer than it had been since the failed siege of Ba Sing Se. It worried him that Iroh might have corrupted the lad. But Ozai knew first hand, that once you conquered the cold-blooded fire, there was no going back. It was a form of ruthlessness which never completely abandoned.

Ozai might not have put it in so many words, but he had a degree of faith in his son. All that he had to do was ensure that Azula was removed from the equation.

The train of thought which had been navigating the sheer cliffs of Ozai's mind abruptly slammed on its breaks, as a figure pelted up the stairs only to come to a skidding halt of his own at the far end of the room and a hundred feet from the great, locked doors of the sanctum. He was small, frail looking. His arms were spindly, his head was over-large. And upon it rested a great blue arrow, pointing straight down at the bridge of his nose. It would have taken a particularly cruel parent to mark his child so, in this day and age. Whomever had done so to the whelp was a true villain, to condemn their offspring to instant recognition, particularly by the likes of Ozai. Big, terrified grey eyes stared at him. Rather, it stared at the overwhelming number of Sages which flanked him. So Zhao was right on both counts, was he? Perhaps he _had_ learned a lesson from his branding, after all.

"And this is the Avatar, revealed at long last," Ozai said smugly.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.

"Your only chance for survival," Ozai answered. "Surrender now, and you will survive the day. Do not, and I promise you, you will die in fire."

"Please don't stand in my way," the boy said, an uncommon courage obviously screwing tight in him. In a way, it was something of a shame that the boy had to be a relic of a dead people, and fighting on the wrong side. Ozai had often considered that _turning_ an Avatar would be a far greater victory for the Fire Nation than killing one.

"Your _defiance_ ends here," Ozai said. The boy glanced back whence he'd come, then forward again, to the doors, which to his perspective would have been blocked by the curving profile of the room. And Ozai could see a decision in his eyes. So when the boy shot forward at thunderous speed, only Ozai was fast enough to keep up with the lad. His fists cast out a pair of fiery waves, which scoured along the stone, baking the pillars which broke the space and held up the vaulting ceilings. The Sages offered their own part in the firestorm, usually in discrete blasts and comparatively guttering columns. But the airbender shot through that maelstrom, growing closer. Ozai started to smirk, and cut off the waves of fire, only to round his hands in a long familiar motion, and a crackle of brutal electricity surged at his command.

The boy had scarce instants before that lightning surged out with a thunderous bang, tearing across the distance and missing the nimble child by inches. It did, however, prove quite effective at tearing a hole into the outer wall of the Temple, and letting the rain start to flood inward in wind-driven waves. The boy ducked behind a pillar, and Ozai wasn't about to let that stand. He twisted his arms again, feeling the energy pulling apart in his body, and the terrible, dangerous vacuum resulting fill with lethal power. He let the power slam into that pillar, breaking it down in a single blow, a feat that even an earthbender would have been hard pressed to replicate. The boy bounded away, once again. So the stories were true about airbenders; they couldn't stay still to save their lives. Or more aptly, in this case, stay still long enough for Ozai to end them.

The Avatar landed with a sweep of his staff, and the billows hurled away quite a few of the sages. Ozai, though, rooted himself, and halted his slide with a rocket-blast of firebending. The instant that wind abated, he kicked into the air himself, and with both of his fists and one of his feet, lashed out with three great, arcing missiles of flame, which converged with deadly intent on the boy. Ozai expected the boy to leap again, and there was only one place that he could land. Ozai counted on it. But finally, the boy did something that Ozai didn't expect. He gave a hard yank on the very air, but it was not wind which tried to resist Ozai's brutal strike; it wouldn't have been able to anyway. Rather, a stream of water hurled itself into his back, casting him away from the impact site, which exploded with such ferocity as to hole the floor. Reacting faster than Ozai would easily believe, the Avatar turned that waterbending self-mutilation into an attack, twisting the water which had shielded him from explosion into an offensive mass in a fraction of a second. The great mass of water struck Ozai, and very nearly knocked him from his feet, but a few undignified and unstable backpeddles later he was furiously flicking the rain from his beard, and using his own natural fire to dry his robes in a flash of steam.

Ozai turned his fists to the boy, and began to wheel around him, as the boy tried to tug, with utter futility, on the great handles of the Fire Sanctum. Despite his best efforts, which involved him bracing himself on the other door with both feet and pulling until his entire body was parallel to the floor, the doors had stood locked now as they had for a century before him. Finally, the boy looked up, from his perspective, at the Fire Lord and the quickly recovering Fire Sages which now formed an arc around him. "So you are so desperate to rejoin your people?" Ozai asked. "Well, prepare to meet them, Avatar. Prepare to die!"

The Avatar dropped to the ground, grabbing up his staff, as the others began to conjure the flames which were their souls. But Ozai's eyes flicked, and suddenly, there was a second youth standing next to the Avatar. Ozai was a fiercely rational being, but his mind told him with sincerity that there had been one, and a moment later two. The second had just materialized out of the naked air. That second bore a struck-ox expression of stupidity on his dark, scarred face.

"Wow. You're the Fire Lord, aren't you?" the youth asked. Then, he winced, and stuck himself on the forehead. "No! Stupid! Focus! Aang, come with me if you want to live."

"Kill them!" Ozai ordered.

"Come with you whe–" the Avatar began.

And when the flames lashed out, there was nothing but the vast, snake adorned iron of the Fire Sanctum doors for it to strike.

* * *

><p>Katara was crying. She wasn't averse to crying, like men usually were. If there was a need, she would cry. It didn't happen often, because she'd learned young that she had to be tough for her family. But when her family was at risk? Like when Sokka got a bad case of pneumonia back when he was ten? She cried then. And she cried now.<p>

"Y-you should go," Sokka said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I'll just slow you d-down."

"I'm not leaving without you," Katara promised. She was not leaving her brother here to die. But she couldn't _do_ anything else! To think she wanted to learn the ways of waterbending combat, when all it had done here was knock _Zuko_ on his butt, when the real threat was a burned man with a brutal lethal streak.

What use was there for a sword after the battle was done?

What use was Katara when her family needed her?

She wept openly, her hands on Sokka's burnt arm, even though she knew it hurt him. She just couldn't bring herself to let go. But Sokka seemed to be enduring it for her sake, even as she tried to endure for his. This wasn't fair! The bad guys weren't supposed to win! She wasn't supposed to have what was left of her family taken away from her!

As she wept, she hoped. She preyed to Tui and La, for strength. To Sedna for guidance. And when that seemed to fail, to Tenger Etseg for vengeance. She just wanted Sokka to be alright. Was that too much to ask of the universe?

And when the sweat and blood and water on Katara's hands began to glow, the universe answered:_ apparently not_.

* * *

><p>The scream which came out of the Avatar's mouth was high, shrill, and not a small bit girlish, as he shielded himself from the wash of flames. And then, he opened first one eye, then the other. Flames continued to scour him, but he felt none of it. Sharif was standing next to him, finishing stretching that something across his head, and otherwise utterly nonplussed that there was a wash of flame tearing through his chest. "What... How?"<p>

"They're in the Inner Sphere. We're in the Outer," Sharif said simply.

"But... Actually, I guess that does make sense," Aang admitted, standing contrite as the attack finally flickered out.

"Where did they go?" the Fire Lord demanded. The Fire Lord himself, here! How? That was a question which kept bounding in Aang's head. Wasn't he only supposed to face the Fire Lord at the end of the epic quest? Of course, that led him to the idea that _this_ might be the end, that he could defeat the Fire Lord today and end the war!

"I know that look," Sharif said. "And trust me, this is probably going to get a lot more complicated."

"What?"

"I had a conversation with a dragon a minute ago," Sharif said, and then paused. "Pity I don't remember very much of it. But what I _do_ remember, is that Ozai," he pointed at the man who was now berating the Fire Sages, "wasn't supposed to be here. Something about the entire situation is wrong. And I think I know who lies at the heart of it."

"Who?"

"I need time," he shook his head. "Besides, it's almost dusk, and you need to talk to the Avatar."

"There's a door in the way!" Aang complained, reaching over to rap on it, only to almost overbalance through it when it proved as incorporeal as air. He turned, and beheld that the doors didn't seem to exist. "...What."

"It's... a thing," Sharif admitted. "Most couldn't get in because they aren't good enough to go into the Outer Sphere bodily. I am. And so will you be, when you _practice_ enough. My sister described something called 'superpositioning' back when I had a working brain. Most of it went over my head even then, but I think it's kinda what's going on here. Doors exist in either a state of opened or closed. Closed doors in the Inner Sphere are always open in the Outer. And visa versa. So talk to him."

"You know a lot of this stuff."

"Trial, error, and a lot of luck. You should see the mess that's come to the Spirit World lately," Sharif admitted, walking aside Aang as they entered the sunburst-floored Fire Sanctum. A statue of Roku stood proudly, a great red stone set in its chest, and a lens was set into the roof, obviously to let in the sun. Pity there wasn't any. "You'll be talking to him soon, when the sun would have hit the stone. Time doesn't care about sunlight, after all."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Sharif said. "I'm not sure why, since I don't remember, but some of what Fang said was... pretty terrible. Like, 'open your wrists and get it over with quickly' terrible. I guess it's a good thing that I _literally_ can't tell you any more about it. Oh, and he also told me to give you this," Sharif pulled something which looked like a petrified lime out of his pocket, and handed it to Aang. "He recognized it, but, once again, I don't remember what it was. At least I got the name right. Jade Toe. Heh."

"What does it do?" Aang said, holding the thing warily.

Sharif answered by wearily tapping the scar on his head. Oh, right. Didn't remember. "I'm going to see if I can talk to your bison and arrange a way out. Good luck, Avatar. You're probably going to need it."

Aang bowed to the Si Wongi teenager, who walked past the wary, watchful Fire Lord and his cronies outside the door. He then turned to the statue. "So... what do I do? I'm here; am I supposed to pray or mediate or..."

Aang was cut off when there was a billow of wind, and Aang could feel himself move. It was like falling, but only both sideways and inside out at the same time. The twisting clouds descended, and Aang found himself standing on a platform hewn from the grey, barren rocks. The sky overhead was black as death, and only a grey, suffusive light bathed the surroundings. But Aang was not alone in this dreadful, dead, lonely place. There was another, his stark red robes an affront to the desaturated grey of this place, his white beard spread down upon his chest. He was tall, and his hair was pinned in a phoenix tail with a double-flame pinion. It was a man Aang had only seen set in stone. "Welcome, Aang. I've been trying to contact you for a very long time."

"Avatar Roku?" Aang said. "Thank the spirits, I was afraid I was too late!"

"You are, in a way. And just in time in another," Roku said profoundly. "I have something important to tell you. That is why I had Fang scour the world to find you. If you hadn't slipped into the Outer Sphere, he might not have found you until it was too late."

"What is it? Does it have something to do with that vision, of the comet?" Aang said, pushing aside the dregs of guilt which clung to him for missing a hundred years he really shouldn't have.

"Indeed," Roku said gravely. "One hundred years ago, not long after my death, a comet seared across the skies of the world. It's great heat and fire empowered the firebenders of the world into a level of power which was unthinkably vast. Ordinarily, it is a day that passes unremarked, perhaps giving rise to legends of battlefield glory. But this time, the Fire Lord of that day, Fire Lord Sozin, somehow knew that it was coming, and used the power it gave him to deal a devastating first strike against the other lands. It was during that attack that your people were struck the wound which destroyed them. Their teachers eradicated, knowledge lost forever. With no teachers, their children, even had they the spark of a glorious airbender, became ignorant, and weak, and vulnerable. You are... almost... the last airbender. And the death of that nation was not swift, but the _slow_ bleed."

"So Sozin used the comet a century ago. How could that," and Aang let out a sigh. "The comet's coming back, isn't it?"

Roku nodded.

"It's coming back soon, isn't it?" Aang asked.

Roku nodded.

"It's coming back... before next... year?" Aang asked.

"It will return to the world at the end of summer, so not quite your worst fears," Roku said kindly. But the kindness crumbled. "If the current Fire Lord harnesses the power of that comet to end the war, then there will be such an imbalance, that not even you, Aang, will be able to correct it. Not even with all of the power of the Avatar behind you. You _must_ defeat the Fire Lord before it arrives."

Aang felt a pang of fear in him. "But how? I've barely started waterbending, and haven't even started earth and firebending yet!"

"You will find a way. Yours is the path of the chain-breaker, and it is a path which the Avatar has walked before. Mastering the elements is supposed to take years of practice and discipline. But you have until the end of summer. And I have faith that it can be done. It has happened before," Roku seemed to bleach, his robes slowly moving through destaturated pinks into white. "The solstice is ending, and our time together draws short. Now that I have contacted you here, I will be able to find you in the future. If you have questions, ask me. I am a part of you, Aang. And I am always with you."

"Thank you, Avatar Roku," Aang said, bowing. When he looked up, Roku was barely a shadow, a wispy outline of the man, like a dusting of flour on an invisible person.

"_You will face grave dangers when you leave, and I fear I will not be able to help you. But I __have faith in you. Remember, that I __**always**__ have fai_

And then, with a puff of air in that place, the flour was scattered. And there came a loud bang, a groaning of metal across the sky, which started to turn a sickly yellow, rising out in rings before a valley, almost in sight. And then, the mountain was empty. No Avatar, past or present, just the hill, the aftershock of the Blowout, and a dying Spirit World.

* * *

><p>The paralysis in Zuko's mind was absolute. If he went back, he <em>might<em> be able to help Azula in secret. But it would _destroy_ her to have him leave her, even just in word. If he didn't, then there was no helping her at all, but she could still hope. And that was worth more than gold. For Zuko, there was a future of wealth, glory and power, but he had to give up family to get it. For Azula... there was no future.

There was a very uncomfortable anger growing in Zuko. He was used to being angry at Father. He'd gotten a lot of experience with it over the last few years. But to be angry with the Fire Nation itself? That smacked dangerously of treason.

Zuko rose to his feet, shelving that thinking for now. It was dangerous thinking. He was Fire Nation. Fire was in his heart, his body, and his mind. But if the Fire Nation wouldn't have his sister, then why should he have the Fire Nation? It was a deadly chain of thought. One he fought to ignore. More and more, it seemed the plans he'd started concocting with whats-her-name, back after Mom disappeared, might actually be more than a mental exercise. He needed to leave the island, to think. And more importantly, he had to get Azula off of the island before Father found her.

Zuko moved to a nearby window and threw open the flap, trying to see where Iroh had left his boat. But it was not the dinky little corvette which graced Zuko's vision, but three of the great frigates that Zhao taunted him with at Whale Tail. Zhao was here? Oh, that suddenly made things much more dire. Zuko broke off at a sprint, through the corridors of the Fire Temple, heading down to where he could safely land a fall. He certainly didn't feel like navigating the entire maze. Thus, at around the third story from the ground, he bounded out one of those windows and took a perch on the rain-coated shingles of the pagoda. He shielded his eyes from the rain as he tried to make out which direction to go, or worse, if Zhao was coming in force. But instead, he noticed something heading away. It was a skiff, not too large by any standard. But he could see something on it. Just a flicker of red and black. Zuko bounded back into the room, and heaved an astronomical telescope to the window, and peered quite opposite its intended purpose, turning it to the waves. The smoke belched up from its smoke stacks, and there were at least two figures on board. One of them was wearing red and gold armor, his back turned. The other, chained to the floor.

"AZULA!" Zuko shrieked, his voice raising to a quite unmanly timbre, but he didn't care at the moment. He hurled away the telescope, careless of its crunch as it broke on the floor. He then hurled himself back out that window, and without a first let alone second thought, leapt from the roof. Only a blast of firebending, an explosion under his landing, preventing him breaking his legs. As it was, it was still a very rude, very rough landing, atop some very hot stone. He raced down the slope, even as his thinking mind told him that there was no way he could beat the skiff back to Zhao's frigate. But somehow, in his heart, he believed if he tried hard enough, it might make the difference anyway.

Pity the universe wasn't listening to Zuko's heart, at the moment.

Zuko came to a halt where the roaring surf could only barely reach up to spray him, compounding the thorough soaking he received from the rain which fell. He screamed Azula's name again, but it was lost in the driving rain and the crashing of waves. He only had one job. One task to complete. One duty to perform. One promise to keep. And he was failing.

With a roar as wordless as thunder, he tore his arms above him, and with them, flowed the lightning. When he brought his hands forward again, lightning arced from his fingertips, exploding across that distance in a lattice of indiscriminate death, a blue reaper that brought down whatever it touched. While the lightning was powerful beyond compare, and utterly impossible to block, it was also extremely difficult to aim, and inaccurate over long distances. The assault he'd hoped would blast the pilot of that skiff into a smoldering corpse instead went wide. Part of it crashed into the ocean. The more relevant part of it scoured along the hull of one of Zhao's ships, holing it just at the water line. Zuko fell to his knees, the water on his face hiding frustrated tears. It was too much. He was spent.

"Prince Zuko? Where are you?" Uncle's voice came through the storm.

Zuko didn't answer. He just bowed down his head, and sobbed, silently.

He failed his sister.

He failed his mother.

He failed himself.

* * *

><p>Ozai turned as Zhao limped toward him. His face was already starting to bruise, and his posture wasn't nearly the proud stance he'd held when he first arrived on the island. But then again, considering the amount of damage which the Avatar had no-doubt inflicted upon him, it was a small wonder how the man even bothered staying alive. "You have proven yourself a man of uncanny foresight, Zhao," Ozai said.<p>

"Did he make it inside?" Zhao asked, obviously disregarding his own pain. A worthwhile quality in a man.

"I must assume he did," Ozai said. "And that means, whatever he came here to learn, he did. But you managed to predict him. That is a valuable commodity, to be able to know the enemy's movements before they come."

"We still failed," Zhao noted grimly.

"To catch the Avatar before he got into the Sanctum, perhaps," Ozai said. "But he has to come out eventually. And you've proven yourself a trustworthy agent." He was going to continue, but he heard a loud, rumbling clunk, and when he turned to the door, the great snakes where beginning to rotate, unlocking themselves and the door that they contained. Finally, the last of them spun into place, and a great wave of white smoke wafted through the crack of the door. "Nevermind. Prepare to unleash all Hell upon him!"

Zhao took his place at Ozai's right side, fists out even for his damaged state. The other Fire Sages, besides the one which Zhao had predicted, by name, which would betray them all, reformed the arc toward the door. It swung out with a squeal, and without a word being said, the attacks of more than a dozen firebenders, two of them the greatest in the world, surged through the widening gap and scoured the inside of that room, which had laid abandoned for a century. The firestorm continued, unabated for almost a minute, before Ozai let his gloved hands raise. "Enough!"

The attacks ended in a stuttered line. And black smoke now billowed out of that room. He took a step forward, a smirk on his face as he prepared to look upon the charred corpse of an airbender. That smirk turned to a slight widening of the eyes when he saw a sooty, slightly reddened airbender come streaking past him.

"Gotta go!" The youth said, a level of brightness to his voice which seemed entirely out of place. Ozai lashed his fist down, to smite the enemy of the Fire Nation, but the boy moved with the speed of lightning itself. Ozai slashed as he spun, trying to smash the Avatar with a chop of flames, but the boy kept moving, ducking under them, dodging around them, until their positions had swapped. Grey eyes flicked toward the hole in the wall, and Ozai felt a sinking sensation. Oh, not today, child.

The Avatar hurled that staff ahead of him, and it clacked open into a glider. Ozai twisted his arms around him, lightning gathering as the Avatar bounded off of Zhao's head to grab that glider and soar toward the exit. When Ozai's bolt finally tore free, cutting through the air, the boy had already made it out of the hole, chased after with almost no time to spare by deadly electricity. Ozai ran over to that hole, propping himself atop the rubble with his wounded right hand, and stared into the rain.

The Avatar flew with great difficulty in that weather, but something loomed up out of the darkness and grey. It was huge. It was furry. And it had a saddle on its back. It was a bison, saddled for riding, like the Air Nomads of old. So the rumors were true about this one? The Avatar dropped onto the things brow, and sawed hard on its reins. It turned and vanished into the murk. Ozai could see two others in the back of that thing. One of them, a girl in blue clothes, glared at Ozai as they flew away.

Ozai took in a deep breath, turning away from the rain which soaked him. When he released it, he sent a surge of heat through his clothing, evaporating the rain from them in a puff of steam. He flicked the water away from his strand of beard. "_Now_, we have lost the Avatar," Ozai said simply. "But you, Zhao, have gained something valuable. We shall... discuss it later."

"Did they find the..."

"We had her delivered to your boat," Yoji said, suddenly at her master's side. She undoubtedly arrived only moments before, otherwise the Avatar would be a burnt corpse right now. Zhao smiled at that. Not a rapacious smile; even _Ozai_ wouldn't have stood for that. But it was smile of a man who had lived long impoverished, suddenly granted a windfall.

Ozai pointed at the hatless Great Sage. "You will contract an artist to sketch that scarred boy who interrupted us. I want a bounty on his head such that even his own mother would turn him in."

"How much?" Yoji's earthbender counterpart asked.

"Half the Avatar's reward should be sufficient," Ozai said, walking away from the holes in the wall and floor. "After all, he did aid him in his treason against our nation."

Zhao forced himself to stand somewhat taller. "May I be excused? I have personal business to attend to."

"By all means," Ozai said, "Lord Zhao."

"Lord?" Zhao asked, his amber eyes brightening. Even the burnt one.

"Of course," Ozai said. "You are a part of a rarified stratum, Zhao. I trust very few to act independent of me. I have stripped many titles from my ilk. I very rarely give them back. Now be ready for when I call upon you in the future. I may yet need your insight again, since the Avatar escaped me."

"I will do as you ask, Fire Lord," Zhao bowed gratefully. Ozai just nodded and looked to the wall again.

The Avatar was an airbender child. That was fortunate. Airbenders were weak; they were pacifists and fools. It was just a matter of time until the North broke, and the Fire Nation roamed Summavut in triumph. He pondered to himself a more proper name for that city. Something more... Fire Nation. It was a pleasant diversion, as he descended the Fire Temple.

Victory, at this point, was just a matter of time.

* * *

><p>Aang still held the reins as he hauled his face above the edge of the howdah. "Katara, is he...?" Aang didn't have the heart to finish the question.<p>

A quiet moan from the subject of that unasked question brought a surge of relief to the Avatar which he was in desperate need of. "He's not going into shock anymore," Katara said, "but it's still pretty bad. We're going to need to get to some place with a doctor really fast."

Aang looked the teenager up and down. Sokka's burns had been much more livid before he ran out to the Sanctum. "What happened?"

"I... don't really know how to explain it," Katara said, before falling silent over her brother. While Sokka looked half dead, so did she. For the former, it was a vast improvement, but the latter? A drastic calamity. Aang flopped back down onto the brow of the beast, which was flying with a lethargic, bone-weary path. Aang reached down and patted Appa upon its massive brow.

"I know you're tired, buddy," Aang said, looking east, into the darkness of the rain and the night. It was not for the temperature that Aang found himself shivering, but simple exhaustion. "We all are."

* * *

><p>Thousands of miles to the north, a man most of the world from his home smiled, as a cold wind caressed his skin. It had been an unreasonably long time since he'd felt proper cold. Two years in the heat and the storms, and occasionally in the dry. It wasn't a Water Tribe way of living, that was for sure. But then again, of all of them, only Hakoda had anywhere near the experience of living outside their familiar cold and wet, and that was because Bato had spent quite a few years in the world before. Before the Raids resumed. Before Great Whales fell. Before he lost his daughter.<p>

She would have been Sokka's age, by now.

He tried very hard not to be bitter. In fact, he'd even managed to move on from it. She wasn't his last child. Yes, he regretted leaving his second daughter behind, but this had to happen. Somebody had to fight the Fire Nation, and the Earth Kingdoms seemed bloody content to just lick their wounds now that the attention had turned from them, to somebody whom they obviously didn't give a damn about. Bato wasn't a bitter person, but more than once, he wondered what the war would have looked like if Ozai hadn't pulled out of the East, and sent the Navy north? If he hadn't resumed the conquest of the waterbending nations? Would Nahla have been able to meet her big sister, Aalo?

Bato continued to whittle at his knife. It was somewhat counterintuitive to make animal-based weapons when they had access to bronze and steel, but a whale-tooth knife just had a _knack_ for getting through tricky armor. The rationalist in him said that it was a matter of balance, or familiarity. Most others just happily claimed that it was the spirit of the beast fighting for the Tribe. Bato had _met_ spirits. They were seldom so kind. In a way, it was good that Llawenydd went like he did; at least it was quick, and at least it was clean.

There was a silence, where Bato stood on the shores. The night was, gracefully, not storming for once, and a fleet of stars sailed across the heavens. Once again, education and tradition fought, and tradition came up short. So many stars. Different stars than he had grown up with. More proof that the world was... how had Sokka put it? Oh, right; an oblong spheroid. He couldn't afford to get distracted by the stars, though. A different fleet, this of long, Water Tribe boats, had moored here, in the hidden, rocky coves. The craft, far too small to be easily noticed, could sally out and harry any Fire Nation ship that tried to make for the Hengsha River. And when the fight turned, when the Fire Nation called in reinforcements, the Water Tribe would vanish back into the rocks.

A fleet of ghosts, Hakoda had called the tactic. It suited them well. Weeks out here, and not a single Tribesman lost, not a single ship more than slightly damaged. Bato smiled at that. It might not win the war, not on its own, but damned if it wasn't going to make a difference. He turned, glancing toward the north star again. How many days to reach their northern sister tribe? Not many. But they were out of reach, since the fall of Henhiavut. As he considered that, his ears picked up on something. Not the whisper of waves upon sand... but rather footfalls.

Bato reached back, grasping the spear which lay just behind him. He closed his eyes, since he wouldn't be able to spot them in the blackness, anyway, and used his ears to guide him. Closer. Closer they came. Two of them, one great, the other quite small. A teenager at best. When they had reached a proper distance, close enough that Bato could spit them if need be, not so close as to have to fend them with a knife, he stepped around the hull of his ship. "Stop right there, outsider," he said in these lands' tongue. "We don't want any trouble, so don't think to bring it with you."

"Always with the firm tone," an extremely familiar voice said to him. His bright blue eyes widened a bit, and a smile began to crawl upon his face. That smaller figure, which he had mistaken for a child? It could be none other. "I would have thought you would have tried something different by now, if only to break the boredom."

"Sativa!" Bato said, thrusting the spear's tip into the sand. He held out his arms, and moved to give her a twirling hug. "Tui La, it's been far too long."

"Indeed it has," she said with a chuckle. She took a step back, and Bato turned to a glowering thunderhead of an Azuli. "I was going to inform you that I've located..."

"Piandao," Bato said, extending a hand in friendship. Piandao just glared at it until Bato retracted it. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "...Anyway. I profess, I'm a bit surprised to see you here. What brings you to the north?"

"Collecting old and trusted friends," Sativa said, her gravely voice quite lively. "You know how things have changed. We must prepare the Avatar for his destiny."

"It's not our place to meddle with the Avatar," Bato pointed out.

"So Piandao has told me," Sativa said.

"Is he not speaking for himself?" Bato asked genially. Piandao just stared at him heatedly.

"Boys, play nice," Sativa ordered. Bato just locked eyes with Piandao, and neither flinched. It wasn't until Sativa cleared her throat loudly that both broke in unison to turn to her. "Better. Bato, we are tired and in need of a place to sleep this night. Surely you can offer us some accommodation?"

"Of course, Sativa," Bato said, waving into the treeline. "We're camped near an abbey up the hill, and you're quite welcome to join us."

"I quite like the sound of that," Sativa said in that smokey way she said just about everything. "And it would allow me to finally properly introduce myself to that friend of yours; Hakoda."

"I'm fairly sure he'll be more interested in meeting _you_," Bato contended, and began to show them the way into camp. The entire time, Piandao just glared, and brooded. It was better that nobody knew what he was thinking, for all involved.

* * *

><p><strong>You can't make Frodo a Jedi without giving Sauron the Death Star. Evocative prose though it is, it's exactly the issue which I had to balance when writing this. While I did love the idea of having Ozai be a constant enemy, rather than a 1990's era videogame endboss, adding him as a factor into the story started shifting things, quite significantly in some places. While the nail certainly allowed for it (a destabilized Ozai needs to take a much more personal hand in many of his activities), it meant that the good guys were actually in a worse position than they had started. I guess I gave Ozai his Death Star long before Aang met Ben Kenobi.<strong>

**...Wow. It's almost like I don't want them to win. **

**Alright, that was a lie, but when have I ever made anything easy for my protagonists. Narrative is essentially formed and stylized fictional sadism at the best of times anyway, since you kinda have to do unpleasant things to the protagonists in order to instill urgency into the plot. But if the Gaang is going to become powerful (and bearing in mind the other characters involvements with them, it's gonna happen at some point), then the bad guys have to be even stronger in order to present a credible threat to them. Thus, Aang faces Ozai in Book 1, Zhao uses every opportunity to cleave the Gordian Knot, and Sokka gets barbequed.**

**Another issue which was raised earlier is the disperate nature of the story as it stands right now. Well, I'm taking a cue from some other stories I've assimilated over the years, the most familiar one to this audience probably being 'Fall of the Fire Empire'. It starts with vastly distant plot threads, but as the story progresses, they join closer and closer together. Now, in Book 1, they're still admittedly far apart. But by the time the Ba Sing Se arc happens (If I reach it, since you have to remember not to get those hopes up), a lot of it will be folding in rapidly. It's a matter of different stories contributing to a whole, until they're all in the same room and bouncing SCIENCE! off of each other or punching a tea-maker.**

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	11. The Prisoner

**For the record: Azula is not WoF Azula. She is 3F Azula. Different people with different issues. One is not going to become the other. That would just be sloppy writing.**

* * *

><p>He was smiling at her. She wanted to break his face. "I'm surprised you haven't concocted a way to prevent my bending," Azula said, rubbing the wrists where the shackles had chafed her. As it was, it took absolutely everything she had to not erupt into a spinning wildfire of destruction and rage. But she had to keep focused. Zhao had her... for now.<p>

"Would that really be necessary?" Zhao asked.

"Father will not be happy, whenever he learns of this," Azula pointed out.

"We shall see about that, now shan't we?" Zhao asked, leaning against the steel desk. "I've made sure you will enjoy all of the amenities. Someone of your utility should have nothing but the best."

"So my cage is wrought of solid gold?" Azula asked, striding forward until the chain connecting her ankle to the wall pulled taught, and caught her half-way through a step. Doing so forced Zhao to step back from the desk, almost to the door. "Well, that just absolves you of everything."

"I thought you would be grateful," Zhao said. "And perhaps, in time, you will be. You will be protected from the Avatar and those who would do you harm..."

"Do you want my body?" Azula asked, a smirk on her face. "Why, Zhao, I didn't think you preferred them so... young."

"Please," Zhao said, not being baited. "Your body interests me as much as the sum total of waterbending lore. It is your mind that's valuable, and it is your mind that I'm protecting. Because you are now my instrument. Your visions of the future, and my intellect. Imagine it."

"Only in my darkest nightmares," Azula noted.

Zhao, though, was obviously in too good a mood to be brought down. The dark smile on his face even reached his burnt eye. "Your prophecies can give me utter domination over the enemies of the Fire Nation. And don't think you'll be discarded, Azula. You will always have use to me, and your task will come with benefits."

"Not interested," Azula said, turning back to her bed. She could hear a few footfalls come closer to her.

"Really? What about absolute power?" Zhao offered. She half-turned to him. "While serving Ozai now is the best interest of the Fire Nation, I have a way of seeing the future before it comes. He does not. You're an ambitious girl; I know that much about you. You want power as much as any proper Fire National would. So my offer is this. As I rise, you rise with me. I will become Fire Lord, very likely with Ozai's recommendation," she smirked, and opened her mouth to point out an obvious problem with that plan. "And before you point out that only nobility can reach that perch... I am now one of them."

"What."

"I am Lord. Landless at the moment, but will soon change. I have the Fire Lord's ear and his faith. He has no heir..."

"He has me."

"He has _no_ heir," Zhao continued forcibly, "of appropriate age, anyway. He will name me regent, and when I prove myself in that, plenipotentiary. When he dies, or absconds, the Burning Throne will fall to me. And without an undeserved drop of blood shed."

"I see. So you're an idiot."

"Why are you so averse to this?" Zhao asked. "I could conquer the whole world with you at my side? Is that so horrible, to look over the whole of the globe and _call it all Fire Nation_?"

Azula stared at her feet. As much as she wanted to insult him, that was much of her desire. Of course, that he demanded it be as his underling, or worse, his doxie, kept her blood at a proper boil. He walked closer, as her eyes stayed on the floor. "Just consider it," Zhao said, and patted her on the shoulder. She took the opportunity to spin hard, and drive her fist very hard up into his nose.

It hurt rather a lot more than she expected, but her muscular body sent Zhao sliding across the floor, blood spurting from his face as he slowly came to a halt, with his head touching the door. There was a long moment, as Azula shook the remarkable amount of pain from her fist – why hadn't somebody bothered to mention to her how much it hurt to punch somebody in the face? – where she allowed herself the hope that she'd managed to kill him. But then, his head tilted to her, as the blood ran around his neck. He slowly pushed himself to a stand, and leaned over, spitting some of it onto the floor.

"I'll return, once you've had some time to reconsider," he said, nasally for his obviously broken nose.

"Would you like to know _your_ future, Zhao?" Azula said, her body running cold. It was like the veil moving forward, a horrible sensation of confusion and fear, but instead, as it did, the words kept flowing forth. "How you die? You die from stupidity, and arrogance, and avarice. You die because you take a victory and turn it into a defeat. You break the Tribesmen, beat down their defenses, and hold their god hostage in your hand. And then you screw it all up, killing it, and invoking the Avatar's understandable wrath. You die because you can't accept anything less than... Zhao the _Invincible_. There's irony in that title."

Zhao just stared at her, as her legs gave out and dropped her back onto the bed. She didn't even have enough left of her to take pleasure in the utterly terrified expression on his face. Because the veil had moved forward, and Azula had gone away.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

**The Prisoner**

* * *

><p>"I take it she's being cooperative?" the colonel said snidely. Zhao didn't bother coming up with a witty reply, instead preferring to launch a blast of fire at the man. Yes, the man did manage to hurl himself aside, but Zhao turned to him, the blood running down his face from his nose. "What the hell was that, Zhao?"<p>

"A warning shot," Zhao said. "Remember always, Shinu, that the difference between us is much more than simple rank. I could kill you and nail your skin to Pohuai's gates without so much as a reprimand."

"But..."

"A second word from you and I will demonstrate, _colonel_," Zhao said simply. The colonel took the expression on Zhao's face a great deal more seriously, as he ought have initially. Zhao took a rag and wiped the blood from his face. He didn't say it, but the way she said that... the way she talked about the future, so clearly, straight from the tides of time through her mouth...

It shook him.

As Shinu had almost vanished from sight, Zhao called at him again. "Close the gates," he ordered. "And send the Yu Yan Archers to the walls and the countryside. As long as they're serving as prison guards, they might as well make themselves useful."

"Yes, Lord Zhao," Shinu said. Zhao turned and pushed through a set of doors that overlooked the archery-ranges of the famous archers. They were considered amongst the most legendary fighters on this planet. And their precision was very much the heart of that legend. She would be protected. And Zhao?

Maybe it was time to learn if destiny could be... overwritten.

* * *

><p>Having an airbender hovering around you sounded intuitive enough. Having it in actuality was outright distracting. She cleared her throat again, as she rewound the cleanest of their blankets around Sokka's wounded body. His pallor was still quite grey, and in fact had gotten worse from the high point it had reached the night they escaped. Katara didn't need Seni's years of learning under the medicine man to know that this was infection setting in. There was a reason why burns were so dangerous. It wasn't always the flames that killed you. "Aang, please stop doing that. It's very distracting," she said, carefully tucking the ad hoc bandages around him.<p>

"I thought he was getting better," Aang said, despondently. Of their party, half of them were almost completely flat on their backs. Aang had set the howdah aside, which was just as well, because Appa now slept the sleep of the dead, only rousing briefly to munch on the grasses which swayed at the edge of the campsite, and then flop back to sleep for another dozen or so hours. The only grumbles coming from that direction were tired grumbles. But considering the fifteen hundred _miles_ or so that the great beast had covered over a two day period, critical exhaustion was the very _best_ thing that any could have expected.

What Katara wouldn't give to hear even one tired grumble out of her brother.

He was silent and still, the only movement his breathing. Every now and then, his eyes would slide open, but there was no alertness in them. He wasn't awakening; it was just eyelids sliding past each other. She never thought she'd want so desperately to hear her brother's dumb jokes, his witless sarcasm, his ruthless naturalism. His obsession with all thing scientific and revulsion toward the wonderfully absurd. Even his braying laughter would have been the kindest music to her. But now, Sokka was silent.

"He's sick," Katara said simply, slumping back against the wall of the lean-to. Cut into the rock of a high pass, it was almost a house, if one which had its front wall fall off at some point, which had been built back into the stone. Probably by earthbenders, decades ago. She let out a very tired sigh. "Burns get infected, and I'm pretty sure he's got a bad one right now."

"And what about you?" Aang said, the concern plain to his voice.

"What about me?" Katara asked.

"You look almost as bad as he does," Aang noted, his big grey eyes flicking between them. "Have you slept since...?"

"How could I?" Katara answered. She looked at the back of her own hand, and noted that her own color was scarcely better than her brother's. She'd saved his life in the Fire Nation. She didn't even know water could do that before. But then again, water had saved Azula's life, back in the South Pole. That was a mistake that Katara wouldn't soon repeat. Next time that crazy girl was on her back, somebody was going to have to deal with her on a more permanent basis. Her head dipped. She was _really_ tired.

"Katara, are you alright?" Aang asked earnestly. And made it clear he wasn't going to allow evasion.

"I just... I need to look after my family," Katara said, despite her fatigue. Aang, though, gently guided her onto her back next to Sokka.

"And so do I," Aang said. He turned, looking out over the wind swept valley. While there were only high, grey clouds, and the rain didn't fall, the wind was positively howling, tearing through the pass without mercy or restraint. So Aang only gave a glance to his glider before sighing. "You two are my family now. I'll find a healer. I think I remember there being one somewhere nearby. If anybody's carried on in her footsteps, they'll have something that can help you," Aang said. And then he was off.

"Wait," Katara tried to shout, but her strength was failing her. Such weakness ran through her, it almost brought her to tears. She reached over and took her brother's hand. "It's going to be alright, Sokka. I'm right here."

Momo, possibly irate for having been ignored for so long, scampered over and chattered at them, before curling up between their hands. It was a warmth that she was quite appreciative for. While she couldn't say the words, as consciousness started to slip away from her, she just let out one prayer to Tui and La, one request in her heart. She wanted to see Dad again.

She fell into dark and searing dreams, of fire and screams and powerlessness.

If her memory stretched farther back, she'd know she dreamed of the day Mom died.

* * *

><p>The crew stayed very far away from Zuko as the ship steamed over the bucking waves. He stood at the prow, his shoulders heaving with every breath he took. Every spray of the waves that crashed, as they crested and descended between them, turned to steam and a caking of salt within instants of landing near him. Once, a rogue wave, as tall as he was tried to crash over the bowsprit. It was only as high as his ankles by the time it reached him.<p>

Iroh resolved to talk to him before the metal started glowing.

"Prince Zuko, are you alright?" Iroh asked, standing just outside that ring of salt. He knew that the heat Zuko was radiating would have seared a non-firebender the instant one crossed that line. He also knew that sustaining that kind of heat was a crippling drain. "Please, you should stop this. You're only hurting yourself."

"I couldn't stop them," Zuko said quietly, quite opposed to his posture, to the rage which painted itself onto the metal of the ship. "I couldn't protect Azula."

"There is more to life than the single promise you made," Iroh began, but stopped when Zuko half-turned to him, his left eye catching the sun and burning like fire. Iroh suddenly realized that this hadn't been the right way to lead into this sort of thing.

"Really?" Zuko asked, his voice heating. "Then what have I been doing with my life, _Uncle_? If I can't even keep my little sister safe, then what use am I, _Uncle_? If I can't even do the one thing my mother asked of me, the one thing I knew that would make her proud..."

"Your mother is proud of you in both victory and defeat," Iroh cut in. He knew that for a fact. She had been quite forthright with how she raised her children. Quite specifically, that she didn't want either of them growing up like she did. "She would understand that you suffered a setback."

"A SETBACK?" Zuko turned, casting out a flare of fire as he did. "Complete and utter obliteration is a _setback_?"

"What is the trinity of flame?" Iroh asked. Zuko snapped his jaw shut.

"Air, heat, and fuel," Zuko answered, but obviously, his patience was dangerously short.

"Exactly. Fire depends on air, and upon fuel which is often extracted from the earth. It is a discipline not divorced from, but a part of, the other elements. Now, tell me, Prince Zuko: What is the trinity of _a man_?"

Zuko stared at Iroh, and then turned to the rail, leaning over it. Iroh stood next to him, as they powered away from the Fire Nation. Away from the boy's home. Iroh knew full well how hard that tore at the young man's heart. "I don't understand," Zuko said quietly, staring at the water.

"A man is three things. He is his body, his strengths and his weaknesses, his speed and his sloth. He is his heart. The courage and the will to endure what comes, and the virtue to know what is right. And he is his mind. The wisdom to face adversity and triumph. The intellect to know what fights must be fought. With fire, any member of the trinity which is missing snuffs a flame," Iroh explained. "A fire without air snuffs. A fire without fuel gutters. A fire without heat withers. So too with a man. A man is only a man when his body, his heart, and his mind act in unison. Your heart is wounded, Prince Zuko, but it is not gone. You are not defeated. I know that. I know the promises you've made, I know the vows. You _never_ gave up then, and you never will in the future. Your heart says you are wounded."

"...yeah," Zuko admitted.

"What does your body say?" Iroh asked.

"I'm... Angry. I want to..." Zuko shook his head, then twisted his arms away from the two of them. Lightning shot up the youth's arms and tore across the deck, forking and launching into the distance with a thunderclap, accompanied by a shout of rage from Zuko. His chest heaved as Iroh blinked away the purple afterimage of the bolt. Iroh then leaned in a little closer, set a hand on the boy's shoulder, and whispered as though expanding conspiracy.

"And what does your _mind_ say?" Iroh asked. But this time, he didn't bother standing around to hear the answer. Better if he didn't hear it. Besides. He was pretty sure he already knew what it was. Iroh walked back into the cabins, and moved past his room, ascending to Azula's. He hadn't been close with her when she came aboard this ship. Two years had done some to mend that, but Iroh always felt like he was trying to read a book written in cypher when Azula was around. He might have thought her plotting something, but he knew the dire illness which afflicted her, drove her to these dire ends. He just stared at her darkened, vacant room, still adorned with all of that art and works. He looked at it, and thought to himself. "Who _are_ you, Azula? What do you _want_?" he asked that empty room. And the empty room answered exactly as Iroh expected it to.

* * *

><p>It killed Tzu Zi to see Nila like this. She just sat there, staring at the ground before her toes, despondent. "Come on, cheer up. You'll find him again," Tzu Zi attempted again.<p>

"And then he'll vanish into thin air again," Nila answered. "I have never believed in a benevolent deity. This is further proof that I'm correct in my beliefs."

"Nila..."

"I'm still not convinced this kid actually exists," Malu piped up. While the airbender had a smile on her face, it was a fragile thing. It didn't reach her eyes. Obviously, the news that Malu got from the shaman in the woods wasn't the news she wanted to hear. Every bit of her now looked tired, and a little bit afraid. She cast her thumb to the mangy old Ostrich Horse which occupied a stall well away from the other beasts, if only for its foul temper. "I mean, what sane person would ever ride a crazy old brute like that?"

"Everybody says this is the one Sharif came with," Tzu Zi tried to explain.

"I figure it's just an elaborate prank," Malu. "Likely, he wasn't even here."

"But I saw him and..."

"He's _gone_. I have no idea how to find him. No idea where to start looking," the Si Wongi girl said quietly. "I failed. How am I going to tell Mother?"

"I'm sure she'll understand that you tried your best," Tzu Zi placated. Nila just let out a bitter laugh.

"Do you remember my mother?" Nila asked.

"Oh... right," Tzu Zi said, calling to mind the many stories, few flattering, which Nila had about her forebearer. Malu turned to her with a confused shrug. Tzu Zi motioned back to her that she'd explain later. "Look, maybe you should come with me. I'm going up north to meet Kah Ri, and I'm sure you'd love to meet her too. Who knows, you might even bump into your brother again!"

"I find that highly doubtful," Nila muttered.

"Why?" Sharif's voice asked behind her.

Nila leapt six feet into the air with a scream which Tzu Zi had to try very very hard not to laugh at. She landed, spinning around with green eyes as wide as wagon-wheels. "You! WHERE! **HOW!**" she screamed, trying to come up with the best question to ask first, obviously. And not quite able to decide which took precedence.

"You sound angry," Sharif noted, a distant expression on his face.

"Angry? ANGRY?" Nila asked. "I am so far beyond angry that the spot I abandoned 'angry' has vanished over the horizon! How did you do that? Where did you go?"

Tzu Zi quickly interposed herself between the two siblings as the interrogation began to sound rather like some of those rallies which Dad went on about. A lot of angry shouting went on at them. None of Tzu Zi's sisters really liked them. Even _Gwen_ thought they were crass and vile, and she was the evil sister! "Can we please stop shouting?" Tzu Zi pleaded. "I don't like it when people shout."

"Yeah, I can hear you just fine," Sharif said, completely missing the point.

"Sharif, I swear to the gods..."

"Nila..."

Nila took a deep breath, and ran her hand along the slowly growing hair on her scalp. Already it had blackened her pate, and made a unique scratchy sound whenever Nila did that. "Where did you go yesterday?" Nila demanded.

"I met the Fire Lord, I think," Sharif said idly. "Do you have any food? I'm starving."

"You WHAT?" both of the girls shouted, if each with a very different reason.

"You don't need to yell, remember? I can hear you," Sharif said. "The Avatar needed my help getting through a door. You know, it's awfully wet in the Fire Nation."

"What?" Malu asked, but Tzu Zi managed to speak at the same time as her.

"You went to the Fire Nation," Tzu Zi tried to refocus the young man. "How? It's, like, thousands of miles away from here!"

"I took the eastern gate from the bog tree where stone egg hums," Sharif said. The girls all shared a look of equal and total bafflement. "Short cut," he explained, with a dismissive wave. "You know, lemurs are a lot smarter than I realized? I think I'm out of food. I'll have to pick some up before I go."

"Sharif, you do realize you've forgotten about _ninety_ percent of that anecdote, dumbass."

"Oh, harsh," Malu muttered.

"Nila," Tzu Zi chastised. Nila didn't look too off put by it, though.

"He makes less sense than a three year old!" Nila complained. "And you're not going anywhere but back home. I am dragging you back to Sentinel Rock if I have to affix a leash to you!"

"Wow, rough family," Malu noted.

"It's a long story," Tzu Zi admitted.

"Wait, I'm forgetting something," Sharif said. He pawed at himself for a moment, then his eyes went a bit wider and he began to pull at the neck of his robes. He even threw away a purse in his haste. "No, where did I put it?" Sharif asked, obviously alarmed. Tzu Zi, though, picked up the purse near her foot. It was very heavy, and when she opened it, her eyes bugged at the amount of gold and silver inside.

"Nila..." she said, handing over the purse.

Nila spared it a glance before shrugging. "He must have taken the emergency money," without missing a beat. Tzu Zi stared at Nila for a moment. This was enough to live well – as in Fire Nation nobility well – for a year or more, and Nila turned it over without a second glance. "What are you looking for, Sharif?"

"The Jade Toe? It was right here, and then I..." he glanced up, slow realization dawning on him. "Oh... Maybe I gave it away."

"Maybe?" Malu asked.

"His memory is as poor as the rest of his mind. I doubt there was even a jade toe to begin with," Nila said. "Now come. It's a long walk, and we should leave now."

"What about Patriarch?" Sharif asked, moving to the obviously disgruntled bird at the end of the stables. The bird flicked its head for a moment. "No, not if you don't want to."

"What?"

The bird made a few grunting noises, and Sharif sighed. "Well, if it still hurts, you can just walk with us until its better."

"What."

Both turned to Malu, who was now standing beside Nila, fists on her hips, and her amusement had turned to obvious demand. It occurred to Tzu Zi that sanity could only be stretched so far before it came snapping back, and right now, that snap was named Malu. "Sharif is an idiot. Weren't you paying attention?" Nila asked.

"He's having a conversation with a bird, and has more gold than a dishonest merchant. Life is weird," Malu noted.

"I'm still missing something," Sharif said. Then, he turned. "Oh, right! There's another one now. Are you another friend of my sister?" he asked, still scratching at this 'Patriarch's neck and not turning to face her.

"Well, that depends on her," Malu said with a smirk. "I like to think she owes me her life."

Sharif gasped and turned. "That's a serious debt, Nila. You can't just..." he trailed off, staring at Malu. As he did, though, a look of confusion came over his face.

"What is it, Sharif?" Tzu Zi asked. Her answer came when his hands flashed to the manger's edge, and yanked hard, pulling out a taloning knife where it had been left embedded. In a flash, he bolted past Tzu Zi, shoulder checking her into the of Aki's stall, and interposed himself between Nila and Malu, that knife leading toward the airbender. The expression on his face was somewhere between childlike terror and utter rage.

"You stay away from my sister, demon!" he shrieked.

Malu backed away, confusion plain on her face, her hands out to her sides. "I... I don't know what you're talking about. I'm her friend. Really I am. I'm not making things up or lying..."

"Sharif, stop this, now!" Nila shouted, elbowing him in the ribs. He turned to Nila, then back to Malu, and the knife lowered slightly. "Malu might be by times insufferable but _you may not hold her at knife-point_. That's my privilege."

"But it's..." Sharif began.

"No, there are no buts, no howevers, no ifs, no hences, and no neverthelesses. I'm not having you threaten my friends. Period. End of sentence, end of paragraph, end of chapter. Am I making myself perfectly clear?" Nila said sternly.

"Yes, Mother," Sharif said, and not sarcastically.

"You did _NOT_ just call me Mother," Nila said. But for all that comical indignation, Tzu Zi's eyes were still on Sharif. On how he still looked at Malu like she was an immediate and dangerous threat. Tzu Zi wanted, in her heart of hearts, to do something to dissolve this tension, to get everybody laughing and happy again. But she hadn't the first clue what exactly was happening, let alone the right way to fix it. Finally, Nila broke the silence with a clearing of her throat. "Alright. We're heading home."

"I'll see you back," Tzu Zi offered. "I've never been to Si Wong, and it's on my way."

"Heck, I'll come too. It's not like..."

"You can't come," Sharif stressed, glaring at Malu.

"She can come if she pleases," Nila countered. She continued at a mutter. "Although I cannot see _why _she would."

"Then we'd better go while the sun is still rising," Tzu Zi said, forcing brightness into her tones. They all needed it. Everybody here was tired and lashing out because of it. Maybe once they were all back on the road, they would calm down and be friendly again. At least, that was Tzu Zi's hope.

* * *

><p>Hakoda looked up as he heard the leather of the tent flap being opened. "Bato, I thought you were watching the ships," he said idly, as he carefully measured out substances. He wasn't the only one in his tribe who could make these mines, but by far, he was the best at it.<p>

"I had Ogan take over," Bato said, and held the flap open. "I have some people I think you'll be interested in meeting."

"At this time of night?" Hakoda asked. "I was about to turn in."

"Oh, you'll want to see her," he said. Hakoda sighed, setting aside the putty which was about two steps from becoming dangerous.

"And who could that be?" Hakoda asked, rocking back with his kneel. First, a very tall man ducked into the tent, unbuckling a sword and setting it aside. Hakoda raised a brow at Bato, but he was still beckoning in. When the next entered, Hakoda could definitely see why Bato had came to the tent this late.

"You are chief Hakoda?" the Si Wongi woman asked. "It is a pleasure to meet somebody on the proper side of this war."

"Bato, why is...?" Hakoda began.

"It has been a long time since we spoke," she said. "And I don't believe we were properly introduced at that time. Of course, it was almost a lifetime ago, so I doubt you would even remember."

Hakoda bowed slightly, though. "You underestimate the effect you have," the Chief said. "I doubt anybody would forget the name Sativa Badesh bin Seema din Nassar."

"Bint, but close enough," she corrected.

"I heard of what you did at Ba Sing Se," Hakoda said. "It was inspiring."

"I simply did what was needed," she said plainly. "The snake was incapable of throwing back the Dragon. I was not."

"What are you doing _here_?" Hakoda asked. "I thought you went into seclusion."

"If by seclusion you mean returned to my children, then yes," she said with a shrug. "And to answer your question, I am here because I need to ask you release one of your soldiers to me."

"Release a soldier?" Hakoda asked. "What do you mean? And if I may ask, who are you?"

The man, who was about as tall as Bato – not a mean feat, obviously – gave a cold nod, but his eyes kept flicking to Bato. "I'm not quite as famous as Sati is. That's the way I prefer it, actually. I'm not a center of attention, so I can get away with things that others can't. I am Piandao."

Hakoda just nodded at that. "Ah, Bato has spoken of you."

"He has, has he?" Piandao asked icily.

"If I may ask something of a living legend," Hakoda said wryly, "what exactly are you doing this far north? Come to break the siege of the North, perhaps?"

"No," she said. "I'm going to prevent the destruction of the world."

There was a long moment of silence, which was broken by one of the men coughing surreptitiously.

"Come again?"

"It is a matter for the Avatar's ears. Have you heard the news of him?"

"An airbender boy," Hakoda answered. "Beyond that, the stories are jumbled."

"Indeed they are," She admitted. "It is a difficult task, and I need old and trusted agents to be sure of success."

"So you're going to re-recruit my second-in-command," Hakoda finished. If she was surprised that he'd deduced her purpose here, she didn't show it. She simply nodded genially. "Bato is a trusted leader to the men, only scarcely less respected than _me_."

"Ruminate if you must, but do so quickly," Sativa said. "Your task is not unimportant. I do not mean to impugn, but bear in mind: If the Fire Nation is not defeated by the end of summer, _no_ amount of resistance will be enough to hold them back."

"What do you mean?" Hakoda asked, leaning forward.

She took a breath, and shook her head slowly, her eyes sad and weary. "Have you ever heard of Sozin's Comet, Chief Hakoda?"

* * *

><p>Two men sat in that perch, high above the roads, as it swayed lightly in the wind. It was not a choice assignment which brought them here. Watch-posts like these were strictly reserved for people whom the higher levels of command wanted gone, but didn't feel like going through with the effort of assassinating. Of course, once, places like this one were fairly rare. There was only so much land in the West Continent, after all, and having two towers watching over the same grounds would have been wasteful. Thus it was that with their recent foothold in the East, and the expanding that was going forth in recent weeks, that new perches were going up. And that meant an entirely new crop of undesirables now had a place they could be shunted out of sight and mind.<p>

Rei had the misfortune of a girl's name, and that probably influenced him quite starkly for his entire life. While most people got shuffled to places like this out of being hopelessly incompetent, Rei was actually a quite able falconer. For quite a few years, that skill had kept him out of places like this. But he also had a misfortunate inability to think with his big head when the ladies were around.

Shinu was not happy when he discovered Rei in his daughter's bed.

"It says here that the Avatar can create tornadoes with his hands and can run faster than the wind. Isn't that wild?" Rei's companion asked. Rei never did bother learning his name. He just knew that the only reason that he was sitting here in this rickety, waving perch was because he was a firebender, and the Fire Nation had barely enough of those to go around.

"Eh. It's probably just propaganda by the Fire Lord. There's no way that can be true," Rei noted, turning back out to the pass. There was nothing to see, of course, but he still watched it. Sooner or later he'd get out of here, likely when somebody reassigned Shinu. When that happened, Rei didn't want to get left here for 'dereliction of duty'. The firebender leaned closer, reading the wanted posters which had very recently become plastered over every holding the Fire Nation had to bear. Rei doubted he could even read very well. Shameful, what the education system in the Fire Nation had fallen to in recent years.

Rei allowed himself a chuckle. Recent years. Rei wasn't even most of the way to thirty, yet.

He brought up the telescope and did a quick wave over the valley, but panned back when he beheld a waft of dust rising in the distance. He gave a nudge to the other soldier, and pointed. "What do you think? Ostrich Horses?"

The man leaned forward. When Rei shot him an unamused glance, he then brought up his own lens. Rei shook his head for a moment before looking again. His eyes widened slightly. That cloud was a lot bigger.

And it was moving very, very fast. From out that dust, tearing against the wind, Rei could make out a tiny form. It was a boy, a boy in orange and yellow. A boy with just a hint of blue on his head. "No way," Rei muttered to himself. And then, the boy was sprinting up the mountain somewhat near their concealed perch with such speed that a stooping hawk wouldn't have been able to keep up. The boy shot past the rickety tower, which waved even harder as the winds forced themselves back into proper order, and only Rei's timely intervention prevented the portly firebender from being pitched right out.

"That was as fast as the wind, right?" the other man asked. Rei just palmed his forehead, and then set a quill to scratching. The hawks were understandably upset from the jostling, but they would be flying soon enough. After all, it wasn't every day that Rei got to deliver a black-ribbon message. And it wasn't every day that a Fire National saw the Avatar without getting killed.

* * *

><p>Aang came to a skidding halt in the cracked stone of a building which obviously had seen better days. Of course, the last time he'd even seen this place, it was a century ago, and it hadn't been much better then. "Excuse-me-can-you-help-me-my-friends-are-in-alot-of-trouble-and-I-need... " Aang rattled off so quickly that the words didn't so much spill forth as slide across a waxed floor and knock over a shelf full of expensive antiques. Once again, Aang wasn't in the right mindset to come up with proper metaphors, so he just took that as it stood and trailed off. Mostly because the only person attending his ramble wasn't really a person. It was a small, white cat.<p>

"Myu?" the cat chirped.

Aang shook his head, and walked away from the fluffy feline, and walked away from the arboretum. He knew a skilled healer had once lived here, but that was a long time ago. "Is anybody still living here? I need help!"

He navigated amongst the plentiful and spreading plantlife. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried by that. Their fecundity showed something was tending to them. Their wildness showed they weren't being tended very carefully. He pushed open a door which reached into the centermost room of the building, a open area dominated by a large tree, covered over in hundreds of different vines, all climbing the tree even as it reached through where glass had once held it in, soaking up sun and wind from above. This place was abandoned after all.

"Close the door, you're letting the good air out," a raspy, geriatric voice said from directly behind Aang. Aang's squeal of alarm sent him about twenty feet into the air. When he landed, he turned to see a hunched old woman standing, with a basket in her hand, where he had vacated. The basket was filled with a lot of flowers and such oddities. "Well, there's a sight I haven't seen in a while. Children don't come by here as much as they used to."

"Are you the healer of this place?" Aang asked hopefully.

"Of course," she said, shuffling just past Aang and plucking a single berry from a clutch of its purple ilk. "I've been up here for forty years, since the last healer died. Used to have a lot of Earth Kingdom fighters pass through here, back when Azulon was trying to take us over. But since his son moved the fight up north, it's pretty much just me and Miyuki. Isn't that right, Miyuki?" the old woman asked, as the cat walked up to her and rubbed the old woman's leg. It was purring quite contently.

"You've healed soldiers from the war?" Aang asked. "Because my friend is..."

"All kinds of them," The old woman interrupted. "I might not be a Tribal but my remedies always ensure that they leave in better shape then when they arrived."

"That's just what I need!" Aang said brightly, as hope returned to him. "Sokka, my friend, he was burned pretty badly the day before yesterday. He looks so grey and he doesn't wake up no matter what we say or cook near him!"

"Sokka?" the woman asked. "That sounds like a Tribesman name."

"Yes, he and his sister are from the South Pole. Now can you help me with Sokka?"

"This sister of his, is she a waterbender?" the healer asked, as he followed her making her shuffling way back into the first room. Aang started to have that hope ebb, and a tension build up in him like a spring.

"Yeah, but I don't see what that has to do with..."

"Your friend is going to be just fine," the woman placated, patting Aang on his head. It was odd for her to do, because she wasn't much taller than Aang was. "But I do need just one more ingredient."

"Where is it? Can I get it for you?" Aang asked, hoping to speed this along.

"Of course not. It's right here. Just a pinch of cinnamon," she said brightly, adding the reddish powder to a mixture which she happily ground up. "There we go. All ready."

Aang grabbed at it, and found himself rebuked by a pestle to the wrist. "Ow! What was..."

"Don't take that! You don't have any need of cat-food anyway!" the old woman said, turning and lowering the bowl to the floor. Miyuki then sauntered over and began to casually eat. Aang just stared at her, rubbing his wrist, with the most baffled look on his face. "A proper blend of ingredients is important to help her digestion. Because you have a tender tummy, don't you, Miyuki?"

The cat turned up and offered a contented 'Myu' at the old woman.

"What about Sokka?"

"It isn't Sokka you need to worry about," the healer said. Then, she halted, and turned back to Aang. "How old is this waterbender, anyway?"

"A year older than me, I guess?"

She let out a weary sigh, and beckoned after her. "Then you do have _a_ problem. It's just not the boy," she explained. "I am a healer by vocation. I have learned for so many years that I've doubtless forgotten more about healing than most ever learn. But waterbenders are healers in their blood. A waterbender can close wounds, still the escape of blood, even fight illness with their art. But if she is young, she is doubtless untempered."

"I'm trying to get her to the North Pole to find a teacher, but things keep getting in the way," Aang noted. Like this increasingly aggravating and lengthy conversation, he managed not to say.

"I don't know much about waterbenders. Not one myself, you know? But I heard it said that healers, their kind of healers, can harm themselves if they try to do it without proper training. It's like they take on the harm into themselves, instead of just dealing with it directly," she said. She reached down and snapped off a bulb from a stem. She then turned to Aang, offering it. "This isn't much, but it will give her the strength to recover from what she's been doing."

Aang poked it lightly with a finger. It was gross. It was slimey and felt like there were tadpoles living inside it. "Do I really have to make her eat this?" Aang asked.

"Eat? Why would you make her _eat_ it?" the woman asked, a brow raised. "It's a suppository."

"A w... You put it _where_?" Aang asked.

"Although eating it might work too... in a pinch, anyway," the healer admitted. Aang just held that bulb for a long moment, his mouth agape. His thoughts swirled around him, for rather a long while, until he finally came up with one which encapsulated his feelings at the moment.

"You're out of your mind, aren't you?"

"Aaaaah-yup," the healer cheerfully before turning away. Aang wrapped the thing in a little box he usually used to keep messages dry. Since he hadn't gotten any for more than a hundred years, it was a fair new use for it. If nothing else, it'd keep the disgusting thing from getting squashed and getting goop all over his pants. "Oh, and one more thing," the old woman turned back. "Those things lose their vigor fairly quickly, so make sure you get that in her by tomorrow. That shouldn't be a problem, should it?"

"Of course not," Aang said, and then turned back out the door. Sokka was right, Aang pondered. His life was weird.

* * *

><p>"The physician once again urges you not to be so strenuous," Kwon said as he finished fastening the nose-cage over Zhao's face. "He says you must have been mad to keep fighting after being thrown through two walls."<p>

"Tell the physician that he can take a long walk off a short pier, _during a storm_, for all I care," Zhao muttered, resisting the mighty if insensible urge to fiddle with his nose. It wasn't even that it was itchy. It was just that insane little impulse that all people got. When they saw that they had a bruise, a part of their minds always begged them to prod it, if only to figure out how much it would hurt. Zhao himself was doing what he usually did. Even though Azula was actually here, and he could consult with her at his leisure, there was still something calming and familiar in referencing amongst her old writings, breaking her cyphers and her language and learning more and more about the future which she foresaw for them.

Some of the things were glorious and magnificent. Others... deeply, deeply troubling. Like how Zhao's name vanished from her stream of prophecy after the end of this winter. But there were other pressing matters to concern him. Namely, that by her word, the Avatar would soon be in this very stronghold.

There was a fluttering at the cages by the window, as a hawk dove in and began to preen. Kwon quickly, for all his neutral expression and hang-dog attitude, moved to that window and pulled the message from the bird's carrying case. "Black ribbon, Lord," Kwon said simply. Zhao's brows rose at that.

"Well, what does it say?"

"Not for my eyes, Lord," Kwon said flatly. Zhao just stared at him grimly. "Very well, Lord. It says that the Avatar was seen not far from here. Running up a mountain pass afoot. This was... about twelve minutes ago, by the ink's tackiness."

"The Avatar is near Pohuai?" Zhao asked. A smile came to his face, but he aborted it, when it pulled on his broken nose and sent a shard of pain into his palette. "Send out the Yu Yan archers. It's said they can pin a fly to a tree in a wind-storm, without killing it. Let's see how they fare against the likes of a thirteen year old boy."

"They will be dispatched at once," Kwon said. Zhao couldn't help but marvel at the kismet of it all. Retiring to one of the most secure Fire Nation fortresses in the East, which was almost exclusively stocked by Yu Yan Archers, just as an airbender appeared. Popular myth had it that the Yu Yan were assembled to hunt down the scattered Air Nomads after Sozin delivered their death blow. Few realized the Yu Yan predated Sozin by quite a few centuries.

"And bring him in alive," Zhao said. "I want to drag him before the Burning Throne myself."

"...As you wish, Lord," Kwon said, after a hesitation. Zhao wondered what that meant, but he had other thoughts on his mind. Like humbling that bastard Zuko once and for all. Zhao'd had to scratch and claw his way up from the peasantry, while Zuko had been born into wealth and prestige. As far as Zhao saw things, the only people who deserved power were the ones who fought for it. And Zhao had fought harder than anybody else. Once again, a smile came to him as Kwon vacated the room to give the order. And Zhao ignored the pain in his face. This would be the beginning of Zhao's ascent. From Fire Nation nobody, to Fire Lord. Oh, what stories would be told of him.

* * *

><p>Aang was running again. There was a burning in his legs, and in his lungs, which was growing worse with every quickened stride. More and more, he was starting to regret his omnipresent laziness. Any sort of endurance training – the likes of which had been freely offered to airbenders back when there were still other airbenders – would have made this an easy jaunt. But no, he had to be lazy, and sneak off to steal pies.<p>

In Aang's defense, those _were_ excellent pies.

There wasn't any doubt that he'd make it back to his friends in time. It had taken him less than half an hour at his break-neck speed to reach the healer, and he had a day to stick this disgusting thing into Katara's... mouth, he decided. The alternative was too gross to consider. His breath came in hot pants, now, tearing at his throat as his legs burned under him. No time to think. Just run. Run and get Katara better again. When she was better, somehow that would make Sokka better. At this point, Aang simply gave up questioning the logic of it.

There was a whistle in the air which was Aang's only warning that he had to stop short. When he did, the bow wave of the air he was parting slamming shut past him struck so strongly that it actually managed to halt an arrow in mid-flight which looked like it had been heading directly for Aang's knee. It fell, exploded into splinters, to the ground. His eyes went wide, and he took a few panting breaths, as he plucked up the arrow head from the ground. "You should be more careful!" he shouted between pants. "You almost hit me with this!"

The answer to that helpful comment came in a barrage of whistles, and a forest of wood, feathers, and sharp iron tearing through the air at Aang. He let out a yelp of terror, and started running again, even as his body was just about ready to shut down. The first barrage landed exactly where he had been standing. The second, which landed a few moments later, had to be carefully dodged to keep it from nailing his foot to the sod. Aang made a break for the woods, where he could at least have some cover from what had to have been a lot of disgruntled people with repeating crossbows.

"Shoulda... did some... laps," Aang muttered to himself as he heard another twang of a bowstring snapping forward. Aang reacted with panicked airbending, which deflected the bolt into the tree Aang was standing behind. There were many arrows, he noted, and most of them were aimed specifically at his lower extremities. That meant somebody was either very sloppy with their aim, or else...

Aang once again considered cursing aloud at the weather and the inability for Appa to fly at the moment. He was very much trapped down here, and it was not a feeling he much enjoyed. No airbender ever would. He was off like a shot again, racing through the blinding underbrush, trying to keep a bead on where he needed to go to reach Katara and Sokka, and at the same time, trying to lose pursuit that he couldn't even _see_. The only reason he knew he hadn't lost them yet was because arrows, in fives and sixes, and always clustered within an area of a very few inches, kept feathering the ground or a tree near him as he fled.

It wasn't a root which tripped him up, but his own fatigue. He was traveling so fast, though, that he actually managed to bounce off the ground, rebound off a tree, and roll to a stop in a small clearing. Yeah, that was going to hurt tomorrow. He pushed himself off the ground where he had been rendered supine, and rubbed his head, trying to get the planet to come to a decision about which way was down. As the gravity – in both senses of the word – returned to him, he started to force himself up, to start running again, no matter what his body wanted.

It was actually, in a perverse way, a relief when a half-dozen arrows feathered his shirt to the ground. He tried to pull them out, but another dozen arced down through the canopy, and he could only yell in alarm as those dozen continued the work of their forebearers, increasingly pinning Aang to the ground with increasing vigor, until the only thing Aang could move was his head. And one arrow, which now vibrated against the crown of his head, made it perfectly clear that they wouldn't miss if they bothered aiming for it.

Aang heard another creak, as somebody appeared in Aang's field of view. In an instant, Aang blasted out a wave of air from his lungs, which sent the archer flying. He let out a quick, and abortive, triumphant laugh. It was very short lived. Mostly because where one was dispatched, twelve took his place, all staring down at him along arrows which were drawn and aimed at his face. The laugh became much more nervous. "Um... I surrender?" Aang tried.

* * *

><p>Katara felt more than half dead. She pushed herself up off of where she'd taken to resting on Appa's leg. For all the beast was as tired as the rest of them, it was warm, and Katara just felt so cold right now. Like she couldn't get warmed up, even as she sweated profusely. Her head spun, but her mind was clear. She staggered a couple of steps over to where her brother was still lying, well away from Appa. Mostly because she didn't want to think about digging bison hair out of a burn. Her staggering walk was brought to an end when she tripped over Momo, and sent the little lemur screeching in animal anger.<p>

"Sorry Momo," Katara said, her voice echoing in her hearing. "I didn't see you there."

The little lemur quickly scrabbled up Katara's prone form and started tugging at her hair-loopie, as though trying to haul her back to Appa. A ridiculous notion. Lemurs didn't know that sort of stuff. "No. Go away, Momo. I've got to get to Sokka."

She crawled the rest of the way. Every movement of her body toward him dragged up old and regrettable memories. Every twisted, unkind word. Every disparaging comment. Every unkind opinion voiced without thinking. Aang had been right, back in the bog. She was a bad sister. Maybe it was because after Mom died, Katara tried to become her? It wasn't possible to be both mother and sister, not outside some particularly disgusting and unsettling stories that Bato had once informed them of. Katara never had a mother. She didn't even remember Kya's voice, nor face, nor anything else. Katara was so young when Mom died.

Maybe that was why she was a bad sister. She never had anybody to tell her to stop it.

Whatever the cause, she had it in her to make it better. She couldn't say how she did it, but she knew that it would be better. She finally reached him, and took a sweaty hand and laid it on his shoulder. The burns there were the least pronounced, for all they had been no less terrible than any other. As she did, Sokka's eyes flittered open again.

"Wh..." he muttered.

"It's okay," Katara said, half unconscious. "I'm going to make it better."

"I'm... not dead?" Sokka asked.

"Shhhh."

Katara felt energy start to flow in her, and the sweat and water of the air seemed to form glowing gloves on her hands, and she pressed them to the wounds. Where they touched, the burns seemed to pull together, if not quickly than at least much faster than natural healing would ever allow. While the skin still held the bubbling, rippled texture of a burn, it was now an old burn, not the angry, inflamed, infected new burn. "Katara, how did you do that?" Sokka asked, his voice still faint, as he was obviously still weak.

"I'm not really sur..." she said, and trailed off as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted dead away. She didn't hear how her brother desperately whispered her name. She was lost in dark and lonely dreams.

* * *

><p>She worked with a single minded obsession which Zhao didn't even claim to understand. She hadn't even noticed his entrance, which spoke volumes in and of itself. Her task was plain; a strip of paper, laid over the desk, and subject to intense painting. The scene was one strong of red and brown, and two figures were already starting to appear as its subject. But Zhao didn't feel like looming over his prized instrument at the moment. Particularly since he didn't feel like getting his nose broken twice in one day. "I thought you might like to know, Azula," Zhao said from the door. "The word from the Yu Yan archers is that they've captured the Avatar. He's on his way to this fortress as I speak."<p>

Upon mention of the Avatar, she paused, but she didn't turn to him, or say a word. There were a thousand yards between her eyes and whatever it was she was looking at. Whatever fugue took her when she entered her oracle trance was not anything which Zhao easily understood. The change between the Azula who'd socked him this morning and the Azula of this moment was stark. That Azula had been collected and precise, even after her harsh capture. She'd even took the time to re-do her hair since arriving at the stronghold. But this Azula? That hair hung wild, and her bangs sometimes draped along the portrait in works, smearing the paints and sullying her bangs. And she didn't even seem to notice. That was the most disturbing part of it. Not that she was untidy; that she was _unaware_.

"Well? Do you have anything to say about that?" Zhao asked.

She set back to work again, as though either having not heard him, or not listening. Zhao let out a grunt, and turned away. Let her sulk if she wanted to. She would come to his side in time. Eventually, she would see that Zhao was the only way she would ever go back to the Fire Nation. And when that became clear to her, Zhao's destiny was ensured.

Neither noticed through the window, though, as a whisper of moonlight glinted off a spyglass, nor a figure in black vanish into the night.

* * *

><p><em>"Promise me you'll hide, Malu. No, I don't care. Just promise me!"<em>

_"Alright, I promise, Mother."_

_"They're getting through! How did they get so powerful?"_

_"You're scaring Malu!"_

_"She should be scared! She should be RUNNING!"_

_"Mom?"_

_"Just run, baby. Please. Don't make this pointless."_

The dream drifted away, leaving her with a knot in her throat. She'd only been thirteen when the Day of Fire swept over the world. Over the years since, she'd heard of a very specific term for somebody who had the same dream, over and over, of something which was never very pleasant to begin with; shell shock. Malu didn't doubt that she was at least a little bit banged up in the old noggin, considering the things that she survived. Her family killed. Her bison shot out of the very sky. She spent a month tethered to the ground because of a broken leg. In its way, it was just as well. The hunt had taken to the sky, those horrible, red-faced archers knocking down anybody who dared to exist more than ten feet off the dirt. If she'd been flying, they might have been able to find her.

The world was in a bad spot. And she had been crippled when it needed her. After that though? After that, she was just afraid. Yeah, she wanted to do what her parents told her to do. To batten down, hide the old robes, and become just another face. She hadn't even tried contacting anybody from the other Temples. She hadn't dared. Was it cowardice which stayed her hand, or was it caution? Although, against a man like Sozin, the two might well be synonymous. She studied the insides of her eyelids, hoping that sleep would take her, and maybe bring her a nicer dream than she'd been enduring of late. Maybe she should try going back to the Spirit World, have a poke around there. She rolled her eyes under their lids, though; she could probably name a dozen other Air Nomads who knew the Spirit World better than she did. Even _Aang_, lazy bugger that he'd been, was probably more knowledgeable. Blame it on her actually trying with the concrete things, the things which mattered in this world.

She wondered if any of her old friends made it out. And then she chastised herself. They almost certainly hadn't. Even if they had, they would be half-trained at best. Malu was probably the last real, complete and trained airbender in the world. And that thought was deeply, deeply sad.

It was her hunger which was keeping her up, she decided. While there wasn't much left of dinner, there was almost certainly some bannok and a plethora of hardtack hanging off the old bird's back. Even lame, Sharif wouldn't leave him behind, so they put some supplies on him. Hardtack. About as unpalatable food as she could imagine. But considering how hungry she was, right now, it would probably go down like a feast.

Setting her mind in motion, she opened her eyes. And found that there were intense green eyes staring back down at hers. She almost let out a yelp, but a dark hand slammed over her mouth. Rationally, she knew that a flick of airbending would cast the youth off of her, but then she felt something just barely touch her bottom eyelid. No, it wasn't even a knife... it was a sewing needle.

"I know what you are," Sharif said in that highly inarticulate, borderline unintelligible way he did, his eyes wide and harrowing. She stared up at him, and a distant part of her mind was noting how many seconds he went between blinks. It was still counting, since he hadn't offered a first one, yet. "I might have forgotten for a while, but I remembered. I know what you want, and I won't let you have it."

"Mhn mh hrm, s'm khn!"

"No talking. No invoking," Sharif said, leaning closer. "You've done something bad, haven't you? You opened a door and let something in? Let her go. Now."

"Wt t' hl uh shng?"

Sharif just stared at her. She tried to lean back from that sewing needle, but it remained, just barely touching her eyelid. She feared to blink, lest he prick her with it. She really didn't want a sewing needle in the eye! Her grey eyes flit between the needle and his still unnervingly unblinking eyes, her breath coming faster and faster, sweat beginning to pour from her brow. If she could just do something. Get the angry girl's attention... but he had her arms pinned. Her legs were tangled in her sleeping bag. If there was one thing which could cripple an airbender more than anything short of death, it was confinement. Mobility was paramount in airbending. And now, she was cut off from it.

"You're not leaving."

His hand shifted slightly. "NI...!"

The hand slammed back into place, and the needle actively pricked. The shout died in her throat. Alright. Message received. No shouting. Her obvious panic must have calmed him, because he moved the hand again. "I won't yell... I promise."

"Get out of her."

"I'll leave, just let me go, and you won't see me again."

"No, you have to get out of _her_."

Malu first thought that he had misspoke. Considering how much worse his Tianxia was compared to his erudite and learned sister, it was an understandable mistake. But what he actually said didn't make any sense. "W...what?"

"I can see you hiding. Leave her now."

"I'm not hiding," Malu said carefully.

Sharif finally pulled that needle back, rocking back to where he was essentially straddling her stomach. "Maybe... maybe it's asleep?"

"Yeah, that's gotta be it," Malu agreed whole-heartedly, and without the slightest understanding of what that agreement entailed. If it meant not getting a needle in her eye, it was good.

"How did it get in? What did you do? Who did you call?" Sharif demanded. It was a stark change to see this focused, furious side of him. Even then, he still obviously wasn't playing with a full deck. "The center fell and the fringes cannot hold. Why?"

"I... I don't understand."

Sharif stood, scratching his head. "Fine. Fine, if that thing's asleep, then there's..." he pondered, rattling off something in his native tongue, as though searching for words. "...no problem. But if you awaken a sleeping beast and entirely fail to run, you will find... bad stuff. No. Not bad stuff. Worse. I'm..." he glanced away. "What was I saying?"

"Are we good?" Malu asked, cautiously.

"Of course, why wouldn't we ACK!" he flinched as he looked at her, and brandished that needle like it was a knife. After a moment, though, he slapped himself on the scar. "No. No, it's asleep. Remember fool, remember!"

"I'm... just going to sleep over there," Malu said, dragging her sleeping bag next to where Sharif's sibling was snoring lightly, next to Tzu Zi and the fire, respectively. She kept sending glances back at Sharif, but he was now staring to the north and west. What the hell had that been? Malu picked up a bag of hard tack which had been left out for the morning's breakfast, near the fire. Two dozen biscuits. Enough food in that one bag to feed the four of them almost a week by itself.

In twenty quiet minutes, as she tried to go back to sleep, the bag was empty.

And Malu was still hungry.

* * *

><p>Aang fought his chains, but for all two separate version of his past lives named him 'the chain-breaker', he found himself desperately wanting. That sort of appellation really should have come with perks and added powers. Like chainbending. That would have been an awesome thing to have right now. Considering the weight and heft of them, it would take a pair of bison to burst them. And since Aang was, quite obviously, not a pair of bison, they would remain in place. The apparatus over his face was utter overkill.<p>

The door slid open with a bang, and walking into the pool of scarlet light cast by the pillars holding Aang's chains, came a man with an equally ridiculous rig on his face. Of course, Aang had to guess that Zhao's was less incarceration and more rehabilitation. "So the infamous Avatar shows himself again," Zhao said smugly, but that burnt eye still held its perpetual glower. "'Master of the elements'. And yet brought down by a cadre of men with mortal weapons. For a demigod, you make a poor showing of yourself. Perhaps the legends of the Avatar's Power were drastically overestimated."

Aang just leveled a glare at the man. It wasn't like he could do much talking. The muzzle over his face made it hard to move his jaw, let alone speak. Zhao smirked at that. "So you're wondering about your little brace? Well, I can't have you blowing air all the time. You might, with time and effort, jostle something loose. And I'm not going to let that happen, now am I?" he continued to circle Aang, until he couldn't keep track of him, walking behind the boy's back. "Tell me, Avatar. Do you miss your people? How does it feel to be the last airbender on the face of this planet?"

Aang felt a wave of despair threaten to bow him, sending him slumping in his chains. But he had hope. That girl couldn't have been lying. Why would she? Even a hundred years out, there were at least two airbenders. Aang wondered who it could be... and realized the chances of it being somebody he knew from the old days were, while not necessarily zero, a number so close to it as to practically vanish. So he shot the man a defiant glance. Zhao laughed at it. "I would have expected sadness. Perhaps you have a whit of strength to you after all? Of course it doesn't matter. You're not going to get killed like they were. If I kill you now, you're just going to get reborn somewhere in the Water Tribes. And the way my luck seems to run, you'd probably be in the North. So we're not going to kill you," Zhao said, as he circled back in front of Aang. "At least, not until the North is in our hands. Until we contain every waterbender in the world. Perhaps then you can safely die. As I understand it, the Fire Lord has a program in mind for this eventuality."

Aang raised a brow at that. What could Ozai possibly do with a waterbender? What _would_ Ozai possibly do with an waterbender?

"Enjoy my hospitality," Zhao said as he confidently walked – nay, _strutted_ – away. "Don't worry. It'll probably only be a few months. Once we destroy the North Water Tribe, I'll be kind, and let you rejoin your people. In the afterlife, at least."

He laughed with triumph and slammed the door behind him. And Aang was alone again. He breathed deep, trying to get some blast on the thing on his face, but didn't budge. He might be alone, he might have nobody coming for him... but he had to get out. Katara was depending on him. But how was he getting out. He didn't have the first idea. He would have desperately loved for somebody to come up with a plan for him. Even one of Sokka's plans would have done.

He didn't notice, as he struggled experimentally at his chains, that a second heartbeat started up in his pocket, as something not-of-this-world began to stir.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure I can't change your mind about this?" Hakoda asked with a degree of sadness.<p>

Bato only shrugged. "You might be the chief, Hakoda, but she's still the boss," he said.

"You know, in a proper military, you'd get hanged for desertion."

"Then I suppose it's lucky we aren't in a proper military," Bato answered glibly.

"You've been spending far too much time with Hakoda," Sativa weighed in. "You're starting to... well, sound like him."

"It's unfortunate," Hakoda admitted. "Having a second-in-command I could trust was a valued commodity. What happens if something goes wrong now?"

"Have you considered Ogan?"

"He's a hunter, not a fighter. Not like us, anyway," Hakoda answered.

"Maybe, but you were 'just a hunter' once," Bato said. "We all were."

Hakoda couldn't disagree with that. He wasn't even a hunter, in his youth. Long before he ascended to chieftainhood, he was a _trader_. He was the man that the tribe sent to get vegetables and tin, their source of news from the outside world. How and why he ever got selected for leadership over the whole South Water Tribe after Qejay died was beyond him. But he made the most of it. That was all anybody could do.

And he felt the weight of it now, as the best commander he knew in person absconded with the best commander he knew by reputation. "You'd better not die out there," Hakoda said simply to his old friend. "I don't feel like informing your family that you're out there somewhere and never coming back."

"Hakoda," Bato began, then he seemed to switch gears. "I'm rejoining the _Dragon of the East_. What could possibly go wrong?"

Hakoda actually let out a sigh at that, and palmed his forehead. "You just had to say that, didn't you?" he muttered.

"Can we make short our goodbyes?" Sativa asked, rubbing the side of the Ostrich Horse that she'd bought from the abbey. "The Mountain King's pass is far away, and I have pressing business there."

"Pressing," Piandao said with a disapproving shake of his head. "The man_ left us to die_."

"I know he had his reasons," Sativa said plainly. "And we will need somebody of his... creativity... for what is to come."

"Creative? The man was mad, pure and simple," Bato agreed. Then he shrugged. "Still, he did make life interesting."

Hakoda felt he still had to try. "Please, Bato. I know the men, but you know the war. I need you here."

"And I have to go," Bato said simply. "Besides, you've had more experience on the battlefield in two years than most people have in a lifetime. All of us have. You just need to – and right now, I just realized I was trying to improve the Chief's morale. Sativa, did the world go insane in the last few weeks?"

"The Avatar returned," Sativa answered.

"I'll take that as a yes," Piandao mused.

Hakoda was about to make an ill-advised and fairly un-funny joke when something struck him odd about the environment. He raised a finger, and tilted his head, listening to the passage of air through the trees. "Did you hear that?" Hakoda asked, the mirth gone. Bato stopped, and he seemed to focus on the sounds as well.

There wasn't much. The forest had certain noises which were going to be associated with it even in the best of times. But Hakoda had lived north of the antarctic long enough to know when something didn't belong. Crackling of branches; things moving through the forest. Rustling of limbs; the same. A quiet din of human voices; the abbey's road was not far off, and they often enough had a caravan pass through to export their perfumes. But something was out of place.

And then he heard it again. A deep, guttural grunt.

The grunt of a Komodo Rhino.

"We're being attacked," Bato confirmed a moment after Hakoda's face bore the revelation.

Sativa actually seemed a bit surprised by that. "What? Who? Where?"

"They're coming," Hakoda said, pulling the long, thick knife from its place at his belt. "And they're coming from every direction."

* * *

><p>It was a whisper of shadow in the night, silent as thought, and as quick. "I can't really believe it," one of the guardsmen said, his eyes scanning the long expanses of ground that stretched away from every direction of the vast, three-baileyed fortress of Pohuai. "The Avatar has been captured! Does that mean we've won the war?"<p>

"No, Jong. God, it's like working with a child..."

"But without the Avatar, who's left that would fight us?"

"The Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdoms, the ocean, the storms, our own children..." the first began to list off.

"But... the Avatar..."

"Is not that important," the first said. "Not when we've got..."

The shadow moved on, slipping past them as their back was turned. The news was grim everywhere. The Avatar was in Zhao's hands. The news which wasn't circulating was how he imprisoned the Fire Nation's Princess as well. There was the slightest rattle of metal against stone as a drab hook was wedged into place, then a long grey rope dropped over the parapets into the outermost bailey. Dark, form-concealing clothes hid the shadow as it descended swiftly. One might have said it moved like an Azuli, but that would be romanticizing and also be wholly inaccurate. Azuli assassins could kill a man so discretely that even the victim didn't realize he'd been killed until several hours later. But when the shadow moved, it was unremarked.

The shadow in the blue mask flashed across the bailey, sliding down into the septic flow as a hooded-and-mirrored beacon light was about to sweep past and reveal it. The stink was atrocious, but considering what this place was, hardly surprising. It was also the only way to reach the second bailey from the third without being seen. The infiltrator had checked every other entrance. There were none that sufficed but this. It quickly squeezed itself through the obviously symbolic bars that cut lines into the effluent as it flowed. A few seconds more, and it crossed from the outflow into the inflow. That was going to be the tricky part. While it washed away the stink, and the pipes were utterly unbarred, they obviously thought there'd be no need to, since they were full from base to top with water. Anybody trying to infiltrate through those would drown before they made it half way across the second bailey.

Well... almost anybody.

The shadow in the grinning blue oni mask descended into the waters, and slipping into the flow, crossed the bailey, heading steadily, steadily deeper into the stronghold of Pohuai.

* * *

><p>Zhao once again resisted the urge to prod his broken nose. Whatever malevolent spirit had ingrained that impulse into humanity in its earliest days should be dragged under the sun and set on fire, as far as he was concerned. Luckily, the problems of an aching and yet irresistible nose were secondary to the task which Zhao had undertaken in the aftermath of a short and appropriate gloat over the Avatar. He was sitting in his commandeered study, reading from two books and taking notes in a third. Odd, how he had Azula in person and body right here, and he still contented himself to translating her writings. Of course, there was a good reason for that. Until he could convince her to join his side willingly, she would never divulge her secrets save for under a process of cudgel cryptography – and she was worth far too much to inflict that upon her.<p>

Zhao was patient. He would wait her out. Patience was a virtue he would have to cultivate, to be sure, but he could see it paying out high dividends. He paused for a moment, as the notion that his never establishing a family, despite having his fortieth birthday come and go might actually work to his benefit. Especially since he was now elevated to a new and lofty level, with wealthy and powerful women whom he could choose through. That thought brought a smile to Zhao's face, and he turned back to his work. Although, oddly, Azula would have been an optimum choice in that regard. If she had been a dozen years older, or he two dozen years younger, anyway. Since that wasn't the case, he put the notion amiably and permanently out of his mind.

Zhao flipped a page, and found that this was one he hadn't taken a crack at in quite a while. The notes he had on it were at the very beginning of his reference notebook, and were woefully out of date. He shook his head, tore that page out of the reference and burned it. It was more wrong than right, anyway. By now, Zhao had learned enough of Azula's cypher that he could pick out most of what it said just at a skim. He'd shot past the first two lines before the content matter caught up with him, and his eyes widened. Even the burned one. He put the second book aside and leaned over the first, widening the hood of the lantern to send more light across it, as though there was some shadow obscuring the meaning of the words. There wasn't.

"_Nature of the Blue Spirit unknown. First known appearance was infiltration of_... Pohuai Fortress?" Zhao said. He pondered for a moment, then continued down the page. "_Later appearances saw him tied to acts of banditry in the East, which seemed to indicate nothing but a thug with the good sense to conceal himself, but it was the first which marked him an agent against the Fire Lord._"

Agent against the Fire Lord. It was a term which Azula had used numerous times. It was how she had described the two Tribesmen which traveled with the boy. That was why Zhao had so calmly and without conflict incinerated the teenager at the first possible opportunity. Zhao had read the prophecies Azula created, and knew that, out of context, they painted a grim picture for the nation. But he knew the truth about her. Ozai might think her a traitor, an inciter, but Zhao had found her plans to defend against some horrific attack she foresaw. No traitor would ever so arduously struggle to defeat their own interest.

"Are you going to be delivering the speech?" Kwon's voice came from the door, which had been cracked, but the man didn't enter.

"No. Not yet," Zhao said, staring down at the words on the page. How long ago since he first tried to understand this? Why had he not bothered trying again? "_He is a man of great skill and cunning, but his identity eludes me still. It is a testament to his guile that he managed to steal..._"

"What is it, Lord?" Kwon asked.

"That he managed to steal the Avatar right out from under Zhao's stupid eyes in his own 'inescapable fortress' and get away with it," Zhao finished, a scowl pulling back onto his features. He turned to Kwon. "Empty the bunks and put the fortress on high alert. Azula tried to warn us, but we were too foolish to understand."

"...I don't understand," Kwon said, the only indication of his bafflement on his droopy face was a slightly raised eyebrow.

"There is an intruder in this fortress. And he is going to try to free the Avatar," Zhao said, pushing himself out of Shinu's chair and stomping through the halls. Not today, he thought. Not now that I know.

* * *

><p>The first rush came with fire and the thunder of clawed feet on the forest floor. Two of the massive beasts charged through them, scattering the collection of middle-aged warriors, before beginning to circle about, to keep them hemmed in as the others began to converge.<p>

"Just like old times," Bato said with a smirk, casually hefting his spear before him.

The four of them had pulled into a tight scrum, but Sativa was fairly certain that whatever attack would come to her first. She was by far the shortest of them, and by raw appearances, the weakest. Thus, when one of the beasts began to turn in, and charge toward her, it was met with a shocking rebuff. Her hands moved with the lightning swiftness and needle precision that she had cultivated over years at war. They dragged the bow out of its case, and the arrow which was set to run down with it. Most would never keep an arrow with the bow, for fear it would damage them. Sativa made sure that didn't happen. And being able to nock an arrow even as the bow was coming out of the case meant that she had drawn and fired in less time than a human being could possibly react. The stunned look of the beast's rider as he was shafted and fell over the side of the saddle was a welcome sight to the old warrior. It was proof that, no matter what had happened over the years, as the Mountain King would have put it, 'the chick's still got it.'

What followed was a frenzy of sound and flame, as the Fire Nationals, knowing that their trap was sprung, sought to end the quarry captured as quickly as possible. Sadly, they had no conception of what they were dealing with. Arrows flew from Sativa's bow with such speed and regularity that one could be forgiven for thinking she was part of a squad. While not all of them bit with the same lethal effect of the first, none of them missed, strictly speaking. But the fight was pressing in, and their armor was rebuking her best shots.

A quick glance showed that Piandao was already cutting out of the noose, likely at its thickest point. The sword in his hands was more an extension of his body than a chunk of metal. It flashed, black as the souls of the damned, and where it struck, death struck with it. Twenty three years ago, the Fire Nation sent a hundred men to humble Piandao. He'd beaten them all, and without taking a single life. The intervening years had burned away what kind heartedness stayed his hand that day. She watched as he deftly put the edge of that black blade to an incoming spear, and split the weapon effortlessly in half, the long way, before swiftly ending the weapon's bearer.

The two Tribesmen fought back to back, their spears keeping the Fire Nationals at bay. Only the arrival of a firebender which had slipped past Sativa's web of arrows saw them split. Hakoda outright hurled his own spear at the bender, and it gashed the man across the face quite deeply. The firebender, likely a conscript from the cries of pain and fear he now emitted, began to crawl away desperately. Since he was no longer a combatant, everybody ignored him. Except Sativa. One more arrow, and then, she could ignore him. He might be a conscript, but this was war. Mercy was in short supply, these days.

As quickly as the fight had begun, it lulled. The four shared glances. Glances, and surprised chuckles. While the short battle had emptied Sativa's quiver, the others were much better off. "Wait," Bato interrupted, dismay dawning on his face. "This must have been a scouting force. Don't they always travel in groups?"

"Five groups of twenty four," Piandao said with a nod. "That's the army's SOP. I can't speak for the navy."

"There's two dozen here," Hakoda pointed out with a sweep of a reddened spear. "Where are the others?"

"Where are your boats?" Sativa asked. "Did you leave them all down by the rocks?"

"No, that'd be idiotic," Hakoda answered. "We keep most of them up a stream which runs near the abbey."

"Then those are your only ships left," Sativa said. "They will have burned the ships at the rocks and now sweep up to find your men."

"I have to warn them," Hakoda said without any hesitation.

Bato forestalled Hakoda for a moment, and clapped the Chief on the shoulder. "Keep up the fight. It's been an honor, Hakoda."

"You say that as though you're not coming back," Hakoda said grimly.

"Oh, I'm coming back. I couldn't let you hog all the glory of fighting the Fire Nation to yourself, now could I?" Bato said.

"So I cannot convince you to stay?"

"Can you persuade better than the Dragon of the East?"

"Who could?" Hakoda said with a laugh. "Good luck, Bato. The battles will be cold without you."

Bato nodded and turned away, as Hakoda took up his spear and started toward the outside of the clearing, toward the abbey. "We should move quickly. This noose can trap us as well as it can my countrymen."

"I agree," Sativa said, having pointedly remained silent during the exchange between the two of them. It was a lesson she learned in her youth never to interfere with male-bonding. It tended to end with her waking up in a garbage heap with a bloody nose and a black eye. Or else, hung-over and with a town on fire. Needless to say, never well. "It is good to have you back, Bato."

"For whatever good it'll do," Piandao said unkindly. There was something going on there, which Sativa was unaware of. And with the way Piandao was staring daggers at the Tribesman, it was probably something she was going to have to deal with sooner than later. "Come on. We're wasting moonlight."

She was about to speak when she saw somebody move in the darkness. It was a figure wearing the same armor as his fellows, but painted over with accents of purple rather than black, and its helmet was eschewed in favor of a tilted hat. Her eyes went wide, and she clawed at an empty quiver, before her mind caught up with her hands and remembered that she was, for the moment, arrowless.

The Azuli Gurkha appeared out of silence, and darkness, and struck.

Bato was a true friend. Out of a thousand ways that the scene Sativa now beheld could have happened, nine-hundred ninety nine of them ended with Bato rushing between the Chief and the assailant, pushing the leader aside and taking the brunt of the cruel assault himself. But this time, this one time in a thousand, in a million, Bato was too many steps away from his fellow Tribesman. So there was nothing he could do but scream in alarm as the Gurkha cast out a grunt of angry effort, and a blast of flame smashed into Hakoda of the South Water Tribe.

* * *

><p>The shadow in the blue lacquered mask erupted from the inflow pipe of the water systems, dripping wet from the fresh water, and well past when any normal person would have died of drowning in the confines of that pipe. It had been claustrophobic, but he was now past the innermost wall, and in the well of the inner bailey. The oni-mask peeked up above the rim of that well, and saw that the path was, in this moment clear. The shadow moved in the darkness, and the well was empty again.<p>

This time, there was sound, because sound was inevitable as one scaled the wall. But the sound was just one of many sounds, as the entire fortress was starting to stir. The shadow with the mask turned toward the gates, which remained open, and peeked briefly into a window in the tower which rose up out of the center of the inner bailey. While soldiers were begrudgingly rising from their cots, they didn't seem to know why they were being summoned. Only that they were. That didn't bode well. But the shadow needed to go higher, in order to get where its quarry lay.

Another story up, and a larger window, this one with a balcony. The shadow paused before the doors, leaning over and listening at them.

"If I knew what had Zhao in such a snit, I'd tell you. But I don't. So I suggest you move before he comes down on you like a landslide. The man is drunk with power, and he's probably looking for any excuse to misuse it."

Colonel Shinu. Once a batman to one of the generals at the Fire Lord's court. Now a colonel of his own skill and merit. But somebody had usurped him, it seemed. Somebody named Zhao. Not news to the shadow, of course. For all his ascension was only a day old, the news of a new house in the Fire Nation court was spreading quickly.

"I worry about that man's mind," a dour, almost droopy voice said. "How much of what he reacts to is just what he wants to see?"

"Not my problem. If the Fire Lord gets tired of him, he'll be just as dead as the Loyo Lah's. It wouldn't be the first time Ozai crushed a noble house."

"I'm well aware," the second answered, and then there was a shuffling of footsteps, as one of them exited the room. Probably the second, which the shadow was unable to place or name. Nobody important, obviously. There was a creak of wood, as – most likely – Shinu lowered himself into his chair, and began to write. The shadow moved again, ducking through the light of the man's much smaller and commandeered quarters, creeping unnoticed behind the man's back. Zhao had taken Shinu's room, and everybody else went down a notch, leaving some poor lieutenant sleeping in the guard cots. Not the shadow's problem, though.

The man in the blue mask was almost to the door when he heard Shinu let out one dry chuckle. "Heh. Blue Spirit indeed. The man is mad."

A glance back. Shinu still was focused on his writing. Good. The 'Blue Spirit' ducked through the door and now ghosted the corridors. He knew where he would find his quarry... roughly. There were only a few places where one such as that could be kept.

A peek around a corner. Four firebenders. Difficulties obviously were going to ensue. They all stood at a intersection of four directions, and kept backs together. The Blue Spirit pondered for a moment, then let out a quiet sigh, and quickly bolted across that gap, even though what he wanted wasn't on the other side.

"Did you see that?"

"Obviously not. It's probably nothing, and if it isn't, the last thing we should do is split up."

The Blue Spirit hung his head. Great. Intelligent guards. The last thing he could have expected and the last thing he wanted to have to deal with. The Blue Spirit pondered briefly, trying to come up with a way past. Then he glanced up, and saw the lamp which hung in a sconce above the door. It was appropriate, in that moment, that the mask was grinning.

There was a long silence, and the four men stood vigil. Well, three of them did. One of them broke his focus, just long enough to let out a long, heavy yawn, rubbing his eyes and trying to fight the fatigue of a long day's work. Thus it was that when he finally looked up, with the padding of feet racing toward him, the Blue Spirit was almost upon him. The intruder hurled a bag before him, and a huge gout of lantern oil splashed over all four, bringing out a shocked yelp from them, and then a panicked moment's freeze as they all realized as one that firebending would be an act of immediate suicide.

"Sound the al..."

The Blue Spirit cut off the cry by swinging the lantern itself down low and sweeping one off his feet, and then twisting it around again and clipping the three which remained across the sides and back of their heads. With the ground now slick under them, and the concussion sapping their balance, they all fell, directly atop the first one down. The Blue Spirit favored that one with a third and final blow with the now ruined lamp. A pile of four firebenders, no alarm, no fire. Excellent. He started down a path, to his objective.

* * *

><p>Aang struggled against his bonds again, before slumping. It was of no use. He was well and truly stuck. But as he fought, something wormed its way out of his pocket, defying gravity and leverage themselves to do so. Aang raised a brow when he heard a hard clack on the floor. He leaned down, and beheld the Jade Toe had fallen... and that it was pulsing and throbbing, like a tiny heart. A faint green light shone from the stone.<p>

What the heck is this, Aang thought?

There was a sound like a bubble popping, and the light from the Jade Toe went dead.

* * *

><p>The Blue Spirit looked down the pathway he chose, but then hesitated. Something wasn't right. No, there was an impulse, a drive which told him 'this isn't the way'. 'What you want isn't down here'. And he couldn't understand that impulse, but neither could he deny it. After all, there was a saying about luck...<p>

The Blue Spirit turned away from that path, and chose another. This one was long, and obviously intended to be guarded in force. Why it was not was somewhat baffling, actually. The Blue Spirit tilted his head slightly at the sight. There must not have been anybody in there. Otherwise, the guard would have been legendary of size and strength. But still, that little niggling voice in his mind demanded of him, no reason not to check, to be absolutely sure. Absolute surety was a valued commodity.

The door was unlocked, which further pushed doubt into the Blue Spirit's mind. But the door opened with a loud clack, as the bolt popped back into its locked position the moment it was clear of the threshold. So the lock had simply malfunctioned. Still, not hopeful. The Blue Spirit shook his head, and then pushed the door open fully. And then, even the grinning oni face seemed to gape.

As now, the Blue Spirit was sharing the room with the Avatar in chains.

* * *

><p>Aang stared at the floor for a long moment, trying to figure out why that little green stone did that weird pulse of light thing, but he scarcely had a moment to consider it before he heard something shifting at the other end of the room. The heavy, thick metal door swung open, and there was a man standing there. He wore all blacks and dark colors, but for the mask on his face. It grinned like a blue demon, and its eyes were pits of uninterrupted blackness. Aang quickly found himself surging back, as that man just stared, its thoughts and emotions inscrutable.<p>

He could be considering to kill the Avatar.

He could be considering to free him.

There was a hiss of iron, as the black gloved hands reached behind him. Obviously the choice had been made, and the man began to race forward, drawing out a curved saber. A flick of those hands, and the weapon seemed to divide into two, which flashed in the unkind red light, as the man advanced, implacable as death. Aang didn't even have the capability to scream, for the rigging on his head, as those blades flashed forward.

And with a clang, Aang found his arms dropping to his sides, the tingling numbness of their confinement turning into a sort of burning pain. He looked down at his hands, saw that they were now a livid red, and that the manacles were now sundered of their chains just past the wrist. Aang looked up, and still couldn't see the look of that man's face for the oni mask. But he'd made his decision, and Aang wasn't about to look a gift Ostrich Horse in the beak. Especially after a pair of lightning strikes to the ankles and to the sides of Aang's jaw removed the rest of the gear which had bound him.

Aang worked his jaw for a very long moment, resulting in an unpleasant cracking sound just once, but he managed to get his tongue into a comfortable place in his mouth, and the sensation was far more pleasant than his hands had been. "Who are you?" Aang asked, grateful to be able to breathe properly again, let alone speak.

The Blue Demon turned and walked toward the door, not a word said. Not a sound made, either. Aang limped over, trying to shake feeling into his sleeping left foot and his numbed hands. "Wait, where are you going?" Aang asked, as the man took an immediate turn. While there wasn't a single whit of utterance, Aang could almost feel like the Blue Demon was kicking himself for heading the wrong direction. "How do I get out of here?" Aang asked. The Blue Demon abruptly leveled the rejoined blades down a hallway, which was decorated with hogtied, oily firebenders. "What, aren't you going to help me leave?"

A terse shake of the head. Then, he was striding away again. Aang looked down at the firebenders, up at the Blue Demon, and then back at the room he had been held in. A more cynical person would have taken the opportunity to leave, without a question asked or needed. Aang was not cynical. But he had made a promise, so he quickly loped back into the prison, and picked up the Jade Toe from the floor of that room. It felt... oddly warm. Like somebody had left it in a fire overnight, and then picked it out after the fire had gone dead and ashen. One good turn deserved another. Whatever that Blue Demon came here for, he'd find he was getting the Avatar's help in it. Aang pocketed the stone once more, then took off after the man with the swords and the blue oni mask.

* * *

><p>He woke from a dream of fire and pain. It was really unfair that he felt pain in his dreams. He hadn't used to. But as the layers of nightmare and laughing of burned-faced men faded, that pain remained... albeit in a much reduced form. Sokka slowly shifted, forcing himself to a sit. It didn't help that his entire body felt like it had been whipped when he did so. He glanced down, and let out a mild, hoarse grunt when he saw that those nightmares hadn't just been figments of a tired mind. Tui La, that had really happened, hadn't it? That Winter Solstice and invading the Fire Nation and getting more than mildly barbequed had happened!<p>

Which raised a valid question: How the hell was he still alive?

He held his arm closer to his eyes, and took in the burns. They looked old, like weeks old and properly healed. How long had he been out? He twisted, half-crawling over to a window, finding instead that a missing wall sufficed, and peeking up at the moon. It was not just in its same phase, but all the stars seemed to belie his first guess, which was that he'd been comatose for a while. It was for reasons like this which Sokka had to create the Tribesman's Corollaries; for the law of parsimony, for example. When the simplest explanation didn't actually answer the question being asked, it was time to accept the absurd.

But how absurd would he have to go?

"Momo?" Sokka asked, as the little creature let out a lively chirp. "I need water. Go get Katara."

The little meat-thing tilted its head at Sokka like he was making an unfunny joke. It was lucky that Aang declared Momo off-limits for Sokka's diet. Well, doubly so. Lemurs probably weren't very good eating. They looked... stringy. The beast let out a last screech, then bounded over to where Katara was sleeping.

No, not sleeping. Sokka's eyes widened a bit when he saw that his sister's pallor was almost grey. "Katara, what's going on?" he croaked.

Her eyes fluttered open, and when she saw that he was staring down at her, she smiled just a little bit. "It's alright," she whispered, her voice almost gone. "I'm... a good sister."

"Of course you are," Sokka agreed, the fear plain in his tone. "Momo, go get water now!"

The beast immediately flapped away, leaving Sokka alone with his terror, and the barely conscious form of his obviously dying little sister.

Tui La, but this was a familiar, terrifying helplessness.

* * *

><p>Azula stared at what she'd made. Usually, when she made her works, it was half-distracted, almost like her hands were writing all on their own. This time, she wasn't even herself. The veil had only pulled back after the work was complete, and she really didn't know what to make of it. It was an old woman and a burned, bald man engaged in obvious mortal conflict. The aged woman – who seemed to have an odd blue glow to her – was being strangled by the old man – who was likewise also oddly glowing, but in oranges. She was battered and bleeding, one eye swollen shut. But the scene showed that she was an instant from winning; her fist held a dagger which was being punched through the old man's liver.<p>

Needless to say, she was somewhat baffled about the whole thing.

Since staring at the painting didn't seem to help her, she took a moment to rewash her hair. She hated when the veil moved forward. It was just so... hopeless. Helpless and cruel and unfair. She hated that she lost control. She hated that she couldn't focus, that she could decide who she was from moment to moment. But more than all of that, she hated that she was right here, right now. Oh, she was going to give Zhao such a greater scar to punish him for this.

Although, a little part of her mind asked her, why didn't you do _that_ instead of just breaking his nose?

Azula didn't have an answer for that question.

The door swinging open broke her from her harmful and unpleasant introspection. There was somebody standing at the door, and it wasn't Zhao. In fact, it wasn't anybody that Azula could immediately identify, dressed in dark colors and bearing a blue oni mask. She immediately threw herself out of her seat, her hands raising up in a firebending stance. "Are you here to kill me? Better than you have tried."

The Blue Spirit just stared at her for a moment, almost as though trying to come to a decision. But that hesitancy was short lived, as he moved silently around the room, with her lance-like fingers tracking him every step of the way, until he was beside the bracket which held her foot's manacle to the wall. A slash of the dao, and the chain fell from the bracket, and Azula couldn't help but feel slightly confused by the whole situation. There were very few who were trained in such use of the Dao. Only two she could think of, off the top of her head, and one of them was Zuzu, whom she discounted instantly. Her goon of a brother never looked like this. "...Piandao? Is that you?" she asked. The Blue Spirit paused, then moved closer and struck at the chain much closer to her ankle, before skulking away. It had to be him. Nobody else was skilled enough to infiltrate this fortress without raising an alarm.

The amount of time she spent wondering what the traitor Piandao wanted with her free from Zhao was cut short by a bell starting to ring, and soon, a general alarm siren joined it. So much for without alarm.

Piandao, if that was who this truly was, motioned urgently with his twinned blades, and Azula smirked the smirk she was infamous for. Well, not infamous. Not even really noticeable, really. It was odd how infrequently she got recognized, even in colonies of her own nation. And she didn't know why... or why that bothered her. She fought the confusion and grabbed her art from the desk. She really didn't feel like having to reproduce this, so better to keep it. "Fine. Lead on, swordsman."

He lead through the halls at respectable speed, for all he was practically as silent and invisible as a ghost. Azula knew that her duty was to report Piandao to the Fire Nation, to have him arrested and the sentence of death that had been levied upon him carried out. But she was smarter than that. He was a master swordsman, and apparently a skilled infiltrator. Who better to have as a secret ally? "You had a great deal of bravery to come for me. And I do not forget when somebody does me favor," she began, but his hand reached up and clapped over her mouth, a brisk shaking of the head following. She started to go red, at the insult of his common hand upon her, but after a second or so, she started to hear the approach of men at arms. Many of them.

The swordsman quickly pulled Azula into the alcove of an inset door, most likely the bulkhead of a pitch repository. He then moved before her, shielding her bright and garish clothing with his own drab and dark outfit. It wasn't much, but between the natural darkness and the short but sufficient distance between the firebenders and the escapists, it was enough that none spotted them. She felt a particular smirk come to her face when she saw Zhao, face red as the scar on his left eye, came stomping past them both.

"Where is she? She'll know where he is," he called.

"We can't find her, Lord Zhao."

Lord Zhao, Azula pondered? How had that happened? Only Father had the authority to make that kind of pronouncement, and he surely wouldn't do so to impatient, incompetent, insufferable Zhao. But that line of internal questioning was likewise cut off, when Piandao dragged her away from the door, behind the soldiers' backs, and swiftly around a corner.

"What? What do you mean, you can't find her?" Zhao roared.

"She's not here. The guard is missing, sir."

There was a sound of fire hitting the air, and a panicked, clipped scream which petered out into mild cursing. "I do not tolerate failure. She has been taken by an enemy of the Fire Nation, to deprive us of her gifts. Find her. Find the Avatar and find Azula, NOW!"

"The Avatar is here," Azula whispered, as the notion returned to her. How it had slipped her mind was unthinkable. She had to be more focused in the future. Better able to catch all the little details. After all, she didn't have Mai to depend on for that anymore. "We need to..."

Piandao turned back to her, and that grinning oni almost seemed to take on a disapproving look. It slowly shook, left, right, then back to left, before forcefully pulling her onward. So he was here for her specifically, was he? Why? "What are you doing this for? Who do you work for?" she demanded of him. He didn't deign to answer in any way. "Wait... you and Zhao butted heads in the past, haven't you? Is this a petty revenge for his slights?"

There was a shake of the shoulders, almost like a stifled laugh.

"Well, if this is petty revenge, I for one would enjoy to see you with vigor and purpose," she offered. "I have use for somebody like you. Come. Work with me. I will bring down the Avatar and return to the Fire Nation in triumph! You can join us, and your sins will be expiated!" she lied. Well, not so much lying, as not bothering to mention that she'd probably abandon him as soon as her keel hit black sand. The blue mask gave a half glance toward her, then let out an audible sigh, the first vocalization that she'd heard from the thing.

Finally, she was brought to the door of a low-ranking officer's room. Piandao gave a motion to her, to remain still and silent. As if. He then pushed the door open abruptly. Even before she could move through the gap to make a decent showing of herself, he had caught the half-drawn blade of Colonel Shinu under an armpit, and levered the man's head down into the desk, stunning him. Then, with a twist, spun the man into his own wardrobe. Piandao kicked the doors shut, then heaved hard on the top of its minimal facade, causing the whole rig to topple onto its doors, trapping the man within.

"I can see why Grandfather sent a hundred after you. And I can see why they failed," she said, with honey-tones. Better to draw people like him in. Obsequiousness seldom worked with the rank and file, but 'honest' appreciation? But before she could start moving in, laying it on with an appropriate thickness, he raised one halting finger at her. He then tore down the drapes of coarse, common fabric, and tied them to the rail of the balcony. A significant nod, toward that now dangling sheet, was obviously the direction he intended. She sighed, that smirk falling away and leaving her expression slightly frustrated, more than anything else, and she descended down the makeshift rope. She still ended up well short of the ground, though.

Above her, Piandao came to a halt, and then reached down, taking her hand from the 'rope', before sliding until he was at its bottom, and she dangling below him. Then, at his third nod, she felt herself released. It was child's play to land with grace. After all, she had played with _Ty Lee_ all the time as a kid. Even as she quickly pushed herself back to her feet, and flattened back against the wall, she wondered why she was thinking about old and lost friends at a time like this. That pondering was cut short when, with a soft paff, Piandao landed beside her. He glanced toward her, that blue grinning mask as inscrutable as ever, and pointed at the gates. Obviously, he had taken a way in which he couldn't replicate on the way out.

This was going to get messy.

Azula took off at a sprint toward that gate. Not for the first time, she was glad for the physique she had cultivated. She doubted any woman in the world could sprint with such speed and vigor, at least not without cheating or being Mai. But even then, she started to hear voices ahead, calls to close the gates, and the three great gates of the baileys began to rumble closed. She reached them just as they'd slid just far enough that an attempt to pass through them would see her crushed into paste. She came to a skidding halt, and levied a scarlet-flamed kick at the things, more out of frustration than any realistic attempt to damage them. She then turned, and saw that Piandao had drawn those swords once more, as the entire garrison, it seemed like, had come pouring out of the tower, and started to surround the Princess and the Traitor.

* * *

><p>The headache was a pleasant distraction from the unkind tingling of his arm and chest. If nothing else, it helped him keep from keeling over into sleep, which he desperately wanted, but knew he couldn't afford to partake. After all, his sister was... well, no better way to put it, than his sister seemed to be dying.<p>

"You shouldn't have done that," Sokka muttered, his voice a rasp. "You should have taken him to the North Pole. What am _I_ going to do at the North Pole? It was your _dream_, sis," Sokka shook his head, and felt himself overbalancing just for the effort of that. He might be upright... sort of... but he was weak as a kitten. After a moment's consideration, he altered that estimation. Most kittens would beat the hell out of Sokka right now.

The flutter of wings announced a new arrival to the lean-to where the two Water Tribe siblings were sheltering from the driving wind and heat lightning. No rain, though. Not so much as a drop. Sokka looked up, and saw Momo was staring down with those relatively huge green eyes. It let out a chatter, then hopped down before Sokka and dropped a rusty key-ring, gangling with keys, in front of Sokka. Sokka looked down at the fob, then up at the little critter.

"No, Momo. Water. Waaaaa...terrrrr," Sokka said. Momo blinked swiftly, then bounded out the window again. "I'm starting to think he's not as smart as we give him credit."

* * *

><p>"What now, swordsman?" Azula shouted, as the soldiers began to press in. It was obvious that they were just preparing their courage, and readying their crossfire, to vaporize them where they stood. The swordsman, though didn't answer, although a sound somewhat like a weary sigh did come from that grinning blue mask. "If you've got some cunning plan, you might want to share it!"<p>

The intruder shook his head slowly. But no sooner had he, that a great wind began to tear and buffet against the two renegades, twisting and tearing, and hauling upwards in an oddly specific and tremendously surprising tornado. Even Azula, composed as she was, couldn't help but let out a scream of confused, panicked alarm. The tornado ended as abruptly as it began, just high enough that both of them would be spat out onto the top of the gate of the inner bailey. She immediately shot a glance at the swordsman, who was like her, pushing himself off the stone. "I demand to know how you did that."

"He didn't," Aang said from about three steps behind her. "I did."

She spun with a shriek and a wave of fire. Aang let out his own clipped scream of surprise. Hadn't he just saved her life? He split it apart with his airbending, but Azula looked to be readying another. To the relief of the airbender, and probably the benefit of all of them, the swordsman stepped between them with an angry grunt and a furiously shaken head. He slapped Azula's hands down, then pointed from Aang, to himself, then to her, and finally into the distance. "I think he's saying that either we all leave, or none of us do," Aang offered.

"Don't be preposterous. He would never work with the Avatar!" Azula spat. "And neither will I!"

"Why not?" Aang asked, honestly and earnestly. "I just want to help you. There's no reason that this war has to make us enemies."

"There is EVERY reason this war makes us enemies!" Azula railed. Then, she stopped, and seemed to tilt her head at him, hearing something else that he couldn't hear. Her expression became quite dour. "Oh, that is not going to stand, Avatar. You think you can trick _me_? You think you can bribe _me_? You have nothing I want."

"Freedom," Aang offered, noting the manacle still attached to Azula's ankle. "Air Nomads can't stand being confined. I'm fairly sure that you can't either."

"I have a lot of experience with it," Azula said flatly, and hotly.

"Why can't we just work together to get out of here, and then we can –" Aang began, but was cut off when he could see people starting to race along the walls, surrounding them on both sides. "No time! Jump!"

The Blue Spirit grabbed ahold of Azula and, drawing a second squawk of alarm out of Azula in a single day, hurled the both of them into the open air on the other side of the wall. Aang fell with them. There was no bale of hay, nor pool of water to soften their landing. Only the hard and unrelenting stone. Which was why Aang cast down a ball of compacted air below them. It still felt like they were jumping off a cliff, but landing on a stack of mattresses, rather than onto jagged rocks.

"Don't. _Ever_. Do. That. Again," Azula hissed. If Aang didn't know any better, he could have sworn the swordsman was chuckling at that. At this point, though, the alarms grew louder as the shouting of men and women's voices began to pierce the night. And with them, came the first of the arrows. It was the swordsman, oddly enough, who deflected the first of them, with the blades in his hands. Whoever this guy was, he was good with swords, Aang considered.

"We've got to go!" Aang shouted, grabbing Azula's hand and tugging her forward. The gate ahead was closed, like the one behind them, and it was manned besides. Aang knew he could get to the summit of it on his own with almost no problem. The tricky bit was that he now had two people he needed to get up with him. He felt Azula yank her hand out of his.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!"

"Azula, please," Aang pleaded, breaking off with a yelp and dodging aside a bristling of arrows that struck the ground where he'd paused. "We're going to get shot to pieces out here! We've gotta go!"

"I'll find my own way out," she said stubbornly, glaring at the Avatar.

"Show of hands. Who thinks Azula can make it out alone?" Aang asked. Azula's hand shot up. Nobody else's did. Most notably not the hundreds of people now hurling spears and firing arrows at them. "I think you've been outvoted. Now come on! You can try to kill me later!"

"Well, if you put it that way," Azula said sarcastically, but he grabbed her hand again and began to run. She was quick, he had to give her that, but when it came to running, nobody could outpace a person for whom wind-drag was a non-issue. Of course, Aang began to flag when he noticed that the Blue Spirit was getting waylaid, as soldiers began to move in from all sides, surrounding him and cutting him off. No, no this wasn't going to happen.

"Stay with him," Aang said, "I'll be back in a second."

"Oh, so first you want me to run, and now you want me to stay?" she asked. "Can't you Nomads ever make up your mind?"

Aang didn't bother arguing the point, opting instead to release her without another word said and rush toward the object he'd just barely managed to notice, and all the better for it. A glance over Aang's shoulder showed that she had, indeed, moved to the Blue Spirit's side, and was now adding crimson flame to flashing white steel. But all the fire and precision blades in the world couldn't stem the tide of the soldiers who forced inward in an inexorable wave. They were going to be buried and crushed, it was just a matter of attrition and time.

So Aang sought to break that deadly stalemate, so he grabbed one of the long, bamboo wrought besieging ladders from one of many wagons parked in the middle bailey. A more calm and collected head would have asked why there was so much materiel here, and so many wagons empty but for a single layer of dull metal sheets, but Aang was busy, and distracted. He hefted the ladder with a small amount of difficulty. While the weight of the thing was manageable, the heft was brutally unwieldy. He hobbled over the the wall, and planted one end of it firmly against the base of the wall. He gave a glance at the slowly losing duo, then twisted the other end of the ladder, sending a shockwave of airbending along with it. The thing snapped over with much the same finesse and control of a glider staff, if one which was about a hundred feet long. The impact of that wind hitting the Fire Nation soldiers sent no few of them flying. The only reason Azula and the Blue Spirit didn't was because they had seen it coming, and hurled themselves flat on the ground. As the other soldiers started to blearily pick themselves up, Aang shouted back at the Fire Nation Princess and the Emancipator. "Grab onto the end and hold on _TIGHT_!" he screamed. They only had one chance at this, after all. He had to do it right.

After a moment of preparation, Aang chopped with his hand, carefully but quickly forming a wedge of air under the ladder and sending it screaming toward him. He'd never done airbending like this before. This was advanced work. It was easy to generate wind of a certain shape and send it away, but to shape it and then draw it in? That was a whole other sort of bending. One he wasn't even aware he was capable of. As the wedge of air slammed closer, it levered the ladder upward, with its two passengers clinging for dear life at the top. Finally, the wind slammed into and around him, bringing the ladder to perfectly parallel the wall... before the weight at the top snapped the thing just at the wall's height and hurled both of the riders down onto the top of the battlements.

Aang looked up with a moment of wonder. Oh, if only Elder Gyatso could have seen him now! Even surly old Tengeh would have been pleased with bending like that! Of course, Aang's reverie was short lived, because in the moments it took him to finally believe that Azula and that other man were alright, the firebenders and soldiers were closing in on him from all sides.

"Surrender and face the Fire Lord's justice!" one of them shouted.

Aang raised a finger, and then spoke. "Ah. Ah. Aahahah... CHOO!"

It wasn't a real sneeze, but the blast of air, straight down, was enough to send him soaring up through the air, as well as knock the first row of fighters below into the second. Aang landed with a degree of poise on the stone, a sarcastic quip on his lips, but it was short lived, as he had to hurl himself backwards to avoid being spitted by a spear.

"You're late!" Azula noted, before slapping aside a spear thrust and punching into the soldier's throat. The man went down in a heap, clutching at his neck. Man, that _had_ to have hurt. The Blue Spirit, though, spent the moments knocking prone anybody who tried to encroach on either Aang or the Fire Nation Princess.

"Only one wall to go!" Aang said, as he started to wonder how he was going to cross this one last wall, and reach freedom beyond it.

* * *

><p>A chirrup tugged Sokka's attention back to the opening in the lean-to, as the lemur once again returned, and added yet another piece of random junk to the impressive pile which now spread over much of the floor. "No, water. The drinking stuff," Sokka said, his voice much stronger now than it had been during the last time Momo tried, dropping a dead bumbleskunk on his lap. While foul-smelling, a quick skinning and it was dinner. Sokka leaned down to the creature, and mimed drinking, and realizing he was conversing with a lemur, changed that to lapping at something. The creature just tilted its head and chirped in confusion. "You know what, forget it," Sokka muttered.<p>

He leaned back, poking the embers which were cooking the bumbleskunk and sighed. "Where are you, Aang?" he asked. Katara let out a quiet whimper, which hurt Sokka by osmosis. There wasn't anything he could do about it, though. He was getting stronger as Katara was getting weaker. A shake of his head brought something particular to his eye. At some point, during the many trips of the lemur, it had deposited a spy glass on the ground, and he hadn't noticed it. Sokka quickly scooped it up. There was a mark on its side in Huojian, which he slowly puzzled out. Unlike Katara, he actually bothered to learn the language. Mostly because all of the best science books were printed in the West. "Made in Grand Ember," he noted. "I wonder if that means its good? Ah, well, it's mine now."

The lemur chattered at Sokka for a little bit, but Sokka ignored it, opting instead to push aside his anxiety with a good bit of whittling. After all, it was about time he got himself a proper machete.

* * *

><p>"What are you idiots doing?" Zhao roared as the doors between the middle and outer baileys slid open, letting him stomp across the outer, and toward the back of the ring of soldiers which was making a remarkably pathetic showing of themselves. His answer was cut off when a wave of them came sailing through the air and smashed down around him, leaving him untouched, but a scowl on his face which made his good eye match the burnt glower of his left.<p>

"They tried to scale the outer wall. We burnt their rope," Kwon said flatly at Zhao's side. There was still a hell of a fight going on, as the soldiers tried to move in and fill the gap. The first one that Zhao saw was Azula, and she was fighting like a demon. It was odd to think that a firebender, one descended from the Royal House, no less, would hold herself in check so completely, pounding down her countrymen with nothing but her fists, knees, elbows, and feet. But at that, she was actually doing the most harm of all of them. While those thrown aside by the Avatar were numerous, they were back in the fight in a matter of moments. Those Azula put down stayed down, and likely would take days to recover, if not weeks.

But she wasn't firebending. Then, Zhao understood. She hadn't prophesied herself into Zhao's hands, which meant she thought it acting against destiny. She was wrong, of course, but still, she was a Fire National, and would not abide harming her own people. Ozai was wrong about her. She was no rebel. And when he finally convinced her of that, they would be unstoppable. Zhao took a quick sidestep to avoid another person the Avatar sent flying, and turned his attention to the masked swordsman.

Zhao knew more about this one than anybody but Azula. He knew where the Blue Spirit was going to be months from now, a wonderfully useful weapon. Whoever this fool was, if he didn't die here, then he would fall soon. Zhao would see to it personally. After all, he was an enemy of the Fire Nation. Just as much as was the Avatar. The Blue Spirit was, like Azula, moderating himself, striking with pommels and blade-flats, but never using the keen edge to spill scarlet across the stone. And somehow, he knew how to use those twisting dao blades to break through what firebending attacks the Avatar didn't account for. A deadly and devastating technique which Zhao had never seen the like of. He could think of only one such traitor who would have such skill.

"Keep pressing! Don't let them escape!" the general cry went up, and the fight redoubled, as the trio was pressed harder against the closed gates to the outside world. So close, and yet still, an eternity from freedom. The thought of it made Zhao smirk. But that smirk faded when he saw that Azula was beginning to fatigue, that the Avatar was slowing down and not as able to keep all harm from reaching her. Now, she was having to duck spears and blasts of fire herself, before counterattacking without such benefits. Zhao's cheek outright twitched when he saw one rogue weapon slip through her defences, and gash her along her upper ribs, eliciting a very clipped bark of pain from the girl before she favored the offender with a kick to the testicles.

"STOP!" Zhao roared. "Nobody hurts her! I want her unharmed!"

The soldiers stopped advancing, and the Blue Spirit took advantage, quickly grabbing Azula and raising one of those razor edges to her throat. Zhao glared at the blue masked foe, at those hollow, black, and impassive eyes. "What do we..." one of the men asked.

"Let them go," Zhao said grudgingly. Azula took a moment, just a moment, to glare at him, and wait... was that a smirk on her face?

"But sir, the Avatar..."

"I said let them go," Zhao said. He had Azula for a day. The Avatar for three hours. But he still had her words, her art, and her prophecy. And he knew where she would be in the future. Her prophecies painted quite the portrait of her own involvement in the coming year. Plenty of opportunity to capture her again. The soldiers dared not go against Zhao's order, and the great gates began to slide open. Zhao expected the Avatar to bolt away the instant there was enough room to accommodate him, but surprised Zhao by being the last one through, almost as though he were trying to protect their retreat.

Zhao turned away, and quickly ascended the stairs up onto the gate-house. He had been remarkably fit all of his life, and had brought it into middle age with great aplomb, so the ascent was swift and he wasn't even slightly winded when he arrived. Kwon was waiting for him up there, oddly enough. That man would either be the greatest batman that Zhao ever had, or else the most dangerous traitor to the Fire Nation's ranks, with the way he could predict Zhao's mind. Zhao actually hoped it was the first one, rather than the second. "They are getting away," Kwon said needlessly, and lethargically.

"Let them go... a little bit farther," Zhao said. Kwon nodded and raised a hand. Reading my mind again, Zhao thought. There was a creak of wood and sinew as the Yu Yan's bows drew taut, arrows nocked and on target. The Blue Spirit retreated, dragging the Princess with him at sword's edge, and the Avatar kept his eyes on the gates, so serious even in his youth as to seem daring the Fire Nation to follow him. "Do you have the shot?" Zhao asked. The Yu Yan closest to him squinted slightly, but didn't speak. Obviously not yet.

"He will turn his back soon," Kwon said. Zhao turned to him, and the even man shrugged. "He's a child. He doesn't know any better."

Zhao turned back, and noted that they were getting quite far away, all the way to where a pool of the storm's rain glittered near the path. The boy finally did turn, then, and seemed to be saying something to either the swordsman or the Princess. Zhao smirked, and nodded. Kwon lowered his hand, and there was a great snap of sinew, as a dozen and more arrows tore through the air.

* * *

><p>"Alright, you can let her go now, we're safe," Aang said.<p>

"I am, but you're not," Azula promised.

"Why do you want to capture me so much?" he asked.

"Because you are the enemy of the Fire Nation!"

"No I'm not! I just want this stupid war to end! I've got nothing against you or your people!" Aang stressed. He had to get her to see his side of things. It was important. "I'm telling you the truth."

"You're just lying to get me to lower my guard," Azula muttered. Aang glanced over his shoulder, as the gates before him dwindled in the distance.

"Why would I do that? I mean, that Blue Spirit of yours already has you under his swords. Why wouldn't I do whatever nefarious thing you expect right now?" Aang asked, proddingly.

"Because..." Azula said, and then trailed off. "There must be a reason. You _must_ hate the Fire Nation. We killed your people!"

"You didn't. Your brother didn't. You're not the people who did that terrible thing," Aang said. He finally turned his back to the walls. "I know you're better than what you're afraid of. I don't hate you, Azula. I've had friends in the Fire Nation before. I don't see any reason why I can't have you for one, too."

"Then you are an idiot as well as a naïve child," Azula muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. She then looked up, golden eyes widening. A smirk came to her lips. Aang half turned, and could see the streaks of arrows tearing toward him. A lot of arrows. More than he could batter away with wind; one of them, at least, would get through. So he heaved up the water from the puddles, creating a wall of ice between he and the incoming missiles. The arrows struck that ice, their iron heads rupturing through... and then pushing further as a second slammed into the first... then fracturing the ice further as a third slammed right into the shafts of the two already embedded. In four separate places, this precision symphony of strike and restrike hit, until the entire body of ice crumbled.

Aang didn't see, but Azula had taken the moment of alarm to elbow the Blue Spirit very hard in the ribs, and spun her way out of his grasp. She twisted around behind him, and blue flames began to wreath her hand as she laughed, and two fingers came surging up, at Aang's back.

And then there was a great clack, as one of the arrows streaked past Aang's fallen ice wall and struck the Blue Spirit right in the mask. Doing so caused his head to twist back suddenly, and in turn caused him to headbutt Azula right in the temple. The Blue Spirit took a couple of staggering steps away, but Azula crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The Blue Spirit shook off that confusion, and turned down at the fallen girl, and for the first time, uttered a single, panicked word.

"Azula!" came the scream, in a voice Aang knew all too well. Aang looked back to the wall. It wouldn't be long until the second barrage came. He craned up his arms, and slammed down, driving up a huge billow of dust, concealing them completely from the fortress of Pohuai.

By the time it parted, and the Fire Nation soldiers reached its center, there was nobody there.

* * *

><p>The boy was watching him the entire time. He hadn't said a word, which was a remarkable feat considering how he was the last time they'd interacted, or the first, but there were wheels turning in the Avatar's mind which he didn't particularly like. Finally, he closed his fist, and set Azula down in the hollow of an old tree's roots.<p>

"It was a brave thing you did for your sister," Aang said simply. Zuko turned to him, then beckoned hard to one side. He hastily doffed the blue oni mask, as soon as he was out of eye and easy earshot of his little sister. "What? What's wrong with..."

"Not one word out of you," Zuko said coldly. "The only reason you're here and not chained up in Zhao's stronghold is because I went left first instead of right. Luck. That's all it is."

"Why didn't you hold _me_ at swordpoint?" the Avatar asked. Zuko stared at the ground. "You are still trying to capture me, aren't you?"

Zuko just shook his head, and very quietly uttered. "And what would be the point?" Aang took a step back, confusion plain on his face. "I just wanted to make things right for Azula. Now I know I never can. So just go. Leave me alone."

"So you're on our side, now?" the Avatar asked hopefully. Zuko put out a bitter laugh, tugging at the neck of his clothes and stripping them away, revealing the light traveling clothes, all bright reds and stark blacks, concealed underneath.

"I won't tell her. I won't stop her from trying to capture you. You give her _hope_," he said bleakly. "I'm not going to take that from her. But... I'm tired. I'm so tired."

Aang had a profoundly sad look on his face. "You know, when I was younger, I had a friend in the Fire Nation called Kuzon. He and I got into so much trouble together. I'm pretty sure he was the best friend I ever had. Do you think, if we hadn't started like we did, that we could've been like that?"

Zuko looked up at the boy, so earnest, so honest, so hopeful. Give him a few years, and a father like Ozai, and see how well that held up. He felt a boiling envy, a hatred of that innocence, churning inside him. "Just go away," Zuko said harshly, fire beginning to drip from his hands, burning the gloves away completely. "I can't even look at you right now."

"I'm sorry," Aang said, as he started to back away. "About your sister. About everything."

"GO!" Zuko shouted. And with a rustle of wind, and a streak of orange and yellow, the boy was gone. There was still that burning in Zuko's soul, an anger he couldn't place or contain or really understand. He was angry at Father. He was angry at the world. He was angry at everybody and everything, because he couldn't help the one person who needed it the most. It wasn't fair. If he could have, he would have burnt the whole world down right this minute.

He moved to Azula's side, and took her hand, closing his eyes. He could remember another set of eyes, looking down at him as he was so tired, but just as resolute as now. The duty she had levied upon him, which he took with devotion and verve. She had been so proud. There were tears of more than parting sadness in her eyes. It was a final embrace which was burned into his memory.

"I know who I am," Zuko said, quietly. "I know who I am."

"Ugh."

"Azula?" Zuko said, face brightening, but not completely. There was still a shadow lurking inside him. "Are you alright? How did you get away?"

"Am... Where am I?" she asked, squinting even against the dark of near dawn. "Where did you come from?"

"I was trying to follow Zhao, to figure out where he'd taken you... And you were already here," Zuko lied, with all the heady optimism that such a lie demanded. "How did you do it, Azula? Did you sneak out when he wasn't looking? Or did you fight your way out? Should we weigh anchor now?"

"I..." Azula began, and then started to rub at her head, where a bruise was beginning to form. "My head hurts. I need... I want to go back to the ship, now."

"Of course, Zuli, I'll get you home."

"Don't call me Zuli," his little sister said testily. And that brought a relieved smile to Zuko's face. Yes, there was no end-goal anymore... but he could live for her hope. That would be enough.

Wouldn't it?

* * *

><p>Aang forced the bulb past Katara's tongue. Most likely due to the sliminess of it, it slipped down easily. She made a sour face, but didn't respond much beyond that. Sokka, though, was practically back to his usual form, if with an odd, bubbly texture to the skin of his chest and arm. He was contentedly munching on some fragrant meat when Aang arrived, and hadn't halted in the slightest as Aang applied the medicine. And not rectally, as it was recommended. He didn't have it in him to do that, at the moment.<p>

After a few moments, Katara's pallor began to change from sallow grey to a more healthy brown, and Aang let himself relax, hurling himself onto the thick, padded fur of Appa's tail. Sokka finally leaned back to him, experimentally cutting the air with a newly whittled machete. "So, Aang, did you make any new friends?" Sokka asked, still watching the fire.

Aang looked over to him. There was a cornucopia of junk surrounding the Tribesman which hadn't been there before, but he seemed to take it with aplomb, so Aang didn't press. He thought hard, trying to figure out what the whole thing with Zuko and Azula meant. Finally, he let out a weary sigh, and rolled over onto his far side, facing the wall.

"I really don't know," Aang said. And then, there was relative silence, but for the popping of a low fire. Well, almost silence, for it was broken by the other Tribesman froggily muttering:

"Tui La... what the hell did you make me eat?"

* * *

><p><strong>I believe the term for Zhao, in this story at least, is the Knight of Cerberus. He's the bastard that gets brought in to let you know that shit's takin' a turn for the worse. Between Azula's 'advice', and his own humbling by an object of devotion (her, obviously), he's... not more cautious, but less stupid about the decisions he makes. And there's nothing more dangerous to a protagonist than a villain who refuses to be stupid. Speaking of Villains, not all of the Children are kidnapped. Some of them are viable war orphans of soldiers in the Fire Nation. Kori might be the only waterbender amongst them, but Yoji is hardly the only firebender. Hisui and Hai, the shamans that he has, are both Nationals, for example.<strong>

**As for Nila, she is not a shaman. Period. But her twin is; thus, there is a connection between the two of them on a spiritual level. When Sharif dreams his way unconsciously into the Spirit world, he unwittingly drags Nila with him. The other side of that was that since the Spirit world is pretty frickin' big, they've never encountered each other in it. Thus it's Sharif's fault that Nila had to be desensitized to horrible pain and terror. Whoops.**

**The funny thing is, I've realized that, while there are two independant nails to consider (one of them very recent, one of them very ancient), only one of them will get revealed to the reader by the end of this 'book'. The other, if it is directly addressed at all, won't be included in text until 'book 3' (IF I REACH IT!) so I'm just going to state it outright rather than force people to wait years for what might not come. One nail is obvious, and has far reaching effects of its own. Azula is sick. Why bears exploring, but because of it, Zuko values his Uncle's opinion more, is on much better terms with his family, and had the backbone to fight his father. Because of Zuko's humiliation of Ozai (landing even the glancing blow was a hell of an upset), and the lack of a viable heir, Ozai has much, MUCH less political clout than Canon Ozai. Because he has less clout, he's forced to take a more direct hand in most things, and he shifted the war from against the Earth Kingdoms, to against the Water Tribe, thinking them easy meat.**

**The other nail was more than a century before that. Roku and Sozin's first fight got a bit more bitter than in canon, and because of that, he shirked one of his responsibilities as Avatar. And because of that, by the time Aang was born, things were already changing for the worse throughout the worlds. It's not an ancient, unspeakable evil behind Malu's uvula. It's quite speakable, as the story will illucidate, and it's actually a few years younger than King Bumi. But enough of this. I've got to figure out how I'm going to write Teo in noir style.**


	12. The Oracle

**Sorry for the gap. Chp.16 got big. This was always one of my favorites, though. It has the best Sokka lines. One counter nit-pick; military mortars were invented during the 15th century in reality, and they're pretty good at shelling. Given that for the state of technology to be in the pseudo-20's in Korra, the technological/philosophical level must be equivalent to the mid 19th century somewhere in Avatar-world (Given that technological innovation grows in curves and not in steps which can be skipped), who in this world would have the technology and desire to invent a similar device, I wonder?**

* * *

><p>Water flowed easily down the river, and the lush plantlife flowed with it, if mostly because water was hard to find in the East Continent these days. People were digging deeper and deeper, stemming rivers farther and farther, just to keep irrigation in the fields, and water on the tongues of its people. It was telling, how even the Northern Heart Coast, a place once overwhelmed by forests and greenery, there was only the dull brown of dead plants, choked in dust and starved for water. All but here, at least. Here, there was the river. Here, there was life.<p>

And there was also one particular fish, who was making it his life's ambition to stymie a Tribesman.

"Stay still you little bugger!" Sokka said, outright hacking at the water with his machete.

Katara shook her head, and then turned back to her task, which was keeping Aang focused on the flowing of water. She still felt a bit weak, and Aang had been very stern about her not trying that waterbending healing again. She didn't see why he was so concerned. It worked, after all. Sokka wasn't just alive. He was back to his old self, if a little rougher of hide for his brush with death. "Alright, now you have to flick the wrists, like this," she said, snapping out another water whip, which cracked pleasingly over the water's flow. "Keep trying. You'll get it right."

"I had it right," Aang complained.

"You were lucky, and luck runs out," Katara said plainly. "So practice. I've been practicing hours a day since that ash-head's little bribe backfired, and now who's teaching who?"

"Whom," Sokka corrected from the water, before letting out a stammer, then an angry scream, and hurling himself bodily into the water, hacking wildly.

"You are," Aang admitted. No great surprise in that, Katara considered. For all Aang was the Avatar, and therefore so much more powerful than any other bender on the planet that the gap was beyond definition, when it came to skill, she actually put in the effort to do what she did right. And it showed, in that she'd mastered every single form that the stolen scroll she liberated from that firebending brute had to offer, whereas Aang was still puttering around with the most basic technique available to it.

"Stop taunting me! I'm going to sooo eat you!" Sokka sputtered as he thrashed in the water, before finally letting out a cry of triumph, and began to haul a ghostfish almost the size of his leg out of the water, even as it thrashed and flailed, trying to slip back into the water where it would return to nigh-invisibility. He was laughing like a madman as he finally brought the thing to the shore and flopped it onto the ground. "Yeah! Water Tribe one, stupid fish, zero!"

"Try to ignore Sokka and focus on your waterbending," Katara prompted. Aang did as she asked, and the water flowed in his control, but after about a minute, he heard something else, and his control started to wane again. "Aang, what did I just say?"

"I can hear something," Aang said.

"I don't hear anything," Sokka said. Then, he let out a yelp and hurled himself bodily onto the fish which was in the process of flopping back into the river. Of course, doing so only made it slip through his grasp and slip back into the flow with barely a ripple, but a heady charge of Yqanuac profanity chasing it.

"Wait, I hear it too," Katara said, calling her cursing brother to silence. When they were little, Dad described a trip he'd made all the way up to the equator – which it still staggered Katara to realize that they'd already bypassed – in which he and several of his elders got waylaid after running afoul of rocks in a storm. Hakoda had been the youngest of that party of eleven, and they all had to cross through storm-soaked forests before they could reach a port to return home. It sounded a lot like he'd gone through Hanyi, now that Katara had seen what he'd seen. But of those eleven, only three made it home... because they had come afoul of the wildlife. There were dangerous beasts in the South. Mole-r Bears could bury you. Feral Polarbear Dogs could rip you to shreds. But there was a beast which Dad described as surlier and more brutal than any of those bear types.

The Platypus Bear.

Sokka and Katara were already running as soon as the loudest roar sounded in the air. They had tried to bring down one of those beasts, but found that its massive strength, its razor claws and beak full of needle teeth was the least of its defenses. It also packed a horrible poison, which afflicted all of the five who survived the initial assault. Of those five, only Dad, the old healer Gnud, and his daughter Doru made it to civilization and back home, and Dad would only describe that experience as 'the most horrible, painful, and tortuous three days of my life'. And from the sound that Dad described, one of them was close, and angry.

"Where are you going?" Aang asked, pelting up after them as they crested the hillock the river bent around, and looked down upon a scene which ought have made Katara's blood run cold. It was just as Dad described. Standing ten foot tall if it was an inch, a monster of brown fur and subtle quills, massive paws and deadly claws, a broad beak full of unkind teeth, clawing and swiping and roaring loud. Its target was a middle aged man, probably one quarter of the beasts's size and weight, a man unarmed and unarmored, and from the look of him, no bender either. It should have been horrifying, terrifying, and inherently sad. But...

He was as calm as a man asleep. A faint smile graced the man's face as he effortlessly moved around the swipes and lashings of the beast. A paw swiping for his head caught only the bark of a tree beyond it. A bludgeon of its paddle-like tail struck nothing but dirt. It bounded at him, trying to pin him down and tear at him, but he stepped aside as easily as Sokka went to sleep. He finally seemed to notice that he wasn't alone with the Platypus Bear, and that grin grew wider, and just as innocent. "Oh, hello there children!"

"Make a loud noise and drive it away!" Katara shouted.

"No, play dead and it'll lose interest!" Sokka contended.

The beast took another swipe at the man, and he ducked under it, before taking a long step back. "Well, that was a close one, wasn't it?"

"Run up a hill!" Aang shouted.

"No, down hill, then in zigzags!" Sokka countered.

"Punch it in the bill!" Katara tried. In truth, she didn't remember how Dad said he'd driven the bears off. It might have been as simple as 'I stabbed them with my spear', but lacking spears and a guy in the crossfire to take care of, that wasn't an option.

"No need. I'll be fine," the man said, as though nothing in the world was wrong. Aang muttered to himself, then turned and whistled, before bounding down and interposing himself between the man and the beast.

"Stay back!" Aang shouted, flicking with his staff a blast of wind which drove the Platypus Bear back a step, but only seemed to further enrage it. But then, there was a heavy thump, as something far bigger than a Platypus Bear landed behind it, and let out a rumbling bass bellow of its own. The bear tensed for a moment, then ran off into the woods, leaving a spotty egg behind.

"Ha! Scared the eggs out of 'er!" Sokka said as he jumped down and quickly crossed that stream where it grew shallow. He grinned to himself as he picked up the egg, roughly the size of his head, and tapped on it with a finger. "Mmm. Breakfast."

"You should really be more careful," Katara added, ignoring her brother's inclination for thinking with his stomach.

"No need," the man said. "Madam Wu told me I'd make it home unharmed, and it turns out, I will."

"You almost got torn in half by a Platypus Bear," Sokka said, his expression flat.

"I'm still unharmed," he said evenly. "Wu was right. Her fortunes always are."

"Fortune telling is just a bunch of nonsense," Sokka said, the annoyance in him such that he actually handed off food in order to put his fists on his hips in pique. "She was dead wrong! You almost got killed!"

"But I didn't," the man said pleasantly. "Well, you can see for yourself. You're probably headed to Makapu like I am, so you can talk to her and get your fortunes read yourselves. See if you still doubt her then."

"It's just a bunch of silly superstition and hokum!" Sokka argued.

"Oh, and she said to give this to any Tribesman I met on the road," the man said, producing a towel and handing it to Katara. "Good luck, kids!"

Katara turned to the still wet Sokka, and offered the towel. "No. That wasn't a fortune telling. He saw I was wet and offered a towel. That's it."

"But there's no reason we shouldn't go to..." Aang began, but was cut off when Appa let out a snotty sneeze, which struck Sokka on the back, and made him tense up, a look of utter disgust on his face.

"Why... Why does he always sneeze on _me_?" Sokka complained. Once again, Katara offered him the towel, and he took it with a grumble. "Still doesn't prove anything."

"I don't know. I think I want to see this woman," Katara said. "Who knows, it might be fun getting our fortunes told!"

"Yeah, it sounds like a great time," Aang agreed wholeheartedly. "Just the three of us and some harmless mischief. What could go wrong?"

Sokka halted scrubbing the sputum from the back of his neck and levied a glare at the Avatar. "You just had to say that, didn't you?"

But nothing could dampen their spirits, as the three of them began to take the road to Makapu. But in their wake, a wagon rumbled up the road, with one person driving the Ostrich Horses, and a small family riding in its back. The jostling kept sending the hair of the smallest of them waving before her eyes, which was a somewhat moot proposition. It wasn't like she was using them.

"Are we there yet?" the man asked.

"If you ask that one more time, I'm kicking you off the wagon," his wife answered. He gave her a scandalized look. "Yes, I'm joking, Lao."

"Sometimes, I cannot understand what you call humor."

"It was pretty funny," the girl offered.

"See? Toph agrees with me."

"This is interminable," Lao muttered.

"And it's almost over," Poppy said. "And we still have most of our money. Isn't that for the best?"

The patriarch of the Beifong family was mum. But even though the youngest of them didn't look it, she was 'watching' closest of all. Because the matriarch was keeping something back, and that bugged the young Toph endlessly. And there was little which bugged her more than not having an answer to a question.

Thus went the Beifongs, fallen so far, into the village of Makapu.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

**The Oracle**

* * *

><p>It was a lovely town, all things considered. Handy enough to a river that sanitation was no problem, hosting a bridge over those burbling waters, and nestled in a crossroads of bustling trade, Makapu seemed like a fairly sad place to live, nevertheless. The fields milled with people working their backs into dust, and the stores showed meager provisions if any at all. The cobblers often had only a single pair of demonstration shoes, and the townsfolk looked to have the leanness of long hunger and calorie poor diets. That said, they looked far, far happier than the situation ought call for. And the sum total of this made Sokka very, very suspicious.<p>

"_Twenty gold says that she's got them all mind controlled and eats the ones who investigate her,_" Sokka wagered.

"_Sokka!_" Katara said, swatting his arm. "_She's probably a nice old lady. There's no reason to __accuse her of cannibalism._"

"I'm just saying," Sokka said switching both gears and languages. "Something about this place doesn't seem right. They're poor, hungry, and that guy is frickin' filthy, and yet they're all crazy-happy all the time. If this doesn't say 'deranged cult leader throwing questionably-willing maidens into a volcano', then I don't know what it says."

"I think you're reading too many of Bato's old books," Katara said with a head shake. "Come on. We should get our fortunes read. What's the worst that could happen?"

"Thrown. Into. Volcano."

"I think Katara's right on this one," Aang piped up. "It'd be neat to know our own futures, after all."

"The future doesn't work like that!" Sokka shouted, before descending into a glowering huff. Ahead, a youngish man with shock-white hair bowed to the doors, which stood open into the dusty street.

"Aunt Wu is expecting you," the man said.

"That's amazing," Aang said.

"No it's not! He probably says that to everybody!" Sokka snapped. Still, they all moved through the halls of the building. It was... garish, to say the least. Like it had been built drab, and then somebody of extremely questionable interior-design sense decorated it. But large, without a doubt. In fact, from the looks of things, it was probably the manor of a local earl or duke. What it was doing in a hokum-slinger's possession warranted a moment's ponderance. They got a chance to, when the white haired laconic fellow had them sit in a foyer, and he returned to his place. Sokka sat for a moment on a well worn cushion and smirked. "See, she didn't expect us, or she'd be waiting for us."

"Hello," a girl's voice cut in on his rationalistic bragging. "I'm Meng. I'm Aunt Wu's assistant, and she told me to make sure you were all comfortable and relaxed before you..." she trailed off, and Sokka wondered at it for a moment, before he saw that she was staring slightly slack-jawed at Aang, and a deep blush had come to her face. This despite Aang looking distracted, goofy, and having one of his fingers two knuckles deep in his ear. She was a small thing, with a gap in her teeth where one of her milk teeth had fallen out and not gotten replaced yet, and hair on the far side of unmanageable.

She sidled very close to Aang, her eyes wide as saucers, a smile threatening to split her head in half. "Well, hello there," she said. Aang paused from excavating inside his own skull to give her a confused look.

"Hey," Aang answered.

"Can I get you some tea or some of my bean-curd puffs? You know, to be nice and relaxed for Aunt Wu?"

"I wouldn't mind a curd puff," Sokka said, but she held up a hand in his face, doing so with such speed that she'd almost slapped him in the face.

"Just a second," she chastised. "So what's your name?"

"You work for a sooth-sayer and you couldn't get a name out of her," Sokka said. He gave a pointed glance to his sister. "Seriously? Any half decent 'fortune teller' would be able to..."

"I said I'm not talking to you, Sokka," Meng cut him off, causing Sokka to wilt slightly. How did she...?

"Oh, I'm Aang," came the response she was looking for.

"Wow. That rhymes with Meng! And look at your ears. You've got pretty big ears!" she noted, leaning in close.

"I...guess," Aang said, befuddlement plain.

"Don't be modest, their huge," Sokka said, slapping him on the back. Then a notion occurred to him. She must have just heard their names somewhere. Probably from that guy who they'd saved out in the woods. That was the ticket. But why didn't she know Aang's, name, then? Aang took that comment a bit harshly, and covered his ears self consciously.

"Well, Aang, it's nice to meet you... Verrry nice," Meng said, before drifting away, not breaking eye contact with the Avatar until the last moment, lest she walk into a wall.

"Aaaw, that's adorable," Katara said. "Somebody's got a crush!"

"Katara, she's, like, twelve!"

"You're, like, thirteen," Katara countered. "Wouldn't those two just be adorable? No hair meets crazy hair!"

"I don't know _what_ you're talking about," Aang said simply.

"Personally, I can't believe we're puttering around in this house of nonsense," Sokka complained.

"Keep an open mind for a change. Who knows, she might even know how this whole 'beat the Fire Nation' thing is going to turn out!" she let in a sudden gasp. "She might even know if I find a waterbending master! Or who I'm going to marry!"

The door slid open, and a woman came out, looking resolute, if not particularly happy. "At least... now I know. And at least now I have some closure," she said sadly.

"I'm sorry I didn't have better news," the other voice came from behind her. Meng quickly darted around the young woman and the old, bearing a tray of tea and fried snacks. "But this is the way things are. You are still young, and you are strong. You will find love again. I can promise you this."

She nodded, sniffling, as she walked away from the older woman in oddly Fire Nation-ish clothing. For all she lived here, there was much more red and yellow than Sokka was used to. As well, it struck Sokka a bit odd that any fortune-teller wanting repeat business would give bad news. That seemed the sort of thing that might get somebody set on fire. Meng squatted down trying to serve Aang the tea, while pointedly ignoring the other two. Of course, doing so, she fumbled and almost dropped the entire tray, but Aang caught it with barely a glance and not very much effort. But doing so, their hands touched. She blushed like the sun. He was utterly oblivious.

"I... Enjoy your bean puffs!" she said, before practically sprinting away.

"What was that about?" Aang asked. Sokka, though, quickly grabbed the snacks and began to dig in with a furor usually reserved for starving wolfbats.

"Forgive the lateness of my duties," the older woman said. "Her lover died on the road to Misty Palms this morning. It is not always a happy duty I perform," she said. Sokka raised a finger, about to point out something, but she cut him off. "But enough of grim talk. I find enough of it over the course of a day. What odd travelers we have. Two Tribesmen, seeking their father and tutelage in the north, and even the Avatar himself."

"Wow. You really know your stuff."

"Yeah, or she just knows the reputation that's preceding us," Sokka said. The old woman, Wu, obviously, turned to him.

"You don't believe in what I do," she said simply.

"What was your first clue?"

"Perhaps you can be persuaded otherwise," she said. Sokka pointedly dug into the puffs as a rebuke. "Very well. Who would like to be first? Come on, don't be shy," she said. Between Aang's general befuddlement at the situation he found himself in, and Sokka's outright dismissal of all of this as a gargantuan hoax, it was Katara who stepped up to the metaphorical line.

"I guess it'll be me, then," Katara said brightly.

"Enjoy your fraud," Sokka said. Wu turned to him, and he expected a sharp glare, but instead got a thousand mile stare.

"The white flower chooses well; the madman tilts the balance scales and the wheat is separated from the chaff. The equal will be found in the girl in blue, and she will snare his mind and heart," she said, her voice empty and genuinely, unsettlingly spooky.

"..." Sokka managed.

"I apologize," Wu said, giving herself a brief head shake. "Sometimes, I find I am not able to... properly interpret the fortunes I tell. Perhaps this means something to you?"

"Any fortune which can only be figured out in hindsight is a pretty crummy fortune," Sokka said, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Ignore my brother," Katara said, taking Wu's hand and spinning her back around. "Come on. I want to see what my future holds."

"Then let us hope that I have fair fortunes to tell," Wu said, leading Sokka's sister away. Aang turned to him.

"You know, sometimes you can get a bit opinionated," Aang said.

"Fortune telling is a hoax. Any real foreknowledge of events violates at least three laws of physics, and renders the future it portends utterly impossible to come to pass!" Sokka complained.

"I just heard blah blah blah I hate fortune telling blah," Aang said, but not mean spiritedly.

"You are such a little kid."

"So?" Aang asked, before swiping Sokka's bean curd puffs. Oh, this was an act of war! And with that, Aang and Sokka began to tear-ass around Aunt Wu's house; the prize of their battle, the vaunted bean curd puffs of glory and yore!

* * *

><p>There were a lot of things which Aang could have expected out of the great curd puff battle of Makapu, but getting the bowl filched out of his hands was not one of them. In a way, it was downright embarrassing that Sokka had managed to not just catch up, but put one over on Aang. It was something which Aang was going to soon remedy, obviously. The issue was, could he do it before the Tribesman ate all of the snacks?<p>

Aang's strategizing was cut short when he started to hear Katara's voice from one side. His brow furrowed, and he leaned to the paper and wood walls which separated the hall from the room beyond. It was astounding just how 'Fire Nation' this place was, really. "...saw her again. To tell the truth, I don't know what became of any of them. I was too young to remember. That's just amazing!"

"Such wounds of the heart are plain, when you learn how to see them as I have," Wu answered. "Now let's try looking forward. Now, I'll just take your... how soft! Do you use a moisturizer?"

"I've got a balm I use," Katara answered spiritedly. "Seaweed, seal blubber and lights. Smells terrible when you're making it but... well, the results speak for themselves."

Aang had to forcefully restrain a gag at the explanation of just what she was putting on her hands. It was lucky he didn't go around kissing them, because he was fairly certain that getting 'lights' in him would count as breaking vegetarianism. Then, he had a moment of horror when he started to wonder what else was in the cosmetic products he saw on women. Seal lung was probably the least of their depravity.

"Hmm. There will be great power in your future, and with it comes balance," Wu said. "With one hand you destroy, and with the other, you build."

"That doesn't sound so good," Katara said warily.

"Some things need to be destroyed so that others can be created," Wu pointed out. Aang agreed with that, actually. While the Air Nomad philosophy discarded the notion of ending lives, it held that death, when its time had come, should not be avoided. To do so was almost as bad as spreading death recklessly, and some of the Elders even hinted that such had happened in the past. Knowing about the Storm Kings now, Aang wondered if that might have been what they were talking about. "I wouldn't worry. I don't even need to read your palm to know you're not going to enslave the world or murder people at random. It just means you have the power to harm and heal in equal measure. Most do. Some just don't realize, or accept it."

"Oh. That's not so bad. I guess," she hesitated. "What about my love line? Do you see anything there?"

"Hmm."

"That's not a good 'hmm' is it?" Katara asked.

"I refuse to lie about my predictions. It is not a 'great' romance, but there is love there."

"Wh... Who?"

"He is son of a king, but no child of a king, born of a shattered family..." Wu said, but Katara cut her off.

"No. Tell me he's not a firebender, please!"

"What? No. He's not a bender at all. You haven't even met him yet. Why? Does somebody from the West have his eye on you?" Wu asked with a laugh. Katara just let out a relieved sigh.

"I was just worried that Fate paired me up with Zuko, for some reason."

"The Fire Lord's child?" she asked. Then she let out a deep laugh. Aang just shook his head with a smile, and wandered back to the foyer, still plotting how to track down and re-take the vaunted puff bowl of the golden dawn! Or something like that. But his plotting, conspiring, and scheming was cut short when he returned to that entry area, and found Sokka lounging, and munching on those puffs with the most smug look on his face. With a smirk, he tossed in the last of them, and up ended the bowl to showcase its emptiness.

"Sorry. Last one."

Aang's brow twitched. "You know, there are days that I really don't like you."

"Oh, you love me," Sokka said with a bray of laughter. He was right. It was hard to stay angry at Sokka. And it wasn't long until that door opened again, and Katara came out, looking fairly relieved. "So how was your hokum?"

"It was... better than I feared, I guess," she said. "Bit spooky, though."

"Alright. Let's get this over with," Sokka said rising to his feet and stretching.

"Actually, I think I'd prefer to speak to the Avatar for a moment," Wu said. "Besides, you already know enough."

"What you said didn't even make sense!"

"Did it?"

"...NO!" Sokka shouted.

"Did it really?"

Sokka stalked away, grumbling. Aang allowed himself a chuckle at Sokka's antics, and then was guided inside the room at the center of the building. The dichotomy of Fire Nation décor against Earth Kingdom construction was most stark here, as it became obvious that this room was once built like the dining rooms from Bumi's palace, if smaller and lacking a central table; it was just that wooden and paper walls had been put up to subdivide the space. Still, Wu's eyes and complexion didn't immediately mark her as a Westerner. It might have been the proprietor before her. She sat him down before a brazier, and opened up a box and held it toward him. Inside were a bevy of white sticks. She then closed it, and shook the box vigorously, shaking its contents all about.

"This is a form of osteomancy," Wu said. "Please, take one."

"Osteomancy?" Aang asked, taking one of the slivers from the box. It had a weird mark on it, he noted, before handing it back to her.

"The bone rods are placed on the fire, and from the cracks, I can deduce your future," she said. She then set the sliver on the fire. "It is my most reliable form of augury, if the most time consuming."

"How long does it usually take?"

"It can take as much as an hour for the bone to crack, sometimes," Wu said. And the bone immediately put her words to lie by crackling and twisting, a lacing of cracks racing over its surface, and with it, came an upswelling of the fire, blooming up as though somebody had hurled sawdust onto it. She blinked for a moment, obviously confused. Then, she took a pair of tongs and extracted it, before leaning close. "This is... extraordinary. I have never seen this before in my life."

"What is it?" Aang asked.

She ignored him, walking away form the room, setting the tongs and their cargo aside for a moment, as she moved into the back of the house. Aang glanced around, feeling like there was an odd weight in the air, a heavy sensation that he wasn't alone here. It was probably because Sokka and Katara were right outside. That had to be it. Finally, she returned, and was carrying another sliver of bone. She took the tongs and set the one Aang picked down beside it. He noted that both of them had the same mark on them... and then that the pattern of cracks was utterly identical. "How did that happen?" Aang asked.

"There are many things which I have seen in my life," Aunt Wu said, laying down a third sliver from out her pocket. It was identical to the first two. Then a fourth. "But four lots of sortilege? One of them cast a month later, from bones of a different hanged man?"

"The bones were from...?" Aang began, but she cut him off with a look.

"This should not be. You are the Avatar, and you are going to be fighting in a battle which will decide the..."

"Fate of the whole world itself? Not news to me," Aang said idly.

"No, far more than that. I believe the destiny of _reality_ itself is on your shoulders."

"...I fail to see the difference," Aang said. He leaned a bit closer. "Does it say anything about my romantic future in there?"

"Don't you understand? There will be a life and death battle between the forces of balance and imbalance, good and evil, order and chaos, and you want to know about girls?"

"Yes please," Aang said eagerly. Because there was something he wanted to know.

"I'm... sorry, but I didn't see anything," Wu admitted. Aang let out a sigh at that, and she looked down with a flick of her eyes. "I... promised I would not lie. There will be hardships and struggle, and hatreds. I don't see its end, and that concerns me. I often do, these days. Happiness or heartbreak, life or death, I cannot say. But you can. Lightning knows the path, but it will take more to..." Wu seemed to squint for a moment, as though she wasn't sure what she was saying, "bring forth the fourth? Does that mean anything to you?"

"I really don't know," Aang admitted. He let out a sigh. "This didn't make me feel much better."

"That is my duty and my obligation these days," Wu said solemnly. "My news is seldom enough good, but when it is, it shines all the brighter. Take heart, young Avatar. The heart is sometimes all it takes to make things better. I know this from experience."

Aang rose and gave the old woman a bow. "Thank you," Aang said, before walking away. Not much lighter of mind, actually, but compared to how he was before, he was no worse.

As he left, though, he didn't hear her say, "...He deserved so much better."

* * *

><p>Toph kept squinting at the ground as she walked. There was something distinctly funky about the ground here, and it was really starting to get on her nerves. The relief she'd gotten upon jumping down from that wagon was swiftly beginning to grate, and Toph wasn't the kind of person who was good at being grated. "Thank the gods, that ordeal is over with," Dad complained. Come to think of it, he'd been doing a lot of complaining as Makapu came into 'view'. Luckily for everybody involved – with Dad's possible exception – Mom had made sure to chastise him into doing it quietly. It was one of the great tropes of theatre that you <em>never<em> piss of people who serve your food, cut your hair, or drive your wagon.

"I'm going to take Toph and get some food and a place to stay for the night," Mom said, reaching over to pat Dad on the cheek. "Would you be a dear and help him unload his produce?"

Dad sputtered in a fashion which Toph had to bite her tongue to avoid bursting into laughter at. Finally, he slumped, possibly playing host to a 'hang dog expression', and uttered "Yes, dear," before listlessly moving to help the driver, if while moving at about a third the driver's pace. Mom guided Toph away, a hand at her back, until they were out of Lao's line of sight, at which point she stopped, and stretched her arms and back, like a cat which had waken up after sleeping for a year.

"I'd forgotten how good it feels to be on the road," Mom said.

"Good?" Toph asked. "I was sure you'd be the one pestering Dad into finding a hotel the first night!"

"I didn't hear any complaints out of you," Mom said lightly.

"You wouldn't be able to, over Dad's belly-aching," Toph said, before her brain caught up to her. She then froze for a moment. That wasn't the sort of thing you were supposed to tell your mother about your father. But the rebuke which she fully expected didn't materialize. Instead, Mom giggled a bit. No, not giggled. She'd heard Mom giggle. This was more of a chuckle.

"He's... used to a certain style of living," Mom said. There was a long silence. "Well? Aren't you going to see what's going on?"

"I'm not going to see anything," Toph said dryly.

"Toph," Mom said, in that warning tone she got. "I may not know how, but I know you're not nearly as blind as Lao thinks you are. Are you really going to turn down a chance to run loose in a city where nobody knows who you are by a 'careless and distracted' mother?"

"When you put it that way," Toph said, and then broke out into a grin, as she quickly pelted away down the well furnished streets of Makapu. If she had eyes to see with, she would have noted Poppy Beifong smiling proudly at her back. That was a few minutes ago, and the euphoria of being free – totally and utterly FREE – was beginning to dull next to the sensation that there was something wrong with the ground.

"I don't care what that woman says. There's no way she can tell the future!" an argumentative young man declared nearby. He held the slouch of somebody whom the world decided to randomly be cruel to for comedic effect.

"Just because she said that you're going to get shacked up with a female version of you isn't any reason to despair," a younger, brighter voice offered. This one seemed scarcely tethered to the ground, like a tiny waft of breeze would see him float away.

"Well, we are talking about a female Sokka, here. I'd despair _a bit,_" a girl, who seemed to have much in common with the first boy, said snarkily.

"Katara! You shouldn't say things like..." the younger boy began.

"Good one, sis," Sokka answered, which caused the lad to sputter. "Come on, Aang. You've gotta see that this is just hokum! A bunch of stupid, stupid hokum!"

"Stop saying hokum," Katara said.

"I don't know. I've seen some pretty wild stuff," that Aang said.

"You," Sokka broke off, pointing at Toph. "I bet she told you the boy you're going to marry is rich and beautiful."

"First of all, I haven't seen this fortune teller of yours," Toph said, fists on hips. "Second, I'm richer than your entire extended family put together. Third, beauty would be a little bit wasted on me."

"What?" Sokka asked. She waved a hand in front of useless eyes. He blanched at that.

"Way to go, Sokka. You insulted a blind girl."

Sokka sighed. "You know, sometimes I think my life is destined to be full of hardship and anguish. Most of it self inflicted."

"You do have that tendency," Aang noted.

Toph shook her head and started walking away. Of course she'd blabbed the one thing she shouldn't have at the first opportunity. People treated her differently when they learned she was blind, and that was usually the first thing they did learn of her. The second was that they'd treat her differently because of her family's wealth, and they learned of that before even her blindness. She'd had a chance to talk to somebody near her own age who knew about neither, and she'd managed to toss that away in a fit of pique.

Apparently, this Sokka here wasn't the only one with a tendency to say the wrong thing. Sokka did perk up at that point, though, and pointed at another person standing off to one side. She could 'see' that he had some ridiculous looking footwear on, but nothing more than that. "You. Aunt Wu probably told you to wear those red shoes, didn't she?"

"Yeah," the guy answered gleefully. "She told me I'd meet the love of my life while wearing red shoes."

"And how often have you worn shoes since that fortune got told?" Sokka prompted.

"Every single day!" the man eagerly answered. There was a twitch from Sokka, as she could 'see' something breaking inside his brain.

"THEN _OF COURSE_ IT'S GOING TO COME TRUE!" Sokka shrieked wrathfully in the man's face. But the man didn't seem in the slightest bit perturbed at that.

"Really? That's great!" he said.

Sokka smacked himself very hard on the forehead, grumbling something in a language that Toph didn't speak. She just shook her head and walked into the heart of town. While she did, she could 'see' somebody ghosting the first three through the town. And while those she followed were oblivious to her, she was not utterly unnoticed. Toph raised an eyebrow, not even turning to face her, mostly because that was unnecessary. A grown woman nearby seemed to look between this spy and the three who were now either haranguing a man so filthy that Toph could probably bend him, or else watching Sokka do same. She then leaned down to the spy. "Meng, is that the big eared boy Wu said you'd marry?"

"Shush!" Meng said, shoving the grown woman aside with an off-handed shove. Toph sniggered at that, but kept walking. Let the little stalker stalk. Truth be told, she was a little bit interested in this whole 'fortune teller' business. Dad firmly disbelieved in them. But then again, between his lip-service to the gods and his desire for the most secular education imaginable for his daughter, she was starting to believe that Dad was an outright atheist, with all that such entailed. But while that was no problem of hers, it did leave a curiosity which she now felt pecking at her.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Toph said, picking up her pace. When she heard somebody shouting her voice – specifically, Dad shouting her name – she hastened herself that little bit more, so that she could get out of the street before Dad found her and deprived her of her freedom. He was her father, and she had to respect that, but Gods, how she wanted to just run away to a circus or something, some days.

She ducked into the largest building, which was more marked by the man kneeling lotus in meditation just inside its door than any sign which Toph could have read. Being blind did go hand in hand with illiteracy, after all. "Is this Aunt Wu's... fortune-tellery?"

"She is expecting you," the man said, motioning onward. Toph tapped a toe on the stone floor. It was all good, solid, stone walls and floors and ceilings; Earth Kingdom construction at its finest. And almost identical to Keung's house, from the layout. She took three confident steps, and then her toe caught on something she couldn't 'see', and she pitched face first through a door, breaking delicate wood and tearing paper as she flopped into a wood floored waiting area.

"Wh...what? Wood? Why is there wood?" Toph asked. She swung her head back, but her senses were deadened. Without the stone or dirt under her, she really was blind, and was forced to crawl on hands and knees like an infant. "Could I get some help here? Where is the exit to this place? Or a stone wall! That might help!"

"Are you alright, little girl?" a well meaning question came down to her. It made Toph grind her teeth.

"Listen here! I wouldn't be in this position if there weren't all this wood for me to trip over, and..."

"Oh, yes," the woman's voice became weary. "I was warned about you."

"What?" Toph asked. She felt a hand grasp at her wrist, not to yank her about, but to guide her back to her feet. When she had her footing again, the older woman guided Toph to a spot with a cushion, which Toph nearly tripped over into another wall after finding with her toes. "This place is a hazard," Toph complained.

"The daughter of the flying boar," the woman said. "I must admit, it was a story which I found hard to stomach."

"Wait, how do you know who I am? We haven't even said our..."

"I'm a fortune teller. What good is a fortune if you don't know who you're telling it to?" Aunt Wu said with a chuckle. "Now, little girl..."

"Don't call me that," Toph snapped. "I'm not a little girl."

"Are you a boy?"

"No, but..."

"And are you taller than I am?"

"Well..."

"Then you are a little girl," Wu said. "There are worse things to be. Why have you come to my house?"

The way she asked that seemed to indicate she was afraid that Toph might smash it down for fun. Toph wasn't that hard up for fun. Yet, anyway. "I just wanted to get my fortune told," Toph said evenly. "Seemed like a bit of a gas."

"You might not like what you hear," Wu said. "I do not lie about what I find, and the knowledge sometimes brings little comfort."

"Just spill it, old lady."

"Very well," Wu said, and there was a rustling which Toph was unable to follow. "Since you are an earthbender – you are, aren't you? Good. – lithomancy will give the most clear fortunes. Please refrain from influencing the dirt."

"Influencing? What are you talking about?" Toph asked, but Wu didn't answer, simply shaking something. Toph crossed her arms before her chest, her milky eyes glaring with a distinct lack of humor at the turn this day had taken. That same shaking and clicking continued for a while, and Toph's teeth had set so hard that there was a chance they might crack. "Well? What's my glorious future?"

"Oh my," she said. "Big romance. Didn't see that coming."

"Romance? Really?" Toph asked. "You must be joking?"

"It's right here," Wu said. "A powerful bender, and a man you will come to respect, and be respected in turn. But there's more. I see that... the impossible child will do the impossible, and change the way the world sees itself," Toph opened her mouth. "Vague, I know. Sometimes the messages are not clear. I see... The Green Nightmare. Trials and forfeits. A great defeat, and a great defeat, a family left behind."

Well, that was... ominous. "So I get away from my parents? That's the best news I heard all day!"

"Have you been listening to a word I've been saying?" Wu asked. "You face adversity and misfortune, and the best of all possible paths is by far the most painful. And," another long pause, some shuffling noises rising into the air, "your mother. You should be very, very cautious around her. She bears chains that even she does not know."

"Mom? Seriously?" Toph asked. "That guy was right. This is kinda screwy."

"Beifong, you will be part of the greatest adventure of this age," Wu said. "You will live in interesting times. And may the gods have mercy upon you."

"Whatever," Toph said, taking a whiff of the air. "Wait a second... are you cooking curd puffs?"

"Yes, but..."

"Awesome. I'm starving. You wouldn't mind giving a blind girl some food, would you?" she asked, putting forth the most innocent and helpless expression she had, which was a bit absurd because a moment before, she had been picking at her teeth with her fingernails.

Wu rose to her feet with a sigh. "I almost pity the poor man who ends up with you."

"So do I," Toph added mildly and quietly. Whoever it was had better be ready to live in her shadow, because there was no damned way she was living in his.

* * *

><p>While it was a pensive look which graced Sharif's face, it wasn't because he was being thoughtful. His thousand yard gaze didn't rest on his sister or her friend, but it kept sliding toward <em>that thing<em> before he pulled it back. It wasn't her fault, he kept trying to tell himself. She didn't ask for _that thing_ to burrow under her skin. But in that assumption, even Sharif knew that something was wrong. While spirits could slip in, in order to do what she'd done back there, one would normally have to be invited.

He would have wondered what it took to make somebody like Malu invite _that thing_ into her, but the thoughts always slipped away before he could pin them down, give them scrutiny. So he stared, and waited. There was bubbling and cracking of fat on a hare which Tzu Zi had fetched. It should have been skinned better, but nobody trusted Sharif with a knife. Not after what he did to protect his sister from _that thing_. So they were left with Nila's butchery. Sharif idly hoped that she found a good cook for a husband, because otherwise, they would be eating dross every day for the rest of her life. As Sharif couldn't smell the meat – or in fact anything, ever – he kept reaching toward it, and having his hand slapped away by either his sister or the other girl. This time, since neither was handy, he restrained himself. They'd tell him when it was done.

He heard a grumbling sound coming from nearby, and turned to face Patriarch. "I told you before, everything's under control," Sharif said. The bird gave him a wary glance, and then flicked one over to Nila's friend's steed. "She'll be fine. She's young. You're always the one complaining about being old; she doesn't have any of that..." a long pause. "Well, that's probably not going to happen. Trust me."

The bird let out a snort and settled itself down on the ground, tucking its neck against itself.

"Why do you keep talking to that bird?" Malu asked. Sharif noticed the twitch in the closed eyes of Patriarch before he turned to face the girl.

"He has a hard time dealing with new things. He'll be happy once we're back into Dakong," Sharif answered, his gaze swinging away again. It was impolite to stare. Mother kept telling him that, and things pressed into even his current state of mind managed to stick, sometimes. "He's old. Set in his ways."

"He's just an Ostrich Horse," Malu said.

"He's an old Ostrich Horse. He's seen a lot of things," Sharif answered the charge.

"Really?" Malu asked, cocking an eyebrow. "How old?"

"How old are you, Patriarch?" Sharif answered. The bird grunted for a moment, then fell silent. "He says..."

"He doesn't say anything. He's a bird," Malu pointed out.

"So?" There was a long silence. "He says that the dance of the moon has passed two thousand times since his hatching."

"Now I know you're messing with me. Two thousand months is about... forty years. Wild Ostrich Horses don't live past fifteen," Malu put her fists on her hips. "Are you really as bad as Nila complains, or is this just a smoke screen?"

"There's too much wind for smoke to stick around," Sharif said.

"Wow. I'm starting to have sympathy for Nila. Never saw that coming," Malu said. Then, she let out a laugh. "I don't know what your game is. I really don't. But I promise you, if you put a needle in my eye again, there will be dire ramifications!"

"A game? Isn't it a bit dark out?"

"You can't wheedle out of this. I swear, I will be paying _very_ close attention to you."

"What does that mean?" Sharif asked.

"Bad stuff will happen."

"Yeah," Sharif nodded. "If _that thing_ wakes up, bad stuff will happen."

"If... What?" Malu asked. "I'm trying to warn you against being all crazy!"

"Why would there be smoke?" Sharif asked. "You can't sew smoke."

"What?"

"I don't play with fire. That's Nila's thing," Sharif said, shaking his head. "Is dinner done yet?"

"What would I know about meat? I'm a vegetarian," Malu said. She stared at him, but gave up with a grumble and a shake of her head, leaving Sharif to slide his gaze past his sister and her friend, where they were cozied up before the fire. Well, one was cozied up, the other was cooking.

"I can't believe I'm going home," Nila said, for what was probably the eighth time today. Not that Sharif would have counted them. "It feels like I just got out here, and now I'm going back."

"Well, isn't that a good thing?" Malu broke in from beyond. Nila shot her a glance, then leaned a bit closer to Tzu Zi.

"I feel a bit ashamed to say it... but I actually wish I hadn't found Sharif in Senlin. I don't think I want to go back," she intimated. If there was one sense of Sharif's which hadn't been damaged by his tomahawk lobotomy, it was his hearing.

"I think I know what you mean," Tzu Zi said warmly. "When I first came out here, I was scared and alone, too. But I figured out how much there is to see and do. How many people there are to meet. I met some of the best friends I ever had because I had the guts to follow in Ty Lee's footsteps. And I got to meet you, Nila."

Nila shivered at that. "I'm feeling a bit cold," Nila said, an odd quiver in her voice. She must have felt the chill much more intensely than Sharif did. But then again, she did have that mildly ridiculous get-up on, and what hair she'd bothered to grow was still far shorter than Sharif's, let alone Malu's, who was the next shortest of the group. "You don't mind if I...?"

"Tuck in," Tzu Zi said, opening up the blanket she was wrapped in. Nila slid in perhaps a bit too quickly, and then leaned away as though still trying to give Tzu Zi room under her own blanket for some raeson. "You know, just because you bring back your brother doesn't mean you have to stay home."

"You do remember my mother, don't you?"

"Maybe I can convince her?" Tzu Zi said. "To see the world for a little bit. I know I wouldn't mind having you along. And you've just got to meet Kah Ri! You'll love her."

"You'd do that for me?" Nila asked. She blushed a bit, only noticeable because Sharif, of all those present, knew what it looked like when a Si Wongi blushed. "Thank you. Really."

Tzu Zi smiled that warm, tight lipped smile she often did, and looked over the meat again. "Almost done," she said. She then turned to Nila, only avoiding bumping noses by the way Nila leaned back. "Did you ever find out what happened to that bag of hard tack I bought?"

Sharif noticed, but didn't understand the why-for, that Malu flinched when that topic came up.

"Nah. The wildlife must have dragged it off when we were sleeping," She cracked a smirk as Tzu Zi turned back, and she relaxed a bit. "Maybe some Platypus Bear out there tried his luck on them, and ended up with a bill empty of teeth!"

"Heh, that'd be about the funniest thing ever," Tzu Zi said, spreading her arm wide, as though showcasing something. "Behold! The oldest Platypus Bear in the world! So old he's lost all of his teeth!"

Sharif looked where Tzu Zi was indicating, but there was no bear.

Nila giggled. It was a strange enough sound that it brought Sharif's attention away from the not-a-bear-where-she-said-there-was and caused him to gape. Nila didn't giggle. Well, she didn't giggle very effectively, to be sure. It was more like she was trying to giggle and only half getting it right. Even Sharif could tell that. Just not why, of course. "That's a good one. You know what, I think the hare's cooked enough."

"But it's not done crackling," Tzu Zi said.

"Not everybody eats their meat blackened and tough," Nila said, using a small knife to peel off a sliver of meat. "Just Mother. She said 'it gave character', and that 'it would put hair on the chest'. Like I need a hairy chest!" she blew on the meat, then turned to Malu. "I'd offer you some, but you're obsessed with eating green things."

"Yeah. I don't eat anything that used to have a pulse," Malu said, but her eyes lingered on that crackling, sizzling hare, dripping with fat and juices. Sharif dug right in, of course, slightly burning his mouth for his hunger and impatience. Pity he couldn't taste anything, either. But when his gaze slid toward that thing again, her eyes were still locked on that meat, and they echoed down into a deeper, darker hunger than Sharif was able to describe. And even so, it slipped his mind quickly, and the disturbing visage of a vegetarian salivating over cooked hare vanished completely from his memory.

* * *

><p>"I don't care what Aunt Wu says! YOU HAVE TO TAKE A BATH SOME TIME!" Sokka shouted. But the disgustingly filthy old fellow just let out a snigger and walked away, practically leaving footstep-shaped stains of sweat and grease behind him as he departed. Sokka stared after him, then turned to where a Ducken was pecking idly at the ground. It honked at him sarcastically, before hopping away. "Oh, you're all just rubbing it in, aren't you?" Sokka muttered.<p>

He turned, and saw that Katara had broken away and was drifting back toward Wu's home. While the news of the Avatar's arrival in Makapu had taken about as long to spread as Sokka expected – which was to say, it was practically in every house by the time they crossed the bridge – they gave very little of the usual pomp and circumstance associated with that event. Sokka had refrained from asking, since the answer would have probably been that they backformed 'the Avatar is coming' out of something vague and ambiguous like 'an important visitor will arrive soon', which could have been delivered last year and still been considered 'right'.

This was the stupidest town of all stupid towns which Sokka had ever had the displeasure of going to.

"Um, Sokka," Aang's voice cut in through Sokka's doldrums. "You know stuff about women, don't you?"

"I could write a book," Sokka said. "And I'd call it '_A Man's Guide to Women, and the Weird Stuff They Do Sometimes_'. What can I do for ya?"

"Well, I've kinda got this thing with..." Aang trailed off, and Sokka looked behind them both, noticing how a wild-haired girl ducked behind a basket to stay out of sight. He smiled at that.

"I think I know who you're talking about," Sokka said maturely.

"You do? And you're not... angry about it?" Aang asked.

"Why would I be?" Sokka asked, clapping the young Avatar on the back. "And besides, I'm pretty sure that she's sending a positive vibe your way, even now."

"Really?" Aang asked, brightening like a sunrise.

"Of course. She's probably crazy about you, and trying to figure out the right way to put it," Sokka said with a somewhat undue amount of confidence. "Now the trick of it at this point is to not screw it up. And you know the biggest pitfall of nice guys like you? Being too nice. Girls can't stand that."

"I'm thirteen, not an idiot," Aang said evenly. "I saw somebody fart around being 'aloof' for months trying to get a girl to like him. And he ended up completely alone at the end of it."

"Well, I stand by maximum aloofness," Sokka said defensively.

"And how many girls have you gotten with that?" he asked, twisting the knife. Not in a mean-spirited way, but obviously intending to prove his point. Sokka sputtered for a moment, that he'd gotten a kiss out of... what was her name again? That Kyoshi Warrior. Oh, right, Suki. And then she got captured and imprisoned by the Fire Nation, if not executed. "I think I'll just try to find my own way. But thanks for the insight."

Meng, who had been quietly sidling up with all of the stealth and silence of a snow panther, finally came to a halt next to Aang, gave a nervous smile, and said "Hey, Aang, I was wondering if –"

"I'm going to see what Katara's looking into," Aang cut her off and sauntered away, leaving Meng to wilt like a dying flower.

"_Wow. For a kid saying he wasn't doing aloof, that was __pretty__ aloof,_" he muttered in his own language.

"Come again?" a voice very similar to Meng's piped up. Sokka turned opposite to where the dejectived suitor sulked away, and beheld a half-way familiar sight, of the pale, dark haired girl with an casual slump to her posture, green eyes seemingly covered with a milky film such that the pupil was more a suggestion than a bodily certainty. Her clothes, like those which Sokka had been relegated by simple circumstance into wearing, were all obviously expensive, but like his, dirty and a bit tattered and torn. "Stop staring, Big Guy."

"I was just saying that Aang's more of a player than I give him credit," Sokka said, motioning toward the now vanished Avatar. She didn't follow his hand. Or even look at him when he spoke to her. That was about when he remembered her declaration of blindness. "So... Do you hate Makapu too?"

"Hate's a strong word," the girl said. "I'm kinda in a bit of a bind, here. You probably got some grim, hellish forecast?"

"Not really. Just that I'm going to find somebody just like me for a wife," Sokka said. "I really don't see the problem with that."

"You wouldn't," the girl laughed, a deep, belly laugh quite odd coming from somebody who looked like her. "Mine was mostly that I'm going to lose a lot of stuff, and I don't like losing. There's _no way_ she's accurate. She's gotta be full of something."

"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" Sokka asked. The girl smirked, a wide and toothy smirk.

"Probably, but Dad would be furious if I dragged a Tribesman home after the first date."

Sokka stared at her for a second, agape. She then punched him in the shoulder with a guffaw. "Oh man, I wish I could see the look on your face," she said, taking a few steps away. "Well? You gonna debunk a charlatan or not?"

Only in that moment did it occur to Sokka that finding his equal might be a more arduous task than he'd given credit. For all her professed and admitted blindness, she managed to move through the town without any of the usual accouterments. She even managed to skirt around people who bustled around the obviously long-dry fountain which sat in the middle of the town's square. The bustle had a different feeling than the usual wanderings about town that Sokka had gotten used to on this journey north. It was more a tense expectation, people holding their breath and bracing for the worst. Sokka's eyes widened a bit when he spotted Aang, who was tossing an apple to himself and staring upward.

"What's up with the people watching the sky?" Sokka asked. Aang shrugged, and bit the apple, which he then immediately spat out in disgust. Momo, though, who had been making a terror of himself, alighted off of the vendor's booth and took the apple quite contently.

"As soon as Aunt Wu does her cloud reading, we will know if the volcano is going to erupt," the fruit vendor answered, staring daggers at the lemur.

"Volcano?" the girl repeated. It was like something was dawning to her. "Of course! That must be why the ground is all bubbly." Sokka raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't press. She was blind after all. She couldn't know that the ground was not, in fact, bubbly.

"Indeed," the cool-as-icecream wanderer from before said, sidling up to the three of them. "We used to have a tradition of every year sending somebody to the crest of Mount Makapu to see if the volcano had become active. But since Aunt Wu came to the town decades ago, we have a new tradition," he said. Both waited for him to continue until even he got that he was being prompted. "A new tradition of not going to the crest of the mountain."

"I can't believe you're hinging the lives of everybody in this town on your stupid superstition!" Sokka said, a hot anger pressing out through his voice. This was intellectual blasphemy! Sokka felt himself being hushed, though, and turned to see his sister returning, a dejected look on her face.

"I hate papaya," she muttered sadly. Sokka didn't even bother trying to figure out what led to that statement, and instead turned as the people began to clamor, a ripple running through them as Aunt Wu moved through the clouds and turned her gaze to the sky, and the clouds drifting through it. Meng, ever the cunning little monkey, slipped close to Aang when he was distracted, only prompting a chirp from Momo.

"Hey, Aang. Doesn't that cloud look like a flower?" she asked.

Aang gave her an askance glance. "Sure... I guess," he said. Then he turned, utterly ignoring her with admirable levels of aloofness, and addressed Katara. "Hey, Katara. Doesn't that cloud look like a flower?"

"You'd better hope it doesn't," the traveler said, alarm in his voice. "A flower cloud in the the winter predicts windstorms and tornadoes."

Sokka glared at the man. "Do you even hear yourself?" he asked flatly.

"High, wispy broom," Aunt Wu said, consulting some sort of booklet. She let out a sigh. "The drought will continue. Keep up the irrigation, especially to the east."

There were a few disappointed moans from the crowd. One farmer in particular kicked the ground in a fit of pique. Comforting words started to slip out, though, as Wu continued.

"Hmm. Ring cloud... at the horizon to the north," she flipped a few pages, and then stared off into the distance. "Technological advance. Hm. Not really relevant," she then turned to the south. "Wavy moon shaped cloud. Gonna be a good year for twins."

A pair of them, identical in every physical way, let out a shout of glee.

"Thunder head with a twisted nub," she read further. She let out a sigh, and the people leaned forward in grim anticipation. "The village _will not be destroyed_ this year," she said, in plain voice, but in the expectant silence, it might as well have been screamed. And the cry of joy from the townsfolk buffeted Sokka to the point where he felt himself drifting back, just to get out of the sea of crazies. It obviously wasn't his idea alone, because soon it was just the three of them, plus the blind girl, standing outside a cheering group of saps.

"And this is how dumb most of the world is," the blind girl said flatly.

"Hey," Katara interjected. "It's not dumb to believe in things which give you hope!"

"It is if it makes you blind to what's going on around you," she said. "A couple months ago, I was livin' the high life. Boring as hell, sure, but I had a comfy bed and decent food to eat. Now, I sleep under a wagon. Hell, now that we're here, we ain't even got that! Hope's overrated, Sugarqueen."

"Heh, good one," Sokka said.

"Sugarqueen?" Katara said, her back right up. "Why you... little..."

"Come on, big guy," the girl said, beckoning Sokka. "There's gotta be some way to show that Wu is full of it and not look like an ass doing it."

Sokka looked between his terminally annoyed sister and the blind girl, and then back to Aang and the happily munching Momo. "Sorry, guys. I gotta follow my brain."

"Doesn't your brain kinda go with you?" Aang asked innocently.

"Yeah, but... It's a thing," Sokka said, with a dismissive wave.

"All I know is that certain things are going to turn out just fine for me," Katara said. "Except for that stupid papaya. Why did it have to be papaya?"

Sokka just rolled his eyes and headed out after the blind girl. After he'd caught up to her, which was easy because she was quite a bit shorter than he was, he opened his mouth to ask her something. "You didn't ask my name. It's Toph," she said. "And it's great having somebody who's as sick of stupidity as I am. I gotta tell ya', it gets right under my skin."

"Any idea how we're going to prove Aunt Wu wrong?" Sokka asked. "You know, without having to spend weeks talking to _these_ people?"

"I've got a pretty good idea where to start," Toph said, standing with her fists on her hips. Sokka stared at her. She then let out a sigh. "Let me guess, the volcano _isn't_ directly behind me, is it?"

"Oh, right, the volcano," Sokka said, turning a bit so that it came into view. There was an odd haze near its peak, and it looked like a hard climb. "Tui La, it'll take days to get up that thing."

"Days? Pff. I could be up and down that thing in a couple hours," she scoffed.

"No offense, but how? You're blind."

"None taken, and only in my eyes," she answered. She then gave a stomp, and Sokka felt himself being pitched forward onto his chest, right at her feet. A glance back showed there was now an angled block of earth which had launched him. "And when it comes to this, and most things, I cheat."

Sokka nodded at that. "Good. Get going, then?"

"Ladies first," she said, waving him onward. While he gave her a disamused glance at that, a part of his mind pondered if this was Wu's prediction. But it couldn't be for two very simple reasons. One, this girl was wearing green, red, and gold, not blue, and two, _he utterly refused to have her be right about __**ANYTHING**_!

* * *

><p>Zhao was smirking. Things seldom went well for people who weren't him when he was smirking. The mid-day sun pressed down in lovely warmth, which radiated through the hull of the ship and turned it into an oven. Nobody would have raised a word of complaint for a moment, though. It was warmer even than back home. Fire Nationals lived for the heat. It was a little unsettling that they could only really get it abroad.<p>

It couldn't be said that Zhao was ever an easy smiler. In fact, his usual expression was a dire glower, which was now frozen into a quarter of his face. But today, he was smirking, because his notion to go back and re-decrypt the first journals of Azula's that he'd managed to locate was paying high dividends. While he hadn't unlocked the whole of its narrative, not yet, it was only a matter of time at this point. The only thing he wished was that he had their source, so that he could remain up-to-date on what new prophecy she created. One part in particular caught his eye, and he had made a note to tell the navigator to set a course north, and get the skiffs ready to power up a particular river. In fact, that was what he was heading toward at this very moment.

"The Fire Lord has a task for you," a voice snapped Zhao's smirk away. It was a girl, probably teenaged, but she had the no-nonsense and cold tones of a veteran soldier, a survivor of brutal campaigns and the deaths of many, on both sides. Zhao half turned to see her. She was ghastly pale, and hid her eyes behind smoked lenses, just like the rest of Ozai's frankly unsettling child bodyguards. Zhao could see the logic in it. Grown men would hesitate to attack children, while the children would hold no such compunction. It wasn't a tactic the Fire Nation would ever use, of course. Fire Nationals were too valuable to squander in their childhoods... but the Water Tribes? They were a different story.

"How did you get onto my ship?" Zhao demanded.

"It is the Fire Lord's ship, you simply direct it," the girl answered sharply. Zhao faced her, glaring down at her. The intended effect – intimidation – obviously hit a stumbling block when she refused to do more than tap a foot in impatience at his display. "And he has given direction."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I have no need to, not to you," she answered.

"The gulf between us is vaster than you think," Zhao warned.

"You assume that the gulf is vertical. I assure you, it isn't. I am Fire Nation. I answer to the Fire Lord. Nobody else," she said. "Now are you going to accept your task, or are you a traitor?"

"I don't appreciate having a child besmirch my integrity."

"You've done a fair enough job of that on your own," the girl said with a smirk of her own, pulling at bright red lips. They were the most incongruous part of her entire facade. Why take so little care as to appear so ghastly, and yet apply lipstick? "But your humiliations, your follies, and your mistakes are going to be your advantage, I think."

"Speak plainly, girl."

"You conquered the waterbenders of the south with a pittance of the power the Fire Nation can bring to bear. Granted, it _was_ against the Whalesh. I could probably conquer them with just Omo and Kori. But Ozai considers that something worth expanding upon. You are to gather the rendezvous with the reserve fleet and bring down the gates of Summavut."

"We've been breaking our teeth against that wall for six years," Zhao said carefully, a scowl pulling at his burnt amber eye. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were sending me there to die."

"Not to die," she said. "Ozai has faith that you will succeed at Summavut where others failed. He spoke of a particular plan of which only you and he have discussed. He says that the time has come to put it into action."

The wheels turned in Zhao's mind. Freedom to bring down not just the North, but waterbending itself? He would be legendary. His name would outlive his progeny, for ten thousand years. A smile began to stretch across his burnt face, a wicked and terrible thing. But even as it did, a hollow, droning voice crawled up in his memory. Another girl, perhaps a few years younger than this one, telling him that he would die in the north. Die of his own arrogance. Die of his own avarice. That smile wilted.

"I thought you'd be more pleased about this," the girl said.

"I am pleased, but I also have much on my mind," Zhao said. "Return to your master. Tell him I will rendezvous soon, and that we will strike before the season ends."

"You should leave now."

"Do not think you direct me, girl," Zhao said, off handedly. "There are other factors which need to be dealt with, for the good of the Fire Nation. I don't expect somebody like you to understand that."

"Be very careful what you say around her," a youth's voice said, walking past Zhao. He gave a glance to the Easterner with the dark spectacles. They didn't have the armor this time, but the glasses marked them Children just as the armor would. "She might surprise you."

"Omo, don't threaten the little lord," the girl said. "And Kori, stop making faces at him."

Zhao turned, and saw that there was a third which was now circling around him, munching on an apple as he did so. That one would infiltrate under broad daylight was troublesome. That three could was unforgivable. Somebody was getting the lash for this. "Get off my ship."

"About damned time," the last said. Uncouth, as all of his Tribal ilk were. Why the Fire Lord ever gave so much access to one of his race was unfathomable. But without even a superior smirk behind them, all three slipped down the corridors and vanished around a corner. Zhao didn't doubt that if he ran to that corner and peeked around it, they wouldn't be there anymore. It was an odd sensation he had in his mind. Joy and triumph, mixed with trepidation and concern. If he slew the gods, he would die. It was sure as the words which lined Azula's journals. But there had to be another way. It would just fall to him to find it.

That smirk returned, though, only slightly dampered. "I might as well deal with old problems before considering new ones," Zhao noted, before heading for the helm, and setting a course to a particular port, and up a particular river.

* * *

><p>A young Tribesman and a little girl went rocketing up the side of a volcano, on a platform of earthbent rock. There was a girlish scream coming from that platform. A sound deduction would be that the scream was coming from the little girl, but as was Sokka's Corollary, when the obvious didn't work, start accepting the absurd – in this case, that it was a fifteen year old Tribesman who was screaming high enough to shatter glass. In his defense, though, Toph could have chosen a method of reaching the top which wasn't so pants-fillingly terrifying. "We're going to dieeeeeeee!"<p>

"No we ain't," the girl said, finally relaxing out of her stance, the momentum dying swiftly, grinding to a halt past the sheer cliffs and crags. It would have been an exhausting climb to get up there. Physically exhausting. This _had_ been emotionally and spiritually exhausting, since terror had a way of taking it out of you. All told, though, Sokka – intensely lazy being that he was – probably would have done the earthbending-thing again rather than an old-fashioned climb. Not because he _couldn't_ climb a grade like this. Simply because he was, as noted, intensely lazy. "See? Like liquor and snot, up the hill in a couple of minutes."

"You... are... INSANE!"

"You know you love it," she said, slugging Sokka in the arm hard enough to knock him over. Her open smile curdled a bit, though, as she leaned down and ran a hand over the rocks which rose near the top of Mount Makapu. "Something's not right here. I've never felt stone that was like this."

Sokka looked up, and blinked. "I _have_ seen air that looked like that, though."

"What are you talking about?" Toph asked. He stared at her a moment, and then she waved her hand in front of her face again. Oh, right. Blind. "You know what, I'm going in for a closer look."

"Toph, don't do it," Sokka began, but she set off at a jog toward where the rocks fell away from what ought have been a peak. Sokka sighed, then forced himself to run after her. If there was one advantage of being gangly, it was that his legs made it easy to cover distance. He reached her just in time to grab the back of her dress and arrest her before she stepped forward into an updraft of air so hot that it distorted light passing through it. "Not one more step!"

"What's the big idea?" Toph asked. Sokka could have explained that she didn't feel the massive heat because of the way the air flowed, trying to replace that which was forced upward. He could have done a lot of things, but that took time, and she obviously was going to shrug him off and walk into a convection current in a moment, so he opted to take a rock and throw it ahead of them.

It flew through the air as rocks do so well, before falling down and hitting the surface. But it didn't land with a clack of hard things banging together. Instead, it landed with the plorp of something concrete striking something which... wasn't quite. The stone sunk through the tender black skin of hard stone, revealing the pulsing red magma just below it. It bubbled up out of the wound, and started to eat a larger hole, now that the delicate equilibrium had been destroyed. On Crescent Island, he'd gotten a good look at what lava looked like when only a thin skin of it was cold enough to be solid, but the blood of the earth underneath it raged hot and wild. The similarity between the crater of Makapu Mountain and Crescent Island was absolute. "That didn't sound right," Toph said. She slowly moved a hand forward, before yanking it back with a curse and dancing out of his grip, waving the pain out of her slightly singed extremity around a string of profanity which Sokka found quite enlightening. "What the hell was that?"

"The volcano is alive. That... thing... you've been feeling is lava. Molten rock."

"I know what lava is," Toph said sharply, blowing on her hand. It was slightly reddened for its momentary exposure to the convected heat, but no worse for wear. She frowned, staring down at the rock under her feet, then slammed her other fist down into it. She tilted her head, as though feeling for something, or listening for something. Then, her useless eyes shot open wide. "Oh, hell no. Sokka, we've got a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"There you are," Aang's voice came, which made Sokka start a bit. He glanced first to the Avatar, then past him, to where Appa was rubbing his belly on a rock. "You just ran off. Katara was worried."

"We had to check something," Sokka said.

"Who is this guy?" Toph asked.

"He's the Avatar," Sokka said simply. "What kind of problem?"

"The Avatar? Him?" Toph asked, before snorting derisively. "Give me a break. Twinkletoes here wouldn't stand two minutes set against my _Mom_!"

"Why would I fight your mother?" Aang asked, scratching his bald head.

"Don't answer to Twinkletoes," Sokka chastised. "It's unmanly. Now what is the problem?"

"The volcano is going to go off in a big way," Toph said, extracting her hand from the dirt. She turned so that she now stared between the two of them. "And when it does, I'm pretty sure it's going to erase Makapu from the map."

"Oh, man. This is bad," Aang said. "We need to get back and warn them!"

"Why?" Toph asked.

"That's what we do," Sokka explained wearily. "Bad things happen to good people, and then we make them right."

"Sounds exhausting," Toph noted.

"Tell me about it," Sokka laughed. But with that, all three were mounting Appa, and screaming down the hill. And once again, there was a girlish scream heading down the mountain, but this time, it didn't come from the Tribesman. Sokka would have laughed at Toph's wide-eyed terror, but that would have been mean. And besides, he was distracted by the stupid which was arrayed before him. As soon as the beast landed, Sokka bounded off, and raised his hands above him at the still teeming masses.

"Got a plan, Sokka?" Aang asked.

"Kinda," Sokka said, then raised his voice to carry. "Everybody! That volcano is going to blow any minute! Aunt Wu was _wrong_!"

"We all know about your silly superstitions," the fruit vendor noted. "You're just desperate to prove your ill advised little perspective, aren't you?"

"What's going on?" Katara asked.

"We're all going to die," Toph said casually, picking at her fingernails with a splinter. Katara sputtered at that.

"Listen to me! I saw it with my own eyes!" Aang said, bounding up and balancing on the rigging of the fruit stand. "The volcano is active, and it's only becoming more volatile! We need to flee before it's too late!"

The all-too-calm person shrugged at that pronouncement, amidst a sea of dead-eyed observers. "Well, I heard Aunt Wu's prediction with my own ears, and she says we have nothing to worry about."

"Twinkletoes, if you've got something to say, you'd better say it quick," Toph said, before sticking her fingers into her ears. Sokka gave her an askance look, then turned back to Mount Makapu. The heatwaves in the air had given way to obvious smoking.

"Please, listen to me, I –" Aang was cut off by a tremendous blast which tore through the air and buffeted the clothes of those gathered, leaving a ringing sensation in Sokka's head. Toph unstoppered her ears smugly.

"Told ya'."

Aang blinked for a moment, before turning back to the crowds. "If you don't do something soon, it'll be too late! Please, I can't save you from this if you don't help me!"

"If you're not going to listen to him, at least listen to that ringing sound in your ears," Sokka shouted. He thrust a finger back up the mountain. "Can your half-baked shenanigans explain why the volcano is smoking?"

"Can your _science_ explain why it rains?" the red-shoed man asked smugly. Sokka just about blew a gasket. And since Sokka hadn't even realized he _had_ a gasket, it was a hell of a feat.

"_YES_! **YES IT CAN**!" Sokka shrieked, but the man tutted and walked away.

"I can't believe it," Aang said, hopping down. "They all believe so strongly in Wu that they won't do anything to save themselves."

"I always knew that faith was the problem," Toph said with a shrug. Then she blanched a bit. "Oh, damn it all..."

"Toph? Toph! There you are!" a grown man came running in and grabbed Toph up like she was a doll. "Do you have any idea how worried we were? We need to get out of here. This place is... crazy!"

"Dad, I..."

"No. We're leaving. Any place is better than this," the man said, and bodily carried Toph away. She had the most bone-weary expression on her face as she was excised. Sokka couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

"How are we going to push past all of this faith?" Katara asked. "If we don't we'll never get them to listen."

And like that, the idea was in Sokka's head. "Maybe we don't have to," he said. "They believe in Wu, right?"

"Yeah, that's the problem!" Aang noted in despair.

Sokka smirked. "Well, it's about to become the solution. Clouds are just water in the air, right? Feel up for some atmospheric vandalism?"

* * *

><p>Step one in Sokka's plan was, as with many of Sokka's plans, a felony. It had come to drawing lots between Katara – who had pestered the woman enough to have understandable access – and the Avatar, who was in all intents and purposes immune to the law when it came to trifles. Aang didn't see it that way, but Sokka had stressed that of all of them, Aang stood to get into the least trouble. It was a notion which struck Aang as deeply, deeply wrong about the whole Avatar thing. But since he'd drawn the short straw, it was he who snuck through the building, carefully upending things and digging through shelves. "Come on, you stupid book. Where are you?"<p>

So engrossed was Aang with the search that he'd completely missed the creeping up of small footsteps behind him. Thus, when fingers tapped him on the shoulder, his bones nearly jumped out of his skin. Silently, though. He turned, strangling the gasp like it had done him wrong, and spun about, to see a wilted looking Meng standing behind him. "You don't like me, do you?" she asked.

Aang glanced toward the door, but the urge to flee was bettered by his urge to be kind. "Of course I do," he said.

"But... not the way I like you," Meng said. Aang then twigged that Katara might have been a bit more on the ball than he had given credit.

"I guess not," he said. "Not that it's your fault, though. You seem like a sweet girl."

"I hear that a lot," Meng said, leaning on the wall next to him. "It's hard to think of somebody like that, when you know they don't feel the same way back."

"I know all about that," Aang slumped next to her.

"I can see why you like her," Meng offered. "She's sweet, she's a bender, and her hair seems so... manageable."

Aang raised a brow at this. "What? When did you ever meet her?"

"Katara. The Water Tribe girl," Meng said. Aang leaned away, slightly aghast.

"What? No! She's... like the big sister I never had. That's just gross!" he said.

"Then who?" Meng asked.

"It's... complicated," Aang said. He hated when the older kids would describe their relationships like that, and now, here he was, doing exactly the same thing. Of course, in Aang's defense, Azula was the lovely girl who had the misfortune of being born on the wrong side of a war. Domo and Jai were just indecisive and foolish. "She's a good person. But I don't think anybody lets her see that in herself. She deserves better than she's gotten."

"I guess you're right," Meng said.

"I wouldn't worry. Just give it some time, and you'll find somebody who falls for you like a brick off a mountain," Aang said. He pushed off the wall, and started walking toward the window. He had obviously been made, there was no point keeping looking.

"Wait, don't you want this?" Meng asked, producing Aunt Wu's cloud reference. Aang took it, but the expression on his face clearly said 'how did you even know?'. "Yeah... I overheard Sokka's plan... because I've been kinda stalking you since you first arrived."

"Thats... I'm going to go now," Aang said, giving her a flat look as he departed the fortune teller's home with a great deal more haste than he'd entered. A few more moments, and he was atop Appa, and pulling the beast up into the air.

"Alright," Aang called back to Katara, who had awaited him in the howdah. "We just need to find the cloud which stands for volcanic doom and bend something into that shape," he called back. Considering the sparseness of the clouds over the Earth Kingdoms, it would probably be a tricky task. "So what do we need it to look like?"

Katara flipped the pages for a moment, then laughed a bit. "Sokka's going to have a field day with this one," she said.

* * *

><p>She dropped the basket of food with a thump. The meager gold was holding up fairly well, all things considered, but her annoyance trumped her desire not to bruise the apples at the bottom, and she crossed her arms before her chest, glaring with bright green eyes at her husband. "And why, exactly, did you <em>have<em> to embarrass Toph in front of the locals?"

"She'd gotten lost, and the volcano was..." Lao began.

"Lost? Really?" she asked. She turned to her daughter, who looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and die. "Toph, were you lost?"

"No, I was..."

"She didn't come when I called to her!" Lao interjected.

"And what is she? A hound?" Poppy demanded. "Your _daughter_ was probably busy having fun."

"This isn't the time for fun," Lao said, his eyes constantly flicking back toward the smoking stack of Mount Makapu. "We need to get very far away from this place as soon as possible."

"And what about the village? Just leave it to burn?" Poppy asked. Toph gave her the strangest look when she asked that.

"I don't see how it's any of our problem," Lao said. Poppy groaned, tweezing her brow.

"I forget that you aren't... one of my old friends, sometimes. Lao, this place is going to burn. These people are going to die. And that doesn't bother you?"

"Well, it does, but..."

Poppy was about to press her point when a hubbub began to sound, as a young Tribesman seemed to be dragging this 'Aunt Wu' into the center of town again. She turned to them, as the Tribesman pointed up into the sky. "Well, if you're so sure of your predictions, explain that!" the Tribesman said, pointing at a cloud which looked rather like a bunny. The fortune teller gave a gasp, and then nodded.

"The day has not finished; he's right. The volcano is going to erupt."

"See? I told you! Didn't I tell you?" Sokka laughed at an inordinately calm man standing near by. He seemed not in the slightest bit off-put by this. She caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, an that flicker turned into a bison. A saddled, domesticated bison. And the child bounding off the beasts brow... could it be? Could Zha Yu be right? Could they all be right?

She took a step forward, pulling Toph with her, toward the Avatar.

"We can still save the village, but we need to act fast," the Avatar said, his sentence punctuated by an enormous blast pushing out of the top of the mountain. About a second later, the din of that blast reached the village and sent some staggering back. The Tribesman, on the other hand, had braced against it, and stood resolute even where the Avatar stumbled.

"I've seen the mountain. From the shape of the crater, that lava's got only one way down, and it's this way," he declared, less bravado and more exasperated and desperately hoping to not have to beat somebody with the clue stick. In that instant, the teenage boy reminded Beifong rather a lot of the woman who created her. He thrust a finger straight down. "The lava's going to flow down hill to this village, which means we have to find a way to divert it. That means we're going to need to get every earthbender in the village to dig a trench, and anybody strong enough to sling a shovel to help them."

"I'm an earthbender!" one of a pair of twins piped up.

"I'm not!" the other said with equal enthusiasm.

"Good. Everybody else, grab shovels, and start moving earth!" the Tribesman said. Beifong found herself smiling, at old memories. Odd, how the stereotype of the illiterate, savage, ignorant brute of the 'Tribesman' so vastly differed from its reality. That smile still on her face, she started walking to where he started grouping people to create the trench. Lao gave a strangled noise in his throat.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a hiss. "People will see you!"

"I'm not leaving these people to die, not when I can help," she said, pointedly, and made sure that Toph could hear it. "And if you think about it, neither would you. You're good at organizing things, love; organize an evacuation."

"But..." Lao blustered. A hero he was not, not by any stretch, but she could see that he wasn't going to fight her on this. Mostly because she knew he knew she was right. "Alright. Alright, I'll get these people across the river."

"That's why I love you," she said, giving him a brief peck. "You are capable of being a good person... when dragged kicking and screaming into it."

"I don't remember you being this sarcastic before," Lao said sullenly.

"You should have met me when I was a teenager," she said. When she took her second step away, she felt something grab her hand. That something turned out to be Beifong's daughter. "What is it?"

"Excuse me? My mom turns out to be a hidden badass and you expect me to just let it slide away unmentioned?" Toph asked. "I'm going to help."

"No, that's absolutely out of..." Beifong just leveled a flat glare at her husband. He trailed off. "I miss the old you."

"This _is_ the old me," Beifong said. She turned to her daughter. "Do as much as you can, but remember that you don't need to do everything."

Toph let out a quite ungirlish scoff at that. "I just wanna see you with a shovel."

"Shovel?" she answered. She turned, and thrust out a fist toward the edge of town, past where the buildings faded into the woods. It was an old and ill-practiced discipline, one she hadn't done extensively for... oh, about fourteen years. But once a person was an earthbender, the stone was in the bones, the soil worked into the skin, and it would obey her. It started in a precise line, peeling and rolling back like a bedsheet, and the topsoil shifted away to show the stone underneath. "Why would I need a shovel?"

Toph pointed at her. "I knew it! I knew I had to get my mojo from somewhere!"

"Mojo?" she asked. She shook her head. "Bending isn't hereditary, it's..."

Toph beat her to the punch by taking a similar motion, a thrust of the fists in the same direction. But where Beifong had rolled back the soil down to the rocks, Toph's thrust slammed the rocks away in a great wave. Just as precise. Quite a bit stronger. "Like I said. I had to get it from somewhere," Toph said smugly.

Poppy Beifong couldn't have been prouder.

The task was hard, arduous even, and moved with a huge amount of haste, because every minute or so, there was another blast from the peak. Toph had personally done the last great bending to open the trench to the river, and had to scramble up the banks as the water began to flood in. Beifong was exhausted, her muscles cramped and arguing against her task. To say she was rusty was understatement refined to an artform. But as the lava began to spill down the mountain, the trench was in place. She turned to tell Toph to head for the bridge, to her father, but the girl was staring not at her, but up to the center of that trench, where it peaked near the highest edge of that village. "Toph, it's time to go."

"Not yet, Mom," Toph said, her head tilted slightly, useless eyes focused away and her ears guiding her. "This is going to get worse."

"Toph, we have to go!" Beifong shouted to her. The girl gave a half-glance to her, more an impression that she heard, and she pointedly wasn't listening.

"_You_ have to go. The trench isn't deep enough. There's a lot more lava then they thought they were going to have to deal with. It's going to overflow."

"How could you possibly know that?" Beifong asked, turning her daughter to face her. "Toph, please! Don't make me have to..."

"Do you think I'm helpless?" Toph demanded.

"No, but..."

"Am I weak?"

"No."

"Am I frail?" Toph asked. Considering in how much better shape Toph looked than Beifong felt, the question was obviously rigged. "I'm blind. Alright, my eyes don't work. But I'm not helpless. I can make a difference here. I know it!"

There were two impulses in Poppy Beifong's mind. The first was the mother. Wanting Toph protected from harm, shielded from adversity. The second... the second was the eighteen year old woman, born fully grown, bleeding and bruised and bound to a chair in Ba Sing Se. The girl born with nothing, only a name which wasn't really a name. The girl who demanded... purpose. Meaning. And her 'mother' had given it to her.

If she kept Toph back, she was succeeding as a mother.

If she let Toph help, she was honoring her own 'mother'.

"Go," Beifong said. "Help the Avatar. Show that volcano who's boss."

Toph smiled at that, not the practiced and beautific smile society demanded of her. This grin was toothy, uneven, and so wonderfully genuine. "I'll make you proud," Toph said, giving Beifong the briefest of hugs, before running headlong toward the glowing, flowing stone. Beifong rose, and backed toward the bridge, a wistful smile on her own face.

"You already do," Poppy Beifong whispered.

* * *

><p>The heat was murderous. Aang knew from the bridge on Crescent Island that the sheer amount of it radiating away from the flowing rock would have set his skin to spontaneously combust if he hadn't surrounded himself with a bubble of relatively glacial air – glacial in this case being an uncomfortable hot wind compared to the lethal convection without. The magma kept flowing, running down not in a rivulet or a stream, but in a relentless and unending surge, which only mounted higher with every passing minute. It had eaten through the gate which lead into the forest, before eating the forest from the roots up. The stone fetishes, marked with the names of spirits of the mountain and the volcano, of the forest and the river, all succumbed to that torrent. And more kept coming.<p>

It slid down into the trench almost mockingly. Had it the eyes, he would have accused that magma of smirking at him, of whispering 'aren't we confident with this little ditch'? up to him. Aang turned back, at the pair of Tribesmen who stood as close as the killing heat would allow. "You have to run!" Aang screamed over the hissing, the popping, the cracking of rock exploding under the heat it suddenly found itself under.

"We're not going to leave you!" Katara shouted back, or something like it, because against the din of the wildfire which had spread through the forest, there was very little useful communication for somebody who didn't stand right next to Aang, and they couldn't. Sokka, though, took one look at the expression on Aang's face, the slow shake of the Avatar's head, and grasped his sister.

"We can't do anything else here!" Sokka said. Katara looked on the verge of tears, though whatever tears she shed would quickly evaporate. Aang, though, turned to the stone, angry and wrathful red. Consuming and destroying whatever it touched. The steam exploded up where the water met the lava, but the lava advanced all the same. And it mounted, higher and higher up the wall of that trench. It would not stay contained long. Aang pulled back, gathering the winds which roared past him, feeding the wildfire in the forest, and slammed them against the stone, but it only served to force the mass backward slightly. He could almost hear it laughing.

What could he do now?

The question was answered when a foot stomped into the ground near him, and he beheld singed sleeves slamming forward. As they did, the molten rock bucked away as though in mortal terror. Aang turned, and gave a yelp of something between surprise and protective terror. That blind girl, Toph, she was here. And she was earthbending magma. "You know, Mom says you're the Avatar, but y'ain't doing a good job of it," the girl shouted over the wind. She advanced another step, and thrust out again. The magma once again retreated from her as she shoved it back up the hill, and away from the trench which it was honestly spilling over at this point. There was an entire volcano bleeding down onto them, and it was not the Avatar, but a single blind girl who stood against it.

She wasn't winning. But she was slowing it down.

"I can't cool it off fast enough!" Aang shouted at her. She took another step forward, almost at his side. He could see her skin was already blistering from the heat, and she must have been in outstanding pain, but none if it showed on her face. Her eyes, milky and sightless, were focused as though staring into the guts of the volcano. "Any water I'd use just evaporates instantly! I can't stop it!"

"The Smart One said that the lava's flowing down hill here because –" Toph broke off to retreat a step, swinging her arms as a moment of pain overtook her focus. The instant it did, the lava seemed eager to regain lost territory. "... Because the path to the village is the easiest path. We've got to give it an easier one!"

"I don't know how!"

"You're the Avatar! Earthbend one!" Toph screamed at him, pushing the lava back as it bubbled within ten yards of Aang, and the heat in his bubble went from unbearable to painful. He danced back to her side again.

"I don't know how to earthbend!" Aang admitted at high volume.

"It's simple," Toph said, rooting herself. "Stand your ground, and be tougher than anything the stone can throw at ya'."

Aang quickly mimicked her stance, but when they both lashed forward, her bending hurled the magma back, whereas his just let out a gust of air which did practically nothing. "I can't do it!" Aang said. "There's gotta be another way!"

"We don't have time to find another way!" Toph roared, her voice much bigger than she was.

"There MUST BE!" Aang said, looking about wildly. There was always another way. He just had to find it.

"If you don't earthbend, the village is gonna burn!" Toph shouted, pounding the magma again. It was massing higher and higher, but each time she regrouped to surge again, it surged closer and closer to the village. To them. Aang didn't know what to do. "IF YOU DON'T EARTHBEND, _I BURN_!" she roared, an edge of pain clear in her tone.

**A thousand lifetimes of earth.**

And with that, Aang knew he couldn't run away. He couldn't find another solution. He just had to face this, no matter what it cost him. His body moved even before his mind did, taking up her stance exactly, not so much mimicking it. Where before, their movements were synchronized somewhat, this time, when they both struck forward, it was in perfect unity. Toph sent the magma rolling back, away from them. And then, Aang's earthbending, his very first earthbending, and the most basic of it, slammed into hers.

**To move a rock. The most basic of earthbending techniques.**

It was so foreign. So unthinkably different from anything he'd ever done before. And it showed. Aang's bending slammed through Toph's, sending that great blob exploding away from the village, covering the burnt trees and the dead landscape outside, but no longer massing in a great dollop. And then, it traveled beyond, tearing apart the flow of magma as it went up the mountain. He wasn't even controlling it at this point. It was a force of nature, like a fault line. A fault line which ran right up the center of Mount Makapu, and tore the mountain in half. Not by much, only a few yards, but almost instantly, the deluge slowed to a trickle, as the magma began to drain down the other side of the volcano. The trench didn't refill again, not to the top as it had before.

Aang looked at his hands, at the tattoos, which had glowed like the sun, now returning to their natural blue. Aang felt a little unsteady on his feet, having to stagger back a few paces to catch himself. Toph, though, remained rooted. She wiped the sweat from her brow, and looked at her hands. She prodded at a blister tenderly, then turned with a smug grin. "Well, that wasn't half bad, Twinkletoes."

"You weren't either," Aang admitted. Toph grinned, and then she pointed at a spot of dirt not far away.

"I'm just gonna go pass out for a second," she said, and wandered over to that corner of the building, and slumped against it. Aang stumbled back, and quickly found two pairs of arms supporting him.

"Aang! You did it!" Sokka said.

"I didn't do it alone," Aang replied, nodding toward Toph. Katara's eyes widened at that, and she released Aang onto Sokka's support and ran over to her.

"Are you alright?"

"Buzz off, Sugarqueen, I feel better than you look," Toph muttered, but weakly, and her dismissing gesture was more exhaustion than exile.

"She was braver than anybody I've ever seen," Aang said.

"Hey!" Sokka complained.

"She faced down a volcano, Sokka," Katara pointed out. Sokka had to grunt his admission of remarkable toughness to pull something like that. But he had a completely different kind of noise coming from his mouth when she pulled water from a skin and formed glowing gloves of it and pressed them to the lightly seared skin of the earthbender.

"Katara! You promised you wouldn't..."

"No!" Katara snapped. "I _will not_ turn away from people I can help."

"Urgh. My skin feels all tingly," Toph muttered, before letting out a squawk and pushing away from Katara. "Get your hands off me! Gods, that felt weird. What did you do?"

"She healed your burns," Sokka said. "And yeah, they do feel pretty tingly, don't they?"

Toph seemed much renewed after that momentary 'healing', and took a moment to crick her neck, tear off a mostly singed sleeve, and then spit on the ground. "Gotta say, Twinkletoes, you're one hell of a powerful bender."

"And you're a very skilled earthbender," Aang said. Toph seemed quite pleased with herself for a moment, before she went rigid for a moment, glanced at a building standing nearby, and then wilted slightly. "What is it?"

"Aw crap," she muttered.

"Is something wr...?" Katara began, but Toph cut her off with a shake of the head and a cutting gesture.

"None of your concern," Toph sighed. "And here comes Mom. So much for being a hero."

Several of the villagers who had refused to leave, namely Wu and that entirely too calm man, approached then. There was another with them, one Aang didn't recognize from before, who had her attention locked firmly on Toph and not him, so he had to assume that was Toph's mother. Wu stood before him, and held out her hand, as though expecting something. After a long moment, Aang shrugged at her. "You messed with the clouds, didn't you?" she asked.

Aang fell inward, sheepishly, and produced the book so he could return it to her. "Yes, ma'am." he said.

"Very clever," Wu said. She leaned in a little closer. "Sometimes, they amaze me how little they think about their own lives."

"See?" Sokka piped up. "If it hadn't been for somebody thinking rationally and living in the world as it was, everything would have been destroyed. I hope this is a lesson to not depend so damned much on fortune telling!"

"But Aunt Wu predicted the village would not be destroyed, and it wasn't!" the calm man said pleasantly.

Sokka glared at him for a very, very angry moment. "I. Hate. You." he said simply, before gathering up his slightly weakened sister and the very weakened Avatar and bore them both toward where an entirely-okay bison would be waiting. As they passed Toph's mother, though, she bumped up against Aang, and he felt something pressed into his hand. He gave a glance back, and she favored him with just a flicker of bright green eyes before kneeling down before her daughter, as peace returned to the village of Makapu.

Aang allowed himself to be lead, but he wondered. He wondered right up until Sokka loaded his sister and Aang into the Howdah, where Katara very quickly went to sleep out of her healing-derived exhaustion. Aang, though, finally opened up that hand, and saw it had a scrap of paper.

_You will find a friend off the river from Bomei._

_Tell him 'the Dragon of the East demands'._

It wasn't signed, which was understandable, since he knew who it came from, but bore a tiny mark at its end, like a flower done in black and white. He would have to talk to Sokka about this, and Katara. But they were all tired. They were tired, and they were running out of food. If nothing else, they would have to stop for supplies soon.

"Sokka, you know maps," Aang said over the edge of the howdah. "What's the nearest place to get food and stuff?"

"There's a port town not far from here. A pretty big one, too," Sokka said. "But it did seem a bit... shady."

It would have to do.

* * *

><p>"I'm..." Mom began.<p>

"I know. I was reckless and hasty and if the Avatar hadn't done his glowing badass thing I'd probably be dead," Toph interrupted, her face toward the ground. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Don't be sorry," Mom said, pulling Toph into a hug. "I am so... so very proud of you. I've almost never seen somebody that brave."

"It wasn't much. Just a volcano," Toph said.

"Just a volcano," Mom repeated with a laugh, a very distant one. "Gods, you remind me of my 'mother'."

Toph could hear the sarc-marks around mother.

"Wait? I've got a grandma?" Toph asked.

"Not really," Mom said. She seemed to turn away, tracking something which Toph couldn't 'see'. "That boy is really something. I can see why they were all so excited about him."

"Eh. He could use some work," Toph said.

"I'm glad you finally let me in," Mom said. Toph raised a brow at that. "Before the fire... you just didn't talk to me at all."

"Hey, 'cause of that fire, I learned my Mom is awesome. I also learned Dad's a dink, but that wasn't news to me."

"You shouldn't talk about your father that way," Mom scolded, but Toph could feel that she wasn't even the slightest bit annoyed. The older woman sighed a bit. "You want to go with him, don't you?"

"Him? He'd drive me out of my mind! He's so flighty and naïve and callow and..." Toph ranted, before realizing that wasn't what Mom was asking. "And he's probably going to save the world."

Mom sat on the dirt beside Toph, and hung her head for a moment. "I've spent so much time trying to be this... perfect wife, that I've overlooked my own daughter. I'm so sorry, Toph. I should have listened to you. You're strong. You're tough, and your resilient and your capable, and you can make it out there; I'm sure of it."

"But Dad won't let me," Toph pointed out.

"Your father doesn't need to know," she said quietly. "As far as he would know, the Avatar's taken you ahead to Ru Nan, just out of the goodness of his heart. That you'll meet us there. He'll believe it."

"No he won't. He's not that much of an idiot."

Mom chuckled at that. "I can be very persuasive," she said slyly.

"Ugh, Mom! I don't need to hear this!" Toph said. She stood, flexing her hands. They felt good. A bit tingly, sure, but nothing like they'd just been subjected to the heat of an exploding mountain. "But... yeah. Thank you. I'll make you p..."

"You already do," Mom interrupted. She rose, bending down to plant a kiss on Toph's brow, which Toph wiped away with an 'aww, Mom!', before turning back to the streets of Makapu, walking toward the bridge where Dad would probably be waiting. "He's going north. To Bomei," Mom said, before she finally moved out of where Toph could 'see' clearly, into the fuzzier resolutions, growing more and more indistinct, until she was just a moving blob against the background. Toph nodded, smiling, and started walking. As she walked, she grabbed a couple of apples from the unattended fruit vendor, and munched on one as she walked. So the Avatar was a crappy earthbender, eh? Well, Toph would see to that in a hurry.

* * *

><p><strong>I enjoyed writing Poppy Beifong here, because she was one of the characters whom I have an entire backstory to despite a strong possibility that it will never be thoroughly plumbed. But the truth is that nobody (except me) knows how old she is, who her biological parents were, or what her name is. It would come as an amusing surprise to those who know her that she's actually two years younger than she thinks she is. Like I said, there's a lot of complicated stuff going on in the background with these characters. When you meet the person she considers her father, you'll understand her personality quite a bit better.<strong>

**One of the things which I have to keep in mind with Toph, on the other hand, is remembering that while she talks like a dock-worker, she's probably the best educated out of anybody in the Gaang... well, liberal education for what it's worth. Whereas Aang and the siblings (and you) all are absolutely in the dark about certain things in 3F-verse, to her, they're old news and not that interesting. This all adds to the fact that she thinks that she's off to take part in some grand adventure, and thinks her genre savvy will play into her hand. Pity nobody told her what genre she's working with.**

**All told, I'm surprised there hasn't been more rampant speculation about the future of this fic, especially given the cues which are scattered throughout the work so far. You've just gotten a whole deluge more of them. So let's see those epileptic trees shake, darn it!**

**Oh, and in answer to the question I levied above: the Azuli would invent them. And they got very, very good with them.**

_Leave a review._


	13. Chiyo

**Have any guesses yet?**

* * *

><p>"...Did you really buy a<em> tsungi horn<em>?" Zuko asked, incredulous.

"I thought I would try to get some proper instruments, so that music night would be more successful," Iroh said pleasantly. While Zuko was relieved that his uncle had returned to the more familiar scarlet and black robes which he'd worn for much of his life, his return to free-spending and almost childlike inability to budget was setting Zuko's teeth to a steady grind. Unlike everybody else, he knew that there was no end-date for this exile. Whatever money they had was going to have to last, forever.

"Uncle, the only way music night will ever be a success with this crew, is _by getting a new crew_."

"Pah," Uncle said dismissively. "I know that they're just restricted by their instruments. I wager if I could find a good pipa, and get it into Jee's hands..."

Zuko turned away with a growl, and doing so saw him turn right into a middle aged man with the flaring helm of the Imperial firebenders. Zuko gave a quick glance past him, to the gangplank which was down over the side, and then back to the intruder, even if it was one from his own nation. "What are you doing on my ship?" Zuko demanded.

"We have orders to search this vessel," the man said, shoving a document at Zuko, clearly with the intention to push the younger man back a few steps. Zuko proved to be a bit more solid than the firebender would have expected.

"And what are you looking for? Musical instruments?" Iroh asked. "Well, you can't have my tsungi horn. I just got it! I even kept the receipt!"

"I don't care about your instruments," the soldier said. "We believe a person of interest may have stowed away on your ship."

Zuko quickly unfurled the notice and gave it a quick scan. When he did, he let fire flare in his hands and reduce the orders to ashes. "This is madness! You have no jurisdiction here!"

"Are you standing in the way of a lawful search?" he asked, as the men he'd brought with him made their best effort to loom. Zuko wasn't impressed.

"No," Zuko said, leaning forward. "Because this is the furthest thing from a lawful search that I can think of. And I can think of only one person who'd authorize this. I will not let Zhao scupper my ship out of petty vengeance."

"You will allow whatever the powers that be demand you to."

"Prince Zuko, perhaps you should..."

"Not now, Uncle!"

Iroh's eyes got a hard set to them. "Nephew, whatever these men are looking for, they will not find it on _my_ ship. I can guarantee this."

Zuko glared at the man. "Especially since I know who you're looking for. She's not here. The last time I saw her was weeks ago," Zuko said, choking down bile in his throat for rage. But not for what they thought.

"Then you won't mind if we give the ship a thorough inspection?" the man said smugly. Zuko let out a flare of flame and stepped aside, his eyes averted as though in shame. The soldier chuckled and moved into the cabins, two of his lackeys remaining outside to prevent Zuko or Iroh from interfering. Zuko stormed away, standing at the prow of the ship, staring into the harbor of this dirty, desperate looking town. Once again, the ship was damaged, and they'd had to stop for repairs. He could have picked a better spot blindfolded and drunk, though. This town used to be a trade port for this entire section of the northern Earth Kingdoms, but the constant beatings by storms and the twenty nine cases of it being sacked by various pirate kings over the last century had starved the settlement practically to death. There was a time where Zuko wouldn't have thought twice about places like this. Now, they were all that occupied his mind. Because there was no going home. This was his home now, on this creaky, rusty boat, with terrible musicians, adequate food, and what remained of his family.

Zuko tilted a glance from his left eye to Iroh as the old man approached gingerly, as though attempting to spare himself Zuko's wrath. "They won't find her," Iroh said in a placating tone.

"I'm perfectly confident of that," Zuko muttered in angry tones, belying their meaning. The men at the back would probably be listening, but at this distance, the only thing they would hear would be occasional words and the emotional content of the dialogue. And with all he'd been through recently, Zuko had gotten very good at hiding what he was really feeling. "They'll never think to look where she really is, but they shouldn't even be looking for her! Zhao wouldn't risk looking like that kind of an idiot!"

Iroh made obvious calming motions with his hands, but his eyes had a conspiratorial glint. "He didn't have her very long, and whatever he wanted with her, he obviously didn't get it. Besides, he wouldn't want to spoil his elevation with _why_ he's trying to find your sister. Nobility are supposed to be better than the rest of the people. They're not allowed to make mistakes!"

Zuko turned and hurled a blast of flame over the rail with a grunt of angry effort, before stalking to the other side of the ship and leaning over it, but a smirk was on his lips. "If there's one great constant in the universe, Uncle, it's that Zhao will always be a screw-up. I just wish I could have seen the look on his face when he realized that he'd lost everything he'd scratched for."

"Don't tell me you're taking pleasure in the newly minted lord's failure," Iroh said scandalously.

"It was the first time in months I felt like drinking with the men!" Zuko snapped.

"You really shouldn't have done that, last time," Iroh said calmly, and in this at least, the sternness was genuine.

"It snuck up on me," Zuko's voice let some of his embarrassment through. "I thought, what's one cup?"

"One cup is the first step toward two, which quickly becomes twenty, and that is the shortest path to waking up wearing women's underwear in the bedding of one of the messenger's Eel Hounds," Iroh said sagely, and perhaps too confidently. Zuko just stared at his uncle for a long moment, before pointedly stifling a chuckle. It would destroy the facade they were trying to put forth, after all, if Zuko suddenly burst out laughing. "Did I say something funny?"

Zuko turned away from the old man, if only so the impish look Iroh was giving wouldn't change into something else. There was one thing about Iroh which Zuko actually was happy to see return, it was his ability to drag up morale, no matter what misfortune was transpiring. Especially with the way this boat seemed to be cursed toward misfortune. Zuko had often noted that its name fit at least two different definitions of the term 'irony'. "Do you think they'll scour the bilges?" Zuko asked.

"They know Azula. Or at least Zhao does," Iroh answered, as though imparting some great wisdom.

Zuko let out a derisive snort and turned to face his uncle, staring down at him with his face pulled into an expression of contempt. "That's about the best thing I've heard today," Zuko said with scathing tone. "They'll never think to look in the right place."

"Of course they won't," Iroh said, backing away with another placating gesture. "Zhao is many things, but creative he is not. I don't understand why he believes the things he does, but..."

"Maybe because there might be some truth to them," Zuko said quietly, before turning to the surf once more. Uncle didn't have anything to say to that. Mostly because a month ago, Zuko would have called the idea of Azula – his little sister, the one who Mom had a figurative tug-of-war with against Father for time and attention – could possibly see the future, was utterly absurd. But she'd been right about Kyoshi. She'd been right about Crescent Island. How she knew, she wouldn't tell. Dare say couldn't tell. But she was right. Maybe Zhao's moronic assertion wasn't quite so far off the mark. Maybe... just maybe... Azula really was some sort of oracle.

Zuko turned back as the stomping of bootheels returned to the deck, and that officer made his displeasure known not through words but through a thunderhead demeanor and an expression like he was going to chew rivets. Zuko turned and met the man half way, refreshing the indignant wrath on his face and glaring at the man. "Are you satisfied?" Zuko asked with the most obvious sarcasm on the face of this planet.

"This ship is in a state of disrepair," the officer said. "Were you in Fire Nation waters, we'd sink this thing before it became a navigation hazard."

"Then I guess it's lucky we're not in Fire Nation waters," Zuko said dryly. "Get off my ship."

The man stared at Zuko for a long moment. "I don't know how you're hiding her, but you can't hide her forever."

"Why, who ever could you be talking about?" Zuko asked, a cruel smirk sliding onto his face. The man scowled for all he was worth, but after it was obvious that a grown man's displeasure was the last thing in this universe which would put Zuko back on his heels, he quickly turned on his and departed down the gangplank with just as much ceremony as he'd entered, and just as much welcome. Zuko glared at the man as he left, and then turned toward the cabins. "I'm going to my room. No disturbances!" he shouted as he threw open the door and ducked inside.

In those confined, dark spaces, though, he didn't turn right but rather left and straight down the ladders which descended into the guts of the ship. At the back would sit the engines, but up here? The rooms for the marines – of which Zuko had few – and the berths for the rest of the crew. Because of the discrepancy in manpower, the marine's bunks were used by the crew, mostly, while the 'crews' hammocks were more or less abandoned. But still, Zuko got no few approving or acknowledging nods as he moved to one of the lower portions, just above the ballasts, and shifted aside a chunk of bulkhead. Inside, Azula blinked at him, with an impatient expression on her face.

"They're..."

"Of course they're gone, or you wouldn't have opened the hole," Azula cut him off. Her accent was almost unintelligibly thick today. "Help me out. It's cramped and it stinks in here."

"I see you got some reading done," Zuko noted.

"Not reading," Azula said, with a brisk shake of her head. "Are we at port?"

"Azula, you've been on this boat as long as I have. Haven't you figured out the difference between sea and port yet?"

"Please, as though I'd bother," she said dismissively. "One day, I'm going back to dry land and leaving all of this misery behind me forever."

It took a strong head of effort not to sigh at that.

"Come on. They won't have the guts to try anything daring for a while. And this pier doesn't look kindly to their kind, so they'll probably be shipping out before the hour's up," Zuko said, guiding her out of the lowest of holds. He leaned over to her book. "What have you been writing?"

"It's... hard to explain," she said, almost like she was ashamed.

"Try me."

"Do you know anything about a man named Jeong Jeong?" Azula asked.

"He's a traitor to the Fire Nation," Zuko said plainly, perhaps forgetting to invest it with scorn. "He's the first man who ever went AWOL from the Navy and survived."

"The Avatar is going to seek him out," Azula said with absolute certainty.

"Are you sure about this? Are you Kyoshi Island sure?" Zuko asked, bringing her to a stop.

"Absolutely," Azula said, pushing him aside and heading up the ladders and then up the stairs which they led to. "Of course, if we were in the right place, we'd have plenty of time to get to him before he arrived, but," she shrugged, and then looked out the door to the town. "Since we aren't, we're just going to have to reach Bomei before... before..."

"What is it?"

Azula backpedaled and leaned wholly out of the ajar door this time, taking in the port town they had lodged at. She muttered something in that foreign tongue which Zuko only had a partial knowledge in. But by the inflection alone, even had he'd known none of it, he would have been able to figure out she'd just said '_You have GOT to be kidding me_'.

"Azula, wh..."

"He's here," Azula said, grabbing his arm and dragging him through that port.

"Azula! Stop, somebody will see you!" She halted, three steps onto the hull, before grumbling and releasing him, and stalking back into the entry of the cabins. "He's here? The Avatar, now?"

"Yes," Azula said. "I didn't think we'd be here in time, but we are. The Avatar is here, and he is making fresh enemies for us to exploit."

"That's... good news," Zuko said. Terrible news, more like. If she tried to bring the Avatar back to Father, Zuko didn't have the first clue what the man would do, but he could guarantee it wouldn't be good. "We should tell Uncle."

"Why would we want that doddering old tea-bag?" Azula demanded.

"Because he's got a way with seedy places like this," Zuko said. Azula looked like she wanted to press a point, but she let out a sigh and waved at him.

"Whatever. We have to move decisively, though. If we reach him now, he'll be cut off and alone. We're so close, Zuzu. I can almost smell the shores of home," she was so wistful in that. Zuko turned away, only because he couldn't hide the despair on his face anymore, and he couldn't bear to have her see it.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13<strong>

**Chiyo**

* * *

><p><em>Iroh wished he could have said he hurried through the halls of the Fire Palace. The truth was, he simply didn't have the will to. It was lose-lose. Once she'd taken the field against him, he knew that there was no real victory he could attain. And now Lu Ten was dead. It pulled at his feet like lead weights, and he moved listlessly through his life. His son, the only child he would ever have, the only child Qiao could bear, was gone. He might not have been perfect... in fact, he definitely wasn't, but he was Iroh's son.<em>

_Was being the important word._

_"Iroh, please," Qiao said, an insistent tug on his hand and his mind. She was dressed in whites just as he was. "They need us. Now more than ever."_

_"I just don't care," Iroh said quietly._

_"Iroh!" she chastised, coming to a halt. He didn't want to say he slumped in on himself, because he was already short enough without slouching. "I know how hard this is. The g... Agni only knows how much it hurts that my beloved child is dead. But you didn't die with him. We have a duty to those that still live."_

_"I'm just tired," Iroh complained lightly, listlessly._

_"I know, my dragon," she said, and she began to pull him again. He didn't resist her. She was as her people were; rock stubborn and tougher than anybody would have believed possible. A part of him, the part which wasn't hurting so distinctly from the loss of Lu Ten, recognized much of the same resilience she displayed in how they'd managed to get beaten back. Killing Earth Kingdom soldiers was a simple task, but they had numbers. Destroying the Earth Kingdom's morale proved a challenge Iroh simply couldn't surmount. And Qiao was much the same way. She was hurting, yes, but broken? Never. "Well, what about Zuzu?"_

_"What about him?" Iroh asked. She turned to him, favoring him with those dark brown eyes in a disapproving look._

_"How much do you think he's hurting, now that his mother has disappeared?" she asked. "You know how much it pains me that my father vanished into the night, and I was almost a woman when it happened. Zuko is still a child; imagine how hurt he must be."_

_Iroh nodded. The truth was, he should have paid much better attention to his niece and nephew long ago, but he was Prince then. Now... now what was he? Iroh had always known that Ozai wanted power, but never that he would actually seize it. "You're right," Iroh said quietly. "You're right. We should make sure he and Azula are alright."_

_"It's Azula that I'm worried about. Why wouldn't anybody tell us what sickness has taken her?" Qiao asked. Whatever other questions she was going to inquire to fell silent as they came to a halt. She seemed to set her jaw, but she bowed deep, prostrating herself as red robes approached. The Fire Lord, Iroh's younger brother, flanked by a wave of Fire Sages. Iroh didn't bow, though. Today, he simply felt too old, too creaky, and honestly, too angry to._

_"Welcome home, brother," Ozai said, a small smirk on his face, his strong hands clasped before him. "It's such a shame that you were unsuccessful at the walls of Ba Sing Se. Perhaps if you had another six hundred days, you might have borne more bearable fruit."_

_"Ozai," Iroh said. "I don't know what you said to Father, but you and I both know what truth it contained."_

_"Oh, you wound me with your slander," Ozai said, feigning hurt. "I come to offer my... sincere condolences on the loss of your son, and you lash out at me. Obviously your time in the East has done little for your tact."_

_"My time in the East has done more for me than you'd like to know," Iroh said, taking a step toward his younger brother. The vast difference in height between the two was the clearest symbol of how Azulon had kept two wives. In that way, Zuko wasn't the only one who knew what it was like to lose a mother at a young age. Ozai's smile took on an edge of cruelty._

_"Then perhaps you would like to expend your grief against them? Or perhaps take part in our new military campaign?"_

_"New campaign?" Iroh asked, confusion clear in his voice, breaking through his usual safeguards against such things._

_"Yes. The North Water Tribe has been getting insufferably smug, and they lack the reserves and infrastructure. A symbolic victory will quickly wash the fetid taste of defeat from the people's mouths."_

_Iroh stared at his liege, and his sibling. "If you think any war against the North will finish quickly, then you drastically underestimate the Tribesmen."_

_"And perhaps your youthful sentimentality has caused you to overestimate them," Ozai countered. "But it doesn't matter. As soon as the troops are rotated, we strike north for Henhiavut and victory."_

_"You will not find victory on this path, younger brother," Iroh said. Ozai laughed at that._

_"Is this another of your visions, brother? Like the one where you said you would preside over the collapse of a tyrant? As I understand, the Earth King still sits comfortably on his throne."_

_Iroh didn't say a word._

_"Oh, but I've forgotten my manners. Shou, please rise. I have no desire to see my esteemed if defeated brother's wife on her knees all day in my presence."_

_"That's not what..." Qiao began, but Iroh cut her off with a touch on the arm. That was one of her failings. She hated being denigrated. And she could be quite vocal about her opinions. Iroh once considered the delightful irony it would have been for her to become Fire Lady. Now that it was clear that wouldn't happen, the irony fell slightly flat. "Excuse me, your Eminence."_

_"By all means," Ozai said. "But do make yourself comfortable in my home. I'm sure a place can be found for you."_

_"I'll find a place for..."_

_"Shou," Iroh said snappishly. She turned and huffed away. Ozai tracked her exit with his eyes, but nothing else. "Please forgive my wife. She grieves hard for our son."_

_"The nation grieves," Ozai agreed. "For the eighty thousand who will never return home. Rest well, older brother. The Nation is finally in good hands."_

_"You may yet find your hands aren't as capable as you assume," Iroh said, turning away and marching off before Ozai could get the last word in. Even with Iroh's mind as clouded by mourning as it was, he couldn't help but try to think back, to when Ozai was just a little child, a decade and a half Iroh's junior. Where had that little boy become this... cruel man? Iroh couldn't say. He caught up to his wife, traveling on the heat of his own outrage. "You shouldn't antagonize him," Iroh said._

_"I'm aware," Qiao said. "But that doesn't mean I won't."_

_He took her hand. It was a comfort. "She's just down here," she reported. Iroh raised a brow at where they'd put her. It was her own bedroom. They only put people of undefined sickness in their own bedrooms when it became obvious that they weren't going to live long, and should be comfortable while they lasted. Thus, it was with a sense of quiet dread that both bereaved parents pushed open the door to Azula's room, expecting a death rattle, leprosy, or worse._

_They came upon the girl peaceful and still. Tears welled in Qiao's eyes. Iroh, though, noticed that Zuko was nearby, sitting in a darkened corner and keeping watch in the room. He looked exhausted, far too tired for any child of his age. He bolted to his feet. "Uncle Iroh!" he whispered._

_"Zuko... Prince Zuko, what are...?" Iroh asked, but was cut off when Zuko hushed him loudly. Iroh continued in a lowered tone. "What is going on? We were told Azula is ill."_

_"She's sleeping," Zuko said quietly. Qiao let out a breath with relief. Zuko came closer, glancing between Azula and the door. He looked like he was in desperate straits, and strangled by a dilemma besides. Iroh moved back and shut the door for the boy._

_"What's wrong, Zuko?" Qiao asked, in that warm, kind way she always did with Zuko._

_"I... I don't know," Zuko said, his eyes starting to well. "I don't know if I can do this."_

_Qiao beckoned him over, and he ran into her arms, hugging tightly around her as he tried very hard not to cry, and didn't quite succeed. She just hugged the boy back, though, and didn't say a word. Iroh, though, took a moment to observe Azula more closely. She looked oddly disheveled, which wasn't like his niece at all. She was breathing easily, and didn't even seem to be feverish, but there was a bandage around her neck, and her nose was bruised, if not broken._

_"What happened to her?" Iroh asked quietly. Zuko finally collected himself. Iroh didn't begrudge him. Zuko was still a child. He couldn't be expected to withstand this sort of stress. Not yet. This sort of stress, too early, had a way of breaking people._

_"I don't know," Zuko answered back, softly. "Nobody does. She just had a massive seizure and now... I have to keep her safe."_

_"There are enough guards to keep her safe," Iroh said._

_"Iroh!" Qiao said sharply. Azula shifted in her sleep, and he counted himself rebuked. "Why is that, sweetheart?"_

_"I made a promise. But how can I protect her? She's already better than me at... well, practically everything!"_

_"It doesn't matter that she is, or even if she is. What matters is that you do your best, even when it's hard, and never give up," Qiao said, squatting down slightly so she could look him in the eye. "Do you want to keep her safe?"_

_"I... I don't know," Zuko said with a degree of shame. "I mean... she's... Azula!"_

_Iroh moved to the boy's side, and Qiao took that as her cue to check on the girl in the bed. "You made a promise, you said?" Iroh asked. Zuko nodded. "To who?"_

_"Mom," Zuko said quietly. "And then she was... gone."_

_Iroh frowned at that, but took a moment to think before answering. Ursa was a cunning woman, and the fights she'd had with Ozai, particularly in the past few years, had been nothing short of legendary. Why she would leave now, for anything short of death, baffled Iroh. "Sometimes, we have to do things we don't enjoy, Prince Zuko," it was going to take Iroh a while to get used to calling the boy that, "but that doesn't mean that they will always remain onerous tasks. A duty can become a joy, a responsibility a pleasure. It's just a matter of finding what you can in it and moving forward even through where it hurts."_

_"I guess so," Zuko said quietly. "I don't really understand, but I guess so."_

_Iroh nodded. He'd made most of that up as he was going along, but people just sort of assumed Iroh knew what he was talking about when he spoke. It was one of the few perks of aging as prematurely as he had. "Does she wake?"_

_"Yes, but..." Zuko began, but Qiao had already taken a seat beside Azula, and was lightly stroking back her hair. "Auntie, are you sure you should be doing that?"_

_"Azula always liked me. You both did," Qiao said simply. Azula let out a mumble, and then her eyes slowly slid open. But in a flash, they opened very, very wide, and she let out a shocked scream. She quickly grabbed at the side opposite Qiao and took up a water basin, smashing it against Qiao's shoulder in a move so fast that Iroh didn't even have the first impulse to move until the ceramic was shattered on the ground and Qiao was falling to the stone floor, clutching a bruised and slightly lacerated arm, a cry of pain and confusion in her throat._

_Iroh raced to his wife, and cradled her as Azula bolted out of the bed and flattened herself against the wall, clutching a shard of that ceramic in her hand like a knife, toward Iroh. No... not toward him, toward Qiao._

_"Azula, what are you doing?" Zuko shouted in absolute confusion. Azula looked between him and the others, and let out a mumble, a mush of nonsense syllables, as though she'd completely forgotten how to talk._

_"That hurt! What... Why did you...?" Qiao said, the surprise starting to leave her._

_"What is wrong with her?" Iroh demanded._

_"She can't talk," Zuko said, slowly walking toward her, his hands toward her. "Azula, put the shard down, alright?" She shouted at them, but it might as well have been lemur chatterings for all Iroh could have discerned them. But that shard still stayed pointed at Qiao. Iroh watched as Zuko slowly took that shard, and tossed it behind him. "It's alright, Azula. You're safe, alright?"_

_She shivered, her golden eyes flicking to her brother, but then back to her. And Iroh could feel in his soul that when Azula looked at Qiao, the woman who had been for all intents and purposes a second mother, that there wasn't the slightest hint of recognition at all. Qiao, Azula's Auntie Shou, might as well be a complete stranger. That was the first time that Iroh thought something was seriously off about his niece._

Iroh opened his eyes, and put down the sleeve of Qiao's dress. Although her scent had long slipped out of it, just the feel of it could call up the most vivid of memories, and he had many of them. He turned to the two youths who stood, expectant, in the chamber he used to share with his wife. When that voyage began, she was the last family he considered his own. Now, there were at least two more. "And what do you mean, 'he is here'?" Iroh asked.

"The Avatar."

"...is in a dingy, run down docks?" Iroh asked. "Now why would he come to a place like this?"

"What does it matter?" Azula asked.

"He's probably low on supplies," Zuko cut in. "He did just fly to the Fire Nation and back. I can attest to how much that uses up, even if you are on the back of a bison."

"There are many places he could have stopped which would be better than this," Iroh pointed out.

"Like Makapu?" Zuko asked. A wrathful grumble from Azula's throat made her opinion of that town quite clear. "I don't know about the Avatar, but a town like that would have driven the Tribesman insane."

"Really? I found the whole place peaceful and charming," Iroh said, but shrugged. They were gathering around someone who, while not a shaman herself, had an undefinable but undeniable connection to the spirit world. It hadn't taken the World Eyes to see that she was at the heart of a vortex of spirits of mysteries.

"Of course, you were in that den of foolishness the whole time we were searching," Azula said.

"The whole time _I_ was searching," Zuko corrected mildly. "_You_ spent half that trip lost in a Shig farm."

Azula glared at him for that, but didn't respond. Iroh often marveled at their relationship. It took a real family to put up with the casual abuse they slung at each other. But in their own, strange way, it was their way of showing that they cared. Iroh was of the opinion that abuse was abuse, no matter its source, but between Zuko and Azula, it was probably the only way either of them knew how to show love. And that made Iroh deeply, deeply sad. "She was an interesting woman and Shou enjoyed her company greatly."

Zuko flinched at that. That visit was the last time Iroh's wife stood on dry land. "Nevertheless," Azula powered on. "We have an opportunity to capture the Avatar. Here and now, while he's distracted and surrounded. We may not have a chance like this again for months!"

Iroh sighed, then turned to glance out of his viewing port. The great mass of the frigate which the Fire Nation attempted to extend its reach on slowly scudded out of the shallows and into friendlier waters. It was a partial lie which saw Iroh's vessel safe to dock here. In this port, Fire Nation traders were more than welcome, but Fire Nation navy were anything but. "If we do this, we will have to do it subtly. We cannot bring the marines."

"What, all six of them?" Azula asked sarcastically.

"Azula, just because they're few doesn't mean they should get insulted," Iroh began.

"Yes, they should! Where were they when we took Kyoshi?" Azula asked. Iroh frowned at that. It was a worrying trend with her that she was, more and more, starting to trust in those daft and flighty ideas which infected her. At first, before she was put out of the palace, she had fought against them, eventually confiding in Qiao that they troubled her greatly, those whispers from beyond some veil in her mind. _That_ was a trust which had to be rebuilt from the ground, though; to Azula, Qiao might as well have been a total stranger.

"Nevertheless, we are traders here, not soldiers," Iroh said. "No armor, no weapons, and no troops. We might have to limp back to this port some day, and I'd prefer to be welcome when we do."

"We limp a lot of places," Zuko said.

"And we can get more shopping done!" Iroh ended with a flourish.

Zuko stared at him. "And where would we get the money for... you know what? Never mind," he shook his head. "Are you going to help us with this, or are we on our own?"

"Prince Zuko, Azula, you are family. You can always depend on me," Iroh said tenderly, patting each on the shoulder as he moved past. Zuko seemed to take comfort at it. Azula's eyes flicked an instant of glare at him. A glare which he seemed to take as 'how dare you touch me?' mixed in with 'I really need a hug', although the mixture far favored the former to the latter. Yet another thing which Iroh slotted into the back of his mind to consider later.

The three of them all disembarked the ship, and vanished into the crowds on the wharf. Zuko seemed to have his gaze linger on a shop with a door which was obviously hastily-tacked on. A commissary. Zuko was probably wondering how much supply the ship still had. "You know, you should try looking other places, Nephew," Iroh said easily as they strolled along. "If you turned away from warehouses and armories and naval yards, you might actually find a little lady. Who knows, it might be just what you need in your life."

"Are we really talking about this now?" Zuko asked.

"I can just imagine it," Azula said. "Zuzu here being all awkward and stupid, her being all cold and distant, until you burn a house down to prove that you like her, and the entire town comes after you demanding your head on a stick. It would be the best first date ever."

Iroh couldn't help but laugh at that, even though it was both oddly specific and not very kind. "Perhaps you should find a more open, outspoken type," Iroh said. "If only to avoid the pitchfork-wielding mob."

"You know, there was that girl up in the north who had her eye on him," Azula said, a smirk on her face. "That one working at that healer's shack. What was her name?"

"Was it Song? Or Jin?" Iroh asked, thoughtfully tugging on his beard. "Or were you talking about that runaway Tribesman's daughter?"

"Oh, that would be hilarious," Azula said with a chuckle. "Fire and ice makes steam. I cringe to think what your _children_ would have been like."

"Can we not talk about girls for one goddamned hour!" Zuko shouted. That caused Azula to break into peals of laughter. That brought its own smile to Iroh's face. She was very doom-and-gloom much of the time. Seeing her laugh, even at his nephew's discomfort, eased an aching and weary heart. But it was Zuko's... tension... which leadened it again. "Azula, you said he's here, but this place isn't exactly small. How are we supposed to find him?"

"He's making enemies of a group of pirates even as we speak," Azula said.

"That's... awfully specific information," Iroh noted.

"And that's why it is of such use to us," she pointed out. "Unlike that crazy witch in Makapu."

Zuko leaned down to Iroh slightly. "She's just mad because she's supposed to fall for somebody that she hates."

"That would be a stressful thing to live through," Iroh admitted. And he had lived it. He was supposed to hate Qiao, her family, and her nation. In a way, watching Gaoling burn was a last affront to her. But love, as it often did, found a way through even the most strict of social edicts. It was lucky her eyes weren't green, as so many's were on this continent. He turned to Azula. "Now which boat is the home to these pirates you speak of?"

"The one which looks like a pirate ship," she said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Over the years, Iroh had been beset by enough pirates to throw out the term 'pirate ship' as a useful classification. But when she impatiently pointed to a red sail which flapped lazily as men worked to reaffix it to the rigging, Iroh couldn't deny that it had to have been just about the most stereotypical pirate vessel that had ever sailed the seas, down to the blackened hull and tattered standard, proclaiming itself a ship of an Eastern country which was both landlocked and thus had no navy, and also erased by the Fire Nation ninety years ago. What sort of fool of a pirate ran a ship like that?

"I see," Zuko said. "That _does_ look like a pirate ship."

"So what is your plan?" Iroh asked.

"We wait," Azula said. "They will come running off of that ship, with a horde of pirates at their heels, and we will get them first."

"And then what do we do about the pirates?" Iroh asked. Azula was about to speak, but Zuko cut her off.

"Offer them the Tribesmen," he said lethargically, even for his quickness.

"And if they don't accept that barter?"

"Then we will improvise," Azula cut in on her brother, this time. "Wasn't that one of your lessons that you kept trying to pound into our heads, the importance of proper improvisation?"

"No, the lesson was that improvisation will always be inferior to a well thought-out plan," Iroh said peevishly. "I thought you of all people would grasp that."

"I... There will be time enough for that when we have the Avatar. He will run this way; it's the only clear path away from the ship," Azula said, nodding toward a street. "We just need to get ready, and be ready to strike when I signal."

Azula slipped away from the trio and into a small crowd around a fishmonger. Iroh gave a glance to his nephew. "I hope you know what she's doing."

"I trust my sister," Zuko said.

"But do you think she is thinking this through?" Iroh stressed. Zuko just let out a very, very weary sigh.

"I trust my sister," he repeated, and walked away. Whatever was on Prince Zuko's mind was anything but good. And now, Iroh had even more to ponder, while they awaited Azula's signal to strike.

* * *

><p>"Well, that's the last of King Bumi's money," Sokka said, looking over the meager provisions that he could afford with the dregs of gold and silver from the frankly enormous largess which the crazy king had gave them as a parting gift. "Now we're bankrupt."<p>

"We're not bankrupt," Katara pointed out, shouldering a share of the load. "We've still got... three bits left."

"Yeah," Aang said nervously. "Make that two bits."

"What did you buy?" Sokka asked with a humorless tone.

"When I saw this Bison Whistle, I just couldn't help myself," Aang said, producing the small, bison-shaped instrument. He gave it a hearty blow, which Sokka prepared for a shriek from. Instead, there was the thinnest whine of moving air, which had Sokka shaking his head in amusement.

"Well, it looks like you've been had," Sokka pointed out. Momo made a point of jumping over to Aang's shoulder and chattering at him, like he was thoroughly annoyed at the airbender for wasting money better spent on lemur-related treats and miscellany.

"I'll take the money from now on," Katara said kindly, and the Avatar handed over the two bits that remained to them. Sokka was pleasantly surprised that the money lasted even as long as it did; between Katara's picky eating habits and clothes-horse tendencies, and Aang's complete inability to understand that money does not grow in a field, it seemed he was the only responsible person with cash left to the family, especially since Dad left two years ago.

"Well, it doesn't really matter. We've got enough to reach the north pole, even after that side trip to Bomei," Aang said.

"Bomei?" Sokka asked. "This is the first I'm hearing about Bomei. What's Bomei?"

"It's a city a couple of days up the river." Aang said.

"And why are we going to Bomei?" Katara asked.

"I kinda got a message that I should go there," Aang said skittishly. Sokka shrugged at that, though.

"Well, it's just a couple of days off course, it shouldn't really impact the schedule," Sokka said. Katara laughed at that.

"You have a _schedule_?" she asked.

"Yup. If we don't take any unnecessary detours, and keep heading continuously north, we'll be in Henhiavut by the middle of next week," Sokka said. He rubbed his chin for a moment though, as a thought occurred to him. "There is the issue of how we work out the bathroom breaks, though; they could slow us down."

"You're not serious, are you?" Katara asked, a baffled but amused expression on her face.

"_Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation!_" a barker called as they walked. "_As long as rarities are your inclination, then you've found your destination!_"

"What's he saying?" Katara asked. Sokka rolled his eyes. Sooner or later she was really going to have to put an effort into learning Huojian.

"Keep walking, he's just another desperate salesman," Sokka said. But Aang had to go and shoot a glance over at the big, intimidating specimen of a boat that the lanky, long haired barker was proclaiming in front of, and the barker took that as a cue to immediately latch on like an elbow leech and not let go. He rushed over and looped an arm over the Avatar's shoulders.

"You there!" he said in smoky Tianxia. There were a lot of womanish things about him, on closer inspection. His eyes and mouth were just two of them. "You look like you're in the market for some interesting curios!"

"Of course I am!" Aang said brightly. "...What's a curio?"

"I...Don't...know," the man admitted. "But whatever they are, we got 'em! Come on in. We're offering good prices on some very rare and valuable goods."

"Aang, I don't think..."

"What's the worst that could happen?" the Avatar asked pleasantly. Sokka palmed his face loudly at that utterance. Sooner or later, Aang was going to have to learn to NOT SAY THAT! The barker lead the boy into the black-hulled ship, with its scarlet sails, and both of the Tribal siblings had no real choice but to follow him. After all, Aang did have an unfortunate proclivity towards entering shenanigans the moment cooler heads turned the other way for a fraction of a second. A few minutes alone in this place might summon, ex nihilo, the Fire Lord and all of his armies to make their lives miserable.

Alright, that might have been an exaggeration, but the worried glance Sokka shared with his sister showed that she and he were on the same page about leaving Aang alone with well armed strangers.

The store was less a store and more a remodeled cargo hold. Sokka ran fingers along the walls as he came in, and noted the odd feeling of them. These were put here very recently, because they were naked of creosote and yet neither split nor rotten. In fact, the whole of this gallery seemed to be very ad hoc, very new, but even despite that, quite a proper showcase. Aang spent a few long moments transfixed by a statue of a monkey wearing a ruby necklace, glaring with large, ruby eyes.

"Sokka?"

"Yeah Aang?"

"I think I've figured out what a curio is," he said. Sokka chuckled at that, and turned his attention down the wall. There were weapons lined up there, and none of them inexpensive looking. They were all ornamental pieces, not a single worthwhile edge amongst them, but they represented immense wealth. That they were for sale, or even in the possession of a ship like this started raising red flags in Sokka's mind. But then, he found something that was very distinct, and a little bit shocking.

A pale blue parka, peeking out from the bottom of a bin of foreign clothing.

"Sokka, check this out," Katara said, dragging Sokka away from the clothing that he'd half unburied and bringing him to a rack which held a number of objects. The one in particular that she was indicating was a squat box, written over with names and locations. "Qujeck, student of Pakku, son of Lana and Shakt. Service to Allavut."

"Wait, I know those things," Sokka said. "Dad made one of them for me."

"This is a passage box," Katara said. "And it's from the North!"

Katara started to slide it open, but before Sokka could get more than the barest of glimpses inside, a great hand came down on it, and wrested it from her grasp. "You know, you shouldn't play with merchandise, children," the stocky man said. Sokka had to take a step back simply to be out from under the brim of the man's hat, and his one green eye glared down. The other was under a patch, and the cheek near it held a roughened, bubbled texture. A green parrot lizard let out a hostile squaw, and swiped a claw at him as he backed away. "That's a good way to get the wrong kind of attention."

"It's just, I've seen that box before."

"Unlikely," the man said, placing it firmly back into its place. "It's a recent acquisition. I picked it up from up north a few months ago at a very reasonable price."

"Well, can we offer something for it?" Katara asked. Sokka shot her a look, and turned her away from the one-eyed salesman.

"What are you doing?" Sokka asked.

"This stuff belongs to the Water Tribe," she said. "They don't let these leave the home unless something important is in them. Maybe it's something we should bring back with us."

"You know, ever since Crescent Island, it's like you've been going out of your way to be 'nice'."

"What's wrong with nice?" Katara demanded, fists on hips. Sokka rolled his eyes.

"No matter where I go in the room, its eyes keep following me," Aang noted, bending and weaving his gaze fixated on the monkey on the shelf.

"If you're looking to barter, then that lemur might catch a fine price in trade," the salesman said. "I've never seen one so tame before. A collector would pay a handsome fee."

"Momo's not for sale," Aang said, shielding the lemur. "But is there something else we might be able to offer?"

"What's in the box, anyway?" Sokka asked.

"It's untampered and will be bought sight unseen," he said. A scowl pulled at the man's face. "Until you showed up, I didn't even think it _could_ open."

Passage boxes could be a bit tricky to somebody who didn't know their workings. Sokka shook his head and turned back to the clothes bin, and pulled up that tunic. It was for somebody a bit bigger than him, but just the feel of familiar fabric after so long in East Continent cloths brought a smile to his face. A smile which curdled when he considered the likelihood of actually getting that 'exile' lifted. In the end, it would remain the case that no matter what they did out here, they still couldn't go home. Sokka really hoped Gran Gran was working on that. As he rubbed the fabric, though his fingers found a hole. And when they found it, Sokka could see little else. It was in the tunic's back, and was far from any seam. It's edges were smooth. He sniffed at it, and smelled harsh cleaning solvents. This wasn't just a hole. This was a stab wound.

"Wait a minute," Sokka said, the situation finally, after far too long in his opinion, coming together in his head. "Maritime traders, with eyepatches and numerous weapons, questionably procured merchandise, with pet reptile birds? You guys are pirates aren't you!"

The man, a captain if the size of the hat was any indication, smirked at that proclamation. "We prefer high-risk traders," he countered. Aang swallowed hard and raised a hand to catch his attention. "What is it, monk?"

"Um... how much for the passage box?" Aang asked.

"I've got a buyer in the Eastern Earth Kingdoms who has already payed for that. Unless you can better his offer, of course," the man ran a fingernail over the pommel of a sword. "Two hundred Weight in gold, and it's yours."

"Two hundred Weight? That's extortion," Sokka said.

"It may be, but it's the price as offered," he said. "Unless you have something else to offer?"

Aang's eyes were locked on the pirate captain, so he didn't notice that both siblings shared a mischievous, slightly larcenous glance behind his back. Better that he didn't.

* * *

><p>Azula was patient. She had to be. That the three enemies of the Fire Nation so simply and obviously blundered into her trap just cranked that smirk even higher onto her face. It was practically a grin by the time they were taken below decks. It was just a matter of time, now. She just had to keep calm, keep steady, until the time was right. It was always about time.<p>

"Are you my Mama?" a little girl's voice came from Azula's side.

"No. Go away," Azula snapped, staring at the monk as he talked to the effeminate barker. She had to stay focused. Getting involved with other people was the easiest way for her to become distracted, to miss something. She hated that about herself. She knew, in her soul, that she had to be better than this. That she was _supposed to be_ better than this. That she wasn't supposed to be this scatterbrained or inconsistent. But all the knowing in the world didn't change the facts as they were. So she had to stay diligent.

"Come on, just a little bit longer," she muttered to herself. "You'd better be ready, Zuzu."

"I don't know where ma' Mama is, and I'm scared," that child said again, tugging now on Azula's hand.

"Go away!"

The girl began to sniffle, and Azula knew that this wasn't going to solve itself unless she took more direct action. She turned to face the girl, and found herself having to look well down to do so. She was very young, maybe three years old or four. Her eyes were golden, and almost too big. She was tugging at a long strand of lustrous black hair. "Go bother somebody else," Azula said sternly. The girl's lip began to tremble, and her eyes welled up. "Crying isn't going to sway me."

"B-b-but I can't find my Mama. Are you my Mama?"

The tears that started to fall had an odd effect. Most people would be moved to protect a crying child, but Azula felt something else. Terror. Not at the child of course, she was no threat, but a terror at herself, because her hands and feet were going cold, and she could feel the veil moving, pressing forward even harder. "Go. Aw... awa..." Azula tried to say. "You aren't... I am not..."

The words refused to come out. Like there was something standing in their way. That fear grew stronger. She was losing herself, and something else was taking her place. She didn't want to lose control. Not now. Please, Agni above, not now! She clenched her fists until her fingernails began to cut into her hands, and azure flame began to flare down from them which she barely noticed.

"Are... are you my Mama?" the girl asked again, this time around sobs.

And Azula felt the veil move forward, and the truth became clear to her.

* * *

><p>Zuko stifled a smile when the barker called attention to the bald monk and the Tribesmen. Azula was right again. But just when he thought she was going to spring the trap, the man brought them all into the ship, and a long silence followed. She must have a plan of some sort. Azula wasn't an idiot after all. Sokka glanced to where Iroh was hiding, and found that he'd gone from hiding to eating noodles. Zuko grumbled to himself and edged through the crowds until he could take a seat next to his uncle at the minimalistic shop.<p>

"What are you doing?" Zuko asked at a hiss.

"I felt a bit peckish, and felt that noodles might hit the spot," Iroh said in a very happy tone. Zuko sighed in annoyance. Seeing Uncle happy was good and all, but sometimes Happy Iroh definitely got in the way of Useful Iroh.

"Yeah, the old guy's got the right idea," somebody said from Iroh's other side. Zuko leaned past Iroh to behold a girl, maybe two years younger than Zuko, slurping noodles with the best of them. "I gotta say, I've _had_ noodles, and these beat the hell out of what you'll get where I'm from."

"I've also had a wonderfully interesting conversation with Miss Beifong here," Iroh said.

"That's great," Zuko said, giving a leery look at the girl with the oddly pale eyes, who finished her bowl and cracked her knuckles at the bench. "And who are you supposed to be?"

"The greatest earthbender in the world," she said without the slightest hint of shame. "Now I've gotta get moving. The road's long and y'all are kinda in my way."

"Good luck with your journey," Iroh said pleasantly.

"I'm gonna have to have some of that tea some time," the girl said, giving Iroh a prod in the belly before wandering down an alley. Zuko turned back to his uncle.

"What an interesting young woman," Iroh said. He gave a glance to Zuko. "You know, I think you and she might..."

"Tell me you didn't try to set me up with a _random Earth Kingdom peasant_."

"Well, not very hard, anyway," Iroh admitted.

Zuko wanted to be surprised, but when Iroh fixed his mind on something, it was very hard to get him to shake it. And he could think of few things more terrifying or awkward than having his uncle play matchmaker. Well, there was one, and that was his father doing the same. But since that had a likelihood equivalent to the Avatar spontaneously declaring undying devotion to the Fire Lord, that was not something he had to concern himself with.

"And this is what you've been occupying your time with, instead of watching for Azula's signal?" Zuko asked.

"Hey, buddy, either buy something or give up your seat!" the vendor next to the grill shouted with annoyance.

"Mind your tongue, peas... You know what, you're right. I'll just take my uncle and go," Zuko said.

"But I'm not finished."

"You've had enough," Zuko said. Iroh looked comically sad when he was parted from his noodles and pulled toward the gap between two stalls where Zuko had first ensconced himself. "Uncle, I'm glad you're finally getting over Auntie's passing, but..."

"Not over," Iroh said. "Just accepting that it is."

"Whatever. The point is, the Avatar's going to come out of there soon, and I need all hands on deck. You're the one who keeps telling me to make plans instead of improvising. There's no point to making plans if the actors don't play their parts!"

Iroh sighed. "I see your point, Nephew. Sometimes, I forget that I'm supposed to be the mentor in this relationship."

"You're family," Zuko said simply.

"Hey you!" that pirate barker screamed from the deck. "Come back here you little bastards!"

"This would probably be it," Iroh said. "Listen for Azula's signal."

Springing off of the boat came the two tribesmen, the Avatar, and that little lemur which went with them. The Avatar looked between his companions. "What's going on? Why are they trying to kill us?"

"This didn't belong to them," Katara said, indicating something out of eyeshot. The Avatar had a shocked expression on his face. He turned to the pirates.

"Look, we'll just give it back, and everything's going to be alright," he said, a placating gesture waved toward the horde of approaching ne'er-do-wells.

"Yeah, that might be a bit of a problem," Sokka muttered, showing the Avatar something else. The boy sputtered at that.

"Wh...What?" He asked, as the lemur landed on his shoulder. "Am I the only person here who _hasn't_ stolen from the pirates?"

The lemur opened its mouth to show that it was cheeking a ruby the size of Zuko's thumb. The Avatar slapped his arrow at the ridiculousness of the situation, and his exasperation quickly turned into action as the pirates began to run forward. Zuko knew Azula was waiting for the right moment. He trusted her instincts on this. They'd gotten them out of trouble before, appropriately enough. So they waited.

"Prince Zuko, shouldn't we...?"

"We wait for Azula."

The pirates ran forward, and the Avatar's cadre broke into flight, opting for a alleyway one away from where Zuko and Iroh were waiting. Very likely, it was the one that Azula was rigging with traps, for it was that one which she vanished down earlier. They ran, and Zuko waited.

And waited.

And waited.

There came a great crash, of a wagon being smashed to splinters, and an anguished cry came down that path. "_My Cabbages_! This place is worse than Omashu!"

"Where is Azula?" Zuko asked, and broke away from his uncle to head down that path. She should have signaled by now. Unless she wanted to claim the glory all for herself. He wouldn't put it past her. She used to be quite the brat. The years hadn't done very much to temper that. So he went back there with a lecture on his tongue. A lecture which curdled and died when there was nobody to deliver it to.

"Where is Azula?" Zuko asked as he heard Uncle approach him.

"I saw her come down here," Iroh pointed out somewhat needlessly.

"Why isn't she here?" Zuko asked, also pointlessly.

"I do not know, Nephew. Maybe she got distracted."

"She wouldn't get distracted. The Avatar is pretty much the most important thing in her life. Nothing else would come between her and him," Zuko said, trying to keep the hollowness out of his voice. It just wasn't fair that even if she did catch him, she was still doomed. If there was a way out of this purgatory, Zuko just couldn't find it.

"Something must have," Iroh said.

"How could we even find her in a warren like this? We'd need somebody who can see through walls," Zuko complained.

"What the hell just happened here?" that girl's voice returned. Zuko turned, and saw that the pale, milky-eyed Easterner from before had returned, looking somewhat impatient and somewhat baffled. "I turn my back for five seconds and I miss a donnybrook. What kind of universe do I live in where all the best scraps happen as soon as I look the other way?"

"Ah, miss Beifong. I thought you'd already moved on."

"Yeah, well, I kinda realized something important," she admitted, as though as pleasant as pulling teeth. "I don't really know where Bomei is."

"It's on the river," Zuko said. "You can't miss it."

"Call me spoiled, but I don't feel like walking through a swamp. Too hard to 'see' in. You wouldn't happen to have a wagon, or a boat, would ya?"

"Not now," Zuko snapped. "My sister's missing, and we have to find her before she gets hurt."

"Missing? In a place like this?" the Beifong girl let out a quite ungirlish laugh. "Please, you can get lost in Omashu, you can get lost in Ba Sing Se, but at Merchant's Pier?"

"Well, forgive me, but my eyes can't see through walls," Zuko snapped hotly.

"Neither can mine," she said. "My feet can, though."

"What."

"How about this; I find your wayward sister, you give me a ride to Bomei. Sound like a plan?" she asked.

"_Nephew, this might be a good chance to get to know her. You might even..._"

"_Enough, Uncle!_" Zuko snapped. He turned back to her. "You find my sister, you've got a ride. So. Where do I start looking?"

The girl turned away from him and gave the ground a hard stomp, sending up a plume of dust, and sending Zuko rocking on his feet. He shared a glance with his uncle. Not just a random Earth Kingdom peasant, but an earthbender to boot? Iroh had some seriously myopic tastes when it came to women, it seemed. It was a miracle that he ended up with Auntie before somebody terrible came along and swept him off his feet. With a glance to Iroh's belly, he amended the previous notion to; if such a feat of strength were possible.

"We've got some angry people over that way, bitching about a monk," she said, pointing straight through a building like it wasn't there. "We've got... a mouthy toddler talking to her 'Mama' over that way... Is there anything in particular I should be looking for?"

"Golden eyes, black hair, pale complexion. She's wearing..."

"Yeah, just about none of that helps me," she countered. Zuko raised an eyebrow at that.

"She has an accent, a very strong one," Iroh cut in. "Somewhat like Whalesh, mostly not."

"That sounds oddly familiar," she muttered. She shook her head. "Well, we ain't gonna find her by sitting with our thumbs up our butts. Let's get moving."

As she started to walk off, looking quite content with herself, Zuko shared another glance with his uncle. "Yes, Uncle. She's _just_ my type," he snarked.

"That's delightful. I knew you'd hit it off!"

Zuko palmed his face, hard, and followed after the strange Easterner.

* * *

><p>Aang panted heavily, rotating his arms painfully against the strong ache in his shoulders. It came with having to try to fly while holding both of the Tribesmen; it felt like he'd almost pulled his own arms out of their sockets. "That... was... insane," Aang said. "Why did everybody steal from the pirates? In what universe<em> is that a good idea<em>?"

"Wow, we've actually managed to annoy the airbender," Sokka said, inexpertly stitching that stab in the back of the parka closed. "I think we should mark the calendar."

"Sokka," Katara said with impatience. "They stole these things from our people. We couldn't just leave them behind."

"We could have come up with another way," Aang said.

"They're pirates," Sokka said.

"So?"

"There's a reason they're called 'enemies of humanity', Aang."

Aang didn't like that explanation one bit. But even as he wanted to be annoyed with them, he found himself inching toward Katara, who was now struggling with the box which she'd opened without a moment's hesitation before. "What's wrong?" Aang asked.

"When I dropped it, I think something warped," she said. She then turned to him with a honyed expression. "Besides, I thought you wanted us to give it back?"

"Well, there's not much point if they're just going to try to kill us," Aang said, curiosity winning out by a heady margin. "Can I see that for a second?"

She sighed and handed the box over. Aang shook it for a moment, and noted that there were two distinct rattles. The stuff inside was heavy and dense, but a lighter rattle sounded from the body of the box itself. He frowned for a moment, then perked up for a moment. "I've got it! We can pop the lock with waterbending!"

Katara's eyes widened for a moment, then she slapped herself in the brow as Sokka was wont to do. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" Aang set about trying to bend up the water from a water skin, and fit it through the cracks, but when he attempted, there was an ominous creek. He backed off, then tried again, to the same result. Katara gently lifted the box out of his possession. "I think this is a situation which calls for precision, not strength."

She poured out just a drop of water, directly into the lock, and held the box for a moment. Then, her eyes pressed closed, she started to work her hand above it. Aang couldn't see what she was doing, but then again, neither could she. But a calm overtook her, and her hands began to less resemble tendon and bone, and more a dark sort of wave, insistent and inevitable, digging deeper. If he was waiting for a click, he was sorely disappointed, because she carefully slid the lid of the passage box aside, then reached in and picked up a splinter of ivory, shaking her head direly at it like it had done her wrong.

"Yup. Broken lock," she said, discarding the chip into the fire. "Now let's see what's inside this thing."

In a flash, three faces were peering down at that box. "What is that?" Aang said.

"It's a family chop," Sokka said, lifting the piece of soapstone out of the box. "I don't recognize the family," he paused for a moment, staring into the distance as he no doubt mentally kicked himself. "And why would I? He's from the North Tribe."

Sokka passed over the 'chop' to Aang. It seemed like it was a mould, carved to contain clay or something, and make a particular form. Katara had quickly moved past a whale-tooth knife and now started carefully unfurling other burnt-hide scrolls. "Aang, I think this guy was a waterbender."

"What do you mean?" Aang asked, tossing the chop back to Sokka.

"These are waterbending primers," she said. "They're like that scroll Zuko tried to bribe me with, but they wouldn't be useful for anybody who doesn't already know something about waterbending."

"What do they say?" Aang asked, peering over them. These weren't illustrated, which Aang found extremely unfortunate, but were long treatises on their art. "Wow. This guy does go on, doesn't he?"

"Great, now you guys got even more stuff to get all weird and waterbendy over," Sokka complained lightly. "You know what? I'm going to go clean the mud and bugs from Appa's feet. That way _somebody_ around here will be doing _something_ useful."

Aang tried to read over Katara's shoulder, but trying to keep up with both the way she flipped through the treatise and make sense of the extremely dense, extremely dull subject matter left him sticking out his tongue and admitting defeat. "Can you just give me the jist of that?"

"There's two of them in here," she said, flipping through the scrolls rapidly. She brightened sharply, thrusting one at arms length with a huge grin. "And one of them's about healing!"

"That's great! Now you'll be able to help people without killing yourself!" Aang said genuinely. "Maybe I can take the other..." Aang began, and then he actually looked at the thick, tightly scribed Yqanuac, such that even his proficiency with the language had a hard time sorting through everything being said. It didn't help that the syntax for the two languages could scarcely be further apart. "Ummm, maybe you can just show me what you learn after you read that."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Katara said, engrossing herself in the readings such that she could offer him nothing more than an off-handed dismissal. Aang sighed to himself, and wandered over to Momo.

"Well, at least you've got time for me," Aang said, scratching the little creature 'twixt its ears. It let out a screech, and turned, showing that it was cradling that jewel to its chest. It chattered angrily at Aang, then hastily flew away, leaving Aang abandoned in the middle of the clearing. "Huh," Aang said with a note of confusion. The whole day had gone in a very strange direction.

"Still shouldn't have stolen from pirates," Aang said to nobody in particular, kicking the dirt nearby.

* * *

><p>As much as it stymied her to be lollygagging, she had to see things in a longer perspective. That was the thing about Toph Beifong which surprised even her. Yeah, she could cover the distance from Makapu to Merchant's Pier in a hard day's walk – of which she was still tired from – but what she did when she was actually there? There was a distinct lack of plan-making on her part which got her into this problem. If it hadn't been for the Cool Old Guy and Poutypants, she might have been wandering at random into the wild, heading north until she hit salt water. And that wouldn't have been good for anybody. "Well, have you found anything yet?" Poutypants asked.<p>

"Give her some time. Trackers always have to find a trail," Cool Old Guy placated. She'd decided after about ten seconds that Cool Old Guy was her favorite person over the age of fifty.

"She _had_ a trail," Poutypants pouted.

"I don't track people the way you do," Toph said, trailing a hand along the architecture. It was true. Whatever tracks were physically present would probably be well below her resolution of 'sight', even if she knew exactly what she was looking for. That was one of the drawbacks of her particular variety of perception: details, particularly bodily details, tended to not shine through. While she knew from personal experience that people had faces, with very few exceptions, she hadn't the foggiest idea what they would look like. Sure, she knew that they had a nose, two eyes that probably worked better than hers, a mouth, ears; she knew their configuration, but the overall effect of it? The gestalt of appearance had always been an indecipherable morass to her. It was probably just as well. "Just gimme a minute."

"This is pointless," Poutypants muttered. Toph half turned to him, jabbing out a finger at him.

"Hey, you can either take my help or you can find your sister on your own. You think just because I'm little and I'm blind that I'm frail and useless."

There was a long silence.

"You're blind?" Poutypants asked.

"Wasn't it obvious?"

"Not really, no," he answered, and more critically, he wasn't lying. He shifted slightly. "So how do you... Oh. I think I get it. You use earthbending to see, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," Toph said, actually amazed that she didn't have to explain her 'vision' to somebody. That was probably a first.

"That's pretty impressive," he said. "I'm assuming there are some drawbacks."

"What's this? Trying to figure me out, are you?"

"I'm interested," the younger of the two men said. Now that he wasn't being all pouty, her initial nickname didn't seem to apply, so she'd have to devise a more appropriate one. He turned to Cool Old Guy, who's nickname would probably _never_ need alteration. "What? What's that look?"

"See?" he asked. "I told you you should find a nice..."

"Uncle! Not! NOW!" he said, anger in his voice, but embarrassment in the rest of him. Toph let out a chuckle at that.

Toph let out a guffaw at that. "Somebody's in loooove," she said, giving him a shove. The laughter trailed off. "Although, if you're going to get all hot under the collar for me, you might bother telling me your name at some point."

"Lee," the youth answered.

"Figures. There's about a million Lees out there," Toph noted, having focused her attention elsewhere at that moment. "So tell me, what's this sister of yours' problem?"

"She gets confused. Sometimes right in the middle of doing something, she'll slip into a seizure, or just completely lose track of whatever she's working on," Lee said slowly, almost like it was painful. Cool Old Guy just nodded and followed, rubbing at what was probably a beard. "I'm always terrified that she's going to have another episode at the worst possible time. It's tearing me up and there's nothing I can do to help her."

"Well, there is one thing," Cool Old Guy offered.

"No," he said adamantly. Toph raised a brow at that. "And besides, none of that matters if she gets hurt because somebody takes advantage of her fugue."

"This sister of yours must be pretty helpless," Toph noted, gauging his reaction. He actually let out a laugh at that.

"She used to be the most dangerous eight year old girl I ever knew. She still is, sometimes. But other times... She needs help. Even she can see that, sometimes. And then there are times like now."

"So she goes between badass and damsel-in-distress?" Toph asked. Anybody who tried writing a character like that would probably get drubbed by his own manuscript. Having consistent characters was the trademark of a proper narrative; if the characters didn't have a set point, how would you know how their adventures changed them? She was about to bring up this narrative quandary when she heard something. Just a little bit of something. A few words, completely out of context, wafting through a tunnel of silence. It wasn't the words which caught her attention, though. It was how they were said. It was the accent of them.

"Hold on a second. I've got something I need to deal with," she said, a scowl affixing onto her face, as she stomped off of the street and headed down an alleyway, into a more seedy, warren-like den of hovels and tenement housing. Oddly, both of them opted to follow her into this squat hole, despite her recommendation that they not. That voice was too familiar. And the chances of 'seeing' it here were so astronomically minute that they could have only happened in fiction. And yet, as she moved closer and the press of the so-many-things pushing in on her perception cleared, she knew that there could be no mistake.

She turned past one entrance to what could be charitably called a street and into a lean-to which was built onto the clay of the ground. As she slammed the door open, the figure inside bounded to her feet, forcing a second, far smaller form behind her as she did so. "Well, it's been a long while, hasn't it, Princess Azula?" Toph said, crossing her arms as the mad royal held a fighting stance before her. On the blind earthbender's face, a smirk was beginning to grow.

* * *

><p>Zuko felt his attention divided. The guide, the blind girl, had bolted down an alley to deal with something on her own, but Zuko's keen ear for fleeting conversation brought something to his notice which demanded a bit of attention.<p>

"...but they'll pay for what they took. It's just a matter of waiting for the bald monk kid to show himself."

"Yeah, but what's a monk going to have to pay for what they stole?"

"Who cares? We can lash them to the bowsprit as a warning to the next guys not to steal from us!"

Zuko found himself walking backwards as he assimilated that news. So the pirates had gotten the Avatar and the Tribesmen? That was actually a bit surprising. They were dealing with the Avatar, after all. But their intended use of him? The only one which would have been worse was if they were going to sell him directly to Zuko's father. If the Avatar was dead, then Azula would have nothing, and would fall into despair. He couldn't have that. But still, he had to find her, make sure she wasn't already falling into something much more immediately damaging.

"She's an impressive young lady," Iroh said lightly as Zuko turned back to following their guide.

"She is kinda cute," Zuko admitted. "A bit tiny, though."

"Some people take a while to start growing," Iroh said. "Where do you think she's taking us?"

The question Iroh asked was answered when Toph kicked open the door to a hovel and stomped inside. Zuko and Iroh shared a glance and a shrug of each, and then both of them followed inside. When they did, though, Zuko got a pair of surprises.

"Well, it's been a long while, hasn't it, _Princess Azula_?" Toph demanded. That was the first of Zuko's surprises. The second, and somewhat more disconcerting of the surprises, was that the fire which flickered away from Azula's outstretched fingers wasn't scarlet, but instead, a bright, dangerous electric blue.

"Stay away from her, Toph. I'm not going to lose her this time," Azula said harshly, her words almost indecipherable.

"Azula, are you alright?" Zuko said, moving forward. She twisted and snapped a blast of fire at him, which he smashed away out of pure instinct, and only after it was a waft of smoke on the clay of the floor did he think to let out a strangled noise of confusion and surprise. "What was that for?"

"You want to take her away, don't you?" Azula said, her eyes practically rolling in her head like marbles. It wasn't that she was angry, or not only that. Azula seemed like she was practically feral! "I won't let you! You've taken enough from me!"

Zuko raised his hands before him. "I'm not going to take anything from you," he said.

"Speak for yourself, Lee," Toph said, tapping a bare foot against the clay. "And I guess that isn't your real name, is it, _Prince Zuko_?"

Zuko wilted a bit at that. "I don't like people knowing who I am when I travel."

"Yeah, 'cause it'd be a damned shame if they all knew you traveled with a psychotic pyromaniac!" Toph snapped. She turned back to Azula and thrust a finger at her. Azula responded by pushing back slightly, and herding the little girl she for some reason was shielding back as she did so. "You burned my house down!"

"That was your house?" Iroh asked.

Azula actually flinched at that indictment. Her hands opened a bit, the blue fire guttering. "That was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, good for you, you've figured out that you're not supposed to burn down random people's homes!"

"I don't know why I did that," Azula muttered.

"Gods, that makes it even worse! Bad enough you made us homeless, but you don't even have a reason?" Toph shouted.

"For what it's worth, it is something which I regret," Azula admitted.

"Mama, who's the scary peoples?" a little girl's voice asked in the lull.

"Just stay back, Chiyo," Azula said quietly, patting the girl on the head.

"Who is that?" Iroh asked.

"Don't you dare," Azula said, moving to block Iroh from the girl more completely. "Stay away from us! I've done nothing to you!" then she hesitated. "Well, I _have_ done something, but she's innocent!"

"Who is she?" Zuko asked. "Is she some street girl?"

"I want my daddy," she said.

"Sorry, Chiyo," Azula said, with tones which actually sounded quite tender. "I can't get you your daddy."

"I'm scared," the girl, nominally Chiyo, noted.

"Azula, I'm not going to take the girl away," Zuko promised, slowly moving forward. "I swear it on my mother's soul."

At the last utterance, she seemed to relax, just a little bit. "I'm so tired," Azula said. "I just want to rest."

"It'll be alright, Azula. We'll just go back to the ship, and..." Zuko began.

"NO!" Azula snapped, cradling the child. "No ships!"

Zuko shot a glance to Iroh, but he just watched Azula with a pensive expression, stroking his beard in silence. Toph, though, looked outright baffled. "What the hell is up with this family?" she demanded. "Does this kind 'a crazy run in the blood, or is it unique to her?"

"Don't talk about my sister like that," Zuko said.

"Fine, fine," she muttered. Zuko noted how Azula's glare was fixated on Iroh.

"Uncle, could you give us a moment?"

"Very well," Iroh said, still watching Azula. "I'll be just outside if you need me."

After he departed, Azula finally wilted, like she was not just exhausted but her joints achy and arthritic besides. She turned to Chiyo and pulled her close. "It's going to be alright. I'm not going to let anybody hurt you, Chiyo."

Zuko honestly didn't know what to do with this situation. "Azula, didn't you say you needed a nap?"

She nodded, tears in her eyes as she turned. They weren't angry or sorrowful tears, though. The expression she had when that girl was around her was as close to joy as Zuko had ever seen on Azula's face. "You're right, Zuzu," Azula said. "I do need rest. I'm so tired," she lay down on an old, disused straw mattress, pulling the girl close to her as she did so. "It's going to be alright, Chiyo. I'll keep you safe."

"I want my daddy," Chiyo said quietly, but without real urgency.

"Maybe tomorrow, Chiyo. Maybe tomorrow," Azula said. Zuko turned to Toph, and nodded toward the door to the hovel. She followed him over, a baffled expression on her pale face.

"Man, you weren't kidding when you said she has weird spells," Toph noted.

"I thought you wanted to beat her for burning your house?" Zuko asked.

"In front of a three year old who thinks she's her mother? What am I? A monster?" Toph said. "You were right. Your sis does need some serious help."

"Yeah," Zuko said. He slumped against the wall. His sister might be, for the moment, somewhat mad, but she was also for the moment somewhat safe. But her long term hope and happiness was anything but. He needed to do something about the pirates and the Avatar, and do so before Azula realized he was letting the monk slip away from her. In this condition, that might destroy her just as much as the truth would.

"Toph," Zuko said, his voice small. "I need something from you. It's not easy to ask. But..."

"Spew it, poutypants."

Zuko seethed for a moment at her mockery, but this was more important than his pride. "Azula needs somebody to watch over her. And for some reason, she... accepts you," he waved dismissively. "Yeah, I don't know why either. But she does. So... could you..."

"Look over the chick who tried to kill me with her bare hands a month and a half ago?" Toph finished.

"...Yes?"

The blind girl rested her chin on her knuckles for a long moment, no doubt pondering. When she was finished, she shook her head, not in denial, but in disbelief. "Man, and I thought my life was weird enough as it was. Fine. I'll keep little miss crazy from wandering off again. But if she tries to set me on fire, I'm burying her, adorable three year old or no."

"That's pretty much the best I could hope for," Zuko said. He rose, and opened the door, but before he left, he turned back to her. "Thank you," he whispered earnestly. "This really means a lot to me."

"You'd better hope so," Toph said, settling down into a more comfortable position, as Zuko joined his uncle outside.

"What do you make of this?" Iroh asked.

"I haven't got the first clue," Zuko muttered.

"I think I might have a notion..." Iroh began, but Zuko could tell he was in an expository mood, and Zuko actually needed a bit of haste, so cut him off.

"Whatever it is, it's going to have to wait," Zuko interrupted. "The Avatar got taken by the pirates, and we have to get him back before it's too late."

"Even now, you're still obsessed by the hunt for the Avatar?" Iroh asked, disapproval clear in his voice. "You need to get some perspective! Your sister needs you in there!"

"My sister needs me out there even more," Zuko snapped. "Don't tell me I don't have perspective; lately, all it seems I've been doing is getting a better sense of where I fit in this world. And where Azula fits, too. Everything I've done, I've done for her. Everything I do now, I'm doing for her. So don't you dare say I don't have _perspective_!"

Iroh watched Zuko's inflamed tirade without a whisper of reproach or dismay. Just a calm expression, bespeaking carefully figuring things out. "Are you sure this is where you're needed the most?" Iroh asked simply.

"As sure as the sun rises," Zuko said. Both being firebenders, the saying had a very intrinsic and unshakable meaning to them both.

"Then I will help you. But please, Zuko. Make sure you're doing this for the right reasons."

"I am, Uncle," he said. "I just want this whole mess over with."

* * *

><p>Toph tapped her foot, trying to keep the outrage from boiling over. All told, it wasn't easy. While having the psychotic pyromaniac return in the second act was a staple of pretty much every fiction which included Fire Nationals – or at least, works of its ilk – the situation Toph found herself in at the moment was wholly outside the usual fare from her afternoons with Keung. He'd gone over hundreds of narratives, and she'd digested them ravenously; having somebody who didn't try to dumb things down on account of her malady made it so she actually had to keep up with her instructor, rather than the instructor artificially limiting her progress, was a delight indeed. Thoughts of Yu, her 'earthbending teacher' sprung to mind, and she punctuated that thought with a kick into the clay.<p>

"Alright, I've held my tongue long enough. What the hell's up with the kid?" Toph asked.

"Hrmn what?" Azula muttered.

"I'm hung'y," the girl said with a sad tone. "I want my daddy."

"I've told you, you can't see your daddy right now," Azula said calmly, hovering over the girl.

"Did you kidnap this kid?" Toph asked.

"Are you insane?" Azula snapped, a righteous sort of anger digging into her voice. "How could I _kidnap_ Chiyo?"

"I'm hung'y!" the girl repeated. Toph didn't know what to make of this. By all narrative necessity, she was supposed to be the insurmountable threat, the shadowy colossus who appears at the moment of greatest hope to bring the hero – Toph, she could only assume – to her lowest point, fueling the urgency of the story. But if Toph's shadowy colossus was herself in the midst of that kind of narrative upheaval, then what sort of story was Toph living in? It certainly didn't feel like a comedy, and romance was right out of the question. She pondered that it might be one of the more western stories. Azula rose, moving stiffly and slowly to something like a pantry, and threw it open. There wasn't much in there, just a chunk of salted fish which Toph didn't even want to think about how long it'd been there. Azula sighed, a sigh which Toph had heard before, quite a few times even during her trip up to Makapu.

"This is all we've got, Chiyo," Azula said, showing the girl the meat. The girl stuck out her tongue in disgust. "I thought so."

"You didn't answer my question."

"You know who she is, Beifong," Azula said. "Don't ask stupid questions."

"You callin' me stupid?" Toph demanded.

"I'm calling your questions stupid. How did you find me?"

"Don't turn this around on me," Toph shook her head. "I'm the one in charge of the questioning here."

"Are you?" the woman asked, and a chuckle came from her mouth as she sat, almost frumpy to Toph's 'sight', sinking onto that stool like it was the only thing keeping her from dropping through the world. "We've never seen things eye to eye, have we?"

"You burned my house down."

"And you burned mine," Azula said. Then, she got a very odd 'look' about her, like a tremble ran through her. "Wait... that didn't happen yet, did it?" she let out a groan, cradling her head. "There's so much to keep track of. I can't keep it all straight."

"I'm gonna burn your house down?" Toph asked, crossing her arms before her. "Well, when I do, I'll consider us payed off. What's your deal? All the world knows about you is that you were the Fire Lord's punching bag, the little artist girl who he kicked out without rhyme or reason..."

"My father loves me!" Azula shouted, which caused Chiyo to flinch. "Oh, I'm sorry, don't be scared."

"I don't like yellin'," the girl said quietly.

"I won't yell, I promise," Azula said, rubbing the girl's back comfortingly. She then turned back to Toph. "You don't know anything about my family, Beifong. Perhaps it's my fault for keeping things close to the chest, but the fact remains. My family is my business."

Toph raised a confused brow at that. "I'm just sayin', if my dad kicked me off of a continent, I might hold some resentment toward him."

"He's testing me," Azula said, resolutely. "That way, when I show him just how powerful I've become, he'll welcome me back with open arms. I'll have my honor back, I'll have Father's love."

"Wait," Toph said, cutting her off. "He banishes you, and gives you some sort of insurmountable task, I'm assuming?" Azula gave a reluctant nod, "and when you complete it, you get to go home."

"That is a gross oversimplification."

"Am I wrong?"

Toph couldn't be sure, for her blindness, but she was fairly sure Azula was glaring at her.

"Man, I was thinkin' with the wrong narrative," Toph said. "This _is_ a Western."

Azula could be assumed to stare at her for a moment, because there was a long silence, broken only by Chiyo's quiet mumbling. "What."

"Western literature; you usually get three choices of ending in it, though," Toph ticked them off her fingers. "You can beat the bad guy, you can survive, and you can get the love interest, but you can only pick two of the three."

"That isn't a choice at all," Azula said. "Romance is overrated."

"Tell me about it," Toph muttered. "Like I'm going to play second stage to anybody."

"Hrm," Azula said, something half-way between agreement and dismissal. Chiyo turned to her, and Azula scooped her up without a second's hesitation. "I have a chance to make things perfect. I can see... something. But I don't know how to get there yet."

"You don't make sense often, do you?"

"I make as much sense as I wish to," Azula said blithely. She turned away, and began humming what Toph figured was some sort of Fire Nation lullaby to the clinging child. Toph leaned back against the door, but in the back of her mind, she had the niggling sense in the back of her mind that something was seriously wrong. And more vexingly, she didn't even get an answer for her first question.

* * *

><p>Katara fought against her binds, as she often found herself doing since her exile from the South Pole. And like Kyoshi Island, she was gagged. And for exactly the same reason. She glared daggers and fire at the pirate captain, who sat behind his desk, staring at the three of them. Of the three of them, it was Sokka who was the least well bound, if mostly because Aang was such a pain to bring down; they hadn't bothered removing the net from the Avatar, just binding him up inside it.<p>

"Now what am I going to do with you?" the one-eyed captain asked. "Ordinarily, I'd just have you whipped overlooking the docks, as a warning to anybody else who thinks she can steal from me. But you hid my goods. Tell me where they are."

"They don't belong to you!" Sokka spoke up.

"There is a saying on the seas, Tribesman, one I'm sure you're well aware of: If none can contest something's ownership, it's yours."

"You killed one of my people!" Sokka said.

"Or maybe I bought it from him?" the captain offered. "After all, I am a businessman."

"No Tribesman would give away something like that," Aang piped up.

"And what would you know of it, monk? Are you some expert on what every Tribesman in the world will do, in _any_ circumstance? Are you? I thought not. Now, since you're not going to return what you stole, I'm going to have to think of a more appropriate punishment for your crime."

"The only one committing a crime here is you!" Sokka shouted. Katara joined his pronouncement with a muffled mumble from behind her gag. The captain answered that by pulling out a long, straight sword, and leveling it at Sokka's face. He pushed back against the burly pirate who was holding him in place, and likewise keeping a foot on the tethers holding Aang down.

"On this ship, I'm the law. You stole from me. And that means, I decide the punishment."

Katara's blood began to run cold. There wasn't anything she could do. Not here. There was no water to bend, and even if there was, she didn't have nearly enough freedom of movement to bend it. But as cold as the terror made her blood, it was the next voice which chilled it right into ice.

"Perhaps you don't stand to lose everything today," Prince Zuko's voice came from the doorway. The captain's blade flicked away from Sokka and toward the Fire Nation Prince, who now entered the room calm as you please. Behind him, a pudgy, older fellow was obviously enamored of that monkey statue. Zuko gave a glance back, and sighed. "Uncle, focus!"

"Isn't this handsome? Wouldn't it look lovely in the galley?"

"Not now, Uncle!" Zuko snapped. He turned back to the captain. "I see you have some flesh on the block. It so happens that I'm in the market for it."

"I don't typically sell slaves, child."

"These aren't typical times," Zuko said smoothly. "While killing them might serve to sate your anger, I find that gold has a calming effect all its own. So name your price."

"For whom?" the captain asked, running a thumb up and down the blade of that quite dangerous sword.

"All of them," Zuko said.

"You can't seriously be thinking about this," Sokka said.

"Shut your mouth, peasant," Zuko snapped.

"I mean, you've gotta figure that the Avatar will fetch a far better price if you sell him to the Fire Lord than this scrub can pay you," Sokka said. Oh, for the love of the gods in the heavens, Sokka, SHUT THE HELL UP! Katara shouted and railed against her gag, and struggled as much as her captor would allow, but nothing would break Sokka's spiel. The captain flicked the blade toward Aang.

"Are you saying this child is the Avatar?" the captain asked.

"Yup. Master of the elements, great bridge between the worlds. All that great stuff," Sokka said.

"I said be silent!" Zuko roared.

"You know what, you're right. The boy isn't for sale. I can buy a fleet with what the Fire Lord is offering for him," the captain said. Zuko's gaze swept past Katara, and she could see... was that desperation in his eyes? If it was, it wasn't there long, because by the time they lit upon the captain once again, they were all smooth and businesslike again.

"Very well. Far be it for me to deprive you of a good deal once discovered," Zuko said. He then sidled closer to Katara, and ran a finger down her cheek. If she had the capability, she would have bit it off. "But the girl, on the other hand... She does strike my fancy."

"Nephew, are you really going to..." Zuko's uncle asked. Zuko turned to him, but didn't say anything. The uncle sighed. "Very well."

"You can't take my sister, you fiend!" Sokka railed.

"I'll pay you five silver Rubble right now if you gag him," Zuko said flatly. "His voice grates on my ears."

"Deal," the captain said, nodding to the pirate behind Sokka. Despite her brother's best efforts he was quickly as gagged as she was.

"Don't do this, Zuko! Please!" Aang said.

"Nobody's listening to you, Avatar," Zuko said dismissively. He turned to the captain, a licentious smile pulling at his face. "I hope you don't mind if I more... fully inspect... my purchase before committing money. I wouldn't want a slave beset with pox or leprosy."

The captain seemed to struggle with that for a moment. For all he was a pirate, he seemed to be a somewhat moral one. "If you damage her worth, then you'll find we have ways of extracting that money from you."

"Oh, trust me, she won't be harmed in any... lasting way," Zuko said, grabbing the strap of her gag and hauling her toward the door. She fought and twisted, trying to get away, but all that served was to knock her from her feet and leave Zuko dragging her by her face, through that hold and into a more 'private' room, with Aang's desperate, anguished screams sounding after her.

Zuko slammed the door, leaving them both cut off from the rest of the ship, and propped her up against the wall. He leaned in very close, and she tried to lean away, since any contact with him would be an unforgivable violation. And still, his next words caught her entirely by surprise.

"I'm going to save you from the pirates," Zuko said flatly.

She stared at him in shock and surprise.

"Scream if you feel like it," Zuko said, pulling a knife from his belt. Katara leaned hard away from it, but while it did slide along her cheek, it was solely to sever the strap holding the gag between her teeth. She spat it out, and then turned her eyes back up to the Fire Nation Prince.

"You Bastard! You're a horrible person! Why do you keep..." she screamed. At that, though, Zuko pressed his hand over her mouth, muffling the rest.

"I know. I'm everything that's wrong with the world and a just deity would smite me where I stand. But I've got more important things to deal with right now," Zuko said, his tones cold, and obviously unhappy. "Feel capable of a civil conversation?" Her glare was her answer. Zuko sighed, and shrugged. "Well, it's going to happen anyway."

"What do you want with me?"

"I want you to rescue the others and leave," Zuko said.

"And leave the Avatar to you, I take it?" she asked caustically. He looked away for a moment, and a shadow fell over half of his face.

"I don't want him. Get him out of here."

She twisted against the bonds which he hadn't cut yet, and tried to turn the idea over in her head until it made some sort of sense. Why would he do this? What did he have to gain by letting Aang go? Katara wasn't going to assume Zuko was an idiot, after all; if you had a fish in the net, you don't throw it back into the ocean before you spear it. "Why?" Katara asked.

"It doesn't matter. Just stay away from me."

"So you're not hunting us anymore?"

"It's... complicated," Zuko muttered, as he started opening her binds. "If I catch you, I lose everything. If I stop hunting you, I lose my family. So I expect you to get the others and go."

"You can't be doing this out of the goodness of your heart," Katara muttered as the loops binding her arms stationary finally released and pooled around her.

Zuko turned and faced the doorway, fists clenched tight. "Have you ever had everything you ever wanted offered to you, but at a price of your very soul? I could be the son my father wanted, but I wouldn't be any man I would want to be. So if that's your definition of selfish, woman, then yes, I'm selfish. I'm selfish because I've seen what my future looks like, and it disgusts me. I'm selfish because I want to keep what's left of my family whole."

Katara wanted to scream at him, to vent her rage and hatred at him, to blame him for every ill which had befell her people. In another lifetime, she would have. But the fact was, Katara had never known her mother. The loss of Kya was no loss at all, more of an on-going absence. It wasn't possible to miss somebody one never knew. And, unless her ear for honesty was utterly shot, and unless he was some sort of sociopath, at least some of that had to be true. She stood, annoyed that she still had to look up to see him in the eye. "Fine. You stop hunting us, and..."

"I won't stop hunting. I'll just stop trying to win," Zuko said flatly. He turned to her. "You might want to stay away from my sister though. She _really_ hates you for some reason. What did you do to her, anyway?"

"Your sister?" Katara asked. "All I did was yell at her. I haven't done _anything_ to her."

Zuko frowned. "Maybe it just hasn't happened yet," he said cryptically. She was about to ask him what he meant by that, but he turned to her. "Can you get the others out of here and off the boat?"

"I don't know," Katara admitted. "I don't have my water pouch, and I'm cut off from my element."

"Cut off from your element?" Zuko said incredulously. "You're standing on a boat! We're surrounded by water!"

"Yes, but if I can't see it, I can't bend it," Katara said. Well, that wasn't strictly true, since the first waterbending that she'd done which she'd taken great pride in was ironically enough the act which sealed her exile from the Water Tribe, using her waterbending to save Azula's life.

"There are barrels of grog outside," Zuko said.

"Well, that's handy, because I _am_ called 'the Last Beerbender'," Katara said snidely.

Zuko stared at her for a long moment. "How have we _not_ wiped you out yet?"

"We're a lot tougher than you are."

"You must be," Zuko said. He frowned for a moment, though. "Wait a second."

"What now?"

"Do you feel that?"

Katara scowled at him. "Feel what?"

"And you call yourself a Tribesman," Zuko muttered. "The boat! We're at sea!"

"At sea? Why would we be at sea?" Katara asked, but Zuko was already bolting out of the hold, and rounding on the captain's den. Katara took a more subtle approach, and because of that, found a burlap sack which was shrieking angrily. Katara quickly unbound it and released the lemur within. "Come on, Momo. We've got some pirates to whup."

Momo seemed to be agreeing with that course of action whole-heartedly. It fell silent as Katara crept behind where Zuko had gone storming. The door slammed open ahead of him, and he faced down what seemed to be a sizable portion of the pirates' boarding party, all gathered into the room, and holding Zuko's uncle at sword point. The uncle seemed utterly zen about the whole situation, but Zuko was quite literally breathing fire over it. "What is the meaning of this mutiny!" Zuko roared.

"It's not mutiny if it's not your crew," the captain said, his tone condescending. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize the Dragon of the West? The bounty on his head by the Earth King is almost as massive as the Avatar's! Why reap one pay-day, when I can have both?"

"You put to sea to capture us?" Zuko asked. He growled to himself. "Why didn't I see this coming? I'm dealing with pirates!"

"Yeah, kinda a bonehead maneuver there," Sokka oh-so-helpfully jibed, from his place lying on the floor with a boot on his back. Obviously, Sokka had managed to ungag himself, which irritated Katara profoundly. Zuko wilted slightly.

"This is all my fault," Zuko muttered.

"No it isn't," Aang tried to help. Sometimes it baffled her how somebody in his position could remain so innocent for so long.

"Yeah, it kinda is," the uncle countered, but not mean-spiritedly.

"Momo, go and free Sokka, and I'll give you a whole bushel of apples," Katara whispered. Momo seemed to brighten by a solid measure and started to creep through the room behind the ankles of the assembled pirates and sundry.

"Although, I must say, I am solidly impressed by your confidence," Zuko's uncle said, slowly rising to his feet. The blades followed him up. "What is it that they say about the Dragon of the West these days?"

There was a long silence, punctuated by one of the pirates coughing.

"Oh, by all means, speak up!" the uncle cajoled, almost good-naturedly.

"Uncle, what are you doing?" Zuko hissed.

"They say he can fire lightning from his fingertips," one of the pirates offered.

"And catch it just as easily."

"And that he makes fireballs out of lightning!"

"They say that when he when the last dragon learned that he was hunting it, it just lay down so that the end would come quickly."

"They say that he slew a thousand men to recover one fallen soldier at Ba Sing Se."

"And they say that he was given a blessing by a spirit, that no mortal arrow or weapon may slay him."

"They say that he's bound the spirit of the dragon he slayed to him, to make him stronger."

"What about how..."

"ENOUGH!" the captain cut off all the others, but the uncle just calmly reached to the captain's own table and grabbed a cup of tea. Katara took a moment to look around. No water, nothing that she could use. But her eyes slid to that barrel again. She had a scowl on her face as she reconsidered her options. It was either going to be uselessness, and ignominy... or it would be Katara, the First Beerbender. With a grumble, she started to bend, and obeying her most embarrassing expectations, the fluid began to rush out of the bung and obey her.

"Oh, well that's just great," Katara whispered without joy. She wasn't going to hear the end of this, she just knew it.

"Impressive. Very impressive. You must have a fortitude of courage the likes of which I've never encountered to stand here, to think that you can restrain me," he said. "But would you like to know the _real_ reason they call me the Dragon of the West?"

"You will not say two more words, or I'll deliver you to the Earth King without a tongue," the captain swore. Zuko's uncle had a bright smile on his face, and it had infected Zuko as well – although the latter's held more than a fair share of deviousness in it.

"Oh, no words," the uncle said. "Just a brief demonstration."

And then, with a scream, the room filled with fire, shot forth from the uncle's breath. The pirates had to dive aside or be seared into ashes by the conflagration. He'd half swept the room when the first spear slashed toward the old man, only to be deflected by Zuko. Katara took this as her opportunity to enter into the maelstrom, and started beerbending for all she was worth.

Just the embarrassment of holding that thought in her head turned a water-whip into more like a forced feeding. Still, the weight and effect of having a barrel's worth of water smashed down one's throat had the effect she was looking for of getting the pirate off of her brother's back. He immediately rolled over and started working the knots on Aang's back.

"Just cut the rope!" Katara shouted, before one of the pirates threw something onto the ground, and the entire room filled with smoke.

"You idiot!" the captain coughed. "You don't use those indoors!"

"B't naw d' can't shee!"

"You've got your teeth in upside down again!" the captain shouted. "Find them and restrain them! I'm not losing my payday to this trickery."

"Why is it firebenders keep setting this ship on fire!" the barker's voice whined in the murk.

"That's what we do best," Zuko's voice sounded full of grim humor. The barker then let out a squawk, and there was a shattering of glass. The murk began to fade somewhat, as the smoke from the smoke bombs now had a way to vent. But Katara wasn't going to wait for the smoke to part; her task was getting the others out of this purgatory before it was too late. With a fist full of two shirts, she heaved, dragging them out of the captain's quarters, and part of the way through the hold before the smoke cleared enough that she could take a worthwhile breath, and turned to her brother and the Avatar.

Correction, her brother and a lean, baffled looking pirate. The pirate let out a scream and started to slash at her. She beckoned toward the barrels around her, but these were all stoppered. Bending water she couldn't see was one thing. Getting enough momentum to break them out of a sturdy shell was quite another apparently, especially if it was alcohol and not brine or pure water. At this moment, she was kicking herself for spending all that time reading the healing treatise and ignoring the others.

The pirate slashed at her with his saber, but Sokka shoved her aside so that the blade slashed into the framework of the hold instead. This had the unfortunate effect of also sending Katara face-first into a crate, which hurt about as much as she could have expected it to. Sokka then favored the pirate with a clip in the ribs with a sturdy bit of wood about as long as her forearm. The pirate turned his whole attention from Katara, who was trying to shake the stars from her eyes due to the bash her head took on the landing, to her sibling, who now bounded back, keeping that flimsy bit of wood between he and the pirate the whole time. The pirate swung time after wild time, and Sokka always managed to get away at the last possible moment, the blade sinking into wood where flesh had been a moment before. It wasn't until they'd done a complete circuit of the little ring in the hold that Sokka held his hands above his head.

"Okay, that's it," Sokka said.

"What? You can't fight me anymore?" the pirate demanded. Sokka chucked the stick up, onto the pile of various cargo.

"Not really," Sokka said. There was a wooden groan, and then the pirate turned, with just enough time to start a surprised scream before the framework which had been holding the cargo in place snapped apart, and the contents of it spilled down onto his back. "Since I paid attention to where I was, I wouldn't have to."

"Where's Aang?" Katara asked.

"Over here!" the monk's voice came as he bounded out of the smoke, in the roughly three feet between the top of the cargo and the ceiling of the hold. He cleared most of that hold before touching down on its far side. Sokka grabbed Katara and hauled her to her feet.

"Are you alright?" Sokka asked. "What did that demon do to you?"

"Nothing, he actually... ow my head hurts," Katara broke off, still feeling a bit dizzy.

"Well, come on! We can't fight all of them at once!"

Thus it went that Katara got dragged up into the grey, overcast afternoon, wind moaning across the waters of this shallows, as the fight spilled out onto the deck. To call it a fight was giving the pirates a lot more credit than they deserved, possibly, because adding an airbender to a large group of people fighting over a small standing space, meant that combat usually consisted of a flick of airbending which sent one or more pirates sailing through the air. While the pace wasn't what Katara could have hoped for, with her mildly concussed state working against her, she couldn't do much to help.

"How are we going to get off of this boat?" Sokka shouted. Aang paused for a moment, as though only in that moment realizing that he had a very real problem that no amount of pirate flinging could solve. He got a grin on his face, though, as he pulled out that worthless whistle, and took in a breath so deep that it seemed to cause a momentary backdraft, before blasting it through the broken instrument. Sokka stared, deadpan, at the monk. "Oh, hurray. We're all saved."

"Sokka! They're behind us!" Katara shouted, and she found herself being scooped up and dumped over a railing, to be caught by Aang below, while Sokka started to desperately dodge the slashing and stabbing of the pirates who had them surrounded. It was at about this moment that Katara decided that, concussion or no, she wasn't going to be the load today. She focused past the pain and the dullness of her mind, and rooted her feet, even as Aang started to spin around, trying to keep the seamen from swamping them. Katara moved through the motions that she'd seen before. Moving waves was the first waterbending she'd ever done. This was just doing it on a bigger scale.

Above, half a glance showed that Sokka had once again turned the ship against its crew, first by dodging their attacks around a mast, and then using a length of rope to affix one, then hip-check him overboard. The weight of one pirate falling into the drink ran over a pulley she hadn't noticed, and sent the pirate's much lighter comrade skyward. Katara kept bending. Almost. Almost.

With a grim smile, she watched as a wave finally mounted, like those around it but so much greater. It crested, great waves of foam flicking almost invisibly against the cloud cover. Katara would have been impressed at how much water she was bending, if it didn't come with a very sharp sense of panic that in her damaged state, she might well have done more than she could handle. That suspicion turned to confirmation when that great tsunami slammed into the side of the ship, and the whole thing listed almost right over, with everybody not braced against the impact sliding down the deck, if not being flung right into the waves. Only because Katara had hastily frozen her feet to the decking did she not go with them. Still, she slowly pushed herself back to her feet, and flicked away the oppressive wet which now saturated everything. Aang looked quite pleased, and annoyingly dry.

"That was amazing, Katara!" Aang said.

"My head hurts," Katara answered, feeling a bit weak in the knees. "And I think I just washed away our only way off the ship," she said, pointing to where a skiff was now floating independent of the ship.

"Not entirely," Sokka said, swiping the hair which, in the maelstrom, had come undone and now lay at random around his face. He pointed into the distance, at something which was much like a cloud, but a very different one. Namely, because this one was traveling at a monumental pace, and in all likelihood was going to cover Sokka in snot before the week was out.

"Appa!" Aang bounced up, intercepting the bison as it made a pass over the boat. But not a very good pass, because it smashed the side of the hull with its tail as it skimmed over. This time, Katara was sprawled across the deck from the impact. The bison came back around, and Sokka helped heave Katara into the howdah. "See? I knew having a bison whistle would come in handy!"

Katara just turned to her brother. "You know what? I give up," he said, not bothering to fight the universe on this one.

"Well, we've got to go," Aang said. "It's not far to Bomei, even with this side-trek."

"We'd better pick up our things before we go."

"You know, this whole situation would have been avoided if you'd had some sense," Aang said with a preachy tone. "So what have we learned?"

"Stealing is wrong," Sokka said boredly.

"Unless it's from pirates," Katara amended. She could tell from the way that Aang slumped, that he too had given up on fighting this particular battle.

* * *

><p>Fighting a sword-wielding pirate bare handed was not what Zuko wanted to end the day with, but doing it in the closed, blind hell of the holds was not something he wanted to undertake. Especially after the two great blows the ship withstood from without not too long ago. Zuko had been in retreat when the second hit, and the impact of it actually burst free one of the timbers of the hull, letting water spill in at an alarming rate. The plus side of the equation was that, with all of the water saturating the wood, Zuko finally felt free to cut loose and firebend as he saw fit.<p>

And oh, how he saw fit.

The others had left before. He could see them receding into the distance even as he broke free of the smoke and the steam that the ship's leaking and his firebending had combined to create. The pirates that didn't get out of his way quickly found themselves afire, and bailing over the rails to quench those hungry flames. Zuko had exactly zero sympathy for them. But that was a thing of the past, because at the moment, he had a portly but astoundingly quick one-eyed pirate captain to hold his attention. A grinding of steel upon steel hit the air as Zuko narrowly deflected aside a thrust with one of his battered bracers; if they took this kind of punishment, he'd have to replace them soon, no matter the cost. Zuko couldn't get the breathing room to firebend, though, and fighting at this range was not something that he'd prepared for, to his chagrin.

Thus it came as a relief when he felt his hair being wrenched aside and back, and he was spun away from his opponent. The captain was likewise forced off, leaving the two of them standing several paces from each other, with Uncle Iroh standing between them. "Are you both so foolish to continue fighting on a sinking ship?"

"I've got no time for your proverbs, bounty," the captain snarled.

"It's not a proverb," Zuko said, giving a nod to the sea. Even the most cursory understanding of which way was down showed that the ship was slipping into the water, port-side first, to join the doubtless dozens of others which had went down in this shallows.

"Maybe it should be a proverb," Iroh muttered.

"Flaming Hogmonkeys!" the captain screamed, rushing to the rail. "All men! Bail as your life depends on it! Get us back to shore!"

Zuko couldn't help but offer a sincere and mocking laugh at the man's distress. "You've probably got things well in hand. I'll leave you to it."

"You're just going to leave them like this?" Iroh asked.

"Shouldn't I?" Zuko asked. "They were going to sell you to the Earth King."

"They were going to try," Iroh said with a merry twinkle. He looked at the flotsam on the waves and spotted one of the skiffs which had been torn loose at some point, but was still quite buoyant. "Ah, I see our way back. Fancy a swim?"

"I don't really have an option right now, do I?" Zuko asked, a smirk on his face, as he bounded first up onto the rail, and then over it and into the sea.

* * *

><p><em>That nothing had broken in the last twenty minutes told Iroh what he needed to know about the situation. Namely, that Qiao had things under control. Iroh cautiously opened up the door, and beheld his twelve year old niece on her bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest. Qiao was beside her, giving her a comforting back rub, but Azula looked nothing if not a wild animal which was only behaving at the moment because it knew it wouldn't get free... yet. And the way that she stared at Iroh was much too vitriolic for his liking. "See, everything is fine," Qiao said. "It was just a bad dream."<em>

_"Not bad dream," Azula said, the words still awkward. It had taken Iroh longer than most to realize Azula's aphasia wasn't going to correct itself. In fact, it seemed to be a permanent fact, one that there was no recovery from. Whatever grasp of the Huojian – and in fact any – language which she had before the illness began was utterly lost, and it was like she had to learn how to speak all over again. __She did so, of course, and did so swiftly, but swiftness and ease were not the same thing to the poor girl. "Had knowledge. Acted on knowledge. Still think knowledge was right."_

_"When you were young, you lashed out against Shou. Has something changed there?"_

_"Shou is Shou. Don't remember before; doesn't matter. Don't trust you. Don't know why."_

_"Azula, you have to know that I am on your side."_

_"Ha!" Azula let out a bitter laugh. "Angry that father is Fire Lord. Vengeful. Want power back," she took in a deep breath. "Usurpation inevitable."_

_"I cannot say what my brother told Father to get him to retract my birthright. I can guess," Iroh said, taking a seat opposite his wife. As he did, Azula moved closer to Qiao. "But whatever it was, the fact is, your father, my brother, is now Fire Lord. Nothing I do is going to change that."_

_"Doubtful. Might act stupid, but cunning. Must have plans, contingencies, organizations. Must have leverage somewhere," she took another breath. "Have secrets."_

_Iroh didn't like the look in Azula's eyes as she said that last part, but he only sighed at the indictment. He had never been particularly close to Azula, and now it seemed to be coming back to bite him. "We all have secrets, Azula. It's just a matter of knowing what kind of secrets they are."_

_"Too many old men," Azula shook her head, staring past the bulkheads which were very quickly filling up with the many efforts of her artistic work. The years since her illness had struck her gave her but one positive effect, and that was her skill and zeal in painting and the like. "Crazy, cunning, cowardly old men. Too many places. Too many competing viewpoints... Fractures inevitable."_

_Qiao gave him a glance over Azula's head. A glance which said 'does she know?' If she did, Iroh hadn't the first clue as to how. He just patted her hand. "Well, maybe some day you'll have secrets like mine, and you'll understand why you have to keep them to yourself."_

_"Know all about keeping secrets," Azula muttered, turning her eyes to the floor._

_"Sweetheart, are you going to apologize for throwing that bottle at your uncle's head?" Qiao asked kindly._

_"No."_

_"Maybe we should just let it be," Iroh said. Qiao gave a querulous expression, but Iroh shook his head minutely. "I'm overdue at the helm. The new pilot is... a bit wet behind the ears."_

_"Stupid saying. Is sailor. Of course wet behind ears," Azula muttered. Iroh left the room quietly, leaving his wife to try to figure out what the the hell happened. Iroh had been talking with her quite calmly, praising her on the beauty of one of her more recent pieces, which showed some sort of bald person standing, almost a hint of mockery in his stance, upon the prow of one of four burning boats. Iroh could have sworn he recognized the other figure in the portrait, but dismissed it as an old man's grasping for lost images. Then, she just... changed. She started shrieking in that nonsense tongue she still sometimes lapsed into, hurling things at him. Iroh didn't make the pronouncement lightly, but there was __murder__ in that girl's eyes, before Qiao came to calm her down._

_"Uncle, what's going on in there?" Zuko asked, from where he was fretfully waiting around the corner._

_"I really don't know, Prince Zuko," Iroh said, patting the lad on the shoulder and taking care not to brush against the bandages which pressed against his neck. "I wish I did."_

As the flavor of the papaya slice fled from his tongue, so too did the memory it evoked. It was odd the kind of things which would trigger a memory. Odd, but not surprising. One of his departed compatriots once related how he'd written an entire book of recollections based on the stream of consciousness brought about by the smell of a biscuit dunked into tea. Iroh had read that book. It was _not_ short. Iroh kept pace with his nephew, despite the latter's longer legs and youthful vitality. He didn't doubt that Zuko would be keeping the murderous pace the whole way, though. It wouldn't take long to reach the hovel.

Zuko pushed through the door without so much as a knock, and Iroh could see a very befuddled looking Beifong standing a bit back from his niece. "What's going on?" Zuko asked, wariness peaking suddenly.

"I don't know," Beifong said. "We were having a good old-fashioned argument, and then she started blathering nonsense."

"What?"

"You can't buy for the end of the foot ball," Azula said.

"The what?" Beifong asked.

"End of the foot ball!" she stressed, as though volume would somehow make it more sensible. Zuko, though had gone quite pale. Beifong half turned to him.

"Okay, now y'all are starting to scare me. What's going on?"

"Mama? Are you a'right?" Chiyo asked. She then turned to Beifong. "Mama, why is she talk'n funny?"

"Azula, don't worry, we're right here," Zuko said, taking her hand and easing her down to the ground. She first looked a bit annoyed at him, but her eyes bugged, and her body tensed hard, her fingers curling into claws. Then, there was a hiss of her breath being forced from her lungs. But where the last attack, the one which happened at the manor in Gaoling, was devastating – an explosion of a faulty pressure cooker – this was more soft, a releasing of pressure, like steam escaping from a ruptured boiler until the whole thing shut down. No great flailing, just tension, slow movements, and a gasp at the end.

"Mama?" Chiyo asked. Azula answered at a groan, and slowly raised a hand to her brow, wiping away the sweat.

"We should get them back to the ship," Zuko said quietly.

"Where... am I?" Azula asked. Iroh's eyes popped a bit at that. She usually never recovered so quickly. But then again, this episode was almost a non-event compared to how she could be.

"You're in a hovel," Toph answered. Azula turned down to her, and flinched back for a moment, before shaking her head.

"What's she doing here?" Azula demanded.

"She helped us find you. She made sure nothing bad happened to you," Zuko said. "Don't you remember?"

"Would I ask if I remembered?"

"You would if it made somebody else look like an idiot," Toph answered, as though quoting somebody. Probably Azula herself. Thus it was that Azula glared at the woman, but didn't do more.

"Mama, 'r you a'right?" Chiyo asked, tugging at Azula's blouse. Azula turned her gaze down to the child.

"Do I look like anybody's mother, child? Go away," she said.

"Don't you recognize her?" Iroh asked. Azula turned from the girl, who was looking somewhat beside herself, and back to Iroh.

"Should I?" Azula asked. Come to think of it, her accent was much reduced now. Iroh filed that away, to see later if it conformed to his working theory. "Who is this child?"

"You said her name was Chiyo," Iroh said.

"Is that your name?" Azula asked. The girl shook her head. "And the bottom falls out of your story."

"You swore up and down that was her name," Beifong pointed out.

"And if I remember correctly, you tried to kill me."

"You burned down my house!" Beifong shouted. Her tirade looked like it was only just beginning, a finger thrust forward in implication, but the whole lot of them were interrupted when the door slammed open behind them. All of them, even Azula, turned over fists pointed toward the intruder, who was a man probably not far past his thirtieth year, but he looked far older, because the worry which was currently plastered on his face looked to be a fairly consistent feature. He gave a start at so many aggressive people levied against him, but when he looked through them, his face brightened.

"YUI!" he shouted, and actually shouldered Iroh aside, something he hadn't considered possible, in order to scoop up the little girl on the ground.

"Daddy!" she cried happily.

"I was so worried about you," the man said, hugging her hard to his chest. "I'm not leaving you with Xuei, not ever again. I promise this will never happen again."

"I'm a'right daddy," the girl, nominally Yui, answered. "You c'n stop cryin'."

"This is your daughter?" Azula said. The man nodded.

"I was told that a girl had taken her into the hovels. I was terrified, that something might have happened to her. Was that...?"

"Mama was real good to me," Yui said sweetly.

"She's not your Mama," the father said patiently, as though he'd gone over this before. "Mama is gone," he turned to the others. "She doesn't really understand what happened to her mother."

"My sister looked after your little girl," Zuko said, dropping his fists. "_Yui_... was perfectly safe."

"Bless you," the man said genuinely. "After her mother died, she's pretty much all I've got left," he paused for a moment, looking at Azula. "You know, you look a lot like her."

Uncle and nephew shared a glance. Both were considering things, probably very different things, but neither spoke. Azula stretched slightly, utterly ignoring the child whom so recently had held her entire attention. "Merchant's Pier?" she asked. Zuko nodded.

"We've missed our shot," Zuko told her.

"What shot?" she asked. Beifong stared at the space between them, confusion on her face.

"Why the hell are you two talkin' in spy-speak?" she asked.

"Thank you," the father said. "All of you. I don't want to think what would have happened if you hadn't protected my Yui."

"Raise her well," Iroh said. "I'm sure she will do you proud."

The man nodded and departed, whispering to the little girl in his arms. Azula took in the whole thing with not more than a tapping of her foot. She did look tired, as she always was after one of those spells took her, but now, more than anything, she seemed impatient. "So are we going or are we going to stand in a hovel for the rest of the winter?"

"And don't forget you promised me a ride to Bomei," Beifong pointed out.

"Bomei?" Azula said. Then, she nodded. "Ah, yes. Bomei. Well, Zuzu? Are we going or are we not?"

Zuko waved his arm toward the door, and the inhabitants of the hovel all filed out. All but Iroh himself. Zuko paused a moment before following the two girls. "Do you believe now?" Zuko asked. "That my sister is some kind of oracle?"

Iroh tugged a moment on his beard. "What I believe is far more complicated, Prince Zuko."

And with that, the Fire Nation royalty, plus one blind earthbender, began to steam up the river to the oldest Fire Nation Colony in the Northern Earth Kingdoms.

* * *

><p><strong>How about now?<strong>

**Call it an old proclivity, but I'm of the opinion that of all of the Gaang, Toph works as the best intermediary between Team Fire and the Gaang. She's got a mercenary personality, and usually holds people to how they act rather than how stands their reputation. Dealing with Toph is engaging in a meritocracy. The other factor with Toph is that no matter what else changes in the world (and sometimes, there's quite a bit), Toph is always Toph. Just like the rocks she commands, she is reliable and stable. She's useful in a narrative sense, and fun to write besides.**

**I'm glad I planned all of this out, because things are going to get a bit more complex, and they don't really start to resolve until the second part of the 'season finale'. If I'd tried writing by the seat of my pants (well, more than I do even with the planning that I've got this time), it'd be a hell of a snarl by now. And that'd just be a damned shame. **

**Another thing I should mention now so I don't forget when it comes up later: Nila constantly bitches about her home on Sentinel Hill, how they're backwards, sexist, and ignorant. Yeah... That's her mother coming through again. Since Nila hadn't the social skills to integrate herself into the society (another failure as a mother in Sativa), she has about as much knowledge about the workings of Si Wongi courtesy and culture as I know the secrets of turning rust into gold. And when it comes to backwardsness... Well, Si Wongi create the finest stills on the planet, and she will find as she moves throughout Book 2 and the Ba Sing Se arc that in the East their scientific instruments are comparatively pathetic. It's not that I'm inconsistent. It's that the character is wrong.**

**Yeah, that's the story and I'm sticking to it.**

_Leave a Review._


	14. Emerging Patterns I

**This and the next chapter were supposed to be one, but I split it for two reasons; one, it was getting way too long, and; two, that way I'd still have twenty chapters to Book 1. Sorry about the gap. I lost a week to Assassin's Creed.**

* * *

><p>It was a familiar heat which pressed down on her skin. Di Huo was one of the only truly desert islands left in the Fire Nation, and even then, it wasn't nearly as harsh as even the outer reaches of Dakong, which they now entered into. It wasn't really surprising. These days, it might rain two days a year – usually consecutively – and then be baking and dry for the other three hundred and seventy on the island. Of course, that was a veritable flood compared to how it used to be; before the clouds rolled in over the Fire Nation, Di Huo could see a solid three centuries between rainfalls. Tzu Zi and her family were long inhabitants of that desert island, and it had left its mark on them. Such that, even now, she felt much more at home, and simultaneously homesick, than she had for the many months since her leaving the big house on the cliff.<p>

"I know that look," Malu said at her side. "You're thinking about your home, aren't you?"

"Yeah. It's been a long time since I've been there," Tzu Zi said.

"Why did you leave?" Malu asked.

"I don't like hurting people," Tzu Zi answered. Malu gave her a raised eyebrow. "People who don't deserve it, anyway. Dad wanted me to go into the military. He's got some fool notion since he never had a son that one of his daughters has to 'keep up the martial tradition'."

"Really?" Malu asked, confused. "Since when do they let girls into the army?"

Tzu Zi shrugged. "I really couldn't tell you. All I know is that they do now," she said, looking out over dry, waving grasses that stretched to the impossible horizon.

"Ever since Sozin's war ate up the manpower," Nila cut in from the side of Aki, as she dug through the saddle bags. "You can't fight a war if you don't have soldiers. On the plus side, it made them a model for gender equality that the rest of the world could do well to heed."

Malu turned back to the Si Wongi. "Don't tell me you actually admire Sozin," she asked, eyes snapping. Nila turned to her with an angry look.

"Just because I can appreciate the side-effect of his policies doesn't mean I approve the policies themselves," Nila said, pointing a tattooed finger at her in warning. "Don't put words in my mouth, airbender."

"I like this place. It's very alive," Sharif said, smiling distantly from the back of that great brute he called Patriarch. It wasn't hard to see why the name got chosen: the bird, for all its obvious advanced age, could still keep up with Aki no matter what pace Tzu Zi set. Of course, of the lot of them, only Sharif was welcome on Patriarch's back, so the pace didn't tend to be very quick.

"You have a strange idea of alive, brother."

"Sometimes," Tzu Zi said quietly, staring toward the horizon, "I wonder what I would have been if I never left home. What kind of person I'd be, if I'd have had friends, things like that."

Malu shook her head, almost bitterly. "There's no point wandering down that path, my friend. Nobody can tell what might have been. I've thought about it a lot myself. If I disobeyed my parents, what would have happened? Could I have saved them? Could I have saved everybody? But the truth is, I don't know, and I will never know. So I've just got to do the best with whatever I've got."

"Come to think of it," Nila said, flipping the saddlebag on the stallion closed, and turning toward Malu, "why _are_ you still here? Didn't you say you were heading north?"

"It's not like I've got a schedule to keep," Malu said with a sarcastic tone. "The Tribesmen will still be in the north when I'm ready for them."

"We'll see about that," Nila muttered off handedly.

"What was that?" Malu asked, but Nila was already walking past them, through the grass, and Patriarch started to follow her. Malu shook her head. "Sometimes, I really wonder what's going on in that girl's head."

"She just needs somebody to be a friend," Tzu Zi said.

"Well, that's not exactly easy," Malu said. Then she chuckled. "But I do see why _you_ like her so much."

"She's very sweet when you get to know her," Tzu Zi said.

"I'll bet she is," Malu laughed aloud at that. Tzu Zi raised a brow at the comment, but didn't feel like following it up. Instead, she spurred Aki into Patriarch's wake. That was the way of things. Even when Patriarch was still hobbled, he was the one at the front. It was almost like Aki refused to try to lead him. Considering the comparative difference in size between the great Dakong stallion and her own Ru Nanni mare, she could see why.

"See? That wasn't so bad. You're almost back home," Sharif said, patting Patriarch's neck.

"Whoop di-doo," Nila said flatly.

"You can still come with me, you know, after you bring Sharif to your mother," Tzu Zi offered. Nila just nodded at that.

"You know, I've never really given much thought to Dakong," Malu said from Tzu Zi's side as they walked. "I mean, I've been over it quite a few times in my life, but it just seemed like miles upon miles upon miles of nothing. Hence the name."

"It's a lot less empty than you think," Nila answered, her tones slipping away from that despondency which made Tzu Zi very uncomfortable, and into something more even, more confident. Tzu Zi called it Nila's Schoolmaster Voice. "This place is home to one of the greatest remaining nomadic peoples, after the reasonably extinct Air Nomads, and the Gorks."

"Don't call them Gorks, Nila," Tzu Zi interrupted.

"Why not?"

"It's kinda an ethnic slur."

"Noted. It might not look like there's much here, but if we cross over that horizon, we might stumble upon one of the great clans of Dakong, or even one of the Noyan's Keshigs readying for war against my people, or the others in the Southern Earth Kingdoms. Even when the war against the Fire Nation was at its most acute, they always held a relatively myopic view of the world, and operate at a constant state of hostility if not outright warfare with the rest of the continent."

"That's a great history lesson, but what are they _really_ like?" Malu asked. Nila turned to her, annoyed to be dragged off track. "I mean, I can see why you'd believe the worst in them. They do keep fighting your people, so you're bound to have a poor opinion. I'm just saying, history's great, but it only tells you how people used to act. Not how they do right now."

"The present will in all likelihood resemble the past," Nila said.

"Why should it?" Malu asked.

That stopped Nila dead. "There is no _why_," she said, annoyed in the extreme. "It's a law_._ It's one of the laws _which makes science possible_!"

"So science can't answer why it is that science is better than the alternative?"

"It should be self evident!" Nila shouted, before continuing her rant in her native tongue.

"Malu, you should really stop baiting Nila," Tzu Zi said, weary. Malu just laughed though, and Nila's incomprehensible spiel continued on despite them. Unnoticed by any of the three, Sharif took a moment to stare to the north, as though something far in the distance had caught his attention, and not in any pleasant way.

"I know, I can feel it, Patriarch," Sharif said quietly enough that the girls didn't hear him. "Maybe we'll find some safe place before it's too late."

The bird grunted aloud.

"There will have to be," Sharif said. "There's always shelter from the storm. It's just this storm isn't rain or lightning."

He fell silent as they padded through the grasslands of Dakong, the only companions to his thoughts the whispers of the spirits, and the argument between his sister and the girl who so thoroughly enjoyed angering her at his back.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14<strong>

**Emerging Patterns**

* * *

><p>"Admit it, you're lost," Katara said.<p>

"We're not lost."

"We wouldn't have gotten lost if we were flying," Aang said in a far-too-sweet voice.

"We're not lost!"

"Why did we stick to the ground again, Sokka? Did it have something to do with your instincts?"

"I'm telling you, we're not lost!" Sokka shouted.

"Sokka's instincts have no sense of direction," Aang complained.

"If what Tso said was true, than this part of the East Continent is swarming with Fire Nation. And what's going to catch their attention faster than a big, saddled fuzzy flying beast?" Sokka asked. "I'm not just being rhetorical here? Can either of you think of anything that would get their attention faster?"

"That sounds awfully rhetorical to me," Katara muttered.

"That's what I thought," Sokka said. He pointed ahead of them, to a sheltered kiosk which sat where two roads met. "That thing'll show you that I know exactly where I'm going."

"Now taking bets between the universe and Sokka's instincts!" Katara called.

"You are such a brat," Sokka muttered. The lot of they all walked up to the kiosk, and Sokka allowed himself an extremely smug look on his face, as he thrust out a finger to the arrow pointing down the road, blazoned with 'Bomei' in clear script. "I think my instincts deserve an apology."

"Oh, man, look at this!" Aang piped up, all excitement as he feasted his eyes on another advertisement on the kiosk, still bright and whole for the complete absence of rain in this part of the continent. "There's some sort of festival in Bomei!"

Sokka examined it a bit more closely. The ad was for something called 'Fire Days Festival', and professed to have brought in cultural exhibits all the way from the West, with entertainers of various sorts. Sokka's eyes were immediately drawn to the notably well illustrated figure showing acrobats, wearing frilly pink get-ups which showed a lot more skin than Sokka was used to. Not that he was complaining in the slightest. "That's nice," Sokka said, painfully tearing his eyes away from the image and promise of flexible girls and walking past, "but we are kinda on a schedule. We could be in the North Pole before the month is out."

"But this could be a chance for me to get a look at firebending close up!" Aang complained.

"No offense, but you see _plenty_ of firebending close up, because it's constantly getting chucked at you," Sokka pointed out. He turned to continue his point, but what he saw spoke for him. He cast a finger at the back side of the kiosk, where a set of wanted posters were plastered. Amongst a bunch of dour and angry looking men, there was one lanky, bald, teenaged and tattooed airbender monk, staring off the page like he didn't really know what was going on. When the real lanky, bald, teenaged and tattooed airbender monk came around the kiosk with a look on his face like he didn't know what was going on, Sokka felt a distinct urge to palm his forehead. They'd really managed to capture his essence.

"Oh, hey, I'm on a poster," Aang said, and then wilted a bit. "A... wanted poster."

"See, we should just find your friend as fast as we can and move on."

"But what if he's _in_ Bomei?" Aang asked, carefully peeling down the poster and rolling it up. Sokka raised a finger of contention, but it drooped when he realized he actually didn't have a worthwhile answer.

"He's got a point, Sokka. And besides, with all the hubbub of the festival going on, we could probably be in and out of Bomei before anybody even realized we were there."

"Yeah, because that _always_ happens to us," Sokka said sarcastically. "Trouble doesn't hit until _after_ we're safely away."

"Appa, Momo, you might want to sit this one out," Aang said, patting the big beast on the nose, and the little beast on its head. Both gave their respective noises and trundled and kipped off, respectively, into the dense, if dry and sickly, woods outside of Bomei.

"So how are we going to disguise ourselves in there?" Sokka asked. Both looked at him askance. "What? They know what you look like! Do you really think a bunch of Fire Nationals and firebenders all fired up on their... fire... are going to let you just walk around unmolested?"

"We'll think of something," Katara said, starting down the road. Aang shrugged and followed her.

"By which you mean _I'll_ think of something," Sokka corrected, before following after them.

* * *

><p>"...so then I gave a twist, and the whole arena floor gave a quarter turn, which was just enough to have that guy hit his partner instead of me!" Toph broke into laughter. "Oh, that was one pissed off waterbender. They really should run tournaments like that more often."<p>

"That sounds barbaric," Azula muttered from the rail, as the ship slowly steamed up to the wharf. The town of Bomei didn't hug the water, as many towns had to, nowadays. It was an old town, born long before the drought, back when water came easily to the East. And it was also mostly Fire Nation nowadays. The drought and the Fire Nation's arrival here couldn't have been coincidental to the young earthbender's mind. But she didn't harp on that.

"That's actually quite impressive," Zuko said. That she hadn't known he was lying when he gave the name Lee was a bit of concern to her. She was very good at spotting liars. But this time, she knew he was telling the truth, because he was far too calm, too casual. "You must be a lot stronger than you look."

"Looks can be deceiving," Toph warned.

"Tell me about it," Both siblings said in unison, Zuko with a faint chuckle, Azula more bitterly. Zuko continued after that with. "But how did you even end up alone? Weren't there supposed to be teams?"

"Yeah, well mine was a dumbass who got smacked out of the ring in the first five seconds," Toph shook her head. "You can never find good help these days, especially in a fight."

"It really depends on where you look," Azula pointed out.

"You're right about that," she said. A grin then spread on her face. "You know, you and me should go into the next Earth Rumble tourney; I'm pretty sure they're going to try to keep this 'Mixed Elemental Martial Arts' thing going, 'cause it draws a huge crowd."

"I will have far better things to do," Azula said quietly, staring at the town up on the hill, in all likelihood. Toph herself had never been to Bomei, and the fact that she couldn't 'see' it meant she couldn't pass judgment, but even without the eyes to spot it, she could tell that Azula was staring with a degree of homesickness.

"Well, I gotta say, it was a lot more fun than I would have guessed," Toph said, slugging each of the siblings in turn as she moved toward the ramp. "But this is where I gotta get off."

Zuko rubbed his arm where she'd hit him, since she'd intentionally slugged him a lot harder than his sister; proof of concept that she was stronger than she looked. "You know, we could use the help of somebody like you in our..."

"_No, no we don't,_" Azula snapped in her own native tongue. Zuko faltered at that, and Toph paused in her descent onto dry land.

"_She can find anybody in any situation. And if she's half as good as her stories, she could be extremely useful in our search_," he said, but somewhat halfheartedly. Not that he didn't believe in her, but that there was something else that was dragging him down.

"_She is friendly now, but give her a few months, and you'll see where her allegiances lie,_" Azula said quietly, and almost sadly. Toph really didn't know what to make of that.

Since Toph was standing on metal, she couldn't 'see' Zuko's reaction, but the long pause summed it up well. "Well," he said, returning to her language. "I guess this is where we part company for the time being."

"Yeah, so it seems," she said, using her hands to guide her down the rail. But before she made it off, that hand was caught in one of Zuko's

"Maybe we will see each other sooner than you think," Zuko said. "I'm always looking for new talent."

He then patted the back of her hand in a very, very warm way. Toph found herself blushing a bit, and covered it up by wrenching her hand away and elbowing him in the stomach. There was_ no way_ this was turning into some harlequin romance, not on her watch! "Yeah, well, you couldn't afford my rates," Toph said dismissively. "Try not to burn the town down while I'm in it!"

As soon as she got off the metal of the gangway, 'vision' exploded into her, soil and stone sending the reverberations up into her perception in a much more familiar way. While she was on that boat, she was practically blind. _Well_, since her eyes were useless, she was utterly blind, but being on metal exasperated an already dire existing condition. She could feel something, but it definitely wasn't earth-sight. So return to the soil was a welcome respite.

Even if the days on the boat had been good company, decent food, and _extraordinary_ tea... Toph cast those notions aside, though, and strode down the road to the culturally assimilated Earth Kingdom town of Bomei. As she walked, she punched her palm. "Now, let's see if I can find Twinkletoes before he does something nice and stupid."

* * *

><p>"Oh, great. We try coming in with disguises, and they're not even the right kind," Sokka complained. Aang didn't see why he was focusing on the negative, though. The sights and sounds which abounded in this town reminded Aang almost painfully of the outstanding winter he spent in the Fire Nation when he was ten. Usually, most elders kept their pupils on a very short leash when they went abroad, but since Aang had already by then become a reasonably adept airbender at disciplines usually expected of students six years older, Gyatso decided to act with a light touch. The town of Bomei was much like that town they'd landed in, with its great fire-fountain, burning night and day fed by a tapped vein of natural gas. Here, though, lacking the gas vein, they had to make due with massive and plentiful bonfires. The town pulsed with heat even despite the winter trying to press in on them, and the people wore little in their revelry. Less then they usually would, because their faces were adorned with masks which could keep any humility to a minimum and give a welcome excuse to the shy to cut loose a bit. Sokka waved toward the plethora of masks. "Where are we supposed to get masks like those?"<p>

Aang turned and pointed at a stall nearby, tended by a man who was quite notably distracted talking to a local girl whose outfit could be better described as an impression of an outfit. Sokka, though, didn't seem to fixate on the girl so much as the masks. "Well," Sokka said uncomfortably. "That was unusually easy."

Katara was actually the one to lift the trio of masks from the not-so-wary eyes of its vendor, and quickly slid them home over the Avatar and her sibling. Aang looked up at Sokka, whose mask showed a bright grin. Katara seemed to think better of her choice and swapped Sokka's and Aang's, which left Sokka wearing a stylized glower. Her own looked a bit like the one Zuko had worn when getting Aang out of that prison, albeit much more brightly colored and cheery.

"I thought you said you weren't going to steal anymore," Aang said.

"Desperate times," she said with a shrug. He was going to have to keep an eye on her. It seemed that her fingers got a bit sticky, sometimes. "Now what exactly are we going to look for?"

"Acrobats," Sokka said with a distracted tone.

"No, firebenders!" Aang corrected, but when he turned, he saw that Sokka had his mind in a completely different place, and was staring at a stage covered in pink-garbed, incredibly flexible girls. Aang had to admit, his eyes did linger there for a moment, but he chastised himself that he had better things to do right now. "I think we've lost your brother," Aang told Katara.

"Food and women. Great, my brother is a walking stereotype."

Aang shrugged, and stopped at a second vendor. He pulled out the last copper bit that he had with him, and slid it across the shelf, receiving a steaming basket in return. "What we have to do now is find the firebenders, and I can see if I can learn anything off of them... you know, when I'm not scared out of my mind 'cause they're trying to kill me."

"It'd be a change of pace," Katara said. Aang came to a halt near a puppet theatre, which displayed a capering form which was roughly modeled on the Fire Lord. The puppet didn't nearly do the terrifying man justice, though. There was a look in those golden eyes which almost made Aang wet himself the moment he came up those stairs, almost made him agree with the demands levied out of pure terror.

"The North is oddly peaceful today," that puppet said in a raspy voice. A moment later, a second puppet, dressed in blues and carrying a wicked, if impractical looking spear loomed up behind him, and the children watching shouted 'behind you' and 'Look out!', only to have the puppet turn and barbeque the puppet, to which they cheered. Aang gave a glance to Katara, who looked a bit grey at that.

"They weren't always like this," Aang said, munching slowly on his snack. "They used to be so much... well, they were different."

"I don't like that they all see us as the enemy," Katara said. "I mean, even if you weren't here, they might well lynch me if they thought they could get away with it."

"That's not true," Aang said. "The people of the Fire Nation are probably just like any others. They don't hate the people of the other nations. They just don't really have a choice. They were born were they were born. They bend what they bend. It's not like they chose to have _him_ be their Fire Lord."

As he was talking, though, he noted her quickly snatch a handful of his snack. "Well, I'll believe that when I see it. HYAAH!" she shrieked, sputtering and coughing, spitting out her proffered snack onto the stone. Some of the others turned and gave a chuckle at her.

"Fiery Fire Flakes," Aang said. "A bit hot."

"Why didn't you warn me?"

Aang smiled behind his mask. "And this is why you don't steal."

He was glad he couldn't see her expression, because if he could, it might have struck him dead. He sauntered ahead, and she quickly caught back up with him. "So you've actually been to the Fire Nation. Are they actually like this?" she asked, motioning around.

"A lot, actually," Aang said. "I never really thought that an Earth Kingdom town would actually become... well, Fire Nation. But here it is. The only real difference is the buildings. They don't build like the Easterners do. But they're all the same people."

Katara seemed pensive for a moment. "Tell me about them."

"Well, there was this one other airbender student was from the Fire Nation, but she and I never got along. And then there was Kuzon. He was a kid on the island of Grand Ember. We hit it off like rivers and fish. See, I was supposed to be living in the Western Air Temple with Monk Gyatso; I never figured out why he brought me there when I was twelve, but it didn't last. Anyway, I meet up with Kuzon again, and he's acting real suspicious. He won't open up, so I end up having to follow him out into the woods, way away from civilization. And I find out what he was keeping secret. Dragon eggs."

"Dragons? I thought they were extinct," Katara asked.

"They might be," Aang said quietly. "But back then, there were still a few. Have you ever seen a dragon's egg, Katara? It's like a ball of solid fire. I asked Kuzon why he was so paranoid about the clutch, and he told me it was because somebody was poaching the eggs, for sale on the black market or something. He didn't want to see dragons in chains. And I agreed with him. So we ran off the poachers the next time they came around. After that, the Fire Lord personally sent somebody to protect the hatchery," Aang shook his head slowly. "I can't believe that back then, I thought Sozin was an okay guy."

"Well, you had no idea what he was about to do," Katara said warmly.

"I should have. I mean, I was the Avatar even when he shook my hand, and I should have known! I should have done something!"

"Wait, you _met_ Sozin?"

"Yeah," Aang said, uncomfortably. He scratched at the back of his head, indulging a nervous habit. "He was crazy old. Still kinda tough looking. I didn't have a clue that he would have just as quickly killed me dead as thanked me."

"Some people are very good liars."

"Yeah," Aang said quietly.

"I love this town," Sokka broke in with a broad grin, sauntering over with a bare head and his mask on a pink-clad acrobat whom his arm was currently encircling the waist of. Her outfit might have been somewhat modest compared to some, such as a woman who was probably old enough to be Aang's mother, but was parading around in three patches of cloth connected by string, but it still exposed a taut midriff, and a brown braid fell down the girl's back. "So, have you found who you were looking for yet?"

"Who's your friend?" Aang asked.

"She thought I was cute," Sokka said.

"He is!" the girl agreed in a very perky voice.

"Sokka, we're not here to play with the locals," Katara chastized.

"Is she your girlfriend?" the acrobat asked.

"Sister," Sokka said flatly.

"Oh. Well, you don't need to worry about that. I'm not a local!"

"I thought you said you wanted to see... that friend of yours?" Katara nudged Aang.

"Oh, right, the... friend... yeah. That guy."

"Well, whatever it is, you'll probably be able to catch the firebenders on stage before your super secret hush-hush thing," the acrobat prompted, tipping up her mask for a moment. Aang had to admit, Sokka did know how to pick 'em. She was the kind of bubbly cute which Aang got along well with, if didn't exactly run after. That, and she did look really, _really_ familiar, but Aang just couldn't quite place her. Of course, thinking about girls in general turned his memories to a pair of golden eyes on the snowy glacier, almost an entire planet away from where he now stood. But he pushed those thoughts aside.

"That's what that thing was?" Sokka asked. "A crowd that big, I figured it was an execution."

"What was that?" the girl asked, flipping that scowl mask onto her face.

"Nothing! I was just kidding! Seriously," Sokka said giving a 'help me' glance to Aang. Aang forced out a laugh, which sounded a bit nervous to his ears. Katara just shook her head at the foolishness and walked away. Aang followed after her pretty much immediately. "Soooo... you got a sister?"

"I can't believe that goon'd put us all in jeopardy like that!" she complained.

"He's a teenager. We're lucky he thinks with his brain as much as he does!" Aang pointed out.

"Oh, please. It's not like you have that problem," she countered.

"...Well..." Aang trailed off, but the distraction which he so desperately required arrived with perfect timing. It came in the form of fire, filling the sky in bolts and streams, flowing around a man at their heart such that Aang could be forgiven for mistaking it for pyrotechnic waterbending. "Oh, wow. Look at that guy go!" he exclaimed, watching as the routine became more and more elaborate, more and more complex. It continued, blurring into a vague sphere of fire, until he cast it up, and it burst into a flare, which shot into the sky and exploded high over head, to the chorus of 'ooooooh' from the crowd. "I've gotta learn that trick," Aang said.

"It's just showmanship," Sokka dismissed.

"It's firebending!" Aang said.

"Your little buddy's a firebender?"

"Kinda?" Sokka answered the girl. Katara rolled her eyes at the situation, but remained silent.

"Alright, for my next act, I will need a volunteer from the audience," the firebender on stage said. Aang quickly thrust his hand in the air, and had to restrain himself from jumping up and standing on somebody's shoulders to make himself more visible. The man's hand swept toward him, and Aang's hope rose, until he pointed directly at Aang's left. At Katara. "How about the sweet girl in the front?"

"No, thank you," Katara said.

"Oh, let's give her some encouragement," the man cajoled, and Aang watched as the crowd actually pushed her up onto the stage. "See? This won't be so bad. What's your name, little lady?"

"I think I'd rather just get down..."

"Oh, right. You can't say your name," he said. "That's the Fire Days for you. Freedom from yourself. Now sit down right here. I call this act, the Taming of the Dragons!"

"Ooh, this is a good one!" the acrobat said enthusiastically, tossing the mask aside to show a very wide grin.

Aang, though, turned his attention back to the firebending. The man flicked his hands up, reciting a story about dragons of old. Much of it was the kind of stories that just about anybody with a passing familiarity with the Fire Nation would have heard. Well, in Aang's day, anyway. All bets were off if it applied nowadays. As he told of their grace and power, the flames he conjured took the sinuous form of the flying serpent. It looked like Fang, reborn in fire, moving through the sky. But then, the narrative turned, as he told that the dragons suddenly became wild and violent, and their rage caused untold hardships in the Fire Nation. So it was, that they had to be controlled. As he reached that part, he lassoed the fire dragon with a stream of flame that emerged from his hand. While others lost themselves in the spectacle, in the story, Aang just stood there, racking his brain, trying to figure out how this guy was doing that. Sooner or later, Aang was going to have to figure out firebending. And he couldn't do that reactively. Then, the story turned that controlling the dragons proved fruitless, and they lashed out in rage at the West. As he did, the lasso dissolved, and the great beast surged toward Katara. Aang took about one step toward her, every synapse in his brain screaming 'protect her!', but after that one step, he was caught up by Sokka's hand on his collar.

"It's just part of the act, silly," the acrobat said.

"Yeah, don't do anything stupid," Sokka warned. Aang still felt like a traitor as he stood by and did nothing though. But the girl proved correct, because as the beast was feet away from searing Katara as badly as that 'Zhao' had Sokka, the firebender lashed forward and cast a bolt of flame at the 'dragon', causing it to explode into confetti.

"And from that day forward, any man who could do his duty to the Fire Nation, and destroy one of the mad beasts was given the highest of praise and honors, and the title... Dragon."

The crowd erupted into applause at this, but Aang felt a little bit ill. Dragons were actively hunted? In what universe did that actually make sense? The firebender thanked Katara, and she started off the stage. Aang was about to ask her how he'd done it, but he felt something holding him back again. He glanced to his right, but it wasn't Sokka. He then glanced back, and saw that a grown man had grabbed his arm. Aang let out a bellow of alarm and blasted him away with a panicked fit of airbending, driving him back into the wall of the crowd. There was a sudden hush from all around him.

It was probably because the gust of wind he created tossed his mask a good distance away, and left him standing in an airbender's stance, having just airbent somebody.

"Wait a minute," the firebender on stage said. "That's... That's the Avatar! RUN! The Avatar's come to destroy us!"

"No I haven't!" Aang pleaded, but the crowd would not be swayed. The cloaked man made a grab at Aang again, but this time, Aang managed to duck aside. But as he did, the acrobat gave him a jab in the arm, causing the man to shout in alarm, and his limb fall limp.

"Hey, no snatching kids, pervert!" she shouted.

"We should probably leave," Sokka said, helping Aang back to his feet.

"Aww," the girl moaned.

"The Avatar is here! Stop him!" the general cry went up, and a quick glance in several directions showed that it was followed by the town guards flooding into the square.

"Run!" Sokka prompted, and sent the three of them running away. The cloaked man seemed to vanish into the crowd, leaving the acrobat girl all alone, to wave merrily above her head at their retreating backs.

"Write me!" she shouted.

* * *

><p>To call Zuko homesick at the sights of Bomei would be a drastic understatement. The scarlet and gold, the flames licking into the air and casting out the seasonal chill from this northerly latitude, all of it served to remind Zuko that he was not home, and that this was likely as close as he would ever get, for the remainder of his life. "It's been a long time," Zuko whispered.<p>

"What?" his sister shouted over the din. A glance to her showed that her eyes were rolling around in her head like marbles, trying to watch everything at once and, to her credit, almost succeeding. "You're going to have to speak louder!"

Zuko shook his head. It wasn't relevant. In truth, he was torn. If she was right, and the Avatar was here, then he couldn't fight the boy. If he did, there was a chance he'd win. If he didn't fight, though, he'd be betraying his sister's faith and her trust. There had been a few choices in his life which had pincered him, but never so neatly. The crowd swayed with oooh's and aaah's as the performer on stage went through his routine, spreading the propaganda which Grandfather used to legitimize the wiping out of a majestic species, speaking with the exact intonation, the gestures, the words, stipulated and mandated by Azulon's laws. When Zuko left the Fire Nation, he'd respected Grandfather greatly, believing him a powerful and just Fire Lord. Two years on the sea pointedly proved otherwise.

"How are we supposed to find the Avatar amidst this rabble?" Azula asked loudly.

"You shouldn't call them rabble. These are our citizens."

"Please," she dismissed. "There are more green eyes than amber."

"Fire Nation is more than the blood in your veins, Zuli. It's also the burning in your soul. Do I need to remind you of Burning Rock?" Zuko asked.

"No, you don't. And don't EVER call me Zuli!" she snapped. But it brought a smirk to Zuko's face, and that was a welcome change. The narrative on the stage reached its crescendo, and the 'dragon' was 'slain', to uproarious applause. Zuko couldn't help but feel a little bit ashamed. "He's around here somewhere, and if I know anything about meddlesome types like him, he will make himself obvious very, very soon."

Zuko raised a brow. "Why?"

She looked back at him like he was stupid. "Because meddlesome types live to meddle, and he is meddlesome."

"That's a bit circular, Azula."

"Shut up."

The jibing which Zuko was about to launch into was cut short when an alarmed scream came from the front of the crowd, right near the stage. The crowd milled, growing louder and louder, pressing out from several figures. One of which, Zuko was fairly sure he recognized from their childhoods. "Wait a minute," Zuko said, pointing to the teenaged girl in question. "Azula, doesn't that look like..."

"It's him!" Azula said, indicating someone quite different from Zuko as her voice rose and a grin burned on her face.

"Somebody get the guards! The Avatar's here and he's going to kill us!" one of the plebs screamed as she ran away. That caused Azula's grin to wilt fairly severely.

"Oh, no. I'm not losing the Avatar to a half-trained militiaman! Come on, Zuko!" she shouted, dragging Zuko away from the figment which flitted from his mind without a second consideration. In truth who that one was was utterly immaterial. All he had to do was keep pace with his sister. Not that she was giving him much of an option at the moment. It was odd that he could feel so protective of a girl who, in an honest fight, could probably beat him to death without strenuous effort, but her strength of body was actively betrayed by her frailty of mind. He wanted to drag his feet, but that too was out of the question.

As the siblings broke away from the crowd, the lane between they and the Avatar's lackeys became clear. Azula released Zuko's sleeve, and used the freedom of mobility to give a half-hop, and then thrust forward toward them with a motion which looked more earthbending than firebending. When she did, a wall of fire blasted away from her, searing along the painted stone walls of Bomei's buildings, and causing the Avatar to have to bound away and drag the two Tribesmen with him, lest they all be immolated. When Aang landed, he turned back, casting out a blast of wind, which Azula burned through with a small, focused flame. It was about then that the boy finally realized who he was up against, and that they weren't mere guardsmen.

"No, how can you be here, too?" Aang asked.

"Maybe you're more predictable than you ever suspected," Azula answered him, her tone so far from confused and weak that it shocked Zuko. In truth, it almost sounded... a bit sultry. With a smirk on her painted lips, she then launched into an axe kick which seared down the other side of the fairway, cutting off the three as they prepared to escape down an alley. This proved a bit more penetrable, and the Avatar forced a way through the fire, fleeing aside. "Don't just stand there, Dum-dum! After them!"

Zuko didn't say a word, just following in Azula's wake as she gave hot pursuit of the Avatar. Could he even attack them, now? He realized even as the thought came to him, in this charged and frantic chase, that of course he could. He even would. Because that's what his sister needed from him. Azula rounded a corner, only to be knocked off her course by a blast of airbending. She was most of the way to her feet in an instant, but that instant also saw a surge of water slam out from the wells and water barrels. Zuko rushed 'round that corner and answered in fire, a sweeping attack which started near the tops of the stone walls, then swooped down like the wings of some mighty phoenix. Katara proved her mettle, though, in retracting her attack to shell her companions from Zuko's assault. There was a moment of silence, blue eyes meeting golden, as Azula pulled herself up. She'd come along very, very quickly from who she was when Zuko had ran them down on Kyoshi Island. Well, Azula had run them down, but seeing the waterbender now, as compared to then? She was a different person. Stronger. Angrier. And currently in the midst of an attack.

Zuko had to vault aside when she twisted the shield she'd sheltered behind into a ram, one she sent out with tremendous force. So much, in fact, that the impact of it cracked the walls of the building behind the siblings. Azula had rolled clear, but the obvious attempt on her life lit a fire in Zuko, one that one would do well by not lighting. Because now, somebody had tried to hurt his sister. And that would not stand.

Even as Azula began to send volleys of scarlet flames at the group, Zuko was advancing in an implacable wave, of golden fire and filial outrage. He'd given them every chance to just run away, and they insist on hurting his sister? How dare they! Even as he attacked, some small, rational part of his mind could recognize the acrobatics required to end up with that conclusion, but the truth was, he was too angry in this moment to fight it. He wanted to burn something. They would do.

Fire pounded in his lungs and in his legs as he closed the distance, smashing through the waterbender's defenses with raw and untempered flame, until he'd come within a few yards of her. Then, the Avatar swept in from behind her, and spun his hands very low. Zuko's footing went right out from under him as he landed on a rotating disc of air, a scant inch from the ground. The disc started spinning him with it. Zuko lost all track of direction and what his enemies were doing, such that it was actually a bit of a relief when the Avatar sent Zuko skyward, catapulting him up and embedding him into a less well-tended part of the roof. While the brittle tiles did break his fall, it was not gently, and it was not painlessly.

"Ooooh," Zuko moaned as he forced himself to a sit, and realized that he was now about five yards higher from the ground than he'd started. He blinked away the nausea, and shook away the stars in his head. Yeah, he really couldn't take hits like that very often, not without incurring some serious brain trauma. He got to his feet, limpingly of course, and looked down. Azula was holding her own against both the Avatar and the waterbender, but she wouldn't be able to do it for long. Zuko considered jumping right down, but a broken ankle on top of a concussion didn't sound like his idea of a good plan. Doubly so when he heard a cutting in the air and had to throw himself supine on the tiles to avoid worsening his concussion via boomerang. So the Tribesman thought that trick would work twice? Zuko felt as though he should be outraged at that presumption. In truth, he just hurt.

Zuko slid to the edge of the roofing and kipped through a window, landing on a kitchen table of a family of four. They all stared at him. He stared back at them, then down at their dinner he was spanning.

"Food and Public Health inspector," Zuko lied, pulling an official looking form from a back pocket which was in fact Uncle's receipt for a tsungi horn. "You seem to have a decent diet and keep a clean house. There is no issue here."

"Oh... Very well... thank you?" the patriarch said with a baffled expression. Zuko hopped off the table, pocketed 'the credentials', brushed off some of the tile which had caught in his shirt, then walked out the door. Zuko paused on its other side, rubbing his aching head.

"Man, am I good at lying," Zuko noted. And then a second thought occurred to him. "Man, are those people _dumb_!"

With that out of the way, Zuko took to a run again, getting out of the house at ground level via a second story hall window. While the impact did jar his legs, it was far better than a suicidal plunge from the roof. He found Azula a few streets away, still fighting the three of them. Zuko rushed forward, adding himself to the fray... well, as best as he could. Because now, there were spear-armed militiamen who seemed to be appearing out of the woodwork. Many of them still had their celebration masks on, and only a scarce pair were in armor, but the thicket of sharp steal on long poles held a threat all its own. Azula was smirking at the Avatar and his comrades. "You'd might as well surrender, Avatar," she said, in that smokey, almost seductive way that she was. It sounded... really weird, a bit off, and majorly creepy to Zuko, but he wasn't about to say anything. Not now.

"You are to be remanded in custody and brought to the Fire Lord for judgment," one of the spearmen announced. Azula gave him a hot glare.

"You will do no such thing. I have trapped him. He's mine to bring before F... Ozai."

"There's more than enough bounty to go around," the spearman said casually. "Hell, we could spread it amongst the whole of Bomei and it'd still be a... what's that sound?"

Zuko looked down at the ground between Azula and that militiaman, and saw that there was a hissing grapefruit there. While the absurdity of it galled even Zuko, he knew he had to interpose himself between Azula and that thing. He was already twisting a fire-shield into existence when the citrus detonated, and sent up a vast plume of what smelled like powdered oil-pepper at the guards. The stink of it burning was welcome, given the alternative, which befell many of the militiamen, was breathing in and having eyes coated in the horrid stuff, resulting in choking and blindness.

Zuko let the shield die and turned, only to have a blast of wind knock him onto his back. A man in a cloak bounded past the struggling, flailing, gasping soldiers, and bowed to the trio at the end of the dead-end.

"Please, come with me, I know a way out!"

"You tried to kidnap me!" the Avatar accused.

"You didn't let me explain! I need you to leave Bomei now, before it's too late," he said. Zuko wouldn't have trusted that for an instant, and was mildly annoyed that the boy gave a nod, and the man led the trio out, past Zuko and away from the place they'd almost gotten knicked. Zuko glanced above/behind him, and saw that Azula had two grown men pinning her down, albeit involuntarily since they were on the ground wheezing, and she had the misfortune of being the lowest on the pile. Zuko elected to play unconscious, and let the group pass. When they were about a minute gone, Zuko forced himself up, as though unsteady on his feet. It was more than half true, that. He staggered over to Azula, and rolled the soldiers off of her, pulling her to her feet.

"Where the hell were you?" Azula shouted, giving Zuko a punch in the arm to punctuate her outrage. "We could have had them!"

"He embedded me into a _roof_!" Zuko answered back, anger in his own voice. "What was I supposed to do? Bounce off like my spine was made of rubber?"

Azula looked like she wanted to explode further on him, or in fact anybody, but she turned, looking toward where the edge of town lie. "They can't have gotten far. Keep up, Zuzu. I'm not letting them get away again!"

* * *

><p>This was a hell of a night. While Toph had landed in Bomei without a penny to her name, now she had cash in her pocket. All because she kinda-sorta lied on a first wager, which she couldn't have gotten wrong if she tried. An hour of not-strictly-legal bet tampering, and she had a bit of scratch to play with. If she was in a play from about two hundred years ago, she'd have a reason to be concerned – since back then, any illicit gain had to be directly punished in the narrative – but since she was fairly certain her life wasn't a morality tale, she just got enough for tea and dinner, and took a seat at a small, relatively sedate eatery just outside the eastern gate of Bomei.<p>

In truth, her gambling hadn't been just for money and cheating's sake. There'd been a fair bit of reconnaissance going on as well. That was why she didn't sit on the western gate; it was too small, and the crowds around it too thick. The east, on the other hand, was much more sparsely populated, both of revelers and mostly-slacking guards. If there was one thing which Toph Beifong knew about people who stylized themselves protagonists, its that when a festival appeared, trouble was sure to follow. And since they would not head south to where the Fire Nation was berthed, they would most likely come streaming out of this gate when the time came.

Of course, that was her reasoning before she remembered that they've got a big, fuzzy flying thing. Her dense knowledge of literary tropes didn't really give her insight into how to account for that little variable. After that, her smugness dissolved into a glum sulk and she sipped lethargically at her tea. "You look like you've got problems, little lady," the shopkeeper said.

"I'm just fairly sure I missed the most important rendezvous in my life," she muttered. She then gave a half turn to the couple who was whispering somewhere behind her. "It doesn't help that I've got to 'see' everything that these people are doing all the frickin' time."

"You should try just enjoying the sights," the shopkeeper said.

"Yeah, that'll work out," Toph muttered.

The man shrugged. "People your age aren't usually on their own. Not when they have pocket money, anyway. So who is he? He your boyfriend or something?"

"What? No!" Toph said. "You know what, just shut up and give me more tea."

"As the lady wants," he said with a sigh. "You'd get a lot more young men in your wake if you were a bit nicer, though."

"And why would I want that?" Toph asked, knocking back the remainder of her tea in one great gulp.

Toph turned from the serving bar and took a few steps away, out from under the 'protective' awning. Like it'd need that. It hadn't rained in this part of the East for decades. She opened her useless eyes wide, and took a deep breath. It smelled so... different... from Gaoling. She shook her head. What was she thinking? That she could just meet up with the Avatar and demand a place at his side for the glory which was to come? What gave her that right? And come to think of it, why would he even accept her? She was blind after all, and that was a fairly significant drawback to have to deal with. And then there was the wolfbat from Makapu. Yeah, Twinkletoes did respect her, but the thought of being romantically entangled with that naïve, idealistic ingenue did not sit well in Toph's stomach or mind.

Maybe this was all just a mistake. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe she wasn't up for this kind of thing.

"Come on, they're not far behind!" somebody shouted from the area of the gates.

"I know! I can see them!" came the reply, and this one in a voice which Toph instantly recognized. It was the Sugarqueen, no doubt about that. There was a sound of crashing water and then a gale of wind tugged at Toph's dress slightly, as though she were far on the outside of something impressive. Just in that moment, Toph had envy for the sighted, because whatever Twinkletoes and Sugarqueen did, it must have been damned impressive. "Alright, that'll buy us some time. Who are you?"

"No talking, more running!" the grown man said, and then they were taking off. Toph tried to elbow her way past the crowd which had blocked her off from them, but they were already sprinting past by the time Toph resorted to angry earthbending to create a hole for her to walk through. By then, they were long past, and even Toph screaming at them to turn around didn't register in the slightest. Toph stood there for a long moment, then sighed.

"Yup. This is going to be _awesome_," she said sarcastically. She half turned to the vendor behind her. "You can keep the change."

"But you haven't paid me yet?" he answered.

"Fancy that," Toph said, and started walking, vanishing from his meager eyes into the crowd. In _that_ moment, she had no regret for her blindness, because it meant that while Twinkletoes and the others might be out of sight, they weren't out of her minds-eye. Not even close. And she knew she had a lot of walking left in her before she was even tired.

* * *

><p>The rumble started so slowly that she didn't even notice it. Then again, when she was up to her figurative neck in a problem and trying to reason it out, her house could burn down around her and she wouldn't notice. Thus it was that it was the annoying airbender who had to bring it to Nila's attention that there was a noise approaching. Her eyes flicked up to the horizon, and she kicked herself for being so oblivious.<p>

"Well, what is it?" Malu asked.

"Remember how I said that the Big Empty wasn't very? Well, those would probably be the inhabitants. If we're careful and quick, we might be able to find some way to hide from them," Nila said, scanning the surroundings. Besides the small hillock about a mile away which broke the horizon, there was nothing but swaying, drought bleached grass.

"And why do we want to hide from them again?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Because they'd like to kill us," Nila answered. "Damn it all! We're trapped in the open!"

"Why would they kill us?" Malu asked.

"You, because you're outsiders. Me and my brother? Because we're The Nemesis," Nila said. "If we drop everything and stop coddling that old cockerel, we may... _may_ be able to outrun them."

"They wouldn't be so brutish," Malu said confidently. "Come on, Tzu Zi. It's not like they're going to hurt _us_."

"Doesn't anybody listen to me?" Nila shouted. "They're Dakongese! They live for battle! They held one of the two bastions against Chin the Conqueror centuries ago by being too violent to tame!"

"Yeesh, you're making them sound like they're Gurkhas," Tzu Zi said with a shake of her head.

Nila had to see her point. "Well, not Gurkhas, but still, better to hide and let them pass. Even if it takes all week. Trust me."

"Too late," Sharif said from that bird's back. Nila turned to where the dust was rising over the horizon, but nothing had crested yet.

"What did you see?"

"Anger, fear. Some greed and hunger," he shrugged, then cast a placating hand toward Malu. "Not like yours. Normal stuff."

"Not like... what the hell is he talking about?" Malu asked, brow raised in bemusement.

"He is Sharif. That is the way he speaks."

"We can still run. Their birds are strong but we have firepower," Nila said, giving glances toward Tzu Zi and Malu.

"What about that bow on your hip."

"You think I could outshoot a Darga? Are you mad?" Nila asked. She turned as the thunder reached its crescendo, and the first of many crested that hill. Nila felt a cold surge wash through her, the sour inevitability of defeat. When another forty joined the first, she just opened the case at her hip, and drew out the bow. There was no outshooting forty of the Darga, but she would not die begging on the ground like a dog. She quickly bent the bow back, slipping the string into place for the first time in... well, months at the very least. Then, she waited. The path of the bird had been slightly askew of them, heading toward the nearest bend of a shallow river that Nila and the others had forded first thing in the morning. "Wait for my sign, then fight 'till you see the breakers of Hell."

"We can still end this peacefully," Malu said calmly. She slipped off of Aki's back and strode toward the horde, which was now diverting toward them. Sharif just watched with the detached, disinterested look which he held for most events. Tzu Zi looked scared enough to wet herself. There was an odd calm in Nila, though. She'd done all she could. Nobody could say any different. She nocked an arrow, and waited. Malu held her hands out to her sides. "We come in peace! We seek only to pass through your lands and ACK!"

The 'ack', Nila noted, was Malu jumping back as an arrow landed near her foot. The Ostrich Horseman let out a clipped laugh. "_That's far enough, outsider,_" he shouted in his own guttural tongue.

"What did he say?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Just get ready for the fight of your death," Nila said, noting how none of the riders ever really stopped moving. It would be hard to get a good shot off. The others began to circle 'round them, but no other arrows fell.

"Um... _Who speaks for your people?_" Malu asked, in a dialect of Dakongese which Nila was fairly sure was argot and probably had been subsumed decades ago. One of the riders slowed, and leaned forward over the neck of the grizzled bird.

"_So the little girl speaks,_" that one answered. The first one who'd spoken shot him a glance. He was waved aside by the latter. "_Your kind are not welcome in these lands._"

"_The Air Nomads are welcome everywhere_," Malu noted, a nervous flick of her eyes the only indication she realized how dangerous the situation was.

"_The Air Nomads were. Now, they are gone,_" he answered. "_Since you can't speak properly, you'll speak to me instead of the Cherbi. Surrender your arms._"

"_We mean you no harm,_" Malu said, forcefully.

"_You keep company with The Nemesis. That makes you enemies of Dakong._"

Malu gave a glance back. "The what?" she asked quietly.

"They blame Si Wongi for the drought, and for the Si Wong Desert slowly getting bigger," Nila said, her eyes flicking between potential targets. "It's because we have sandbenders while they have proper earthbenders. They think our existence blasphemous."

Malu turned back to the Darga. "_These people are not of The Nemesis. They have no part in your drought._"

"_You think me blind and stupid, girl? I know what my eyes see!_" he shouted, knocking an arrow. Nila quickly drew her own. "_We should just slaughter then now._"

"_Hold your nock, Taishi_," the Cherbi said with an annoyed tone. He glared across the distance which the circling warriors described around them, then pointed at Sharif. "_You there, boy. Where did you get that bird?_"

"I got it from... wait, he can't speak Tianxia, can he?" Sharif asked. "_I... Had bird from... The open... old._"

"Just tell me what you want to tell him," Nila snapped.

"Oh... Patriarch helped me. Isn't that right, Patriarch?" Sharif said, patting the bird's neck, utterly oblivious to the fact that he was very likely going to be dead in a few seconds. Nila rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"_He and that bird have been inseparable since I found him. My brother is simple, and I think that is why the bird tolerates him. He certainly won't let any other on his back,_" Nila shouted. "_Now kindly lower your bow._"

The Cherbi chuckled a bit at that, but made a lowering gesture. "_That is a proud male. Look at him. He must have seen thirty summers on the steppes._"

"_Forty_," Malu countered.

"_Forty makes him an old bird indeed,_" he stared at them. "_I see his broken talon. I once tried to __break such a bird in my youth. He kicked my ribs in and escaped. It was the only bird I ever lost, and it was not a hatchling even then. You must have a liver of butter to calm that hellish beast._"

"_Are you going to kill us or argue animal husbandry?_" Nila asked.

"Are you insane?" Malu hissed back at her. "We're actually talking! That's a good thing!"

"_The girl is fiery,_" Taishi laughed.

The Cherbi, on the other hand, looked a bit more closely at her. "_You ring a reflection in my eyes. I have seen your likeness before. From whom do you spring?_"

"_I am Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, daughter of Sativa, granddaughter of Salwah and Iskandar,_" Nila shouted at him. "_And if I die, I die on my feet._"

The Cherbi leaned back in his saddle with that, and gave a signal to his men. Nila tensioned that string back a little harder, the point at the Cherbi. She would not last long, but he would last even less. "_Unstring_," the Cherbi ordered. "_The Noyan will want to see these ones._"

Malu turned back to her. "What was that?" she asked. "I didn't catch all of it."

"I didn't catch any of it," Tzu Zi said, worrying her fingers before her.

"We are taken prisoner, it seems," Nila said. She relaxed her draw and slid the bow back into its case. "So much for a quick death."

"Are you always this fatalistic?" Malu asked.

"I make bombs as a hobby," Nila said.

"That isn't an answer."

"You'll find that it is," Nila responded, as the circle began to converge, and she felt a very patriotic anger burning in her. Prisoner now, perhaps. But not for long.

* * *

><p>The panicked sprint had slowed to a more sedate jog, and then to a steady, if brisk, walk. "Man, you really know your explosives," Sokka noted as they navigated the extremely thick woods, which hugged the river desperately. The man let out a chuckle, which Aang didn't really get.<p>

"I'm familiar with their use," he said. "I liberated that little gem from a pirate vessel not far from here. A little reverse engineering and a lemon becomes a grapefruit."

"How do you know so much about explosives?" Aang asked. The man tossed down his hood, and glanced over, tired amber eyes falling upon the Avatar's visage. Aang gasped. "You're from the Fire Nation!"

"I was," he said. "My name's Chey, and I defected a couple of years ago, after the chaos of Ba Sing Se."

Aang felt himself pulled aside, and Sokka got before him, machete out and brandished. "What do you want with the Avatar?" he demanded.

"Whoa, whoa," he said, placating. "I'm not trying to kidnap him or anything."

"You tried to snatch me from the audience," Aang pointed out.

"I thought you were going to do something... Avatar-y." Chey said. Sokka frowned at him.

"Something Avatar-y? Like his reasonable reaction to being kidnapped?" Sokka asked.

"Oh... Yeah, I hadn't thought about that," the man admitted, scratching his unshaven cheeks. "But the fact was, you weren't safe in the city. Not like you would be out here."

"Why would he be safer out here?" Katara asked.

"Well, that's the thing," Chey said. "I serve this man. Well, he's not really a man, more like a legend. But he's real!"

"You've been drinking that Cactus Wine during the festival, haven't you?" Sokka asked.

"Nah, man. That stuff messes with your mind!"

Sokka facepalmed loudly.

"He's a living legend," Chey returned to his earlier track. "Jeong Jeong, the Deserter! He was a Fire Nation Admiral – or was it general? Maybe he was a colonel?"

"We get it, he was very highly ranked," Sokka said from within his palm.

"You better believe it," Chey said. "Something happened to him, though. He couldn't take the craziness anymore, and he split! He was the first one to escape the Fire Nation alive! They say he's mad, but he's not! He's a firebending genius!"

Aang felt a light turn on in his soul. "Maybe that's who I as supposed to meet!" Aang said brightly.

"Oh, no. We are not waltzing right up to a crazy firebender in the middle of the woods," Sokka shook his head vigorously.

"He's not crazy, he's enlightened," Chey corrected.

"That's great, but we should probably head for the North Pole. We're so close," Sokka began, but this time, it was Katara who cut him off.

"But Aang needs to learn firebending, too," she pointed out. "How likely is it that we're going to find a firebender who's actually willing to teach him?"

"That's exactly what I meant," Aang said. "If this is the 'friend', then it might be my only chance to learn firebending from somebody who knows what he's doing. I mean, how likely is it that some other firebender is going to be fighting against the Fire Lord?"

"Well, I guess it depends on where you look," Chey said helpfully.

Aang nodded. "And what's the harm of talking to this guy?"

"You said the same thing about the festival! Why doesn't anybody listen to me!" Sokka shouted, before wilting. "There's no convincing you away, is there?" he asked.

"Sorry, Sokka."

"Alright. Let's see what catastrophe awaits us now."

"Might be a bit late to tell you all, but we're already most of the way there," Chey said in that slightly inebriated way he talked. Despite his statements to the contrary, even innocent Aang thought that the man had tipped back a few jars of _something_ during that festival.

"Really? That's oddly convenient," Sokka said with suspicion. Of course, there were a lot of things which Sokka viewed with a fairly unreasonable amount of suspicion.

"Of course! You didn't think I was just running in the woods, did you?" Chey asked. "In fact, I think I see somebody now."

Aang craned his neck to see who Chey was talking about, but let out a yelp when a bush rose up and brandished a spear at them all. Sokka already had a machete out and did some brandishing of his own, until that one spear-armed bush became a spear-armed most-of-the-underbrush. Upon closer inspection, they were people, men and women both, in topiary disguises and grim faces. Obviously they hadn't been to the festival, Aang considered.

"Li Quan! Good to see you!" Chey said brightly. The woman in question just glared at him.

"What did we tell you about picking up strays, Chey?"

"You know this person?" Katara asked.

"Don't move, girl," Li Quan snapped, turning her spear toward the waterbender. "Be thankful our master is a cautious soul, or your blood would be quenching the forest's thirst," she turned back to Chey. "You were warned against seeking out the Avatar. Jeong Jeong himself forbade it."

"Why would he do that?" Aang asked, his heart sinking.

"We don't question why Jeong Jeong wills as he wills," Li Quan said. "Come on. Move!"

"Where are you taking us?" Katara asked defensively.

"Probably to see Jeong Jeong," Chey said distractedly.

"But she just said..." Sokka began to point out.

"He will determine what to do with you," Li Quan said, distaste obvious in her tone. "So walk!"

"See? We'll talk to Jeong Jeong and then everything will be just fine. He's a great man after all; great man!" Chey stressed. Sokka's only reply to that was to slap himself hard on the forehead in dismay, as they crossed the last distance through the woods.

* * *

><p>Zhao was smirking. People didn't tend to like when Zhao smirked. Kwon was, as always, his constant shadow as he stomped into the heart of the festival. That Bomei was in a general uproar meant that he had read and deciphered Azula's prophecy correctly. He came upon a group of guards, of which only a single of them was wearing the armor which they ought have. "The Avatar disrupted this festival," Zhao announced as soon as he stopped walking. The guards all snapped to uneasy attention, glancing amongst themselves.<p>

"How... how did you learn so quickly, Lord Zhao?" one of the peons asked. Zhao made a harsh dismissing gesture, punctuated by flame.

"Immaterial. The facts stand that the Avatar was within these walls and your incompetence let him slip away!" Zhao shouted. The armored one, probably their commanding officer, swallowed nervously.

"But other than that, the festival went on without a hitch," he placated. "No real fights. Theft is way down."

"I don't care about your petty crime rates!" Zhao roared at them. They all took a step back. "You can consider this month's pay forfeit for your indolence and stupidity. Another screw-up like this and you'll find decimation in your future."

"...but, we're not Whalesh," he said, as though that was an adequate excuse.

"You'll find those orange haired heathens have all manner of... interesting... punishments," Zhao intimated. "Pray you don't discover the culture I discovered in the south. It would be to your benefit."

"Yes, Lord Zhao," they said.

Zhao turned to his aide, and in a much quieter tone, spoke. "They will have taken to the woods. Prepare the river boats."

"To what end, My Lord?"

"They've come seeking my old teacher," Zhao said. "I fear some dire fate is about to befall that old traitor."

"Very good, My Lord," Kwon said without enthusiasm nor hesitancy.

The guards stood stock still for a long moment. "What about us?"

"At what point did you assume you mattered? Go away," Zhao said. That smirk returned. "The Avatar and the Deserter in one day. My life is on a definite upswing."

* * *

><p>"So what's going to happen to us?" Tzu Zi asked quietly as the crowd watched them get ushered through the crowd. The firebender was understandably and justifiably worried, and the way she seemed to flinch from every incisive pair of eyes further punctuated that. There was no doubt that it was for the best that the girl never got shoe-horned into the military. She was far too kind for that sort of life. Nila found herself smiling for just a moment before she discarded such notions and focused on the grim reality.<p>

"That really depends," Nila answered. Malu shot a glance at her.

"Depends on what?" the airbender asked.

"On what Noyan we're being taken to," Nila said. "If it's Ambaghai, then we'll be summarily executed. He was always a stickler for efficiency in his slaughter."

"You say that like it's the good option," Malu pointed out with confusion.

"It is. He'd just kill us. Oghul would skin us alive, first. They really go down-hill from there. You do _not_ want to know what Taghan did when he swept through Arg-e Chongha. It was our sturdiest fortress after Nassar was blown to bits, and when he broke its walls, he was not kind, nor swift, nor merciful."

"Are there any of them who'd let us off with community service?" Malu asked, now understandably nervous.

"Any that would would be swallowed up by one of those that didn't," Nila said. "Thus is history in the ass end of the Earth Kingdoms," Nila paused for a moment, then turned to the two girls with her. "Although, if it's Taghan or Oghul, there's a chance _you_ could survive. You're not Nemesis, after all."

Malu halted for a moment, and had to get shoved to keep pace again. She stared at Nila for a second, a frown on her face. "You wanted to see me celebrate at that, didn't you?"

"I'm genuinely surprised you didn't," Nila said.

"This place is oddly hungry," Sharif noted, ruffling the hair of one of the children they passed by. The child's mother shrieked and smashed him in the face with a broom handle. He fell away, looking a bit confused but none injured, and rubbed his face as he got back up and kept pace with the others. "And they're not very friendly, too."

"_Keep your filthy hands to yourself, Nemesis,_" the Cherbi said. "_Lest we cut them off before they spread their taint._"

"What was..."

"Sharif, if you touch them again, they're taking off your hands," Nila translated.

Sharif looked completely flummoxed by this. "Well, that's an odd way to treat visitors," he noted. Nila shook her head. The procession had been long, and direct. Those two things together gave Nila a quite unpleasant portrait of what was going on here. This very likely wasn't even one Noyan. It was possibly several of them. And the only reason that more than one Noyan ever agreed about anything long enough to stop fighting each other, was to launch a crusade against the Si Wongi. If there were less than two hundred thousand soldiers, and a million civilians in this horde, then Nila was a Water Tribesman.

"_The Noyan awaits inside_," the Cherbi announced, and bade the soldiers shove the four of them inside the large, ornate ger. For a moment, Nila was blinded, such was the change from blinding noon to shadowed twilight. The ribbed tent was alive with heat and music, though, as flutists and bonfires belched forth music and warmth, respectively. She blinked at the splendor of it for a moment, the workmanship obvious in every aspect of this ger, every cushion on the ground, every trunk and every object displayed within them. And the weapons of course, were the like that could rival Mother's own.

"So... hello?" Malu asked.

There was a flicker from the back of the room, of a spark catching on a piece of twig, and it being lowered into a bowl of a pipe. A few puffs to stoke the flames, and then the twig was cast aside. The bearer of that pipe took a second breath, letting the smoke linger, before passing back out past wide lips. Nila felt a moment of alarm in her. "Well, I was told we had important 'visitors'. Ligdan has good eyes," the woman at the far end of the tent said. "Come closer. I don't bite. Often."

"We come in peace, and hope to negotiate a peaceful exit," Malu said.

"Silence, girl," she snapped, leaning forward. "You don't interest me."

"Wh... why not?" Malu asked.

"Because you are nobody," the woman answered. She pointed that pipe's stem at Nila. "She, on the other hand?"

"Well, maybe I'm more important than you believe," Malu said defensively.

"Unless you're the Avatar in a bad wig, I don't care," the middle aged woman shouted. She turned to Nila again. "You know who I am, don't you?"

"Khatun Noyan," Nila said. "From what I heard of you, I'm surprised you're not dead."

"I'm a remarkably hard woman to kill," Khatun said. "But 'Noyan' is a somewhat outdated title, as you have no doubt been shirking your recent history. There are no other Noyan but me. There is no Dakong but me, and no Dakongese but those that follow the Iron Horde."

Nila took a step back.

"Don't be so afraid. I thought you'd be happy to be present at the birth of a new nation, under its new Khagan. One such as you would do well to recognize the nation you see before you. This long war is finally coming to an end."

"Wait, really?" Malu asked. "Good, because I'm supposed to be 'the great mediator', and..."

"This worm keeps interrupting," Khatun said, turning to one of the Tunghaut nearby. "Cut out her tongue."

"Don't you dare!" Nila snapped, before she could stop herself. Khatun paused, eyebrows rising, a smile coming to her round, scarred face.

"A backbone has she?" Khatun said. She leaned forward again, and the light from the fire cast gruesome shadows upon her visage. "And what is she to you, that she's earned that privilege?"

"She is a friend."

"I have friends. Some of them deserve parts removed from them," Khatun countered.

"She is also an airbender."

Khatun leaned back at that. "Truly?" she asked. Nila nodded sternly. "And I suppose that little girl who is huddling behind you is a long-discovered Storm King?"

"Malu?" Nila asked. Malu nodded, and then twisted away, blasting out with her hands, and a smash of wind whipped at the flames, sending the whole skin of the ger twisting on its rack, until part of it opened up and let a beam of sunlight drop down and bathe her. When one of the Darga snapped a panicked arrow at her, she swept it aside with a twist of her hand, and it deflected straight into a piece of wood next to a flutist, who hit a sour note, then continued playing as though nothing happened, if with a heavy wash of flop-sweat. Malu looked positively smug in that pool of light, so Nila turned back to Khatun and waved a hand toward her. "Does this satisfy your requirements?"

"_A real airbender? So the Avatar was not alone?_" Khatun said, slipping into her own language. She turned to one of her advisors and shouted. "_Why was I not informed of this! Do you want me to appear the fool?_"

"_We did not know, Khagan!_" the man pleaded. He gestured toward Malu. "_As far as we knew, the Avatar __was__ the last airbender!_"

"I am not pleased," Khatun noted. Malu looked at Nila, as though expecting her to translate. Nila just shrugged, to which Malu rolled her eyes.

"That was cool," Sharif noted.

Khatun scowled for a long moment, then waved off her guardians. "Very well. I should well expect that the Dragon's Daughter would have such varied and impressive bodyguards."

"The what?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Ah, so you haven't told them who you really are, have you?" Khatun asked, hunching forward again.

"What haven't you told us?" Malu asked.

"She's not very good at keeping secrets," Sharif pointed out.

"This is an important girl you happen to travel the East with. Surely you must know about the Dragon of the East, the woman who broke and humiliated the Fire Lord's general, Prince Iroh of the Fire Nation," Khatun said, puffing of her pipe. "The saying in the West is that only those that bring down a Dragon earn the title. Well, burn my hide for saying it, but Sativa did exactly that at Ba Sing Se."

"That is my mother's reputation, not mine," Nila said firmly.

Khatun smirked, then spoke again. This time, it made Nila flinch solidly as the word struck her. Malu and Tzu Zi both frowned. "What does that mean?" Tzu Zi asked quietly.

"Where did you hear that?" Nila demanded, taking a harsh and perhaps ill-advised stride forward. She, for the moment, didn't hear the creaking of bows drawn and ready to fire. Khatun just smirked. "That is a _meaningless_ word! Empty syllables and worthless phonemes!"

"Or is it that you're alarmed that my ears hear so much?" Khatun asked.

Nila glared at the leader of not just this army, but ostensibly the entire Dakongese people. "You know who I am. Better than most it would seem."

"She didn't say it right," Sharif pointed out.

"Shut up, brother!" Nila snapped.

"I know many things. And so must you. I doubt the Dragon of the East would be so incompetent as to let her daughter, her very spitting image, go about without a vital task."

"Wait... your mom's the Dragon of the East?" Tzu Zi asked.

"The what?" Malu asked.

Nila turned back to her. "How haven't you figured that out by now?"

"Well, I heard the name, but it never really clicked," Tzu Zi admitted. "Agni's blood, now I know how Ty Lee feels."

Nila turned to Khatun again. "I suppose this is the part where you ransom me to my mother? Get her to stand down in exchange for my life? Well, you'll find she might not take that bargain," Nila said.

"I wouldn't offer it," Khatun said. "I freely admit to hating your mother, but that does not mean I don't respect her. She is a hard woman, and drives hard bargains. But as for ransom; no. I am not suicidal," Nila shared a glance of confusion with her fellows. Khatun tapped out the spent tobacco in her pipe and started to refill it. "If I storm Sentinel Rock today and bring the war to her doorstep, then it is nothing personal. It is... _how would that bookish bitch put it? Ah, yes_... a Synthetic Dialectic. Nothing but 'thesis' and 'antithesis' clashing together, to see who is valid. I say she is Nemesis, and she is poisoning the world. She claims she is not. Our war will prove who is correct. I believe the result would be called 'synthesis'. It would be bloody and raw, yes, but it would not be personal."

She rose, standing eye-to-eye with her fellow Darga, an uncommon stature of an Easterner. "But if I harm so much as one of the short hairs on your head, then this becomes a personal thing to that woman. There are many stories of your mother, girl. Few of them unimpressive. And I know very well what that woman is willing to spend in barter for revenge. If I do you harm, then she will return it upon me ten thousand fold. Simply put, I have no desire to wake up with a quarter of my soldiers dead one morning, and by mid-afternoon crumple out of my saddle for the subtle knife she left lodged in my guts that dawn."

"You make her sound like some sort of demon spirit," Tzu Zi said.

"I'm not wholly convinced she isn't one," Khatun answered the firebender. She turned back to Nila, who drew strength from those around her. She needed it to not flinch away from those black, terrible eyes. "You are Nemesis. You are poisoning this world with your tainted element, gobbling up the whole of the East for your 'sandbenders'. You are a taint, a cancer which must be excised. But I cannot harm you. Because in harming you, I prick the side of a mighty beast and leave myself no place to run. So you will face no punishment by my hand, or by any hand which I can control or influence. I value my continued existence at least that much."

"So respectful hatred, then?" Nila asked, trying to keep her voice level. It was a lot harder than anybody ever told her it would be.

"An interesting term. I think I shall use it in the future," Khatun said. She shook her head. "Your presence is a foul odor I cannot expunge. Exit my ger immediately."

"A pleasure," Nila said, with a bow, and a sarcastic smirk. Khatun's eyes burned into her head as she did so, and motioned the others to come with her.

"I wonder why he's so angry," Sharif asked, looking at one of her advisors, before Nila reached back and dragged him away by the collar. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

They all emerged from the mobile palace and into the sunlight. Malu wiped the sweat from her brow. "Wow. That was hairy. Who knew you were some sort of princess, eh?"

"I am no princess," Nila countered. "Mother has about as much noble blood in her as she does," she said, pointing a thumb at Tzu Zi.

"Um... Might not be the best time to tell you this, but I'm actually Fire Nation nobility," Tzu Zi admitted.

Nila stared at her. "What."

"Yeah. My family owns the island with the biggest coal mine in the Eastern Fire Nation," Tzu Zi said carefully. She turned to Malu, who had a sympathetic look on her face.

"And let me guess, you're some sort of..." Nila began.

"You know what, we'll get into that when it doesn't look like you're about to pass out," Malu said.

"Look at that! A bluebird!" Sharif said happily.

"I think I need to lie down," Nila said, all of the stress, terror, confusion, and, well, everything else all piling in on her thoughts until they became one jumbled, white, buzzing mess. Then, there was a snap, like a lightning bolt's strike in the instant before the thunder begins. And then she passed right out where she was standing.

Sharif watched her fall, then turned to the girls. "...Was... was I supposed to catch her?" he asked. Malu and Tzu Zi both palmed their faces in unison.

* * *

><p><em>To Be Continued<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Aaaah, worldbuilding. It's delicious. The great thing about Nila and Company is that they get to see parts of Avatar-World that surely exist, but by simple dint of the camera following certain parties, couldn't get shown. Even as far back as the mid nineteenth century, pretty much any place on the planet that could have people on it did, and bearing in mind that my Avatar World has about 5,000 years of history which will only be touched on by offhand comments of people like Toph (she knows her history, that girl), the cultural divides even amongst people on the same continent could well be vast.<strong>

**That, and Cartoon Mongols. Taken seriously. Sometimes, when chasing butterflies (Ozai shifts war away from the East and toward the North, therefore Zhao conquers Great Whales), something else gets disturbed, sending out shockwaves across the planet (Refugees from the war which only happened because something else happened have to go somewhere). Given that Adamism isn't exactly popular with the polytheists and the animists or even the Fire Nation monotheists, there's only one place they could land.**

**Yes, I did give Ty Lee a cameo. You're going to meet all of them before the end of Book 3. And yes, I did steal a line from Blazing Saddles. Don't look at me like that. Tying all of this stuff together in Book 2 is going to be tricky, but fun.**


	15. Emerging Patterns II

**Sorry for the gap. Writing the 'season finale', and it's gargantuan. Also, Skyrim. They took everything I hated about Oblivion and garbaged it. So good, but sooo time consuming.**

* * *

><p>Nila bolted upright with a yelp, before immediately casting her gaze around her. Confusion was her most primary mental characteristic. Not really surprising, considering the last thing she remembered was a nail-bitingly tense confrontation between her and the most dangerous woman she'd ever met... excluding her own mother. The source of that confusion mostly stemmed from the fact that she was in a yurt. Well, they would have called it a ger, since they were staunch about favoring their own language over even the lingua franca that was Tianxia. She looked around, and let out a second yelp when she beheld a pair of dark-haired and broad featured Dakongese casually looking back at her.<p>

"What did you do with my friends and brother?" she demanded. She then quickly glanced down at herself, and once more was confused, since she was not bound, still dressed in her ad hoc clothing, and she still even had a knife at her belt.

"Oh, good, she's awake," the man said pleasantly. "You owe me five rubble."

The other one, much greyer than the first, let out a sigh, and shifted over toward a wicker chest, muttering about 'stupid wagers' and that she 'didn't have the decency to stay asleep until sundown'. Nila slowly pushed herself to her feet, if feeling slightly lightheaded about it as she did. She rubbed at her temple, as she often did, only this time, the scratching of short hairs accompanied the action. Sooner or later she'd get used to having hair again. Unless she decided to shave it off again. "You speak Tianxia?"

"Do we look like savages?" the Dakongese asked.

"Do you really want me to answer that question?" Nila asked, and a split second later, her brain caught up with her mouth, causing her to flinch with alarm. The Dakongese man stared at her for a long, tense moment, then burst into laughter.

"She's got us there, Adalai," the man said. "The airbender warned us about you. Got a tendency to snap, she said. I can see she wasn't lying."

"Why am I here?" Nila demanded to know.

"Easy, easy," the greyer one placated. "Your friend, the shorter one, she was getting trouble from some of our neighbors. They don't take kindly to Si Wongi, after all."

"And you do?" Nila asked.

"Well, no," he continued. "You shouldn't interrupt. It's rude."

"Then you should take less time getting to the point."

"She's got ya there, Gershom," Adalai laughed. "Well, to make his long story shorter, we took you in because you would have probably been murdered out there."

"That doesn't answer why," Nila said.

"You're awake!" Tzu Zi's glee entered the yurt before she did, and Nila had a scant moment to brace herself before she was being hugged by a firebender.

"I told you she'd be fine, but did you listen? Nooooo," Malu said, sauntering in afterwards, followed shortly yet by Sharif, who was manipulating an oddly wrought bit of iron, with a very distant look on his face.

"You were making bets!" Tzu Zi said with an accusatory tone. Malu just shrugged with a smirk. "I thought you'd hit your head or something. Are you sure you're alright? I was..."

"Tzu Zi, I'm fine," Nila said, cutting off her friend. If only because when she got this way, she tended to launch into run-on sentences which one couldn't penetrate with a battle axe. The firebender finally parted from Nila. "Now could somebody please tell me why these people aren't trying to garrote me?"

"We're Adamite," Gershom said, waving aside to an altar which was tucked into what would have been a corner had the Yurt not been circular. She raised a brow at the plain edifice, flanked by incense and idols of several saints she couldn't name, surrounding a stylized hammer at its heart. Nila turned back to them.

"And why would that matter?" she asked.

"The pagans," Adalai said, gesturing out the door, "think you're killing the world. We know better. Si Wong might themselves be lost souls, but I strongly doubt that they're trying to destroy the world."

"Lost souls? What?" Malu asked.

"You've never met a Dakongese Adamite before, have you?" Gershom asked.

"I didn't even think anybody outside of Great Whales even believed in that stuff!" Malu asked.

"People have a lot of troubles these days. And say what you will about Khatun Noyan, at least she doesn't stomp out religions like Matagosh did, or even Bee-lah. Remember Bee-lah?" Adalai asked. Gershom just nodded grimly. "So when the word went out that she wasn't going to persecute us, we came to her side. Not many at first, but now, I think you won't find a bigger enclave of our faith outside Burning Rock or Great Whales itself."

"I'm just glad they're willing to help us," Tzu Zi said.

"I'm surprised your neighbors haven't come beating at your doors."

"They wouldn't dare," Gershom laughed. "We control the water."

Malu stared at him, kneaded her brow, then asked, "What?"

"There's quite a few actual Whalesh amongst us. And they've got waterbenders. That means we can take water from places most people would dry out and die in," Adalai pointed out. "Why do you think there's so many of us and we're not all keeling over in thirst?"

Nila let out a grunt. "That makes a lot of sense, actually," she mused. "You're not restricting our exit, are you?"

Gershom shook his head. "Us, no. But the word's gone out that you're not to leave the camp. I'm fairly sure that they've got at least a hundred arbans out there keeping an eye on you."

"So you know who I am, too?"

"Only by the enemies you keep," Adalai said. "Khatun Noyan seems..."

"Khagan," Sharif corrected, still fiddling with that iron thing. Nila gave it a closer look, and saw that it was a forged iron puzzle. Heh. Good luck having him solve it, even if he had a thousand years.

"Khagan, Noyan, whatever," Adalai waved his hand. "You can stay here if you like, but I recommend against testing the Khagan's mercies. She did not rise to her place of power by being kind."

Malu rocked on her heels for a moment. "So what do we do now?"

"I'm not really sure," Nila admitted, scowling at the ground.

"Do you guys have anything to eat?" Malu asked.

"We've got bansh," Gershom offered. Malu's eyes lit up for a moment, before she got a cautious look.

"Does that have meat in it?" she asked.

"Of course! Three different kinds!" Adalai said. Malu flinched from it, but her eyes stayed on that pot. Even Nila could tell that she was struggling against accepting it.

"You know... maybe I'll just get some noodles," Malu said, but her fixated gaze put her words to lie. Nila felt her hand get caught up, and Tzu Zi's grin brought even more light into the yurt.

"I know what we could do!" she said with glee. "We can go shopping!"

"Shopping. Really," Nila said. Tzu Zi nodded vigorously.

"I saw some vendors nearby and they have really nice things and you apparently have so much money and maybe we can even find you a pretty dress and some shoes! Oh, you should see the shoes that they have here they're spectacular and..."

Nila then found herself being dragged out of the tent by an enthusiastic National, with barely enough time to lean back through the tent flaps, to address the petrified airbender. "Save me!" Nila whispered with something approaching real alarm, but the call was unheeded. After they left, the only sounds in the tent were quiet conversation in Dakongese, the popping of the fire, and the clattering of iron. Then, one last ping, and the gnarled, twisted iron puzzle parted into two sections in Sharif's hands. He stared at it for a moment, then in a deft move, restored it exactly to its starting state in a matter of seconds.

"That's better," he said with a nod. "I wonder how Patriarch is doing?"

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15<strong>

**Emerging Patterns II**

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><p>After the first hour in the squalid, dark little hut, Aang had taken up weaving to break the boredom. By the time anybody poked their head back in, Aang had finished off making a cloak out of the reeds of his own mattress and had moved on to crafting a pan-hat; as he was no swift weaver, it was a clear indicator of just how much time had passed. As soon as Chey, that Fire Nation soldier plunked himself onto the ground, Aang brightened and let his hat-in-the-making fall aside. "Is he going to see me now?" Aang asked before the soldier got one word in.<p>

"Sorry little guy," Chey said. "He doesn't want to see you. And he's mad that I brought you here. He said he wants you to leave, right now."

"Finally," Sokka said, sitting up from what had been a solid sleep an instant before. "Six days to the North Tribe! Here we come!"

"_Sokka_," Katara chastised in her own tongue from where she was painting on a pattern onto the completed cloak. "_Don't crush his dreams._"

"But... I'm supposed to see him!" Aang said. "I even got a message to tell him and everything! Why won't he see me?"

"He says your not ready," Chey answered. When Sokka gave an askance glance at him, he just shrugged. "That's what he said, I don't know what he means by it."

"But how much more ready can I get?" Aang asked. "If I don't learn firebending before summer, it'll be too late!"

"Yeah, and with the earthbending and waterbending he's doing, he might be able to pick up some quick firebending tricks and give the Fire Lord a good stomping before the year is out," Sokka said, clapping Aang on the back.

"I'm not really an earthbender. I'm not really sure how I..."

"Split a volcano in two."

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" Aang asked.

"He said he knew from the way you walked into camp," Chey clarified. "He can tell about these things. He's a genius!"

"So you've said," Sokka dismissed. "Can we just accept this and move on for once. And come to think of it, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with you playing with fire. One barbequed sibling in this family is enough, I figure."

"Why does everybody assume I'm just going to flare out of control at the first possible opportunity?" Aang asked, annoyance clear in his tone. He shook his head. "Heck with this. I'm going in anyway."

"You shouldn't do that, little man," Chey warned, but Aang stomped past him with all of the single-mindedness that the blind girl had shown him. As he exited the hovel, he could see glimpses of the other soldiers, wearing similar if much less gaudy straw cloaks and hats to the one Aang had created out of boredom. None of them moved to stop him. Just as well they didn't. Aang wasn't in the mood to put up with people who didn't know the whole story getting in his way. There was another shack, much lower on the hillside, so close to the water that Sokka could probably fish from the door. Aang descended to it and slipped inside.

The first thing Aang wasn't supposed to notice was that a tree was growing inside the building, greedily gobbling up light which shone in through a crack in the roof. What he was supposed to notice was the candles arranged in a circle including that tree, and defining an area around a white-haired man. In truth, his hair looked older than the rest of him did. Like he'd been prematurely aged by adversity. Then again, so had many in the last century. "I..." Aang began.

"Get out," the man in the circle demanded, his voice thick with a familiar Fire Nation accent. It was an old accent, Aang had come to realize, the kind which the current generation, if ever possible, culled out of their words at the first opportunity. Aang flinched a bit. Even though the man hadn't deigned to turn and address him, Aang could feel the 'or else' in the statement.

"Master Jeong Jeong, I _need_ to learn firebending," Aang put it simply sitting down on the dirt floor outside the circle of candles.

"You speak of needs, but no man _needs_ to seek his own destruction. Only a fool would," Jeong Jeong stated. Aang frowned a moment.

"But I'm the Avatar! I need to..."

"Needs and needs and needs!" Jeong Jeong turned to face the boy. His face bore a pair of long scars which ran down the side of his face, one coming very close to lancing out his eye. His entire visage was one which was plagued by hard decisions, harder consequences, and even harder living. "What would a boy know of needs?"

"It's the Avatar's destiny to..." Aang tried to say, but once again, Jeong Jeong cut him off. It was starting to annoy the young Avatar.

"Destiny? And what would you know about destiny?" Jeong Jeong demanded, growing quite incensed. "If a fish lives its life in a river, does it know the river's destiny? Does it know the destiny of another fish in another pond? No! All it knows are the things which are presented to it. It cannot dream of a world outside its own limited perspective and even more limited capacity for control! It cannot understand the pond. It cannot dream of the ocean!"

"What?" Aang asked. "Look, the Avatar is supposed to..."

"And now you would tell me what my destiny is?" Jeong Jeong asked. "Is..."

"That's enough!" Aang shouted. "You interrupt me over and over and maybe I might just have something worth saying!"

"You are a child in a world which cares not for childish things," Jeong Jeong pointed out.

"I am also the Avatar, and the Avatar must master all of the bending disciplines," Aang countered.

Jeong Jeong scoffed. "If you would master the discipline of fire, you must first master discipline itself. But you are impatient and hasty. Your tutelage will end in suffering and tragedy."

"You don't know that."

"What I know, boy, is that you, airbender, cannot learn firebending. Not now. You are too ignorant of the world and your place in it. The elements were not laid in the order they were arbitrarily, but by design, to keep your kind from overreaching yourself! When you add air to flames, what becomes of them?" Aang began to say 'they are snuffed', but Jeong Jeong didn't actually give him a chance to respond. "They are fanned! They grow stronger! And that is why airbenders _must never_ learn firebending first!"

"But it isn't first!" Aang complained.

"Oh, but it is," Jeong Jeong swept his hand over the candle's flames. "Water is cool and soothing. It stabilizes itself, a constant reinforcement of its own status quo. It melts from ice into liquid, and evaporates into vapor, only to return as snow. Earth is constant. It is stubborn, it is stable, and it is indomitable. But fire? Fire is alive! It exists only to consume everything in its path, until there is nothing but devastation and death in its wake! A river will not turn its course without your hand, and a rock will not throw itself, but fire lives to spread forever unless you have the will and determination to stop it! You are not ready, boy! _You are too weak_!"

And at about this point, Aang got really, really mad.

"Too weak?" Aang asked. "Too weak? Was I too weak when I had to leave my dying friend behind so that I could do my duty to the Avatars past? Was I too weak when I faced down the Fire Lord in his own temple? Was I too weak when I stood before an erupting volcano and _made it stop_? Don't you have any perspective at all? If I don't learn firebending before the end of summer, that's it! Everybody loses! And you think I shouldn't learn because I'm just a kid? Well, too bad! I'm all you've got! _Nobody told me I was the gods damned Avatar!_ I had to find out myself by complete accident! Do you think I'd have chosen this if _I had any other choice at all_? You'd better believe I wouldn't! But I don't, so here I am. And you'd turn me away, like the Storm Kings did to the Avatars of their day. You think you're better than me, why? Because you're older than I am? Or is it because I'm not sixteen, like you're supposed to be when the Avatar-ing begins? Again, tough! I'm here, now! And you're _going to_ teach me firebending!"

Jeong Jeong remained stoic during Aang's tirade, only giving the slightest of twitches to the trailing mustaches which hung from the corners of his mouth. "So you know of Sozin's Comet?"

"THAT'S ALL YOU'VE GOT TO SAY?" Aang screamed.

"You show... a choleric temper which I did not expect," Jeong Jeong noted. "Almost as though you had trained under an earthbender. Which would be utterly impossible for you, since you are an airbender, and all find their opposing element almost impossible to work in. But the fact remains that you are a child. If you grew in the West, I could teach you. We instill our children with discipline from childhood, so that the fire does not destroy whole towns as it manifests in the youngest years. But you? You grew wild. You have no discipline. You are not ready, boy. I doubt you ever will be."

"Then you are no traitor against the Fire Nation," Aang said in anger. "You might as well be working for them. I can't believe I thought you were the person I was told to find. The Dragon of the East must be referring to somebody else," Aang muttered as he turned toward the door.

"Wait."

Aang stopped, one hand on the flap, and turned back. Jeong Jeong was staring at him with those intense, amber eyes. "What?" Aang asked, anger still in his voice.

"What was that you said?" Jeong Jeong asked, in a much quieter tone.

"I was told to tell the guy at the other end that 'The Dragon of the East Demands'," Aang repeated. Jeong Jeong's eyes turned to the ground, and the man let out a gravely sigh.

"So she has, so she has," Jeong Jeong said. "Obligation is a tiresome thing. But I do not shirk from my obligations. I never shall. I owe her that much, at least."

"What are you talking about?" Aang asked, his outrage dimming.

"If the Dragon of the East demands that I teach you firebending, then I have no recourse but to agree," Jeong Jeong said, although the way he said it made it seem like the worst idea since self-draining boots – which were boots with holes in the heels, defeating the purpose of them. Still, though, Aang felt a grin grow on his face, not grim or smug, but the sort of innocent excitement which still came so easily to him.

"Really? That's great!" Aang said.

Jeong Jeong palmed his face. Thus began the harsh tutelage of Jeong Jeong.

* * *

><p>Ordinarily, she would have made a bee-line directly to where Twinkletoes and the others were being corralled, but Toph had a distinct distraction manifest to her. Namely, as she followed them from a long, discreet distance, she started to hear something behind her. She could tell from the relative cold and the variety of sounds in the perpetual darkness which was her blindness that night had fallen, but unlike her less handicapped ilk – of which Toph could count just about everybody – the night didn't hamper her in the slightest. So when she started to hear the thrum of engines moving up the river, she knew it couldn't be good news. Few traveled the rivers in the dark.<p>

Toph halted in her pursuit, and waited, her eyes cast aside, but her ears cocked carefully forward, to catch any hint of what these engines meant. That was her biggest downfall, it seemed. Water, and everything related to it, seemed to have it out for her. But she could still hear. So when those boats moved toward the far shore of the casually meandering river, she could easily pick out, even at the distance she'd taken, the rantings of the man who emerged from one of them.

"Why are we stopping?" the angry one demanded.

"It's too dark," came a response, in a tone of voice which even Toph could categorize as 'droopy'.

"Oh, forgive me. I'd forgotten that WE'D INVENTED LANTERNS EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO!" the first one roared. "Strike some tinder and continue."

"It isn't so simple, Lord Zhao," the droopy one answered, still in a flat, neutral tone. "This river is treacherous even by day. By night it is suicide."

"Tell me, would the river hesitate to drag you under and drown you to death?" Zhao demanded.

"Doubtful, but pressing on in the darkness is only inviting needless tragedy. Besides, we won't be able to see in the forest in the dark," he smoothly responded. Toph had to hand it to the guy. He had a lot of balls to stand up to somebody so full of their own hot wind.

"Fine. We'll move out in the morning," Zhao snapped, before stomping away. Toph didn't need to 'see' their armor, nor their boats to know Fire Nation when she heard it. Nobody else was that brash. But if the Fire Nation was actually following Twinkletoes, rather than just running them out of Bomei, then she might have a bit of a problem on her hands. Namely, if they spooked Twinkletoes, he could very well abandon her on the ass end of the Northern Earth Kingdoms. Of course, in that moment, her head hung for a moment, as she realized that she, too, had lost Twinkletoe's trail. But she didn't mope long.

"I ain't missing this ride," Toph promised herself, turning from the river's edge and plunging back into the forests that covered the bending river that descended toward the sea.

* * *

><p>"Wait, do you hear that?" Zuko asked. Azula scowled at him. "There's somebody else out here."<p>

"Whoever it is, if they get in our way, we can crush them," Azula said. "The Avatar is ahead of us. We cannot be diverted."

"Caution is a virtue," Zuko said, quoting his uncle. Azula rolled her eyes. He then reached back with a scowl and snuffed the flame she kept above her palm. "And you should stop doing that. Most of this forest is dry as an Azuli woodlot. The last thing we need is a wildfire with us in the center of it."

"I am perfectly capable of controlling my own fire," Azula said, reinstating the flame a moment later.

"Then stop it so that people won't see the light," Zuko switched gears. He moved forward through the underbrush a little bit more, wishing to himself that he could have brought his dao. But with Azula along, it would have raised questions. She thought it was the swordsman Piandao who rescued her from Pohuai. Let her think that. The idle wishing came to an end as the brush opened up, and he slowed, looking up the river. "Oh, this isn't good."

"What is it?" Azula demanded, shouldering past him. The very fact that she could spoke to her physical strength.

"Who's your favorite person in the whole wide world?" Zuko asked sarcastically. Azula's flame went dead in an instant, and he could still make out her eyes widening, her face pulling into a rictus of anger.

"I'm going to kill him!" Azula declared, but before she made it one step, he caught her arms and held her back.

"Azula, no!" Zuko said. "We're not here for him, remember!"

She stopped fighting, and let out an angry exhale. "You're right. It's the Avatar who's more important," she said. But truth be told, a part of him really would have rather let her go, pick a fight with Zhao and keep the Avatar out of this. But that was just being a bad brother. Against Aang, she might get embarrassed or slightly hurt. Against Zhao, she could end up imprisoned, or dead. It was the least of possible evils. Not that it made it any easier to make that choice.

"Come on. They can't move in the night. And the way the river runs means that our path will be a lot faster than theirs," Zuko said. And with any luck, they might walk right past where the Avatar was without even realizing it. She nodded, but her dagger-eyes still stared hatred into those boats up the river. Without another word said between them, they moved into the river, Zuko swimming first, and helping Azula keep above the waterline as they moved into the forest at the far side.

These days just weren't getting any easier, were they?

* * *

><p>There were a lot of things which Aang remembered fondly about training with the monks in airbending. The horse stance was not one of them. "Widen your stance," Jeong Jeong demanded, to which Aang raised a brow. He shuffled his feet a bit wider apart in the ridiculous pose. "WIDER!" Aang rolled his eyes and moved wider still, feeling the burn begin even now in his hamstrings. Oh, this was not going to be fun.<p>

"What now, Sifu Jeong Jeong?" Aang asked.

"Concentrate," Jeong Jeong said, staring into the sun as it peeked above the treeline, casting down its earliest morning rays. He then turned back toward the shack. Aang made a strangled noise of confusion.

"That's it? Concentrate? Concentrate on what?" Aang asked.

"Talking isn't concentrating!" Jeong Jeong snapped. He turned and pointed to where Katara was reading intently on the scrolls she'd stolen from the pirates, and where Sokka was sitting on a rock with a fishing pole in hand. "Look at them! Is she talking? No! She is intent on her purpose, and her purpose is learning. Even the burnt oaf concentrates on his task."

"Who're you callin' an oaf?" Sokka immediately shouted back.

"But concentrating without an object doesn't go anywhere," Aang complained. "I know all about meditation, but you haven't..."

"You are already failing your first lesson, and the sun has not even cleared the trees," Jeong Jeong said sourly. Of course, there was little the man did which wasn't sour. He cast a hand toward the sun. "Behold the sun. Feel its heat. It is the greatest source of fire, of light and heat, on this entire planet, and yet it exists perfectly balanced against the rest of nature. If you would manipulate fire, first, understand how it exists in balance."

Aang nodded, and began to ponder that. There was some truth in the man's words.

"Wider!" Jeong Jeong snapped as he walked away, and Aang inched into a yet lower stance. Oh, man, he was going to be walking funny for a week if he didn't stop this soon. But the burning in his legs started to work its way up his body, and soon it was in his very mind. Feel the sun. What an odd way to start firebending. But the longer he stood out here, the more sense it started to make. The heat of the sun was paltry this far north, so late in the year. It was anemic, and the sun didn't rise quite as high as it would near the equator. But for all that, the sun still shone. It shone with the same brightness every single day, three hundred seventy two days a year, whether the world could see it or not.

In a way, the sun was a lot like the Avatar. Always there, always sustaining.

And with that, Aang felt both a pang of guilt, and a splinter of understanding. The Spirit World was a lot like this one. It followed different rules, to be certain, but it had rules. Maybe Aang not being there for that missing century... maybe that was as bad to the Spirit World as the sun vanishing from the sky would be for this one? It was a terrifying thought, one which he mulled, his eyes pressed closed, as he contemplated the sun.

* * *

><p>It wouldn't have been surprising to see Sharif sitting on the ground outside the Ostrich Horse pavillion with a taloning knife, whittling the bridle bits into something more comfortable and kind from their rough, domineering origins, if one knew the first thing about the way that Sharif's mind worked. However, since that number once and always stood at zero, he drew baffled looks from the Adamite Dakongese of the enclave as he hummed a formless song, and whittled with sure hands and clear conscience.<p>

One bird of all those present was not bound, carried no bridle, and only the saddle blanket on its back. Even despite its advanced age, it stood physically bigger than even the mightiest bull in the pen, and all stayed a respectful distance from it as it nibbled on a bowl of noodles that one of the children had presented to it. People would think the boy mad, the way he burst into laughter at no word spoken, but once again, it was only for not understanding the mind and capabilities of the boy in question. Sharif slowed his laughter. "I'm glad you're enjoying your dinner. Didn't you say you hated these people?"

The bird stopped eating for a moment and flicked a sharp eye in Sharif's direction. Sharif nodded sagely. "True. Not all of them would have survived out there on their own. But what about freedom? You were pretty clear about that when we met."

The bird looked away, then partook of noodles and broth. "Don't worry. I won't hold it against you. Sometimes, even the best of us are wrong."

The bird let out an annoyed squawk. "You were the one who said you'd rather be dead than bridled!" Sharif pointed out. The bird stared at him, right in the face, relating even to one who didn't 'speak Ostrich Horse' that the beast was saying 'And I am not bridled, am I?'.

Sharif went back to whittling, blowing away a fraction of the bone snaffle and found himself distracted as the airbender with the thing inside came upon him. "Well, if it isn't the beast and the brains," Malu said. She reached toward Patriarch's head, as though to pat it. "How are you today, brains?"

Patriarch snapped at her, and glared before rising to its feet slowly and walking back toward the others of his species who had been giving it room out of respect for a greater specimen than they. Malu shook her hand with confusion, staring at the old bird. "He doesn't like you," Sharif said.

"He doesn't like anybody," Malu answered. "You know, one of these days you're going to give your sister a heart attack. Why are you out here? The old-school Dakongese are right over there! There's just a pen full of birds between you and them."

"They won't cross the bird lines," Sharif said. "That's part of their faith. The Ostrich Horse is sacred to them."

"That was... oddly coherent," Malu said. "How busted up are you, anyway?"

"I'm fine," Sharif said, not understanding her question. "Well, I stubbed my toe earlier, but it doesn't hurt anymore."

"You know, sometimes I don't know if you're just putting on a show to mess with our heads," Malu said, fists on hips.

"I'm a terrible actor," Sharif shook his head. "I can't remember lyrics very well either."

"What?" Malu asked. She then shook her head and threw up her hands in defeat. "Never mind. Why here, then? Why not in the house with the friendly people who don't want to crack your head with a rock?"

Sharif ran fingers over the snaffle, and nodded with a smile. Nice and smooth. No longer would it irritate the inside of the bird's mouth as it was driven. Excellent. He set it aside and took up another, repeating the process exactly. "Patriarch was getting nervous," Sharif said. "He doesn't like the Dakongese. They'd captured many of his children and grandchildren. When I met, he said they were monsters who should be driven into the sea. Now, he just doesn't like talking about them at all."

"You see, right there," Malu said. "Talk. Birds can't talk."

Sharif looked at her with a baffled expression, for, to his mind, she'd just said the stupidest thing he could imagine. "Yes they can," he countered, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. He idly pointed a knife toward a bluebird which chirped on the roof of a yurt. "Some of them have tiny voices. Tiny spirits," he said. He pointed to a random Ostrich Horse. "Some of them don't know how to speak with their Light," he then pointed to Patriarch. "Some of them are... bigger. They know better. They speak with their Light and are clear. I think I understand Patriarch now better than I did when I met him. I wonder why?"

"But... animals aren't sapient."

"Not usually," Sharif agreed. "But sent..sench... what's that word?"

"Sentient?"

"Sentient. Yes. Sometimes, they are sentience."

"Sentient," Malu repeated.

"What did I say?" Sharif asked. He let out a nervous chuckle. "My mind, sometimes it wanders."

"So those things can talk to you?"

"I'm surprised you didn't know that," Sharif said, pointing a snaffle at her. "That thing must talk constantly to you."

"What are you talking about?" Malu asked. Sharif stared at her. To his eyes, he could see her. But there was something else. Just a hint of unnatural darkness in the bare sliver of space between her lips. Hints of a hellish maw, whispers of an unending hunger.

"Shhh. It's sleeping," Sharif said. Malu looked altogether baffled at that.

"You know what? Your sister's right. You're out of your mind," Malu said, rolling her eyes and walking away. Sharif shook his head and swiftly whittled the snaffle into a more pleasing shape, and moved on to a third. Each progressed quicker than the one before it; not surprising. It was a hard press to learn something in his state, but once learned, it clamored for an idiot savant proficiency. He stopped, though, a few seconds into and half way through whittling the sixth when a voice which only he could understand reached out to him.

"No, I hadn't heard of them, why?" Sharif asked, glancing back to where Patriarch was glancing in his direction from the herd. It let out a warbling cry, then turned back to its kind. "Well, that's something. Aren't you kinda old?" another warble, this one almost like an old man laughing. "You should introduce me to them. They sound so interesting."

The Old Bird and Grey Voice weren't too far away, after all.

* * *

><p>"Come with me into the hills," Jeong Jeong ordered, just as Aang started eating lunch. The hours under the sun passed much more quickly than even the Avatar could have imagined, but it was still a long slog, and his legs felt like they were about to melt into goop which overflowed his boots. He let out a sigh, set aside his soup for immediate consumption by Lemur, and followed after the old firebender as he walked up the hill that overlooked the river. It was less a hill, Aang realized as he mounted it, and more like a rogue rock which thrust up out of the soil, naked of growth and an island of stone amidst a sea of brown, desiccated plant life.<p>

"Are we going up here so my fireblasts don't start a forest fire?" Aang asked, rubbing his hands together in delight that he was actually going to be doing something for a change.

"No fire!" Jeong Jeong snapped. It often seemed that much of the old man's speech lay in snapping or ordering. Then again, considering the military the man had lived with, it shouldn't be that surprising.

"But you said..." Aang accused.

"Take your stance," Jeong Jeong ordered. Aang wearily dropped into a horse stance, against the violent protest of his inner thighs. "Wider!" he shouted, not even looking Aang's direction.

"But you're not even looking at..."

"WIDER!"

Aang grunted, and moved a bit lower, as much as his legs would allow without sending him onto his rump. "What now?" he asked, weariness in his tone.

"Fatigue is your greatest enemy as a firebender. Doubly so for those in battle today. We are taught to utilize our craft with all effort in our every attack. Our stamina drains quickly, and very few ever remedy this deficit. If you will be my student, then you will learn my lessons. If you wish to be a firebender, then you will be a firebender the likes of which the Fire Nation has not seen in decades," Jeong Jeong said. "Not since... I trained with Ozai himself."

"You trained with the Fire Lord?" Aang asked, rising from his stance.

"I trained with many, to my shame," Jeong Jeong said, stroking his mustaches. "I was in the army with Prince Iroh, when he was still prince. I saw much potential in him, but he was lazy. I then turned to Ozai, thinking I could mould a righteous and mighty firebender. He took my lessons, though, and perverted them. Took their power, but cast the rest of it aside. My last student was my greatest failure. I tried to instill discipline from the start. But he was a canny liar as well as a powerful firebender. He didn't care anything about the lessons I gave him, so long as he could have my techniques, my strengths, and cull out what he thought were my weaknesses. He is power, but there is no restraint in him. No self control," Jeong Jeong said sadly. "He took the power of fire and used it to eradicate all who stood before him. First in the East Continent, then in Great Whales. His shadow still casts long to this day."

"Zhao?" Aang asked.

"How do you know that name?"

"He killed a friend... a Fire Sage who still believed in the Avatar," Aang said. "He tried to kill Sokka. He almost succeeded."

"Then you see why fire exists to destroy all around it. You see why I cannot allow another Zhao, another Ozai into this world. I would slay you with my own hand before that happened. You wish to be a firebender? Then learn control. Stance, boy," Aang rolled his eyes, but moved back into his stance. "Now, breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth."

"Breath control?" Aang asked, incredulous. "Are you kidding me?"

"What was that?" Jeong Jeong turned slowly, irate.

"What part of 'Air Nomad' doesn't make it pretty clear I know my way around breathing?" Aang asked.

"You irresponsible..."

"My master, Monk Gyatso, would sometimes scare the heck out of the younger novices by going to his bath after calling for them, and then falling completely asleep. Under water. The masters could hold their breath for hours, no matter what. I mean, I bet I could hold my breath for a half hour."

"That is not possible," Jeong Jeong said. "To be human is to breathe."

"How about this," Aang asked. "Ten minutes. If I can hold my breath for ten minutes, will that suffice."

"In ten minutes, you'd be either unconscious and breathing involuntarily, or dead," Jeong Jeong said caustically.

"Ten minutes," Aang said, and took in a monumental lung of air, squatting low, and waiting. This had become a battle of wills, and while Aang was often accused of being lazy, of being naïve, it could not be said that he didn't stand up for himself. And Jeong Jeong had been leaning on him ever since Aang arrived in the camp. Enough was enough. Minutes ticked by, as Jeong Jeong watched the boy closely, even walking circles around him, probably ensuring that Aang wasn't secreting breath. He then flicked out a hand toward Aang, and a gust of flame leapt toward the Avatar.

Aang's eyes widened, and he threw himself back, bouncing off a bubble of air much like his scooter, and hissed anger at Jeong Jeong, but the man was just staring in a calculating way, still circling. Oh, so this was a test too, was it? Not just hold your breath, but hold it when something's trying to kill you? It was a cruel lesson, but Aang was starting to see the old man's logic. As Sokka had pointed out before, there was no shortage of things and people who wanted to make Aang dead. So went the ten minutes, Jeong Jeong trying to startle breath from Aang's lungs, Aang staunchly resisting it. Then, the ten minutes elapsed, and even an eleventh so that the old man couldn't cry foul on some technicality. Aang stood up, crossed his arms before him, and tapped a foot in annoyance.

"Is that good enough breath control?" Aang asked.

"You know your own element. Congratulations," Jeong Jeong said sarcastically. He turned and snatched a leaf caught in an updraft. "I can see you are not going to be patient. Perhaps we should work in fire as an object lesson."

"Yeah!" Aang said, pumping his fist in the air, until he took in the dire look on Jeong Jeong's scarred, weary face. "I mean... Let us continue."

Jeong Jeong impassively pinched the dry leaf, and then handed it to Aang. At its center, the leaf was smoldering. "Keep the fire from reaching the edges of this dry leaf for as long as possible. You must learn control of the flames before you dare try to produce it. To create fire is child's-play. To extinguish it, that is the work of a civilized man."

"How do I even do that?"

"Concentrate!" Jeong Jeong snapped. "Pour your will into the flame and bid it stop. I have kept a candle burning for three continuous days. Surely _the Avatar_ can keep a leaf from burning in the next two minutes?"

Aang didn't like the man's tone, but looked down, and began to focus on that ring of smoldering plant matter, of bidding it right down in his guts, with that earthy tenacity he only recently discovered he had, that it would not burn. Jeong Jeong abandoned him to his task, and Aang's mind lay wholly in the flame. "This guy's terrible," he muttered to himself. "All he does is make me squat and feel the sun and concentrate and breathe for hours."

* * *

><p>"Believe it or not, I'm actually extremely well educated. I have the greatest education that money can afford, and there was a lot of money put forward into making sure that happened. My tutors underestimated me, so I went behind their backs and proved them idiots. I probably know more than you've ever forgotten, and forgotten more than you'll ever know. I don't say this to brag, really. If I wanted to brag, it definitely wouldn't be about my mastery of etiquette, my education, or my social status. There's a lot better things to brag about than that. Aren't there? Of course there are. So why, you ask, am I bragging about my education? Well, because it infers something else. I'm thirteen years old, just a little bit past my birthday, and can recite, from memory, the entire of the Divine Ysgrythur, including all of the Morthwyl Llyfr. It takes <em>fifteen hours<em> to read that last one out loud. And I don't even believe in that Adamite nonsense. I figure that probably means I'm smarter than your average mook. So you're thinking to yourself in that little hole I dug for you, did she know what she was doing, or did she just get one really good shot which I didn't expect? Well, I've got only one question to ask you, then. Do you feel lucky? Because if you're really, really lucky, then it was an absolute fluke which sent you into that very, very tight pit. Otherwise, you're stacked up against one of the greatest earthbenders in the world, one that could pop your head like a zit if the mood struck her. So, by all means, give me an answer."

Toph Beifong leaned down to the soldier in the pit, who thought he could ambush, maybe even capture her. How quickly she proved him wrong. "Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?"

She flicked her hand away and the stone which had gagged the ambusher's mouth fell away, allowing him to do more than stare angrily at her, as he had for the last few minutes as she went on her tirade. As much as it was a kind of villainous thing to do, a proper tirade was just good for the soul. "I will not betray my master," the man said stubbornly.

"I don't give a shit about your master," Toph said. "I'm trying to hook back up with the Avatar. He got carted away by you bozos, so you must know where he is."

"We will not serve the Fire Lord, nor any of his lackies," the man spat on the ground. Toph scowled at him.

"Do I look like a Fire Lord lackey to you?" she asked. Although, in his defense, she could very well be wearing black and scarlet right now and she'd be none the wiser. "Somebody needs to keep that little twerp from getting himself killed. Since they don't have a strong male influence in that group..."

"The Tribesman would take issue with that," the man muttered.

"Let him. Since there's no strong male influence in that group, I'll have to be the next best thing. So, are you going to bring me to Twinkletoes, or am I going to have to leave you in that hole, and see if the North has something like Sabertoothed Moose-Lions up here."

"Damn your eyes," the man snarled.

"Too late," Toph noted, squatting down to the man she'd buried to his neck in the soil. "So. Do. You. Feel. Lucky?"

* * *

><p>It was a whole different feeling from what she'd felt before. Unlike her brother, Katara was very much one to believe in happy coincidence, and dare she say it, fate; the primers landing in her hands as they did, when they did, could be nothing short of fate intervening. So now, when she set alight the water as it flowed along her skin, it didn't feel like she was going to pass out in a matter of seconds. In fact, it didn't feel draining at all. Such a simple thing laying between life and death, between power and invalidity. So simple she couldn't believe she'd overlooked it. But then again, she had developed healing in a blind panic and solely because she was afraid Sokka was about to die. There ought to be some sort of leeway for being sloppy in a case like that.<p>

"So the darkest rumors were true. You can heal with a touch," a gravely voice came from behind Katara where she sat at the water's edge. She flinched slightly at that, not just the words, but the way they were spoken.

She could have sworn there was envy in them.

"It's not that simple. It's actually..." Katara began, but Jeong Jeong made a dismissing wave, and she found herself quieting. He had an odd power of charisma, that old man.

"I left the Navy a decade ago and more. I thought that the rumors that waterbenders could mend the flesh of the injured and bolster the infirm were only propaganda, to frighten those who remained behind," Jeong Jeong said. "It is said that the same Tribesmen who fought the Fire Nation are still fighting them, to this very day, because the power of waterbending will not let them die," he then let out a slow sigh. "How I wish I had your gifts."

"Gifts?" Katara asked. "You're a powerful firebender. You know things that I will never understand."

"About the element of consumption, of hunger, of destruction," Jeong Jeong shook his head. "There are things of knowledge that none may laud for knowing. Some wisdom is better off lost. Water is alive, as fire is, but brings life instead of death. It sooths and heals. All fire ever does is destroy."

"That's not true. If forests didn't burn from time to time, they would die just as surely as if they had no rain," Katara quoted a long-winded speech from her brother.

"Fire levies upon those tasked with controlling it a dance on a razor's edge. They must constantly war inside themselves between humanity, and brutality," his eyes lowered to the burbling water. "Eventually, we are torn apart."

"I don't think that's true," Katara said. When he swung his eyes to her, it was very hard to keep talking. "I... I know that the Fire Nation has done horrible things to the people of this world, but... Aang says that the people over there are innocent. And I really want to believe him."

"Nobody is innocent in this war," Jeong Jeong said, shaking his head.

Katara scowled. The man really did seem to believe the worst in himself. But she had to believe there was some good in people. If there wasn't, then what where they all even fighting for? And as she thought of that, a smug, smirking face came to her mind. Only, not smirking this time. That down-cast, that weary and exhausted look on his face, that quiet and benevolent act. Much as Zuko and his crazy sister were still the face of the enemy, she knew that he wasn't a monster. He was just an unpleasant human being.

"There's more to a people than a tug of war," she said. "A long time ago, _my_ people tried to do some terrible things, and we were almost destroyed, by an Avatar, no less, because of it. Does that mean that I'm as evil as the conquerors were back then? Does that mean that the things they did are passed down to me? You feel a strain, I understand that. But maybe others don't. Maybe there's... Tui La, I can't believe I'm saying this... but, maybe there's more to fire than that?"

The man let out a weary grunt, a laugh, an acknowledgment that she might have a point. "You see why saying I was a firebending master was no praise. Wisdom comes with time to any who seek it. But control... That is something that some people never, ever gain. My student, Zhao, was one such."

Katara glared away from the old man. "You taught him?"

"I tried. I failed," Jeong Jeong said. "You say there must be some redeeming virtue in my people? Then you must see that some are simply beyond any help. Some people are born evil, and it only grows stronger the longer they live."

* * *

><p>"We're losing the trail," Azula muttered as she forced her way through the underbrush with no less difficulty than her brother. It didn't just annoy her that she couldn't figure out the Avatar's bolt-hole, it infuriated her. She had such brave words about knowing where the Avatar was going to be, and then when the time came, it was about as useful as throwing a knife at a map. "Keep up, Zuzu, or I'll leave you behind."<p>

"I think you're mistaking who's falling behind who, here," Zuko said, his own tone tight and focused. He paused in his pushing against the underbrush, almost as though glancing at something. Azula scowled, then shoved him aside – drawing out an amusing squawk of surprise from the elder sibling – and looked where he was looking.

And her mouth dropped.

It was a faint thing, just on the edge of her perception, but her eyes had never betrayed her. It was just a flicker of orange, against the blue of the sky, standing atop a rock which peeked up above the dry forest below. "I'm starting to think you're going blind, Zuzu," Azula said. "The Avatar is there. He's so close!"

"I think I landed in brambles," Zuko muttered, prompting Azula to haul him up to his feet with half a mind and a fraction of her possible effort. There were days when it was wonderful to be as physically fit as most professional athletes, and as strong as a lumberjack besides.

"Stop dawdling. He's right there!" she said. But he shook his head, his golden eyes going wide, and pointed down the river. She followed his point, and then both of them dropped down into the brush. The boats they'd been doing their damndest to stay ahead of were almost caught up, rounding a meander in the river. It took no spyglass to see Zhao standing on the prow, that scar on his face marking him instantly even to casual observation. "Damn it all! How did he catch up!"

"Boats are faster than legs," Zuko offered. She swatted him in the arm out of annoyance, but he smirked at the violence. She turned back to the river, and blinked in surprise when a flight of spears tore through the air, trying to lance Zhao from his proud position. But he almost contemptuously batted them aside, then cast out a huge wave of flame into the woods, instantly setting that tinderbox alight.

"That could be a problem," Azula noted, as black smoke began to billow skyward. "They'll know somebody's coming."

"So we should..."

"Move faster," Azula finished for him. She pushed back into the underbrush, leaving Zuko just enough time to give out one weary sigh, before she grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him after her.

* * *

><p>Breathe in.<p>

Breathe out.

And the fire crept another fraction.

Aang hated to fail at just about anything he did. While in some people, like his old academic rival Malu, that would inspire a ruthless drive towards perfection in every area, in lazy, lethargic Aang, it just meant that he refrained from attempting anything he didn't think he'd excel in. And man oh man, was that tendency repeatedly and ruthlessly coming back to bite him where his arrows met. He stared at that leaf like it owed him money, as the saying went. Like it'd done him wrong. And he demanded that the flames slow, with all of his willpower, trying to keep the wild and untamed force controlled.

And he wasn't sure he was going to be able to.

Maybe Jeong Jeong was right about him, he pondered? Maybe he just didn't have the discipline to be a firebender. Maybe he just didn't have it in him. The smoldering of the leaf grew a little bit bigger, and Aang's face tightened in concentration even harder. If it moved much tighter, his face might implode from the effort he was putting forward. But he kept fighting it. Because the people deserved it. Because the world needed it.

And he could smell something else burning.

Aang finally lifted his eyes from the leaf clutched 'twixt his fingers and they fell upon a great wave of smoke rising up out of the forest. He knew from the lay of the land that it was a fair distance from the camp where Jeong Jeong and the others set up, but it was on the same side of the river, and in conditions like this, fire would spread very, very quickly. He flicked away the leaf. It didn't simply fall away, so much as it was instantly and totally consumed in an utterly unnoticed jet of flame, fueled by the chi of the Avatar himself.

If he'd noticed it, he might have been tempted to do something stupid with it.

However, as it was, he still did something not very bright, in that he sprinted down to his shack, past a baffled looking Sokka, grabbed his staff, and took flight into the heart of a wildfire.

* * *

><p>At first, there was just a moment of silence between benders, old and young, from cultures as far apart as could be. Then, everything went stark raving mad.<p>

Katara didn't even have a chance to flinch in surprise as fire exploded around her, but it was a testament to Master Jeong Jeong's skill that he burst the inferno in a bubble which seared past them, but only gave them the slightest whisper of its heat. She struggled to her feet, and saw that his eyes glanced hither and yon, seeking out the source of that sudden attack. His eyes favored the river. Katara's, though, took to the forest. Thus, it was she who spotted the attackers first.

"I should have known," Katara said, drawing up the water from the river into a ring which swept around her, as she faced down two sets of golden eyes. Only, they didn't seem to be looking at her in the slightest.

"Master Jeong Jeong, how far you've fallen," Azula mocked as she slunk into view, a vile smirk on her lips. To Zuko's credit, he didn't look very happy to be here at all, but the fact that he was put lie to everything that he had said to her on that boat.

"Princess Azula?" Jeong Jeong's voice was genuinely confused. "I don't understand."

"Then I will make this simple for you, traitor. I'm taking the Avatar, and you're not getting in the way," she said, and ignited globes of golden flames above her hands.

"What madness has infected you?" Jeong Jeong asked. "You were supposed to be our nation's greatest hope!"

"I _am_," Azula said, and then she vaulted forward into attack. The attacks were brutal and wild, tearing apart the forest and setting it alight where it did not get torn to bits by Jeong Jeong's superior skill and technique. Katara quickly found herself twisting that water in her control through the burning brush to extinguish it. Of course, she hadn't noticed the forest fire already in progress. That momentary task completed, she turned to Azula, prepared to lash out and strike her to the ground, freeze her, or just all out drub her.

And then Zuko was right in her face, thrusting a hand through the flailing of her own and catching her by the neck. How he'd crossed that distance so quickly, she couldn't comprehend. There was a mad fire in his eyes as he slammed her up against a scorched tree. "Don't. Dare. Hurt. My. Sister," he said with brutality in his usually soft tones.

"I guess we know what your word is worth," Katara muttered, trying to subtly call up the water which she'd lost hold of as he pressed through. His grip tightened, though, and the fingers on her neck began to sting with painful heat.

"Why are you doing this?" Jeong Jeong asked in a momentary lull, as the fires of her attack spun away in a self destroying pinwheel. His own stance was low, wary. "You were supposed to be our guiding light! A symbol that we could rise above the savagery!"

"I don't care what you think I am," Azula answered him. "You're a traitor, and I have no intention of being your _symbol_."

Zuko offered just a quick glance to his sibling, and that was all the opening Katara required. Waterbending could do a lot of damage, but from the position they were in right now, she could think of one thing which would do even more. All it was was a very fast change in where she kept her knee, but the thing about the male genitalia was that they were extremely easy to hurt. And her swift knee to the testicles did just about what she'd hoped, in making Zuko's hand pop from her neck to his own groin, giving her the chance to rip the water up out of the thirsty soil, give it a quick whip, and then smash it into the side of Zuko's head.

Freed, she ran to Jeong Jeong's side. Alone, he could fend the crazed firebender. With her here, Azula was toast.

"You can't win this, Azula," Katara shouted. But it didn't have the effect she hoped for. Azula's head oh-so-slowly turned from Jeong Jeong to her. Then, her face began to turn as read as her fire, and she almost started vibrating in place. She then screamed something at Katara, her chest heaving, and hair beginning to fall free of the bun at the back of her head, adding more trailers to the bangs which framed her face. "...Jums nuzudyti mano dukra?" Katara parroted, as there were very few names words or utterances which got past her ability to remember them.

Of course, that mimicry obviously wasn't the right choice, because the firebender took it as sign to attack Katara. Jeong Jeong started to move to Katara's defense, but flinched when he saw the attack coming toward them wasn't fire as Katara had seen anywhere but once. Kyoshi Island. The electric blue flames which smashed toward her cut through Jeong Jeong's fiery barricade with nary a flicker, and Katara had to heave herself out of their way. When they landed in the woods, it was with a blast which uprooted whole trees and sent them into the water. And the heaving chest of Azula only heaved faster, her face such a perfect reflection of the ideal of hatred that Katara's lizard brain helpfully informed her to start defending herself, or die.

She rose by forcing the water in the shore to push her up, and it served the double purpose of containing the blast which Azula hurled at her, if at the expense of sending Katara into the water. She pushed herself up, and her eyes went wide as there was already a third deadly azure blast screaming toward her. She heaved over herself, freezing the water as she did, and the blast sent cracks all the way through, and Katara could feel the baking heat even surrounded by frigid cold. That the explosion flash evaporated most of the ice over Katara's head was another issue of concern. She spun a whip of water toward Azula, but the girl dodged it with half a mind, almost like she'd fought this exact fight before and was contemptuous that Katara hadn't. Then, Azula twisted a kick from around behind her, creating a dropping curtain of flame which didn't so much target Katara, as everything between Azula and the other side of the river, Katara included. Katara swirled a second dome over herself, but didn't bother freezing it. Instead, she adhered to a trick she heard of from the primer, and created such a difference in pressure that she was shot away from where she'd landed like soap from a slick hand. She rose up from the water, and beheld a wave of blue fire stopping the flow of the river for a second or so, before she let it die, and turned toward the waterbender in the river.

"Is that all you've got?" Katara asked, since clearly it was just as much in her character to tempt fate as it was her in her brother's. Her answer came in the form of an explosion, but this one, not coming from Azula. Katara ducked as a tree landed in the river near her, and turned to see boats, unheard through the pandemonium, approaching the river's edge where the fight was taking place. Steam powered boats. Fire Nation boats.

And when she saw that burned face, smirking darkly from the prow, she felt her heart drop into her feet. "Well, so the oracle and the Avatar in a single day, once again? I'd almost think that the universe was trying to tell me something," Zhao said as the boat scudded up to the shore. He bounded off the deck, and the boats continued past. "He'll be up the river. Find him!"

"The Avatar is mine, Zhao," Azula snapped, her voice almost gravely and coarse, like she'd gargled flint in the minute and a half since she first spoke in this clearing. "Try and claim him at your own peril."

"We should leave," Zuko said. "We're clearly outnumbered."

"And they're clearly outmatched," Azula said. She twisted in a flare of blue fire, letting out two streams. One of them was deftly avoided by Jeong Jeong. The other was smashed aside by Zhao. Katara's eyes flit between the two firebenders, and she had a sinking feeling that Jeong Jeong might not be the strongest firebender in this fight, by a very, very wide margin. Jeong Jeong must have sensed this, too, because he turned to Katara.

"Run and get the Avatar to leave!" he shouted. "Do it now, or you'll all be destroyed!"

"Don't tell me you're going to pass up an invitation, barbarian," Zhao said, staring over his fists at Jeong Jeong, rather than Azula as a sane person would. "I'd hate to think I separated siblings forever."

"Go to hell, Zhao!"

"How do you think I got here?" he asked glibly. Then, he turned, searing out with an arc of flame toward Katara, one which grew so vast as it traveled that in her current, fairly depleted state, she was fairly sure no amount of waterbending was going to ward. But another wall of fire rose up, interrupting Zhao's assault, and above it, she could hear the old man screaming 'run'.

And to her shame, she listened to him.

* * *

><p>Jeong Jeong looked at the firebenders who remained. He once held hope for each of them. And either long ago, or this very day, saw that hope dashed for each of them. Zuko, once the best chance to resist the brutality of Ozai, now an unthinking tool of violence. Zhao, once the most powerful firebender Jeong Jeong had ever taught, now lost to cruelty. Azula, once a symbol, a hope for a bright and peaceful future, now lost to... madness? Or was this something else entirely? As Jeong Jeong stood there, his stance not altering one hair, he felt something break inside him. Not so tangible as his heart or his spirit, though. What broke was his hope.<p>

"So look at you," Zhao said, circling so that the royalty stood on one side of the deserter, and Zhao himself on the other. "You used to be so great, so mighty, and now you're living in the woods like some sort of savage."

"Savagery rests in the heart, not upon the skin, Zhao," Jeong Jeong said.

"Lord Zhao, now," he said with a smirk.

"Even a patent of nobility will not protect you from the Avatar," Jeong Jeong swore.

Azula took a step forward, but Zuko's hand on her shoulder held her back. "We should go," the boy said.

"So Ozai's son is a coward as well as a failure," Zhao pointed out with a dry laugh. "However your sister ended up in your care, I have to say, it's a distinct step down."

"I'll show you a step down!" Azula shouted. Zhao smirked at her fire, and turned back to Jeong Jeong.

"You seem to put a lot of faith in the Avatar. Faith which is hardly deserved. He's as much of a coward and a failure as the boy," Zhao pointed at Zuko. "All the Avatar knows how to do is run and hide."

But Jeong Jeong shook his head. "I have never before seen such deep pools of raw power. That _boy_ will be standing above you when you meet your doom."

"Why are you two still talking?" Azula asked. "Kill each other so I can deal with whoever lives!"

"Azula!"

"WHAT!" the girl screamed.

"The Avatar!" Zuko said.

Jeong Jeong glanced between the two sources of mortal peril. Zhao on one side. The bender of those frightening blue flames on the other. Zhao's momentary smirk was all the warning Jeong Jeong got, and his arms began to crane and weave, deflecting and smashing aside the vast plumes of fire which Zhao began to send forth. There was a time when this fight would be nothing for Jeong Jeong. Those days had long past. He was tiring. For all his talk of stamina, he was tiring, and far faster than he should have, because Zhao's attacks were both powerful and relentless. They didn't burn long, but they smashed through his defenses over and over, and forced Jeong Jeong to pull deep with every desperate parry and block to keep from being incinerated completely.

It was too much.

Jeong Jeong fell. He struggled to raise his head, the robes on his torso smoking from the onslaught. Above and behind him, he could see Azula stare down at him, contempt and hatred clear in those eyes. So much hope. So much for it. She vanished from his sight, moving through the dry, burning brush. He decided, as he heard those footfalls approach his searing, screamingly painful frame, that he hated the Fire Nation. That he hated Ozai, and his children, and his family. He hated Zhao. He hated everybody like him. He wanted to see the whole thing burn to the ground. He hated, and if there was one thing he carried with him into the next life, it would be his hatred. Zhao stood over him, his face not smug, but contemplative. The siblings had already taken off into the forest, and Jeong Jeong stared up in defiance at his former student, turned murderer.

"Do it," Jeong Jeong ordered.

A flash of flame.

"Gladly," Zhao said, a smirk on his face. Then, he looked up the river, away from the troublesome firebender who would trouble the Fire Nation no longer. "Now, for the whole reason I came here."

* * *

><p>The thump of a body hitting the ground caused her to raise an eyebrow as she turned to the window. She was hardly the kind of person to have to deal with this sort of nonsense on her own, but since things became as they were in this household, she was de facto in charge of piddly little things like money, politics, business, and, most pressingly at the moment, their links to the world of organized crime. She sighed, setting aside the brush and leaving the letter she'd started half complete. It could wait. The bounty hunter below probably would not.<p>

She walked through the dry, hot halls of the home she had grown up in. The servants scurried to get out of her way, which was probably for the best. When dealing with Jun and her monstrous beast, it was best to stay well away. And of everybody still present, only she had the stomach to look that woman in the eye. She paused a moment before a mirror before passing through the door. The face staring back at hers had features which most would consider cute, and would have been, if she put effort into presenting them that way. A wide, expressive mouth, hers was pulled into perpetual frowns of annoyance. Eyes _like_ hers often got described with terms like 'chocolate' and 'melting', where as _hers_ only ever got called 'cold and calculating'. Her hair, unlike her sisters', was fairly short. Had to keep it out of the way, after all. A moment to refine her presentation, and then she was heading down. Yes, she could have been cute, but she had a reputation to uphold.

The door opened to hot, dry wind. Many came to Di Huo nowadays; where once the vacation resort was Lesser Ember, now they came here, if only because this was the safest place one could have both heat and dryness together inside the bounds of the Fire nation. They came here to remind themselves what the Fire Nation was supposed to be like. She didn't have the first clue why things had changed, and honestly, she had no intention of finding out. It was a diversion from things she was better suited to and capable of. As she descended the stairs which connected the balcony to the courtyard, a second thump hit the ground, which caused her to raise a dark brown eyebrow yet again. One was what she expected. Two was not.

"What is this?" she asked the moment she reached the pavers of the courtyard. Jun turned from where she lounged against the massive Shirshu, a stance of casualness which she supposed hid the fact that she was willing and capable of killing everybody in the building if the need arose. Jun shrugged.

"You sent me after one. I found two."

"The last time you brought one home, it was one of Kah Ri's little girlfriends," she told the bounty hunter. "I don't pay for failures."

"Hardly failures," Jun answered, moving to the two tied sacks and tugging at their bindings. "It wasn't my fault that girl smelled like the target. Those sorts of things can confuse Nyla. Can't they, Nyla?" she asked in honeyed tones. The great eyeless beast grunted and ran its barbed tongue along needle-like teeth. The teenaged mistress of the house tweezed her brow.

"Who's in the bag, Jun?" she asked with annoyance. Jun grinned, an odd look on that oddly pallid face, and upended the bag, spilling forth a dark haired, dark eyed girl. She then upended the second and spilled forth a slightly shorter, slightly portlier girl. She then threw something to the teenager on her feet. She caught them easily enough. A pair of spectacles. A glance to the ground verified that Jun had got things right this time.

Aan Jee, who was hogtied on the ground, rolled over from a stream of profanity directed at Jun's questionable parentage and gaped as she saw who else stood above her. "Wait... What are you doing here?" Aan Jee asked. Rather than answer that question, she pointed at Zhu Di, who was not only hogtied, but gagged.

"Why is she gagged?" she asked. Jun shrugged.

"This one, tried to stab me," she nudged Aan Jee. Then, she gave a similar toe-nudge to Zhu Di. "This one bites."

"Really?" she asked with a chuckle.

"Gwen, what the hell are you doing?" Aan Jee demanded. Jun turned to her, and her chuckle became outright laughter.

"_Gwen_? _That's_ your name? _Seriously_?" Jun asked. Gwen sighed again.

"Aan Jee, shut the hell up," Gwen said. She pointed at Jun. "Yes, you found two of my sisters. Yes, you'll be getting payment for two of them today."

"I don't even know why you want them all here," Jun said. "Gotta tell you, if I hadn't have interrupted the criminal here," she nudged Aan Jee, to the girl's vocal displeasure, "she'd be rolling in money. Probably enough to bribe me into not taking her."

"But you wouldn't do that. It'd be bad for your reputation," Gwen said flatly. Jun sighed and shrugged.

"I do always get my target," she acceded. "Who's next?"

"Well," Gwen said, pondering. "Ty Lee's probably the only one dumb enough to take the invitation at face value, so I'd wager she's coming back on her own. You couldn't catch her anyway."

"What was that?" Jun asked. Gwen dismissed the question.

"Rai Lee is on a boat all the time, and I doubt that thing can swim in a storm. I'm writing her off unless a miracle happens," Gwen said. "My intelligence places Kah Ri in Ba Sing Se. Tzu Zi could be just about anywhere. Bring them back in, and you'll see twice as much as you did for these two combined."

Jun obviously ran some figures in her head, and smiled at the result. "Consider them hogtied on your porch," she said, vaulting up onto the Shirshu's back. "But try to keep me out of this dynastic murder business. Politics might be my bread and butter, but _I_ prefer to eat _it_, rather than the other way 'round."

"Just do your job," Gwen said. Jun shrugged, then tugged on the reins, causing the blind monster to move away into the night. Aan Jee struggled until she flopped up onto her side, and glared at Gwen.

"So you're really going to kill your own flesh and blood, for what? Power? Money?" Aan Jee asked.

"Jun hasn't the first notion of what's going on here. Neither do you," Gwen said simply. She leaned closer, melting chocolate eyes meeting with cold and dark. "So I will endeavour to enlighten you."

And when Gwen did, both of her sisters went deathly pale.

* * *

><p>Aang's inbound flight was cut short when a new blaze erupted much closer to the camp than the first. He pitched down, landing with all due haste and rolling to a stop on the dry, dry grasses. This whole place was going to go up like a... well, a forest in a drought, if he didn't do something to stop it. He shouted for his friends, but with no response and the roaring of a wildfire growing closer, he had to act and do so quickly. He was half way through beckoning the flow of the river toward him when two things caught his attention. "Oh no," he muttered to himself, as he beheld the boats, scudded up against the shore. All of them Fire Nation steamers. The second was a whistling sound. The whistle presaged a fireball.<p>

Aang ducked under it, and it streaked past to set another part of the forest alight. When he pushed back to his feet, he saw the royalty approaching him. "Gotta hand it to you," Aang said with a degree of calm sarcasm which surprised even him, "you have got a tenacious streak in you."

"I'll show you tenacious!" Azula shouted, before launching forward into another swirling storm of firebending. Aang had his staff, and knew that she wouldn't get through his defenses, but the longer the fight went on, the more of the forest caught, and burned. Zuko started to fan out to surround Aang in the maelstrom, but he didn't attack. Despite the manifold distractions, Aang thought he knew why.

She broke off the twisting hell of fire, since she could probably tell that it wasn't going to work. Now, she watched him, moving like she'd done this all her life, a smirk on her lips as she watched for Aang's every move. It was probably the puberty talking, but he could scarcely find her more attractive than when she was trying to kill him. There was a light in her eyes which he hadn't seen anywhere else, or even in her in those brief moments when they weren't fighting each other. A hunger. A need. If only he could turn it away from violence. After a brief, wary circling, she tipped her head, that smirk growing slightly.

"What is it, Avatar? Have you so quickly given up trying to 'redeem' me?" she asked. "Why no uplifting banter today?"

"You just need some time," Aang said, keeping the vast majority of his attention on her. "You don't understand yet, but you will."

"You are a fool. I am Fire Nation."

"So was I, once," Aang said. Her smirk slipped at that, almost like she took his words as mockery. "The world is more than one nation. That's the way it was meant to be."

"Spare me your rhetoric, Avatar," she said. "If you surrender, I'll let you keep your hands and feet."

"What?" Aang asked. The staff dipped a bit. "You wouldn't really do that would you?"

When he turned the question back on her, she hesitated for a moment. "Of course I would," she then answered too quickly. "After all, you are a threat to my people."

"Why? Why am I a threat?" Aang asked. She stared at him, her fists lowering for a moment, as the light faded from her eyes a bit. Her mouth worked for a bit, as though she were chewing words but none of them could quite make it out. Finally, there was a growl from her throat and she pointed at him. She took in a breath probably to yell something at him.

And then Zuko was flattened by an explosion. Avatar and firebender both turned to the crater, near which Zuko was splayed on the ground, his clothes smoking.

"ZUKO!" Azula shrieked. She then ran toward her brother, which had the unexpected effect of putting her right at Aang's side. She looked from Zuko, up to the one who inflicted that harm upon him, and her fists began to drip a flame which was not scarlet, but sapphire blue.

"Congratulations, Avatar, you've finally done a service to the Fire Nation," Zhao said smugly as he approached from Zuko's rear, a black smirk on his face as he stomped. "First you give me the long-overdue opportunity to rid us of the Deserter Jeong Jeong, and then you even distract the worthless boy long enough for me to strike him unawares. You truly are a friend to the Fire Lord."

"I will carve out your heart with a lug-wrench!" Azula screamed, but her eyes were brimming up, and they kept flicking to Zuko, who only then let out a groan, and began to twitch from the place where the blast had landed him. "Zuko!"

"Surrender, Avatar," Zhao said. "That way I won't have to kill you like I did my old teacher."

"You killed Jeong Jeong?" Aang asked.

"Of course," Zhao said without a whit of guilt. He turned to Azula. "I'll collect you in a moment. I just have one little pest to deal with first," back to Aang. "Now, shall we see what that traitor taught you?"

"I swear, I will kill you," Azula screamed.

"Oh? I thought the Avatar was supposed to kill me?" Zhao asked, then let out a laugh. "If anything, today has taught me one very valuable lesson. That it _is_ possible to defeat fate."

"R...run!" Zuko murmured from the dirt.

Azula gave a glance between Zhao, her brother, and then to Aang, and he could see the thought running through her head. What weighs heavier; her duty to her nation, or her love for her brother?

Her brother won.

Aang felt a smile in him for just a split second. Mostly because that second was split by Zhao hurling a blast of fire at Aang so massive that he could have been forgiven for thinking Azula hurled it. Aang bounded away, drawing Zhao's attention away from Azula as she hefted her older brother on her back like the body of a fallen soldier and began to run with it. If he had more time and wasn't being threatened with imminent death, Aang would have marveled at her sheer physical might. A damsel in distress Azula wasn't.

"Wild shot!" Aang cried out after managing to put another blast past him. And even in his grief, confusion, and panic, what Jeong Jeong had told him drifted back to the surface. No self control. Power without focus. A glance toward the boats, which had disgorged their human cargo and now sat empty. He bounded to the top of one, and waved his bum at the firebender below. "Hey! Look at me! I'm captain Zhao!"

The insult had Aang's intended effect, and Zhao launched a blast of fire at him, around a roar of "I'll show you what a real firebender is capable of!" The blast washed over the boat, and Aang bounded over to the next one.

"Very sloppy," Aang commented. "I thought you were supposed to be _better_ than Zuko!"

Zhao glared at him, and rose his hands. And then he made a motion, as though tearing a tablecloth out from under dishes. The flames which had bathed the steamer were pulled off of their purchase and snuffed in mid air. "I see what you're trying to make me do, Avatar," Zhao said, deflating Aang's hopes. "Jeong Jeong obviously taught you how to run and hide, but not fight. And I have no intention of defeating myself today."

"Good, 'cause I'd hate to miss my chance at it!" A third voice came from the side. And even before Aang could see it source, a wave of stone from the shore lashed up, smashing Zhao to the ground. Then, striding into the clearing like the conquering hero came the blind girl from Makapu. "Did ya' miss me, Twinkletoes?" she asked.

Zhao, though, quickly got to his feet. "Well, this is odd. You're not supposed to be here."

"Ain't talkin' to you, old man," She said, and punched out a wave of stone obviously intended to trip him up. But with nimbleness belying his age, he bounded over it, and kicked a wave of fire back at her. She, obviously expecting her attack to be effective, had to scramble back as the flame came closer. It was Aang who saved her proverbial bacon, by flicking open the tail end of his staff, and blasting a cutting wall of wind so mighty that it stopped the flames before they could reach her. "Okay, might have underestimated Mister Angry Head a bit."

"I'll show you angry, you irreverent snot!" Zhao answered, and began to firebend in earnest. To her credit, Toph did deflect the assaults with hastily crafted walls and barriers, but Zhao's assaults were unending and relentless. Not to say that Aang was idly standing by when this took place. The last of Zhao's blows was snuffed out by Aang's whirling staff, leaving airbender and earthbender side by side, facing down the burned murderer before them.

"So, you know this guy?" Toph asked. Aang nodded, and when he realized who he was with, rolled his eyes and gave a 'yeah'.

"He kills good guys," Aang hastily explained.

"Oh," Toph said. "So... run?"

"Just like that?" Zhao asked, smirk on his face pulling at his burnt eye. "I guess you aren't quite the troublemaker I assumed you'd be."

"Or maybe I just know when the Black Warrior shows up and don't want to be his latest corpse," Toph said, obviously inflecting toward something Aang didn't understand. "So... run now?"

"You're not going anywhere," Zhao said, taking a stride forward. "Blind or not, you're still a threat to our nation. You will have to die just as the others will."

Zhao lashed forward again, and this time, Aang was ready. He craned around him, and pulled up the water from the river into a fat whip, and slammed it through the fire blast which Zhao was launching, nullifying it and rendering it into steam. Aang to a step forward, to follow it up, but Toph grabbed his arm, and shook her head.

"We're surrounded and there's forty of those buggers out there. Can you take him and them at the same time? I might, but can you?" she asked.

Aang glared at Zhao for a moment, harboring a most un-airbenderish hatred in his heart, before turning away with a wince and shaking his head. "We've lost today," Aang said.

"Feeling sucks, doesn't it?" Toph asked. Above, Aang could see the white shape of Appa descending from above Zhao's back. It was time to go.

"I'm not finished with you!" Zhao shouted, as Aang flicked open his staff into its glider form. A thrust of the fists from Toph sent him staggering back, and his shot going wild.

"Hold on," Aang said, and Toph grabbed his shoulders, as he bounded into the sky, and the wind bore him upward. Zhao kipped up and sent an arc of fire after them, but given the distance, it was well wide. Aang landed on the howdah of the saddle, and Toph let go for just about a second, before her hands locked around Aang's waist, her blind eyes went wide, and she started screaming.

"OH GODS DAMN IT WHY DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO FLY ALL THE TIME?" she shouted.

"It's faster," Sokka mentioned. "What happened down there?"

"Jeong Jeong is dead," Aang said, slowly pulling Toph from his waist. She sat down in a hurry, latching onto the rail. Obviously, she hadn't acquired the others' taste for flight, yet. "Zhao killed him."

"Damn it all! Why does that guy kill anybody who looks like they're trying to help us?" Sokka railed. A glance to Appa's brow showed that Katara had a very tight expression on her face from where she directed the beast. He then turned to Toph. Then back to Aang. He pointed to her. "On a completely unrelated subject... what's she doing here?"

"That's a good question," Aang said.

"You guys are obviously protagonists of some kind of story," Toph began.

"What."

Sokka's flat word explained Aang's opinion succinctly. Toph shook her head. "Alright, let me rephrase that. Y'all are going to do impressive stuff in the world, and I figure I kinda belong with you. Twinkletoes here ain't much of an earthbender, and that means you'll need somebody like me to teach him, am I right?"

"Toph, the guy who just tried to teach Aang firebending just got killed," Sokka pointed out. "They guy who tried to teach Aang about Sozin's Comet got killed too. I tried to teach him how to be a man, and I almost got killed, all by the same _Gods Damned Guy_!"

"Yeah, well, that's..." Toph began.

"I... think Sokka has a point," Aang said. "Everybody who tries to side with us suffers for it. We're better off on our own."

"What? That's bullshit and you know it," Toph said. "These two haven't suffered."

Sokka idly unbuttoned the green vest he was wearing and showed the burns which covered about half of his torso. Toph stared half way between he and Aang, and shrugged. Sokka sighed. "I'm badly, badly burned," he said, having only then remembered that Toph was blind. It was astounding how quickly they forgot that.

"There's too much risk," Aang said. "I'm sorry, Toph. I just can't do this to anybody else."

Toph sighed, her gaze dipping. "I get it, I guess," she said quietly. "I just thought..."

"We should bring her back to her family," Sokka said.

"What?" Toph asked, an angry tone returning to her voice. "Oh, hell no. That ain't happening."

"It's the safest place."

"I don't want to be safe, Twinkletoes! I want to be in the action!" she let go of the rails specifically to cross her arms before her on her chest. "I am not going back to my family, and that's final!"

* * *

><p>Wind calls like a widow through the pass, long, sorrowful, and constant. Plenty of widows these days. The war had been going on long enough, after all. He stood on the stones, as that widow's cries pressed against his skin and ran through his hair. He allowed himself to wonder what she'd lost, the wind, to make her cry like that. Teo knew all about loss. He'd lost as much as anybody to this war. How many years since his father's death?<p>

The sun was turning the sky red, the color of flames. That seemed to be a constant of this age. To say the Pass became a different kind of place when the sun went down was something of a cliché, but it had to nowadays. This was once the kingdom of the Mountain King. But much like the Fisher King of yore, a wound to the loin had brought the King low. If only it was simple impotence, Teo thought. Years ago, Teo had been the first to tell the old man to fight back. Now, he was as tired as the other. There wasn't any glory left in this fight, not considering what they all stood to lose.

The worst part was, not a one of them had asked for any of this. Calamity had come at them in a great red-and-black swarm, and now, they were all stuck under an interminable weight. It wasn't happy times, in the shadow of the bones of the North Air Temple. Happy days stopped happening about a hundred catastrophes ago, and the point where hope had snuffed out was so far gone that nobody in the family could even remember what it looked like. Teo wanted to think of himself as a hero, standing up to the injustice of the world, but the truth was, he was no hero. He was just a teenager with a crossbow and a pair of crazies for parents. Illusions were a thing of the past. There wasn't time for them anymore.

Teo kicked himself out of his inner thoughts the way most people kick through a stuck door. Three people below, out of any sight but his. Two of them were tall, and dark. Almost like Tribesmen, but the third seemed the size of a teenager. One kick in his own head begat another. Running around inside his own head wasn't doing the people who needed him any good. The old saying went, in the land of the blind, a one eyed man was king. How true the saying was in this place. But the saying never mentioned what happened when you had working eyes and didn't see.

Or maybe it did, and nobody chose to see it.

Teo took off at a sprint, the evergreen needles whipping past him like green snow falling in a blizzard. He had to move fast. Luckily, his legs didn't fail him. That was the one bit of luck he had, it seemed. If he had any luck at all, that was. He delivered a kick to the door of the shack on the mountain that could have sent a Salamander battle tank rolling back three feet, and the door's crash as it opened sounded like a bell, awakening the town to its morning routine. But there was no routine here. Just grief and pressure. "Mom," Teo said, to the woman who sat before the fire. She turned to him, a ray of sunshine in a dreary place. "There's strangers in the pass!"

"_Fire Nation?_" she asked in her native tongue.

"_I don't think so,_" Teo answered. She'd once been so full of light. How the recent years had pulled at her. Clouds had rose up and blocked out her sun. "_Where's Dad?_"

"_I'll find him,_" she said. "_Stay here. This smells like trouble._"

She left Teo behind, and he stared out the window, at the scarlet sky. "Just what we need," Teo said, listening to that widow's cry continue. "More trouble."

* * *

><p><strong>I've heard it said that Aang isn't the same wide-eyed kid he was in canon. Maybe it's because I can't write wide-eyed and innocent. Or maybe, as I tell myself so that I may maintain any degree of self esteem (too late...) it's because there comes a point in every adolescent's life when they realize they just have to grow up a bit. Aang was a year older because he didn't run away from Gyatso, which was in turn because Gyatso didn't drop the A-bomb on him. Thus, he had a year's worth more experiences in the PreFireWar world. He's a bit different from the outset. But then again, considering some of the other changes, it seems to be the one which sticks in the collective craw. I guess it's that large changes are accepted at their value, but the little ones stand out because they're unexpected.<strong>

**I have to say, though, creating an Azula who would prioritize her injured brother over the Avatar is a good sensation. I've only ever seen one other story where that happens, and in that one, she's still friggin crazy. Well, so's mine... but my shade of crazy gets explained. And you can bet that Iroh will know it before you do.**

**I'm probably going to have a brief sabbatical after the second half of The Clash, but only because I'll actually need to plan the second season. I've got inklings, but not more than that. I need some time to chase butterflies and see where it takes me. But that's not here nor there, just something y'all are going to have to bear with. Also, you're going to have to bear with the fact that you're not getting chapter sixteen before Christmas with certainty, and possibly before New Years. The Clash is large.**

_Leave a review. Otherwise I won't learn._


	16. The Mountain King

**The Clash is big. What? You want a good story, well, that takes time.**

* * *

><p>"Many years ago, there was a woman who wandered the world. She fought demons and bandits, and fought in mighty battles. And wherever she went, her friends came with her. Nobody knew then that she was really a dragon in disguise, but she swore she would never reveal her true nature to anybody, not until the time was right. One day, as she walked a path, she heard a man calling for help in a gully, and went out to see if she could help him."<p>

"But the man was lying to her. His calls for help were to draw her and her friends into a trap. She was outnumbered by so many bad men that she had no choice but accept surrender. But as usual, the dragon was just waiting for the proper time. Days passed as she was marched across the hills of Ru Nan, and she patiently waited. But as she waited, the bad men grew more numerous, as word of their success spread. Until one day, when another group brought another prisoner with them. He was covered in mud, drunk as a bumbleskunk, and barely coherent, but the dragon knew that he was just what she was waiting for."

"One night, after the bad men had gone to sleep, she whispered to him in the dark, asking him if he was ready to escape. The man turned to her with a glint in his eye and told her that he'd been waiting all afternoon, and that his drunkedness was a sham. He called himself the Mountain King, and told her that he wanted to find all of the bad men at once, so that none could get away from him. The dragon and the Mountain King, working together, broke free of their iron cages, and freed the dragon's friends. Then, they turned upon the bad men and made them pay for the horrible things that they'd done to the people of the countryside."

"When it was done, the dragon turned to the Mountain King and asked if he was willing to join her, since there were other bad men out there in the world, and she was on a quest to right the world's wrongs. He pondered for a night and a day, before returning to her and accepting her offer, and together, the rode south to the coast, and crossed the great sea into the lands of the setting sun. But that's another story, and you've been up long enough as it is."

"Awww," the little girl whined. "I wanna hear a 'nother one!"

Takeshi sighed, turning to Riku. Riku rolled her eyes and shrugged. "_I can't keep her up all night,_" Takeshi said, switching to his native tongue. "_It's bad for little girls to be up too late_."

Riku rubbed her brow with the gauntleted hand. Unlike Takeshi, who had doffed his own Imperial firebender armor so that the girl would have a comfortable place to nestle in his lap, she remained in full suit. "_She's not our child, Takeshi. No matter how adorable she is._"

"_That doesn't mean we shouldn't treat her right,_" Takeshi said, and he gave Riku his earnest-eyes. She groaned. It was by cunning use of his big, clear amber eyes that he managed to win Riku's heart years ago. It was just a matter of waiting until their deployment was up before they could settle down in the Fire Nation. Or maybe, better yet, one of the colonies here in the East. If nothing else, it was dry out here. "Sorry, honey-bun, we can't keep you up. It's what your mommy would have wanted."

The girl pouted a bit at that. Takeshi wasn't just being a prospective father when he called her adorable. She had hair like he'd never seen before, almost the color of honey, and big green eyes. If any children of he and Riku's were a quarter as cute as that, they'd be spoiled rotten for their entire childhoods. "Oh, don't be sad. Just because we can't tell you another story," Riku began. Of course, of the two of them, Takeshi was always the one who had to be the light touch. She was just a lot... tougher... than he was.

"When am I going to get to see mommy again?" the girl asked.

"I don't know, honey-bun," Takeshi said quietly, and sadly. "But don't worry. You'll see her. I promise."

"Really?" the girl asked.

"Why would I lie to somebody as cute as you?" Takeshi asked, booping her nose. She let out a giggle at that, and hugged him around the waist. A warm feeling flowed through him as he patted her back, then he hoisted her up off of him and set her on her bed. It was supposed to be just a cot on the dirt, but between the two of them, Takeshi and Riku had gotten enough blankets to turn that cot into a respectable mattress for her. Takeshi turned to Riku, who lit a lamp which hung near the flap of the tent, and then started to walk out, collecting his armor as he went. "Sweet dreams, honey-bun," he said.

"Bye bye," she said, pulling blankets over her in the dim light of the tent. As the two firebenders walked, their footfalls clanged against the great metal plates upon which the camp was constructed. Earthbenders could, supposedly, travel through the very stone. But there was not anybody on this Earth who could bend metal. Takeshi gave a nod to the guard who remained outside the tent, and the man silently took a place before the flap, facing outward. Not like the girl had anywhere to run. They were practically at the heart of the camp.

"_This isn't right,_" Takeshi said quietly.

"_Enough of that. Qin might hear you,_" Riku said, her dark eyes scanning around as she spoke.

"_Tell me that you don't agree with me, though,_" Takeshi asked. Riku remained silent. "_It's not right to take somebody's child._"

"_You know whose child that is,_" Riku pointed out.

"_All the more reason not to take her,_" Takeshi said. "_Come on. We've just got to make it five more weeks. First day of spring, and our tour of duty is complete. I don't feel like getting killed by a vengeful father with the end so close._"

Riku let out a snort at that. "_I don't think the Mountain King would kill you,_" she said. After a moment, she shrugged. "_Make you wish you were dead, definitely, but kill you? I haven't heard him to be a killing sort._"

"_Then you've been basing your opinion of him on the stories I tell his daughter._"

"_Do you have a better source of information?_" Riku asked. He rolled his eyes. Besides the stories told of the Mountain King, there was very little information on him in the West at all. Only that he was brilliant, and mad, and dangerous.

Takeshi sighed, ducking into the tent that they, in direct violation of quite a few army regulations, shared. He started to pull his armor back on, boots first and working up. "_But this whole thing doesn't feel right. Even if we __don't__ get dead, will we be able to live with ourselves if this goes wrong?_" The consequences of that man's disobedience would harm far more than he. The longer the two of them looked to the little girl, the more he at least became sure that he wasn't capable of following Qin's directive.

Takeshi could never hurt a child.

He found his face being cupped by calloused, firebender's hands, and Riku leaned down, pressing their foreheads together. She wasn't one for obvious statements of sentimentality, not by a long shot. But the tension on her face was obvious even to a man as unobservant as Takeshi. "_We'll find a way,_" she said quietly, intimately. "_The madness has to end sometime, doesn't it?_"

For all he wanted to answer her question, Takeshi had no answers to give.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 16<strong>

**The Mountain King**

* * *

><p>It was an odd Thursday. Usually, Thursday was the day that people started checking out. A hard Friday lay ahead of them, and any boss worth his placard over the door would know to crack his whip just a little harder, to get the work out of them before they departed for days of leisure and religious contemplation. That just made the workers check out all the sooner, gone in spirit if not in body. It was a day for dreamers and layabouts, a day where a woman would look to the birds in the sky and her envy would drive her to join them. A day where a madman retired a little bit early from his secret lair, letting his burdens weigh him down a little bit more than usual. A day where a boy can wonder at a future without fear and death and doubt.<p>

It was not, however, a day for legends. However, as it usually turned out, the world didn't much care for Teo's expectation of it. Never was, these days. So the boy could be forgiven his bafflement when one of the biggest names of his age came sauntering through his door. Not surprise. The man on the mountain had been saying that this day would come eventually.

Teo just never figured it'd be on a Thursday.

"You look like hell," Teo's adoptive father said, slumped in his chair like his bones had turned to pulp.

"As do you," The Dragon of the East said, drinking the tea Teo's mother had handed her. "In fact, I dare say that the years have not treated you well at all."

The madman from the mountains leaned forward, scrutinizing the Pai Sho board as he was wont to do when he was pondering something else entirely. "No, they haven't," he answered her. "What do you want, Sativa?"

"You should guard your tone," the Tribesman said quietly. He was a pine of a man, tall and slender, but hard as old wood but supple enough not to break when he needed to bend. The other was like him, dark pallored from exposure and spreading equal fury in his eyes between the man at the Pai Sho board and the Tribesman at his side. That was another thing about Thursdays. It was the day when tension got to its highest, before the blowout on Friday. If there was one thing Teo knew about those to, it was that he didn't want to be anywhere near them when that resentment blossomed into outright violence. He had at least that much sense.

"You should remember you're a guest in my house," came the answer. He turned, letting his eyes, green and brown respectively, fall upon the guests. Some people said that Zha Yu's eyes showed the world that he was mad. The truth was that his eyes were strange, and that he was mad, and that the two weren't connected in the slightest. "You want something from me. What is it?"

"You have heard that the Avatar has returned," the Dragon said. Her words were like revelation. You didn't have a choice not to listen to them. That was her way. Prophets and generals had much the same talent for demanding attention. The question that came to Teo's mind was, which was she going to be today? After all, it was an odd Thursday. He had to be ready for anything. "We have information which is vital to him. Which means we need to track him down before he gets himself killed or captured by the Fire Nation. And failing that, release him from their clutches before too much harm has befallen."

The Mountain King leaned back, taking a pipe and puffing smoke. For a moment, he looked just like the mechanical curios he cobbled together in his workshop. Busted, barely functional, but somehow, despite all common sense saying nay, still running. He was dead tired. They wall were. "And what does this have to do with me?"

"I told you he was a coward," Bato said, exhaustion more in his words than malice. He rubbed at an arm which obviously still ought be in a sling. "We shouldn't have come here."

"This has everything to do with you," Piandao ignored Bato. "The world is coming apart at the seams and you're content to just sit here and play with your toys?"

"Things are more complicated than that," came the answer.

"Zha Yu, you owe me a better explanation than that," the Dragon said simply. He turned to her, and shook his head.

"I don't owe you anything. The rest of you may have forgotten, but I was the one who brought you in, not the other way around. Our partnership was just that. I was never your lackey, Sativa. They might have been your inferiors, but I never was."

"Are you trying to pull rank?" the Dragon asked, raising a brow.

"Like rank matters anymore," Zha Yu muttered. "You're welcome as guests in my house, but don't push my patience. Not today."

"What happened to you?" Piandao asked. "Why did you leave us to die?"

"I saw how things were shaping up," Zha Yu answered, pointing at him with a pipe-stem. "Situations like that, people end up dead. I did the math, and the most likely candidate for getting bumped off was me. Besides, you did alright without my help."

"Llewenydd died," Sativa said.

Teo's adoptive father sighed, slumping. "There wasn't anything I could have done to prevent that, there or gone. I mourn him, but I don't blame myself for him. There was nothing any of us could have done."

"You goddamned coward..."

"Piandao, stop," Sativa said. He contented himself to glare at the tired earthbender in the chair. "Things may be more dire than that. Do you know of Sozin's Comet?"

His look would have shamed a historian into ritual suicide. She rolled her eyes. "What about it? Wait," he said, leaning forward. "Let me guess. It's coming back. And when it does, they're going to use it to wipe out the rest of us."

"Soon," the Dragon confirmed. "By the end of summer. And we need your mind on our side."

"I can't help you," he said, head shaking slowly like a wounded Platypus Bear.

"Can't or won't?" Bato asked.

"The last few years haven't been kind to me, alright?" Zha Yu snapped. He cast a finger at Teo. "I try and make an honest living working as an engineer with his father, but then comes the flood back a decade past, and then he's dead. The only reason Teo's walking now and his mother's alive is because I just happened to be in the right place to save them. And the hits just keep on coming. I joined you, Sati, because I wanted to do some good in this world. The world promptly told me that it didn't care. So forgive me for trying to earn a bit of solace instead of valiantly marching to my death," he said, turning back toward the Pai Sho board. He shook his head. "I can't say what would have happened if I stayed with you that day. Nobody can. Maybe Llawenydd would have survived. And then Teo and his mother might have died. Was Llawenydd worth two lives?"

"Tell me you aren't trying to reduce this to utility," Piandao said with annoyance.

"I just told you, I'm not," he said, glancing back at the swordsman. "I told you I cannot say what would have happened. Neither can you. The past is gone, and there is no reclaiming it. I wouldn't want to if I could."

"Personally, I cannot believe you'd sit by as injustice plagued the countryside," the Dragon of the East said calmly, sipping at tea.

"Maybe you didn't know me as well as you thought you did," he said bitterly. "Dinner should be done in half an hour. Teo, find your mother and tell her..."

The door swung open with a crack, and a windblown woman stepped inside, letting out a whistle to her mate. Teo's mother was many things. She was bright, she was strong, and most importantly, she never let the Mountain King slide into a funk. Some said matrimony was just a set of chains one wore willingly, but that set of chains in their case often took the form of a block-and-tackle; for all Zha Yu's notorious manic energy, his melancholy could be just as disruptive, and doubly so, when the sun couldn't shine in his house. The patriarch of their unconventional family rose like a shot when she appeared.

"Nevermind," he said, his disposition lightening even from the moment of her presence. "What's going on out there?"

"_More strangers in the pass,_" she said, as usual in her own native tongue. She spoke Tianxia, but held an understandable embarrassment about her accent. She would rather not be understood at all than have somebody ask her again 'what was that you said?'. "_Two of them, but one of them was a man in dark robes. Could it be him? I thought we had time!_"

"Calm down," Zha Yu said, gently taking her hands in his. It was an odd look, the two of them together. From the legend of the Mountain King, hell, from the very name, one would expect him to be of monstrous stature. But the truth was, she was three inches taller than he was. They did grow them taller down south. And it probably meant that Teo would reach a fine height himself. He gave a glance to the company, and to Teo. "_He hasn't gone back on his word yet. We have time. We must. I'm close to a breakthrough. I know it._"

"_I'm worried too,_" Teo admitted in his mother's language. "_How do we even know she's still __alright?_"

"_We hope, and we pray, and failing that, we prepare for war,_" Zha Yu said quietly. He then turned to the others. "You'll forgive me. My wife has something that needs seeing to. Teo, you can watch dinner, right?"

"Yeah, dad."

"Good," he said. He turned back to his wife, and beckoned her out. "_I'll deal with these interlopers personally. No more distractions today._"

The two of them ducked back out into the wailing wind, leaving Teo to press through the pack of legendary visitors and into the kitchen which was set off from the main room. This house, for all its dinky size, housed four rooms. The kitchen doubled as Teo's bedroom, something he didn't mind, because it was both always warm, and frequently smelled quite pleasant. His mother and stepfather shared the bedroom, which both flanked the living room. Barred, though, was his workshop. The bells hadn't rung yet today, but that just meant it could come at any time. Not the safest place, that workshop.

The stew, which had been put on for three, then heartied up for six, now went about finishing its rendering. It wouldn't be long. Teo considered the people out there before the fire. He knew a lot of the stories about the Mountain King were dramatizations of real events. It was an odd feeling having a legend for a father, even a stepfather. But seeing the Dragon of the East in their parlor, drinking tea with her equally famous cohort? Those sorts of things just didn't happen. At least, not in stories which had happy endings. And right now, Teo was desperately hoping for a happy ending. He heard the door creak a bit, and he was pulled out of his thoughts. Bato was standing by the door, arms crossed before his chest, watching the teenager mind the pot. Teo looked back to him.

"What?" Teo asked.

"_You do realize I speak Whalesh?_" Bato answered. Teo swallowed past a boulder in his throat. "What exactly were you talking about?"

"It's a family concern," Teo said by rote, turning back to the stew.

"Really? Then what did Zha Yu mean when he said..."

"It's a family concern, and the family will deal with it," Teo snapped. Oh, boy. That probably wasn't the right thing to do in front of a massive Tribesman. But then again, in this family, the hits just kept on coming.

* * *

><p>"I am never going to forgive you guys for this," Toph said with a scowl and her arms crossed before her chest.<p>

"We're doing the right thing," the Avatar said from the brow of the bison. Sokka though shook his head. What Aang thought was the right thing and what actually was were probably about a year apart if one traveled at the speed of light. A light-year, if you would. "You said they were living in Ru Nan, right?"

"No. They've moved to their estate in Burning Rock. Or was it Ba Sing Se?" Toph said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Oh, wait; now I remember, they're living in Summavut. That's where you're headed, ain't it? Well, ain't that just a wonderful coincidence?"

"He's not going to fall for it," Katara said passively as she carefully sewed their mother's necklace, which had popped a stitch at some point. Momo chirruped pleasantly from where he was curled in her lap. "Believe it or not."

"Enough people around me have gotten hurt," Aang said.

"Not your fault, Aang," Sokka said. "Just because one scar-faced brute comes along doesn't mean you have to take responsibility for all the pain he leaves in his wake. That's just hopeless martyrdom."

"See? Legs here gets it," Toph said, giving Sokka a shove.

"Legs?" he asked.

"I'm still deciding on a more permanent nickname."

"Why do you get to pick nicknames?" Katara asked.

"Because I'm better than you at it," she said. There was a moment of silence. Then she leaned on the front of the howdah. "Come ooooon! You know you don't want to get rid of me! You need me!"

"Sorry, not happening," Aang said. Toph pouted.

"Gods. I'd be better off with Cranky, Suave, and Cool Old Guy," she muttered to herself shaking her head and recrossing her arms. The sound of the wind began to rise as they moved to the west, crossing the latitudes until they were nearly as far as the easternmost islands of the Fire Nation, if a great deal more northerly. So it was that despite twelve hours in the air, despite the lateness of the winter season, the sun was still in the air. They had been chasing it for hours.

"Where are we anyway?" Katara asked.

"We're close to Duoluo Maozi," Aang said. "And that means we're also pretty close to the Northern Air Temple."

"Oh, that's nice," Katara said. "Are you going to visit it?"

"I'm not sure if I should," Aang said. "What if there's more... you know... Storm King stuff there?"

"In the North Air Temple?" Toph asked, face scrunched up in confusion. "Are you high or something? The North Air Temple wasn't built until years after the Fire Nation wiped out the Storm Kings."

"You know about the Storm Kings?" Aang asked, so quickly perching above the other teenagers on the rail of the howdah that it seemed that he'd teleported. "How!"

She stared near him like he was a dunce. "Be...cause I actually paid attention to my history lessons?" she asked. "I mean, come on, I can understand why these two wouldn't know about the Storm Kings, but it's pretty common history just about everywhere else. Hell, the Fire Nation teaches it as a point of national pride!"

"Is it just me, or do the Fire Nation seem to keep going after airbenders?" Sokka asked.

"Same story, different context," Toph dismissed.

"What else do you know?" Aang asked.

"Depends."

"On what?" Aang's brow rose.

"On how long I stay part of this little troupe," she said, smugly. Aang stared at her, obviously not impressed.

"That's not fair," Aang said.

"Life ain't," Toph responded.

"Look, we can talk about this later," Sokka said. "We've been airborne forever. We need dinner and... well, I'm starting to understand why those kids needed potty breaks every ten minutes."

Aang stared at Toph, who in turn stared smugly through Aang's shoulder. "Fine," Aang said. "I'll land. But don't get any ideas. You're going back to your parents."

"Yeah, I don't think that's likely," Toph said with a degree of confidence. Aang rolled his eyes but returned to Appa's brow, and started bringing the great beast down into the cleft which ran between the two peaks. On better days, Sokka could imagine that one would be able to see the peak, and upon it, the North Air Temple, but today was overcast, and the wind drove the clouds hard into that gap, to the tune of a mournful wail. Sokka was shamed to admit that his knowledge of geography, particularly in this region, was sadly lacking. He never thought he'd be up here, not this far west anyway.

The beast landed with a cheery thud, as Appa obviously found itself in some place it vaguely remembered, and immediately set about munching on whole berry bushes with the sort of glee usually seen in Momo, who rode Katara's shoulder as contently as it had curled in her lap. Toph hopped around, with angry mutterings about the cold of the snow under her bare feet, until Aang prepared a dry, warmish spot for her to stand. Sokka, on the other hand, had pressing business to attend to, and promptly exited the company of his family, almost-family, and a particularly abrasive earthbender. He took a minute or so to get some distance, because he hadn't the first real clue about how far Toph's odd form of 'vision' could 'see'. Then, he did as nature desired, to his great relief and happiness.

As the pressure started to abate, he thought of home. As they moved further and further north, the pines returned, and with them, the cold. It was pines which greeted them on De-Aer Island, and on Kyoshi. And the snow, which was covering the ground in a fluffy mat and giving him a not-overlooked opportunity to leave his mark on the landscape, brought him two thoughts. One, was that they were almost there. They had almost reached the North Pole, completing half of a polar circumnavigation of the planet. Two, was that he wondered what they were going to face there. He had heard stories about the North Tribe, how it glistened in the moonlight, its carefully sculpted ice reflecting like the diamonds that they mined. How they spread across islands toward the Northern Earth Kingdoms, bastions of their culture and splendor. And at the same time, he wondered at the great injustice that they could remain so majestic and lofty while letting their southern neighbors fall into utter squalor.

And that thought made him think of home, the village which, barring a miracle, he could never return to.

He shook his head, shaking out and preparing to recompose himself. And then he turned to his left, and saw that there was a middle aged couple standing there, looking just about as surprised as he was. Sokka then let out a cry of alarm and threw himself back from them, trying to ensure that his pants didn't fall down as he did so. Damn those Easterners and their infernal reliance on belts! "Who are you!" Sokka shouted.

"Who are you!" the man shouted back, cowering against his wife. His wife, though, rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Calm down, my love. It's just a Tribesman."

"What? Are we about to get ambushed?" the man said, glancing about. Sokka stared at him aghast. The woman sighed.

"Forgive my husband. He is... unaccustomed to traveling afoot. The road weighs wearily on him," she said.

"Oh... I see... I guess," Sokka said.

"Sokka, are you alright? I heard you screaming," Katara said, and trailed off when she saw that there were two others in the same small space between the conifers. "Oh... Sokka, who are these people?"

"Travelers," Both Sokka and the woman said in unison.

"Well... Surely they can rest a while in our camp," she said, forcing a sweet smile on her face. Sokka couldn't help but roll his eyes. Ever since Crescent Island, she put way too much effort into it, at times. "We'd be happy to have you."

"We're being invited to stay at a camp full of wild children?" the man asked.

"I swear to the gods, Lao, if you don't stop that..." the woman said with a weary tone.

"Hey, Sugarqueen, are you sure you should be out here on..." Toph's voice came through the woods, bouncing and mocking, and she seemed to be approaching far slower than she usually would. And when she came into view, Sokka could see why. She must have relented and pulled on Katara's spare set of boots to shield her feet. "Wait... I must be seein' things."

"Toph? What are you doing here?" Lao asked.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Toph muttered. And right about then was when Sokka recognized the two of them. He'd seen them separately, back in Makapu – which was probably why he had such difficulty. He was actively trying to forget everything about that infuriating place – but never together, and he therefore lacked the necessary context. These were Toph's parents. "Mom, what are you doing here?"

"You said that the Avatar took her to our estate!" Lao turned to Toph's mother.

"Well then he obviously brought her back here for some reason," she said, the paragon of matrimonial annoyance. She then turned to her daughter. "How are you feeling, Toph?"

"Annoyed," Toph said. "They've got me wearing boots. BOOTS!"

"You asked for them," Sokka pointed out.

"Guys, we've got a bit of a problem," Aang's voice came through the pines.

"Calm down, we're not here to start a fight," another man's voice placated, as Aang retreated into the rapidly filling opening between trees. Upon hearing that voice, Toph's mother's brow furrowed.

"Oh, that just can't be possible," she muttered to herself.

"What is it, Dear?" Lao asked. The conversation ground to a halt as the Avatar finally joined the group, but was staring over a leveled staff at a man who came to a halt just in sight. The first thing which struck Sokka was how he looked kinda like what would happen if King Bumi were mixed with that badass uncle of Zuko's. Next was that his eyes were two drastically different colors. And third was that he was staring at Aang like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"By the gods old and new," the man said. And then he cast his hands out. "Well, it's about bloody time! Where the hell _were_ you?"

"Why do people keep saying that like it's my fault!" Aang asked. But then, Sokka could see that the man wasn't staring at Aang, but rather past him. At the woman at the other side of the clearing. The man rushed forward, causing Aang to have to bound aside or else be bullrushed, because he was clearly on a tackling course with the woman. Only that tackle turned out to be a laughing embrace.

"By gods, Joo Dee! How many years?" he asked.

"Too many, Papa," the woman answered.

"Joo Dee?" both Lao and his daughter asked at the same time.

"Oh, I forgot. What are you going by now?" the man asked. He turned to the other gathered nearby. "Like she'd ever stop being the Iron Poppy, though. I take it this is your husband?"

"Yes, I am Lao Beifong, architect of the Beifong Trade Association, and..." Lao began with a confused bow.

"He's a lot spindlier than I imagined him," the odd fellow remarked, taking to physically examining Lao like he was an Ostrich Horse for sale. "Pretty fits, if a little tattered from travel. Soft hands, obviously a moneyed individual. He's got the back that's crooked from bowing and not labor; all rich and lily-white, pasty and..."

"Please stop describing me," Lao said with obvious discomfort, slapping the man's hands away from him.

"I've got to say, I thought you had better taste, Yingsue" he answered.

"Papa, I love him, even if he is a bit of a wimp sometimes," she answered with rolled eyes and an impatient tone. "I thought you'd be happy for me."

"Oh, I am, I am," he waved aside. Then he paused looking him up and down again. "Although... seriously?"

"You are Poppy's father?" Lao asked. "How could that be? You don't appear that much older than she is..."

"I've aged gracefully," the man said with a note of scandal.

"Zha Yu is... technically my father. He and Sati were both the first people I ever saw in my life," she made at explaining.

"Mom, your life's weird," Toph pointed out.

"Yeah," Zha Yu answered. "I could tell you about her eighteenth birthday. I think I've still got the scar from it. But where is my hospitality! You must meet my family. And I've got some old friends up in my shack."

"Thank... you?" Lao said to the invitation.

"We'll just be on our way," Aang said.

"No, no, I'm pretty sure the Dragon of the East is going to want to meet _you_," he said.

"The what?" Katara asked, but at the same time, both mother and daughter Beifong both asked a different if respectively identical question over top of her.

"Sativa Badesh is here?"

"Yeah, I'm terrible at surprises," Zha Yu said. "Come on. I hope you've already eaten, though. We've got enough for six, but not for twelve. That's just unreasonable expectation on a host."

Sokka thus found himself bundled along with the others down a path which a goat-cougar would have a hard time balancing on. Of course, of the lot of them, only Katara and Lao had any difficulty navigating it, because the others obviously had very good balance, or else used earthbending to cheat and keep the trail. As they traveled, there was a sound of something whooshing past, and Aang was the one to raise the question.

"What was that? Are there Bison around here?" he asked. Zha Yu glanced up, and then nodded.

"Oh, that's just my wife," he said. "She's up top, keeping an eye on things. We've had... trouble for the last little while."

"Up there? There's nothing but treetops and mountains. That was way closer than..." Aang trailed off. "Is your wife an airbender?"

"What? No!" Zha Yu answered, and then paused for a moment. "Well, she does have an obsession with flight which I think borders on unhealthy, but that's just keeping a hobby. As far as I know, you're the last airbender alive," he said, pointing at Aang.

"I'm pretty sure there's at least one more out there somewhere," Aang said, and Sokka nodded. In truth, Sokka was pleasantly pleased that the kid didn't spirit off on a wild turkey-goose chase after that thing the moment the word of it hit his ear. Zha Yu just let out a grunt and continued walking. The building that the strange man brought them to seemed utterly dinky, but the moment it came close, Toph started to stumble a bit, and Sokka found that he had to keep her from listing onto her but a few times.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly.

"Man... everything's all messed up," Toph answered just as quietly, if only because Sokka knew that asking loudly would piss her off, and she knew answering loudly would bring down the attention of her parents. Both of those were effects that neither wanted to be the cause of. "It's like nothing can agree on how big it is," she batted Sokka away. "I'm better. It's just... disorienting."

Sokka looked at the shack and back to Toph, but continued walking without comment. At least, until the door opened, and they all filed into the shack. Sokka looked around a bit, then quickly leaned back out the door, and took stock, before ducking back in again. Unless his eye for dimension was completely faulty, he could have sworn... Nah, it couldn't be.

Buildings couldn't be bigger on the inside then they were on the outside.

"Is that who I think it is?" a gravely woman's voice asked. Sokka saw its source. She was probably into middle age, but she was bearing it very well. There was also a familiarity to her that Sokka couldn't quite place. She was staring at Toph's mother, and a smile came to her face, obviously an unpracticed expression, because it didn't look very smooth. "Hello, Joo Dee. I take it this is your daughter and husband?"

"_Oh my god! Uncle Bato!_" Katara's voice dragged Sokka's attention to where it actually needed to go. Namely, on a family friend who managed to show up out of the wild blue yonder, at the strangest possible time. And with that, Sokka was grinning like an idiot, and running past most of the other inhabitants of this impossible shack in the middle of nowhere and embracing his father's oldest friend along with his sister.

"_Sokka! Katara! This is incredible!_" Bato said, "_How did you get this far on your own?_"

"_We weren't on our own,_" Katara said. "_We're with the Avatar! He's actually taking us to the North Pole so I can find a waterbending master and learn my art!_"

"_That's wonderful, Katara,_" he said. "_And I assume that... why are you with her?_" Sokka pulled back. "_Forgive my presumption, but I thought you two couldn't stand each other._"

Sokka smiled easily at that. "_A lot's happened in the last couple of months. Come on, we've gotta hear all about the war up here, and how the others are doing. What __has__ been happening up here?_"

"_Come on, I'll fill you in over in the kitchen,_" Bato said, shepherding the teenagers before him. "_There's been __a lot__ of goings on._"

That left Aang with the impressively named Dragon of the East, a National seated next to her. There was a silence which reigned between them, Aang, the owner of the shack, and a confused looking youth who was forced into egress from the kitchen.

"So you are the Avatar," the Dragon said.

"Yeah... I guess," he answered her, rubbing the back of his head.

"I hadn't thought I would meet you yet. But the sooner, the better," the woman rose to her full height... which was about the equal of Aang's, which struck him as a bit odd. Either she was really short, or he was growing faster than he thought possible. "There are events which you must be made aware of, and your participation is absolutely vital. At the end of the coming summer..."

"Sozin's Comet returns and I have to stop the Fire Nation before it happens or the world goes poof," Aang said with singsong tones, making it clear the old-news nature of the quest. "Is there anything else I haven't heard yet?"

"I... See," she said. "Piandao, a word."

Aang then was left utterly to himself in the spacious room.

"...Huh," Aang said, summing up his opinion of the oddity of the last few hours.

* * *

><p>The days were stretching on interminably. That was the word for that sort of slow, plodding time passing. It was unbearable because there was no escape. Nila had tried, quite strenuously, to find a way out of the Iron Horde. But the Arban were everywhere, and getting past all of them would require some form of miracle. It was unbearable because the end was close at hand, however little she actually wanted this to end. Something about this trip, from the east to the west and back again, it changed her. She had no friends when she left Sentinel Rock. Now, she had two of them. Yes, even Malu earned the patent of friendship, if with some sort of excusatory notice next to it; there were many things about that airbender which Nila found outright annoying, but still, Malu was valued. Not in the same way or as much as dear Tzu Zi was, but valued nonetheless.<p>

What made it very, very unbearable was that she had nothing to occupy her time.

"She's got that caged wolf-bat look on her face again," Malu pointed out from next to the cook-pot, where she was boiling the noodles at this unlikely hour. It was just after breakfast, and she was already cooking another meal? Honestly, the way that girl ate, it was a miracle she didn't weigh eight times as much as she did.

"She's bored," Sharif said, continuing to stitch at something. Gershom and Adalai had unwittingly managed to get their hands on free labor in Sharif. He was always fixing something or other. Honestly, Nila didn't know why Mother didn't loan him to the seamstresses so he could earn a wage. "She gets angry when she's bored."

"I'm not bored," Nila said. And then felt the cognitive slap in the face she got for not only lying, but doing it badly. "Alright, I'm bored. There's nothing to do here! I don't have any of my equipment! If I had just an alembic and a pair of tongs, I could occupy myself for months, but this place is utterly savage!"

"You know," Tzu Zi said from where she was laying on her back, with her legs running up the yurt's lattice wall, "I think you should try doing something... girly."

"Girly?" Nila asked.

"You know, I think you're right," Malu said, grinning crookedly. "If Tzu Zi didn't swear she'd seen you naked, I would have thought you were a boy."

Nila turned to Tzu Zi. "You said I wasn't naked!" she snapped.

"It was a long time ago, let it go," Tzu Zi said, rolling to a squat. She was smiling again, and Nila had a very hard time staying angry at a smiling Tzu Zi. "Come on, we'll do girl stuff... like talk about boys, or..."

"She got along well with Sokka," Sharif said as she took a moment to conjure the next item in a worrying litany.

"Who's Sokka?" Malu asked.

"Nobody's Sokka," Nila answered.

"I'm pretty sure there was a Sokka at some point," Sharif said, his brow drawing down.

"There is no Sokka!"

"There was a Sokka, Nila," Tzu Zi said. Malu started grinning.

"Ooooh. Dish!"

"Water Tribe boy. He and Nila were flirting up a storm!" Tzu Zi exclaimed happily.

"We were not flirting!" Nila shouted. All eyes, including those of their Adamite hosts, turned to her. It was lucky that Sharif alone kept his eyes on his stitching, because of the lot of them, only he would recognize what it looked like when a Si Wongi blushed with embarrassment. "I was testing him. He actually had a worthwhile mind."

"_Totally_ flirting," Tzu Zi intimated. Malu laughed at that. Nila took the opportunity to seethe. "Look, you've had all this running around, trying to find your brother –" Sharif popped his head up with a vacant 'I'm right here', but they all ignored him, "– and bring him back safe, but when was the last time you did something for yourself?"

"I..." Nila began, finger raised to prove a point. And then it occurred to her, that she had no point to make. "I don't really understand what you mean."

"Nila, you're wearing Malu's cloak as a shirt, a pirate's sleeve as underwear, and his pants as... well, pants. Don't you think you should have some better clothes?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Shopping?" Malu asked, a glint in her eye.

"Shopping!" Tzu Zi confirmed with a grin and an exultant gesture.

"No. I forbid it," Nila declared.

"Oh, it won't be like last time, I promise. This time I'll get _you_ stuff!" Tzu Zi swore.

"Shopping," Nila said grimly, shaking her head.

"What? What's wrong with shopping?" Malu asked.

"Do you see this?" Nila pointed at the side of her head, near the crown, at a small scar which was now just barely visible through her regrowing hair. "Last time I went shopping back home, some of the boys threw a brick at my head."

"Oh, Nila, that's terrible," Tzu Zi said. Malu seemed a bit taken aback by that.

"Why would they throw a brick at your head?" the airbender asked.

"It's a very long story, and the one who could tell it better isn't here," Nila dismissed. She'd wanted to strangle Ashan after she figured out his part in all of that.

"Well, you can't let things like that make shopping a bad experience for you," Tzu Zi began.

"And then there was the ceaseless mockery and derision I faced from everybody in the town, both before and after Sharif's maiming. The gouging at the stores, the contempt in the other shoppers, the guards 'having better things to do' than track down the muggers..." Nila continued in a very casual tone, more a symptom of how she'd come to expect that behavior than that she was actually alright with it.

"Wow," Malu said.

"And you want to go back there?" Adalai weighed in. "What did you do, anyway?"

"I am a bastard," Nila said, as that was all the answer that was needed.

"No kidding," Malu said, obviously unable to let that joke slide past. Nila fixed her with a glare, and then clarified.

"I am a bastard _daughter_," she amended. Tzu Zi sighed, but nodded. The others looked at her like her entire culture was insane.

Not that Nila would disagree with them.

"Anyway," Tzu Zi said forcefully. "This place isn't like that. Isn't that right, Gershom?"

"As long as you don't wander outside of the enclave, I'm fairly certain you won't have any bricks thrown at your head," Gershom promised.

"_Fairly_ sure?" Malu asked.

Gershom glanced between the Si Wongi and the airbender. "Well, if she deserves it, then..."

Malu burst out laughing at that, but Nila had a good glower on, and it would be a shame to waste it. Still, she felt her hand being taken by Tzu Zi, and was thus hauled out of the yurt into the morning light. They would probably start moving again soon. While the Enclave didn't keep the same schedule as the rest of the Iron Horde, as it went, so did they. They probably wouldn't break this camp until tomorrow, but then would move doubletime, coming to a halt right at the edge of the soldier's encampments on the front. Questions of why were met with ambiguous shrugs. Just another weird part of living in the Horde, it seemed.

"See? Some fresh air will do you good," Nila said. If there was one downside to the increasing heat, it was that Tzu Zi had resumed wearing her own dark robes, concealing her spectacular figure. Nila, lacking both robes and a spectacular figure, was not so impeded. "Come on, the day is young! I bet you'd look really nice in yellow. Or pink!"

"Pink?" Nila said incredulously, but Tzu Zi had her mind set on something, and once she did, trying to get her to change her mind was like angering an airbender or bringing down the storm.

* * *

><p>"So you're basically saying that you've walked more than half way across the East Continent in a desperate bid to teach me about and help me understand the importance of mastering the Avatar State and ending the war between the Fire Nation and the rest of the world before the end of summer, which turned out to be information I'd already known for months?" Aang asked.<p>

"Essentially," the impressive woman said. Not that she was much to look at. While she would have been taller than Aang a year ago, her stature was puny, her voice wasn't very pleasant, and he didn't find her particularly attractive. Still, Bato and the swordsman Piandao seemed to treat her like she was some sort of manifested god. Even Zha Yu, who seemed to favor everybody equally, as lackeys in some elaborate prank, treated her with a respect akin to a meeting of equals. It was all rather confusing. "I do have to wonder, though, where you got this information."

"I had a conversation with Avatar Roku."

"The Avatar who died more than a century ago," she said flatly.

"Yeah, and then the Fire Lord tried to kill me, and I had to break his daughter out of prison, and..." Aang said, beginning to recount the oddities which occurred in the last month and a half. All told, it was rather remarkable they were all still alive.

"Azula? The artist?" she asked.

"I... wouldn't know."

"I've heard some stories about that girl," Piandao said, breaking his silence. He seemed a lot less tense, now that Bato had been out of his presence for a while. "They say she took sick early in her childhood, and ever since then, Ozai has been pushing her out of the line of inheritance."

Aang grunted at that. It certainly explained why she was so adamant she capture Aang. It wasn't just duty to her nation, she was fighting to maintain her very identity. And that was deeply, deeply sad that she had to. "That explains a lot, actually."

"Cruel what he did to her," Piandao shook his head. "It may be that she was a holy terror before the sickness, but no child should ever be abandoned by her parents," there was a heavy silence, then, centralized between the monumentally named Dragon of the East and the swordsman who followed her. "You know, I have a notion."

"Later," Badesh dismissed. "What else happened? You've covered the broad strokes, but I need more. Be very, very specific. What you tell me may well save lives."

"Starting when?"

"Who told you you were the Avatar?" she demanded. That was the thing about her. She didn't ask. She demanded. And every time she did, Aang felt an instinctive desire to obey. She certainly had charisma, this woman.

"Nobody did," Aang said. "I had to learn by accidentally destroying the Southern Air Temple and almost killing my friends."

"They didn't tell you?" Toph's mother asked. "Why wouldn't they tell you?"

"Are you sure we should be..." her husband edged in uncomfortably.

"Sh," Sativa snapped at him, and he fell silent. "They didn't tell him. Leave it to fate to know why. Where are you going?"

"I need to reach the North Pole to find a waterbending master," Aang repeated.

"You won't find one up there," Badesh shook her head. "None with the time to teach anyway."

"Why not?"

"The Siege of the North still burns hot. Any waterbenders are likely fighting for their lives," Piandao answered.

"What about that Water Tribe girl?" Beifong asked.

"Honey, we should..." Lao said again. This time, both women shushed him harshly. "Never mind..."

"She needs a teacher, too," Aang said. "Why do you need to know this stuff?"

"Knowledge is a currency, and I intend to be wealthy today," Badesh said. "What other allies have you garnered as Avatar to stand against the Fire Nation?"

"Allies?" Aang asked. "I don't know... I mean, I think Bumi would help out if he could."

"Bumi?" Piandao asked.

"Zha Yu's great-great-grandfather's adopted brother," Beifong answered. Several people turned to her. "What? Genealogy is interesting."

"You have an alliance with the most powerful, if insane, king in the Southern Earth Kingdoms?" Sativa asked.

"I wouldn't call it an alliance," Aang said. "We're just old friends."

"Call it what you would. Who else?"

"Well," Aang racked his brain. "There was that shaman from Senlin, but... Oh, he's probably on his way back home with his sister by now."

"Shaman?" Badesh asked.

"Yeah his name was..." And then Aang felt like an idiot for not putting it together faster. "...you have children don't you, miss Badesh?"

"Yes," she then tweezed her brow. "And I assume the shaman you speak of is my son. I hope you would forgive him his oddities. His brain was badly injured years ago. I am pleasantly surprised he made it as far as he did. What of the girl?"

"Angry."

"That sounds like Nila," Piandao said, to which he received a withering glare from the girl in question's mother. Aang scratched his head.

"Wait... they said they were going back home. If you're here, who's waiting for them?" Aang asked.

"They..." Badesh began, and then she stared off into space. "Well... I seem to have overlooked something."

"You're letting them go back to an empty house?" Beifong asked.

Piandao chuckled a bit at that. "You see, there's a bit of a funny story about that..."

"Not. Now," Sativa said, her humor obviously not in line with the swordsman's. "So. If I have this properly. You have played witness to the annexation of Kyoshi Island and Gaoling, alienated some guerrilla fighters in a swamp, stubbed the nose of the Fire Lord himself, and have a frighteningly effective commander after your head, who himself seems like he's perpetually a step ahead of you."

"That about sums it up," Aang said, displeased about how failure-prone that summation made them all seem.

"Hm," she said. "I think we may have more work ahead of us than I feared."

* * *

><p>"So pretty!" Tzu Zi squealed in delight as she held a bolt of cloth against Nila, who stared at her friend with a sort of utter disbelief and confusion which the Si Wongi girl never before knew herself capable of. "Sleek and smooth and it doesn't even <em>need<em> any frills on it!"

"I think you're enjoying this entirely too much," Nila said, but she couldn't help but feel some of that enthusiasm leaching into her from the firebender. "After all, it's not like I'll be able to wear them where I'm going."

"Why not?"

"Some moronic taboo about women showing color in Sentinel Rock," Nila shook her head, tugging at the dress which the National managed to shoe-horn her into. It ran from shoulders to ankles, and was quite, quite tight. She couldn't even take a proper stride in it, and it was a scandalous shade of violet. "I don't ask. Only mother was brazen enough to flout it, and even then, it was because she was who she was."

"What's wrong with showing a little color? You should see the Fire Days festivals we hold back home. It's like being awash in a sea of colors," she then trailed off. "But your people also got a thing against showing skin, don't they?"

"That's somewhat more practical," Nila admitted. "The sun can't bake what it can't hit."

"And if a woman just so happened to fall out a window in her underwear?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila goggled at the mental image, that one of those miserable crones would find herself in that situation, and had to swallow a laugh.

"I imagine they'd have rocks thrown at them until they went back inside," Nila said. Possibly a lie. She didn't have the first clue, but it sounded like something they'd be capable of. "It's not like they could treat them any worse than Latifa. If I remember, she's still in prison for being some prince's victim. If there is any place more unjust than the East, than I shudder to think of it."

"Nila, you shouldn't talk like that," Tzu Zi said quietly.

"Why not? I have the right."

"It's not that. It makes you angry. I don't like when you get angry," she said, hugging that bright yellow cloth to herself. "It's like every time you see something bad, you take it and you press it against your skin until it leaves a mark there, like everything bad in the world was going to happen to you anyway so you might as well have the scar. I don't like when the people I care about are hurting. And it's frustrating because you seem so determined to do it to yourself!"

"I do not seek frustration and failure. I'm not some sort of masochist," Nila said. "Damn this so-called dress! How am I supposed to move in this thing?"

"I don't think you do it on purpose," Tzu Zi said. "And stop tugging at it. It looks perfect just the way it is. Besides, you have a nice back and it shows it off."

Nila glanced around behind her at her back, which was indeed exposed from her collar to just above her hips. If there wasn't enough reason for her to be uncomfortable in this, that would be it. Nila was not an attractive girl. It had been made plentifully obvious by her peers that was so. And Mother had not even attempted to restate the obvious. Nila could remember one such time she came home from the merciless teasing of the other children, in tears from their abuses, and Mother turned to her...

_"And why are you weeping?" she asked in that distant year._

_"The other children make fun of me and call me ugly," Nila had said between sobs._

_"And why should their opinion matter?" Mother asked. Nila was confused, back then. "Their opinions are worth less than dirt, because they are stupid. Are you stupid, Nila?"_

_"...no?" Nila asked._

_"Then you should know better than to let them bully you," Mother turned back to talking with somebody, whom Nila couldn't recall, but the girl from that memory tugged at the woman's sleeve. "Gods above and below, what is it?"_

_"Am I pretty?" Nila asked hopefully._

_"Beauty fades," Mother said. "Aspire to something more permanent. Now leave me be. I have work to do."_

"You don't need to lie to me," Nila said. "I'm aware that this dress would look better on a Shig."

"What?" Tzu Zi. "Why would you say that?"

"Because it's simple truth," Nila said, wanting to worm out of the dress and leave it for somebody more capable of properly displaying it. Somebody with curves instead of Nila's lithe, wiry flatness. Someone with hair to spill down that entirely too open back. But worming out of the dress would have left her in quite a state of disrobement. So she retreated behind a screen before starting to push the thing down her like a snake skin.

"No, that isn't true, Nila," Tzu Zi stressed. "You know, I thought you just had picky tastes, but you've turned down every dress I've offered. You can't possibly think you're that hideous."

"Appearance fades and that's probably for the best, because I don't have much to work with in that regard," Nila said, then she looked around. "Where are my clothes?"

"We had the pants burned. They were covered in black mold," the seamstress of the tailor's yurt explained. Nila peeked above the screen to deliver an angry if disbelieving glare. "You might have had no harm from it, but too many people fall to strange illnesses from the outside. Don't worry, I'm not going to run you out half-naked. Just pick what suits you best, gratis."

"Then I require some black robes," Nila said forcefully.

"Anything... but that," the seamstress amended.

"Nila, you should have nice things," Tzu Zi said, coming up to the screen and leaning around it. Nila let out a squawk and covered herself. "Oh stop that. I've got six sisters. Not like I haven't seen all of that before."

"If you don't mind, I'd like some privacy!" Nila said, her tone rising quite out of her capacity to regulate it. But Tzu Zi shook her head and clasped her hands on Nila's dark shoulders.

"You deserve nice things. You're a good person. You're a beautiful person. I don't care what anybody else says, or said to you back when. You're pretty. You should have a pretty dress."

Nila felt an odd warmth in her, staring at those melting brown eyes, and the tension started to sluice away. "Really?" she asked, her voice small, unsure of itself as the rest of her was. "I... don't know much about dresses."

"See, that's why you need me around," the firebender broke into that wide, sunny smile. "Otherwise you'd miss out on all the great things in life, like chocolate, pretty dresses, fun parties..." She trailed off. "Alright, parties might not be my expertise," she leaned a little closer. "I might have accidentally burned one boy's house down 'cause he was being mean to an old friend."

"Really?" Nila said with a sarcastic smirk, putting a fist on her hip, before realizing it was flesh upon flesh and that she was naked and flaunting it. Hands instantly snapped back to more decent positions, if such a thing existed for this situation. Tzu Zi laughed at her. She then leaned in closer, that smile still on her face, and was close enough that Nila could feel the girl's breath on her face. When she spoke, it was very low, in an intimate whisper.

"You know, I bet you'd be a whole lot of fun if you stopped taking yourself so seriously all the time. Try the yellow dress. I bet it'd look good."

With that, she sauntered away, leaving Nila feeling a bit light-headed and unbalanced. Apprehensive, excited, confused. Yes, there was a lot of confusion. But the girl might well be right. Still, that didn't mean Nila had to be civil about pulling on that frilly, pleated, yellow abomination of a dress. It was lucky that Ashan or Gashuin or the others wouldn't see her in this frippery. She might have opted to just crawl under a rock and die, were it so.

But as it came into place, she looked down at herself, and had to admit, there was something a bit more flattering about this than there was to shapeless, formless black bags with holes for arms and a head. "This... actually... isn't so bad," Nila forced herself to admit. She then scowled. "Yellow isn't my color."

"Come on out, I want to see!" the firebender said. When Nila stepped out from behind the screen, the seamstress and all three of her aides were all watching, and Nila silently blushed dark and covert. "Wow. You were right. But I like the cut. Do you have that in red?"

"Red?" Nila asked.

"I think I have just the thing you're looking for," the seamstress said, and moved forward, leaving the aides to nod knowingly, as Nila found herself bustled back into a secluded, cardoned off corner of the yurt, and made to play clothes-horse to the whims of an excited firebender and an obvious madwoman with shears and needles. After the first five minutes, Nila was considering praying to any god who would listen to free her.

After the first hour, she actually started to enjoy herself.

Nobody could be more surprised than she.

* * *

><p>With Sativa and Joo Dee deep in conversation, Piandao took his opportunity to split away from them and try to run down Zha Yu. His stern features had fixed in their most disapproving expression, but they had no target with which to release themselves. Whatever that crazy bastard was doing, it was with the Avatar, and thus, out of Piandao's hands. There were a lot of things which Piandao was comfortable dealing with. Elemental martial arts was no problem at all. It wasn't until the supernatural got involved that he really, really stepped out of his element. Because of that twist of timing, Piandao instead found himself being drawn aside by Joo Dee's foppish looking husband.<p>

"I understand you knew my wife when she was younger," Beifong said. The pseudo-wealthy man looked just as out of his respective element as Piandao had been in Wan Shi Tong's library. "She's fairly tight lipped about that time. Tell me... what was she like?"

"She was... a bit of a blank slate," Piandao said, his eyes scanning the room for a break to confront Zha Yu, but between the Avatar and Sativa, Piandao couldn't get his opening.

"What do you mean?"

"She tried to kill us, for one," Piandao said. Beifong stared at him.

"That isn't funny," the man said.

"No, it wasn't," Piandao agreed. "She was our guide when we went to Ba Sing Se twenty years ago. Things got out of hand, and in the end, we were left fleeing into the night, with our once-guide in tow. I never had a problem with her, but I never trusted her, either."

"Wh... what are you talking about? Are you talking about Poppy?" Beifong asked.

"Really? You call her Poppy?"

"That's her name, isn't it?" Lao asked.

"I couldn't tell you," Piandao said. And then, he had his moment. "Excuse me. I have something I need to attend to."

Piandao left Lao stammering as he pushed through the crowds of that impossible house and toward the back, which consisted of two great, wooden doors which were barred on this side. Zha Yu was unbarring the door, and the other children with the Avatar had exited the kitchen with a pleased seeming Bato. That just made Piandao scowl all the harder. There were some violations that Piandao simply would not forgive. "Zha Yu, a word," Piandao said.

"Can it wait? I promised I'd show the boy my workshop," the Mountain King said. Piandao stared at him. "It won't take long."

"If you try to run off..."

"Why would I?" he asked. Piandao stepped aside as the man's wife came up and said something to him in Whalesh, to which Zha Yu nodded. But Piandao, much like young Sokka, couldn't turn away from her. It was the boy who had the audacity to say what both of them were thinking.

"Her hair is yellow," the boy said in disbelief.

"Sokka!"

"It's yellow!" he repeated. "Can hair even _get_ that color?"

Zha Yu rolled his eyes. "Yes, it can. It's bloody rare, but it happens," he broke off when she said something which sounded sarcastic to him. "And she says that her hair color is '_melyn_', not 'yellow'."

"That's... remarkable," Sokka said, then gave Zha Yu an elbow nudge. "Man, that's gotta be a delight, eh? Finding somebody who's hair looks like gold? Must scare the more superstitious of the neighbors, am I right?"

"What neighbors?" the Mountain King's alleged son asked. It was doubtful that the boy was really that man's issue; the timing just didn't support it.

"Come on. It's right through here," Zha Yu said, throwing open the doors of that tiny shack, and showcasing a warehouse almost the same dimensions as The Factory in Azul City. Despite being a free-standing shack on a hill, there was somehow a room big enough to house three Fire Navy Cruisers at one time. Piandao stared at it with extreme confusion. "Go ahead, say it."

"It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!" the milky-eyed girl who had, until recently, been corralled by her father, blurted out. "That's why everything was all insane-y! Man, I've gotta tell ya', your house is _awesome_."

"An unintended side effect, I assure you," Zha Yu said, stepping through first. The others followed after, with the Avatar just ahead of Piandao. As the boy stepped through the threshold, though, a chime sounded, and Zha Yu turned to him. "Alright, let me see it," the man said. The boy looked baffled. "You've got something from the Spirit world on you. Let me see it."

The Avatar's eyes widened, and then he rummaged through his pocket until he pulled up a chunk of greenish stone tied in a leather thong. Zha Yu nodded at that, as the other of the teenagers began to rummage through the vast collection of half-completed projects, from the small and innocuous, to the large and intimidating. "Now this is familiar, isn't it, Piandao?" Zha Yu said, holding up the Jade Toe.

"I remember those things," he said neutrally.

"Yeah, you never liked having them around," Zha Yu said. "Have you used it yet?"

"What do you mean?" the Avatar asked.

"The Jade Toe has one very specific use. It gives you a way out. Don't know how it works, just that it does. Have you used it?"

"I... think... so?" he said, more a question than an answer.

"Well, then it'll be useless to you. Best to give it to somebody else," Zha Yu said. He started walking, and the Avatar followed. Piandao, still trying to get his own grievances aired, was forced to tag along. "I've found tonnes of these things over the years. Jade Toe," he waved past a similar lumpy bit of green rock in a nook of a stone wall – bearing in mind the shack was made of wood, "Battery," the next nook over, holding a glowing white leaf, "Dirak," to a ball which seemed to be made of crossing black and white lines. "They all have their uses. None of them intuitive."

"Is that a fireball?" the Avatar asked.

"Yes. It heals injuries, but at the cost of making you noisily ill," Zha Yu said. "I've found almost a dozen of these things that I never got identified. Do you know anything about Spirit Artifacts?"

"I didn't know I was a Shaman until the beginning of this winter," the Avatar said uncomfortably. Zha Yu shrugged, and handed the boy his Jade Toe back.

"These things are a lot more common nowadays than they used to be. Still, that thing will probably be worth a hundred times its weight in gold to the right buyer. If you've already used it, than that means its already paid for itself. I won't ask what you had to give up to get it."

"It was just..." the boy began.

"I'm not going to ask," Zha Yu repeated. "Now, from the death-glare which Piandao is giving me, he wants to speak. Go have a look around. But if you hear bells in the distance, get back here and through those doors with the others as fast as you can. Drop whatever you're doing and get out, even if it means something breaks. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do," the Avatar said, serious tones taking great odds with his usual demeanor. Zha Yu nodded solemnly.

"Good. Now to out there and play with something. Who knows, you might get one of my old bulks working."

The boy looked far too excited with that prospect for Piandao's comfort. The gentleman of weapons stepped to Zha Yu, determined that nothing else was going to turn him aside.

"Zha Yu, I..."

"I forgive you," Zha Yu said, turning back to a box near the only obvious corner of this impossible warehouse. Piandao trailed off.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to see that look on your face," Zha Yu said.

"You are still like a child," Piandao said dourly.

"And you're still an old man in a young man's body," Zha Yu answered, turning and leaning against a wall. "You're angry that I left you all. I understand that. I'm not going to say you're wrong. But let's face facts. There was no good way out of that. But the point is, I've moved on in my life. I'm not going to let the guilt of what I did or didn't do destroy me, or hold me back to a time a decade and a half ago. I can't let myself fixate. You shouldn't have to either."

"You still did a terrible thing," Piandao stressed. "You abandoned your comrades in a time of need."

"Yes, I did," he said, his humor gone. "But that's the past. We have to fight the current war, not the old one. You can't walk backwards into the future, I always say."

"Since when?"

"Well, I said it right now, so that's gotta count," he said with a sudden grin. When Piandao didn't return it, Zha Yu sighed. "I've gotta say, you've become fairly humorless in your old age."

"The last few years have been... difficult," Piandao said. Zha Yu nodded, sighing deeply, age seeming to settle onto his features.

"I know about that. I dare say I know it better than anybody," he said, so quietly, so painfully. He turned to Piandao, and pointed toward the sword at the man's hip. "I see you've got a new blade. May I?"

Piandao rolled his eyes, but drew out that midnight black blade and handed it over. Zha Yu did a few test swings, and inspected it very closely. "This is an incredible piece. I assume you crafted it yourself?"

"Out of the metal of a fallen meteor," Piandao explained. "It holds an edge beyond any material I've ever seen. It is a remarkable blade."

Zha Yu nodded for a moment, then swiftly turned and struck that blade at one of his anvils, cleaving straight through it in a stroke. He then let out an impressed chuckle, and handed it back. A quick glance at the edge revealed not so much as a chip from its use. "I found it, you know?" Zha Yu said quietly. Piandao raised a brow at that statement. "After everything was said and done. I went back years later, and found it. It was right where they got you. There were poppies growing there. You must have lost a lot of blood."

"I have been close to death before, but never as close as I was then," Piandao agreed. Zha Yu reached behind a table, and pulled out something long, cylindrical, and covered in cloth. Piandao glanced from it to its bearer. "Is it..."

"When I found it, I knew that I couldn't leave it like that," Zha Yu said. Piandao took the bundle and unwrapped it, slowly revealing a blade which seemed to radiate white light from its perfect, pristine edge. "I reforged your sword. Well... the workshop did most of the work. It's been here for a long time. I knew I should send it back to you, and I was going to... but then you got cast out, and I couldn't find you. And then... well, my life became complicated, and I didn't have the time to lark off anymore. But the blade is yours. I made it whole as best I could. I hope this is, well, something."

Piandao felt an urge to grin like a child as he hefted that blade again. While the black blade held no equal on this world, this sword, his white blade, held no equal in history. He had forged it for his hand, and his hand alone. And returned to him, it held that same temper, that same heft, that same balance. He flicked it out, relishing in the sound of it cutting the air. So much went perfectly, perfectly right when Piandao had forged this blade, that he knew in his heart he would never surpass it. He doubted anybody ever would.

"I don't know if I can forgive you," Piandao said, settling that white blade back into its scabbard and hanging it along side its ebony sister. "I don't know if I should. And even then, I can't forgive you for what you did to the others. But you restored my arm. If nothing else, you have my thanks for that."

"That makes this next bit a bit tricky, then," Zha Yu said quietly.

"Why?"

"Because I need help. And for the first time in months, I feel I might actually have it."

"Explain."

"In a moment," Zha Yu waved him aside. "I think Sokka's poking around where he shouldn't be. Don't worry. We'll talk later."

And if there was one trait which Piandao should have remembered, it was that it was practically impossible to stay angry at that mad tinker once you stared him in the face.

* * *

><p>She had the kind of eyes that reached across the room and kicked you in the face. The kind of eyes which nailed a guy's feet to the floor and threw away the hammer. It didn't take much to get Teo glued to her side like one of his father's more unfortunate and ill-conceived experiments. She had such brightness in her, a brightness that Teo had only ever seen in his own mother. But the clouds had come, and even the sun couldn't shine through the thunder. Katara, she was raw, spirited, and determined. Just standing close to her was like standing in the sunshine.<p>

"This place is incredible," the Avatar said, looking around like a more hyperactive version of the lemur on his shoulder. He paused. "I'm surprised you never tried putting this stuff up in the Air Temple."

Teo shook his head. "There's no rebuilding up there. It's too dangerous."

"What's dangerous about it?" the bare-footed earthbender girl asked. She was cute, but it was a sparkle of a gemstone against the majesty of the sun.

"The place is basically one huge cloud of natural gas," Teo explained. "One spark, and the entire mountain could explode. And even if that doesn't happen, there's no air to breathe up there anymore," He shook his head. "It's almost like the world has something against airbenders. No offense."

If the Avatar had offense, he kept it to himself as he plunged deeper into the vast edifice, all sided in red, oddly natural looking bricks, under pointed arches which grew down from the cavernous ceiling. The blind girl went unsteadily back into the house, muttering about 'Spirit world breaking the rules', and other unpleasantnesses, leaving Teo with the two siblings, one of them holding his attention much better than the other.

"You know, this place is weird," she said, her voice singing against the darkness. There was always darkness in the workshop. It pressed against the torches and the candles that the Mountain King tried to use. It was like the shadows were alive, angry, and covetous.

"It's not really here," Teo said. She turned to him, confusion clear on her face. "Dad says that the workshop is in the Spirit World."

"Why would anybody build something like this in a place so dangerous?" her brother asked. There was a kinship of intellectuals with him, since even Teo knew that the Tribesman had a keen eye and a keener mind. That there was so much more that the guy was capable of, if only he had time, access, and will. It was a feeling with Teo had far too often.

"He didn't build the workshop," Teo said. "He put up the walls of the shack, and the house was bigger inside. And this place," Teo waved his arms to the clamor, the fire and the darkness, the music of industry hammering blind and dumb, "was already there, whole and finished. He just made it start working for him instead of doing nothing."

"He took over a chunk of the Spirit world? Is that even half way smart?" Sokka asked.

Teo couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I don't think he's ever cared about 'smart'," he said. The two siblings moved on, and Sokka's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah, that's one of the old prototypes for Mom's glider."

"Yeah, we saw her up there on our way in," Katara said. "Is your mother an airbender? Or maybe an airbender's child?"

Teo shook his head. "She's just somebody who always wanted to fly. And because of Dad, she finally got her wish," he looked at the wooden frame, so weary, so cracked and battered. This thing was resting, now, it's purpose fulfilled. It was good that she finally got into the sky, even if Teo's father didn't live to see it. He couldn't imagine what would have happened if that dream had died with her.

Who would have the sky, if not her?

"Your father... Your real father," Sokka said, playing with a bit of a dynamo. "Do you miss him?"

"I do," Teo said. "He was... kinda like Zha Yu. Crazy, brilliant, dedicated to pushing technology as far as it would go," Teo looked at the things which they all had been working on, so desperately, for so long. "Maybe not the same way, though. As I understand, Dad was obsessed with creating some sort of more efficient fuel. Maybe that's what caused the explosion. I don't know."

"What's all of this, then?" Katara asked.

"Stepdad, he's got the idea that the future is electrical," he said, setting the dynamo down. "We've harnessed fire, earth, water... even the air. But the lightning bolt? That's the future, or so he says. But you know something? I think he's right."

"Electrical what?" Sokka asked. "It's not like you can heat your house with lightning, or steer a ship with it, or cook your food."

Teo shrugged. "Well, maybe you should just keep an open mind."

"Guys," the Avatar's voice came from the corner of the room. It held a tone of despair and concern. It was one Teo had heard often. "You've gotta see this."

And as Teo followed them, he knew exactly what the Avatar had stumbled onto. He even had a fairly good idea how. It was weird how they said that a life was a lot like a broken mirror. You could pick up the pieces, but it was never whole, and you only managed to hurt yourself trying. And that's what this was. A testament to them trying. And all the blood that went with it.

"What is this?" the Avatar demanded, his voice gaining a timbre of a man at rage. Teo looked past him, through the panel which he'd slid aside. Of course he'd found it. In this family, the hits just kept coming. Through that aperture, Teo could see the red and the black, the machines of war and death. Battletanks, boarding skiffs. And at the heart of that chaos, a half-completed construct which stood as a pinnacle of treachery, draped over with the tri-point flame of the Fire Nation. "You're working for them?" he demanded.

"Did you know about this?" Katara asked, hurt in her voice like a pulled tooth. For a second, there, Teo considered the beautiful lie. The lie which would have turned her to his side, held her close. Let him feel the sun shine. But that was the thing. He couldn't make the sunshine a lie. He turned as footfalls landed beside him, and a broad hand landed on his shoulder. The old man on the mountain, his heresy revealed to the world.

"Yes," Teo said.

"We all did," the Mountain King said. There was a silence. The silence between when you pull the trigger and when the string begins to snap forward, sending a quarrel into the air.

"How could you do this?" Katara asked, betrayal in her voice. And the sun started to go away.

"I didn't have a choice," the old man said. He looked older now. He'd been scrabbling at those mirror shards harder and longer than any of them. His voice was dejected, desperate. He pointed at the walls. "Everything I did was because it bought me a little bit more time. Convection dynamos bought me a couple of weeks. Using rubber to insulate cabling bought me a few more. But there's no more buying time with a future which the Fire Nation was probably going to end up with anyway."

"What are you talking about?" Sokka demanded, hand on a machete on his hip.

A sigh. The fisher king's wound plain to the world.

"They have my daughter," he said.

"We've been doing everything we could to free her, but they've got every advantage," Teo said. "We can't get close to them without them seeing us. Stepdad can't sneak in because they've covered the ground with iron plates. Mom can't get close enough because of the foul air, and even if she did, she'd be outnumbered five hundred to one."

"You're betraying your people for your family," Sokka said, his hand dropping from his weapon. "That's... terrible."

The old man nodded. "There's no more buying time," he repeated. He reached up to the central edifice, and his fist tightened on the Fire Nation standard, crumpling it. But that wound which festered in him weakened him in spirit as the fisher-king's did his body. "A few months ago, the Fire Nation stormed my shack. They found out about the workshop. I don't know how they did. And then Qin showed up," there was bile in that name. It was as hated in this family as all the devils of Adamite lore. "He had this idea that I knew about how to restore the technologies of the Storm Kings. And when I told him no... he took Cho'e as collateral."

"Storm King technology?" the Avatar asked.

"Back at the end, they lost their bison, and tried to take to the sky in machines. It was a resounding success which came too late to save them," Teo explained.

"Think of it," the Mountain King said, staring at that machine, half constructed even as it was. "A machine which can rise into the heavens. Technology which will give all peoples the freedom which only the airbenders once enjoyed," he then shook his head. "But I'm not the man for this. I'm an earthbender. I think in density and stability. I don't know how to make things fly. And I'm running out of time. If I can't get this thing off the ground..."

"You're going to lose your daughter," Katara said.

He nodded, sadly, painfully. "So yes. I'm a traitor. Because I had to be."

The Avatar stared at that machine, stillborn and waiting. Then, he turned to the Mountain King. "I don't know about the machine... but I can't let this stand. Nobody should have their children taken from them."

"So this is your problem?" the Dragon of the East's voice caused Teo to squawk with alarm. Not the most manly sound, but she'd appeared without any warning at all. "I'm surprised you kept this from me. You of all people would have known I could help."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because that's what we do," she said. "Avatar, what say you to returning a stolen child?"

"Let's do it," the boy said with a nod.

Even if the hits kept coming, even these days, sometimes, just sometimes, you could hit back.

* * *

><p>Iroh hesitated outside that door, watching and listening. His face was fixed with a concentrated grimace, as his mind whirled, keeping track of the things he saw in that room. Azula's room always gave a lot of food for thought, and today, the most unsettling bit of all came about. He could hear voices in the next room, but his attention was, for the moment, centered here.<p>

Specifically, on Azula's latest painting.

It portrayed the Avatar, obviously enough. He was kneeling on grass, with an arch behind him, his tattooes glowing blue. Iroh could never admit aloud, since the consequences for doing so would be severe, but he also recognized where the Avatar was. It was the Spirit Oasis in Summavut. What lay behind the Avatar was what gave Iroh concern, though. It was the two charges, those children he thought of as his children. Azula stood behind the Avatar, facing left. Her hands were focused into two-fingered lances, which seemed to waft blue flames. Opposite her stood Zuko, facing right, and his own hands bore scarlet fire. But there were things which Iroh couldn't account for. Like the bizarre pony-tail on Zuko's otherwise shaved head. Or the fact that they didn't seem to be focusing on the Avatar, but rather, were preparing to enter mortal combat with _each other_.

Iroh knew that Azula couldn't help but create these works. Unlike his brother, he actually listened to her. It was a means of getting images out of her head, before they tormented her into insanity. Sometimes, those images which she produced disturbed her. One in particular, which showed her bound hand and foot with iron chains, slumped in defeat, seemed to eat at her even as she was making it; even though she couldn't stop weeping at the process, she could no more stop painting this horrifying scene than she could stop breathing and continue to live. Qiao had taken that and set it aside, so it wouldn't torment Azula with its disturbing imagery. As far as Iroh knew, it was still in his room, somewhere.

So it was that while he didn't understand where from those images came, he could understand their effect. And that was why he understood why Azula was next door, with her brother. Iroh shook his head. What curse had befallen this family to bear it so low? Iroh took a couple of steps to the next door in the hallway.

"It's going to be alright," Zuko said, his voice calm despite the substantial amount of hurt he was still aching from. Having an explosion go off next to one's spine was never a pleasant experience.

"No, no it isn't," Azula said. "Why can't we ever seem to do it? What is wrong with me?"

"It wasn't your fault," Zuko placated. A peek through this door showed that Azula had curled herself up on the floor next to his bed, and he was sitting, trying to comfort her. This despite him being essentially one massive bruise. "Zhao got lucky. He won't be lucky next time."

"Yeah, well, what'll happen next time?" she asked. "Something's coming, dum-dum. I think _that girl_ is trying to..."

"Katara is a non-issue," Zuko said. Iroh raised an eyebrow at that. The young prince was seldom one to let a pretty girl pass unremarked, or at least he was when Qiao was still aboard. The practice seemed to have fallen off when the boy had to suddenly hold the odd little family they'd grown into together. And from his tone, it wasn't just setting something aside because it wasn't the right time. It was as though he had shunted her firmly and inextricably into the 'never as long as the stars burn in the sky' category. A bit of a shame. Zuko could really use somebody in his life, someone who wasn't absolutely dependent on him. And a powerful, strong-willed bender like her was something that Iroh could see matching well with someone of Zuko's temperament. "What's got you so rattled?"

"I'm not going to fight you," Azula said, quietly, as though trying to convince herself.

"Really? That'd be a change," Zuko said with a pained chuckle.

"I'm serious. Whatever comes at the North... at Summavut, we're going to bring down the Avatar together, alright?" she said, her voice becoming a bit more strong toward the end.

There was a different kind of pain in his eyes when he chuckled again. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he said. She nodded, rising up and walking toward the door as though a strong showing now could erase the momentary vulnerability she had shown before. Iroh stepped back, and then took a step forward as the door opened more completely, and Azula stepped out.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Dinner is almost ready, and nobody has set a course," Iroh said, laying out the events in order of importance.

"We're steaming north to Summavut," she said. "And I couldn't care less about dinner."

"You don't mean that. A growing girl needs nutrition," Iroh pointed out.

"Just set the course," Azula snapped. Iroh rolled his eyes as she moved past. Before she ducked back into her own room, Iroh took the time as it presented itself.

"Azula," he asked.

"What?" she responded.

"How old are you?"

There was just a moment of hesitation. A moment too long.

"I'll be... fifteen on the first day of summer," Azula said. She scoffed. "And you claim to be a good uncle. Don't even remember how old I am..."

"I'm sorry. Sometimes things slip my mind," Iroh said innocently. She rolled her eyes and closed the door to her room. As Iroh walked away, though, he had a fairly good idea what was going on.

And he didn't like it one bit.

* * *

><p>Aang stared at the miniature dirigible which rose and fell from the heat of a candle within. Aang stared at it with honest appreciation. Flight was a tricky thing. "This problem had you gnashing your teeth for months, and Sokka solves it in two hours?" Aang asked.<p>

"I never said I understood flight," the Mountain King said uncomfortably.

"You see, the biggest problem with his balloon design was that once it was filled with hot air, it would become unstable. It needed somewhere to go," Sokka said, entirely too enthusiastic for the early hour. "A hole helped stabilize the craft, but caused it to plummet. So how do you keep a lid on hot air?"

"The whole world wants to know," Toph said, nudging the hulking Tribesman beside her. Bato rolled his eyes.

"Ha ha," Sokka said sarcastically. "The answer is actually really simple; a lid! The lid can regulate the air so that you can keep stability and buoyancy, and adjust them as needed. With a proper engine, I imagine these things could even power against the winds!"

"That's remarkable," Zha Yu said.

"That's some impressive lateral thinking," the swordsman beside him acknowledged. "A very elegant solution."

"They want this craft, right?" Sokka asked. "Well, they're going to get it. But what they don't know is that there's going to be a rescue team inside it. You'd agree there's a pretty good chance that this Qin guy is going to renege on your deal?"

"I'm almost certain of it," Zha Yu said direly. "Qin is a sycophant, and he's driven by his fear of Ozai more than any loyalty to his nation."

"I can understand that," Aang said with a nervous shrug. "So once we're there, what is our plan?"

"That's going to be the messy part," Sativa said. She was about to continue, but broke off as a deep, resounding tone reverberated through the workshop. In an instant, Zha Yu's head snapped toward the farther of the two doors.

"Everybody out of the workshop," he said.

"Why?" Piandao asked.

"If I was trying something, wouldn't I do it _before_ you found out my dark secret? Just go!"

Aang had to see the logic in that, and was the first to help him usher them back through the wide gates and into the relatively cramped but nevertheless impossibly spacious living area in the shack. Zha Yu, though, swung the doors closed and slid a bar into place, affixing them closed.

"What was that?" Sokka asked.

"The Cloister Bell," Zha Yu said. "It's about a three minute warning before a Blowout hits."

"...Blowout?" Katara asked.

"You'll understand when it gets here," Zha Yu said.

"What does it do?" Sokka then followed up.

"Supposedly, it kills you in every way that's possible and quite a few which actually aren't," Zha Yu said. Everybody stared at him. "What? My best source of information about this stuff died sixteen years ago."

Sokka stared at him. "Soooo... why do you have a super-lethal death workshop?"

"Convenience?" he offered. Even his wife rolled her eyes at that one. Aang suddenly had an odd impulse, and a strange memory which paired up with it.

"Lotus to intercept three?" Aang said.

"Really?" Zha Yu asked. Then he went a bit pale, turned to a Pai Sho board near the fireplace, and began to curse vehemently. Sokka and Katara exchanged a glance, as did Sativa and her companions. Toph just stared at a nearby corner, and her mother shook her head with a small smile, while Toph's father looked a little bit aghast.

"...what?" Aang asked, a little concerned.

"Damn that old man! He's going to have my Bastions cornered in seven moves!" he shouted. He then started to scratch at his beard. "At the going rate, I'll have only two and a half years to think my way out of it."

"Can we return to the task at hand?" Badesh asked. "Entering the camp will be, all things considered, easy. Getting out might require an act of divine intervention."

It was Aang's turn to grin there. "I'm pretty sure I've got a way out, once we're in there," he said, pulling out his bison whistle. The grin withered slightly. "How are we going to find her, though?"

"We find Qin," Zha Yu said. "He won't be far from her. He'll be keeping a close eye on her," he turned to Sokka. "You'll have everything you need. How long do you think it'll take to make the adjustments?"

"In the deadly room of death?" Sokka asked. Zha Yu's wife chuckled at that.

"It'll pass in about four minutes," he said, as everybody took one step away from the doors, which began to rattle ominously.

"About an hour," Sokka said.

"Good. My wife will help you. She's got a head for these sorts of things," Zha Yu said.

"You never did tell me your name," Sokka said to the yellow-haired woman.

"That's because she knows you won't be able to pronounce it," Teo said with a smirk.

"Try me," Sokka challenged. She then glanced between her son and her coworker, and rattled off at least eleven difficult and foreign syllables which Aang wouldn't be able to spell if he heard it a thousand times. At least one of those phonemes was one Aang wasn't entirely sure how to pronounce! Everybody stood baffled except for the bearer of that name, her husband, her child, and Katara, who gave a shrug.

"I guess that's why you keep calling her 'Sul'," Katara admitted. "It's a lot easier to say."

Coming from her, that said a lot. The conversation broke down into various other discussions which went on on things which Aang really didn't know how to weigh in on. Engineering, or battle psychology, or tactics. None of these were his slice of cake. But one set of blue eyes met his grey above the din and a flick of a nod out the exterior doors saw Aang following out the oldest of the assembled Tribesmen. "What is it, Bato?" Aang asked when he was outside, and the tall, dark man closed the door behind them."

"I've told Katara and Sokka many things, but there is one I could not. One I dared not, and for simple reason of selfishness. We needed you... but it turned out, you don't need us. Not yet, anyway. There's something they need to know, and it's vital that somebody be there to carry it, in case the day sees me among the stars."

"What do you mean?"

"You must swear to not reveal this to Sokka or Katara until whatever comes today has come, can you do that?" Bato asked intensely.

"I swear," Aang said with a bit of trepidation.

"This cannot reach their ears. Not yet. This is important."

"I've sworn my oath, Bato," Aang said. "What is it?"

Bato sighed, and looked to the east. "It's about their father..."

* * *

><p>"I now officially have more clothes than I have ever had in my life," Nila said, a little bewildered at the backpack full of them which Tzu Zi carried not only without prompting but without complaint. Her current attire was in dark purples and reds and ochers, and a pair of odd, resilient pants from some sort of specially made cotton. For all she'd considered women in pants to be about as fitting as men in dresses, she could see why Tzu Zi, Malu, and a significant fraction of these Dakongese partook of the style; it was comfortable and it didn't get in her way even as much as her robes had. "You really don't have to carry those, you know..."<p>

"Oh, don't be silly. It's my pleasure," Tzu Zi said with a smile. "It's been too long since I got to go out and have a big shopping trip. Far too long," a wistful expression on her face. "Besides, you had to pay for it all. The least I can do is bring it back to where we're staying."

"I paid for it because for whatever reason I now have the most money of anybody here," Nila said simply, but Tzu Zi tutted, and Nila fell silent. It was an odd experience living with a people whom she had been raised to fear and revile. Not by her mother, of course. Mother held only a passing attention for the Dakongese, but for the rest of the Si Wongi, these people were The Enemy, just as in situations reversed, the Si Wongi served as Nemesis. Centuries of conflict and strife, predicated on the belief that the other side was unnatural, immoral, and wrong. The truth was that it could scarcely be farther from the truth.

Yes, the Dakongese had earthbenders where her people had sand. Yes, they worshiped the Ostrich Horse where hers did the Celestial Hosts. But when their children wept, their mothers were no less swift to gather them up and sing them to peace. When their stomachs rumbled, it was to fill with not-so-inconceivable food. When one needed help, another offered. Far be it for she to say these people were the Si Wongi's inferiors, from her experience, they were equal in every way except for how they treated her personally, at which point the Dakongese were far and away ahead. Well, the Adamite ones were, anyway. She withheld her opinion about the Animists.

"I've been giving a lot of thought to your offer," Nila said as they walked past the refugees from a continent on the continent and across the seas. "And I think I'm going to take you up on it. When I deliver Sharif to Mother, I'm not going to stay there."

"You're going to come with me to Ba Sing Se?" she asked.

Nila nodded. "I will convince Mother. And if I cannot, then to hell with her and I'll go anyway."

"I'd hug you if you hadn't just insulted your mom," Tzu Zi said. "And if I wasn't overbalanced by your new clothes. Aw, what the heck?"

And then Nila found herself being hugged by a cheery firebender. An uneven smile came to Nila's face at the feeling. She had direction and purpose. She had seen too much of life outside of the sweltering confines of that house to effortlessly slip back into it. "Thank you," Nila said.

"What for?"

"For being a friend," she said. Tzu Zi gave her a second squeeze and then parted. That warm feeling in Nila continued for a while after, though, so it wasn't so bad. "Although, I do worry. When was the last time you saw the airbender?"

"About five seconds ago," Tzu Zi said, a worried edge entering her voice.

"What?" Nila asked, confounded. And her answer came in the form of a 'whoop' as something screamed past her at just above head-level, causing her to flinch and drop. She actually had her bow out and nocked before she even realized what had caused that little reaction. When she did, her tattooed hands dumbly slid her begrudgingly accepted weapon back into its place. Namely, because she was watching a woman fly through the air. "Is she... Of course she is. I'm not blind and stupid. How is she flying?"

"Malu!" Tzu Zi shouted, waving her hand above her. The figure banked around and came down, landing before them with a rush of wind but not so much as a patter, her feet returning to the ground with the delicacy of a feather landing in a cup of water. Malu, like Tzu Zi was grinning so broadly that it seemed likely her head might fall right off. "That's amazing! How did you do it?"

"It probably has something to do with that device she's holding," Nila said, managing to hold onto her scientific mindset even around her understandable impressedness. It as one thing to know that one's companion was an airbender. It was another to see that airbending in such visceral action. Malu nodded, holding up the glider.

"I know! I just talked to some of those Whalesh people, and they said they learned how to make these things from artifacts that were handed down in their families!" Malu said. "I figure some of them must have had brothers or cousins or something that went to Da-Aer and our South Air Temple," she said, her voice moving faster and faster as she continued with her excitement. "I mean, yeah, the overwhelming majority of kids of Air Nomads end up Air Nomads themselves but this just goes to show that even now there's bits that managed to get spread all the way across the world and..."

"You've been spending too much time around her," Nila said, pointing her thumb at Tzu Zi. Malu trailed off with a mouthed 'what?', to which Nila smirked. "You're gaining her proficiency in run-on sentences."

"Oh, don't be like that," Tzu Zi said, but it was around laughter, so Nila considered it her first successful friendly 'burn'. Malu scoffed, and shook her glider. It gave a hearty clack and the wings, which were spanned with what looked like the same kind of tough, blue cloth as her pants, folded in on themselves and the glider as a whole took on a look of a simple staff.

"The mechanism's a little rough, but a little bit of elbow grease and love will get it smoothed out plenty," Malu finished. She started smiling again, obviously not allowing herself to be put off. "So tell me, how was shopping?"

"She's pretty when she's not wearing a shapeless robe!"

"And you'd be the one to notice," Malu said with an elbow nudge. Tzu Zi looked a bit baffled at that, but shrugged and continued on at a grin.

"And she's coming with us up to Ba Sing Se once Sharif is back home," Tzu Zi continued. Malu chuckled at that, too.

"I guess I'm going to have to get used to you after all, am I?" she said. Nila let out some sarcastic laughter. "Which brings us to a somewhat relevant point. How do we get out of here? You may not be able to tell from the ground, but from the sky, I can tell that the edges of this enclave are pretty well guarded. They're not going to just let you saunter on out."

"I think I have a way to escape," Nila said. All eyes turned to her.

"You do? Why didn't you say so?" Malu asked.

"Because I _hoped_ I would find a _better_ one. Since I haven't, I must default to my original plan. And sadly, my original plan is not exactly big on dignity."

"Oh, I can't wait to hear this," Malu said, grinning.

"You're good at withstanding stench, aren't you?" Nila asked. Malu's grin began to fall away.

"No."

"I'm afraid so," Nila said. "It's the one place they won't look."

"Because it's insane and disgusting!"

"And it will work," Nila said. Tzu Zi glanced between the two of them.

"What's the plan, Nila?" she asked.

"Get my brother, and meet us at the edge of the midden heap," Nila said. Tzu Zi just stared at her, before taking a moment to adjust her hair and palm her forehead.

"What."

"I told you, this isn't going to be big on dignity, and it will be a long way 'round to reach Sentinel Rock, since we're going to have to circle the entire Horde from the back. But we will be free," Nila said.

"By burying ourselves in garbage!" Tzu Zi stressed.

"It's hardly the worst thing you'll ever smell. Trust me on that," Nila said honestly and simply, before walking toward her onerous but necessary destination. Behind her, Malu stared at the Si Wongi's back for a long moment. Then, the airbender and the firebender shared a glance.

"You know, there are times that girl really alarms me," Malu noted.

"...yeah," Tzu Zi had to agree.

* * *

><p>"How is she?" Riku asked, betraying her usual stoicism for a moment of motherly concern. While its target wasn't a proper one, all things considered, Takeshi considered it a very good sign that she felt it at all. She had been a very, very hard woman when they'd first met. It had taken no end of effort to get her to soften even as much as she had. He accounted it his greatest victory. After all, like his grandfather, he was a lover, not a fighter. Only Grandfather was a fighter, too. Things got complicated in his family. Politics always were. It made him glad that his relation to that mire of a family was so distant that he was for all intents and purposes nobody.<p>

"She's fine. Misses her parents, as usual," Takeshi said. He paused for a moment, looking toward the tent where their commander stayed. Not even their commander, really. Qin was a politician, not a soldier. And while Takeshi had no love of authoritarian soldiers, he had even less for politicians, since they had no place in the picture at all. In whole, he would just be very, very glad when he mustered out. All this stress was starting to thin his hair. "What about Qin?"

"He's complaining again. Louder this time," Riku stated. "He wants somebody sent to the Shack."

"Do you think he'd actually do it?"

"Kill her?" Riku asked. Then she shook her head. "Not at first. But he'd make that poor bastard hurt by proxy a hundred times what he does to her. And that'll serve to piss him off, which means he'll probably show up and kill us all."

"You're a very up person, you know that?" Takeshi noted sardonically. Riku feigned cuffing him upside the head. He took a step further down the barricade as though to avoid her, then leaned against the metal work which looked down over the slop and the precipice beyond it.

"Still, I'm worried," she repeated. "Qin's in a bad mood. It's been a long time since he went to the Shack. I don't like this."

"I don't like it either. But what can we do?"

"Hope that _nobody_ does anything stupid?" she attempted.

Takeshi couldn't help but snort at that. He looked down at the ceiling of the clouds. It had taken him a long time to get used to being this far up a mountain, unlike Riku, who was born in the Ibuki Mountains back home. He still wasn't used to seeing clouds from the other direction. But it was still something to behold, the great masses of them pressing up against the mountains, but never reaching through to spill their rain onto the parched inland.

"Quite the view," he said.

"It's just clouds," Riku said. Ever the romantic, she was.

"Or... is it?" Takeshi said, moving along the wall they were both standing on until he passed a corner, and got a clearer line of sight on something that was moving in that vast and obscuring fluff. "You don't think she's back up here, do you?"

"Qin'll be even more pissed if she is," Riku noted. But that eddying in the clouds grew even larger, far too large for a woman on a glider. Then, it began to swell up, like an eel rushing to the surface, pressing out a bulge of water before it finally broke the tension and erupted from the deeps. But what erupted was not something which Takeshi ever thought he would see. It was large, an oval of red cloth, belching smoke and rising clear of the clouds with no supports beneath it at all. Takeshi spared a glance to his side, and Riku was watching it with equal rapt attention, but very little of that same wonder that was in his. "Oh."

"Oh?" Takeshi asked, waving a hand toward the machine that steamed toward the camp. "You see a piece of Storm King technology come to life and that's the only thing you can say? Not 'wow', or even 'that's incredible'?"

"More like 'oh, this is probably going to go very, very wrong somehow'," Riku countered, glaring at him.

"...oh," Takeshi said. "We should..."

"Yes, we should," she confirmed, and with that, both of them were vaulting off of the wall and deep into camp. He wasn't much of a soldier. He'd made it his entire tour without harming a single living soul. But Riku had instincts, and he knew to trust them out here. And if her instincts said things were going to go bad, then he had to believe them.

And the coldness of her eyes told him that if this was going wrong, it was in a big way.

* * *

><p>Qin had a headache. Not that that was any different from any other day he spent up this high on this cold, Agni forsaken continent with these people. He woke up with a headache, and after hearing about what the insubordinate cretins under his command did throughout the day, he went to sleep with an even bigger headache. He oft considered screaming his rage into the heavens at what foul curse had befallen him to end him in this place. He was a man of science! Not some mountain climber, nor was he a prison warden, nor a babysitter. Leave the first to the Gorks, the second to some nobody noble, and the third to his wife, since each was best suited for the respective task.<p>

The whole situation seemed to smack of punishment. And that confused the hell out of Qin because he was fairly sure he'd never done anything requiring punishment. He'd served Azulon with vigor and loyalty, and pledged fealty to his son and successor without hesitation. Then, everything started going right to hell. And so he sat on an uncomfortable chair, trying to personally understand the schematics which had been stolen from another man of science from another nation. Intellectual theft didn't bother him. What did bother him was that Ozai didn't consider Qin intelligent enough to come up with these things on his own. This might be a different path from what Qin would have chosen for himself, but it certainly wasn't beyond his capacity for comprehension.

"Minister Qin," a voice came from the door to his own shack, itself the only solid structure on this horrible little camp. Qin turned to him.

"What? What is so important?" he asked, testy.

"There's something rising from the clouds."

"Keep the guards around the hostage's tent. If she tries another 'rescue mission', cut off the girl's hand and send it down the hill to the Mountain King," Qin said with boredom and irritation. Ordinarily, harming children wasn't something he'd condone, but considering the pressure he was under, it was lucky he didn't return the girl to that insane earthbender two pounds at a time. Zha Yu had certainly jerked Qin around enough in the year he'd had to endure this madness.

"It's not the woman," the soldier said. "Well... it is, but Zha Yu is with her. You must see this!"

"And why is that?" Qin asked, rubbing at the bags under his eyes.

"Because they're riding with the Storm Kings!"

That got Qin's attention. He rose, pushing past the soldier to observe that it was not just a slip of the tongue nor insipid error. There was a machine in the air, flying by mechanical power. It slowly descended, the great balloon above it sagging slightly as the base of it hit the ground. It was an ugly thing, all unpainted metal and undyed cloth, and reeked of 'prototype'. There was one thing to be said for prototypes; you never had to endure the same sloppy design again once the concept was proven. Not so much standing on the edge of the basket as leaning over and supporting himself on the edge by a rope to the balloon, was the madman himself. Qin stood before him, staring down at him as he dropped from the basket to the iron plates that floored this encampment.

"I've held my end of the deal," Zha Yu spat, helpfully in Qin's own language. "Now release my daughter."

"I think you should know better than that by now," Qin said. "How many other 'prototypes' have you pawned off on us, only to have us bring them home and find them unreproduceable? She is going to stay right here, until we prove we can build this thing ourselves."

"You son of a bitch..."

"You brought this on yourself," Qin said with superiority. "Now, you are going to hand over the schematics, then toddle off to that little shack of yours until I decide your work can be trusted."

"Trusted?" Zha Yu snapped. He cast a hand back to where his nearly-albino wife was standing, looking steadily more and more angry within the structure of the dirigible. "We flew this damned thing in here? What else is there to trust!"

"How do I know there isn't a bison in that canvas sack?" Qin asked. Zha Yu leaned back with confusion. It was telling to Qin's state of mind that he had to predict such legerdemain. Doubly so, because he was now capable of it. Qin leaned down to Zha Yu's level. "I don't trust you. You're an enemy of this nation, and I wouldn't put it past you to sabotage everything you touch."

"I want my daughter back," Zha Yu said darkly.

"Then for her sake, you'd better be acting in good faith," Qin responded. "Now get out of my outpost, profligate."

Zha Yu wilted for a moment, then turned back to his spouse. He let out a whistle, and nodded away from the vessel. That woman looked about ready to chew nails and spit arrowheads, but she disembarked.

"Good to see that you have a modicum of sense, 'Mountain King'," Qin said. "It'd be such a shame if something were to happen to your daugh–"

He was interrupted when two teenagers also disembarked, but with a great deal of speed and vigor. One of them was dark skinned and blue eyed, a girl. The other was bald, and bore the blue arrow mark of the Fire Nation's greatest single enemy besides the Dragon of the East.

"The... Avatar?" Qin managed to say, backing away from the two of them, even as, together, they began to move through a motion which caused water from the dirigible to surge and slam into the edge between two of the great metal plates which formed the floor. A great heave from both, and the water flared up, freezing, and turning the floor into something of a ramp. Within half a second of that panel being lifted from the ground, a burst of stone exploded from under it, covering the rest of the area in earthen detritus. The woman bounded back into the dirigible, but Zha Yu began to bend, which caused Qin to stagger back, and the two hundred or so firebenders and soldiers to race forward. "You can't win this, Zha Yu!"

"Not without help," he admitted, then heaved once more. This time, the entire plate was tossed aside by another vomit of stone. This time, though, it opened as a snake's egg, and exposed a plethora of others in its heart. Teenagers and adults, boys and girls, men and women. And a small black-and-white lemur, which Qin's stunned state added to the tally as 'other'. But when Qin's eyes fell upon one particular woman, far shorter than any but the milky eyed girl near the center of the pack, his heart practically stopped in his chest.

The Dragon of the East was here.

"Kill them! Kill them all now!" Qin shrieked. And the world turned into fire and clashing of iron, it turned into screams. One of them was his own.

"He's getting away!" the younger of two Tribesmen shouted.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," that mad tinker's son noted, and Qin heard a twang in the air. About a fraction of a second later, there was a great impact in his chest, and he staggered to one knee before drawing himself back up again. But this time, every step he took was utter agony. A glance down showed why. There was a crossbow bolt in his back, lancing him through. He stifled a growl, but kept moving. He was not going to die here. Not today.

* * *

><p>"I've lost track of him," Sokka said, before ducking under a spear-thrust, twisting and clipping the soldier in the side of the helmet with his club. The two teenagers turned to the swordsman who flowed through the masses, absorbing most of the attention of the non-benders amongst their enemies at the cost of being utterly locked down himself.<p>

"Don't let him get away," Piandao said from his web of steel. Teo nodded, and started running.

Qin was running scared. Of course he could run, but with a crossbow bolt in his stomach like a broken bottle of wasabi, he was quickly running out of time. He knew where Teo's sister was, and Teo was not going to leave here without making sure his family was safe from assholes like him. Qin would be running fast. Truth be told, Teo didn't know about Angels, as he'd never really ascribed to his mother's beliefs, but he knew for a fact that it was _fear_ that gave men wings.

Following the man through the maelstrom was easier done than said. Teo had thought that he'd be doing it alone, but the Tribesman was right beside him as the followed the blood. Behind them, the Dragon filled the skies with death, and her allies past and present turned that death into pandemonium by means of flying stone and lancing spear. Seeing two generations of Beifong women earthbending in war was truly a sight to behold.

The Avatar was a bit disappointing, but Teo didn't have either the time nor the death wish to see what Sokka had entitled 'Glowing Badass' while his sister's life was on the line. So he followed the blood, and the Tribesman matched him step for step. From the swirling canvas of a disrupted town of tents, flashing blades seared toward Teo. The Tribesman moved faster. A machete parrying them away, then somehow grabbing 'hold of one of those snapping lines, and dragging it around both soldiers, binding them up even as they fought, until they lost the battle against the wind, their own stances, and their weight, and fell hard onto the iron. Teo had to admit, Sokka did know how to fight with his environment.

"There's too many of them to fight, come on!" Sokka urged. Teo though flinched for a moment, then brought up his crossbow, and the twang of the bolt flying through the air screamed past Sokka's face, tearing through the air only to crash headlong into the skull mask of a firebender, sending him flat on his back, even as the quarrel broke and deflected away. Obviously a blow to the head was a blow to the head, however it was delivered. Lucky Teo had noticed, because the man was preparing to barbeque the Tribesman, and from the stories the lad told, it wouldn't have been the first time. Sokka glanced behind him, noted the groaning firebender, then nodded. "See what I mean?"

"Then stop jawing and start running!" Teo noted. The cold air pressed against the the heat of his body, forbidden and fundamentally wrong lovers engaged in a tryst both knew would destroy each other. There was something about something being wrong which made it all the more fun, though. Not today. Today, the only heat was from the blood in his veins, and the cooling blood on the ground. The blood marked a trail, a road toward something which had to be better than this. Pound of feet drove him forward. Fear drove him forward. Fear gave him wings and made him fly. He wished he could say he was operating in rage, but that wasn't true. Teo's body was terror, from his hair to his toenails, and he expressed it with every twitch of muscle.

They crossed the great melee, almost ignored by the influx of soldiers. Hundreds of them. How they even got the food up here, Teo couldn't imagine. Why was another question he couldn't cotton. But the blood drew him on, like a wild beast. Drew him onward, and he knew he wasn't going to win. For all he had youth and working legs, Qin's terror would drive him faster than any save the Dragon could match. And she was occupied. So they ran, and Teo watched as the blood drew colder, and his hopes followed.

"I think we're catching up!" Sokka said.

"No, we're not," Teo said, when they finally reached past the warren of once neat and orderly tents all caught in the Avatar's wind. One building stood out, built of solid iron and bolted to the floor. And the blood went right inside it. "That's gotta be where they're keeping her."

Sokka patted Teo on the shoulder and ran before him, kicking the door open. Well, the door opened, but only by a hair, and thus sent Sokka straight down to the plating for his troubles. Teo didn't even slow. He just bounded over the Tribesman and leveled his reloaded crossbow into that room, where Qin would doubtless be awaiting them.

"Get away from her, Qin, or I swear to the gods, I'll..." Teo began, but the scene before him wasn't what he expected. Cho'e wasn't anywhere in here, nor did it look like she was intended to be. Instead, there was Qin, ushering a hawk out the window of the iron building. He turned back, pale and bleeding, but smirking.

"You've lost," Qin said, his voice weak. "The Gurkhas have been called. They'll be here in a matter of minutes."

"The what?" Sokka asked from Teo's back. But Teo was already retreating.

"Where's my sister?" Teo demanded.

"There's a question... Can you find her before the Gurkhas arrive?" He laughed, seemingly quite painfully. "I'm anxious to see what happens. Aren't you?"

Teo wanted to shoot this man. But he was no murderer. He wanted to beat his sister's location out of him, but he was no torturer either. And even if he was, the simple truth was, if the Gurkhas were coming, then he simply didn't have time.

"What are the Gurkhas?" Sokka asked.

"You notice how you're able to take out grown men in red armor?" Teo asked. Sokka nodded as they slammed the door, leaving Qin within. "If you tried that against a Gurkha, you'd be dead before you started. They're indefatigable, strong, never give up, they're smart, and unbelievably deadly. If you face a Gurkha and want to live, run."

A simplification, but not a lie in the slightest. The Fire Nation was outnumbered by the East for almost a century, and yet they kept winning, and it was not because of East Continent incompetence. "What do we do now?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know!" Teo shouted. Then, he turned on simple instinct and pointed his crossbow at the face of a man standing about ten paces away. "Where is she?"

"Are you the Mountain King's boy?" the man asked, his hands in the air, and since his helmet was discarded, Teo could see there was a nervousness to the man's face which didn't have anything to do with having a projectile weapon aimed at him.

"Who's asking?"

The man swallowed, eyes flicking between the well armed teenagers, and the trail of blood leading into Qin's shack. "I know where the little girl is."

"And what d'ya want for it?" Sokka demanded.

"What? Nothing! She's safe for now, but you've got to move quickly," he said. Just as Teo couldn't speak for Adamite angels, so too could he not speak of their devils. Maybe in the endless pits of a hell he didn't really believe in, there was a place for a devil who could keep his word, who knew the value of good works.

Maybe there was more to a man than the color of his armor.

Well, he'd be proving it today. One way or the other.

* * *

><p>"I have to admit, I actually admire that young man," Piandao said, whilst spinning through the hell of spears which surrounded him. He wagered that at a sneeze, he would either lose his beard or his head. Sati, who was stuck to his back as though bound by chains, let out a confused grunt.<p>

"Which one? We've found no shortage of them today," she pointed out, before flicking one of her blades around in her hand and sending it into an unwilling but unmourned National who was trying to kill them. Piandao took a moment to shear through a spear coming toward him lengthwise before answering her. No point in getting distracted, after all.

"The Tribesman," Piandao clarified. "He's got a good mind and almost suicidal bravery. You should keep an eye on him."

"Maybe you should keep an eye on the idiots trying to kill us all!" Joo Dee's daughter shouted, before flattening a couple of them with a wave of dirt. It wasn't as powerful as it could have been, because she was moving earth over iron, rather than the entire contents of the ground. Joo Dee herself was doing as any mother should, and was keeping her daughter safe... well, as safe as the situation would allow, anyway. The little girl was probably causing more havoc than any two of the others combined.

Piandao took a moment to flash a smirk to Sativa. "Oh, the seriousness of youth. Do you remember when we took ourselves so seriously?"

"I still do. Only you've bothered to regress toward childhood," Sativa countered.

"Why not? It's fun," Bato said around a laugh, which earned a glare from Piandao. And also a clip in the back of his legs which staggered him a few steps and broke his rhythm. But the gentleman of weapons knew his trade very well, and quickly used his stagger to punch one of his former countrymen in the face around a sword hilt, and drop back into defense.

"You people are incorrigible," Joo Dee noted.

"You people are _INSANE_!" the young waterbender countered, before flicking off a whip of water strong enough to snap somebody off of the wall before he could let fly an arrow into the melee. Piandao simply rolled his eyes. As Zha Yu often said, if you couldn't have fun, then you were doing it wrong, no matter what whatsoever you were doing.

"There's so many of them!" The young Avatar said, flicking whole groups aside with blasts of air from his staff. Of course, the reason why there were still so many of them was because these ones were prepared for Sati, so her arrows couldn't find unarmored flesh, and they'd managed to pin Piandao into full defense within seconds. Added to that fact that Joo Dee and her child, the waterbender, and the Avatar all seemed reluctant to finish their stunned opponents more permanently, meant that they just kept coming back for more.

"Where are they?" Piandao asked.

"I'll check," the Avatar asked, before bounding straight up. As he did, he had to create some sort of airbending trickery about him, because a few archers were obviously waiting for him to do so, and he needed to deflect those missiles. He landed with a twist and a slam, which heaved a head of the omnipresent snow from outside the wall onto the iron and baffled the firebenders momentarily, which the waterbender took as license to start freezing them into place. "They're on their way back," the Avatar said.

"That's good, right?" Zha Yu asked, from where he held a firebender in a headlock. Piandao always wondered if the man simply forgot he was an earthbender sometimes. His question was answered when his son came running back through that melee to Bato, who was relatively unimpeded. Bato nodded, then ran to the flying machine and shouted something into it. "What's going on?"

"We need to disarm the bomb," Bato shouted back. Zha Yu scowled, favoring the firebender with one final punch in the face which left him leveled. "The Gurkhas are coming!"

"The Gurkhas!" Zha Yu said with real alarm, alarm which was shared by everybody over the age of sixteen.

"What are the Gurkhas?" the waterbender asked.

"More trouble than we can handle, child," Sati said. "We must flee immediately."

"But what about Appa?" the Avatar asked.

"We will rendezvous with him over the pass or else not at all," she said. "The Gurkhas will be upon us shortly, and with them comes great death."

Zha Yu had, of course, taken a moment to tear out the booby-trap which he'd rigged into the dirigible which would have destroyed it about a minute after it was set. After all, it wasn't like Zha Yu wanted this thing falling into Fire Nation hands. But since they were apparently going to be flying this thing out of here...

The fight began to shift, as the gentleman of weapons and the Dragon of the East began to press their opponents in the direction of the flying machine, a direction which they were denied by the presence of everybody else. Sokka, the insanely brave boy from the South, came sprinting through that fight, cradling a honey-haired girl and leaping off of the disoriented firebender Zha Yu slugged. This had the dual effect of giving Sokka enough height to just make it into the hull of the craft, and also sent that firebender's head into an unforgiving reintroduction with a dirty iron plate. Many of the others likewise piled into the flying vessel, leaving only Joo Dee and her daughter isolated.

"Get inside!" the Avatar shouted.

"I think we'll take the direct route," young Beifong said smugly, and took her mother's hand, before stomping on where the dirt was still exposed from the dislocated floor plate. The ground dropped out from under them, and they sunk into the blackness of the mountain. That just left Piandao and Sati to get into the airship.

Piandao raised his hands, each with a blade, black or white, toward the approaching hordes. "Do you really want to stand between me and my way off of this mountain? Are you really that dense?"

The soldiers looked amongst themselves, to the weapons he'd sundered as easily as breathing, and then back to him. Then, they gave one more look, far more terrified, at the short, dark woman behind him. And with that, they obediently parted a path which both middle aged warriors obligingly took and bounded over the rail and into the hold of the dirigible. It was terribly cramped, with so many inside, but time was against them, and they needed to move.

"How does this thing work?" Teo asked. Sokka, who had handed over the girl to a gratefully weeping mother and father, moved the boy aside and started manipulating things, until the engines flared and the whole craft gave a shake, before rising from the plating. As they moved, Zha Yu seemed to remember something, and broke off from his embracing his daughter to idly toss something over the edge of the ship.

"I'm guessing that was..." Sokka began, and was cut off by a detonation amidst the snow, which set off a minor avalanche. He nodded. "Good contingency."

Piandao, though, noticed in the momentary lull that the Avatar was staring past the encampment, to the ruins of the North Air Temple. Piandao felt moved to lay a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I can only imagine what you're feeling right now," he said.

"It's so close," the Avatar said. "I remember it so clearly... At least it'll still be there, like it was, as long as it needs to."

"I don't doubt that there'll be a next time for you and that place," Piandao said. The Avatar nodded, a small smile on his face. While Piandao had missed 'his children's infancy, he had a bit of experience of they being the Avatar's age. He knew what lessons to impart.

More or less.

"So we're pretty much safe," the waterbender noted. "It's not like the Gurkhas can reach us up here."

Her brother, her countryman, the Avatar, and the Dragon of the East all slapped their foreheads in unison. Piandao settled for a facepalm.

"What?" she asked.

"You know nothing of the Gurkhas, and be grateful for that," Sativa said. "Otherwise, you'd be dead, and we wouldn't be having this unpleasant conversation."

"We have too much weight, I can't maintain altitude," Sokka noted.

"Well, that's alright. We're going down, aren't we?" the Avatar asked.

"Better we flew a hundred miles first," Sativa said. "The Gurkhas are below us, and they know what to attack. If you have a plan for escaping this device, enact it now."

Aang nodded, and began to blow on some apparently broken whistle. The waterbender seemed much confused by this, though.

"What's wrong? We're obviously too high for any attack from below to reach us."

And as she finished saying that, an attack from below reached them. It burst along the bottom of the hull, spraying sparks and popping the odd rivet from the plates. Piandao leaned over the edge to see its source. And true to form, the red and purple armor of the Gurkhas was just barely visible, clinging to the nearly vertical walls of the cliff. A few of them let go, sliding down like that cliff was some sort of festival slide, and began to level great volleys of flame toward the descending craft. The Avatar jumped to action, his airbending helping to batter away that flying fire, but there was a lot of it. It spoke to either the Fire Lord's caution or his fear of Zha Yu that he'd sent not only a battalion of soldiers to pacify him, but also a company of those unstoppable warriors from the Far West.

In a way, they fought like an art. They descended and attacked. They landed and attacked. They moved through almost impassable terrain as though it were a clear hallway, and attacked. They never relented, never ceased, and never wavered in their fiery bombardment. But for all their attack was withering and, were they not levied against the Avatar, unstoppable, it was not _those_ Gurkhas which held Piandao's attention. It was a group of four of them, perched on a chip of stone barely big enough to hold them, rapidly assembling something. Piandao's eyes widened.

"Mortar!" he shouted.

"What?" Sati asked. She was answered when one of those Gurkhas activated that weapon, and sent a shell flying toward them. He had a fairly good notion of their target. Piandao was already moving as the flash of it leaving the broad barrel started. He tackled both Sokka and Teo away from the engine, flattening both against the floor. Less than a second later, there was a great crash, and a loud, ear-splitting bang, and he felt horrible pain in his legs. He didn't need to look back to know that there was burning shrapnel in them. He did look back to the engine, though. And it was now emitting black, stifling smoke in all directions where it ought be belching fire straight up into its balloon.

"The engine's busted, we're going down," Sokka declared at a glance. "Aang!"

The response was a bass growl. The two teenagers pushed Piandao aside, and when he rolled onto his side, he could see something white and fuzzy hovering beside the dirigible. "Everybody get on!" the Avatar ordered, and people began to en masse bail from the crashing airship. All but he and Sati.

"Go on, I can't walk," Piandao said.

"Nonsense. Stop whining and get up," she said, limping over to him. Of the lot of them, it seemed that much of the shrapnel had been absorbed by the two. Quite a bit of blood was coming from her blouse even as she determinedly dragged Piandao upright. "I am not going to leave you here. You are going to survive this. Is this clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Piandao had no choice but to say. And so it was that he was heaved into the equally crowded howdah of the bison, which descended down a different path, actively dodging around the assaults of the Gurkhas which did not relent in the slightest. At least with the bison, it could avoid the shelling. Piandao finally allowed himself to let the pain escaped as a groan as he actually looked at his lacerated legs. Zha Yu was himself comforting a crying little girl, who was understandably afraid. Finally, the bison began to descend through the clouds, and the attacks became wild and unaimed, for even the Gurkhas couldn't fire blind with any chance of accuracy.

"Miss Badesh, you're bleeding," Sokka pointed out. She looked down under her arm.

"So I am," she admitted, and licked her fingers before prying out the shard of metal from her ribs. It wasn't very long, but she tossed it aside quickly. It was still quite hot. "You sister is a healer, yes? Then she should deal with the injured when by the time we land. We will have need of great haste."

"Where are we going?" the Avatar shouted from the beast's brow. The girl actually saw to Piandao first, if only because to reach Sati, she would have had to crawl over him. The instant that glowing water touched his wounded legs, the pain ebbed sharply.

"Back to the Shack," Zha Yu shouted. He shook his head. "Pity I have to bury that place. But we've got to hit the wind."

"Do you think we'll make it?" Bato asked.

"Certainly," Zha Yu said. He shook his daughter lightly, to bring her attention back up to him. "Hey, Cho'e? Do you want to see a city some fool founded by dropping a hat?"

"O...okay," she said. She turned to her mother. "Are we okay now?" Whatever her mother said was lost on Piandao, since he couldn't speak Whalesh, but Bato nodded at it. She then turned back to her father. "Am I gonna see Unkie Taka and Auntie Riku again?"

"Who?"

"They were nice to me," the girl said. Behind them, the airship began its final descent into the unforgiving valley below.

"Firebenders," Sokka explained hastily. "They kept her safe when everything hit the wind."

Zha Yu nodded acknowledgement, then turned to his daughter. "I don't know, sunshine. Maybe. Maybe."

* * *

><p>The stink was atrocious. It was atrocious now as it had been ten hours before, when they'd entered this pit. But the atrociousness of it all faded very quickly when the mound of leavings was practically exploded from below, and a grim looking airbender, firebender, and two Si Wongi emerged from the garbage heap.<p>

"That was a terrible idea," Malu said. "Everything smells like... yuck!"

"It worked," Nila said, swiping aside a banana peel of all things. Where in Dakong would anybody get a banana, she wondered? She then cast that thought away. Sharif crawled up out of the burrow that they'd made like nothing was wrong, and began to walk toward a hillock.

"Can we use my plan next time?" Tzu Zi asked.

"If you make one, then yes," Nila admitted. She weathered the glare of the airbender with a shrug. "I did warn you that it was not going to be big on dignity. But we are clear of the Arban and all of the Khagan's soldiers. We might be taking the long way, but I don't doubt we can still make better time than their entire people."

"But poor Aki," Tzu Zi lamented. "I'm going to have to find some way to get her back. She's my friend."

"Oh, she's fine," Sharif said with an aside wave as he mounted that hill. Nila flicked a glance at him.

"Are you mad? Get down from there. They might look back and spot you against the horizon!" Nila shouted.

"But they're waiting for us," Sharif said, pointing to what lie on the other side. Nila's eyes went wide, and she was quickly sprinting up that hill herself, her bow in hand, only to find that Sharif was smiling, and that there were a flock of Ostrich Horses down in that valley. Nila shook her head for a moment.

"...what?"

Of course, at its closest edge was an ancient, mangy bird who stared up at them like it expected them to be impressed, which made Nila all the more confused. After a moment of that compounded bewilderment, the other two girls reached the pinnacle and shared her same view. Tzu Zi started grinning.

"Agni's flame, that's Aki!" she said, pointing enthusiastically to one of the smaller specimens. Sharif nodded with a pleased if distant look.

"Patriarch said they weren't happy. So he kicked down a fence and they made a run for it."

"The bird," Nila said.

"Patriarch is a bird," Sharif confirmed, as though that were her question.

"You're saying that a bird masterminded a prison break for its kind?" Malu asked. "It's just an animal."

"Patriarch's... different," Sharif said.

"How?"

"He's..." her brother trailed off. "_How do I explain this?_" he muttered in their native tongue, before shrugging, "Patriarch."

The bird in question gave a squawk, and the great mass of birds all turned and started to run toward the south and the east, with only two of them remaining, staring at the humans who considered themselves the fowls' owners. Nila gave a glance toward Sharif, who watched with blissful ignorance of the world, to Malu, who was confused and a little bit annoyed that nobody was explaining anything. Tzu Zi just looked pleased as anything to have her faithful mount back.

If Nila didn't know any better, she could have sworn that old stallion's expression was smug. But she discarded that thought as it occurred. Because it was absurd. "Come on," Nila said, waving aside. "There's a stream nearby where we can have a much needed bath, and then we can head into Si Wong. With these, we'll make far better time," the others just stared at the impossible scene for a moment longer. "If and when I find out what happened here, I swear I'll educate you all. Now can we please get moving? The stink is terrible and I desperately need to clean myself. As do the rest of you."

Malu rolled her eyes. "You got that right, sister."

"She's not your sister," Sharif said, confused, but Nila just walked toward the water in the distance. Not far now. Sharif was almost home.

Nila's duty was almost complete.

* * *

><p>"What happens now?" Aang asked the collection of tired, bloodied, and battered friends and associates who'd gathered in the shack so briefly. Katara had already more-or-less healed the shredded legs of the swordsman. The Mountain King, though, was in a flurry of packing, while the Beifong Patriarch, who had taken no part in the fight, contented himself to sit in a corner, looking stunned.<p>

"We leave," Zha Yu said. "I should have known I couldn't stay in this place forever," he paused for a moment. "Why is it that I can _never_ seem to get a proper house set up?"

His wife gave a mild shrug, before ushering the little girl and the teenaged brother toward the door to the outside world. "Well, I believe this is where you and I part ways for now, Avatar," the Dragon of the East said, cutting in front of Aang and making him take a nervous step backward. She seemed to have that effect on most people. "Since you understand the situation, I cannot do any more. I would urge you to make more direct assault on the Fire Lord, but perhaps now is too soon a time."

"Where will you go?" Aang asked.

"When the time is right, you will need allies," she said. "And flay me with sand for saying, but the greatest source of them will be in Ba Sing Se."

"We've also made a few enemies there," Bato pointed out.

"And we have somebody who knows her way around," Toph's mother piped up. Lao looked a bit aghast at that.

"What? You can't be thinking about going with this madwoman?" Lao said, before flinching. "I mean... not mad, obviously. Just..."

"My love, you have your tasks in life. I have mine. I honestly didn't believe when we were wed that it'd last, but it has so far," she gave a sweet smile to the man. "Can't you trust me for one little errand?"

"But... what about..." Lao trailed off.

"Awesome," Toph said neutrally. "Goin' to Ba Sing Se."

"No, you're not," both of her parents managed to say in unison. Toph looked a bit surprised at that. It was her mother who continued. "Ba Sing Se can be a dangerous place, especially to somebody with your... attitude."

"What attitude?" Lao asked. He found himself shushed.

"So I'll head north with the Avatar," Toph said.

"Who said you were coming north?" Sokka asked. "I thought you were blind with your boots on."

"Yeah, but..." Toph began.

"Trust me," Sativa said to the girl. "You must not go to the north. That the Avatar heads that direction is a matter which I cannot stop. But the daughter of an old friend? I can put my foot down there."

"So I'm going to be stuck with my lame father, locked in a boring-ass room in a city founded by idiots?" Toph asked, crossing her arms angrily.

"Don't be so sad. We're probably going to be locked in a boring-ass room next door," the Mountain King pointed out.

"Damn it, I'm trying to get in on the adventure here!" Toph complained.

"Sometimes, the call to adventure comes a bit later than we'd like," Piandao said. "Have a bit of patience."

"Yeah," Aang said. "Whenever we're done learning waterbending in the north, I'd be honored to have you with us," he let out a chuckle. "Besides, I'm pretty sure I've got a friend who'd love to meet you down in the south."

Toph ground her teeth loudly enough for others to hear it, and finally threw her hands up in the air. "Fine. Fine! I'll wait in the city," she said. She then cast a warning finger at Aang. "But if you try to run off and leave me behind, I swear to the gods..."

"Going with the Avatar? I forbid it," Lao said. All three of the grown women cleared their throats at that, and he wilted slightly. "I mean... it's for her own good."

"How do I drink my tea, Dad?" Toph asked. When Lao didn't answer, she pointed at him. "See, if you don't know how I take my tea, how can you possibly say you know my best good?"

"She's got you there," Bato pointed out.

"She's my daughter. She will obey me."

"Obviously you don't have experience with daughters in reality," Sativa said with a chuckle. She turned to Toph. "Be patient, and you'll find your place. Despite what some fools would say to that," she said, leveling a look at her father. "I have no doubts you will be as invaluable to the Avatar as your mother has been to me."

"Touching," Beifong said with rolled eyes.

"We should leave quickly," Zha Yu said. "The Gurkhas won't take long to reach us here, and they won't be gentle when they do." With that, they all bombed out of the house, and Zha Yu turned back. With a sigh, he reached high, and tugged down as though tearing down a curtain. A slide of stone descended from the cliff face behind the shack, and smashed the shack flat. He shook his head for a moment, then pointed west. "Come on, Beifong. We've got a bit of a trip ahead of us, and we're going to need to move fast."

"But what about my wife?" Lao asked.

"Were you not listening, man?" Badesh asked. "She is coming with us to Ba Sing Se. You should pay better attention. It would befit your business to do so."

"But..."

"Come on, Dad," Toph said, starting to drag her father down the path. She half turned, though, toward Aang. "I'll be waiting for y'all to get back. And if you don't, I'm going to come looking for you. And you won't like that. I promise it."

"Should you be threatening the Avatar, Tuofu?" Lao asked.

"Don't call me that!"

With that, Aang turned to his traveling companions, who were stocking Appa for a long flight. "Come on," Sokka said. "Henhiavut is only a day or so north of here."

"We're so close," Katara said optimistically. But Aang had a weight in his stomach. He didn't look toward Bato, but he could feel the things the Tribesman said grinding at him.

"Actually," Aang said, taking the reins and turning the bison easterly, "there's one more place we have to go before we head north."

"What's that?" Katara asked.

"Well, we can't fly north without supplies, can we?" Aang said, his tone obvious to him that he was lying, and his nervous chuckle and head-scratching only made it worse. Sokka raised a brow, but didn't say anything, which made Aang quite grateful. "Come on, buddy. Yip-yip."

Appa started to paddle through the air, letting out a grumble into the sky which was returned by its feral brethren who drifted lazily near the mountain. Aang knew he should have told Katara and Sokka the moment that Bato told him. But he didn't have the heart, and he didn't have the courage. And the longer he delayed from telling them, the worse it would be... and he just couldn't bring himself to say the words.

He flew east in a cold sweat.

* * *

><p>"They're gone, Minister Qin, and the shack is buried," the Azuli said, after a peremptory bow. Qin ignored the lack of decorum and walked slowly, and painfully down the cleft between the peaks. The Gurkhas might have been Azuli, and thus deserving of intense suspicion, but it was part of their esprit de-corps that they were loyal not to their land but to the chain of command. Since the chain ended with the Fire Lord, they could be trusted. Every step he took pulled at the wound in his guts, but he had to see this for himself.<p>

"And it was found intact?" Qin asked.

"More or less, Minister," the Gurkha said, as they rounded a scree of stone, and showed the device in question. It looked a little crumpled, from its no-doubt ungentle landing. But most of it still held itself together. And when the balloon started to flare out, filled with hot air by the firebenders under it, it showed that it still had buoyancy. Qin sighed in utter relief. "Shall we ship this back to the Fire Nation?"

"Of course," Qin said. While he had indeed lost control of the Mountain King, this would expiate his failure handily. Or at least, so he hoped. "This defeat shall be the seed of a hundred victories."

The Storm Kings rose again, and this time, it was the Fire Nation who held _their_ leash. How history had an odd way of inverting itself.

* * *

><p>The boat steamed away as though afraid she might change her mind and try to reboard it. Not that she would, and not that she didn't find it funny that that stodgy old captain did. She didn't bother trying to be a decent passenger on that vessel. It took too much effort, and didn't have enough reward. Besides, people were terrified of Nyla. And rightfully so. Jun scratched behind the great beast's ears and took a moment to look around.<p>

They were still on the Hekawa river, a few days past Bomei, and not even all the way into Chameleon Bay. But there was only so far that the old bugger would take her. She glanced to the north, and in the distance, over the horizon and far away, the purportedly impenetrable city of Ba Sing Se. She then turned south, where over the horizon and the Great Divide stood the rest of the continent. "I guess this is your choice, Nyla," she said, pulling out both samples and presenting both to the Shirshu. "Do we go north where all the people are, or do we strike south?"

The eyeless creature sniffed deeply at the glove and the shoe, then began to circle, sniffing about. It paused briefly, considering north, then turned and started sniffing south. It started to growl, lips skinning back from needle teeth. Jun smiled. "South it is," she said, patting the beast. "Who's a good girl?"

Nyla was. Jun pulled herself up on to the great monster's back, and gave a crack of her whip. With a heave, Nyla began to sprint south, toward the rocky expanse of the Divide, and then, to whichever of the girls would be her next paycheck.

All in all, this was a very profitable year for her. She wondered how she was going to fritter away all that money. It was a pleasant thing to hold in her mind, considering the doldrums of the Divide which waited for her.

* * *

><p><strong>If you hated the idea of Fire Nationals with mortars, you're going to <em>despise<em> the end of The Clash and the second season. Verisimilitude is important, and getting it right is a chief concern when building a world.** **If instead you simply accept it as part of a story, then it'll pass by with a nod and a smirk. This chapter, much like The Clash, took a long time to write, and bloated pretty badly for it. All told, I'm not happy with the pacing of this one, either. Still, this was a story which needed to be told for later ones to make sense. And it amused me to keep Toph out of the party for understandable but personally annoying reasons. And yes, Toph considers frostbite of the foot an 'annoying' reason to exclude her.**

**An interesting point about 'power levels' in 3F is that they aren't just raised, they're thrown completely amok. Zhao always has the impulse to go too far, to go wild, but he has a controlling factor, which makes him more dangerous. Ozai, on the other hand, has all the physical power he had, but much, much less political clout, so that to compete, he has to take an active hand. Those who have control, competence, and power do very well, because the entire system demands they must. Wait until you see my Long Feng, for example.**

**Teo was a rough case for me. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with him when I started writing this chapter. While I eventually figured him out (Film-noir Mad Scientist), it was too late to do significant revision, and would have only bloated the chapter more. That's one of the pitfalls of world-overhauls, gentle readers; sometimes, you can't see where the butterflies of chaos fly, and you have to come up with something straight out of your ass. And that doesn't work nearly as well as I'd like. Ah, well. And regarding Hakoda's fate? Well... you'll see some time soon in the new year.**

_Leave a review._


	17. Hakoda of the Water Tribe

If there was one kind thing about northern Dakong, it was that it was very, very dry. Of course, that was also about a thousand of the things which were very very cruel about it as well. The kindness came from the fact that sweating actually worked as a way to keep one cool in the crushing heat. The rest of it though fell to the fact that the grasses were inedible to anything with less than three stomachs and there wasn't so much as a puddle to replenish one's constantly draining stockpiles of drinking water. That was one of the chief defensive features of Si Wong; there was practically no way that an army could move en mass through its sands, or even approach very close. As much as an army marched on its stomach, it lived or died on the fullness of its bladder.

"So you people really live here, do ya?" the airbender's voice broke in on Nila's pondering. Despite her tendency to be annoying, it was a good thing because it distracted Nila from her feet. She was fairly sure if somebody cut her in half at the waist, her legs would continue all the way home before they realized they weren't attached to her. Once again, it brought her to realizing the one benefit to this much walking; her legs had never been stronger, firmer, or better defined. And now, she had the apparel to showcase that.

"This isn't our home," Sharif said with a note of confusion from Patriarch's back.

"We're not even out of Dakong yet," Nila noted. Malu frowned at her.

"Really?"

"There's still grass," she said with a dismissive wave.

"What's on your mind?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Food," Nila said. "We don't have very much, since so much of it got lost somewhere between the garbage heap and here."

Nila didn't notice Malu's nervous swallow, her glance away.

"It's lucky we've got these things. They hold water well, and can give it back if you're not squeamish."

"Ew," Malu said.

"Water's water, whether from the ground or in a bird's vomit," Sharif said, actually making a valid point for a change.

"Double ew!" Tzu Zi shouted.

"Welcome to the desert, try not to die," Nila said. "Water won't be a problem, bird vomit notwithstanding. Their sweat is almost pure water, perfectly potable. I understand it isn't even that distasteful."

"You drank Ostrich Horse sweat?" Malu asked, a bit aghast.

"Water is water. After Nassar's destruction, Mother kept herself alive for a week on the blood of the dead," she shrugged, continuing to walk through the steadily shortening grasses, under an oppressive blue sky. "The desert demands hard people, and it makes you hard enough to survive it, or else you don't. Mother learned those lessons. So have I," she gave a glance to Tzu Zi. "You've probably learned a version of them yourself."

"...yeah," Tzu Zi admitted, a bit bashfully. She was cute when she blushed. She then straightened in her saddle. "But I'm proud that I've _never_ had to drink my own piddle from a snakeskin. That's just nasty!"

"You people are disgusting," Malu noted.

"Well, what survival lessons did you learn?" Nila asked.

"Starting fires with nothing but sticks, surviving storms of all varieties, how to calm a rampaging bison, what plants you can eat and which cause blindness – usually if they ooze, you shouldn't eat 'em – and how to avoid people who want to kill you and mail your corpse to the Fire Lord," Malu said, ticking them off her fingers. "That last one was self-taught."

"Wouldn't it go rotten?" Sharif asked.

"Not the point, brother," Nila cut him off.

"The ooze is from fermentation, right?" Sharif asked, after trying three times to get 'fermentation' said correctly.

"He's on one of his mind trips," Nila counciled the other girls.

"What kind of stuff are you making?" Sharif asked, but Malu just shook her head and turned away. "You're too young to be drinking."

"See?" she said.

"So we're all disgusting, then?" Malu asked.

"Apparently," Nila said. Then, she stopped. The grass had finally given up, and they walked on cracked, grainy dirt. Nila looked down at it with a dry chuckle for this dry riverbed. Just a few months ago, there had been a stream here, demarcating the transition from the edge of Si Wong to the body of Dakong. Now, like Khagan Khatun said, the desert was spreading, and swallowing up the rest of the continent. Not that it was her fault. All of the east that was far from the coast was dry as bleached bones. A gust of wind spun past her, wicking the meager sweat from her brow for a flash of momentary refreshment, before the heat began to press in again. "And now... we're home."

"Doesn't look that different," Tzu Zi said.

"Once we cross that horizon, the sand will begin. Two days after that, we'll probably reach Misty Palms," Nila said.

"Oooh! I know that place! That's the ice oasis, isn't it!" Malu said with glee. "I hear there's a big ice fountain there!"

Sharif and Nila both shared a glance, and in that instant, she actually felt like she was looking at the old Sharif again, with the way he rolled his eyes and shook his head, just as she did. The connection did not last, because he started staring to the northwest again, muttering something not quite audible, his face becoming inhuman as a doll. Nila sighed, stretched her neck until she emitted a crunch which made Tzu Zi wince, and then set north across the cracked, dry mud, into the hungry desert.

But they did not enter the desert unnoticed.

"_Is that what I think it is?_" the sandbender asked, elbowing the spyglass away from his companion. "_By the Host, it is!_"

"_Let me see, you idiot!_" the thief said. After a brief, none-to-manly struggle between the two of them, he had the thing and was pointing it over the vast distances, picking out the group heading in their general direction. "_That's not Dakongese, you fool,_" he said. "_I swear, I should find a better companion._"

"_You shouldn't say such hurtful things._"

"_Adin, I swear to the Host, I will peg you for the sun if you don't at least __attempt__ to act like a man!_"

"_There's no need to be hurtful, Udu,_" Adin muttered. Udu shook his head for a moment, then looked back through the lens at the approaching group. When he did, he shifted, standing a bit straighter.

"_What luck is this?_" Udu asked, a grin on his face. "_I recognize this boy!_"

"_What? How?_"

"_He's the bastard who smote my eyes a few months ago. I guess he isn't as dead as I had thought him,_" he tossed the spyglass to his counterpart. "_Of course, there's plenty of time to remedy that, isn't there?_"

Adin didn't look too happy with that, but looked through the scope himself, before likewise tensing. "_...you have got to be kidding me._"

And with that, Adin called up a sand devil which moved their glider away from the group. After all, they'd need time to plan and prepare, and these craft worked best when there was sand 'neath the hull.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 17<strong>

**Hakoda of the Water Tribe**

* * *

><p>The silence was palpable in the howdah, which left the Avatar sweating and the two siblings confused. Sokka gave a glance from his half-minded vest-stitchery to his sister, who was giving that confused, wary glance to the bearer of their ride and the most powerful bender alive in the world. "<em>Did you trade off with him?<em>" she asked.

"_No, I thought you did,_" Katara answered, before turning back to Aang. "_Do you think he was up all night?_"

"_I'm not sure. Did we land?_" Sokka asked.

"I can hear you, you know," Aang said wearily from the front of the beast. Sokka sighed, having forgotten for a moment that there were, in fact, some people who spoke his native tongue outside of its native sons.

"We're just worried, because you haven't driven this hard since Sokka was hurt," Katara said. "Is there something wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Everything's great. Heh heh heh..." Aang said with obvious forced enthusiasm.

"You're lost again, aren't you?" Sokka asked.

"Why does everybody assume that?" Aang asked, but in a very distracted way.

Katara looked at Sokka. He looked back. Finally, he groaned, put aside his partially mended vest and hopped down to the Avatar's side on the bison's nearly-nonexistent neck. "Alright, I know something's wrong, and Katara won't get off my case until I figure out what it is."

"Nothing's wrong," Aang said, but once again, there was a nervousness that even Sokka wasn't too oblivious to miss.

"And ninety nine times out of a hundred, I'd let it go at that. But she's got a bumbleskunk in her igloo and she's going to be a pain until you spill it."

"Hey!" the girl in question complained.

"I'm serious. Nothing's wrong," Aang said.

"Then why are you watching the ground like it's trying to kill you?" Sokka asked. He shook his head, looking down at the coastline they shot over at the remarkable speed. "Seriously, Aang. What's the problem? Did you eat her steamed sea prunes on her? 'Cause she won't _actually_ kill you for that."

"There's no problem! Why won't you just leave me alone?" Aang snapped, which surprised the Tribesman a bit. He leaned back, gave a shrug toward Katara, and started to move back toward the howdah, but Katara squinted suddenly.

"What?" he asked.

"I thought I saw..."

Sokka turned and held the horn of the beast as he squinted into the distance, down at the shoreline. At first, he was confounded. There wasn't much to see, except for some kind of abbey in the distance, cradled by trees which still held green even with the choking drought. But after about a minute, his eyes went wide. Blue sails. And not just blue, but the native ice blue which was almost impossibly hard to replicate outside of the Tribes. "That's one of ours..." Sokka said. "Take us closer."

"Well, I..." Aang began, but Sokka cut him off.

"That's a Tribal ship!" Sokka shouted. "Come on! That could be our cousins from the north!"

Aang murmured something to himself, but brought the bison ever lower, even as Katara crowded Appa's head. The ground couldn't come soon enough...

Until Sokka began to notice that it wasn't as good news as Sokka had hoped. Namely, that the ice blue sail was fluttering loose in the wind, and that its edges were singed black. By the time Appa landed, it was clear to all the adolescents that this wasn't a ship, but rather a burnt wreck. The Tribesmen slid down Appa's face first, and moved to the hulk on the sand.

"It looks just like one of ours," Katara said, running a hand over burnt wood.

Sokka felt his blood start to cool. "No... it's not that it looks like one of ours. I think this _is_ one of ours..."

"What?" Katara asked. "Are you sure?"

"Give me a second," Sokka said, heaving himself between ruined timbers to clamber into what used to be the belly of this craft, into the hold. He looked around, at the effects which remained behind. Burnt, moldy skins and half-consumed furniture, which had come loose of where it was supposed to be built into the floor. But it was the back of the thing which filled Sokka with the kind of creeping dread which he didn't think was possible.

"Did you find something?" Katara asked from the hole he clambered through.

"Katara... I think this is Dad's ship," Sokka said quietly.

"...what."

Sokka pulled one of the mostly destroyed and crumbled books from the shelf. Katara looked at it, and she understood. It was the engineering textbook that Dad had brought home almost ten years ago, one which Sokka had poured over relentlessly, but always ended up back in his shelves. Sokka could even see the little correction on one of the non-ruined pages, which he had made when he figured out working with snow was a far cry from working in lumber or stone. Katara went a bit grey at that.

"Guys?" Aang's voice was quite timid.

"Aang... This is Dad's boat," Sokka said, crawling back out, then leaning against the hulk, the crumbling textbook in his hands. "He wouldn't leave it like this."

"Sokka..."

"I... uh..." Aang began, very uncertain, and looking every bit as pale as Katara.

A glance down the coastline showed that this boat was far from alone. In fact, it was one of a dozen, which was at least a quarter of what Dad had set out with. And that was just the wrecks which washed ashore. "He's gone... isn't he?" Sokka asked, trying very hard to not well up.

And not really succeeding. Katara crashed into him, into a desperate embrace that both siblings really, really needed. Aang stood apart, even though he had to know he was welcome in it. But before Katara's half-sobs could blossom into outright weeping, a sharp intake of breath from the Avatar brought both sets of blue eyes back up and to the world.

Namely that they were no longer alone on the beach.

The interloper on this tragedy was lithe, perhaps even a big gaunt. But his uniform was the likes of which none of them had seen in any real number since they left Omashu. It was green and yellow, hard armor built to withstand kinetic shocks, which made it only marginally useful against fighters whose main weapon was focused heat. The Earth Kingdoms soldier came up short, looking at them all for a moment, and took that moment to catch his breath.

"Who are you?"

"Not Fire Nation," the man said. "Good."

"Do we look Fire Nation to you?" Katara asked, her tone a bit scathing. Well, more than a bit, but he could understand why.

"I'm just... wait..." he trailed off, and pointed at Aang. "Is that... the Avatar?"

"Yes?" Aang offered. The man rolled his eyes up and let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank the gods," he said. "Private Huxiu, Ba Sing Se's 466th. I was told to deliver a message, but this place is crawling with Nationals and spies."

"What message?" Aang asked. He was about to answer, but he found himself stymied, and had to dig out a roll of oiled skin.

"It's from somebody called... Hogan? Logan?" he attempted. "...Bogan?"

"Ogan?"

"That's how you say that?" Huxiu asked. "He's delivering his location to his commander, and I was told to relay it to the abbey."

"_His commander... Sokka, that's..._"

"_Dad!_" he said, bounding with her and leaving a baffled soldier and Avatar staring at them.

"Is he alright?" Katara asked.

"I'm just a messenger," Huxiu said.

"The abbey's right up there, let's go," Aang said entirely too fast.

"Wait a minute," Sokka said, pulling away from his sister. "Why are we here?"

"Who cares? Dad's here," Katara said.

"No. We should have been in Henhiavut by now," Sokka said. "So why are we here? Aang, did you know about this?"

Aang just looked away, ashamed.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Sokka shouted, his blood beginning to run hot.

"Bato made me promise not to," Aang said.

"And that was enough?" Sokka screamed. He gave the Avatar an unwise shove, but in his current state, he was beyond thinking about the consequences. Besides, it sent the kid onto his back in the sand. "You didn't think for a second that we might want to know about our father! That he was somewhere close! How could you be that thoughtless?"

"Katara, I didn't know how to say..."

"I don't care," she said, a scowl on her face. "You've never lost family. You _can't_ understand how it feels!"

"But..."

"He's at the abbey?" Sokka asked the soldier, who watched the scene with a degree of trepidation. The man nodded nervously. "I know where it is. Follow me."

"Sokka, I didn't want to hurt an..."

"Don't follow me," Sokka said.

"Not now," Katara agreed. Huxiu gave a glance toward him, but the Tribesmen were too angry to look back, too angry to turn back. He'd kept their father from them, for even one minute. That was unforgivable.

"Guys... I'm sorry..."

Sokka didn't turn back as he led the man through the woods, toward where the abbey lay nestled in an ocean of snow capped pines. That left Aang, all alone, sitting on the sand. He pulled his legs close to his chest, and stared out over the aggressive waves. His own eyes, pressing hard against the frustrated, unhappy tears, didn't see much but grey and teal of surf.

"I was trying to do the right thing," Aang said. But there was nobody to listen to him. For the first time in a very, very long time, he felt truly, truly alone.

* * *

><p>Tzu Zi glanced up at the sky, which was moving through its bruised blues toward a quiet, subdued violet. One by one, the stars began to wink on, as the last glimmers of the unforgiving sun finally slipped below the horizon, and the half-moon rose to take its place, leaving a faint, white-blue glow on the sands. The temperatures had dropped from broiling to freezing, and Tzu Zi had taken to keeping a flame in her hand before her just to keep some warmth nearby.<p>

"Shouldn't we set up camp?" she asked.

"Not in Si Wong," Sharif said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. Nila gave him a glance, and nodded.

"Now that the sun has set, we can set out in earnest," his sister agreed. "By the light of the moon and stars, we can travel great distances with great accuracy. Under the light of the sun, we would unerringly travel to the point of our deaths. Here, night is time for travel. Day is time to rest, eat, stay out of the sun, and try not to die."

"I'm starting to wonder how anybody can survive in this place," Malu said.

"It's not easy," Tzu Zi agreed. She'd grown up in a desert herself. There were trials associated with it that were found few places else, if obviously not the same problems that a continent-gobbling wasteland could emulate on her tiny island. "But they tend to gather around water."

"I don't see why you bother," Malu muttered.

"Truth told, neither do I," Nila agreed, continuing her even pace over the steadily growing sand dunes which lay in every direction, even back. Only an hour after crossing that dry stream, and Dakong had vanished as though it never was. "Mother must have her reasons for staying in this blighted place. I never did ask her what they were, and I doubt she'd answer me if I did."

"Why wouldn't she?" Malu asked.

"She is perpetually busy," Nila said. "Dragon of the East and all of that nonsense."

"How does an Easterner get a nickname like that?" Malu asked.

"It's a long story," Tzu Zi said. Malu shrugged and continued padding along. "You know, I've never been into a sand desert before. How do you keep your way in places where there's nothing to see?"

"Mnemonics and inalternate directions," Nila said. "Others would know better, but I know that those," she said, pointing to two stars close to the horizon which to Tzu Zi's eyes were not white like most others, but either bright blue and slightly green, "are called Big Stink and The Garbage in my language. Hardly flattering terms for stars, yes? The tiny gap between them indicates true north. It is similar to how Solaris marks true south in the southern hemisphere. That and a few... limericks... can navigate any Si Wongi between the landmarks of the desert."

"Any?"

"Well, any who care to learn them," Nila said. "I know the ones for how to reach Misty Palms and Sentinel Rock, Ibn-Atal and Ababa. The others aren't worth knowing."

"Yes they are," Sharif said with a scandalized tone. "What if we needed to buy goat grease and Bulture tallow?"

Nila stared at him for a long moment, before tweezing her brow. "_Why_ would we need to buy those things?"

Sharif shrugged.

"Anyway. The path is long, and best covered in the night," Nila summarized. She glanced to Malu. "And you have a question?"

"What if we get lost?"

"Then we are fortunate to have an airbender who can fly us all to safety," Nila said deadpan. "Come on. We are wasting moonlight."

Malu rolled her eyes, and started after the Si Wongi girl. Sharif brought Patriarch ahead with him, and Tzu Zi did likewise with Aki. "Nila, are you alright?" she asked.

"I am fit enough," she answered.

"No, you look like you've got something on your mind."

"I have many things on my mind. Unlike my brother, I seldom don't," Nila answered. She sighed, then, and glanced to the sand. "I am thinking about Mother."

"Why are you so intimidated by her?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Because she's... Mother," Nila answered. But a small, awkward smile twitched onto her lips. "But with a bit of assistance, I have no doubt that I can convince her. After all, she thinks I'm shiftless and lazy. See her tell me that now! Ha!"

"That's odd," Sharif said.

"Not now," Nila snapped casually.

"Do you think she'll be mad?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Relieved, more likely," she said. She thought for a moment, and in a much quieter voice, continued. "I don't think she should have been a mother alone. I really believe she didn't know how, and likely still does not. Especially after what happened to Sharif. Maybe things will be better for her with one less child to occupy her time."

"You're not being down on yourself again, are you?"

Nila shook her head. While her hair was still far too short to wag with her, it was finally beyond a length most would classify as 'glorified stubble'. "Hardly. Sharif is a difficult burden. I'm not exactly easy to deal with. And Mother is about as good at dealing with people as I am. Personalities clash, and sparks fly. Not the best when the house is filled with explosives."

"Is that some sort of metaphor?" Malu interjected.

"No. If one tipped a torch in the wrong part of my house, it would detonate gloriously," Nila said with annoyance. Malu opened her hands and backed away.

"That's going the wrong way," Sharif noted.

Tzu Zi, though, was looking ahead, walking their path. "I wonder what everybody's like in there."

"Do you doubt my description?"

"It's just that it's... well... your description. It's never as good as seeing it yourself."

"Guys, what's..."

"Fine. You all want to interject on a private conversation, have at it!" Nila snapped, annoyance plain in her tone.

"That sand's blowing in against the wind," Sharif noted, pointing ahead to where the stars were beginning to blot out, as something rose up between they and the heavens.

Tzu Zi glanced that way, back to Nila, and then let the flame in her hand die, leaving them a little darker, and a little colder. "Sandbenders?" she guessed.

"That's not a glider," Nila said. "Their sand devils are better controlled. And there's not a war over there. At least, I believe it's not. Is it coming this way?"

"It's closer than it was," Sharif reported. "What an odd storm."

"It's not a storm, brother," Nila wagered. "I fear devilry is afoot."

"Devilry?" Malu asked with a chuckle.

"Just keep moving. With all good fortune, it will miss us utterly."

And so they walked, north into the heart of the desert, and the sky full of sand drew ever closer to them.

* * *

><p>"Soon?" Udu asked, squatting at the prow of the sand skimmer. Adin, though, was denied the luxury of sloth. His arms weaved in a windmill fashion to keep not only the sand-devil at the heart of the craft alive and mobile, but also the dervish of sand which moved with them as they stalked their prey.<p>

"Pretty soon, yeah," Adin said, before muttering to himself, "...that'll show that mouthy boy not to hijack my skimmer."

With a grind of hull against sand, they slipped down another dune, and the dust storm made them invisible as they did.

A few minutes later, an inhabitant of a far crueler desert stomped on the unsettled sand where once two men stalked. It breathed deep in a mole-ish nose, its prey not lost for an instant. The trail was a little thrown for the winds, but for all the murderous speed it set and the unfamiliarness of this continent, it could never be said that a Shirshu lost its target once the smell was in its nose. With a sound somewhere between a Lion Wolf's roar and a Shig's squeal, it tore across the sand, and brought its master with it.

* * *

><p>It was painful to move, but less painful than it had been yesterday, and yet less painful than it had been the day before that. Every day brought a bit of improvement, which spoke to both his resilience and the nun's skill with medicine. Considering how much improvement it took to reach the point he held now, it was a great wonder that he even survived. But then again, Hakoda of the Water Tribe had suffered Platypus Bear and Shirshu, enraged Bison and Ostrich Horse stampede. He'd been slashed and stabbed and battered and bludgeoned more times than most would believe, and that was just his ill-considered adolescence! War had seen much more of the same!<p>

Hakoda took a look around the room which had once been occupied by all of his wayward countrymen, his soldiers, his friends. Now, it was empty, but for the effects they'd left behind in their haste to flee. Pelts of bears, be they platypus, polar mole, falcon, or unadorned, made a great mat on the floor and kept the drafts from the walls. But even with all of the small touches from home, there was one thing that this whole scene desperately lacked. Other Tribesmen. While he'd never been in as much pain as when that Gurkha roasted him alive, the pain of being alone in this far and unfamiliar land was somehow even worse. Even when he was away trading to the north... which comparable to where he was now was far, far to the south... there were always others with him, people who spoke in the same tongue, knew his same old jokes, could tell the same stories.

Here, Hakoda was alone. It was starting to bother him. And when it bothered him, he tended to take it out on the nuns.

They were fast growing weary of his pranks.

A sigh from the man, before he roused himself and started to pace. "This place is going to drive me mad," he said to himself, which was itself not a hopeful sign. With a shake of the head, he swept aside the flap which hang fairly pointlessly in front of the door. About the least sensible thing to do, but it lent the room a sense that it was one of their old, familiar tents. The door opened with a whine, and he stepped out across a hallway which extended quite a ways in either direction. But he wasn't headed towards the nunnery nor their stills, instead across that hall and into the courtyard that lay at the center of their abbey. As soon as the door opened, the chilly, bracing wind swept past him. It stung mercilessly at his wounded neck, the one place his current batch of bandages didn't cover, but even with that pain it was a comfort. It reminded him of home.

"_Abbess? Are you the abbess of this monestary?_" a voice asked, which didn't quite pull Hakoda's attention. Instead, he turned, looking toward the side of the yard which pointed to the south. The questioner was an Easterner, short and pale, and gaunt besides. Hakoda looked to the south, and he tried to imagine what his family was doing. What his friends were doing. But at the moment, all he had was the wind and voices at his back.

"_I am the abbess. What is your problem, sir? Are you injured?_" the abbess asked.

"_No, I'm fine. I'm just looking for somebody,_" the soldier said. There were many reasons he came to this abbey. It was remote, it was remarkably secure, all things considered. Its damp climate made it hostile to the Fire Nation. But above all other considerations that passed through Hakoda's mind when he picked this place was that it played host to the finest set of stills he'd seen outside of Si Wong. And when it came to interesting things to do with stills, there were probably no more devious pair than Hakoda and Bato. If he'd had a little bit more time here, he might have been able to run through some of his newest notions. But that was neither here nor there. And besides, coopting the stills these nuns used to produce their perfumes was somewhat unkind – they only gave as much access as they did because, for all they were a religious order revering some heathen god called 'Tapputi', they were every bit as opposed to the Fire Nation as he was.

"_Who is it that you're looking for?_" the nun asked.

"_Come on, he's gotta be around here somewhere!_" a voice kicked Hakoda in the back of the head, causing him to turn, ever-so-slowly. When he saw who else was standing beside the nuns and that soldier, his heart practically stopped.

"_We're looking for somebody called Hakoda,_" the soldier said.

Hakoda took one step toward them. That was all it took for his daughter's blue eyes to spot him, and a grin to spread across her face like the sun coming out after a downpour. "Dad!" she shouted. An instant later, Sokka leaned aside of the other adults, and a similar grin appeared on the lad's face as well. And then, they were sprinting toward him. Hakoda scarcely had time to grit his teeth before his daughter landed a tackling hug on him, which set of a stir of fiery pain in his chest. That stir became an outright stabbing when his teenaged son slammed into him as well, driving him back another step. A hiss of pain escaped his throat as they squeezed entirely too tight.

"Dad! Are you alright? We heard you were hurt!" Sokka said, rambling quickly in his native tongue. He took a step back. "Did we just squeeze a burn?"

"You don't need to stop," Hakoda said, smiling as all of the tension and worry and annoyance melted away. Sokka hesitated for just a moment before hugging once again. Hakoda couldn't stop grinning like a fool. He didn't want to. As that embrace continued, with Katara and Sokka both tearing up with joy, that Easterner came up to him, staying well back of the reunion. "_What is it?_"

"_Message from Ogan,_" the man said, handing over a scroll. Hakoda pocketed it, sight unseen. At the moment, there were more important things to worry about. That duty finished, the man seemed to wilt a little bit, and promptly asked for some place to bathe, eat, and sleep. He looked like he was in dire need of all three. After a few precious moments more, the three of them broke apart again.

"How did you get all the way up here?" Hakoda asked his children. "This is the other side of the world! Did you run away from home?"

"I'm going north to find a waterbending master," Katara said proudly.

Hakoda chuckled at that, patting her cheek. "You always did have to sail with an open rig no matter the rocks, didn't you?" but then, he glanced northerly. "But I don't think things are going to be that simple."

"Why not?"

"Things aren't going well," Hakoda said simply. He turned to his only son. "I see you took your duty seriously. Coming all this way to keep your sister safe. I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you."

"Not as hard as you'd think, Dad," Sokka said. Hakoda took a moment to simply look upon his progeny with pride, before a cold wind cut down from the walls and sent a shiver through them. "Man, it's cold out here. Have you got a room somewhere?"

"Of course," Hakoda said, leading his children into the superstructure of the abbey. "After I was wounded in the woods, Bato and the others dragged me here, and the nuns have seen to my wounds. If it wasn't for their bravery, when the Fire Nation came looking for me, I'd probably be in one of their prisons by now. Or even dead!"

Hakoda opened that squealing door once again, and swept aside that pointless flap. Both of his children let out joyful laughter. "Tui La, it's just like being home again!" Katara said.

"You've even got the pelts!" Sokka exclaimed.

"There's nothing more comforting than dead animal skins," Hakoda said earnestly. "Especially when you're far from home. Come on, sit. I've got..."

"Steamed sea prunes?" Katara asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.

"Of course," Hakoda said, and the girl let out a clap and a giggle before running to the pot, opening its lid, and breathing deeply. Hakoda just took a moment to marvel at his children. Sokka was still shorter than he, but he was growing fast. So was Katara. "It's astounding. You've both grown so much in the last two years."

"Yeah," Sokka said. "Where is everybody? I thought you were their leader."

"At the moment, I'm off duty," Hakoda said. "After I sent Bato away with..."

"The Dragon of the East, yeah, we met her," Sokka said dismissively. Hakoda raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"A couple days ago. She's going to Ba Sing Se to help them stop the Fire Lord," Sokka continued. Katara looked entirely too happy eating a bowl of that oily yellow soup, with the great brown prunes floating within it. Hakoda just raised a brow at that, but let it pass. There were bigger coincidences in the world than this.

"You never did tell me how you got this far," Hakoda said after a quiet moment.

"We flew here," Sokka said. Hakoda laughed at that.

"Good one. But seriously?"

"He's not lying," Katara said around a mouthful of soup. "We found the Avatar outside our village, and he offered to bring us north."

"So you're on a quest to protect the Avatar? That's remarkable," Hakoda said. Both of his children shared a look, though. A look Hakoda was quite familiar with, being as he'd produced its like many, many times in his youth. It was a guilty glance.

"Dad... something happened back home," Katara said, putting her bowl aside.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We... kinda... got banished," Sokka said, staring at his feet.

"What?" Hakoda shouted. "Who would do something that disrespectful? What upstart would try to attack my family while my back was turned? Was it Uquais? That coward always wanted to be chief, even if he didn't have a tenth of the intellect or valor for it!"

"It was Gran Gran," Sokka said, which caused Hakoda to sputter for a moment, then palm his forehead.

"Wh... what... how... Why would my mother banish you?" Hakoda asked.

"Because the Avatar tried to save the life of the Fire Nation's princess," Katara said with a measure of venom.

"The artist?" Hakoda asked. "Why would Mother have a problem with that? From what I've heard, she could be a valuable ally to our cause, especially with how her father's said to have treated her."

"If she's an artist, her art is destruction," Sokka noted. Hakoda found that confusing. "It's a long story. But we scared a lot of the women, since she brought her brother with her. We didn't even question it," Sokka shook his head in annoyance.

"You had both Prince Zuko and Princess Azula in the village?" Hakoda asked. He let out a chuckle. "I seem to have missed all the excitement."

"Well... maybe with you around, you could overturn the exile," Katara said.

"Ordinarily, I'd have it done in a second," Hakoda admitted, but he let out a sigh. "But this is my mother we're talking about. It's a bit... tricky."

There was silence for a moment. When it ended, Sokka glanced up at him. "I was ready," he said.

"No, you weren't," Hakoda said. "You were too young. But you've grown into a man any father would be proud of," he turned to Katara. "And you every bit as much," he leaned back. "So, tell me something, son. What is with those ridiculous clothes?"

"Hey, I got ambushed while almost naked a few months ago," Sokka said self consciously. "I haven't exactly had a chance to replace them with something familiar since then."

Hakoda nodded, smiling. He'd had similar problems, back when he was Sokka's age. "So you traveled with the Avatar? What is he like?" Hakoda asked.

" Naïve," Sokka said.

"Innocent," Katara contended.

"Entirely too forgiving," Sokka said.

"He's sweet, but he's such a kid sometimes," Katara said.

"Sometimes he can be pretty scary, though," Sokka countered. Hakoda raised a brow. "If you'd seen that kid go all Glowing Badass, you'd understand."

"When do I meet him?" Hakoda asked. He paused for a moment. "Come to think of it, why isn't he with you? I thought he'd be the fastest way to get to Summavut."

"Yeah, there's a bit of a problem with that," Katara said.

"What is it?" Hakoda asked his daughter.

"We... kinda... told him to bugger off," Sokka said.

Hakoda stared at his children.

"He wouldn't tell us about you. He tried to control us!" Katara said, annoyance plain in her voice.

"Did he even know I was alive?" Hakoda asked.

"Well..."

"Or where I was exactly?"

"Yeah, but..."

"And when did he learn about me?" Hakoda pressed.

"About two days ago, and that's..."

"So you're saying is you're angry at the Avatar because he didn't tell you that I might be dead the moment he learned it, and that my corpse might be in the woods somewhere?" Hakoda asked. Both of his children wilted, as they obviously hadn't considered that maybe the Avatar hadn't known how to act with the knowledge foist upon him. Hakoda palmed his forehead slowly.

"We're idiots," Sokka said.

"Yup," Katara agreed.

"But I love you both anyway," Hakoda said. Both rolled their eyes, but got pulled into a hug anyway.

* * *

><p>"What was that about the storm missing us?" Malu shouted over the wind. Nila would have shot the airbender who was comfortably inside a protective air-bubble a glare if it wouldn't have sent a handful of fast-flying sand directly into her eyes. Sharif and Tzu Zi also lacked Nila's problem, but because they each had their protective robes and veils. Nila alone was in rough shape.<p>

"I said 'with all good fortune'," Nila said. "As you might have noticed by now, good fortune is seldom our companion."

"We should try to find some place to hide," Tzu Zi shouted.

"I don't like these winds," Sharif said, which Tzu Zi took to be agreement, but Nila knew that he probably hadn't even noticed her speaking. Nila shook her head.

"There's no point. No protection. Not even a big enough rock. We have to push through," Nila shouted.

"Hey, I'll be fine, but you look like you're losing a layer of skin or two," Malu noted, concern on her face.

"I've had worse."

"When?" Sharif asked. Nila once again regretted that she could not glare.

The weather was, as everybody noticed, getting worse as they pathed north. But the moon had only reached its apex and there was half a night left. Even if it was only a barely visible smudge overhead... Nila shook her head. Even though the prospect of pausing seemed quite a better idea, it was weighed against reaching her home in two days, as she'd planned. And that balance was found wanting, so she pressed on.

The sound of the wind buffeted and stung at her ears, as sand worked to strip her right down to the bones. But she would not relent, and her feet kept walking, which in turn shamed the others with her to continue as well. So close, and then she might well never have to see this place again. That would be a good day, she just knew it. But there was another sound, one she remembered from so long ago, in such similar circumstances. It moved through a shift in the winds, an eddy of peace at the heart of a greater storm. A grinding of solid against aggregate, and a harsh snap of tortured fabric.

"There's a glider out there somewhere!" Nila shouted, and immediately reached to where she would have kept her screamers if they hadn't been snatched from her almost a month ago. "Damn it all, there's no way to signal them!"

"Maybe I can see them from above?" Malu asked, snapping open her glider, only to have it instantly torn out of her hands by the insane and omnidirectional winds. She let out a yelp, then dove after it, managing to keep it from escaping if at the cost of her dignity.

"I think not," Nila said. She had to glance from the corner of her eye, and listen from the edge of her ear, but that sound wasn't just a fluke of winds and direction. "Perhaps there is fortune with is. It's coming this way!"

Tzu Zi let out a happy cry, but Sharif's expression was oddly stony. Malu muttered to herself, and they all continued forward until even they could hear what she did. Grinding. And then, like a cuff upside the head, the sandstorm stopped, spiraling out from some unseen central point, and leaving whorls in the grit as the only bones of its passage. The near blindness and hellish stinging gave way to cold and shivers.

"Oh, that's better," Sharif said, but his tone was more distant than usual.

"Does that happen often?" Tzu Zi asked.

"No," Nila said. And at her word, the grinding came to its crescendo, as the catamaran hull of a sand skimmer peeked from the top of an adjacent dune, before just barely overbalancing and sliding down toward the assembled teenagers. It scudded to a stop barely five yards before them. It was completely abandoned.

"Is... that a ghost ship?" Malu asked.

"There are no such things as ghosts," Nila said idly, as she took a moment to inspect the craft. It was in good working order, as far as she could tell. Which meant that it was either abandoned recently, or... well, there was no other option, much as Nila's mind tried to reach for one. She was about a split second away from claiming it for herself when she glanced back, and saw Tzu Zi watching her. Damn it all, it was so hard to be practical when those eyes were watching her. "They must have fallen off during the sandstorm," Nila said.

"You can't know there aren't ghosts," Malu said.

"I talk to them all the time," Sharif said.

"See?" she prompted.

"Spirits are not ghosts," Nila said. "If ghosts could meaningfully interact with the world, we would be buried under a million-million weight of them. Since we are not, there must not be ghosts."

"Yeah, well, just 'cause you haven't found something yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Malu countered.

"One does not need to prove anything's non-existence. Onus falls to proving that it does exist," Nila snapped, her annoyance rising. "That is how science works!"

"You and your science," Malu shook her head. "Maybe you should marry your science since you love it so much."

"Wait... Who's science? Have I met him/her before? Isn't that Amir's child?" Sharif asked.

"Oh, look, you've confused my brother. Good job," Nila said sarcastically. "Now are you going to help me look for whoever this belongs to or not?"

Malu rolled her eyes, but began to tramp up the steep side of the dune. Nila looked to Tzu Zi, and gave the slightest nod to Sharif, who was muttering to himself about 'wedding preparations', and the girl nodded, knowing exactly what Nila meant. It was... endearing... to have somebody who knew Nila well enough that words weren't necessary. And with that, Nila went up after the trudging airbender.

"No flying?"

"And lose my glider again? No thank you," Malu muttered. "I still think you're wrong about ghosts."

"I still think you're wrong about a great many things," Nila answered. "There are many things about you that confuse me."

"I'm a complicated person," Malu said.

"No, I think you're lying about yourself to us. Tzu Zi values you, though. And I am not above leaving some secrets undisturbed," Nila said. "I can only assume that your secrets will bring me no harm. If they do, or bring to any I care for harm, then we shall have to address them more thoroughly."

Malu stared at Nila for a long moment. Nila stared back with a warning look. "You know, sometimes you talk like you're forty or something."

"I am educated," Nila said. "Inarticulation is unforgivable."

"You don't swear much do you?"

"_More often than you'd believe,_" Nila muttered in her own tongue, turning toward the lee of that dune, as they reached its peak. If she expected to find no sign of the craft's owners, then she was starkly disappointed. Because both of them were lying in uncomfortable looking positions near the gully between two waves of dunes. But they were not alone. Nila leaned back a bit in bafflement. "What the hell is that?"

That, as it turned out, was massive, muscular, covered in a hairy pelt, and didn't seem to have eyes that Nila could notice in the darkness of the moonlight. It nevertheless turned toward them, and there was a crack of a whip, as something almost invisible against that dark beast urged it forward. Malu's eyes went very wide.

"That's... trouble," Malu said. And Nila could naught but agree when it picked up incredible speed, and bounded up the hill separating the girls from that monster in two bounds and a tongue's length. Pity for all involved, the tongue was several yards long. Malu let out a squawk and hurled herself backwards, rolling to her feet and sliding down the sand. Nila had no such dignity, rolling to a stop at its foot. She looked up to her brother.

"My bow, you fool!" she shouted. Sharif turned to her, then looked down to the side of the saddle of the great ostrich horse he was mounted on, and pointed it out to her. And made no move whatsoever to send it her way. Nila had just enough time for a growl of annoyance, and to start getting to her feet, when that thing crested the hill, and Tzu Zi let out a shriek.

"That's not possible!" Tzu Zi said. Sharif, oblivious to the danger, looked to her as the monster began to descend at break neck speed toward him.

"What isn't possible?" he asked. And then, the tongue of that beast lashed forth again, and it seemed to strike him in the back of the head. His eyes shot wide, his muscles tensed... and then he toppled out of his saddle like his body turned to wood. Malu flicked a blast of air at the beast, sending up ripples of sand as it went, but it nimbly dodged aside. The beast then discovered that the side effect of dropping Sharif from Patriarch's back was that now Patriarch was both angry and unencumbered.

Even as Nila struggled to shift her heavy brother off of her sole actual weapon, Patriarch raced up that sand dune, his head low, his flightless wings flared. There was a crack of the whip, and the beast's tongue shot forth again. But Patriarch let it catch only matted feathers, before favoring the beast with a very stern kick to the shoulder. It let out another squealing roar, and something dark fell from the beast's back.

Malu was quick to try to assist the Ostrich Horse, but her airbending didn't appear to do much. Blades and waves of air lashed toward the beast, but they were either ameliorated by the monster's agility, or else inaccurate because they had to be aimed around Patriarch. Finally, though, the beast had had enough of Malu, and flicked its head her way. A snap of the tongue, flashing through the air, and Malu was struck in the center of her chest. She went stiff and dropped in a heartbeat. Nila resorted to wild profanity in her attempts to shift her brother. Damn her female form for being so weak in the upper body! Or, alternatively, damn her brother for being so solid and uncooperative.

"Malu!" Tzu Zi shouted, racing forward with her own steed, and fire went with her. She cast out a fist of flame, which the black figure dodged easily. Illuminated in that blast, Nila guessed her a woman, for she was light and her body held a more hourglass shape than a blocky one. That woman, whomever she was, lashed out with a strike of a whip, which seemed to tangle Tzu Zi 'round her neck and drag her out of the saddle.

"_Settle down or I'll have Nyla tongue you_," that woman shouted in Huojian of all languages. Nila paused for just a moment at that. 'Tongue' her? Tzu Zi, though, elected to struggle, and cast out flames with not just her hands but her feet. The woman was remarkably good at dodging them, considering she was in the process of holding Tzu Zi by a leash while she did so. The beast dodged aside from Patriarch's latest charge, and as the bird wheeled back, that tongue lashed out again. Patriarch stumbled, fighting to return to its feet, and leveled itself at that beast once again. A second lash of the tongue, and Patriarch folded completely.

Finally, Nila had her bow out from under Sharif and his awkward pose. She opened it, dragging for the arrow she left inside, and found it missing. Damn it all! Must everything vex her today? She glanced around, trying to find them, and noted with dismay that they were still on Patriarch's still form. With a growl which any of her ancestors would have called patently blasphemous, she started running across that sand, to the fallen beast. She reached it just in time to see that thing tongue-lash Tzu Zi, and to see her fall still. With a snarl, she dragged one of her arrows from the quiver, and had it nocked and drawn in a heartbeat.

A heartbeat too long, though. A snap of a whip reached her ears the instant she felt the bow leap from her hands, the arrow launched randomly and harmlessly into the distance as the woman tore the weapon from Nila's hands. Nila struggled to get back to her feet, to think of something she could do. "_You're a persistent one, aren't you?_" that woman asked. "_Just sit down, and let this happen, girl._"

"_Not a chance, vagrant,_" she replied in that same tongue. The pale woman smirked at her.

"_Bounty hunter, not vagrant,_" she answered. She set a fist on her hip, showcasing some sort of curling snake tattooed on each shoulder. "_Look, is this going to happen the easy way or the hard way?_"

Nila took in a breath, and thrust a tattooed finger toward her. "You will–" she began, and then felt something sting her butt. A numbness spread across her entire body, and she pitched forward to the sand, unable to move. The woman gave a laugh.

"_The easy way,_" she said with a nod. She walked over to Sharif, and let out a low whistle. "_And look what we have here? Come for one bounty leave with two. Hell, I could retire on him. Not that I would. A woman's gotta have work or the idleness would drive her crazy, am I right?_" she asked toward Nila. Nila hated her loudly enough to make up for her inability to speak. Sharif had a bounty on him? Since when? Who could _possibly_ care that much? Even Khagan Khatun wouldn't be so petty. But when Nila saw that the woman was binding Tzu Zi and throwing her across the saddle behind Nila's similarly kidnapped brother, her eyes went wide even with the sand.

No, this was not happening.

"_Have fun, you two,_" she said with a mocking wave. "_I'll raise a drink for you somewhere._"

With that, that monster began to jaunt to the northwest, leaving Nila and Malu in the sand. Tzu Zi was gone, and Nila was powerless to do anything about it. That ignited something in Nila that she hadn't felt before. A sort of protectiveness which she hadn't a word in her vocabulary for. And it would not be denied.

It was ten minutes before she started having feeling return to her limbs.

And she spent those precious minutes planning.

* * *

><p>Jun was beyond pleased with herself. So much so, that as she road her Shirshu toward the nearest edge of the Si Wong desert, she hummed a merry little tune, however out of character it might have been to anybody who thought they knew her. Not because she was a merry person, not by any means. Rather, because she'd probably be getting a boat's weight in gold out of selling the boy to the Fire Lord, on top of her extremely generous rate for capturing the girl. Jun continued smirking and humming, as Nyla calmly padded along unfamiliar sands.<p>

"Who sent you?" a voice came from her back. Jun turned and regarded her twin passengers. Well, captives really. They were stoutly bound, mostly because there was no way the Shirshu's venom would keep them down all the way across Si Wong. It was the Baihu girl who was speaking. The other boy, he of monumental bounty, just looked around with a dissonant kind of calm.

"I don't betray the confidence of my clients, little girl," Jun said. "The only way you'd get that outta me is if you got me drunk or warmed my bed for me, and I don't think you're my type for either."

"You're from the Yakuza, aren't you?" the girl asked.

"And what gives you that idea?" Jun asked.

"I know those tattoos," she said. "Criminal types like you all have them."

"Well, what do my tattoos tell you?" Jun asked.

"You're with the West Coast Yakuza families," she let out a grunt. "Makes sense, what with the Shirshu and all."

"Half right," Jun said. "Was with the Westies. Not anymore."

"They don't let people walk away," the girl said.

"I didn't give them a choice," Jun said calmly. In truth, this was a far more civil conversation than she was used to on the back of this beast. Usually, the target spent the entire trip to prison screaming, or saying denigrating things about her parentage or her Azuli heritage. "I figured the money was better in the private sector. And boy was I right about that."

"You're not going to get away with this," the girl said angrily.

"I wouldn't try burning your bonds," Jun said casually. "I've soaked them in blasting jelly. You'd blow your own hands off," she said. Only once had that bluff been called. Luckily for her, the bounty didn't stipulate that he needed to be delivered with all five extremities.

"You're lying."

Jun just looked over her shoulder at the brown haired girl. Young Baihu blanched at that. "Just keep your head on straight and this trip'll be over before you know it."

"There's only thirteen people in the world who know I'm a firebender," Baihu said. Jun glanced back at her, and could see the pieces sliding together in the girl's mind. "Gwen. It has to be Gwen!"

Jun sighed. While she never revealed her clients' identities, if somebody figured it out on their own, well, there wasn't much she could do about that. "Congratulations. You win a prize."

"Can my prize be freedom?" Baihu asked.

"No."

"How about cake?" the boy lashed behind her asked. Both females turned to him with an almost identical baffled expression for him. "No cake then?"

"Just stay calm. No reason this has to get unpleasant," Jun said. The boy shifted slightly, displaying that he was recovering much faster than the Baihu girl was. "What did I just say?"

"They're going to come after us, and when they do, you'll be in big trouble!" the girl promised.

"I'm quaking in my boots," Jun said flatly.

"Oh, right!" the boy said brightly. "Sis'll be able to do something. Hold on, I'll go get her."

"I'd like to see that..." Jun said, turning to favor him with a condescending smile, but that smile dropped away when she turned back just in time to see the bonds she'd wound 'round the Si Wongi paycheck falling flat onto Nyla's back. Jun stared for a moment, with complete confusion, before bounding off of the saddle and sprinting to Nyla's tail. She glanced in every direction, and even tried digging into the sand, in case the boy was one of those damned 'sandbenders'. No avail. With a growl, followed by a scream, and terminated by a head of Huojian profanity, she stomped back to the side of her Shirshu. "You've got a good whiff of him, Nyla. Where'd he go?"

Nyla, faithful beast that she was, began to circle, sniffing intently at the air as she did, until she'd revolved around Jun completely. Then, with a whimper, Nyla dropped to her belly and pawed uncomfortably at her nose. Jun stared at Nyla for a long moment.

"What do you mean, he doesn't exist?" she asked. Nyla didn't answer, mostly because Jun didn't speak Shirshu. "Well, that's a real head-scratcher."

"Hah hah," the Baihu girl said sarcastically. Jun leveled a warning finger at her.

"Don't you start, little girl," Jun said. She grumbled to herself for a moment, before sighing, and heaving herself back into the saddle. "Well, a small paycheck is better than none, I guess."

Standing only five feet away, and yet as well as a universe apart, Sharif watched as the beast continued its plod to the North West. He turned back, to the spirits which assembled behind him. He quickly plucked one and pressed it to the scar which spanned his brow, generating his 'false brain'.

"We don't have a whole lot of time," Sharif said, to the assembled host of fire and heat and sand and void which lazily circled around him. Come to think of it, it had been a long time since this many stayed close, and he was almost certain that Malu was the reason for that, even if he couldn't remember why that was. "I need to move quickly. Will you help me?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives, be they crystalline chimes, fiery pops, or the hiss of sand moving past sand. A glance behind him, at the retreating bounty hunter, then up at the stars, and then he started to walk, back to his family, even as he desperately tried to concoct some way of being able to help her once he was back in the world. Sharif walked. The spirits walked with him.

* * *

><p>Aang sat, perched on the ruined prow of a ruined boat. His knees were pulled tight to his chest, and his eyes were pressed shut. Being as he was thirteen and therefore should have by all rights left childish outbursts behind, he shouldn't have been weeping at the prospect of losing what had become a surrogate family. Men, after all, were tough. They had to endure.<p>

Aang didn't feel like enduring. He felt like crying. And that's what he did. He did it until the desire went away, which took him well into the night, leaving him huddled and cold on the wreck of the Water Tribesman's ship, as Appa snored deeply nearby. The truth was, he depended on those two. It wasn't just that Sokka's quick thinking pulled his feet from the fire more times than he could count. It wasn't just that Katara was the sister that the laws of his people said he wasn't allowed to have – which in retrospect should have been a damned obvious clue that he wasn't just an ordinary kid! It was that together, they were something special. They were family, in every way that mattered. What they lacked in blood, they made up for in spirit.

And Aang's cowardice, his crumbling to his own fear, destroyed that. So he pulled himself tight against the cold wind of the north, and he stared out over lapping waters. He let out a sigh, and slowly pulled the glider which was wedged behind him around to his chest, flicking it open, spreading the red wings. With another flick, it slid closed again. As much as he wanted to fulfill his vow to Katara, if she didn't want him near her, he would have to betray that trust too. It tore at him, but he had duties... Avatar duties... which demanded his attention.

He bounded down from his perch, and lethargically gathered up what meager possessions were truly his alone. After all, he wasn't going to deprive Sokka and Katara of anything they deserved. He could see all of those little objects, each one with a story behind it. The towel Sokka got on his way to Makapu. The fishing-line necklace which Aang tried to give Katara a few minutes before that, resulting in an awkward conversation about what those necklaces _meant_. The chunk of rock candy which had been re-broken and re-eaten at least a dozen times since they got it from Omashu. It was the size of his head again. That thing just never stopped growing.

And he was leaving it all behind.

There was a shiff of something moving through sand, which triggered the reflexes which the last few months had ingrained into Aang's very bones. In a flash, his stance lowered, his staff out before him, ready and wary and expecting attack.

"Are you the Avatar?" a man's voice came from the woods.

"...yeah?" Aang answered, still wary, still waiting. The man walked forward, slowly, hitchingly, as though it hurt to move. When he stepped upon the golden sands, he flicked back his hood, and Aang saw bright blue eyes staring back at him. Aang's posture slipped a bit.

"It is a great honor to finally meet you," the man said. "I'm Hakoda. I'm Sokka and Katara's father."

"Oh," Aang said, finally relaxing. "Don't worry. I'll get out of your way before I cause any more trouble."

"You're not in trouble," he said, picking his steps carefully. "They're asleep. They don't know I'm out here."

"Why not?"

"Because whether I wanted to or not, I raised proud children," Hakoda said. "They might not appreciate my going behind their backs."

"About what?" Aang asked.

Hakoda just looked at him for a moment, though. "I can see what they all see in you. A lot of people are resting a lot of hope on you. And I think you're exactly the right person for the task."

"Thank... you?"

"Don't be so tentative," Hakoda said. He moved a bit closer, laying a hand on the wreck of his ship. "You're upset. I can tell that from a mile off. You don't have to be. There's no point in making your own life harder than it has to be."

"What do you mean?" Aang asked.

"I put my name forth to become Chief after Qejay died as a joke. I never expected they'd choose me," Hakoda said. "Fate works that way. Sometimes, you don't have a lot of options. Sometimes you've only got one. But the choices we make are all the more valuable for it. I am who I am because of the things I've done, the places I've seen, the choices I've made. You didn't choose to be Avatar, but you're not going to turn away. That means you're the right person for the job."

"Thanks, I guess," Aang said. He turned back to the forest. "Are they angry at me?"

"Maybe. At the moment," Hakoda said with a slight shrug. "But they'll understand what you did wasn't a betrayal. They're smart, my children. They'll come to their senses."

"What if they don't?" Aang said. Hakoda smiled a bit, distantly.

"They will. That's how they are," he said. Aang nodded, then looked up at the man.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

Hakoda turned to him. "Asked a question by the Avatar? How can I say no?"

"Well..."

"Of course, Avatar," Hakoda said. "What is it?"

"What was it like... having a family?" Aang asked.

Hakoda stared at him for a moment, then the sand before his feet, then finally leaning back and breathing deep. "It's not _like_ anything," he said slowly. "It's all I know. I grew up with my mother and my father, and when Father vanished into the storm, I mourned him. I met a beautiful, wonderful woman, and she gave me three lovely children. Losing her, and my daughter, on the same day... that hurt more than I could have ever believed. Family is joy, and pain. Sometimes more of one than the other. But that's the way it runs. You can't know pain without joy, or joy without pain, and family is the surest source of both."

"I never knew my family," Aang said.

"That's too bad," Hakoda said. "I'm sure they'd be proud of you."

"Thanks," Aang said. The two of them stared off into the night. "If... If I ask them when they calm down, do you think they'll come with me? To the North Pole?"

"Why would you go to the North Pole?" Hakoda asked. "There's nothing up there once you pass the Deadman Plains," he shook his head. "You must mean Summavut."

"I thought they were synonymous," Aang said.

"Is Chimney Mountain synonymous with the South Pole?" Hakoda asked lightly. Aang was about to answer 'yes', when he remembered that some questions were rhetorical. "The North Water Tribe is a lot more developed than my people, but it's spread out over a hand full of cities. You've never been there, have you?"

"No, I haven't," Aang admitted.

"I have," Hakoda said. "It was... glorious. It was inspiring and insulting. I remember feeling quite bitter when I left that place. Why do they deserve so much better than we got? What made them so special?"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm sorry," Hakoda said faintly. "That's an old wound. I shouldn't burden you with it."

Aang nodded. Hakoda shifted, and Aang's eyes flicked back to him. "Would... you mind staying for a little bit? So I'm not alone..."

Hakoda smiled, then, the smile of a father to a son. "As long as you fight for this world, Avatar, you will _never_ be alone."

* * *

><p>"...no fair," Malu muttered from where she was still splayed on the ground. "How come you get to move?"<p>

"Because I'm tougher than you are," Nila commented, but she still felt like her limbs were more or less attached by unspun yarn. Of the many fallen things in this valley, only she and that ancient bird were upright. She let out a groan, forcing herself to pace around the glider. It looked in perfect working order. The only reason that strange woman hadn't taken it was because she was obviously incapable of running it. Although, Nila had that same problem. Or at least she thought she did for about a quarter of a second before she mentally kicked herself and remembered that what a sandbender can do, an airbender could better. Nila stomped her way inelegantly to where the airbender had fallen paralyzed from that beast. Nila slumped a bit, trying to work some strength into her legs. "Would you mind telling me what the hell that thing was?"

"Shirshu," Malu said. "Those things are from Azul. One of the middling predators of the Far West."

"Middling?" Nila asked.

"There's meaner stuff out there," Malu said. "Much meaner."

"How?" Nila asked, but then she shook her head. "Never mind. Can you airbend?"

"With what? My sunny disposition?"

"I need something to power this glider. We need to start moving before we lose Tzu Zi completely."

"Tzu Zi and your brother, you mean?"

"That's what I said," Nila snapped. She then stopped down and clumsily hauled Malu into something like a standing position, if one where she was fixed in her splayed posture. It was unbelievably awkward to even move the airbender the scant two dozen yards to hull of the skimmer. She pointed at the complicated sails. "I need those filled with wind. We use sand devils to drive them."

Malu rolled her eyes. "Well, I haven't exactly mastered earthbending yet, so that could be a problem," she said.

"Need I think of everything? Airbending will do just fine," Nila said.

"How? I..." Malu began, and then her expression went flat for a moment, before a smug look took its place. "With my lungs, right?"

"I assumed you were capable."

"You're right. I am. Not very many were. It's high level stuff to airbend without moving. Extremely high level," Malu said proudly.

"Good for you. Now start blowing," Nila said.

"To what end? Where are they going?" Malu asked, her fingers twitching but her body otherwise immobilized.

"They must be heading directly west, if she intends to find some shelter before the sun rises," Nila said. "There's a settlement there, full of shady people who don't ask questions."

"And if she doesn't know about that den of iniquity?" Malu asked flatly.

That notion hadn't occurred to Nila. If she wasn't headed that way, then she might be moving in just about any direction. She slumped a bit, despair beginning to well up like tears. She shook her head. How could she possibly do this? She'd need a miracle.

"_Course three hundred eighteen degrees northwest,_" Sharif's voice appeared an instant before he did. Nila started, then faced him more squarely.

"Gods, where'd you come from?" Malu said.

"I... Where am I?" Sharif said.

"What was that?" Nila said. "What did you just say?"

"Did I say something?"

"You gave me a course. Why?"

"I did?" Sharif asked. He let out a nervous chuckle. "My mind, it wanders sometimes."

"Do you know where that woman took her? Where she took Tzu Zi?"

"Hm? I... don't remember," Sharif said, sitting down in the hull of the skimmer with the most baffled look on his face.

"What's going on? Where did he come from?" Malu asked.

"Apparently my brother gave up his mind in exchange for the gift of teleportation," Nila said.

"It was a long walk. I'm just quick," Sharif disagreed. Nila rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"What is northwest of here?" Nila asked. "You were up there before? You must have seen something of use."

"Nothing, really," Malu said. "Well, it is the shortest path out of the desert, but..."

"They are heading into the Divide," Nila said. "Are you ready to bend?"

"Oooh, perfume," Sharif said happily. Nila rushed to his side, and gave him an abrupt shove, clearing the path for her. There was indeed perfume in here, and not the soft fragrances produced locally. These were harsher, foreign, and usually contraband. A smuggler's craft this was. And her mouth twitched into a smile as she quickly picked three of the vials and hastily mixed them together.

"What are you doing?" Malu asked. Nila answered by shoving the admixture under the airbender's nose. She gave a lurch of disgust so powerful it almost qualified as a seizure at the overpowering concoction forced into her lungs. "Blegh! What in the pits of hell was that?"

"Can you move your arms now?" Nila asked.

"Does it look like I can?" Malu shouted, throwing up an arm in refutation. Then, turning to that thrown-up hand and letting out a grunt. "Oh. I guess I can."

"Sharif, hand me the ones that smell like spice and another of the green ones," Nila said. "Malu, if you don't mind, our course is three eighteen degrees."

"Is that what he said?" Malu asked, slowly rising unsteadily to her wobbly legs. She glanced toward the hill the skimmer had slid down. "What about those two guys up there?"

"One of them is a sandbender. They will survive," Nila said flatly.

"I think we should get them," Malu said.

"No. We don't have time. Their weight will slow us down, and I'm not losing a friend today."

"Sure. Friend," Malu said. Nila just glared at her.

"Do you want to be the one who stands between me and a promise of her safety?" Nila said quietly, her tones becoming so icy that they could have frozen the entire desert under the harshest sun. Malu obviously had a smartass quip lined up in response, but there was something about Nila's tone, or maybe it was the unforgiving flare of her green eyes. Whatever it was, Malu backed down and shook her head. "I thought not."

"Is this it?" Sharif said, handing her her objects. Well, not quite, because the spice was about as spicy as soap. In fact, the one he'd handed her was soap.

"Does this smell spicy to you?" Nila snapped. Sharif stared at her like he didn't understand the question. She rolled her eyes again. If she kept up, her eyes might roll right out of her head. "Fine. I'll do it myself. And you should be blowing," Nila said, pointing at Malu.

"Who put you in charge?" Malu asked.

Nila glared at her.

"Never mind," Malu said, and began to do her airbending. The skimmer first lurched, but after a few puffs, there was sufficient momentum to smooth their transit. "So what are you gonna do when you get there?"

Nila smirked. "I've got a plan, and it doesn't even involve you getting maimed, so I know you'll be happy with it," she said, settling down near the craft's tiller. Then, it was just a matter of keeping the course steady, three hundred eighteen degrees north northwest. And as she did, spent the rest of her time doing what she did best, that which she derived her identity and very sense of identity. Nila did science. And science trembled at her passing.

* * *

><p>"And she what?" Aang asked with laughter before the fire.<p>

"I'm serious. She looked at me with the most serious look on her face and said 'That's not fair. Why don't I get to have a penis'?" Hakoda said with his own chuckling. Aang couldn't help but split his sides in guffaws at that.

"Why would she say that?" the young Avatar asked. "She was _four_!"

Hakoda smiled. "Think about where we lived for a moment, and you'll understand."

Aang did exactly that. Considering her age, it wouldn't be the most obvious one. But then, he took a lesson from Sokka and began to go a little lateral. They lived in the far south... and it was frequently lethally cold... and then, a memory came back to him. Of himself, in point of fact, crawling out of a tiny outhouse in Chimney Mountain village, and casting a thumb behind him. _Everything_ freezes down there.

"Because she has to sit down to go to the bathroom!" Aang declared, and Hakoda nodded at that.

"Not that I blame her. It's one of the great perks of the male gender if you live where we did."

"I didn't think that 'penis-envy' was a real thing," Aang said.

"It isn't," Hakoda said, before shrugging. "Well, with a few very specific exceptions."

Aang nodded, staring down at that little fire. "Thank you, Chief Hakoda. I needed somebody here."

"Always ready to serve the Avatar," the man said with a tone which was hard to tell sarcasm from reverence. "The sun should be rising soon. We should go back to the Abbey."

Aang's grip tightened on his staff a bit. "What if they're still angry?" he asked.

Hakoda rose slowly, gingerly, and patted the Avatar on the shoulder as he moved past. "They won't be. I know my own children."

Aang smiled at that. If anybody here would, it would be him.

* * *

><p>The fire wasn't to create any real warmth, because Jun didn't need any. Years growing up in the northern mountains acclimated her to cold in a way that very few Nationals could boast. It wasn't even to cook her food, which was all jerkies as tough as poor boot-leather, and potato chips. More than anything else, the fire was there for the little bit of light it gave the night, now that the moon had set and there was no meaningful progress to be made before the sun came up from the east. She could hear muffled sounds of a muffled firebender on the sand nearby, but didn't bother glancing her way. Baihu was just a purse of money. Nothing more. A scowl lit onto her features for a second, turning that thought over in her head as she more closely inspected some sort of glowing white leaf she found on the girl's person. It was always a terrible idea to try to figure out why politicians did anything that they required her services for. Doubly so when it involved those brash, hot-headed Embiar. But that thought notwithstanding, something about this little task didn't sit right with her.<p>

Nyla gave a grumble, and Jun nodded, patting it on its star-mole nose. "I know," Jun said. "I can't see her, but I know."

The mumblings gave way to a 'plueh!' as the troublesome Baihu girl finally worked the gag out of her mouth. "Let me go!"

"Shut up," Jun said idly, resting her back against the steep wall of sand behind her. "I don't care about anything you have to say."

"Is it money? I can pay you!" she said.

"I'm already getting paid by your sister, and you draw your money from the same pool," Jun pointed out. The firebender wilted at that. "Now calm down, shut up, and be civil, and this will be less unpleasant for all three of us."

"Three?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jun said. "You, me, and that Si Wongi girl who thinks she's ambushing us."

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by a whistle of wind.

"Oh, the hell with it," that third voice declared from somewhere above and behind Jun, and with a scream which sounded a lot more wrathful than a girl ought produce, there came a dark figure in unusual clothing down the hill with some weapon in her hand. Jun twisted to her feet, sweeping that bludgeon aside and flipping the girl over the fire onto her back. The intruder stood, shaking the stars from her eyes, and reached for something.

"Nyla, make this easy for us," Jun said with boredom, and Nyla's mouth opened, its barbed, extremely long tongue lashing out. To the intruder's credit, she almost got away, but the tongue's barbs dug into her leg and she dropped like an abandoned sack of potatoes. Jun clapped the sand from her hands and walked over. "You've got moxie, kid, but moxie just isn't enough when you're in this business," she said. "Good girl, Nyla," she finished, patting the beast which hadn't even bothered standing to bring down the interloper.

"Nyla?" the Baihu girl asked. "You call that thing Nyla?"

"Of course, that's her name," Jun said. The girl turned to the supine Si Wongi.

"Ha! You're named after an Azuli monster!" she noted playfully.

The girl on the ground growled as Jun picked her up and plunked her down to her bound but unparalyzed partner. The Si Wongi glared at her for a long moment, before clearing her throat. "You, Bounty-hunter," she declared, as though Jun was infringing on the girl's time rather than the other way 'round. "When did you tame that beast?"

"Tame her?" Jun said. "I raised Nyla from a pup ten years ago."

With a triumphant look, her eyes swiveled over to the firebender. "See? I'm older. The monster is named after _me_."

"_Nila, how are we supposed to get out of here?_" the firebender asked, obviously _not_ understanding that Jun could speak Tianxia.

"_If I told you, I'd be telling her,_" that Nila responded, obviously understanding that Jun _could_ speak Tianxia.

"Well, whatever your cunning plan is, it's not going to work," Jun said, moving over to dig the saturated ropes from the saddle bag on Nyla's flank. Behind her back, unseen by the bounty hunter, Nila gave Tzu Zi a wink, and then pressed a finger to the firebender's lips, a demand of silence. Tzu Zi's eyes widened with confusion. After all, hadn't Nila just gotten tongued? Nila explained that quite silently by pushing in on her pants and blouse, and showing how they were padded by about an inch of rags and loose clothing. Nimble fingers in leather gloves pulled the actual barb out of the fabric, a white needle which glistened ever so slightly in the firelight as the pump on the base pulsed, trying to force out more paralyzing poison. "Some of us prepare for these sorts of things. That's what happens when you don't prepare," Jun said, turning back around, to find the Baihu girl wide eyed, and Nila limp and angry looking.

"Nila..." the girl said with worry.

"What are you doing?" Nila asked.

"Well, I can't leave you out here to die," Jun said. "My parents would disown me. Well, they'd disown me if they knew about a quarter of the stuff I've done, but that's not the point," she said, starting to loop that cord around the girl. "So I'll drop you at the first puddle bigger than your head that I find. Least I could do."

She paused for a moment, staring past the sand dune before her.

"Well, the _least_ I could do would be abandon you here, but I'm not a child murderer. I just go where the money is," Jun amended.

"What were you doing with my brother?" Nila demanded as Jun pulled the first loop tight.

"He's got a bounty of a hundred thousand Sparks on him," Jun said. "Sanctioned by the Fire Lord himself. I'd ask what he did to piss off the man in charge, but honestly, it doesn't get me money and I don't need to know."

Nila muttered something in a dialect which Jun recognized as Si Wongi, but not its content. Still the way she rolled her eyes as she did so told that it wasn't either serious nor important. "There's one thing that confuses me, though," Nila said.

"I'm not a tour guide," Jun noted.

"Yeah, but just humor me," she said. "How did that thing find her all the way here?"

"A Shirshu can smell a rat a continent away," Jun said, pulling the hands up to bind them more securely, but as she did, Nila's arms shot up, jabbing her in the breast. And there was the slightest prick when she did so. Nila then pulled her arms back and slipped the bonds off of her, as Jun stared in shock, as numbness began to spread through her body. "...How?"

"I'm not a tour guide," Nila said sarcastically, lifting the ropes above her head. Nyla, confused girl she was, pushed herself to her feet, looking to her mistress for some sort of direction. "Good to know about the Shirshu, though."

"Nyla!" Jun shouted. The beast, spurred by Jun's alarmed tone, let out a shriek and lashed out with its tongue at the two girls. One of them awkwardly threw herself aside on the sand, as she was still bound, but the other dexterously slipped under the strike, and raced toward the predator, digging through her shirt with such vigor that she dug out one of the other shirts she'd layered within to pad out the attack. She prepared to throw something at Nyla, but a swipe of claws sent her bounding back.

Jun slumped slightly, leaning against the sand dune she'd been sheltering next to, as feeling drained out of her limbs. The grinding sound she'd heard in that sandstorm came again, and her eyes caught that craft those two idiots had been using descending the same way the girl had. Ordinarily, she just would have left those two rubes in her dust, but considering they were after her target, that just wouldn't stand. When Jun saw that the yellow-robed sandbender was back, and that the Si Wongi she could buy a Noble Patent with was on the ship with her, she felt a growl in her throat.

Nyla was reacting with understandable confusion and wrath, and lashed out at Nila without remorse or pity, but that Si Wongi was managing to stay away from it, and most critically its paralyzing tongue. The girl on the skimmer shouted something triumphant, but Nyla cut that triumph short by turning and slamming its shoulder into one of the supports holding the two hulls together. It crumpled like a toothpick. Then, with a scrabbling bound, it leapt through the sails, tearing them to shreds as it did so, and snapping the rear support with its landing. The craft, once a remarkably ingenuous piece of engineering, was now two glorified canoes grinding to a halt on the grit. Nyla was standing over the sole male within eyeshot, and he looked up at Nyla without any of the pants-wetting fear one should reasonably have. And Jun's annoyance turned to outright rage when she saw the Si Wongi girl sprint forward, actually bounding over Nyla's neck, and heaving a bag full of something powdery directly into its face. It let out a great squeal, clawing at its nose, rolling onto its back and flailing for a moment before getting unsteadily back to its feet, its tongue lashing at utter random.

"Hostile aromatics," Nila said, leveling a cool glare at Jun as her brother slowly picked himself up.

The boy looked concerned. "That wasn't very nice."

"Neither was the bounty hunter."

"She wasn't so bad," he said distantly.

"I take those I care about very seriously," Nila said coldly, her eyes glaring malice. "So I'm going to say this once and only once. If you ever hurt those I love, I will find you. I will destroy everything you care about. Everything which brings you joy. Find another bounty, bounty-hunter."

"I always get my target," Jun said.

Nila stared at her for a very long, tense moment, then turned to Baihu, almost instantly untying her, a feat Jun didn't think possible. "So be it. Let's go, Tzu Zi."

"But... what about her?" the Baihu girl asked.

"The desert will teach her a better lesson than we ever could," Nila said.

"Whaoooo, what just happened?" other girl asked, picking herself up from the ruins of the skimmer.

"Come on, Malu. It's a long walk home," she said.

"...You trashed our ride!" Malu complained.

"Just walk, Malu," Nila said. Malu looked thoroughly annoyed, but heeded Nila's command. As Jun's ability to keep herself upright failed completely, she wondered if she might have to look into whoever this Nila person was, as well.

* * *

><p>There were a lot of things churning in Nila as she walked the sands, leaving that unpleasant woman in their collective wake. Sharif had taken the fore, as he seemed almost puppy-dog pleased to be heading home, and Malu followed his direction. That left Nila and Tzu Zi at the back of the procession. And every time Nila looked at the firebender, one notion kept repeating in her head. Nila had almost lost her.<p>

"Tzu Zi, I..."

"Nila, I..."

Both managed to interrupt each other, so both stammered to silence, continuing to walk, Nila blushing slightly. "Maybe you should go first," Nila said.

"Oh... I was scared. I didn't know if anybody was coming to help me," she began, but Nila shook her head.

"I was coming. You had to have known that."

"Well, I thought she'd got you. Shirshus knock you flat for at least an hour. You must have been after us in ten minutes," Tzu Zi said.

"I had a lot of motivation," Nila said.

"Really, why is that?" Tzu Zi asked, head tilted a little, eyes wide and eternal. Nila decided that there was no better time than right bloody now. She reached forward, taking the girl by the sides of her heads a she'd seen in those over-acted plays that Mother dragged her to in Ibn Atal, and tilted her back, lips mashing against the other girl's. There was fury and passion and motion and it was very, very... very...

...awkward.

She slowly pulled back, about as confused as she'd ever been in her life, and Tzu Zi looking no less so. "...what?" she asked.

"What?" Malu parroted, from where she was watching them.

"Look, a cloud!" Sharif noted happily, looking well past them all.

"What." Nila said.

"Did you just kiss her?" Malu asked.

"Why did you just kiss me?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I... thought... that..." Nila said awkwardly, backing away from Tzu Zi.

"I'm a girl," Tzu Zi said. "And so are you!"

"But you said that... sometimes things can happen... between..." Nila said awkwardly.

"Oooooh," Malu said. "She's a lesbian."

"A what?" Nila asked, then shook her head. Probably different word for something she already knew. "I..."

Tzu Zi shook her head, and turned to her. "She's not a lesbian."

"That looked like a lesbian thing to do," Malu noted.

"I'm confused," Nila said.

"Obviously," Tzu Zi said kindly. "Look, I care about you, but not like that. I like boys, not girls, alright?"

"Well... It seems I'm an idiot," Nila said, humiliation running through her veins in such quantities as to threaten the constitution of her blood.

"Oh, it's not that bad," Tzu Zi said. "You're just gonna have to find somebody right for you. And I'm pretty sure you're not a... what was that term?" Malu provided it, "lesbian, so just calm down. You're a good person, and somebody's gotta see that sooner or later."

Nila nodded, staring at her feet, blushing like the sun, although fatefully in a manner in which nobody not familiar with her race would recognize. "Can we just keep going. I don't think I feel like talking right now," Nila said.

"Okay, Nila," Tzu Zi said, with a brief hug to confound Nila just a little bit more before moving up to Sharif, who watched the scene with utter impassion. Nila shuffled through the sand until her path took her past Malu. Sharif pointed idly behind him.

"Patriarch's waiting for us. He's back that way... somewhere," Sharif said.

"Gotta say, I've never seen a show like that before," Malu noted. She then batted her eyelashes at the Si Wongi. "Think you might have a little sugar for me?"

"Die in a hole, airbender," Nila said as she walked past, and her path was paved in Malu's laughter.

* * *

><p>Even as Sokka stirred from his snoring state, Katara was already awake. She'd been awake for a while, and long enough to notice that Dad had slipped out at some point in the night. For the first few minutes she thought he was going to the bathroom. After that, she started to worry. The worry built and built until a notion occurred to her. Whatever he was doing, he must have had good reason. It didn't assuage the worry, but at least it stopped its increase. But that was then. The worry since then had dumped over from whatever had happened to Dad into how she was going to face Aang. Namely because they'd done a hell of a job burning that bridge when they shouted at him on the beach.<p>

Aang was many things, but tough was not one of them. After a moment, she rescinded that notion. He was remarkably tough, for all he'd kept his mind together given a century of icy imprisonment. She never asked if he dreamt in that long sleep. She didn't want to think about the answer. There was a great yawn from a vast pile of pelts, which burst open like a blossom, only instead of colorful petals and nectar, it revealed a groggy, bleary-eyed Tribesman. How he could sleep like that boggled her mind. It was a mystery how he didn't bake himself alive. A stretch which crunched with the sounds of joints and bones shifting about their place, and he returned to his usual slouch, before glancing her way.

"Huh. Where's Dad?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know. He must have gotten up during the night," Katara said.

"Oh. Well, he couldn't have gotten too far. Not like he'd abandon us twice, right?" Sokka said, obviously intending to make a jibe, but the subject matter was far too personal. There was a long silence, punctuated by somebody out in the halls coughing as they went by. "That wasn't the right thing to say, was it?"

Katara shook her head with a roll of the eyes, and moved to the door. But before she opened it, moving out into the abbey beyond, she turned. "I think Dad was right. We really didn't give Aang a chance to explain. We didn't even give him a chance to stammer!"

"Yeah," Sokka said, nodding slowly. "...and it's not like he did anything bad. It wasn't like telling us a day earlier would have made any difference, except we would have lost another night's sleep, and we all know how much of a beast you turn into when you don't get your rest."

"What did you just say about me?" Katara said, annoyance instantly her whole expression.

"Some people are night Owl-bears, you're not," Sokka said. He nodded to himself for a moment. "We should apologize to Aang. Especially for the shoving. Tui La, I can't believe I got away with pushing around the Avatar!"

"You could get away with a lot of stuff with him," Katara said, opening the door. "He's a lot more family than not at this point."

Sokka only nodded as he got up and joined her, heading out into the courtyard. At first, their thought was that there was a vast snowfall, and that it mounded up in the heart of the abbey over the night. While there had indeed been snowfall, and that it continued even now, the vast majority of that great mound was comprised of a serene bison munching on hay. Both siblings' eyes went wide as they recognized Appa.

"Sokka, Katara, I'm glad you're both awake," Dad's voice came to them from across the yard. "I've read over the report from Ogan. It seems the men are recuperating well in Chameleon Bay, and he has things well in hand," he said walking over to them. He then paused, looking at her in particular. "Are you alright, Katara? You don't look so well."

"I had... a bit of a rough night," she said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. By the gods, it felt good to have her father back, even if part of her still did want to hit him with a stick for abandoning them for two years. "But the news from the south means I can finally do something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm heading north, to Summavut," Dad said.

"What?" Sokka said.

"I had words with the Avatar. He needs a waterbending master, and that is where they would be found these days," Dad said.

"Yeah, we should really talk to him," Sokka said. "We were definitely out of line with the whole 'go away and never come back' stuff."

"I knew you'd come to your senses," Dad said.

"We've gotta find Aang," Katara said.

"Look up, sweetheart," Dad said. Katara frowned at him, then looked up, and saw that Aang was sitting on the eaves just behind them, listening to the whole conversation. He was smiling.

"Aang, what are you doing?"

"I was upset when you... you know..." Aang said. "I didn't want to keep going without you both, even though I knew I had to. We make a great team. We shouldn't break that up."

"Aang's right," Sokka said, and promptly headlocked and noogied the Avatar the moment he jumped down to ground level, an act which brought an uneasy look in Dad. Not surprising. It wasn't often that an abjectly mundane teenage boy got away with noogying a demigod. "Who knows what kind of trouble he'd get into with us lookin' after him?"

"Sokka stop it!"

"Oh, you love it," Sokka laughed, releasing him. Aang rubbed his head where it was be-noogied, but had a smile regardless.

"So... I guess we're all heading north," Aang said.

"If you're willing to travel with your old man," Dad said. Katara couldn't help but break into a grin at that, and she hugged him tight.

"Of course we can," she said. There was a clearing of throat behind them all, and all turned to see the Abbess behind them, flanked by her inferiors. She bowed lightly to the Avatar.

"It is a great honor to have you visit this Abbey, Avatar. Such a shame that you have to leave so quickly," the Abbess said.

"Maybe I can return when this is all finished?" Aang said.

"Dad, why are you going north?" Katara asked.

"I've heard some things up there I find... disturbing," he said. "I need to see for myself if they're true. Ogan's got things well in hand to the east... Something needs to be done."

"Well, you're welcome to join us," Aang said, even if he didn't seem to sure about what that last part meant. Neither did Katara.

"And we thank you for your duty to trade to our Abbey," the Abbess said. "Without you, our ointments and perfumes could never have traveled the roads to the rest of the countryside."

"All's forgiven?" Hakoda asked his children and the Avatar. All of then nodded. "That's good."

"Perfume, huh?" Sokka noted. "Maybe you should dump a bunch of that stuff on Appa... since it smells so bad. Am I right?"

The crisp slap of two people palming their foreheads was overwhelmed by Hakoda's laughter. It ended suddenly, as the man winced. "Oh, that was worth it. Come on. The north can't wait forever."

"So where are we headed?" Aang asked.

"Henhiavut first," Hakoda said. "From there... we'll see."

* * *

><p>The ships in frigid waters were overwhelmingly numerous. Some of them shined white in the low sun. Others were dull and black. Of the latter, there were hundreds atop the waves. Of the former, there were none but wrecks. Twin sets of golden eyes surveyed the battle before them, which still carried on into the morning as it had the entire night.<p>

"We have stood on no more dangerous footing than we do right now," Iroh said. "If we turn back, we can avert this inevitable disaster. Can I not persuade you to rethink this reckless deed?"

"The Avatar is coming," Azula said, almost lightly, as she stared to the north, past the battle which tried endlessly and futilely to swallow the fortress of Henhiavut whole. "And this time, there will be no escape for him. Nothing will stand in my way."

"You have said that before, Azula," Iroh noted. She glared at him, and he once again had to check himself from doing something drastic. Not because he held any desire to hurt his niece – the farthest thing from it, in fact – but because he was almost certain she was a twitch away from smiting him. "Please, reconsider."

"There is no reconsidering," she said. "There is no offer you can make me. He will be there. That means, so must I," she said, turning away from the balcony and heading back inside. "Find some way through that mess. I must prepare for the greatest battle of this lifetime."

Iroh watched as she left, and his eyes grew dim. The greatest, perhaps, but for whom? He turned back to the battle before him, and watched once again as the Fire Nation broke like waves against the unyielding rocks of Henhiavut.

* * *

><p><strong>Since I've finished writing the finale of 'Book 1', I'm going to take a bit of a sabbatical from writing. However, since I worked with a buffer, I'll still update on a regular schedule. <strong>

**I liked how this chapter flowed better than the last one, which came part and parcel with how it was both briefer and didn't suffer from bloat. That said, there was a lot going on on Nila's side of the equation which, when I started writing, would not have happened. The only reason the last bit (you know the one I'm talking about) happened was because I found that Tzu Zi was getting Nila to question her own sexual orientation, wholly of their own device. There is certainly something to be said for characters taking on a life of their own. Of course, I also knew, the moment that this meeting was going to happen, that it would end like this. What can I say? I like subverting expectations and making my characters suffer.**

**Finding how to progress this was actually tricky. Unlike with CoW, I strove to make sure that every single character was, first and foremost, human. There's only one unredeemably evil person in this story, but everybody else has a chance at becoming something other than what they were. Consider that because of Mai's influence, Jet's got a much better hold on his sanity. It isn't that I'm retelling the story with slightly different pieces, it's that I'm setting up the board under a completely different arrangement for Book 2 and 3. Enjoy, and I'll probably have the next chapter, The Siege of the North, up in two weeks.**

_Leave a review._


	18. The Siege of the North

**Jumping the gun since I'll be away for a few days. Anybody figure out the North's naming gag?**

* * *

><p>A wind blew up from the south. With it came water, which by all rights should have fallen as rain upon the desperate and drought-stricken East Continent. But there was very little right left in the world, and that paucity was a long time building. Instead, the water was borne north, whipped by cruel, maniac storms which blanketed much of the oceans of the entire planet. While some places upon the earth had become hotter – the East and West were identical in that regard – on the whole, the entire planet had grown colder. In a century, scientists in the fledgling purview of climatology would look back upon this stretch of years with utter confusion and scratched heads, for any amount of common sense should say that the opposite ought happen. But all the confusion, all the physics-defying blasphemy against science in the world could not deny that one simple fact. The world was cold. And when that water, borne on cruel winds, fell, it fell as ice.<p>

That annoyed Zhao.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, his voice very level, for all his annoyance. It was becoming common knowledge amongst the ranks that when he was annoyed, people tended to die. That worked for him, since it meant they would clamber over their own mothers to ensure it wasn't they themselves who paid that price.

"Lord Zhao, the situation in Henhiavut is taking a lot more of our manpower than any of us could have predicted..." the regional commander, Kaji, said simply. There was a deadness behind that man's eyes that Zhao didn't like, for the simple reason that it meant he had become so bathed in horrors that nothing could frighten or intimidate him anymore.

"More than you could have predicted?" Zhao repeated. "I managed to take Great Whales with a fraction of the troops the Fire Lord has entrusted in you, and they have fifteen times the population! Nine times the army! How have you squandered this so completely?"

Kaji shrugged, slumped in his seat as he was. He pointed at the map of Henhiavut. "They control the Spikerim. The only troops we can get over that are eel-houndsmen, but they're never heard from again. They must have something ready for them. I've lost enough of them to not consider it an option."

"Then use the Ghurkas," Zhao prompted with annoyance.

"What do you think I've been doing? Sitting on my hands? Of course I've been using the Ghurkas," Kaji said, and though his words bespoke annoyance, his tone didn't alter one hair. It was quite off-putting. "They rebuild faster than we can blow down their walls. And this Agni forsaken ice ruins our weapons and causes them to backfire. If you said the land itself was at war with us, I wouldn't disagree."

"We should strike past them, at Summavut," Zhao said.

"Impossible," Kaji answered.

"It is impossible because you haven't tried," Zhao contended.

"It is impossible because even the Ghurkas cannot succeed," Kaji answered. He shook his head, very, very slowly. "The only thing we have on our side is time. They're running out of food in that fortress, and when they come out to forage, we can pick them off. It's maybe two or three a day, but that's two or three that'll never face us again."

"Two or three enemy casualties a day, and you consider _that_ a successful effort?" Zhao asked with derision. Kaji leaned forward, then tipped a basket toward Zhao. He looked inside, before letting out a growl of disgust and pushing it away from him. "What is this barbarity?" Zhao demanded.

"A Tribesman isn't dead until his head leaves his body. Anything less, and they'll be fighting us again in two days, at most. And they've got a lot of fight in them. Had we the strength, I'd say blast this entire archipelago to a puddle and have done."

"Sadly, not possible at this time," Zhao noted. He looked at the map. "Strange how Allavut and Nunavut fell so quickly."

"So had Hanhiavut, but they pushed us back out, like they did from Allavut three years ago," Kaji said. Zhao snapped his glare up at him.

"Do you make it a habit of losing ground we've shed our blood to take?" he asked.

"Those Tribesmen... I've tried to keep the rumors amongst the men to a minimum, but sometimes it's just not possible," Zhao raised his one remaining eyebrow, a scowl still on his face. "Word around the fires is that they're not human. That they've done some sort of spirit magic. That the Tribesmen _cannot_ be killed. Nonsense."

"They are human. It's just a matter of breaking their morale," Zhao contended.

Kaji stared into the fire for a long time. "That... might not be possible," he said.

"And why not?" Zhao asked, a vein starting to bulge in the side of his head.

"Because _she's_ there with them."

"Who?"

"One guards their lives, the other their hearts. We can't get close to either of them," Kaji said morosely.

"Give me a name, soldier."

"Two of them, two women, as I have it figured, are the reason they retook Henhiavut," Kaji said. "A rescue mission, maybe. Probably for that spy that we'd captured a few days before their force landed."

"Names."

"You've read the Book of Movements, haven't you?" Kaji asked. Zhao glanced to the old, bound book under his fist. He'd first read it the day he arrived on a lark, but was shocked to find it scribed with the exact same cypher that Princess Azula used. And its subject matter too bore striking similarities. "For all the good it would do. It is an impenetrable mess."

"I have seen its like before," Zhao said, prompting the man to continue. "I'm running out of patience. Their names. Now."

"'Yue'... and that book's author, 'Irukandji'."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 18<strong>

**The Siege of the North**

* * *

><p>The wind screamed, bouncing between flecks of seemingly razor sharp ice that flew on its malicious breath. Ordinarily, it would have been business as usual for Sokka, since he'd had weather like this pressing in on his ears since he was an infant. But today, unlike all other days before, there was one notable problem. He didn't have a hat. Even the hood from his old, long lost parka would have sufficed to cut the wind and keep those tricky little goblins from flying down his ear canal and melting painfully and uncomfortably against his eardrum.<p>

"We should be flying higher!" Sokka shouted over the wind.

"We're close," Hakoda answered from where he leaned over the edge of the Howdah. "In this weather, we won't see the breakwater of Henhiavut unless we're right on top of it."

"I think Sokka's right on this one," Aang's opinion wafted over the rail. Unlike the others, he hadn't changed out of his yellow and orange robes, since the ice went out of its way to avoid him. There were times when Sokka was downright spiteful towards Aang, and his magical wind. "Appa's exhausted, aren't you Appa?"

Appa let its opinion be known with a bellow. Hakoda though wasn't about to be outvoted by a demigod and a bison. "We have to land here first. If this beast is tired now, he'll never make it past the Spikerim to Summavut."

"Well, I guess..." Aang muttered.

"Can you see anything?" Katara asked, huddling close around a shivering lemur.

"I can't see my own nose!" Sokka exaggerated. He pulled on the reins, intending to bear the beast upward, but the Bison gave a snort, and Sokka knew what that meant. It meant the big flying mattress had smelled something edible. How it could smell anything in this tempest was beyond Sokka's comprehension. "Wait a second... I think Appa's got something."

"Really? What?" Aang asked.

The answer loomed out of the murk and had Sokka shouting in alarm and sawing the reins away, scarcely dodging aside of some wall of rock that appeared suddenly enough to make Sokka almost wet himself. The connected shouts of the passengers sounded into the air as they were thrown about brutally. But better that than the alternative. Sokka heaved back on the reins, pulling the bison from a screaming advance to a virtual hover.

"What in the sands of Hell was that?" Katara shouted. "Sokka, you're such a terrible driver!"

"I think I've found the breakwater," Sokka said, urging the beast more gently towards that mass which they'd almost hit. The bison finally let out a low grumble as its six feet settled onto the hewn stone. Somewhere below, all could hear the waves crashing ceaselessly and greedily, trying to erode the foundations of the fortress city away. "And we're landed!"

"This is the breakwater? Isn't it supposed to be... you know... next to the ocean?" Aang asked.

"The weather is brutal up here," Hakoda answered at a bellow, because he had to. "The waves can be as tall as a Fire Nation dreadnaught is long. This was the only way to keep the whole thing rooted."

"Where'd they get the stone?" Katara asked.

"That's a long story. Better told when we're not getting eroded to death," Hakoda answered. "The doors are somewhere this way."

Following their father, and bearing a massive beast of burden, they tried to pick their way along the artificial surface which stood defiant of the near-constant storms. He wondered what this place would have looked like were it... well... visible. But that was a wish that'd have to wait, since survival was first on his agenda. Well, survival was almost assured, but his ears were not. They'd long gone past burning with cold and now felt like chunks of ice stuck to his head, which he had to assume was a bad sign. Finally, Dad let out a triumphant laugh, and beckoned the others forward. There was a tunnel, which was oddly large. Appa still had to bend its knees to get under the arch, but room was otherwise plentiful. And with the reprieve from the flying ice, visibility instantly jumped.

"Man, the weather is terrible," Aang noted.

"The storms come more frequently in the North," Hakoda said. "Nobody could ever figure out why."

"Man, this place is huge," Katara said. "What are those?"

Sokka followed her finger upward, to a series of divots in the ceiling. "Wait... I've seen things like that before. Those look like 'murder-holes'."

Hakoda nodded. "Henhiavut was always a fortress first and a city second. This is the only entrance that they'll admit to," Hakoda said, banging on the great, creosote-blackened doors. After a moment, he gave the doors a shove, and they emitted not so much as a rattle. "That's... odd."

"What is it, Dad?" Katara asked.

"This thing is barricaded."

"Well, that's alright. We'll just drop in from above," Aang said.

"Not possible," Hakoda said. Sokka raised a brow at that. "This place was built to be proof against aerial attacks for some reason," Hakoda shook his head. "Of course, who'd attack from the sky, I couldn't possibly guess."

"We've got a pretty good idea," Sokka said, sharing that unsteady glance with his sister and the Avatar. "How are we going to get in?"

"Well, we could knock?" Aang offered, then gave a pair of flicks of his staff toward the door, airbending a battering ram against them. Two crisp blows. Then, he twisted his glider back behind him, and waited.

"Somebody must be watching the gate," Katara said.

And she was proven right when the hall beside her dropped away, an arch appearing out of nothing. Dark figures reached through that void and grabbed her, dragging her in before she could even scream. Sokka got about a half second further before he felt himself similarly grappled. Sokka, though, wasn't about to be taken like that. He twisted inside his jacket, sliding out of it and staggering back, leaving an ill illuminated figure holding his green coat and leaving Sokka with the mobility to hurl a boomerang at him. It spanged off the man's head with a lovely noise, sending him staggering back, before the weapon crudely returned; it wasn't exactly Sokka's best throw, after all.

Hakoda didn't put up a quarter of the fight Sokka thought he would. Well, Sokka altered his estimation when he remembered that Dad was still hurt. Still, that these brutes were hurting his family would not stand. Aang, of all of them, got taken out with embarrassing ease, tied and dragged into the hole which sealed behind them. Sokka could see Dad being dragged to one of two remaining holes, and he started to run. With a tackle, he slammed his mass against Dad's uninjured side, which in turn threw all three through that gap and the assailant into the wall hardest of all of them.

"Can you make it back to..." Sokka began.

He trailed off when he felt the points of spears and knives encircling his neck. He glanced down, to the points which were pricking hard enough to draw blood. Then, back up to his father.

"What's going on?" Aang asked from where he was bound.

"OW Damn it! This one bites!" a voice called out in Sokka's native tongue from where Katara had been pressed to the floor.

"What's going on here?" Sokka asked.

"You speak our language pretty well for a foreigner," a husky voice said. "How much did they pay you to spy on us?"

"We're not here to spy on you," Sokka said, retreating a step, to find his back against an ice wall. He could just barely hear Appa's mildly unsettled bellow on the other side of it.

"That's the only reason you people come here nowadays. We know who fills your pockets, outsider," that knife wielding brutal said with an audible sneer.

"Outsider? I'm a Tribesman!" Sokka said.

"I've never seen a Tribesman dressed like that," a woman answered from nearby.

"I... kinda lost my clothes on Kyoshi Island," Sokka said. "I haven't exactly had a chance to replace them."

"A likely story," she said.

"Alright, how about this. I'm talking in your language without an accent and without hesitation. Dad, why aren't you telling them this?" Sokka asked. Then he saw that Dad had gotten gagged just as his sister no doubt had. "Oh. What's going on here?"

"Just rooting out some spies," he said. "And that makes four."

"Wait! I'm the Avatar! I'm trying to find..."

"The Avatar he says?" a peal of rough laughter rose up at that. "That would make the fifth which came a-knocking at our gates. Funny that people never figured out it wouldn't work twice. I'm pretty sure Avatars don't get reborn that quick, am I right Malys?"

"But I'm really the Avatar!"

"You are spies and enemies of the Water Tribe," he snapped.

"What is wrong with you? Can't you recognize your own kin?" Sokka asked.

"We have no kin but those who bleed with us," the man said direly. There was a murmur coming through the ranks, and the man turned away. Sokka noted that a great many others did as well. With a grit of his teeth, he swept his arms up, knocking aside the many spearpoints, and rushed the man with the knife. His hands were strong, but Sokka had long ago learned that using somebody's strength against him was an incredibly valuable lesson. When he tried to put Sokka back at knife's point, Sokka bent, using the man's thrust to twist him off of his feet, spinning down and levering the man's knife, still in his own hand, against the vein of his neck.

"We're just here to find the Tribesmen of Henhiavut! We aren't trying to hurt or destroy anything! We're not spies!" Sokka shouted. The spears leveled toward him again. "Stay back! I didn't want to hurt anybody but if you don't let my family go..."

"Release the girl and the old man," the man on the ground said, in entirely too calm a voice, given his position.

"She's coming!" a voice said from down that darkened hall. And as he did, light began to fill the passage, making it actually capable for Sokka to get a look at the people who were trying to kill them. Sokka didn't like what he saw.

They were wearing armor, but it was all in patches and hastily inserted repairs. He wagered that despite their covering over with skins of local wildlife, they were mostly salvaged firebender armor. But it wasn't the armor which gave him alarm. It was the eyes. Some were brown, but the vast majority were as blue as Sokka's own. But they all glared with an unearthly, inhuman fire which would have made anybody uncomfortable. They all watched Sokka like they were deciding if they should eat him. Twenty Tribesmen, all dark skinned and bright eyed, glaring at Sokka like he was their enemy.

"Make way for the Princess!" a voice came from behind again.

"Sokka, I don't like this," Aang said.

"Plueh! Why do they always gag me?" Katara complained.

"Because you always bite people," Hakoda said unsteadily. He clutched his head as though he'd been struck there. "And I'm proud of you for that."

"Back off, I'm serious," Sokka said.

"No you're not," the man said. "You're just a coward who thinks he's got the upper hand."

"She's here!"

"Whoever you are," Sokka began, looking up as the brutish Tribesmen began to part. "I swear, if you don't let us go, I'll... I'll..."

He trailed off because the girl who stood before him was the most radiant human being he had ever seen in his life. Her skin was dark as chocolate, but her hair was white as snow. Her armor, unlike that of everybody around her, was pristine ice-blue, bearing a heraldry of the waxing moon. As far as he could tell, she wasn't carrying a weapon, but then again, considering how the expressions of those Tribesmen around her turned from sociopathic apathy to outright worship, she probably had all the weapons she'd ever need in them. And her eyes, so bright and expressive, spoke so clearly of kindness and mercy and strength that Sokka could as easily turn away from her as could anybody else.

He looked at her once and fell stupidly in love with her.

Which gave the Tribesmen under Sokka all the space needed to buck Sokka off, rotating that knife back into his hand. He landed harshly with a knee on Sokka's ribs, driving the wind from his lungs, and that knife halted a whisker's-breadth from the surface of Sokka's left eye. He had a feeling that if he blinked, he might cut himself.

"Shakt, that's enough," that glorious woman said, her voice sweet as bells in the morning. She couldn't have been more than a year older than Sokka, but every part of her seemed beyond time itself.

"Princess Yue, these intruders are..."

"They are not intruders," Yue said. What a lovely name. She looked past the sprawled Tribesmen before her, to where Sokka's father was reaching for his own secreted weapon, only held back because Katara happened to be standing in his way when the great flip-aroo happened. "Chief Hakoda, it has been... too long."

"Yue?" Dad asked. "Is that really you?"

"I heard you had become chief. Congratulations are in order," she said. "Shakt, get off of our guest."

"As you command, Princess," he said, sheathing that blade and getting off of Sokka's chest, letting the teenager have a long-overdue inhale.

"What's going on here?" Katara asked. Yue turned to her, then back down to Sokka.

"The Siege is going on here," she said quietly. "Chief, please, come with me. Your presence here is probably the best news we've had in a while."

"What about me? I'm the Avatar! Don't I count for anything?" Aang complained.

"Is he?" Yue asked.

"Yup," Katara said.

"He is," Hakoda agreed.

"Oh yeah, he's an airbender and a waterbender, and there was one time he punched a volcano in half and I'm rambling aren't I?" Sokka said, terminating with an awkward laugh. But Yue smiled just a bit at that.

"Well... then he should come, too. How many men have you brought?"

"None," Hakoda said. Her brows twitched just a bit at that, but she held her composure.

"Why?"

"We were struck and dispersed by the Fire Nation almost a month ago. Where is your father, or Master Pakku? What are _you_ doing _here_?"

She turned, and sighed just a little. "That's why you have to come with me," she said. She looked up. "At ease. These men are to be given every courtesy of Henhiavut."

"So... no eating the bison outside?"

"You are not eating Appa!" Aang shouted, moving to Sokka's side.

"Of course you aren't," Yue agreed, looking a touch annoyed. "The beast is given the same treatment."

"This is all very strange," Hakoda mentioned.

"Welcome to Henhiavut," one of the Tribesmen said around a rough laugh. When they began to file away, practically vanishing into the side passages like ghosts, Aang was not alone in swallowing nervously. But for all that, there was only one image in Sokka's brain. The perfect face of the white-haired girl.

* * *

><p>Despite the Princess' assurances, Aang was still dreadfully uncomfortable leaving Appa and Momo under the hungry eyes of these odd Tribesmen. Thus, it wasn't until Katara offered to keep an eye on the big fuzzy galoot that Aang allowed himself to wander, the lemur clinging to him as though it understood the culinary peril it was in. It wasn't long until Hakoda took up with him, walking the same path as the Avatar, looking at the same sights.<p>

"This place is incredible," Aang said.

"It used to be... better," Hakoda said.

Aang raised a brow at that. "How?"

Hakoda pointed up above them, where the light of the scant lanterns vanished into darkness. "They used to have lamps all the way up the dome. And I can tell just by looking at it that this dome's been rebuilt at least twice since the last time I came here."

"Really? How?"

"It used to be carved," Hakoda said. He shook his head slowly. "This place used to be one of the more beautiful creations of the North Water Tribe, even if it was a fortress. The war hasn't been kind to beautiful things."

Aang shook his head. "No, it really hasn't."

Better not to tell the older man who Aang was thinking about when he said that. It would have upset him, surely. The two walked in silence, rounding the great promenade which lay at the heart of the fortress city. Even now, Aang could see that there were fragments hinting at a past of splendor and glory. But they were only that, fragments. Everything wooden had probably been busted up and burnt for heat and preparing food. Everything metal had been repurposed into armor and blades. Only long empty pots, scaffolds made of some old and patinaed bone and canvas showed that there would have been a market here. Now, everything was still, and quiet. The only sounds were the grindstones off in the distance somewhere, the low popping of cool fires. The hushed talking of people who no longer had much to say.

"This isn't what I expected," Aang said.

"Nor I," Hakoda admitted. "It's like the place has died and rotted away," he shook his head slowly. "This is not the Henhiavut that I resented."

"Everybody looks so... ragged," Aang said.

"They would be. They've been fighting non-stop for six years," Hakoda said. Aang swallowed nervously at that thought. "They didn't have the numbers to do what the West can. They have to fight, day in and day out, without rest or cease. I wonder how much there is left to them, outside of the fight?"

"This doesn't feel right," Aang said quietly.

"You're right in that. It does not," Hakoda agreed. The hushed talking died down even further, leaving an eerie silence in the vast space, lasting only a few seconds, but such unsettling seconds they were. Then, there came a slamming of a door, and a woman's voice muttering in a tongue which Aang couldn't understand, but from the tone of it, it reeked of outright annoyance. Hakoda gave a glance to the Avatar. "That's odd. From the way they acted, I thought they'd only let Tribesmen in here."

"Well, maybe they needed a skilled cook?" Aang offered. That tongue certainly wasn't Tianxia, and the only other need that Aang could see here would have been earthbenders. For a moment, he regretted leaving behind Toph, but he steeled himself. Up here, she could get hurt or worse if _anything_ went wrong.

Another door slam, much closer this time, and both men, young and old, turned to the incoming source of that din. Momo let out an frightened shriek and ducked inside Aang's kavi, which made him a bit befuddled, doubly so when he saw what prompted that behavior. First to be seen was a woman whom Aang was fairly sure epitomized the Tribal standard of beauty. Her hair was so black it shined in blues, her eyes like ice chips, and her body held the contour of an hour glass. Even Hakoda couldn't help but let out a low whistle of appreciation at the sight. Behind here came others, though, rough and ragged as the other Tribesmen seemed to be. She spotted Hakoda first, and her expression became one of confusion.

"Wait a second... what the hell are _you_ doing _here_?" that woman asked.

"And very pleasant to meet you, too," Hakoda said with a smirk. The woman rolled her eyes.

"Stow the South Water Tribe charm, pal. You're not supposed to be here," she said.

"Where I come from, it's traditional to introduce yourself. I am Hakoda, High Chief of the South Water Tribes. And you are?"

"Alarmed," she answered.

"That's an odd name," Hakoda muttered, glancing behind him.

"That's not my name, numb-nuts. I swear, the world is trying to mess with me," She shook her head, tweezing her brow tightly as though warding off a headache. "I am, apparently, the High Shaman of the North. Why are you here?"

"Does the High Shaman have a name?" Hakoda asked.

"Are you seriously trying to charm me?" she asked. Then she bent back and let out rib-bursting laughter. Hakoda and Aang shared a very confused glance, then he turned back to her. She settled down, wiping an involuntary tear from her eye. "Oh, if you knew what I did, you'd find that hilarious."

"Lady, you're acting crazy," Aang pointed out. "And rude, too!"

"Ah, and the Avatar shows himself at last," she said. "Finally, something goes according to plan."

"Plan? What plan?" Aang asked. The Shaman waved his question away.

"My question stands, neighbor. What are you doing this far north?" she demanded.

"I'm seeing the situation in the North for myself," Hakoda said.

"Why?" she asked.

"I don't need to explain myself to you," Hakoda said, annoyance in his voice.

"Eh. You might want to consider it," she said, and Aang could feel some sort of dire energy in those words.

"The rumors say that the fight is going very badly up north, that people are losing themselves to sanguinary intoxication, and I need to know if I can trust them at this point," Hakoda said, his voice flat, but his eyes growing tight as though the words were being extracted from him.

"See, was that so hard?" the Shaman asked. Aang, though, felt a strong surge of alarm. He closed his eyes, calling to mind the lessons he'd taken in Senlin. It might have only been the first step of a long journey, but he'd learned how to open the World Eyes, and when he opened his own, it was to see beyond the veil of the simple physical.

There was something inside her. Something made of lightning.

"What are you?" Aang asked, interposing himself between the High Chief and the High Shaman. As he did, a number of those rough Tribesmen did likewise with her. "Tell me what you are!"

"Really? You've figured that out already?" she asked. She shook her head, and waved a dismissal to her escort. "Go on. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get into a fist fight with the Avatar, now am I?"

"Whatever you say, mistress," a woman's voice said, and the group dissolved away. But as they did, their eyes stayed locked on the outsiders until their bearers vanished from line of sight. She smiled up at Hakoda.

"You can leave, too. This is better said between people who might understand each other," she said, dismissing Hakoda. He turned and walked away briskly. Aang made a strangled noise, and raised his staff toward her. "Don't be so suspicious. That's what he wanted to do."

"You're some kind of spirit, aren't you?"

"And points away for improper thinking," she chastised. "Technically, I'm two beings. Or one, depending on your math. Walk with me, kid?"

Aang raised a brow, but started walking. He was fairly sure it was of his own volition, anyway. "So what are you? And what am I supposed to call you?"

"Huuni, or Irukandji. I prefer the latter," she said. "So you woke up in the South Pole, right?"

"Yeah... why do you have two names?"

"Long story, I'll get to that later," Irukandji said. "And the first person you saw was that little Tribal girl, right?"

"What? No..." Aang said. "Where are you getting your information?"

Irukandji stopped, staring at Aang for a moment. "You do have a crush on _Katara_, don't you?"

"Ew! That's like wanting to do stuff with my sister!" Aang said with distaste. Irukandji looked utterly confounded. "But there is somebody... But I shouldn't talk about her."

"Avatar, I'm not asking because I'm a gossip. This is actually pretty important. Who are you crushing on?" she asked, with a level of gravitas which ran quite contrary to the content of her words.

"Um... Princess Azula?" Aang said quietly and unsteadily. "I mean, she's a good person, she just..."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Irukandji interrupted. "She dug you out of that iceberg, didn't she?" Aang gave a small nod. She let out a weary sigh, and a shake of her head. "You know, you're just like a duck, kid. You fixate on the first pretty face you see. Things are a lot more off than I could have realized. And I'm thinking that if even the little stuff is so different, I can't reasonably say how far we are off course by now. I'm going to need to consult some of the Tomes," Irukandji said, walking away with a brisk step and an annoyed expression.

"...I am not a duck!" Aang shouted after her. It echoed in the vast and open chamber, returning back to him with embarrassment. Momo peeked back out of Aang's neck, turning to face him with large, fearful eyes. He let out a string of nervous chatter, before ducking back into the kavi, just in time for the strange Shaman to glance back. She was smirking at something, something Aang didn't quite understand. With another creak and a slam, she vanished from sight, and Momo crawled back out and onto Aang's shoulder. "I'm not a duck," Aang repeated, much more quietly this time. He was pretty sure even Momo was laughing at him as he walked toward where Hakoda had retreated.

* * *

><p>It was remarkably easy to find her. All Sokka had to do was follow the wave of reverence which followed behind her like a trail in the woods. Actually reaching her, though? That was an entirely different difficulty. A difficulty not made easier by a sister who stayed unusually close at hand. "Don't you have somewhere else you'd like to be? Like grilling one of those waterbenders back there for tips on... waterbending?" Sokka asked.<p>

She shook her head minutely. "They make me very uncomfortable," she answered in a low tone. "The way the look at me..."

Sokka could appreciate that. His first attempt to continue his conversation with the Princess had been rebuffed by one of her worshipers throwing him out a window. That was, in fact, how he rendezvoused with his sister. "I'm starting to think something's a bit funky with the North Water Tribe," Sokka admitted. "I mean, I wouldn't go around defenestrating my cousins, would I?"

"Really?" Katara asked. "And what about that time you dangled Tula from that balcony back in Glacier Plane?"

"What? She kept throwing things at me," Sokka said. "Besides, I didn't let go of her. It's the _letting go_ that makes it defenestration."

Katara let out a chuckle at that, the first happy sound he'd heard from her since they entered this dim, damp, cold, and oppressive fortress. "Gotta say, I have no idea how Mom could have put up with Agho for a brother. Tula's a chip right off his block."

"Don't worry," Sokka said comfortingly. "We'll get home someday."

"I know, Sokka," she said with a tone ten thousand miles away.

"Where is home, anyway?" a third voice asked, which caused Sokka to emit a slightly girlish shriek, to his dismay. When he turned to see its source, his half-composed implication that his sister had created it stumbled to a standstill when the target of his roving was standing before him. Her eyes, Tui La, her eyes, they were so bright and kind. He felt fairly sure he could drown in them. Unfortunately, that eye-drowning had the unfortunate side effect of making him utterly insensible and unable to answer her very simple question, so he could only offer the following:

"I, uh, I mean we... So we were... I'm..."

"We're from Chimney Mountain," Katara broke in, obviously not beguiled by her spell. Not that Sokka was particularly annoyed at being so beguiled. There were many, far worse manners of beguilement, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he would be subjected to at least a few of them before this whole 'chumming around with the Avatar' business was done for.

"Well, that's nice to know," the girl said to Sokka. She smiled warmly. "I'm beguiling, then?"

"Did I say that last part _out loud_?" Sokka asked. Katara answered him the most succinct way possible, by palming her face and shaking her head slowly. The Princess then turned to Katara.

"Chimney Mountain? I hear that is one of your larger cities. How does it fare?"

"It's... not a city anymore," Katara said, shooting a glare to Sokka to keep his internal dialog internal. He honestly hoped he didn't make the same mistake twice. "It fell a long time ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said. She moved past Sokka, to where a window obviously once stood facing the outside world. Now, it was clogged with cloudy ice. Sokka noted that she even _smelled_ beautiful. "I remember when the Fire Nation attacked us. I was only ten. They struck us like a storm, and they pushed us all the way back to Summavut. We were going to lose our city, our people, everything. Every drop of blood hurt Father more and more. I could tell it would kill him to lose Summavut as we'd lost everything else."

"Is there any place that the Fire Nation hasn't pretty much ruined?" Katara asked.

"How come you're here now?" Sokka asked. "If all this happened six years ago, I mean... That's a long time to..."

"I took up the standard," she said. "I could barely carry it, but I took it out into the battle. And every warrior rushed around me, determined to the death to not let any harm touch me," she looked down. "We lost good people. Not just warriors."

"That must have been terrible," Katara said. "At least you don't need to do that anymore."

She glanced back to Sokka's sister. "Yes, I do. I am the heart of our people. The soldiers never break and surrender when I'm on the field. If it weren't for me, there _would not be_ a North Water Tribe."

"So you actually go into battle?" Katara asked.

The Princess nodded. "Every battle."

"But you don't have any weapons," Sokka noted. Her armor had no harnesses for spears nor clubs or even a beltloop for a sling. She smiled lightly.

"The standard is my weapon," she said quietly.

There was a long moment of silence.

"So... you're a Princess. That's great, huh?" Sokka opined. She glanced toward him. "Y'know, back where I come from, I'm something of a prince myself."

Katara immediately made a brat of herself and scoffed. "Prince of what?" she asked.

"I'm prince of a lot of things!" Sokka snapped back. "D'ya mind? I'm trying to have a conversation here!"

"Oh, my humblest apologies, great Prince Sokka," she said with a sarcastic bow.

Sokka turned back to the princess, trying his damnedest to make his smile look less nervous. "So... we're going to be around the North for a while. I was hoping that we could maybe... engage... in an activity... together?" Sokka said, his confidence waning sharply as he tried to reach the end. Yue arched an ivory brow at his pathetic offering.

"Engage in an activity?" she asked.

"I..." Sokka stammered.

"Very smooth," Katara noted.

"That man you came with, Chief Hakoda," Yue said. "It's been a long time since I saw him. He wasn't Chief back then. I'm sorry, but I admit, there's not much I know about my sister tribe. I never really understood how different from us it could be."

"We've had a hard century," Katara said quietly.

"That we understand," Yue agreed. She turned to Sokka, which made him want to both swell up and shrink away, both elevated and envervated by her attention. "How is it that the son of the High Chief _isn't_ a prince? Surely you must be children of status in the South?"

"Well," Katara said, rolling her eyes.

"Status... doesn't go very deep back home," Sokka managed to say, his mind engaging once it had a topic he could discuss without fixating on how very, very, very, very pretty Yue was. "There's pretty much just the normal folk... and that's about it, really. Our warriors aren't exactly in a different caste, and we've only got the two shamans, and I'm pretty sure they're just making it up as they go along," Sokka said with a chuckle.

"I'm a shaman," Yue pointed out with a small smile.

"Well... ah..." Sokka said, derailing.

"What's it like up here?" Katara saved him by asking.

"We've got the shamans at the top, with the military just below them. Under those are the non combatants, the old and the young, those who keep us fed. At the top, though, is Father," she said. "He was born to be Chief, and his chosen son will inherit after he passes on," she said.

"Chosen son?" Katara asked. "Do you have a brother?"

"...no, I don't," Yue answered. Katara looked a bit annoyed at that.

"So you're not allowed to be the Chief? What kind of crap is that? Let me guess, women aren't allowed to be waterbenders or warriors either," she said, obviously gearing up for a tangent. Sokka raised a finger to point out that a heady number of the savage Tribesmen who handed them all their own collective rear ends were women.

"Five years ago, you'd have been right," Yue said. She nodded slowly. "It's been a hard few years. But now that the Avatar is here, we might finally see an end to this. First, we break the siege at Henhiavut, and then, we can use his strength to force the Fire Nation away for good," she said, finally smiling again. Oh, what a smile...

"Use the Avatar?" Katara asked, suspicious. No! don't antagonize the pretty pretty princess, Sokka thought loudly.

"You know what she means," Sokka said with a forced laugh. The laugh trailed off. "But... if I'm allowed to ask... what is everybody doing here?"

"We lost somebody important to us," Yue said, walking down the corridor. The siblings walked with her. "Pakku, our greatest waterbending master came here. We're not sure why. But he was captured by the Fire Nation. Irukandji demanded we rescue him immediately, even though I'm fairly sure their intentions aren't exactly altruistic."

"Iru-who?" Sokka asked.

"You'll meet them eventually," Yue said. "Soon, I think. We will have to leave soon. I don't doubt the Fire Nation will take the first break in the weather to get back to shelling us. And we're all tired and hungry. We can't last here. We don't have the Spikerim to keep the navy back, here. Some days, I really worry."

"It'll be alright," Sokka said. She smiled at that.

"Maybe you're right, now," Yue admitted. She looked around. "Where is your father, anyway? I'd very much like to catch up."

"I'll find him," Katara said. As she walked away, though, she shot Sokka a look which clearly said 'don't do anything stupid'. Sokka defied that by immediately attempting something stupid.

"You know, I'm still hoping that we could see some more of each other," Sokka said.

"Really? Would you like to engage in an activity?" she asked coyly. He let out a nervous laugh once more.

"Yeah... at a place! For some... time," he stammered. She was just too beautiful to keep a clear head around, this girl was. If he'd been fixating on something besides her practically inhuman beauty, something like, for example, the flash of intense sadness which crossed her features in a moment he was too distracted to notice, he might have wondered about what she said next.

"I think I'd really enjoy that," she said, leaning in close and laying the briefest kiss on his lips. He went shock still, and she glided away practically unnoticed. He stood like that for almost a minute after she left, his brain unable to work through what had just happened. And when it finally did, if in a terribly undercompehended way, it was to a cry of glee and a happy dance.

He was falling for the girl in blue. And at the moment, he didn't care that it made that crazy old bat in Makapu right.

* * *

><p>Despite what Sokka said frequently and loudly about any mention of ghosts, Aang couldn't help but feel like this place was haunted. Not only were the claustrophobic halls of this fortress city so devoid of signs of life to make the place seem a tomb, those that still moved through it did so with the brusque, callous nature of the shuffling dead, their eyes no more lively than anything else in this place. Well, that wasn't quite true. When he came close to them, they watched him, and when they did, Aang felt an entirely different chill running through him. He didn't like those eyes. He didn't like the fire which burned in them, cold and bitter, but so very very sharp. They were like knives made of ice, and every instinct not just of an Avatar but as an Air Nomad told him to stay away from them. That they were dangerous monsters, not entirely on the leash.<p>

So focused on those savage Tribesmen, even going so far as to watch them pass behind him as he walked, that he managed to blunder straight into somebody. "Oh! Sorry! I didn't..."

"You should be more careful," the into-bumped admonished. Aang looked up at the Tribesman. He was balding, with his grey hair receded completely from the top of his pate and forming a ring that ended right above his ears. It hung limply and in strings, thinning even where it still clung, and his blue eyes were darkened by heavy bags below them, his pallor pale – despite being a Tribesman, he was almost the same complexion as Aang! – and sallow. He looked about ready to launch into a whole other tirade, but caught himself, staring at the kid. "I am awake, am I not?"

"I couldn't tell you," Aang said. "Who are you?"

"You are the Avatar, correct?" the man said.

"Yup," Aang said, grateful that he was having a conversation. His attempts with those ruffians were all rebuked with quiet glares. It was highly uncomfortable. "And you are..."

"Wondering where you spent the last century hiding," he answered. With a roll of the eyes at Aang's blanch, he sighed. "I am Pakku, the Moon's Consul, master of the Summavut Waterbending Hall. If you're here, I have to assume it's because you want something."

"Well," Aang said uncomfortably.

"There you are, Aang," Katara's voice broke in. "You wouldn't believe what an idiot my brother's being."

"More than usual?" Aang asked with a chuckle.

"I know! It's like when there's a pretty face around he forgets how to use his... who is this?" she trailed off.

"This," the waterbender said testily, "is Master Pakku. And who exactly are you supposed to be? His nurse?"

"Nurse?" she asked, humor falling into outrage in a heartbeat. "Just because I'm a girl, you immediately think that..."

"Oh, you," Pakku said wearily. "She warned me about you."

"Who warned you?" Aang broke over Katara, who was still trying very hard to explode into a proper tirade.

"Irukandji. That... 'woman'... is an unsettling presence in the North. She's been around entirely too long as it is."

"Why?" Aang asked.

"She was High Shaman in the year I was born," Pakku said. He turned to Katara. "So you're the pugnacious South Water Tribe waterbender who is willing to pick a fight with anybody to get what she wants. Interesting. I wasn't even aware that the South still had waterbenders."

"I'm the last one," Katara said, her voice still hot and angry.

"Isn't that a pity," he said, not asked.

"Wait..." Katara said, as something dawned on her. "Master Pakku? As in waterbending master?" Pakku nodded impatiently. Her eyes went wide for a moment. "You could teach me waterbending! Proper waterbending!"

"I could," he said. But then, her eyes narrowed.

"But you're not going to, because you're probably as sexist as..."

"Katara, don't do this," Aang warned.

"You know very little about what we've become," Pakku said. "If you want to learn waterbending, then I suggest you watch closely. If you want to fight, on the other hand, you must learn _everything_."

Katara finally started to wind down from her outrage, if only because outrage was mutually exclusive with bafflement, and the latter was moving in in force. "What do you mean?"

Pakku flicked his head toward a passage which lead into the heart of the fortress town. They followed after him as he walked. As he moved, he passed one of the chambers where the ragged soldiers were bunkered down. Amongst them, two of them were running healing hands over the wounded. "Six years ago, women were absolutely forbidden from combat, even to learning the elemental martial art of water. They were all foist upon Mistress Yugoda to learn the healing arts," he said, pausing before one door, where a shaven-headed Tribal woman was moving through a kata which sent razor-like discs of ice flying at her gestures. "But within a year of the Fire Lord's invasion, we were pushed back to the gates of the Citadel, having lost even the streets of Summavut. Irukandji and I had a long talk. And she was right. The women were... underutilized. There weren't enough fighters to push back the Fire Nation without them. And then, they started to get better. Fully half of my best students were women," he glanced down. "I'm still not used to seeing dead women on the battlefield. It feels... wrong."

"How did you push them back?" Katara asked. Pakku continued walking.

"Every adult is a fighter. Every waterbender is a healer. The fallen are healed and returned to the fight," he said, his tone hollow. "They've gotten very good at... healing. Some of them fall a dozen times in a day, and get back up thirteen. Sometimes I wonder if it'd be better if we just let them die," Pakku shuddered. "Their eyes... sometimes they look at you, and you're not even sure if they're still human."

"That's..." Aang said.

"Creepy," Katara answered. Pakku glanced her direction.

"And that is the Siege of the North," he said. "If you want to fight, look upon the face of your future," he said, waving toward a blue eyed woman who stared at a wall, beyond it, at nothing at all, that they passed by in their walk. "Glorious, isn't it?"

Katara looked anxiously at that woman, then back to Pakku. "It doesn't matter. I've got to learn how to protect what I care about."

"Many have said the exact same thing."

"I need to learn, too," Aang said. "The Avatar has to be a waterbender."

"Yes. He does," Pakku said grimly. "And if we survive the escape, I will have time to teach you. But there's the problem, isn't it? _If_ we survive."

"Escape?" Katara asked.

"There's no holding Henhiavut," Pakku said quietly. "They'd never admit it. They probably don't even believe it. We've lost this city."

"Why did you come here, then?" Katara asked.

"Irukandji left something here," Pakku said. "Prophecies, she says. I don't believe it, but whatever they were, they couldn't fall into Fire Nation hands. She said they were_ too important,_" He shook his head. "Important enough to put Princess Yue's life in jeopardy, it seems."

"But they _were_ in Fire Nation hands," Aang pointed out. Pakku nodded. "Then this was..."

"For naught. Just like most of what I've been doing the last five years," Pakku said. "The only thing we can do is escape with our lives, and a... tale of glory, to appease Arnook."

"Why are you still here, then?" Aang asked.

"The storm is too powerful for us to control," Pakku said. "The Avatar might have been able to control it, if you were realized, but I'm just an old man. I've never felt so old. When it lessens, we were going to pack our ships and brave the flotilla outside."

"Flotilla?" Aang asked.

"Always questions with you, isn't it?" Pakku's voice took on an annoyed tone. "Didn't you see them on the way in?"

"We didn't see much of anything," Katara admitted.

"Then you are in for an unpleasant surprise," Pakku said. He raised a brow. "Whatever the case, it will happen soon. This storm will not last forever. Its strength is lessening even now."

There was a sense of quiet dread as Pakku flicked a wrist, opening a hole in the ice wall, staring out into the storm. The two teenagers couldn't help but stand at either side of him as he wearily watched the grey darkness.

"This will be over soon," Pakku said.

Aang couldn't help but shudder at the finality of how he said that.

* * *

><p>Azula packed much the same way as how she lived; with great fury and very little control. Iroh watched as she constantly reevaluated her decisions, throwing certain things aside, only to reconsider. Only once did she pause, stopping the mad, seemingly rote movements, but when she did, he noticed that her hands were shaking. It was telling that he couldn't tell whether that shake came from excitement, or from terror.<p>

"I think I'm ready, Uncle," Zuko said, walking over somewhat stiffly to Iroh's side. Unlike Azula, Zuko had opted to pack the clothes on his back and what he could easily carry in a pouch at his hip. "Is she still packing? I thought she'd be pacing a hole in the deck plating waiting for us by now."

"You should speak to her," Iroh said simply. Zuko raised a brow, but opened the door and stepped inside. At the groan of the door, Azula's head swung toward him, before she rolled her eyes.

"Well? Aren't you going to pack?" she asked.

"I have," Zuko said, patting his pack. "You're the one holding us up."

"What did you say?" Azula asked.

"Is something wrong? You're not like this," Zuko mentioned.

"Nothing is wrong, dum-dum," she said, tearing apart her bundle again. "I just need to be prepared for anything. I can't let anything destroy this opportunity."

"Why not?" Zuko asked.

"Because I..." she paused, and glanced to the door. Iroh sighed, and took a few clomping steps away, before creeping back to the threshold to eavesdrop. When she spoke again, it was much more quiet. "Because I can see it in my mind, and it's all so clear. That place with the arch, and the two of us. The Avatar, waiting. But there's... No. No it isn't."

"Azula..."

There was a long pause. "For some reason, I have this... fear... that something will go terribly wrong. Humiliation and pain and... I can't afford to lose. Not this time. I want to go back home. I want to see the pride in Father's eyes when we hand him the Avatar. I want to have my family whole again," the last said so quietly, that Iroh could barely hear it.

"Our family hasn't been whole in a long time," Zuko said.

"Well... wholer than it is now," she said, her tone rising in annoyance. Iroh made a few tromping noises and then leaned past the threshold.

"We're in sight of the Spikerim. Are you ready? Or should we take some time to reconsider?" Iroh asked.

"No reconsidering," Azula said. She pressed her eyes closed for a moment, then looked around at her things. With a sigh, she swept most of them off the end of her bed, leaving only her armored bracers, a hair-fob, and a few minor effects, which she bound into her own pack. "If I find myself lacking something, it's your fault," she said, glaring at her brother.

"Duly noted," Zuko said with his usual sarcastic humor. The two of them turned toward the doors, then followed Iroh into the skiff bay. The walk down was met with silence, not just from the siblings, but from the crew, which gave them a clear path and a wide berth. Everybody knew this day would come, if not when or under what circumstance.

Azula bounded up into the skiff and glanced back at the two males behind. "Come on, Zuzu, we've got to move while the sky is still dark."

"There's been a slight change in plans," Iroh said. Both turned to him. Azula with shock, Zuko with annoyance. Mostly because the latter knew what was coming, and the former didn't. "You might think you're up to storming the great citadel of the north, but Summavut is a dangerous place, and it will be even more dangerous if the Avatar is truly there. I cannot allow you to do something so reckless."

"Uncle, if you're standing in my way..." Azula began.

"Not without my help, I mean," Iroh finished. Azula stopped, glaring at him. "I know that city. I know how the fighters think. Since I don't want the Tribesmen killing the only people left in my family that I care for, I'm not letting you go into that city unless I come with you."

"You'd slow us down," Azula said.

"You know that isn't true," Iroh said. She chewed her teeth, unable to create a cogent reason to say him no. "I have already handed over the deed to this ship to the cook. Since he's the only one not in the military, as of now, this vessel is a civilian craft, and all of its crew are off duty."

"What?" Azula asked.

"Do you really think that anybody would try court-martialing them all?" Zuko asked, understanding Iroh's thinking. "I mean... what could they know?"

"It's not what they knew, but rather who they served," Iroh pointed out. "We do not lack for enemies whose pettiness runs deep. They are protected, now. And besides, it's better this way than having the ship scuppered by pirates," Iroh said. "Am I right, Azula?"

Azula stared at him, her eyes locked and wary. Zuko, though, frowned at the oddly specific way of the ship's demise. "Pirates? Why would pirates scupper our ship?"

"Just get in the skiff, dum-dum," Azula said, but her eyes remained on Iroh. Good. So she was still canny, for all her obsession with those arcane symbols. Either she was better at hiding behind a mask than Iroh thought possible, though, or else that mask ran far deeper than he believed.

Iroh pulled himself into the craft, and took his place at the tiller, pulling a kettle from his sleeves and placing it over the spot on the engine where heat built up. "Before we set out, there is one more thing," Iroh said. "Ever since I lost Lu Ten, you have both been a comfort and a joy... yes, even you, Azula," he cut in when she got an utterly disbelieving look on her face, "and I wanted you both to know, that to me and Shou... We cared for you because..."

"You don't need to say it, Uncle," Zuko said quietly.

"We thought of you as our own," he finished anyway. He looked up at his nephew and niece, his pride and his worry and his joy. "But enough of this. We're not here to listen to an old man become weepy. We've got a city to break into!" he said with a level of gleeful enthusiasm he hadn't felt since the last time he infiltrated Summavut, and that was when he was scarcely older than Zuko. The ship began to slide into the surf. "Now hoods up, children. Remember to keep your ears warm!"

"Yes, Uncle," both of them said with the same bored tone and rolling of golden eyes.

* * *

><p>"Do we have a plan here?" Sokka asked. Pakku, weary old fart that he was, shot a glare in his direction. "I know get out alive, but how exactly are we going to do that?"<p>

"The Princess will deliver us," one of the brutes said with no tone but utter surety.

"What my son is saying, is that the Gods have always helped those who helped themselves," Hakoda said. "And from what I've heard of your earlier plans, they mostly relied on brute-force and incredible luck."

"Are you calling us idiots?" the soldier who almost cut Sokka's throat asked gravely, stepping into Hakoda's face. Hakoda, though, was not about to be intimidated.

"You lack cunning. You lack craft," Hakoda said. "I led around a thousand non-bending warriors, and until this month, had lost no more than could be counted on one hand. You, on the other hand, seem content to fight a war of attrition against a force that outnumbers you five hundred to one. If that isn't stupidity, I don't know what it is!"

"I've had just about enough of this entitled shit telling us what to do," the fighter answered.

"Entitled?" Sokka asked with complete disbelief. "We live in blocks of ice! We're not exactly from an economic hub!"

"Shut your mouth, outsider," he snapped, thrusting a spear toward Sokka. Hakoda smacked the spear away.

"Don't threaten my boy," Hakoda said dangerously. Where most girls would probably on the verge of fainting, Sokka was pleased to see that Katara had an expression that she was about ready to smack some sense into both of the men. It wasn't until the frail looking Master Pakku stepped between them that the violent grumblings slipped off.

"Shakt, that's enough," Pakku said. "Hakoda is a canny leader, and we will need him to evacuate the Princess safely. That is what we all want. Isn't it?" he asked with a glare.

Shakt backed down, and nodded. "Yes, Master Pakku."

"Good," Pakku said. He turned to Hakoda. "If you have a clever plan to run the barricades, you'd best give it now."

"Flight won't be an option," Aang said uneasily. "The instant they see me and Appa, they'll be launching everything they've got at us. Appa might be able to get through it, but not if there's anything but me and the saddle for burden."

Sokka let out a triumphant laugh. "And that's how we're getting out!" he said. Even Dad turned his way. "With all of their attention focused on the Avatar over there, they won't be paying any more than a passing notice to us! We'll be able to slip between their boats with only token resistance."

"And what about the Princess?" a different fighter asked. This one, though, didn't share the same glassy eyed look as the others. He was at most a year or two older than Sokka himself.

"She'll ride with us," Sokka said, "But the Fire Nation will think that she's with the Avatar. You can spare your armor for a couple hours, can't you?"

Yue nodded without hesitation. He took that and continued, somehow managing to focus through the happy, dumb haze she tended to put him into when she was nearby. "A straw-figure in her armor, tied to the saddle. They'll launch everything, and we run the gauntlet back to the Spikerim."

"But what about the fleet? We can still sink those ships," Shakt said.

"With what? Scorn and harsh language?" that younger warrior asked.

"Don't lip me, child. You might be Pakku's lineage, but that doesn't mean..."

"ENOUGH!" Aang shouted, which took everybody by surprise. "Can we not go two minutes without somebody yelling at somebody else? This is important!"

"The Avatar is right," Hakoda said. "And so is my son. Attempting to retake Henhiavut right now is... too ambitious. And attacking the fleet as we leave is suicide. When faced with overwhelming force, always take the bolt hole until there's nowhere left to run. A glorious death won't help the Tribe, and it won't comfort your families. We flee, and live to fight another day."

"It is cowardice."

Sokka turned to Yue, and forgot his question for about a second before managing to scrounge it back up again. "Yue, it's your life and your people. What do you want to do?"

She looked at Sokka, then his father, then her men. She looked back at Sokka, as though she wanted to know what to do. But with a slow sigh, and a moment of pulling up her courage, she faced her soldiers. "The plan is sound. In Henhiavut, we have been shelled to within an inch of our lives. We will return to the Spikerim and prepare for the next battle."

"As you wish, Princess," Shakt said, bowing and dispersing the crowd down toward the sea gates. One of them, that teenager Sokka had noticed before, took a moment to shake his head and mutter something under his breath before heading down after them. Sokka leaned toward Pakku, about to ask the obvious question.

"My grandson, Hahn," Pakku said. "The warrior's life does not suit him."

"Is he a waterbender like you?" Katara asked.

"No," Pakku said.

"We should go," Hakoda broke in. "Pakku, we could use you to sow a little chaos into that fleet as we go."

Pakku shook his head. "I'm showing a brave face, Chief Hakoda. The Fire Nation was... not kind to me. I have only begun to recover, despite their ministrations."

"Then you'll travel with us," Sokka said. "Man, this isn't how I pictured the fight with the Fire Nation."

"It seldom is in war, Son."

"So... this is it? We're going to battle?" Aang asked.

"We fight for the right to flee," Hakoda said. "Hardly ideal. But that's the way it goes."

"I have one request," Yue said from where she'd been standing with remarkable silence. All eyes swung over to her, Sokka's alone of the goo-goo variety. "I wish for Hahn to join me on your vessel," she said.

"Quite doable," Hakoda asked. "Can I ask why?"

"You may not," she answered. Hakoda just shrugged, and she took his answer with a nod and walked away. There was a moment after she left that the others stared at their feet, pondering who would still be standing tomorrow.

Pakku was right. It was a quiet dread, and it was everywhere these days. Not just in the North, but across the whole wild world.

* * *

><p>Zhao watched the city on its battered stone hill, barely visible for the snow which now fell at an angle driven by the winds. Better than ice, definitely. He could see far farther than he could even an hour ago. "Why haven't you started firing the trebuchets and cannon at the town?" Zhao asked with a level of annoyance.<p>

"Because they're probably frozen shut," Kwon pointed out quietly. "Breaking ice is a full time position on ships this far north."

"I didn't ask your opinion!" Zhao snapped, but Kwon took it without ruffled feathers. Zhao glanced down at the Book of Movements, which he held in one hand, a finger marking his place. Where Azula's prophecy was disjointed, often jumping between locale, subject, and time, Movements was impeccably structured. Wrong, in many places, but still useful in others. He considered taking it outright; if nothing else, it would serve as a useful primer in decoding Azula's works.

"There is movement," Kaji said, his haunted look receding for a moment, and he pointed at the to-Zhao's-eyes amorphous block which was Henhiavut at this distance. "But... that can't be."

"What is it?" Zhao asked. Kwon cleared his throat quietly, and Zhao turned to him. Kwon then handed him the spyglass he'd procured. Zhao decided that Kwon had payed back his earlier sarcasm in his mindfulness, and looked through that lens with his good right eye, well above the sea-level.

That eye went wide.

"He's here," Zhao said. "The Avatar is here!"

"That shouldn't be possible," Kaji said. "When did he get here?"

"During the storm, you dolt," Zhao said, tossing the glass aside. "Your incompetence has gone beyond the pale. As of this moment, I am assuming command of all forces in the Northern Fleet. We will intercept the Avatar here and now. He will not move one inch further north today!"

"But, on whose..."

Zhao grabbed Kaji by the collar and pulled his face very close. "If you have a problem with that, then take it before the Fire Lord. He will show you where his orders lie. Now get out of my way, or become a stain on the bulkhead."

"Yes, Lord Zhao," Kaji said, before leaving Zhao behind on the iced-over balcony of the flagship. Kwon looked through the lens himself.

"The rest of the north fleet won't reach us for a week, and with this weather, it'll take another week to reach the Spikerim," Kwon pointed out.

"Then this had better be a good day, hadn't it?" Zhao pointed out, before turning on his heel and stomped back into where it was warm and civilized. Behind his back, Kwon gave one more, bone-weary sigh, and then followed.

* * *

><p>"Remember where I said this was going to be a good idea?" Sokka asked from the tiller of the boat that the few of them had all piled onto.<p>

"No," Katara said.

"That's because it wasn't," Sokka finished. "How are we going to get through all of that!"

Dad, though, looked forward from the prow. "Son, remember how I never got a chance to take you ice-dodging?"

"Ice dodging?" Yue asked.

"You can't be serious," Hahn said snappishly.

"You can't go ice-dodging with Fire Nation ships! That's... insane!" Sokka shouted.

"Why not? Every boy has to become a man at some point," Hakoda said with a smirk. "Sokka, you stay on the tiller. You've got a keen eye and a cunning mind. Use them both. Hahn, you and my daughter will work the Mainsail. Obey my son's orders, because your life will depend on it. Yue, you and I will control the jib. The others will live or fall as they must. But for us, it rides on your shoulders, Sokka."

"This is _madness_," Hahn pointed out.

"Madness? This is the Water Tribe," Hakoda answered. "Lead wisely, be brave, and trust your fellow Tribesmen. You could do far worse than that."

Sokka looked out at the fleet before him. Hundreds of ships. Hundreds of catapults and trebuchets, and possibly worse. Tens of thousands of soldiers and firebenders. He took a deep breath, his eyes lowering for a moment. He should have felt crippling doubt. He should have been paralyzed with fear. But he knew the way forward was no way but through, and that his family was depending on him. If he'd had time, he might have wondered if this was how it felt to be a real soldier.

"There he goes," Pakku said from the prow, as Appa and Aang rose into the sky. "May Yer Tonri shelter him."

Nothing left to it, but to do it. "Full sails. We've still got the gale of a storm, we might as well use it," Sokka shouted. "Ease the jib, we're going to need to slow down really fast once we reach the line."

"Line? I thought we were going through that gap?" Hahn shouted, pointing ahead as the boat started to surge. Sokka found himself grinning, even as fire rose into the air, trying to intercept the airbender above. And as Sokka's craft advanced, so did dozens of others, away from the forsaken fortress of Henhiavut.

"That's a trap," Sokka said. "We're heading for _that_ gap," he indicated a sliver of room between two hulks, where one black iron stern almost touched another. "More sail! We've gotta cross that breach!"

The craft bucked on wind-thrown seas, sometimes launching whole from the breaker as it threw itself perpendicular to the shores of stone. It was the worst kind of sailing, and the most ill-advised. Never sail across the waves, that was the order given by every fisherman Sokka had ever heard. But today, he didn't have much choice. He couldn't sail into the wind without being swamped. He couldn't sail with it without being swarmed by Fire Nation. So Sokka did something stupid.

And it looked like it was going to work.

The first of the projectiles which missed the Avatar began to rain down, smashing into the surf and sending bursts of icy water up into the air, flash-freezing as soon as it was free of its mass. None of the projectiles smashed a ship, yet, but the day was young. And a few of them landed entirely too close for comfort to Sokka's little boat. But Sokka held that tiller, holding the course, tunneling through the curl of breaking waves which would have swallowed any building they'd produced in the South Water Tribe in decades. He barely even noticed that Katara had released her line, and was now working the water itself, but once he did, he got an idea.

"Katara, force the wave behind us," he shouted. "Let's get gravity working for us instead of against us!"

"You're going to get us all killed!" Hahn shouted, hauling the lines Katara had forsaken.

"Or he might just save all of our lives," Hakoda answered with a laugh.

Katara rushed to the back of the craft, and began to do her bending, and the wave, which had been curling over them, began to slip back, mounting under them and raising them onto the crest of the wave, moving forward as a sloped plain, constantly propelling the ship toward that minute gap. It was close, now. She let out a cry, as something small and red landed in the surf, only to detonate with a force Sokka hadn't seen before. She bound the length of the constantly-falling ship, and did something which looked more like earthbending than waterbending. The momentum faltered, but the plume of frozen water parted and shot aside, letting them travel through a cloud of rancid black smoke, rather than be crushed under a mass of frozen water.

"We're getting close now," Hakoda noted.

"Ready the jib. We're going to need to break fast!" Sokka shouted from his spot. They moved with remarkable speed, so quickly in fact that the firebenders on those ships looked more like streaks, and their attacks fell far too late to burn anything but sea. It should have been alarming to have so many of the enemy so close. The gap was maybe twenty five feet wide. But they wouldn't be able to close it. It wasn't the shooting through the cleft which held Sokka's attention, though. It was the dreadnought perpendicular to the two before it which lay directly beyond it. "Break break break!"

All hands but Hahn's abandoned the mainsail, and let the craft's sails dump wind. But it wasn't enough. Katara and Pakku shared a briefest glance, but then both began to move with simultaneity such that Sokka couldn't believe. Their arms spun, twisting the water before them up into a twisted mound, which the little Water Tribe vessel curled up into, until it was riding at a severe angle, but now parallel to the side of that dreadnaught. The water they bent actually reached up to the deck line, and Sokka's ship began to shoot through the gammut once more. Katara let out a shout, her sinuous bending giving way to an almost brutish shove. The water which had danced along the edge of the dreadnaught spilled across the deck, and instantly turned to thick, hostile ice.

Pakku slumped over where he stood, and Katara had to run to him. Sokka, though, could see that there were other problems ahead. Namely, a lot more ships. And the projectiles were still falling. "Is he alright?" Hakoda shouted.

"He's still breathing," Katara answered at a shout. The sound of explosions above and before them was almost deafening. Either that dreadnaught was blowing up for no readily apparent reason, or there were more of those 'mortars' on this fleet than Sokka liked to think about. There was another break in the line ahead, but it would take a nasty turn to get through it. Then, Sokka noted that they were not alone in these gaps.

"They've got skiffs on the waves!" Yue shouted. Thundering ahead, polluting the air with black smoke, they came in a mass. Sokka ran some calculations in his head, and he honestly thought they could make it.

"Helm to lee, Dad!" Sokka shouted. Hakoda nodded and heaved hard over. Katara let Pakku rest, and began to bend once again, creating another bend of sea to aid this ugly change in direction. This time, when they were taking the turn, there was an unpleasant creaking sound. Obviously, these craft weren't produced to withstand this kind of treatment, not for long. And then, fire began to explode through that mound, and the boat slipped a bit, sliding out of its turn early and forcing Sokka to pointlessly but subconsciously duck aside to keep form hitting his head on the blade-like prow of a Fire Nation corvette. A glance behind showed that those steamers were still on their tail. One of them was pulling ahead quickly, but the second held Sokka's eye. The helmsman was exposed. Easy shot.

Sokka held the tiller in place with a foot, and pulled his boomerang from his back. Painfully easy shot. He'd done harder to catch dinner. A snap of the wrist, and the blue projectile was away, cutting through the air until it struck the driver in the center of his head, before continuing on its circuit back toward Sokka. So struck, that skiff veered off course until it rammed hard into the side of a cruiser, not sinking, but making about as sea-worthy as an average brick. Of course, Sokka misjudged the distance he'd travel, so it was Dad who caught it.

"Be more careful with this," Hakoda said, and Sokka nodded. Then, he glanced aside and noted that the closer of those steamers was now drawing abreast. There were two of them aboard it, one of them wearing armor unlike Sokka had seen on a firebender before. This one wasn't red and black, but rather red and purple. His face was not anger or wrath, but simple focus, as he rose from where he'd been holding on, and drew out a saber. Sokka snatched the boomerang from Dad's grasp, and as that soldier launched himself toward the boat, Sokka snapped a hasty throw. The weapon smashed just below the neck of that fighter, sending him tumbling down into the water. The steamer immediately cut power, and spun around to collect his fallen comrade. But Sokka's boomerang was flying far wide of the boat he'd thrown it from.

"No! Boomerang!" he shouted.

As it cut awkwardly toward the water and an ignominious end, Sokka was mildly shocked to see Hahn vault over the rail, supported only by the sail line he was manning. He snatched the weapon the instant before it vanished into the rough surf, and let his momentum carry him back to the ship. He had to haul himself back over the rail, but when he did, he tossed the weapon back to Sokka.

"You owe me one, pal," he noted. Sokka nodded, then looked ahead. The thickest part of the gauntlet was passed, but it was hardly open seas.

"Katara, give us speed! Full sails and keep the jib loose!" Sokka shouted. The blasts of mortar fire sounded, and Sokka weaved evasively through the choppy water between the now much further spread ships. The impacts of trebuchet balls and mortar shells still sent the water pluming, but Sokka could see above them that Aang, unencumbered, had gotten Appa through that maelstrom as well.

"Are we clear?" Pakku asked from where he was collapsed at the prow.

"More or less," Sokka said. A glance to the side showed that other Water Tribe boats were beginning to clear the lines as well, that Sokka was only the first, hardly the only. "Let's get some place safer than this."

As they raced away from the Fire Nation lines, to where only a few ships picketed out toward Summavut, Aang began to descend, until Appa was hovering just beside their vessel. The Avatar leaned over, looking at the group in the boat. "Is everybody alright in there?" Aang asked.

"We are safe, now," Yue said.

"We should go," Aang said. "I can get us to Summavut by tomorrow."

"What? Leave the others behind?" Hahn asked.

"I can't bring everybody. But everybody here?" Aang gave a nod. "Come on. We've got to get to the north fast."

"The Avatar has the right idea, Hahn."

"But... the boat?" Hahn complained.

"If you want, you can steer it home," Hakoda said. "You've got the skills, correct?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Bring it home," Yue said. "You have my faith."

"But... yes, Princess Yue," he acceded. With that, everybody else began to pile onto the saddle of the great bison. As they flew away from the ship manned by one, everybody let out a breath they hadn't been aware they were holding. They had gotten through. They'd escaped the Siege of the North.

"I'm proud of you, Son," Hakoda said, pulling both of his children close to him. "Even I didn't have that kind of run with my ice-dodging test."

"Yeah, well, what about that time with the 'ghost octopus'? You must have had to run pretty fast after that went wrong," Sokka asked.

"Oh, I'd like to hear this one," Yue said, causing Sokka to emit an odd, strangled sound in his throat.

"Well, for the record, it might have been my idea, but I got Bato to do the spooky voice," Hakoda began. Pakku just shook his head with fatigue as the story continued. But Sokka couldn't have been more content. The niggling doubts had been cast off. Sokka was a man, he'd saved the Princess, and his family was together again.

* * *

><p>"They've escaped," Kwon said, lowering his spyglass.<p>

"So Azula predicted," Zhao noted. "But that's irrelevant at the moment. There's only one place left they can go. We will assemble our fleet, and then we shall strike out their heart."

"The Moon plan, sire?"

"Indeed," Zhao said. "With some... slight... alterations."

"Sir?"

"Not your concern, Kwon. Just send word to ready for the journey northeast. The journey to victory."

In a way, Zhao pondered, the Moon plan wasn't even wholly necessary, merely a force multiplier. And even then, considering that the force assembling to bring down the Spikerim permanently would have five hundred soldiers and three ships for every single Tribesman, it was less a war at this point. It was more of an extermination.

* * *

><p>The great city of Summavut, the last of its kind. It was the only surviving city of the North Water Tribe. Its streets shone white in the light of the waxing moon, great canals cutting through it flowing clear and pristine. But there was a harsh edge to this city. Once, it had been graceful and beautiful ice, delicate and sublime. Now, harsh, rough-cut stone showed through the facades more places than not. To Aang, it was like looking at the scarred face of an old woman who had once been beautiful. There was still some glimmers of it left, but those glimmers had dulled significantly. He wondered if even <em>they<em> remembered the way things used to be.

"There," Yue indicated from the howdah. "That's the palace. Father will be waiting for me there."

Aang nodded, and brought the bison down. It landed with a thump, no doubt exhausted from its break-neck weaving. After only a few seconds, blue-armored soldiers began to file out of that building, spears readied, and encircled the beast. Those spears only became un-readied once they beheld that Yue was amidst them. There came a tsk-tsk from the walkway ahead of them, as Irukandji walked out and shook her head.

"I told you they were coming, idiots," she said. Aang furrowed his brow.

"How'd you get here ahead of me?"

"Shaman; hello~o?" she said as though it were the most obvious thing on the planet. "Good thing you got her back in one piece, though. Arnook's in... well..."

"WHERE IS SHE!" a voice smashed through the quiet din of the soldiers. Stomping past Irukandji came another Tribesman, this one with grey hair and a long face. But there was something else about him which made Aang want to retreat a couple of steps. Or maybe miles.

It was those eyes.

"Yue!" he shouted. "Where did you go?"

"I needed to rescue Master Pakku, Father," she said. So this was Chief Arnook, was it?

"Let him go," Arnook said. "He's not important."

"Glad to see your opinion of me has not altered," Pakku said sarcastically as he descended from the howdah to Yue's side. Arnook stared at him, unblinking, then turned to Irukandji. The shaman shrugged, so he turned back to Aang.

"And who is this outsider?" Arnook asked. Still no blinking, though.

"This is Aang, he is the Avatar," Pakku said.

"That cannot be. The Avatar is dead and gone," Arnook answered.

"He _is_ the Avatar," Yue stressed. "And he brought with him Hakoda of..."

But Arnook started moving so swiftly that it took the others aback, getting right into Hakoda's face, those blue eyes unblinking as he measured Hakoda top to bottom, and found his value wanting. "So you're the incompetent that got chosen to succeed Qejay. I am not impressed."

"And there are things I see here which I'm not happy with either," Hakoda said, not backing down. Obviously, suicidal bravery ran in Sokka's family.

"Whatever you want, outsider, you won't find it here," Arnook said, continuing with his surely-world-record not-blinking duration.

"You don't know anything about what I'm looking for," Hakoda answered.

"Father, please," Yue said. Arnook swung his head toward Yue, and Aang shivered at the look he delivered. It was hollow of any paternal feeling that Aang could see. It was so divorced from the way that Hakoda looked at Katara that Aang could scarcely believe Yue and Arnook related. "They've brought me back, safe and sound. Master Pakku is back, and when he recovers, can lead the fight once more. Surely this is for the best, isn't it?"

"I have my doubts," Arnook said. "When victory comes over the Fire Nation, it will be my hand which shapes it, not yours, Hakoda," he said.

"Victory?" Hakoda asked.

"It is only a matter of time," Arnook said, before turning away. "Forgive the lack of welcome. We have more important things to deal with right now."

"More important than the Avatar?" Aang asked. Arnook didn't answer, only storming away. Pakku sighed, then, and shook his head, as the soldiers ringing the bison began to break off and drift away. Yue moved ahead, after her sire, into that cold, dark citadel.

"So you see our direst problem," Pakku said.

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Hakoda prompted. "The High Chief of the North is out of his goddamned mind."

* * *

><p>"What are you looking at?" Tzu Zi asked, as Nila lowered the stolen spyglass once more. The brown cloud rising just over the horizon wasn't any sandstorm, she knew that much.<p>

"Trouble," Nila answered. She then raised it a little higher, and spotted something yellow and orange flying toward them all. That thing turned into a Malu, which landed lightly on the dune next to them.

"You were right, they're right behind us," Malu stated.

"With conditions in the Grit Ocean as they are, and the speed they would be able to cross the sands, they might reach this point in a week," Nila answered. She turned around, and pointed at the horizon. "We will need to travel through the night and into the morning, but we can make it well ahead of them to Sentinel Rock."

"Your home?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila nodded.

"It seems Mother will have more on her mind than my fate when I choose to leave," Nila said.

"Whatever, shouldn't we get moving?" Malu prompted. Nila nodded at her sensible decision, and started walking. There was a growling sound as they moved, bringing Patriarch and Aki with them through the sand. Nila frowned, turning to the airbender.

"What exactly is wrong?" Nila asked.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just hungry," Malu noted.

"You ate less than two hours ago," Nila stated. "You ate more than the rest of us combined!"

"Well, I'm hungry again," Malu said, but then clammed up. So much the better. Nila had to keep her mind on navigating the Grit Ocean. There was a reason Sentinel Rock was named as it was. Now, she just needed to reach it.

So close. But a few hours away.

* * *

><p><strong>This was another chapter I didn't feel hit its stride in terms of pacing, but was far better than it could have been. Honestly, The Mountain King was the worst offender of this season. Hey, if canon got The Great Divide, I figure I've got some leeway with my take on it. At least it wasn't bloated.<strong>

**I can see a couple of you cringing already at Irukandji's return. Fear not. Just like I can take Azula and turn her into a Woobie, I can take a jackass like hir and make hir if not likeable, then at least not the sort of person one'd murder at the first opportunity. Bear in mind that from a certain perspective, CoW-verse is in the future; it could be said that that Irukandji was a character derailment. Or something.**

**The whole situation of the North is altered because Ozai wanted 'an easy win'. Unfortunately, it proved to be anything but. And that misfortune applied to everybody involved. Ozai's lost a glut of influence and credibility over this debaucle, true, but Arnook lost his mind. The North is a culture suffering a state of collective traumatic stress. Asymmetrical warfare is messy business. Nobody knows that better than the tribesmen right now, and it's far worse on the warriors who don't have a 'y' chromosome; men were raised from kids to think they'd have to fight to the death against their enemies, potentially. Women were never subjected to that mindset. Whatever comes from this war of the North, it's shadow will be cast over an entire generation of Tribesmen.**

**The next chapter sees Nila and company returning home, and Zhao attacking Summavut. I'll probably drop that in about a fortnight.**

_Leave a review._


	19. The Clash, Part 1

**Will probably get writing again in a couple weeks. Needed a break. Will start putting up 'Book 2' as soon as I've got a decent buffer.**

* * *

><p>The hunger in Azula's eyes set Iroh quietly on edge. The despondency in Zuko's didn't help. Nephew and niece alike were fixating on a form, wafting with seeming slowness, but only for its great distance, over the Spikerim and toward the great citadel which lay at the back edge of Summavut. "He's here." she said. "What are we waiting for?"<p>

"You might not have noticed, Azula," Iroh said patiently, "but there is a well tended wall of ice between ourselves and the Avatar. Getting through it will be an act of patience and cunning."

"We can just burn through it," Azula said, igniting fire above her palm. Zuko moved even before Iroh, clapping a hand over hers and snuffing the flame. She shot an indignant look at both of them.

"No, that is brash and reckless," Iroh said. He pointed to the great, thick, and cruelly textured ice which made up the Spikerim. "They monitor this wall frequently, and repair it without fail. The task will not be breaching the wall, it will be doing so that they cannot tell it has been breached."

She scowled for a moment, but nodded. "I can see the logic in that," she said. She then started scanning the uneven pinnacle of the structure. "They have no guard-towers. How can they even tell if the wall is damaged?"

"They're waterbenders," Zuko pointed out. "They can just feel where the water isn't."

"Then that's how we get in, dum-dum," Azula said. "We burn a whole through at the water line."

"But you'd have to swim," Iroh reminded her. She gave a shudder at the thought, but there was resolve on her face.

"I would swim across the Heart Sea to get the Avatar in my grasp," she said. She then looked up at her sibling and her uncle. "Well? Are you both just going to stand there, or are we going to sneak into Summavut?"

"As you say, Azula, but be patient. He will still be there tomorrow."

"I'm well aware, Uncle," Azula said, before pointing with a smirk to a spot a short steam away. "That looks like a secluded spot to work. Let's get going."

Iroh and Zuko shared a glance as she powered up the steamer and steered it, showing an enthusiasm which Iroh would have been quite happy with, had he not his extreme doubts about Azula. And now, he had a feeling like Zuko was having doubts of his own. There was only a glance shared, no words, but Iroh had that feeling.

He didn't like when he got feelings like that.

* * *

><p>"...Huh," Malu said, staring across the distance, at the drab brown walls which rose up out of the desert. Nila didn't hold much opinion, and didn't say much. Especially after her recent humiliation. Malu, though, seemed outright impressed.<p>

"Impressed?" Sharif asked the obvious, not looking at the airbender.

"A lot more than I was at Misty Palms," Malu said. "That place did _not_ live up to expectations."

"It kinda fell short of mine as well," Tzu Zi agreed. She pointed at the mass in the distance. "What is it?"

"That is Sentinel Rock," Nila finally broke her long silence. "That is Mother's home, the military capital of the Si Wongi people, and the great stronghold separating Dakong from Ibn-Atal," she raised a tattooed finger toward Malu, who was starting a question, "And before you ask, no, it is not feasible to 'simply go around'. Even with sandbenders, there is no water for more than a week in the east, and the west are lands which historically have been called haunted by an old and unfriendly spirit. Before, I thought it mere hokum, but since nobody has ever attacked Ibn-Atal from the south and successfully bypassed Sentinel Rock, there might be some truth to those old fireside tales."

"That's where Wan Shi Tong lives," Sharif said with solemnity, looking out to the west.

"Who?" Malu asked.

"Some sort of legend. Knowledge spirit, ghostly library, some stories about owls. It's all foolishness," Nila said. "This is the gateway to the rest of the nation, if you can call it that; the home of Si Wong's ancient Sipahi warriors. Mamluks from all over the desert come to train here, and the best of them are inducted into the Sipahi. Mother found the whole process needlessly exclusive and tedious. I prefer the way the Yeniceri do things."

"The who?"

"The Sultan's troops up north," Nila said. "They use science to win wars. Who couldn't respect that?"

"So that's your home?" Malu asked.

"It was for my many years," Nila acceded. Malu gave a shrug.

"Not bad."

"I think it's impressive," Tzu Zi said. Nila started walking forward though. The slightly wounded sound she made behind Nila's back stung. At the moment, though, Nila wasn't entirely sure how to talk to the girl. She had, quite recently in fact, attempted lewd and lascivious things with her. There was understandable awkwardness.

Of course, it wasn't until Nila came back to Sentinel Rock that she actually looked at it. In her childhood, it was just constantly there. Now, returning after long absence, she could actually see where her people's culture had gone into the crafting of it. Sandstone abounded, since it was the easiest building material, could be compacted into form by a sandbender easily enough, and didn't require the water that mud-brick did. The outer wall, though, a great mass of subtle angles that plunged down into the sands, was sheathed in a layer of faintly-blue metal that was painted in the warmth and shine of the morning light. The color of it was likely only visible from the south, because the prevailing winds hadn't plastered sand into it from that direction. It was said that this fortress was only built because of that metal, which would keep the hostile earthbenders at bay. Nila was no military strategist, but she knew a good design when she saw one. There were no places that one couldn't be shot from those ramparts, no place not immune to any but the most skilled earthbenders, and no advance through any but unpleasant sands.

"Sharif, keep that bird close and under control," Nila commanded. "You know how those people can be."

"I don't! How can they be?" Tzu Zi asked, hugging Aki's neck.

"...We eat Ostrich Horse," Nila said simply. There were two shocked expressions leveled at her, and one of blissful ignorance focused on working out a mat amidst the stallion's down. "Meat is meat."

"And water is water," Sharif piped up, before getting back to grooming his mount.

Silence returned for the span that it took to reach the base of the broad but rough-surfaced ramp to the gates. The ramp was naked sandstone, and while it was wide, it could be blasted away by Si Wongi benders quickly. The main reason it was constructed as it was was so that the huge, black, Mammoth Beetles could deliver directly into town. Nila motioned for the others to wait, and she walked ahead of them, up that ramp. The guards at the 'gate' were actually standing in front of a block of stone, and were in all likelihood sandbenders themselves.

"_Who goes there?_" they asked.

"_I am returned and seek water and provision,_" Nila answered.

"_Who goes there?_" they asked again.

"_I just told you,_" Nila said. From behind her, she could hear the tapping of talons on stone, and saw Sharif was approaching on Patriarch's back, despite her orders to the contrary. She turned, and was about to give him a proper tongue lashing, when he spoke out.

"_Children far from home, who have pushed aside the wants of Setekh and seek shade and shelter,_" Sharif said.

"_Ah, one of ours,_" the bender on the right said. He gave a twist of his arms, and the sandstone twisted away as a cloud of stinging grit, albeit mercifully into an open spot inside the gates. "_You should teach this one some manners, though._"

Nila's brows rose at that. "Excuse me?" she asked, anger rising in her.

"You can come in now!" Sharif shouted behind him, and the others made their way up. As they did, the first sandbender nudged the second.

"_Hey... doesn't that look like one of those airbenders?_" he asked.

"_Impossible_," came the answer. "_The Avatar is long gone._"

Nila just shook her head and beckoned, and the whole group of them moved into the streets of the fortress which fancied itself a town. The buildings were much like the walls, although not clad in precious metal, and more often than not stood flat topped and broad windowed. The people milled about, doing whatever it was that people did to spend their days. Women chatted amongst themselves about how their children were schooling, or fighting, for there was little else to do, as they beat their laundry with woven sticks. That was a task which Nila was quite happy she wouldn't be returning to.

While Tzu Zi's reaction was more-or-less concealed by the robes which covered her from the eyes down, Malu's was one of open appreciation. "Man, this place is a lot nicer than you talked about," she took in a deep breath. "And it smells so nice!"

"They make their own perfumes and unguents," Nila dismissed.

"And I smell food," Malu noted.

"You _just_ ate! You ate _on the way_ here!" Tzu Zi snapped. Malu gave a sheepish shrug.

"_Sharif, is that you on top of that wicked beast?_" one of the women asked. Sharif waved amiably. "_Get down from there before it hurts you! You know how those things are!_"

"_It's alright. Patriarch likes me._"

The woman rolled her eyes. "_Poor boy. He never really had a chance did he?_"

"_The Host takes as it wills. He is a bastard after all,_" another agreed.

"What are they saying?" Tzu Zi asked.

"They're insulting us," Nila paraphrased. "Come. Our home is about as far from this gate as one could be."

"Could I just... stop off at that restaurant for a second," Malu said, walking backwards with her eyes fixated behind her.

"You know, if we didn't need to feed you, we could have lasted a year on the food we've bought in the last month alone," Nila pointed out humorlessly. "How can you _be_ that hungry?"

"I just am, alright?" Malu said defensively.

Nila rolled her eyes, and then bumped into somebody in black robes. "Watch where you're going, you oaf!" Nila snapped.

Which made it all the more surprising when the Si Wongi so insulted broke into a broad grin, and pulled Nila into a hug which caused her to release a quite undignified 'ack' sound. Nila was not released until she punched the Si Wongi in the short ribs, causing him to let go and take a step back, rubbing his chest. "Ah, there's the Nila I remember," he said in bright and cheery Tianxia. He turned to face her brother. "And Sharif! It's been too long!"

"Ashan!" Sharif said happily. "Patriarch, this is my friend, Ashan!"

"Patriarch?" Ashan asked. Sharif looked confused for a moment, then pointed at the stallion he was riding. Ashan looked confounded, scratching at his cloud of curly dark hair. "Oh, so that isn't dinner?"

"You're not eating Patriarch!" Sharif said. The bird turned back to the Shaman, a dire look in its avian eye. "No, it's just a misunderstanding, I promise."

"Still talking to animals, I see," Ashan said. He then turned to the others. "And who'd these fine ladies be?"

"Nila, who..." Tzu Zi began.

"Oh, so you haven't mentioned me? How scandalous!" Ashan said with a laugh. He bowed to her. "I am Ashan, pleased to meet you."

"Ashan... what?" Malu asked. He looked confused for a moment. Malu pointed at Nila. "Her name's... well... needlessly huge. So what's the rest of yours?"

"We don't just go around introducing ourselves with our whole name," Ashan said.

"She does," Tzu Zi and Malu both said, pointing at Nila.

"Well, she's Nila," Ashan said. "Very well. I am Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa. And you would be?"

"I'm Malu, and yeah, it's just Malu," she said, likewise bowing.

"Tzu Zi Baihu," the firebender gave a weaker bow.

"Ashan and Sharif used to be inseparable," Nila said. "What are you doing out here?"

"Do the knives not give it away?" Ashan said, motioning to the impressive array of cutting implements on his hip. "I'm a butcher now! Well, training to be one."

"A butcher?" Sharif asked. "But... you're a sandbender."

"Sandbender isn't exactly a profession," Ashan noted.

"Around here it pretty much is," Nila countered.

Ashan rolled his eyes. "Grandfather finally decided I needed a trade to support myself. I'm just delivering the Darvesh's breakfast up in the tower. But I speak of myself. You've been off on some great adventure! You must have seen some wondrous things!"

"It depends on your definition of wondrous," Nila sand wearily. "I'm not staying long. I just need to speak with Mother, and then I will be leaving again."

Ashan's grin withered at that. "You couldn't have known, could you?" He beckoned after him. "There have been some changes since you left. Follow. They are better shown than said."

"Changes?" Nila asked. "Did Sha-Mo get stupid and anger Mother again?"

Ashan laughed. "You could say that, I suppose," he shrugged, and the others followed, even if the two riders had to dismount to pass the narrowing streets as they passed barracks and warehousing. It wasn't until they were roughly three quarters of the way there that Nila started to gather that something was wrong. Specifically, with the skyline of a certain portion of the city. She'd walked these roads dozens, nay, hundreds of times in her life. But the sight before her didn't match up to the many, many memories. Something was missing.

And when she rounded that final corner, she knew what it was.

Mother's house, the house they'd grown up in, was a charred ruin. Of the estate, only the shack at its corner remained intact. All the rest was subject to the unkind predations of erosion, and from the looks of the structure remaining, explosive detonation. Nila's mouth worked for a long moment, utterly unsure of what ought be coming out.

"Your mother is gone," Ashan said.

"Oh... Nila, I'm so sorry," Tzu Zi said, squeezing Nila's hand.

"Yeah, that's rough, buddy," Malu said.

Ashan nodded. "She left a week or two after you did," Ashan confirmed. Nila's mouth-working halted, and she tweezed her brow. She didn't notice how Malu was looking at that building as though she could half-remember it.

"What."

"Oh, it was a hell of a display. She tore a strip up Sha-Mo and down the other side, then blew up her own house to prove a point," Ashan said brightly. "I've gotta hand it to your mother. She knows how to make an exit. Took some outsider with her and headed west."

"_This is oddly empty,_" Sharif muttered to himself.

"She's alive? That's great, isn't it?" Tzu Zi asked. But Nila was shaking her head like a mauled ox.

"Oh... this isn't even fair," Nila said weakly.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 19<strong>

**The Clash, Part 1**

* * *

><p>There was a crash of ice, punctuated by the panicked grunts of a teenaged boy struggling futilely against the impenetrable block of frozen water that he now found himself in. With a sinuous motion, Katara pulled back, leaving the lad so frozen, and a smug look adorning Katara's face.<p>

"Enough," Pakku said. The week and a half between their arrival at Summavut and today showed a marked improvement in the old waterbending master. While he still moved perhaps a bit slowly, he no longer looked like a man with one foot upon the funeral pyre. "Excellent work, pupil Sangok. A few more years, and you _might_ be able to win a fight against a sea sponge."

Katara let out a laugh at that. Pakku flicked his hand, and the tower of ice instantly melted, dropping the defeated Sangok to the floor.

"Does anybody else wish to retest themselves against our young prodigy?" Pakku asked, to which no less than three dozen hands raised. Pakku did not look amused. "That was a rhetorical question. I can't have my waterbenders killing each other when the Fire Nation is still beating at our walls," he then turned to Katara. "You have advanced faster than any student I have ever taught. You are a living symbol that dedication, zeal, and passion can make even the impossible inevitable... unlike someone I can think of."

Which brought the attention of all present to the Avatar, who was scooting in loops inside a shell of ice he'd created for himself. Honestly, if he'd had this level of waterbending mastery a year ago, he'd probably never have bothered with any other element. The fun stuff you could do with water never ended! Or at least, it wouldn't have, until Aang finally noticed that all eyes were on him, and they were not amused. He released his scooter, flipping down to his feet, only to have Momo release his grasp of Aang's shirt and stagger away, utterly discombobulated.

"Pupil Aang?" Pakku asked patiently. Aang grunted an acknowledgment. "Perhaps you should take Katara's place in the sparring circle. After all, if you've got enough time to play with geometry, you must have already mastered the intricacies of waterbending."

"Well, I wouldn't say I mastered it, but check this out!" Aang said with enthusiasm. He spun about, pulling the ice which had been the loop around himself and building it up, until he stood in the chest cavity of some sort of icy golem, which took two crackling steps toward the other waterbenders. "Awesome, huh?"

Pakku and Katara shared a look of annoyance, and it was the girl who flicked her hands down, and sent the entire construct splashing into water. "That will be all for today," Pakku said, with a dismissing wave. "Be ready for whatever comes. This reprieve may be all too brief."

The many students gave their bows and 'yes Master Pakku's before moving down into the city, to the blue ice and ugly grey stone, to the gates, and far beyond them, the great mass of the Spikerim barely visible on the horizon. Aang failed to notice the glances those students were giving Katara, but mostly because another woman had captured his attention. Aang gave a curt farewell before bounding up the tiers of balconies which made up the royal palace of Summavut, until he landed on the one he'd sought.

"You've been avoiding me," Aang said to the woman. Irukandji raised a dark brow at him.

"On the contrary, I've been doing things no other could," she answered. "Let me guess, this is the part where you demand to know what I am, and then try to kick me out of this form?"

"Well, I wasn't going to demand," Aang said, a little off put.

"Very well. You asked why I have two names, it's because I... or rather we, are two people. Well, one's a person, the other's me," Irukandji waved her hand. "It's complicated. I am a spirit. She is my host."

"Host?" Aang asked.

"You must know of hosts," she said. His glassy stare proved otherwise. She kneaded her brow. "Oh, me, this is going to take a while."

"If you're a spirit, why are you inside his body?"

"Because it's safer by a long shot," Irukandji said. "You've been to the Spirit World. You must have."

"Well, I remember what it felt like when I was fighting Heibai," Aang said.

"That's the Outer Sphere. The Spirit world was... You met Roku, yes?" Irukandji waited for Aang's 'yes, but' before smiling to herself. "Good. _That_ was the Spirit world. Not inviting. In fact, universally deadly to your kind and mine, but for vastly different reasons. Those that are... complex... enough, they find ways to incorporate themselves into the Spheres. Some do it by Totems, as Heibai did. Risky business, though. Others, like me, use hosts."

"Why a host? Is she still... alive?"

"Asleep, more or less," Irukandji said. "I used to let her out more often, but let's face it, we're kind of in a crisis at the moment. And Huuni had about the intellect of a sea-prune, so she wouldn't be much help."

Aang stared at her. She sighed again.

"Alright, I'll start from the beginning, since this is sooo~o baffling to you," she said. "About ninety years ago, the heart fell right out of the Spirit World, and since I didn't want to die, I struck up a deal with a Tribal woman. She wasn't the best shaman, or the strongest. Honestly, I could have done a lot better. She was a vapid, narcissistic bitch, to be wholly truthful, and she was terrified of what would happen when she got old. Humans do get fairly wrinkly, after all," she chuckled to herself. "Anyway, she gave me a place to rest my laurels and keep away from things that want to eat me, and in exchange, I can keep her young and beautiful, ideally until the end of time."

"How long is that?" Aang asked.

"Well, if it lasts a year we'll be lucky," Irukandji said fatalistically.

"I meant how long have you been like this?"

"Weren't you listening? About eighty years," she snapped. "And while exorcising me might be possible, it requires the host want me gone, and I'm fairly sure her vanity outweighs her desire for independence," Aang's brow drew down. "Yeah, I know. Exploiting the stupid girl. But if you met her back then, you'd probably be fine with it."

"You're not supposed to enslave people."

"I'm not enslaving her. I'm giving her what she wants. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be here forever," she shrugged. Then, she leaned a bit closer, and Aang had to keep his eyes locked on hers if only to avoid staring down cleavage. Well, ideally... "So you know a little about me. Now, I'd like to know a little about you. How did Azula find you before Thug-Girl did?"

"Who?" Irukandji glanced toward Katara, who was finally departing the field, after her long talk with Pakku. "Her? She's not a thug. She might be a bit... sanctimonious sometimes, but she's a good person."

"You don't say," Irukandji muttered. "And to my question?"

"How should I know? I was inside an ice-cube at the time!" Aang said.

"Hm. She shouldn't have been there," Irukandji said.

"You keep saying things like that. She shouldn't have been there. I'm supposed to be attracted to Katara. Hakoda's not supposed to be in the North Pole. What do you know that we don't?" Aang asked.

"I could fill a book," Irukandji said. And then, she raised a finger. "In fact, I did, which is part of our current problem. But it's going to resolve itself soon enough. I just need to get my hands on those involved."

Aang stared at her. "You're insane."

"No, I'm in_human_. There's a difference," Irukandji countered.

"So... could you teach me about shaman stuff?" Aang asked.

"Nothing your friends'd want you to learn," Irukandji said. He raised a brow. "I'm the spirit responsible for the fight-or-flight reflex in the brain. Essentially, I'm the creator of the emotion of fear. Does that sound like a subject you'd like to hear about?"

"Not really," Aang admitted.

"But it's good that you're looking for teachers. May I recommend the Dragon of the West? He's got some skills. And great tea, I tell you," Irukandji smirked at the thought. Aang was a bit confused.

"Azula's uncle? Didn't he try to invade Ba Sing Se a few years ago?"

"Eh, what's a few thousand humans here or there?" she said with a shrug. She glanced at the sun, and clicked her tongue. "Well, look at the time. It's been lovely talkin' to you, but I've got work to do if we're going to survive to see this time next year. Ciao!"

"Wait, but I'm not..." Aang said, but after a dainty wave, Irukandji vanished from view in a flicker. Aang frowned for all he was worth, staring where she used to be. "Well, that's hardly fair."

* * *

><p>"Katara, could you spare a moment," Pakku asked. Katara glanced back, and moved back to the waterbending master. "May I?"<p>

She looked a bit leery, but he slipped his fingers under the carved stone of her heirloom necklace, turning it to catch the low winter sun. "What is it, Master Pakku?"

"I made this necklace," he said quietly, letting the necklace drop. "I thought I recognized it. It stands as a lesson against my own arrogance."

"But... how could you have made it? It's been in my family for generations," Katara said.

"Two generations, perhaps," Pakku said. He turned and stared to the south, and uttered a sigh. "A long time ago, a marriage had been arranged. She was a willful girl. Strident, independent, and so bold. But I loved her..."

"An arranged marriage? Who was she?"

He took a deep breath, his eyes drifting to the ground. "Kana."

"Gran Gran?" Katara asked, incredulous. Pakku turned to her. "I know my grandmother was from the North Tribe, but... Oh. She must not have been able to take the rules and the 'traditions', and..."

Pakku nodded. "If the circumstances were any but what they are, she'd still be right to. The only reason we let women fight is because if there isn't a spear in every hand or a child in every belly, then our people would vanish completely. Women are quite willing, and quite able, to fight for their families, their home, and their culture. If nothing else, I can only hope that Kana would respect what we've become."

Katara was quiet for a moment. "Do you really think that we can win against the Fire Nation?"

"Until the Avatar came, no. I held no illusions that we could," Pakku admitted. "Now... Now I'm not sure what to believe."

With that, he marched onward, into the citadel which stood at the back end of the city. Katara sighed, and then picked herself up, unfurled her packed brunch, and began to eat it as she moved down from the fortress and into the areas which served as the infirmary for the ill, the old, and the direly wounded. Between Pakku teaching her how to fight, and Yugoda teaching her how to heal, Katara was living off perhaps three hours of sleep a night, and no time for anything else but bathroom breaks besides. And to be completely honest, she was perfectly fine with that schedule. For the first time in her life, she had teachers, people who knew what they were doing, and were infinitely willing to share that knowledge with her. She intended to drink of it until she burst.

"I hope we don't have as many as last time," Katara said to herself. While everybody was a proficient healer amongst the North's waterbenders, only those true masters plied their trade in the infirmary, because the cases there were such that only the masters could hope to make a difference. It was the same sort of teaching that Pakku did; live fire. Yugoda had mentioned that their training mannequin hadn't seen use in years, since there was a constant influx of legitimately wounded people to train with, and almost no beginners left to bungle things. Even as she walked and masticated, she pondered what kind of culture this place had left. Everything they had seemed to be rotating around the fight. Even the Fire Nation couldn't be this bad, since there were supposedly near half a billion of them, and that meant only one in two hundred actually were actually any part of the military. Ninety five percent against half of one percent, and the ninety-fivers were losing.

It just wasn't fair.

Katara halted half way along one of the shortcuts she'd ferreted out to get from Pakku to Yugoda faster, a dark path between buildings that looked oppositely onto different canals. She was not alone in the alleyway. At first, she spotted one of them, tall and wearing the ice blues of one of Pakku's students. He couldn't have been much older than her. And he looked angry.

"Well, if it isn't our little show-off," he said.

"Should go back to where you come from, pup," another joined him. "We don't need your kind here."

"We're all part of the fight against the Fire Nation," Katara said diplomatically. "That's the real enemy."

"See, I don't think so," the first countered, stalking a step forward, and looming over her. She cursed inwardly that her body decided to start growing hips before growing height. "You think you're better than us, don't ya'?"

"No, I just want to learn from the master," Katara said, taking a step back. Be nice, be friendly. There's gotta be a way to defuse this.

"Yeah, and how many of us had to fight tooth and nail to get Pakku's attention? Gai there fought for a year on the Spikerim before Pakku would even bother to learn his name!" he said, thrusting a finger toward a third of them, this one with a burn that ran down along his jaw.

"He offered to teach me," Katara said, still backing away.

"I think this girl needs to learn a bit of humility," Gai said, punching his own palm. Katara forced an uneasy smile onto her face.

"Come on, we're all on the same side here," she said. Be nice. Be friendly. It was a mantra that kept going through her head since Crescent Island. She'd almost seen her brother die without once telling him she loved him. Be nice, Katara. Be kind. "Surely we can..."

"Don't call me Shr-Li!" that first one snapped. "Maybe we'll send you to Yugoda as a patient. That might give humble her a bit?"

"Please, there's no need to," Katara said, but her smile was slipping. Not fear. Be kind. Be nice. Be getting progressively more annoyed. And that annoyance snapped into outright rage when he swung a meaty fist at her face. She slid away from him, the ice under her feet bearing her back just far enough to turn a jaw-breaker into a breeze against her skin, then with motions born of implacable training, she twisted, tearing the ice from the building next to her, instantly turning it into a flood, and slamming it into that ringleader's chest. He slid away almost a dozen yards, practically to the mouth of the next street.

Gai and the other looked from Shr-Li, as Katara'd decided to call him, and then back to her. Then, with a shout, they advanced, bending their own. Gai set loose a barrage of icy discs, razor sharp and swift as lightning. The other hurled a wave much as Katara had toward her, seeking to reverse her opening move. Skilled moves, but she had something they didn't. Will.

Twisting her feet locked them in place to keep the wave from bowling her over, and put her right at its core. She twisted it free of it's originator's command, and then swept it ahead of her again, freezing it solid and causing those discs to shatter against it. Then, with a stomp free of her footing and a shove of her arms, the water returned to liquid, slamming forward and aside, sweeping both Gai and his counterpart into the walls of the buildings surrounding the alley, where she refroze them in place, now a part of the walls they'd cannibalized to attack her.

That left Shr-Li. He'd taken the moment that took to get to his feet and race toward her. As he swung again, sharp, jagged ice slashed with his fists and feet, and great balls of it welled up from the ground to trap her. But even as much as she'd learned from Pakku, she'd learned also from Aang. And the best way to defend oneself from an attack was to not be there when it landed. She dodged around his cruel, envious blades and moved closer until they were within a range to breathe each other's breath, which caused him to recoil just a little. Then, with a practiced step, almost like a dance move, she slipped past him, before tipping forward and sweeping her leg up behind her, dragging the ice he'd been standing on up with her foot. He overbalanced and fell into the hole it created, so she could easily melt then refreeze the water, embedding him into the icy walk about a pace from either of his cohorts. She stopped, whisking some snow from her shoulder, and stood over them.

"We're all in this together, whether you like it or not," she said. Screw nice. "We all want this siege to end, and we're going to place nice until that happens. I don't care that I've stepped on some toes by coming here. I'm the last waterbender in my entire Tribe. I'm not going to tip-toe around politics when I can fight for my people. If you can't handle that, then maybe you're not ready to fight in this war."

"Stuck up bitch, we'll get you for this," Shr-Li swore. Katara's jaw clenched, and as it did, the ice of not only the buildings that the two croneys were embedded in, but in fact all ice within a one hundred foot radius began to spread hairline cracks under her wrath and unconscious bending.

"No. You won't," Katara said. "You try this again, and I'll leave you in a public place next time. Without pants," she promised, upon remembering that up here, they had that odd discomfort to nudity that her people lacked. She took a step back, not noticing the damage her naked anger had wrought. Just as she was about to leave the alley, she turned back one last time. "And if you try to go after my family or the Avatar, then I'll rip off your ears and feed them to your polarbear dogs. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am," one of them said.

"Shut up, Nagodah!" Gai snapped.

She stomped away, not even bothering to calm down. She meant what she said about their ears. That felt good. Yeah, nice was good, but honest was better. Even as she walked that road toward Yugoda's hut, she reconsidered her mantra. Not be nice. Nice was being a doormat. Be good. Good stands up for itself. Good helps those that need it.

Good doesn't need to be nice.

* * *

><p>Zhao's fingers ran down the words on the page, almost instantly translating from the cypher into its meaning. In its way, the Book of Movements was much more clear in its code, and easier by far to transliterate. He could see why the savages were so desperate in their bid to reclaim it. It was practically an almanac for the next seventy years. Zhao's brow drew down as he read one specific passage, then flicked forward somewhat.<p>

"Hmm," Zhao said. "So the Dragon of the West is a traitor as well as a failure? Why am I not surprised."

"My Lord," Kwon's unenthusiastic voice piped up, dragging Zhao out of his blizzard of codes and cyphers, and bringing his baleful eye back into the real world.

"I said no distractions," Zhao snarled.

"The fleet is ready. They will move on your command," the lackey said. Zhao's glare turned into a smirk.

"Well, let's not waste any time, shall we? This place is utterly Agni-forsaken and the men would doubtless love to be away, so we might as well do this quickly and efficiently. Steam toward the Spikerim with all prudent speed," Zhao ordered. Kwon gave a nod, then vanished back out the door. Zhao took a moment to preen like the peacock he didn't think himself as. Then, he sat back down, noting with a tsk that the book had flipped pages where he'd left it. He was about to flick it back when something caught his eye.

"Impossible," Zhao said, running a digit down the lines of writing. "It couldn't possibly be that simple."

But there was no other way to test that theory than to attempt it. Zhao pushed open the door to the flagship's balcony, scanning the text in great detail once more, noting every single symbol, testing them against his mental assays. There could be no other meaning. He set the book aside, and took a stance. He cleared his thoughts, and felt the chi down in his stomach. He swept one arm down and around, three fingers leading, and felt how it tugged at that chi. Another sweep, and this time there was... almost a tearing sensation. A third sweep, and this time, there came an electric snapping which followed his fingers through their movement. Such a glorious, almost unstoppable power. With a last sweep, he felt it building up. Straining at him. Demanding release. More than demanding. Zhao twisted one arm away, and flinched as there was a loud crack in the air, and a bolt of lightning flew from his fingertips. For a long moment, Zhao simply blinked away the afterimage burnt into his eyes.

"That's it," Zhao said. "That's all it takes."

Considering how dire Zhao smirking was considered, how terrifying was it then, when Zhao grinned?

* * *

><p>"So... Prison," Malu said. "How's it treating you?"<p>

"Die in a hole, airbender," Nila said, slumped against the wall.

"Yeah, Malu, don't be so mean," Tzu Zi chastised. She leaned against the bars, her earnest eyes locked on Nila. "Look, we're doing whatever we can to get you out of here. There's gotta be somebody that can help you."

Ashan, who was already at the prison but on very different reasons, shook his head, his usually ever-present grin not in attendance. "Hard to believe, but her family didn't make very many friends. In fact, it was like miss Badesh went out of her way to alienate the Sheik at every possible opportunity."

"I can believe that," Malu said.

Ashan scowled at her. "If you keep up, I'm going to ask you to leave," he said.

"I'm just ribbing her," Malu said.

"You are being obnoxious and rude," Ashan said. Malu threw up her hands and backed off. He shook his head. "Are you alright, Nila?"

"I don't know what to do," Nila said, her words ringing hollow even inside her own ears. "I've... done everything. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."

"So rest we all," Ashan said.

Tzu Zi paused a moment. "I didn't exactly hear from what I'd call a useful source. With the 'arrest' and whatnot... how did that happen? I mean, I never though I'd see you in here."

Nila looked up, at Ashan, Tzu Zi, and Malu. She then buried her head in her arms, shutting out everything except the subtle creak-creak of Latifa's chair, in a corner outside the bars. "I did everything I could..."

_"So she's still not talking to anybody, I see?" Nila said, giving a look over Latifa, where she rocked endlessly on that chair, her eyes glassy and staring into her own lap. Ashan shook his head, brushing back the woman's white hair. It shouldn't have been white, considering Latifa was about the same age as Mother. But Ashan's mother had suffered, probably continuing into this day. Nila didn't like to think about that. There were many things that Si Wong did poorly, and prosecute nobles was amongst the worst of them._

_"I still hold hope," Ashan said. "Grandfather still holds hope."_

_"I can't hear her right now," Sharif said, head tilted as he watched her. "She must be asleep."_

_"She has been asleep for fifteen years, fool," Nila said quickly. Ashan gave a scandalized 'hey', but she ignored it. "I shouldn't have wasted the time I did. Even if Mother isn't here to deal with it, somebody must be told of what's coming," she rose to her feet, striking the dust from her knees._

_"What do you mean?" Ashan asked, taking a step away from his torpid mother._

_"As we were pressing through the Grit Ocean, we saw signs of a great force driving north after us. Coupled with our knowledge that Dakong is launching another crusade, it behooves to tell somebody so that we can repulse them," She said. Ashan stared at her._

_"The bad guys are coming so you ought tell somebody?" Ashan paraphrased._

_"That's what I said," she snapped. "Now tell me, where is the Sheik? I know he hasn't taken over Mother's house, since it remains a ruin, but his standard doesn't fly from the barracks, either."_

_"I can show you," Ashan said._

_"You're awfully friendly to her," Malu said._

_"Of course, she's an old friend," Ashan said. Then, he shrugged. "Well, sister to an old friend, but it means much the same thing. Come, come, we've got words to spread!"_

_Nila rolled her eyes at Ashan's enthusiasm, but followed where he led. After all, she'd been away for months. No one could say how much could happen in so long. Malu leaned in. "Who's this Sheik guy, anyway?"_

_"It's complicated," Nila said. "Thinking of him as a chieftain is the simplest analogy. He commands the dispensation of the Sipahi. Before, he did so under Mother's 'advisement', but if she's left, then he's pretty much the top of the chain of command."_

_"So what's the proper way of greeting him?"Malu asked as they exited the building. Nila was about to speak, but saw that Tzu Zi had been surrounded by yammering older women, who were plying her with perfumes and sweets, and probably about five minutes away from marrying her off to one of their sons, as the girl herself looked pleased but utterly bewildered in their midst. Very likely, the poor girl didn't understand a word which was being said around her._

_"_She is foreign and speaks another tongue. She is no valid partner for your get," _Nila said to those women, dragging Tzu Zi away, as they gave groans of disappointment, and tuts of disapproval. She turned her attention back to Malu. "Mother's favorite method, or at least her most common, was 'hey you flaming idiot, stop doing that and'."_

_"And what?"_

_"And whatever she had on her mind. As far as I can tell, she did not much approve of most of the things which Sha-Mo did... ever," Nila shrugged. "However, he is a military man, and will probably take the information as it is given."_

_"You'd probably know more about militaries than I would," Malu admitted. "We weren't exactly known for our fighting force. Heh. Must have been why I had to hide in a closet during the Day of Fire."_

_Nila didn't notice the suspicious glance Ashan gave the airbender at that, and continued walking. Tzu Zi looked positively delighted as she walked beside Nila, obvious now because she'd eschewed much of her cowl and hood. "I smell so pretty!" she said. "Who were those nice women?"_

_"They were trying to marry you off," Nila said._

_"Oh..." Tzu Zi said, making an 'oh no' face and glancing away. Malu laughed at that, a welcome if unexpected change. Usually, Nila was the target of Malu's barbs and laughter. "So... what're we doing?"_

_"Warning Sha-Mo that Khagan Khatun is coming, and then getting the hell out of the way before they decide to fight each other," Nila said. She gave a glance toward Malu. "What, did you assume that I would be sticking around for the 'epic battle'? I'd like to think I have more sense of self preservation than that."_

_"Isn't that a bit... I don't know... wimpy?" Malu asked._

_"I am no soldier. In fact, that is one of the few redeeming qualities of me to my mother's eyes. There are a hundred places I serve better than on a battle line," she stopped justifying herself as she reached one of the plate-and-chain armored Sipahi._

_"_Figures you'd come back, child_," the man said before Nila could get her first word out. "_How about you do us all a favor and emulate your mother? We'd all have less trouble that way._"_

_"_I have information that the Sheik is going to need to hear,_" Nila said._

_"_I'd bet you do,_" he said, and then did absolutely nothing. Nila began to scowl._

_"_Are you going to take me before him?_"_

_"_He has no ear for bastards and troublemakers,_" the Sipahi said. "_You find yourself both._"_

_"_That is unkind, Mahmet Beih,_" Ashan said. "_This could be important_."_

_"_I don't need your help,_" Nila snapped. "_There is information the Sheik must hear. After that, I'll gladly leave. I need to find my mother, after all._"_

_"_And why would I care about that?_"_

_"_Please, Mahmet Beih,_" Ashan said with a level of diplomacy which Nila was fairly sure herself incapable of. "_What is a matter of minutes? What is a few minutes to the Sheik, on a day such as this? Surely he can hear them between his other tasks._"_

_Mahmet gave a glance to Nila, which shifted into a nod toward Ashan. "_So you see that some bastards at least can learn proper manners. Somebody ought teach you better, girl. Fine. If it will get you out of my beard, then you may have your two minutes. If I come to regret this, I shall pass that regret onto you, however._"_

_Nila rolled her eyes. "Well, there's one less problem," she muttered._

_"What did he say?" Tzu Zi asked._

_"I'm going to see the Sheik. Ashan, make sure nobody gets arrested or married while I'm in there with him?" Nila said. Malu scowled._

_"Arrested? Why would we get arrested?" she asked._

_"Too many reasons to count," Nila said sotto._

_"Are you sure you don't want a friendly face in there?" Ashan asked._

_"And since when are you friendly?" Nila asked. "As I recall, it was your fault that Senebi brained me with that brick!"_

_Ashan sighed. "Things got... out of control," he admitted. His grin returned, a bit uneasy. "It would have been funny if there hadn't been bloodshed!"_

_Nila shook her head with disbelief, and turned toward the building of the magistrate. While larger than Mother's home, particularly in its current state, it was only the biggest single building on Sentinel Rock by a hair. Whatever Sha-Mo was doing here, she couldn't guess, but here he was. She moved through the layers of Sipahi guards, with Mehmet at her back as though transporting a prisoner. Of course, she hadn't thought that at the time. She was just eager to see this farce over with._

_The door banged open, and the Sheik turned away from his legal counterpart, looking upon Nila with the sort of disdain that she was quite used to. "_What is the meaning of this intrusion, bastard?_" the Sheik asked._

_"_She claims to have information for you_," Mehmet interrupted Nila from speaking, which earned him a glare from the girl in question._

_"_And why would I want to hear it?_" Sha-Mo asked. Mehmet shrugged, and was about to torpedo her case, so she interrupted him for a change._

_"_The Dakongese are moving north into the desert. Most likely they are going to press toward Ibn-Atal_," Nila said succinctly._

_"_Really_."_

_"_Indeed. They are united under one Khagan. The former Khatun Noyan_."_

_Sha-Mo shook his head. "_This is impossible. Borte is dead,_" he claimed._

_She sighed. "_Reports of Behi Borte's death were greatly exaggerated, it seems. She's united the entire Dakongese people behind her banner, and they have refugees from Great Whales supporting their push north._"_

_Sha-Mo started to smile at that. It was a condescending smile. "_And how did you invent this little fantasy? Have you become as simple as your brother in your absence?_"_

_Nila took an angry step toward the Sheik, heedless of the sounds of drawn steel around her. "_I offer no fantasy. Borte has gathered a mighty horde and will attack soon. I was her prisoner only weeks ago. I saw the signs of her approach only days ago._"_

_"_The Dakongese are not approaching. Our scouts would have reported back were they,_" Sha-Mo said with intolerable smugness._

_"_Then perhaps they've overtaken your scouts!_" Nila said. "_Can you please not be a sand-brained idiot for one moment and at least fight for your own survival?_"_

_Even as the words came from her mouth, she had the notion that they might have been a bad idea. Strange, how even a year ago, that thought would never have occurred to her. Sha-Mo stood._

_"I_ have been very patient to even have you in my presence. My patience has run out. Beih, remove this filth from my sight,_" the Sheik ordered. Nila felt herself being grabbed from behind._

_"Damn your eyes! _You're going to get everybody here killed!_" Nila shouted._

_"_Come along, child_," Mehmet said wearily, hauling her bodily away._

_"_The Horde is coming, two hundred thousand strong!_" Nila continued yelling. "_They're coming here!_ Why won't you listen to common sense!"_

_With a heave, she was thrown to the ground outside the magistrate. Mehmet stared down at her for a moment, before turning on his heel, heading back into the building, and barring the doors from within. It was the airbender, in fact, that helped her to her feet._

_"I take it that didn't go very well," Malu said._

_"They won't see reason," Nila said distantly. "What do I do now?"_

_"You said you were going to leave, right?" Malu asked, but Nila leaned against a building, cradling her head, her fingers pushing through short hair._

_"What do I do?" she asked herself again. But as before, she had no answers._

"Well, standing around here isn't going to do anything," Tzu Zi said with some firmness. They're out there, and the fighting will start soon. We've gotta get you out!"

"Yeah," Malu said. "He who fights and runs away can run away another day."

"Was that sarcasm, miss?" Ashan asked.

"Sort...of?" she said.

"Does anybody know how to pick a lock?" Ashan then asked. There was a long silence, broken by Sharif coughing in the background.

"Fine, I'll do it myself, just get me some slivers of metal. Those utensils will do," Nila said. Malu handed the eating implements, odd of construction though they were, to Nila, who set about attacking the lock from the other side of it. "This might take a while."

"I'm still confused. Why's she in prison?" Tzu Zi asked.

"It's a long story, my friend," Ashan said with a sigh.

* * *

><p>"I still can't get over how big these things are," Sokka said, staring at eye level at a Polarbear Dog who was five feet tall at the haunch. Yue was riding on its back, of course, looking every inch of her the imperious princess. The soldiers on the Spikerim heartened at the very sight of her, though, so he couldn't say anything against her choice of pomp.<p>

"Don't you have Polarbear Dogs in the south?" Yue asked.

"Yeah, but they're about this big," Sokka said, holding his hand out level with his hip. "Great for hunting. Not so great for riding. Well, after you're six, anyway. How do you get yours so massive?"

"They've been bred for war for generations," she said. "Naga here is our finest bitch. When she passes on, the greatest of the next generation will be Naga."

"So you just name them all Naga, then?" Sokka asked.

"Just the best," she said. A smile graced her lips. "A century ago, we prepared our finest bitch for the arrival of the Avatar... after he didn't appear, we... well, here I am," she said. "I've had Naga at my side since the war began."

Sokka could see the Fire Nation'd be hard pressed to try attacking something that big. In a scrap between a Komodo Rhino and a Polarbear Dog, he'd put money on the latter. After all, what they lacked in impenetrable hide they made up for in their bite and strong front legs. "Why do you do this?" Sokka asked. "Put your neck on the line all the time?"

"Because I love my people," she said quietly. "I'd do anything for them."

"Yeah, but your father must be worried out of his mind every time you come out here," Sokka stressed. She shook her head.

"Father agrees my place is here," she said.

That didn't sound right at all. "What? I'm pretty sure if Dad had any choice, he'd ship us the hell away from Summavut in a second. Why would your father want you to be here?"

"He knows what we need to win this war. I know my father has my best interests at heart," she said. Sokka shook his head.

"I'm starting to wonder. Have you talked to Dad recently? There's some scary stuff going on up here," Sokka pointed out, preparing to rattle off the litany, but she shook her head briskly.

"I have to trust my father," she said.

"Why?" Sokka asked.

"...because he's my father," she said. "Don't you trust your father?"

"Of course, but that's because Dad's never done anything to make me or my sister doubt him," Sokka said. There was a moment of silence as they walked along the smooth pass which had likely been cut especially for Yue's passage along the Spikerim. "Listen... about that kiss in Henhiavut..."

"That was a mistake," Yue said.

"Whoa whoa whoa, let's not go that far," Sokka said. "I was just a bit confused by it, that's all."

"No, I mean I shouldn't have done that," Yue said. She turned to him, and he felt himself melting into his boots. "I care about you... you're kind and funny and brave... but it won't work. It can't work."

"Wh... why not?" Sokka asked. "Because you're a princess and I'm just some South Water Tribe peasant?"

She shook her head, and from the pain on her face, he could tell she was trying very hard not to cry. "It's because... it's too late," she said. With a tut, the beast came to a halt, and she slid down its back to Sokka's side. She laid one hand on his, as though trying to gain strength from it. With the other, she carefully flattened the white furs that cradled her neck, and showed that there was an intricately cut necklace there. Sokka just looked from it, to her, with no understanding on his face. "It's an engagement necklace. I'm getting married."

"What?" Sokka asked, feeling his heart sink. "But... why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you made me happy," she said so quietly, almost ashamed. "It's been a long time since anybody was like you up here. It's been almost a year since I heard somebody laugh, and you never stop."

"Well... do you love the guy?" Sokka asked, quite painfully. "Wait, _who is_ the guy?"

"You've met him," Yue said, starting to walk, and breaking that intimate connection between them. Naga followed after, ears constantly flicking toward the down slope of the Spikerim. "He was the young man who helped conn the ship."

"Hahn?" Sokka asked. "That condescending snake?"

"Sokka, please don't talk about him like that," Yue said.

"Why not? I think I've got the right," Sokka said, as he felt his hopes dashing against sharp and pointy rocks.

"It was arranged," Yue said. "The people need this union."

"You're not marrying your people," Sokka stressed.

"But I will do anything for them," she answered. "I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have led you on."

That, Sokka pondered as he felt himself wallowing at the bottom of some pit of miasma and despair, was an understatement. He wallowed thus for a time he couldn't have named, only snapping out of it when his perspective, which was the snow directly before his boots, changed somehow. Now that he had a problem for his brain to work over which wasn't romantic, it flew into hyperdrive. He gave a glance to Yue, and noted that she looked a bit paler than usual. That he could turn away from her at that point told that his brain was in 'science mode'. He picked up a scoop of it, looking over the oddly gray snow. He sniffed at it, then tapped it to his tongue.

"Tui La," she whispered.

"Soot," Sokka said, confused, after spitting the rancid mixture away. He pulled off a glove and tested the winds. Blowing in from the south. "South... that's Henhiavut. That must mean..." Sokka looked up, and saw that the clouds over head weren't the usual thunderheads that attempted to bury the Spikerim under yet more ice. They were black as coal and probably containing quite a bit of it, letting down a snow as black as Sozin's reputation.

"We've seen this before," Yue said. "Pelting down on the streets of Summavut."

"Snow mixed with ash from steam engines," Sokka concluded. "The Fire Nation is coming north again, and from the look of that," he pointed to the grey wall of sickly snow, the oily skim upon the ocean, "there's a lot of them."

"We need to contact Father," Yue said.

"We need to contact Dad, and Aang," Sokka countered. "How fast can that thing get you to the edge of the Rim? Or wherever Aang is..."

"Less than an hour," she answered. Her eyes grew wide. "Sokka, what about..."

"These guys don't have Dad and they won't have you. Somebody's gotta think for 'em," Sokka said. They stood, staring into each others' eyes. Then, they were in each others' arms, a desperate embrace, pulling each other close.

"Why did you have to be so brave?" she asked.

"Someone had to," Sokka said. "Go. I'll be here, waiting."

One last glance between them, and then she was pulling herself up her Polarbear Dog, and sprinting along the distance which separated them from the edge of the Spikerim, and from there, the city itself. Sokka started running toward the nearest spot where the waterbenders were gathering.

"The Fire Nation's going to be here soon," Sokka said as they noticed him.

"Obviously," the grizzled waterbender said.

"Well, when they get here, they're going to find a nasty surprise waiting for them," Sokka said, and began to explain himself in detail. At first, they were so skeptical, he could feel it dancing along his skin. But in time, a grim sort of approval took its place. None were kin but those who shed blood for their homeland, and this outsider, to their eyes, was preparing to do exactly that. Sokka just hoped the blood about to be spilt wasn't his.

* * *

><p>Zhao looked upon the Spikerim, that great wall of ice which surrounded the harbor of Summavut, kept their ships outside of barraging range. It stood like a mountain. And despite that, he was not impressed. His grin had shrunk back down to a superior smirk, but he still felt... electric. "This will be a day for the history books, Kwon," Zhao said.<p>

"Sir?" Kwon asked.

"Kaji, you've commanded this force for a year. How is it you've so successively failed at breaching this pittance of a defensive position?"

Kaji, who was standing quietly near the door, sighed. "We couldn't get through them."

"That's because you're an idiot," Zhao stated. "We outnumber the savages hundreds to one. Your failure to leverage that will not be forgotten," he pointed to the east and west. "As we speak, the ships of this fleet are flaring out, ready to concentrate their efforts onto three spots. The barbarians may be able to stem the destruction from one breach, but I guarantee you, they will not withstand three," with that, he leaned forward on the rail. "Centuries from now, the history books will remember me as the man who single-handedly brought an end to waterbending culture the whole world over. Such a remarkable age we live in."

"History is seldom so kind to its subjects," Kaji said quietly. Zhao's smirk turned to a scowl.

"Your failures will be on your own head, because of your own ineptitude. History remembers what the victors remember. This will be my day of victory," Zhao shouted. With that out of his system, he raised a hand. "And so ends an age. Begin firing, all batteries."

And Zhao's smirk returned, as hundreds upon hundreds of streaks of death, be they explosive trebuchet blocks or heavy mortar shells, streaked through the sky, and shattered that ice under their onslaught. Just a matter of time, now.

* * *

><p>Watching the Tribesmen mobilize for war was a terrifying thing, especially to an avowed pacifist. The way they dropped whatever they were doing, and raced out to the battle jarred him on a very visceral level. These people had nothing left that was more important. Sometimes, it was a matter of handing a child aside, taking up the spear, and running. And that felt so very, very wrong. Of the Tribesmen handy, there were only two that did not take to preparing for a run toward the Spikerim. One of them was Sokka and Katara's father. The other was Yue's.<p>

"The air before battle," Arnook said, smiling in that unsettling way, his eyes afire and unblinking.

"There is nothing worse," Hakoda said. Arnook scowled at him like he was speaking madness.

"This battle will see our victory, outsider," Arnook claimed. That scowl became a condescending smirk. "Or aren't you going to fight at all? I expected better of my counterpart."

Hakoda was mum, but Aang was deeply unsettled. There was an aura of insane invulnerability around the High Chief of the North, that the battle would be universally too terrified to touch him, a creeping sensation up Aang's spine which made him want to stand well back from the man. Arnook shook his head, then started to stomp away. Aang turned to Hakoda.

"Why didn't you stand up for yourself?" Aang asked.

"Because part of being High Chief is knowing when to curb your pride," Hakoda said. "My wounds may have healed, but I doubt I'm the fighter I was even a month ago. And there are other duties I have to perform here."

Aang nodded at that. "I wasn't there when the Fire Nation attacked my people. Maybe this time I can make a difference," he said.

"Arnook his playing his people against each other to rule in their blind wrath," Hakoda said. "This madness has to stop."

Aang nodded, then snapped open his glider, taking to the sky. The ground screamed along under him as he pulled the bison whistle from his kavi and gave a great blow. Appa rose up to meet him, and together, they screamed across the open water at tremendous speed, to the battleground of the Spikerim. He didn't like what he saw there.

At first, naïvely, he assumed that there would be a few dozen ships. When he actually saw the force arrayed against him, he stopped counting after fifty, and that having only tallied a small portion of one of the three massive attack squadrons. But despite that early shake, he knew what he had to do. He banked hard on Appa's reins, bearing the beast toward one of the ships which had pulled ahead of its ilk, breaking for a whole which was constantly being blown wider by its confederates, even as the waterbenders on the Rim sought to bring it closed. Aang leapt off of Appa's back and streaked toward the deck, slamming into a ball of airbending which felt like he was a normal kid jumping off the top of a tree. It hurt, but the side effect was that the ball hurled aside the soldiers who'd been waiting for him. He glanced around the deck, and noted that they were converging on him with a remarkable speed. Usually, they took a moment to recompose themselves at least.

Then, he noticed the colors on the standards. Not red and black. Red and purple. "Oh... monkey-feathers," Aang said. The first of them to reach Aang was a swordsman, brandishing some sort of saber. Aang had to parry and retreat to keep that blade from gashing him apart. The defense was absolute, and Aang could see that he'd get no help from Appa, as they were keeping the bison at bay with their firebending. But they didn't spend all of it on Appa. There was the slightest crack in the swordsman Gurkha's attack, and as Aang began to press that attack, he saw that it was no simple mistake. It was a feint, and another Gurkha was filling the air with fire to intercept. It took all of Aang's reflexes to twist the stave into a defensive twirl, and blast that fire apart, then strike through them and blow the firebender against the rail. The failed feint didn't give way to real vulnerability, but Aang didn't require it. With a heave of waterbending, he pulled up a tendril from the ice on the deck and froze the man's feet to the ground. Now, with at least an inch of breathing room, he could assay the deck better. A glance was all he had, because other Gurkhas were coming.

Aang created a scooter, but not to fly with. He built it bigger, until it was more than the size of his torso, then slammed it down onto the deck, before rupturing its heart with a bead of airbending as he balanced atop it on one finger. The winds spiraled out, sweeping the decks and sending a few of the elite of the Fire Nation's soldiery into the cold sea. It was physically painful to watch that happen, but he didn't have time for pain, not not. This ship wasn't as large as some of the others on the line, but was armed with some sort of weapon that Aang had never seen before. It wasn't a trebuchet, as he'd noted on other Fire Nation ships, but some sort of thick-sided bowl. Sokka described them as 'mortars' or 'cannon'. Even as those Gurkhas which hadn't been blown off were regaining themselves, Aang was already moving.

The mortar was on a sort of platform, which allowed it to be brought out of harms way on angry seas. Its armament was stacked in a rack next to it. Aang grabbed one of the shells and tried to hurl it into the cannon, but almost dropped it onto the plating. The thing was bloody heavy! It took most of his upper body strength to get the thing into the bell of the cannon, and when he did, he made sure to put it the wrong way 'round. His attempts at sabotage were almost brought to an end when a flinch took him out of the path of a spear, and he turned to see that those Gurkhas had closed on him, and were preparing to make an end of him. But Aang's fear was tempered by one thing. By focusing on the Avatar, they were forgetting about the bison.

Appa landed with a great whump on the deck, turned, and slammed its tail down, a great airbending wave which only Aang could root himself against. The dozen and more soldiers who were a second away from murdering the Avatar flew past him, slamming as far up as the first balcony of the boat's tower. Aang, freed from such distractions, slammed waterbending into that gap between the platform and the works under it. He felt something tearing, sheering away. The entire platform dipped to one side. Aang took the ember which had been maintained next to the cannon, and touched it to the bamboo fuse, which let out a hiss and sparks. Aang twisted once more that waterbending, and the entire platform dropped down into the innards of the ship. There were some alarmed screams, and the sounds of fleeing into the stern, which stung all the harder at Aang as he climbed onto Appa. They'd be fine, he told himself. It was just the ship Aang was wrecking.

Maybe he was even right.

As he rose away from the ship, there was a great bang, and a hole appeared on the side of the hull, blasted from within by its own cannon. The ship began to list, as Aang caught his breath on Appa's brow. One down. Four hundred to go. Wiping that sweat away, Aang could do nothing but groan, as he pulled on Appa's reins, and directed them to the next ship. He could only hope that this one would be a bit easier to deal with than that Gurkha death-ship.

Boy was he wrong.

* * *

><p>"The forces of the Fire Nation break their teeth against the Spikerim once more," Arnook said as he paced before his assembled horde. "It is with great pride that I've gathered my family and my Tribe before me, knowing that even if these faces are never seen again, even if they rejoin our fathers and mothers in the stars, they will have died with their hands slick with the blood of our enemies! As five years ago, we are in a battle for our very existence, and there can be no finer fighters than those I see before me!"<p>

Hakoda couldn't disagree with that harder. In his two years abroad, he'd seen soldiers of all stripe and description. From the Dakongese mercenaries at the Divide, to the dispirited corps from Ru Nan. They were exuberant and despondent, excellently trained and ill, focused and chaotic; Hakoda had seen every stripe of soldier, but compared to what he saw now, even the worst of them was a Gurkha, a Yeniceri, and a mythical Storm King rolled into one.

There was a madness which crept through the room, infecting and infesting itself into every face that Hakoda saw staring up at Arnook, as their madness suckled desperately at its source. The worst part was, Hakoda could understand and appreciate what these people had gone through. Years of desperate fighting gives rise to desperate fighters. Hakoda had taken a similar force and made a band of brothers of it. Arnook, though, let that fear blossom into a desperate madness. Hakoda had only in his entire life seen one man who was definitively blood-drunk before his return to Henhiavut. Here, he stopped counting at two hundred.

"Now, as we return to the battle for our existence, Irukandji, I demand you; Call upon the great Spirits!" Irukandji, standing behind Arnook, surreptitiously rolled her eyes. "Spirit of the Ocean! Spirit of the Moon! Be with us! Give us the strength to destroy our enemies!"

"GIVE US STRENGTH!" a chorus answered him. There were a few notable absences from that, though, and the High Shaman was only one of them. The other was a middle aged woman who kept her eyes on the floor before her knees. Arnook's wife, Tanuuit. Pakku, too, didn't look like he was very willing in this whole charade.

"To the Spikerim! Let's drive those hot-blooded bastards all the way back to black sands!" Arnook shouted, and with a cry, the men began to file out, leaving Arnook, his wife, his daughter, the waterbender, and Hakoda himself. Arnook turned his frozen gaze to Yue. "Well? Aren't you going to lead them?"

Hakoda bit his tongue to prevent harsh and ill considered words. Yue looked exhausted, and her beast was every bit as tired as she was. She looked at Arnook, with a sort of unvoiced pleading in her eyes. Whatever it was she was asking for, though, Arnook didn't have it to offer. He turned away, and her eyes fell to the floor, a sad tinge on her features.

"I'll leave immediately," she said.

"Good," Arnook said. "The men value you. You are important to their efforts."

Arnook then walked away, opposite his daughter and the men he was 'leading'. As soon as the door slammed behind him, Hakoda released the angry growl he'd been storing for quite a while now. "He has no right to treat you like that," Hakoda said.

"Arnook is her father," Tanuuit said quietly.

"That does not mean he owns her," Hakoda countered. "If I tried to order Katara around like that, she'd peg me out for a blizzard, and be right to do it."

"You can't talk about him that way," Tanuuit said, but her heart was obviously more full of self-preservatory fear than it was scandal and outrage.

"Everything that's happened here is because _nobody_ talked to him that way. Did you, Pakku?" Hakoda asked, thrusting out a finger.

"At first... but eventually," Pakku shook his head.

"He beat you down until you were too tired to care anymore," Hakoda finished for him. He turned to Irukandji. "And I wager you–"

"Hell, I'm just here because I don't want my home getting eaten," Irukandji said with raised hands. Hakoda paused for a moment, trying to figure out if it was some sort of North Water Tribe idiom, but shook his head and continued.

"And Tanuuit, you can't approve of how he's treating your daughter," Hakoda finished.

"It's... not my place to say," she whispered.

"Not your place? You're her mother!" Hakoda stressed. "Has he got you all so terrified of the Fire Nation that you can't see he's turning you into something worse?"

"And what would you have us do? Give up?" Pakku asked.

"Never. I'd ask you to think hard about what you're fighting for. Cities? They can be rebuilt. Ideas? They can be reconsidered. What's so important that you won't find some place safer to settle and rebuild? Why can't you let Summavut go?"

"Because if they win here, the Water Tribe is dead," Irukandji said.

"What?"

She palmed her face for a moment. "I suppose nobody's ever told you about the Spirit Oasis, have they?"

* * *

><p>The sun's setting, low in the west, bathed the entire world in red. Not that the sun needed much help, because the sheer amount of fire that flew through the sky ensured that crimson be the strongest hue to the mortal eye. Sokka was exhausted. When he started working with Gunraih, he'd promised to leave the fighting to those who'd had the most experience with it, and offered to direct as needed and requested. The soldiers, desperate for somebody to give them cohesion, followed Sokka without question. Sokka found that very, very unsettling. And besides that, he'd had to break his own promise twice so far, fleeing from an overwhelmed portion of the Spikerim before it collapsed completely under Fire Nation attack.<p>

"We can't take another one," Gunraih said quietly. Unlike some of the others Sokka had the misfortune of dealing with, Gunraih's eyes didn't hold that lunatic vigor. He might have only been ten or so years older than Sokka, but the man's face was a portrait of chronic stress, his hair already turning grey. "Our waterbenders are spent and there's still hours until sunset."

"What do we do, man?" Lana, a middle aged waterbender who was obviously a far better healer than fighter, asked. She looked about as at home on the battlefield as Sokka would in the Spirit World. "We're running out of fighters and benders both!"

Sokka sat against the icy wall, cradling his head in his hands. Ironic that he had once demanded leadership. Now that he had it, he just wanted it to end. His mind felt like it was packed with fluff, his limbs burned with fatigue, and his club was shattered about a mile back. He pulled himself up, looking at the insane fleet which gathered there, pressing in on them. There was just no way to win this.

"She's coming!" the cry came up, and a hurray joined it. Sokka turned, and saw Naga sprinting along the Spikerim, Yue clinging to his back. Sokka let out a grumble and moved toward her, cutting her distance a little, at least.

"Sokka, you," Yue began, surprise in her voice.

"Yue, we have to get off of the Spikerim," Sokka interrupted. Her look became shock, and even a bit of disapproval.

"But if we lose the Spikerim, they'll have clear access to our harbor," she said. Sokka growled, and threw his hand aside, to the far side of the Rim, just visible at the horizon.

"They've already got clear access to the harbor," Sokka shouted. "The only thing we're doing here now is throwing more bodies into a meat grinder."

"But... but we can still win this," Yue said, not entirely sure of it herself.

Sokka shook his head. "I'm sorry, but there's no winning, not here. If we move back into the city, we'll _survive_. We won't even slow them down if we stay here. They've broken the Spikerim. It's time for us to leave," he said gently. Yue's eyes teared up, even as she struggled valiantly to hold a strong face. She swallowed hard, glancing down, then pulled on the reins which connected to the bridle 'round Naga's neck. She turned, facing Summavut.

"We withdraw to the city," she declared. She looked back at Sokka just once, like she wanted to be angry at him for telling her the truth, but she couldn't even do that. As that look lingered, the warriors of the North Water Tribe began to slip past them, carrying out their wounded, but leaving the dead. So many dead. Finally, a great crash shook their eyes away from each other, and down the length of the Spikerim. Roughly a mile back, whereabouts Sokka lost his club, a great spike of metal erupted from the flesh of the wall, before with a rumble and a crash, the ice gave way to steel and momentum. Physics had a way of winning against bending, most times. "Sokka, I..."

"Just go," Sokka shouted. "I'll catch up with you."

And as the sun touched the horizon, he really hoped he would.

* * *

><p>"My Lord, the sun is setting," Kwon said.<p>

"If I wanted you to state the painfully obvious, I would have asked it of you," Zhao said, watching as the ships began to bust down the last remnants of the Spikerim and melt its slag into surf. Then, as a final insult to the barbarians who thought to keep them out, the whole of the fleet parked itself atop the ruins.

"Kaji's reports indicate that the waterbenders are far stronger at night, drawing strength from the moon," Kwon clarified. "Far be it for me to advise the lord, but it might be prudent to wait until we leave their arena of strength, and return to ours."

"I have something in mind that will eliminate that temporary advantage of theirs," Zhao said, but he gave a shrug and a sigh. "But until then, daybreak it is."

Kwon nodded, then looked out over the oceans. He was about to watch the end of an era, as the soldiers under Sozin had a century before. And truthfully, he didn't feel pride about it. All he felt was a deep sense of trepidation, a worry that settled into his skin as the rattle of chains filled the air, as hundreds of ships dropped anchor, and waited for the sun.

* * *

><p>Sokka amended his condition. He thought he was tired before. <em>Now<em> he was tired. The only reason he could even stand was because Katara and the other skilled healers had moved triage right to the edge of the former Spikerim, and his sister found him amongst the wheezing wounded. She couldn't give him more than a few words and a considerate squeeze of the hand, though, before she had to break off and work on others in far worse condition than he. While Sokka wouldn't say it, for the obvious reason that if he did she might injure him, he was proud, watching her healing the wounded.

A bass grumble sounded from the sky, and Sokka craned his neck up from his seat on a broken barrel. Appa slipped down and landed in a clear spot which used to be a building before a mortar shell reduced it to a slide of ice-chunks. Aang oozed off of Appa's brow like boneless goop, pooling in the scree near the other Tribesmen. Katara and Sokka both moved to their long time companion and surrogate family member, she to heal and he to interview. Aang shuddered as Katara's healing hands did a sweep of him.

"What happened out there?" Sokka asked. He could see, off in the distance, that Yue, too, was amidst the triage camp. And she was heading this way.

Aang cradled his bald pate in his hands. "I must have taken out two dozen Fire Navy ships today... but it wasn't enough!" he said, eyes wide but unfocused. "There's just too many..."

Sokka gave Aang's shoulder a squeeze, but Lana, who was more in her element here, gave a low wail. "But you have to," she stressed, trying to lay hands upon Aang. Katara was the one to keep the older woman back a step. "You're the Avatar!"

Aang tucked his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his hands. "I'm just one kid," Aang said quietly.

"Lana, give him some room," Sokka said. "He's exhausted. We all are."

"That's not what I want to hear from my fighters," a voice tore across the encampment. Sokka's blood began to boil as, even while Yue tried to reach them, to talk to them, Arnook caught her arm ungently and heaved her back toward the heart of town. She glanced back once more, then did as her father bade, words left unspoken. "I have never seen such rank cowardice in my life. I told you to hold the Spikerim, not to run at the first sign of difficulty!"

"High Chief, if we hadn't run, we would have all been crushed under the Spikerim when it fell," Lana said.

"I should have you flayed for your treason at the wall, woman," Arnook snapped, and she flinched away. Oddly, that was what it took to get Aang on his feet, outrage on his usually pleasant and impish face.

"Leave her alone!" Aang shouted at the grown man. "Everybody here's dead tired. Yeah, they didn't hold the wall, but I couldn't stop those ships either, and I'm the Avatar! There was no winning that fight."

"Your failure does not excuse theirs," Arnook said. Aang stared at him, Arnook stared back. And for once, it was Arnook who looked away first. "But this is immaterial. You. Soldiers. I have a special mission for you, to be carried out under the dark of night."

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"Not you. You are worthless to me," Arnook said, dismissing him.

"Hey, you lard-headed..." Katara said, stomping toward Arnook. Arnook answered by pulling his whale-tooth knife and intercepting her with it, holding her away with its jagged point to the front of her neck.

"You are not required either," he said. "Take the Avatar and find something _useful_ to do with him."

Sokka didn't think Katara in the least bit cowardly for backing off. From the look on Arnook's face, he would have cut her throat in a heartbeat. Aang looked about as shocked as Sokka felt. "W...what..." Aang stammered.

"As for the rest of you," Arnook said, turning his attention away from Katara and Aang, but that knife still in his grasp. "Your cowardice can only be repaid in the blood of our enemies. You will infiltrate the Fire Navy and eliminate their commanding officers, most especially their commander, whomever that may be."

"Admiral Zhao," Sokka said flatly. Arnook turned to him.

"Excuse me?" Arnook said.

"Middle aged, burn on his left eye, big sideburns, bigger psychotic streak," Sokka rattled off.

"So you know the face of the enemy. Good. Hahn," Arnook shouted at the teenager who was dumping a bundle onto the ground. Hahn looked up with trepidation. "You will be joining this mission to eliminate Admiral Zhao and seed pandemonium from within the fleet."

"What? But I didn't run from the Spikerim!" Hahn complained.

"So you would back down from this fight? Has cowardice so claimed my people that you don't feel the thirst for vengeance?" Arnook asked. "I must have been mad when I gave permission to marry my daughter to you."

"Fine," Hahn said, browbeaten. "I'll go, if only to show these slackers what a real Tribesman fights like."

"Do not disappoint me," Arnook said. He walked away, glaring at the Avatar before he left. Still, it was a testament to his presence that none dared speak until he was out of sight.

"I can't believe him!" Katara said. "What gives him the right to talk to any of us like that?"

"We left our posts," Lana said morosely.

"Your posts don't exist anymore!" Sokka stressed. "If you hadn't left them, all you could have done was died!"

"It doesn't matter," she said.

"I don't know why you're all whining. We've got Fire Navy uniforms and everything," Hahn said, dumping out the armor from his bundle. Sokka felt just a glimmer of hope, before he let out a groan. "Oh, what's wrong now? Will its colors clash with your belt?"

"Those aren't Fire Navy," Sokka said, kicking one of the breastplates over. It was obvious to any who had seen the various armies up close, but probably not to those who had to just kill anything wearing red. There was red and black, but the plates were piped with the kingly purple of the Far West. "Those are Azuli Navy. The Dragon of the East told me about them. Not as dangerous as Gurkhas, but they have the same dress code," Sokka punctuated his point by picking up one of the skull-masked helmets. "Most notably, they don't use these. They wear a wide-brimmed hat or a head wrap. Anybody wearing that armor and this helmet would be picked out in a heartbeat."

"He's sending you on a suicide mission?" Aang asked.

"He intended to," Sokka said. He turned to Lana. "You're a waterbender, right?" she nodded. "Get anybody who's willing to listen and get them to their boats. Arnook has gone crazy bonkers and he's going to get us all killed. We need to flee Summavut before somebody kills us."

"But if Summavut falls, the North Water Tribe dies with it," one of the fighters said.

"You can't be serious about this, Soka," Hahn said.

"Deadly serious, and it's Sokka," came the answer. He turned to that dissenting voice. "If everybody in the North Water Tribe dies, then what's the point of Summavut? This city isn't the North Water Tribe, any more than Chimney Mountain is the South. You are. As long as you live, the Water Tribe lives."

"This is foolish," Hahn complained. "Even if they do try to leave, as soon as Arnook sees them fleeing, then he'll have some of his zealots run them down before they can get away."

Sokka paused a moment. "So 'all of us' go on the mission," Sokka said deviously. Katara got a concerned look on her face. "Hahn and me actually get onto the ships. Everybody else, represented by propped up armor, goes with us. As far as Old-And-Crazy is concerned, we're all sailing to our glorious deaths. Get your family. If you find Dad... Hakoda of the South Water Tribe, he's probably got something similar planned on his own. He'll help you."

"We're betraying our Tribe," Lana said quietly.

"You're saving it, the only way you have left," Aang said. He shook his head. "There's gotta be something else I can do to help. If only there was some way to help fight this battle on a more even playing field."

Katara stared up at the rising moon. "Gran Gran once told me that the moon was the first waterbender, and that our people learned to control the waves by mimicking its control of the tides. I guess that's why my waterbending always felt so much stronger at night."

Hahn gave a confused nod, even as he started propping armor into the boat which would be making the suicide run. "Yeah. They say our strength comes from the spirits of the Moon and Ocean," he said. Sokka made a dismissing gesture, but hearing that made Aang brighten considerably.

"The spirits! Of COURSE!" Aang shouted, eyes wide. "They'll know what to do!"

"Is this kid serious?" Hahn asked.

"Not very often," Sokka admitted. He turned to Aang. "So what're you looking for?"

"Maybe they have some knowledge I can use against the Fire Nation," Aang said quickly. Then, he got a very excited look on his face. "Or maybe they'll unleash a super amazing deadly Spirit Bomb on them!"

There was a moment of silence, as everybody not preparing to march to their deaths or else flee Summavut stared at him. Somewhere in that silence, somebody's cough broke that spell.

"Or just the knowledge. That'd be good, I guess," Aang reined himself in.

"Yeah, well, if you wanna get yourself eaten by something crazy, you'd best talk to Irukandji or Yue. They know more about that crap than anybody else," Hahn said. "So are you getting into the boat or not, traitor?"

"Fine, fine," Sokka said. "Katara, keep Aang safe. Aang, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Keep the city nice and and warm for us when we get back."

"But what about that whole 'suicide mission' thing?" Katara asked flatly.

"I've got an idea that just might work," Sokka said, a grin returning to his face.

* * *

><p><em>"She hasn't moved in hours," Ashan noted, as he tossed his apron onto a peg which he placed outside the door. The smell of blood did unpleasant things to their resident vegetarian. Well, she claimed to be a vegetarian, but Ashan had never seen a eater of plants ogle a sizzling salamander steak the way Malu did. True to his word, Nila was exactly where Ashan left her that morning, sitting at the foot of her bed, staring ahead as his mother eternally did, but her mouth moving as though she were trying to figure something out inside her head, and couldn't come up with an answer.<em>

_"Oh, that's nothing," Malu countered. "'Cept for the bathroom, she hasn't moved in days!"_

_"I'm starting to worry," Tzu Zi said quietly. Sharif, on the other hand, was placidly tapping a new handle onto one of Ashan's knives, far more slow and careful than any craftsman, but no less sure for it. "I mean... it's not normal to shut out the world, is it?"_

_"No it is not," Ashan said. He moved to her side. "Nila? Are you hungry?"_

_Nila didn't answer him._

_"Are you uncomfortable?" he chanced._

_Nila didn't answer him._

_"_Would you like a swarthy young Si Wongi to goose you?_" Ashan asked with a grin._

_Nila didn't answer him... unless you count her turning her head to level a death glare at him an answer. Since he did, he accounted the gamble an outstanding success. "_What do you want, Ashan?_"_

_"_You're starting to frighten your friends,_" Ashan said. "_Although, I must say it's more surprising that you even made friends. You aren't exactly known for your honeyed words._"_

_"_I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do, now_," she said quietly, staring at that wall again, but with a more angry tone to her voice and expression than she had before. "_All my life has been a difficult but clear set of necessary actions. Now I have no course. I find myself lost_."_

_"Have you tried talking to your friends?" Ashan prompted. She glared at him, then sighed, and stood._

_"What do we do now?" she asked, even as Malu looked like she was about to say something. The directness and simplicity of it took them all aback. "I swore to my mother that I would find Sharif and bring him back to her. But in the interim, she's vanished. I am without course. So what do we do now?"_

_There was a moment of silence. "Well, we could go to Ba Sing Se like Tzu Zi wanted," Malu said._

_"But what about Sharif?" Tzu Zi asked._

_Nila rolled her eyes, but her tone was as implacable as granite. "He will come with us. There as nowhere else, we would be able to find somebody who could locate Mother. Even back in the days of the Monolith, they said 'all roads lead to Ba Sing Se'."_

_"That's... oddly optimistic coming out of you," Ashan noted._

_"I blame it on Tzu Zi," Nila said sarcastically. "Damn you for making me positive."_

_Tzu Zi leaned over to Ashan. "She considers that positive?" she asked._

_"You should have seen her before," Ashan answered her question. She shrugged._

_"We should gather what we need and leave soon," Nila said, her funk left behind and focus returning to her in buckets. "If the Sheik will not hear me, then he can deal with the Horde as he sees fit, but we should leave before he gets here. Otherwise, we might be counted amongst its victims."_

_"Well said," Ashan said. "Good luck, and godspeed."_

_"Wait, what about Ashan?" Tzu Zi asked._

_"What about him?" Nila asked. "You're not about to abandon your family, are you?"_

_"So you do know something about how a family is supposed to operate, then?" Ashan asked playfully. She rolled her eyes._

_"Each day is a new lesson. No, he has his mother, more or less, and his grandparents. They will not leave, and nor shall he," she nodded. Then, she turned to him. "You've shown me unusual kindness the past few days."_

_Ashan scoffed. "Please, hardly unusual. You are friends."_

_She seemed confused by that. "Friends? I almost strangled you to death!"_

_"All in good fun," Ashan said. "After all, I did get you bricked in the head. But can you at least stay for one last meal? I can give you something better than hard-tack and salt meats as a send-off. And you can come back some day and tell me of Ibn-Atal and all points north."_

_"Fine. If it will stop you from walking on shattered glass around me, I will have your one last meal. But I've got to get a few things before I do," she stretched, to a chorus of crunching joints that made every girl in the room wince. "I'll be back in a few hours. Try not to burn the house down."_

_"Hey," Tzu Zi said with disbelief and scandal._

_"I was talking to Ashan," she noted, before taking the door and leaving it open in her wake._

_"Did she just..." Malu began._

_"Make a joke?" Ashan completed. "It seemed like she did."_

_Malu looked a bit baffled by that._

"It'd take hours to explain everything," Ashan admitted. Maybe lied. "Mostly because there was a lot going on."

"Yeah, well, we're sorta a captive audience right now," Malu pointed out.

"I still don't understand how she ended up in that cell," Tzu Zi said. "Who do we even talk to about that?"

"Preferably nobody," Nila said from her awkward position wrapped 'round the cell's lock.

"But this isn't right!" Tzu Zi stated.

"And complaining about it loudly can't but help my ability to concentrate on picking this lock," Nila said sarcastically. "If you don't mind, I need some quiet."

"She's being oddly pleasant," Malu said.

"Time of the month," Ashan said. Malu gaped at him. "What? She's living at my house and I do the laundry. You think I wouldn't notice that?"

"Ew," Tzu Zi said. Malu looked even more confused.

"Don't people get irritable and angry then? I know I do," Malu said, rubbing her arms.

"Then you must have been this entire visit," Ashan said unkindly. "Nila here lives to confound expectations."

"Can we _please_ stop talking about my menarche and give me some quiet?" Nila asked, her tones dropping into the same sort of cold anger that usually got directed Ashan's way, and more often than not, entirely deservedly.

_The first indicator that something had gone wrong was that Nila missed dinner. Given Ashan's nature, he let the snub pass with a joke about her getting distracted by something shiny, sharp, on on fire. As he did, he glanced toward his old friend for a glimmer of that old Sharif, the boy before the scar. Sharif ate mechanically – no great surprise there, considering the wound robbed Sharif of his sense of smell and taste – and didn't register the joke at all. Ashan was preparing to clear the table when the girl from the west grew increasingly agitated._

_"Is something wrong?" Ashan asked._

_"I think I might have strained things with Nila and me," Tzu Zi said. Ashan sat beside her, prompting her on. "See, I treated Nila better than most people did, and she got a bit... attached. More attached than I thought she was. So she..."_

_"You treated her as a friend and she..." Ashan prompted, unable to see where she was going._

_"Made a move on me," she answered. He asked her to repeat that in a second Tianxia dialect just to be sure that it meant what he thought it did._

_"But... you're both girls," Ashan said._

_"I know! I'm not interested in girls! Kah Ri, definitely. Ty Lee probably, but me? No, no no no no," she shook her head and her hands before her._

_"How would that even...?"_

_"Don't strain yourself, village boy," Malu said. Ashan then rolled his eyes._

_"Well, Izez does as Izes wills," he said, "even if it is bloody unnatural," he added at a mutter. He cleared his throat and pressed on, though. "Look, a lot of people have been cruel to that girl over the years. Her mother might have taught good lessons, but tended to do so in the worst ways possible. It's understandable... I guess... that she'd feel... warmly... about..."_

_"You're still trying to think about it, aren't you?" Malu teased._

_"There aren't even the proper workings!" Ashan stated the obvious._

_"Girls find a way," Malu said with a shrug. "So folk kicked Nila around, and as soon as somebody came along who didn't, she latched on like a duck. Isn't that sweet? Nila's a duck!"_

_Sharif looked over. "Shme's not a dmuck, shme's a pershom," he said around his food. He mouthed it a bit more. "Oddly shticky."_

_"Well, I've got a mental image which'll render her death glares moot," Malu noted. She gave a glance to the door. "But I'm with ya. There's something about this that stinks of wrong. The only way it'd be worse was if Sozin came knocking at the front gates."_

_"That would be weird," Tzu Zi noted, but Ashan's brow twitched again. As trusting a person as he was, he knew when something didn't fit. That was the way it had been even in their childhoods. Ashan saw how things fit, Sharif put them together, and then Nila set them on fire. And something in this very room desperately didn't fit._

_"I'm going to go check," Ashan said. "Malu, since you ate five times as much as the rest of us, you can clean up."_

_"But..." she complained. He raised a brow at her, and she wilted. "Fine."_

_Ashan didn't bother pulling his cloak and veil over his head as he ducked outside, and immediately regretted it, because the wind from the north was cold, and bore with it stinging sand. It must have been a mighty storm at Ibn-Atal to send the waves of the Grit Ocean into such a tumult. But it didn't matter. He'd not be out here so long as to lose more than one layer of skin, anyway. Or so he planned._

_Pity, Ashan's plans from pretty much that point forward in his life wouldn't go as he'd believed._

_He pondered how he was going to find Nila on Sentinel Rock. Unlike other cities, like Ibn-Atal or Ababa, it wasn't spread out as the people needed, but rather, dug down. It was telling how much Grandfather was respected in his role as Darvesh that he got a home in the sun. Quite a few dwelt below, in darkness, only coming up to work and in the service of their living. Soldiers' families, mostly, those that had such. More and more, nowadays, the Sipahi bloodlines, once kept strong through broad families and multiple wives, fell into dust as children stopped springing from the loins of warriors. He pondered, and the discovered that all he had to do was follow the yelling._

_He started to run when the yelling evolved from unpleasant to vitriolic, and by the time Ashan arrived, it had bloomed from vitriolic to murderous. He reached the meeting just in time to have a great shout come up from a crowd which, as the name presumed, crowded Ashan back and out of seeing what was ahead, but he could hear._

_"_Just apologize, and that'll be that,_" Gashuin said, ever the smug one. The Sheik's only son had that tendency._

_"_I would rather prostitute myself to an Ostrich Horse_," Nila's answer was shocking and angry. "_It was your fault, and you know it_."_

_"_You messed up my shirt!_"_

_"_You stole my money_!"_

_"_Only a bastard like you would filthy your hands with gold_," Gashuin countered._

_"_Only a superstitious idiot like you would realistically believe that gold was cursed!_" Nila shouted back. Ashan could only see this going one way, so he began to work his way through the crowd, trying to reach Nila before something unforgivable happened._

_"_Hey, Gashuin, teach that lippy bitch a lesson!_" one of Gashuin's cronies shouted._

_"_I'm glad I'm leaving,_" Nila said. "_The Dakongese can tire themselves trying to club your brains out, and only discovering as the last of them dies of exhaustion that you have none!_"_

_Ashan reached the head of the crowd just as something unforgivable happened. Gashuin backhanded Nila in the face, hard enough to knock her from her feet. He began to kick at her, driving his boot into her stomach as he shouted profanities at her, only to stop with a high shriek and bounce away clutching his kicking foot. That foot now leaked scarlet. Nila forced herself slowly to her feet, obviously favoring her ginger abdomen. The crowd went silent as Gashuin toppled onto the dust, sobbing quietly at his stabbed extremity._

_"Oh... no," Ashan said. Nila smirked._

_"_I'll just be going_," Nila said at Gashuin's rolling form._

_"_GET HER!_" the crowd demanded as one. Ashan quickly found himself pressed to the bottom of that mass, and lightly trampled, but by the time he could rise, the gang was moving off, likely finding a proper beam to lynch her from. Ashan got back upright as quickly as he could, but as he did, there was a single thing which held his attention more than the mortal fate of his friend's sister. Lucky for him that the Sheik had intervened before mob-justice could be served; Ashan's attention was past the walls, into the night._

_There were lights moving in from the south. Many, many lights._

A clunk and a triumphant laugh signaled Nila's defeat of the lock, and the door swung open. She tossed the eating utensil aside and stepped out of the cell. "There. Mother's tricks came to some use after all, it seems."

"We should go," Malu said, obviously antsy to get away, and Ashan knew why.

"I assume you've prepared, so let us make haste," she said, still moving a bit slowly for her bruises. She made it two steps before she stopped, and turned back. She looked at Ashan for about two seconds, then sighed. "I'm overlooking something. Why didn't the guard stop me at _any_ point when I was ruining that perfectly good lock?"

"Well," Ashan said, thinking of the best way to say it. "I've got good news and bad news."

Nila groaned.

"The good news is that I'm certain that nobody will be paying attention to your escape from that cell," Ashan said. Nila palmed her face. "And for the bad... well, some things are better shown than said."

Nila beat Ashan to the door, then tried to open it. It didn't move.

"You're locked in?"

Sharif perked up. "Oh, right," he said. "They barred the door. Sorry, my mind? It wanders some times. Patriarch?"

There came a scraping noise, and then Nila pushed the door out, only to be face to face with an old, mangy Ostrich Horse. Ashan had never seen worse meat on the talon, but the way it stared at Nila made her swallow nervously, before it took a couple of steps back. Ashan gaped at it. "Did you train that fowl to do that?"

"Patriarch learned how to do that years ago," Sharif said. He walked up and patted the side of the bird's neck, and it's head swiveled toward the closest outer wall. "It's alright, we'll be leaving soon."

"What exactly can only be shown, and not said?" Nila demanded, pushing past sibling and conveyance alike. She bounded up and started pulling herself up the nearest building with the sort of alacrity which only having a mother like the Dragon of the Desert could instill. Ashan had to run around and use the stairs. When he arrived on the flat roof with her, to see the hundred thousand and more soldiers below, he couldn't help but sigh.

"Khagan Khatun is here," Nila said grimly.

"Open your gates, desert rats," the woman in question shouted in the darkness of late night. "If you do, I will spare your women and children."

"We would rather slit their throats then deliver them to your mercies," the Sheik answered at a roar.

"Then we have differing definitions of mercy. Where is the Dragon? What worm do I speak with?" Khatun demanded.

That seemed to get the Sheik in a fighting mood, for he stood apart from his guard, proud on the walls. "I am Sheik Sham'Moalim-al-Adil bin Hamid din Nassar, and you will speak to me and no other!"

"Your words are the barking of goat-pigs," Khatun answered. "Produce the Dragon this minute."

"The Dragon is not here, and were she, she would not speak to a beast such as you," Sha-Mo shouted to her.

Khatun stared up at him, then sighed, only evident in the way she shrugged. "Pity," she shouted. "Were she here, she might have had a clever plan to keep me out of your little sand castle. Since she isn't, this victory will be over before we've even had time for sport."

"Brave words, outlander!" the Sheik said.

"More than words," she answered, then raised a hand. The snap of her fingers was lost to the distance and the din, but from her horde came into the pool of light cast by their torches a group of people dressed quite differently from the others, not in skins and leathers, but linen and wool. Ashan didn't know quite what to make of it... but Nila obviously did.

"The waterbenders, the Adamites," she said. "Of course, _that's_ why she took them in," she said.

"What do you mean?" Ashan asked.

Answering Ashan's question, they did some sort of bending, bringing forth an eye-popping amount of water, and dashing it against the plated walls. Sha-Mo let out a laugh, and began to belt out an insult, but the horde split again, and this time, it was Dakongese moving forward to join their waterbending brothers from the western islands. These moved differently, brute force and power. Earthbenders. There came a great shudder, and the entire wall shifted down a little bit.

Nila turned to Ashan. "Earthbenders might be helpless in dealing with sand... but _mud_ is a substance they know very, very well," she answered, as with another heave, the wall began to slump and deform a little bit more. It wasn't a matter of starving out the keep, Ashan realized... it was a matter of if the walls would even last until sunrise. And at the rate they were sliding, he doubted they'd last another hour.

* * *

><p>It was lucky that Uncle overpacked.<p>

The nook that the three of them occupied in the lowest reaches of the Deadman Plains was tiny, cold, cramped, and smelled like the worst of bad cooking and unhygienic teenagers put together. Zuko was fairly sure that his back would assume a permanent crick from the way he was hunched over all the time. And to call it cold was understating things drastically. This place was so murderously frigid that Zuko had no idea how anybody lived this far north. Iroh eventually explained that here, it was so cold that not even _Tribesmen_ made a habit of breaking into these latitudes. But the great injustice of it all was that of the three of them, only one of them was wracked with shivers, and that was Azula.

"Do you need another blanket?" Iroh asked. "You look a bit blue."

"I'm fine, Uncle," Azula said, staring through that spyglass as she had every waking hour since they'd nestled into this hidey hole. The ice in her eyelashes put her bravado to lie.

"I could try warming you up," Zuko said.

"I don't require coddling," Azula snapped.

"Azula, you do realize this is how you got pneumonia three months ago? That started this whole disastrous adventure to begin with?" Zuko attempted bringing logic into things.

"That was completely different from now," she said.

"I fail to see the practical difference," Iroh said, tugging at his beard.

"He will be here soon, and when he does, he'll have nowhere to run," Azula said. Iroh and Zuko shared a glance, though, as she had said the exact thing several times in the last few months, and been proven patently wrong each time. "As long as I can feel my hands and feet, I don't need creature comforts."

"You can _always_ use creature comforts," Iroh said with a note of shock. "They're what make life worth living."

"_The Avatar_ is what makes life worth living," Azula said. "With the Avatar, I regain my honor. I will return to my homeland – my Fire Nation – and be welcomed back as a champion. Father will be proud of me, proud that I was strong enough to surmount his tests. Proud enough that I can sit on the Burning Throne by right and virtue."

"Azula, what if..."

"Nephew," Iroh shook his head, and Zuko paused.

The waiting might not kill Zuko, but it may well drive him mad. Zuko then turned his attention to Iroh, mostly because Iroh's attention of late was mostly on him. Ever since Azula's illness blossomed into prophecy, Iroh had been carefully prodding at it, trying to figure out its nature. He was subtle about it, sure enough, but Zuko knew what Iroh was doing. Of late, though, very recently in fact, he'd stopped, and ever since then, he'd been watching Zuko. As if Zuko had something to tell him. Well, Zuko admitted inwardly, he did, but it wasn't something which could be repeated in front of the person whom it concerned the most.

"...ah..." Azula said. Zuko leaned back so that he wouldn't get sneezed on, but what he assumed was the prelude to snot at high velocity became a cry of glee, quickly stamped. She bolted to her feet, the glass still to her eye, looking across the vast distances. "There he is. He's here! And I know where he's going. Come on, Zuzu, let's write some history!"

"He can follow in a moment," Iroh said, "Go ahead. We'll be just behind you."

Azula glanced between the two of them, obviously suspicious, but her eagerness to be moving trumped even her own paranoia. With a grim smirk, she pulled herself out of the nook and began to run down the mountain, even as the snow gathered on her pale gray clothes. Ironic that she was so strong with fire when she wanted to be, and yet didn't even know something so basic as turning it inward to keep herself warm. Zuko turned from his sister to his uncle. "What is it, Uncle?"

"What are you going to do?" Iroh asked. Zuko leaned back, and got a rock in the back of his skull for his trouble. Rubbing at the spot so banged, he gave Iroh a confused look. "When you have the Avatar, what then?"

"Well... I..." Zuko began.

"If you wish to hunt an octopus, you must have a tightly woven net, lest your prey find a hole and escape. So what are you going to do if you catch him?" Iroh demanded.

"I..." Zuko considered lying, but Uncle's eyes were very, very shrewd right now. He had a feeling that nothing was going to get past him. "I'd let him go."

"And why? Why would you do that, knowing what he means to your sister?" Iroh asked.

"Because I had a conversation with my father on Crescent Island. She has no home to go home to, alright? This... these caves, and that ship and these stormy waters are pretty much all she's got left!" Zuko snapped. "Father's disowned her. If she brings back the Avatar, he'll find some way to shift all the 'glory' to me, and cast her out into the rain. I'm trying to protect my sister. Even if it is from herself."

Iroh nodded sagely, rubbing at his beard. He let out a weary sigh. "Sometimes, I forget how quickly this journey has forced you to grow up. You shouldn't have to face such choices, Prince Zuko. It is a hard world which forces you to be hard to survive it. But you shouldn't bear it alone."

"I should have told you, Uncle... but I didn't know what to say," Zuko admitted.

"And there is one more thing," Iroh said measuredly. "Something very important about Azula that I've discovered that I think you need to know."

"Wait-what? What do you mean?" Zuko asked, leaning forward.

"It is complicated, and I fear we have no time for useful explanations... but I'm convinced that whoever Azula is," Iroh said, trailing off.

"What is it?" Zuko shouted.

"...I don't believe she's your little sister."

* * *

><p>"Dad, it's terrible," Katara said at the first sight of her father. She crashed into a waiting embrace and didn't even notice that Yue had to get out of the way to make it possible. "Arnook's lost his mind and he sent Sokka on a suicide mission!"<p>

"WHAT?" Hakoda shouted with real rage. His eyes flashed as he turned toward the palace nearby, and Yue's hand flew to her mouth in alarm. It was no secret amongst the Avatar's group that Yue and Sokka had gotten close. "That son of a bitch. He has no right to put my son in harm's way!"

"He couldn't do that," Yue said.

"He did," Aang said quietly and cheerlessly. He growled, kicking at the ice underfoot. "If only there was some way to reach the spirits, I might be able to stop this craziness!"

"The spirits?" Yue asked. "I know something that will help!"

Dad reached over and patted a hand on her shoulder. "Then do what you need to do, young lady," he turned his gaze back to the palace. "And I'll do what _I_ need to."

"What are you saying?" Yue asked.

"Good luck, Princess," Hakoda said. "May the spirits watch over you and guide you kindly if the battle claims you. And all of you. And me as well," he said. As he rose, he cricked his neck, and under his voice, only audible because Katara was right beside him, continued; "and may Tenger Etseg guide my knife."

"Where are we going?" Aang asked, which dragged Yue back to reality.

"What is he...?" she shook her head, sending braided white hair flicking. "No. My duty is here. Come with me, quickly," she said, leading the three of them past the palace and to a stone wall built into a courtyard at its far side. There was a door, scarcely tall enough for her to walk through without stooping, so it was obviously intentionally undersized for a people as towering as Water Tribesmen.

"Is this the door to the Spirit world?" Aang asked, and let out a disappointed groan when she opened it, revealing only a chiseled cave. He headed through faster than anybody, though, and Katara was just behind him. Thus, she could hear his disappointment turn to glee, and understand why. At the end of a short if twisty tunnel, there was an opening. Water flowed around a little island in the center of that cleft, surging down from a waterfall at its back, and proceeded to drain out yet another hole which Katara hadn't noticed earlier. Despite being covered over completely, and having no torches, the place was filled with a mild, suffusive light. And as she approached the island – which was covered in lush grass, she noted – the cave became lovely and warm. So warm in fact that she had to doff her parka.

"Grass! I never thought I'd actually come to miss grass," Aang said, rolling in it. Momo likewise rolled, before scampering up the arch which finished the tableau. The center of the island played host to one further feature. A pond in an island surrounded by a river, and that pond played host only to a pair of fish which swam lazily about. "It's so warm," Aang said.

"Of course," Yue said, her gaze distant and wistful. "This is the heart of the Water Tribe, the closest place between here and the Spirit world. When I was born, they thought I was dead, because I wouldn't cry. The healers couldn't do anything, and my parents were so distraught. Finally, Irukandji directed Father to place me into the waters here. I don't know how, but the Moon Spirit... blessed me, somehow. My hair became white, and I began to cry. They knew I'd live," a tear came to her eye as she looked away. "I always wondered what the Moon Spirit asked in return. I'm afraid... I'm beginning to see the price."

"So how do you get into the Spirit world?" Katara asked. Aang answered her by sitting down on the grass, pressing his fists together and closing his eyes. Silence reigned for a minute or two. Yue's sadness gave way to confusion, which mounted until the girl was slowly circling the Avatar, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Why is he sitting like that?" she asked.

"He's meditating," Katara said. "Maybe it's so he can find a way into the Spirit world."

"Oh," Yue said, pausing. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"How 'bout some quiet?" Aang asked, annoyance clear in his voice. "Come on, guys, I can hear everything you're saying!"

"Sorry," Yue said. Katara sat next to him, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly as Aang returned to his meditating pose. But this time, his eyes were on the fish in the pond, rather than pressed closed.

"It'll be alright," Katara said. "You'll find a way into th..."

She was cut off when his eyes, his tattoos, all began to glow with brilliant light. Both girls recoiled a bit from him purely out of instinct. Be it from the waterbending spark or the intuitive understanding of nature that comes with the shaman's gift, both of them knew in their souls that the power running through Aang right now could possibly crack the earth in half, and that it was best to stand well back of it.

"That's... amazing," Yue said, staring at him. "Is he really doing it? I mean... Irukandji never looks like this when _she_ goes into the Spirit world."

"Aang's the Avatar," she answered. "He's special."

"I should get some of my guards," Yue said.

"We should let them be," Katara countered. "As long as we don't move Aang's body, he should be fine. It's his way back from the spirit world after all. And besides, I'm perfectly capable of protecting him."

"_Well, haven't we just become little miss confidence?_" a voice slipped in from the darkness, cruel and mocking Huojian, which sent an icy shard up Katara's spine. Not just because she was sure there was more being said than she understood of the language, but because of who had said it. Katara turned to the 'shore' of the river, and retreated a step in alarm as scarlet flame burst into being, adding to the diffuse light and painting the woman's face with scarlet. Painted lips pulled into a smirk, but it was somewhat unstable, because her hair was still dripping wet and its style long lost to adversity.

"_Azula_?" Katara asked. "How is that _even possible?_"

"I swore I'd have the Avatar, little girl," she said, changing to the eastern polyglot that both could converse in. "Strange, I thought he'd be better protected. Oh, well, that just makes my task all the more easy."

"Yue, remember those guards we mentioned?" Katara asked.

"Yeah..."

"Now's a good time to call them," Katara said, and as the second-last word came out of her mouth, Azula was already bounding across the waters, fire searing toward her and the Avatar both. Yue broke off in a sprint down that corridor, but Katara had more important things to deal with at the moment, such as twisting up the waters from the pool to break the onslaught. From the experience that she had with Azula outside of Bomei, she more than half-expected her flames to burst through that water like it was a snowball hurled into a blast furnace.

But it didn't, because the water she bent was glowing.

It was lucky she wasn't her brother, because Sokka would probably have stopped the fight immediately, trying to figure out why the water wasn't just water. Katara, on the other hand, took good fortune where she could get it. A twist of her wrists and a pivot of her body and she was shielding she and Aang both, before pressing forward with all of the energy Azula had put into the attack. The firebender bounded back, almost overbalancing into the stream, but holding her footing. Katara smirked, flashing out with that faintly luminescent water, but Azula's eyes flashed with rage and she powered forward, twisting her feet like she was bracing against wind, and drove a flame so hot that it boiled that water even as it struck her. At the end, Azula was soaking wet, but still standing, and Katara had to take a moment to regain herself.

"I hate you," Azula said, circling the girl. "I have it in me to be the greatest firebender of my generation. I was a dozen classes ahead of the children my age before I was pulled from them. I'm probably smarter than my brother and uncle combined. I don't know _why_ I hate you so much, but there _has_ to be a good reason."

"Maybe you're just crazy," Katara snarked. That caused Azula's cheek to twitch, and she flashed forward with a blaze of unworldly blue that threatened to swallow Katara whole and leave not even ashes. With a squawk of alarm, she pulled the water from the pool, but even with the empowered water at her beck, she was still driven back under the firebender's monumental fury. "What's wrong? Can't win in a fair fight?"

"There's no such thing as a fair fight," Azula said, her blue fires dimming back to more familiar scarlet. "Only a fight where one side hasn't started cheating yet."

Distracting Azula from all-consuming wrath seemed to be the ticket, since with the reduction of pressure, Katara could pull that water close to her, letting the last of Azula's barrage break the barrier completely. Azula's smirk widened to an almost maddened grin, but it fell slightly hollow when she noticed that Katara was grinning. Katara made a beckoning motion, and bid her element do as she needed. Azula had just enough time to glance back before the wave from the river Katara conjured wrapped her up completely. A shove, and she and the wave both slammed back across the stream, freezing upon impact with the wall, encasing Azula almost completely in the ice, only her hands and head free of it. Katara smiled.

"I'm in control, firebender. I win, not because I cheat, but because I'm in control."

"So the little bitch found herself a teacher? Well, that isn't going to stop me," Azula said. She began to strain, and Katara shook her head dismissively... at first. But then there came a cracking sound, as the ice under Azula's arms began to buckle, snap. Katara furiously tried to recool the water from whatever firebending she was doing, but to her shock, found the water was the same temperature she left it. Azula was breaking out on nothing but brute physical force. "I've... waited... my... whole life for this... waterbender," and with that last word, her left arm exploded from the ice. Katara gathered some of the water behind her into a bolus she spun into a whip, hoping to knock Azula insensate, but Azula turned her attention toward Aang, and with a two fingered strike, blasted a bolt of fire at the torpid Avatar. Katara had to shift her attack into defense, taking no more energy but precious time. Katara intercepted that fire blast, but as she did, Azula melted her other arm free. Katara then spun to flick that lashed toward Azula's face. But Azula slammed both of her fists down into the ice which buried her lower body, and a sphere of golden flames leapt up around her, swallowing Katara's attack.

The conflagration dimmed, the smoke cleared, and now Azula was standing, steam rising from her stained grey clothes, her hands pointing two-fingered lances toward Katara as her chest heaved. "I've fought too damned hard for this, peasant. I. Will. Not. Fail."

"And how many times have you said that before?" Katara mocked. "I figure every time you tried to catch Aang. How has that turned out so far?"

Yup, she was clearly her brother's sister. Tempting fate ran in the family. Azula drew in a breath to shout some epithet or slur at her, but instead, her eyes windened slightly, and she moved from an offensive posture into a slightly more defensive one. Katara had about a fraction of a second to wonder what was going on, before her brain was blasted by a wash of pain, and her entire body locked up, dropping her into unconsciousness and onto the grasses which still swayed peacefully despite the lack of breeze in the Spirit Oasis.

Azula glanced up at the circumstantial benefactor. She was a grown woman, as dark skinned as her now fallen opponent, and sharing the same eyes. The look on her face, though, was one of annoyance and impatience. "_About me-damned time you showed up, Princess,_" the girl said in a tongue which Azula knew... but didn't know _how_ she knew. And the tone she used for 'princess' held far more mockery than Azula would have allowed out of anybody. "_Are you just going to stand there or are... Oh, it's cause of the new fits, right? I know. Been a long time since I had honkers like this,_" the woman said, giving her bosom an experimental squeeze.

"What do you want?" Azula demanded, dropping down into readiness for the attack.

"_Eternal life, my face on money, the little things like that_," she said, a grin on her face which seemed to show too many teeth. But that grin turned to curious inspection. "_You don't know who I am, do you?_"

"Stay back, barbarian!" Azula shouted. "If you stop me from taking the Avatar, I swear I will kill you!"

The woman sighed, palming her face. "_I just had to screw that up, didn't I? Well, par for the course this time, I guess,_" she cleared her throat and continued in fluent and unaccented Huojian, which startled Azula almost as much as her own ability to understand this madwoman before. "Since you can't swim up that waterfall, and there'll be no getting out by the front door with the Avatar, I guess you're going to have to take the other path," the woman said, pointing to where the water dropped under the stone wall. "Of course, you still don't like swimming anymore, do you?"

"What are you talking about? You _want_ me to take the Avatar?" Azula asked.

"Ideally no, but it's obvious you're not leaving without him, and I need more time than you'll get if you don't start moving soon," the woman said.

"Stay back, lunatic. I don't need your help."

The woman let out a peal of laughter at that. "Girl, you have no idea _how much_ you need my help. Now get moving or deal with a far better waterbender than this one is, at the moment," she said, giving the unconscious waterbender a nudge with her foot.

"Don't dare presume you can order me," Azula said. The woman's face became angry, and with a snap of lightning, she was standing directly before Azula, her soft hand clamped with astounding pressure around Azula's throat, lifting her from the ground so that her toes dangled at roughly this Tribeswoman's thigh-level.

"Now you listen to me, you ungrateful maggot," that woman said to the violently fighting firebender. "I am Irukandji. I am what raised you from your perdition and I am wholly capable of sending you straight back there," she paused as Azula used both of her hands to bath the woman in fire. There was a smell, first of cooking meat, but then of rank ozone. When the smoke cleared, the woman looked almost utterly unharmed, but her outfit was more or less ruined. And she was not amused. "Bitch, I liked these clothes," she said, and gave Azula a backhand which sent stars into her eyes. "You want the Avatar, then gather him now. But don't think for a second that you can avoid me, overpower me, escape me, trick me, or harm me. You don't remember, and that's a _major_ problem. You and I are going to have a nice long conversation. Whether you want to or not."

* * *

><p>The thunder of footfalls and the din of battle in the darkness forced Zuko to duck aside once again. Descending into Summavut was trickier than he'd thought, but then again, by the time he'd reached the point where he was supposed to follow his sister, he could see a horde of those blue-clad people returning toward where she had moved ahead of him. He should have been there with her. She needed his help. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.<p>

Mostly because Uncle's... explanation... was so unsettling, unpleasant, and insane.

He shook his head, dispelling the thoughts. Azula had to have fled into the city. She didn't have the same skill of fire as he or Uncle did, so she wouldn't be able to withstand the cold as well as they would. That meant she'd have to move through the conflict, but not before warming up first. That meant... She was heading for some place hot. "A blacksmith," he said to himself, his eyes scanning over the city until he picked out those places where the chimneys were thick stone, built up over ugly rock. More than he'd like. Less than he'd feared.

As much as he respected Uncle, he'd had to be wrong about this. Zuko waited a moment longer, as the sounds of the enemy faded away, then took to the darkness once more. He would find his sister. He had to keep her safe.

* * *

><p>"How are we going to get out of the town?" Ashan asked.<p>

"We'll have to find a way," Nila said. The wall was dropping lower by the minute, but their preparations were somewhat for naught, since the tumult of people rushing toward was soon going to be a hole in the wall was making it difficult to move about. After, Ashan wasn't wholly sure they weren't going to just kill her and blame it on the 'chaos of battle'. The Sheik might be above such lies, but he doubted the man's son was. Gashuin was the worst sort of spoiled child. "In fact, I have an idea, but I won't say it's a good one."

"Well? We're kinda low on options, here!" Tzu Zi said, terror obvious on her face.

"Ashan," she said. "You can bore a hole through the walls."

"That won't work," Ashan pointed out. "I can bend sand, but I can't bend metal. Those plates drop right into the earth!"

"Damn," she muttered. "Then we're going to have to use the same path they're coming in to get out."

"That's crazy," Malu said. "And what about these people? Are you just going to leave your people to die?"

"And there is something I can do to save them?" Nila asked, after a silence as they all hustled across the streets. Enemies abounded when Nila was around it seemed. "Face it, what happens today is going to happen. I cannot stop it. Nobody here can stop it."

"I might," Malu said. "I have to."

"You can get yourself killed," Nila countered, calling them to a halt in an alley as a great metal bang sounded in the air, and the screams of people began to sound. Some in war, others in pain. "They're through the walls. It's too late, anyway."

"It's never too late," Malu said. "I was too afraid to save my parents from the firebenders on the Day of Fire, but I can stop this war at least!"

"Enough," Ashan said. "The rest of you might not be able to see this cancer in your midst, but damn it all, I can!"

"What are you talking about?" Tzu Zi asked, her dark eyes flitting everywhere.

"I don't see any tumors," Sharif said idly, glancing at those around him.

Ashan ignored the young man who had once been so in sync with him that they could finish each other's sentences, and thrust a finger at Malu. "You've hidden something from them for a long time, and I demand you tell us what it is."

"Well," Malu said, a bit shocked. "Why should I..."

"I'm curious as well," Nila said, rounding on the airbender. "Something about you never added up, but I was hesitant to say anything. Unused to having friends, after all. But if you have something you need to tell us, you'd best do so now."

"Guys, this isn't the..." Malu said.

"Oh, this isn't good," Sharif said, staring at Malu.

Malu let out a growl and threw up her hands. "Fine! You wanna know the truth? I'm not just an airbender, alright? I'm the Avatar! I've been hiding for years, but now, I'm going to bring the fight back to the Fire Nation... no offense Tzu Zi."

There was a pool of relative silence, as Ashan's eyebrows rose, but the other three shook their heads. Sharif was the one who spoke first.

"You're not the Avatar," he said.

"Of course I am," she said, first annoyed, then repeated with alarm.

"You are not the Avatar," Nila said. "We've met the Avatar. You are not him."

"Somebody's pretending to be me?" Malu asked.

"He's already talked to his past lives," Sharif said. "You're not the Avatar. You can't be. Not with that thing."

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Waterbend," Nila said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, I haven't exactly learned how to do that yet. I was waiting until I was the greatest airbender before moving on to the other elements, but then the Day of Fire came and..."

"There it is again," Ashan broke in. "Silence from the rest of you. Especially you, Sharif. Tell me something simple, Malu, something you cannot be wrong about. Tell me what year it is," she blubbed a bit at that. "It's not so hard a question, yes? What year is it, by the Post Monolith calendar?"

"Well," she said, confused. "It's P.M. 3157," she declared gathering her surety. The others gaped at her.

"Malu... It's 3256," Tzu Zi said. "How can you be _ninety nine years_ wrong?"

"I'm not wrong," Malu said. "I mean... You must be making some sort of mistake!"

The fight was growing closer, as the unbearable mass of the Dakongese pushed the defenders from their battle line, as the walls no longer stood against them, but permitted them entry. But for all that, the teenagers gathered here might as well have been in their own little world, which began at the abandoned turnip trolly and ended at the brown double doors of the Beetle stable where the Westerner's steed was still hitched. "We're not making any mistake," Ashan said. "You're a century out of date. What are you?"

"I'm the Avatar!" she pleaded.

"No, you're not," Nila said, her green eyes geared in inspection. "I didn't pay proper attention to the one who knew. He told me, and I didn't listen. Sharif; what is Malu?"

"Hungry," Sharif said, taking a step back.

"Look, guys, I swear, I'm the Avatar," Malu said. "I mean, if I wasn't, would I be able to do this?"

Malu closed her eyes, and leaned back, spreading her arms out to her sides. As she did, her mouth dropped open, and an inhuman sound began to emit from it, and that mouth grew ever wider. Sharif grabbed his sister and Ashan, pulling them back and herding Ashan with them. "No! She's opening the Door!"

"What is going on?" Nila demanded.

Then, Malu's head dropped down toward them, her grey eyes glassy, empty, hollow. Her back arched downward with the popping of vertibrae shifting out of any human alignment, and the back of her kavi began to swell, glowing with some sort of red energy. There was one final crack, as the bones of Malu's jaw gave way, opening as far as the aperture could allow, and those eyes were locked on Sharif as she... or rather, it... let out a horrible scream that so smacked of inhumanity that Ashan almost wet himself a little. That mouth didn't open into tongue and uvula and throat. It opened into a pit of absolute and unending blackness, and tiny screams of terror wafted up from it.

Malu began to rise, by airbending or by sheer wrongness Ashan couldn't say, and the red energy erupted from her skin, as a sort of thunderous noise began to sound from her once human throat. As she did, that red energy shot up into the night sky, lodging against its fabric like an unholy star. But then, it started to swell, growing wider and wider until it consumed the heavens with its scarlet alienness, and black bands began to pulse out through it. To Ashan's battered mind, he could assign it no other name then the Eye of Terror, the sign that the Devils had erupted whole into the Earth at the end times. A tingling ran through Ashan's body, as the world around him stopped making any sense at all.

Ashan was numb with terror.

Sharif, though, reached aside and plucked something as if from the very air, pressing it into his brow. As he did, the scar over his eye started to glow slightly. "No, this shouldn't be possible," Sharif said. Then he winced. "I'm such an idiot! It wasn't sleeping, it was waiting!"

Nila had seen enough, and pulled away from her brother, fighting with the door. Patriarch, that old bird, stared at that thing that floated in the sky with terror even obvious to something as intractable and animal as the Ostrich Horse. "What's going on?" Ashan said, flattening his back against the door of the stables.

"She's tearing the veil to shreds," Sharif shouted. "It shouldn't be possible! She's mixing the Spheres and dumping the lot of it into the Spirit World!"

"Wait... how do you know this?" Tzu Zi asked. "I thought you were..."

"I am _stupid_," Sharif said, striking himself in the head with anger. "I should have seen this coming! I would have seen it coming if I had more than half a brain! Damn it all," he turned to the others. "Run. Get away from this place, whatever the cost, I'll hold it off."

"Hold it off? Are you mad?" Nila shouted, finally shifting the bar. The door opened.

"Maybe a little, sister, but that thing will ack!" he was cut off when Nila grabbed him and hauled him through the doors into the barn. The others, Patriarch included, wedged in a moment later, before she slammed the door once more.

"That should hold... it... off," Nila said. "What happened to her?"

"Keep running," Sharif prompted.

"Nonsense. She can't get through that..." Nila began, but was cut off when there was a great crash of wood, as the entire top of the building was broken to dust and splinters and thrown into the air. Hovering just above the ground, the thing which had been Malu stared at Sharif, saliva dropping past her dislocated jaw and onto the street. Ashan couldn't even bring himself to look away, as she slowly brought back the hand with which she had so simply wrought destruction. Above her, swirling under the crimson Eye of Terror, green and orange clouds boiled into existence, dropping down unnatural lightning into the already twisting scape of the fortress of Sentinel Rock.

"Oh," Sharif said, sweating heavily, and a cunning terror in his yes. "This isn't even fair."

* * *

><p><strong>To Be Continued.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>A couple of things which might need clarification. Calendars in my version of Avatar-verse run similar to the Gregorian, in that they have a hypothetical and purely arbitrary year zero, but whereas the latter depends on the birth of a religious figurehead (Jesus, or something), the former is the commonly held date of the fall of a world-spanning earthbender empire some three millennia ago.<strong> **It is commonly held amongst historians in this setting that the fall of the Monolith, as that culture came to be later known, was the beginning of recorded history, because almost all history collected during the span of the Monolith's lifetime was destroyed in its collapse. This had the side-effect of regressing the world technologically almost back to the stone-age, and is held up as an example of how while Avatars can be a very potent force for good, unchecked, they can also be a force for harm. There are only two things which survived more or less intact from the time of the Monolith to the modern era: Ba Sing Se, and the Order of the White Lotus.**

**While by and large the history known today begins after the fall of the Monolith, bits and pieces do slip through. A few names of famous individuals from earlier eras, even from before elemental martial arts swept forth from the West, still circulate in certain circles. Nila and Sokka both, for example, know of the pre-Whalesh natural philosopher Archeophthese, who formulated the beginnings of scientific physics. There were other cultures (dare say, non-Eastern cultures) which existed before bending became a common practice, but with elemental martial arts, certain societal groups had an advantage over their counterparts, and those who could not bend an element were either wiped out or assimilated into those who could. The modern social map of the Avatar's world is a thing eight thousand years in the making, and its divisions are only three thousand years old.**

**Why put all this effort into history? Because the world has to have verisimillitude. This world is roughly at the equivalent of 1850, so a lot of crap has happened before that. And over the next seventy years, they end up with internal combustion engines and radio. No marks for part answers in things like this, so I took a look at where certain mindsets, codes, and such would come from to lead to Korra-Verse being where it is, when it is. But enough cultural anthropology. You're here to see people punch each other with fireballs.**

**Oh, and one more thing. Azula never predicted one single thing.**

_Leave a Review, and brace yourself for the finale._


	20. The Clash, Part 2

**Alright. Writing again. There'll be a bit of a gap before I start putting up season two, but it shouldn't be too unbearable.**

* * *

><p>The soothing sensation flowing through her head smoothed out what would have been a wicked migraine, but the grogginess, the muscular stiffness, the whole-body fatigue that the electrocution left throughout Katara's body wouldn't be so quickly mended nor swept away. She sat up, rubbing a faint burn at the back of her neck, with almost no idea what had happened to her. Yugoda, the ancient and skilled waterbending healer, helped her keep her balance.<p>

"Good, you're awake," Pakku said. He turned to Yue slightly. "I apologize for my harsh words. This is indeed more important than shoring the walls."

"What happened to you?" Yue asked, huddling close.

"Tui La, where's Aang?" Katara said, trying to get to her feet, but there was still a numbness in her extremities, like she'd slept on them wrong for a week. "Ow... how long was I out?"

"We don't know," Yue said.

Katara struck the ground with futile anger. "I can't believe it! Azula stole Aang right out from under me!" she said, so disgusted with her failure that she almost felt like crying. Pakku shared a raised eyebrow with Yue, probably over Katara's unintentional double entendre, but didn't say anything.

"She could not have gotten far," Pakku said. "Go. Find them. The Deadman Plains are cruel this time of year, and she would have been driven to ground."

"What if she's not taking him to the Deadman Plains?" Yue asked with alarm.

"Where else could she go?" Pakku asked.

"Straight out to sea," Katara said. "They have a boat out there somewhere. If we don't stop her, she'll have Aang on the way to the Fire Nation before sunrise."

* * *

><p>The door to the broad chamber at the heart of the Summavut Palace slammed open, propelled by righteous rage. There was no fuel under the moon as powerful as a father's will to protect his children, and that will had been set alight. So it was no great surprise when the talking at the great dais at the far end of the chamber came to an abrupt halt as Hakoda stormed through the edifice of the palace. Several fighters lowered spears toward him, but he forced them back with a glare. As none of these were blood drunk or brainwashed, they knew enough from that look, the look of a father's revenge, that they would only survive by standing back. They did, and they did.<p>

But Hakoda didn't think twice about them. The only focus of his anger was at the center of that room, atop his dais like he deserved to be there. Arnook looked up from the gaggle of North Water Tribe social elite, if there could be said to remain such a thing, and his mad eyes drew down into hateful razors. "What is the meaning of this intrusion, Hakoda? You have no place here."

Hakoda didn't say a word. He let his flashing eyes scour the crowd, then reached to his belt, drawing out his whale-tooth knife. With a growl of angry effort, he hurled it down into the ice at the foot of the dais. Several of the politicians – absurd concept as that was – gasped in shock, and backed away from Arnook. Arnook stared down to the knife, then back up to Hakoda, no expression on his face whatsoever. The silence stretched. "You know what that means, don't you?" Hakoda demanded.

"I know what you think it does," Arnook answered. "And you're a fool to think it applies here."

"You might as well have murdered my son, Arnook. And not because he could have made any difference. You killed him out of pettiness and personal spite," Hakoda said, even as he tried to force himself from considering his own words possible. In his heart, he hoped against fate itself that Sokka had some sort of crazy, zany plan, something which would keep his boy safe. "I could demand a blood price for it, but I know you'd sell every one of these people here before the knife came to you. You are a coward and a madman, and you have no place on that dais."

"You have no place to make those accusations," Arnook said. "Remove this traitor."

There was silence and stillness in the hall. Hakoda smirked. Arnook's eyes grew wide, and doubly angry.

"I said remove him this instant! I am your Chief and you will obey me!"

"They're tired of your lunacy, Arnook," Hakoda said. "Since you obviously don't know about as much of my customs as you claim, the knife is thrown down. Anybody who wants to fight for him, may. And I will have to fight _every single one_ to get at you. I'm admitting now, I'm not in the best shape for this; I've lost my nimbleness to injury, and my reflexes to age. So who wants to be Arnook's champion? Who will stand for your Chief?"

Silence and stillness. Arnook's head swung around like mad. Tanuuit meekly pulled away from him, joining the others as they swelled out into a ring around the two High Chiefs, one deserving, the other not. "So you're an opportunist as well. Come to murder me when the soldiers are fighting a war for our very survival!"

"I don't see your guards stepping up to defend your honor," Hakoda mocked. That made a vein bulge on the side of Arnook's head. "Step down, Arnook. You are chief no longer."

"I am chief, now and forever!" Arnook roared, rising to his feet. His eyes seemed to stare well outside anything in reality. "The North Water Tribe will be victorious! We will push the Fire Nation back to black sands and make them eat their own dead! My child shall ascend to the heavens as the Moon Spirit and her power will grant us an eternal conquest!"

Hakoda's lips almost twitched into a snarl. "Now I know you're mad. No father would ever sell his own child," he said.

"Guards, kill this interloper!" Arnook demanded. "Kill him now or your families will be hung from the rafters!"

"Just a hint," Hakoda said with grim humor, "threatening to kill the guards' families doesn't do much to inspire loyalty. Hatred, though..."

Arnook pulled his own knife, and Tanuuit moved back up to him, tugging at his arm. "Please, Arnook, there must be a better way to –"

Arnook cut her off with a backhand which knocked her clear off the dais, pooling her on the floor. One of the guards quickly pulled her to the side, shock on his face directed toward the two High Chiefs. Or rather, the one which now descended from that dais, stopping just before Hakoda's knife. He stooped down, prying it out of the chink in the ice it had formed. He looked it over. "I should have had you executed the moment you stepped into my nation," Arnook said.

"I should have killed you the second I saw what you'd done to your own people," Hakoda answered. Arnook's face twisted into a snarl of madness and hate, and rushed forward, two knives leveled against Hakoda's zero.

Whoever lived this day, by the customs of the Water Tribe, would be High Chief.

* * *

><p>"Well, what do we do now?" Hahn asked, as Sokka fidgeted with his stolen armor and glanced down the halls of the overgrown, overly-heated, and overly-dark flagship. "We should just go up and kill this Admiral Jo right now."<p>

"Zhao," Sokka said, trying very hard not to loose his temper. "And stop talking! These people hear a word of Yqanuac and they'll kill us in a heartbeat!"

"Well, how else am I supposed to talk?" Hahn asked with annoyance. Sokka palmed his face. Groomed to be the next High Chief, and he couldn't speak any language but his own? Hell, Dad knew that Sokka wasn't becoming High Chief of the South unless he earned it, and still taught he and his siblings how to speak in four languages by the time they were five. He beckoned Hahn to join him moving forward. Since they couldn't wear the skull helmets, they'd had to lay low, sneaking past everybody they saw. It was nerve-wracking and unpleasant.

Sokka heard something approaching, the footfalls of quite a few soldiers. His eyes shot wide, and he grabbed Hahn, pushing him into a closet nearby, closing the bulkhead behind them, and waited, sweat pouring off of him for two different reasons, as they passed. It didn't occur to Sokka for a minute that a fifteen year old shouldn't have to be in this level of peril. This needed doing. If only because this way, somebody from the North Water Tribe would survive, by getting the hell out of it.

"Great. So we're just gonna hide from every soldier that comes our way? Some warrior you are," Hahn said without mirth.

"Dad always taught me that a cunning warrior knows what fights he can win, and only fights those," Sokka said. He sniffed something, and turned. Not just a closet, a garbage deposit. Sokka raised a brow, wondering why they didn't just throw this stuff overboard. Between the hair-clippings of the ship's barber and the other mechanical substances stashed here with wild abandon, it looked like they dropped them here out of simple laziness.

"And how exactly are we supposed to survive if we only pick the easy fights?" Hahn asked. "Sooner or later, you run out of places to hide."

"Not if you do it right," Sokka said, a notion occurring to him as he took stock of the garbage before him. "Fight smarter, not harder."

And then, Sokka began to grin, because he had a wicked idea.

* * *

><p>Aang opened his eyes, and beheld greyness, heard silence, and felt a cloying sense of something pawing at him. It was like somebody was standing just behind him, a whisper away from laying a hand onto Aang's shoulder, but no matter how the young Avatar turned, he could never spot that stalker. For all senses Aang had at his disposal, he was utterly, utterly alone.<p>

The sky was empty and black. He rose from his squat, and saw that his robes, not a proper yellow and orange, were desaturated into shades of grey. Even his skin had the pallor of a charcoal stain wiped until it had almost vanished, but not quite. He looked around, at the place he was standing. There were twisted bodies, thrusting up out of gravel and split rock. If they had but limbs and leaves, Aang might have called them trees, but here, they were just twisted pillars. Almost organic. Almost not.

"What is this place?" Aang asked. "Is this the Spirit world?"

Silence answered him.

"Irukandji was right. This place is spooky," Aang said. He walked, moving around odd, wrought-iron fences which lay without line or reason throughout the space. As he walked, he found something unusual, though. An egg, roughly as high as Aang was tall, nestled up against what was obviously a Fire Nation lamp-post. Aang raised a brow, stepping close to it. He looked around. The stone was as smooth as any egg shell. And it was humming. Aang leaned in closer, flattening one ear and his cheek against that odd stone.

'ooooohm.'

Aang leaned back for a moment, then back in, trying to see if that was just a trick of his imagination.

'...go away...'

Aang backed off fast, shaking his head. His eyes took in the bleak, lifeless landscape around him once more. A step caused a hitch of pain, and he flinched back, before stooping and picking up an odd shard from the ground, something out of place. He gave a 'huh' at it, but slipped it into his pocket without much more mind, since it didn't seem to be important. No sign, no indicator of what came next. He let out a frustrated sigh. "Come on... what am I supposed to do now?"

And silence answered him once more.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 20:<strong>

**The Clash, Part 2**

* * *

><p>Irukandji watched as the girl dropped the still-unsettlingly glowing Avatar onto the cold, hard floor. Well into the cliff-face which surrounded the main city of Summavut, this foundry was as remote a place as they were likely to find, and Irukandji wasn't going to wait any longer than this. It would never say so directly, but it was very uncomfortable being this close to the Avatar as he became The Bridge. There was a level of power there that were it arrayed against Irukandji, could evaporate the old and powerful spirit in a heartbeat. And watching a human manhandle him brought a bit of emotion to the spirit. Something between glee and worry. It decided to call that emotion 'glerry'.<p>

The girl in question crossed her arms before her chest, golden eyes glaring into Irukandji's own. "Alright, we're stopped. So what's so damned important that it's keeping me from reaching the boats and getting my glory?"

"Not waiting for your family," Irukandji noted. "Not surprised there."

"Speak or die, unnatural thing," Azula snapped.

Irukandji laughed at that, the kind of gut-splitting laughter which made the human increasingly angry, before it finally stopped. "Oh... girl, you couldn't kill me if you tried. And be careful with that one," she said, gesturing to the Avatar. "Kinda need him intact, don't you?"

"What do you want? You can't be betraying your people for nothing," Azula said. A brow raised in cunning. "Unless... you want to be a part of the winning side. That's it, isn't it?"

"Bitch, you have no clue how little you know about my motives," Irukandji said cuttingly. That made the girl's cheek twitch. "Everything you've done so far has made things more and more difficult. If you keep running out without a leash than you might well destroy everything I've been trying to accomplish. So you're going to stop this stupid little game and get with the me-damned program, are we clear?"

"How dare you speak to me like that?" she said, her fists clenching before her. Irukandji shook its head.

"Now you're just being needlessly difficult," Irukandji noted. "It's not like this isn't in your best long-term interests. You stop this whole 'Fire War' business and we can revisit our original deal. Who knows, there might even be something extra in it for ya'."

"Deal?" she asked with a derisive chuckle. "What state of insanity would I have to be in to make a deal with something like you? I'm leaving," Irukandji's form fluttered, and with a crack of lightning, it was barring the woman's path between her and the Avatar. "Stand aside, whatever you are."

It was about then that the unpleasant reality occurred to Irukandji, and its expression fell and it shook its head with despair. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Irukandji said. "You don't _remember_ our little agreement, do you?"

"Move," Azula said, eyes flaring.

"Well, that's just lovely, ain't it?" Irukandji said to itself. "Figures, I got one ace up my sleeve and I can't even play it. Let me take a look at your noodle for a second here..."

"What? Get away from me!" Azula said, but Irukandji easily overpowered her, ignoring her scarlet firebending and twisting her head back, staring down into her eyes, watching the way that the electricity sparked along the nerves leading into her brain. Wrong. It was all wrong. Irukandji sighed, and let Azula drop to the stone.

"Worse than I thought," Irukandji said. "The wall didn't hold at all. Must have crumbled within _a day._ Well, that's easily enough sorted," it said, and then gave Azula a hard poke in the center of her forehead with a finger. As it did, there was a loud electric pop, and a stink of ozone filled the room. Azula's eyes went blank, her chest fell still, and her body motionless. Then, with a gasp, her back arched, and her eyes flared wide, her brain resetting itself under a new configuration. She glanced around, then sat up, azure flames dripping away from her hands.

"_Where am I? Where is Daichi?_" she demanded in a language which as far as Irukandji was concerned, didn't really exist anymore. She stopped glaring at Irukandji and started to notice her hands, the flames, and her voice began to shift to wonder. "_Tell me where... fire... I'm __firebending__... How...?_"

Irukandji winced a bit. "Oops. Little too far in the right direction. Let's dial that back a bit," it said, and then zapped Azula again. This time, she stumbled back against a wall, clutching her heart in the few beats it would take to get stable again. When she looked up again it was with wrath. "Now, are we in the right frame of mind to have a useful conversa–"

She answered him by twisting her arms around in a sinuous motion, and launching a lightning bolt directly into the center of Irukandji's chest. The impact threw it back, and pain radiated out through its corpus, not just its physical shell. Its eyes bugged slightly at feeling pain for the first time in a very, very long time, and forced itself back to its feet.

"I should have known you'd betray me," Azula said, her words thickly accented with the inflections of a language which never was. Irukandji regathered itself, rising to its proper posture.

"Was it an educated guess that lightning would sting, or did you just get lucky?" Irukandji asked. Azula smirked as her answer. "Look, whatever. We've got a serious problem, one I didn't foresee when this deal began."

"I don't care," Azula said. "You gave me carte blanche. I'm taking it."

"You stupid, impulsive, impatient human! You will listen to me!" Irukandji demanded. Azula took a step back and toward the Avatar, twisting her hand into starting a new lightning bolt.

"Ah-ah-ah... wouldn't want something to happen to the Avatar while he's in the Avatar State, now would we?" she taunted. Irukandji ground its teeth. It really should have seen this coming. "Good. Now. Let's talk about that little deal you and I made. I upheld my end. You've failed to uphold yours."

"You're alive, aren't you?"

"I'm also weak, young, and apparently, banished," she said. "That wasn't what I had in mind."

"Tough," Irukandji said. "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."

"You're hardly in a position to barter strongly," she said, leaning down toward the Avatar, and almost sensuously grasping his neck.

"Then kill him," Irukandji said, calling her bluff. "You'll only be ending reality."

She faltered at that, confusion spreading across her smug face. "If the Avatar dies now, the Avatar is gone forever. That's hardly ending reality."

"And that's how little you know about the world you got dropped into," Irukandji said. It crossed its arms under its bosom. "So sit down and listen, you arrogant monkey. Your little vendetta against this kid is small fries."

She glared at Irukandji, but then idly pushed the Avatar over. "You have something to say, then say it."

Good, Irukandji pondered. Now, to see if there's any salvaging this mess.

* * *

><p>"That looks ridiculous," Hahn said.<p>

"You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first," Sokka chided. The inside of the ship was much bigger than the last one he'd been on, although, in his defense, the last Fire Nation ship that Sokka spent any amount of time rummaging through was impaled on an iceberg updrift of Chimney Mountain, a model which actually looked a lot more like the Mad Prince's rig as spotted on their flight from Kyoshi than anything more modern.

"You're going to get us both killed."

"No, I wouldn't do that," Sokka said with a chuckle. "After all, it's Arnook who wants us dead."

"Arnook doesn't want me dead. I'm supposed to marry her daughter!" Hahn said with a chest thump for emphasis.

That sent Sokka's good humor right out a bulkhead. "And you're just laughing with glee at that, aren't you?"

"Well, yeah," Hahn said. "Have you _seen_ that chick? Man, I've been with girls, but Yue's got the best perks."

"PERKS?" Sokka snapped, before clapping his hand over his mouth. If he didn't get his head back into the game, he was going to make Hahn right after all. And he was about as willing to allow that as to admit the fortune teller down south might possibly conceivably in some small insignificant manner be almost sorta right about something. "A woman like Yue is wasted on a jerk like you!"

"Whoa, where's this coming from?" Hahn asked. "It's not like I asked for it. Yeah, happy coincidence, but having the High Chief as a father-in-law ain't exactly my idea of good times."

"You... didn't choose?" Sokka said, confused. And his confusion made it so that he'd missed the sounds of approaching footsteps until there was no reasonable way to get away from them. He started, then straightened out of his omnipresent slouch, actually managing to be taller than Hahn by a trifle. So when the Nationals rounded the corner and saw the two of them, they beheld one alarmed looking youth, and a ram-rod straight, flinty eyed man with what they wouldn't guess was a glued on beard and bushy grey eyebrows. "_What is this travesty I see before me?_" Sokka demanded in, what Dad described as, the most comical Azuli accent that ever bore the ears of decent folk. "_Tell me, boy, where is your pride in the uniform, huh?_"

"_What is the matter here, officer..._"

Crap! Sokka hadn't thought of a proper name. His brain whirled for a moment, and his mouth moved before it stopped. "_Fire!_"

"_Fire?_" the squatter of the two asked.

"_WANG Fire!_" Sokka corrected. He clapped a hand on the elder soldier's shoulder and pointed at Hahn. "_Tell me what you see wrong with that boy's uniform, good man._"

"_He's missing his hat, obviously,_" the man said, a bit confused. He leaned back to his fellow. "_Who is this..._"

"_Exactly!_" Sokka broke off, and began to stalk a circle around Hahn, who was muttering confusion, alarm, and fear in single syllables. Luckily, that worked for Sokka quite nicely. "_And that's not all. Look at this ridiculous haircut!"_ Sokka said, making fun of what was essentially his own_. "You couldn't tie a proper phoenix-tail in that if you tried! Your barber is as much to blame for this failure as you are, lad,_" Sokka finished his examination with a light cuff upside the head. Fatefully for all involved, Hahn was so shocked by it, that he didn't default to anger.

"_It __is__ a poor haircut. But leave the boy be. You can't blame him for a barber's fumblings,_" the stout one said.

"_But that's only apparent, 'cause he ain't got a hat,_" the taller one added in, nodding sagely.

"_Yes, quite true,_" Sokka said. "_You there, where did you lose your hat?_"

Hahn, eyes flitting around, could only emit an "...um..."

"_That's what I thought. These new recruits are useless. You'd think the Fire Lord was scooping them straight out of a potato field somewhere,_" Sokka shook his head direly. The stout one gave a laugh at that.

"_Between Montoya and Ozai, it's amazing we've got any farmers left_," he admitted.

"_And the ones we get are all brash incompetents who embark on half-baked schemes without the slightest thought to consequence and no discipline at all! That's the uniform, lad! Discipline! Instead, we've got lads who can't even find their own hat. And what do we always say about lads who can't find their own hats?_" Sokka asked, putting the taller one on the spot.

"_They...don't have discipline?_" he attempted.

"_Exactly, my boy, exactly,_" Sokka said. He turned to Hahn, then pointed past where the two had come. "_Now you are going to come with me and we're going to sort you out, clear?_"

"Um..." Hahn said. Sokka grabbed Hahn's armor by the collar and dragged him past. As he did, the two turned to watch them go.

"_Hard to believe we've still got his kind left in the fleet,_" the stout one said.

"_I'm just glad I'm not stationed under 'im. What a hardass..._" the tall one answered, but Sokka was already past them. It wasn't until they were well past, and near the ladders which led up into the more officer-y parts of the vessel that Sokka stopped.

"What the hell was that?" Hahn asked.

"Fire. Wang Fire," Sokka said, whipping some sweat away from his brow with the back of his head. "They fell for it, so that's what matters."

"What did you even say to them?"

"You heard... oh, you don't speak that, do you?" Sokka asked. "Man, Arnook wants you _so_ dead for some reason."

"I don't know what he's got against me!" Hahn said. "For that matter, what've you got against me? I might not speak like the enemy, but I know when somebody's looking at me like I'm a pustule. I get enough of that from the High Chief."

"I just can't understand how somebody beautiful and kind and sweet would marry... you!"

"Yeah, well, that's probably because you can't understand the complexity of Water Tribe politics," Hahn said condescendingly. "No offense."

"Well, you're just a jerk without a soul, no offense!" Sokka almost shouted back. Man, this having-a-beard thing was going to take some getting used to. It didn't help that Sokka'd more-or-less permanently glued it to his face. If there was one benefit to it, it cushioned the blow of Hahn's incoming fist.

Sokka was sent backward by the attack, and bounced off the bulkhead. He half expected the first blow to beget a second, but Hahn seemed content with that alone. "You think I like knowing that we're fighting a losing war?" Hahn asked hotly, but quietly. "The Chief's off his gourd and we've got nothing left. I'm _never_ going to be Chief. I know that. We'll _all_ be gone before that ever has a chance to happen."

Sokka wanted to snap back at the goon, but the bitterness in Hahn's voice, in his eyes, finally overwhelmed Sokka's reflex toward sarcasm and dark humor. Hahn might be a pretentious prick, who was benefactor of a boon he didn't anywhere near deserve, but he was also looking into a future he knew didn't have a place for him in it.

"Then we'd better _make_ that chance," Sokka said quietly, and unhappily. "Officers are above deck. That's where we'll find the admiral."

"Right. Admiral Doh's time has come," Hahn said, clambering up ahead.

"It's Admiral Zhao!" Sokka corrected, and not even for the second time. With a growl, he started to rise up after the other Tribesman, who clambered with skill akin to Momo; a surprising aptitude to be sure. Soon enough, Hahn had kipped off, but Sokka, trailing behind, wasn't exactly sure on what floor it was. So he picked one at random, stepped off the ladder, and turned around.

And an angry red burn filled his sight. Zhao gave a half-turn toward Sokka, then cast a finger toward him, not with wrath or violence, but impatience. "_You, there,_" Zhao demanded. "_Have the men prepared for the breach?_"

"_They prepare even now... Admiral Zhao,_" Sokka lied, because he honestly neither cared nor knew; all the while, he made his voice even more Azuli, if that were possible. "_But there have been __some... slackers amongst the ranks._"

"_Then schedule a few proper beatings and have them fall into line,_" Zhao said, distractedly, looking over a map. Oh... just walking out with that tactical map alone would be worth the trip... Zhao turned to him as he took a shuffle forward, and that burned eye narrowed. "_But then... your people don't believe in that, do they? I always wondered how you Westerners can keep order in your own homes, let alone your army._"

"_We have our ways, Admiral,_" Sokka fabricated, back straight and hands clasped behind him.

"_I'm sure you do, soldier,_" Zhao said. "_Have you fought these Tribesmen before?_"

"_I've had my beard dusted by their knuckles, yes,_" Sokka answered.

"_And yet you're not weeping about going home and staying away from the blue demons? Good,_" Zhao looked over his map, running a finger straight up the center of the city of Summavut to something near the Deadman Plains. "_Have you seen my aide?_" Zhao asked. When Sokka was silent, he glanced to him. "_Lieutenant Kwon. Have you seen him?_"

"_I cannot say._"

"_Pity_," Zhao said. As he turned toward the door, Sokka felt his hand sliding toward his knife. Just a few seconds, that's all it'd take to bring justice to Shyu and Jeong Jeong and the ravaged texture of Sokka's once-unmarred hide. As Sokka took his first step forward, though, Zhao turned around. "_If you're coming in, bring Movements with you,_" he said, and then stepped out onto the balcony. Sokka's heart hammered in his chest. So close. Just a few seconds. That's all it'd take.

Sokka grabbed the book Zhao indicated, and glanced toward the stairwell, through the opened bulkhead. Onward, or backward? Backward, he would probably survive. Onward, he might be able to stop all of this insanity right now. He might be able to prove himself a better man than Hahn even to Arnook's eyes. He might be able to get the old man to... reconsider. Driven by his heart and sadly not his brain, he took up the book and stepped forward, past the map and onto the balcony. Over the horizon, far to the east, the sun was reddening.

Sokka stopped, standing out there, as the rational part of his brain told him to stop doing something so monumentally stupid, that Zhao was going to see through Sokka's Fire National impersonation any moment now. His heart, his hope, ignored it with the force of a burning sun. "_I'm a rational person,_" Zhao said, starting toward the sun. "_I know what they say about me. That I'm driven by fables and myths. But there is a kernel of truth inside some myths which make them invaluable to those willing to shake the good from the dross._"

Sokka moved a little closer, keeping his silence.

"_The 'fancies' and 'myths' I've seen have brought me glory and power,_" Zhao continued. "_Azula... Princess Azula to be specific, her words are portents to a world yet to be. I have seen the world she describes, what will come to pass unless somebody with the will, with the strength, appears to change it. It is not a good world. A world where the Fire Nation is __weak__, ruled by the likes of __Zuko__, while men of vision are cast out and cast down. I would give much to see that not come to pass. To see a world where Fire can stretch its borders across all of the wide world and call it one Nation._"

Sokka remained quiet, but a glance toward the book stilled him. He turned it over, inspecting it a bit more closely. Burnt into the back of the book, there were words, clear to his eyes. 'Sokka, Katara, Aang, no peeking. I'm serious.' Zhao turned as Sokka was agog of it. He nodded. "_The Book of Movements. Useful prophecies_," he said, then leaned forward, toward the icy wall separating the Tribesmen from the Fire Nation. "_Mostly because when I get some time to read it, I'll know how to divert them._"

"_I...see,_" Sokka said.

"_Sunrise. They gain so much power from the moon,_" Zhao said. Then, the demon began to smirk. "_Of course, that won't be a problem for long. You'd be amazed the things you can learn, if you know where to look. The future, the past... who these barbarians' gods are... how to kill them._"

Sokka broke out into a cold sweat. While he'd like to tell himself that Zhao was just full of himself, the fact was, the guy had an uncanny ability to make everybody's life significantly worse. And if he set his sights on the Hold of Yer Tonri, and had actual means to hurt them... Sokka shivered just a little, trying to keep the panic from his eyes. He wasn't sure he succeeded.

* * *

><p>It was draining him. Aang could tell that much about this place every moment he spent here. Bad enough that he couldn't airbend to make his jumps easier or his path faster; bad enough that he wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to be looking for; bad enough that it felt like his body was steadily growing colder until it was the same tepid chill as the winds of Summavut. Time and time again, he spun at a tickle across the back of his neck, shrunk at an incorporeal hand reaching across his face. This place was wrong. It was wrong and it was terrifying and for reasons he didn't wholly understand, it wanted to touch him. As if it couldn't get any creepier.<p>

"What do I do? I'm not even sure where to look!" Aang complained. He kicked at a pool of still water which lay in the crook of dead and petrified roots. As it rippled, a visage not his own stared back at him. Aang let out a surprised yelp, but when the water welled up, it was cut short. After all, there could be no more comforting form in this unnatural place than his immediate predecessor. "Roku? Is that you?"

"Yes, Aang," the old man said, his body and robes a desaturated grey. "You are unsettled. What is the matter?"

"I need help," Aang blurted. "The Fire Nation is attacking the last city of the Water Tribe, and unless something major happens, they're going to win! I need the help of the Ocean and Moon spirits, but I don't know where they are... Do you?"

The old man glanced aside for a moment, then sighed. "Those two are _ancient_ spirits," Roku said, obviously urging Aang to be calm. "They crossed from the Spirit world into the physical world a very long time ago. Almost at the very beginning. Only a few spirits remain who would remember, and only one who would speak. Only one... who is old enough and... _sapient_ enough."

"Great!" Aang said enthusiastically.

"Perhaps not," Roku counciled, pointing to a tree which lay at the very heart of this dead, mad garden. "He is ancient, and sapient, but to call him human would be unimaginably wrong. His name is Koh, and he could tell you what you need to know. But beware of him, Aang. He is extremely dangerous, more dangerous than you would believe."

"What do you mean?"

"He has other names," Roku said. As he spoke, the lower parts of him began to melt away, as though he were made of some sort of sticky mud, falling apart from his feet upward. "They call him the Beginning of the End, and the Scorpion Which Straddles The World... but there is one other. A name said in hushed whispers of fear by those with the talent to move across the veil. They call him the Face Stealer. When you speak with him, you must be unbelievably careful; if he sees the slightest glimpse of emotion on your face, he will steal it away from you forever. Not even I would be able to help you then."

"Why does something like that still exist?" Aang asked, but little remained of Roku below the chest. As he shook his head, the dissolution reached his neck

"_He can't not. He must exist. That is his purpose. Only he can create the nex_

And then he was gone. Aang stared where his mentor had been floating, and even shouted his name a few times, but there was no answer. Roku was gone, and Aang was on his own once more. He glanced at that tree, the great and foreboding mass at the center of the garden. His feet began to move, one foot after another with unpleasant weight and that cloying still playing over the hairs on his neck. He stood at the foot of the tree, staring up its grey roots, to a cleft which went right into its heart. Aang felt that cloying pressing tighter and a shard of panic forced its way into his mind. No. He couldn't do this. It was too much.

And then, he was running. He didn't really have a plan, he just picked a direction and ran, stopping only when he reached an iron fence, as though it could offer him some sort of symbolic protection from his own fear. He caught his breath, a ridiculous notion considering he wasn't actually breathing here, and leaned on the iron. As he did, he noticed it felt oddly warm. And when he did, he could hear... rain? Deluges of it, pounding down just beyond him, but utterly unseen. With a curious lean, he stuck his head through the threshold, and gave a start.

The far side of this gate was the long, steam-shrouded bridge of Crescent island.

With a gasp, he pulled back, shaking his head. This was crazy. And he was terrified. Even as part of him tried to say, no, I can't be the Avatar; this must be some massive mistake, another part of his mind which sounded suspiciously like Sokka smacked that part down. He was the only person who could do this. And people were depending on him.

Despite the whispers so quiet he couldn't make them out, for all they were directly in his ears, for all the soul-cutting chill that ran through him, for all his understandable terror, Aang moved forward. One step before another. Across grey, lifeless soil. Up the cracked, lifeless roots. "Show no fear," Aang said to himself, sweating with the effort it took to keep his expression as blank as a plank of wood. "Show no emotion at all."

Aang pressed his eyes shut, screwed his courage to the sticking place, and stepped into darkness.

After a few moments, his eyes began to adapt to the relative dim. "Hello?" Aang asked, his voice quavering slightly, but he dared not show it on his face. After all, he did kinda like his face right where it was. "Koh? Mister Face Stealer? Are you there? I need to talk to you."

He moved even deeper. Not a sound. It was rather a relief. In his worst predictions, he imagined that there'd be some unplaceable scuttling sounds, or the sounds of metal grinding against stone, or some other deeply unsettling noise. Instead, almost as bad and in some ways worse, utter, utter silence.

"I'm looking for a spirit named Koh," Aang repeated. "I need to speak with you. This is urgent."

Silence.

Aang kept walking, and then halted at the center of the tree. While most of the heart of this tree had rotted out, there was still a pillar of its core still standing, connecting floor to unseeable ceiling. Aang's face sagged just a little as disappointment crossed it, but only for a fraction of a second, before sweat pressed out a little harder, and his face returned to its inscrutable mask. Close one. What if Koh'd been watching? But Koh must not have been home.

"What do I do now?" Aang asked, hoping Roku or somebody like him was listening. "Koh isn't even here."

"That's where you're wrong, kiddo," a woman countermanded him. Aang turned, eyes flaring slightly.

"I...Irukandji?"

"In the flesh," she said with a grin. "Well, not really. It's lucky you're The Great Bridge, or this stunt'd be a lot harder to pull off than it is. As it stands, I'm having to pull double duty with your little girlfriend downstairs."

"My what?" Aang asked, barely able to keep the confusion off of his expression.

"You can drop the mask thing, kid, he ain't watching," Irukandji said.

"How can you be sure?" Aang asked. Irukandji sighed, rolled her eyes, then opened her hand. Lightning tented along her fingers and gave a pool of electric blue radiance which pushed back the dim, and more importantly, let Aang's darkness addled eyes see this place for what it truly was. Most notably, that there was no column in the center of the tree.

Stretching from floor to the unseen heights were loops and loops of chitin and dozens of multi-jointed legs. Stretching away from the end nearest of that spiral of hideous but immobile arthropod was an end to it, tipped with a vicious stinger, but whatever 'front end' this beast contained was lost to the darkness and the distance. Aang stepped away from it, shock clear on his features.

"May I introduce you to Koh," Irukandji said. "Is it just me, or does he seem to get bigger every time I see him?"

"What is that?"

"Koh, dummy," Irukandji said. "And don't worry. He's asleep. That's part of the problem."

"What?" Aang asked.

"If he were awake, then sure, world ends, reality folds up and gets flushed down the toilet, but no big deal. Since he's asleep... we've got a major deal. Major," she stressed.

"How do I wake him up? I need to know..."

"Who the Ocean and Moon spirits are, yeah, I've got that," she said. "Honestly, for a long damn time I was worried that we were all up the river. But you, here, now, means that I might actually know enough to help. Huuni's brain ain't exactly my ideal drawing board, but I've seen this part enough times to know it very, very well. Problem is, there's a lot more going on."

"W...what do you mean?" Aang asked.

"I can tell you who the spirits are, no problem. It's the other part," she said, motioning around to the wasteland of the Spirit world, "that requires a lot more time and attention. And since I know you'd run off to save your precious Tribesmen the second I tell you where Tui and La are, you're just going to sit down and listen a spell, alright?"

Aang glanced up to the unimaginable horror of Koh, then down to the completely imaginable horror of Irukandji. He decided to go with the devil he knew. "Fine. What is it that I need to know?" Aang asked.

* * *

><p>"<em>You're going to kill the moon?<em>" Sokka asked, not-quite-entirely keeping the strangled sound out of his voice.

"_It has a certain... elegance to it, doesn't it?_" Zhao asked. "_The Tribesmen stripped first of their gods, then of their powers, and then, of their existence. A fitting end to such a smug nuisance._"

"_They might surprise you,_" Sokka said, inching a bit closer. This had to stop now, before it was too late. All it would take was one crack upside the cranium with whatever was on hand, then a body tipped over the rail. The book would do, he guessed. Sokka froze as Zhao gave a glance in his direction.

"_Don't tell me you admire these insane savages?_" Zhao accused.

"_Well, I'd say..._" Sokka began, trying to hedge his bets. Sadly, it proved utterly unnecessary. The door to the balcony slammed open, and Hahn charged into the breach between the map room and where the admiral was standing. His eyes flit about, until the recognized Zhao, and more importantly, the two-toned burn on his left eye.

"Admiral Choi! Prepare to meet your fate!" Hahn shouted, then rushed forward, knife first. Sokka took a half-step away, clearing the path, since Zhao didn't seem in the least bit ready for the assault. Then, with reflexes that Aang could envy, the scar-faced man twisted just a little bit, caught Hahn's arm with one hand, bent it back, and then flipped the charging Tribesman over the railing and down into near-frozen seas.

"_As you were saying?_" Zhao asked, as though nothing had occurred at all. Sokka swallowed, and scratched at the side of his head. It felt a bit odd. Sokka pointed after his evicted counterpart.

"_Are you just going to leave him out there?_" Sokka asked. But Zhao's expression was curdling from smugness to wrath. Sokka glanced down at his hand; grey hair, unglued from where it masked his native hairstyle, had come loose in his hand. Sokka gave a nervous chuckle. "Okay... next time I try that, I'm growing a bit of hair out first."

"_So where one obvious assassin fails, a second hopes to take me like a cowardly sneak-theif!_" Zhao shouted, and then he started to firebend. If there was one fortunate thing about being the only non-bender in the little team the Avatar had accrued, it was that it forced him to be quick on his feet. Thanks to that, he was able to duck, dodge, and weave around the huge gouts of flame that the enraged admiral cast about with murderous rancor. Sokka dodged as the man systematically and accidentally destroyed all of the furnishings for the balcony, but had Sokka pinned to the rail. A sweep of low fire saw Sokka mount that rail rather than lose his feet.

Sokka, still clutching that book out of panicked reflex, gave a nervous chuckle. "_Um... this isn't what it looks like?_" he tried.

"_Enjoy your trip to whatever afterlife you believe in, savage. I'll make sure you have plenty of company there,_" Zhao swore. Then, his arms began to twist in a move that Sokka hadn't seen before, and given his precarious perch, wasn't entirely sure how to dodge. When the crackle of lightning began to follow his fingertips, Sokka was pretty sure his heart missed a beat. A glance over his shoulder had him calculating the chances of surviving a fall into ice-cold surf from this height. They weren't good. Finally, with a grunt of angry effort, that hand shot forward.

Sokka's first impulse was to hide behind the book.

Zhao's reaction to that instinct was to have his eyes, even that burnt and glowering one, shoot wide, and a scream of 'nooooooooo!' emit from his lips. But it was too late for either of them. The lightning bolt that Zhao threw – Lightning! How was that even fair? Was that even _an element_? – struck the book first, and exploded it into burning, ruined pages which fluttered out into the wind. The rest of the impact slammed Sokka, and he felt every muscle in his body turn to stone, jerking then locking solid as his involuntary movement sent him off the rail and down toward the water. Oddly, it wasn't as painful as when Zhao almost killed him last time, but that was slim succor, Sokka thought as he plummeted toward the water.

His last thought before impact was that this was probably going to hurt.

In the only sliver of luck he'd gotten today, he wasn't conscious to find out.

* * *

><p>Hakoda thought that the fight would be over quickly, one way or another. He was proven wrong. Hakoda's injuries had weakened him drastically, but somehow, it was balanced out by Arnook's utterly indefensible ineptitude at personal combat. Arnook's first charge, with both knives against Hakoda's zero, was negated by a kick to the hand. Arnook recoiled, losing his grip on the knife, but still managed to keep Hakoda at bay with the one he'd remaining. It took Hakoda a few minutes of careful feinting, dodging, and skirting before he could finally reach where the blade, ironically Arnook's, had fallen. That Hakoda had thought the battle essentially ended at that point showed how much he overestimated his own physical capacity since his injury, and simultaneously, Arnook's skill.<p>

The fight was crossing a half-hour long, and both middle aged men were exhausted. Hakoda had doffed his coat, letting the heat from his burning muscles keep him warm. It had the side effect of exposing old burns to fresh air. The sting kept him focused. "I expected better from a man who was systematically sending his entire culture to their deaths," Hakoda said, goading the madman.

"You didn't see what I saw," Arnook said, his chest heaving. They circled each other, Arnook ignoring a gash along his left arm, Hakoda a similar one amongst the ruin that was his burns. "I watched as everything... EVERYTHING... we'd built up for so long came crashing down. It was the only way! I did what I had to do!"

"By selling your own daughter for your pride?" Hakoda asked. "How much of this would have been prevented if your ego hadn't gotten in the way?"

"They were going to kill us all!"

"They didn't exterminate the Whalesh after taking them over," Hakoda said, a smirk coming to his face. "They didn't exterminate the Easterners, a century or a decade ago."

"You know nothing!" Arnook screamed, and lashed forward again. Blades and men danced, the former seeking out the latter, and occasionally finding them. An oddly and particularly cunning feint saw Hakoda reacting to an attack which didn't come, and thus, the next one, which was racing right at his eye could only be deflected up, tearing a long weal across his forehead. Hakoda answered that by a low cut which slashed into the thigh of the High Chief. With that exchange finished, they backed off a moment, Hakoda flicking away the stinging liquid which dripped into his vision.

"What I know is that with even an instant's forethought, you could have prevented all of this," Hakoda said. "Hide the waterbenders, send the civilians away. Let them have an empty city. But no. You had to heed your pride over your own sanity."

"You know not what you speak," Arnook snapped.

"It wounded you too much to lose 'the most spiritual place' in the North to the Fire Nation, so you decided to spend the lives of every man, woman, and child instead. Your ego has cost you hundreds of lives to pointless deaths!"

"Their names will live on in glory!"

"With who?" Hakoda roared. He cast his arms wide for a moment. "Who will be left to remember them? Who will care to? All of your people will be dead, and the only ones left will be the people who you maneuvered into killing them," his arms dropped, and he pointed with his knife, as a chill set into him. "Unless... that's what you wanted, wasn't it? You wanted the glory of this war. You wanted to be remembered forever, as the Last Chief of the North Water Tribe. The man who fought against impossible odds, odds proven right, but damn, if he wasn't heroic in fighting them."

"We will defeat the Fire Nation," Arnook said. "Drive them back to black sands!"

"With what!" Hakoda demanded. A sweep of his arm across his brow, then out amongst the 'nobles' assembled had a side effect of flicking a crescent of scarlet toward them. "With them? Broken, exhausted, and dispirited fighters? An upper class which views you rightly as insane? An entire section of your population looking for any excuse to rebel?"

"What?" Tanuuit asked.

"Shut up, woman," Arnook snapped. "They would never rebel."

"That was why you accepted Pakku's grandson as your daughter's mate," Arnook said. "Not out of any desire to sew peace, but as a concession so that your precious war would go on just a little bit longer."

"You talk and you talk and you talk," Arnook said. "Fitting your liar's tongue brought you here. Your kind have no place on the battlefield."

Hakoda tightened his grip on the knife. "And neither does yours."

And two tired, bloody, middle aged men aped the conflict which surrounded them. Only one of them was aware of the irony of it.

* * *

><p>"What is this place?" Aang asked, looking over the edge, down into that defile.<p>

"This is the heart of the Spirit world," Irukandji said quietly, her usual scathing tones muted, almost mournful. There was also a lingering, worried light in her eyes. Aang scratched at his head, trying to make sense of what he saw before him. It was a twisted mess, blackened as though by immense pollution, its structures higgledy-piggledy and askew. From how they lay, Aang would have guessed either an earthquake pulled them from their foundations, or else they were thrown together without regard to placement by some petulant god.

"It's so... human," Aang said, striking to the very heart of his confusion. "I thought the Spirit world was way older than us. And that its heart would be... well, older. Like a glade or a mountain or something."

"The Black City," Irukandji said. "It's young. A desperate ploy by desperate hands," she pointed at what seemed like a massive cairn at its heart. "Within that shield of stone lies the beating heart of this realm, its driving mind. Or it did. Nothing has dared enter the Black City in almost a century. Even me. That place is _deadly_ to my kind."

"Why?"

"Because something lives there. Something... hungry. Patient. Powerful," Irukandji said, her nervousness plain just standing here. "I don't want to be melodramatic and say that this is the end of the world... but you _can_ see it from here."

"So why does it look like that?" Aang asked.

"You've got a wicked case of the 'why's, don't ya'?" Irukandji asked, finally turning away from that cairn. "This place was once the strongest place in the Spirit world, the surest and most resilient. Hell, if you'd asked me a universe back what would be the first part of the Spirit world to die, the _last_ place I'd have offered woulda' been here. This is the center of our world, and it has fallen. But it didn't fall instantly. Nowhere did. It could feel its vitality ebbing," she ran a hand up and down a stunted tree nearby. As she did, electricity began to crackle away from her fingertips and make the grey would glow slightly blue. "So it looked below... at you."

"Us?"

"Yup. Dumb move, I wouldn't have recommended it, but hey, it's choice," she shrugged. "It saw that the mortal world was still more or less continuing just fine. It thought that maybe, if it was closer to the way you were, it might stabilize itself, or even heal. So it started to gobble up ideals and notions, structures which never were and wouldn't be. It tried arranging its forests into orchards and gardens. It tried turning its canyons into mines and... other human structures. Bridges, boats, it tried everything. But nothing worked. As it got weaker, it pressed harder, caring less and less where things went, so long as they were part of itself. Thus the fences back in my brother's garden. Its last act was trying to gather as much of it as it could in one spot, as though that'd help."

"It didn't work, did it?" Aang asked, looking over the silent ruin below.

"Not even a little bit. Then, the blowouts started," Irukandji said. She waved away his obvious question. "It's complicated, but I wouldn't recommend letting it touch you. You want to know what you're really fighting, it's what caused all of this," she said, pointing down into the Black City.

"But... what about the Fire Lord, and Sozin's Comet?" Aang asked.

"Don't get me wrong, Sozin's comet's important. Dare say _very_ important. Stopping Fire Lord Child-Abuser downstairs is _absolutely vital_, if only to keep the situation up here from getting worse. His Sozin Comet plan could unbalance this world completely, and irrecoverably. And if that happens, reality ends."

"You mean the world," Aang corrected. She shook her head.

"No, not even close. Worlds end all the time. No big problem," Irukandji said. As she stepped away from the tree, the blue glow remained, tracing out into its leaves, which curled open behind her. "The problem is that this world is _more important_ than they are," she said. Then, a pause as Aang's disapproving stare sunk in on her. "Oh, don't give me that."

"The mortal world isn't important?"

"No, _your_ mortal world isn't important. A Spirit world without a mortal world is just as doomed as a mortal world without a Spirit world," she shook her head. "For me's-sake, I can't believe _I'm_ the one explaining this to you. Look, think of the Spirit world as a great and encompassing ocean of infinite depth, alright? Terrible metaphor, it falls apart in some places, but it's what I've got to work with. Man, feels weird carrying on two very different conversations at the same time," she said aside, but then shook her head and continued. "In this ocean, mortal worlds float in and atop it like wood chips. Each one with its own people, it's own history. You're one of them. I've been to others. A lot of them."

"Are they different?"

"Of course," she said with a dismissive wave. "Hakoda's alive, so that alone's different than the last one. The point is, any one mortal world can vanish, any one wood chip can disappear, and the ocean remains an ocean. But what happens if all the water is gone?"

"The chips fall... forever," Aang said, and she nodded. "Something's trying to kill the Spirit world."

"Not trying, but definitely succeeding," she said. "It doesn't think. It doesn't plot and plan. But it consumes. And it's close to being strong enough to eat my home whole," she trailed off, shaking her head as though she had a sudden headache. "This thing's about as powerful as anything which has existed, ever, and all because it'll eat anything which gets in its way. Any spirit. The only lucky part is that, for the moment, it doesn't realize it can try eating human souls. It'd fail, of course – I'm pretty much the only spirit which can, and only under some extreme circumstances – but it'd try, and the results _would not_ be pretty," at Aang's baffled look she turned back toward the City.

"First," she continued. "It'd eat me, which would suck, 'cause I'd be dead. Then, it'd eat every human being in the world, but they wouldn't sate 'im. Then, it'd eat you, 'cause you'd have nowhere to hide. Then, it'd eat the rest of the physical world you live in. And then, in one last great pang of hunger, it'd eat the Spirit world, followed ultimately by it eating itself. Then, there'd be nothing, _forever_."

"That's bad."

"Tell me about it, kiddo," Irukandji noted. She began to rub her brow. "Alright. You heard me out. Now, what you wanted. The Moon and Ocean circled each other before coming here, and continue still. Tui and La are the names the Tribesmen gave them. Their real names are Tyontaa and Vetaa; push and pull–"

Aang's eyes opened. "The koi fish!" he said, puzzling it out. Irukandji gave a chuckle, but it broke off as some sort of black ichor began to ooze from her nose.

"Wow. You figured that out faster than I thought you would," she said, and as she finished, it began to leak from her tearducts as well.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm feeling a bit... odd," she said.

Aang was about to ask her why, but then, he could hear something, just at the edge of his perception. A scream, of wrath and madness, of desperation. It held words, almost vanished and barely recognizable as anything useful, that rebounded through this hollow, lifeless world. Behind them, something in that Black City shifted, and a great metal clunk answered it. Irukandji went deathly pale.

"Oh... oh hell no," she said, her jaw dropping as she stared away from the heart of her realm, almost looking like she was bleeding from her face, if not of any worldly blood.

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"This... ain't good," she answered. With a grasp at his shoulder, Aang felt an electric jolt run through him, and then, both of them, Avatar and spirit, were gone from the cliffs overlooking the Black City. Unseen by either of them, and unheard, the ruins settled back into themselves, and returned to a sullen, malnourished silence.

* * *

><p>"Sir?" Kwon asked as Zhao left his ship behind, and began to walk the ice.<p>

"I thought there was supposed to be a sunrise today," Zhao said, staring at the east, where the reddening of the horizon receded, against all laws of nature. He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Whatever trickery these barbarians pulled, I will find a way to counteract it. You all know where to go," Zhao said to his men, who were arrayed in loose ranks behind him.

"Through the opposition like a spear," Kwon answered.

"Exactly," Zhao said, a cruel smirk on his face. "And when we arrive... it'll be just about time to go fishing."

* * *

><p>"I refuse," Azula countered.<p>

"I'm not giving you an option, human," Irukandji answered, arms crossed under her remarkable bosom. Then again, considering the body this spirit took last time, it didn't surprise Azula too much that he'd opt for something a bit more easy on the eyes. One could only achieve so much being ugly. Azula scowled at the temerity of the thing for thinking it could deny her.

"Your plan is faulty and it runs contrary to our prior agreement. I am going to hold you to it."

Irukandji scowled, throwing up her hands. "Damn it all, girl, can't you think this thing through! You're the best chance this poor little bastard has of surviving!"

Azula turned her gaze over the torpid Avatar, still bound and helpless. She had time to spare. At least this time, she wasn't already suffering a mild concussion. Honestly, Azula should have killed that woman the first time she saw her. "And why exactly would I want him alive?"

"Oh, I don't know, the continued existence of reality?" Irukandji said with biting sarcasm. "The deck's been stacked against this kid and he really needs to win."

"No, he does not," Azula countered. "You promised me revenge and power. You promised me the Burning Throne, all in exchange for... well, I see you've collected as you've needed already," Azula pointed out. "But a savage like her? Were there no other options, or do you just like them dark and exotic?"

Irukandji scowled, but didn't lash out as Azula was half-way hoping she would. "Could you stop being such a selfish bitch for one second and listen to me? The Avatar's necessary. You're not."

"I tend to disagree," Azula said. "The Fire Nation did very well without the Avatar's interference for a century."

"Jang Hui," Irukandji said humorlessly.

"Sacrifices to a noble goal."

"That scary bitch in the woods of Grand Ember," Irukandji continued.

"The very kind of ignorance and violence we've strove to wipe out," Azula countered.

"The Fire Bombing," Irukandji finished. Azula didn't have a good answer for that one. "Face it, bucko over here keeps people from going nuts. Tell me something; what happens when fire burns everything near it."

"It expands," she said.

"Posit that there's nowhere left for it to expand to," Irukandji answered her charge. Irukandji shook her head. "Face it. Fire alone dies."

"You're not making your case," she said.

"I shouldn't have to! Damn it, woman, you've been through this! Are you so pissed off over Chiyo after two decades that you still can't get your head on straight?" Irukandji demanded.

Azula felt that hatred burning in her heart, even now. Especially now. Because _she_ was alive again. One vengeance wasn't enough. "My vengeance gives me power," Azula said.

"No, it's driven you nuts," Irukandji said. "And I can't use crazy, and I've just about run out of patience. Listen here, hateful worm; if you don't do as I demand, then I'll tear you out of that girl's mind and personally pitch you into the Well of Oblivion... if it still exists."

"So you'd kill an innocent little girl?" Azula said with batted eyelashes.

"No," Irukandji said, looming over her. "The girl who's brain you stole will still live, awakening to a patchy memory since she was eight. I'll even do her the favor of removing the other one, who's obviously corrupted you."

"What?" Azula asked.

"Did you ever really wonder what soulbending was?" Irukandji asked. "Have you ever wondered _why_ you couldn't firebend after dingus," a nod toward the Avatar, "got his hands on you a couple years back?"

Azula went slightly pale.

"He tore out that part of your soul which let you firebend. If I took what was left of you and shoved you into this little girl, you'd be just as unable as you were when you died. So sue me, I did you a favor, and repaired what I could."

Azula swallowed. "How many?" she asked.

"Just one other," Irukandji answered. "But that's not important. Are you going to drop this little feud with the waterbender and the Avatar? Hell, he's not even attracted to her in this universe!"

Azula's expression scrunched. "What? How is that possible?"

"It's really pathetic, actually," Irukandji began with a grin, but then, her eyes went wide, and she spun to face the south. There was silence, which Azula took to glance toward the Avatar. Still torpid. Back to Irukandji. Still transfixed. "Oh... oh hell no," the spirit said.

* * *

><p>The wounds Hakoda had acquired in the last few minutes stung. Those from before had already given way to numbness. In a way, it was a relief, and in another, a major worry. While Hakoda could thank his many journeys throughout the world in his youth with giving him the vigor and hale constitution he taxed to its extreme today, he knew that his vitality was running out. His arms felt leaden, his breath came in ragged, burning pants. One foot dragged, slipping slightly in the slickness underfoot. One arm hung essentially useless at his side, its skin a grey pallor. Arnook was just as harried, one eye swollen shut from a haymaker, his once blue parka turned an ugly shade of purple-brown. And tellingly, he was moving much more slowly than Hakoda was.<p>

"You can still end this," Hakoda offered. "Stand down."

"Never," Arnook said. That mad fire was still burning bright in his one still-open eye. "I will lead us to victory."

"Arnook, please stop this!" Tanuuit called from the fringes. Arnook paused, looking in her direction, but with an expression utterly devoid of marital love. Or even human appreciation, now that Hakoda saw it first hand. The man leaned aside, spitting some bloody spittle onto the floor.

"You should have given me a son," Arnook said. "It would have been so much easier with a son. Not somebody weak and... _merciful_... like her."

"End this madness, Arnook. You stand alone," Hakoda said, tucking his knife into his belt. Arnook swung his head to him, confusion plain on his face.

"You surrender? You yield?" Arnook asked, as much disdain in those words as there had bene for 'merciful'.

"No. I've won," Hakoda said. Arnook's face twisted into a scowl. Then, with a shriek of murderous wrath, Arnook began to rush the distance between the two men. Hakoda didn't pull his knife. He knew a lot of things. He was a prodigious reader by any standard, and the topics he studied ranged from engineering to medicine. Because of that latter, he knew certain things that he wagered that Arnook didn't. Such as how much blood a human being could survive losing.

Arnook's running advance slowed, as the strength obviously left his body, struggling as it was against its many injuries. But the most telling was that earliest, right at his thigh. How that hadn't killed him outright, Hakoda couldn't even guess. But the staggering advance fell into a stumble, which sent the High Chief of the North to his knees. That mad light didn't die, though, and he crawled, knife scratching along the ground. Inch by struggling inch, he advanced, until he reached back with the greatest and last of his blows. Hakoda shifted his foot a few inches to the left, and the blow buried that blade into the ice underfoot. Arnook fell still but for the ragged hiss of his breathing.

Hakoda slowly, painfully stooped, turning the madman over. His eye was still open, still staring above him. "I don't understand," the High Chief said. "You promised me victory... you promised me glory..."

"Glory and victory can come at too high a cost," Hakoda said, quietly. "What caused this madness, Arnook? You weren't a bad man, you weren't a cruel man. Why!"

Arnook finally focused on Hakoda, and his lips pulled into a sneer. "You have killed the Water Tribe, Southlander. Damn you! Damn you... damn you..."

Then, there was silence in the chamber. Just a moment, as everybody present realized what this meant. Tanuuit's soft sobs could be heard near the windows overlooking the canal. Two men cast down knives, and by the rites of combat and camaraderie, one had been named victor. Two Chiefs fought. One remained. Hakoda slowly turned to those assembled around him. "There isn't much time," He said, his voice still rasping. "We need to..."

The door at the far end of the room banged open, and a wave of black and red armor entered on its heel. One, though, stood ahead of them, no death's-head helmet upon his brow, and a scarlet cape billowing as he strode into the room as though he had any right to be here. Even at that distance, Hakoda could make out the livid burn over his left eye, and knew this man's name. This was Admiral Zhao. That meant that Sokka was defeated, and possibly dead. Hakoda felt cold.

Zhao stopped outside the outskirts of the ring, now marked in blood, as the firebenders spread out and began to take the hallways and stairwells that lead upward and down. He looked over Hakoda and Arnook, and the group of nobility gathered beyond them, and had the gall to chuckle, a smirk on his face. "_And here I thought I was going to have to kill him myself,_" Zhao opined. He leaned back to one other unmasked fighter. "_Capture them, kill any who resist. And kill whoever _that_ man is._"

With the first clack of footfall, Hakoda had dropped Arnook to the ice. He knew he didn't have much left in him, but he hoped it was going to be enough. With his one good arm, he scooped Tanuuit over his shoulder, drawing a gasp from the bereaved woman, which lasted about a second longer, as that was all the time he had until Hakoda was launching the two of them out of the window and over a long plunge. Behind them, fire began to belch from places throughout the palace, and several others followed Hakoda's example. Of course, they were in far better stead than Hakoda himself, who landed awkwardly and painfully in the frigid water of the canal.

The numbness began to move through him. The weight of Tanuuit, the only person he could reasonably save from that madness, vanished. He blinked, under the brine, trying to figure out where she was. Where he was. Which way was up. The need for air screamed in his already depleted lungs. So Arnook's words rang true. Two men threw down knives. Neither survived.

Then, Hakoda felt something grab his boot, and then, with a great heave, he was accelerating at a vector he wouldn't have predicted, but found himself being dumped unceremoniously into a boat, which was moving through the waters. It took a few seconds for Hakoda's eyes to focus, but when they did, it was on a waterbender drying Hakoda, while an old woman was already tending to the reddened flesh of a burned man. Hakoda grunted, and then leaned over and vomited a stomach-full of water into the canal. He leaned back, feeling utterly spent. "He lives," the waterbender said.

"You didn't check his stomach, did you?" Yugoda, the old healer, asked.

"No, Grandma, I had other things to worry about," the waterbender said. "What happened up there?"

Tanuuit's voice was quiet at Hakoda's back. "He slew the High Chief," she said. "He did it in the Rite of Protest."

"But that means..." the waterbender said.

"We need to go," Hakoda croaked. "Nothing remains here but death."

Yugoda looked to the north, to where that Spirit Oasis lay, then down at the others in the boat. They'd likely been doing exactly that when Hakoda landed in the canal near them. "Tui and La forgive us," the old woman said quietly.

"May they forgive us all," Tanuuit amended. Around them, as they slipped through the unseen places, the Fire Nation pressed through the palace, and beyond it. There was nobody left. It was over.

The North Water Tribe was finished.

And in the south, the sky turned to blood.

* * *

><p>Zuko ended up having only to follow his ears to find them, after that lengthy and unpleasant search. Avoiding all of the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes as he went was beyond difficult at first... but as this unnaturally extended night progressed, the former moved past him, and the latter became essentially non-existent. But then, through the haze, he heard a scream which caught his attention as clearly as a bell in the morn. With swiftness born of years of preparation and an inexhaustible well of filial concern, he was rushing through the vacated streets, skidding to a halt outside a small smelting building which was part of a foundry, all rough hewn stone. He blinked a few times, getting his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness even against the night, and then ducked inside.<p>

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Azula's words brought a surge of relief to Zuko, but as soon as he saw the scene, that relief died a horrible death. Mostly because she was standing in a wary posture, as though afraid of one of the two other inhabitants. One of them was the Avatar, obviously, but the other was a Tribeswoman, and a damned good looking one. If not for the fact that she was bleeding from her ears.

"Azula, are you alright?" Zuko asked. And when he moved toward her, she twisted and lashed out with a bolt of azure flame that Zuko had to throw himself flat to avoid, because he was fairly sure he wouldn't have been able to block it without forethought and warning. "What was that!"

"Oh, so nice of you to join us, _big brother,_" she said, her accent thick, and her tones full of venomous scorn and hate. "I was wondering if you were going to show up again. Mostly because I'd have hated to miss out on the opportunity to repay you for all the suffocating bondage you'd subjected me to for the last few years."

Zuko pushed himself to his feet, but couldn't really understand what his sister was saying. "What? Azula, are you alright?" he asked, taking a cautious step toward her. She answered by swinging down a brutal axe-kick, sending blue flames with it. It took everything Zuko had to deflect them aside, and even then, he wasn't sure _why_!

"Oh, I'm better than I've been in years," Azula said, her tones smoky and unshakable. "If only because I'm finally, _finally_ free of you."

"Azula..."

"_Change of plans,_" the Tribeswoman said, turning to face the Avatar. Zuko and Azula alike recoiled at the sight of her. She bled from her nose and eyes, and in fact every orifice she had. With a motion that echoed with electric energy, she slammed a bloody hand onto the top of the Avatar's head, and there was a loud 'zorp' sound. With that, the glow ended from the boy's eyes... and the woman was gone entirely.

"What was that?" Zuko asked. "What did she do to you?"

Azula turned from the gap where the woman vanished to Zuko. "All she did was make me see things for how they really were. You've been in my way this entire time. You've hindered me at every step, kept me away from the Avatar and my glory. But no more," she said, taking a low stance, unlike any she'd favored before, with blue fire flickering along knife-like fingers directed in his direction. Zuko was shocked, and in shock. She couldn't be saying that. How could she know?

"What's going on," the Avatar's voice came groggily from his bound form. Azula turned to him and tutted.

"Well, it might not be as permanent as killing him in the Avatar State, but he'll still be dead, and I'll be closer to my revenge," she said. Zuko rushed to interpose himself between his sister and the Avatar. Her eyes narrowed. "Why am I not surprised you'd choose him over me?"

"I'm not choosing him, Azula," Zuko pleaded. "You're not a killer! We can take him back together..."

"Two things wrong with that," Azula said. "One, you're wrong about about me. Two, you have nothing I wan..." she trailed off, then glanced aside, as though distracted by something, and growled. "I am not going to fall for your tricks, Zuko. _Never again!_"

And with that, she advanced with fire and fury, and Zuko was forced to fall back. This didn't make sense! Even if they did snipe at each other, there couldn't be this level of hatred. There just couldn't! He loved his sister. And in her spiky way, she did back. But that belief didn't save Zuko from having to deflect waves of incredibly hot flames into rock, which managed to withstand the blows, but started to crack along their rough-cut faces.

"What's wrong with you, Azula?" Zuko pleaded. "Who was that woman? This is her fault, isn't it!"

"Oh, poor Zuzu. So out of his depth," Azula said, sashaying toward him in a manner entirely too provocative for _any_ girl in his family, let alone his long-sickly little sister. "But easily enough dealt with. You won't catch me at my weakest this time."

Zuko glanced past his sister, where Aang was starting to worm his way away. With half a thought and even less time, Zuko snatched a mostly completed skinning knife blade from where it'd been abandoned in a quenching bucket, and hurled it past his sister at the Avatar. Specifically, so that it'd split the ropes. That it nicked the kid was an unfortunate side effect of Zuko's training to keep blades in his hand, rather than dispense them. "Don't even think of running from us, Avatar!" Zuko shouted with a thrust out finger.

"Well, at least your priorities are in order," She raised her hands, tapered into burning points, toward Zuko. Her eyes became dark and wrathful. "I've been waiting for this rematch for far too long... since the last time you stole the Avatar out from under me."

"You knew about..." Zuko almost blurted out. The Avatar, though, was shrugging loose of his binds.

"You know... your face doesn't look right," Azula said, a smirk coming to her face. "Like it's missing something. How about your little sister helps you with that."

With a laugh Zuko tried very hard not to describe as psychotic – and failed at that task – she hurled a fireball at the left side of Zuko's face. He recoiled, dodging away from it, but because of that, was unable to catch his balance in the instant that she'd taken between one assault and the next. If Zuko still believed in the grace of Agni, he would have credited it with the Avatar's timely intercession, breaking the waves of fire with a deflecting gust of air. Aang looked much confused and alarmed at her, just as Zuko was. She glared between them, her dark humor vanishing into cold hate.

"You always sniveled at his boots, haven't you? Played nice so you could have the scraps from his table?" she mocked. With a scream, she lashed out in a wave of fire, which it took both benders their all to push past, if for different reasons. Her precise, surgical style she'd levied against Zuko – and where in the seas of Hell had that come from, Zuko wondered – was instantly overtaken by the whirling, expansive attacks she'd showcased first on Kyoshi Island. Zuko could easily enough hold his ground against even those azure flames, but the Avatar was having a hell of a time, being backed into a corner. It seemed like that style had been tailor-made to fight airbenders with.

"Azula, stop!"

"Never!" Azula shouted. "Not until they're all dead! Not until I can have peace!"

"Please!" Zuko shouted, pressing through her attacks and catching her arm. That was probably the wrong move because she took the opportunity to yank him forward off of his stance and send him chin-first into the stone floor. It rang his head like a bell, obviously enough, and a kick to his chest flipped him onto his back. Then, he could see his little sister, murder in her eyes, vault onto his chest, driving a knee into his lung as she did. The well-developed muscles of her arm twitched as she stared down at him. Zuko had seen that look in his family's eyes before. When Ozai lashed out at him. It was the look of one family member prepared to kill another.

That was why it was so shocking when her fist started to lower, her eyes began to waver. "No. No, you don't die yet," she said, her voice suddenly unsteady. "But thanks to you, we're going to lose the North."

She shoved his head back against the stone roughly to prove her point. The stunned state it left him in prevented him from noticing her rising to her feet, rolling her shoulders. The Avatar was gone, but she knew where he was going. She also knew that if she tried to follow him there, then an enormous glowing koi was going to kill her. Leave that fate for Zhao. "No matter," she said, the accent even obvious to her own ears, now. "I know where he's going next."

And she flexed her hands as she walked to the south. "Not as weak as I remember, actually."

"A lot weaker then you expect," a child's voice said to her. She turned, but besides Zuko's quietly groaning form on the stone, she was alone. With a shaking of the head, she moved to the harbor. It'd be tricky, finding a way to get to the East Continent from here. But then again, she'd done far harder, and under far worse circumstances.

This time, she was going to do things properly. _This time_, she was going to win.

* * *

><p>"What do we do?" Ashan asked, pulling back. Nila ran through just about every possible answer in her head, but the only one which made any sense was to reach to Aki's saddle bags, draw her bow, pull back, and let fly. The arrow zipped through the air, slamming into Malu's body right at the center of her neck. Her head flopped back, and she fell off of whatever impossible energy was holding her aloft. Tzu Zi gasped with shock.<p>

"Oh my god, Nila," she said with shock and sadness, dark eyes wide. "You shot _Malu_!"

"Oh my god," Nila repeated, with confusion and surprise. "I _hit_ Malu."

"What?" Ashan asked.

"There's a reason she didn't use that thing the whole time she was gone. She's utter crap with a bow," Sharif said. "Come on! She's not going to stay down long!"

"But... she shot her in the neck!" Tzu Zi said, even as Sharif easily hoist her up onto Aki's back.

"She doesn't need a neck," Sharif answered.

"Sharif, I don't understand. Why are you talking so smoothly? What happened to your wound?" Ashan asked.

"Less talking more running!" Sharif stressed, then fell somewhat pale as he looked back. Nila tracked his gaze, as did the others. One and all, they emulated him upon seeing what he saw. Rising up on nothing visible, but clearly wrong, was Malu. Her head flopped forward, showing the arrow-head jutting through the far side of her spine. But the wood was beginning to pale and the fletchings crumbled to dust. The arrowhead caught fire, which made _no_ sense since it was steel, and the shaft rotted away, leaving utterly unblemished flesh where Nila had miraculously managed to feather her.

"Where do we go?" Tzu Zi said, Aki backing away with its back-canted knees practically knocking together. Ashan was first to look away, and spotted a bland spot in the wall nearby. He ran toward it, and as he reached it, cast his hand wide as though wafting away a foul odor of significant viscosity. As he did, the sandstone wall bowed to his bending, and moved aside, opening onto the street filled with fighting Dakongese and Si Wongi.

"Through here!" Ashan said. "We need to reach the gates or something!"

Nila nodded. Best news was that the others, Nila included were able to heed him. Aki turned and pelted through that hole in a heartbeat, clearly glad beyond control to have anywhere that didn't contain... whatever Malu had become.

"Get going, I'll catch up," Sharif said, staring at that thing.

"I don't think so," Nila said. Ashan, though, looped an arm 'round her waist and hoisted her up, to her squawk of alarm and disapproval. She flailed lightly, but even as Ashan deposited her outside, and prepared to seal that breach, she could see Sharif was smiling lightly. After he did so, she punched him hard in the arm.

"What are you doing, idiot!" she demanded.

"Saving my friend's sister," Ashan said. He turned, noting the fighting still swirling around them. "Can they not see this madness? Why do they yet fight?"

Nila took a moment to gauge the battle. Both sides were fighting, yes, but it wasn't the kind of fighting she'd come to expect from the stalwart Sipahi or the grizzled Tarkha. Both of them, under that insane and unexplainable red light, looked to be deathly pale, fighting not on discipline and battle-joy, but rather insane, pants-filling fear. "_Kill the Nemesis! They have stolen the heavens! End this blasphemy!_" came the cry from the Dakongese.

"_Kill these fowl-worshipers and their shamans! They've brought this madness to break us!_" answered the Si Wongi, although each in their respective tongue, and neither understanding the other.

"Mutual annihilation, lovely," she said, but her sarcasm was in poor form. She pointed well ahead, where Aki was pelting away. "After her! Anywhere's better than here!"

Ashan didn't question her, for which she was both grateful and relieved. Behind her, a voice began to rise up over the screams of men fighting to the death, a sound which rang which sounded like decay and rot, of metal falling into rust, of virtue abandoned and cruelty ascended into madness. They were not words, but every single syllable of it cause a pain in Nila's head, something she almost somehow knew, and yet desperately didn't want to know. She tried running, but didn't make it far, the pain in her head driving away even her capacity for sight.

"Nila!" Ashan shouted, and she found herself scooped up again, only to be unpleasantly dropped after the Si Wongi boy was kicked aside by an angry Patriarch. He got back to his feet after a cry of alarm, having to roll away from a scimitar swinging past him, and the fight between two Dakongese fighters against one Sipahi reigned. She cradled her head, trying to get the pain to stop. Why wouldn't it stop?

Ashan grabbed the beak of the great bird, drawing a wrathful glare from the Ostrich Horse. "I don't care. You're going to take her on your back and run or else I swear by Sobki's Teeth that I will carve you for dinner!"

The bird gave a snort, but didn't kick him again. Lucky for the bird.

Nila felt herself getting lifted once more, and draped across the saddle which was atop Patriarch's back. If nothing else, she wouldn't have to walk. Then, the pain cleared suddenly, as the words in that horrible tongue ended. She groaned, feeling the last ebbing of it, and she was already moving. She gave a squawk of alarm, having to pull in her hands and feet as Patriarch rammed straight through fights, knocking Dakongese and Si Wongi aside with equal vigor and impartiality. For just a moment, she was sure she was going to make it past them, to reach the far side, to escape.

Then, there was just a flick of burning against the back of her calf. She looked down, and saw that an arrowshaft had dug in behind Nila's leg. She looked up at the bird as it started to list slightly. But its head lowered, and it kept running. Then, more buzzing sounds only audible because she was listening for them. Nila glanced back, and could see their provenance. And because of that, was able to roll out of the saddle so they didn't catch her in the spine.

Instead, they caught Patriarch's.

The bird stumbled and fell, sliding and rolling a short distance. She ran over to it, not exactly sure what to do. The bird was obviously in great pain. It tried to rise, shoving itself up with its vestigial wings and trying to catch its balance, but it was obvious one of its legs wasn't working. Nila prided herself on being rational and clear-headed, but she couldn't help but see that it was telling her to keep running, that it was telling her to run or die. She reached down one hand, a cautious pat on its haunch. If it took comfort, she couldn't say. "_Fight to the end, Patriarch,_" she whispered.

She could have sworn it nodded to her.

With out anything else to say or do, she rose, and started to run. A leap and a kip saw her clambering up one of the buildings which overlooked the street. A glance confirmed her worst fears. Men killing each other with wild abandon, as the sky went mad, and lightning rained down despite an understandable lack of clouds. Well, natural clouds, she amended. Those boiling and unnatural masses overhead, capricious and unstable, definitely did not count. Then, there was a great crack in the earth, and the building shuddered. As she watched, an entire district mounted up, the very earth bubbling under it, and then burst, spilling forth lightning and darkness, holding its shape like improperly blown glass.

"Tzu Zi," she said to herself, calling her attention back to what mattered. With a running start, she started bounding rooftops, looking for her friend.

Below and behind, one soldier in particular came to where the great bird had fallen. His armor, rings and plates of the Sipahi, was died black in this hellish light with the blood of the heathens. But their engines of destruction, their waterbenders, they would not stand against them. And their tools, these foul fowl, they would fall all the sooner. The Sipahi drew his blade, reaching down toward where the thing lay, to slit its throat.

A great black eye opened, and the Sipahi let out a clipped yell. But in his armor, he couldn't move vast enough. Even with only one leg to stand on, and bleeding as badly as it already was, the Sipahi couldn't avoid the great bulk of the ancient, massive Ostrich Horse, as it plowed him over, slammed him against a wall, and then leaned in, all of its mass trapping him there and slowly crushing him. A few seconds after that last act of defiance, the heaving of the Ostrich Horse's chest stopped. A few minutes after that, so had the Sipahi's.

* * *

><p>"Well, I was certainly expecting a grander welcoming committee, but I'm not going to complain," Zhao said, as he calmly sauntered toward the low door which lay against the cliff-face behind the palace. There were only a few soldiers with him, bright eyed Gurkhas all, as the others were behind rooting out any opposition which would likely be centered in that citadel behind the battle line. Heh. As though there were still a battle line.<p>

"You will not get past this spot, firebender," the old man said, oddly in Zhao's own language. His white hair was stringy and singed, but his blue eyes still sharp even with his obvious fatigue. He swept his arms up, and the waters which flowed out of a canal nearby surged forward, lashing at Zhao's bodyguards. Zhao didn't even flinch. The Gurkhas could take care of themselves. Zhao began to smirk, standing still throughout the onslaught as the waterbender continued to bend with fury and vigor, his whips of water and crashing waves of ice managing to tie down four of those monumental fighters from the Far West. It was spectacular. Zhao expected nothing less from the man Azula had identified as Master Pakku.

Pakku changed his tactics, breaking off the attack on the guards, and focusing them inward, at Zhao. Zhao's smirk grew a fraction, and he twisted his fire around him into a brilliant shield, which blasted the water to steam as it approached him. When Zhao let the shield fall, he was perhaps a bit damp, but unharmed in the slightest. "Surrender, old man," Zhao ordered. "We may show you some scrap of mercy."

"You shall not pass as long as I draw breath," Pakku shouted. He began to move forward, skating along the surface of the ice, the water begging to obey him. Zhao didn't move from his spot, but his arms did start to follow an arcing course. Pakku's blue eyes shot wide, but he didn't have nearly enough time to change his direction before Zhao's fist shot forward, and with it, came the thunder.

The blast struck through Pakku's hasty defense without slowing, then blasted Pakku away, dashing him against the stone near the doorway, his body smoking slightly. Zhao's grin grew wider, as he walked past the ex-waterbender. "I accept your terms," he said, and then opened the door. That smirk dimmed slightly as he realized he was going to have to stoop to get into the tunnel. Who was this place build for, anyway? Tribesmen were taller than Westerners, after all. But after only a short distance, he was in the chamber at the heart of the Water Tribe, the island, the pond.

And an angry young girl.

She attacked with a primal scream and water erupted to her calling, slamming one of the Gurkhas down in a fraction of a second. The others spread out quickly, but the girl's second attack was directed at Zhao himself. The impact of it drove Zhao back a few steps, but unlike the first assault, there was no surprise and he could diminish the force with his own bending, somewhat. The girl, that Southerner, that woman written of with only the greatest of vitriol, glared at Zhao with murder on her face, and shouted something at him in her native barbarian tongue. Zhao took a moment to whisk away some of the water which beaded on his armor.

"So you've come to play witness to the end of your culture? How fitting," Zhao said. Then, he motioned for his Gurkhas to take the girl down. After all, he had other things to attend to. She tried to lash out at Zhao once more, but this time, the Gurkhas were ready for her. They intercepted her attack, and began to force her back, between their firebending and their constant, coordinated advances, she was driven back until there was nowhere for her to stand. She froze the water to have purchase, but against three of them, she was only delaying the inevitable. In fact, it was somewhat impressive that she lasted as long as she did against three of those fighters. Finally, as she was slashing out with chunks of ice and whips of water, one of them caught her wrist and kicked out her knee. She fell to one side, but kept fighting, until all three of them had to dogpile onto her.

"Agni's Blood! She's biting me!" one of the Gurkha's shouted in pain.

"Is she secured?" Zhao asked, casually walking around the pond, to where the complementary fish circled each other. He watched their circuit for a brief moment, as the girl was hauled up, her head lolling from where she'd obviously been punched, and her lips bloodied. He didn't doubt that the eye would start swelling up soon, and he didn't care, either. She was the enemy. Even if Azula hadn't pointed it out, her own performance against the Azuli showcased that perfectly. Zhao leaned down, then snatched the lighter of the fish and hauled it above the surface, smirking as it struggled vainly in his hand.

And as he did, that odd red light in the south began to spread like cancer across the entire sky, visible across the span of the entire world, but Zhao didn't notice. How could he? "So this is the vaunted spirit of the Moon?" he inspected that fish idly. As he was, the last Gurkha returned, looking slightly worse-for-wear, but dragging a struggling, white-haired girl with him as he came.

"I apologize, my Lord," the Gurkha said professionally. "I was caught unawares. But I found this one hiding."

"The Princess of the Water Tribe," Zhao said, walking up to her and tipping her chin up toward him with his unoccupied hand. "Such a pretty face. Pity you will have to die in this room. Can't have you disrupting my plans or my victory."

"_The Avatar will stop you,_" she said, in Tianxia, since she probably didn't speak a civilized tongue. Zhao scoffed.

"Oh, but he will not," Zhao said. "After all, I have all the leverage I could ever need. With this stroke, I have become a legend. In a hundred generations, they will know the name of Zhao, the man who ended waterbending across the whole wide world. They will call me Zhao the Conqueror. Zhao the Magnificent. Zhao, the..." and then, he called himself up short.

_"...You die because you can't accept anything less than... Zhao the Invincible..._"

She was right. He was about to do something stupid. He lowered his hand, letting the fish flop in it, but shook his head. "But this–" Zhao began, but was cut off when he felt something slam into his head, and began to yank painfully at his sideburns. He let out a bellow of anger, swatting at the creature. "Get this damned thing off of me!"

As if heeding a call the creature, a lemur, now that he could see it, departed from Zhao's head and swooped toward the exit, where it landed on the outstretched arm of the Avatar. The boy did not look too impressed. Zhao couldn't help but smirk. Zhao ignited a flame over his palm and held the fish close to it. "I wouldn't bother," Zhao said, forestalling the Avatar at one step forward.

"Zhao, don't do it!" the boy shouted. "You can't disrupt the balance like that!"

"Why not? Because it would threaten the stranglehold you and your infernal lineage hold on the greatness of this world?" Zhao asked. "Because we threaten to advance outside of your individual capacity to control us? I think not."

"Destroying the moon will hurt you just as much as it hurts them," the boy pleaded. "Please, see reason; you _don't know_ the devastation that would bring!"

"He's right, Zhao," the old man's voice came from the back of the chamber. Zhao turned to him, a superior smirk on his face.

"And the treason of the former prince finally appears. Why am I not surprised to see you on their side?" Zhao asked with mild boredom.

"This isn't a matter of sides, Zhao, this is a matter of survival," Iroh said, advancing toward the island and its pond, toward the somewhat-senseless waterbender girl, toward the princess. "We depend on the balance, of the moon and the sun and the elements, just as much as anybody else. We stand to lose far more if it is lost!"

"Your fear of the spirits is well known," Zhao taunted. "How was your last little trip into the Spirit world? Did you find what you were looking for?" after a pause, Zhao turned away, toward the Avatar once more.

"WHATEVER YOU DO TO THAT SPIRIT, I WILL RETURN ON YOU TEN FOLD!" the Dragon of the West roared. "Let it go, now!"

Zhao's smirk turned to a grin. "No."

Iroh's ordinarily placid face transformed into a furrowed figure of wrath, plunging through the Gurkhas with reckless abandon. They all turned inward, fire launching toward the old man, but the Dragon was no child waterbender. He pressed through their attacks, flowing them around him with his own liquid flames, and striking at them as they tried to back off. After all, it was a rare fighter who could take four Gurkhas, and rarer still one which could break them apart. Zhao sighed, and chucked the fish over his shoulder onto the grass, before twisting his arms through the kata, and with a great crack of thunder, a bolt of lightning seared toward the old man. Three enemies of the Fire Nation, dead in a single day.

Only the lightning didn't strike the old general. Somehow, the aged firebender turned that bolt aside, slamming it into the rocks above the outflow of the creak, letting scarlet light pour into the chamber, painting the whole scene as though seen through faint flames.

"Run, children! Run while you can!" the general shouted, and the Avatar immediately heeded the man's words, gathering the concussed waterbender and guiding her and the Princess to the escape route Iroh had created. The boy himself, though, turned back, bringing up his stave, as though it would matter.

"I'm going to stop this insanity," the boy said, but his eyes shone not with determination, but fear.

"No, I am," Zhao said, with a nod toward the doorway. More importantly, to the dozens of firebenders which were filling the cavern past it. With a chuckle, he idly kicked the fish-bound spirit of the moon back into the water. "You see, if I slay that fish, you'll have all the impetus to set aside your precious vows of non-violence and attack me. If you're going to kill me, it will be in cold blood. And you don't have that in you."

"But..."

Iroh backed away from the Gurkhas, who now formed a ring with the incoming firebenders from the front, pressing the two of them toward the outflow. "You see," Zhao continued, "the plan was never to kill the fish. That way is reckless and self-defeating. But to hold them hostage? To claim the mines and lands of the north, to scatter these people across the planet forever? What greater victory over their profane kind is there? I don't need to take one more life, today, to make this an absolute victory."

The old man and the young Avatar shared a worried glance. Both clearly knew he was right. "But, of course, if you're going to _offer_ your own lives, fighting for a cause which you cannot possibly succeed in, then who am I to turn you down?" Zhao asked, raising his fists. With that, Iroh grabbed the boy and pulled him with him as he moved down through that crevasse, even as the boy struggled and complained. So much for the vaunted power of the Avatar. A smile, cold and mirthless, pulled at Zhao's burned left eye.

"Sir, we have pacified the area," a soldier said, even if he was only holding about half a spear as he did so; it had obviously been snapped in half at some point. "What are your orders?"

Zhao turned toward the pool, that smile not dimming. "Send a message to the Fire Lord. Summavut is no more. The Water Tribes are broken. And the Dragon of the West has shown himself a traitor to his nation."

"Yes, Lord Zhao. Three cheers for the victory!"

As they washed over him, Zhao couldn't help but start to chuckle, and it grew into an almost maniacal cackle by the time he was done.

Zhao had not just beaten the Water Tribes. He'd beaten fate itself.

* * *

><p>To say that Ashan's world had gone completely insane was understatement of highest order. The noise in the sky, between the thunderclaps and the screaming of men fighting, dying... it was all too much. Ashan had never been a fighting man, nor wanted to be. Grandfather had utterly forbade it, and he well imagined that Mother would have as well. But when faced with a saber-wielding Dakongese warrior, that pacifism was put to a test.<p>

Ashan wasn't sure whether he passed or failed, in that he ran away. The man's taunting voice came after him, and the only word of it that Ashan knew was their word for his kind. 'Nemesis', they called the Si Wongi. And now, despite all the madness above and about, he'd fixated on ending one teenager's life. Thus, the sandbender ran. As his legs pumped, his lungs begged for air, he could see that things were rapidly going from bad to indescribable with the battle. The sky pulsed like the still-beating heart of a barely-slaughtered animal, casting all in a horrid, unnatural light.

"Leave me alone! I'm not a fighter!" Ashan screamed as he ran, but the killer behind him didn't listen. In fact, Ashan knew he should have been at Nila's ruined house by now, but as he'd ran, the streets began to fold on themselves, twisting and shifting until he had no clue where on Sentinel Rock he was. The answer to his plea came in a twisted laugh, as that Dakongese swordsman drew closer, his vigorous lifestyle serving him far better than Ashan's sedate one.

With a cry of fear, Ashan twisted behind him, stripping the sand from a wall nearby and slamming it into the soldier, knocking the man to the ground. With a shove, he hurled that man away, sending him rocketing toward the end of the street, where the ground opened up as the man still slid, and he dropped out of sight. An entire section of the fortress began to rise up, forced skyward by unstable and irresistible forces. Fire began to rain down from the heavens in splattering, liquid blobs.

"Where the hell am I?" Ashan asked, his eyes flitting about with fear. Then, he heard a sound which gave him heart; the heaving of bellow pumps. He turned, and looked well up, to the tower which ought be near the gates, but now was closer the center of the settlement. "Grandfather! Is that you?"

The fire-pump stopped momentarily, as the white-haired man quickly leaned over the edge. He stared agog at the boy below. "Ashan! You live! Thank the Host, I had assumed the worst."

"Grandfather, what is happening? Is that the Eye of Terror?" Ashan asked.

"I cannot say, my boy," Grandfather answered. "But I _can_ say that there are enemies in the walls. As long as the pump works, then I shall man it."

"What happened to Grandmother? Where is she?" Ashan asked. Grandfather's silence was an answer of its own. "Grandfather... what do I do?"

"Get away, my boy," he said, leaning back behind the protective plate of the fire-pump. "Leave an old Darvesh to his duty."

"But..."

Ashan's plea was interrupted by something heavy slamming into the building near him. Ashan rushed over to the black-robed form, and gave a start when Sharif waved him back. "I'm alright, I'm alright... more or less," he said.

"Sharif, what happened to you?"Ashan asked. An apt question, considering the state of the teenager.

"Ashan, I tried to reach your mother... I swear I did," Sherif said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"What do you mean, you're sorry," Ashan asked, not quite comprehending. Above, the pump belched back to life, sending down an incendiary rain onto the invaders. "Ashan, what do you mean!"

"She's gone," Sharif said quietly, almost tearfully. "I tried. I really, really tried."

"But..." Ashan shook his head, not able to really get it through his mind. "How could she..."

"We have to go," Sharif said. "Before she finds... oh, blast it all."

It was obvious what Sharif was talking about. After all, it wasn't every day that a teenage girl rose into the heart of a sea of madness, and began screaming solid blasphemy down at them. Ashan began uttering a prayer under his breath, and Sharif shook his head. "Prayer won't be enough, my friend..." Sharif said, then turned, shouting something up to Grandfather. The man's billow ceased, and he leaned down again. The words which came from Sharif didn't sound like language, but more like a manifestation of pure will. The expression on Grandfather's face went still, and he nodded, his weary eyes resting on Ashan one last time.

"Make me proud, son of my daughter," Grandfather said.

"But... what do you..."

And then, there came a sound from Sharif, so imperious and noble and powerful that Ashan was driven back a stride. To his ear, it sounded like the Hosts had come to the world, and spoke as one. Then, there came a terrible, tearing pain, rather like a part of his soul was being torn from him. And when Ashan's vision cleared, and he looked up... he could see the Host. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Their bodies were formed whole of light, burning swords and hammers in their fists. Their head was a brilliant, featureless pyre, and on their backs rotated a mandala of eight golden wings. One and all, they raised their weapons, and tore towards the source of this madness, the girl who he once made three breakfasts in one morning for.

"What is this?" Ashan asked, bewildered, as dust began to waft down from above, settling on his shoulders.

"Faith," Sharif said. "Better now than when it's too late. Come on, we need to go."

"But surely they can destroy this abomination?" Ashan asked, still on his knees. Sharif hauled him up, and began to drag him away, and as Ashan glanced back, he could see why. While they were mighty and glorious, and powerful, and numerous... the wrongness of Malu was far greater. Even as they cut at her with flaming swords and struck her with vengeful hammers, she was tearing them apart. And eating them.

Ashan felt a little less sturdy in his faith just watching that.

* * *

><p>Say what you would about Mother's nearly insanely paranoid desire to see her daughter be quick, it was coming in handy now, Nila considered. Ever since those beings of light and flames popped into being and began to race in to bring a solid murdering unto Malu, the terrain of Sentinel Rock was changing so quickly and suddenly that she often found herself running along a rooftop, only to find it falling out from under her a moment later, and then back in place a few feet to the side of where she was. It wasn't like any tectonic activity that Nila ever considered possible. She'd almost sat down and tried to figure out what was going wrong, and then she saw a Dakongese soldier below rush through a silvery cobweb which spanned an alley, only to fall to the ground clutching his chest and expire. She'd stopped dead, then. No wonder she had that itching feeling in her guts.<p>

She was in the Dream World again.

Only there were massive differences, which made sense, since she'd not gone unconscious at any point. Well, besides that matter with the painful screaming in her ears. It was no less terrible the second time it happened. And the terror in the skies, as Malu, and whatever that darkness was within her, tore into the horde of what any Whaleshman would call Angels was no less brutal. Nila glanced about, and gave a start when she realized that her home had somehow jumped near to her. It was ruins, of course, but the shack was still intact. She gave a thought to breaking into it, but it didn't seem like a good purchase by time.

Until Malu looked at her. Then, with a scream which sent rusty nails down Nila's spinal cord, she flexed her arms, and a pulse of darkness emanated out from her, blasting those 'Angels' into brilliant motes, which flew into her maw and vanished into darkness. As they did great lines grew up from her back, connecting her to that thing in the sky, more than a dozen in number, and she began to be born down on them as a puppet on its strings. Nila's hands snapped to her bow, and an arrow was flying in a heartbeat, but it would be lucky if it hit the ground. With that out of her system, she turned, and started running. Because whatever foul transgressors had looted Mother's house almost certainly missed something of Nila's.

Even as the ground bucked and swayed under her, bearing the rules and traps of the Dream World, she was running. If nothing else, her bow could be useful in making sure there was nothing between her and her target; hitting nothing with arrows was easy. Hitting _something_, now that was hard. As the last arrow twanged away from her bow, and she chased it over the edge of a plummet, she gave a moment to look down, then back. "Oh. Plunge to my death. Great," she muttered. The chasm between the yard she needed to enter and where she stood now was so deep that she could see the warren of other homes that were honeycombed into the stone. But there was another way. She just had to have very good balance. And with a force of nature like Malu, and whatever was in her, behind her, she'd have plenty of incentive. She closed her eyes, just a moment, and remembered how Mother put it.

_"No matter where you're going, there is always a path. See it, girl," the woman said, standing on the tower near the only piece of high technology this back-water hole had, its naphtha cannon. She pointed out to her house, on the far side of the city. "Go home. And be sure to get there before I do."_

_"Or what, Mother?" the then thirteen year old Nila asked._

_"Don't disappoint me," the woman said as she descended the bridge. Young Nila's eyes went wide, and she glanced back to Sharif, who was making the aged Darvesh shake his head with annoyance. Why didn't he ever have to undertake Mother's insane tests? Oh, right, he was brain-damaged. Given the speed at which Mother walked, she'd be home soon... but a desperate girl, not willing to be punished, perhaps secretly wishing for praise... she saw that there were other ways of getting around._

Nila's eyes snapped open and her feet started running. It was movement with her entire body, not just her eyes and her feet. Every time a shiver started down her spine, she changed her direction. Every time she couldn't make a jump, she bounded off a wall to get a little bit more purchase. A heave, and she was onto a higher roof. A roll, and she was safely to a lower one. And she was getting closer. She didn't look back. She could _smell_ Malu getting closer, slogging through the faltering legions of burning entities, but her attention couldn't be elsewhere. Finally, as she leapt once more, it was onto the charred beams of her former home, and they gave way under her weight. It hurt, as she wasn't ready for the landing by a half, but with a moment to shake the stars from her vision and wipe the soot from her eyes, she was running again. She favored the door to the shed with both feet at full speed, knocking the door open, and dropping Nila flat onto her back.

The shed was picked clean, as she'd noticed days before. Everything of value had been taken, leaving only the work-bench bolted to the corner. But Nila knew first hand that whoever was here couldn't have known where Nila favored to keep her prized possessions. She scrabbled forward on hands and knees, she heaved at the panels which were hidden under an inch of grit. The first opened too easily, and she could see why. It was emptied completely. Of course it was. She'd stopped using that one when she found her water distillery leaked into the ground there. With a growl, she moved further, into the very back, under the table. A great heave, this time weighty and taxing, but with a screech of ill-oiled hinges, the panel lifted, dumping sand into the cavity, but carrying her prize up away from it.

It was a thing of beauty. An idiot, like Gashuin or any of his ilk, would have called it a malformed club, its wood bits too big and its metal bits too small. The truth was, it was the result of years of refining a basic idea. She didn't doubt that others had hit upon better designs. Her first introduction to these things was when she took that ill-fated trip to Ibn-Atal, but her own? There were little things she wagered none could have matched. With hasty hands, she tore it from its bracing, and then dug through the sand, heaving up a heavy leather skin. She tore it open with her teeth as she scooted back against the workbench. She hadn't any idea how much ammunition she had. When she dumped a scant handful of paper cartridges into her hand, her heart sank, just a little.

Then, there was a creaking, a cracking, and the door of the shed was torn away by a whirlwind approaching from without. She put aside her annoyance, dropping all but two of those packets back into the skin, hooking that skin to her belt. The two she didn't she bit hard into the end of, then shoved them into a waiting chamber, which she snapped back into place into the weapon, rotating down the bolt to hold the whole mechanism in place. The instant that Malu's form showed itself, as the roof was ripped away and the walls shook down, Nila brought her own, personally crafted firearm to her shoulder, stared the length of its twin barrels, high and low, and smirked.

"Let's see your spirit magic deal with this," she muttered, and pulled its trigger.

The bark of its awakening after months in slumber was stark, and the impact of it hurling itself back into her shoulder was almost more than her body could take. She was pretty sure she'd have a bruise there tomorrow. But that recoil was only half of a physics equation she knew to an art. The impact her body sustained was proportional to the charge in the explosive powder in the cartridge, but the energy was distributed inequally. For while the force of the explosion moving backward had the whole weight of the firearm to push, its easiest path of escape lay with propelling a steel slug out that reinforced tube, and with a cloud of smoke masking its departure, it took to the air at a speed greater than any arrow fired by mortal hands. The impact of it was so great, in fact, that when it struck Malu in the center of the chest, her blank eyes bugged out, and she was hurled away from her, passing through one of those unnatural clouds. Since an arrow to the throat wouldn't put her down, Nila doubted a metal slug, however empowered by physics, would. But she'd bought herself time.

Time she used to run. Tzu Zi was out there somewhere. Nila would protect her.

* * *

><p>The stink of something being waved under Sokka's nose caused him to jerk awake. He glanced around, feeling like he'd fallen off of a boat. Then, he remembered that he'd fallen off of a boat after being struck by lightning, so he considered himself remarkably lucky to feel as well as he did. He still allowed himself a groan of discomfort as he forced himself upward. He was freezing, but he was alive.<p>

"Easy there, backstabber," a condescending voice said. "You took a hell of a hit."

"Backstabber?" Sokka asked.

"Well, failed backstabber. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess," Hahn said. Sokka's eyes narrowed. "You were out for a while."

"What happened?"

"Zhao moved into the city... then everything started to go quiet," Hahn said, pacing to and fro on the chunk of rock that lay outside the ruins of the Spikerim. Sokka was honestly amazed that Hahn managed to get the name right for once.

"Aang! I've gotta," Sokka said, pushing himself to his feet, however his body denied him. Then, he paused. "What's wrong with the sky?"

"Hell if I know, ask a shaman," Hahn said. "Listen, Soka..."

"'SOKKA', YOU TWIT!"

"Whatever, what's your deal with Yue?"

"I'm..." Sokka trailed off. "Not sure. Anymore."

"Good. 'Cause I'm not having her run off when I... we need her, with some loudmouth punk from the South," Hahn said.

"Listen," Sokka said, leaning toward the sanctimonious ass. "Whatever happens, I'm going to be watching. And if Yue isn't the happiest bride on this whole planet, I will do something about it."

"Heh, like you even could," Hahn dismissed. Sokka stalked away, sitting against the rock. It was amazing that he wasn't frozen right to death. So amazing, in fact, that it wouldn't leave Sokka's mind. So much so, that he had to raise that question, for Sokka was nothing if not inquisitive.

"One thing, though..." Sokka asked. "Why am I not dead?"

"I fished you out after you took a header into the water," Hahn said non-chalantly.

"Why?"

"Because you're a Tribesman," Hahn answered, calmly, quietly, genuinely.

Sokka had nothing else to say at that point. All he could do was nurse his battered body, and wait for this clash of nations to end.

* * *

><p>The flares of fire into the sky were Nila's clue which direction to go, but when they didn't abate, she got more than a little worried. Hah. As though worried was even a state she could assign herself after the madness she'd seen and navigated in the last hour. She wagered that every single one of the five thousand Sipahi were dead, but for every one of those which fell, thirty of the Dakongese were brought down. Not by the Sipahi, mind, but by the insanity of the Dream World awakened. Some whole streets were dotted by the upper bodies of men who'd sunken into the stone and become affixed there. Other, more viscerally horrifying sights played before her eyes as she followed those flames. She didn't let herself think about them.<p>

She had her own people to save.

It was telling that all of the walking about that she'd done in the last few months had reaped dividends in her stamina. Where at first, merely walking for a few hours left her exhausted, now, she was running for hours and felt only fatigued. Her hands were cold as one stabilized her firearm at her back and the other helped her swung down to the streets below, this one mercifully free of the dead. The sounds of madness everywhere, from screams, to the lightning falls, to the cracking of stone giving way, all played a song in Nila's head, formless and unending, like the melody which Sharif always hummed under his breath.

"Stay away from me!" the voice from ahead perked Nila's attention to the fore, followed by a blast of flames which sent a leather-armored Dakongese man rolling past the intersection. There was a man still shouting obscenities at her, but Nila didn't care to translate them in her head, opting to pick up her pace. She almost reached the intersection when a chill ran through her, and she stopped abruptly, even wheeling her arms to keep from falling forward one more step. She glanced aside, then tipped a bowl of eggs into that unseen field before her. The eggs didn't even try to hit the ground. They rotated through space, into the center of the path, where they were torn to bits, their yolks splattering in all directions. Nila picked up another egg, then threw it experimentally through the window next to her. A splat, but nothing more. Without any further hesitation, she bounded through that portal, into a building which her own memories said should have been half the town away.

She came to a halt as she saw that there was a man, one of their mail-smiths, on his knees on the floor. His eyes stared at nothing, and his mouth moved at an insensate babble. She gave him a shove. "_Run you fool! Run with your life!_" she demanded. He didn't even react to her presence. With a growl, she abandoned him. Leave the ones who couldn't be helped. Find the ones who could. She kicked the door open, or tried to. Instead of springing open, her foot went through the wood like it was wet paper, leaving her a bit caught out. A few seconds, and she managed to push through that door, finding that it was, in fact, wood, but wood with no properties that would ought have. So the madness reached all corners, it seemed, even physical chemistry? That was distinctly unfair. She glanced one way, then the other, and spotted what she needed to see. Tzu Zi was backed into a corner by an unarmed Dakongese man. She immediately pulled her gun forward, running to intercept him, but that gun dropped slightly when she saw that he wasn't accosting her. He was begging.

"Nila?" Tzu Zi asked, leaping to Nila's side and embracing her tightly. "Why? Why are we back here? I hate this place!"

"I don't know, Tzu Zi," Nila said. "_What do you want, invader._"

"_Please don't flay me, Nemesis,_" he said, on his knees, tears of terror running down his face. "_I swear, I just wanted to protect my family!_"

"_Then leave while your blood still flows in your veins,_" Nila said harshly. "_Run until the stars hang high in the sky._"

He nodded dumbly, and then took off at a sprint. Nila pegged his chances of surviving at about one in ten thousand. She turned to Tzu Zi. "Have you fared well?"

She lifted an arm of her robes, showing that it was now missing, her arm reddened and raw, slathered with some greenish gelly. "For some reason, the ground started spitting fire at me," she said, clearly still in great pain and discomfort. "But I managed to keep Aki safe."

"We need to leave," Nila said. "Get out of the fortress. I'll find my brother."

"But what about Malu?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila turned behind her, pointing into that spot in the sky, high above the mayhem that she hovered, dangling from those wicked black cords.

"Whatever Malu was to us, she is no more," Nila said. "I'm sorry, Tzu Zi, but we need to go. Please."

Tzu Zi's eyes welled with tears, more for a lost friend than a slaughtered people. But Nila knew that she would mourn them, for all their cruelty, on her own time. "I think I know the way, but there's men still there, and I can't firebend well enough like this to get past them," she said, very carefully trying to not touch her burns. Nila motioned the arm toward her, and then swiftly bound it in a layer of bandage. It wouldn't be much, but it would help. Probably.

"Now there are two of us," Nila promised. "But I still have to find my brother."

She nodded, unable to speak for her fear. Understandable. Nila wondered to herself, as she guided the woman guiding an Ostrich Horse down the street that there might be something wrong with her, for she was far too calm with this calamity. Perhaps years of Mother's lessons had given her a cool head. Or perhaps more likely, she was back in a position she knew very, very well; navigating the madness and cruelty of the Dream World, even if the stakes were significantly higher this time.

"How are we even going to find him?" Tzu Zi asked, wincing as Aki's pulling at her reins caused the bandages to shift.

"How are we even going to find her?" Ashan's voice came from a wall which was dissolving into grit as the question still hung in the air. He turned from Sharif, who had his arms crossed on his chest, and gave a nod ahead of them both. Ashan turned, then started. "High Host, Sharif, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it was funnier this way," Sharif said with a smirk. Nila gaped at him.

"Did you just make a joke?" Nila asked.

"Yeah, I've got years of snark bottled up, and precious few opportunities to release it," he said. He strode past, then looked up and down the road. "Where's Patriarch?"

"Nila, you can close your mouth now," Ashan said.

"But..." she stammered.

"Patriarch? Where is he?"

"He was... shot down," Nila said.

"What!" Sharif turned. "Damn those men and their bows and their war!"

"Is Sharif angry?" Tzu Zi asked. "I've never seen him angry."

Nila knew that wasn't true. The first time Sharif saw Malu, there was hatred in his eyes, simple though they were. "How?" She asked.

"Can we please keep moving? I feel like if I stand here, I'm going to catch an arrow or something," Ashan said, glancing around nervously.

"Please, there's almost nobody left to –" Nila began.

She was cut off when Sharif was hurled to the ground, a white-shafted arrow jutting from his forehead.

* * *

><p>Irukandji wiped the ichor from its face. She'd been hurt before. Lighting stung a bit, and it'd been struck by lightning. This was like being flipped inside out then set on fire. But it knew what had to be done. The end would come, it knew that better than any creature alive, but that end <em>would not<em> come today. A sarcastic smirk came to its face, as it laid a hand onto the casket of the heart of its world.

"Always wanted to see the big city up close," it muttered. "Pity it had to be like this."

While her body was flesh and blood, its soul was lightning, so sending forward even fatal jolts was as easy for it as breathing was for her host. Which made the slow rotation of her arms, the steady buildup of wrathful electricity all the more potent. "This is going to suck," it predicted, as that energy which was its life's blood and soul began to gather outside of its corpus, to mass, ready to be thrown away.

"Wakey wakey," it said, its face grim. "Eggs and bac-ey..."

She cast out a hand, an electric bolt of a majority of its power, bathing that stone casket in arcing lightning, and Huuni blinked as she looked at what she'd done, even not wholly understanding why. Then, there was a great electric clunk. A voice, whispering in the back of her head gave her one singular order. Run or die. And Huuni, self-centered woman that she was, didn't even think to question it.

Because as she fled, legs carrying her away from the Black City, to the Forest of Koh, that first shudder begat another, and another. Then, the ground began to shake, and the sky, so high above the Black City, began to shift from its sepulchral hue into a golden glory, its edges spreading out like a bruise. As the ground began to spread out, gravel and sand softening into soil. Dead trees livening. One tree, with electric blue leaves, spreading into full blossom. Then, a great thud, something metal the size of a city block slamming into another.

Then, just as it would without outside prompting, the Blowout began to spread.

* * *

><p>"Sharif! No!" Nila said, surging against Ashan's hasty grapple towards her slumped brother.<p>

"_No, Nila. It's too late,_" Ashan said.

"But... he's not dead," Tzu Zi pointed out. Nila felt her heart lurch for a moment as Sharif staggeringly regained his feet, looking slightly stunned but of a state which no person with an arrow in his skull ought. "How is he still alive?" Tzu Zi asked.

"What hit me?" Sharif asked, rubbing his head near where the missile projected. "Feels like I got hit by a brick."

"Sharif, you have an arrow in your head!" Nila shouted. Finally, she leveled a glare at Ashan, who released her. Sharif, on the other hand, reached a bit higher, touched the shaft, and blanched slightly.

"What? Oh, that's not good," he said. Then, he reached up, and carefully inched the arrow out of the hole it'd entered, finishing the tug with a wet pop, which sent blood moving down his cheek in a rivulet which ran before one ear. He gawked at it for a moment, then gave a nervous laugh. "Wow. If my brain was still there, that probably would have killed me."

"Sharif, what is this sanity which has settled on you?" Nila asked.

"It's a long story," Sharif dismissed, throwing the arrow aside. He paused, rubbing at the injury, which was obviously but the most recent amongst many, for his clothes were torn and scorched, and there was a great bruise which was already puffing up on his other ear. "In essence, because of the superposition of worlds, I can think with an artificial brain."

"The what?" Nila asked, then she paused. Superposition of worlds. "Wait... So that nonsense from before... this place has been crossed with the dream world, and we exist in both, at the same place, in the same time?"

"Clever model, but no. Close enough, though," Sharif said.

"He's... making a lot more sense than I'm used to," Tzu Zi pointed out.

"Sharif, why didn't you tell me you weren't... gone?" She asked, her voice betraying her at the end.

"_Because I was,_" Sharif said in their shared native tongue. He tapped his scar, which she noted was glowing faintly. "_I'm still here, but it's locked away. I'm still the brother who put out your hair when you were ten... and when you were twelve. And if I don't ever get a chance to say it, because I frankly hope this never happens again... Thank you. Thank you for taking care of me._"

Nila felt a tear in her eye. She tried to convince herself it was because of flying grit. She abandoned that rationalization when Sharif pulled her into a brief hug, and she blubbed just once against his shoulder. Then, she looked up, and her logical mind slammed back into place with the kind of panicked clarity that many were utterly deprived of. Specifically, because Malu had stopped rotating on her strings, and had faced them again.

"Sharif! She's spotted us! We need to run!"

"There is no place we can run to that will save us," Sharif said, stepping away from her. "She has consumed the spirits of faith. Now, a grimmer nemesis."

"Faith?" Ashan asked. "That's what those were? But they looked..."

"Like the Heavenly Host. How else would you conceptualize them?" Nila said, cutting off her brother, who nodded as she'd made his point for him.

"Why?" Tzu Zi asked. "I mean... I didn't see Agni up there..."

"Part of the problem," Sharif said, his eyes pressed closed. "I loosed Faith first, because you need to be _alive_ to have faith. You had faith in the Host, Ashan. They had faith in their animal gods. But do you know what you _don't_ need to be alive to have?" there was a moment of silence, as his green eyes snapped open, and he stared up at what used to be Malu. "Blood."

Then, he cast open both hands, one to a pool of congealing red, almost invisible wetness under the scarlet sky, the other directly into the heart of that heavenly anomaly. And when he spoke, it was with a voice unto thunder.

Sanguinary crimson, nectar of life, harbinger of death;

Bearer of the spark of the soul, fuel of the Life Engine, Currency of the Oldest Pact;

Gear of Blood.

OBEY!

As Nila watched, the blood began to mount up. Then, there was an unspeakable agony from 'twixt her legs, which left her shouting in pain as she crumpled against a building. Tzu Zi and Ashan looked on in absolute horror.

Voice of the Sphere, Ocean of the Forbidden Kingdom, Heed my call;

Aid in my vengeance;

Against the beast of hunger, rapacious and insane

Raise up a vengeful hammer and strike down!

Sharpen my blade, and your destructive might shall flow through me!

Its Mortal sinews and flesh shall part, its Host CRUSHED!

The pain began to ebb, but only because as she watched, a homunculus of malformed proportion and unspeakable substance walked straight out of her body, unlike those of the others nearby. Sharif, though, looked in an absolute rage, as the sky grew darker, and the hordes of monstrosities heeded the call of her brother, rising up from the dead, eyeless but seeing, structureless yet insistent, and utterly focused on revenge. First a few, then hundreds, began to leap into the air, dragging at the form of Malu, who began to smite them apart with but a slash of her hand, to consume what remained of them.

"Sharif, stop this, we can run now!" Nila said.

Guide the edge of my blade to the throat of the Hunger, and cut!

That which betrayed and cast down, let it suffer!

My enemy, into that vortex of pain and suffering, cast!

Meet blood with Blood, Abomination!

"Sharif stop this, please!" Ashan added his voice to the mixture. "This is blasphemy and worse! Don't do this!"

"I have to stop her. I'm the only one who _can_," Ashan swore, his voice still immense for his form.

"Sharif, end this now!" Nila demanded. "Mourn the dead, but to not join them. I swore I'd bring you to Mother and I will do so if I have to drape you unconscious over Aki's saddle!"

"But..."

"NO!" she screamed. "They are gone, Sharif. Gone. This madness will not return them. Flee with me. At least then someone will remember Sentinel Rock."

Sharif's gaze, turned to her, was wet with angry tears. His face pulled in, and he gave a frustrated, still-angry nod. She glanced aside, to one of the walls nearby. "Ashan, bring that down."

Ashan whipped his arms through his bending motions, sending the wall scattering down, as above, Malu had turned her attention from the four of them to legion which assailed her. Nila looked through the crevasse, and smirked grimly as her gut-suspicion was confirmed. This was the way out. It emptied into a deep crack between two places which were once connected together, and even now shifted at a visible pace. "Through! The sands are clear to us!" Nila said, ushering the others through ahead of her. She turned, giving one last look at Malu. She considered what final words she would part with, but couldn't find any which suited. Betrayal was the best way to describe her feeling. Malu was a friend... and she'd ended human inhabitation of Sentinel Rock. What could even be said?

She started to run, following the others as they raced between the shifting sandstone, across the tops of what were once walls in the honeycombing of chambers below. As she was furthest back, she had the hardest run, racing just at pace with the twisting of the terrain, as the floor tried with every stride to drop out from underneath her. But she was her mother's daughter, and that meant she was very fast on her feet. With a last push, she managed to erupt from the falling path with such velocity to overtake Ashan, and the two of them went rolling down the dune which had built up along the side of the fallen settlement. She forced herself to stop, and quickly checked her firearm. Still intact. Good. She then checked the rest of her now much-smaller party. Still intact. Good.

"What... is that?" Tzu Zi asked, looking back. Nila glanced behind her, and then turned full, because it was a spectacle which warranted a moment's consideration. Whatever that thing was, bubbling and tumorous, its metal burning freely like paper, its stone bulging out like cancers, it was not a human thing. In fact, there was nothing human like about the fortress town of Sentinel Hill left at all. She glanced aside, and could see the Iron Horde to the south. No, not the Horde, there were no standards in that milling group. Those were the Dakongese people. And then, she spotted something which set her blood on fire.

She took off at a run, and in short order, came upon a woman on her knees, staring dumbfounded at the same sight which had so impressed upon Nila. Khagan Khatun's scarred, round face was in terrible awe. She looked like she'd rolled off of an Ostrich Horse, which was mauled and fallen nearby. The sand near her was pocked with glass tubes, flash created from lightning strikes. Her mouth worked, trying to find the words. Nila didn't think about what those dark shapes, sinking into the sand, once were.

"What is that?" she finally asked. Nila answered her by kicking the chest, sending her flat on her back. Then, she pulled that firearm around, leveling it right at the Khagan's face.

"Look at me. LOOK AT ME!" Nila screamed. "My people are dead! This is your fault! Yours!"

"But... I don't understand," she said, not even that stunned from the chest-kicking. In that moment, Nila felt no desire to call her Khagan or Noyan. She was just a frightened, confused woman.

"You wanted to know what was causing our desert to expand? It wasn't us, Borte," she shouted. "It was that!"

She cast a finger back up to Malu, who was scything through those creations of the blood of the fallen. Nila felt a hand on her shoulder, guiding her gunbarrel away from Borte's face. Sharif was standing there.

"She's right. Which is astonishing considering how little information she had to work with," Sharif said. "Everything which has happened in the last three-quarters of a century can be tied back to that _thing_, and that alone."

"What is it?" Borte asked.

"Imbalance itself," Sharif said. "Let her go, Nila. This is over."

"I didn't know. I... I didn't know," Borte said. Nila let her weapon swing away. "They're gone. I had two hundred thousand... And they're gone..."

"So are mine," Nila said. Borte looked up at the sky, tears running down her face.

"How... how do we even stop that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Sharif said. "I'm not sure anything _can_."

"Nila, Sharif, it's time to go," Tzu Zi said. Aki, guided by Ashan, gave a wark as they all started to walk north, as there was essentially no other direction go to. They left the supine Dakongese noble in the ashes of her hubris, staring at an answer she could barely bear to ask for.

"I'm sorry," Sharif said, as they walked.

"For what?" Nila asked.

"For not being there when you needed me," he said. Then, there was a metal bang in the sky, causing brother, sister, and firebender to all turn back, all flinching from that familiar and ominous sound which presaged a Blowout, and watching as Malu ascended on those ebon cords into the heart of that maelstrom. Then, it popped like some massively oversized soap-bubble, and in its place, the empty sky of mid-morning. Malu was gone.

"What just happened?" Nila asked her brother.

"I... where am I?" Sharif asked, his words slurred and inexact again, and a confused look settling into his eyes, as the glow faded from his scar. "Did something happen? I don't feel well."

"You can't be se..." she began, but her heart dropped, and a sick feeling settled into her stomach. She knew that look, which had taken over his visage. It was the blank expression of a boy who was incapable of higher thought. As quickly as she'd got him back, Nila lost Sharif once again. "We should go," Nila said, turning him away from the devastation, from the green-and-purple clouds which still boiled over Sentinel Rock, to the twisted place which used to be home. At the back of them, Ashan was silently weeping.

Hundreds of miles north, Nila's mother looked upon the great walls of Ba Sing Se, standing with her back tall and proud, and her trusted companions at her side. She raised a brow at the spectacle, then turned to her comrade and once-lover. "I assume that you have some plan to get us into that city?"

"We might have worn out our welcome from last time, so it could be difficult," Piandao admitted. Bato chuckled.

"How difficult could it be?"

As one, the remainder of his troupe slapped their foreheads.

"You just had to say that, didn't you?" Beifong said.

Thousands of miles west, a teenaged girl sat at rapt attention as a man three times her age read books which by all rights shouldn't have still existed, sparing her no details and censoring no content. She had been so ready for combat, for adventure and the open road. She'd been ready to fight and die for the cause. But it wasn't ready for her. And at least she had something to occupy her time. Toph scowled for a moment, leaning aside as Zha Yu let out a chuckle, ceasing in his narration briefly.

"It's live! It's live!" Teo shouted, holding up a heavy metal device which gave off an ominous electric hum. "With the gods as my witness, it's live! I know what it feels like to be a god!"

"He takes after his father in a lot of ways," Zha Yu said.

"Which one?" Toph asked with a laugh.

"_Sweetheart, go stop our boy from doing something damaging. The neighbors are complaining enough as it is_," Sul said with the sort of patience that only a mother could exhibit. Zha Yu sighed.

"Fine. And yes, I'll be back when I'm finished," Zha Yu said.

"You'd damned well better," Toph said, clasping her hands behind her head.

A few hundred miles north, a boat was steaming south as fast as its engines would take it. Golden eyes stared ahead, not even blinking as the world returned to normal. She didn't care about atmospheric phenomenon. All that mattered to her was getting to the right place, to be ready at the right time. Azula had waited decades for this chance. And it would not pass her by. Revenge. Justice.

For Chiyo.

Dozens of miles north, the Avatar stared at the paltry fleet which slipped away from the Fire Nation's blockade and cut south, into what all knew would be storming seas. "I don't understand," he said, his eyes reddened from frustrated tears. "How could I lose? I'm supposed to be the Avatar. I'm supposed to stop things like this from happening!"

Hakoda laid a hand on his shoulder. "Even the Avatar can't help everybody. Even the Avatar isn't a god."

"But..."

"It'll be alright," Yue said, taking a place to stand on Aang's other side, adding her own comforting hand to Hakoda's. "Somehow, we'll find a way to make this right."

It really didn't feel like it was going to be alright. If only because of the thousands of refugees who wept openly, giving one last look to their lost homeland, at the crippling defeat which they had no recourse but to survive, for the sake of those around them. The all forced themselves to be strong, because that was what the Water Tribe did. And it was heartbreaking.

A mile north even of that, Zuko pushed himself slowly to his feet, trying to think past a splitting headache and what he was fairly sure was a concussion. Had Azula... no. She couldn't have. But then again, Zuko was more than a bit confused about where he was. He was on a small yacht, the kind the Fire Nation used to hunt pirates in. And left near the helm of the tiny, engined craft, was a note, penned in Uncle's flowing script.

_I'm sorry I couldn't keep us all together, Nephew. There was nothing any of us could do. Your sister is a fraud and a danger to everything. Please don't follow me while I stop her. You deserved so much better. – Iroh_.

Tears welled in Zuko's eyes, until he pressed them shut, and slammed his fist shut. Fire filled that fist, blasting the message to ashes. No. No he refused. His sister was still his sister. Azula still loved him. They were still family, and he must have just misremembered what happened at the very end. With strength born of outright denial, he fired the engines, and set a course south. He would protect his sister, just like he promised. Nothing would stop him.

A few miles north of that, sitting on an opulent throne which didn't belong to him, Zhao smiled as he opened an old log-book, and ran a finger down a list of names. Shyu, dead. Jeong Jeong, dead. Pakku, dead. He moved a bit back up the page, at one name which hadn't yet been crossed off. Piandao. Still vexingly alive. Lower; Bumi, still alive, but for how long? Still, today was a good day. He was still alive, and he stood victorious. He could deal with this flower cult later. Right now... he deserved some celebration.

Several thousand miles south, a woman washed ashore, her face grinding against black sands, as a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen years prodded her with a stick. She let out a grunt, finally rolling over. The boy recoiled, dropping the stick and backing away. Blue eyes stared up for a moment, before blinking against the rain which fell pretty much constantly in this part of the world. She sat up, looking down at her tattered, filthy clothes, then up at the boy. "Are you alright, lady?" the boy, Shoji by name, asked. She looked at him with a degree of fear and shouted something which to his ears was inarticulate babble, but to any others would have been:

"_How did I get here?_"

"Do you need help? Or maybe a place to stay?" Shoji asked carefully. But the Tribeswoman, who was harrowed and gaunt, forcibly turned away, muttering under her breath. If one could understand her words, they would have known she said:

"_Irukandji? Where __are__ you?_"

* * *

><p>Ozai looked up as he sensed the presence of another entering the chamber of the Burning Throne. It was not sound which came from her feet as she took her place on the smooth, black floor which shone like a mirror. Her head bowed down, touching her forehead to the stone and her hands out before her.<p>

"Rise, my servant," Ozai ordered.

"News from the North," Yoji said, upon regaining her feet. "Zhao reports complete victory in the North, despite Iroh's treasonous resistance."

Ozai growled under his breath. "General Iroh is a traitor, as Azula was before him. They are cancerous influences on our Prince's mind and thoughts. They must be dealt with. I have a task for you."

"Yes, your eminence?" Yoji asked.

"Remove Azula and Iroh from their poisonous place in the Prince's mind. By whatever means you deem necessary."

Yoji bowed once more. "As you will, Fire Lord."

With that, the ghastly pale young woman departed the room, and Ozai settled back into his place on the Burning Throne. With Iroh dead, Zuko wouldn't have to deal with his pacifistic prattlings. With Azula gone, he would come back to Ozai with open arms.

"Do you really expect it would be that simple?" a voice taunted Ozai. He rose in a flash, turning along that trough of flames.

"Impossible," Ozai said.

"It was sooo~ easy for you to order my death," Azula said, leaning out from behind one of the pillars, a taunting smirk on her face "I wonder what kind of a _man_ that makes you?"

Ozai answered by blasting that entire half of the room in brilliant flames. When he was done, he stalked over quickly, fists leading him. There was nothing there. There'd never been.

But he could have sworn he could hear Azula's contemptuous laughter echoing through the throneroom.

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>

**of**

**Book One: Imbalance**

* * *

><p><strong>Two nails. One, Roku and Sozin's mutual hatred, that kept them at each other's throats for decades, and kept Roku's eye away from the Spirit World when it needed him. Second, Azula. She's not an oracle. She's a Peggy Sue. She doesn't predict anything. She just fuzzily remembers something which happened <em>last time<em>.**

**I said I was rearranging the board; it starts here. Book One teased you with familiar sights and unfamiliar changes. With Book Two, the fallout from the changes starts to drift, and the story shifts with it. Zhao is in a place of extreme political influence, Ozai is relatively weak, and the Order of the White Lotus is being actively hunted down. The allies that the Gaang had now have to come from different sources, if they come at all. Add in the other stories which can come from Team Girlpower (yeah, I chouldn't come up with a better moniker for Nila's group), Book Two: Chaos will be exploring a lot of new ground.**

**Now, I know that some will gnash their teeth at the inclusion of firearms in their Avatar-verse. To which, I respond; it's pseudo-1850. They have relatively stable explosives and high end metallurgy. Come on, the Fire Nation has tanks, trains, and dirigibles! _Somebody's_ going to invent the damned things. But don't worry; in a world where a man can throw a fireball without any mechanical assistence, and another can build a house with a stomp of his foot, firearms would never become more than a toy for the rich to hunt, or perhaps a mechanical curiosity. If the enemy army can call up a stone wall to block bullets, there's no point in arraying them in combat. They're too expensive, delicate, and hard to make, anyway.**

**I've heard it said that Iroh has a much reduced role in this story. That's intentional. The relationship which I was focusing on in Imbalance was the one between Zuko and Azula. In Chaos, Iroh becomes a bit more prominent, as he and Azula deal with each other more frequently and more intimately. The initial plan was to have Azula much more aware of what came before, but when I wrote the first chapters, I realized that having her be... incomplete... was much more useful, interesting, and entertaining. It also made it possible for the Zuko-Azula and Azula-Iroh relationships which are going to be important moving forward. Honestly, I kinda pity poor Zuko. So deluded. So in denial. He's not going to be happy next time Iroh talks to him.**

**Huh. I just realized that I'm probably going to have to run two stories in the Great Divide. I just hope they don't blow like the eponymous episode. Anyway. That's a wrap on Book 1. Leave any questions you have which I can reasonably answer in the review section. I'll try to answer them somehow or another.**

_Leave a review._


	21. Bad Tidings

**Indulge me for a moment:**

**(In the voice of Huuni/Irukandji): Water...**

**A shadowed young man lashes out with a roiling whip of water, before snap freezing it into a blade hurled ahead of him.**

**(Irukandji) Earth...**

**A muscular youth stomps the ground, then sends the block which raises away in two explosive blasts of shrapnel.**

**(Irukandji) Fire...**

**A powerful girl spins through an inferno, ending with a twist of the arms, punctuated by lightning.**

**(Irukandji) Air.**

**An older woman in orange and yellow armor bounds in from the darkness, and with a punch, sends a line of shockwaves away from her.**

**(Irukandji, showing the world map) The world once stood in balance, both between the nations of the world, and with the world of Spirits beyond. (Map becomes the Fire Nation invasion fleet) ...but like all things in balance, it takes surprisingly little to put that balance in jeopardy. The guardian of peace, order, and balance was called the Avatar (Roku bending the four elements), the only man who could unite the elements in himself, and the world in his name. But a century ago, the Avatar disappeared.**

**(The scene changes to Summavut, devastated) And a century of warfare has taken its toll on both the mortal world... (shift to the Black City) ...and mine.**

**(Aang, standing on the cliff over the Black City) The Avatar has returned, a boy from a bygone age; he alone can restore the balance which was lost.**

**(Fade to black, Irukandji continues) ...because if he can't, then there's no hope left. For anyone.**

**Three Families**

**Season 2**

* * *

><p>The crowds buffeted against her, recoiling from her touch as she staggered amongst them. There was a smile on her face, but it wasn't exactly the happiest of expressions, nor the sanest. Her eyes were locked ahead of her, even as the lightheadedness pressured her in that illogical way it did, casting away her balance and poise. Not that she had much left at this point.<p>

"Daddy, why's she walkin' so funny?" a child's voice said from somewhere near her as she lurched ahead, her destination clear in her mind, if not to her vision.

"Step away from her, son," the unnoticed parent coached. She kept walking, and chuckling under her breath, feeling the cold as it crept through her. After all, she'd lost a lot of blood. It formed a trail behind her, marking her path from the foot of that ridiculous statue that they were breaking ground on, that monument to his insatiable vanity. It did occur to her that in a more just world, the monument would have been to her, not to him. That just made her all the more angry.

She stumbled for a moment, but kept herself from falling against a lamppost which thrust up from the stone of the sidewalks. She took a moment to catch her breath. She wasn't as young as she used to be. And the last decade in particular had aged her far faster than it ought have. She panted, trying to get the wind back into her, trying to clear the specks from her cataract-fuzzed eyes. Blood pooled, and she summoned her strength.

Even as she stood, she thought back to the last time she'd seen him, the destination of her exsanguinating walk. He had to be waiting for her. She knew he was. It was expected of him. If there was one thing which she regretted, it was how she treated him, but for one thing she enjoyed, it was his reliability. She pressed on, leaving a red hand-print against the pole as she did so. As she walked, that distant smile on her face, she remembered his face, his voice. The look on the latter, the sound of the former, the last time that she'd seen him.

_It had been simple enough to break into his apartment, which took up a tiny corner of the condominium. Her eyes as they flit around the domicile were contemptuous. Were she in this place, she would have never accepted such meagre quarters, a place so steeped in the tropes of poverty. Not since __she remembered who she really was. Not since Chiyo. And the waiting had been galling. Not that she'd expected Daichi to be home when she arrived. She'd actually made sure he wouldn't be. There were certain things she needed to put into place, in case things went wrong._

_The clunk of keys in the lock dragged her scornful attention away from the nursery, which was half-completed beside its intact brother. Something started and then abandoned? She'd taught him better than that. When the door swung open, she was silent, standing off to one side, and letting the two of them come in._

_"I swear, if I eat another bite, I will explode," the woman's voice said._

_"Really? That'd be a terrible shame, wouldn't it?" Daichi's playful tones followed. "And I don't think it's likely. You're probably going to be snacking away come midnight."_

_"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were fattening me up for the oven, sweetheart," she said, coming into view of the silent older woman. This woman was a tiny thing, fully half a foot shorter than Daichi, which was telling because Daichi was two inches shorter than she herself. Not surprising considering his father, but... She also had the parchment complexion of a native of the North Earth Kingdoms, possibly even from the Western Reach, and green eyes cemented her place as a local. The older woman's lips twisted at the thought. It wouldn't have bothered her a decade ago. A lot wouldn't have bothered her then._

_"Please, I remember how you were when Mako was in there," Daichi said, taking a moment to embrace his woman from behind, even while balancing a very young boy in the crook of his arm. As he did, he turned the three of them toward the old woman, and two of them gave a start. Only the toddler didn't look shocked by her sudden appearance._

_The woman gave a clipped shriek, and backed into her mate. "Daichi! Somebody's in our home!"_

_"Calm down, calm down," Daichi said, tones guarded, his golden eyes locked on her own. "It's just my mother. You remember my mother, don't you?"_

_"But... What's she doing here?" the woman asked._

_"Still slumming with the locals?" the elder asked unkindly._

_"Mother..." Daichi said with annoyance._

_"I wish to speak with my son. Leave," she ordered. The mother of her grandson gave the old woman a glare, but took the boy._

_"Mako and I will be in the next room, alright?" she said, then leaned up to give the boy a peck on the lips, before absconding. Good. She turned her eyes toward the man, now in his thirties, who stared back at her impatiently._

_"Mother..." Daichi began._

_"Don't take that tone with me," she snapped._

_"I think I've got the right," Daichi noted, but not caustically. "After all, you did say some fairly unkind things about me last time we were in the same room."_

_"That was..."_

_"Also some unkind firebending," Daichi continued._

_She glanced away, refusing to let the boy see her shame. "That is the past."_

_"I mean, it's obvious you didn't approve of my wife, but you could at least acknowledge her as a human being."_

_"I need do nothing of the sort," she snapped._

_Daichi shook his head. "I really wonder how Dad put up with you for so long."_

_She stalked up to him, pointing one broken-nailed finger up at his nose. "Don't speak of him. Not now."_

_"Is there anything else you'd like me not to talk about? Should I compile a list?" Daichi asked._

_"You didn't used to be such a smartass," she said, turning toward the window, which provided a lovely view of an adjacent building's wall._

_"And you didn't used to be such a psychopath," he answered. She gave him a glare for that. __"Face it, 'Azula' is practically a profanity nowadays. They're going to find you, and they're going to punish you for what you've done to the heroes of the last war. There's nothing I can do to stop it. But really, Mother, would it be so bad that I could __understand__ it? Why, Mother?"_

_"She killed Chiyo."_

_"That was ten years ago, almost," Daichi said._

_"And you put her out of your mind in an instant, didn't you?" Azula asked._

_"I loved my sister. I still miss her," Daichi said mournfully. "But she's __gone__. I can't bring her back. Neither can you."_

_"Maybe not," Azula said, "but I can still have my vengeance."_

_"Mother, please, stop this," he said, so quietly. "Just... meet your grandson. Talk to my wife. Stop this before it's too late. Before the Avatar himself comes to end this."_

_"It's already too late," Azula said, a smirk coming to her face. "I know he's coming. I'm counting on it."_

_"Why?"_

_"He stole my fire," Azula said, forcing past the knot in her throat at the admission. "The only justice left will be when I take his life."_

_Daichi sighed, leaning against the doorframe. "I can't help you, Mother. I have my own family to take care of. A family which is getting bigger every day."_

_"Misbegotten children," Azula said._

_"Enough!" Daichi shouted. Azula had often doubted that he was even her child, until she saw him angry. Then, the resemblance came through clear as glass. "I've tried to be a good son, Mother. I tried harder than you could believe. But you never gave me an inch of respect. If you can't even appreciate that I'm happy, now, then maybe you should leave."_

_"This is going to end soon enough," Azula said._

_"And thank Agni for that," Daichi said. He pointed to the door. "Just... go. It would be better if you didn't come back."_

She gave a start and a lurch, coming back to consciousness as she slumped against a passer-by. She pushed off of him and kept walking, even as, in her wake, he noticed the glut of her own blood she left on him in her passage. He started to shout in alarm, but she kept walking. There was a dull roar which filled her ears, making it hard to pick out the words which were being said to her, even as people now tried to keep pace with her, to tell her something, to restrain her. She pushed past them, even as her strength flagged.

Not even noticed, for the numbness in her hands, the knife she'd carried all this way fell onto the stones of the roadway, its blade red and slick, and its contents not her own, unlike the rest of it which fell around the weapon, and formed crimson footprints as she moved. The smile didn't go away, though. And then, she started to laugh. It was a croaking chuckle at first, an anguished sound coming from an ancient throat. But it grew stronger as she made those last few steps, under the arch which separated the street from the condominium proper.

"I did it," Azula said, the joy poisoned in her voice, but there nonetheless. "He's dead. The Avatar is dead..."

She reached to the door, to give a hearty 'I told you I'd do it' to her son, but her slick hand couldn't grasp the handle. She slumped forward, just to get her breath, to muster her strength.

It didn't muster. It ebbed.

She slid down the door.

Her body went numb.

Her blood pooled.

Her heart stilled.

Her eyes shut.

...

Azula's eyes snapped open, hurling the blanket off of her body in a sweep, her body jerking up like it was propelled by a spring. Her heart hammered in her chest, and sweat pounded out of her pores. She whisked it away with a palm, trying to get her breathing under control. Her eyes pressed shut, as an old but familiar pain began to compress her like a vice, a never-ending and unquenchable agony. Which was _her_ fault.

Azula rose on the deck of that stilled steam-boat, casting out a blast of explosive blue flames into the clouded sky with a scream of wrath, pain, and sadness. The first was joined by a second, a vast illuminating fan of azure which pushed back the night and painted the odd scratchings in the deck and rail in wavering light. When that ended, she slumped against the rail, her eyes pressed tightly as though it could hold the tears in. The clouds, unimpressed by her bravado, offered only a distant thunder roll. She sobbed quietly, despite herself, just for a few moments.

"...it's not fair..." were the only coherent words which came out of her. But as with everything in her long, unhappy life, she hadn't time to weep. There was only time for vengeance, fresh vengeance, and she had to have the strength to claim it. Shoving all of that pain and sadness down, she gave the latch which controlled the anchor a kick, which started the chain's ascent. It was lucky she'd piloted these kinds of skiffs for almost three decades. Otherwise, this kind of weather might have killed her. But she set her course, and started to power south.

"It'll never be enough," a young girl's voice said. Azula pointedly didn't look for its source.

"It will have to be," Azula snapped, reddened golden eyes glaring south. Her voice was not that of the nearly-fifteen year old girl she seemed. It was the voice of bitter age. "It's all I've got left."

* * *

><p><strong>Book Two: Chaos<strong>

**Chapter 1**

**Bad Tidings**

* * *

><p>The snap of the sails above was a slim comfort; they were practically more hole than sail at this point, after fleeing across the open ocean, through the hearts of storm after storm. And the rest of the fleet had still two thirds of a planet yet to traverse. The whole thing had Aang leaning forward against the railing, a sigh in his throat, eyes pressed shut. He was tired. They were all tired.<p>

"Is something wrong, Avatar?" the old woman asked him. Aang glanced in her direction, taking in Yugoda, the aged healer of the North Water Tribe. Now, she was the most skilled waterbender left alive, and even then, because everybody greater than her was left behind as they fled, helter-skelter, away from the city which once was their home and bastion. Some were left alive. Most, not. "You look somewhat ill."

"Just nightmares," Aang admitted to the healer. "I keep having the same dream. Watching as... that man... beat me. Beat all of us. It isn't fair."

"Life seldom is," Yugoda said understandingly. "You shouldn't let dreams plague you, as you shouldn't let failures plague you. Tomorrow is a new day."

That brought a chuckle to Aang's throat. "You're right. It is," he said, somewhat heartened. He turned to the west, where the bluffs quickly dropped down to golden sand, before that sand too vanished and the wharf of Duoluo Mouzi began. He looked upon that city, which he'd honestly thought he'd be approaching with news of victory, and felt a leaden sensation. So many people were depending on him. And he couldn't help them.

He couldn't even enter the Avatar State.

"Aang, what are you doing up?" Katara asked, taking his side. "Master Yugoda."

"Just keeping an old woman company," the healer said pleasantly. And untruthfully. "I'm surprised you're up so early yourself."

"I couldn't sleep," Katara said.

"So few can," the healer admitted sagely. The boat broke away from its brothers, cutting past those bluffs, where the sea crashed against the stone, and along the woods which clung desperately to any source of water, even if it was salty. Knowing why the East was under such a drought didn't bring Aang any peace, though. It made it worse.

"Welcome back," Aang said quietly, as one ship, of a refugee fleet, took to safer harbors. All because he couldn't become the Avatar they needed. Because he failed.

* * *

><p>"Is it just me, or is the weather being particularly hellish today?" Omo asked, looking somewhat green around the eyes. Kori just laughed at the Eastern-born Child's discomfort, and steered the ship with a foot as he leaned back in his seat.<p>

"And how would you even notice the difference?" Kori asked.

"Kori, stop taunting Omo," Yoji said quietly, buffing some scuffs out of her blackened lenses. "We have a job to do."

"Yeah, a job where we have pretty much complete autonomy and the collective clout of our master behind us," Kori agreed with a grin. "I could get used to assignments like this."

"Don't," Yoji said. "That sort of pride is unbecoming the Children."

"Pride is a virtue," Omo pointed out. "It drives us to excel."

"And overweening pride is a deadly disorder," Yoji said. She leaned over the maps, slipping her lenses back in place, even though they made the ill-lit charts even harder to see. She didn't like anybody seeing her eyes. Ever. They were amongst many things about herself she detested. She ran fingers down the coasts of the East Continent, long fingernails making a skritching sound as they did so. "So where, o where, would the traitor and the rebel go?"

"Ba Sing Se?" Omo asked.

Yoji scowled at him. "Don't be thick," she said quietly. "They'd tear the Dragon of the West to shreds if they got their hands on him. The Grand Secretariat would have no less," she leaned back. "No, one would need to amass a certain amount of resources to sneak into the Impenetrable City, resources I am fairly confident they presently lack. I think they're heading in different directions. We've heard nothing of the Dragon since the North. But Azula..."

"_Princess_ Azula," Kori amended.

"We aren't in the Far West, Kori, knock it off," Yoji snapped. He chuckled to himself. "A ship skippered by one of her description was seen heading directly south."

"So who do we target?" Omo asked.

"Who do you think?" Yoji asked. "We split the targets away from Zuko and deal with them one by one, starting with the weaker of them," she leaned back, shooting a smirk to where Omo clung somewhat seasick to the rail of the yacht. "After all, how could the mad-struck artist be harder to deal with than the Dragon of the West?"

* * *

><p>"Well, this is timely," Nila said, as she reached the crest of a dune, looking at the heavens in the northern distance. Notably, spotting that there were far fewer stars in that direction.<p>

"What is it?" Tzu Zi asked. Ashan and Sharif both kept quiet, but for vastly different reasons. Sharif did hum his tune, but was otherwise mum. Nila honestly didn't know what was going through the other young man's head. And probably better for it. Men could be disgusting. Nila pointed to the northern horizon.

"We're getting close to Ibn-Atal, the political capitol of Si Wong," she said. "Seat of Sultan Wahid the Younger, also called Wahid the Cautious. If you'd asked me a year ago where I'd be living when I escaped my mother, I'd have said there without hesitation."

"Why? Why are we going there?"

"Because the water won't reach the next settlement, and somebody should probably tell the man in charge of this country that his back door no longer exists," Nila said.

Tzu Zi was silent, as she started to walk in Nila's wake, and the other two kept silent behind her. But eventually, it became obvious that she was only trying to find the words, for she spoke out. "Nila... what happened back there?"

"I am not sure."

"Well, what made it stop?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I am not sure."

"I thought you knew things," the firebender said quietly.

"I do know things," Nila said. "I know many things. But that... was over the horizon of my knowledge," she paused, staring ahead of her. "There are things I don't understand, and may never. But I know the path in front of my feet. I need to deliver my brother to Mother. As to how to do that..." she shook her head.

"Don't worry, you're not alone," Tzu Zi said comfortingly. "That's a promise."

The two girls walked ahead, and the two boys followed after, one lost in his own thoughts, the other lost in other ways. It was best that Nila didn't look back to Ashan. The pain on his face would have only served to confuse her.

* * *

><p>The almost inaudible clunk of the ragged ship bumping for the first time against the battered wharf brought Sokka out of his dreams and caused him to blink away the strange nightmare which had shrouded him. Nightmares that for whatever reason, Yue died in the North, destroyed by that same unstoppable energy which rolled over them all and cast them into darkness. It took Sokka a moment of staring at his feet to remind himself that glorious Yue was still alive. And forever out of his reach.<p>

With a bit more might than was strictly necessary, he pulled his long, loose hair back from where it draped over his ears, tying it back. In the week and a half since they set out, they'd been battered by constant storms, so he didn't trust himself with a razor to keep the sides of his head shaved. How Aang kept stable and his own pate smooth was a mystery to the South Tribesman. His teeth ground as he got to his feet, stretching until the popping of his joints stopped, then starting to get dressed. Land meant food, and food was something in dire need in this little flotilla of the destitute. It also meant a hot meal which Katara didn't cook; Sokka could say many kind things about his sister, but a good cook was not one of them. In truth, he knew that his stomach wasn't the cause of his distress and his rancor. Hahn was.

Every day, Sokka had to work with the others in the fleet. That meant he had to talk to Tanuuit, which was an exercise in futility, and it meant he'd get dumped off on Yue, who had Hahn hovering around her like a wasp around jelly. To say that the two young men grated on each other was like saying that the ocean was damp. Honestly, Sokka couldn't yet conceive of how the sparks that the two of them threw with even the most passing of interactions didn't manage to burn up the whole flotilla, despite the storms. Tugging on his pants emitted a ripping sound, which in an unusual bit of largess on the behalf of the universe, didn't appear at the butt, but rather along one knee, where his foot had gone through it. Not surprising. East Continent fashion just didn't have the durability proper Tribal clothing did. He sighed, and put his foot back in properly. Might as well get one more day out of them.

With a flick of his shoulders to at least get his cloak over him, he clambered up the ladder to the deck, and saw that there was already something of a group waiting up there. And the one which immediately drew his attention was Yue, causing Sokka to emit a somewhat lovelorn sigh. He tore his eyes away from her, which was about as painful as tearing his eyes away from his own head, and took in the others, and found that the gang was all here, even Dad. They hadn't even finished tying off the ship to the moorage. "Have I missed anything?" Sokka said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"All of the important parts," Hahn snarked.

"You looking for trouble?" Sokka snapped.

"Sokka," Dad interrupted, instantly between the two at-odds adolescents. "You should accompany the Avatar. He needs a familiar face right now."

"But he..." Sokka blurted.

"Son," Hakoda said quietly. "Please."

"I... Alright, Dad," Sokka ceded. He turned, and made his way to Aang, his surrogate little brother, and forceably not looking back to where the girl of his dreams conversed with his father. If there were any one factor in this universe which convinced Sokka that there was no justice in the world, it was that Hahn, sanctimonious, smug, narcissist that he was, not only survived the end of the North Water Tribe, but managed to get the girl, too! There was no kind god in the heavens, and life was inherently unfair.

"Hey, Sokka. You don't look so great," Aang said. Sokka focused on Aang, and let out a chuckle.

"You're not exactly looking so hot either," Sokka said. "Come on. Some real food should get you perked right up. Like braised Pork Steaks and a kabab of Shig, and..."

"Can you please not list meats right now?" Aang asked, turning slightly green, even as he stepped off of the moving deck, onto the less mobile wharf. The two of them turned a corner, heading toward the utterly stable land. "I just want to have solid ground under my feet."

"Think fast, Twinkletoes!"

Sokka and Aang both had to let out that same clipped yelp of desperate alarm at what came. A block of stone roughly the size of Sokka's head was screaming toward them, and Sokka's only worthwhile means of avoiding it was to abandon the wharf for the water. Aang, on the other hand, managed to evade it by a dodge which betrayed gravity. Then again, gravity and Aang probably had a non-aggression agreement with each other at this point, because had they not, they'd be at open war. Sokka gulped and blubbed his way back to the surface, hauling himself back onto the subtly shifting timbers of the wharf, leaving an even wetter spot under him as he glared murder at who'd forced his evacuation. And how little that glare did.

It wasn't like its target could perceive it.

"Still quick on your feet, I see," Toph Beifong noted, tromping up the wharf like she owned it. But then again, considering her father, it wasn't inconceivable that she might. "And still getting wet, eh?"

"Why couldn't you warn me?" Sokka snapped as he flicked wet hair out of his face.

She gave him the most incredulous look without actually having to look at him. "Then what would be the point of a surprise test?" Suddenly, she broke out into a grin. "So, it's been a while. What sort of trouble'd y'all get into while you were gone?"

She was answered by wind, the crashing of waves, and silence. As she waited, the grin began to melt from her face. "What? Am I missing something?"

"We lost," Sokka said.

"What?" Toph clearly wasn't believing that.

"The Fire Nation were too many," Aang said quietly, despondently.

"But ain't you supposed to be some unstoppable Fire-Lord crushing machine? That's what the Dragon of the East said," she pointed out. Aang just shook his head, and kept walking. "Hey, where are you going? Where's he going, bub?" she attempted the second at Sokka.

"Just give him a bit of space, alright?" Sokka said. "We've all had a hard few weeks."

She stared to Sokka's left. "I don't like being left out of the loop. What happened up there, anyway?"

Sokka glared back at the ship, somewhat pointlessly since the grey waves of mist and sporadic rain kept him from seeing the source of his rancor. "We got whupped," Sokka summed up. "They had the numbers, the technology and us, we... We didn't have anything."

"You know what? I'm sick of standing in the rain. On your feet; let's go to Zha Yu's place. It's drier and a lot more interesting than out here."

"Zha Yu? Where's he?"

"Not too far," she said. "The town unanimously agreed to move him out to the Point House after the third unexplained fire. Hey! Twinkletoes! Come on, the Mountain King's gonna want to see you!"

"I thought I said..." Sokka began.

"Really?" Aang perked up with a sort of spirit Sokka hadn't seen recently. One of utter curiosity. With that light rekindled in his eyes, it was hard to say Toph wrong for the way she dealt with him. In short order, they were ascending the bluffs nearby, and entering the house which clung to its edge like a Fire Hawk over its perch without so much as a knock. Obviously she was a known and welcome guest.

"Knock knock," Toph said. "Anything on fire today?"

Teo, wearing a stained and scorched long-jacket of some sort, turned and started to wipe at the lenses which covered his eyes. "Not exactly the best time, Toph. I'm pretty sure Dad's busy," he said. He finally got sick of trying to clean them in place, and plucked them off. They left an odd, octagonal shape over each eye which was far paler than the areas around them, like he'd gotten socked in the face and the black-eyes came in backward. Or like he'd been given a very, very sudden suntan. As he did, though, he caught sight of the soaking wet Sokka and the mildly damp Avatar, and those green eyes widened with glee. "Wait... Is that...?"

"In the flesh, buddy," Sokka said, his arms cast wide. Teo turned to Toph, though.

"Katara's back!" he said excitedly, and bolted back down into the basement which was evident by the stairs which descended away from the foyer. Toph shook her head with a sigh, and half-turned toward the two teenagers with her.

"That kid just_ would not shut up_ about your sister," Toph muttered. "Annnyway. Come on. But if you don't know what something is, don't touch it. I've just managed to regrow an eyebrow from the last one," Toph said, indicating one of her brows which looked a bit thinner than its sister. Sokka nodded.

"Duly noted," he said.

"Alright," Aang sounded no less enthused. And in fact, he darted out in front of Toph, beginning to rummage through the various things which the family left lying about for any strange hands to mess with. Every surface was home to either a prototype, or a schematic for same. Really, it was like a factory and a library had an unholy love-child, which then proceeded to explode inside a respectably sized manor.

"You sound a lot less angry and tense than I thought you would," Sokka pointed out to his tour-guide through this house of madness and genius – of there was any difference left 'twixt the two at this point – as he followed her through that mess. It was lucky Momo hadn't accompanied them. The poor little guy would have been in real trouble, since he'd probably be acting like Aang, and Aang was a lot tougher than Momo was.

"And you sound a lot more of that same than _I_ thought _you_ would," Toph pointed out. Sokka scratched ad the back of his head, which now scritched at the short hair which was growing there. "Something happened up there. Something besides just getting your butts kicked," she paused briefly, after pulling Sokka's hand away from a heavy looking device which let out an electric hum. "Although, I can see that alone being something of a buzz-kill."

"There was a girl," Sokka said.

"So our boy has some stones in him, does he?" Toph said with an elbow to the ribs and a deep laugh. Tui La, it was like Toph rebelled actively against her own gender. "So how was she? Tender and warm and gushy? Or was she a real hardass?"

"I'm... not sure you're the one I should be talking to," Sokka admitted. She scoffed. "Fine. Well, she's got this other guy, and..."

"Did he stare down a volcano with nothing but a boomerang?" Toph asked.

"No, but..."

"Then you've got him beat," Toph said.

"It's too late!" Sokka snapped. "She's already marrying the guy!"

"Oh, so a cuckolds horns you're giving him?" she said with a nudge.

Sokka stared at her for a moment. "Now I'm _sure_ you're not the person I should be talking to."

"You're no fun at all, bub," she said with a shake of her head. She gave a nod to the matriarch of the house, yellow-haired as ever, as she stood, staring and tense, at the study at the end of the hall. Toph halted, turning to her. In Whalesh, she asked, "_Who's in that room, Sul?_"

"_A stranger who came from the East,_" Sul answered, looking somewhat nervous. "_He barged in here and demanded to speak to my husband. He's been in there since._"

"_And you just stood out here?_" Toph asked. Then, she leaned aside, and noted that Cho'e was playing contendedly in a corner of the chaos which she'd daintily tidied away. "_Oh. Right. Well, he'd better be ready for a visitor of his own_."

Sul gave a hiss of alarm as Toph stomped right up to the door and pushed it open, cutting off the conversation within at mid word. This time, unlike the last time Sokka had seen the Mountain King, he was vibrant and filled with an almost manic energy, which he was obviously leveling against whomever was there with him. The stranger was a taller man, of impressive height for an Easterner, broad shouldered and bushy bearded. The green eyed stranger looked Toph up and down, and turned to Zha Yu. "And who is this girl? I thought that was your daughter out in the room?" he asked in Tianxia, which was welcome over the difficult and byzantine Whalesh tongue.

"She is a friend of the family," Zha Yu said. "Toph, this is General Fong of Ba Sing Se. General Fong, this is Toph Beifong."

"I see," Fong said. He turned back, ignoring her completely, which got a sour look from the blind earthbender. "I'm telling you, we need you, and I am not leaving until..."

"Don't threaten me in my own house, Fong," Zha Yu said. "The last man who tried that got a quarrel in his gut."

"This war is turning against us," Fong pointed out. "It is only a matter of time before the North Water Tribe falls, and when it does..."

"Too late," Sokka said quietly. Fong broke off, turning to face the Tribesman.

"What was that, boy?"

"Fong, keep a civil tongue with the friends of my family," Zha Yu snapped.

"He's a Tribesman. He probably doesn't even understand me," Fong said.

"Are you kidding me?" Sokka asked, and that got Fong to pause from his condescension. "The war's over in the North. The Fire Nation won. There _is_ no North Water Tribe anymore."

"But... That means they'll be able to send the full might of the Fire Nation against the Earth Kingdoms," Fong said. "And as soon as the next few weeks!"

"You're welcome, by the way, for that 'illiterate barbarian' treatment," Sokka said.

"Not now," Fong waved Sokka away. "We'll need to find the Avatar at once. This is news of dire import... Wait," the man grew pale. "Didn't he head for Summavut not too long ago...?"

"Hey, guys, look what I found!" Aang declared, walking into the room with some sort of twin-tonged instrument on a cord, which crackled with snapping lightning. His grin at the device faltered upon the meeting before him. "Oh... Right... No touching, I'm sorry," he said, trying to find where to put the thing.

"Avatar Aang? You are safe?" Fong asked.

Aang looked mildly confused, but less alarmed. "Yeah, why?"

"I'd feared the worst with the news that Summavut fell," Fong said, with a glance at Sokka. "Although, I can't help but wonder why? Where was the legendary power of the Avatar? Shouldn't you have been able to destroy that force with your might?"

At around that point, Aang's smile began to curdle entirely. "I... couldn't," Aang said. "I don't know how the Avatar State works. I don't know how to enter it, and I don't know what to do while I'm in there. It just... happens sometimes. I don't have any idea why."

"So the Avatar cannot summon the legendary strength and invulnerability of his namesake?" Fong said, obvious disbelief in his voice. "How is that even possible?"

"Well, it's not like there's somebody who can teach me this stuff! I have to learn waterbending out of a _book_, now!" Aang said, agitation joining his own tone.

"Then it's settled," Fong declared. "I will take it upon myself to determine what causes the Avatar State to activate."

"That is a monumentally stupid idea, Fong," Zha Yu noted.

"Nonsense. With the Avatar at his full potential, we will be able to end this war against the Fire Nation before they can even rotate their troops! Think of all the lives you'd be saving, Aang, preventing needless bloodshed and despair. I dare say there could be no greater goal for an Avatar," Fong said. Aang looked up at the man, then back at Sokka.

Sokka shrugged. "Well, you've wandered around gathering teachers for various things before. Why not this guy for Glowing Badass-hood?"

It was telling, though that Toph and Zha Yu shared a glance, a common understanding, even if Sokka didn't notice it. For various reasons, unique to each, they knew how it was going to end. Aang, like Sokka, hadn't noticed the 'exchange'. "You're right," Aang said, the poker dropping to the floor, where it continued to spark, even causing the rug to smoulder a little. He bowed to the brick of a General. "It is time I expanded my training."

* * *

><p>"You really don't need a ride any further?" the young woman asked from the back of her Ostrich Horse, her hat tilted to keep the driving rain of the nearby storm from flying sideways into her face.<p>

"I have impinged on your kindness long enough," Iroh said, with a bow to the woman. She was a kindly sort, a refugee fleeing south ahead of the Vagabonds who were beginning to flee the North as the news of the North Water Tribe's dissolution became prevalent. Of course, this wasn't the first time he'd met her; last time was about two years ago, when they'd first surveyed the northern lands, looking for the Avatar. She and Zuko had hit it off... then nothing came of it. "I hope that your fortunes serve you better in the south, miss Song."

"I feel bad leaving you here in the wilderness, mister Mushi," she said, using one of Iroh's aliases, most of which were invented by Zuko as something like a joke. "You should come with me to Omashu. We could be there in a week at this rate."

"I'm sorry, young lady, but my path takes me down a different road today," he gave a nod. "I appreciate your hospitality and your charity. May the fortunes favor you."

She smiled at him, a sad and parting smile, and began to steer away, to the east, a road which would take her out of the swampy lands and into the dry inner countries, finally joining the Southlands Highway. In truth, she would probably reach Omashu long before any other means of transit, but Iroh had a task which needed much closer attention than that. He knew she would be there. She'd as much as said so, and even left something there as proof. But the task wasn't to ambush her. It was to intercept her before it was too late.

He started walking down the road which moved along the coast. After a moment, he paused, then looked east, after the vanishing rider. He sighed, tugging at the beard which was growing out swiftly now that he no longer took effort to keep it trimmed in a Fire Nation style. As much as Iroh wanted to have Zuko as part of his hunt, he knew that the boy's presence would only be upsetting and confusing, to both involved. Iroh had no doubt whatsoever of Zuko's heart, but his mind? He took up a stick, and with a furtive glance, seared its end, before using the soot to make a note on a secluded rock. There was a time that Zuko was upright and honest to a fault, and a terrible liar because of it. The Dragon of the West didn't know if what he'd imparted to the boy was education or corruption, though; was it kinder to have a liar's tongue in a wise man, or an honest tongue in an empty head? Whatever the case, and however cunning Zuko was, there was one thing which he lacked comparable to Iroh. Experience.

With the note scratched in oily, staining soot in its unsaturated spot, he began to walk again, and as he did, he thought of Qiao.

_"How has she been?" Iroh asked the woman as she came back into his room. Qiao shook her head, lips pursed and worried. "That bad, huh?"_

_"She's like she was when she first took ill," his wife said quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed. "She didn't even recognize me. And the crying... I couldn't help her, beloved. She was inconsolable and I could do nothing!"_

_Iroh sat up, despite the late of night and the fatigue in his bones. He was still new to the life aquatic at that point, and not as close to his niece and nephew as he'd later be, so his impulse on seeing his wife in such a state was blame for its cause rather than empathy for its difficulty. "Maybe you should just give her some time and peace," Iroh offered._

_Qiao shook her head. "You didn't see her. She was in so much pain, the kind of pain that... Iroh. It was like looking at myself when Lu Ten..." she trailed off, wiping briskly at her cheeks. Iroh shifted then, leaning closer._

_"What's wrong, Qiao?" he asked._

_"It's like she's lost something. I can't understand her words, but they're so distraught and sad and... It's like something so valuable was taken away from her," she let out an uncomfortable laugh. "She didn't stop weeping uncontrollably until she started firebending at her bed," her tone shifted suddenly, "and we're going to need a new mattress at our next stop, by the way," back to her sadness, "and when she did, the anger went out of her. What happened to her? What is this distemper of her mind?"_

_"I cannot say," Iroh said. "But it proves that her first fit will not be her last. What of Zuko?"_

_"He is beside himself," Qiao said with a shake of her head. "Damn it all... I feel so helpless! I hate feeling helpless!"_

_"It will be alright," Iroh consoled. "You forget that before her sickness, Azula was my brother's favorite. He respects nothing but strength and cunning, and she had both. I do not fear for her. She will recover."_

_"Iroh! Don't speak of her that way," she snapped, scandalized._

_"What?"_

_"She needs our help just as Zuko does. You can't push her aside to your favoritism."_

_"It's not favoritism, it's..."_

_"Then why don't you ever tend to her in her worse times? Why don't you ever teach her as you do our nephew?" She asked, her melancholy replaced by indignation, and her seat replaced by an angry pacing. "Do you even know your own niece?"_

That was a question which Iroh found himself asking himself more and more often since the discovery of the Avatar. For the longest time, he'd been complacent with Azula, just assuming that he'd have as much time as he'd need to puzzle out her mysteries. But the heedless, headstrong rush of the last few months, especially since they came on the tail of Qiao's passing, he'd gotten distracted and pushed aside such consideration. Now, it was coming back to bite him in the copious ass.

So much was, actually.

With a harumph, he hitched his own straw-cloak a little higher on his shoulders, keeping his body relatively dry if nothing else. He'd a long way through the storm to walk, and he wasn't sure of what he'd find when he got there. Iroh had failed the same place where Ursa almost had; he'd favored one child over another. Now, he had to redeem himself of that mistake.

Iroh walked. The storm walked with him.

* * *

><p>Katara perked up from where she was trying to gather supplies upon hearing a familiar voice, and turned, leaving the stocker to gather what she'd listed off already. It was a daunting process to try to supply thousands of mouths who could find no safe harbor in this hemisphere. She was starting to appreciate the effort which Sokka put into planning their every move; expanded up, it made a lot of sense, because the logistics of moving even a remnant-people were nigh-overwhelming.<p>

"_Lana? Is that you?_" Katara asked, moving out into the grey and the cold. Even though it was spring in name, here, against the storms of the ocean, and the harsh wind blowing down along the mountains, it was still as good as winter here, today. The middle-aged waterbender turned from where she was trying to haggle with a fishmonger, a hilarious scene in most cases considering neither could heed the other's tongue. Today, though, it just seemed desperate. "_It's me, Katara, I was..._"

"Do you know this woman?" the fishmonger asked. She was a broad woman, to say the least. Katara imagined she got anywhere she needed to by rolling. "Could you tell her to stop scaring off the other customers?"

"She's not scaring off... Just let her buy her food," she said with a shake of the head.

"With what? Ceramic chips and poetry? No money, no sale," the fishmonger said, arms crossed before her. Katara sighed, palming her forehead. She turned to the woman.

"_I'm sorry, Lana. She's a bit of a bigot,_" Katara said. Lana sighed, her face sagging slightly. It was a common expression for the woman. "_Um... this might not be the best time, but I really feel I should ask you_."

"_What is it?_" Lana asked, turning away from the racist fishmonger.

"_Do you have a husband named Shakt?_" Katara asked carefully. Lana sighed.

"_I did, once,_" the woman answered. She shook her head. "_Sometimes, I think he died long before Summavut fell, in spirit if not in body._"

"_And a son, named Qujeck?_" Katara continued. Lana nodded.

"_I was so proud of him when he left Summavut. That was almost a decade ago. I haven't heard from him in more than a year. I... just assumed the worst_," she said. Katara nodded, then reached into the pack which hung from one shoulder, extracting the passage box which she'd liberated months before. Lana's eyes widened, and she snatched the box from Katara's hands and ran her own over it. She looked up at the girl, unshed tears in her eyes. "_It cannot be..._"

She slid the lid open, and let out a sob. Katara gave the woman's arm a comforting squeeze, and guided her out of the way of the few who were still going about the business of shopping and working, even under such weather. But then again, considering this kind of weather was essentially eternal here, they would have to learn to adapt. She turned Lana into a nook behind an unoccupied stall, where the woman read through Qujecks effects. She lifted up scrolls, letting the light fall over them.

"_I sent him these letters. This was the last he answered,_" she said. "_And this was the one he didn't... Where are the others? Where did you even find this?_"

"_I took it from some people who didn't deserve to have it._ _In all the chaos and the pressure for time, I didn't have a good chance to give you this before,_" Katara said. "_I'm sorry for that._"

Lana sucked in a sniffle and put on a brave face. "_Don't be sorry, kinsman. You've done me a service. At least, now I have something of my son._"

"_I wish I had better news,_" Katara said. But Lana wasn't listening to her anymore. There were some days she didn't feel particularly heroic. She started to walk off, but was arrested by the sight of a very nervous looking Aang nearby. Her brow knitted, and she quickly scampered over, after making a mental note to return to the stocker before returning to the ships. She still had her duties to attend to, after all.

"Aang, what's wrong?" she asked.

"I just spent three hours trying to figure out what causes the Avatar State, and we've gotten nowhere!" Aang complained, kicking a loose cobble. And probably regretting it from the way he hopped on one foot briefly. "Why is it that nobody ever tells stories about how hard it is to be the Avatar? I mean, there's so much that I'm supposed to know, but nobody ever told me! It's like the entire world wants me to fail or something!"

"Aang, you know that isn't true," Katara said, giving him a comforting hug. As she did, the frustration and tension which had coiled the airbender into a knot started to release, obvious even to her. "We believe in you. We know you're going to be a force for good in this world, and that when you're ready to be the Avatar Realized, you'll be fantastic. And you're wrong, you know?" she said.

"What do you mean?" Aang asked, a bit confused.

"Stories tend to have _tonnes_ of stuff on how hard it is to be heroic. Well, at least ours do. Have you ever heard the story of Utukku Netweaver?" Aang shook his head. "Well, the way Gran-Gran told it, she was a Water Tribesman from before even the Avatar, and she was supposed to unite the South Water Tribe into one people. But the thing is, she tried and failed for forty years at it until she finally managed to get it right, and that's where most of the story is. Really. The part where she succeeds is pretty much five minutes at the very end of it."

"You've got weird tastes in stories," Aang noted. He paused for a moment, a smile coming back to his face. "Have you ever heard about the King of the Monkeys?"

"No," Katara said. "What about it?"

"It was one of my favorites. It was a monkey who decided that he was wise and handsome and rather wanted to be a god, so he started to... you know what, I'll tell it when we aren't standing in fog," Aang said.

"See? Just like that your spirits are mended," Katara said.

"Yeah. Thanks for that," Aang said. "I'm really glad you're here, Katara. I don't know what I'd be doing if it weren't for you and Sokka."

"Probably still trying to teach Momo how to dance to the flute," Katara said. She looked the boy over again. Even though his expression had brightened from its dismal set, he still looked like he was being worked hard and put away foaming. "So what's going on out there? Where were you, anyway?"

"I was at the Mountain King's home, and General Fong was trying to figure out how I go in and out of the Avatar State," he repeated.

"Why?" she clarified. Aang shrugged. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Aang."

"Why not?" Aang asked, perplexed. As he did, the lanky form of Teo appeared out of the mist, fighting hard and obvious to anybody who was paying attention to keep a suave front. He leaned on a post near Katara.

"Hey, there Katara. I heard you were back in..."

"Not now," she dismissed brusquely. "Aang, do you know what happened the first time you were in the Avatar State?"

"Yeah, I blew up my home," Aang said uncomfortably as the two of them continued to walk past the crestfallen Teo, left behind them and gaping after the Tribesman as she glided away. Katara shook her head, attention firmly on the Avatar.

"No, I meant why you did that in the first place?" Katara asked. Aang's eyes started to get a bit squirrely. "Aang, Sokka told me that you started to do what you did after you discovered Monk Gyatso's bones, and the remains of the dead. I think... that it was started because you were under such a weight of rage that you forgot who you were."

Aang stared at the stones before his feet as he walked. "Really?" he asked.

"And when you were in that fortress up in the mountains, you got so confused and angry that you looked like you wanted to bury the entire building. Aang, I don't think this is a good idea," she said.

He looked at her, though, with those expressive grey eyes, and she had doubts. "But every day that I let the war drag on, more and more people are dying. If I could have entered the Avatar State in the North, we wouldn't have lost."

"We don't know that," Katara said.

"I do," Aang said. "I'm sorry, but I have to do this. This is the only way that I'll be able to stand against the Fire Nation."

"But, what about your plan? Learning all of the Elements?" she asked.

"I don't have time," Aang said. "It took me twelve years to master airbending! I only had a week and a half of teaching in waterbending... unless we count you as a teacher," Aang said at a swift backpedal when Katara levelled a glare at him. Aang shook his head. "Even with Bumi as a teacher, I don't think I'll be ready to face the Fire Lord. Not this year. Maybe not ever."

Katara sighed. "You need to have a bit more faith in yourself," she said. "You'll get through this. And you'll do it the _right_ way."

She should have been concerned when Aang didn't answer that.

* * *

><p>"What now?" the girl asked her as the ship scudded up against the gravel which made up part of the beachhead, until it slowly planed out into drab sand. Azula glared at her, but didn't dignify it with a response. "Oh, giving me the silent treatment, are you? Well, that's going to be effective," she finished with a sarcastic barb.<p>

"I don't need any lip from you," Azula said, her hands running along the words on the page. As she looked at them, she could feel the girl leaning around her, trying to look over her shoulder. "This doesn't concern you."

"I think it does," the girl pointed out, her arms crossed before her chest and an inordinately mature look of derision on her youthful face. "There's something you're not telling me. Something you really should."

"You are a burden I had and have no desire to carry," Azula snapped. The girl gave a haughty tut and shook her head. She folded that letter, and set it into the boiler. With no coal and no means of getting any more short of unimaginably lucky banditry, she decided her time on the waves had come to an end. The last flames in the engine lit up on the paper, consuming it, and the message borne upon it, into ashes. The girl sighed.

"You can try to lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me."

Azula ignored her. "Don't get in my way," she demanded.

"Or what? You'll leave me here, all alone?" she said, with the singsong tones of mockery. "Whatever will I do? I'll be dead in a day!"

Azula glared at her, and found a smirk turned up at her. "You have no part in this."

"Oh, I think I do, old woman," she said.

"Old?"

"You're older than me," she answered.

"This is pointless. You're not here. You're not real," Azula said. "You died six years ago."

"If I'm dead," the younger version of herself said, leaning a bit closer, "then how come I can still talk to you? How come I still know who I was? How come I can talk like my mouth isn't full of goop?"

Azula didn't answer that. She just vaulted over the rail and into the surf, saturating her pants in an instant and chilling her to the bone. There were quite a number of things which Azula hated beyond all rational reason. Sea-gulls. The color teal. Swimming. But highest amongst those irrational dislikes was being cold. Combining cold with wet sent a shard of wrath through her. She nurtured it. It would keep her warm, keep her strong.

"So much effort," the girl said from Azula's side, slogging through the water without a care. "You know, I actually enjoyed swimming."

"You were mad," Azula snapped.

"Says the woman who's talking to an eight year old version of herself," that younger Azula taunted. Azula set her jaw as she walked past rocks and trees all cut with illegible marks and symbols. Her other obviously thought Azula's focus comical. She let out a peal of laughter. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

"I didn't realize I was a sadist," Azula muttered.

"If I cannot torment myself, then what's the point?" the girl asked. "Besides, I might as well keep you company. I want the Avatar as much as you do."

Azula didn't answer that... but as much as she wanted revenge, an end to these decades of torment and injustice, a spark of her still wanted to see that look she didn't get, so long ago. Pride, in her father's eyes. Even more than hatred, that yearning drove Azula, young and old, forward, down the roads to the Southern Earth Kingdoms.

* * *

><p>The wind rattled at the door as a man pounded at the door. Gansu rubbed his neck, and the skin which was already starting to flake and peel from the harsh sun which beat down on him day-after-day. He knew he couldn't sustain a herd like this much longer, but moving his family? This farm had been in his family for generations. The rains had to come next year. They just had to. But that was little balm for a sunburned neck or a visitor at such an oddly late hour. Gansu opened the door, and was immediately faced with a very intense stare, levied by golden eyes.<p>

"Do you mind? My family are taking dinner," Gansu said.

"Where did he go?" the teenager asked. He leaned past Gansu, to where Sela and their child were trying to make a meal of what meagre provisions they had. As the teenager did, Gansu could see a nasty looking burn on the side of his neck, and that it carried up to his left ear, which was practically absent for damage.

"Excuse me?" Gansu said, blocking the youth off. When he did, he saw the youth's hand stray to a sword-pommel. Gansu swallowed hard.

"I was told an old man came to your house not too long ago. Riding with a healer girl from the north," the teenager said, an unbearable tension in his voice. "Where did he go?"

"What are you talking about?" Gansu asked.

"He must be talking about Mushi," Lee said from the table. He went to the door, and the stranger took a step back, hand releasing his weapon. Only then did Gansu dare relax. He'd had enough trouble with a bad feed-grain harvest the year before, and too few births amongst his own flock. He didn't need insane bandits making it worse.

"You know Mushi?" the youth asked. "Squat, fat, grey bearded?"

"Yeah, and he made great tea," Lee said. "He said he was heading south, toward the Three Roads Junction. Why? Do you know the guy?"

"Yeah," the youth said. "He's trying to take something which is mine."

"That doesn't seem right," Sela said. "He was always so kindly and polite."

"Looks can be deceiving," the youth said. "South. Good."

"Wait, where are you going at this hour?" Sela asked, to which Gansu had to restrain himself mightily to keep from groaning. She was too caring by a half, his wife. The number of strays which frequented the homestead was a testament to that.

"I have to go," the stranger said, and started pressing south, through the dust and the red light of the approaching dusk. Sela, bless her heart, leaned out of the door, holding up a hand against the driving grit.

"Wait... what's your name?" she asked. Gansu shook his head. It was a miracle that she only had two children, that woman. Someone that hungry toward caring probably would not have been content with a litter of seven. At once. The stranger turned, just a moment, staring back. Gansu couldn't have guessed what the youth, at the upper reaches of his teenage years, was thinking, but whatever it was, he was sure it was not pleasant. Without another word said, the youth returned his attention to the road ahead of him.

"Come on, Sela. Let's eat dinner while it's still warm," Gansu said. But Sela's sigh as she returned into the body of the house told him that this wasn't going to be the end of his hearing about this.

* * *

><p>The weather had cleared somewhat, which didn't say much but that the clouds were a little higher off the ground and the rain reduced from a storm-hurled deluge to a dreary drizzle. Honestly, Sokka had never seen so weather-hammered a place in the East as this. It was practically like the Fire Nation, the weather it weathered. Of course, it did mean that they produced more food here, and in the areas around it, than did most of the Dakong Basin, despite having one hundredth the area.<p>

"I haven't seen Aang, recently. Have you?" Sokka asked the blind girl who kept him company. She gave him something like a look. "You know what I _mean_."

"Nah," Toph answered. "I heard that Twinkletoes and Epic Beard Man both took over part of Dad's manor to test some theories, but beyond that..."

Sokka scowled at her. "He took over part of your house and you don't know what's going on in there?"

"Hell naw," she said. "I spend more hours over at the Mountain King's then I ever do there. You know, I gotta say, getting Zha Yu as a neighbor was the best consolation prize I ever got."

"So what do you think they're doing?" Sokka asked. "Beyond the whole 'invoke the Glowing Badass' business?"

"I couldn't tell you," Toph admitted. "Not like I could tell when he starts glowing."

Sokka nodded, but as he was about to press from a different direction, he noticed something zipping toward him with stupendous speed. He gave out a somewhat girlish shriek and heaved Toph aside, because it was obvious she had no clue what was coming. Clearly, since what was coming was a wide-eyed airbender shooting down the streets on an air scooter, his mouth working a mile a second, and the words coming out in a Doppler-shifted mass behind him.

"Hey-Sokka-Hey-Toph-they-thought-that-maybe-if-they-gave-me-some-chi-enhancing-tea-that-might-make-me-zippy-enough-to-activate-the-Avatar-State-but-I-don't-know-if-I-am-yet-are-my-tattoos-glowing-I-can't-tell-from-here-but-I-feel-like-they're-glowing-why's-everybody-moving-so-slowly?"

And with that, the airbender shot away, laughing like a maniac. Sokka blinked a few times, as Toph did. "What the _HELL_ was that?" Toph asked.

"I'm beginning to see my sister's point. This might be a very bad idea," Sokka said.

* * *

><p>"Well, you're looking a lot more sprightly," Kori said easily as they walked along the path.<p>

"Oh, you just shut up," Omo muttered.

"I'm serious. Like a man come back from the dead," the waterbender said with a grin, adjusting the clothes which he'd brought on the occasion that he'd be on a mission requiring a doffing of uniform. They were Tribesman's clothes, all the way from the supple boots to the Sallowscale choker, but Yoji couldn't for the life of her figure how he could stand them.

Omo turned to Yoji. "Can I bury him? Just leave his head sticking out for a few days?"

"No, Omo," Yoji said, stretching muscles long cramped from having no room aboard that swift if tiny skiff. "It wouldn't do to throw away the Fire Lord's best."

"I wouldn't call _him_ the Fire Lord's best," Omo muttered under his breath, pulling off the red tunic which was part of his own kit and replacing it with verdant. Of course, while he did so, the marvelous sculpture of his chest was visible, and Yoji allowed herself a small smile as she appreciated it. Ah, but there was better time to view works of art, and they all had places to be. Namely, not here. Of them all, only Yoji kept her own clothes, and only she refused to doff her spectacles. Unlike the others, she would not hide what she was. She was Fire Nation. No matter what.

"Have you got a feeling like this isn't going to be a normal mission?" Omo asked, which caused Yoji's eyes to snap up from the cut of his muscles to his face. Kori, who'd noticed the shift, rolled his eyes but was luckily silent. Yoji raised a brow in a silent question. "We're being sent after the Dragon of the West, obviously enough... so why didn't he send Hisui and Hai with us?" Omo shook his head, glancing back to the west. "Something is going on here. Something unsaid."

"Much is unsaid," Yoji said. "Much need not be said. Now can you please ready yourself? We've doddled enough."

"Whatever you say, o' magnificent leader," Kori said with a flourishing bow. Yoji shook her head. The only reason she put up with Kori's irreverence was because he was very good at what he did, and it was a talent unique to the Children. After all, how often did the Fire Nation have access to loyal waterbenders? Not surprising, though, given the Tribesmen's predilection for abandoning unwanted children to their death when times got hard. Yoji's past was... similar. She stepped out of the abandoned fishing shack whence they grounded the skiff. The rain was still falling, beading when it it her skin and rolling off to the ground where it wasn't absorbed by fabric. Rain. At least in this part of this continent, she could be reminded of home.

"Are we ready?"

"Are you seriously going out like that?" Omo asked.

"If I need to change into something else, I will do so as the need arises," Yoji said. "Now come. We have a lot of ground to cover."

Kori raised a brow at that, and disbelief was clear in his dark blue eyes, even as he bent the water which fell into a canopy which sent it sliding away from his head. "Call me the demons' advocate if you would, but you do realize that the East is a rather big place? If the Dragon and the Princess are even here – which I'll admit is more likely than not the way things are now – then we're still looking for a needle in a haystack roughly five times the size of our entire home continent."

"Your point?" Yoji asked, as she took the path toward where the road split to the shore.

"I'm just saying that unless you have some information which you haven't shared with me or your boy-toy over there," Omo simmered at that, "then the odds against us are somewhat astronomical. It's not like we're just going to find him drinking tea on the side of the road."

"Perhaps not," Yoji admitted, moving through that path. "But we do know where their rebellious ilk live. They will seek out security in the presence of other profligates."

"Ba Sing Se?" Omo asked.

"All roads do lead there. Yes; inevitably, but perhaps not initially," Yoji nodded. "Ba Sing Se is a hard city to navigate, and I don't doubt that every eye of every security force in that city will be wary to them. No, they'll be searching for friendlier faces in a more open city if only to gather the resources to infiltrate Ba Sing Se unnoticed. That means Omashu."

"Why would the Dragon of the West head for Omashu?" Kori asked.

"I think a better question is how do we get him away from the Prince?" Omo interrupted. "Have we got a plan for that?"

"Of course I do," she said with a peevish impatience. "I always have a plan."

"And how has that turned out for you?" Kori asked.

"That depends. Who's in charge?" Yoji asked, a withering glance directed at him him, somewhat ruined by the dark glass of her lenses. Kori just shrugged. "The plan is a remarkably simple one. We join him."

"What?" Omo asked.

"Zuko is something of a romantic at heart. According to my sources," direct from Ozai, in fact, "Zuko is obsessed with honor and takes people at their word almost without question. Lucky for us, he's not the most cunning. I simply pass myself off as a heart-rent renegade, taken up by a well-meaning outcast of a Tribesman and a helpful local, cast out for reasons not of my choosing or responsibility, and he'll take me under his wing in a heartbeat. And then, I can work to separate him from the Dragon and the Princess' influences," she explained. "After he doubts them as much as he by rights should, we will have his outright permission to eliminate them. I only hope we can do it swiftly enough to keep their tendrils out of his mind."

Kori didn't look to enthused with the plan.

"What?" she asked.

"I'm just concerned that this plan has too many moving parts," he said. "But we'll see. We'll see."

"I'm sure," Yoji said. "Whatever your doubts are, raise them. Best have them out before we move on. After all, it's not like we're just going to stumble across one of them as soon as we take the road."

If Yoji were one to believe in the will of the universe, she might have felt it laughing at her. As soon as she took to the road, the very instant the path merged with the uneven stones of that highway, Yoji's eyes went wide, because Princess Azula was standing not two dozen paces away, her own golden eyes widening at the trio's appearance. Yoji halted, and Omo had to skirt around her. Kori just looked past her other shoulder, and let out a grunt. The Princess stared in outright disbelief, as Yoji did as well. She didn't even know the odds against this happening, but they must have been pretty high.

"You _must have_ arranged this, right?" Kori asked Yoji with a chuckle. Oh, but if she had.

* * *

><p>As much as Katara wanted to protest, the sight of Aang covered in mud and ridiculous clothing overpowered her outrage and her desire not to giggle. Of course, it was obvious that Fong was starting to scrape the bottom of the Avatar barrel in his search for that spark which would turn Aang into something she wouldn't recognize. Hopefully, his overtaxed imagination would give up the ghost and Aang could leave this ridiculous misadventure behind them, and head south to Omashu before too long. After all, it wasn't like Fong was actually going to hurt Aang, right? Then again, she had dumped a dangerously powerful stimulant into the youth yesterday, and it took Sul gliding over the outer reefs to find him, crashed out and sleeping on a rock in the middle of the water. The tongue-lashing she gave Fong for that one was so legendary that even though Katara couldn't speak Whalesh, she was in awe of it.<p>

"Katara?" her father's voice came from behind her, and she turned, spotting him not too far away, on the outskirts of Zha Yu's... compound really. It was far less palatial than the manor they slept in with Toph, and far better built even than the garrison. It was a sensible choice, given what fully half that odd family did as a hobby. The sounds of thundersnaps followed by impressed laughter emanated at almost any hour of the day. It was just lucky the building wasn't made of wood. "Do you have a moment?"

"Of course I do," Katara said. "What's going on?"

"Katara... I'm sorry, but..."

She felt her stomach drop, her eyes go wide. "What is it, Dad?" this time, more alarmed.

"There are a little over five thousand on that flotilla," Hakoda said, his words careful, measured. Like he was trying very hard not to say the wrong thing. "They can't stay here forever. They need to move on."

"Well, then I guess I'll say goodbye to Yue before they leave," she said, but her father caught her shoulder, and shook his head.

"Katara, I'm going with them."

"What?" Katara asked, not truly understanding what he'd said. "You can't go. You can't!"

"I have to, Katara," Hakoda said.

"But... but we just found you again!" she sobbed, tears coming to her eyes. "Why? Did I do something wrong?"

"What? No!" Hakoda shook his head vigorously. "Katara, I couldn't be prouder of you as a daughter or Sokka as a son as I am, and have always been. It's just that... these people need me."

"I need you!" Katara answered.

Hakoda just sighed, the smile on his face not a happy one. He pulled his daughter close, and she let out a flood into his shoulder. "Five thousand," Hakoda said, an edge coming to his voice. "The North Water Tribe was forty times that when I went there. And these are all that's left."

"Why can't they just follow Tanuuit? Or Yue?" Katara asked into his parka.

"You know that wouldn't work. These people need a familiar face. And besides," he said, with an uncomfortable laugh, "because of how Arnook died, I'm _technically_ the last High Chief of the North Water Tribe."

"But... but..." Katara couldn't come up with a good excuse. She just didn't want him to go. Not after so long. "I mean... I understand why you left. You had to, and it made perfect sense, and nobody else would do... but why do I feel this way? Why am I so angry? So betrayed?"

She took some comfort in her father's warm embrace against the cold of the wind, but not much. "Because you're not wrong. If there were anything I could have done to not leave, any way I could have not gone, I would have."

"I know, I know," Katara said, sniffling. "We had Gran Gran, and we knew she loved us, but without you... we weren't a complete family anymore. Not the way it was supposed to be."

Hakoda let out a bitter sigh. "Katara, we haven't been a complete family since a little after you were born," he said. Kya. Mom. It was odd, she had considered then – and even now in an oddly rational part of her sorrowful brain – that she had grown up without a single memory of her mother. Sokka could remember a little bit about her, but all her life, Katara'd had no mother figure. And then there was her sister, Hikaoh, a spectre in her father's eyes, but not even a whisper to Katara's. They'd all suffered. All of them, and entirely too much. It just wasn't fair. "Katara, when I was gone, I missed you more than anything. You and your brother were my entire world. You filled my dreams as I slept, and my thoughts when I was awake. Some days, your absence was like a burn which would never be soothed. But you came back to me. And you will again."

"Can... can you stay just a little while longer?" Katara asked. Her heart sank when Hakoda sighed.

"I'm sorry. I've put this off too long as it was. And the truth is, I'm not the fighter I used to be. But I promise you, whereever you go, and whatever you do, I will be praying for you, and thinking of you. And if you need me, I'll find you. I swear it," Hakoda said.

And if there was any kindness left in the world, it showed itself by giving her a few more minutes to still her tears, before her father left them again.

* * *

><p>"You <em>must<em> have arranged this, right?" the Tribesman in the road said.

"I wouldn't put it past her," the Easterner at his side said. Azula gave a glance away from where they one and all stood on weirdly engraved cobbles to where the girl stood, looking at them with a stark note of concern.

"You are standing in my way," Azula said, turning her attention forward once more.

"I know her..." the child said warily. And oddly, now that she mentioned it, Azula did as well, but only in the haziest of fashions.

"Are we?" the girl with the dark glasses and the inhuman looking skin asked. There was something strange about her face, Azula saw. The water which struck it beaded off rather than run in rivulets. The girl waved aside, and Azula stalked toward and past them. As she did, she felt a creeping numbness run up her arm, and a confused fuddle clouding her mind. She looked down, and saw that the girl was holding her hand, having caught it just as she reached the trio of odd strangers.

Azula snatched her hand away, and when she did, the numbness dissipated, and her mind cleared. But the girl? She looked outright panicked. "I know who these people are!" the girl shouted. "Why can't you remember?"

"What are you talking about?" Azula asked.

The Tribesman nearby gave a chortle. "_Worse than I'd heard,_" he muttered to himself in the Hui Temple Tongue. Azula wasn't exactly paying attention to him, though.

"Think you stupid old hag!" the girl shouted. "Where have you seen those glasses before? What happened the last time you did?"

Azula tried to think back, but there was a block in her memories... or rather, a great and gaping hole. She knew that there was a memory which belonged there, but it was like it had been lifted whole out of her apperception and the only sign of its existence was the relief of its figure. "They could be anybody."

"The Fire Temple, dum-dum!" the girl said, punching Azula in the hip. As she did, there was another jolt to her brain, but this time, it had the side effect of leaving an image in her memory. Her, beaten and weeping, as three teenagers in red and gold armor looked down upon her.

Azula turned, her eyes narrowing dangerously, and stared that black-lensed girl where her eyes would be. "You," was all Azula said.

"Well, that was fun," the Tribesman said, but Azula shut him up by blasting a shockwave of azure flames at him. His panicked reaction to drag the water which lay just about everywhere in the wake of the storm did little but keep her attack from tearing him in half. He still was hurled into the woods and vanished from sight. Azula swept low, but found herself blocked by the Easterner before her sweep could project the glorious sapphire flames which were her birthright. She then lashed forward, to send a lancet of flame through the girl's spectacles and head, but the girl nimbly batted the attack awry. Azula tried to press her attack, but every gout of flame, every axe-kick, every bullet of fire and sword-like chop was either dodged with contemptuous ease or shut down before it really started by one or both of the fighters. And all through it, while the Easterner showed great focus with his earthbending, he did not smile nor gloat, and the firebender girl was inexpressive as a doll.

"She's a lot better than last time," the earthbender noted, after almost pulling the cobbles out from under Azula's footing and sending her onto her back. "Think she started learning from the Dragon?"

"Doubtful," the girl answered her. "Even _he_ couldn't train somebody from that to this so quickly."

Finally, the girl gave just the slightest hint of expression, a tiny wisp of smirk coming to bright red lips, before a hay-maker punch appeared out of seemingly nowhere, and Azula had a fraction of a second to catch it. The close fight was failing her, that much was obvious. So she thought back. Way back. Her brother asking a stupid question, her giving a quick witted and cunning answer. A brief scuffle where she had the upper hand the entire time... until he used the terrain against her, by...

Azula lashed forward with her own fist full of blue flames into the firebender girl's own. Where the two flames met, there was a cataclysmic reaction, a blast wholly out of proportion to the forces arrayed to create it. And it did hurt just as much today as it had decades ago; this time, her body was not built like a glass figurine, all nimble joints and no constitution. Now, her body was built to endure and overpower. She tumbled, bouncing painfully on the stone, before righting herself, if still while sliding backward. A jet of flame from either hand stopped her backward momentum. She saw that her opponent was quickly rising to her own feet. If looking quite different than she had before. Something had changed about her face...

"So where's the Dragon, traitor?" that girl asked, her voice professional even if her words weren't. "I'm surprised that he'd let you off your leash."

"My idiot brother and useless teamonger uncle were slowing me down," Azula said with a smirk of her own, even if she did have to puff a breath to put out one of her smouldering bangs. What she said drew the second emotional reaction from that strange girl that Azula'd seen today. A second smirk.

"Agni smiles on me then. It'll be a lot easier to kill you if I don't to explain where you'd gone," she said, as calm and aggressionless as if describing the distasteful task of personally disposing of rubbish. Since the blast had also hurled the earthbender into the forest, opposite the waterbender, it left only the two of them on the road. And Azula's patience with this encounter had just about reached an end. Her hands began to drag through the air, the old kata which she had practised every day as a child until she'd perfected it, and every stormy day as an adult to keep it sharp. As she did, the other firebender's eyes went well and truly wide.

"Agni's Blood! When'd she learn...?" the firebender began to ask, before making the smartest decision of her life and hurling herself bodily into the protection of the woods. But as Azula idly tracked the girl's path, she noted that something was undefineably off about her performance. It wasn't just that she was rusty, considering that gap of about ten years since she'd last bent lightning. No, there was something else. Almost like the energy was imbalanced. Just a little. Just enough.

When Azula lashed forward with two fingers, the bolt didn't snap instantly and obediently away from her fingertips and cutting through the foliage like the non-issue it was. Instead, there was an explosion before her hand, as the lighting clawed away in a vast arc, spiraling out and managing to set some of the smaller saplings alight, and causing some of the larger trees to explode as their hearts boiled. It was three times the raw power that she'd ever seen in her life. And less than a ten-thousandth the control. Then, that explosion began to reach back toward her, first bending her fingers back with a painful crunch, then sending her entire body twisting back even as she retreated the five paces it took to keep her balance. She blinked away that brilliant dazzle that her attack left in her eyes. What the hell was that?

"What the hell was that?" the younger version of herself asked.

"Who cares? It worked," Azula answered. She made to move toward them, but her younger self blocked her way. "What are you doing?"

"I could ask you the same," the girl asked.

"I'm finishing them now while they're dazed. I have enough enemies."

"No, you're going to run," the girl said.

"I could..."

The girl answered her by punching her in the kidney, which was simultaneously numbing and brilliantly painful. Azula staggered in a brief circle, trying to get feeling back in the left side of her body, and regretting it when she did. Now that she could feel her left hand, she was sure the fingers were broken. "You're not in any condition to fight," the girl said. "And you don't know what condition they're in. Come on, you old bat! Think this through! Gah, if you're really what I'm supposed to grow into, then I'm obviously on a drastically wrong path," the girl said, crossing her arms before her and petulantly looking away. Azula glared at her younger self, then turned, and began to run, unstably at first, but with increasing speed as her body learned its proper orientation. Of course a version of Azula was right. Young or not, she was still Azula.

Besides, Azula had better things to deal with than... whatever those people were here for.

It didn't occur to her until hours later, as she tried to catch a meager of sleep, to even wonder what they wanted with her, and by then, she was too tired to ponder it.

* * *

><p>"What's on your mind, powder-puff?" Toph asked as she plunked herself down beside the Avatar, where he'd unceremoniously crashed into bed at the end of the day. While she had no way of seeing how the teenaged demigod looked, she could tell from the somewhat pulpy way he showed up to her unique perceptions that he wasn't exactly in the best of shape.<p>

"What time is it?" the Avatar's voice was harried.

"Dinner time," she said. "So get up, lazy bones. Can't have the great and mighty Avatar gettin' soft on us, can we?"

"I'm not hungry," Twinkletoes said, and his stomach immediately called him a liar by gurgling loudly. Toph gave him 'a look', which she had to assume he'd figure out, but then again, they might be standing in pitch darkness and she'd not notice. "Why won't you all leave me alone?"

"'Cause you've got stuff that needs doing, and Zha Yu wanted somebody to check up on ya."

"You mean Fong wanted somebody to check up on his experiment," Twinkletoes said with an exhausted sort of bitterness.

"And why would I care what tall, hairy, and stupid has to say?" Toph asked. "Now on your feet, bucko! You're not missing a meal on my watch. Gods, you're already so spindly I can practically spit through you."

The Avatar gave a groan, but with a bit of effort on Toph's part, she got the teenager moving. He shuffled out the door like some sort of living dead, though. That was something of a concern. She couldn't exactly have the adventure of a lifetime if the most second-most-important person of the age – the most being herself, of course – keeled over from exhaustion. After some finagling and fetching, she managed to get Aang pointed into the dining area, which was somewhat odd to her, considering he'd been living here for three days so far and he'd not even been anywhere but his bed for all that time. Fong really had his priorities messed up, that much was obvious.

"Ah, Avatar, it is such a pleasure to finally have you join us," Dad said with his usual slimy obsequiousness. Or he could just be trying to be earnest; Toph could never really tell with the guy. One was much the same as the other. The Avatar, obviously too tired for social niceties, stood like a stunned ox, rubbing at an eye, before wordlessly taking the nearest seat and throwing himself into it. She could 'see' her father, at the head of the table, give a nervous glance aside, probably through the door to the servers, and shrug. "Well... perhaps we should simply proceed to dinner?"

"Yeah, the Avatar here's pretty well starved. I'm pretty sure General Fong only let him go so that he could figure out why his latest half-baked plan to bring about the Avatar State failed," Sokka said, from where he was already eating near where Lao sat. Dad turned to him, shocked. Toph let out a laugh at his blunt but accurate assessment. Of course, she and Sokka'd always gotten along like a house on fire, as the Western idiom went. Vexingly, for all her education, she still couldn't figure out what that saying was supposed to mean, and why it was trucked out for platonic friendships. Toph took her own place, and breathed deeply the lovely smells of a hearty stew. It wasn't until she'd been on the road that she even learned the joys of this sort of fare. Now that she'd had it, she wasn't going back. Heavy food which sat in her stomach like a brick was the only way to go.

"Toph, that is too hot for you. Somebody blow in it for her," Dad said with his usual panic-about-everything.

"Dad," Toph said with annoyance. The man blanched somewhat, and hung his head.

"Right... you're right. I'll just..." he shook his head and then shifted his attention to the Avatar, who at least would be less fraught conversation. "Ahem. Well... Tell me, young Avatar, how long do you think it will be until this war is over?"

"I don't know," Aang said morosely. "I mean... I planned to beat him by the end of summer, but now I'm not sure if that's even realistic."

"Sure it is, Aang!" Sokka said brightly. "I'll just whip up a schedule, find you a firebending master who isn't insane or evil, and you'll be throwing down with the biggest of big bads in no time."

"Y'all might need a firebending master, but from what I've heard, you're going to need an earthbender to teach you first," Toph pointed out, pausing to eat some delicious stew. They even left the big chunks of Cowppo in there, as she liked it. "And I know I've got a lot to teach you."

"Tuofu, please, don't be ridiculous," Lao said.

Toph turned to her father. "For the last time, Dad, it's not Tuofu. It's Toph! You're the_ only one_ who calls me that!"

"...but..." Lao said.

"And Twinkletoes here needs the guidance of somebody who knows earthbending as well as the badgermoles do. Unless you can think of somebody who'd be a better teacher, then..."

She trailed off when she 'noticed' that they were all staring at her. She shifted her 'gaze' toward where Dad was sitting. His head was hanging, and his chest was oddly heaving. "I just don't want you to go, too," Lao said. "It's hard without your mother here. So hard... But..."

"Dad, I know that this isn't easy for you, but you're going to have to let me go sooner or later. Besides, Mom's fine. She's got the _Dragon of the East_ looking out for her. She _couldn't_ be in better hands!"

"See, everything's sorted," Sokka said from his spot at the table.

"I'd be happy to have you along... but we're heading south to learn in Omashu with King Bumi," Aang pointed out.

"What? That crazy old lunatic?" Lao asked.

"Crazy lunatic is redundant," Sokka pointed out, gesturing with a pigken leg.

"I've heard stories about that man. They say..."

"He's an old friend of mine," Aang assured the patriarch, but Toph still didn't like the weight of the room. She turned to the annoyingly yet-to-be-properly-nicknamed Sokka.

"I'm a bit surprised that Katara isn't here."

"Yeah," Sokka's mirth drained somewhat. "She took Dad's heading to the South Pole again pretty hard. But I'm sure Teo's company will keep her from getting too grim."

Toph chuckled. "Yeah, I bet it will," she muttered. She wouldn't be too surprised if by tomorrow, the waterbender found herself suddenly and unexpectedly married to the mad scientist. The boy's enamor of her bordered on obsessive. But then again, Teo was the kind of guy who pretty much had three states to work with: ambivalence, unhealthy enthusiasm, and outright obsession. As much as he was no child of Zha Yu, he was certainly his father's 'son'.

Aang was silent from that point on, though. Whatever council he held, he held it alone.

* * *

><p>The next day saw an end to the drizzle, as the clouds actually managed to part over the city named for a noble's dropped hat. It would be a temporary respite. It always was. Aang didn't want to say that his spirit had been broken by his defeat at Summavut, but it <em>was<em> pretty battered. And now, he was going to extend that condition to an entire people. He knocked on the door which Fong had claimed as his own office inside the Mountain King's proffered property. The grunt from within saw Aang opening the door, to the great, bushy-bearded general, who was reading something off a scroll.

"Is this a bad time?" Aang asked.

"No, just more news from some friends of mine," Fong said. "They were right. The Fire Nation is going to invade the Earth Kingdoms once more. It seems our six-year armistice has come to an end. What is it, Avatar?"

"I don't think this is going to work," Aang said. Fong got to his feet, running a hand down his beard.

"What do you mean?" the man asked.

"I don't know much about the Avatar State, but I do know that the times when I managed to access it, it was because I was desperate for my life, or so angry that I pretty much forgot who I am. And when I did... I wasn't really in control. It scared me."

"Aang, walk with me," Fong said, and stepped out of the building, moving through its device-cluttered halls. "I don't think you appreciate the gravity of the war. Your hundred years of absence have buffered you from many uncomfortable truths. And with the West starting to mobilize once more, it is only a matter of time before they spread their destruction before them in the places which I've sworn to protect. As you have, no doubt, as well."

"I know that, but..." Aang had to duck aside as Sul and her daughter passed by, heading out the door and into town. "...but this is dangerous. I mean, I heard from Toph that once one of my previous lives rearranged the face of the planet while in the Avatar State. I don't know if I'm ready to hold that kind of power."

"Well, you'd better get ready," Fong said with a harsh note. "Every day _you_ prevaricate, more of _my_ people will die," he turned, standing at the heart of the building's courtyard. "Without your aid, any force we sent to deal with the Fire Nation on its own soil would be slaughtered. But with you in the Avatar State, you would cut a path directly through the heart of their defenses, acting as our ultimate weapon! We could end the war this week!"

"Weapon? That's how you think of me?" Aang asked.

"I'm starting to think your sympathies don't lie with the people of the East," Fong said.

"I'm starting to think you're out of your mind," Aang answered. Fong stared at him for a long moment. Then, with a movement which Aang would have known to dodge had he actually thought the man would do it, he sent stone racing up toward the airbender's neck. It ringed 'round him, before the stone shifted and pinned his arms to his side, and then with a thrust of the general's arms, Aang was sent sliding away into the center of the yard. Aang goggled at the man. "What are you doing?"

"I'm getting results," Fong said grimly. "Desperation or rage, you said? Well, how far will I have to push you before desperation sets in?"

And with that, the stone began to squeeze. The pain mounted, in his shoulders, in his back, in his knees. And Aang, pinned as he was, was bereft of any airbending; airbending was critically dependent on mobility. Without it, he was as helpless as a hypothermic firebender. And the waterbending which Aang did know required the use of hands and feet, of which, he had ready access to neither. And the pain began to mount.

"Come on, Avatar, show me your power!" Fong shouted.

**Power beyond his darkest dreams**.

There was an opening of the door, just at the corner of Aang's vision, and he could see Katara entering the courtyard. "Aang, what's going... Aang!"

She started to run toward him, water flying out of her flask into a belt of protective assault, but while she might well be the prodigy that Master Pakku claimed her to be, she was still young, and Fong had decades of earthbending experience. With a stomp, she was slammed against a pillar by an upthrust of earth which pinned her by her middle.

**No barriers to our vengeance**.

"Katara!" Aang screamed.

"Show me the Avatar State! I demand you become the Avatar!"

"I can't! Please, don't hurt her!" Aang begged, his eyes welling, once for the pain, and twice for seeing it levied on people that he loved.

**We can save her. We can save all of them**.

"I don't see glowing!" Fong snapped, and an inching of a foot sent that grinding pressure further into Katara's stomach, and she let out a cutting scream of pain. Aang didn't see the door open again, he didn't see another enter the room. All he could see was Katara, the sister by deed if not blood, in pain, and knew that if only there was a way to stop it...

**Open the Door. Become the Bridge**.

The tears didn't keep flowing. Rather, they evaporated into steam in an instant within a brilliant light.

Even as the glow overtook the young airbender, the pillar grinding at Katara fell away. Fong's eyes went wide as he beheld the earthbending of the master of the house. They closed again when that same man's fist crashed into his face. The Mountain King stood over where Fong was half-crouched against a low garden-wall, his face practically red with outrage. "Are you out of your goddamned mind!" Zha Yu screamed. "Don't you know what you've done?"

"I've brought out the Avatar," Fong said with a note of triumph. Zha Yu turned slowly toward the airbender, just in time to see the stone which had encased him in a crushing embrace explode away, and the gentle, carefree boy's entire form transform into one of unspeakable wrath.

"Yeah, you did," Zha Yu said, starting to move away from Fong. "And I hope that comforts you for what's going to happen next."

"Outstanding!" Fong shouted at the youth, who was starting to levitate on a cushion of tearing wind. "Now, we just need to find some way to control and direct this, and we'll have –"

Fong was cut off as the Avatar let out a scream which lit with fire, and flashed forward, ready and preeminently capable of giving Fong the beating of his life.

* * *

><p>"What the <em>hell<em> was that?" Kori asked, as his waterbending soothed and knitted the burns on Yoji's arms, replacing scarlet, inflamed tissue with something much darker. "She wasn't half the fighter back at Crescent Island!"

"That was lightning," Yoji said, her teeth grit as she fought to ignore the warm, gushy feeling that being healed always engendered. She had no time for the euphoria right now. She needed a clear head. "Which itself makes no sense. The Princess never tamed the cold-blooded fire."

"It must have been her brother," Omo pointed out. "He taught her."

"No offense, but I severely doubt that Prince Zuko himself knows _how_ he makes lightning. He'd hardly be an ideal teacher. And from what I know of Iroh, I know he'd _never_ spread that skill."

Kori chuckled at that. "She's just bitter that the Dragon wouldn't teach _her_," he intimated.

Yoji favored her healer with a death-glare. "Where are my spectacles?" she demanded. Omo glanced around, finally locating them nearby. He held them toward her, showcasing that one of the lenses had a crack across it. She sighed. At least she didn't need them to correct her vision. She slid them back into place. "Despite this setback, Agni has smiled on us. Princess Azula has separated herself from the Prince, and thus, made herself an easy target. He will never know what fate befell his traitor of a sister."

"I don't like this," Kori pointed out. "Something just feels... off."

"Noted," Yoji said. "We take to the road as soon as you heal Omo."

"No offense to beefcake over there, but you're kinda the priority," Kori pointed out, lifting a hand which had been seared to the bone. "This isn't exactly easy work. And besides, Omo's just got a lump and some bruising. He'll be fine in a day or two."

"I will not let her get away," Yoji swore. "She caught us unprepared and complacent. That _will not_ happen again."

"Don't worry," Omo said comfortingly. She flicked a glare at him. There was a time and a place. He pulled back somewhat at that. "Your theory was right. She's heading south, which means her only viable destination is Omashu. And I don't doubt we can outpace a pampered, mentally ill artist."

Yoji nodded, but her gaze turned to the dark blue eyes of the Children's sole waterbender. There was an understanding there, that his observation was apt. There was something off about this mission, even from its very beginning. Still, she _would_ see it through to the end. She was Fire Nation.

* * *

><p>Aang's vision opened from the burning white, showing a scene of blackness, interspersed by luminous clouds which stretched on into infinity. But before him, he could see a shape which was obviously not a cloud, for it stood straight backed, and flowing bearded, even if it was almost translucent. The man waved a hand aside, and the clouds began to light up with the glow of more than a thousand eyes. Clearest amongst them were Roku's.<p>

"What's going on?" Aang asked, his voice oddly booming, its words flowing from a thousand throats.

"It is time that you learned," Roku said, and the scene shifted, from clouds, to a semi-visible scene of battle, where one figure stood alone amidst an army, all sculpted as though a dash of flour had been thrown over invisible figures. "The Avatar State is a defense mechanism, and a very powerful one. As you allow the strength and wisdom of the past Avatars to flow through you, you become capable of unspeakably mighty acts of strength and skill."

As Aang watched, that powder figure began to glow itself, and the army it was arrayed against burst into flakes of snow driven by a winter storm.

"But as powerful as it makes you, and it makes you quite powerful, it also leaves you extremely vulnerable," Roku continued. "If you die during the Avatar state..."

"What?" Aang asked, his voice slowly fading back to more normal tones. Roku stared at him, the glow fading from his eyes. The powdered-figure which was Roku seemed to quake slightly, not like a man staggering, but rather a sculpture of baked dust swatted with a careless hand. Its mouth moved, but whatever words were going to come out of it were silenced, as his body was reduced to a swirl of grit, which evaporated into the blackness. "Roku! What's going on?"

Then, he felt something shifting toward him. It landed with a thunk which reverberated up Aang's spiritual spine, and then, there was a shifting, like an eyelid opening. Only it somehow opened in the blackness, showing a great eye, stretching from horizon to horizon, all in scarlet red with virulent black lines racing through it. Aang retreated a step, feeling the primal terror at this thing, this unspeakably vast entity, which had turned its attention to him.

**AVATAR**.

The word rumbled throughout this nowhere place, sending the whole rest of the scene scattered to the winds, which was unsettling since there was no wind. It even took the ground out from under Aang's feet, and without even his most basic tricks of airbending to avail him, he fell. The eye tracked him as he fell, a great blink slamming shut like a mountain falling from heaven and crashing into the earth. Aang fell, and he knew terror.

**HUNGER**.

Aang fell, and the scarlet eye in the heavens faded, the distances growing so great that even its size couldn't keep it in his perception. He fell forever. He fell for a moment. Then, with a great crash of shattering glass, he fell through a roof.

It was a good thing that Aang wasn't actually here, or that might just have killed him. As it was, he felt a little bit alarmed at where he'd landed. Notably that there was no broken glass around him. A glance upward showed both that the eye was if not gone, then at least hidden, and that the glass which had broken as he passed through it now flickered between whole and sundered, unable to decide which it was. Aang rubbed at an eye with a spectral hand. "What were you trying to tell me, Roku?" Aang asked.

Silence.

"I don't understand! What was that thing?" he shouted once more.

Silence.

"Please, I need help. I don't understand! Roku! Vajrapata! Anybody!" Aang's voice echoed throughout the columnar building, and not even his echo answered him. He slumped next to where a brazen tree had tried to burst through the panels of this obvious uppermost floor. "I need help. I don't know what to do."

He huddled there for what could have been a minute, or an hour, or an eternity. Then, a light began to glow, pale blue and illuminating against the darkness. Aang rose to his feet, and looked down at where it was coming from. One floor down. And a glance aside showed that there was a stairway heading down to it. He moved to it, and marveled at it. It was all built out of metal, which moved down through the layers of this building without any regard to structural reinforcement. Even as little as Aang knew about architecture was enough to tell him that this stairway shouldn't be able to support itself. But he took it down.

And then, he recoiled as he felt a burning run through one arm. He glanced aside, instinctively opening the World Eyes, and the instant he did, he could see why. There was a pocket of Fire here. Not flames, no fuel, no burning. Just pure, elemental fire, hovering just off the stairway, an otherwise invisible menace. He could also see others. Air, some earth, even one which seemed made of lightning. But it was the being in the center of the layer, glowing blue and placid, far removed from such hazards, which commanded Aang's attention.

He moved past what few of those elemental spheres remained, and stood before the glowing woman. He got down into a leg-folded sit before her. "Who are you?" Aang asked.

Her eyes popped open, and she leaned back, as though surprised to see Aang. It wasn't easy to tell, since she was spectral and blue, but he was fairly sure she was a Tribesman. "Airbender?" the woman asked. She was in her middle age, possibly a bit older, but her body was powerfully built. "And a boy; well, I guess it's been a while. Really, I'm surprised nobody else called on me a bit sooner."

"Who are you?"

"I am..." she paused, glancing down at herself. She let out a chuckle. "Well, I _was_ the Avatar."

"You are?" Aang asked. "You don't look like any Avatar I've seen before."

"Yeah, well, it's probably been about six hundred years since my death to your birth, unless we've got another _unreasonably_ long lived Avatar in there," the woman said with a very sarcastic and irreverent tone.

"More like eight," Aang said. "At least."

"Yikes. Must not be very popular," she said, scratching at her head. She gave a shrug, rolled her shoulders, and leaned forward. "Well, that doesn't matter. What's your problem, little guy?"

"Well..." Aang said, "I was told that something bad would happen if I died during the Avatar state, but he didn't get to saying what..."

"Oh, you _don't_ want to die in the Avatar state," she said briskly. "That happens, your death spreads to all the other Avatars in the cycle. Having all of them die at once means that the Bequest is gone, and the Avatar Cycle ends, as in, forever."

"That's horrible!"

"Yeah, almost happened a few times in the past," the Tribeswoman said. She suddenly let out a laugh. "Well, where _are_ my manners? I haven't even properly introduced myself yet, have I?"

"No, you hadn't," Aang said, rubbing at his head.

"Right. Well, I'm Korra, or as the police tended to call me 'Stop running on those rooftops', 'Who do you think's gonna pay for that window?', and 'You're under arrest for wonton destruction of property'," the woman gave a laugh at that. "Ah... good times."

"I've never heard of you," Aang admitted. Korra tsked.

"And just when I thought I'd made a name for myself," she muttered. With a shrug, she looked around. "Whee-oh. Look at this place. _Somebody_ hasn't been dusting recently."

"The last century has hit the Spirit World pretty bad," Aang admitted. "I hear it used to be nicer than this."

"I wouldn't know," Korra said with an uncomfortable shrug. "I wasn't exactly the best hand on the valve when it came to this sort of spookiness," She stood knuckling her back. "Well, you want my advice? Don't pick fights on the edges of buildings, never get into a bomb-fight with a Tribesman, and don't fight in basements against earthbenders. But for spirit-y stuff, you'd be much better looking way back to the Avatar before me."

"Really? Who was it?" Aang asked.

"Oh, he was a lot like you," she said with a hand-wave. "Airbender first, boy, got started way too soon, I hear. Name of Aang, if that matters for your finding him."

"Aang... Miss Korra, that's my name," Aang pointed out.

"Oh, get out of here," Korra said. Aang shook his head slowly, and her grin started to droop away.

"I was born more than a hundred years ago. I was frozen in a block of ice and..."

"And you're fighting against Fire Lord Ozai," Korra finished for him, shock on her face. The shock quickly turned into a grin. "Oh my gods! It's you! You're me! You're... old me! You're... TINY!" and with that, Aang was wept up into a spectral bearhug by the past-incarnation... which somehow was also his future incarnation.

"I don't understand," Aang said, separating from her at last.

"I mean, I knew you when you were about yeah-high," she said, holding a hand about a foot and a half above Aang's, "all preachy and pacifistic and stuff. But you're, like, twelve! How is that even possible? Did that lightning guy play some sort of spirit prank on you which made you shrink?"

"Korra, please!" Aang pleaded. "How can you be the Avatar? You're probably not even born yet!"

Korra broke off, and scratched her chin for a moment. "Yeah, come to think of it that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?"

"This is all wrong," Aang said.

"There _was_ that vortex," Korra said with a note of confusion, like she was trying to find the right words. Aang leaned in. "I mean... I felt like I was getting... sucked... somewhere. Man, this is crazy."

"You're telling me," Aang said. Then, he paused. "Technically, _I'm_ telling me. This is bizarre."

"No kidding," Korra agreed. "This is bigger than my embarrassing death or your fight against the Fire Lord, that much is obvious."

"Embarrassing?" Aang asked.

"Incredibly," Korra answered. She turned, glancing somewhere to Aang's left. "Hate to leave you hanging, especially after all the help you gave... will give... me. But I think I know where to get some answers. Maybe. Try to keep out of trouble 'till I find you again. And for Yue's sake, don't get killed while in the Avatar State. It'd be the greatest crime against humanity since the Purge if _I_ wasn't born."

"You've got a pretty high opinion of yourself," Aang said, perhaps needlessly.

"You betcha," the Avatar-yet-to-be said with a smirk. "Now you'd better get topside and stop whatever you're doing. Are you in Ba Sing Se, by the way?"

"What? No," Aang said. He frowned. "What happens in Ba Sing Se?"

"Y'know what, it's probably better if I say nothing," Korra said. "Man, the old guy would have a conniption fit if he learned about me 'breaking causality' like this. Good luck, kiddo. You're gonna need it."

And with that, there was a feeling, like a hand being forced through pudding, and the blue figure before him was gone. And a moment later, so was Aang, leaving the empty confines of The Observatory as bereft as they were when he'd landed there.

* * *

><p>The cathartic value of watching the overbearing representative from Ba Sing Se get hurled through yet another wall by the victim of his ill-advised torments was greatly outweighed by the fact that Aang had, once again, gone Glowing Badass, and that was not good news. Sokka had seen one Blood Drunk man in his life, despite his dad's best attempts at the contrary. It was a startling sight to see somebody so wild, so full of rage and bile that there was nothing left in the world for them except violence and hatred. It was a look on the face, in the eyes, which shook Sokka to his core. And his time in the North had only honed that sense, because the symbol seen once was seen again hundreds of times. But seeing it etched across the features of one of the most pacifistic and kind hearted kids he'd ever known? That was just freaky.<p>

What chucked it from freaky to terrifying was that this time, it wasn't just a man with an axe trying to get revenge for a heinous crime; this was a demigod with the power to alter the face of the planet. If Sokka was a praying man, he'd pray it didn't get altered any further. It was messed up enough as it was.

"Aang, you've gotta calm down!" Sokka screamed into the wind, which was a somewhat moot gesture, considering the sphere of airbending around the monk was almost visible for its density. "Come on! This isn't how you are!"

"I'm pretty sure we should be running," Toph said, staring somewhere aside, trying to keep her grasp on the crumbled ruin of a wall to keep from being blown away. It was a good thing that Sokka had a bit more weight on him. "Twinkletoes is gonna chuck us into the ocean! Or a cliff! I'm not sure which would be worse!"

But Sokka was a number of things which got spoken of in various ways, encouraging or disparaging. Smart, be it 'er than he as a right to be' or 'ass', depending on who was saying it. Quick, either 'er than his brain can keep up with' or 'enough to keep from getting killed'. But the one which stood somewhere between madness and virtue was his courage. Aang was family. He was family in pain. And there was no Tribesman alive who would abandon family this side of death.

If only he'd had a bit more courage, then he could have said something as Yue sailed away from him. All he could do is stare at her, at those bright blue eyes.

Well, there was no time like too late to make up for it. As Aang once stood his ground against a volcano, now Sokka stood his ground against the Avatar. "Aang, let him go!" Sokka shouted. The sphere of air stopped advancing on the badly beaten general, but only because the whole thing rotated until the Avatar was staring down at Sokka. It was no cowardice that Sokka swallowed nervously being under that gaze; it was a simple reminder that he was both human, and still sane. The Avatar's burning eyes looked down on Sokka, and Sokka stood his ground.

"Aang, you're better than this!" Sokka shouted. A glance aside, past the ruins of what used to be the Mountain King's house showed that Katara was still trying to make headway against the wind, to even reach where Sokka stood. "Come on! This idiot wanted a weapon to throw at the Fire Lord; are you going to just give him what he wants?" Sokka said, with a brief gesture toward Fong, which he had to call off because the wind almost pushed him over as he did so. "He was wrong. He was wrong and now he's been punished for trying to hurt our family. But Katara's safe now. We're all safe. You don't need to do this! You don't need to become something you're not!"

The Avatar's eyes closed, and after a moment, the searing white glow departed from the tattoos upon his brow and arms. The bubble of air wafted away, and Aang slumped, almost keeling face-first onto the ground, if not for Sokka's catching him. Aang let out a groan. "Ooooh, what happened?" the kid asked.

"Gave us all a bit of a scare, there," Sokka said.

"Katara... Is she alright?" Aang asked.

"I'm fine, Aang," Katara said, taking her place at Sokka's side, now that she wasn't at risk of being blown away.

"So that's the Avatar, huh?" Toph asked, striking some of the chips of stone from her clothes and hair. "That ain't half bad."

"Toph, please," Katara said.

"Guys, there's something wrong with the universe," Aang said, slowly pushing himself to his feet. He made it about two steps before stumbling somewhat. He turned, and looked upon Fong, who was trying to get back to his feet, showing a remarkable resilience considering how long he'd been the sole focus of an Avatar's rancor. "I am not your weapon. That's the wrong way to do it, and if you try again, next time it'll probably be worse," Aang said. "If I can't do this right, then there's no point in doing this at all."

"But... if I can just control it..." Fong said, still grasping for rationalizations. The grasping was brought to a halt when a sauce-pan struck his head with a mighty bwong, leaving a yellow haired mother standing behind where he'd fallen, a honey-haired girl cradled with her other arm. Sul gave a contemptuous look down at the general.

"_And you wonder why the Fire Nation keeps beating you,_" she spat. She turned to her daughter. "_Now when you grow up, you must never, ever do that, alright?_"

"But he was bad, wasn't he? Don't you hit bad men?" Cho'e asked. Sul sighed, and started carrying the girl away from the ruins. Sokka gave an arm for Aang to lean on, and helped the weary demigod out of the rubble. A portion of it shifted aside, and a shock-white Teo clambered out of it, covered in dust.

"What happened?" Teo asked, pulling off his goggles again. "Wow. Did Aang do all of that himself?"

"Yup," Toph said.

"That's... My experiments!" Teo said with sudden horror. "My machines! NOOOO!"

"I'm really sorry," Aang said, but Teo was already weeping against the fallen stone, crying for a device which Sokka didn't really understand or know how to pronounce.

"We should probably go," Toph said. "All of us. This time I'm serious."

"Shouldn't we clear this with your father?" Katara asked. As they walked, they passed where Zha Yu was on his knees at the outskirts of the devastation, his mouth agape.

"Why?" the man said. "Why is it I can never seem to do it?" he leaned back, shaking a fist at the heavens. "Am I just never allowed **to have a damned house**?"

"Don't worry, I made myself quite clear in that," she said. "Besides, I can give Twinkletoes a primer in earthbending as we go south. What'd'ya say?"

"Well," Katara said.

"Love to have her along," Sokka interrupted. "We'll take whatever help we can get."

"And you'll need it," Toph said, cracking her knuckles.

"Maybe things will start to look up," Aang said.

"Yeah," Katara agreed. "Maybe they will."

The trip to Appa and beginning toward the south was a quiet one.

* * *

><p>The hand the note was written in was obviously Poppy's. Lao had known the woman long and intimately enough that he'd recognize the script almost as quickly as his own. Of course, the note was also battered and creased almost to illegibility, and slightly singed besides. Even somebody as deeply in denial as Lao, who read the contents, couldn't ignore the fact that Toph'd had to have this thing made months ago, back when his wife had separated from them in the Mountain King's Pass. After all, she couldn't exactly write this herself. She couldn't write at all.<p>

"_Dad._

_I'm leaving. Don't panic over it though, I'll be fine. I'm a lot tougher than you think I am._

_Mom understands. And you have to too. I need this. The Avatar is going to need my help_

_and there's nobody else who can do it but me. And don't send any idiots or bounty hunters_

_after me, that's just a waste of money. I don't know if this is what it'll take to prove to you_

_that I can make it on my own, but I have to believe it will. Maybe. I'll come back when_

_this is over, that I promise._

_Toph._"

Lao shook his head, staring at that thing, before turning it over. On its back was a post-script, obviously done in the voice of the person who'd done the scribing itself.

"_Beloved,_

_If you do anything against her wishes in this_

_I will be very displeased._

_Yingsue_."

Lao hung his head. Beaten again. But oddly enough, he was defeated by the people he didn't mind losing against. But still, as he turned, looking up across the broad dining hall of the admittedly much smaller abode than his main house in Gaoling, he felt very much alone.

And he didn't like how that felt at all.

* * *

><p>The weather had broken in the East, and the sun showed itself upon the shores for the first time in weeks. The old man with his toes in the sand breathed deeply, feeling the warmth of spring flowing into him as the sun bathed down, as sporadic as it might be. He was perhaps a bit off of his course, but he had to see something which he knew he would find. He couldn't have said how he'd know. And he wouldn't have explained if he did. After all, Iroh pondered, what was the point of getting old if you had to explain your eccentricity?<p>

He walked through the sand, toward where the steam-powered skiff was beached and on its side, abandoned to rust or scrappers on the shore. A shame. These things deserved better treatment, for all they were a technological innovation which the rest of the world declined to keep up with. Until a decade or so ago, the Fire Nation ruled the oceans, domain usually given whole to the Water Tribes, simply because the Fire Nation had developed technologies which nobody could possibly match. He could see the imbalance it was creating, but there would come a leveling. It always came, sooner or later. Iroh just hoped that, unlike every leveling before, it was a bearing up of the world, rather than a grinding down of the forerunners.

Iroh hopped over the rail, and walked the length of the skiff in a few steps. No food, no money, and nothing left behind. Azula might as well never have been here. But there was something odd. Something out of place. Iroh's eyes narrowed, and he glanced inside the boiler. While the coals had fallen to ashes long before, there was also just a tiniest scrap of paper stuck to the inside of the plate. That would have been consumed utterly were the boiler active. It was something tossed within after the fire's guttering. Iroh reached inside, plucking that scrap of paper, no larger than his thumbnail, and carried it down to the sands.

Iroh laid the scrap on the damp sand, and scratched a circle around it. He then drew a square which just touched the edges of that circle 'round the lot of it, then lines from the corners inward, to where the scrap lay. With that, he sat back, listening to the roar of the waters behind him, and breathed deep the sea air.

"Mysterious Void, inevitable messenger, whispers of the profound; gear of reclamation," Iroh intoned. "Restore the words lost to the flow of time. Bear back the message which fell through the gaps of perception. Breathe the message into waiting ears."

When Iroh opened his eyes again, the sand was already moving, the scrap vanished completely, but a message beginning to scrawl across the damp sands in clear, crisp letters. The letters – obviously translations from yet another dialect – were of the language Uou, the secret tongue of spirits, supposedly only to be known by the Avatar and the dwellers of the deepest sanctums of the Spirit World. It didn't stop Iroh from knowing it, though.

_My beloved daughter._

_Every day that I live is wracked with guilt. Not just for what I've done to you, but_

_for what I didn't. You were the best of everything that I was. Because of you, I_

_finally felt like there was a place that I wasn't a monster, like I could belong. But_

_I was a fool. I didn't appreciate you when I should have. And when I did, it was_

_already essentially too late. You didn't need me anymore. The greatest of my dreams_

_are over, but when I awaken, I find myself alone. You gave me the greatest gift of_

_all, something that nobody ever gave me before; you made me feel human._

_There are no words for what I am. I only pray... yes, I pray... that you would_

_be proud of me, my beloved Chiyo. That you would understand why I have to_

_do what I do now. I once hoped that I could make this world the perfect place_

_for you to excel, to thrive... but now I wonder if I even deserve to live in it._

_I'm so sorry. I failed you. Your birth gave me hope. But where-ever you are_

_Chiyo_

_I miss you_.

It was not signed, but Iroh didn't need a signature to know who had wrote it. It was the confirmation of his theory which he only wished he could have shown Zuko, made him see what Iroh saw. He got to his feet, and dusted his knees. The tide was coming in, and when it arrived, it would erase the message completely. Now, it only existed in his mind. He started walking toward the road which lead to the south. And as he did, he wiped once at his eyes, to wisk away an errant tear.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright. Back writing again, but you have to be aware that I am forseeing a definite chance (and by that I mean definite definiteness) of at least one entirely Mass Effect related delay in updating. As much fun as it is, I find myself in the unenviable but entertaining position of trying to outguess the creators of the series; my verisimilitude in this story (read, the obsessive research regarding technological levels regarding weapons and electricity) only came about when I noted that Korra has radio. In order to have radio, you need to have a number of precursor technologies. Now, since Korra's coming out not long from now, I'm going to have to hedge my bets with what they're going to have access to, and if I'm lucky, might even be able to front-fill characters from that story into mine. You've already seen the first of it. There will be more. Hey, I accurately guessed that ME2's Jack would have hair if she survived to ME3. I figure I'm on a bit of a roll.<strong>

**While I need to work on building up my buffer for this 'second season', I also need to figure out how I get to Ba Sing Se. It isn't following the usual path, since neither the Swamp, nor Avatar Day (Kyoshi Island's been annexed, remember) can happen, nor will The Library, (since Wan Shi Tong would send the Gaang running in justifiable terror at first sight) nor The Desert (Because Gashuin's no longer in the geographical area to steal Appa). It's mildly annoying, because I have fairly decent plans about what happens once they reach Ba Sing Se (and Team Girl Power finally unites with the Gaang), but it's the getting there which is the harder part.**

**If you're still wondering what's going on with Azula, remember what Sharif called her; the Four Soul mind. She ain't alone in the old noodle, if you catch my despairingly obvious implication. That will be explained into the ground by the time this season's over with. Also, more Iroh. Yay.**


	22. Walls and Secrets

**The Tagline for 'Season 1' of Three Families - besides the obvious - would have been "Something's Not Quite Right..."**

**The Tagline for 'Season 2', on the other hand, is "A House Divided Against Itself Will Not Stand."**

* * *

><p>"That was <em>entirely<em> more complicated than it needed to be," Piandao said, giving the pantomime dragon costume one final shove into the stream which ran northerly toward the sea beyond the walls. Bato, though, seemed to take the whole thing in stride, and Beifong in particular seemed delighted with herself. Only Sati shared his annoyance.

"It worked," the Dragon said basically. Of course, she was half-naked in the stream getting the make-up off, so it lost some of its gravitas. "But that was only the first in a set of objectives which lays before us. You all have the people you're going to contact. I suggest you find discreet ways of doing so quickly. The less time we spend in Ba Sing Se, the less chance that the snake will prove wise to us."

"He's going to find us eventually," Beifong said. "That's pretty much certain. It's just a question of when, and in what context."

"How so?" Piandao asked, his attire finally squared away.

"He's not one to move openly, that much I know," she said. Of course, she made it seem like she had more memory of Ba Sing Se than she really had. Nobody in this party knew anything about Beifong's past, before they spent three weeks sneaking and skulking in the Outer Ring before finally abandoning their attempt as impossible. Even the woman herself did not. But in this, she was not wrong.

Sati threw back her hair, and it flicked away water as it moved. Piandao gave just a moment to look upon her, the beauty of her which withstood the years and hardships better than any woman ought. Then, his gaze shifted enough that he could see Bato, and that slightly wistful expression on his face dropped away. It was a cold hatred, there. An old one. "We should move quickly," Sati said with authority. "We've wasted enough time as it is. I only pray that the Avatar in the North is making better progress than we."

"I'll talk to some old friends," Bato said with a smirk.

"Meanwhile, I'll make sure that those who owe us favors remember it," Piandao one-upped.

"Boys, no need to compete," Beifong said lightly, causing a chortle from Bato and a glare from Piandao.

"Do what you must. If How still lives, he will be invaluable," Sativa said. "No matter what, do not forget that we hold the fate of the world in our hands. The snake has keen vision, but it is too close to the ground. He cannot see what we see."

Piandao took a deep breath, as finally Sati crossed the river, still somewhat wet, and the four of them started walking toward the somewhat less awe-inspiring Inner Walls of the largest city on the face of the planet. "Just like old times," Piandao said quietly. Old times, but two faces were missing. And he wasn't sure that it sat well with him.

* * *

><p>"This place is amazing," Tzu Zi said upon the brilliant colors which surrounded her. Nila too looked somewhat uncomfortable being buffeted by such numbers and such plenty. "I thought you said that women were supposed to wear black?"<p>

"I thought they were," Nila said, her eyes taking in the groups of women of many ages dressed in clothes as colorful as her own, even as much as Malu's once were. That thought drove a quite uncharacteristic spine of anger into Ashan's already grief-stricken heart. She'd killed his mother. Malu, his guest, had killed his mother, his grandfather, and everybody. He wanted to hate her so badly that it hurt, almost as much as knowing that Latifah was now dead, and would never recover. He would never hear her voice, know her kindness. And it was _her_ fault.

"Only the mothers and sisters of soldiers must wear black," Ashan said unenthusiastically from the back of the pack. "They show mourning as they live for the fighters who may die."

"Then why was everybody back... there... wearing black?" Tzu Zi asked, turning to his attention.

"Because everybody living there was a mother, a sister, a daughter of a Sipahi," Ashan said. Everybody but Latifah.

"He knows a lot more about your people than you do," Tzu Zi pointed out.

That set Nila's teeth to grinding.

"It's been a while since I was here, hasn't it?" Sharif said from Ashan's side. He kept reaching behind him, as through expecting to catch reins or feathers. And the way that he talked about Patriarch, it was like he didn't even realize that the old bird was struck down. In all, they were a wounded host the whole walk north.

"I'm going to find some place to get some food," Nila said. "Or has Ashan managed to usurp even that capability from me?"

"Nila, please," Tzu Zi said in her usual gentle way. Her own burns had healed far better than Ashan would have believed, for all she had no balms nor healers. Nila sighed, and nodded aside, moving up through the wide boulevards sided with white-washed buildings. Ashan, though, took the opportunity to lean against a building. Unlike home, these buildings were made of baked mud bricks, and he knew that he'd be utterly unable to bend them if he wanted to. Right now, though, he just shifted a little bit deeper under a shadow from flapping overhead laundry, and tried very hard to keep from weeping.

"_Is something wrong, young man?_" an old woman's voice asked him after a few minutes. Ashan looked up, noting that Sharif was idly finishing a basket which had been abandoned before completion. The woman, on the other hand, was quite wizened, her face a map of furrows benoting hard living and hard decisions. Ashan looked away.

"_I must not say,_" Ashan answered.

"_Please, I insist,_" the woman pressed. "_I see a young man in obvious pain, and I am to walk by? What Si Wongi would that make me?_"

"_Please, I would not burden another's heart with my troubles,_" Ashan said.

"_Troubles spread are troubles lightened. What has you so stricken this day, young man?_" the woman said, completing the little ritual of conversation.

Ashan sighed, his hands twisting at Aki's reins. "_My family is struck down, and I am alone,_" Ashan said carefully, if only to control his voice. "_I have no place, and I... It hurts. More than I thought possible, it hurts_."

"_When did this terrible thing happen, young man?_" she asked him, laying a hand upon his head.

"_Not a fortnight ago,_" Ashan answered.

"_Have you had any chance for grief?_" she asked. He shook his head. "_Oh, you poor boy. What is your name?_" he gave it. "_Well, young sir Ashan, it is a cruelty of the Host to have visited such destruction upon you and your house. What unkind master would bear you here without thought to your grief?_"

"_I have no master. It is all gone,_" Ashan whispered. "_And I have nowhere to return to._"

The woman sighed, raising her hand from Ashan's crown. "_Ubasti's fortunes turned cruel indeed for you. Come with me, please. I cannot sleep at night knowing that even a stranger suffers so cruel a blow. My granddaughter and her husband have more than the room for you and your... slave?_" she gave a questioning glance toward Sharif.

"_He is a freeman,_" Ashan corrected with half mind. "_He is just simple._"

She gave an 'ah' at that and gently tugged at Sharif and Ashan. Both got to their feet, although the former with a look of distant bewilderment. "_Come with an old woman. Re is hot and Atum is less than forgiving. You need rest and privacy for your grief._"

"_You have my thanks, for what little it is worth,_" Ashan said. Then, he realized that there was something else he needed to deal with. "_But there were two others, my traveling companions. They are somewhere ahead, and..._"

"_The short-haired one and the girl from the distant desert, you mean?_" the woman asked.

"_You have keen eyes,_" Sharif noted idly as he wandered behind them, the basket still in his hand until Ashan took it and set it aside. Sharif was right; his mind did wander some times.

"_It comes part of my livelihood,_" the old woman said. "_I'll send some of my great-grandchildren to find your woman friends. They will be in good hands_."

Ashan just felt relief, that he would finally have the time he needed to grieve.

He desperately needed it.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

**Walls and Secrets**

* * *

><p>Calling the public house a den of iniquity was an insult to dens and iniquity both. It was a hard, dirty wooden building full to the rafters with hard, dirty, debatably wooden patrons. Cheap whiskey flowed like blood, blood flew like teeth, and teeth were swept up with glass-eyes at the end of every night. The place stank of body odor and sour liquor, and other less pleasant fluids. Usually, the only women who would attend this kind of 'gathering' were payed by the hour. Which made it all the stranger to have a petite, pale, and delicate looking woman amongst them. More than a few heads turned expectantly as they beheld the ingenue moving through their unwashed midst. More than a few ideas ignited.<p>

"Is this seat taken?" the woman with the bright green eyes asked.

"I can think of a seat you can take," a gruff voiced brute said from the bar. She sighed, and motioned toward the seat she'd intended.

"Aaah, I don't think she wants to play," the weasely voice of the brute's companion piped up. "That's such a shame. We were getting lonely."

"I'm just trying to sit down for a game," the woman said delicately.

"I've got just the game in mind for you," the brute said, heaving his foul-smelling body off of the bench and waddling toward her. He was about as broad as he was tall; that she could look him in the eye was telling. The weasel was far taller, and kept a step back, likely just to stay out of the stink. "It's called 'hide the eggroll'," he said lasciviously, or rather as lasciviously as he knew how. "Wanna know the rules?"

"I'm not interested."

The threatening humor went out of his face, leaving naked threat in its place. "Then maybe you should get a bit interested, woman," he said. "Woman like you ought know her place. Lower Ring's a touch dangerous this time of night. Bad things could happen to you. And that'd just be terrible... wouldn't it?"

"I don't appreciate your tone," she said.

"I think you might better come with us, lady," the weasel said with a superior smirk. The woman sighed, then tore her arms back toward her.

With a rumble of earth shifting, and the clatter of rattling cups, a hole opened up under the fat one, dropping him straight through the floor and into the sewer where one of his particular malodor belonged. From where the delicate woman stood, her fists clenched and drawn apart, it was clear what caused that little incident. Her smirk sealed it in any minds that were too slow to catch the obvious. The weasel got a shocked look on his face, but his visage presaged his nature, and he had a knife in hand almost instantly, and was lunging toward the woman, over the hole whence his superior had plummeted. With a heavy stomp on the ground, that hole sealed, and then bucked up, hurling that second cretin up into the wooden floor above, embedding him into the next floor's room, his arms pinned at his sides and his legs flailing. Up there, there was a prostitute's shout of alarm, then a shattering sound, before the legs fell still. With that, the woman took a moment to compose herself in the absolute silence which she'd created, gathering the wisps of hair which had escaped from her bun, and turned to face her other counterpart.

He was slender but scarred, and his bare shoulders showed the edges of tattoos which would have identified him as a member of some criminal organization or another. But he hadn't moved one whit while the violence had undertaken, nor when she sat down before him, and the din of revelry returned to the tavern.

"By all means," the criminal said. "By common courtesy, the guest has the first move."

The woman nodded, then reached not to the pile of rough cut tiles which lay on her side of the board, but into a sleeve, depositing a simple but well made tile at the very center of the board. Upon that tile was a white flower. "I'm sure you'll forgive an illegal if interesting move?"

"Perhaps," the criminal said, laying a similar tile aside, near the back corner, before countering with another move any player of the game would also recognize as illegal, a Bastion piece directly before the opposite player. "The white lotus gambit is not often seen these days. Interesting to see that some people still prefer the old ways."

She smiled, laying down her own piece opposite his. "Those who do can always find a friend," she said with a smile. He nodded. And then, they played. But it was no game, for any rule of Pai Sho which existed in this modern age would have been not only cast down but set afire by the wonton placement which followed, practically a flurry of hands and rough-cut tiles. But then, both stopped, their hands down at their sides. The woman raised a brow. He'd made an incorrect move. He looked down at the tile, then back up at her.

Then there was a knife at his throat.

"What game do you play, criminal?" Sativa demanded from behind his ear.

"Could you please put that away?" the criminal asked. "You'll draw attention."

Sativa gave a glance toward where Beifong had played her part beautifully. From out the horde came two others, dressed in the dirty local garb of hard workers and low lives, plunking themselves down on either side of the dainty woman. The smirk, let alone the blue eyes of the one on the left, was all the signal anybody who knew Sativa's ilk needed to know that Bato had arrived, and Piandao was of course no distance away from the Dragon of the East. Sativa glared at the man, but put her blade away, sitting back and to the side of Piandao. There was no more sneaking about today.

"Good to know some still follow the old ways," the criminal said. He gave a slight bow toward Beifong. "The White Lotus opens its arms wide to those who know her secrets."

"You will find she knows the least of them," Sativa said, but not insultingly.

"You should control your road-agent," the criminal said. "She has a sharp tongue and a too-quick hand on her knives. You should also consider changing your attire. You stand out here. The Lower Ring is not a place for the wealthy, even if the denizens do bathe more frequently than this lot."

"She's not my road-agent," Beifong said. "She is my teacher."

"A teacher? You are but an initiate then?" he asked. "Ah, but where are my manners? You may call me Eryu. You've come at a troubled time."

"How so?" Badesh asked.

"Does she always speak for you?" Eryu asked. Beifong rolled her eyes.

"If I do not, then the important things lay never said. Speak to me, gardener, or give words to empty air."

Eryu turned to her. "And who are you to make that demand of me?"

Badesh pulled a scrap of cloth from inside a pocket, something long stored for just such an event, and pressed it into his chest. He carefully half-unrolled it, and beheld its contents. A green chain against a red field. His eyes went quite wide, his face somewhat pale. He turned back to her abruptly.

"Grand Lotus, I humbly apologize," Eryu said in a worried whisper.

"Serve out your apology in brevity," Badesh recommended. "What is this great news which has the city in such a state?"

"It might be only a rumor, madam, but there is grim news in the North," Eryu said.

"What news is this?" Bato asked, perking up.

"The Siege of the North has ended," Eryu claimed.

"To what ending?" Badesh asked.

"Victory by the Fire Nation," he answered. The four of them all leaned back, exchanging glances. "Did you know somebody from Summavut or the other cities?"

"Yes," Badesh said simply. "Have there been any reports of refugees, or survivors?"

"Reports nothing, there have been hordes of them, moving in every direction but up," Eryu answered. Badesh let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding. So did all the others. "But this isn't happy news. I know that 'there is no war in Ba Sing Se', but the military is abuzz with the rumor that the Dragon of the West may be returning to the Outer Walls."

"I strongly doubt that," she claimed with a scoff. "You keep well informed."

"It keeps my head on my neck," Eryu said with a note of pride. Then, his eyes narrowed. "Why have you come back? My... predecessor... told me about you. What you did. Well, almost did. Why now? After all this time?"

"Our goals then and now could scarcely be more different," she said with a dismissive wave. "We are only here to speak to a few knowledgeable people, and then leave before unkind eyes fall upon us."

"They would be very unkind," Eryu said. "Who are you looking for? Besides the obvious?"

Badesh gave a look around the room, then leaned in, speaking more quietly. "There is a professor at the university. He holds valuable information that he may not be aware of. We must have it."

"The university is in the Upper Ring," Eryu said cautiously. "I have clout down here, and even some in the Middle, but I can't make any promises up that high."

"We need not your promises, just an open door and the right person not looking in the proper direction," Badesh pointed out.

"I'm confused as to why you don't just announce yourself," Eryu said, his arms folded before his chest. "You could be sleeping in the Royal Palace."

"And conveniently not wake up one morning not long after we arrive, and rumors of our arrival would be quickly squelched," she finished for him. "We both know which mind controls the eyes of this city, which will bids its hand. What we could have quickly in the open would only result in disaster and failure. So we work in the shadows to protect the light. As we always have."

Eryu nodded with a sigh. "You have taken a place to stay?" he asked. Beifong nodded for them. "Abandon it. Come with me. I know a few places which our mutual friend doesn't know about."

"Should we leave now, or when the horde is pushed into the street?" Badesh asked.

"I also happen to know another way out," Eryu pointed out. "Come on, I've lived here all my life. What I _don't_ know about the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se would scarcely fill a pamphlet."

"Then we should leave at once," Piandao said with a nod. "I'm not comfortable here. There are too many eyes."

"There are that," Badesh agreed, rising as Eryu rose, and moving staggeredly through the din and mess toward the spot which Eryu indicated in his passage. Badesh's mind was awhirl with considerations, thoughts and schemes, plans and contingencies. Of course, scandalously enough, not a one of them was a wonder for the fate of her children. She could be a decent mother for them, after this was settled. There just was never enough _time_! But still, she walked out, trying to be unseen yet see everything.

And not quite succeeding. Because after she slipped out of sight, one set of eyes of that great pandemonium turned to note her passage with an oddly shrewd look, and a self-satisfied nod to himself, before turning back to the others at the table and continuing the conversation as though nothing had happened. Because, according to anybody who believed _in_ Ba Sing Se, nothing had.

* * *

><p>The sun was setting in the west, and as it did, she felt a cold settling into her which nobody else around would appreciate. It wasn't bad enough that the desert got so very cold after the sun fell; after Agni slid from the heavens, a very real aspect of her soul left with it. While it still managed to drive sweat out of her skin, it would chill quickly. She knew that from the weeks she'd spent in this desert, let alone the cities upon it.<p>

"You don't look like you're from around here," a young man said, most shockingly in a tongue which Tzu Zi could understand. She turned to find a tall, dark, and lithely handsome man leaning against the framework of a stand abandoned for the late hour. "You're looking about with far too much wonder to be a local."

Tzu Zi smiled at that, somewhat ruined by the veil covering most of her face. "I'm from a long way from here. I've never seen a city in the middle of a desert before."

He gave a chuckle. His voice was oddly accented, but she could still make out his words. "The oasis is vast and feeds much. How could we refuse its call?"

"It's a lovely city, though," she said. It was oddly lacking in colors, she had to admit. The cities which she'd gotten used to, on Grand Ember and other places in her native Fire Nation, were all bright scarlet and shined with brass amongst the poor, and gold amongst the rich. It was almost enough to make up for the dreary, rain-beaten weather which the Fire Nation had to withstand. Here, the buildings were either white-washed, or left in the color of whatever sandstone went into their construction. It was most prevalent in the grand wall which cut off the edge of the market where she stood to a grand palace, all great domes and shining gold beyond it. Of course, almost as though intentionally to create the greatest contrast, against the great wall was a midden pit. She pointed through the agape gates to the great domed palace beyond. "Who lives in that building, anyway?"

The man gave a laugh at that, before cutting himself short. "You're serious, aren't you?" he asked. She nodded slowly, somewhat confused. He pointed down the way. "That is the palace of Sultan Wahid the Cautious. You must have traveled very far very fast not to have heard of him."

"I'm... a long way from home," she repeated, deciding not to expand on it.

"The Divide no doubt," he said with a shrug. "You certainly don't look like any of those bird-worshipping morons to the south."

Her brow drew down slightly at that. But she would not let herself get off track. "So... what's up with this Sultan? Is he a king?"

"He is a king of kings, the master of the Sheiks and Caliphs of Si Wong," he said. He then let out another chuckle. "Strange how the most basic of lessons sound when needing saying. You have a wanderer's look about you. Perhaps if you visit, you might be able to speak with him. They do say that our Sultan is a bit... odd."

"Odd? How?"

"Please, I cannot say," he said, shaking his hands before him. She then shrugged, and looked back, leaving the teenager somewhat caught out. After all, she was supposed to press him for the information. That was how etiquette worked. Of course, Tzu Zi knowing none of this, began to rock on her heels, keeping an eye down that long boulevard. The Si Wongi youth finally cleared his throat, getting her to refocus her attention on him. "So... why are you here, anyway?"

"Oh, just waiting for a friend to get back," she said.

"Then you have an odd direction to be waiting for him," he pointed out.

"Her," Tzu Zi corrected.

"Alone? She must be a brave girl. At nights, these streets are far from safe," he said. "You never told me your name, strange flower from a distant desert."

That brought a renewed smile to her face. "I'm Tzu Zi," she said.

"Khaled," he answered. "I would hear of this friend of yours, who is so brazen and fearless that she would brave the night."

She gave a chuckle, trying to think of the right way to describe Nila. "Well, she's smarter than anybody I've ever known, and that's including two of my sisters, so that's something," she said, "Tough as iron, and stubborn as rocks. But she's got a tender side that she doesn't like to show. Almost like she doesn't want to admit it's there."

"She doesn't sound very... feminine," Khaled said carefully.

"I'm pretty sure being called 'feminine' would make her puff with rage," Tzu Zi answered. He laughed outright at that.

"They always fight hardest, her kind, before Izes' register sorts them true. But enough of her. Where are you staying this evening?" Khaled asked, leaning slightly toward her. She leaned slightly back.

"Excuse me?"

"You are a proper lady and I would like to know you better. Surely you can agree to a fitting meeting? Or do you plan to leave this city by starlight as the caravans go?" Khaled asked.

"Well, I'm flattered, but I'm not sure if now's the best time. I mean, Nila probably needs me, even though she would never say so, and..." she said, stammering slightly. He was very pretty, after all. But he started to lean back.

"Nila?" he asked.

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME YOU SNAKES!" a roar came from above, causing both teenagers to turn and crane their heads upward, to the top of the wall. From out a tower on its length, several soldiers, great burly men wearing yellow and blue armor, were bearing a struggling, much smaller figure between them. While Tzu Zi's eyes couldn't make out the identity of that figure, her ears definitely could. Even as she lapsed into wrathful, spiteful Si Wongi, it was obvious even to Tzu Zi's ears that Nila was both up on that wall, and not very happy with how things were going. The two below, and a great many others on the street, paused and watched the spectacle on the wall.

Tzu Zi's eyes went very wide, and her hands flashed to her covered mouth as the four soldiers turned, and faced the market below. "Oh, don't you dare," Nila swore loudly. One of the soldiers laughed, and then all four swung her off the wall, causing the Si Wongi girl to let out a shriek less of terror and more of disbelieving outrage. She even managed to spew forth something which Tzu Zi in her disfluency could recognize as a vulgar swear. Then, with a wet thwap, she landed back first into the muck of the midden.

"Nila!" Tzu Zi shouted, running toward her, pausing momentarily at the edge. When the stink wasn't quite as bad as she'd feared, she tendered a delicate step past the pit's sloping edge. "Are you alright?"

"I'm going to kill that smarmy bastard," Nila muttered, staring upward for a moment. Tzu Zi sighed with relief at that, then leaned forward, catching Nila's hand and hauling her up to a sit. "And no, I don't believe I am injured. They were aiming, after all."

"But... why'd they throw you off the wall?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I might have said something... untoward," Nila admitted. Then she rose, and felt at her back, which was now covered in unpleasant leavings. But something made her green eyes shoot wide. "Wait," she said. She turned, and scanned the area she'd impacted. "Wait..." she repeated, and then she stepped away from Tzu Zi, digging frantically at the muck. "No, now that isn't even fair!"

"What is it?" Tzu Zi asked.

"GIVE ME BACK MY GUN YOU THIEVES!" Nila roared up at the wall. One of the soldiers laughed at her, and walked away. To the firebender's left, the great doors to the palace began to grind closed. Nila seethed for a moment, surrounded by filth, and then stormed out of the pit.

"This is your friend?" Khaled said nervously. He offered a hand, palm up, toward her. "Hello, friend of a friend. I am Khaled, and..."

"Who is this person and why should I care what he's saying?" Nila asked, obviously in one of her fouler moods. But then again, considering she'd just gotten robbed by the regional government then thrown into a garbage pile, she could understand that reaction completely.

"I was trying to be polite," Khaled answered for her. "I begin to see why the Yeniceri would feel obliged to defenestrate you."

"It was a wall, not a window. I was demurated, not defenestrated," Nila snapped.

"His name's Khaled," Tzu Zi said.

"And yours is... Nila," Khaled said. "You know, I should probably get back home... Mother might need me."

"Go, run back to your mother," Nila said with a dismissive wave. Khaled did so, walking down that street, muttering to himself in Si Wongi, thus outside of Tzu Zi's understanding. "That he would not hear me is galling. That he would also steal from me is unforgivable. I will have my firearm back!"

"Nila, don't you think there's been enough trouble for one day?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I have scarcely begun to create trouble," Nila promised. "Now, where are the others?"

"What do you mean?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila finally glanced around, and realized that Nila and Tzu Zi were alone of their companions in the quickly clearing streets. "Nila... I haven't seen Sharif or Ashan in hours."

"What?" Nila asked flatly. Then she shook her head. "How could that happen? They were right behind me!"

"No, you told them to stay behind!"

"And I knew Ashan would _never_ listen to me!" Nila contended. "He's as contrary as a rattlesnake in a boot!"

"Nila, he's in a lot of pain. He just lost his mother," Tzu Zi pointed out. That caused Nila to come to a sputtering halt. "He's been hurting for a while. Maybe he just wanted to be alone, so when you told him..."

"There are days where I truly believe that Sharif is the smarter of us. And those days make me quite angry at myself," Nila said at a mutter. Ahead, Khaled was intercepted by a girl of about seven or eight years, wearing baggy clothes, who yammered something excitedly up to him, before clapping her hands in delight then running off into an alley. Khaled halted, turning back toward them, his face oddly pale for a Si Wongi.

"Come on, I'm sure we'll find them. After all, it's not like Sharif's going to run off again, right?" Tzu Zi asked, eliciting a mournful groan from Nila.

"You just _had_ to say that, didn't you?" Nila complained.

"Excuse me?" Khaled said again, as the two girls reached him.

"What what _what_!" Nila demanded.

"You are sometimes called Nila Bedesh, yes? You are from Sentinel Rock, yes?" Khaled asked.

"Who asks?"

"I'm... supposed to find you," Khaled said. Nila's hands flashed toward her bow-case,which was futile, because even though the bow was still within, Tzu Zi was well aware that she'd run out of arrows back when Sentinel Rock was still a sane and worldly place. Lacking that weapon, Tzu Zi quietly started moving her chi into place. She knew it'd just be a matter of a moment to set it alight and give it direction. But only if she needed to.

"Speak fast, stranger," Nila snapped.

"My eldest niece," Khaled waved toward the alley, "just told met that Grandmother has two youths called Ashan and Sharif, and they were bade find a girl named Nila."

"Why?"

"I cannot say. You would have to talk to Grandmother," Khaled said.

"Pass," Nila said.

"But... what about Sharif?" Tzu Zi pointed out. Nila sighed. Then, she thrust an angry finger at Khaled.

"If you're lying to me, I will make you regret it," she said.

"You aren't a very pleasant person," Khaled answered. "Izes help you if you ever decide to find a husband."

"Just start walking, stranger," Nila said.

"See, Nila. Now we've got a place to sleep tonight."

Nila only muttered to herself at that. Once again, it was probably for the best that she didn't know what she was saying.

* * *

><p>"This place isn't what I was expecting," Sativa said as she looked around the bastion of the order in Ba Sing Se. It was delapidated, with neither care nor currency put toward its upkeep in quite some time. Still, she could see logic behind the affront. While Ba Sing Se was home to the largest and best appointed university on the planet bar none, there was a strong desire by those in the upper echelons of power to keep the educated and the uneducated as separate as possible. Well meaning philanthropists could spend all the money and time they wished trying to build schools and libraries in the Lower Rings of Ba Sing Se, but somehow, against all expectation and belief, they would inevitably fail, fall, crumble.<p>

She knew whose fault that was.

"It wasn't this much of a dump last time," Bato pointed out the obvious. Then again, only he had been to this one in their last misadventure in Ba Sing Se.

"Nobody's interested in educating themselves," Eryu said with a note of distaste. "My children, smart as whips they are, but if I hadn't fobbed them off on my ex-wife and shuffled the lot of them to Burning Rock, they'd probably be soma-dealers, cutpurses, or addicts by now. This is a layered society, and moving between layers isn't just difficult, it is by design practically impossible."

"I'm glad we gave up the Caste Society madness six centuries ago," Bato agreed. "There couldn't _possibly_ be a worse way to live."

"Some would disagree with you," Sativa pointed out, "and the snake is not alone in them. Rigidity gives people a sense of stability, of endurance. The reason the Storm Kings ruled as long as they did was because they brooked no crimes against them, and they enforced a sort of law, which the people responded positively to, even if it was harsh to the point of cruelty. I can only imagine the stability the Monolith gave to be a global monoculture in its day."

"Should we be talking like this out in the open?" Beifong asked. "We're not alone."

Eryu gave a turn toward the other inhabitant of the library, sitting with his boots up on a table, a book in his lap. "Don't mind him. He doesn't bother anybody. Just comes in and reads."

"Have you thought that he might be a spy?" Piandao asked.

"Him?" Eryu asked with a scoff. "He's too literate to be a spy."

"You forget the power which is arrayed against us," Sativa said. She walked on, past the shelves of dusty books, in some places far more gap than filled shelf. As she walked, Bato looked back at that stranger, and that stranger gave the slightest of glances up. Blue eyes met blue eyes, and a nod from the reader, who turned back to his book. At the end of the stacks, Eryu kicked twice at the base of the wall. A sliver of light started to shine through it, as a panel had been slid just a touch out of place.

"Who dares knock at the garden gate?" a whisper came from that crevasse.

"One who has eaten the fruit and tasted of its mysteries," Sativa said impatiently. There was a click, then the panel opened more fully, as the lot of them were quickly bustled inside. The panel gave way to a stairwell, which slowly turned down and to the right, its walls lined with scrap iron, tin, and bronze. Sativa raised a brow at that.

"At least you've invested where it counts," Bato muttered.

"The ranks of the Cultural Authority swell every day. We can never be too cautious," Eryu said. Finally, the path opened into a hall, roughly the size of a dinner room, and covered completely in metal plates. And in that room, besides the nondescript, housewife looking woman who'd opened the panel, there was one other who arrested Sativa's gaze.

He sat, hunched forward, his fingers interlaced and his brow pressed upon his thumbs. A pale-gray cape draped past the edges of the chair he sat at, and for all its royal finery, it looked to have suffered greatly in recent times, as many tears as sequins. She had heard nothing from this man for quite a while, so when he turned to her, and those utterly unnatural orange eyes caught her green, she felt a shiver running through her. She did not believe in any divine force, not for a moment, but despite that, there was something about this man which set off a niggling doubt, which she had to forceably crush.

"Who is this?" Beifong asked, alone not caught in gawking, for both Bato and Piandao both recognized the figure before them.

"I see my reputation does not precede me," the man said, his accent the lilting tone of Great Whales, "And I thought the eyes would have been my standard."

"How could you possibly be here?" Sativa asked. She had come here seeking allies, true, but she had never expected that this one would be here. In fact, she was so shocked by it, there was no place in her plans for him.

"Exile and ignominy," he said. He rose, pulling a heavy-headed cane out and stamping it against the tin, a purely symbolic gesture, for what she had seen of him before, he had much improved. "You look surprised, Dragon of the East. Did you think I was going to curl up and die?"

"From what I'd seen of you last, it seemed a likely thing," she admitted. "You know who I am, and I know who you are, so..."

"_I_ don't know who he is," Beifong repeated.

"You are rude as _your_ reputation prepared me," he said with a cutting look toward Badesh. He gave a slight nod toward Beifong. "I am Emperor Zeruel the Second, Lord of Whales, Kad Deid, and Pulse, and last legitimate ruler of a conquered nation."

"Emperor..." Beifong said with confusion. "But... why are you in Ba Sing Se?"

"A better question is how you are not dead," Sativa changed topics quickly. "Your wasting illness looked to have claimed you in all but name. And yet you stand restored. How?"

"God restored me," he said with the simplicity and faith that made Sativa's teeth grind. "When I was struck lowest, my faith brought the mercy of Adam upon my brow and restored my frail body to health and vigor. It is nothing less than a miracle."

The glance shared between Piandao and Bato showed what they thought about that.

"But enough of my standing under heaven," Zeruel continued. "What do you want with Ba Sing Se? I came here as a matter of inevitability. That there would be protective hands to shelter me is surely Adam's mercy, but I have to wonder at you. You are frankly a heathen and His aegis would not extend to you. So why would you dare come where so many hands would turn against you?"

"You know of the Avatar?" Sativa asked. The man scowled. "Yes, how annoying it must be to your faith to have an agent of the divine who has no place in your cosmology. Nevertheless, he has returned, and with him comes an opportunity which I have never known in my lifetime. Not just an armistice with the Fire Nation, but an end to the World War entirely."

"No man has so much power," Zeruel contended.

"The Avatar does," Sativa said. "But he cannot see in all directions, nor suffer a thousand stings and not bleed to death. When he is prepared to defeat the Fire Lord, he must not go into that fight alone, or he will surely fail, with or without your strange god's blessing."

"_Sati, a word_," Piandao asked in one of their secret languages.

"_What what __what__?_" Sativa hissed.

"_Could you please stop antagonizing the leader of one of the largest contiguous religions on the world?_" he asked.

"_No_," she answered.

"_Then consider this advice from your second that having the Adamites on your side is an invaluable boon, even if you do find his religion distasteful,_" he altered. She stared up at him for a long moment, then sighed.

"Of course, if you had anything that would help the Avatar, it would no doubt be appreciated," she said, with all the ease of pulling out her own teeth.

"Pride is your downfall, child of the east," Zeruel said measuredly. She scowled at that. "So tell me of this Avatar you go on about?"

"He is a child who attempts to become a man. A good age for our purposes. Malleable, but resilient enough not to break when pressure is applied. I worry that his heritage as an airbender will cripple him, though," She shook her head. "There is a day for words and a day for blood. He cannot seem to admit that the latter even exists. It will be a painful day for him when he receives that education."

"Airbender?" Zeruel asked. "Their kind have not graced this world for decades! Even the last exiles from Da-Aer died when I was a lad of less than ten."

"He was suspended from time somehow," she said with a dismissive gesture. "It is a thing _of_ Avatars _for_ Avatars. Simply that he lives now, despite a century's pass since his birth, and has not aged the interim."

Bato, though, began to glance about. Sativa broke off, turning to watch him. The Whalesh ruler did likewise. "What is this barbarian of yours doing?" he asked.

"Quiet," Bato said. He glanced around. "Where's Eryu?"

"He..." Piandao began, glancing about. He was nowhere in sight, and this room was the end of the line.

"He must have gone back upstairs," the woman said from near the doorway.

"You've a chill in you, that is obvious," Sativa said. "What do your keen ears hear?"

"Something is wrong," Bato said, head turning about.

He moved to the wall near the stairs, first leaning past the housewife, then flattening his cheek against the tin walls. Sativa stood quite close to him, waiting as his eyes pressed shut, and his mouth moved. He was hearing something, but what, she could not say. Then, his eyes snapped open fast, and set into a tone of anger.

"They're upstairs," Bato said.

"Who?" the Emperor asked.

"Who do you think?" Sativa snapped. "Do you think we can get through them?"

"I'm not sure."

"Eryu sold us out?" Beifong asked. Bato nodded grimly. "Why?"

"I should have seen it when he made his mistake," Sativa kicked herself mentally. "It is a simple thing! I am a fool for not seeing it sooner!"

"Don't blame yourself," Piandao said, a hand on her shoulder. Then, on her cheek. She stepped back away from him, shaking her head. "But..."

"No, this is not the time," she snapped. Bato's ear was to the wall once more, but his face was angry focus.

"He's coming back down," Bato said.

"I've got some good news," Eryu said as he came back into view. "I've managed to find somebody who can get you up into the Middle Ring tonight, but it'll still take a while to..."

Sativa didn't want to listen to him any longer. And since she still had her bow at her hip, she didn't have to. The instant Eryu came into sight, she drew the bow from its case, had an arrow nocked, drawn, and fired. It slammed into his chest, forcing him back a step, his eyes wide, and a question clear on his face. He let out a strangled sound of pain, of expiration, as he slid down that wall, the metal tip of the arrow grinding a narrow furrow against the tin as he went. She spat down on his foot, as Zeruel looked on with distaste. "Repaid as a traitor deserves," the fanatic muttered. "Do you intend to fight your way out?"

"They're coming down," Bato said. "Whatever we're doing, we're going to be doing it in the next thirty seconds."

Sativa looked toward that passage, weighing the options. She didn't like how they weighed out. There was no cutting through, not without losing somebody. But then she turned slightly, and looked at the tin panels on the wall. A smirk came to her face. "We will flee," she said. "Bato, Piandao, strip that panel. Beifong, make us a path."

"They'll follow us," she pointed out.

"And when they do, we won't be fighting earthbenders in a basement," Sativa agreed. She turned to the Emperor. "Will you fight with us?"

"With what?" the Emperor asked flatly. "My charming wit?"

"Hrm. Never mind," Sativa said. Bato and Piandao both set to tearing the paneling from the wall, but there was a disconcerting sound coming down those stairs with a fast tempo, the clatter of metal and stone. Finally, with a great heave, the panel came loose, and Beifong thrust forward with both fists, opening a short stretch of tunnel out of this death trap.

"Everybody in," Beifong said, sweat on her brow as she she glanced toward the doorway where Eryu was slumped. It was because of that glance that she had the reflex to hurl herself to the floor. It was but a black streak to Badesh's sight, but it slammed into the tin opposite the lady earthbender with enough force to cause the entire wall to buckle inward slightly. The still unnamed woman gave a scream of terror as the first of them became apparent. To say that his appearance was immediately followed by an arrow from Badesh went without saying, but unlike Eryu, these were not men to be caught unawares. A stone-gloved hand struck the arrow from the air in a heartbeat, then with a thrusting punch, slammed that other woman to the ground. The scream turned to a gurgle as the stone fist, animated by earthbending, began to constrict 'round her throat.

Sativa was trying to get another arrow loose, but she found her drawing arm caught, and with a flash, she was back-handing a knife behind her, only to halt herself upon seeing it was Piandao who'd caught her. Just an instant of pause, then she allowed herself to be pulled out, leaving Beifong the last in the room. The first of those men, in their dark green robes, was joined by a second, then a third, all of them moving with perfect coordination and precision. They knew instinctively where the others would be. Beifong glanced between them, bright green eyes flicking wildly. Then, the first one struck.

She brought up a wall, pounding up the tin of the floor and sending the attack wildly off target. As one, all three agents paused, stock still. "GET IN THE HOLE, YOUR STUPIDNESS!" Beifong shrieked, which was the prompting that Zeruel needed to finally cross the scant distance and join Badesh in their evacuation plan. Then, the spell of their confusion broken, the three agents of the Cultural Authority moved again, trying to encircle Beifong, to cut her off, to wear her down. She reached behind her, drawing stone out of the roof of their tunnel, forming it into a disc upon her arm, a shield against their aggressive earthbending. Their fists flew, their feet flew, but every time Beifong managed to deflect or block one, they simply called it back to themselves, from the dust if need be.

"This is not the time for heroics! Come!" Badesh shouted.

She nodded, and started to retreat, but as she tried to step over the threshold between torn, one of the agents caught a moment, an instant of vulnerability. And he was striking already when it came. The blow took Beifong right in the kidney, a cruel, blunt handed blow which slammed her to the ground, her eyes bugged and wide, her face a rictus of pain and her mind obviously anywhere but aiding escape.

Badesh looked down, just outside the hole, and saw what would save them. The panel of tin which had been torn loose was now on the ground outside the hole. With a desperate lunge, she grabbed the panel and dragged it through the hole. It was telling that Bato and Piandao knew without words what needed doing. They both flipped the panel 'round and began to press it against the edges of the hole she'd made, barricading themselves on one side, and the Cultural Authority on the other. "Don't just stand there you ape, put your weight into this!" Bato shouted at the Whalesh royal. Zeruel shot the Tribesman a glare, but did lend a shoulder to the panel, which was fortunate, because the spanging from the other side told that they were putting all possible effort into breaching their little fortress.

"Beifong, can you breathe?" Badesh asked.

"Yes... yes," she said, wiping away the involuntary tears, and breathing in shallow pants. "Gods that hurt."

"Kidney shots always do," Sativa said sagely. "We need to go further."

"Just a second. I need a second," she said, trying to catch her breath.

"How did you do that?" Bato shouted back. "How did you bend the metal? Metalbending's impossible!"

"I didn't," she said. "I bent... the stone under... it," she pressed her eyes shut.

"That shouldn't have been possible either," Sativa pointed out.

"Knew it... was there..." she finally opened her eyes. "Step back!"

All three of the men retreated almost as one as Beifong took her feet and stomped on the ground. They had good reason to. A pillar of stone leapt up to take their place, securing the tin. Then, a second stomp, and a motion rather like hurling down a soggy sack of cotton, and the tunnel roof where that panel had been pressured up collapsed entirely, securing the barricade permanently, if plunging the lot of them into absolute darkness.

"We're saved," Zeruel said flatly. "Three cheers to the Dragon of the East."

"Shut up and follow us if you value your freedom, mind, and life," she said, tapping her way to Beifong. "We need an exit to somewhere far from here."

"Coming right up," the earthbender said.

* * *

><p>It was a dump, obviously a tenement housing, but that didn't tell the whole story. Much like Sentinel Rock was a hive which extended downward in an unmanageable stack, this architecture seemed to take the same cues, but heading upward rather than down. It was built with little care toward aesthetics, and expanded with equal contempt toward the inevitability of gravity. Less a building than a neighborhood gone cancerous, the complex now played host to the unspeakably massive family which roamed its innumerable hiding holes and sneak-paths which constituted both a perfect hiding place, and an obvious fire hazard.<p>

"You look hungry, young lady. Have you been taking proper fruits?" the old woman said the moment that Nila's eye shifted away from the rat's nest of a building and toward the inhabitants of said nest. That drew an immediate frown from the teenager.

"What a pleasant introduction," she said sarcastically.

"I was told that you have no tolerance nor training in proper etiquette, so I'm being blunt," she said plainly. "Would you rather I work in the exchange? Or point out that you still smell somewhat like garbage?"

"Anything but that," Nila muttered with a roll of the eyes. The brief bathing and changing of clothes had only gone so far to undo her landing in sewage.

"The exchange?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Si Wongi social foolishness at its finest," Nila said.

"Foolishness? This is your culture you're talking about," the woman said with a note of disapproval. She tutted, then shook her head. "But where is my tact? Just because my guests are uncouth does not mean I may be. I am Ibtihaj al'Adin. This is my home."

"This whole thing?" Tzu Zi asked with a note of surprise. "How did you afford all of this?"

"Oh, I tucked away my pennies for a while," she said.

"Doubtful," Nila said. "Adin. I've heard of that family before."

"Have you?" the woman asked.

"They are the most ubiquitous smugglers in Ibn-Atal," Nila said. "If it is illegal and for sale, you have your fingers in it."

"That's an unkind thing to say to your host," Ibtihaj said with a tone of disapproval.

"But is an inaccurate thing?" Nila asked. Ibtihaj gave a chuckle at that.

"So you know of me, and you do not run to the guards or the Yeniceri. My opinion of you improves."

"I don't care how you make your money. Where is my brother?" Nila asked.

"Such a focused one, is she not?" Ibtihaj asked Tzu Zi.

"Tell me about it. I had to drag her kicking and screaming into shopping for shoes!"

"Scandalous," the old woman agreed, and Tzu Zi nodded.

"I like you. You remind me of my grandmother."

"Hasn't anybody ever told you? All old people know each other," the old woman said with a wave. "Come in, come in. Yes, even you, workaholic traveler. I've had my grandchildren leave some dinner aside. And your brother is safe... for the moment."

"Is that a threat?" Nila demanded.

"So tense she is," Ibtihaj said with a shake of the head.

"Tell me about it!" Tzu Zi agreed.

"Could you please side _with_ me _against_ the old stranger you just met?" Nila asked flatly. Tzu Zi winced at that and moved away from the old woman and toward Nila.

"Please, there is no call to polarize friends. Come. Eat. You will be the better for it," Ibtihaj promised. Tzu Zi shrugged, an obvious 'what's the harm' communicated clearly. Nila sighed, but followed after the old woman as she headed through the complex. The buildings which had once been separate now grew together, so there was no cutting chill of cruel wind, only passage from one building into another as they headed for the heart of this beast, and then slightly past it, down and to the right, which Nila accounted roughly the duodenum of the beast. It was a courtyard of sorts, in that it was probably once a garden, but had since been so overgrown that only a shaft of night-sky scarcely broader than Nila's shoulders peeked down past the overgrown balconies and expansions. At the base of that courtyard, though, was set out a table, and upon it a well appointed meal of roasted meats and dates and other such familiar dishes.

"Oooh," Tzu Zi said.

"Go right ahead. It has been left aside for you," Ibtihaj said genially. The firebender moved off, and dug in with gusto. "Are you not going to join her?"

"In perhaps a moment," Nila said. "I know who you are. That much is obvious."

"That you don't care surprises me. I would have thought you as self-righteous as any of these pompous fools who parade their 'protection of society' as an excuse to break down my doors and steal my things. And not even the illegal things; things I bought with honest money! It is _they_ who are criminals, not I."

"_Impressive acting,_" Nila said flatly in her own tongue.

"_Not buying what lays on the blanket, eh?_" Ibtihaj broke off her tirade in an instant. "_You have a cunning eye and discerning ear. Not surprising, given your heritage._"

Nila raised a brow at that. "_And what do you know of my heritage?_"

"_That Badesh may be a common enough family name in the Far East, but since Nassar, it has dwindled. And only one that I know of would approach from the south with such a name. The Dragon's __Daughter herself, under my roof._"

"_People say that name as though it has weight. It has none,_" Nila said with annoyance.

"_Oh, but it does,_" Ibtihaj disagreed. "_Fortunate, fortunate that I discovered your nature before those fools at the Dome did. Who knows what politics they would ensnare you in. I never met your mother, for why would she associate with one such as I? Never, obviously. But you, you have a purpose here. Am I wrong?"_

Nila shook her head, annoyed that she'd been so thoroughly weighed out. _"You are not wrong._"

"_So tell me, younger Dragon, what has you under the glowing of the city?_"

"_I had intended to do them a kindness and inform them of what happened a fortnight past._"

"_The Eye of Terror?_" Ibtihaj's knowing smirk dissolved at that, and she gave a superstitious prayer and gesture. "_What did you know of that unholy thing?_"

"_Less than you assume. More than others know,_" Nila said. Her stomach made a compelling argument toward her, and she sighed. "_If you will permit me. I must eat._"

"_Please,_" Ibtihaj's visage had degraded into something more desperate than Nila had yet seen. "_What of the Eye?_"

"_You will hear after I eat or not at all. Take your hands off me,_" she said. Ibtihaj took a moment, and composed herself.

"_I apologize for allowing myself seen so. It was unbecoming,_" she said. Nila rolled her eyes at that, and stepped away from the old smuggler. She took her seat opposite Tzu Zi, and began to eat as the firebender did, and in the same order. If there was to be any drugging or poisoning, she'd see it in Tzu Zi before it came to her, that way. Yet another unkind lesson Mother had taught her.

"This stuff is really good," Tzu Zi said. "I mean, Ashan's food was good, but this stuff..."

"This is a temporary accommodation, nothing more. I would have no more from her type."

Tzu Zi gave a slanted look at her.

"Dealers in contraband like her also deal in more dangerous goods."

"Weapons? Drugs?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Information," Nila corrected. "The deadliest weapon of all. I have no intention of being a parcel for another person's delivery. In the morning, I will concoct a way back into the Sultan's palace, I will reclaim my weapon, leave a gods-damned note with a servant or something, then we will leave."

"But we just got here," Tzu Zi said with a note of disappointment.

"We are heading to Ba Sing Se, yes?" she asked. "Do you not wish to see your sister?"

"Yeah, but getting there, and what we do while we go, that's important, too."

Nila scowled. "By what possible standard?" she asked.

"Wow. You _really_ gotta learn to lighten up," Tzu Zi said innocently.

Khaled broke into a grin as soon as he spotted the two of them, laying out a platter of soft biscuits beside the firebender. "I thought you'd like something sweeter to end your meal. You seemed to have that sort of character," he said.

"Oh, thank you so much," Tzu Zi said.

"It is my distinct pleasure," Khaled answered. He turned to Nila. "So is it true? You are the Dragon's Daughter?"

"That seems to be an oft-repeated question. Yes, for what it matters," she said with annoyance. It was her hair. That was where the stink was hiding, she just knew it! Well, it was never too late to shave it all off again. Even if she was starting to like it. "Do you ask to know the mind of my mother, perhaps? I can tell you little enough of that."

"Is she always so tense?" Khaled asked.

"Yup," Tzu Zi said brightly. She paused for a moment, then leaned aside, glancing through the warren of hallways at something Nila couldn't see from her own vantage point. "Khaled, could you explain something to me?"

"I shall do my best," he answered. Tzu Zi then grabbed Nila's hand and held it toward Khaled.

"What's up with these? I thought that they'd all have them, but it turns out the only woman with them I've seen was Nila."

Khaled's eyes widened somewhat at that. "May I?" he asked, indicating her sleeve. She sighed, and rolled it up for him, showing how the black lines which were inscribed into her dark skin started from just behind her fingertips, then moved back in an ever-more complex pattern until they reached her wrist, where the whole arrangement exploded outward, a vessel under too much pressure finally giving way. The last of the lines faded to nothingness just around her elbow. "This is an uncommon thing, which was once a part of the South. There were two cities there, to the east of Sentinel Rock, but each of them a fortress which put that sentry post to absolute shame. One of them fell to the Dakongese heathens when I was but an infant. The other, Nassar, was lost early in my mother's time."

Nila nodded when Tzu Zi turned toward her, since the question was obvious. "Yes, that is the same Nassar indicated by my name. It is a lost city, even if we yet do not know how it was destroyed, by what hand. Only that the destruction was great and the living were vastly outnumbered by the dead."

"An old story, but a valid one. In the south, it was a womanly right of passage to take the marks onto them," Khaled explained. "Each girl would design her own, and her father would inscribe them, unless they were not physically capable."

"I had mine done by a tattooist from Ember while visiting this city," Nila said sotto. "An understandable consequence of having no father."

"All people have fathers. I do, even if I have never seen his face, worthless wretch he may be," Khaled pointed out.

Nila smirked at that, and raised a cup. "To the bastards of Si Wong, then."

"You have no couth," Khaled said, before raising Tzu Zi's cup himself. "And that is the better part of you."

"Nila?" she turned at her name being spoken, to see Ashan standing off to a side.

"Ashan. You seem..." Nila began.

"Are you alright?" Tzu Zi interrupted her.

"I am... less unwell," he said. He sighed. "She's really gone. And I never even got to know her."

Khaled sighed at that. "We share a pain, he and I, but his is far the greater for he never had his mother, either. What say you take my bed for tonight? It is comfortable and private. I'm sure I can find somewhere else to sleep tonight?" he said, giving a glance toward Tzu Zi, who giggled lightly.

"Please refrain from seducing my companions while we're beholden to you," Nila said sternly. "It is in bad taste."

"And you _would_ know the limits of bad taste, having so thoroughly pressed against them. You are right. I will withdraw for now," he said, waggling his eyebrows toward the firebender. "But perhaps later...?"

"Go," Nila said, pointing away. He let out a regretful sigh, and departed without complaint. She turned to Ashan. "Where is Sharif?"

"He is sleeping," Ashan said. He shook his head lightly. "It is so cruel, to know that he could be the Sharif I once knew, but at the same time that he could never be. You have brought a madness into my life, Nila."

"The madness was already there, I just let you see it," she answered.

* * *

><p>There were a hundred things he could have been doing. After all, once a person reached his level of affluence and power, it wasn't a question of whether one could do something, but rather, one of simple logistics. If he'd so desired, he could have bathed in the blood of virgins every day. It was not impossible, just messy and counterproductive. It was not a passion for reading, though, which saw the Fire Lord, the most powerful mortal being on the face of this planet, in the belly of the Dragon Bone Catacombs. He was worried. And when Ozai worried, people around him tended to die.<p>

He reread the scroll before him, simple history from his grandfathers time. The testament of a man who was so wrathful against an Avatar's slight that he'd spent the last forty years of his long life trying to kill two of them. It must have been a terrible slight that he'd been shown. After all, Sozin had flown all the way to the last Avatar's home just to watch it burn. There was not so much as a whisper to announce the approach of a second, but Ozai would not let the surprise reach his face. He had to be in absolute control. Anything less would see his undoing. He'd come entirely too far for that.

"I have copied the book, as you asked," Hisui said with a bow. He turned to her. She was a ropy girl of perhaps seventeen years, gaunt of face and dull of hair. But her eyes, behind those black lenses, were amber and bright. All of the Children were Fire Nation, but some more than others.

"And I assume you were not spotted," Ozai asked.

"I would not be here had I," Hisui answered, her eyes still down.

"Rise," Ozai said. "I was told there were others."

"He does not write all he knows. He holds some back, surely in his memory. I could not take what does not exist," she said, worry entering her tone.

Ozai gave a harrumph, and dismissed. "It is sufficient. Rest. You must warm yourself after your... arduous trip... to the north."

"Thank you, Fire Lord," Hisui said, before vanishing once more. The Children had many skills. Most were benders, of fire and earth, but some were not. Some had... other gifts. Ozai ran a finger along the ridged spine of the notebook the shaman girl had replicated. He didn't doubt that this thing was a perfect replica down to the notches in the corner of the cover. How she created that miracle, he could not say. He could always get her to tell him, but since he was no shaman himself, it was pointless. She knew how, and that was what mattered. He flipped the book open, and read the first page, which had been completely scratched out and rewritten in the margins and wherever space would allow. What he saw there unsettled him.

"Oh, is the Fire Lord starting to worry?" a mocking voice came through the quiet and the solitude. In an instant, the book was slammed shut, so quickly that its paper cut into his finger. "And here I thought you were supposed to be impressive. Majestic. Authoritative. But you're hiding in the dark, looking at one of your underlings words to save you."

"How dare you speak to me like that. Do you know who I am?" Ozai shouted. There came the clack-clack of footfalls against the stone, until a feminine figure appeared from the shadows of Ozai's lamp. Not just any, though.

Azula.

"I know you better than you would dare believe," Azula said, her face amused, but her tones ruthless.

Ozai flinched back at that, and his hand knocked over the lamp, which fell to the floor, plunging the room into a momentary darkness. Ozai instantly brought up his other hand, and above it burst a flare of fire, casting the Dragon Bone Catacombs in a flickering orange light. But there was no Azula. Ozai stared at the path she'd taken. She couldn't have escaped, not so quickly. If she'd been there at all.

Perhaps he'd just been missing too much sleep. He set the book down on the table, forgotten for the moment, leaving a red streak across its cover as he left. Missing sleep. That was all this was.

* * *

><p>Nila awakened with a clipped shout of pain, which still tingled through her arm where that cloud of lightning touched her. If nothing else, it was a lesson that no matter how often she went to that place, that Spirit world, there were always fresh lessons to be learned. Now, though, since she obviously wasn't going to be sleeping again for a while, she gave over a moment to consider just how the hell she got lobbed into the Spirit world to begin with.<p>

"_Are you awake?"_ Tzu Zi asked.

"_Did the scream not make that clear?_" Nila asked. There was silence in the darkness for a moment.

"_I was just asking a question, there's no reason to be mean,_" she said.

Nila sighed. "_I apologize. I had a... troublesome dream_."

"_Scary_?"

"_Physically painful_," she answered, still trying to flap some feeling into her hand. The night got pushed back as Tzu Zi set fire upon her palm.

"_One of those, huh?_" she asked.

"_Indeed_," Nila answered. She sat in silence for a moment. "_I have a question that I don't know how to answer._"

"_Really?_" Tzu Zi asked.

"_It is outside my area of expertise_," Nila admitted without shame. There were things she just wasn't good at, as much as fish tended not to fly and any given human could only bend one element. It was an understandable shortcoming. Tzu Zi motioned her forward. "_I find myself thinking often of... Malu._"

"_You do?_" Tzu Zi asked.

"_It is madness. The girl was possessed of something which I – I! – can only call demonic. Her actions caused the destruction of my childhood hometown, and innumerable other deaths besides. But every time I look back and see that we number four only because Ashan is with us... it just doesn't feel right._"

"_I know what you mean,_" Tzu Zi said.

"_What happened there... It shouldn't have happened,_" Nila said. "_It makes no sense, and yet perfect sense. There is no proof or logic to it, but I know that this shouldn't be. Malu is supposed to be here, making insulting jokes and granting levity, not... whatever did happen to her?_"

"_I don't know,_" Tzu Zi said.

"_This isn't the way it's supposed to be,_" Nila said quietly.

"_You're right about that,_" she said. Nila shook her head, then got to her feet. One of the great things about the pants she'd bought from those Adamite Dakongese was that they were comfortable to sleep in, so she didn't bother taking them off until the morning redress. She grunted to herself, easing at weary muscles. "_Are you getting up now? The sun won't rise for hours..._" the firebender complained.

"_You don't need to get up_," Nila said. "_Sleep until your precious sun appears_."

"_Don't mind if I do_," she said, turning over and pulling the blanket back over her on her cot. It wasn't long before her even breathing was lost in the sounds of the many other people snoring in the house. There had to be at least a hundred of them, stacked in this house like milled lumber from basement to the roof. She carefully, quietly picked her way across the wooden floors, if only because she knew one spot squeeked terribly.

The whole place had the look of age to it. Not that it was as singularly old as Ba Sing Se, or even as historic as the lost temples of Hui, but it seemed settled and worn. Every sharp edge had been smoothed by long contact with hands or feet. It even smelled worn. Not filthy, not by a long shot, but the smell of human habitation was at its apex here. She didn't mind of course. The Natural World was just a matter of study for her, not something to be emulated. After all, emulating the natural world would mean that Nila would probably already be part of some thug's harem, probably pregnant even though she was only half-way to sixteen years, be illiterate, stupid, and expect to live no further than her twenty seventh birthday. It was good that those 'naturalists' got smashed flat as they had as a side effect the Dog Rebellions. That kind of thinking should never be unleashed upon an uncritical world.

"You're awake," Ashan's voice came from nearby. Nila leaned around to see him sitting before a shrine to the Ennead.

"No, I'm sleepwalking. Can't you tell by my sleep-snark?" she asked flatly.

He gave a chuckle, and turned his attention back to the shrine. "I'm just amazed you haven't opened with a salvo against the gods already."

She gave a glance to the shrine. Most of the figures of the High Host were represented, even if Ubasti seemed to have a great deal more care taken to her. The one who Ashan was referring to, though, was obviously Inpu, the black skinned Host of the dead.

"I'm not going to poke a wounded Platypus Bear. I've learned better," Nila answered.

"And I appreciate that," Ashan said, turning back toward them. There was a moment of silence. "Sometimes, I wonder if you're not right about them. That they do not listen, or that they do not care."

She tilted her head. "Personally, I'd be happier if people stuck to dealing with things which exist, things of the natural world."

"When did you become an atheist, Nila?" Ashan asked her, an edge to his voice.

"I wouldn't call myself an atheist," she answered.

"Then what gods to you believe in?" he pressured.

"Archeophthese is about as close as I would come to worshiping something," she said with a chuckle. Ashan stared back at her, obviously not getting the joke. "He's a scientist, from back before bending swept across the globe? Invented scientific physics?"

"I was being serious," Ashan said.

"And so was I," she countered. "I believe in what can be proven or disproven. There is no place in my life for faith. At least, if there is, I have not discovered it yet," which was itself a lie. There was one place of faith in her life. That Spirit world.

"I don't think you're the right person to talk to about this," Ashan said.

"Very well," Nila agreed. There was silence again. "What will you do now? Open a butcher's shop here? Get a wife, start a family?"

"I can't," Ashan said quietly. "It's too raw. Too painful. Everything I see here reminds me that my family is gone," he fell silent for a moment, then turned to her. "Would... Would you be averse to me going with you? If only for a while?"

"You wish to go to Ba Sing Se?" she asked.

"I just need some time to think, time away from places like this," he motioned around him.

"I cannot say what torments you will suffer on this journey," Nila warned. "Both from without and within."

"I've 'put up with' you for fourteen years thus far," Ashan said. "What more could you do to me?"

"Also, I have but one rule for keeping my company," she said. He waited for her to continue. "Do not ever say that, or anything like it, again. I might be a godless reprobate, but I will not have anybody tempting fate around me. I've learned my lesson on that one," she finished at a mutter.

A slamming at the door startled both of them, and both shared a glance. It came again, vigorous and rude in the night. Above and behind, Nila could hear people shifting out of sleep. "What is that?" Ashan asked.

"Open this door in the name of the Sultan!"

"And there we have an answer," Nila said flatly. The matriarch of the house began to bundle down, muttering under her voice.

"Just a minute, let an old woman shuffle! My knees aren't what they used to be!"

"Ibtihaj, you are to be brought into custody on charges of smuggling," the voice shouted through the door. Ibtihaj gave a roll of her eyes, and her demeanor was very much 'oh, this again', rather than outright panic.

"I don't think you have the right house; go away. We're trying to sleep!"

"If you do not open this door, we will strike it off its hinges!"

"So impatient he is," the old woman said with a shake of her head.

"You're not worried?" Ashan asked, incredulous.

"I have stepped this dance many times," she said. "Besides, if they try to break in, I'll just take one of the six secret exits and escape into the slums."

"And don't think about trying to flee! We've got guards on all seven exits!"

Ibtihaj paused, then looked down, counting on her fingers. "But the Host he's right. Which one am I forgetting?"

"Can you please focus on the fact that we're about to be raided, and not which secret exit you've forgotten about?" Nila shouted.

"Don't worry, don't worry, all will be well," Ibtihaj said.

"We're coming in!"

"Fine, fine, I shall open the door for you," the old woman said. "Young people these days, they have no manners at all! It is shameful the behavior they show!"

She opened the door to be faced by a wall of angry looking town guardsmen, who were lead by an older man with the flowing, pristine white clothes of a Darvesh. "Ibtihaj, you will stand before the Sultan and defend yourself against the charges levied against you. Do you comply or will these men cut you down where you stand?"

"Oh, don't be so impatient. I'll come along. Not every day I get to see the palace, after all," the old woman said with bright tones, almost as though she'd left half of her brain upon her bedside table. Of course, even Nila knew an act when she saw one. No better way to defend oneself than by making the charges against her seem not only foolish but vindictive.

"You were warned about tenants, woman," the most grizzled, and well armored, of the guardsman said. "Shall we run them out of the city?"

The Darvesh looked Ashan up and down, and was about to make an acceding gesture, but then he spotted Nila. "No. They will stand before the Sultan as well. Bring them."

"What?" Nila demanded, taking a step back.

"This must be some mistake," Ashan said.

"You will silence yourself, boy."

"No, this is ridiculous!" Ashan said. "We arrived only this past afternoon. By what charge to you detain her?"

"That isn't for you to know, whelp," the guardsman said, and made to strike Ashan. But the Darvesh caught the man's hand.

"Do. Not," the man said crisply. The guardsman backed down under the might of religious authority. "What do you fear, child? That your woman be taken by strangers in the night?"

"She's not my..."

"Oh, I'm not his..." Ashan and Nila snapped simultaneously.

"Silence," the Darvesh said quietly, but with a weight which made even Nila quiet herself. "There has been a charge levied against a woman of this description, one of assault against a noble scion. Since he has gone to Ababa, the Sultan will deal with this matter of justice. Now, I suggest you remain here, young man. It is best for you."

"Assault?" Ashan asked quickly. Nila gave a befuddled shrug. "Who did you assault?"

"I don't know, otherwise I might have apprised you of it!"

"First that abusive ass from back home, now you just go around accosting noblemen?" Ashan asked. "What exactly were you up to when you left home, anyway?"

"You know full well what I was up to," Nila snapped.

"Heh. He says she's not his woman. I'm not convinced," that older guardsman said. Nila's mouth slammed shut with an angry clack, followed by the grinding of her teeth. If her annoyances kept up like this, her teeth would likely be perfectly smooth before the end of summer.

"Yes, she could use a man in her life. Head's too in the clouds, I'd say," Ibtihaj added.

"Nobody was asking you, old bat," Nila muttered.

"Show some respect to your elders," the guardsman shouted.

"I show respect where it is deserved," she turned to Ashan, and switched tongues. "_This will work to the better for me. I will be back soon, and then we will head north._"

"_But... if you don't?_" Ashan asked.

"_Then take my brother in. He needs somebody taking care of him,_" she said quietly. Ashan nodded gravely. She then turned back to the Darvesh. "Well? What are you standing about for? We are due justice, are we not?"

"Could you tell her to be quiet? If you don't, she might 'have an accident' before we get to the palace," the guardsman said.

"For the sake of your captor's sanity, please silence yourself," the Darvesh said. Nila just rolled her eyes at that.

* * *

><p>The road forked before him. He was so far beyond tired that the only thing keeping him going at this point was willpower, and he knew that would fail him eventually. It was just a matter of doing what needed to be done before that happened. It meant finding his sister before it was too late. Zuko ran a thumb along the bifurcated hilt of his sabers. Which way? The path thus far had been obvious enough, but now, he was torn. One way lay the snaking road down the sea, Omashu at its end. The other could reach Omashu as well, but it was a longer route, a drier one, and a clearer one.<p>

Would she pick the shorter, harder trail, where she would be forced to move slowly?

Would she pick the longer, easier trail, where she could keep her full speed?

It was an interesting cognitive juggle that Zuko had to undertake to both realistically consider her actions while believing that she still desperately needed his help. A truth he hadn't considered was that it was more the opposite. But he stared at that fork, and his breath started to speed. He was failing Azula, and his mother, again. Because he couldn't figure out what was right in front of his face.

With a twist of his arms and a roar of frustration, he flashed a bolt of lightning into the rolling hills beyond. With that out of his system, he felt drained, and slumped down to sit on the scarcely stoned highway right at the fork. He cupped his head for a long moment, feeling numb. There had to be a way.

Then, he spotted something, darkness against lightness, in a spot out of the way. He scooted over, and lifted up some drooping grasses which had almost obscured it. There was script on this wall, inexactly writ with greasy soot. He read it and reread it, because he had difficulty translating Whalesh and it was obvious because of the medium that was the only language which would have survived like this.

_I am following your sister, Nephew. Please, trust I have the best in mind for her._

_You will find me where three roads meet_.

There was also an arrow, pointing down the rainy path. Instantly, he turned to the drier path, intercepting his Uncle clear on his mind. He'd made it one step before he coached himself to stillness. "Don't be stupid, Zuko," he told himself. "What is he trying to tell me?"

Zuko paused, looking at that writing again. The message seemed clear, but if there was one thing that living for three years with his Uncle had taught him, it was that things were never precisely what they appeared to be with him. He glanced down that easier, longer path. Then, to the harder one. He breathed in, forcing his mind to quiet, even in its turbulence, and opened with a moment of clarity. Iroh had known Zuko well, and taught him well, but obviously, didn't consider that Zuko might have learned more than the old man had sought to teach. Iroh wanted Zuko to disbelieve his directions, and strike out despite him.

It was a double bluff.

Zuko started walking, following the arrow which Iroh would never consider Zuko clever enough to follow. There was some irony in the fact that, had he never listened to Iroh at all, he would have walked the same path, but for different reasons. He looked ahead, at the switchbacks which began in the hazy distance, and leveled his eyes, squared his shoulders.

"I'm coming, Azula," he said. "I'll keep you safe."

* * *

><p>"That could have gone better," Sativa said as she emerged from the berm which parted the Lower Ring from the Middle, its great wall behind her. Of those that managed to escape, the Emperor emerged last. "So we can only assume that at a significant level the Order has been compromised in Ba Sing Se."<p>

"We should go somewhere else," Bato instantly offered. "There's got to be a safer place to find this information. What about that library in the desert you were always talking about."

"No," Piandao said simply.

"What library?" Zeruel asked.

"Be silent, politician, you are out of your element. That is an option which is not open to us any longer," Sativa answered the Tribesman's question. "We must advance with this."

"I don't think you're thinking this through," Beifong said. "He knows you're in the city. His goons have found us once. What's to stop him from finding us again?"

"I'll just be more perceptive in the future," Sativa said. "I should have known that Eryu was going to sell me out."

"Sati, does something seem wrong to you?" Piandao asked.

"Many things seem wrong to me right now," she pointed out humorlessly.

"No, I think I know what he's talking about," Beifong said, catching Sativa's sleeve and stopping her.

"What is this paranoia you host?" Sativa asked.

"Listen!"

Sativa glanced around, and a chill ran through her. "I hear nothing," she said, making it clear that she understood the ramifications of that. You could always hear people in Ba Sing Se, it was the greatest concentration of human beings on this planet. You were never more than a dozen feet away from one. So for there to be no sounds of bustle, of voices, of song...

"How?" Bato asked.

Sativa turned and had her bow out in an instant, snapping a shot the instant the clack of stone upon tile reached her ear. But though the arrow flew true, it found not flesh but a stone fist to explode against. That she had a second arrow on the nock didn't avail her much, since she could see dozens, then at least a hundred of the green robed, pan-hatted footpads on the roofs and in the alleys, some of them silently clinging in the naked stone of the wall and surrounding environs. Black streaks launched out of the air, slamming across the face and arms of Zeruel, hurling him to the ground bound hand and foot, and his mouth locked shut by stone. The others were instantly at her back, with Piandao holding both swords out and at the ready.

"Well?" Sativa asked. "Are you going to make me wait for my own murder?"

"Murder you?" the deep voice came through the darkness. She felt a shiver run through her at that. "Why on this Earth would I want that?"

"_Impossible_," she muttered in her own tongue. "You would never..."

He appeared just inside the circle of agents of the Cultural Authority, and opened the hood of a lantern, casting them all into a pool of light. He was not a large man, quite a bit shorter than either Bato or Piandao. His hair was severely receded, approaching complete baldness, and his dark green eyes were shrewd. "You presume much, Dragon of the East. Imagine my surprise having you back in my web, especially after evading it before. You really do think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

"You won't take us alive, Long Feng," she said.

"Why not?" he asked, his deep tones droll. "After all, you've put _so much effort_ into placing yourselves into the snare. It would be negligent of me to not collect. And you even managed to snare the Emperor with your fumblings. We've been looking for you for a long time. To think you were right under my nose this whole time," Zeruel glared for all he was worth for he could do nothing more than that.

"We could leave," Beifong said. "And not return."

"That does not interest me," Long Feng said. "But having the fabled Dragon of the East?"

"You will not take me alive."

"So you presume, and your presumptions will be the end of you," Long Feng said confidently. "You once fought against the Dragon of the West and won. You _will_ fight for Ba Sing Se again."

"I have no time to fight for your vanity nor avarice. Now you cannot believe that these... Dai Li... of yours," using the denigratory term Piandao had invented during their stay in the city almost two decades ago, "will be able to meaningfully hamper us, otherwise you might have had a smaller number. Have you set the army against us as well? I doubt they will heed your word over mine. They well remember who stood on the walls for them, and who cowered in the Halls of Culture."

Long Feng gave a bass chuckle at that. "And you continue to presume, desert-dweller."

"Then send your men to their deaths. I will have Bato stand down so that it is a far fairer fight," she said with a smirk.

"Or perhaps you might have your lady stand down?" Long Feng asked. He started to smile. "Or should I make things a bit more interesting?"

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

Long Feng turned to Beifong, and cleared his voice. "Joo Dee, the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."

"What is the madness?" Sativa demanded.

"I am honored to accept his invitation," Beifong said monotone, her fists dropping from their martial stance. Sativa turned slightly. Beifong's eyes had dilated completely, and a blissful, mindless look settled onto her face.

"Wh..." Piandao asked, since he couldn't see the transformation. She was at his back.

"Take them down," Long Feng said with a tone of boredom.

In an instant, Sativa had to completely reevaluate the fight, and in that instant, Beifong reached down, grabbing a fist's coating of stone and slamming it into the back of Piandao's head, sending him to the floor unconscious in a single blow. Bato backed away, trying to send a fist at her, to slow her down, but she was operating outside the domain of thought. Even as Sativa drew her own knives, cold and ready to put down the sudden threat for good, Beifong was stepping away, bending as she went, and the stone between Bato and Sativa surged inward, sending the two slamming into each other. She was stunned slightly by that blow, and Bato had to push her aside when Beifong's follow up almost clubbed her as she had Piandao. She shook the stars from her sight, and gave just a moment to see if Piandao was still alive. He still breathed, which caused a shard of relief in her, if one she couldn't foster, since Beifong was now giving full pressure onto Bato, and in a fight between bender and non, there was usually an edge to the Bender.

Bato fought with Beifong, obviously not wanting to hurt her, always trying to grab her, pin her down, trip her up. But just like Sativa had taught the girl, mobility was life. And she was much more mobile than Bato was. Long Feng watched confidently from his pool of light as Beifong – no, it was obvious to her that she was Joo Dee, plain and simple – kept bending, sending up pillars and blocks which Bato had to bat aside, each one draining his energy, battering his body. And because he was in her path, Sati couldn't get a shot. So she changed tactics. She turned her aim toward Long Feng, and hurled a blade right at his neck.

A flicker of dodge and it clattered against the stone near him. "I grow bored of this," Long Feng said.

Joo Dee twisted around Bato's grasp and gave a stomp to the ground which sent a pillar straight up between the Tribesman's legs. His eyes bulged in his head and he toppled over sideways with a tormented cry. She, on the other hand, readied her knives, preparing to murder someone who she had dared to call friend. But even as she surged toward the woman who looked upon her with a fixed smile and empty eyes, she felt something slam into her arm, twisting her 'round. She tried to slash back, but her blow was stunted.

Because there was a stone glove locked upon her wrist. She let out a growl, dropping the blade from her captured hand to her free one, and continued, trying to not make this a complete rout, to at least have some semblance of her pride in this, for she could well expect what would come next. But there was another slam, and she was twisted about once more, then her arms started to pull apart, straining at her shoulders. She stomped one foot forward, not toward the girl, this time. Toward the man who controlled her mind. Long Feng stood, watching with mild interest, as she pressed against the will of two of those Dai Li trying to restrain her. All she had to do was get one shot, one clout in the skull. She might get lucky. She might crack his bald head like an egg.

And that was when the last of them caught an ankle. Now unable to balance herself, she was flipped forward onto her chin. She took a painful intake of breath, trying to regain what was knocked from her, and she heard the footfalls of Long Feng approaching closer. "And see what your presumption has earned you?"

"I will destroy you, Long Feng," Sativa promised.

"No, I don't think you will," he said, leaning down, and grabbing a handful of her hair. "I think that you are going to serve us, serve Ba Sing Se as the Dragon of the East once more. So when the Fire Nation comes again, they will learn that they will never disrupt what I have created here. Ba Sing Se will stand eternally as the safest, most powerful nation on this earth, and you will be a part of it. And you will do so willingly. Well, for a certain value of willingly."

"I will never–"

It was then that Long Feng smashed her face down into the stones of the street, and her consciousness fled into cold, terrible blackness.

As silence returned to the abandoned streets, one form high above on the dividing wall watched, mouth open in shock, the whittling he'd been doing for the moment forgotten. He watched as the horde of green robed figures converged, and without fanfare dragged the heroes of decades past into a building far too small to contain them all, before vanishing completely into obscurity.

"Well," he said, tucking the whale-tooth knife back into his sash. "That was less than ideal."

He swung his legs over the wall, and walked back into shadows. It would do him well to be seen on a night like this after all. The darkness would have its due.

* * *

><p>Most girls would have started at the slamming of the door directly at her back. Nila wasn't most girls. Say what one would about having the Dragon of the East for a mother, it had definitely made her stronger for it. The room was only about two thirds of one, as one whole wall and part of the ceiling was absent, making the chamber something like a balcony, albeit one flanked by the rest of the palace at either side. The lights here, unlike elsewhere in the palace which were blazing bright even in the small hours of the morning, were dim and low, braziers sitting no more than a hands-breadth from the floor. As she blinked, trying to get her eyes to acclimate to the sudden darkness, she could see the logic to them. Even under the blackness of the current new moon, those lanterns cast enough light so that nobody would trip over anything.<p>

"Well, are you going to stand by the door or are you going to step forward?" a man's voice said from the edge of the room/balcony. Instantly, Nila felt a compunction to remain exactly where she was, just to spite him. But that wouldn't accomplish anything. After all, this man was potentially her sole judge and possible executioner.

Nila started to walk forward, and as she did, her eyes grew more and more acute to the contents of the room. It was a study of sorts, desks against the walls and great shelves covered in books, pale decorative plants breaking up the spaces. She started to see the other in the room, that man, as well. A metal squeak, and a bit of movement, and she frowned. A spyglass, obviously, but one of unusual proportion. She came to a halt a few paces away.

"Tell me what you see there," the older man said.

"I can see nothing. It is too far," Nila said. There was a grunt, then some movement from that other, as he reached down and grabbed something, tossing it to Nila. It was a more conventional lens, which she raised to her eye and followed his out-thrust finger. Off in the distance, past the north gates, she could see the obscure forms of people out amongst the sand, their backs stooped, but their heads, little more than dots at this distance, swinging furtively. "They are searching."

"And of course they are. Market day was yesterday, and they are going over the dross," he said. "It is a telling thing that there are those of such poverty that they would set aside their revulsion of gold to feed themselves. They would pan for the gold we melt down and cast away, even if it means damnation and torment in their afterlife for doing so."

"The whole thing is absurd. Gold is just a metal," Nila said before her brain caught up with her mouth.

There was a moment of silence, then a chuckle, as the man beside her twisted the nib of a gas lamp, and the flame danced higher. Almost unconsciously, she took a half step away from the man in the sturdy chair. "So one such as you would say," said the Sultan, his own hazel eyes weighing her. He was an older man, obviously, but he looked it. His face was lined with strain and worry, and the hair which peeked out from under his blue night-cap was iron grey. His teeth also had gaps between them, and were somewhat yellowed. Leaving her in a state of trepidation, he looked out to the north again. "They believe that gold is the great temptation of Setekh, He Who Is The Sands. That its shining color was designed to instill greed in mankind, so that they would dig forever at it, until their fingers were raw and bloody, and they bake dry under the sun. That any contact with gold is deeply taboo, to the point of gathering it is a blasphemy."

"They say?" Nila asked. "What say you?"

"Many things," he answered. "A great many things. So many things in fact that I can do little else but say things."

"What is going on? Where is Ibtihaj?"

"I reminded her of the nature of our relationship," he said, slowly wheeling that large spyglass so that it now peered into the stars of the heavens. "The greatest problem in having a cultural distaste toward gold is that it makes intracontinental trade a practical impossibility. Everybody in the East uses a gold standard. Do you know how many times an Eastern Nation has tried to hyperinflate our currency in only the thirteen years I have sat as Sultan? Seven. All because we cannot use a known precious metal to base our economy on."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you, unlike others, might understand it," he said, leaning in to view through his lens. "You have a developed mind, if your mother had any observation to her. I don't doubt that she did."

"You know my mother?"

"Everybody in the East Continent knows your mother, oblivious girl," he said. He leaned back for a moment, then turned to her. "Why do you cripple yourself, Dragon's Daughter?"

She scowled at that. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You are known rude to the point of comedy," Wahid said, a calculation clear in his eyes. "But it is a tactlessness of bluntness, not of insult. You had to have known that at the merest mention of your mother's name, you would have been an honored guest in this palace, supped the finest of dinners this nation has to offer, known the entertainment of interesting people, and rested in the most comforting of beds. Instead, you opt to keep your identity a secret, and immediately antagonize my Yeniceri, and then upon my taking of your property, do not even seek legal redress. Instead you, by simple chance, end up in the hands of Adin and her brood, breaking bread with smugglers and robbers, sleeping on a mouldy cot. So I again ask you; why do you cripple yourself?"

"How is that crippling myself?" she asked. "My name has earned me nothing, only my actions have."

"But your name can open opportunities outright denied to those lacking such, but cleave to your abilities well," Wahid pointed out. "A peasant in the field might have the most cunning of minds for economy in all of the nation, but he is relegated to pulling radishes and dying of dysentery in abject poverty. It is no fair thing, but it is the world in which we live."

"So you'd have me live in the shadow of my mother?"

"I would have you leverage what you've been given, arbitrarily as it has been, to your ends," Wahid said testily. "Anything less is handicapping yourself pointlessly."

"I'm not sure I understand the meaning of this," Nila said.

He raised a brow to her, then leaned back, cranking up the lantern to its fullest and banishing the darkness. He motioned to a chair. "Sit. You need not stand in my presence. I am not my predecessor," and she did so. He reached aside, and lifted up something from out of sight, and hefted it before him. Nila's eyes narrowed.

"That's..."

"...an outstanding piece," he said. He handed it to her, and she snatched it from him. "I can see why you'd be protective of it. I have seen other firearms from other producers, but none of that... elegance."

"It is the finest I've made," she said. His grey brows rose at that.

"You produced this piece? That is impressive indeed."

"It is garbage," she said. He gave her a look of surprise. "I produced this a year ago. I have learned much in a year."

"You call it your finest work and denigrate it," he said. "What madness has infested you?"

"Have you ever met my mother?" she asked, and then paused. "Of course you have. Well, imagine that eighteen hours of every day."

He gave a chuckle at that. "Then I suppose you deserve some sympathies." He pointed at the firearm. "The barrel structure is ingenious, but I cannot find how to reload it. There is no ram-rod."

She levered back the bolt, and the firing mechanism swung out. "It is breach loaded," she said. "A much more sensible method."

"I can see so," he said. "It is a pity that these will never be more than a technological curiosity," she raised a brow. "Two... or rather four... shots in a minute is a poor showing against a proper bow which can launch a dozen, or worse a bender of stones or fire, who can launch half a hundred in that same minute given proper mastery."

"Indeed," Nila agreed, locking the thing back together. "As I have heard it called, too loud, too slow, too expensive, and too delicate. I still consider it a finer weapon."

"And there is the pride I have heard of," Wahid said.

She leaned forward, letting her firearm settle into the crook of the chair. "Tell me, what is Ibtihaj to you? What relationship is it you spoke of?"

"You still think of such things?" he asked. "Your mind is an iron trap, it seems."

"And yours is an Azuli grease-worm."

"How do you think I've lasted as long as I have?" he said with a laugh. "You are a scientist, or of scientific mind at least. I am an economist. And a vital part of the economy in a place as... superstitious as Northern Si Wong, is the ability to manipulate a well regulated grey market. Without money-changers, we would crumble in a matter of months, but would the Caliphs listen to me? No. Gold is more taboo than fornication in this country."

"Why... no, a better question is _how_ you ever managed to become Sultan with such attitudes and beliefs," Nila asked with a smirk.

"Someone had to do the job," he said with a shrug. "And there are certain perks to being an atheist in charge of one of the most militantly superstitious peoples on this planet."

Nila's eyes shot up at that. "That is not a claim many would willingly give."

"I'm old. I have little to prove," he said with a chuckle.

"I wonder then why you wanted to see me," Nila pressed.

"To the core at last," Wahid said. "Frankly, I am surprised you allowed me to ramble as long as I had. I had heard your impatience was only matched by your tactlessness," she glared at him. "There it is, there it is. The charges which brought you here were indeed valid. You had assaulted a member of the upper class, and he demanded restitution."

"What? Who?"

"The son of Sheik Sham'Moalim," Wahid said. "Honestly, I'm surprised you managed to evade him. He is a hard man to escape."

"Not any longer. He is dead," she said. "Gashuin indicted me? That snake!"

"Wait, a moment please. What do you mean that the Sheik is dead?"

"You have received no word?" she asked. She rolled her eyes. "Fitting, it seems that I am the messenger after all."

"Please, what news is this?"

"About a fortnight ago..."

"The scarlet night?" Wahid asked hotly. "There was a riot in the streets over that madness. What news is this you've brought me?"

She took a breath. "Sentinel Rock is gone."

"It has fallen?" the Sultan asked.

"More like wiped off the face of this Earth," she clarified. "Khagan Khatun – Borte, she is also called – brought siege to the fortress, aided by refugees from the invasion of Great Whales. But in the midst of the battle, a woman I thought was a friend showed that she was not what she appeared. She... manifested that light, and tore the fortress to shreds, destroying both armies in the process."

"This is..." the Sultan said, his skin becoming pale. "I do not doubt your truth. Why?"

"She thought she was the Avatar," she said, shaking her head. "She was something... else."

"But Borte, does she yet live?"

"I believe so," she said. "Her army, however, is obliterated. Only the people of her Iron Horde remain, and the springs of Sentinel Rock have become an unlivable hellscape. There is no realistic path from the South to this city," she shook her head slowly. "And now, there _is_ no South Si Wong, either."

"This is dire news, but I thank you for it," Wahid said. "They call me an over-thinking coward, but I know where I am best suited. All must be known for any useful enterprise to succeed. Please, stay as a guest of my palace while I..."

"I must decline," she said. "We are heading out of the desert, and planned to depart soon."

"Why?"

"I must find my mother, and deliver my brother to her."

"Ah, yes, young Sharif," Wahid nodded. "I had heard what became of him. Such a shame. He could have been so... But I digress. If you seek your mother, you will find her in Ba Sing Se."

"What?" she asked.

"It might cleave against another cultural taboo to heed the advice of a woman, but I know that your mother gives little but good. She and I have been in contact for a long time, and she sent me a message not too long ago that she was at the Great Wall. If you would find her, it will be there."

Nila leaned back in her seat for a moment, glancing out over the city to the deserts beyond it. "Why are you even helping me? What do you gain?"

"You are your mother's daughter," he said, and cut her off when she scoffed, "however little you wish to believe it. It is my personal policy to invest in those who shall reap the greatest benefit. And I can see great benefit in you."

"So you would use me?" Nila asked coldly.

"No, not my benefit. Simply benefit," he answered, then took a moment to mull, stroking at his chin. "There are things you yet do not understand, but I have no doubt that in time, you will. The garden gate opens to those who are willing to know."

"Is this all?" Nila asked, impatient. "I have had well enough of this culture for the time being."

"So much alike you two are," he said quietly. "And that will be your downfall, I fear. Pride is and has always been your mother's greatest failing. Guard against it, Dragon's Daughter, and your life will be far sweeter than hers has been."

Nila got to her feet, and pulled the gun up behind her, draping it on the strap across her chest so that it lay with its barrel above her shoulder. "My life is hardly sweet," Nila said.

"Give it time," he answered. As she walked, he called her name for the first time since she'd entered his presence. She scowled at having to hear it, and turned to him. "I have one question about that device. What happens when it misfires?"

"Is it not obvious? It explodes," she said.

"And why would you design something with such a drawback?"

"Why indeed," She said, walking away. The doors opened for her, and the Yeniceri were waiting for her. Even then, she wondered how it was that all of the most important people of this age seemed to want to talk to her. It was almost as though fate were rearranging itself to mock her. But she couldn't think about that, not now. Now, she had a path again. Mother was in Ba Sing Se. So she would head north.

She was a dutiful daughter, after all.

* * *

><p><strong>I wanted to do this chapter since I started fleshing out Nila back in S1. The great irony of this is the parallels between mother and daughter. In a strong way, Sativa is something like a Greek Hero, particularly of the Tragic sort. She is a strong character, but possessed of a fatal flaw. Hers is her pride, and her hubris. Her heedless overconfidence in her intellect and planning abilities leads to her downfall, and is has in the past as well. In fact, in the myriad other universes which Avatar spans, her life is a story in it. Nila, on the other hand, is arrogant and abrasive, yes, but she recognizes her flaw and takes as many steps as she is capable against it. Thus, the dramatic irony of juxtaposing the two stories against each other. Almost the same things happen to both, but the outcome couldn't be any more different.<strong>

**Another personal golden calf of mine is considering how the same group would exist in another world. If you know anything about me, I shamelessly recycle characters throughout every story I create, take part in, or play. So pondering Sativa's Reading Group (as I humorously refer to her association of middle-aged badasses), I realized that while they are not a nail of themselves in this story, they are a bellweather for how the world has changed around them. In fact, in this world, they're just about as well off as they could be. During the Great Noodle Incident, only Llewenydd died. Compare that to Canon, where Llewenydd, Zha Yu, and Sati all ended up dead, Piandao and Poppy Beifong permanently cut off contact, and Bato only survived because he wasn't there. Sure, they're all in a rough way in this (you know, imprisoned, tortured, and one of them carted off to get Joo Dee-ified), but compared to Canon, they're all just peachy. After all, Nila and Sharif got to exist in this world. And that's kinda important to my narrative. I'd go into further detail, but I'd prefer the Noodle Incident remain nice and Noodly.**

**Can anybody else tell that I'm putting a disproportionate amount of thought into my writing? And still, I hammer out a one-hour alt for the obviously terrible ending to ME3, and it gets three times the traffic I usually ever see. There is no justice. Ah, well. I promise plenty of Azula and Aang next time, folks. And they're in a scene which I wanted to write since BEFORE STARTING TO PEN CHILDREN OF THE WAR! No pressure.**

_Leave a review._


	23. The First Earthbender

**This chapter contains a scene that I've wanted to do for about two years. Now, I finally get to do it.**

* * *

><p>"Are those two gonna be done soon?" Toph asked peevishly from the shore, nodding toward where Sokka's sister and her counterpart the Avatar were deep in training. Sokka sighed and shrugged. "I mean, playing with your puddles is all fine and good but didn't you guys say that you were on a bit of a time crunch?"<p>

"Don't listen to her," Katara said. "You need to train in waterbending, and I'm the best teacher you've got. Now let's see your octopus stance," Sokka raised his loose hair from his face, getting a glance at the two benders wading in the waters. Aang's stance was broad, while his sister's was narrow. Katara sighed, shaking her head. "No, you're too spread out. Let me show you," she moved to him, altering the set of his arms. "If you keep your hands toward your core, you can defend yourself better. Doesn't that feel better?"

Aang looked mildly impressed. "Yeah, it kinda does."

"Can you believe those two?" Toph asked.

"It's what they do," Sokka said boredly. "She pushes him around, then he shows her up and she storms off in a huff."

"I do not huff!" Katara complained from the waters. Sokka let his hair fall again and returned to basking in the heat. Since they crossed the equator again, they'd passed from what was winter in the north back into summer in the south. The only downside was that the heat wasn't what it would have been last week, and that would have been lesser than the week before it. There was no way around it. Even with the seasons essentially backwards compared to the 'civilized world', autumn always pushed summer aside. Winter would not be long in following it. And at the end of that winter, the world ended. Lovely.

"She's huffing, ain't she?" Toph asked.

"Don't even need to look at her," Sokka confirmed. Katara turned away from her brother and went back to training the Avatar, for what good it would do. They'd all suffered a huge setback in Summavut, obviously enough, and Aang wasn't the only one feeling a bit stomped on. In fact, Aang had it a bit easy, in that while he had lost the battle, at least he hadn't lost the girl, too.

"You're sounding a bit more mopey than I remember," Toph pointed out. "And you've been mopey for a while. This have somethin' to do with that girl you were going on about?"

"Her name was Yue, not 'that girl'," Sokka said at a snap.

"Gods, don't bite my head off. You might break a tooth on me," she said. "And I can see that I managed to hit the nerve. You do realize that chances are, you're gonna win out in the end, am I right?"

"Why?" Sokka asked.

"That's the way these things go," Toph said with a shrug.

"You might not have noticed, but things don't tend to go 'the way things go' around us," Sokka pointed out. "The way things go would have been us winning at Summavut, and... and..."

"And what?" she asked.

"You need to stop treating this like it's one of your stories," Sokka said simply. "It's not. People die, and it's not fair, and it doesn't make sense. This is real and trying to treat it like it isn't isn't just wrong, it's also sad."

Toph flinched a bit at that. "Well..."

"Not bad, you make an excellent octopus," Katara said from the water, prompting Sokka to lean up from his basking spot and see the Avatar frolicking about the stream at the center of a tentacled mass of water. Sokka chuckled at that, recalling something from his youth that Dad really wouldn't have wanted him to see.

"Something funny?" Toph asked, not even looking remotely in the right direction. And then he rolled his eyes. Of course she wasn't. She was blind. It was remarkable how easy that escaped him.

"Aang being a kid and Katara trying to be everybody's mother. Basically, we're back to business as usual," he said lazily.

"Why aren't we going?" Toph asked. "Yeah, I get that you have to get out of the saddle or you'd go nuts, but isn't Omashu just a couple hours away?"

"Appa needed rest, so we rest," Sokka said, rolling his head toward where Appa was laid out in an almost identical pose of sloth, six legs splayed out and head tipped back.

"Gotta say, your Appa doesn't have as much go in him as I'd like," Toph said.

Sokka sat up at that. "Appa's a magical flying fuzzy six legged monster almost the size of a building. That's about as much go as anything'd need."

"Yeah, but he's got no fortitude," Toph pointed out. "Eight hours in the air and he's tired. Ten and he's drop-dead exhausted. Now an Ostrich Horse might not fly, but you can run them flat out for ten hours and they'll just squawk at you 'till you gave them a big dinner, then do the same thing the next day. Hell, a Badger Mole can dig for eight days straight before bothering to sleep, through rock as hard as bronze."

"And how would you know that?" Sokka asked.

"I've got a very good source on Badger Moles," she said daintily. She got to her feet, striking the dust off of her green and yellow clothes. She'd brought more than any one of the rest of them in terms of clothes and cash, but then again, she'd had a lot more to work with from the start. And it meant that they could bee-line south without worrying about being hungry or such. "You know what? I'm thinking we might need to whip Fuzzy here into shape as well. Get some stamina under its belt... or whatever those leathery things on its belly are.

"That's called 'Appa's Belly'," Sokka helpfully pointed out.

"He's big and he's lazy," Toph declared. She gave a half turn toward Aang, who was now out of martial training and was trying quite unsuccessfully to emulate Katara's skill at healing. "Considering his master, hardly surprising."

"Oh, give the big guy some slack. How many other creatures make round trips from one side of the planet to the other and then back in a four month period?" Sokka said. Toph sighed and gave a nod, and was about to say something else, when she turned, concern plain on her face.

"Wait..." she said.

"What is it, Toph," Sokka said, getting up and reaching for where his boomerang-case – along with the rest of his clothes – was.

"Oh, no," she said.

"What!"

"We've got weapon's-grade stupid incoming, and annoying rides with them," Toph said, a glare settling onto her expression.

Sokka drooped somewhat, a confused frown on his face, and he scratched his head with his weapon. "And what's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

His answer came in the form of a song.

"Don't fall in love with the traveling girl; she'll leave you broke and broken hear~ted..."

Sokka's eyes went wide. "Guys, wake up Appa. We've gotta leave!"

"Fire Nation?" Katara asked, the glowing water from her hands dropping away back into the river.

"Worse," Toph answered.

"What could be worse than Fire Nation here?" Aang asked.

Toph gave a nod toward where a fisherman's path cut into the rocks, as the first of them, carrying an ill-tuned pipa in his hands, and wearing the most disorienting array of clashing colors, approached. "Gonzos," she answered flatly. Sokka gave her a frown, not knowing that word. "Let's just say that _smelling their breath_ might send you on a trip you didn't plan for."

The vacant faced man brightened as he spotted the group of them. "He~y... river people!" he cheerfully exclaimed.

"What's a 'gonzo'?" Katara asked.

"Ask Sokka that in about fifteen minutes," Toph said direly.

"We're not river people," Aang pointed out.

"Then... what kinda people are ya?" the nomad asked, not standing all too steady on his feet.

"We're just... people," Aang said.

"...Far. Out," the man said in awe.

"And who are you supposed to be?" Sokka asked, pointing his boomerang at the man.

"That's a fine question, my naked friend," he answered. Toph half-turned to him.

"You're naked?" she asked.

"How could you not..." Katara began, and then kicked herself for the same reason Sokka had.

"The weather was nice," Sokka defended himself. "So, answer that 'fine question'."

"We're nomads!" the man said.

"We?" Katara asked.

"Yeah, me – I'm Chong – and my wife Lily and Moku and..." he turned around. "Oh. They're not here. That's nutty, man. Ah, well, they'll figure out where I am eventually."

"You're a nomad?" Aang asked with a smile. "I'm a nomad too!"

"Really?" the nomad asked with an excited smile of his own. "What are the chances? I'm a nomad too!"

"What," Sokka said flatly.

"And _that's_ what a gonzo is," Toph answered concisely. Sokka palmed his head with a crisp clap of palm to forehead. "We should probably leave before they make Sokka's head explode."

"Oh, we're not into head-exploding, not since we laid off the barrel peyote. Gotta be careful with that stuff. It'll shake your head," Chong said as though passing along a secret.

"It... exploding head?" Sokka asked.

"I got better," Chong said.

Another crisp clap, another slight reddening of his forehead. Toph went over to Sokka' sister and started to physically drag her toward where Appa had only now rolled over, grunting in that confused way that it did at the doubtless bizarre smelling individual now in their midst. Sokka could tell that Appa had instantly decided against licking this stranger, since doing so would possibly give it a toxic overdose of something from the man's sweat alone. Aang, though, still looked excited.

"So where have you been?" Aang asked.

"We've been everywhere. And where we haven't been, we've heard stories about," Chong said with a far-reaching gesture, as though trying to prove a point, and not grasping that he'd just contradicted himself. Sokka and Toph managed to share an exasperated glance even despite her blindness.

"I'd love to hear about it," Aang said. And at that Toph wilted.

"He does this all the time, doesn't he?" Toph asked, upon releasing her drag of Katara.

"Pretty much," Sokka agreed.

There came a crunching through the underbrush and a woman in fine robes littered with sticks came trundling through. "Chong, I found a shortcut, only it took longer than the path. I think I broke the laws of time and space!"

"And this is my wife, Lily," Chong said. "And Moku and... Oh wait, they're not here, are they?"

Another clap of the forehead.

Lily obviously wasn't the intended owner of those clothes, because they were of two different styles and hardly well cared for. She turned through the group before her and gave a gasp. "Man, I shouldn't have drank that tea, man... I'm seeing naked people and clouds with eyes on the ground!"

"This is going to be a very long day, isn't it?" Sokka asked flatly. Toph could do nothing but nod grimly at his assessment.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

**The First Earthbender**

* * *

><p>"You're exhausted," the girl said.<p>

"No, I'm not," Azula answered. Then, she paused. "And you should know that."

"No, I don't mean physically," her younger self corrected. "What happens when you pop the Avatar's head like a pimple? What then? Father wanted the Avatar in chains, not his head on a pike."

"Then," Azula began, but trailed off. "Then it will be over."

"Oh, that's just lovely, isn't it?" the girl asked with rolling eyes and a singsong tone. "Kill my one chance to prove to Father that I'm worthy of his love and then sulk in a corner somewhere. Brilliant plan."

Azula paused from where she walked down that road, turning past the cliff face so etched in eldritch symbols that the symbols themselves almost formed into art. "This isn't about Father," she said.

The sarcasm fled the girl's face in a heartbeat. "Yes, it is," she answered. "And you're lying to yourself if you're saying anything different."

"_I_ should be the authority on when I'm lying," Azula pointed out.

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" the girl asked snidely, before heading up the road, leaving the older Azula scowling after her.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she finally asked, catching up to the girl in two great strides.

"You think you're in control, don't you?" the girl asked, her tones once again singsong, but behind it there was a darker edge to it. "You push me out and take over, and you think I'm just going to sit here and let it happen? Well, you're dead mistaken, of course. You think you've been fighting for a long time, well, so have I. And tell me something, if you even can; when did you ever descend to the level where you would pick your nose?"

"I never..." she began, but realized that she was doing exactly that. Her hand whipped away and she glared murder at what was essentially herself, who smiled cherubically. "How did you do that?"

"Boredom and practice, in equal measure," she said flatly. "So don't get any bright ideas. If I don't like what you're doing, I will not hesitate to shut you down."

"Am I being threatened by myself?" Azula asked.

"It's the only thing you understand, isn't it?" she asked sweetly. Azula direly wished she could smack the girl. If only, if only.

Azula stomped past the girl, who would find a way to keep up, as sure as the sun set in the West. She was close, she knew that from her memories oldest of all. It'd taken her years to compile where that troublesome brat had gone in his long journey across the face of the earth in that dire, ill-omened year. In fact, the first decade of her freedom was split between Chiyo and trying to understand her enemy, as though that would make a difference at that point. Of course, she hadn't known that this opportunity would present itself, so much had slipped away by the time she could put it into use. But there were things which stood out, memories which would not be erased for time or plenty.

Meeting old friends – when she still had such – stood head and shoulders above that pack.

"Where are we even going?" the girl asked.

"Do you remember lugging a barrel of blasting jelly to a cave-mouth in the Southern Earth Kingdoms, it would have been about two years ago?" Azula asked idly.

"Vaguely. Why did you do that, anyway?" the girl asked.

"That's our destination."

The girl scoffed. "There are far easier ways to get your hands on some explosives. Walking across the length of the South Kingdoms hardly seems worth the effort."

"Oh, the explosives are just a little spice on this platter. The main course will be the Avatar, and a heaping helping of crushing rocks."

"You're not planning these things very thoroughly," the girl said outright. "That's going to be your downfall."

"Shut up... me," Azula said.

"Yeah, it sounds fairly ridiculous when you say it out loud, doesn't it?"

Azula grumbled to herself and kept walking. With any luck, she would deal with the Avatar this time before she was even due for his second appearance. She considered bragging to Mai about her epic long-term planning. And then she remembered.

Mai was long dead. That put a damper on her ego, if nothing else did.

* * *

><p>He laid out a bowl before the dark skinned beauty, who glared at him as though she was certain he was going to stab her or knock her unconscious and drag her to the garrison. "I don't know if you usually eat this kind of stuff, but it's the best I can do at the moment," Shoji said. Blue eyes narrowed, and she muttered something in a language he couldn't speak. It was the tongue of the Water Tribes, obviously, but beyond that it was impenetrable. Shoji slowly leaned down and mimed drinking the stew, but she inched away as he did so.<p>

"You know, you're not making this easy for either of us," Shoji pointed out. Her eyes flit from the stew to him, then back to the stew. He finally got what he thought she was thinking about, and took a spoon full of the food and ate of it himself. "See? Nothing wrong with it at all. Now will you please eat something?"

As he backed away from the bowl, she took it up with both hands and drank it like soup, showcasing just how hungry she'd become. He knew for a fact that she'd raided the lizard-chickens next door for eggs to sustain herself, but she was about as surly a houseguest as Shoji could think of. And it was all the more annoying because her kind were about as unwelcome on this island as Storm Kings would be. If he could get her eating regular food, he might be able to do something else. Maybe get her talking a real language?

There came a tap on the door, and the woman glared as though Fire Lord Ozai himself had burst through the threshold, flinching away as she did so. Shoji rolled his eyes and moved to the exit of his fairly tiny house. It was more than lucky that Shoji was the youngest of his family, and that the others had all long since moved away; when Shoji was a lad, there were six of them piled into this three room house near the sulphur mines. The whole island stank of eggs, outsiders would say. Not surprising. Shoji opened the door, and a girl about his age flapped closed a oiled-canvas umbrella, ducking in out of the beating rain. "On-Ji, what are you doing here?" Shoji asked.

"I thought I'd see how our guest was making due," she said, flashing a big grin at the Tribeswoman in the corner. She turned back to Shoji, and her eyes flicked slightly. "Is she...?"

"She's eating people food for a change," Shoji answered. "But she still hasn't even given me a name. Do you think she's a fugitive?"

"No," On-Ji shook her head. "She's way too young to be an Illegal Bender."

"She could be one of their kids," Shoji pointed out. On-Ji thought about that for a second, then nodded.

"Yeah, she might... but that doesn't mean we should punish her because her parents broke the law. That's just not fair," she leaned in a little closer, as though the low volume was the only thing standing in the way of that Tribeswoman eavesdropping on them. "Do you think _she's_ a... you know... waterbender?"

"She hasn't shown it so far," Shoji said. "She's soaking wet every time she comes in from the bathroom."

"What if that's just part of her ruse?" On-Ji asked worriedly, squeezing at her hair and getting some water out of it as a side-effect.

"Oh, you're just being paranoid," Shoji said. She gave a shrug, and the two of them listened to the rain beating against the walls and roof for a long moment. In her corner, the Tribeswoman had decided to multitask, glaring at the two teenagers and eating simultaneously. "So, as long as you're here... did you bring it?"

"Well, I managed to grab something," she said, opening up the cylindrical case she carried with her. "It's kinda out of date, but it's got the whole world on it, not just the Fire Nation. I thought they didn't even make maps like that nowadays."

"They do," Shoji said with some authority. "But they tend to stay with the military. What's that about, anyway?"

"I wouldn't know," On-Ji said. "Aren't your parents in the military?"

"Yeah, Dad's a cook and Mom works with the mechanics aboard the Jianghu," Shoji said with a nod. Then, he turned to the Tribeswoman and laid the map out on the ground before her. Blue eyes flit from the map to the teenagers, then back up again. "We... are here," he said, pointing to all of them, then to the island of Spring Prince, near the middle of the Ember Archipelago. "You... are from here, right?" he said, pointing to the Tribeswoman, then to the North Pole. The Tribeswoman gave a nod, slowly, cautiously, perhaps even grasping what he was trying to get at.

"Does she even know how to talk?" On-Ji asked. "I heard they treat their women horribly up in the North."

"She says plenty," Shoji assured her. He then turned to her, pointed to her, then ran a circle 'round the map. "You... need to go where?"

The woman raised a brow, shaking her head. On-Ji caught his shoulder and pulled him away from the map for a second. "This can't be a good idea," she said. "She could be a criminal or something."

"I just said..."

"Well, she's certainly no colonist!" the girl stressed. "I mean, why are you helping her?"

"She washed up on the shores covered in bruises and dressed in rags," Shoji said. "Why _wouldn't_ I help her?"

Shoji turned back to the woman, only to find her knelt more closely before the page, eyes locked onto it, and hands splayed out over it. "What's she..." On-Ji asked, but then the woman began to speak. Though the words were in a language he didn't speak, somehow, against all faculty that Shoji knew about, he could understand what she was saying.

_Blessed Irukandji, walker of the thousand-path, speaker of the thousand-tongue;_

_He of Eternity._

_I awoke alone, devoid of thy energy and glory._

_Show me the path, so that we may be made whole again._

_Show me the way, that we may become strong again_.

"What was that?" On-Ji asked.

"It was a... prayer," Shoji said.

"A what? That didn't sound like any prayer to Agni I've ever heard," On-Ji said. "And how'd you even know it was a prayer? She could just be yammering like their kind do."

Shoji was about to ask her how she possibly couldn't hear those words for what they were, but as he did, there was a pop in the air, just the slightest snap as a tiny arc of electricity zapped down from one of the woman's fingertips, searing a pinprick hole into the map. On-Ji's eyes shot wide.

"NO! You burnt my map!" she said. "Agni's blood, Hide's gonna kill me when he finds out about this!"

"You really should break up with him," Shoji said staunchly. "He's a bad kid."

"But it's still his map!" she stressed. Shoji managed to get between the distressed National and the tired looking Tribeswoman. "Hey! Let me past! I need to..."

"What is that?" Shoji asked, pointing at the mark, right near the center of the largest island in the Archipelago. Grand Ember, the 'capitol' of this 'country', and so long subsumed by the Midlanders culture and power that it might as well be a province. From the look of the mark, though, it was probably right in the woods between the Two Cities. "What does that mean?" Shoji asked.

"It means she's ruined a perfectly good map," On-Ji stressed with definite worry in her voice.

The woman pointed a finger at the mark, and then looked up Shoji. "This is where you need to go?" he asked, miming the motion with his hands. She nodded. "What is at this place? Why do you need to go there?"

She pointed at that mark, and said something, but the only word which he could pick out was 'Irukandji'. He pointed more powerfully at that mark. "So you're looking for this 'Irukandji', and you'll find him there?" he asked, miming once more. She worked through his miming, and then nodded. He smiled. So he could communicate with her. With difficulty, but it was possible.

"Shoji, tell me you're not going to..." On-Ji said.

"Do you need help?" Shoji asked over the girl's warning. The Tribeswoman sighed, glancing away, and nodded. "We'd be happy to," Shoji said. On-Ji's eyes went wide at that.

"_We_? _When_ did this become we?"

"Come on, school doesn't start for a few more weeks. Grand Ember's only a boat-ride away, and a safe one at this time of year. What's the harm?"

"Jee, let me think about it. Two thirteen year olds in the woods with a strange barbarian. What could possibly go wrong with that?" On-Ji asked, arms crossed 'crossed her chest. Shoji grinned.

"I knew you'd see things my way," he said. She sputtered at that.

"I was being..." she said.

"Come on! Pack your stuff! No reason to laze about!" Shoji said, overrunning her and grabbing some things he was sure he was going to need for the upcoming trip. On-Ji, left behind with the strange woman, shook her head with a sigh.

"This is a terrible idea," she said.

"_This is a terrible idea,_" the Tribeswoman said bitterly in her own tongue, uninterpretted by the girl before her. "_But It's not like I've got a better one. Where are you, Irukandji? This isn't what you promised me!_"

* * *

><p>Say what you would about her temper, Katara did look quite content, getting flowers braided into her hair. So content in fact, that it was starting to drive Toph and Sokka up the wall. Aang didn't mind though, as having some calm in the group was a welcome respite. They'd had enough suffering, by a long shot.<p>

"Hey, Sokka," Aang called out from where he was laying on Appa's paw. "You've gotta hear some of the stories these guys've got."

"No~ thank you," Toph said from her place behind a rock.

"They say they're gonna show me a spectacular cave which was carved by hand before recorded history!" Aang stressed as Sokka paused, raising an eyebrow. That eyebrow spoke more to disbelief than interest, though.

"And on the way, there's a waterfall which creates a never-ending rainbow!" the fat man in the pink robe said. Moku was ever the gleeful one.

"First of all, that's impossible," Sokka said. "Rainbows only happen when the sun, you, and the water make a straight line. Second, and I realize that I'm not usually the wet blanket around here but Katara's obviously busy so I'm going to have to pick up the slack..."

"Hey!" Katara complained from one of Appa's other paws, where she was being braided and flowered by the yet-unintroduced lady who'd joined with Chong and his own brand of nomads.

"And we're right next to Omashu and if we stop blithering around like idiots we can get there in a matter of hours. That means no more side-tracks, no caves, and _no rainbows_!"

"I'm with Wet Blanket on this one," Toph pointed out, leaning past that rock.

"Why thank you T... Why must you do this?" Sokka asked at Toph's sarcastic grin.

"Seriously, though. I don't even know what a rainbow is," Toph said.

"You've never seen a rainbow?" Moku asked.

Toph 'stared' at him for a moment longer. "I've never seen _anything_."

"Whoa, man... That's heavy," Moku said.

"Sounds like the formerly-naked-guy has a bad case of destination fever," Chong said lazily. "You gotta focus less on where you're goin'."

"Right. You should focus less on the 'where', and more on the 'going'," Lily said, from where she was braiding Appa. Luckily, Appa seemed content enough being fussed over. Sokka stared at the lot of them, and Aang could swear he could see a vein starting to throb on the Tribesman's head.

"O...MA...SHU," he said loudly and deliberately.

"I hate to say it, but Sokka's right," Katara said from her otherwise blissed out place. "The sooner we get to Omashu, the sooner Aang can start learning to earthbend in safety."

"Thank you," Sokka said.

"WHOOYEAH! Headin' for Omashu!" Toph said, bounding out from behind the rock with her fists pumped in the air.

"Hey, it sounds to me like you guys are heading for _Omashu_," Chong noted. As one, Toph and Sokka both palmed their heads, strongly and loudly. "You know, there's an old story about a passage... right _through_ the mountains!"

"Right, is this thing supposed to be real, or a 'legend'?" Toph asked, hand still upon forehead.

"Oh yeah, it's a real legend, alright," Chong said. Sokka and Toph 'shared a look'.

"I'm already palming my head. Where do I _go_ from here?" the blind girl asked.

"I just shake my head and grind," Sokka said with despairing tones.

"It's as old as earthbending itself," Chong went on, then began to strum at his pipa, "Two lovers, forbidden from one another, a war divides their people; and a mountain keeps them apart..."

"Just shake and grind," Sokka said. Toph took his advice.

"...built a path to be to~gether..." he trailed off. "Yeah, I forgot the next couple of lines, but then it goes SECRET TUNNEL_!_"

Toph let out a 'gack' a the sudden increase in volume, and the fact that somehow the rest of the group had spontaneously and instantly burst into song.

"SECRET TU~NNEL! THROUGH THE MOUN~TAAAAINS! SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET TUNNELLLL! YEAH!"

"I've heard _bad_ music. Now I think I've heard the _worst_," Toph said.

"Look at it this way. Now you've got a zero-mark to compare them against," Sokka said. "Look, we've got better things to do and not nearly enough time to fart around in secret love-caves."

"Sokka's right. Besides," Aang said. "Appa hates going underground. And we try to do whatever makes Appa most comfortable."

Sokka's eyes went wide for a moment. "Oh, no..." he said.

"What?" Aang asked, and Sokka pointed to the north. Just as he did, the whoosh of air made Sokka's point painfully clear. Aang looked, and he gave a 'gack' of his own. It was telling that the Tribesman had spotted it at all, but then again, Sokka tried to learn everything, and meteorology was important to any sea-faring people. So each could instantly see what was coming.

"What? What is it?" Toph asked, annoyed, checking herself against that sudden gale.

"I don't think we're going to be flying," Aang said. "There's a windstorm coming."

"Coming? Are you sure it isn't here?" Toph asked.

"Oh, trust me, it's going to get worse," Aang said, squinting against the force of the oncoming air. He'd actually gotten so relaxed that he'd let the bubble of protective airbending slip, so he took a moment to put it back in place, no doubt to Sokka's chagrin.

"Appa's flown in worse," Sokka said fairly desperately. "I mean, we can get ahead of it, right? Right?"

"This is your fault somehow, isn't it?" Toph asked, her hands now hanging limply in defeat.

"Somehow, I think it is," Sokka admitted. "Fine. Secret love-cave. Let's go."

"Well, it could be worse," Katara said. All eyes not currently inebriated on something turned to her with disbelief or anger. "I mean, it's not like the Fire Nation's hiding to ambush us out here."

"Yeah, Sugarqueen's got that one," Toph admitted. With that, Appa rose from where it had squatted, and started to saunter, leaving the nomads on the ground. "You hippies aren't going to follow us, are you?"

Katara gaped for a moment. "Sugarqueen?"

"Nah," Moku said pleasantly past Katara, if only because it would have taken a tornado to dislodge him. Toph let out a sigh of what had to be relief, probably for the first time since those nomads appeared to them in the morning. Momo huddled inside Aang's Kavi, big ears tucked back, peering out with big green eyes, as they all started pushing south against the winds, heading up through a switchback in the mountains.

* * *

><p>"Can you read it?" Kori asked from his place at the back of the pack.<p>

"It's too weathered, and it's in the Southerner's tongue," Omo answered. "Whatever it said, it's gone now. It probably didn't have anything to do with us anyway."

"Of course, now that you've said that..." Kori began.

"Enough," Yoji cut him off. "We stand at a crossroads. She is doubtless heading for Omashu, and will doubtless take the shorter road. The question is, do we even attempt to stop her before she gets there?"

"I haven't seen sign nor hair of her in days," Omo muttered.

"Hey, you were the one who wanted Yoji 'fully healed' before setting out. Lightning injuries are nasty business. It's not just burns," Kori said calmly. "I also had to coax some nerves into regrowth, and that's a slow process."

"I think you were just wasting time since there was a roof over our heads," Omo said but without as much bile as one would assume. After all, it had been a very, very close call that none had seen coming. "That she controls lightning at all gives me worry."

"The Fire Lord's directive is clear and absolute," Yoji said. She glanced down the two paths. "We will not beat her to Omashu. And from the look of the storm bearing down from the southwest, we would only die trying to catch up to her on the shorter course. We are no use to our master dead. We will have to make up time another way."

"We're making a lot of assumptions here," Kori pointed out.

"The Princess is still the Princess, certain assumptions are safe," Yoji said. And with that, the three Children of the Fire Lord struck inward into the continent, away from the storm-lashed shores and into the dry heart of the East.

* * *

><p>"Gods damn us! We should just hide until this goes away!" Toph shouted against the howling which screamed overhead, cutting along the gap between the defiles and making its presence quite known. The wind had grown from the gale to what Aang learned Easterners now called Hollow Cyclones, tornadoes manifesting out of clear skies, and the change in conditions from bad to worse was not the only thing on Aang's mind. A part of it was also on how completely and terribly wrong things had to be on the other side to make the physical world react like this.<p>

"You? Hiding?" Katara joked. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"Yeah... well... Shut up!"

"Guys, I think I've found it," Sokka shouted from their fore. They turned one more corner in that maze of rubble and scree, and found a gaping wound in the mountain, plunging inward. "Doesn't look like any 'love-cave' that I've ever seen."

"Well..." Katara said, shrugging at it. Sokka looked back at her, then burst out laughing, causing the earth- and air-bender to frown at the siblings, completely left out of the joke. "Yeah, I have my moments. How do you know this is the right one?"

"Well, even if we're just out of the wind, it should be better than out here," Sokka pointed out. Appa let its agreement be heard with a deep bellow which even for its volume was almost lost in the winds. They all shuffled into that cleft, the sky bison bringing up the rear. As it reached that crevasse, though, it balked.

"It's alright, Appa, come on," Aang said. "It'll just be a little while."

Appa looked about as skeptical as a six-legged, ten tonne herbivore could. It started moving forward, but slowly. Aang almost walked past something, before stopping. Sokka turned back to him. "What're you looking at?" Sokka asked, sauntering back over to him. Aang pointed to the boss which was carved into the very stone. Sokka leaned back for a moment. "Wow. That looks pretty old."

"I'm sure it does," Toph said flatly as she kept on walking. She paused, staring as though through the roof with an expression of distaste, before shaking her head.

"What does that say?" Sokka asked.

"I'm not sure," Aang admitted. "I mean, it looks like it's part of Tianxia, but it's... It just doesn't look right."

"J...jia... Han... Kiu..." Sokka enunciated slowly, continuing until he'd hit all of the symbols, which amounted to gobbledygook.

"You're saying that wrong," she said, swinging her attention back to the Tribesman from the surrounding walls. "It means 'Those who defame this place face eternity in blackness'."

"What?" Sokka asked. "You can't... I thought you couldn't read."

"I can't. But I know Monolith-era Tianxia when I hear it mangled," She said. "Try the next line."

"What next line?" Sokka asked.

"The one buried in the floor," she said. Then, with a stomp, she dragged the dirt away from the cartouche, revealing its base. "_That_ one."

Sokka struggled with it for a moment, where Aang could see Toph growing more and more impatient. "What's going on?" Katara asked.

"Sokka's reading to Toph."

"Oh. That's nice," she said. "Come on, Appa. There's nothing scary in here."

"Long 'O's, not short. But it says 'Trust in love and you'll find your way in the dark'," Toph said.

"I think we've found the love-cave," Sokka said with a snicker. Katara joined him. Toph shot a glance half-way toward Aang.

"Is there something goin' on here that I'm not aware of?" she asked.

"I really can't say," Aang admitted.

"Oi! Tribesman!" Toph dragged his attention away from his chuckles. "Is there any more of this?" he answered to the negative. "Shame. Finding Monolith-era stonework is pretty much a once in a lifetime-thing."

"Monolith?" Sokka asked.

"You ever wonder why the Storm Kings became the Storm Kings?" Toph asked.

"How _did_ the Storm Kings become the Storm Kings?" Aang asked.

"Long story. The short version is that at the beginning of recorded history, they helped bring down a bunch of world-spanning earthbender despots," Toph said off hand. "That was a _long_ time ago. My question is what's it doing here? And why didn't the folks in Omashu ever find it?"

"Perhaps they were too busy grubbing around in the dirt," a new voice came from their rear. The siblings were wide eyed with shock and fear, while Toph only showed mild confusion and consternation. Aang, though, felt something of a mixed bag of emotions, somewhere between terror and attraction. There was only one voice which sounded like that. One voice in all the world with that particular accent.

"Azula!" Katara shouted, water out of her flask and on hand in an instant.

"What the hell're you doing here, angry-chick?" Toph asked, without any of the fear of the others.

"Stay out of this, earthbender, and you don't need to get hurt," Azula said. She was standing right at the mouth of the cave they'd entered, and her hair was still ragged from the wind she'd had to trudge through. Her clothes looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a long while, and she looked like she hadn't eaten in at least a couple days.

"No offense, Azula, but you're on your own against the Avatar, a pretty skilled waterbender, and a badass earthbender," Toph gave a smirking 'thank you' at that last part, "so I'd probably rethink this whole 'berserk attack' strategy you've been running on," Sokka pointed out.

"Says the man with the plan," Azula said, walking forward. And as she did, she cast her hands to her sides, and flooding over her fists came brilliant blue flames. Aang saw Katara retreat a step when she saw that. "But, you should probably know that I've been planning too, for a rather long time."

"So... I take it you've got some sort of beef with the Princess here?" Toph asked, mildly confused.

"She keeps trying to kill us," Sokka answered non-chalantly as he pulled his boomerang from his back. "We all know this is only gonna end one way."

Her smirk was all the warning Aang got before she began to flow into attack and flame. With a bass cry of alarm, Appa smashed into the side-wall, trying to stay away from the flames, as Azula advanced. Katara didn't even seem to try to attack, focusing her whole effort onto defense, and from the look of things, she was wise to. Her waterbending only managed to parry the queer blue flames that Azula now used, not snuff them entirely. Even as Aang tried to cut the flames off with his own air- and waterbending, Sokka let fly his boomerang, which Azula dodged with such ease and simplicity that she didn't even break her attacking stride.

It was at about the fifth blast of fire that Aang had to snuff with a twirl of his glider staff that he realized how far back she was pushing them, even though she fought in three directions simultaneously, and was surrounded. Of those present, only Toph wasn't actively engaged in fighting, and that was solely because Azula had not sent any offense in her direction. "What in the hell is going on?" Toph shouted, fists before her, her eyes on the ground.

"Isn't it obvious?" Azula said in a momentary pause. "I'm going to win the War."

"Four on one isn't exactly good odds," Sokka said snidely.

"Sokka's right. You can't win this fight," Aang said.

"I don't need to," she said. "I just need you standing in the right place."

All three leaned back slightly, but Aang was the most surprised when Azula launched an attack clearly not aimed at any of them. Instead, it struck a mound of dark earth... which caught and burned. As it did, spolling away in chunks, it showed that, underneath that peat was a dark red barrel, marked with a three point flame. "Bomb!" Sokka shouted as the fires reached into the barrel.

Aang could have done many things. If he were a firebender, he could have snuffed that flame as soon as look at it. If he'd had water on hand which wasn't in Katara's desperate embrace, he could have quenched that fire. But as it was, he was an airbender first, and that meant he was predisposed to trying to solve problems with airbending. And the unfortunate thing about airbending flames is that if not done just right... it made them worse.

The barrel, which had to have been sitting in this secluded spot for years, went off with a terrible detonation and a percussive blast which lifted Aang off his feet and dashed him against the far wall, his skin feeling like it'd been torn by a hundred tiny cuts, even though he was fairly sure he wasn't in fact bleeding. A ringing sounded in his ears, and all others were muted and dull. He blinked up at Azula, who smirked darkly.

"A trap two years in the making. Good job, me," she said smugly.

"Get out of the cave!" Toph shrieked. The two Tribesmen didn't look back to her, though. "The rock is unstable! That blast'll send the whole thing crashing down!"

"But Aang...!"

"I can't lift a damned mountain!" Toph said, as the first chunk of the ceiling made a harsh introduction to the floor, startling Azula out of her smugness, and causing her to glance upward with real concern in her golden eyes. That first stone was quickly joined by many others, and the two Tribesmen were being pelted as they tried to cross the distance toward the Avatar. Appa, though, had fled the cave utterly, and when Toph reached Katara, she began to make sure the others did too. Sokka gave a sorrowful glance back at Aang, before following his sister at a dead run, mostly because the earthbender girl was strong enough to drag Katara away at such a pace. But Azula was trapped in the epicenter of that collapse.

That, Aang would not abide. He forced himself to his feet, and started to stagger, then run. As he did, a chunk of that stone struck Azula on its way to the ground, and she let out the most horrid cry of surprised pain, trying to find a path which wouldn't get her killed. Aang provided one. He bull-rushed Azula away from that death-zone, carrying her away from the spot of her death and into the darkness, as the earth rumbled ominously, and the path from the outside world vanished under thousands upon thousands of tonnes of collapsing rock.

* * *

><p>Appa pawed at the stone piteously, trying to dig through so much mountain that it had practically erased the site which they'd discovered. "It's no use," Toph said. "They're trapped."<p>

"What just happened?" Katara demanded, staring in shock at the collapse.

"I was going to tell you to be careful, and that the mountain was unstable, but did anybody ask? Nooo~o..." Toph said.

"Aang could be hurt in there! Or worse!" Katara shouted.

"Yeah, I didn't see Angry Bitch leaving a bomb under peat as a probable strategy!" Toph shouted back.

"Well, open up the mountain," Katara said, pointing at the collapse. "We need to help him before he suffocates, or before..."

"Weren't you listening, Sweetness? The mountain's unstable. It's like the whole place is begging for an excuse to collapse. I haven't see rock this tenuous since the mines outside Gaoling."

"So, you're an earthbender, right?" Katara asked. "This is what you do!"

Toph palmed her forehead, right in the slightly red mark which was left from having to put up with those singing nomads for so long. "Alright, I'm only gonna say this once. I'm a badass earthbender. I ain't the Avatar. I can move the stone to make a path into that mountain, but if I do that, the rest of the mountain comes tumbling down onto what I bend. I can't hold up a mountain. Can you? Didn't think so!"

"Guys, calm down!" Sokka said. "The mountain's too unstable here to reach Aang, am I right?"

"Darn-tootin'."

"Well, then we'll just have to find a spot that's more stable!" Sokka said. "The entire mountain can't be this fragile, or the whole thing would have crumbled away millenia ago. We find the first spot that can handle your mojo, then in we go to save Aang."

"See? That's a sensible plan," Toph said. "But if we do this, I won't be able to feel where he is. I'll need to search for him all over again."

Katara perked up at that. "Wait... you can still feel Aang through all this?" she asked.

"Barely. Just his heartbeat," Toph said, pressing a hand against the rock. "Wait... yeah, there's heartbeats in there. But other than that, nada."

"Then we'd better get moving," Sokka said. He turned to the big bison. "Can you follow us up the mountain on foot?"

Appa answered as it was wont to do.

"Then let's move! Twinkletoes ain't gonna last too long without guys like us to keep him from doing something stupid," Toph pointed out. And with that, they began to scale the mountain.

* * *

><p>"She looks ridiculous," On-Ji said.<p>

"She does not!" Shoji said. "In fact, I think she wear's Mom's stuff pretty well."

"Well, it looks kinda ridiculous on your Mom, too," On-Ji said. Shoji gave her a glance. "_Right_. No insulting your mother. Got it."

The Tribeswoman didn't look much as she had before, but then again, getting what was obviously a Water Tribeswoman onto the ferries between the islands would have been about as easy as a prison break at Boiling Rock. She was caked in make-up which hid her dark complexion, wore long white gloves to cover her hands, and a slightly out-sized dress which was obviously designed for a woman of less bosom and hips. Keeping the rain away was a full time job for the bonnet atop the Tribeswoman's head; Mom hadn't exactly sprung for the expensive stuff, being military support staff, and the makeup she did get wasn't water-proof.

"I can't believe you talked me into this," On-Ji said.

"You need to lighten up," Shoji said. "We're having an adventure! We're helping somebody in need! What could be better and more true in the eyes of Agni than that?"

She had to sigh at that. There were few things more in vein with the Virtues of Fire than what he was doing now. "It's just... I've never been off the island before. I'm nervous."

"You don't need to worry. It's just a trip to Grand Ember, and then we drop off... whatever her name is... and then we're on our way back home!" Shoji said excitedly. The grin widened for a moment. "And you'll have something to rub in Motoko's face when you get back."

On-Ji smiled at the thought of that. Both of them knew Motoko well enough from their previous years at school to know her to be more a caricature than a real person, someone so full of privilege and self-righteousness that she practically oozed. Having something like this to one-up her would sit very well with the girl to Shoji's left. "Yeah, that's a good point," On-Ji said. She blinked up at the rain which fell in its usual, prodigious amounts, attempting to swamp the ferry even as the smoke-stack belched grey smoke and the thrum of engines bore them along. Lucky that this ferry didn't go into the open ocean. It'd probably get smashed to rivets and scrap in an hour out there. "I've had about enough of this rain for one day. I assume you've got us all different rooms?"

"Not... quite," Shoji admitted. "I got two, so you should probably bunk with... what's-her-name."

"Me? Sleep with a barbarian in the same room?" On-Ji asked with clear and honest nervousness.

"Would you rather switch with me?" Shoji asked.

"Yeah," On-Ji instantly said. Shoji gaped at her.

"I didn't think you'd answer _that_ quick," he said.

"Girls need to think fast," she said with a smirk, reaching out and taking the waxed paper ticket and heading inside, leaving Shoji outside in the rain with the Tribeswoman, who sat, muttering to herself as she stared over the waves. It was also lucky that she looked as she did. With her too-small dress and ample characteristics, she managed to keep attention on her cleavage and not on any other part of her.

"So... does this feel like home?" Shoji asked the woman. The woman glared up under the brim of the bonnet. "Yeesh... Sorry to ask."

The woman said something which sounded bitter, then paused. She turned to him, and poked him in the chest, saying something else, a single word. "Ow, what was that for?"

She did it again, repeating that same word.

"Shirt?" Shoji asked, tugging at his damp clothes. She rolled her eyes, then shook her head and poked him in the head, right between the eyes, repeating the word again. "Forehead?"

The woman sighed, then pointed at herself, said that word, then another, before pointing back at him. "Man? Boy?"

The woman shook her head, as it was clear he still didn't know what she was saying... but this time, as she muttered to herself, despite Shoji's utter lack of fluency in Yqanuac – to the point where he didn't even know that the Tribesman's native tongue was _called_ Yqanuac – he could... feel... that there was meaning in them.

"_Irukandji help me! I am surrounded by fools who cannot even tell me their names!_" she said, staring into the clouds.

"Name? Name!" Shoji said. He pointed at himself, repeated that word she said. "Name. Shoji."

She turned to him, somewhat surprised, and then gave a sigh and a nod. She pointed back at herself, and this time, since he knew what he was listening for, he could understand the gist of what she was saying.

"_My name is Huuni,_" she'd said. Well, this might actually work out after all, the young National thought to himself.

* * *

><p>Consciousness returned as it often did, nowadays: with pain.<p>

"Argh... damn it," she muttered to herself, trying to push herself up, and immediately regretting it and letting slip a shriek of pain as any amount of weight onto her right hand caused horrible agony to course through it. She flopped back down to her side, and a rational part of her mind noted that her hand must be broken. She tried to reach over, to confirm it, but even the attempt was almost as painful as the attempt at standing, in the other arm.

"You're alright?" a high but ragged voice asked in the blackness which was the whole world around her. Azula let out a groan, and her head beat against the ground just once, a punishment atop punishments for not only failing to kill the Avatar, but to now be in the unenviable position of being his prisoner. "Thank the gods, I thought you might be dead."

"Stay away from me," she said, trying to kick firebending toward the source of his voice. While a brilliant blue flare did paint the air, and briefly illuminate the torn and battered looking airbender, the attack was well wide, and resulted only in yet a third pain, radiating up through Azula's foot. Damn it all, she thought, what part of me isn't broken?

"Azula, calm down," the boy said, and the grinding of stone and scree told her that he was approaching closer. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I bet you say that to all the ladies," Azula said darkly. "I know what you did."

"What he did?" her younger self asked. "What did he do?"

"He stole my fire!" Azula snapped at her other self.

"Uh... no he didn't. You just firebent. That's gotta mean something," the girl said. And Azula just glared at her.

"What was that you just said?" Aang asked. "I didn't catch that."

"Stay out of my business, Avatar. So what will it be? Ransom? Or a tidy execution?" Azula demanded.

"Wait-what? Execu... No! Nobody's dying today, or tomorrow or the day after that, not if I have anything to say about it," the boy said.

"Imprisonment, then. How darkly familiar," Azula said flatly.

"Why are you so sure that I want to hurt you?" the Avatar asked in the darkness.

"You are my enemy. You will always be the enemy of the Fire Nation in general and me in particular!" Azula snapped back.

"Wait, the Avatar's got a point," her younger self pointed out. "Why aren't we trying to convert him? Wouldn't he be more use to us on our side?"

"Never!" Azula snapped.

"Look," the Avatar said placatingly, and she could sense that he was very close to her now. Just a few more words, so she could focus in on him... then a lightning bolt would see his end. "You're hurt. I don't know how badly, and I won't be able to help you unless you let me. I don't want you to die down here. You deserve better than that."

Azula started to smirk. She had him, and when she reached forward, despite the pain of her broken collar-bone to smite him with fire, a paralyzing numbness ran through her limb. The fire which came, as Azula tried to see the obstruction, revealed that the eight year old girl Azula was holding Azula's arm in place firmly, and a humorless expression was upon her face. "Don't be an idiot," the girl said. "You'll have plenty of time to deal with him, _after_ you're not going to make us die in a hole."

Azula had to admit, she did have a point. The Avatar watched her for a long moment, then moved slightly closer, and looked her over. It was as uncomfortable as anything Azula had ever done. Even her morally dubious escape from prison was less distasteful than this. Although admittedly a great deal more entertaining. The Avatar started to take stock of her injuries.

"It's lucky you got those funky shoes on," the boy said from her feet. "You're gonna lose some toenails and it'll be hard to walk, but at least you'll keep the toes."

"What?" Azula asked.

"Some of those rocks that fell were pretty big," the Avatar said. Then he sighed. "Monkey Feathers! Why couldn't I figure out healing sooner!"

"Just a matter of time," Azula muttered to herself. Her other half had moved back, though, and now stared at the Avatar with a gauging look. "What?"

"He seems... very earnest," the girl said.

"Of course he _seems_. That's what their kind do. They seem."

"Yeah... but he doesn't look like any Storm King that I've ever read about," she said.

"What's a Storm King?" Azula asked.

Her younger self stared at her, then sighed and palmed her face. "Agni's blood, I grow up to be an idiot."

"I'm going to immobilize that arm, alright?" the Avatar asked. Azula glared at him, but didn't oppose him as her good arm on her bad side was bound up, and the pain greatly reduced at her shoulder. She could still keep a flame burning, keep light in this cavern, but between her crushed toes and shattered hand, she was in no sort of fighting shape. "And probably make a splint for that hand," he paused, staring into the darkness. "Wow. I'm amazed I even remembered how to do all this. It seemed so... pointless back then."

"Back when?" Azula asked more out of boredom than any interest.

"Back when I was born," he said. "It was a hundred years ago."

"That's impossible. He's not much older than I am," the girl said.

"I'm still older than he is," Azula answered herself humorlessly.

"I just don't understand one thing. Why? Why would the Fire Nation attack the Air Nomads? We were no threat to anybody?"

"I couldn't..." Azula began, but her younger self shook her head and whispered into her ear. It wasn't words that came... it was like whole memories started to unfold in Azula's mind. Memories of a childhood never had. A mother and a father at constant loggerheads, and Azula living in a state of tension, trying to please a distant father and a critical mother both. An education she never received. "The Fire Nation does not recognize Air Nomads. You're just Storm Kings with a different tattoo and some high-minded speech about 'peace' and 'nonviolence'. We know what you're really doing. Waiting, for your chance for revenge."

"We weren't! We really weren't," the Avatar said with an almost pleading tone. "I didn't even know what the Storm King's were until I stumbled onto them a couple months ago."

"A likely story," Azula said, barely noticing that she was now alone with the Avatar, that the walls had lost those strange carvings. "Great Grandfather knew what would happen when a new Avatar was born from the womb of a Storm King. His foresight prevented another tyrant rising which would put the Monolith to shame!"

"We were just peaceful monks," the boy said, almost begging her to believe him, even as he bound her hand rigid in a splint made from the broken remnants of some sort of toy the boy kept on his person. "All I ever wanted to do was see the world, to meet interesting people. To ride the Elephant Koi at Kyoshi Island, and race Appa in the Divide Championship. I just wanted to live a normal, happy life."

"Then why did you become Avatar?" Azula asked.

"I didn't have a choice," the Avatar said sadly. "And some days... I wish I wasn't. I wish I didn't have all this power and this responsibility, and all these people's hopes, all on me. Do you know what that's like? Having these expectations around you all the time, and not knowing how to fulfill them? Not even knowing if you _can_?"

Azula glanced away, even as the memories started to diffuse back into murk and mist. "More than you'd know," Azula answered quietly.

"That's all I can do for you here," Aang said. "I need to get you some place safer than here."

"You're not taking me anywhere, airbender," Azula snapped.

"Please, see reason," the boy said. "This place has been... shifting... since I woke up. I don't know how much longer until another chunk of the ceiling gives way. At least let's try to find a way out of this cave?"

Azula grumbled to herself. Her younger self was right. There would be plenty of time to kill him later. "If you betray me, your death will not be swift," Azula said through gritted teeth as the teenaged Avatar so-carefully pulled Azula to her feet, painful though that was.

"You can trust me," the Avatar said solemnly. "Too many people have been hurt because of me already. I'm not going to let you join them."

She tried to take a step, but found it only a painful shuffle. The Avatar moved to her side and tucked his shoulder under her broken-handed arm, steadying her, and driving an unimaginable scowl onto the firebender's face. "I'm still going to beat you," Azula said.

"Maybe," the Avatar said. "But it won't today, and it won't be underground."

Azula couldn't help but laugh at that, at the irony of it. He gave a confused glance up to her, but shrugged and started bearing her forward, one slow step at a time, and her blue light saw them forward. As they moved, Azula finally caught sight of her younger self. "Well, you've been awfully quiet."

"He's... oddly nice," the girl said, confusion clear on her face. After that, Azula just resigned herself to grunting with pain every other step, as two clear enemies lurched forward together into the darkness.

* * *

><p>"<span>I set my fire, you build a wall; I set my fire, you build a wa~ll. Some day, that wall is gonna fall...<span>"

The strumming of the instrument was the only sound besides the rumbling of the engines toward the back of the ship. Everybody else had long since gone to sleep, leaving Shoji and the Tribeswoman Huuni alone in the room. The Tribeswoman, though, had claimed the bed as her personal fief, and even without proper words, made it clear that she was not going to be sharing it. Shoji didn't know who was singing, but she had to be somewhere nearby, probably one of the other rooms, singing a child to sleep. The song wasn't that old, he heard, but it had a nice tune to it.

Shoji, though, had his attention more clearly on the Tribeswoman, and not just because he was any teenager's wet-dream come true. "How come I can understand you sometimes, and not others?" Shoji asked. She flicked a suspicious glance toward him. He grumbled to himself for a moment, then tried something he'd never thought he'd have to do. He spoke Yqanuac. "_I know you words sometimes. Why?_"

She leaned back at that, and rattled off something which Shoji could only roughly translate as 'you can speak my language?'

"_Not having good. Didn't know could,_" Shoji labored.

She scoffed. 'You know more than most of your kind' was the gist of her answer.

"Uh... _Why you in water?_" Shoji asked. She scowled at him. "_On sands by water?_"

She looked like she was about to dismiss him and turn her attention away, but she paused, and Shoji could hear a whisper in the room, past the music, like something was trying to talk to her, but didn't count on her not being alone. "What was that?" Shoji asked, but she wasn't paying attention to him. Her eyes glazed, and she started to reach across the short expanse between the bed and the uncomfortable chair he was sitting on. Just a tap of her finger to his nose. Then, there was a tiny tingling, like when he'd been on Di Huo and ran around in wool socks for hours, then touched a door-handle. He leaned back, and she did likewise, as that tingling worked its way back from his nose, past his sinuses, then up and into his brain.

"Gon' build that wall until it's done; Gon' build that wall until it's do~one. But now you got nowhere to ru~un."

"Build that wall, and build it strong, 'cause we'll be there before too long..."

Finally, the tingling which raced across his synapses dimmed, and the music fell into a woman's melodic humming. "_What was that?_" Shoji asked.

"_Irukandji? Was that you? Where did you go?_" Huuni asked with obvious alarm. "_What did you do with him, boy?_"

"_I didn't do anything! I... why can I understand you?_" Shoji asked. Then he realized he was speaking fluent Yqanuac, without pause or moments of poor inflection. "_What happened?_"

"_I asked Irukandji to free me from this interminable prison, and he moves to you! Give him back!_" she demanded.

Shoji leaned away. "I... didn't take anything, I swear!" Shoji said.

"_You are a liar, young shaman! Give him back! He promised me eternity! He promised me power and beauty!_" She hissed.

"_I'm... not a shaman,_" Shoji said. He couldn't be. Shamanism was banned by the Fire Lord.

"_You are a liar and a thief! Return Irukandji or I swear I will open your neck!_" she said.

"_Please, I'm not lying... I don't know what just happened. Why can I..._"

Huuni slumped back, bitterness on her face. "_One of Irukandji's many gifts is one of holding many tongues. How could he forsake me? I did everything he asked!_"

"SHUT UP IN THERE!" a man shouted from across the hall, which set off a baby's crying further down the hall. There came a sigh from that singer before, and the song began anew.

"I set my fire, you build a wall; I set my fire you build a wa~all. Some day that wall is gonna fa~all..."

"_I wanted to stay like this forever. No age... no grey hairs, no wrinkles, just young and beautiful forever. Was that so much to ask?_" Huuni asked.

Shoji wanted to say yes, but at the same time he did value his own continued existence. "_Look... when we get wherever we're going, I'm sure we'll be able to sort this out. After all, why wouldn't this Irukandji want somebody like you?_"

She smirked at that. "_You have a point, young heathen. He will come back._"

"_Now... would you mind giving me at least a bit of the bed? This chair's really uncomfortable..._" Shoji angled.

"_No. You can sleep on the floor if you want to be in my presence,_" Huuni said, pulling the blanket over herself and turning toward the wall. Shoji stared at her for a long moment, before, in his own tongue, muttering. "What a bitch!" to himself. He slipped off of that chair and padded out of the room, down one to where On-Ji was sleeping. He rapped on the door lightly.

"Go away," a muffled voice came from within.

"It's me, Shoji. Could I come in?"

"Is it morning?" that muffled voice asked.

"No, but..."

"Come back when it's morning," she said. He banged on her door again.

"It can wait," she said one more time, then after a few seconds of pause, he could hear her snoring within. And as he grumbled to himself, the song looped behind him again. This was some adventure, all right. Now all he needed was to get dropped naked onto the shores of Azul and it'd be just perfect!

* * *

><p>"We're lost, aren't we?" Azula's voice grumbled from his side.<p>

"I... Don't think so," Aang hazarded.

"You don't_ think so_?" she asked scathingly, before muttering in that language she did. Ever since he'd found her, her accent was almost indecipherably thick. "I'm beginning to think you're trying to get me killed."

"And what good'd that do me?" Aang asked. "Without your firebending, I'd be blind as a wolfbat."

Azula glanced down to the pittance of flame which hovered over the palm of her immobilized arm. "I hate this. This isn't the way things are supposed to be."

"I know what you mean," Aang said.

She glared at him like he'd called the sun a lantern. "How could you possibly know what I mean?"

"I know about your father," Aang said slowly. "I know what he did to you."

"My father... he just wants me to prove myself," Azula said. "But that doesn't matter. Not now."

"I think it does matter," Aang said. "I never knew my parents, but I could easily see from how Sokka and Katara were with Hakoda how much family means. You might act like it doesn't hurt, but somewhere inside, it does. It is a wound, being without family, one which aches every day."

"You know nothing about my family," Azula snapped.

"I know your brother would do anything for you," Aang pointed out. He frowned for a moment as he tried to shift the support of the very attractive firebender to a more comfortable stance. "I don't understand why you treated him like you did in Summavut. What happened between you two?"

"He took something which belonged to me," she said coldly.

"That's it?"

"That's all it required," she said. "I do not appreciate betrayal."

"But he's your brother," Aang said. "You can't hate your own brother."

"Father managed to hate Uncle well enough," Azula said with snark, but then took in a hiss of breath when her shoulder shifted just the wrong way. "My family is constantly at each other's throats. That's the way family works."

"Not a good family," Aang said.

She scowled for a moment. "Who is Hakoda supposed to be, anyway?"

"...Their father, remember?" Aang asked.

"Impossible. He died years ago," she said with a concentrating frown.

"Nope. Alive," she seemed confused at that. Aang, though, took that silence bar their shuffling to look at the walls they were passing. Not all of them were stone, cut through the world like an insane worm through an apple. Some were like this, clad in bronze reliefs. And these reliefs told a story. "Do you know what that says?"

"Do I look like I speak dead tongues?" Azula snapped.

"I was just asking," Aang said. It was probably in... what had Toph called it? Right; Monolith-era Tianxia. But the images were clear enough. A man wandering the forests of a mountain, ascending to its peak trying to find something. A woman journeying up the mountain just to see the skies. The two met, and embraced. Then, the man was falling, struck down by arrows. "You deserve better than what you've gotten."

"So you repeatedly tell me. It doesn't change what is," she answered.

"Why not?"

"Because you are my enemy. You can yammer all you like when I am helpless to forbid it, but that doesn't make it less the case. You want to destroy everything I hold dear, like you and your kind have in the past."

"My kind were peaceful monks!" Aang stressed. "I never did anything to hurt you!"

"You humiliated me. You took away my dignity!" she shouted back.

"What? How could I... I don't know what you're talking about," Aang said, shaking his head. But Azula seemed like she didn't want to expand on that point. A glance toward the brass relief showed the woman, enraged, at the peak of the mountain, obviously crying for vengeance. Then, some sort of round animal.

"Why are you so angry all the time?" Aang finally asked after a long stretch through the darkness.

"I have a right."

"Yeah, you might, but why? It can't be a good way to live."

"It was the only way I _could_ live," she said coldly, with the weight of long years in her words. She turned toward him, an angry glance through golden eyes. "And what will you do, when this cave is done for? Deliver me in chains to your allies in... Do you even have any allies left? Or will you just let your little Tribesman kill me where I stand?"

"Nobody's going to die today," Aang stressed. "And definitely not you!"

"Everybody dies," Azula said quietly. "Even princesses; even Avatars."

Aang felt a bore in his heart. What had happened to this young woman to make her so angry, so bitter, so cynical? It had to tear at her like a barrage of arrows. "But its what we do before we die that matters," Aang said. "I believe you're a good person."

"Then you're an idiot," Azula said. "My own mother said I was a _monster_."

"..." Aang said.

"She was right, but it still hurt," Azula answered perhaps a bit too quickly.

"Then your mother was wrong," Aang said. "I believe in you."

She snorted at that, but didn't say anything more, because a shadow had passed over her eyes at the mention of her mother, one which Aang was fairly sure he ought not broach. The two walked, slowly, and in silence, in a tiny pool of light, along the branching paths. At her insistence, always turning left, although he had no idea why. They walked, her in a great deal of pain, he in somewhat less; for all his airbending had kept the worst of the rocks from smashing him during the cave-in, he still got a proper battering.

"Azula... I..." Aang began.

"What's that sound?" Azula asked. Aang promptly shut up. "Now it's gone."

"I don't know what you're talking about..." Aang began, then he could hear something as well. The sound of leather and movement. The clattering of keratin on stone. "Wait, I hear it."

"It's coming closer," she pointed out.

"Yeah, it is," Aang said. "Which means we should probably get out of its way."

"Where? Shall I dig out a hole with my teeth?" Azula snapped.

The clattering rose to a fervent pace, and Aang quickly pulled Azula – eliciting no small amount of angry muttering from her – to the wall clad in brass and glanced to and fro, trying to source that sound, now that he could see both directions in the darkness. Then, the clattering stopped.

"See? There was nothing to worry about," she said acerbically, but her eyes started to widen, and Aang quickly turned to see what she'd noticed. About a fraction of a second before roughly a hundred pounds of angry slammed into him at chest-level. The light guttered as Azula let out a grunt of surprise, but Aang didn't have time to worry about that, since he was now rolling along the floor, teeth slamming and gnashing just before his face, foul slather spraying onto his face as the thing tried to pull him just a few inches closer.

Finally, with a blast of airbending from his lungs, he managed to launch the thing away, whereupon it landed with a flare and utter precision on its four legs, growling at Aang with its dark red eyes. It started to circle, growling as it did, and the flaps of leathery skin which made up its wings seemed to pinion back into its flank. It was about as hideous a creature as Aang had ever seen. It was a wolfbat.

It slowly turned its attention toward Azula, and Aang jumped between them. "No... you just keep your attention on me," Aang said, his arms out and toward it. "No culling the weak today."

"Who are you calling weak?" Azula snapped.

"You have one useful foot and no unbroken arms," Aang answered over his shoulders, his eyes locked on the beast before him. "I'm pretty sure this thing knows that."

"Then it's lucky that there's just one of them," Azula said.

"That's the bad news," Aang said. He glanced to the edge of Azula's pool of light, and showed that, as the saying went, where you found wolfbat, the other was a stone's throw away. Two growling beast stared at Aang. Aang stared back. And the whole world stood still.

* * *

><p>"Have you found anything yet?" Sokka asked.<p>

Toph rolled her eyes and considered throwing something at the Tribesman. But after a moment's consideration, she opted against. After all, she'd gone through hell to get here, so alienating the rest of the Avatar's little cadre was decidedly sub-optimal. And besides, she was pretty sure she could understand his impatience. They'd lost a dear friend. And also possibly a mortal enemy.

"I can't search any faster and be sure I've found everything," she said peevishly. "Gods, it's like this entire mountain is shot through with tunnels! I can't find anywhere which'll get us more than a few dozen yards in before the whole thing becomes a card-house."

"Why did he go in?" Katara asked. "He could have run after us. It doesn't make any sense."

"You know Aang. He's not about to let people die because of him, even if it's their own fault," Sokka pointed out.

"Yeah. I'm not sure what her big deal is, anyway."

"You've met her?" Katara asked.

"Yeah, she burned my house down," Toph said off handedly.

"It's like that woman is evil incarnate!" Katara muttered.

"Eh. Wasn't as big of a problem as I'd thought it'd be," Toph said. "If she'd never showed up in Gaoling, I'd never have known my Mom was awesome. That'd just be a shame, now wouldn't it?"

"She burned your house down, and you're okay with that?" Sokka asked. Toph shrugged. "Wow. I figured you'd be the one to carry a grudge."

"She's not that bad when you get to know her," Toph pointed out, before kicking a rock and expanding the stairwell she was building as they went to make the ascent toward some more stable spot a more pleasant one. Katara stammered at that.

"Get to know her? All she ever does is try to kill us!"

"Kill _you_," Toph clarified. "Whatever you did to you, you might wanna 'pologize while you still can."

"I didn't do _anything_ to her!" Katara complained.

"You wouldn't believe that to talk to her," Toph said with a chuckle. "The way she'd tell it, you'd killed her first born child or something."

"Maybe she's just crazy," Katara said.

"I haven't discounted that," Toph admitted. "Honestly, though, I thought she and I would be rivals or something. Instead she's gunning for _you_. That's mildly insulting, when I think about it."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to have offended," Katara said flatly.

"Eh, I'm a big girl. I can take it."

"You are not," Katara said. Toph shot a scowl in Katara's general direction. "You come up to my mouth!"

"You wanna see how big I really am?" Toph said, turning toward Katara, fists out.

Sokka, who had been watching the unfolding scene with amusement so obvious that a blind girl could 'see' it, quickly noticed the change in atmosphere and got between them. "Whoa, there. There's no reason to be fighting over who Azula hates more. Come to think of it that's possibly the most insane thing anybody's _ever_ fought over! Come on, we're trying to rescue Aang, here! You know, the Avatar, His Glowing Badasshood who shall deliver us from the Fire Nation?"

"Brain has a point," Toph said.

"Brain?" Sokka asked.

"Would you rather take over Twinkletoes from Aang?" Toph asked with a smirk.

"Brain it is," Sokka answered blithely. Katara still 'looked' to be in something of a huff, but Toph put the waterbender out of her mind. It was hard to hear much in the distance, because of the brutality of the winds, but her other senses could still pick out Appa, trundling up the mountain after them casual as a physics-defying monster would.

Toph continued upward, stomping a sense of the rock under her feet as she went, but it just kept painting and repainting the same picture, which was both annoying since Toph had never actually meaningfully encountered a picture and it drove a deeper and deeper worry into her mind. "I don't get this," Toph muttered.

"You don't get what?" Sokka said, petting the lemur who was clinging to him against the wind.

"These tunnels, they should have collapsed a long time ago. I've only ever seen ones like this in one place before..."

"Where?"

Toph stared downward for a moment, then clapped her head right on the reddened mark which she had no idea was there. "Gods, I'm such a moron. Keung would be ashamed at my stupidity! Of course they're here!"

"What are?" Katara asked, growing more annoyed.

"I know what's made this rock unstable, and I've got a fairly good idea where we can safely breach it," Toph said. "We just need to reach the center of their den."

"Den?" Katara asked. "What are you talking about? What caused the tunnels?"

"Earthbenders," Toph answered, starting up toward a spot she guessed would be near the peak. "The oldest earthbenders on this planet."

* * *

><p>Sweat pounded out of Aang's head, stinging where it ran across the abrasions on his face. The two beasts tried to circle him, but he managed to keep both of them away from their obvious target. "I know what you're thinking," Aang said. "But as long as you stay behind me, I'll keep you safe."<p>

"Safe?" Azula asked with nervous disbelief in her voice. "You would keep safe the woman who keeps trying to murder you?"

"I'll protect anybody who needs it," he said, his head swiveling quickly between the two targets which tried to circle past him, but were stymied by his constant repositioning. Wolfbats were ugly as sin, but had the sharpest hearing of any beast in the world, Azul included, and were patient as a proper general. They knew they just had to wait Aang out. "I'm not going to let them hurt you."

"I don't need..." she began, and then caught herself. "What do you _want_ from me?"

"Just stay there," Aang said, misunderstanding her intent to the question. "I'll find... some way to deal with these things."

Soon as said, the one which had skirted closer to Azula while Aang was speaking made a bound at her. Aang moved with all the alacrity his training had given him, creating a blob of air and hurling it at the brass relief right beside where Azula was casting the whole scene in light. She flinched from it, but just when Aang needed it to, it bounced off of the etched metal and slammed into the flapping wings of the wolfbat, sending it careening into the far wall. The other, in that moment of opening, had taken this opportunity to launch itself at Azula. Aang once again tried to pull the same trick again, but there was another thing to wolfbats which made them so dangerous. They were clever as a cutpurse. This one ducked under the bolt of air and then heaved itself directly at Aang's chest. This time, Aang had to hold the best away with his hands while twisting, getting an air-scooter crafted under him using only his feet, and locking it exactly the wrong way as he'd done when he first invented the technique, so that when he balanced atop it, he was not stationary, but instead spinning at an incredible speed. Finally, the beast lost the purchase of its cunning foreclaws, and was hurled aside. Aang dropped to the stone, somewhat dizzy for the trick.

"Whao... Stop the world, please, I think I'm gonna be sick," Aang muttered.

"They're coming back," Azula said, not quite with panic but obvious alarm. "Stop playing with them!"

"Playing with them? What do you think I'm trying to do!" Aang shouted back.

But he could see her point. Airbending wasn't doing it. And there wasn't enough water to waterbend. He needed something else. The clattering of claws against stone rose to a crescendo once again, and they bounded back into the light, flying at head level, their gaping maws, filled with needle teeth, wide.

Then, his vision of them was cut off when Azula limped in front of him. The Aang tried to reverse their place quickly, but the wolfbats reached her before he could blink, let alone react. But it didn't go how he'd thought it would. Rather than maul and descrate her, the one which hurled slammed into her only knocked her back a step, and even if it did draw a clipped yell of pain from the firebender, the shrieking yelp of pain from that wolfbat was far clearer. She pulled her unbroken hand back in, as the fire she'd bent into the thing's chest flickered, and the smell of burnt hair filled the tunnel. The wolfbat rolled along the floor for a moment, then skittered like the wounded beast it was back into the darkness. Azula took a few more clench-teethed breaths, ignoring the pain of a broken arm being unpleasantly jostled, and stared down the other beast.

"See?" the firebender asked. "That's how you run off a feral beast!"

The other one snarled at her, but began to retreat from the flames which flickered above her palm. Then, with a snort, it turned and followed its counterpart away from the site of their attempted attack. Aang turned to her. "Azula, are you out of your mind? You could have been hurt!"

It was telling that she didn't shoot him a glance at that, rather, slumping somewhat, her face a rictus of restrained agony. The flames guttered out completely from her hand, and the whole tunnel became dark.

And the darkness rumbled quietly.

"Azula... are you alright?" Aang asked.

"What do you care?" Azula asked, not igniting her fire.

"I care. Why does it matter why?" Aang said.

"You... I don't know your game. But I will," she said. She made a sound, which sounded like disbelief and alarm.

"What is it?"

"Why didn't somebody tell me it was so hard to bend with broken limbs?" Azula snapped.

"I thought it stood to reason," Aang said. "If you tie up an airbender, you've taken away about ninety percent of his airbending ability, but an earthbender's almost perfectly fine. Maybe firebending's the same way?"

"Don't speak about something you don't understand," Azula said in the blackness.

"I think I understand a bit about fire," he said. "It's got two sides. It can destroy, but it can also create. That's what the Fire Nation was for a long time. It was always the people who created. Art, music, and yeah, technology. But somewhere... somewhere in the last century or so... things changed. People forgot that what destroys can create. They forgot that fire was more than a weapon."

"Oh, spare me your prattle," Azula muttered. "I know fire better than anybody alive. I am fire. And..."

"And you're an artist, and a poet," Aang cut her off. The silence from that was probably a death glare. "You know it in your heart, even if you can't admit it to your head. You're trying to find balance in yourself."

"I don't need balance."

"Everybody does," Aang said. "And we all find it, eventually. Or else."

She shook her head. And Aang started back upon realizing he'd noted her shaking her head. He glanced to where her hands were, but they were still black against black, darkness deep. She paused, and turned toward Aang. "What is this? What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything," he said. Then, the both of them looked up.

Running along the corridor though the mountain, at the peak of the path, were crystals, thousands in number, which glowed with a very faint green light. It was precious little, but he could see Azula well enough not to bump into her. Azula slowly pushed herself back to her proper stance.

"I... don't remember this," she said.

"It must only light up in the dark," Aang said. He pointed to where it took one right-hand fork and forsook a left. "And I think it's pointing the way toward something."

"Ingenious," she said with begrudging tones. "Only an idiot would go in here without a torch, and those that did would lose the trail and get killed by the wildlife."

"This must lead to something. Maybe it's a way out?" Aang offered. Azula stared at him for a moment then sighed, and gestured forward. "It'll be alright. I promise."

"Just walk, Avatar," she said, weary.

* * *

><p>"I don't understand him," the girl said.<p>

"There's nothing to understand. He's the enemy," Azula answered her, as they followed the glowing green path.

"Why are you so sure of that?" the girl asked. "The way he talked about our home was... oddly complimentary for somebody who wants to destroy it. What if..."

"Don't follow that line of thought," Azula ordered.

"...Li and Lo weren't telling the truth," younger Azula answered anyway.

"There is no truth," Azula said.

"Well, that's nihilistic," the girl said with a raised brow. "And... what's that?"

"What's that?" Azula echoed her younger self, looking at what lay before them. It was the end of the line, as it were, with the glowing path terminating at a great, circular stone cap. Writing ran around the closed portal, but she couldn't understand a word of it, and not only because it was too dark by a half.

"Azula, could you give me some light?"

"No," she answered. He stared at her. Her younger self did, too.

"Do it," the girl said.

"But..."

"Agni's blood? Who's the _eight year old_, here?" she snapped. Azula scowled, but ignited that wisp of flame above her hand, throwing bluish light to replace the greenish light from above. It was somewhat stronger, though, so the Avatar turned back to his task.

"What does it say?" Azula said with disinterest.

"It's not as old as the other stuff at the opening," the Avatar answered. "I can actually read this. It says... Love is brightest in the dark."

"No, photoluminescent crystal is brightest in the dark," Azula retorted. He gave her a wan look. She smirked.

"Well, the one at the entrance said 'love will show the way'," the Avatar opined. "Maybe... the only way to open this thing is to... well..."

"Well what?" Azula asked.

"Kiss?" he attempted.

"What." younger Azula asked.

"Are you out of your mind?" the older Azula asked.

"Well, the legend says..."

"There are legends which say if a fish swims through the right gate, it turns into a dragon!" Azula snapped. "That doesn't make them true!"

"But..."

"There will be no kissing in this tunnel. And least of all with _you_," she said, turning away.

"W...would it really be that bad?" the younger Azula asked. Older Azula just leveled her younger self with a death-glare to make her opinion very, very clear.

"So you'd rather die than kiss me?" the Avatar asked, arms crossed before him.

"Well, at least it would have some dignity," she said primly. "Besides, what mechanism could possibly be activated by that frippery? No, this thing is a plug, and from the look of it, it's supposed to roll away."

"Wh... Yeah, I see what you mean," the Avatar said, wilting slightly. Azula rolled her eyes, but felt a numbing jab at her hip, where her younger self had prodded her hard with a stern look on her face.

"As much as I like psychological warfare, that was just unnecessary."

Azula turned her back to the plug and leaned against it, getting all the weight away from parts of her body which were broken, bruised, or smashed. "If you continue like that, I'm going to start doubting your commitment in this... My commitment in this," she shook her head. "Your existence annoys me."

Her younger self blew a raspberry at her, which caused Azula to pause with concern. Had she _ever_ been that immature?

"Well... I guess we should look for something to move the plug, then," the Avatar said. Azula let out a laugh, then pushed hard with her heels, and ignoring the ache which moved through her back. At first, there was nothing. Then, the slightest sound of something grinding. When her feet started to slip, she'd managed to move it all of an inch, but it was an inch further than it had traveled in unknowable centuries. The Avatar's eyes lit up and he put his own weight into the effort of her second push, which amounted to very, very little.

"You should be ashamed, letting the crippled girl do all the pushing," Azula jibed across grit teeth.

"This thing's really heavy!"

"And you are really weak," Azula finished. Finally, with a squawk, her feet stopped supporting her, because the block lurched about a foot back and down. The Avatar instantly caught her, even though it was almost too much for his spindly form to take. She quickly pulled herself upright, glaring away from him, an odd warmth that she had no accounting for in her cheeks. A glance toward her younger self saw the girl spinning her toe on the stone, eyes on her shoes. The Avatar was likewise looking away, laughing uncomfortably.

"Well, the door's open," he pointed out the obvious. The door slowly began to roll down its track until the space beyond was revealed. But against the hopes of all in the room, it did not flood their room with light, but rather, plunged into a new blackness. "Wait... This isn't an exit."

"What was your first clue?" Azula snapped. She limped to the first of a short flight of steps, and flicked a pittance of fire out over the edge. The spark flew through the air, and landed between two great mound shapes, all carved of black stone. She knew that shape well enough. "You've managed to find us a tomb. Congratulations."

The Avatar bounded down the steps, though, and began to look over the mounds, and finally light began to bloom up in the darkness. The Avatar lifted up a torch which had been left however long ago, lit by Azula's dying spark. "At least we won't be blind down here," he offered. She rolled her eyes, and began her extremely uncomfortable descent. She looked up at the stonework, here in this tomb. There were two figures, obviously man and woman, kneeling side-by-side, their hands clasped together. She raised a brow at it. It might have been old, but it wasn't bad.

"Hold on a second... I can read this, too," the Avatar pointed out, pointing out a golden plaque which was almost black with dust. A puff of his wind and it was shining again. "Its... It says that this place was the resting place of The Lovers, those who brought earthbending to the human race. That must mean this tomb is five thousand years old!"

"Fascinating," Azula said flatly.

"It is!" he answered with enthusiasm, missing her flat affect. "Way back then, there were these two warring nations. But a man and a woman, one from each side of the mountain and of the border, they met while climbing the mountain. They fell in love, and..." he trailed off. "And then the man was slain in the ongoing war. She was so enraged that she almost destroyed all of them before she could calm her grief. Man. She must have been scary."

"So that bronzework was just retelling this?" Azula asked.

"This must be much more recent than that stuff," he said. "I can't make out the names, though. This place... I bet nobody's seen it for hundreds of years. Maybe thousands!"

"And as far as the world cares, nobody yet has," Azula said. She sighed, and continued singsong. "Ah, well, at least my body will be interred when I die of thirst. I'd hate to think of it being torn apart by wolfbats."

"We're going to be alright," the Avatar placated. "We just need to take the other door out and follow the crystals on that side. Like it says here, they build this maze to meet in secret, so it must lead from one side to the other."

"That's... actually not a bad plan," Azula had to admit.

"See, I told you he isn't an idiot," the girl beside Azula opined. Azula shot herself a death-glare.

As he began to move toward that door, though, there was a trembling, which Azula could feel quite acutely with her very-tender toes. She stopped, staring down. "Did you feel that?" Azula asked.

"Feel what?" the boy asked.

"The ground," Azula said, falling silent. After a moment, it came again, just the tiniest tremble through the stone, the most minute rattle of the pebbles on the floor. And the slightest rumble in the mountain. "What. Was. That?"

"I... I'm not sure," the Avatar admitted. "But it sounds like it's coming from... this way."

Azula watched him go, not wanting to cover any more distance than she would absolutely have to. And she was thankful she waited. Mostly because while the Avatar was roughly half way to the far wall, said wall collapsed down into dust and rubble. And something very large and very angry was making its way through that hole.

Azula didn't scream like a girl. The Avatar took up the slack in that regard. In a flash he'd retreated from the collapsing detritus and was at Azula's side at the foot of that dais, their backs to the dead. "Is that what I think it is?" Azula asked, her voice trembling slightly. It couldn't end like this. Not now.

"It's... a badgermole," the Avatar confirmed. "Stay back! I'm the Avatar and I order you to stay back!"

"Does that ever work?" Azula demanded.

"There's always a first time," he answered at a panic. The beast trundled into the chamber, its body the size of the house she'd raised her family in, it's claws each as long as the Avatar was tall, its eyes wholly grey and sightless. And its mouth was open wide in a snarl. "Leave us alone, or I will call down all of my Avatar-y might to stop you!"

"It doesn't speak Tianxia, idiot! It doesn't know you're threatening it!" Azula shouted.

"Well, what else am I supposed to do? Hope that help drops out of the ceiling and saves the day?" the Avatar asked. Azula shot him a glare.

And then, since the universe worked that way, help dropped out of the ceiling to save the day. Of course, it came in the form of a plug of stone roughly the size of an air bison – fitting because it was the platform for one – which dropped out of the darkness and slammed into the floor, the impact of it knocking Azula and the Avatar both onto their backs against the dais, throwing up detritus. Instantly, she could see a Tribesman rolling off the chunk, nursing a lower-leg injury as the light from the torch failed and returned the chamber to darkness.

"I can't see a thing in here!" _that girl's_ voice said in the pitch blackness.

"Oh no, what a nightmare," Toph's response was mocking and sarcastic.

"Why didn't you warn me you were gonna do that?" Sokka's whining hit the blackness.

"'Cause I didn't have time to," Toph's reply came as Aang managed to get the embers of his torch to fan and cast scarlet light back through the chamber. As soon as he did, he could see her she bound off the chunk and confront the beast, which snarled at her threateningly. It slammed its paw against the stone, sending ripples like a drop into a still pool, rock surging toward the blind girl. With a growl of her own, Toph stomped the wave flat with one foot. She then pounded the ground with that foot a few more times, slowly beginning to circle the great beast, which turned its attention from the others, directly and exclusively onto her.

"What is she doing?" Azula demanded.

"What is she doing _here_?" _that girl_ asked in counterpoint at Azula. Azula wanted so hard to kill her that it was physically painful that she couldn't. Added to the physical pain which caused that inability, Azula was subject to quite a state of misery.

Beifong continued the circle of the beast, until they'd gone a whole loop to their original places. Then, with a roar, the girl took an abortive charge toward the massive badgermole. The beast turned and fled into the hole it had entered the chamber in, even going so far as to seal it in its wake. Toph turned, grinning smugly, as she sauntered back toward the Tribesmen.

"What was that?" Sokka asked.

"Bull males are real territorial, especially in mating season. They assume anything they hear is a threat," she explained.

"And how did you run it off?" the Avatar asked.

"There's one thing bigger and meaner than a bull male, and that's the queen bitch," Toph stopped, and thrust both thumbs inward at herself. "Who 'da queen?"

There was long silence, punctuated by the Tribesman coughing.

"I'm not going to say it," Azula pointed out.

"Katara, Azula's hurt and she needs our help," the Avatar said instantly as soon as the spell was broken.

"No," _that girl_ said, her arms crossed before her.

"Hey, don't be a bitch," Toph snapped. "She's pretty busted up. I can tell from here."

"Well, good," the waterbender said in a huff.

"You enjoy seeing me suffer, don't you?" Azula snapped, trying to get into the waterbender's face. "Well, you won't get the gratification of it, not today..."

"You mind explaining something to me?" Sokka said as an aside to the Avatar. The boy shrugged. "Why exactly did you feel you had to rescue the girl who keeps trying to kill us?"

"It was the right thing to do," the boy offered.

"I don't know what your problem is," Toph said, levering herself between the two women, "but whatever it is, it can wait. It's not like she's gonna be able to murder us in the condition she's in. Hell, I doubt she can bend more than a spark, am I right?"

Azula grumbled and turned away, not wanting the answer to hit the air.

"See? So there's not going to be any more corpses in this room, is that clear?" Toph demanded.

"What?" the waterbender asked. Then, she turned toward the wall, and squinted up at the writing. "Sokka... Do you recognize this?"

The Tribesman brightened at that. "Of course! It's just like that stuff at the entrance! Let's see..." And he began to recite some gobbledygook which in turn made the blind earthbender grow more excited.

"What is it?" the waterbender asked over Azula's sullen silence.

"This is the Tomb of the Founders," Toph said. "I thought this place was just a myth! This..." she gave a toe-prod to one casket, "is Shu, the Fallen Lover, and that would make her Oma, the First Earthbender. This chick was the first person to learn earthbending from the badgermoles! Gods! I'm standing in the oldest archaeological site on the planet!"

"Shu and Oma?" Sokka asked. He then swept off another bit of the great wall of text and engravings. "You've gotta be kidding me. When Oma died, her descendants built a city in her honor, and to honor the peace she enforced. And take a wild guess at what they named it."

"Omashu?" Azula hazarded flatly.

"Exactly, and..." Sokka broke off, and looked at her for a moment, then shook his head and continued facing the others. "That means that Omashu is the oldest city on this planet!"

"Well, oldest city name," Toph said. "There's been a city called Omashu for five thousand years? Huh. If only it hadn't been burned by the Storm Kings, or wiped out by the Monolith before that, it'd be even older than Ba Sing Se."

"This is fascinating," the waterbender said disingenuously, "but we're overlooking the fact that the girl who keeps trying to kill us is standing right there..."

"We can get back to that," Toph said with a dismissive wave. "Brain, could you get a rubbing of all of this? This could be huge man, HUGE!"

"I don't see why not," Sokka said, setting about copying the etchings.

"I think Katara's right. What do we do now? I mean..."

"She's not going to stop. Are you?" the waterbender asked. Azula's death-glare was all the answer the firebender felt like offering. "Well... We could bring her to Bumi in Omashu. He might know what to do."

She smirked at that. She knew what they'd find.

"Yeah, that's a great idea," the Avatar agreed. Azula muttered to herself, and gave a clipped yelp when she turned, and found herself face to nose with a ten tonne beast. She looked well to the right to catch one of its eyes, and it was scrutinizing her deeply.

"Um..." Azula said, uncomfortable around the creature.

And it answered her as it answered everything it didn't know particularly well: with a tongue upside the head.

* * *

><p>It was telling how injured Azula was that nobody bound her. Sokka hadn't wanted to be cruel, and it was obvious that nobody was going to bring it up. And with the wind and the height of the bison's back working against her, Azula couldn't get far anyway. "Well, that was mildly horrifying, extremely irritating, and longer than it needed to be," he said. "But now, we finally see what it was all for."<p>

"Yeah, a crazy old bugger in a city with an awesome mail-system," Toph agreed with a grin.

"May I present to you," Sokka said as he crested the last peak between him and a clear view, "the Earth Kingdom city of Om... my gods..."

At that, Katara ran up to Sokka's side, leaving Aang with the princess upon Appa's back. Down in the valley between peaks, they expected to see the plains, and then standing proud amidst a gully, the city of Omashu. But the plains were hardly unoccupied. They were black with smoke, and iron, and red with sooty flames. Fire that streaked across that gully toward the golden walls. "Oh, no..." Katara said.

"The Fire Nation's reached Omashu," Sokka summed up the worst of their combined fears.

* * *

><p>The clash of metal against metal filled the air, and a wind from a place without wind sounded across the undefined distances, and at their heart, gold rose up from the shuddering heart of the world. An outpouring of such power and life that it could fill up the whole world in a single day, streaming blind and dumb out of the last living place in the Spirit world. And it was right there to eat its fill and more. Brilliant energy, chromatic and invisible, tried to bloom across the blackened sky and return it to its golden hue. Instead, it only found the Maw, and oblivion beyond it.<p>

It hungered still.

With a shift, that unthinking thing which still lived in this lifeless place did as it always did when its attempts were thwarted. It railed and rebelled, and a shockwave was launched away from that stymied pillar of light, a directionless but all-encompassing counterattack, an attempt to drive off anything which tried to curtail it. But it was energy too, and the Maw ate what it could there, as well, before that which it couldn't reach rumbled as a wave across the landscape, moving without pity or thought across the span of the spirit world. The heart of the world went silent, and the winds which were no winds died.

And it hungered still.

It had no cunning but an animal's cunning, no thoughts beyond its own hunger, and its desire to be sated. To consume until it need no more. But it was alone. Even in its atrophied mind, it recognized that it was like no other thing in existence. They all had body and soul, they had form and function. It just... was. It hungered. And its hunger could not be sated here.

So it turned its eyes inward, and outward, across the impossible distances, which could amount to trillions of light-years or a plank-unit of distance, or neither, or both. The worlds it saw held no interest. It just wanted food. Things it could eat. It couldn't eat humans; it gained no sustenance from them. But its hunger grew, and perhaps in time, its hunger would destroy that memory, and it would eat souls once more. So it turned back to the closest of them, the strand which shined brightest.

And it found the meat-thing – its chosen meat-thing – which could bring it food.

Malu's eyes opened from a nightmare of darkness and terror, and she coughed, spitting out mud and worse substances onto the ground. She sat up, and instantly regretted it, because the sun was directly in her eyes, and she had a headache which threatened to torque off her skull and beat her to death with it. The stink of death was upon her, suffusing her nose and her mouth. It was all she could taste; rotting meat. Hers, though she hadn't realized it. She slowly sat up.

"Wh... where am I?" she asked. The wind in the Divide was all the answer she got. "Nila? Tzu Zi? Where are you guys?"

Silence, but for the wind, and the snarling of a famished stomach.

"What happened?" Malu asked, and then started to brush off her clothes. Then, she saw the hole. Her fingers probed it, and her eyes widened as she found the tiny circular void in the center of her kavi, right atop her heart. She then reached back, and found an even bigger torn hole at the back of her robes. But the skin under that hole? Smooth as the day she'd been born. But she hungered.

"Wait..." Malu said to herself, after trying again to spit out the fetid rot. "Borte was there, and then the soldiers were invading, and then I..."

You are not the Avatar, they had said. I met him, and he is not you, she said. But how could that be possible? Ninety nine years out of date, they said! What did it mean? But she showed them the Avatar! She showed them the power of her birthright...

Hadn't she?

Another twist in her guts, and she clutched her stomach, a rictus of pain on her face. The hunger was worse than it had ever been before. It tore at her body in waves, demanding food, food, food. Any food. All of the food. No longer the whisper at the back of her mind, it was all she could hear. "So hungry," Malu whispered to herself. Desperate grey eyes swung around the barren western of the Great Divide, trying to find something to quell that starvation pain. "There's gotta be something around here I can eat..."

And with that, Malu, smelling of the corpse she'd been for three weeks, limped along the floor of the Divide, her hunger growing stronger and stronger. More and more painful. More and more unnatural.

* * *

><p><strong>You wanted to see what became of Malu? She got shot in the heart. That ordinarily kills people, and for a while, she was fairly ordinary. Unfortunately for all involved, she also has a really unpleasant passenger rididing shotgun. One of the main perks of being a Host is that an sufficiently spirit can not only halt aging, but repair bodily damage. Ordinarily, they can't bring people back from the dead, because as soon as the Host dies, they get booted out. Imbalance doesn't care about rules. The presence of Korra in this universe proves that.<strong>

**Obviously, this was a situation which having access to Toph would solve almost instantly in normal circumstances, so I had to come up with a good reason why she wasn't deus ex machina. Namely, she might be a baddass mofo who can hold Wan Shi Tong's library inside reality, but she can't lift a mountain. Also, playing Azula against Aang in a position where she can't realistically harm him was too fun for words. Only it wasn't, because there are obviously a few thousand of them where she's doing such a thing.**

**I lost a couple days of writing due to a bout of moderately severe illness, and a bit more to apparent waning readership, but this story demands writing, and I will write it. It's just a matter of dealing with the half-deafness and the feeling like hell to do so. Come on, folks, speak up. I like knowing that somebody out there is reading, if not enjoying, my work.**

_Leave a review._


	24. Return to Omashu

**Two things: One, I'm somewhat bummed that while I did predict that lightningbending would have proliferated by Korra's time, I didn't get to beat them to its utilization in this fic. Still, score one for foresight. Two, I admit this chapter has its weak bits. Eh, not everything can be solid gold. EDIT: Doubly so because apparently I can't remember that Toph is friggin' blind!**

* * *

><p>Yong kept his eyes to the south as the ramps and machinery began to extend, their harsh, metal workings clear even at this distance, mostly because of their great number. Catching his breath wasn't easy, since he'd had to earthbend his way up to the center of the city only after the rampant retreat from the field. He wasn't even sure that the bird which bore him in was still alive; Ostrich Horses could run hard and run long, but there was a limit to any mortal stamina. At least he and his men had ensured the great trebuchets and mortars couldn't get set up in any appreciable number. While occasional balls of flame launched toward the great city of Omashu, they were few and far between, and poorly aimed besides. "We have to decide on our policy, King Bumi," Yong stressed.<p>

"Regarding?" the mad old wolfbat said, one white brow raised as he stared at a Pai Sho board instead of the fact that his nation was being invaded. Yong once again had to tweeze his brow, and shake his head. "It can't be that important. If it was, it'd have been delivered by mail. All the important messages come by mail, don't you know?"

"My king, can you not see the Fire Nation at our gates?" Yong asked.

"Yes, yes, such a trouble. You'd think they'd have some patience, and let an old man finish his game," Bumi said, kneading his crooked beard like it held the secrets of the universe secreted amongst the crumbs of the sandwich he'd eaten for breakfast.

"We have been pushed back into the city; we've lost the fields and the outforts. They must number fifteen thousand strong, with siegeworks and firebenders ten deep!" Yong continued, finally starting to get his wind back.

"Really? Then why are you standing here? Aren't you supposed to keep this sort of thing from happening?" Bumi asked, still mulling over that damned Pai Sho board.

"My king, we were dramatically outnumbered," he said. "The fighting was one-sided and brutal. We retreated so we wouldn't get surrounded and slaughtered in our pillboxes. I have no idea how they possibly got that many men over the mountains without our pass guardians warning us..."

"Maybe they learned how to fly?" Bumi asked.

Yong just stared at him, scratching at his own, much bigger and blacker beard. There were times where it was very hard to understand how Bumi ended up as a king, especially when he said things like this. "However they got past our defenses, they have. Our outer forces might make this an even fight, but those Western bastards will already..."

"Language, young man. There's a reason why people claim that the younger generation has no class. Swearing all the time. It's disgraceful!"

"I..But..." Yong shook his head, and turned to one of the old man's advisers, with a hopeful expression. That adviser, younger than Bumi by almost twenty years, was still so decrepit-looking and creaky that his helpless shrug called to mind the sound of a rusty gate opening. "My lord, please. What are our orders? Do we evacuate? Do we man the walls?"

"The gates, are they closed?" Bumi asked.

"Of course," Yong said. "Closed and buried."

"Well, that's your problem, right there," Bumi got to his feet. "You see, if you put too much effort into defending, then what have you got left? Eh? Sometimes, the best course is the simplest. So you should go down to those gates and..." Bumi began.

"And... what, my king?" Yong asked, but he noted that Bumi was fixated on something in the sky. Yong picked it out from the pristine blue skies, first mistaking it for a tiny wisp of cloud. But as it drew closer, it became obvious that it was a bison, paddling through the air easily as you please. "My king, it's just a bison. We've seen dozens of them this month alone."

"Hrm... Do you remember what I just told you to do?" Bumi asked.

"To go to the gates and..." Yong began, but Bumi cut him off with a flick of ring-decked fingers.

"There has been a slight change in plans. While defending can be tiresome, there are penalties to taking no action when action need be taken which are _far higher_! Sometimes better to be wrong than to not guess, am I right?" and then, the old man launched into his snorting, cackling laughter. Yong looked on the mad king nervously, before the laughing fit finally died down. "So no, you're not going to open the gates and let the Fire Nation in. Not this time. Maybe next time?"

"Let them in?" Yong asked.

"No, silly young man. _Don't_ let them in," the King of Omashu said, ruffling Yong's hair like Yong was a five-year old who'd said something stupid. But then again, it would take a wiser man than Colonel Yong to understand the thought processes of King Bumi of Omashu. "After all, we have guests, and the Fire Nation would interrupt our dinner. Wei? Could you be a dear and set out a spread? And prepare the bad chambers again."

"The bad chambers or the recently-renovated-chambers-which-used-to-be-the-bad-chambers-but-are-now-better-than-the-good chambers?" Senechal Wei said patiently.

"Mmmm, the other one," Bumi said.

"What the hell..."

"Language, Colonel Yong."

"...is going on here?" Yong finished past Bumi's interruption.

"Oh, I'm just having an old friend over for supper. Make sure to have plenty of lettuce. Flopsy loves lettuce," Bumi said, before puttering toward the doorway, past the Senechal and into the castle which rested in the center of the tri-peaked city of Omashu. And Yong gave one last glance to that bison, which drifted through the sky, and he finally understood something of what the Old Man was doing. Because that bison had riders upon its back, and was coming directly toward them.

* * *

><p>"I swear to you, I <em>will<em> kill you," Azula grumpily swore once again.

"Can you please make her stop that, it's getting annoying," Katara said from the brow of Appa, where she was piloting the beast over the heads of the force of Fire Nationals which worked its inexorable way inward from the gully serving as Omashu's moat.

"How am I supposed to stop her?" Sokka asked.

"She was talking about Twinkletoes," Toph pointed out, giving Aang a shove with her foot when she did so. "After all, it was his brilliant idea to drag her onto this beast's back."

"So glad you think well of me," Azula said sarcastically from where she was sitting, her legs bound but otherwise unmanacled. After all, Katara 'wasn't about to waste the healing it would take to bring that crazy bitch back to full health', knowing that it would immediately be followed by a then-fully-healthy Azula trying to kill her. Or so she'd intimated to her brother. Sokka, though, saw the whole thing as some sort of comedy of errors, and since he wasn't the subject of it, he couldn't be happier.

"Why do you think I can make her quiet?" Aang asked, his eyes puffy and sunken from the exhaustion they all shared. Between having an impromptu mountain-climbing expedition on their side or being buried in a cave-in on Aang's, it was understandable that they'd all be a bit weary. Even Momo was curled up and sleeping in Toph's lap. Of the lot of them, only Appa seemed chipper. And that was, of course, a relative thing.

"Well, you did manage to survive being stuck with her for seven hours," Sokka pointed out.

"That was seven hours? It felt like days," Azula groused.

"Seriously though, buddy, what exactly are our plans with big, battered, and angry over here?" Sokka asked, leaning in toward Aang.

"I didn't really have a plan. I couldn't leave her down there; she'd die."

"You underestimate me," Azula said. "I've survived worse than getting lost in a cave."

"With two broken arms and a smashed foot," Toph prompted. Azula just glared at her. "Is she doing that stink-eye thing again?"

"Yup," Sokka answered neutrally. Toph grinned at the notion.

"Katara, won't you reconsider..." Aang began.

"Not a chance," the driver of the Air Bison made it very clear.

"But she's in pain and..."

"Don't care, she keeps trying to murder me," Katara answered.

"See? What a lovely girl you've got your eye on," Azula mocked.

"Why does everybody think I'm infatuated with Katara?" Aang shouted as the beast began to dip lower, descending over the protective gulley in the one direction where the Fire Nation's encirclement was not yet complete. "I'm telling you; Katara's pretty much the sister I never had. Doing... stuff... with her would be weird and gross!"

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Toph said sarcastically.

"It doesn't remove the fact that she's a sadist and you encourage her cruelty by silence if not by deed," Azula pointed out.

"Yeah... you haven't seen those two bouncing off each other, have you?" Sokka asked. "I mean, he tore a strip up one side of her down the other after that whole 'pirate thing'."

"Guys..." Katara said.

"I didn't tear a strip off... I just wanted everybody to know that theft just wasn't the right way of doing things, even if it was from pirates. I mean, if we go around stealing from pirates, and scamming scammers, and lying for peace, then how can we possibly hold the moral high-ground?" Aang asked. "I am not going to be what Sozin thought my people were. Even if I'm the only one left, I will be the Air Nomads as they were supposed to be."

"Yeah, but apparently, you aren't the only one, remember?" Sokka pointed out. Aang turned to him, confusion on his face. Unnoticed by anybody in the howdah, the city was growing larger as they descended toward it. "What that cute girl with the Si Wongi said? You know, another airbender?"

"Oh, right..." Aang nodded. He gave a chuckle. "What do you think the chances of us finding her, are?"

"Knowing the way the universe likes to play fast and loose with the rules when you're around, I'm pretty sure it's a practical certainty," Sokka declared, and then waited five seconds for the universe to prove him wrong. When it didn't, he let out the breath he'd been holding.

"How, oh _how_, did I ever get beaten by you?" Azula asked flatly.

"I know what you're talkin' about," Toph said easily. "It's like they've got lucky-charms stitched into their skin and an ashtamangala parasol shoved up their..."

"O...kay, don't need to hear the rest of that," Sokka cut her off.

"How _do_ you put up with them?" Azula asked.

"Eh, it's mostly about learning how to ignore Sugar Queen, keeping Twinkletoes distracted, and placating Brain before he busts a gasket. Although, when you put it that way, it almost sounds like a full time job," Toph rubbed her chin at the thought.

"Why would I bust a gasket?" Sokka asked.

"Guys?" Katara asked again.

"Oh, please. Every morning since you picked me up it's been 'Toph, get up, the sun rose an hour ago', and 'This dinner would get cooked a lot faster if you helped'. I swear, it's like you've scheduled us down to when we're allowed to use the crapper!" Toph said.

"Yeah, he's got that scheduled, too," Aang pointed out.

"You've got to be kidding me," Toph said. Sokka let out a strangled sound when all eyes but Katara's turned to him, accusation clear in them. "You've been ordering me around? Nobody orders me around!"

"If we didn't follow the schedule we would have never got here by the time these Fire Jerks reached Omashu, and it'd probably have been invaded by the time we reached it!" Sokka complained. Azula, though, just sat back looking smug at the back of the howdah.

"GUYS!" Katara shouted, leaning over the rail.

"What?" Aang asked, after a start of alarm.

"We've landed," she said. And true to her word, when Sokka looked over the rail, he saw that there were quite a few gathered soldiers and officials of Bumi's court, all decked out in green and yellow, all waiting for them. "And that's why you're bad news, Azula. You make everything worse with your presence."

"I could say much the same thing about you," Azula answered sotto.

Aang, though, bounded off the beast which was settling down onto its belly and swung his head to and fro, trying to see someone in particular. "Where is he?" Aang asked. "King Bumi? Where's King Bumi?"

"Oh, I'm right here, don't get all in a tizzy," Bumi's reedy, cracking voice came from the great doors which lead into the palace. Oddly enough, he'd ignored them completely and walked through a wall instead. "I didn't expect you back so soon! If I'd have had some warning, I would have had a proper lunch laid out!"

"Lunch?" Sokka asked. "Don't you realize you're being invaded right now?"

"Oh, that can wait," Bumi said with a dismissive wave. "There's always time for lunch and a cup of tea, after all."

Toph scowled down at the man. "Who is this crazy old fossil?"

"Fossil she says? Girl, I've been earthbending five times longer than you've been alive!"

"Guys, can we please focus on what's important?" Sokka asked.

"Right, he's right you know?" Bumi said, to Toph in particular, before clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Lunch!"

And with that, and a snorting, cackling laugh, he turned and departed into the dining hall of the royal palace of Omashu. Even Azula was staring at him agape with befuddlement. "That was..." she muttered.

"Yeah," Sokka couldn't help but agree. Then he looked up and down, to the city above and below him. "Good to be back."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

**Return to Omashu**

* * *

><p>"Wow. Ababa's a lot prettier than you had me believe," Tzu Zi, skirting the crowds which pushed through the ornate gates into the northernmost of the cities of the Si Wongi peoples. It would probably be a day or three before the dunes of sand gave way to rocky wasteland, and then, finally, the naked expanse of the Great Divide. It was a striking difference from the last city they'd been to. That one was pale and majestic, but this one much more colorful and alive. Even its streets were cobbled in some blueish stone, making the street look more a canal than a walkway. Fitting for the River City of the North.<p>

"It's an old city. Very old," Sharif said distractedly, still reaching behind him as though to grab 'hold of Patriarch, even after a month saw the great bird rotting in the ruins of Sentinel Rock. "One of our first."

"Essentially, it was the city of Seema, Hamir, and Nosri, before the First Families broke apart and moved south into the desert because they could no longer stand each other," Nila pointed out with a smirk. "Understandable that this place looks more like an Eastern city than any to the south."

"I was about to say that," Tzu Zi said. The architecture here was still all sandstone and mud-brick, but the colors of green and yellow predominated, and no few of the towers not just on the walls but of the small clutch of palaces overlooking the Divide Spring were clad in shining silver. "It almost feels like we're back in Merchant's Pier. I wonder if this is what Ba Sing Se looks like?"

Nila had to laugh at that. "Not even slightly," she said. "Ba Sing Se could swallow Ababa a dozen times in its Upper Ring alone. But you will see it soon enough. We should probably rest the night and then strike north. I grow tired of these places as much as Ashan does. Is that not right?"

Ashan nodded slightly, but he had a tightness on his face, as he stared toward those silvered towers above the naked and uncovered waters of the Yejim Tajih. "Do you think he's going to be there?"

"Almost certainly," Nila said.

"I don't understand," the firebender said.

"His father."

"I thought he didn't know his father," Tzu Zi said.

"I know my father better than Nila does," Ashan said with some uncharacteristic bitterness. "And I know what he'd done to my mother."

"Leave this be," Nila said, somewhat surprised that she was being shoehorned into the role of social censor. "How much money do we have left?"

"Um..." Sharif dug through the purse which he kept dangling from his neck. "Not much. I don't think we have much gold left."

"Just as well, we couldn't spend it here," Nila said. "Well, there's no point in doddling, with..."

"Wait!" Tzu Zi said urgently, and arresting all three of her Si Wongi companions. Nila quickly reached back to her firearm, her eyes swinging around to mark Tzu Zi's threat, but for the hundreds of people milling about through bright and vibrant streets of this trade hub 'twixt the Si Wongi peoples and those of the Northern Earth Kingdoms, Nila couldn't see anything in particular.

"What is it?" Ashan asked.

"Look at those shoes!" the girl said with glee, her hands flying to her mouth.

"Shoes?" Nila asked.

"I don't ask about these things," Ashan said, his hands up and away, as he conceded the issue.

"Tzu Zi, they are adornments for your feet, and they..." Nila began, but with a happy laugh, Tzu Zi bolted away through the crowds, leaving Nila with one finger raised toward her point, but otherwise somewhat dumbstruck. She slowly turned to Ashan. "They're... Just... Shoes. Are my gender all like this?"

"I wouldn't know," Ashan admitted. "But then again, you're hardly a typical specimen of a girl."

"I take that as a compliment," Nila said sarcastically.

"It was intended as one. Should we not seek her out before she finds herself beset by shopkeepers or married to their sons?" he said, shooting one last glance over his shoulder, a hateful one at those towers over the river's birthplace. That left the two siblings standing amongst milling crowds.

"Is it true this place 'smells funny'? I can't tell," Sharif said, as his own eyes seemed locked on the northern horizon.

"It smells no different than Ibn-Atal. Stop asking stupid questions," Nila ordered.

"They seem to think so," Sharif continued.

"Are you even talking to me?" Nila asked.

"Who else would I talk to? They are not big enough to understand. Isn't that right, Patriarch?"

"For the last time, the old bird is dead. Come. We need to chase down a firebender before she gets into trouble," Nila prompted, and began to hustle her brother through the streets, a ridiculous sight for any to see, since she was so slight and he so bulky.

Unnoticed by either of them, there was a set of eyes which marked their exit from the clear courtyard just past the walls. "Stop you oafs," his voice cut through the din, and the bearers of his sedan halted immediately, lowering it to the cobbles which made up the street. As soon as the clack of the sedan's 'feet' rang against the cobbles, a foot swung out from the draping silk which hid the interior from outside view and interference. "No, it cannot be."

"What is it, my emir?" the bearer at the front asked. The youth inside shot a glare at him, but the man was a trusted agent of his father, and so there were slights which had to be ignored. "You should not be walking about. You know what the physician said."

"I can walk if I please!" the youth said somewhat petulantly. In truth, every other step he took was with a limp, and no small bit of pain. "Did you not see who just moved into that crowd?"

"It shames me that I did not. Who did you see, my emir?" the beih asked.

"The stuck-up bitch who did this to me," he said, moving back into the sedan, and sitting, keeping weight off his smitten foot. "Take me to Sheik Ali. I have business to attend to."

"As you wish, Emir Gashuin," the beih said briskly, and then, with a momentary grunt of effort, the sedan was moving through the crowds once more, toward the palaces of the prince of this city, and toward one youth's revenge.

* * *

><p>The tension in the room was palpable, and thick enough that one would have to cut through it with an axe. Of course, one of the occupants of the room contentedly munched on his lunch with nary a care in the world to the occasional crashing sounds outside, or the nervous sweat of the people who surrounded him, or even the impatient staring of the guests for whom, by all rights, this feast had been set out.<p>

"Am I the _only one_ who sees how ridiculous this is?" Princess Azula asked flatly from where she sat, between Aang and Bumi. "We're in the process of invading you, and you're having lunch."

"Thank you! Gods, I thought I was the only sane one here," Toph said, throwing up her hands from across the table.

"Yeah, first thing you've gotta know about dealing with King Bumi is that he tends to go at his own pace," the Avatar pointed out.

"His own pace is making it very easy for the Fire Nation to break down the walls," Katara said darkly, and she shot a glare at Azula when the Princess gave a smug smirk at that.

"A man has to eat," Bumi said. "Old or young, boy or girl, it doesn't matter. If we don't eat, then what good are we? Eh?"

"We should be preparing our defense!" Sokka opined.

"It can wait," Bumi dismissed.

"Are you nuts?" Sokka rose to his feet. "They're right there! I could practically throw a rock from the outer walls and hit one of their soldiers in the head with it!"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean we can go around being hasty and reckless," Bumi said sagely.

"Reckless? We're not doing anything!"

"Exactly," Bumi answered, as though Sokka had made his own point. Aang looked between the confounded Tribesman and the supposedly insane king. He rose to his own feet with a crunch of his aged back, before coughing lightly and rubbing at his crooked nose. "But I know that I feel a great deal better now that I've got a meal in me. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I'd agree, if I could eat," Azula said darkly.

"Now now, no need to be grim," the old man said. "After all, you're among friends now, and you won't need to worry about your father's depredations inside this palace."

"Depredations? Really?" Azula asked.

"Yes," Bumi said, his tone going distant, and much more sympathetic. "After all, he was quite cruel to you. Throwing out his own family? Hrmph! That's not the kind of thing a man should do."

"He is testing me. Seeing if I'm strong," Azula answered flatly.

"Well, I think I can see the answer to that," Bumi said. Azula's eye twitched at the insult, but he cut her off and drowned her out. "But the young man from the south is right. Now is a time for action! Well, technically, now is a time for tea and scones but since we can't bring in flour from the outlying fields, action will have to do!"

Almost as one, all of the advisors behind the king slumped a bit with relief. "Thank the gods," one of them muttered, then quickly skirted to the front of the King. "Could you please lay out our defense strategy? We only have enough food in the city to last for a month, and I don't know if we'll even get that at the rate that the siege engines are assembling. What should..."

"Oh, you weren't listening were you?" Bumi asked. "Right now, we wait."

"...Wait?" the military man asked.

"Yes, that thing you do when you're not doing anything," Bumi said. He then turned to Aang personally. "I understand things didn't go as well as you'd have hoped in the North. I'm so sorry, Aang. I honestly didn't see that coming."

"Wait a second..." Sokka said.

"That's the idea," Bumi piped up.

"...Your entire defensive strategy is 'cool your heels'?" the Tribesman finished past the King's interruption.

"No, not all of it. Just most of it," Bumi said. "Come on, come on. We'd might as well get some air."

Aang was slightly baffled by the way that this day had gone. From the crushing despair of seeing Omashu, the last hold-out outside of Ba Sing Se so imperiled, to the elation of seeing that it still, for the moment, stood, to the tension of waiting. It was almost too much for his wits to take. The youngest of those present in the room followed after Bumi, but the mad monarch turned and pointed at the others who were starting to file out after them.

"No, not you. You have your own things to deal with, I can only imagine. Please escort the Princess to the Nice Chamber while you go."

"Escort me? Who do you think you are?" Azula demanded.

"A gracious host," Bumi said, and then turned back out to the balcony where Appa was lounging.

"So you've delivered me into the hands of my enemies," Azula said caustically to Aang as she was gently pulled to her feet. "Seeing you proved a hypocrite is almost worth the imprisonment."

"This isn't what it looks like, Azula," Aang said earnestly. "Just trust me on this."

"And why in Agni's name would I do that?" she asked, but then, she was limping away under guard, so there was no answer Aang could give which wouldn't be to the back of her head. He felt his heart sink a little as he turned back after Bumi. What kind of hero was he if he couldn't even convince the girl that they were on the same side? And that in turn got him thinking about what the Fire Lord must have done to make her the way she was now. From gentle artist and poet to obsessed zealot. It was a shame he couldn't have known her before, when he was actually thirteen and not a hundred and thirteen. Before the war and the pandemonium, before the Fire Nation started to spread across the globe, and its ideas began to pervert themselves. To have known her when the Fire Nation was a Fire Nation that the Fire Nation could have been proud of.

Oh, the paths which could never be taken.

"So now that you've ditched the fancy suits, what's the big plan?" Sokka said, rubbing his hands together.

"Have you ever played Pai Sho?" Bumi answered, which wasn't really an answer. Toph, in particular, looked somewhat more focused on the board than the rest.

"Hey, a stone board?" she asked. A smirk came to her face. "I can actually see what's going on for a change."

"I thought someone of your capacity would appreciate it," Bumi said.

"No, I always found it boring," Aang finally answered Bumi's question.

"Eh, you've obviously never played a good game," Bumi said with a wave of his hand. "What do you see here?"

Aang and the others moved closer to the board, except for Toph who didn't need to, and took in the lay of it. There were a great many white pieces, more than double those in black, and were arrayed almost completely around the position of the darker, carefully carved tiles. "I'm not sure what I'm looking at," Sokka admitted.

"You've played, have you?"

"Yeah, from time to time. Bato loved the game," he said. "Katara hated it, 'cause I'd always beat her."

"You cheat!" Katara complained.

"It's not cheating to _know the rules_," Sokka said flatly. "Our cousin beats her too, and _she's_ six."

"It's a stupid game," Katara said at a huff.

"Why am I thinkin' this ain't a random assortment?" Toph asked, arms crossed before her.

"Astute, young earthbender," Bumi said. "What can you tell me about the arrangement?"

"Well, I probably ain't played as much as Brain, here, but I've heard it talked over ad nauseum. All of the marble pieces have strategic positions which keep the onyx from expanding, or calling in Rim Placements. That's a lotus, right?" Bumi gave an Mm-hm, and she nodded. Aang just couldn't believe her 'earthbending vision' was that precise that she could pick out the carvings on the tiles! "But the concentration of the onyx actually might be..."

Bumi's grin grew a little wider as Toph's blind eyes widened.

"This is Omashu, ain't it?" she asked.

"Clever girl," Bumi said.

"Yeah, but there's a bit of a problem," Toph said. "If you try to tear down their engines – the Breakers – you might win, but you'll lose all of your Bastions and your Brushers – which is probably the walls and most of your troops. It'll be a bloody and costly victory."

"I don't like that plan," Sokka said. "There's got to be a better one."

"Well, there is one thing I didn't have on the board until now," Bumi admitted, and then he rummaged through his pockets for a long moment, before laying down a tile at the center of the black mass at the heart of the board. While Katara and Aang were naturally confused, knowing almost nothing about the game, Sokka and Toph were no less baffled. "It's called The Child, and it's the most powerful piece in the game. Almost impossible to play it, though, since the rules are so stringent about when it can come out."

"That represents... me?" Aang asked. Bumi nodded. "Why do I have a Pai Sho tile?"

"The Avatar has existed longer than Pai Sho has," the king pointed out.

"So what can it do?" Toph asked.

"Offensively, anything," Bumi said. "But it can be struck down as easily as any soldier on the field."

"So how do we leverage the Child – Aang, as the case may be – to save your game and Omashu at the same time?" Sokka said. "Maybe if we..."

"Hold on a second," Toph cut him off. "I think I see how this might work. I'm guessing you don't want to slaughter thousands of Fire Nationals, do ya, Twinkletoes?"

"No!"

"Thought not. So the only other option is to do nothing," she said. And all eyes slowly turned to hers, save the mis-matched pair of the ruler of Omashu. "Offensively, you're pretty much omnipotent, 'specially if you can go all 'Glowing Badass', which I'm not going to depend on, but that won't do much, since it'll still take one arrow to off ya. So you don't do anything... until the right moment comes."

"An ambush?" Sokka said, rubbing his chin.

"Something like it," she answered. "So, how would you reel in the Westerners into a place where we can give them a whoopin' that they're long overdue?"

"I have a few ideas," Bumi said. "I had considered just opening the gates. But then you appeared, and I decided it'd be impolite to host dinner while the Fire Nation was roaming the streets..."

"You know, you've got a better head on your shoulders than your reputation'd make me believe," Toph said.

Aang perked up for a moment, as he remembered something which was said to him before his long exodus to the south. "Oh! I just remembered. Grey Edge at Intercept Nine by Three, takes Soldier at Ring Two by Three."

Bumi let out his snorting chuckle. "The boy still thinks he can weasel his way out of my trap does he? Well, at least he's got spirit," Bumi said. "Well, we'll see how his game fares when you meet him next."

"Next?" Aang asked.

"Oh, I don't doubt that you will cross paths with the Mountain King again," Bumi said. "I'll think up my next move tomorrow, though. No reason to rush things."

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Toph asked.

"They're playing a game of Pai Sho over five thousand miles," Sokka explained.

"...Why?" she then asked. All present, Bumi excepted, shrugged their ignorance.

* * *

><p>"Wow. The weather's nice for a change," On-Ji said happily as she strode down the gangway. And true enough, it was. Rather than torrential rainfall, the weather on the island of Grand Ember was a humid overcast, and not even the featureless grey mass; for a few minutes, Shoji was fairly sure he could almost sort of see the sun. Somewhat. "Maybe that's a sign that this whole thing isn't as stupid an idea as I thought it was."<p>

"See? Just need to keep a bit of faith and everything will turn out alright," Shoji said with his usual endless enthusiasm.

"Oooh," she said, looking up the streets to the grand Fire Fountain which gave this city its name. It flowed up, spreading scarlet flames like the waving leaves of a tree, its design hundreds of years old, depicting something which Shoji couldn't at the moment remember. Some battle or something. It probably had something to do with the Storm Kings. But that didn't matter; day or night, rain or dry, the Fire Fountain burned, fueled from below by a deep pocket of natural gas. There had been some talk of a redesign of the actual fountain, but Shoji's parents never went into detail about it with him, so he hadn't any idea what it'd be. And besides, a tree made of fire was just an interesting thing to behold. "Look at those..."

"This isn't the time for shopping, On-Ji," Shoji said.

"Don't be preposterous; it's always time for shopping," the girl said, before breaking into a grin and racing up the cobbled streets toward the great market which flourished under the light and heat of the Fire Fountain. Shoji gave a glance back behind him, to the thoroughly made-up Tribeswoman who was being smuggled with him. Human smuggling. Wow, that was something Shoji never thought he'd have to do. At least it was for a good cause.

"_I'm surprised she didn't huddle on the boat and wait for it to go back_," Huuni said sharply.

"_Don't be like that. On-Ji's... well... she's a girl. She thinks differently than..._" Shoji began, and then trailed off when he turned to Huuni and was eye to breast with her. "_Well, she thinks differently from_ _me_."

"_She will betray us,_" Huuni declared. "_We should leave her here_."

"_No she won't_," Shoji countered. "_She's my friend. I trust her_."

"_Then you trust too easily and too freely_," Huuni said. "_Now we should move quickly before somebody notices... Oh, is that silk_?"

"_Probably, but what does that_..." Shoji began, but with a smile on her own face Huuni began to stride up the cobbled streets, hot on On-Ji's trail, toward the markets which peppered this district. Shoji wilted slightly. "Never ever will I understand women," he muttered in his own native tongue.

Even as he lethargically followed after them – his 'trips' with his mother had scarred him off of any pleasant feeling associated with shopping long ago – he could only take a moment to consider the absurdity of what he was doing. He wasn't even too long a teenager, and he was rescuing the damsel in distress. Although, far be it for Huuni to ever admit that she was distressed. And then there were the other things. Like how he could now speak her language as though he were born to it. It was unsettling if he took any time to ponder it. Since he didn't, it didn't cross his mind. But he could still feel something about her. Like she wasn't all the way here. Like that Tribeswoman had a part of her missing, like a doorway without a door, just waiting for something to walk back inside.

And he didn't even want to think about where that metaphor, or the thinking behind it, came from. He was a National. Nationals were skeptics first, secular second, and spiritual never. It was telling that the official stance toward religion was Agni above all, and suspicion above that. Then again, any spiritual people tended to be backwards and superstitious. Like the Easterners, with their many gods and few good ideas. Or the Tribesmen, praying to stars and the moon in the sky. That was why the Storm Kings were such a well-remembered adversary; how can you but respect an enemy who represents the best in you?

"Hey there, kid? Got a hankering for something exotic?" a skinny, green eyed barker sidled up to him, casting a hand back toward a battered looking, black hulled ship. "We've got curios from all of the world, from the Tribes in the North, to the heathens in the south, and everywhere in between."

"No thank you," Shoji said. "I'm just trying to keep an eye on some friends of mine."

"How do you know they aren't already inside, trying to find something to remember their trip to the city?"

"Let go of me," Shoji said. The man seemed a bit more insistent, but on the deck, Shoji could see a portly man with an eyepatch and a big hat clear his throat loudly. The barker disengaged quickly enough after that. Shoji rolled his eyes and continued up the streets. On-Ji was easy enough to find, since she was darting between stalls of shiny knick-knacks which were utterly uninteresting to anybody with external genitalia. "Come on, you can shop back at home."

"No I can't!" On-Ji said. "They've got one shop, back home, and it's only open two days a week! Look at all this stuff! Isn't it pretty?"

"I... Yes?" Shoji attempted, in the hope that it would end this torment sooner.

"So you see my point! I can't let a shopping opportunity like this pass me by!" she then moved over without giving Shoji a moment to correct his mistake of words. "Excuse me? Excuse me! Do you have this in red?"

"This is hell," Shoji concluded. "I've died and now I'm in hell. And it's a lot drier than I thought it'd be."

He shook his head, and as he did, he could just barely spot Huuni in the distance, appreciating a bolt of silk which she held open in her fingers. With a beset sigh, Shoji moved through the crowds until he was within shouting distance of her. But since that was obviously a bad idea, as Huuni wasn't exactly a common or proper Fire Nation name, he'd have to move even closer. She gave an appreciative nod, then pointed into the building, before ducking inside, as the door-girl nodded brightly. It was a moment's worry that the girl might have heard something out of place, but then Shoji remembered that girls hired to work the doors of a business were usually hired for their cuteness and charisma, not for having anything between their ears. Shoji quickly moved up to her. "Excuse me?" he said.

"Looking for a pretty dress for your lady friend?" the girl answered brightly, but with a precision which spoke to rote repetition. "If you are, then you'll find none better than Ui-Ba's Emporium!"

"Actually, I'm looking for somebody inside," he said.

"Really? You're not going to preruse our fine fabrics and finer prices?" she asked.

"I'm just going in, alright?" Shoji said.

"But the blue fabrics are currently buy one and get two free, as celebration of our victory in the north," the girl stressed, still thinking she was making a sale. And some victory it was. It took five and a half years longer than it should have and was a lot dirtier than anybody would have believed. Dad and Mom were quite vocal about it, and the things they said were not exactly patriotic. Of course, Shoji was just glad it was over. By the time Shoji was done with this little trip, Mom and Dad might actually have gotten home from the North. That was a nice thing to think about, pushing aside all of the annoyance of dealing with... this.

"Look, I'm just going to go inside and talk to my friend, then I can come back and see about your fabric. Is that alright?" Shoji lied, as he had great hopes never to talk to this empty-headed girl again. Say what you would about On-Ji, for all her sarcasm and cutting moods, she was a quick witted one. The girl sighed, and nodded.

"Please enjoy your Ui-Ba experience," she said. Shoji turned away, eyes rolling in his head, and pushed through the doors into the building. It was obviously a long established one, its woods still dark from the varnish used to keep wood from cracking in the dry, placing this building at least eighty years old. Not that Shoji knew that off hand. All he knew was that nowadays, buildings were much paler of wood, as they had to proof against wet. The insides were also well-appointed, with two fitters moving between customers easily, and the master tailor sitting on a stool off to one side, overseeing the whole thing like some sort of Eel-hound den mother. Best news Shoji got, though, was that Huuni was obvious in this crowd, trying to get their attention, to ask them something.

Which got Shoji's eyes bugging. He quickly crossed the distance and caught her arm. "_Are you out of your mind? You don't know how to speak my language!_"

"_So? She should speak mine_," Huuni answered quietly, making it seem like hers was the only logical course.

"Is this boy bothering you, Madam?" the tailor asked from her stool. Shoji quickly turned, and had to think fast.

"No, I'm her interpreter. You see, she's from the colonies, and you know how they can be," Shoji said with a nervous chuckle.

"Is this true, Madam?" she asked.

"_Get your hands off me, child. I have a dress to commission_," Huuni said snappishly.

The Tailor shrugged. "I'll take that as a yes. Don't get Easterners in here very often," she noted. "She _can_ pay, right?"

"Well..." Shoji began, but Huuni took the moment to dig into her cleavage and dig out a scattering of silver coins, notably of every strike but local, and hand them over, in a quantity which had Shoji's eyes bugging. "Of course she can," he said, recovering.

The Tailor leaned forward a moment, and shrugged. "Well, it'll not be a top end one. Asuka, you've got a new customer!" the Tailor bellowed. Shoji glanced around, and spotted something he was fairly sure he was going to need.

"Oh," he said, "and could you add this to the bill?"

"Make up?" the fitter, Asuka, asked. "Her skin looks fine."

"Yeah, _looks_," Shoji intimated. The auburn haired girl nodded knowingly. "And can we do this swiftly? H...My lady would like to be on the roads before long."

"Well, we'll do our best," the girl said, before guiding the woman into the back room. Shoji sighed, and shook his head. This was going to take a year straight off of his life, he could just see it. He looked up, and to the door, and was fairly sure he lost another one.

A Fire Nation soldier, grey of hair and full of sideburn, was standing in the threshold, eyes locked on Shoji.

* * *

><p>With Nila and Sharif gone to rest in the heat of the sun, Tzu Zi was free to wander. After all, it was generally accepted that noon was a time to do nothing in the desert, but with the sun directly overhead, Tzu Zi felt so energetic and electrified that she couldn't have rested if she'd wanted to. Especially after that long wait in Sentinel Rock. But she still went through the city, the pretty, exotic city on the source of one of the rivers which had cut the Divide, and she did so with an easy smile on her face, and her robes moving fluidly around her.<p>

"Perfumes, fresh from the stills! Attar of Roses! Sandalwood! Mixtures in coumarin that beggar the imagination!"

"Fire Nation Silks! Fresh from the boats at Burning Rock! Every color under the sun! You can't be fashionable without Fire Nation Silks!"

"Don't listen to that silk-hawker! Buy my linens, straight off the looms in Ba Sing Se! Guaranteed to be sheerer and finer than any garbage imported from the West!"

In its way, it reminded Tzu Zi not just of the other market city's she'd been to in the past, but also of home. Back when she and all of her sisters were enrolled in the Royal Fire Academy, they'd all been quartered in the city of Grand Ember, which was about as much of a trade hub as a city _could_ be. So hearing people hawking wares and engaging in creative shouting matches about their products welled up a sting of homesickness in the far-from-home Fire National.

A sting which turned away from homesickness toward sympathy when she saw that even of her party, she was not alone in the streets at this hour. Biting her lip, she hastened her step to move through the crowds which were somewhat lethargically doing their business for the pressing heat. But she never lost sight of the man in question, who sat on a chair before another, who worked quickly at an easel. "Ashan? What are you doing?" Tzu Zi asked.

The boy gave a start at that. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd gone out," he said.

"Is something wrong?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Please, I cannot say," he answered her.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's alright, too," she said. After a moment, the curly haired Si Wongi gave a chuckle. "What?"

"I must apologize. It is easy to forget that you are not Si Wongi. We have a way of doing things. We always ask thrice, and if denied thrice, drop the issue. You only asked once," she stammered toward saying something, but he forestalled her. "As I said, it is what _we_ do. You need not. You wish to know my business? I am having something made."

"What is it? A portrait?" she asked, trying to lean around the artist.

"Something like that," Ashan said quietly. His eyes became distant, and he stared off beyond the horizon. "I never saw my mother smile," he said. She let out a sympathetic sigh. "Nor heard her voice, nor knew her motherly embrace. But it is too late for that. At least I will have something to remember her by."

"Why?" Tzu Zi asked. "Is that a picture of her?"

Ashan nodded, then quickly said something she couldn't understand to the artist. Who paused, shrugged, and turned the easel toward the two travelers. The picture was far smaller than the easel could hold, an image which could have fit in the palm of Ashan's hand. Even half complete, she could easily see its subject matter. A smiling woman, with snow-white hair, dancing bare footed in the sand. "Your mother? Latifah?"

"Yes," Ashan said. "Grandfather said she used to love to dance. If I would remember my mother, I would choose to remember her so."

"What happened to her?" she asked gently.

Ashan rotated his finger before him, and the artist turned the easel around and went back to work. He took a deep breath, and she could easily see the pain in his eyes. "My father happened to her," he said.

"Your father?" she asked.

"He did cruel things to her. Very cruel. And was he punished for them? Not even one whit," he said bitterly. Then, a sigh. "But I cannot let such things weigh me. I had family enough for any man, in my grandfather and grandmother. It is a shame of Atum that I could not know my mother, and a shame of Djehuti that justice would not find him for his crimes, but I can only voice my complaints to the Host; I cannot make demands of them."

"Why not? Isn't that what Gods are supposed to be there for?"

"Maybe yours," Ashan admitted.

The artist continued for a long moment, then nodded to himself, flicking out a knife to cut the portraiture from the backing, and then quickly stitch it somehow to a sturdy wooden backing. Ashan offered the man some pieces of silver, which the artist pushed back to the man. Ashan offered again, and was again rebuffed, but on the third offer, the artist 'caved' and accepted his payment. Tzu Zi just watched it with a mildly amused look on her face.

"Yes?" Ashan asked.

"Oh, I just can't imagine Nila ever doing that," Tzu Zi said.

"To my knowledge, she never has," Ashan said, taking one last glance at the picture in his hand, before tucking it away amongst his effects. "Sharif did, once. After his wounding, I don't know if he has the attention remaining. Such a shame."

"What was she like? As a kid, I mean," Tzu Zi said.

"Nila? She was as she is, in many ways," Ashan said. "Come, the day is hot and there is a roof somewhere to keep Re from our heads. To elaborate; she was her mother's daughter in many ways, but to know the truth of that, you must know Nila's mother."

"The Dragon of the East," Tzu Zi prompted.

"Indeed. We call her our Dragon, the Dragon of the Desert, if we refer to her at all. Nila is wrong about many things – the need for courtesy strongly amongst them – but as to how Si Wong treats your gender, she has utter accuracy. I cannot speak for the Dragon's upbringing, her early years. I do know that when she was dug up from the ruins of Nassar, she was a changed human being. Impatient, hubristic, genius, and ignoring of her perceived place. And in that, her daughter mirrors her. As I understand, Madam Sativa was not a kind and loving mother, or loving as you would understand it. Then again, you would likely gape aghast at how parents treat children here. I think Nila's mother showed her love in that she forced Nila to be strong enough to survive. How many other people do you see wandering the world at a mere fifteen years?"

"A few," Tzu Zi said. "I'm still fourteen for a few more weeks."

Ashan gave a chuckle. "How quickly I forget. It must be the hips which confuse me."

"Oh, stop it," she said, batting his arm. There was an eddy of silence around them, and eyes stopped to fall upon the two as they walked. Ashan shook his head and said something loudly to them, which got them turned back to their own business.

"There is one point of my culture you would do well to remember while still upon its sands; no woman may _ever_ strike a man," he said uncomfortably. "The punishment has softened over the decades, but it is still harsh. At least now they no longer behead you for it."

"Then what did you say?"

"That I am your brother, and that I deserved it," Ashan said with a shrug and a smirk. "How you do bring out the good mood in me, I cannot say. I truly believed that I would face this day in a doldrum, but instead, I am without weight or pain. For that, I can only thank you."

"I like it when my friends aren't hurting," she said. He laughed at that, too.

"And so swift to call me friend. I can see why Nila values you so. Speaking of, has she pursued that... odd... romantic..."

It was obvious that he was both extremely uncomfortable about the topic and only broached the subject as he felt it would be worse not to. "Oh, that's sorted out. We're friends. And besides, I'm pretty sure she's not even that way."

"That's a relief," Ashan said. She frowned at him. "I mean, it's good that she's not trying to... I mean, she could find a man to... By the Host, there's no way of completing that thought aloud without sounding like a misogynist, is there?"

"At least you realize it," she said. She found a smile on her face. "You know, I think if she'd been born where I was, she'd be another Nomura Sato."

Ashan frowned in confusion. "Who?"

"You haven't heard of Nomura Sato?" Tzu Zi asked. "...he's... like... the smartest guy to come out of the Fire Nation in decades! He's invented all kinds of cool stuff! How could you not have heard of him?"

"I lived in a desert," Ashan said flatly with a sardonic grin. Tzu Zi had to shrug and admit that he might have a perfectly good reason in that.

"Well, come on then, the rest of them aren't too far away."

"That could be a problem," Ashan said, his grin still on his face, but it no longer reached his eyes.

"Why not?"

"We're being followed," he said.

"Really?" she turned, and saw only the crowd milling about their daily business.

"I am not a welcome face in Ababa," Ashan explained.

"Why? I can't see you pulling a Nila and angering somebody."

"My very existence is vexing to the Sheik, record of a crime he'd rather well bury," he said, and he began to bear her forward. "Come. We can lose them through here."

"Lose them?" she asked. "Hasn't anybody ever told you? The only worthwhile defense is overwhelming offense! Let's sort this out right now."

He stopped, just inside the alley, and stared at her as though she were mad. Or rather, he stared at her much the way he frequently stared at Nila. "I surround myself with powerful women, and who am I to complain when they set my path for it?"

"That's the spirit... I think," she said. "Go stand over there. Let's see who wants trouble."

Ashan nodded, and pulled a knife from the many which hung in slots clipped to his belt. Then, he looked at it, and shook his head, swapping it for a much heavier, larger cleaver. "I'm not wasting a fileting knife on this sort."

She shot him a glance, which had him step back into the slender pool of shadow which fell between the buildings. Shadow against green made their dark robes disappear, and they along with them. Tzu Zi waited a long moment, but before too long, the alley played host to three more men, wearing rough clothing, but skulking in a manner which told her easily enough that these weren't just townsmen taking a shortcut.

"The bastard must have taken the turn," one of them said in horribly accented Tianxia.

"Well, standing about won't earn your silver. Go get him!" another answered, obviously in the tones of a Dividesman. The whole thing had Tzu Zi a little confused, but still, she knew what she had to do. She knew what every whit in her body told her to do. Responsibility was a Virtue, one she never shirked from.

"Looking for me?" she asked. The three turned around, and started seeing her.

"This is not your place, girl. Run back to your father," the first of them said derisively.

"Where is the other, your companion?" the second asked over the first. Ashan answered by stepping out of his own shadow, flanking them. "So the bastard returns."

"You shouldn't insult my friend," Tzu Zi said.

"We're paid to do far more than insult him," that Dividesman said. He leaned back to the others, and gave than an order in their own tongue, which even with Tzu Zi's utter lack of fluency was to the effect of 'kill him, I don't care what you do with her'.

And waiting to hear the order was their first mistake. Canny was another Virtue, and it was said that exploiting the weakness of your enemy was no different than overpowering him, but far easier and cleaner. After all, how could a nation be at war with the rest of the planet as long as the Fire Nation was and survive without brutal and civilization ending attrition without that sort of mindset? But even as the man was finishing his order, Tzu Zi's fists were lashing out, and with them, came the fire.

The blast took that Dividesman in the back, sending him catapulted through the alley, rolling to a stop singed but winded and stunned. The other two obviously had similar training to she, and didn't bother gawking surprised. They simply launched into their own attacks, one per teenager. Tzu Zi quickly shifted her focus entirely onto the one who was coming at her, with some sort of oddly-crooked knife in hand. A slash, toward her, which caught only fabric near her belly as she bounced away. Another slash, this time tearing her sleeve a bit as she was trying to set him on fire. A swipe which added another gash across the stomach of the robes. At this rate, this guy'd have her naked in less than a minute!

She needed some breathing room, a distraction. A thought was given to shouting for 'help from the nasty muggers', but that would have taken more focus than she had to spare at the moment, and the payoff would be too delayed. He was forcing her back into a corner where one building didn't quite match with another, and she had nowhere left to run. I could really use a distraction right about now, she thought to herself, as sweat began to seep down her face.

It came in the form of a flying cleaver. The cleaver embedded itself in the wood next to Tzu Zi's face, which made her flinch, but sure enough it made her attacker flinch more. She took that moment of hesitation to push off the stone behind her, with fire giving her momentum to spare. She drove herself knee first into the assailant, causing him to double onto himself with a 'whoof' of expelled air. Then, she swung her leg out and behind her, igniting a practical rocket of fire to send it spinning down into a brutal axe-kick which she dropped onto the back of his neck. He went face first into the stone, and wisely enough, didn't try getting up.

Tzu Zi looked up to Ashan, and saw that he was not in the best of shape. Although his opponent favored a club over a knife, it just meant that where Tzu Zi made away with near misses, Ashan was getting a gradual and inevitable bludgeoning. She sprinted the distance, launching up, and slammed forward a fist, empowered by flame, toward him. She didn't know how, but the man turned away from Ashan and cast up a hand, and sand seared up from the ground of the alleyway, catching and absorbing the heat of the fire, turning the sand into a fountain of tiny glass beads which harmlessly fell about them. She tried to get her balance back, but she'd been banking most of her balance on smashing the guy away. Now, she was out of position and off balance. And both of them knew it. He advanced, club whipping in his hands...

And was sideswiped by a mass of sand leaping out from the wall next to him at Ashan's command. The assailant staggered for a moment, trying to figure out what happened, and in that moment, before even Tzu Zi could capitalize on it, he was put down by a haymaker punch to the face. Which Ashan then ruined by bouncing around, shaking his hand and shouting pained things in his native language. "Host preserve me, why didn't anybody tell me it hurts so much to punch people?"

Tzu Zi answered him by kicking the slowly rising hatchetman in the ribs, putting him back down. "That's why I _kick_ people," she said. "Come on. They won't be following us."

She started to guide Ashan out, but behind her, the parchment complected Dividesman was getting to his feet. "You can't keep us all away, bastard. You know what comes for you in this city."

"Well, whatever comes, he'll have his friends keeping him safe," Tzu Zi said with a smug look. "Bring it on."

"You will rue this day, firebender. Rue it," he said, sounding light headed. Tzu Zi smirked, and gave a fake lunge toward him, and he stumbled backward, before that stumble became an outright fall. Ashan took her hand and followed her out of the alley and into the street. He was giving her an odd look.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You are more like Nila than I thought to believe," Ashan said.

"Is that a good thing?" she asked, idly picking at her slashed robes as she gave him a glance back.

"I could call it that, yes."

* * *

><p>"You're looking fairly smug today," Toph said, leaning against Sokka as they stood side-by-side on the walls of Omashu, as the sun rose with the dawn.<p>

"I'm having a good morning," the Tribesman said, throwing caution to the wind and being content for once.

"Yeah, I wasn't really up too late last night. Had to stay focused for my part, and that ain't exactly giving forgiving hours," Toph said. She leaned backward against the wall where Sokka himself was stooped forward, likely since she had no way of perceiving what Sokka was, and thus opted for maximum comfort. "The sun is up, ain't it?"

"That it is," Sokka said.

"Huh. What were you doing last night, anyway?" she asked.

"Well, me, my sister, and Aang visited those ramp-engines while nobody was looking," Sokka said.

"Visited?" she said with a smirk.

"Yup," he said. "And let me tell you, I've never been so happy that I've read a text book in my life."

"Do tell?" she prompted.

"I won't need to," Sokka said. "Just listen."

She turned, then, facing him but an ear cocked over the wall. "You know, I don't appreciate being left in the dark about plans," she pointed out. "Especially ones which might result in my death, or worse, gettin' beat at something."

"Alright," Sokka said, grinning wide as he beheld smoke begin to bellow out of great engines at the edges of the gorge, and the metal began to creak forward slowly once again, pushed by powerful pistons, before reaching their end and gravity locking them into place, unhindered by whatever arrows or boulders were launched from Omashu. "You can hear the ramp-engines, can't you? You see, every day, they extend a bit further, usually about twenty feet a day. And there's a corps of people who sneak around under the panels and add reinforcement, so that the ramp can go further the next day. Kinda ingenious, I must say, and it'd be a real boon for setting up bridges across rivers and such, but..."

"The point," Toph said. "You're worse than my old tutor for going onto a tangent."

"Oh, right," Sokka said. "That rigging's ordinarily invulnerable, since it's got the steel plate over it and no earthbender can hook a shot from the distance they need to worry about. And besides, if I was running them, I'd sloth-snail it to half-way, then sprint the rest. But the thing is, if that substructure were to... say... suffer a catastrophic decrease in integrity?"

"You cut the beams?" Toph summed. Sokka nodded vigorously.

"Yup. And from the sound of things..." he trailed off, as the already unpleasant groaning of metal being shoved across unlubricated metal turned to the wailing shriek of metal pushed beyond its physical capabilities, "they just managed to get past the balance point."

He watched, then, as the whole of the ramp before him began to slump downward. There were numerous shouts from the man at the engines, trying to shut the piston down, but it was too late; the panel had already slid off of the piston's head, but now gravity was giving it momentum. It locked into place with its brothers, sure enough, but the momentum imparted, and the whole structure slowly, steadily, dragged it self away from the cliff-face and into oblivion. After a moment, there was nothing but a few stunned, confused looking engineers on the other side of the gap, looking down as though they had no idea what had happened.

And the same thing was happening in six other places around the city.

"Well, I take it that's my signal to hit the streets," Toph said. She paused, though, before leaving the ramparts. "D'you really think that this'll work?"

"Maybe," Sokka said, looking out across the carnage. As he did, he thought he could see something in the sky, just a speck of red where it shouldn't be, but he dismissed it as the figment of an over-taxed brain. After all, he hadn't had a whole lot of sleep today. And he'd not be getting more before it was done.

He just hoped that Aang was a better actor than he was a liar.

* * *

><p>Shoji stared at the soldier. The soldier looked dispassionately back. How? How could they possibly know? Tribesmen were national enemies, and they were to be arrested on sight, obviously enough, but how could he know? Huuni didn't look like a Tribesman, not now, not with the makeup. So why was this man here?<p>

"Is there some sort of problem, child?" the soldier asked crisply, taking a step into the boutique.

"W-what? No! No problem, no problem at all," he stammered. The soldier tilted his head, amber eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"You don't sound like you've got no problem. And you don't sound like you're from around here. Are you some sort of runaway?" he asked.

"No, I'm not running away from anything," Shoji said honestly, but perhaps too sincerely. "I'm... on vacation. Shopping trip. You know, buying things..."

"In a woman's clothes store," the soldier finished.

"It wasn't my _first_ choice, but..." Shoji said.

"Agni's flame, there you are!" On-Ji gave a fortuitous showing. "I found something I want to buy. Come on, you're the one carrying all the money."

"And he is with you?" the soldier asked.

"Him? Not a chance," On-Ji said. Then, upon noticing Shoji's extremely worried look, backpedaled as quickly as the situation demanded. "I mean, yeah, we're both here, in this store, I mean, how could we not be? But..."

"Am I going to need to bring you two to the magistrate?" he asked wearily. "I swear, this is _just_ what I needed today."

"Jee? What are you doing here?" Asuka asked as she peeked out from where she was working with Huuni. The soldier, Jee by name, gave a sigh of his own, and faced the seamstress.

"Have you seen Hye?" Jee asked.

"She has nothing to say to you, if that's what you're asking," Asuka said. The soldier sighed.

"I realize things were... cool... for a while, but..."

"Cool? You might as well have left her!" Asuka obviously didn't approve of this soldier, which saw Shoji edging toward the changing rooms. On-Ji, oblivious to the tension, walked casually after him.

"What's going on?"

"Huuni's in there," Shoji whispered urgently.

"The changing rooms? Are you some sort of pervert or something?" On-Ji asked.

"Tribesman! Soldier!" Shoji clarified at a hiss. Then, and only then, did On-Ji get it, and her eyes went slightly wide.

"Look, just let me talk to her," Jee said. "This doesn't need to end like this."

"Well, I'm not sure you've got her best interests in mind," the seamstress was resolute.

"You're her friend, not her mother," Jee pointed out. "I just wanted to give her something by way of apology. That's not too much to ask, is it?"

"Three years!"

"I had no choice!" Jee shouted back. All eyes turned to him, and silence fell in the boutique. The soldier, though, didn't seem to care. "I'm home now. That part of my life is behind me. So you can help me, or you can be a bitter hag, spreading regret like a plague."

"Agni's blood, it's no wonder she speaks so highly of you," Asuka said sarcastically. "I've got a client."

Jee stood there, grinding his teeth, as she ducked back into the fitting room where Huuni was ensconced. "What now?" On-Ji asked.

"Now, we just try to get her past this guy without his noticing," Shoji whispered back.

Both fell silent as this Jee gave them a glance, the paragon of guilt and suspicion upon their faces. And yet somehow, he stalked away from them both and leaned against the doorframe, the threshold to the outside and the freedom it represented. Trapped like rats.

"So what's your big plan to get the barbarian past him?" On-Ji asked.

"I'll... think of something," Shoji said, scratching at his hair.

The curtain to the fitting room was swept open, and Shoji turned back toward it. The first thing he saw was a wave of black hair, spilling down over blue. When Huuni turned, though, his jaw hit the floor. Where her initial clothes were burnt, tattered rags, and her more recent were ill-fitted at best, this blue silken dress looked to have been poured onto her, hugging her every curve like the water it resembled. Huuni stared imperiously down her nose at those around her, her falsely pale skin gleaming in the lanterns and making her seem as elegant as any of the finest daughters of Azul. On-Ji first stared too, then tutted with annoyance and closed Shoji's mouth for him. "Don't drool, Shoji. It's disgusting."

"I... Well..."

"_The boy will square off any price_," the Tribeswoman said, clearly an order for him, not a placation for the proprietor. But at that, the soldier's eyes instantly snapped to her, and not with awe or attraction or envy. No, they were on her with screwed-in scrutiny.

"_Quiet, Huuni, there's a soldier in here_," Shoji quickly said in bright tones, but his eyes showing the fear that she needed to understand. He then turned to Asuka. "So, how much is owed?"

"Well, ordinary price would be a hundred and twenty," Asuka said, which caused Shoji to swallow out of outright disbelief. He didn't have that much. Even if he cashed in his return ticket, he couldn't match that price. "But, since she wanted it in blue, and blue's going dirt cheap since that whole mess in the north finished, we'll call it an even forty, alright?"

Shoji let out a laugh of nervousness more than anything else, and dug through his stockpile of silver. That was almost half of the money he'd brought with him. If they all wanted to eat as well as go home, things would be getting very, very tight soon enough. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was get caught by the Fire Nation Army. Considering his parents, considering what the Fire Nation did to Tribesmen... there would come no good of it. The money changed hands, and Asuka nodded at the count, handing it over to the master tailor on her stool. A nod from her, and Asuka let Huuni walk in peace.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Jee asked as the woman drew slightly closer, toward the door which marked their freedom.

"She's from the colonies," Shoji said. "I'm her interpreter since she can't speak Huojian."

"Really?" he asked, then switched tongue to Tianxia, the polyglot language of the east. "_Perhaps this is more to your liking_?"

Huuni, to her credit, didn't flinch nor bat an eye. She looked him up and down, and with a sneer of derision, answered back, in that same language. "_I have nothing to say to your kind_," before walking past him, back straight, nose in the air. Jee watched her leave with some suspicion.

"Please, forgive her. She has some... trepidation with soldiers."

"Obviously," Jee said. Then, he turned to face Shoji more directly. "Well? You'd better follow her. No telling what kind of trouble she could get into from not knowing the local language."

"Yeah, I know all about that," Shoji said, before grabbing On-Ji and dragging her out of the shop with him. In a matter of a few moments, they caught up with Huuni, even if he did not dare to look back, to see that Jee still watched them as they left. "_Why didn't you tell me you could speak Tianxia?_" Shoji asked her.

"_That was the __extent__ of the Tianxia I speak,_" Huuni said closely and unpleasantly. "_It doesn't matter. I have proper clothes, and were are close to where I need to go._"

"Yeah, we should go," he said, his heart still hammering in his chest. "Before somebody else figures out we don't belong here."

"You're right," On-Ji said, pulling that map from her pack and looking it over. "Wait a second. That mark's right in the middle of the Amrit Forest. That can't be right."

"The forest hides all kinds of stuff," Shoji said. "Come on. Surely, we're out of the worst of it by now."

* * *

><p>"I had a polite conversation with some of the Sheik's men," the beih said quietly. "They didn't know who you were talking about. They are fixated on the bastard."<p>

"So am I," Gashuin said.

"The other bastard," the beih clarified. "Forgive my impertinent tongue, my emir, but..."

"Any sentence which begins with 'forgive me' isn't one I'm going to be happy to hear," Gashuin said testily.

"A matter of justice is one thing. You risk your health and vitality pursuing this. Rest. Let me and my men deal with the girl," the beih pleaded.

"No," Gashuin said. "I want her to know why what comes upon her has."

"Very well," the beih said wearily. "But my caution is duly given."

"And duly noted," Gashuin muttered. "Well? Don't just stand there, find the bastard girl!"

* * *

><p>"It is a cunning plan," Bumi said to the other who stood on the wall with him. Nobody was looking toward him, nor the one he stood with. "That Tribesman has a good head on his shoulders."<p>

"I have heard the same," the other said. "I have also heard things of his courage, as well as his canny."

"A good lateral thinker, that's what he is," Bumi said with authority in his creaky voice. "You know the place of the Child on the board?"

"I favor the lotus gambit," the other answered.

"Hm," the supercentenarian murmured. "Well, the trick of the Child is that it's a threat which is better left unused. The Lotus might stab you in the spine, but the Child will be what keeps the opponent's eyes fixed while the Lotus moves behind. A cunning strategy. Especially for a boy who says he's never played the game."

"We all play our games. Some of us are better than others."

Bumi let out a snorting cackle at that. "At this rate, they'll start to think you the old wise man."

"I have been called worse."

Bumi looked out over the walls, to the one path into the city which still remained whole, the ancient stone bridge which connected the Royal Highway – ambitiously named stretch of dirt road that it was – to the 'gates' of Omashu. In truth, an Earth Kingdom city seldom had need of gates, especially if they were as threatened by attack as Omashu had been over the years. An earthbender could make a gate anywhere he needed to, and close it as perfectly as it had never been when its time was done. But a gate-like object had been installed into the walls, and for a very specific purpose; it gave the Fire Nation something to look at.

The Fire Nation was advancing slowly, carefully. Its front rank was a line of Salamander battletanks, and the fighters inched behind them as they cautiously advanced toward that gate. Bumi couldn't blame them. They knew that this had to be some sort of trap. Pity for them, they had no idea just what kind of trap it was. "I'm told that those battletanks use water gyroscopes to keep their balance," Bumi said, idly pointing at one of the great black metal behemoths that trundled forward on its spiked wheels. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"The Fire Nation has a lot more experience with water than you'd think," the other said calmly, surveying what was preparing to be an outstanding battle. The forces of Omashu were fewer, but had a strong position. The Fire Nation was many more, and had better technology, but lacked a steady footing. Whether this would shadow the penultimate, or the final battle of Chin's war of aggression, only time would tell. Bumi thought back to when the Tribesman was explaining the basis of the plan.

_"So you say in your game thing that the Avatar's got all kinds of power, but it's pretty easy to knock out, right?" the Tribesman asked. Bumi nodded happily. "So, that's exactly what we're going to use."_

_ "Wait, use me?" Aang asked. "But, I can't even go into the Avatar State. What am I supposed to do against that many people?"_

_ "You might not be able to, but they don't know that," Sokka said. "And I'm going to safely bet that they don't know what it'll look like when an Avatar goes Glowing Badass, only that there's a certain amount of badassery and glowing involved. So if they want an Avatar, we'll give them the Avatar they've always been afraid of."_

His resourcefulness was astounding, and it didn't even take Bumi's word to get people heeding his words. Within hours, the strange devices he'd asked for were not just complete, but constructed just outside the gate, hidden away from prying eyes. And then there were those mirrors he called for. There were a lot of them that he requested, and Bumi had only the foggiest idea what they were wanted for.

"I think the performance is about to begin," the other said, staring at the opening to the fight. Down below, Bumi didn't need to see to know that Toph was doing as she did best; making a royal mess of things. Within a few moments, a shroud of dust began to rise up around the gate, and the grinding of stone against stone reached all the way to the invading line. The tanks continued. The soldiers behind them hesitated, but followed.

"LEAVE, IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES," the call came up from that gate, a powerful amalgam of not just Aang, but about two dozen of Bumi's soldiers and a couple housewives from near the gate as well. The Fire Nation kept advancing. So the young Tribesman put the last gear of his plan into motion. A bonfire, burning bright, and an array of dozens of mirrors behind it, casting the light forward directly into Aang's back as he stomped into the hole of the gate, out of Bumi's sight, and then appearing at its far end, surrounded by a halo of brilliance. Masked by the whirling dirt, two teenaged girls slipped out near him. Aang rose up one hand, and then gave a great slashing motion. As he did, a blade of water struck out from his side, powered not just by he but also a prodigy of waterbending, a fluid knife which clove the wheels off one of the tanks trundling forward. It tipped down, trapped on the path, while the other halted, its hatches opening. From that hatch, vomited fire.

The Avatar stood his ground. With a twist of his hand, a pan of wind and dust caught that fire and twisted it to embers and ash. Then, a grand stomp, and the unnoticed blind Earthbender worked her own skill, sending out a ripple across the face of that bridge, ending with a pillar slamming upward from the outside frame of that vehicle. The waterbender made some sort of effortful motion, visible only because Bumi knew where to look, and when the tank landed upside-down atop its brother, it found its gyroscope frozen, and its orientation locked in exactly the wrong way.

At that, the soldiers behind began to worry.

Aang twisted, and sent forth a wave of wind at the first row, sending them back into the second, then slammed his feet into the ground, cast back his head, and thrust his fists into the air. On cue, the two machines which had been secreted under piles of refuse nearby belched to life, sending up streams of golden fire, belching black smoke as they terminated. Hand it to a Tribesman to invent fake firebending for the non firebender. The false show of firebending ended, the Avatar took one more step toward the opposing side, still surrounded by a halo of reflected firelight, refracting off of dust and flying sand.

If that wasn't enough to start a rout, then nothing was.

And fatefully enough, it was.

Aang didn't progress one more step, but the terror had rippled back through the line as fast as bad news. These soldiers had come looking for a siege and an easy victory. But when faced with an Avatar at his highest strength? They knew where their survival lay, and it lay far, far away from Omashu. In a matter of minutes, the infantry was fleeing from the bridge, and Bumi's own troops were securing it. A few minutes after that, and they were splitting off and vanishing into the valley.

"An impressive fraud," the other said. "And a less than impressive showing from the Fire Nation."

"Not all of their leaders can be a Zhao," Bumi said. "Or a Dragon of the West."

"No, they indeed can not," the other admitted. "Forgive me. If you have no other business, I have some family matters to attend to."

"Don't let me keep you," Bumi said, waving his old friend off.

Bumi laughed, cackled, and snorted to himself as he found himself alone on the walls. He moved toward where the other military men, and the young Avatar awaited him. "That was stupendous! Outstanding! And actually rather funny!"

Bumi's cackling was contagious, it seemed. The Tribesman joined him with his own braying laughter. "Yeah, you shoulda seen the look on their faces, Aang," Sokka said.

"I did," Aang said, not entirely comfortable. "They were really, really scared."

"Look at it this way," Katara chimed in, trying to wipe the dirt off of her face. Toph, on the other hand, didn't bother. "You managed to rout an entire Fire Nation army division with nothing but smoke, mirrors, and a bunch of people shouting. I mean, I don't think any blood was spilled!"

"Well, the guys in that other tank are probably a bit banged around, but 'hell with them," Toph interjected.

Aang seemed a bit cheered by that. "You're right. I managed to stop a terrible battle."

"My king," Yong said, pulling his Ostrich Horse to a halt nearby. "Avatar," a nod toward the same, before turning back to Bumi. "I've just received word from the outer garrisons that the are moving in. They'll be at the inner perimeter within a few hours. We won't be able to hold the Highlands, but we'll still have our breadbasket."

"So that's good?" Bumi asked, with a slightly befuddled tone. It suited him to have people underestimate him.

"Very. Best we could hope for, given the circumstances," Yong said. He dismounted, and handed off the reins. "I do have worries, though."

"What like?" the Tribesman asked.

"How did they get past our outer perimeter without us noticing?" Yong asked. "The soldiers might be able to sneak through the passes afoot, but that equipment wouldn't travel through those paths. Either we have a gap in our defenses, and a fairly substantial one, or they've... learned to fly or something."

"That is concerning," Bumi said, pulling at his sprig of beard. He then shrugged. "Ah, well. A mystery for another day. But today, I feel like having a party! Cake and cheese for everyone!"

As Bumi went cackling away, Aang gave a guilty glance toward Katara. "Look, I know you're probably exhausted, and so am I. I think I'm just gonna take a nap, alright?" he asked, his tone about as trustworthy as a used-boat salesman's.

"Yeah, go snooze," Sokka said with an off handed wave. "You've been up a long time. Come to think of it, I could stand to have a nap myself."

"Looks like it's back to the lazy leading the lazy," Toph pointed out. "Urg! I'm all wired up! I want to go punch a bear or something!"

"You have fun with that, I'm going to do the sane thing and sleep," Katara said. Aang, though, was already gone, and not in the same direction that everybody else was going.

* * *

><p>All was quiet in the sizable room Nila had hired for the evening. The others came back not too long ago, and were somewhat reticent about what transpired, although it was obvious from the way Ashan flicked his hand that he'd punched somebody. Nila didn't feel like interceding. After all, it was cooking time. And since cooking was just physics and chemistry meeting in a very practical manner, she refused to do it poorly.<p>

"Shouldn't we be going?" Sharif asked.

"It'll be night, soon," Nila said distractedly as she shook the skillet with a cloth-covered hand. It still sizzled nicely, and the smell was glorious, but it wasn't finished quiet yet. So she took a moment to test the weight of several lemons she'd recently bought. Yes, that one would do nicely.

"But... we're supposed to travel at night," Sharif said, still idly stitching at Ashan's only other robe. It beggared Nila's mind how Mother never sent him off to the almsmen, to work odd jobs and support himself. Sharif was quite capable of that; just about any little thing which needed fixing was as good as restored once in his hands.

"Only in the desert, brother," Nila said. "We'll be in the Divide soon enough, and it gets cold that far north."

"Oh... Right," Sharif said. He cocked his head to one side, then nodded, as though agreeing to something, but since nobody was over there, and nobody was talking to him, she was somewhat baffled by it. Still, better to focus her attention on what was before her. Dinner. Just a little browner.

There was a shifting across the room, and Nila glanced over to see Tzu Zi moving toward her, sitting down next to her before the fire. "It isn't quite done yet," Nila said.

"Yeah, I know," she said. "You know, you've become a pretty good cook."

"I had to. You burn everything," Nila pointed out.

"I do not!"

"My work stands for itself," Nila said easily enough. There was a moment of silence. "I assume something is on your mind."

She gave a light chuckle. "And you're getting better at that stuff, too."

"I have a good teacher," Nila answered at a murmur. Tzu Zi smiled at that.

"We're going to be leaving soon, aren't we?" she asked.

"Probably tomorrow," Nila agreed, giving the contents of the pan a flip. Huh. Needed a bit more on the other side. "Does that bother you?"

"No, I'm just surprised it doesn't bother you," she said. "Wasn't it hard to leave Si Wong the first time?"

"No," Nila said. "Liberating. To be away from those idiots, I would have given much. And looking back, I would have taken the same path and made the same choices. More or less, of course. There are a few things I would change."

"Getting kidnapped by pirates?"

Nila grumbled something darkly under her breath. "Amongst other things. But even now, I am further north than I have ever been in my life. Time will tell how much further north we go."

"All the way to Ba Sing Se, I can only hope," she said brightly.

"Yes, but after that?" Nila said. "Ba Sing Se is a destination, but not the end. Well, not unless something kills us there."

"Something's going to kill us?" Sharif asked.

"Go back to stitching," Nila ordered.

"You've got a point. Where would you go next, though? What is even more northerly than that?" Tzu Zi asked. She shrugged. "Would you even want to go to the north? I mean, that place is pretty swamped by my people right now. And if they ever do win at Summavut, then there won't be a Water Tribe left to visit."

"You're right, but not about my point," Nila said. "If there is one thing my return to my home has taught me it is that I do not belong here. The world is vast, and I will find my place in it."

"Oh. That's a pretty good attitude to hold about it, I guess," she said. She paused for a moment. "I really don't know if I should bring it up, but... We kinda got attacked in the street today."

"By the Sheik's men, I assume?" Nila asked, surprised but not really shocked. Tzu Zi gaped at her.

"How did you know?"

"Ashan is not welcome in this city."

Tzu Zi frowned. "Why not?"

"Because he is the eldest child of the Sheik, and Ali does not want a bastard disrupting his dynasty," Nila explained. "It's all politics and backbiting. Ashan is only wise in that he stays clear of it."

"Wait... Ashan is royalty?" she asked.

"Somewhat," Nila said, before taking the skillet off the fire and sliding its contents onto a platter. "Dinner is ready."

"Eat it hot? Are you mad, woman?" Ashan asked. He shook his head. "I'll eat it when it's cooled, like a normal person would."

"Royalty?" Tzu Zi stressed again, as Sharif cut off a chunk of the circular patty and began to blow it cool enough not to sear his mouth. He'd eat it as mechanically as anything else, though; he wouldn't taste it.

"Yes, he is son of the lord Ali of Ababa, 'glorious he', heir to a fortune which would make most entire Earth Kingdom's weep of jealousy. His siring was not kind, as I understand it. But of course, you saw what it did to his lamented mother," Nila pointed out quietly. "Between Ali – Vengeful is he – not wanting Ashan as another heir, and the Sheik's other, legitimate offspring not wanting to share wealth, he is a very unwanted figure in this city. The only reason he has survived this long is, I suspect, that the Sultan has forbade any overt action against him. And before that... I wonder if Mother might have had some hand in his placement in Sentinel Rock?"

"So he's not just a bastard, he's... a royal bastard?" Tzu Zi asked.

There was a long moment of silence, while both turned to glance behind them. But the figure that both expected wasn't there, and the quip was left unuttered.

Nila's eyes went down for a moment, and she felt Tzu Zi give her shoulder a comforting squeeze. "It's okay, Nila. I miss her, too."

"I never thought I would," Nila muttered. Then, she cut a new wedge from the platter before her, biting in despite its heat. It actually was quite good. She heard that in the West, they did something similar with dough and tomatoes.

"You know, this is actually pretty good. What's in this?" Tzu Zi noted.

"If I told you, you'd not want to eat it," Nila said.

"Oh, come on."

"Very well. You remember those Mammoth Beetles we use to transport our wagons?"

Tzu Zi swallowed, but became somewhat pale.

"Indeed. Only their brain, though. We don't eat the distasteful parts," she said.

"I think I might be sick."

"Oh, please. Your kind eat potatoes, and those are a member of the nightshade family," Nila said. "Mine won't kill you. Yours definitely will."

"Yeah, but it's different," Tzu Zi said, putting her wedge down.

"You enjoyed it a moment ago," Nila said with a smug look.

"But..." Tzu Zi began, but was cut off when the door to the room burst open.

In an instant, Nila pulled the firearm from where she left it leaning against the table, tucked it's stock to her shoulder, and had the trigger pulled. With a mighty bang, the leaden slug crossed the distance and caught the invading soldier right in the knee, however it landed with the distinct spang of metal being deflected by metal. The man's leg was thrown out from under him, though, and he landed in a shouting heap, clutching his leg.

"What in the name of..." Ashan began, but another was entering the room. Nila got to her feet, the barrels of her firearm a perfect line between her and her target.

"I would stop at the threshold, lest you join your friend on the floor," Nila shouted.

"So you'd use your sorcery against your own people," the veiled figure spat, with familiar contempt and even more familiar voice. Nila sighed.

"Gashuin? What are you doing here?"

"Exacting justice!" Gashuin said, limping to where the armored beih was on the floor. Nila tutted.

"The aim on this is somewhat off. If I'd hit where I was aiming, it would have taken his lower leg right off. I have corrected that error," Nila warned.

"You assaulted me. I demand recompense in the name of the al-Hamir family," Gashuin said.

"I cannot offer it," Nila said. "There has been no crime."

"You speak lies! Only a pardon by the Sultan himself could absolve this, and he would not..." the emir, if not outright Sheik, of that lost hellhole stated. Nila sighed, then reached behind her to her pack blindly, before fishing out what was right at its top. She tossed the furled scroll to Gashuin, who caught it easily enough. "What is this?"

"A pardon for the crime, from Sultan Wahid himself," Nila said, letting the gun drop from its target. "You don't like me, and you will hate me for saying this, but you seem to not know of what happened in Sentinel Rock."

"What do you mean?" Gashuin said.

"Your mother, does she still live here?" Nila asked.

"Why would you care?"

"Because I'm trying to determine whether you're an orphan, you dolt!" Nila snapped. Gashuin became somewhat unsettled by that. "Yes, it is as it sounds. Your father perished in battle against Borte, the Khagan of the Dakongese. The fortress was laid waste."

"That's impossible," the noble said, backing up until he found himself sitting upon the bench by the door. "That fortress was supposed to last a dozen years."

"It was sapped and brought low by her waterbending allies, before being smote out of existence by what I can only call an angry god."

Gashuin's eyes flashed. "You mock my pain?"

"She does not," Ashan said. "I saw things... Did you not see the Eye of Terror in the sky? That was what caused so much carnage. I am sorry, Gashuin. We may not have seen on the same plane, but I know what it is to lose family. My mother... She did not escape."

"But..." Gashuin seemed in utter denial. "He can't be..."

"It is what it is," Nila said. She turned back to her dinner, and continued eating it, ignoring the beih who had ceased his moaning but now moved on into quiet cursing, probably of a broken shin. "But if you try to do as you did again, I promise you, an impaled foot will be the least of your worries."

"You don't know your place," Gashuin said quietly, but angrily.

"You are correct. That's why I'm looking for it," she answered, before moving toward the back of the room, into the room with the cots on its back wall, where she could eat in peace.

* * *

><p>Azula scowled very hard at the wall of her cell. Of course, it was hardly what one would ordinarily call a cell. It was quite airy, and had five other beds and sleeping surfaces besides the one she was awkwardly perched on. The food and lavatory situation was entirely satisfactory, and for once, she had some blessed privacy, if at the cost of being locked in by a door which was called into existence as needed. She'd spent the first eight hours trying to devise a way out of that prison. She'd spent the next six in fitful sleep, and the cycle repeated itself, since there was no natural light to see by. It was a deeply disturbing prison to be in.<p>

"This is terrible," her younger self said.

"You, complaining? Has the world finally broken your cheerful optimism?" Azula asked.

"Oh... bite me," she said morosely. "I can't feel the sun."

"I've been in worse places."

"I haven't!"

"Well, get used to them. If this is the way my plans go, you'll be seeing a lot more like this," the older Azula said at a grumble. She uncomfortably turned to one corner of the hexagonal room. At that point, she could see something there, something that didn't belong. "Do you see that?"

"See what?" the girl grumped.

"In the corner," Azula clarified. The girl looked up from where she was huddled against the bed, knees tucked to her chest, and gave the corner a glance. "What is that?"

"I don't know," the girl said, then fell silent again, rocking quietly. Well, if that was how she was when she was eight, then she was unforgivably weak. It never crossed Azula's mind that it might be a valid thing; she herself had never been imprisoned away from the sun until she was too mad to care, and then, escaped the first chance she had once her fugue lifted. Much like keeping earthbenders stranded on that offshore rig had crushed their spirits with nothing more than distance to their element, separation from the fires in the heavens was a weighing force on Azula. She well imagined that waterbenders felt the same way when dropped into a desert. With a lethargy and pain which was only partially because of her broken limbs, she limped toward that most shadowed corner, and in particular, to the scratches which dug into the wall.

She leaned a bit down, running her fingers along it. It was strange, but while she could see that arcane and eldritch script, she couldn't feel it. Like it was almost imperceptibly shallow. And they wandered, into the dark. She cocked an ear toward it, and could hear a grinding sound, and breathing in that darkness. Azula's eyes narrowed, and she tried to spark a flame into her hand. It failed, and a sinking feeling of dread ran through her. No, it couldn't be going away again. Was she too far from the sun? Was she so far away from its heat and light that she was cut off completely? The terror rose a little further, to the point where the girl at the bed started to keen lightly, trying to stifle sobs but not entirely succeeding. Azula, though, mastered herself. She was not going to be a weeping child, not just because she had a few hundred feet of rock above her head.

"Who are you?" Azula demanded.

"It's not perfect," the answer came, a voice something quite like her own, but far more ragged.

Azula took a step into that shadow, and willed her eyes to focus onto that darkness, ignoring the light behind her. "You didn't answer my question," Azula pressed.

"_I'm_ not perfect," that voice said again. As her eyes acclimated to the shade, she could see a form, hunched down against the wall, moving subtly as the grinding sound continued. Like she was scraping at the very stone with her raw fingers.

"Obviously," Azula said.

The figure turned, and light glinted off of golden eyes.

"IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" came a shriek, and a twist of the figure's wrist sent a wave of azure flame searing toward Azula, and the crippled up woman had to tip over backward to avoid it, which caused her to let out a helpless yelp of pain when she managed to land on her broken hand and twist her shattered arm.

"Azula!" another voice entered that room, and she felt herself being slowly borne upward. But Azula, as always, opted for combat over accepting help. She elbowed that form hard in the chest, which had the effect of dropping her back down to the stone, itself quite painful again. "Are you alright? You just fell..."

"Get away from me, Avatar," Azula spat, instantly picking out the voice's source once the confusion of the moment passed.

"You should be resting, not... whatever that was," he said, with a surprising earnestness. "Come on, let me help you."

"I require no help, least of all from you," Azula said. She glared at him as she slowly got to her feet and hobbled back toward the bed, sitting beside her younger, weeping self. Agni's blood, had she _ever_ been so weak? "You must want something from me, or else you would have left me to rot."

"I just want to know that you're alright," the Avatar said.

"You're lying," Azula spat. "You want something from me. Ransom to my father? Hah! He knows better than to barter with your kind. He knows what you intend for him."

"Why do you hate me so much?" the Avatar asked.

"Much the same reason you hate me," she said.

"I don't," he said.

"Pardon me as I disbelieve," Azula snarked.

"I have nothing against the Fire Nation. The only reason I'm fighting them is because if I don't, then everything in the world is going to die."

"Now, you're just being needlessly dramatic," Azula dismissed.

"What would it take to get you to believe me?" he asked.

"I will never believe you."

The Avatar frowned for a moment. "I didn't think you were that closed-minded."

"I know where you stand. You want to succeed where your Storm Kings failed," she said, drawing upon dusty memories and spotty history. It was more than inconvenient, sometimes, that the history she'd grown up with didn't apply anymore.

"What if... What if I show you," the Avatar said. "Do you know what the Avatar State is?"

"Your weapon against my people," she said. "Your weapon against me."

The Avatar shook his head, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was a tiny flare of white light which surged out of both they and the tattoos on his body, one which swelled until it blotted out the light from the braziers. White. Complete. She flinched back, but in her reduced state, she couldn't evade his touch. But when it landed upon her shoulder and hand, it wasn't the brutal, cruel invasion which she'd suffered before, that knife digging through her heart and into her soul. No... this was different.

It was like bathing in sunlight.

Azula's eyes rolled back in her head, and the power flowed away from the Avatar, and his glowing, water-slicked hands, toward her. She couldn't breathe. She didn't want to. Pain vanished.

When she finally breathed in once more, she found herself leaning forward, eyes practically bulging out of her sockets. She panted for a moment, then shot to her feet, staring down the retreating Avatar with suspicion in her eyes and blue fire in her fist. "What did you do to me, you evil little..." she began, but paused when she saw that the fingernails on her broken hand were all regrown, whole. And that the pain from her wounded hand and shoulder was utterly gone. She paused, her eyes flicking down to the girl beside her, who stared up at the Avatar with rapt attention, mouth slightly agape.

"I don't hate you. I don't hate your people. And I never wanted to be your enemy. I just want this war to end before it's too late for everybody, including you," he said quietly, painfully, before turning and walking away.

The Avatar was walking away. Azula smirked, as that darkest part of her demanded immediate action, immediate motion. She took a step back, and her hands began to spin through the movements, and a crackle began to sound in her skin, not quite enough to snap in the air. But as she finished her second rotation, long before he reached where the door had been left open, Azula suddenly felt a numbness running through her, a weakness sapping her strength. She glanced down, and saw that the younger Azula was holding her hand fast, and fury lit in the girl's big, expressive eyes.

"Don't you dare," the girl said.

"I must," Azula said. But the girl shook her head.

"He helped us. We can use this," she said.

"We can end this," Azula snapped. Come on, child, I'm running out of time, she thought.

"Not like this," she answered. "It will not end like this."

"Don't tell me you believe him," Azula snapped. And with a rumble, her attention turned back to the wall, just in time to see the walls slam shut, the 'door' sealed behind the Avatar's heel. "Oh, look what you've done! When will I have a chance like that again?"

"I'm not sure what to believe," the girl said, finally releasing her death-grip on Azula's hand, and with that, feeling began to spread back through the firebender's arm. "And you shouldn't be, either."

"I will not forget this," Azula swore.

"Neither will I," the girl answered with equal solemnity.

* * *

><p>The box was up-ended, dumping two dirty men onto the marble floors of the palace in a pile.<p>

"This is your fault," the one at the bottom of that pile swore. "If not for your little obsession, I'd still have my skimmer, and..."

"Obsession? What do you know of obsession?" the one at the top answered.

"I know it cost me grandmother's third favorite skimmer!" the bottom answered.

"Silence!" the impatient sovereign finally shouted, causing both men to stop bickering and notice that they were hardly alone in the room. The room was all white and silver, shining in the light of the morning. Its heart was a throne of finest North Earth Kingdom woods, mounted by a veritable hill of cushions, but upon the edge of that seat was a man. He was fine featured, a man of obvious good breeding and health, but there was something unpleasant in his eyes.

Those eyes were as cruel as the sun upon the sands.

"Look what you've dragged me into now, Udu!" the smuggler spat.

"Well, look who finally grew a spine!" Udu answered.

"You will be silent or you will be headless!" the sovereign pronounced, and as he did, the hiss of blades escaping scabbards put weight to his threat. "Do you know who I am?"

The smuggler became quite pale, and fell silent. "...I do..."

"Good. Then I am spared introducing myself," the sovereign said. "Now, you've got a problem, stemming from this man's inept handling of his grandmother's property from Ibn-Atal. There are a number of ways to rectify that, but few are legal, and in this city, smugglers are dealt worse than harshly. The most obvious one would be to take a child off the street in the Capital. It wouldn't much matter who, so long as it was a girl, with all of her teeth and working limbs. Now, the standard price for a random girl on the black market is one hundred ninety rubble in silver, and the best you'll find without traveling abroad. Factoring the price of a new sand skimmer and the price of goods he forfeited, he could repay the debt with eighteen girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen sold into slavery at normal market prices, and avoid the wrath of his grandmother – a _very_ powerful criminal underworld figure."

"That's nice," Udu said. "Do forgive my language, but who in the name of Nebt-het's Tits is this man, besides somebody who may or may not sell girls into slavery?"

"Do you know what Nemesis is? Beyond just what those plains-addled fools to the South think?" Udu gave a shrug. "It is a righteous infliction of retribution, personified in an appropriate agent. In this case, the last person you wish to annoy; me."

"Udu, please, be silent," the smuggler pleaded. Udu did the stupid thing, and scoffed.

"Since Adin bin Ibtihaj al'Adin has an appropriate attitude, he is spared this," the sovereign said. He flicked a hand, and Udu was jabbed in the back with a blade. Not deeply, but enough to draw out blood and tell him that his lip was not appreciated. "Each inappropriate outburst will be given a more severe response. This is clear, yes?" Udu nodded. "Good. I am Ali, Sheik of Ababa. You have trouble with the Dragon's Daughter, and you, with her son. Bury it."

"But..." Udu said, but was silenced, when Ali glared at him. He swallowed in fear.

"There is another who travels with them. His name is Ashan. He is never to return to this city, under _any_ circumstances. If he does, I promise you, you will not."

"What is it that you are asking of us?" Adin asked meekly.

"The world beyond the walls of the cities is harsh and cruel," Ali answered, leaning forward and darkening his eyes to the point where they seemed pits into Hell. "Show the bastard boy the fullest extent of that. Do this, and you will find service to me quite profitable. Do not, and..."

The rasp of a whetstone against a sword's edge was all the conclusion that sentence needed.

Ali smiled then, and it was not a kind smile. "Are these terms... acceptable?

* * *

><p>Azula lay on her side, for the first time in a while, her body aching for sleep, but her mind whirring a mile a minute. She had to find a way out. The Avatar was trying to confuse her. Why had he done what he'd done? Was he trying to make her... thankful? Or, more likely, just keep her off guard? If that were the case, then he was a moron, because now, she was fully capable of attacking him again. But that didn't help her here, since she was locked in a room, and she didn't know what to do.<p>

And Azula felt genuine worry at that. She always knew what to do. But... somehow... not now.

Azula rolled to her back, laying atop the sheets of the bed. It was more than comfortable enough. Even when she was living in the Royal Palace, back home, she had scarcely had better sleeping arrangements. Yet she could not sleep. Who was that other girl, that one scratching at the corners? Azula hadn't seen her since, nor before. But there was something... wrong with her. Something incomplete and dangerous. Her younger self was also absent from sight, as she sometimes was. Maybe her other self was sleeping right now. It was hard to say.

Azula shook her head. She had plenty of time to think, to plan, now. She was healthy enough to act as she needed to; it was just a case of knowing when the timing was correct. Her timing used to be so perfect. Now, it left something to be desired. She sighed, and rolled further, onto her other side, itself a comfort which she'd been denied for several days by a broken collar bone. She settled against the pillow for a long moment, before her eye widened, and she gave a clipped shriek of alarm.

She was not alone.

She cast out a fist, and blue fire obeyed her, if not as strong as it should have been. Scarlet blaze batted it aside, and Azula took the moment to back-roll off the bed, keeping it between her and the interloper. But that intruder didn't advance on her, nor counterattack. He just sat there, on the adjacent bed, stroking a grey beard. Azula paused, then lit a fire in her palm. "No... It cannot be..." she said.

"So you do recognize me," Iroh said, his eyes shrewd and calculating. "That is good. Because we have a great deal to talk about."

"What are you doing here?" Azula asked. Then, she amended her question. "How did you _get_ in here?"

"I have my ways," Iroh said. "And you have yours. That is the crux of our problem."

"What do you mean?" Azula asked, suspicious as ever she was.

There was a creak of the wooden bedframe as Iroh leaned forward, his eyes locked on her own. "I know what you are, Azula," Iroh said. "And I'm not happy about it."

* * *

><p><strong>History Lesson Time!<strong>

**Subject: The Beginning of Bending, to the Formation of the Monolith.**

**The world of 3F Avatar is about as old as ours, but it exists in a different solar system, and home to different physical laws. Namely, the soul not only has a quantifiable presence, it also has a purpose in Avatarverse. Now, Bending hasn't been around forever, and definitely not in the form you see it on the shows. Unlike most fantasy media, which is taking place in a 'dark age' after all the really cool stuff has been discovered and subsequently lost, Avatar is a world still moving upward, advancing toward something greater.**

**The world of Earth in Avatar was initially much like our own, with a plethora of cultural archetypes spread over its surface. They were as varied as the Hellenas who occupied what are now Great Whales, a Grecian culture relatively advanced in its sciences, to the Wiqing, a barbarous peoples centered in what would eventually become Ba Sing Se. But there was one culture centered in the West Continent which had something the rest of the world did not. They practised a form of internal alchemy, a purification of the energy in their bodies, which allowed them to defeat disease and augment their physical might. They were the first energybenders.**

**In time, though, those energybenders discovered that they could not only control the energy inside themselves, but outside as well. There were two schools of thought to the use of that energy. The Warriors of the Sun used that energy to ignite and use the techniques of the Dragons and the Fire Hawks to create flame, becoming the first Firebenders. Nanuuica, the storied first High Chief of the Water Tribes, used that energy to manipulate the water, using the push and pull of the Moon and the tides to guide her technique. For a brief period, the two tribes of Fire and Water lived in relative harmony, but frictions soon flourished, not long after the first Benders crushed and subsumed the Hellenas. It was decided that the firebenders would have the West Continent, and the waterbenders the southern archipelago which would eventually become Great Whales, before a further split would divide the waterbenders into Eel-worshipers and Moon-worshipers, the latter leaving Great Whales to found the Water Tribes.**

**Now, these nations were not yet the Fire Nation nor the Water Tribe. They were just the first step toward becoming that. The pseudo-water tribesmen and the pseudo-fire nationals began to influence the East, and with that influx of both the existence of bending, and their culture, the ways of thought prevalent in what would become Omashu began to spread, as they were closest to their Western neighbors, and trade was frequent. But it was still thousands of years before a new element was 'discovered'.**

**When Oma learned earthbending from the Badgermoles, around the same period, a group of wandering peoples, similar to our Romani, learned the secrets of the air bison. Once all four elements existed in a manipulable fashion, the Avatar Spirit was formed, a human being capable of understanding all elements and philosophies and utilizing all. Why the Avatar was formed is still unknown. The first was a Westerner, and after her death, the next came from the wandering nomad peoples, and the world soon understood the cycle. Bending swept the world, beating out and erasing all cultures which didn't have it, or else subsuming them into the cultures which dominated them. Only a few cultural stand-outs remained, namely Si Wong, who developed sandbending relatively indepenantly of Oma, and held their own.**

**The Avatar worked in the role which one would expect nowadays of it, until the creation of the Monolith. The Monolith was a culture, founded by an earthbender Avatar, which saw earthbending rise to prominence in the world, gaining dominance over all of the other cultures. How is not known. Why is not known. In fact, the name 'the Monolith' definitely isn't what the culture called itself, but its identity was erased during its downfall. The only things known about it was that it was a terrible blight upon history, to the point where all history before the Monolith is practically non-existent (thus why the calendar counts upward from 'the fall of the Monolith'), and that it was created and ruled over by at least two generations of Avatars. This last bit is only known to the Avatars themselves, and only then, because the earlier and later of them worked together to 'box' the Monolith Avatars, to keep them from infesting later Avatars with Monolith ideas. It was that terrible, and that dangerous, that the world could never afford its like again.**

**...**

**But enough history for the moment. Some of the later chapters are getting big again, although not like the bloat I've seen in, say, The Mountain King. Therefore, since I work keeping up a buffer, the chapters I present are taking longer between them. But that's the way I roll, sadly. This was the chapter where you get to know Ashan a little bit better. He's a bit traditional, but he's aggressively good natured. In a perfect world, he'd probably be the protagonist of his own 'Avatar' story. But as it's been made readily apparent, this is not a perfect world.**

**Also, in answer to something a reviewer pointed out: I had no idea that somebody had whipped up Pai Sho rules. I just made up what I thought sounded interesting. Call it a writer's prerogative. You'll be seeing a bit more of Shoji and On-Ji, and a lot more of Malu in the coming chapters. Don't worry about that. And you'll even see a bit more Zuph in the future as well. Well, something that's kinda like Zuph. It's a bit early to tell. As I've made clear, I haven't reached Ba Sing Se yet, so until everybody has, there's still some question about execution. This is the kind of thing that has to be done right, or not at all. And since I'm not roughly half-a-million words into this story, and a few of you actually do look forward to updates, 'not at all' isn't really much of an option, now is it?**

_Leave a review._


	25. The Hunt

**Damn it, now I'm writing two different fics at once. This will end in flames. Well, for me at least.**

* * *

><p>Golden eyes scanned along the remnants left behind. Debris and detritus, left to rust in the night air. Weapons abandoned in a reckless flight. It was untidy, cowardly, and wasteful. In the days leading up, he'd passed whole columns of Fire Nationals streaming north from the battle at Omashu. Despite losing almost none, they were a broken host, and were willingly facing military justice, possibly death, over what was behind them.<p>

The Avatar had come to Omashu, they all said. The Avatar was real, and whole. He didn't care. The Avatar could tear his father's palace down brick by brick for all it mattered to him. The one thought which kept looping like a voice out of madness in his mind was that he had to find his sister. His hair, once long and pristine, had become ragged and rough. His face was set with a permanent scowl of pressure and worry. But he didn't stop moving. He'd almost lost her trail at the mountain, but a day shifting rocks, and he followed her, all the way through that dark, wolfbat-infested cave, right to where the soldiers passed him by. No sign of her, after that, but he had other worries.

Like the fact that he hadn't eaten in almost a week.

Zuko was often the kind of person to trust his instincts. They were somewhat clouded at the moment, though, between the starvation and the fatigue. So he looked for a place to deal with those petty concerns. Uncle was right. A man couldn't think on an empty stomach, or at least, not think properly. So he continued up the thick, stone bridge which spanned the gap to the tri-point city of Omashu. As he reached the point where the bridge ended and the walls of Omashu began, he was stopped by a lone guardsman, who was bathed in the light of two flickering braziers. Zuko quickly calculated how quickly he could dispatch this thug if need be. The answer was not quite quickly enough.

"Hold on, there," the guard at the edge of bridge and wall said. "What's your business in Omashu, young man?"

"I'm just trying to get something to eat," Zuko said absently.

"Do you live out in the fields? Try one of the villages," the guardsman said.

"Tried. They didn't have anything," Zuko said. Not for any price.

"Well, the King has ordered increased guard, so I can't just let anybody in. Could be Fire Nation spies," he said with a shrug. Zuko scowled, and flicked away the hair on the left side of his face, showing the bubbling scar across his neck and ear.

"I've had my own trouble with them," he said, and not entirely dishonestly. The guard gave a wince at that.

"Yeah, you didn't get that from a waterbender, that's for sure," he glanced fertively about, then leaned in. "You know what? Let's just say that nobody came through. Anybody asks, you just didn't get spotted during last night's headcount."

"I see," Zuko said. The guard gave a stomp, and a narrow slit opened through the wall. Zuko trudged through that tiny gap, and it sealed behind him, leaving none nearby the wiser. As it was, they all had their own business to attend to. Zuko kept walking, past the earthbending-powered mail-system, past the streets which either dug into the hill or ran up it in stairwells, and followed his nose. Food, then Azula. His sister needed him, after all.

He kept telling himself that, because if he didn't, he might stop believing it.

* * *

><p>Uncle and niece stared at each other across that brief distance. She hadn't the foggiest idea how he'd gotten into the room. But from the way the bed creaked under his weight, it was obvious he was no figment of her imagination.<p>

"..._what_ I am?" Azula asked incredulously.

"Yes," Iroh answered, running a smoothing hand over his beard. "You have done well to present yourself as powerless and dependent, but obviously the ruse has grown tiresome. I wonder what your ends were, but that is not the issue at hand."

"Why, Uncle, don't you know your own beloved niece?" Azula said, entirely too innocently.

"You are not her," Iroh said firmly. "At first, I believed that you were a host to a spirit, that you'd opened a door better left closed. But you are as much a shaman as I am the Avatar. Considering you also do not have the smell of the spirit around you, that places you as something else."

"I am the Crown Princess."

"That is true," Iroh said. "You are. Now. But not always, I assume," the girl stared at him warily, like a predator who didn't quite know the measure of another predator before it. "I pondered of many paths, many possibilities, and the one which keeps coming back into the fore is that you do not belong here. You are too old."

"Too old? Coming from you?" she asked with a laugh.

"The way you talk, the way you move when you don't think people are watching; they are the ways I move, the way I talk. You are no spirit, but something else. Something which was skilled enough at taking the place, the mask, and the voice of my niece that she could fool almost anybody. But not me. I am not fooled."

She crossed her arms before her chest. "Then indulge me in this mad little fantasy. What does that make me, then?"

"Azula," Iroh answered. She smirked. "Another Azula, from another place."

The minute twitch in her eye was the only sign she gave that he'd managed to strike the truth as squarely as a nail upon its head.

"An Azula which is older, much older. Perhaps as old as I," Iroh continued. "An Azula who had children. One of which was named Chiyo. A daughter, one quite beloved, but a relationship filled with regrets and mistakes. A daughter slain by an old enemy, igniting a vendetta long buried. You spoke with such bile of the girl waterbender, so I can only assume she is this hypothetical murderer of this hypothetical child. Does this sound familiar?"

Her face was stricken, but she summoned the nerve to pull a smirk onto her face. "Why, Uncle, I believe you're beginning to lose your wits to senility."

"If I have, it doesn't change the facts," Iroh said. "Where is she?"

"Who?"

"Azula. _My_ Azula. The girl born of _my_ brother, the sister to _my_ nephew," Iroh said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do not lie to me, girl. I have confronted greater liars than you," Iroh said. She scowled. "You can deny for a year and a day, and I will still know that I am right. What do you want?"

"What do any of us want? The supremacy of Fire, our enemies cast down," she said snidely.

"And revenge," Iroh said. "You might not think it, but I've broken a few cyphers in my day. I read the journals you made when you were young. They read as prophecy or mad ramblings, but looking back, I know them for what they truly are. That was your life, wasn't it?" Iroh leaned a bit closer. "Hating your brother, despising me, clinging to Ozai for any scrap of positive attention, and in denial that he couldn't offer even that. Losing your friends. Losing your mind. You lived a life where the Fire Nation was defeated in this war, and it has burned in you for decades."

Her lips writhed at that. "It's not going to happen this time," she snapped, before falling silent again. Iroh nodded.

"Indeed, it cannot," he admitted. "Between Zhao's survival at Summavut, my brother's loss of prestige, and the Dragon of the East's survival to the present day, what happened to you cannot happen again."

"Wait..." Azula said cautiously. "You're believing this?"

"I have seen many things, Azula," Iroh said. "Some beggared my imagination. This is... new... but not so strange that I cannot accept what my mind and my eyes tell me."

"And you're going to stop me," she concluded, "so that your precious Zuko can be Fire Lord again."

"No," he answered, which struck her back a pace. "My wife, Qiao..."

"Shou," Azula corrected. He raised a brow at her. "Wait a minute..."

"It is as it sounds," Iroh admitted. "She made it very clear that I was being a bad uncle to you, not supporting you when you needed it, ignoring you for favor to your brother. I have taken her lessons to heart," he rose to his feet, and moved away from the bed, opening up a book which had been left amongst a stack of its ilk on a table. "The world you feared would come to pass cannot, not again. But to oppose somebody who has seen a version of events, that would be folly."

"What do you want from me?"

"To see what you will do," Iroh answered bluntly. "If killing that waterbender girl will give you the peace you need to release your hold on this girl, then do it. I will not stop you; I might even guide you to her path. I find myself humbled in Zuko's wisdom; family is the most important thing. You have taken away a part of mine, so I will do what I can for her, and you, until I can have her returned."

"You'd help me fight the Avatar?" she asked, but she paused, and glanced aside, as though trying to ignore something said to her.

"Somewhere inside that mind is the girl who fell ill six years ago. I will do what I can to protect her."

"And what about Zuko?" she asked with a sneer.

"I taught Zuko well enough that he will survive on his own," Iroh chuckled for a moment, warm memories clear in his head. "You have been a positive influence on him. Taught him the value of responsibility and love. Those are virtues I feared once he would never really understand. He will understand what his role in this conflict, in his life, is. It will come in time."

"I am not going to fight for you," she pointed out.

"I expect you to fight for yourself," he said.

"And what about your flower-arranging friends?" she asked. It was Iroh's turn to flinch at that. "I might not have put that down, but a few years before _that woman_ killed my daughter, I was approached by one of your flunkies. I will not be bridled by those people, either."

"The path you walk will be your own. Must be," Iroh placated. "But you walk a dangerous path."

"Don't we always?" she asked with her smirk, the same smirk she'd always had. The same smirk she lent to her brother.

"Very well. Be patient. The time of your freedom will come," Iroh said. "You live in interesting times."

"Again," Azula added, then muttered under her breath, something which Iroh couldn't understand, but Zuko would have interpreted as "_...would it have killed that zappy-bastard to let me skip puberty, though?_"

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

**The Hunt**

* * *

><p>Most people knew well to stay as far away from the battle arena as possible when its events could be heard from the outside world. Buried as it was near the very center of the greatest peak of Omashu, the sound of crashing and calamity had to reach through almost three quarters of a mile of stone to reach open air. Needless to say, the slamming, the crumbling, and the cracking that echoed out into the streets of Omashu today told everybody not just to stay away from the arena, but from the Royal Palace which held it. As one moved deeper into the mountain spike, jutting above the canyon which was littered by the long eroded bones of cities thousands of years dead – Omashu each and every one of them – the sound amplified, until one could be forgiven for not really understanding how the mountain was holding together. The simple answer was that it had a lot of help.<p>

In the arena itself, dust was settling. It was bereft of spectators, which was for the best, since the amount of shrapnel flying in every direction made for hazardous viewing. There were only two present, one the source of the shrapnel, the other the target of it. One a hulking, muscle-bound supercentenarian, the other a lithe, nimble, technical supercentenarian with the physical traits of a teenager. In that particular order, of course.

Aang panted, trying to get wind into his lungs. Even with his subconscious airbending, it was like trying to suck a brick through a straw. His every limb burned, either from the minor bludgeonings he'd received, or from simple, honest exhaustion. "I don't think... this is working..." Aang panted, leaning against a boulder which now lay embedded in the floor of the edifice.

"Well, that's odd," Bumi said, scratching at that grey sprig of beard. "This is just exactly how my earthbending teacher taught me."

"Really... and you lived?" Aang asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

"Oh, she was always of the opinion that if you couldn't survive the worst the world had to throw at you the moment you walked in the door, you probably might as well go home," Bumi said. "It took seven concussions to show her that I wasn't going away. Might not have been the quickest student, but I was definitely the most tenacious."

"Seven... concussions?" Aang asked, still trying to get his breath.

"Yes, before that she didn't even bother learning my name," Bumi said with a grin and a cackling, snorting laugh. "Some of her other students said that I took one too many blows to the head in training. Well, I've outlived every single one of them! How about that?"

As Bumi launched into another ocean of cackles and snorts, Aang finally got enough air into him that he didn't feel like passing straight out on the floor. It was lucky he'd suffered as he had the long run in the mountains, and the long days of steady combat in the North, before coming here. If he'd tried to hold this kind of pace back then, his heart would have probably quit, taken its hat, and exited his chest with a complaint in writing about unsafe working conditions. Once again, Aang paused even inside his own mind, and shook his head. Sooner or later, he was going to figure out this whole 'creating a metaphor' thing properly.

"Maybe if you tried easing me into this, I might be able to..." Aang began.

"Ease in? That's no way to earthbend," Bumi said. "Earthbending is head-on, all the time."

"Yeah, but what about people who don't have a clue how to earthbend?"

"Then they shouldn't be in an earthbending class, now should they?" Bumi asked, neatly completing the circularity without the slightest whiff of shame or irony. "Besides, from what I heard from your blind friend, you've already punched a volcano in half. This should be old hat for you."

"Like I told her, I don't know exactly how I did that," Aang said. He sighed. "You know, I think you were right when you warned me last year that you wouldn't be a good earthbending master."

"Aang, I've done many things in my life. Some of them I've even done well," Bumi said, tones comforting, if still reedy. "But I've never been much of a teacher. Never had to be. I know you'll find somebody more appropriate, somebody who can teach you what you need to know. Somebody who's mastered Neutral Jin."

"...what?" Aang asked.

"Oh, ask Momo. He knows," Bumi said, before turning on his heel and walking through a wall. Aang stared after his old friend, and shook his head lightly. There were a lot of things he dearly loved about the only person who had survived from his old life into his new one, but at the same time, there were quite a few things which drove him to distraction. And the said could probably be said about Aang himself, now that he thought about it. Since he didn't feel like thinking about it for any length of time, Aang decided to leave the arena, with one airbending-empowered bound sending him to the gaping hole where once stood a balcony which overlooked the grounds below it. He moved through that dark passage, lights only indicating that there was in fact something at the end of it. Any other sources of light had been extinguished in the maelstrom which Bumi probably fully thought educational.

As he walked, he thought about how quiet things had gotten. Not just since the end of combat – although there was a ringing in Aang's ears which wouldn't go away – but day to day as well. The whispers of the Avatars before him used to be a quiet but constant presence, only really discernible when Aang was so scared out of his wits that he'd grasp at any straws they offered. Now, there was quiet. Deep, personal, slightly worrying silence. Ever since he talked to Korra, there'd been nothing. He often wondered if he should tell Katara or Sokka about that. Well, not Katara since she'd want him to ask her things, and not Sokka, because he'd probably go off on one of those tangents about 'causality' or something. Not Toph, either, since she was practical to the point of stolidness. Yup. Just as he'd come to realize before; there was nobody he could talk to about this.

Maybe Azula.

Only she wasn't in a mood to talk to anybody.

It didn't help that they'd essentially imprisoned her for a week since Aang got here. He grumped his way out of that palace, more or less ignoring the bureaucrats who zipped around him like dragonflies above a pond. It wasn't until he'd reached the outer balcony, beckoning the staff from where he'd set it nearby, and taken the sky that the knots of frustration and worry began to come loose. Yes, Omashu was safe and he couldn't be happier for that, but even thought Bumi had his crown and Aang had a safe place to learn earthbending, he just couldn't seem to do it. It was like everything in the world was conspiring against him, to keep him from moving that stupid stupid rock!

Aang banked 'round the skies which overlooked Omashu, his eyes taking in the white, cloud-like shapes in the sky which could only be Bison. After all, for reasons he still hadn't entirely figured out, once one got as far into the East Continent as they were, the rain just stopped falling. There were at least a dozen of the things, lazily paddling the air as they moved north from their nesting grounds in the islands surrounding the South Air Temple. Even that brought a smile to Aang's tired face. No matter how hard they tried, nobody could wipe out the Air Nomads. Heck, there was even another one out there, somewhere.

A half-hour's gliding did much to settle Aang's nerves, as much as they could be settled, and he began to swoop lower, diving down through the ring which marked the peaks of the two smaller prominences of Omashu. Unlike the great pointed spire of the Palace and the rest of the city above it, these structures were built by hand centuries ago, a way of giving the expanding city of Omashu a bit more room to grow before having to stretch down into the gully or across its protective gap. Omashu was rightly considered one of the eight wonders of the artificial world, because both of those smaller structures were, in defiance of Aang's understanding of engineering itself, completely hollow. Each opened up swiftly, light pouring in in some amount into the chamber at its center. The one he'd dived into was called the Fog Garden, since it had a pond at its heart and – once again – for reasons Aang didn't understand, had a standing fog around its dim, shaded walkways in all but the brightest of noon sunlight. Aang pulled up, breaking his descent and landing amidst the vaguely swamp-like gardens in the center of the massive structure, overlooked by hundreds and hundreds of rooms which poked out in a thousand eyes of glass, watching as the sun filled the garden a few hours a day, the falling dim once more.

Aang couldn't have lived like that, having only a few hours of natural sunlight a day. Then again, he couldn't live on the tenuous inner surface of a hollow pyramid, either. But it was pleasant enough to visit. Aang tucked in his glider and sat on top of a rock, breathing in the damp air, feeling the cool of it. He closed his eyes, for a moment, calm.

Only a moment, though.

"Think fast, Twinkletoes!"

With a cry of alarm, Aang managed to vault away from the stone just as it was launched most of the way to the opening which let light spill in. Aang instantly had his staff back in hand, ready to fight somebody off, even though he knew fairly well he wouldn't have to fight the blind earthbender. Aang let out a strangled noise of shock and dismay, only to be answered by slow clapping, and braying laughter.

"You shoulda seen the look on his face!" Sokka exclaimed.

"I'll just have to enjoy it vicariously," Toph said. "You got good reflexes at least."

"You could'a killed me!"

Toph smirked, and stomped a foot on the turf, just as that boulder landed, causing the humus to quake and catch the falling stone with a great deal more comfort than it would have gotten unaided. "Eh. You'd have made the best of it," she said. "So, what brings you to this little nook of a cranny?"

Aang shook his head. "I'm beginning to think that I might never figure out earthbending."

"With an attitude like that, you definitely won't," Toph said. "Come on, Twinkletoes, you stared down a volcano! How is moving a rock that hard?"

"I had the Avatar State helping me that time and..." Aang trailed off. "What are you doing here, Sokka?"

"Oh, yeah," Sokka said. "She got a bug up her butt about that rubbing I took in Oma's cave, so she's been getting me to read it to her."

"Well, _yeah_," Toph said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That's probably the oldest writing left on this planet. It's probably the only writing which predates the Monolith, period!"

"On the plus side, I think I'm starting to learn a dead language," Sokka said evenly. "Bato would be proud."

"So, you're havin' trouble with earthbending, are you?" she asked, a grin on her face. "May be that the problem might be in having a terrible teacher?"

"Don't talk about Bumi that way," Aang said peevishly.

"She's not wrong," Sokka leaned in. "It takes him forever to explain anything."

"But... he's my friend," Aang said.

"Yeah, well, that might be immaterial to the important crap, namely, learning how to send rocks flying around," Toph said. "So buck up. If you can't learn anything from King Crazy, maybe I can beat some knowledge into you."

"I think I've had enough beatings for one day," Aang said warily.

"There's your first problem," Toph said, striding over to him, nudging him about. "You've got no muscle, no root, and no stamina. You want to work the rocks, you're gonna need all three."

"_You_ don't have muscle," Aang said with confusion.

"I'd surprise ya," Toph said with a chuckle. "Now get on your feet, earthbending student! You want to play with rocks, you gotta be like a rock yourself!"

"Oh, mother..." Aang whispered, as he felt himself being passed from one brutal teacher to another.

* * *

><p>The eyes opened with a snap, and a moment of confusion as he had no idea where he was. He could hear voices through the walls, but he didn't know who they belonged to. Only that he was in a hostile place. As the fog of unpleasant dreams departed slowly, that panic fled with it, and sensibility returned. He'd come to the city a little while ago, trying to find his sister. He'd lost her trail here, which meant she had to be nearby. And then, he spent his time scrounging money for food. That he awakened in this building was a pleasant change; he usually slept in a dark corner of the Shade Garden, where if it was not warm, it was at least mercifully dry.<p>

His stomach growled, reminding him that the little he had ingested thus far was hardly enough to offset a week without. He got to his feet, checking his personal effects. They were not many. His blades had been taken from his belt, but set aside with an array of other bundles on a table near the door, likely belonging to other inhabitants. A furtive glance given to the momentarily empty room, then he grabbed what was his, pausing only a moment to peek into those other bags. Clothes, ratty and filthy, were the chief product of them. Probably the bundles of homeless people. He moved to the door, opening it a crack.

"I don't care what you say. Those swords at least'll fetch a fair coin. Maybe a whole Weight if we can find a willing buyer," a voice came from within. His eyes narrowed. So they'd intended to rob him? Then why not just leave him in the streets? And how had he not awakened? His hearing was so acute that he could hear when Azula stopped snoring, even though a bulkhead had separated them.

"I don't know. He looked like he might know how to use them," a woman's voice, gruff and raspy, said.

"The gully's deep enough. He won't wake up before the vapors wear off," the first answered.

Well, that explained the headache. He opened the door more fully and slipped out of the room. They didn't even bother locking the doors. They must have real faith in that concoction of theirs. He slipped through the kitchen, moving behind the backs of the two who stood, facing the fire. He didn't make a whisper of sound, but then again, he'd infiltrated far tougher compounds, so exfiltrating some robbers' kitchen was hardly the height of suspense.

He reached the door silently, and even deigned to take the cloak from the peg by the door before slipping out into the hallway beyond it. He shook his head, ignoring the quite timely grumble of his stomach, and pulling that dark green cloak around his shoulders. He glanced to and fro, and realized he was probably inside one of the apartments of the lesser spires. From the looks of things, and the way it was laid out, he'd just exited one of the dwellings which overlooked the gardens. Must be how they managed to spot him.

He moved out through the structure, and he could feel the approaching of the sun before he could see it. A final corner, and it filled him with a bit more energy, banishing the fatigue and muting the pain which rattled in his skull. So it was day time? Perhaps they were right to have faith in that drug. He always rose with the dawn, so the noon sun told him that it'd probably worn off hours before it should have. He took his path through the streets, surrounded by drab stone, until he spotted one of the pan-helmed guardsmen on his patrol. He paused, halting that constable in his march.

"Have you been having some problems with missing people?" he asked.

"What do you mean, civilian?" the soldier asked.

"I think the people in 205," he said, casting a thumb over his shoulder, "might have something to do with that."

"I...see. Thank you, citizen," the guard said. Zuko smirked. He didn't need to see it done to know that payback would be had. He also extracted his hidden hand from the cloak, and tossed the purse of that guardsman up in the air, gauging its weight. Not much, but certainly enough for a good meal. He didn't feel remorse for his pickpocketing. After all, he was just an Easterner.

Feeling a bit more steady as he moved, he picked his way up the stairs, to roughly a third of the way up Omashu's slope. He knew very little about this city, since he'd been too young, stubborn, and stupid back during the first and final time the ship made landfall near to it to have had the foresight to scout the city from within. Several days had gone well toward that oversight, but it shouldn't have been an oversight to begin with.

A smirk came to his lips as he spotted the place he'd been looking for. Of the five meals he'd had thus far, the one provided here was far-and-away the best of them. He ducked through the door, keeping his eyes low. Still, a perky serving girl glommed onto his arm within three steps. "Well hello there, sweetie, do you have a table you prefer?"

"Sweetie?" Zuko said with a note of confusion, but shook his head. "Just anywhere will do."

"Alright, I've got just the place for you," she said with great chipper-ness, guiding him toward a little spot which was set up for two. Zuko shook his head at the absurdity of having located an Earth Kingdom Ty Lee. "Now, you're all settled in. What can we get for you t'day?" she asked.

"Noodle soup would be nice," he said. "And quickly. I'm starving."

"For a cute guy like you, I'll put it right at the top of the list," she said, winking before sashaying her way into the kitchens. Zuko just shook his head at it all. He had much more important things to worry about. Such as how to find his sister, what he would do when he found her, and what he would do after that. Sooner or later, Azula was going to find out the truth about Ozai. When she did, it might destroy her... unless he took steps to prevent that from happening.

Thus Zuko began to consider some decidedly treasonous thoughts.

However flirtatious the girl was, she was true to her word, in that Zuko got his food long before he by rights should have. Of course, had he been a bit less obsessed with his family and more care free – more like his uncle, to be said simply – he might have explored that flirtation a bit more thoroughly. As it was, the only thing he felt a need to explore was his soup bowl.

"She needs my help," Zuko said to himself, a mantra against disaster. He ate his soup, and he hoped that he would find her before it was too late. He had to.

"Well, your loss, Brain. This place has awesome eats," a familiar voice said from the doorway which led out into the sun-bathed streets. His golden eyes went wide, spoon halted on the way to his mouth, as he beheld a dark haired girl walking backwards into the restaurant. He knew that voice... but from where? She turned, and instantly, he knew. The blind earthbender from Merchant's Pier. He turned away, covering his face in an instant, but realized a moment later how pointless that was. As long as he didn't say anything, it wasn't like she could recognize him, anyway... "Hold on a second. Is that who I think it is?"

Zuko swallowed, which caused a moment of sputtering because there was an unchewed noodle in there.

"Hello there, sweetheart," the serving girl said. "Are you looking for your parents?"

"Buzz off, mayfly," Toph said with a back-handed dismissal. "I can order my own food."

"Why, I never..." she said, before leaving in a huff. Toph, though, grinned for a moment, then walked up to the slightly raised eating area, nearer the kitchens. Zuko released a sigh of relief. That would be a complication he really couldn't deal with right now...

And he damned near fell backwards off of his stool when Toph vaulted the railing and landed on the stool opposite him, a squawk of surprise sending some soup flying. He stared at her. She didn't bother staring at anything.

"I thought I recognized you," Toph said. "You're lookin' mighty skinny there, _Lee_."

Zuko glanced around, but her use of his pseudonym was a hopeful sign. "Things haven't exactly turned out well for me," he said.

"Obviously," she said. She sniffed. "You smell like you've been sleeping in a pit."

"I have been," Zuko said testily.

"Good for you. Give you some character, put some hair on your chest," she said, reaching across the table and slugging him in the arm.

"What was that for?"

"It's how I show affection," Toph reminded him. "Gods, you're one clueless mark, you know that?"

"What are you doing here?" Zuko asked, his alarm still raised, but for the moment focused in enough that he could continue to eat. "Last I heard, you were trying to match some appointment in Bomei."

"Yeah... that didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped," she said uncomfortably. "I ended up getting dumped with my lame-ass father for more than a month while the rest of them got to have fun. Ah, well, that's life for you. At least I got to kick around with the Mountain King for a bit."

"The Mountain King?" Zuko asked. "I thought he was dead."

"Nope. Although he's lost two houses just in the time I've known him," she gave a chuckle at that. "So what are you doin' in Omashu? And come to think of it, where's Cool Old Guy? I thought you guys would be together."

Zuko stared into his soup. "Uncle and I had... a disagreement."

"That's a shame. He's one of the more awesome men above the age of sixty that I know of."

Zuko couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I should get back to my dinner."

"I'm confused 'bout a couple of things," Toph said, arms crossed before her. "You're pretty much heir to the throne over in the West..."

"Could you say that a bit louder? I think the Earth King didn't hear you," Zuko snapped quietly.

"Eh, these people wouldn't know what to do with ya," Toph said with a dismissive wave. "'sides, my point is valid. Why are you bumming around penniless in Omashu? Shouldn't you be... I don't know, terrorizing the Avatar, or eating fancy dinners in your pop's palace or something?"

"I have more important things to worry about," Zuko said, forcefully scooping up some noodles. "O... My father only wants me because it makes _him_ stronger. I'd prefer to be a part of a family which actually wants me, rather than what I represent."

"How's that goin' for ya?" Toph asked.

"Not. Well," he answered angrily. "Uncle lies to me. Azula is... I don't even know."

"You're still looking for your sister?" she asked. He looked across at her like she was daft. It made it lucky that she was blind, so she wouldn't get insulted.

"I lost her up North. I've been trying to catch up to her since," Zuko said.

"Well, you've come to the right place," Toph said. Zuko's eyes bugged. "Oh, don't pull a muscle thanking me..."

"You're sure? She's alright?" Zuko asked, swiftly.

"Well, she was pretty banged up when she dropped a cave onto her own head, but Twinkletoes sorted that mess out," she chuckled for a moment, leaning in a bit. "He doesn't know how good my hearing is down that far."

"Cave in?" he asked. Then, he shook his head. "Never mind. Where is she?"

"Oh, she's up in Bumi's palace. Sugar Queen seems to have a real problem with her, and from the sounds of it, it's mutual. What'd that waterbender ever do to your sis, anyway?"

"I'm... not sure," Zuko said. He'd heard what Azula shouted outside Bomei, he knew what it meant. But how Katara could have killed a daughter of Azula's, something wholly impossible since Azula was quite definitely a virgin, beggared his imagination. "I need to see her."

"Well... shouldn't be too hard to get in," she said with a shrug. "It's not like you've personally declared war against any Earth Kingdom sovereignties while I wasn't paying attention, am I right?"

Zuko gave a laugh at that, but it was a nervous one. His sister was safe, and she was close. That was all that mattered.

* * *

><p>"<em>You're worried<em>," Nila said, breaking the quiet, but not quite enough to broadcast to Sharif and Tzu Zi, who were traveling ahead of them, into the cool wind. Ashan gave a raised brow.

"_There must be terrible obviousness if even you can see it_," Ashan said. She gave a glare back to him, and he gave a chuckle and a ward against evil with his hands. "_I joke, I joke._"

"_As I try to be... friendly, you mock me. I vividly recall why I so frequently wanted to strangle you,_" Nila said. "_Why are you troubled? I ask mainly because you will whine until somebody picks at the wound,_" he gave an equivocating gesture, but before he could speak, she cut him off. "_And I will not ask a second time, let alone a third, so speak or hold silence about it._"

Ashan looked her way, then sighed. "_I should suppose you would not. It is the sand. Or rather, the end of it._"

"_Is there something wrong with the sand?_" Nila asked. Her eyes widened in momentary alarm. "_We haven't wandered into the Rotting Expanse, I'm sure of it!_"

"_Oh, nothing so dire_," he said with a dismissive gesture. That was for the best, because no matter how much Nila read on the subject and centuries upon centuries of explorations, there was no consensus as to what the Rotting Expanse was, or why it caused the vomiting and slow, painful death that it inevitably did to anything which tried to cross it. And most eerily, why such dead, long turned to bones in the sand, glowed with an orange light. Some still wanted to see what was at the heart of the Expanse, but even airbenders avoided it like plague victims; the killing fields extended as far up as they did out. "_Rather, it is that soon, there will be no sand at all._"

Nila scowled. "_You're worried about leaving the desert? It is not so difficult. The ground is solid, the grasses are pleasant, and you can smell something besides sweat or perfume._"

Ashan shook his head. "_That is not it, either. I trust you and your firebender friend to ward such difficulties from me. No, it is that... well... I won't be able to bend anymore_."

She scoffed. "_You're an earthbender. What is the problem?_"

"_Sandbender_," Ashan corrected. "_How could you have forgotten? Have you struck your head? Or drunken the juices of the barrel peyote?_"

"_I am sober and sane, Ashan,_" Nila said. "_Earthbenders and sandbenders almost identical, according to what I've read_."

Ashan scoffed. "_I'll trust what you read when it makes a difference_," he said, then mulled for a moment, before raising a finger with an 'a-ha!' "_I know! I'll carry 'round a great jug, filled to its brim with sand. That way, anywhere I go, I'll always have something I can bend on hand!_"

Nila halted in place, staring at him. "That has to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard," she muttered in Tianxia, and then she started walking again, shaking her head and scratching at the hair which now started to hang over the back of her neck. Ashan sighed, then followed after her. After all, he needed those women right now a great deal more than they needed him.

A mile of sand behind them, a skimmer pulled to a halt. A lens met an eye. "_Is that them?_" Adin asked from his place on the helm of the borrowed skimmer. Both knew what would be in store for them if this one were to break; Sheik Ali was not even as forgiving as Ibtihaj al'Adin was, and her fierceness was well known. Udu nodded as he stared through that lens.

"_Traveling in the day. They must have lost their wits,_" Udu said.

"_Or they're getting ready for the Divide_," Adin said. Udu stared back at him. "_You have not been into that great cleft. The night is as dangerous as Re's harsh gaze, and far more watches to snatch your life in the Divide than mere heat and dehydration_."

"_If I wanted a lesson on Divide ecology, I would have asked one of Wahid's librarians!_" Udu said, throwing an empty bottle of water at the sandbender. "_Keep your head on your task, or would you rather it left your shoulders? After them, before they leave the sand!_"

Adin offered a sigh, and then began to spin his arms forward again, and the skimmer began to slide along sand, after the targets of two vendettas, and one crime against the Host.

* * *

><p>There was a stroke of the brush, and she erased another stretch of skin. Bit by bit, she removed, expunged, and destroyed another part of herself that she hated. It was deeply shameful, that face she had to see when she woke up in the morning. It was a face of somebody who didn't deserve to belong here. A face of somebody lesser. She took great effort to destroy that face, every single day.<p>

"Running a bit low," Omo said, giving a glance toward her depleted jar of make-up. "You're going to have to find a replacement, unless..."

"They aren't waterproof," Yoji pointed out, quickly settling the spectacles before her eyes, before her fellow Child could see what lay behind them. "The slightest rain, and..."

"I don't see why it's so bad," Omo gave her a smile. "From what I've seen, it's smooth, flawless. Might be a bit d..."

"That is immaterial. I choose to be as I am," she said.

Omo frowned. "Why don't you just take the specs off. You'll blend in better."

"She never takes her specs off," Kori piped up flatly from where he lazed.

Omo turned to her, his green eyes questioning. She nodded. "If you wish to see me, then this is the me you shall see."

"You need to take a break, Yoji. Not everything is mortally serious," Omo pointed out. He cricked his neck a few times, then turned to face the great mound of Omashu. "Astounding that it stood the battle. I really thought it'd have broken like an egg."

"You sell your people short," Yoji said. "Say what you will about them, they are strong and... resilient."

"We are that," Omo acceded. "The trail leads within, correct?"

"I'd stake my reputation on it," Kori said from the ground.

"So you'd wager nothing?" Omo said.

"Hah hah," Kori offered sarcastically.

"Don't fight. Save it for the Princess," Yoji said. "She is here."

"So she is," Omo said, standing beside her. "You look... remarkably like one of them."

She did, in fact. The years of burying what she was born under layers of makeup had made her somewhat expert at its application. Instead of the usual bone-white she usually adopted, she'd used the last of her make-up to make herself a parchment complexion, much like those who lived in this region. Much like Omo himself, to be plain. "Part of the plan," she said.

"It's good. Then, all we'll have to do is find the Dragon, and..."

"That will be a challenge for another day," she answered him precisely.

"Oh will you two just knock it off and mount each other, and get the whole thing over with?" Kori groused. Both turned to him, eyes wide.

"Mind your tongue, you..."

"Don't be ridiculous, she'd never..."

She paused, turning to him. "I'd never what?"

Omo glanced from Kori, who was now obviously grinning, to her. He swallowed. "You'd... Nevermind."

"No, I'm interested to hear this," she said, fists on hips.

"My work here is done," Kori said, getting off the ground and striking the dust from his back. "You two love-birds can thank me tomorrow after your night of wild passion."

"There will be no wild passion," Yoji said.

Omo sighed, and leveled a look of scorn at the former Tribesman. "You are a shit-disturber."

Kori just grinned at that.

"Let's just kill the Princess before our fellow Child does something idiotic," Yoji said angrily.

* * *

><p>"Bumi? Are you in here?" Aang asked, quietly rapping at the door. He opened it, and was faced with an enormous, off-green, slitted eye. That eye was encased in a head of a creature which defied classification, as odd as the man who owned it. Flopsie, as Bumi had named the beast which was nudging open the door and quickly pulling Aang into a bear-hug, had all of the strangest features of a goat-lion, a boarcupine, a bunny, and a bison, melded together with such disregard to common sense that it would make a biologist's head hurt. The end result was twelve feet and eight hundred pounds of Flopsie. Aang couldn't contain his laughter as the great beast swung him around like a doll even as he was clutched to the great thing's wall of a chest.<p>

"Flopsie, let them go. You can't just hug _anybody_," Bumi's reedy voice came from inside the chamber. "Some people have boundary issues."

The beast let Aang drop to the ground before pelting over on back-canted legs and fore-limbs like a primate toward the only being in the world as strange as it was. Bumi and Flopsie were obviously a match made in the heavens. Aang bounced back up to his feet, and dusted off the grey hair and dust that the hug had coated him with. "I'm alright. Lucky Momo wasn't in there, or it might have gotten a lot more than it expected."

"See? That's what happens when you don't think things through," Bumi chastized the great... thing... and it wilted slightly at his admonishment. Bumi sighed. "Ah, well. No harm done this time."

The beast perked back up, wagging its stunted tail.

"Look," Aang said. "I need to talk to you about something."

"You want to let me down softly that you're going to find another earthbending teacher?" Bumi asked. Aang stared at him, agape. "I might be a bit distractable, but there's a _reason_ I got to be King," he said with a snorting cackle.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to learn from the way you do things," Aang said. "I can't figure out how to earthbend if I'm constantly in terror for my life!"

"Well, that's strange," Bumi said. "That's how Zao taught me. But you're not an Easterner, now are you?"

"No, no I'm not," Aang said. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't be sorry," Bumi said, stomping the floor and manifesting a stool for Aang to sit on nearby. "I never was a very good teacher. It's why I never got 'grand' in front of my name, you know?"

"...no?"

"Oh, well, maybe you'll figure it out in time," Bumi said. "You see, you need a teacher who's good at listening, and waiting. Somebody who hears what the stone is trying to tell her. Or him. Or it! Isn't that right, Flopsie?"

"Flopsie?" Aang asked. "He's a natural earthbender?"

"No, but he knows a few things about neutral Jing."

"What is that, anyway?" Aang asked. He rolled his eyes, and added sarcastically; "And before you ask, I tried asking Momo, but he didn't feel like telling me."

"Oh, well," Bumi turned away from the desk of paperwork, and thrust a pointy finger at Aang. Aang leaned out of the way. "_That_ was negative jing. Energy spent in defense. What I did was positive jing..."

"Energy spent in attack, yeah, I know that much," Aang pointed out impatiently. Bumi smiled. And did nothing. "What?"

"Neutral Jing," Bumi said somewhat muffledly, somehow without even moving his lips. "The energy is stored, and its action, is inaction."

"So doing nothing is neutral jing?" Aang asked. Bumi nodded eagerly.

"Indeed! Find somebody who's mastered neutral jing, and you'll find your earthbending master. Somebody besides me, of course. Or Momo. I don't think he'll be too willing after the way Flopsie talked to him."

Aang shook his head. "Even though this didn't work out, I'm glad you're alright. If I hadn't come when I did..."

"Oh, I'd have probably opened the gates," Bumi said off-handedly. Aang's eyes widened at that. "It would have saved the lives of my soldiers, after all."

"You've got a unique way of looking at things," Aang said simply.

Bumi's answer was as it usually was; cackling, snorting laugher.

* * *

><p>"You'd better not be naked in there," arrived before the source of it did, which drew a scowl of annoyance from Azula, where she sat idly sketching the otherwise pristine valley where her plans to usurp her brother's throne reached their ultimate end. While it was vexing to have so little to do that she had to fall back on her artistic hobby – the one which allowed her to eat and have a roof over her head for about two decades – it was something of a relief that her skills hadn't atrophied from lack of use.<p>

"You wouldn't be able to tell if I was," Azula said idly.

"Why do you let her talk to you like that?" the girl asked.

"Because she is an old and trusted ally," Azula said. "When the world turned against me, she did not."

"Yeah, but you said..."

"Things change, and so do people. Sometimes," Azula broke off as the wall began to slide open, and not in the spot she expected it to.

"Why would she naked?" a voice at a whisper said. "And do you need to shout?"

"If she were naked, she'd need a warning," Toph said, stomping into the room. She tilted her head aside, not bothering to look in Azula's direction, but that wasn't surprising, considering the girl didn't need her eyes to see. "We-e-ell... you're lookin' a bit more chipper this morning."

"What do you want?" Azula asked, not harshly as it would have been with most anybody else.

"I got a surprise for ya'," Toph said. "Come on, mopey-pants, get in here."

Azula rolled her eyes, and because of that, was about a moment behind noticing the wiry teenaged youth who entered after her. Eyes much like her own fell upon her, and her brother's face was overtaken with disbelief. Then relief. And then, he was moving toward her.

"Azula, thank Agni," he said in a rush. "I heard you were hur..."

Azula stiff-armed her brother straight in the chest, knocking him backwards over the bed. "Stay away from me!" Azula shouted, instantly on her feet, fists closed and bathed in flame.

"Yeah... should'a warned you. She's not too happy with what you did," Toph said.

"Did? I didn't do anything," Zuko said, getting back to his feet and rubbing at his chest where she'd shoved him. "Azula, what's wrong?"

"Don't take one more step," Azula warned.

"What are you doing?" the girl demanded, standing between Azula and her brother.

"You know what he took from me; my throne, my dignity," Azula snapped. At that, Zuko looked all the more confused.

"I haven't taken anything from you," Zuko answered carefully. It was Toph's turn to be confused, as well as Azula's. As far as the firebender knew, those little conversations she had with her other half were silent... weren't they?

"That's what that muttering means?" Toph asked. "I just thought she had terrible erudition. Not surprising, given how she talks."

"Azula, we need to go, before the guards come," Zuko said, changing tracks with a shake of his head.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Toph began.

"I'll keep you safe, I promise," Zuko had an odd sort of desperation to him. But Azula wasn't fooled.

"I don't need any help from you, besides what you've already given me. An open door," she said. "Now stand aside. I have to kill the Avatar."

"We can deal with Aang together," Zuko said.

"Now just one damned minute," Toph said. "You're doin' _what_ now?"

"Don't drag the earthbender down with you. We both know you're just waiting for the right time to betray your people," Azula said. "Now do I have to kill you, or are you going to stand aside?"

"Azula..." Zuko said, as though he couldn't come up with anything else to say. Azula's lips twitched into a smirk, and her fists began to move, fire crossing the distance between two siblings. Zuzu's eyes shot wide, and brilliant golden flame guided her azure away. Toph bounded back, fists forward, but unsure whom to target. After all, to the earthbender's mind, Azula was rancorous but personally harmless, while Zuko was sweet, but a dope; neither one really demanded a Toph-style ass-whuppin'.

"What are you doing?" Zuko shouted.

"What I should have done a long time ago," Azula said, twisting an arc of flame around her from her heel. "Dealing with the worst traitor in this generation."

Zuko fell back, and Toph moved off to a side. "Damn it all, stop this craziness!" Toph finally shouted, having seen enough. With a spread of her hands, both siblings were hurled to opposite walls as the ground rebelled against them, and then trapped there when the wall reached out and cocooned both 'round the chest. "Zuko, what'd you do up in Summavut?"

"I don't know," Zuko exclaimed. "Let me out of this!"

"'Zula?" Toph tilted her head toward the other firebender.

"I don't need to explain myself to you."

"Since I'm the one holding y'all to the wall, I'd say you do," Toph contested.

"I don't know what happened," Zuko said. Then he looked up. "It must have been that bleeding Tribesman! The one in the burnt blue dress! She must have done something to you!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," Azula said.

"Tribesman?" Toph asked.

"Azula was just fine, until Uncle held me back, and said those... crazy things," Zuko shook his head bitterly. "By the time I found her, she'd taken the Avatar, but she was... different. Like this. So much angrier. It's like she doesn't even know who I am."

"I know you too well," Azula snapped. "Always Mother's favorite..."

"What?" Zuko asked in confusion.

"She spent all of her time with precious, fragile little Zuzu. But at least Father took the time to make me strong," Azula shouted, condemningly.

"What the hell are you talking about?" the younger Azula asked. "Mother was hovering around me all the time. It was _unbelievably_ frustrating. I could never have any real fun!"

"I... She wasn't..." Zuko stammered.

"I know what she said about me; that I was a monster," Azula said.

"She... never said anything like that," Zuko now moved from desperate to concerned. "Azula... do you even remember Mom?"

"I remember her," Azula said coldly. She remembered the last time Azula visited her, in that shack on the island. The look on her face, constant tension, constant wariness. As if she knew that Azula was going to attack her, but the only question was when.

It didn't help the brother-sister relationship that Ursa didn't survive the journey home. Doubly cruel because Azula had nothing to do with her demise.

"So do I," the little Azula said. "Zuzu's right."

"Somethin' weird is going on here. I think we're gonna need to talk to somebody who knows spirity-crap a great deal more than I do," Toph said. "Y'all just stay put, and I'll go get the Avatar."

"Damn your useless eyes!" Azula shouted.

"Don't bring him into this," Zuko also agreed, which surprised Azula somewhat.

Toph sighed, and pointed at Azula. "Look, firecracker, if I don't bri–"

She was cut off when another section of the wall exploded inward, covering the burning beds in rubble and extinguishing the worst of the fire. Walking out of the dust and detritus came a Tribesman, but it certainly wasn't the Avatar's lackey, nor was it _that girl_. He seemed a bit baffled, coughing and waving the dust out of his way. A second joined him, a strapping, muscular lad in a green hanbok. The easterner looked at the Tribesman, and then at Azula.

"Well, I guess you were right. Third time really is the charm," he said.

"Validation, how sweet you are," the Tribesman answered. Azula felt her skin start to crawl. She knew those voices.

"Don't just stand there, finish this mess," the last she knew with absolute clarity. While the face didn't conform to her expectations – parchment colored skin rather than ghastly bone-white – the blackened spectacles were a clear sign that it was the very same.

"Wait a second, who the hell are you?" Toph asked, stomping her way into the center of the room, even if that did mean kicking a bed out of the way to do it.

"Stay out of our way, and you'll never have to find out," the disguised firebender said. "Kill her now."

"Oh no you don't," Toph snapped, backpeddling and hurling out a wave of stone. But the easterner was right atop that, and stopped the wave before it could bowl them over, over which that Tribesman lashed out with a crescent blade of ice, which slaced at Toph and spun her back as it struck her shoulder. She pulled back bloody fingers, rubbing them against each other. "You cut me!"

"And I'll do more than that if..." the Tribesman began amiably.

"Tribesman, just shut up and kill the Princess," the easterner said with a cuff upside the Tribesman's head. The Tribesman rolled his eyes, then turned toward Azula, who could neither move nor defend herself. And doubly so against the slashing blades of ice and the wave of fire which seared toward her.

She looked upon this as the moment she died, again, and knew bitter regret.

Somehow, though, it wasn't. Stone erupted out of the floor, breaking that onslaught. Then, the binds which held her dropped away. Instantly, Azula was pushing off of the wall, and through the crumbling stone, rolling to a stop near where Toph was now readied for whatever was coming. Lucky that she was, because she had to raise a second wall to stop a second barrage of fire, while Azula had to fry the water which lashed out with it. There was another crumbling of stone, which Azula barely noticed, because she had to move quickly to avoid a spike which erupted from the floor, obviously intended to transfix her heart.

"These guys got some teamwork," Toph said, her eyes emotionless – or rather, as emotionless as sightless orbs could be – as she continually reworked the stone of the chamber to keep the attacks of the three assassins from finding a weakness. As they moved as though of one mind, it was a constant struggle.

"Then it's a good thing we do, too," Zuko piped up, from where he'd arrived, unnoticed at Toph's and Azula's other side. Azula gave him one glance, felt a twitch in her left eye, and then, fire began to flow, electric blue and furious.

At Zuko.

The assault was so unexpected by all present that the assassins actually paused in their probing attacks, flinching as one. Zuko, though, managed to duck away with a yelp of alarm and some singed hair on the left side of his face. There was a flick of eyes between those assassins that she was too wrapped up to notice, an understanding between them. Then, their attack redoubled, all of it at her.

It was a three way fight. Azula against the Assassins, Azula against her traitor of a brother. Toph was sadly an unwanted and unintended pawn in the game, trying to keep one side from killing the other, that other from killing the third, her duties so staunch that she had no time to do anything else. Sweeping flames cleared the blind earthbender's head, and lashed out at the assassins, as she twisted and back-kicked those same brilliant blue flames at her brother, who dodged away. But never struck back.

"What the hell are you doing?" Toph roared.

"What I was born to," Azula said. And she tore her arms through a spiral. The Assassins all recoiled as one.

"HIT THE DECK!" the Tribesman screamed.

"That can't be..." Zuko managed.

She turned, the energy crackling along her body, lightning as blue and deadly as her fire, but so much more pure. A thing born of focus and drive. She smirked as she turned her fingers toward her brother. Time seemed to slow, as that lightning demanded its release. Her fingers thrust forward, to where Zuko was staring in awe and concern.

"NO!" her younger self screamed. "YOU WILL NOT HURT MY BROTHER!"

And then, Azula felt a wilting in her, an ebbing of strength, as though a veil was moving forward over what made Azula Azula, and in its place, an alien control. Her arm moved further, past one Azula's intended target, and onto another's, this one high above the heads of all present, the thick, claustrophobic ceiling which hung over them. The lightning finally slipped Azula's grasp. The power of it drove Azula back a step, twisting her arm as it left her, but its effect was staggering, blasting away a huge section of that stonework and sending a blinding fall of rock, dust, and plaster into the cell.

"You will regret doing that," Azula promised.

"And you will regret anything you do to my brother," her other half promised. Azula shook her head. She'd been in this room too long as it was. Operating purely off of spatial memory, she turned, and started running, only stopping when she reached a flat wall, quite unlike the circular edge of her prison chamber. Then, she picked a direction which felt slightly less unpleasant, and started running. First, freedom; then and only then could she deal with _her_, the Avatar, and those fools who thought they would murder her.

* * *

><p>Their retreat from the crumbling room was anything but orderly, but since none of them were smashed flat, it was successful.<p>

"This is going to be a major problem," Omo said, shaking the plaster dust from his hair.

"He knows us, and our goal," Yoji said, striding along that corridor of Omo's creation, letting the two teenaged Children join in her wake. "But he must not know our allegiance. So I will alter my plan. I am not his ally, I am Azula's enemy, a petty thing. Nothing that will be linked back to our master."

"But when he's Fire Lord..." Kori pointed out the obvious.

"Then I will have to make my atonements, secure in that I've done what was right for my nation," Yoji said. "As will you."

"This is starting to sound worse by the minute. Why did I agree to this again?" Kori asked.

"Because you love the Fire Nation," Omo said sarcastically.

Kori paused for a moment, staring after the striding earthbender, a scowl on his face. "You don't need to say it like that, you meat-head."

* * *

><p>The song of canyon crawlers in the distance, the loud, popping grinding sound that at such distance was only a low drone echoing through the twists of the Divide, filled the night with a low ambience which soothed like a lullaby. Quite ironic considering its source. If those creatures were anything like close to the teenagers from their two respective deserts, there would be a distinct cause for concern. As it was, distance was friend to the travelers who had broke from their path north. After all, in the Divide, sight was far more important than preservation from the heat. And as they moved further through the Divide, heat would no longer be a concern.<p>

The snoring in the camp was mostly consigned to one side of it, the side dominated by the firebender and the ones who'd traveled so far with her. It was not that Ashan didn't feel himself part of that group, rather, the he'd been raised from birth to keep his difficulties to himself, and the nights _were_ the hardest part of the day. The firebender's Ostrich Horse was all the companionship he needed in the night, anyway. It didn't ask questions. It would be harder, now that they were just... sitting about during them. Most Si Wongi were at least partially nocturnal. It was the way things worked on the Sands.

He rolled over, looking at the gaping maw of the Great Divide. He'd never been outside the desert in his entire life. Even the feel of baked dirt under him instead of sand was a very unsettling sensation. Even while he was living on Sentinel Rock, the greater portion of his life in fact, it was always a comfort that if he moved a few hundred paces in any direction the sands would return to him, and he could feel them once more. Now, he felt alienated, out of his element, and out of his Element as well. Were he an idiotic or vindictive man, he'd have blamed Nila for it. But she wasn't to blame. That thing, that devil which hid behind Malu's eyes... that was who deserved the blame for this.

He felt that there would be no sleeping tonight, or at least not at the moment. He wormed his way out of that bag which had seemed ridiculous to carry before, but now he could see its use. The night air was not refreshing, here at the edge which demarcated Northern Earth Kingdoms from Southern, it was cutting and cold. So he shook slightly, getting his blood moving through his veins as he walked away from that 'sleeping bag', and made his way toward the Divide itself. They'd stopped here because this was the last place before they followed the Yejim Tajih down into the gulley. It's water was sweet and welcome, and an abundance which Ashan had never before seen. Nila's smirk at that had been quite smug.

_"If you think that is impressive, wait until you have set your eyes upon the ocean. Your poor little head will explode," she jibed, then as they were setting up this campsite_.

And perhaps it even might. He gave a glance behind him at where Nila was splayed out, lit by the fire and snoring quietly, whereas her brother and her companion were snoring with increasing volume, respectively. Contrary to what idiots like Gashuin said, she was not an unattractive girl. She took herself too seriously by a half, and had a tendency to say perfectly the wrong thing, but she had a good heart. The lengths she'd gone for her brother were only proof of that. Ashan allowed himself a smile as he looked upon her. He'd often wondered what she had seen when she suddenly left the fortress. Now, he would be living it.

He turned back, looking up at the moon overhead. It beamed down full and bright, bathing the Divide under bluish light. It was always the greatest of mysteries to Ashan why the Host never invoked a Host of the Moon. It was there, after all, staring down from the Heavens. The Sun had a Host, as did the Sands, the Snake and the Ibis, the River and the Bowl, but not the Moon. He pondered on that. This was one of the things he could so seldom do, back home. Grandfather had answers, but asking about the Host was not done. Answers were answers, no matter what question they were given for. And for the longest time, Ashan hadn't even been aware that Nila _knew_ the Host, thinking her some heathen atheist. It was a stunning freedom, and a stunning responsibility, to be on his own. He had to think for himself, now. Grandfather's answers had fallen silent. Ashan's faith was now in no other hands but his own.

"Probably for the best," Ashan whispered. He got to his feet, staring for a moment longer at the Moon. Whatever compelled his people to exclude that body from the Heavenly Host, Ashan would find it; it would be _his_ answer, not an answer of the Darvesh nor the Caliphs. He struck the sand from his back, and turned back toward the camp, walking slow, keeping the warmth moving through his hands by flexing them open and shut. He walked a circle, keeping the blood moving, getting the fatigue settled upon his shoulders like a cloak, as the drone of the canyon crawlers serenaded the sky.

He reached the foot of his sleeping bag when he noted something odd. The crawlers' chitinous calls had drowned out something in his mind, and he didn't think to turn, looking past the slump of rock which gave him shade from the blaze of the fire. The snoring had stopped. And when he looked past that obstruction, he could see why.

"Nila?" Ashan asked. "Sharif? Tzu Zi?"

Their bags were empty.

Ashan's hand went to his hip, clawing for the cleaver that usually hung there. However, as he was supposed to be sleeping, and sleeping with a belt of knives was just asking to filet one's own thigh, he'd doffed them for the moment. "Who goes there! Show yourself!" Ashan then shouted.

The music of the crawlers continued, but he focused his hearing past it. He had missed something, and now he was paying for it. Nila was right. He was absolutely helpless out here. He only prayed to the Host that his imperception had not doomed them as well. It almost doomed him. There was a crunch of stone underfoot, and Ashan managed to remove himself from the snare of a net which draped only over one arm, quickly extricated. There was a Si Wongi man, eyes nervous and fitful, clutching at that net with a desperation Ashan was in no position to understand.

"What did you do with Nila, and the others?" Ashan demanded.

"You'll join them soon enough," the Si Wongi said, but it was far too unnerved to be fearsome. This man was obviously no bandit – their kind were as hard as the desert made them, not squirrelly and furtive as this man was – but Ashan didn't like his intentions any more for that. Notably, since in that brief tussle, Ashan now stood on the bags of the others, he was far from his knives. He could see the butt of Nila's firearm, but he disregarded trying to use it, as at best he'd probably shoot off his own toe. So Ashan swept his arms down, then up, then surged them toward the assailant, bending with all his might.

The net-bearer flinched and recoiled.

But nothing happened. Ashan's eyes went wide, then he looked down, and remembered that they now stood on dirt and stone. The sands had been left behind, if even just a few hundred yards behind them. Ashan looked up at his attacker, and gave a nervous chuckle. "How about we just call this a draw?"

Ashan's answer came in the form of a blow to the back of the head. Ashan fell to one knee, and a second blow dropped him to the ground, letting out a low moan before becoming utterly insensate. Udu smirked down at the bastard son from where he'd gotten the drop on him. "Is there _anything_ quite so pathetic as a sandbender on stone?" he asked, then reached down, caught the teenager's boot, and started to drag him back toward the sands. Adin, who was still holding that net, gave an incredulous shrug.

"I'm standing_ right here_," he said with annoyance.

* * *

><p>"I'm glad that you understand," Aang said. "I was worried that you might be insulted."<p>

"Oh, I'm not insulted," Bumi said in his usual, pleased way. "I think the young lady will be a fine teacher. But I do wonder if she has the patience to put up with city living. She has been seeming somewhat skittish recently."

"Really?" Aang asked. "I hadn't noticed."

"The things you don't notice could fill a book," Bumi said with a cackle. "Ah. But seriously, though. Have you given thought on what you'd do next?"

Katara looked up from where she was re-reading her waterbending scrolls, the last teacher which existed for her to master her art. "He's right. We managed to get this far, but where do we go from here?"

"Well..." Aang scratched his head, as the waterbender set her tomes aside and joined the two old friends. "I do need a firebending master, but I don't know if Azula is going to be willing to help me. Or even if she can teach; she's not much older than I am, after all."

"Yes, and from what I hear of her, most of her efforts were directed in areas other than the martial arts," Bumi said fadingly, running fingers down the sprig of his grey beard. "Aang, I'm going to recommend something, and I want you to explore it with an open mind."

"Of course," Aang said. Katara gave a concerned glance, but Aang's laugh diffused it. "Why wouldn't I? I know you might not be the most normal in thinking, but you always have a way of seeing things differently."

"There might be..." Bumi began, but was cut off with an explosion of stone, and one of the king's guards flying out of what was a wall a moment before, his clothes smoldering. Bounding out of the hole thus created came a figure practically white, clothes and hair covered in thick plaster dust. But the broad shouldered and golden-eyed visage of Azula was hard to mistake for anything but she. Aang's eyes widened, not really understanding why she would be standing here, so close to the courtyard, and covered in dust besides.

"You!" Azula's voice clamored with rancor, and blue fire erupted from her hands, baking the dust into crystals which crumbled and fell away.

"Her!" Katara declared, flicking the water out of the flask at her hip in an instant.

"Wait!" Aang said, trying to get between the two teenaged ladies.

"Sandwich?" Bumi offered, standing back from the stand-off. Nobody took him up on his offer.

"Finally, just the two of us," Azula said.

"Four," Aang corrected.

"Make that nine," Toph shouted, bursting through the wall Azula had holed a moment before. "Wait a second. What'd you do that to that poor bastard for?"

"He was in my way," Azula said. "And so are these two."

Azula exploded into motion, fire searing out from her fists in brilliant, electric blue whips which crossed the great sweeps of the room and had to be pushed back – only with great difficulty – by the combined waterbending power of the two in the room. But Azula was advancing, and the two whips from her hands were joined by a sporadic third, snapping from her heel as she felt the opportunity arise. It felt a lot longer than it lasted, so furious was the onslaught, but it was checked for a moment when Toph made the slightest of motions, and the floor shifted out from under Azula, causing her eyes to shoot wide, and then her body to fall gracelessly to the stone.

"Pickin' fights with the assassins is all fair and good, but..." Toph began.

"Assassins?" Aang asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Azula!" a familiar scream sounded through that hole, and Aang felt his world get a little bit stranger as Prince Zuko hurled himself into the room, moving toward his sister. "Are you alright?"

She answered him by throwing a ball of fire at his face, so Aang had to assume 'no'. Azula spun her way to her feet, generating a cyclone of fire to keep all around her at bay, until she was on her feet. There was a moment of pristine tension and confusion. Zuko just looked like he wanted to run to his sister, to help her, but the glances she shot in his direction were far too hateful. Katara seemed fine with how this worked out, but Toph was shaking her head in dismay.

"Can we do this some other time when there aren't..." Toph began, only to be cut off, her eyes shooting wide, and then kicking forward. The stone erupted near Azula, and a meaty fist grabbed her throat, attached to an equally meaty arm, terminating with a meaty, unadorned, unaligned, teenaged earthbender. Even as Aang's hands began to sweep the air into play, Azula moved faster, slamming both fists into the man's chest and letting a detonation carry him past the Avatar and the King, rolling to a stop at the top of the stairs to the courtyard. Instantly, the meaty earthbender was replaced by a stocky built Tribesman, from out the same hole. This one latched a hand onto Azula's wrist, and the firebender let out a horrendous cry of pain, her eyes rolling back into her head.

"I got 'er!" he shouted.

"Not a chance!" Toph answered, as that ripple finally reached the point the first had vacated, and hurled a cubic foot of flooring straight into that Tribesman at remarkable velocity. The crunch was unsettling, and the landing every-bit-as-much-so. "Who the hell are those guys?"

The answer came in the form of a jet of flame, scarlet and relentless, searing out of the hole which Azula had first created. It was Zuko who parried that fire aside, and it bathed the decorations of Bumi's royal home in flames. Much was sparked ablaze. Much food was burnt. Aang didn't have to guess twice about what concerned Bumi more. But still, the ancient king remained standing idly by, eating a sandwich, as a donnybrook erupted in his foyer. Finally, the flames ended, and a figure dropped from the hole, likewise dusted with plaster, but the spectacles on her face were black rather than white.

"Get out of my way, firebender, this is between me and the Princess," the girl shouted, and unnoticed beside the Avatar, Katara flinched.

"What do you want with my sister?" Zuko demanded.

"That's none of your concern," the filthy firebender answered.

"You can't have her," Aang declared, whipping his staff around. "She's under my protection!"

The girl swung her head toward him, and a sarcastic smirk came to her entirely-too-red lips. In its way, it was somehow familiar. "The Avatar? Now that just isn't fair. Didn't anybody ever tell you to pick on people your own size?"

"I don't need anybody to protect me!" Azula declared, and launched three attacks, at three different targets. The first was at the girl who was trying to kill her, obviously. The second was at Aang himself, which was mildly baffling. The third was at Zuko, which confused the hell out of him. While the girl launched into a counterattack the moment the first wave of azure fire was dodged, Zuko and Aang both contented themselves on blocking the attack, and nothing more. Each had their own reason for not wanting to hurt her.

"Alright, that's enough of this," Bumi said with mild annoyance. He then twisted his arms sidewise, and to Aang's great shock, the floor at the far side of the room started to raise. Then, as the sense of balance which was vital to an airbender's art kicked in, he noticed that it was not just the floor rising, it was the floor _tipping_. The entire room accelerated, until everybody that wasn't an earthbender was sliding down the floor out of the great doorway, and spilling out onto the patio which overlooked the courtyard. Aang managed to grab Katara and bound through that opening first, landing on the stairs which led down. "If you can't play nice, then you can play outside!"

Azula, who'd ended up in a pile with her brother, launched herself up with such vigor that her brother was thrown bodily aside. The other firebender didn't even bother pausing from the slide, as she landed on her feet, to continue the attack. But this time, she split her attention, between Azula, the obvious target of her rancor, and Aang, probably a target of opportunity. Much as Aang believed in the Fire Nation's essential goodness, he had no doubts that there were probably no shortage of people who would see fortune in beating him.

"Azula, I'll watch your back!" Aang offered. And got a blast of fire directed at him for his trouble. From inside that palace came a great thud, as the floor was returned to its native position, and an unamused looking Toph jogged out. Now fending attacks from two directions, Aang didn't understand this whole situation. Who was the earthbender, and that Tribesman? Aang got his answer when the Tribesman hurled himself up from the mound he'd been in before, and grabbed onto Toph's foot. Instantly, she let out the most agonized scream that Aang had ever heard from her, her body curling up into a fetal ball. The Tribesman rose to his feet, gave the blind earthbender a look, then a nod. "What did you do to her?"

"Saved her life, probably," the Tribesman said amiably.

"Why won't you shut up and kill the Princess?" the earthbender who was now at Aang's back asked.

"'Cause there's a perfectly good Avatar standing right there?" that Tribesman pointed out. The earthbender looked at Aang, then nodded. Aang's stomach dropped.

Obviously sick of being out of the focus of all the attacks, Azula launched herself on jets of fire, landing down on the grass at the foot of the stairs, and hurled fire upward at all that overlooked her. Aang dodged under that fire hinging backward such that he was fairly sure he could have slunk under a door-crack. Katara had to make do with a swift cocoon of ice to brace that attack, one she instantly turned into a long whip which Azula bounded away from.

Then, things got really hairy.

Even as the earthbender and the waterbender worked as one to focus their attacks through Aang, and Aang had to give everything he had to dodge flying stones and slashing blades of ice, Zuko seemed to have lost his poor little mind. With a wordless roar, he slammed his arms around in a swift spiral, and when his fist pounded forward once more, it was not with flame, but with lightning.

The lightning bolt tore towards that other firebender, but she'd obviously seen the assault coming and hurled herself out of its path. How, Aang couldn't conceive. He hadn't even known that firebenders _could_ bend lightning! But her counter was directed at Aang, seeming to prefer the Avatar over her attempted murderer. Zuko didn't seem to care about anything else. His gaze was transfixed, and his face was a visage of wrath. But that other firebender was quick, and knew how to string him along.

"Who are these guys?" Katara shouted, having only just beaten back a wall of ice-spikes hurled in her direction by that other waterbender.

"I don't know! But they're obviously trying to kill us!" Aang offered. Of course, as he was, he was focused on the three unidentified attackers, who were arrayed in front of where he and Katara had their backs to the courtyard. Mostly that was for the worse, because as they moved ever closer, trying to push past him to the girl he was trying to protect even against her professed desire, he didn't see that Azula's arms began to turn through a spiral as well.

At least, not until that last moment, when he looked over his shoulder, and saw her smirking... and saw the lightning which followed her fingertips.

* * *

><p>There was peace.<p>

There shouldn't have been. After all, Sharif had known a moment of intense fear when the bludgeon came down and struck his head. That he was still sitting here, and not walking on the grey sands of the Sea of Souls told him that he had, for the moment, not succumbed and passed into eternity. But even his damaged mind knew that ambushes in the night were seldom good tidings. Sharif sat, his mind stranded in the Outer Sphere where he'd been contemplating moving further, contemplating completing his brain and knowing something, for a change. But instead, he was knocked unconscious, while unconscious. It was a strange state he was only capable of because he was a shaman.

The droning of the canyon crawlers still fell on him, but it had a different sound in the Outer Sphere; there, it was a constant, low buzz, omnipresent and always just above the threshold of hearing. Here, it was music. They spoke to each other in music, telling what they had done under the sun. Food found. Members of their packs injured, sick, or dead. Much as polarbear dogs would howl toward the moon, or wolfbats would shriek in great bursts through the night outside of caves, the crawlers let their voices be heard, speech without mind, communication without consciousness. It was a thing of animals, for animals. Shamans, though, had a bit of animal in them, as well.

Sharif reached toward an air spirit which lazily wafted past him, and it stuck to his finger. "Don't be afraid, this won't hurt, and it won't last," Sharif said. The spirit whispered that it was not afraid. They never were. He moved it toward the scar on his head.

**Don't do that, Scarred Child**.

Sharif looked up from where he was sitting, the remnants of his camp still under him even if his body was no longer present. "Why not?" Sharif asked in confusion. "I can't help them like this."

**This is the only way you'll help them**, Patriarch said, black eyes affixed to the south. **Help is coming. They will be depending on you to show them the way**.

Sharif nodded, and let the air spirit drift away. It still stayed in a lazy orbit around him. "I don't understand. Why are you so much louder, now?"

**My body perished, and yet somehow, a part of me lives on**, Patriarch said with a puzzled tone. **I suspect that your prolonged presence did this to me**.

"Why?" Sharif asked.

The bird glanced back in his direction. Now, while it was still recognizable as the ancient, powerful stallion it had been, its black feathers were smooth and laid unmatted across its flank. Its thighs, once atrophied enough to be noticeable, now stood proud and wide, so much so that it would have been almost impossible for any man to ride atop his back. This was Patriarch as he had seen thirty summers, a paragon of endurance and power. **It is a thing which happens when your kind interferes in mine, or those beasts like me. You make us like you. You make part of us endure, rather than fade in death. I cannot say more; I do not know more. But heed! Help is coming, Scarred Child. Do not waste it**.

"But how will I know them? What can I do?" Sharif asked. After all, he was doubly unconscious, and wasn't sure where his body was.

**You will know The Old Bird and Grey Voice easily enough**, Patriarch explained patiently, as though to one of his own chicks. **They are legends even in the Great Grass. And for the other; I suppose I have one last ride left in me**.

Sharif smiled, and rested his brow against the muscular flank of the mighty Ostrich Horse. "Thank you, Patriarch. I will honor you in my dreams."

**Honor me by surviving, Scarred Child**, the bird commanded, and stooped low enough that Sharif could hoist a spectral leg over the mount's spectral back, and then, with a war cry from the great fowl, the bird took to a sprint. And as they moved, the spirits, great, small, and helpful all, moved with them.

* * *

><p>While Aang didn't know precisely how screwed he was as Azula's hand began to dart forward, lightning twisting around it as it went, he still felt, in his ignorance, a profound sense of relief when something got in its way. That something was squat, fat, and had a great grey beard. It took the Avatar a moment to recognize the man as Iroh, the Dragon of the West, if mostly because the one meeting he'd had with the man was when they were all captives aboard that pirate vessel, and Aang wasn't exactly in a state of mind to pay attention to faces at that point. How he appeared out of nowhere beggared Aang's mind; something shaped like that simply shouldn't be able to move so quickly. However, seeing the former Fire Nation General in action was giving quite a bit of credence to those rumors so often told about him. In an instant, the Dragon of the West clamped a hand over Azula's thrusting fingers, and spun away, the lightning which had threatened to explode away from her grasp as Zuko's had from his flowed out of Azula, then into Iroh. But then, defying Aang's expectation and understanding of how lightning worked, it then flowed out of Iroh's other hand and lashed into the distance, a great crash of thunder announcing its birth, and a shattering as it brought a great ornamental flower-pot to an ignominious end.<p>

Azula's eyes grew wide, but Iroh was already hip throwing her to the ground. She glared up at him.

"How dare you!" She screamed. Aang's next instant was taken by him being pushed over the edge of the stairs, and only hasty airbending and his own impeccable sense of balance kept him from tumbling all the way down. Zuko was rushing down the stairs toward his sister, four steps at a time. Had she lashed out at Aang with that lightning, it was likely it'd have hit both of them.

"Aang look out!" Katara shouted, and his attempts at balance were proven for naught, because Katara was tackling him to the ground, and sending both of them tumbling quite painfully down the stairs, with a curtain of fire and slashing ice nipping at their backs as they did so. The two benders landed in a pile, and Katara had obviously taken the worse of it. Aang managed to force himself to his feet, if unsteadily, and found that his staff had clattered down not far from him. A whisper of airbending and it jumped back to his hand, just in time to knock aside a block of the patio which had been earthbent at him. The three of them, those three benders from all nations, descended as one organism, their eyes locked on the trio of brother, sister, and uncle. Well, all but one set. The flashing blue eyes of the Tribesman flicked toward Aang, just for a moment.

"I've had a thought," he said.

"And what would that be?" the firebender, obvious leader of the group, asked.

"Your little score with the Princess is all well and good, but isn't the Fire Lord offering some sort of monumental bounty for the Avatar?" that waterbender pointed out. The earthbender glared at him.

"This isn't the time for..." that earthbender snapped.

"No, I believe he's right," the firebender cut the hulking teenager off. "Something to consider."

"Do I know you?" Iroh asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Uncle, what are you doing here?" Zuko asked.

"Keeping my family safe," the old man said, as Aang helped Katara to her feet, and quickly moved her aside of the showdown.

"She was imprisoned for a week!" Zuko shouted, face rapidly turning red.

"And she was safe in that week," Iroh said. "Who are you?"

"Oh, I doubt we've met," that firebender said. "After all, I wouldn't want it known I'd kept the company of a noted traitor."

Zuko's angry, Huojian-comprised tirade was brought to a halt, and he turned to the firebender, fists still toward her. "Traitor? Since when is Uncle a traitor?"

"Haven't you heard?" she asked, smirking darkly as the three of them reached the bottom step. "The Fire Lord declared him an outlaw for attacking his envoy at Summavut. As I understand it, his loyalty to the Fire Nation has been in doubt for some time."

"Can we please move this along, I'm sure he can get news from his homeland somewhere else," the waterbender said with a tone of boredom. Then again, of the three of them, only he wasn't in a fighting stance. Aang was not fooled by his ease; with one touch, he'd put Toph down and out.

"And you are right again. Let's finish this, you worthless rebel," that firebender said, before lashing out in fire toward Azula. Zuko tried to get in her way, but she managed to simultaneously defend herself and attack Zuko, which was thwarted by Iroh smashing her attack aside and kicking the feet out from under her. The old man stood beside his nephew, who still looked like he didn't want to believe what was happening.

"Perhaps you should face somebody more your skill level," the Dragon of the West offered.

"I'll show you skill level," Azula promised, and rushed the old man, only to be caught and pitched to the ground once again, and in a flash, the old man was facing the assassins once more.

"Yeah, she really did, didn't she?" that waterbender noted.

"Do us all a favor and _shut up_!" that earthbender snapped.

"Uncle, what are you doing?" Zuko shouted, eye twitching like a hummingbird's wing.

"If you hadn't noticed, this young girl keeps trying to kill you," Iroh said caustically.

"She's just..."

"Confused? Or perhaps she isn't who you think she is?" Iroh demanded. It was about at that point that Aang reached a reasonably safe place, and let Katara slump to the ground.

"Are you going to be alright?" Aang asked.

"I can taste burning," Katara said. "My head hurts."

"Just stay here. I'll won't let anything happen to you," Aang promised, before getting back up and moving in at an angle on the assassins.

"Let's try talking this out," Iroh said, his eyes still flinty, but his hands opening, in a placating motion. Both towards the would-be-assassins, and toward his niece. Azula, though, flicked her eyes to the side, and a smirk was the only warning before she kipped to her feet and took off at a sprint. Zuko called her name, but Aang was far faster than even her own brother, and while he didn't catch her before she took a flying leap over the rail, at least he knew exactly what she was doing.

Omashu had been built a very long time ago, running up a mountain spike which loomed out of a gully. This had a number of uses over the years, but the most ingenious, entertaining, and fun of them was the way they designed the mail-system; sleds would shoot down from the mail offices at the top of the city, as far as they needed to, before earthbenders managed them into their proper destinations. And earthbenders also returned those same carts upward, to be used again. So as Azula jumped, there was a cart passing below, and she landed with a wet crunch into a load of fresh produce.

Aang's descent was somewhat marred by the absence of a cart for him to ride. But while she was beholden to sliding stone, Aang had airbending. So when he reached the level of the slope, there was already a compressed scooter of air under him, and his momentum was almost perfectly preserved, shooting down the mail system after her. She poked her head up, throwing away cabbages in the process, her attention focused on the path before her. But then, as Aang was approaching, she glanced back, and her eyes went wide. With a roar of angry effort, she hurled a spiraling pinwheel of blue fire which tore at the stone even as it tried to lash at him. Only by bounding off that scooter could he avoid that terrible assault, which saw him plummeting toward the streets.

Of course, he wasn't just some novice airbender; for all he'd ignored the most important lessons on airbending he was ever going to receive, he was not an idiot, nor prone to panic. So with a flick of his wrists, the glider snapped open and Aang's plummet became a glide. He swept through the supports of that mail-system, shooting closer to the firebender who had once again returned her attention to the fore. This time, Aang didn't face the same ill luck, and with a clatter of cloth and wood, snapped his glider shut, letting his velocity carry him lightly onto the back of the same cart she was riding down.

"Why are those people trying to kill you?" Aang shouted against the grinding and the press of the wind. Azula turned with a backhand which burned blue. Aang easily dodged out of its way. "I'm trying to help you!"

"Like you 'helped' keep me prisoner?" Azula demanded. "Like you 'helped' take my fire from me?"

"I don't know what you mean!" Aang protested, even as their one-sided fight turned into something which could be forgiven for appearing a dance, if one involving copious amounts of open flame. But then again, from what Aang had seen of Fire Nation dances back when he still visited them, _some of them did_. Azula only broke off when they'd reached their initial positions, and this was to let out a frustrated growl and roll her eyes.

Azula shouted something which Aang couldn't translate but from the context roughly interpreted as 'will this never end?', and a glance over his shoulder told him that they were being pursued. Bright golden fire seared behind another cart, this one moving so fast that even though it was stone against stone, sparks flew from its passage. A rocket propelled it, generated by a desperate brother, as Zuko fought with all his might to catch up. She half-twisted to send an assault past the Avatar, but instantly had to recoil and defend herself, though not from an attack. She flicked blobs of fire upward, and they exploded against the stone of a transverse rail, not quite bringing the thing down. Aang first wondered if she was trying to bring it down onto Zuko's head, but when he actually glanced up, he noted that even they three were not the only ones on the mail-system this fine day.

The Dragon of the West rode with them, standing with one foot braced against the cart's lip, his grey beard streaming sideways in the wind as he watched piercingly. Azula sneered up at him. "So enemies and traitors corner me at last, do they?" she asked. Aang shook his head, about to say her wrong, but as his attention turned over her shoulder, his own eyes became quite wide.

"END OF THE LINE!" Aang screamed, and with a resounding crash, marked by the shouts of alarm of the earthbenders who worked the rails, the cart shot past where it was supposed to grind to a halt – which it couldn't due to Azula's imparted velocity – and skipped once against the floor, before screaming toward the lip of the wall, and a long fall to oblivion beneath it. It was somewhat easy to heave Azula out of that cart after that first tooth-rattling jar; for all her density, an airbender could _keep_ something airborne far easier than one could _make_ something so. A wall of spongy wind caught the two of them before they joined the cart, which plummeted away, reddish dust following after it like some sort of contrail, as it vanished into the vertical distance.

Of course, this rescue had the unintended benefit of landing Avatar and Princess once more in a pile, this time with his face mashed into her chest. While he certainly wasn't going to complain about that, he only had a split second to enjoy it, because after that Azula was obviously regaining her bearings, and she looked in a less-than-forgiving mood. Aang kipped back. "It was an accident. I was trying to save..."

She answered him with a bolt of blue flame which he had to bound out of the way of. Another grinding, this one ending with a similarly calamitous crash, heralded the arrival of her brother, who landed with a grinding of rubbered soles against stone, sliding almost to the precipice himself, though his eyes never left Aang and his sister. "Azula, what is going on with you?" Zuko cut to the chase.

"Hello, _brother_," Azula said, that second word the paragon of sarcasm and scorn.

"I've tried to see what you're doing, but it doesn't make any sense!" Zuko stressed, limping slightly as he started to cautiously move toward them. "It's like ever since that woman at the North Pole, you've been a completely different question!"

As Azula glared at her sibling, a grinding sound hit the air, and the third cart came to a gentle halt, the Dragon of the West riding it as gloriously as... well, at the moment, Aang couldn't come up with an appropriate metaphor, so he just didn't bother. But he stepped off that cart and landed at the last point of a square which had formed around all those present, and like all of its members but one, the gazes of those present were directed inward, at Azula.

"You are more right than you know, Prince Zuko," Iroh said, eyes hard and unhappy. "She is not the same person at all."

* * *

><p>"<em>And that's for smiting my eyes, you little shit!<em>" the much more vile of the pair screamed, as he lashed out with a boot into the still-unconscious form of Sharif. Nila winced with every blow. A year ago, she wouldn't have. Now, though, she knew that her brother was still in there, somewhere. The whole lot of them had been dragged to the sands once more, deposited just outside the twin-hulled sand skimmer which these people obviously used to catch up with them. And of the lot of them, Ashan had been bound most tightly, so that he could not even speak.

"Leave him alone you psychopath!" Nila screamed.

"Yeah, pick on somebody your own..." Tzu Zi began, and trailed off when she realized that Sharif was roughly this man's size. "Stop being so damned evil!"

"This isn't what we're supposed to be doing, Udu," the other, who had much of a face in common with one of Ibtihaj's brood, commented. "Just finish the bastard and let's put this terrible time behind us."

"What, have you become so soft?" Udu demanded. "Was it not you who asked me to help you find the woman who ruined your standing with your family? Well, there she lays! What are you going to do about it?"

"This isn't right," Adin said. "He's done no wrong."

"His drawing of breath is a wrong," Udu answered. "You're starting to sound like one of those pampered gits from the Earth Kingdoms, so weak and oozing of heathenish mercies!"

"Well, pardon me for trying to understand my customer base!" Adin shouted.

"Are you two going to snipe at each other all night or are you going to kill us?" Nila asked flatly.

"Nila," Tzu Zi said with a tone of disappointment. "What have we said about antagonizing the people who've captured us?"

"Don't," Nila supplied.

"And what are you doing right now?"

"She's right," Adin said. "You are laying boots to a simple boy. What revenge is there in that? Fate could have as easily smote his eyes as yours!"

"Well, Ubasti decided to make me suffer, so I pass that suffering onto her agent. It is only proper," Udu said.

"You sick freak!" Nila shouted. Instantly, Udu turned to face her.

"What did you call me?" he demanded.

"You are a freak. So incompetent that you had to side with a soft-hearted sandbender to have any kind of revenge; what Si Wongi must reach upward to his lessers?" Nila demanded.

"Nila, for the love of Agni..."

"_Hush, Tzu Zi, I have a plan,_" Tzu Zi quickly snapped in her tongue. Tzu Zi didn't look convinced, but let her speak. "And the failures must only be a sign of some dark fortune which has befallen you. Who have you outraged so that they would affix such misfortune to your head? Have you spurned the Host, or were you just born feet-first?"

"My birth has nothing to do with this!" Udu shouted. Nila smirked, even from where she was bound hand and foot. She knew that there were a lot of things that her backwards people considered lethally grim omens, and breach-birth was one of the darkest. Most of those children were abandoned to the sand within days of their difficult entry into life, on the belief that only so would the rest of the family be spared the misfortune that came with it. Needless to say, Nila was borne breach, and Mother stabbed one of the midwives for even mentioning that option. It was one of the few warm feelings that Nila felt toward her matriarch. "I have but one task to reclaim my honor, whole and true. And only two need die for it. I am not a monster, I will not..."

"So the child who was born without the decency to face the sands calls himself a man?" Nila asked, her condescending smirk aimed right at this man's buttons. She pushed with all her might. "Well, then perhaps that explains your lack of surname... Oh, I see..."

"One more word will have your tongue cut from your head," Udu warned.

"You weren't just born breach, you _were_ abandoned," Nila said with a laugh. "Such fate that follows you! No wonder Adin is reduced to such circumstances! No doubt your grandmother, Ibtihaj, would forgive whatever failing you offer, but his serpent words have fouled you..."

"_Nila, you're just making him angry_," Tzu Zi whispered in her native tongue.

"_Exactly my intention_," Nila answered her. "So please, slash at my tongue if that will make you the better man. Spill the blood of a bastard who yet has better breeding than you!"

Doubly a lie, but it didn't matter, since the man's face had turned bright read, and he advanced with his knife out before him. With a hateful yell, he thrust it down at her, but she kicked upward as he did, and even as his blade slashed through her bonds, she slammed her heel down hard against his membrum virilae, which caused him to recoil in shock and pain, even if he didn't release the knife. So she charged. With a spring, she kicked him flush in the chest, knocking him onto his back. But her victory was short-lived, as Adin quickly clamped his arms 'round her middle, turning her aside so she couldn't stomp his feet nor elbow him to any effect. Udu took a moment to regain himself on the ground.

"You think you're so smart?" Udu asked. "I ought slash your tendons, girl, so that you will spend the rest of your life at a squat. It will be fitting, since that is how your kind should live anyway."

Even as he stalked toward her, Sharif bolted forward, his eyes wide. "They come!" he said, even as that look of cogency vanished from his face. Udu gave a glance back at him, trying to see what he meant. Azula, though, continued to struggle, to find some purchase. She glanced down to Tzu Zi.

"_If you have anything you can do to help, now would be a proper time for it!_"

"_I can't move!_" the firebender said. "_If I can't move then I can't..._"

The firebender trailed off, and looked down at the ropes which bound her hands. They were moist and stretchy, yes, because they were a sort of gut which would tighten to utter immobility as the dry air wicked them away. But the firebender had no intention of leaving them there, not one moment longer. She breathed out over them, first, a breath of dry, hot air. She screwed her face in concentration, then tried again, eyes wide, almost bloodshot with effort.

And her breath became fire.

With a snap, she freed her hands, and a moment and a flash of fire later, her feet as well. She rose, fists forward. "Let her go, Heathen, or I promise I'll burn you right up."

"Try something a bit more threatening next time," Nila said with mild concern. Udu pointed his knife at her.

"A firebender, here? So you are a traitor to your homeland as well as to your birth?" Udu demanded. "The Sultan will hear of this blasphemy!"

"The Sultan is well aware of it, you twit," Nila answered.

"Why does my stomach hurt?" Sharif asked pathetically, rubbing at his injured torso.

"Lower your hands, or your friend gains a new smile," Udu said, pressing that knife to Nila's neck.

"You have not the will, breach-birth," Nila said.

Udu turned to her, eyes filled with hate, and she felt the slightest twist of the blade against her throat, the beginning of a long cut, then a short death. But it didn't go so far, because with a bodily 'whoomp', Udu was flying forward through the air, the knife away from her neck.

"What was..." Nila began.

"Grey Voice!" Sharif said with a pleased voice. Adin gave a clipped scream of alarm, and Nila found herself dropped to the sand whence they'd all been dragged. Standing just behind where Udu had been threatening was an Ostrich Horse, its every feather as grey as iron. Its head was down, its great beak open, but instead of any war-cry, its voice came out like a lion-turtle's roar. Well, if such a thing even existed, Nila admitted.

"Beast! Get away from me!" Adin shouted, backing from the fowl. It was surprising, as this thing hadn't half the size of Patriarch, and had the same sort of 'ears' as Aki, proving her not just another breed, but another species of Ostrich Horse, but even with Nila's unpracticed eye, she guessed that this bird was every bit as old as that cantankerous old stallion. And she was not alone.

Adin backed from the first of the great steeds, and into a second, this one standing with neck craned high, its one eye glaring down at him. This one was as mangy as Patriarch was, though it unlike its 'sister' was still brown rather than grey. Its beak opened and it let out a croaking sound, before lashing forward and headbutting the Si Wongi, which sent the sandbender to the ground, scrabbling away on his hands and feet.

"Old Bird!" Sharif said with enthusiasm. The appropriately named 'Old Bird' turned toward him, then back to the Si Wongi, who now moved so that they stood united.

"Was this part of your plan?" Tzu Zi asked.

"No, my plan ended when you freed yourself. I expected you to take initiative, rather than let him put knife to neck," Nila said. Tzu Zi flinched at that. "Understandable enough. You're new at this."

"Sorry, Nila."

"Keep your beasts at bay, heathen!" Udu swore. "Do it, and I won't use this!"

He reached back into the hull of the sand skimmer, and pulled forth Nila's firearm, holding it at the hip, but close enough to properly aimed that it would probably hit... something. "That's my gun," Nila said with quiet anger. "Give it back to me, now."

"Stay back. The only one who has to die here is him," Udu nodded toward Ashan. Nila tipped down, glaring up under her brows at them.

"So you do this at Ali's behest? If you do the work of monsters, you shall feel the succor of monsters," Nila warned.

"Keep your beasts back!" Udu screamed. Grey Voice, though, was taking a moment to tear the binds from Sharif's hands and feet, and allowing the shaman to stand.

"Thank you, honored eldest of the sunset brood," Sharif said with a bow. The bird spat the binds onto the sand, and stared at Udu. "No, that won't be necessary."

"Stop with this spirit magic, bastard! This is unnatural!" Udu ranted.

"Actually, it happens all the time," Adin tried to correct.

"SHUT UP!" Udu roared. And Nila took that fraction of a second to reach into an under-searched pocket, down 'twixt her thighs, and pull out what she kept strapped there. She'd learned the lesson of not keeping all of her weapons in easily found places, so this one, round object, hidden within the a pouch she'd had Sharif sew in the gap between her wide hips, was oft-overlooked. And it shouldn't have been. With a tear and a heave, a miscolored lemon streaked through the air, bouncing against Udu's head, and recoiling upward, twirling almost static in the air, right at the level of his head. Nila had just enough time for her expression of concentration to mature into a smug smile – and Udu's rage and bafflement dawn into outright horror – before the lemon detonated in the air, and sent out a cloud of oily pepper directly into the faces of the two Si Wongi hatchetmen.

"AH! MY EYES!" Udu screamed. "WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY EYES?"

"I will give you the same advice I gave the last hunter after bounties which came after me," Nila said, taking her firearm from the sand, and the knife from the hull of the skimmer, with which she started cutting Ashan loose. "Find another bounty, because if you don't, I will make it a personal goal to destroy you so completely that your precious Host could search for a thousand years and not even find the remnants of your soul. Am I perfectly clear?"

"YES!" Adin shouted even through his weeping and pain. "YES MA'AM!"

"Good," Nila said. "Sharif, please tell these fowl to destroy their skimmer. Stupidity should not go unpunished."

"Yeah, it really shouldn't," Tzu Zi agreed readily. "Ashan, are you alright?"

Ashan looked most shaken by the night. "Does this happen all the time with you?" he asked, as the three of them moved south, leaving only the shaman and his two... she would not call them thralls, as that was not accurate... to do what karmic justice demanded.

"Frequently enough that it has become tiresome," Nila noted.

"You live a far too interesting life," Ashan said wearily.

"Welcome to it," Nila said, patting his back. The sun was rising, the drone of the canyon crawlers was falling to a close, and the Great Divide was awaiting them.

* * *

><p>"What do you mean, she's not Azula?" Zuko asked.<p>

"She looks the same," Aang chimed in.

"Shut up, Avatar!" Zuko snapped at him.

"Stop this, now, Azula," Iroh ordered. She scowled at him, and glanced behind her. With Aang on one side, Iroh on the other, and Zuko directly at her fore, the only direction she had was behind her, and that way lay a plummet into oblivion. She fumed for a moment, then slowly raised up her hands.

"Surrounded by traitors and enemies again... A princess always knows when to surrender," she said. But, unnoticed to Aang's innocent eyes, she was just waiting for the opening she'd need.

"Maybe," Zuko said. "But the Azula I know never would."

"Zuko, I have been patient with you, and more than patient with your sister. You know that I do not say things to be hurtful, or rashly. This is not something you should have to do," Iroh said, his eyes locked on Azula. Zuko glanced toward him.

"You keep saying that, but you don't tell me why! Why can't you ever explain anything, instead just spouting riddles and nonsense?" Zuko raged. "Isn't there anything simple in that head of yours?"

"If I gave you everything simply you would derive no worth of it," Iroh said. "Look at the things you learned by my giving you a piece of the puzzle, so that you could deduce the rest yourself. But now, when shown a completed cypher, you refuse to see it! Look at her!"

Zuko glanced at his sister, then back to his uncle. Aang saw a twitch of a smirk, and one of her hands flinched downward, but as it did, she suddenly became quite pale and stumbled from her perfect poise slightly, even as Iroh, who had been noting her intensely, moved into an outright combative pose. "I don't see what you – what are you doing, Uncle?"

"She's trying to attack us when our guard is down," Iroh said simply. "I'm only surprised that she has not yet."

But Zuko only saw her now, as she tried to pull her quaking hands to stillness, swallow past what appeared to be a boulder in her neck. "I don't know what's worse, that you've become so paranoid that you're suspecting your niece, my sister got swapped with some kind of doppleganger, or that you were going to try to do something about it without me. See her now? That's Azula! She might be confused, but I've suffered her confusion before!"

"This is something far worse," Iroh said. Then, with a glance at Aang, he nodded, and began to move closer to the princess. She really did look quite worse-for-wear. "Zuko, you must trust me now, more than you ever have before. Can you do that?"

"But you still haven't..."

"Some things cannot be said," Iroh said. "Can. You. Trust. Me?"

"But... my sister."

"Your sister may well be no more," Iroh said sadly, standing before that firebending prodigy. "I am sorry it came to this."

Aang felt a tremble in the stone, and his instincts screamed at him to run away. He wasn't sure if it was a whisper of proto-earthbending which Bumi managed to teach him in that brief, unpleasant span, or if his paranoia was starting to manifest almost as readily as Sokka's, but he knew that there was a block of stone flying at him, and only because of that did he manage to heave the wine from the cart the Dragon of the West rode in on into a blade, cleaving that hulking slab in twain along a razor's edge and letting it crash on either sides of Avatar and firebending prince. Instantly, all attention was the direction that they'd come.

"Nowhere left to run," that bespectacled firebender pointed out. "You might as well make this easy for yourself."

Zuko looked about ready to explode. "Whoever you are, you will _die_ before you hurt my sister!"

"Uh, boss?" the earthbender at her side pointed out. "Isn't this what you'd call a suicidal situation?"

"Stay back, or the Dragon of the West dies first!" Azula shouted, causing all to turn, and behold that Azula had grabbed Iroh 'round the neck and was holding a lancet of blue flame to the side of his head. A thrust and he'd get a whole new personality.

"Azula, what are you doing?" Zuko asked, shock replacing wrath on his face.

"I'm leaving," Azula said. "And Uncle here is coming with me. You can do what you want with Dum-Dum there."

"B...but..." Zuko's expression was heartbreaking.

"And how exactly are you going to get out? The gates are controlled by earthbenders, you know?" that yet-unnamed firebender pointed out.

"Stay back, or I'll destroy him," Azula warned.

"And why would I..."

"That's the Fire Lord's brother," the waterbender said with stress and clarity. "He might not look it, but he's important. We should let her go."

"Are you mad?" the earthbender contended. "He's a traitor!

"But he is still Fire Nation royalty," the waterbender contended. The two men shared a glance, and the larger of them let out an aggravated sigh.

"He's right," the firebender said, staring at whom Aang could not tell, for her eyes were hidden behind blackness. "This isn't over, Azula. You've cost me more than you could ever hope to repay."

"Father always told me that smart rulers never incur debts they'll have to pay themselves," Azula pointed out. "Start walking, Uncle. Wouldn't want to mess up that brain of yours, would we?"

The clamoring of alarms began to sound throughout the city, as it had since this stand-off began, but now it reached its crescendo, bathing the group that remained. Eyes began to turn on Aang, and fists began to raise. "Well, no point in making this a pointless run," the waterbender said. "Fire Lord's money is as good as anybody else's."

"That it is, Tribesman, that it is," the earthbender agreed.

"Or we could escape with our hides intact," the firebender prodded. After all, with Azula and Iroh vanishing down the stairs, only Zuko, they, and the Avatar himself remained. "I don't relish the idea of rotting in an earthbender prison just because of my homeland."

"You're not going anywhere," Zuko snapped, fists back up and at the ready. That firebender only smiled, a wistful, cunning smile.

"That's where your wrong, Prince Zuko. I can go where I must. Boys?" The two with her nodded their heads, and then, as one body, they sprinted past where Zuko and Aang were standing, and hurled themselves bodily off the precipice. Aang gaped after them for a moment, then ran to the edge himself. But as he looked down, he could not see what became of them. As his glance returned upward, he could see that Azula was already forcing her uncle across the great bridge that separated city from the rest of its nation. Aang wasn't quite astute enough to give a thought to how she bypassed the gates. He just took it as fact that she had. He turned to Zuko, and then past him, as green-and-gold clad soldiers began to surround both, but with their weapons trained solely at the latter.

"She's... she's really gone?" Zuko asked, tears beginning to well in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Zuko. I don't know what happened to her," Aang said.

"Don't talk to me, right now," Zuko said, slumping against the stone, his eyes on the ground beneath him. "Just leave me alone."

"It shouldn't have happened like this," Aang said.

"Firebender, you are under arrest for the crime of espionage," that guard intoned. "Resist and we will be forced to subdue you; cooperate, and you will not be harmed."

"I just... don't care," Zuko said, and remained where he was. Overburdened by all of this madness, Aang did as airbenders did best when the going got tough; he ran away. He didn't stop until he was at the lawn of Omashu's king's palace, to find sister joined by brother, and a blind earthbender moving gingerly about. Bumi, though, looked as steady as ever.

"What happened up here?" Sokka asked. "I see fire on the mail system, and I correctly assume that you've got something to do with it. I come up here, and find my sister hurt and Toph paralyzed..."

"Gods _day-um_ that hurt," Toph noted, rubbing at her leg, which was broken out in hives and a terrible bruise which somehow seemed to reach up to her neck. "How'd he put me out like that? I can take dozens of hits a lot harder than that! He barely touched me!"

"It was waterbending," Katara said. "He was using healing to hurt. Why would a waterbender help a firebender?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Aang asked. "Maybe they're just friends, like you, me, Sokka, and Toph are. Friendships don't know national boundary."

"Yeah, well, any friends that do this to my family ain't friends of mine," Sokka said harshly. Aang had to nod at that.

"I know this has been a difficult day, but I have some good news," Bumi piped in. All turned to him.

"What is it?" Katara asked.

"You all have to leave!" he said brightly. All continued to stare at him, a silence which was broken by Sokka clearing his throat.

"And how is that good news?"

"Well, if you're moving, then the chances are that any assassins which come after you won't be able to ambush you again!" Bumi said simply. "Besides, I'm fairly sure you've found your earthbending master."

Aang turned to Toph. "Really?" he asked.

"You tryin' to back out on me?" Toph asked, thrusting a finger at him. She half-turned to Bumi. "Don't you worry, I'll have this guy chuckin' rocks in two weeks, tops."

"That's the kind of steadfast dedication I expect from the Avatar's sifu," Bumi said. "Good luck, have fun toppling the Fire Lord, and Nightmare Rook Offensive takes Bastion."

It was telling that Aang now knew what that last part meant. "I'll make you proud. I am going to stop this war."

"Of that, I have no doubt," Bumi said, giving the youth a brief but heartfelt embrace. He was going to end this war alright, so people like Azula, or Katara, or Toph wouldn't have to suffer under the tyranny of evil men. He would find a way.

He was the Avatar, after all.

* * *

><p><strong>History Lesson Time!<strong>

**The Fall of the Monolith, Adam, and the Storm Kings:**

**To call the fall of the Monolith catastrophic would be akin to calling the Si Wong desert 'a touch arid'. There was such a backlash against the Monolith that every mention of it was destroyed. This had the regrettable side-effect of causing a reversion of technology and culture practically to the stone-age. This also made it impossible to know why the Monolith was so reviled, how long the empire lasted, or even _what its actual name was_; the Monolith was a title given to it by its detractors, and the only descriptor left to name it after the empire fell. Even the Avatars from that point forward never spoke of what transpired during the Monolith Era, leaving it the greatest historical mystery of the planet. Only three things remain that can be tied directly back to the Monolith, being Ba Sing Se (their capital city, and the first to be reclaimed from it), the game of Pai Sho, and, to a select few, the Order of the White Lotus.**

**Which started out as a group of botanists trying to monopolize the sale of certain flowers. Funny how things change.**

**The Dark Age that followed the Monolith's fall lasted almost a millenium, as the formerly forced-together nations resegregated themselves into their current homelands. Only the Storm Kings, long-time slaves to the Monolith, chose no homeland to call their own. The other nations gave them leeway, since the Storm Kings were so instrumental in defeating the Monolith, and an unstable equilibrium was reached. It would take a long time for the knowledge to swell enough to bring the world out of that rut it'd punched itself into.**

**Besides the formal formation of the Storm Kings, another event of note in the fall of the Monolith was the Prophet Adam. The descendant of Monolith soldiers, Adam took up arms himself, but against bandits and raiders, as he was born almost a century after the fall. Based out of the island of Kad Deid, he lived an uneventful life, until he approached his fortieth year. Then, he was 'struck by a revelation', and turned away from his career and his family, preaching that there were not many gods or spirits, but one. At first, the idea gained some traction in the larval Fire Nations, but they lost interest when he denied that the prime diety was Agni, the unconquered sun. The greatest act of Adam, though, was cessation of the human sacrifices done by the Faithful of the Eel, a waterbender cult which revered the Leviathans, water-serpents like the Unagi. This caused a great deal of tension, and a schism in both his followers and the nation he lived in. It culminated in his arrest by Zuriel, who dragged Adam back to Kad Deid for slow execution. But on the way, Adam converted Zuriel away from Eel worship. When the sentence was handed down, in stark defiance of justice, Zuriel ignored their demand of a brutal death by being smashed from his feet up with hammers, and took a carpenter's ball-peen, and smote down Adam in two blows to the head, an act of mercy. He then went on to overthrow the old regime, changing his name to Zeruel, and becoming the first emperor until his death fourty years later.**

**The Storm Kings, on the other hand, started with the best of intentions. They were born with a schism already in place, between those who felt gods and spirits a pointless waste of time and energy, and those who still venerated the unseen. For a great many years, the two factions managed to live in a degree of harmony. In fact, this balance between secular and spiritual was integral to the Storm Kings efforts to bring humanity out of its dark age. But things began to tip, as the soldier class of the Storm Kings began to accrue undue political influence. They began to make their policies more bellicose, and more expansionistic. Rather than simply guide the grounded cultures, they would direct it personally. The change was slow enough that almost nobody noticed it happening, until it was too late, and the Storm Kings had transformed at their highest levels into the thing which they were born to oppose. When their lower classes decried this evil, they were enslaved under threat of violence and destruction. The Storm Kings were brutal to their own, true, but from the outside, they were seen as very harsh, but at least fair. For that reason, the Storm Kings managed to hold onto global power for quite a while, before factions under them started to chafe. There is something to be said for safety and security, after all, _even if it does cost you some liberty_.**

**And right there, I wish there was a punctuation mark indicating sarcasm. Sokka would use it frequently as well.**

**I liked the flow of this chapter better than the one before it. The weakness in the chapter was, I assumed, that the A-reel didn't seem to move very elegantly. Since I wrote that chapter, I've come to the belief that it was a mistake to assume Aang and company were the A-reel. Much like in The Beach, they were there, but they weren't the critical force in the chapter. Sometimes you just have to twist how you think of a chapter, I guess.**


	26. The Puppetmasters

**Note for the squeamish; this does get a bit brutal near the end. Malu's got no luck.**

* * *

><p>Hunger tore at her guts like a badgerdevil, its claws sinking into her gaunt and emaciated innards and rending with wild abandon, its insidious clutch reaching up her spine and right into the nerves at the backs of her eyes. She chewed mechanically, before swallow more of the foul tasting vegetation. It didn't help, not one bit. No matter how much passed her teeth, the hunger never went away. There was no satiation, no end to the starvation, just unending, terrible hunger.<p>

"I don't understand," Malu said, unshed tears for the pain of it all still hanging in her eyes. "This isn't fair. Why am I still hungry?"

She stood, leaving the ravaged plantlife in her wake. She had once considered eating the leaves of a Oyo plant with some berries, for a salad. She didn't even bother collecting the berries; by the time she had those leaves in her hand, they called to her maw like a feast fit for kings. She ate them as fast as she could strip them from the ground, still dusty and unclean.

The hunger would not ebb, though. She continued walking, as the stink of rotting meat faded. It still lingered in her clothing, until she finally washed her kavi. Why she smelled so bad, she couldn't comprehend. But then again, she could be forgiven not; few spent weeks rotting untouched under the sun before lurching back to life. That she was unaware of it made it no less so. It was while she was washing her clothes, standing naked and smelly in the stream which ran up the length of the Great Divide, that she saw them. As she watched them, her hunger ratcheted up to a new, dizzying height, a whisper of demand in the back of her head. Feed. End the hunger. She shook her head, focusing just on the fish. Trouts, of a sort she couldn't name, since she never really cared about seaborne life back when there were still people to teach her. That stopped her in her tracks, that thought. When there were people to teach her. A hundred years. How could a hundred years have passed so quickly, so completely? So unnoticed? It bewildered her mind. But what kept repeating in her head, like a mocking litany, were five words, spoken with absolute certainty and clarity.

You are not the Avatar.

For sixteen years, and a hundred and sixteen, she'd just assumed that one day, Elder Tengeh and Gyatso would come to her and tell her the news she already knew in her heart. That she was the Avatar, the inheritor of the great Bequest of hundreds of generations of knowledge and power. That she would master the other three elements, and be the most powerful human being of her age. She'd like to say it wasn't pride blinding her to reality, but the fact was, that belief, that she was more than just an airbender nun, that drove her harder than anybody. Certainly harder than Vigo, who surpassed her in histories, and harder than Ormay, who sometimes was found asleep in the libraries. And definitely harder than lazy, layabout Aang; the ease at which that boy picked up skills was infuriating to her back then. But then he died, like all the rest, when the South Air Temple fell.

Only, one of them didn't. An airbender yet lived in this world, one which was not her. An Avatar. A real Avatar. She had tried thinking about who it might be, but the hunger always returned in greater and greater force, until it contained the whole of her thoughts, the whole of her mind. Hunger. Feed. Anything. Just to make the pain stop.

She had schooled herself to be perfect, to be the Avatar needed to stand against the coming storm. But now, the storm was already blowing over her, and she was not even the person who mattered. Whoever had that title, who ever had earned it through whatever unfair rule of inheritance Malu couldn't say, had a far worse challenge ahead of them than Malu had at filling her stomach. Or at least, so she assumed, until she started trying to.

At first, it was leaves. She ate the Oyo plant, roots and all. Then, she started eating herbs and tubers, ripped from the earth like some sort of miscegenated Azuli highlander, devouring them uncooked and unwashed. And it did not help. The pain of an empty stomach continued, and grew stronger. Soon, she'd 'graduated' to stripping the bark off of the stunted, water-hungry trees which clung to the edges of the river which traced the path of The Divide. And as much of that foul, resinous stuff went down her throat, she might as well be eating air. She pulled another fistful of the rancid crap and shoved it into her mouth, but this time, when she bit down, there was an unexpected crunch. She swallowed despite her intention, and tasted some sort of slick ichor. She looked down at her hand, and saw that amongst the scrub grasses were several large beetles. One or more of which were now sliding down her esophagus.

"It doesn't count," Malu said quietly, desperately. "Bugs don't count!"

Malu walked, and that tear began to leak out, with a stifled, undesired sob. It wasn't fair. She wanted to eat more, to empty that hand of litter and insects. It hurt all the time. Why was she so hungry? Malu walked to the east, and behind her, lay a devastated landscape, every whit of plant matter now slipped past her lips to no avail. Her blood screamed for blood, flesh, and sinews to slide past her tongue. And as she walked, she cried, because she didn't know what she was anymore.

* * *

><p>"Well, this looks like it's the spot," On-Ji said suspiciously, eying her map and the flicker of the campfire through the hole the Tribesman had put in it. She didn't want to glare at the woman, since Shoji was right after all; responsibility to the fallen was a virtue of flame. She just protested to his treating this all like some big game. Yes, being away from home had a sort of exhilaration to it, but being out in the woods with a complete stranger – who couldn't even speak the same language – wasn't On-Ji's notion of any kind of good idea. She'd pointed out that if that Tribesman had been a man, Shoji probably would have handed him over to the army in a heartbeat. It just went to prove that when boys weren't thinking with their brains, which was most of the time, they were thinking with a much lower part of their anatomy. "I don't see anything though. Unless she's looking for trees, in which case, she's got all she'd ever want."<p>

"Well, that map's to scale, right?" he asked. "It's probably nearby."

The Tribeswoman just huddled under the tent, trying to fan away the heat. While the rains had let up again this morning, and the unseasonable dryness – for all the humidity still made her sweat like she was under interrogation – held until that evening, the forest was still wet and miserable. Traveling with that Tribeswoman actually started On-Ji feeling slivers of compassion for her, for, if nothing else, they all shared a misery of walking through the woods under a downpour. She gave a glance to Shoji, who rolled his eyes.

"Let me guess, you want to let her wander the woods, since 'we've done enough'?" Shoji asked.

"Actually, I was going to say 'we might as well see this through to the end'," On-Ji answered. "But if you're going to scoop up your hat and call it an adventure..."

"Oh, don't be like that," Shoji said. He turned to the Tribeswoman and said something in her strange, guttural tongue. How he'd picked that up was a question for the ages. Or, On-Ji had later considered, he might have just read the intercepted intelligence that sometimes ended up in the military offices which he lurked about often enough. After all, having military parents meant access in some degree to military stuff. On-Ji knew for a fact that she wasn't getting into the military; as she was neither a firebender nor had any desire to drive one of those hideous, unsafe 'battletanks', she was quite content to remain on her island. The greatest luck in Shoji's life, though, was that he looked younger than he was; there was no chance he was going to sneak past the recruiters and lie his way into the army. It just seemed like the kind of thing which Shoji would do.

In fact, much of that same spirit was present here. "Shoji?"

"Yeah, Onj?" he asked.

"Onj?" On-Ji asked, but shook her head. "Nevermind. Why are you doing this. Really?"

"I told you..."

"Yeah, but that's not why you're really doing it. Tell me the truth. I deserve that much, don't I?" she asked.

"I..." Shoji shook his head. "It's hard to explain. It's like the moment I saw her wash up on the beach, there was this little voice in my head telling me that I needed to protect her, that she was important, that the world needed her."

"Really? And it wasn't that she was half naked and shaped like that?" On-Ji asked, with a smirk and a nod toward the woman in question.

Shoji favored her with the flattest of flat glares. "Y'know what, believe what you want to."

"Oh, come now," On-Ji said playfully. "The truth."

"I told you the truth," Shoji said defensively. On-Ji stared at him for a moment.

"Agni's blood you're not having me on, are you?" she asked, suddenly serious. "But... but that sounds like spirit stuff."

"Yeah, I know!" Shoji exclaimed, to the Tribeswoman's unsettlement. "But... what if it is? I mean, shamans aren't exactly... well appreciated around here."

"Yeah, well, most of them vanish without a trace," On-Ji pointed out. She cracked a smirk. "It's like the Beast of Grand Ember. You ever hear about that one? Some sort of powerful monster which stalks the forests of this very island, and its blood-lust brimming and waxing, until every month at the full moon, it can take no more. It goes out into the towns, and somebody vanishes without a trace..."

"Very funny, Onj," Shoji said. "But if you want to tell a scary story, try not to use one which obviously isn't true. Like the Man with a Sword for a Hand, or something. But some beastie – which is probably nothing weirder than a Komodo Rhinoceros – wandering around in the forest is hardly the scariest thing that I've ever heard–"

"Well, isn't this a strange sight?" a creaking voice came out of the woods, and all three of them gave a start and a yelp of alarm, On-Ji and Shoji so startled that they actually pulled together into a protective huddle. When they finally saw what approached the light of their fire, and beheld that it was a little old lady, On-Ji in particular felt a flush of embarrassment of being so childish and easy to scare, and broke away from Shoji. The old woman was white of hair, and weathered of face, her skin obviously dark from many, many years under unkind conditions. Her eyes were also quite bright. Very likely, this woman was a Gork from the Azuli Highlands. She heard that they still got regular sun, up there.

"Who are you?" Shoji asked.

"Oh, I'm nothing special," the old woman said. "But I must apologize for frightening you all. My name is Hama. I run an inn not far from here."

"You do?" Shoji asked. On-Ji leaned in.

"Maybe this is 'it'?" she asked. Shoji just gave her a wary glance.

"You children shouldn't be out here in the rain and darkness. Where are your parents?" Hama asked. She leaned aside, and gave an 'a-ha'. "Is that your mother, little one?"

"She's no mother to me," On-Ji said testily. A Tribesman for a mother? Not likely. The Tribeswoman in question leaned out of the tent she was offered, and Hama's eyes widened a bit. "Oh, a visitor from foreign lands? Well, my inn takes all kinds."

"Well, we don't exactly have much money," Shoji pointed out.

"It shouldn't be a problem," the old woman said amiably. "I'd almost have you for free just for the company. And besides, you must have heard about these woods," the smile she cast over her shoulder grew quite fell and dark. "They say when the moon is full, people walk into it, and never return."

Shoji and On-Ji shared a swallow, and a glance.

"But enough about that," Hama returned to chipper and bouncy tones in a heartbeat. "Come along. I'll make you all some spiced tea to run the chill straight out of your bones. And bring along your friend, too. I'm quite interested in hearing _her_ story."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**The Puppetmasters**

* * *

><p>"Why haven't you tried to kill me yet?" Azula demanded, her glaring eyes on her uncle, where he sat contented before a tiny fire, holding a kettle over the flames.<p>

"I could ask you the same question, and probably come to the same answer," Iroh said placidly. Azula continue to stare at him.

"The only reason I didn't knock your head is because I might need a hostage," she said.

"Lie," Iroh said. Azula scoffed.

"You wouldn't know my lies from your truths," Azula mocked.

"I might surprise you," the old man said. "Consider: it has been four days since you were attackd in Omashu, and I have not escaped. Why?"

"Because I have been vigilant," she said.

"You fell asleep," Iroh pointed out.

"I did no such thing," Azula snapped.

"Oh, but you did. So if I were a prisoner, I could have easily wrung your neck and walked away as you took a fitful and restless sleep," Iroh said as pleasantly as talking about tea. "It is hardly a threat; had I wished you dead, you would be, by now. But since you are not, and I have not, you must reach the inevitable conclusion that we are not prisoner and warden."

"You're trying to trick me somehow," Azula said warily.

"No, I'm simply tired of this masquerade," Iroh said, his eyes lighting sharply in that flame. "You know who I am, more than you should. You know of my friends, and what lay behind the Garden Gate. So who does that make you, you somewhat-Azula?"

"Why should I tell you?" Azula asked. "You already know enough."

"'Need-to-know' has claimed more lives than it has ever saved, especially in times such as these. Miscommunication kills, and it would destroy my nephew if you were to come to harm," he said. When she remained silent, he scowled. "This is not a request. You _will_ tell me who you are."

"And what do I get in return?" she asked.

"Bargaining against your own uncle?" Iroh asked scandelously.

"Nothing in this family is free," Azula pointed out grimly. At that, Iroh could only sigh and nod.

"So it is," he acceded. "I could promise you much with words meaning little. Instead, I can offer you this, honestly; I will listen."

"What kind of price is that?" Azula asked.

"That'd be a change," the girl muttered morosely. Azula flicked a glance to her, where she was kicking at a rock buried near an intricately carved tree. "...nobody ever listens to me."

"What are you going on about? I had the utmost authority for years!" Azula snapped at her younger self.

"Nuh-uh," the girl answered. "You didn't have the childhood I did. And after, it just got worse!"

"You are a spoiled brat," Azula concluded, and reaffixed her attention to Iroh. "I agree."

"You do?" Iroh asked, genuinely surprised.

"I do?" Azula asked. She then glared at her younger self, who made a mocking gesture at her. Azula imagined doing dark, dark things to herself for a long moment before she realized how idiotic that was. "Of course I do," she then recovered. A glare at her younger half, then back to Iroh. "I am older than I look."

"That much was clear, and I will not have you retreading ground," Iroh said. "Where is Azula?"

"I don't follow your meaning."

"The Azula that she would have been," Iroh pressed. "The girl whose mind you have overtaken. Is she dead, or does she live?"

"She's..." Azula glanced to the side, where her younger self was pouting, "still around."

"Good," Iroh said, pouring that tea into a tin cup, which he'd produced from Agni only knows where. "Were she not, there would have been a problem."

"I don't like your tone," Azula said.

"I don't like your recklessness," Iroh answered. He sighed, and stared into his tea. "Perhaps a simpler way. I ask a question, you answer the question, and follow in suit. Would that be more palatable?"

"I've answered yours," Azula pointed out.

"So you have," Iroh agreed. "What do you want to know?"

"Why are you here, instead if with your precious Zuko?"

"Because Zuko is strong enough and wise enough now to survive without me. Because Qiao was right. I have duty to you which I have been neglecting. And more than that, you represent something which I have never seen nor heard of before. You have seen a possible future, one where the Fire Nation was not victorious. Part of me wants to know more about that future," he said with seeming perfect honesty. But then again, Azula knew full well the layers of cunning which the Dragon of the West wrapped himself in. "How did you take her body?"

"I died," she said. "At some point after that, I was approached by... something," Azula shook her head. "Why does this matter?"

"It might be the most important thing on this planet, please continue," Iroh said evenly.

"His name was Irukandji. Some sort of spirit. He claimed he was some sort of traveler, that he could give me a new chance, a fresh start without the tragedies or heartbreaks, and in exchange he'd... 'surf me'. He lied, obviously, since he dumped me here, in a broken eight year old, a world where I am reviled and pitied and outcast! This is not a fresh start, it is a prison!"

"I see," Iroh said.

"Now my question," Iroh shrugged, but she pressed on. "You've stolen my lightning from me twice before. How? What trickery is that? And how did Zuko do it to Father at the Day of Black Sun?"

"So... of course you would know of that Dark Day. You've already lived it," Iroh said with a shrug. "Redirecting lightning is a skill which I cultivated uniquely, studying the waterbenders of the North Water Tribe when I was young. I taught your brother – or rather, her brother – the skill shortly after his exile, as I believed that my brother would try to finish the job he started. Apparently I have done much the same where you come from. It is not something which can be told, but only shown."

"I'll hold you to that," Azula swore.

"Why do you want to know how to redirect lightning? I admit, I was somewhat astonished to see you mastering the cold-blooded fire, but knowing as I know now, it was likely not her mastery, but yours, which shone through."

"I was always the greatest firebender of my generation. I learned how to bend lightning while still a young girl," Azula said cockily. "Only Father was better at it, and in time, I would have surpassed him, too. Well, if that jack-booted tyrant the Avatar hadn't torn his soul out." Iroh raised a brow at that, but didn't press that question. "Why does your Order support the Avatar?"

"We support balance, peace, knowledge, and beauty," Iroh said. "Usually, we have to check against the Avatar. Obviously in your life, we had to work with him. It must have been a matter of monumental importance; overt action has never been our strongest sword, and quite seldom do we move on the side of greatest power. I have only one more question," Iroh said, leaning forward, taking a deliberative sip of his tea. "Did you reap your revenge, before your death? Or was your thirst unsatiated?"

Azula gave a bitter laugh. "There were so many who stood in my way," she said. "First, her father's wife, then her father himself. Then, the earthbender, then Mai. She backed down. The rest of them, after her? They didn't. I killed my way through almost the whole of the Avatar's social circle before I blasted that murderous bitch into ashes. Remarkable how a spouse's death can make a 'pacifistic monk' as psychotic and murderous as an 'insane firebending sociopath'."

Iroh leaned back. "So if you had your revenge, why are you still seeking it?" he asked.

Azula didn't have an answer for that.

* * *

><p>"This isn't bad, even if it is a bit weird," Shoji said pleasantly. "Are these ocean kumquats?"<p>

"Yes," Hama answered, as she slowly lowered herself into her seat. "I find that if you stew them just right, they make a dish which very much reminds me of home."

"You're not from Ember, that's obvious," On-Ji said. Shoji rolled his eyes. She sometimes got like an eel-hound with a bone about things. He just hoped it wasn't that, now. "You certainly don't look like an Embiar."

"Oh, I'm from somewhere else, colder, not quite as crowded," Hama said. "A place where you can see the sun at least half of the year."

"See, I told you she was a Gork," On-Ji said, leaning toward Shoji.

"Don't call them that," Shoji corrected her. "It's impolite."

"Oh, I don't mind," Hama piped up. "Your friend, she doesn't say much."

"She's just like that, I guess," Shoji gave a shrug. "So how'd an Azuli end up running an inn on Grand Ember?"

Her eyes sparked for a moment, but it was a distant thing, like something she didn't want to remember, but now, couldn't not. "When I was young, not much older than you, I was taken from my homeland by the Fire Nation military. I was a bender, and they demanded all benders serve them. But I wouldn't. So they imprisoned me, put me in a horrible prison for many years," she said, painfully.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Shoji said. "I heard that Fire Lord Azulon did some horrible things, but to our own people?"

"And worse to others," Hama said. "I would lay awake at night, in that baking heat, cursing the name Azulon, waiting for my freedom. Waiting for death. For decades, I wallowed in that dark, horrible place, while my brothers and sisters who stood beside me in resisting died one by one. I was the only one who walked away from that prison," she hung her head.

"Nobody should do that to anybody," Shoji declared, shaking his head. "Not even an enemy should get treated that terribly. And he did that to his own people? No wonder people hated Azulon."

"Shoji!" On-Ji said. "You shouldn't speak ill of the dead."

Shoji balked at that. "Yeah, you're right, I shouldn't," he admitted. He turned back to the old woman. "So... why here? Why didn't you go home? Were you afraid they'd take you again?"

"No, by the time I was free, that _Fire Lord_ made his point," Hama spat with venom. "But there were those in my home who turned me away. They were afraid of the 'trouble I'd bring with me'. Even in freedom, I was cast out. I had nowhere else to turn. So I came here. At least here, I have something, as little as it is."

On-Ji sighed. "I apologize for the boy. We shouldn't have brought it up, since it's obviously so painful for you."

"You show an old woman an unexpected courtesy, little girl," she said, with a painful smile on her weathered face. She gave a glance toward the emptied bowls they'd had their dinner in. "By all means, go up to your rooms. You look like you could use a proper bed to sleep in, after so long in the woods. I'll just be down here cleaning up."

"Thank you, mistress Hama," On-Ji said with a traditional bow. Shoji did likewise, and since he did, he couldn't see the disdainful scowl light upon Hama's features as they did. "Come on, Ma'am. Let's get you settled."

"Oh, she can help me with the dishes," Hama said breezily.

"If you need help, I can..." Shoji instantly interjected. Huuni couldn't speak a word of Huojian. Once that became obvious – which would be almost instantaneous – the gig was up.

"Nonsense, this is a woman's duty. Go, rest with your friend," Hama bade.

"No, really, I'd be much happier if..."

"You should heed your elders, boy," Hama's tone had a lace of threat in it, and her pale eyes took on a warning light. Shoji swallowed, but backed away. He backed into On-Ji, which caused her to utter a 'hey' of annoyance, before the two of them left the room.

"Oh, man, this is bad," Shoji said.

"I know," On-Ji agreed. "She's hiding something. Or lying about something."

"Not that!" Shoji whispered urgently. "Huuni can only speak her own language! And Hama's going to freak out when she realizes that!"

"Hmm, you might be right about that," On-Ji then smiled slyly. "Or maybe that's what she came all this way for, to talk to an Azuli woman. How much do you want to bet she's a shaman, that old woman?"

"I thought only the Avatar was a bender and a shaman?" Shoji said, scratching at his head.

"Hey, does it look like I know the rules of magic-y stuff?" On-Ji said. "Just calm down. As long as that's what she's hiding, we shouldn't have any problems," she said, walking upstairs.

Shoji shook his head, watching after her. But on a hunch, he turned back, pressing his ear against the door that they'd just vacated. And inside, he could hear talking. Specifically, he could hear Huuni talking.

"_You are not from this continent,_" Huuni said in her native tongue, causing Shoji to 'eep' with fear.

"_You are right, cousin,_" Hama answered back in that same language, which turned Shoji's 'eep' to a 'whuh?'. "_You are much better attired than I would expect from the South Water Tribe. So, you must be from the North. I heard what happened to your people._"

"_You did? What happened?_" Huuni asked, urgently.

"_The Fire Nation cast down the North Water Tribe. The Tribe of your mothers and grandmothers is no more,_" Hama said with a regretful tone. "_They destroy and destroy, and nobody ever stands against them._"

"_How did you get here? Really?_" Huuni asked. "_Who are you?_"

"_I am as you are, a refugee surrounded by hated enemies,_" Hama said. There was a pause. "_Hmm. I think we should speak more in the barn. This room is too small._"

Shoji's eyes shot wide, and he waited, as the sound of a door opening, then latching shut sounded. Then, he started to slink upstairs, sweat pounding out of his brow.

* * *

><p>Zuko wished he could have claimed that he didn't scream when the room inverted and dumped him onto the stone floor. He wished, because the universe didn't see fit to fulfill that desire. The cell they'd dumped him into was rough and tiny, and quite dark. The whole prison was an odd, sideways cylinder, devised so that it would rotate under the power of its earthbending jailors to make escape utterly impossible for those who couldn't move rock with their fists and feet. They'd obviously chose the least comfortable way to disgorge him from his cell; instead of opening the wall and allowing him to walk out, they'd opened what amounted to his floor.<p>

"This is the prisoner, King Bumi," the soldier said.

"Really? I thought he'd be taller," the crackling, reedy voice came, followed by a snort and a cackle, which ended abruptly. "Are you sure this is the right one? I thought I told you to send him to the recently-renovated-chambers-which-used-to-be-the-bad-chambers-but-are-now-better-than-the-good chambers?"

"No, you said 'bad-chamber'," the soldier answered. The king shrugged.

"Oh, well. That's the aristocracy for you," he leaned in a bit closer, as though offering confidential advice behind his hand. "Never trust a government, am I right?"

"You are your government," Zuko pointed out humorlessly.

"And do you trust me?"

"No."

"EXCELLENT!" The King launched into cackling, snorting laughter, only ending when it was apparent that everybody in the room was as uncomfortable as Zuko was, which was a hard task since Zuko had spent the last few days sleeping on rocks.

"What do you want?" Zuko asked flatly.

"Want? Oh, right," the King drew himself upward, under his purple robes. "I have come to pass sentence upon you."

Zuko sighed, and got to his feet. At the least, he would face his fate upright.

"I pronounce you not-guilty," the King said without preamble or ceremony. All of the soldiers turned to him as though he was stark raving mad. Zuko felt a similar desire.

"King Bumi, what are you saying?"

"I can't just imprison somebody because of the country they were born in. It's unconstitutional!"

"We... don't have a constitution."

"Oh, right, I do have to get around to writing that, don't I?" Bumi said, scratching at his sprig of grey beard. "Anyway, I'm not going to be as cruel a lawyer as my neighbors. Imprisoning or executing somebody simply because he might be a firebender is absurd as jailing a man for having the wrong colored eyes, or having one too many freckles. Absurd!"

"But this isn't just a firebender, King Bumi! This is the Fire Lord's son!"

"I can't be giving preferential treatment because of somebody's family ties," Bumi said with an offended tone. "I do not allow nepotism in my city state!"

"But..."

"There is no time for buts!" Bumi declared. Then, with a subtle motion, he waved Zuko toward the doors. "Go on, then. Enjoy free air in your lungs."

"Right..." Zuko said, starting to walk past him. This whole thing had to be some sort of set up. And that suspicion twigged closer to true when the guardsman at the door blocked his way. "He said..."

"King Bumi, are you sure about this?" that guardsman said.

"Are you falsely imprisoning this poor boy?" Bumi's voice was not approving in its tone. The man gave Zuko a glance, like he knew his duties, and that they had him pincered. As a subject of the distant Earth King, he was bound to restrain Zuko. As a subject of King Bumi, he was ordered to release him. It was the closer of two monarchs who won the day, and with a sigh, the man let Zuko pass. Zuko strode out of the prison, into the lobby beyond it. A mousey-looking Eastern lady was standing nearby with a bundle.

"Excuse me, sir? You were due for release today, yes?" she asked. Zuko just stared at her. "These are your personal effects. The King wanted them returned to you at once."

"...thank you," Zuko said flatly, taking back his things. He walked woodenly into the sunlight, and down the many streets, toward the wall which would take him out of this insane city with its even-more insane king. But that whole walk, his mind felt leaden and stuffed with angry bees. Their droning was the droning of his indecision, of his doubt, of his pointlessness. For all these years, he had slaved to keep Azula safe, to keep her happy; it had become his reason for waking up in the morning. He didn't have much family, but it was whole. And now, she didn't want him. Worse, she seemed to out right despise him!

Zuko wasn't weeping as he started walking the stone bridge back to the mainland, but that was because he didn't have the strength left in him. What was he supposed to do now?

What was Zuko without Azula? He turned his head down, and golden eyes went dark.

* * *

><p>"A barn? I can think of a dozen better places to talk. Of course, five of those are in worthwhile climates," Huuni said with a note of complaint.<p>

"And you are scarcely one to say it," Hama immediately replied. "After all, I might be outcast from my homeland, but yours no longer exists."

"That requires some explanation," Huuni said suspiciously.

"What explanation is there?" Hama asked with a shrug. "The Fire Nation attacked, overwhelmed you, and destroyed you. Anybody who tries to 'fight fair' against those monsters meets the same fate."

"It's just... the last thing I remember was hearing that the Fire Nation was turning their eyes north. Then... I was waking up on the beach."

"That was six years ago," Hama said. She tilted her head in suspicion. "How is it that you can lose six years of your life?"

"I've lost a year or so before, but never this many at once," Huuni said, fiddling with her hair. "He always rests sooner or later. And when he does..."

"He? Who is 'he'?" Hama asked.

Huuni smiled then, an absent and distant smile "Irukandji. He promised me eternal life and eternal youth, and for more than a century, he delivered."

"So you are a shaman? And a Host?" Hama asked.

"Of course, you foolish old woman. And you are a waterbender."

Hama let out a chuckle at that. "What gave me away? I do try to be more careful in not letting it... slip."

Huuni paused, one finger raised to make her point, and said nothing, because she had no point to make. Or rather, she didn't know how she had the point she did. "I'm not sure," she said. "I just knew, somehow."

"Perhaps this Irukandji has some talents you lack. Can I speak to him, or do I speak to him already?"

Huuni turned away in shame. "He is... missing. There are moments where I can almost sense him, but then he is gone. He is badly hurt, and if I can't find a way to restore him..."

"Then you will lose everything he gave you," Hama said, her tones slipping down into malevolence. "Lose your beauty, lose your vitality, and then lose your life."

Huuni could only nod at that. She did eventually summon the will to speak again, though. "Why are you here, though? Why didn't you go home?"

"So the boy was right in that you don't speak that barbarous 'fire-tongue'. I hate repeating myself," she snapped. But after a moment, "...but I can tell you what I didn't tell him. I was cast out, that's true. By High Chief Qejay, the master of the South Water Tribes. I told him how I escaped my prison, and he thought it 'unnatural', and 'evil'."

Huuni's eyes lighted with curiosity. "How did you escape the Benders' Prisons? I heard that they were practically inescapable."

"They were," Hama agreed, and cracked the door to the barn, letting the slim light from the full moon in, all the more paltry for the clouds it tried so hard to shine through. "When the took me, it was more than sixty years ago. Before this rain came and made a mockery of their homeland. They visited cruel tortures onto us, hoping to break our wills. They would blast us with hot, dry air every hour of the day, and bind us hand and foot before giving us anything to drink, so we could not bend."

"Those monsters. Somebody should slit their throats while they sleep!" Huuni snarled. Hama smiled at that.

"Oh, but that prison did give me something that nobody before has had. You know of the power of the moon, Shaman?" Huuni nodded. "Every month, the full moon's power flowed into me, even in that wretched wallow. And in time, I discovered a vital secret about water; everywhere there is life, there is water. And with the full moon strengthening my arm, I could command it, even within the fleshy bags which contained it. First, I practiced with rats. And then, I moved on to man."

"You bent their very blood?" Huuni asked, impressed.

"Yes. The ultimate waterbending technique; bloodbending," Hama said, her tones as black as the back of the barn they stood in. "There is no great victory against the Fire Nation. The fall of Summavut proves that. But we can make them suffer, forever. My own people shunned me, thinking my 'puppeteering' was a sin against the gods. But you... you have a more enlightened mindset."

Huuni nodded. "They must pay for what they've done to us."

"I was a warrior first, in my youth," Hama said. "Fighting was in my blood then, and is now. But I believe I might be able to heal this spirit in you. It is a water spirit?"

"No... I think it's made of lightning," Huuni corrected.

"Hmm. Not so easy, but it should still be possible," Hama pondered. "But Irukandji's power, it is great, is it not?"

"Very great," Huuni agreed eagerly.

"Excellent," Hama said. "With the power of the spirits on our side, we can wreak a terrible vengeance upon these murderers and scoundrels. They will lose their safety, their dignity, and then, their very lives."

"And that day will be glorious," Huuni said, grinning widely, if only because she was going to be made whole again.

Inside her skull, though, a tiny, tiny part of her brain tried very hard not to sigh.

* * *

><p>Shoji pounded on the door to the room On-Ji had claimed as her own personal fief. "Come on, Onj! Wake up!"<p>

"Go away, I'm trying to sleep," On-Ji's voice came from within, muffled by what was likely a pillow.

"But this is important!" Shoji shouted.

"Not as important as my sleep. Go away," On-Ji said. Shoji backed away, muttering under his voice at the irrationality of women. Or, upon a moment's review and specification, the irrationality of On-Ji.

"Fine, I'll show you what I'm talking about," he said, and began to ascend yet higher, into the third story of the inn. He quickly darted through each of the rooms up here, one of them obviously having been set aside for Hama herself. He was going to search it, but it was so spartan compared to the rest that there was effectively nowhere to hide something save under the bed. After Shoji elimitated that option, he gave the hall itself a second glance. "A-ha!" he declared, moving to a pantry, and with a mighty heave, pulling it open. His 'a-ha' was followed by an 'argh!' as he was immediately assaulted.

By wooden puppets. Shoji glanced through protective fingers, up at the dead-eyed, wooden faces which loomed down at him, utterly still, only their lifeless arms swaying from the momentum of the cupboard's opening. He glanced to and fro, and noting that none had seen his embarrassment, opted to close the puppets back into place before anybody noticed. He scratched at his hair, trying to figure this out. He finally saw above him, dangling near the end of a hall, a slip of rope. A glance behind him confirmed that he was alone, so he bounded up and caught the thing, pulling down some sort of automatic ladder which proceeded to brain him.

Shoji slowly shook the stars from his vision, where he was crouched in the hall. "Note to self," Shoji said. "Don't stand directly under a doorway again."

A last shake of his head, and then he started to ascend. The uppermost floor of the inn was such a separate beast from the lower that Shoji felt an urge to glance back down below, to confirm that that building and this were both part of the same structure. Where the hall below was all fine panels and tasteful hangings, up here, the décor was savage and brutal. Raw skins made up rugs. Bones abounded from the rafters and made up a grisly portion of the furniture. It was almost like this whole room was an attempt to shock and unsettle any civilized viewer. That being the case: mission accomplished.

Shoji quickly moved up into the room, and began to outright rummage. After all, he needed something to convince On-Ji of his story, and his word probably wasn't going to be enough to convince a sleepy teenaged girl. He found a shredded standard with some sort of flower on it, but it probably didn't mean anything. After all, anything not shredded up here was once something that did shredding. He stopped counting how many predatory animals were up here in pelt form after they surpassed his ability to count on two hands, and he'd barely gone through a quarter of the 'more dangerous' natives of Azul by then. But at the far end from the stairwell, there was a plinth. Upon that plinth was a box. And Shoji's eye was drawn to that box like a buttermoth to a candle.

He crossed that distance in a heartbeat, and began to heave at the box. "Huh. I don't see a keyhole," he muttered to himself. He looked at the symbols on its top, but couldn't identify them. Somehow, though, even as he shook his head, their meaning came to him. Hama, student of Apkallu, daughter of Aihu and Kohram. Service to Chimney Mountain. How he got all of that from these simplistic runes, Shoji couldn't say, but somehow, he did. And as he fiddled with it, he felt a clicking sensation in the box. A subtle change in the layout of the box? The thing was a puzzle?

"Shouldn't 'a made it a puzzle," Shoji said brashly, as he began to set about manipulating the box more intensely. And as he did, he felt it further shifting, until with a soft click, the top panel of the box slid off, revealing its secrets. Which were depressingly mundane. Just a scroll and some sort of necklace, depicting switchbacked crescent moons, nested inside each other. He paused for a moment. Something Dad told him about them. What was it? "Come on, this is important. Sis asked them about how they got married, and they..." Shoji waved that part away, since it wasn't relevant. "And then he laughed, and said that in the Tribes, they'd... Give the girl a necklace."

His eyes went wide, and then he unfurled the scroll. It was in the same argot runes as the box itself had been. And the figures depicted in simplistic line style could only be waterbenders. "I knew it! Hama's a Tribesman!"

Shoji took the stairs down two at a time, and in a matter of moments was pounding at On-Ji's door once more. "On-Ji, open the door, I've got something you've got to see!"

Shoji could hear muttering coming closer, until the door opened up a crack and a baleful, tired eye peered out. "This had better be good, Shoji. I need my sleep."

"Downstairs, I heard Hama talking to Huuni, in Huuni's own language."

"I'm going back to bed," On-Ji said distantly.

"NO WAIT!" Shoji cried. "And when I looked upstairs, I found this!"

"You found jewelry? Congratulations, you're a burglar," she said drowsily.

"No, not that – well, yes that, too, but not the way you think – just look at this!" Shoji forced the scroll through the doorway, and On-Ji took it, holding it to the light. At that, her disgruntled mutterings fell away. "Yeah, that's a waterbending scroll, I think!"

"She had this?" she asked, finally opening the door fully. Shoji was nodding intently. "Yeah, but that hardly makes her..."

"This is a Water Tribe betrothal necklace; Dad told me about them," Shoji said, showing the necklace once more. "One, and she's a collector. Two, she's an avid collector. Two, in the room I found them in, then she's pining for the fjords."

"He's not wrong," Hama's voice came down the hall, causing both youths to start back with a yelp of shock. Huuni was standing behind her, arms crossed before her magnificent bosom. "I _was_ born in the Water Tribes. And I was cast out of them."

"So you're a spy!" On-Ji declared. Hama laughed at that. It was not a happy laugh.

"Oh, the stupidity of youth," Hama muttered.

"But if you're a Water Tribesman, then you can help her," Shoji cut off On-Ji before she said anything else relations-damaging. "You must be who she was looking for."

Hama smiled, darkly. "Oh, I believe I am," she said. "With her powers and mine, I will finally be able to do what I've wanted to for so many years."

"Go home?" Shoji asked.

"No. Rid the world, of people like you," she said.

"People like..." Shoji asked, and then glanced at On-Ji. He gaped for a moment. "Wow. So this is what going mad feels like."

"I know, I'm surprised I'm right my own self," On-Ji admitted. She glanced back to the two Tribesmen. "RUN!"

Shoji turned on his heel and began to sprint toward the window at the end of the hall. It would be a hard fall, but it was only the second story, and he knew he could roll with it. He hadn't spent all those years recklessly leaping off of his shed roof without learning how to tuck and move. But for all his lofty aspirations, he only made if five steps, before his leg cramped solid. He tried hopping the rest of the way, but the other leg was as immobile as the first. His eyes bugged wide, and he felt his arms twist him around, quite painfully, so that he was almost facing the two Tribesmen behind. He could see that On-Ji had followed his advice, and was about a step behind him, but was likewise trapped immobile and still. "What are you doing! I feel really weird!"

"_Behold, Huuni, the power of bloodbending,_" Hama said in her native tongue as she gestured broadly, her arthritic fingers now straight and powerful. "_The ultimate power, to turn all flesh to your will. I can control their bodies, and you can control their minds. We will be unstoppable._"

"_Huuni, why?_" Shoji asked. "_We were trying to help you!_"

The Tribeswoman scowled at him. It was hard to believe he ever thought her attractive. "_I've __gotten all the help I need from your kind, hotman._"

Then, Shoji's legs began to march him out of the hallway, only one thought reflected around inside Shoji's mind. What the heck was a 'hotman'?

* * *

><p>"<em>Momma? Momma, why're you cryin'?" a little girl's voice asked, confused.<em>

_ "I'm watching my dreams die._"

Azula started awake, fire flashing from her fingertips as she clawed her way out from under the blanket. It singed the cloth somewhat, but she didn't care. The nights were the worst part. As much as she had constant nightmares after Chiyo's death, toward the end, they had... not abated, but mellowed. So that she lost only one night in seven to nightmares, rather than one in two. It took a long moment for Azula's mind to burn away the proverbial cobwebs enough to note that she had, in fact, had a blanket over her. Which was unusual since she had no recollection of going to sleep. After all, she had to guard her prisoner...

"I see you have awakened," Iroh said placidly from his place by the fire. As before, there was a pot of tea, but this one lay at the old man's side, while a selection of nuts roasted in the pan. "These nuts are either poplar-nuts, which are sweet and nourishing, or else grave-nuts, which cause vomiting and irrational terror," He tugged idly on his beard. "I'm not sure I remember which."

"What are you still doing here?" Azula demanded.

"Trying to prepare breakfast," Iroh said.

"I mean why did you not flee in the night while I was unconscious?" Azula amended humorlessly.

"Why would I?" Iroh asked.

"You're my prisoner!" Azula snapped, getting to her feet. Iroh looked up at her without fear, which was all the more aggravating on Azula's part.

"I am only prisoner if I consider myself so. I know you could not imprison me," Iroh said.

"Strong words from an old man," Azula said. "If I wanted to, I could strike you down before you could even finish blinking."

Iroh smiled at her. "No. You would try, but you would not."

"STOP BEING SO DAMNED CALM!" Azula shrieked.

"Why?" Iroh asked. "You are the last person I would have expected to lose control so quickly, or so easily. Especially... as you are now."

"I am calm!" Azula snapped, but knew the lie of it even as it left her throat. Much as she hated to admit, Iroh was right. She woke up off her balance, and had done nothing to regain it since then. She took a moment to stew and glare at Iroh, who looked so interminably smug. "So. You are here. And you are going to fight the Avatar."

"I am going to aid you," Iroh said, which wasn't quite agreement, and Azula knew it. "I just want to know that you're doing this for the right reasons, and that it will not harm the girl who ought be here."

"She is immaterial in this," Azula said.

"I beg to differ," Iroh contended. "Without that girl, weak as you believe her to be, things would have been very different, and mostly for the worse," he took a stick sitting beside him and began to draw circles in a curved line in the dirt. He pointed to the first. "You are a firebender at the age of four, and spend the next four years making Zuko look like an ignorant peasant in his birthright," he then dragged a line to the second. "You inspire envy in him," the next. "Zuko's anger becomes malignant, as your mother's balancing presence disappears. He turns against you," the next circle down that line. "My brother encourages conflict between you and your brother, seeing Zuko as weak and worthless. He prepares an assassination attempt for him," he then points to the penultimate circle. "Zuko moves against you. You strike back. Zuko is injured, and publicly humiliated and dishonored. You displease Ozai, deferring yourself from being exactly what he wanted because you begin to chafe under the pressure, as you always have."

"I _never_ displeased..." Azula began, but Iroh's eyes cut her off, and then, he drew a final line, cleaving that last circle in half.

"Ozai is outraged by your continued disobedience, and banishes you, if not outright kills you. Zuko returns to usurp Ozai and takes what would have been your place in the line of inheritance, before finally moving against me. He would be as corrupt as the man who fathered him, and their father before them."

"That would never happen," Azula said solidly.

"Every indication was that it would. Every sign pointed down this path. I groomed Lu Ten to be a better man than my father had been, but in that, I twice failed," Iroh said. "Once, in that he died, and twice, in that he was Ozai's puppet when he did. And had he died, the path would have remained unaltered. I admit my earliest interest was to turn Zuko into my agent rather than my brother's... But something else happened," Iroh said, moving back to the second circle in the arc, then drawing new circles in a straight line. He began to connect them. "The Azula that you inhabited fell sick, no doubt of your doing. Zuko was unbalanced by Ursa's abandonment, but came to value his sister over his father's approval. Rather than see Zuko fall into iniquity and evil, I could council him, and do with him what I failed with Lu Ten. Qiao gave much the same to you, despite your unpleasant beginnings. Finally," he reached the end of the new line. "You are both banished, but by then, Zuko values you above any other life on this planet. He sabotages his own honor and his own inheritance to protect you."

"Then Zuko was a fool," Azula said, sitting down before the fire.

"He has taken foolish actions, but a man is only a fool if he does not know them so," Iroh said. "Your disruptive presence saved two lives. Your brother's, and your own. To this day, Princess Azula is seen as a figure of sympathy and compassion both at home and abroad. A victim of a cruel, malicious father. You have given a new path, and a new option forward which did not exist before. I intend to see it taken to its logical end."

"Which is?" Azula asked, already knowing the answer.

"The end of the War," Iroh said. "A new Fire Lord."

"So you are a traitor in this world as well as that one," Azula muttered.

"What are the Virtues of Fire?" Iroh snapped. Azula glared at him, but began.

"Ambition. It drives us to succeed."

"Yes, and?" Iroh prompted.

"Perseverance, to withstand what obstacles bar our path. Dedication, since anything worth doing will not come easily. Honesty, for a liar's word is worth less than nothing. Honor, which sets us above the cretins and the animals."

"Go on," Iroh said.

"Patience, since rashness leads to ruin. Valor, even in the face of overwhelming defeat. Selflessness, and the giving of oneself to others. Canny, for the fool falls prey far too easily. And yes, Loyalty. Is that the point you're trying to make?" Azula asked, even though she was mildly surprised that she could rattle that all off so easily.

"It's 'cause _I_ paid attention," the girl said smugly.

"Quiet, you."

"Not quite," Iroh said. "You missed one."

"I did?" the girl asked, confused.

"Responsibility," Iroh explained. "It is one thing to have loyalty to my family. Even base criminals can be loyal to those close to them. But responsibility, as embodied in Virtue, is a different beast," Iroh took and poured a cup of tea. "Responsibility is not just sacrificing for something, it is _becoming_ something. If you call me a traitor to the Fire Nation, then you are simply and abjectly wrong. I do not betray my nation. I _am_ my nation. And I will see it become something better than it has fallen to."

Azula glared at him. "So you want 'what's best' for the Fire Nation? And you resist my father?"

"Yes, and yes," Iroh said. "I could not do the first without the second. Tell me, Azula. Why do you worship that man?"

"Father is strong, and he made me strong," Azula said.

"Ozai is weak, and all the weaker after his disastrous war in the North," Iroh said. "Yours may have been stronger, but this is the reality you must live with. And it is the reality she," Iroh said, pointing at Azula herself, "will have to live with once you are gone."

Azula rolled her eyes at that pronouncement, but her eyes became keen again a moment later. "So what happens now?"

"Now, you will go to Ba Sing Se," Iroh said. "And I will go with you."

"And why would I do something so reckless?" Azula asked, hedging.

"Because you said you would. Because you know the Avatar will be there, and your enemies as well. Because you believe that you can change things to your better," Iroh said easily, breaking off to sip at his tea. "And when you do, you know that the only way you can succeed is if you are not alone."

"We shall see, old man; we shall see," Azula promised darkly. If Iroh would work with her, instead of against her... but he had an angle. He always did. She would just have to find it before he could use it against her.

Just like old times.

* * *

><p>The thump and crash of a body slamming into the ground was all the rousing that Bato got, but then again, he'd learned to sleep during the strangest of times as a matter of survival. And it wasn't even so bad as it was when he'd first landed in this cell; he'd broken the chains which attached to the wall, and those 'Dai Li' never bothered replacing them. Why would they? They had a mountain of stone and iron between the two middle aged men and the light of day. And they had something far, far more precious. Time. All the time they needed.<p>

"So another day gone, and you're not dead?" Bato noted, taking a moment to cough out the phlegm in his throat. Of course he got sick upon mild torture. The universe loved to mess with him, and there were few things less pleasant than a nasty head-cold. It was certainly worse than the treatment he received from Long Feng's men's best efforts – a fact which Bato delighted in telling them at every opportunity.

Piandao was silent on the ground.

"Or not?"

"I live," Piandao finally said, before pushing himself up and slouching against the wall next to Bato. "You know, I think they're beginning to grow tired of us."

"I know. The last brainwashing session wasn't half as long as the one before," Bato said deadpan. "I guess my winning personality is starting to shine."

Piandao didn't chuckle at that. He just glared ahead of him, at the wall of greenish stone, broken only by a black door. Bato shook his head wearily. "Have you seen what happened to Sativa?" Bato asked.

"No," Piandao answered tersely. "I'm worried. Who knows what twisted uses he'd have for a brainwashed woman."

"Long Feng?" Bato asked. "Trust me, he's got _no_ use for a brainwashed woman. Brainwashed _man_, on the other hand?"

"I doubt he'd go so low," Piandao muttered. Bato raised a brow at him. "Yes, despite your implication, I do believe there are evils beneath that man."

Bato sat in uncomfortable silence, which suited well the uncomfortable uncomfortableness, and pondered a moment, his eyes flicking over to the only person left in this city who didn't want to kill him. And even then, he might be wrong about that.

"Have you got some sort of problem with me?" Bato asked.

"Is this the time to worry about that?" Piandao asked.

"Well, we don't lack for time, and you're a captive audience. So please, what's your problem with me?"

"And here I thought the interrogation had ended," Piandao said sarcastically, which was rare form for him.

"I'm serious, Piandao. Things have been cold between you and I. Ever since that last boondoggle, you've treated me like I had open sores. So what is your problem with me?"

Piandao ground his teeth for a moment, but after that moment, finally turned toward Bato. "You want to know my _problem_ with you?" he asked caustically. "It's what you did to Sati."

Bato leaned back at that. "What did I do to Sativa?" Bato asked, genuinely confused.

"Don't be coy. You took advantage of her grief!" Piandao shouted.

"Oh... that," Bato said. "I wasn't taking advantage of her."

"Really?" Piandao demanded. "So you _didn't_ mount her in her time of need?"

"It didn't happen like that," Bato said more clearly. "Why would it? Piandao, I was happily married! I had an infant daughter at home when you brought me back in for 'one more adventure'. And I was not 'hiding lascivious thoughts' about her. Sativa is my friend, and has been for many years, but she is not more than that. I love Seelai. I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that."

"But you were unfaithful to her," Piandao noted.

Bato shook his head, breathing deeply and painfully. "There was a reason things turned out as they did. Sativa was a mess. We hadn't just failed, but failed spectacularly. You have seen what she's like when her confidence gets shaken?" Piandao nodded. "Her confidence had been smashed into splinters, and the splinters ground into dust. The things he did to her... It's astounding she came out sane. But then again, if she survived her childhood, she could survive anything. And you were gone. We all thought you were dead, and had very good reason to. She was in tears."

"Sati does not cry," Piandao said.

"She was in tears," Bato stressed. "She needed someone to 'get the feeling of his hands off' of her. I tried to tell her to be strong, for you, but... Gods above, it was so painful, seeing her like that. She begged me to..."

"Sati does not beg," Piandao stressed.

"She _begged_," Bato once again countered. He sighed. "It wasn't what I wanted. It was uncomfortable. Awkward. Probably as painful to her as it was to me. It might have given her a new level after her sundering, but it became a secret which I swore then and now that I will carry to my grave. Seelai will never learn of that. Ever."

"She begged," Piandao said quietly. "Why didn't you tell me this?"

"Because I didn't want Sativa's shame to spread," He shook his head. "The only other one who knows about that is Joo Dee, and I don't think she's going to be telling anybody any time soon. Come on, Piandao. Everybody knew that the only man in her life was you! Her children are your children, even if you didn't father them."

"You sound awfully sure of that," Piandao's voice remained quiet.

"I got home just in time to lose my daughter to the Fire Nation," Bato said. "My life's been painful. So has yours. Sati's probably got all of us beat on that front. So why did you just leave her? She needed you."

Piandao's head hung. "I didn't know. Any of this."

"Because you didn't ask," Bato said. "It's surprising that you've got a 'grand' in front of your title and I don't."

"If you could do it again..."

Bato shook his head. "If I could do again with what I know now, of course I'd do things differently. I'd take Sativa and Joo Dee, ride to where your lacerated behind was trapped under that wagon, and let you and that woman have the tearful reunion you needed to have. As I hear it, it'd have done little Nila a world of good to have a father."

"Nila doesn't sound like a Si Wongi name," Piandao noted.

"It's her nickname," Bato said. He paused. "Come to think of it, I can't remember what her real name is."

Piandao told him.

"Oooh. Wait, how do you know that?" Bato asked. Piandao's bruised, lacerated face had a slight smile on it as he stared into the distance beyond the walls of their prison.

"Sati told me that's what she'd name her first daughter," Piandao said distantly. Bato could only nod at that.

"So are things settled? Are you done being needlessly angry with me?" Bato asked.

"Yes."

"Good," Bato said. "Now let's start working on our glorious escape from captivity. First, we need to find out where Long Feng's keeping Sativa."

"It can wait," Piandao said, starting to slump down the wall. "I need to rest."

"Ah, well, rest while you can," Bato amended. He looked at that black door. What horrors did Sativa face out there? What did she suffer for every moment that they didn't free her? But the swordsman was right; sometimes, a man just needs his rest.

* * *

><p>The weather above their heads had gone from hot and dreary to hot and thundering, even as Shoji and On-Ji struggled against their binds. Somehow, thought, the binds were of a sort which did not become in the slightest bit slick as the rain pounded onto them. It was strange; water just made them bite the flesh harder and harsher.<p>

"Have you got the gag out, yet?" Shoji asked.

"This was a terrible idea!" On-Ji answered in an angry, harsh whisper.

"I'll take that as a yes," Shoji said glibly.

"This is all your fault! You just had to help the maniacal Tribeswoman, didn't you?"

Shoji gave a sigh, feeling a weight on his chest. "I thought it was the right thing to do."

"Well, you know what they say about the breakwaters of Hell," On-Ji said, before taking up an angry silence.

Ahead of him was another sight of great oddness. The old woman was standing over where Huuni was sitting upon a throne of oddly heat-resistant ice. Hama's hands were glowing against the darkness of both night and terrible thunderstorm, but a bubble had formed around the waterbender who now worked her hands across Huuni's head and face. For Huuni's part, her eyes seemed to have rolled back in her head, like a sleeping eel-hound.

"What'd'ya think Hama's doing?" Shoji asked.

"Water magic," On-Ji said angrily.

"Onj, please," Shoji said.

"What does it matter?" she asked.

"Do... do you think Hama's turned Huuni against us with some sort of waterbending mind-trick?"

"More likely, the barbarian was just waiting for the first opportunity to stab us in the back," On-Ji said.

"Onj, not everybody is like Hide," Shoji said. "There's good people out there. Sure, we might not have found one this time, but..."

"Tell me you're not trying to 'keep my spirits up' right now!" On-Ji hissed. "Come on! We're tied up, in a thunderstorm, by a pair of angry psychopathic waterbenders!"

"Huuni's a shaman, not a waterbender," Shoji corrected. Even though he couldn't see On-Ji because of the way he was tied, he could _feel_ that she was giving him a death glare.

"_That should do it, cousin,_" Hama said in her own language. "_I have nurtured the spark which lay within you. It is only a matter of time before it returns in full strength._"

Huuni's eyes shot open, and a gleeful grin spread across her face. "_Really? How soon?_"

Hama shook her head. "_I cannot say. I am a waterbender, not a shaman. I only know how to repair mortal injuries, not spiritual ones. But if Irukandji is wounded within you, as you claim, then he has the path to become strong again._"

"_That's spectacular news!_" Huuni was quite pleased, it sounded. She turned to the two Nationals. "_So what are we going to do with those two?_"

"_Throw them into the prison with the others,_" Hama said.

"Others?" Shoji asked, a sense of dread through him. "What do you mean, others? Why would you imprison..."

"Agni's blood, you're the monster in the woods, aren't you?" On-Ji blurted out, obviously connecting the dots a touch faster than he did. "Why didn't I see that? You're the one making all those people disappear, aren't you!"

"_I should have told you, the boy somehow knows our tongue_," Huuni said quickly. Hama shot her fellow Tribeswoman a look of disdain, then, before turning her icy glare back onto the two youths.

"You monsters took away forty years of my life, murdered without pity or compunction hundreds of my friends, and brothers, and sisters, and cousins. You deserve the same fate, and now that Huuni is going to aid me, the work can begin in earnest. Not just a culling of the fools on this island, but throughout this entire continent! They will all pay for what they've done to me!"

"I didn't do anything to you!" Shoji said, even as the woman lashed out with a backhand, which, despite the distance between them, still connected with a crack of ice-cold water. He shook the stars from his eyes, and at his back, On-Ji picked up where he'd been forced to leave off.

"But from the way you're treating us, maybe you deserve to be in prison!" she said. "You're attacking innocent people, people who didn't even know that your kind were imprisoned, and for what? What justice is there in hurting them? None! You're just a sick old woman who can't feel in control unless she's hurting someone! We're not the monsters, Hama; you are!"

"Monster?" Hama's voice held a cruel comedy in it. "I don't think you know the meaning of the word. Not after what you did to the Air Nomads, or my people, or the East. But if you want to see a monster, then I'll show you what your friend looks like after I pull the water out of him."

It started as a tingling in Shoji's skin, but an instant after that, it started to turn to burning, in his eyes and his mouth more than anywhere else, and only his desire not to die kept the scream of agony behind pursed lips, his eyes clamped shut.

"STOP IT YOU BITCH!" On-Ji shrieked. Then, she, unnoticed by either bender or victim, loosened the shoe on her foot, and kicked it very hard at the former, striking the old woman squarely in the face. That knocked her back a moment, and Shoji's agonized moaning died off, and the pain quieted. The cracked, burning sensation slowly pulsed away, as the water in his body slowly shifted back to where it belonged.

Hama was now the one who had to take a moment to blink away a stunning blow. "_This is tiresome. They are too much trouble to drag to the mountain._"

"_Well, what should we do?_" Huuni asked.

"_Just open them up and let them bleed onto the forest_," Hama directed. "_Make it look like a Komodo Rhino got 'em_."

She gave a smile at that, and accepted a long-bladed knife from the woman, and moved toward the pair who now shivered against all of fear, pain, and cold, as the rain pressed down. "You are a horrible human being!" On-Ji cried. But Huuni didn't understand her, and didn't answer.

"_Why, Huuni? I wanted to help you,_" Shoji said tearfully.

"_You did. Now, I will be whole again,_" she answered. And then, she rose her knife high.

Unseen, but certainly felt, there was a shift. It was tiny, just a small stream of electrons shifting from the brain to the skin. That tiny electrical charge was not much, a few volts of power, but it was a few volts with a very clear purpose. They moved up that slick, conductive knife, and then, stretched long, forming a perfect connection between the ground and relatively high, electrically conductive point. The hiss was almost inaudible – it was the sound of lightning's contemptuous laughter. Then, a flash, as the ionized particles in the air took the invitation to ignore the trees, the clouds, and even the void of space above, and focused on the easiest path to grounding. Through a knife, and straight through a vain, hypocritical narcissist's body.

The flash caused both youths to glance away, which also meant that the deafening bang of a lightning bolt landing five feet away from them slammed into one of their ears utterly unprotected. The pulse of lightning caused their legs and backs to cramp and contract, but the effect on its direct target was far worse. The knife was instantly melted out of shape, but the woman was thrown into a tree as her entire body locked solid. Her eyes bugged, staring at nothing, for a long moment before her entire form became loose as a puddle. Hama blinked away that same flash-blindness, then gave a grunt of alarm, seeing Huuni lightning struck.

"Very well," the old woman said fatalistically. "If you need something done, you have to do it yourself."

She picked up that bent, warped blade and stomped it against a stone, to get a straight edge to it again. "Don't do it!" On-Ji said.

"You are in no position to stop me," Hama said in gloating tone.

It didn't help that they were still ringing of ear from the first thunderstrike, when a second slammed horizontally through the air and smashed the old woman aside. This one quickly drew Shoji's eyes to its source. Huuni was standing up again, rubbing her head with one hand, and the other had one finger pointed at the waterbender.

"Yeah, well I am," Huuni said, but at the same time, it didn't sound like her. The voice was the same, but the way she talked was so completely different that it was startling. She stretched, and the chorus of joints popping was somewhat unsettling. "Oooooh... Yeah, that was eight kinds of suck in a five suck bag."

"She... can talk!" On-Ji said. Then she started struggling at Shoji's back. "Leave us alone!"

"Oh, calm down, kiddo," Huuni said. She took a moment to clear her throat, stretch once more, and then looked down at herself. "Hey, new digs! At least that brain-dead bint has some good taste."

"What's going on, Huuni?"

"Oh, Huuni ain't here anymore," the Tribeswoman replied, still in perfect and unaccented Huojian. Shoji leaned back. "Oh, don't be like that. I just sent her into the corner for being a bitch. And _what_ a bitch! I swear, she ain't getting out again until this whole 'end of the world' thing is sorted completely. Huuni's stupidity is a bigger gun to our heads than the whole Sozin's Comet thing."

"Sozin's what?" On-Ji asked.

"I don't understand, Huuni," Hama said unsteadily as she got to her feet.

"And who are... Ooooooh," Huuni said. "Well, this is a problem."

"Why did you attack me?" Hama demanded.

"You were being evil. Contrary to popular belief, I dislike evil," she answered. "And my name is Irukandji. Get it right; the stress is on the 'Ih' and the 'Kand'."

"Irukandji?" Shoji asked.

"See, kid gets it," Irukandji said with a grin.

"You're the spirit who was inside her!" he said.

"Yeah, and she's been a naughty, naughty girl," Irukandji said. "I'd spank 'er if I didn't suspect she'd like it."

"She made a covenant with me," Hama said, pointing one arthritic finger at her. "You must honor her deals!"

"What do you take me for, some low-rent weather spirit?" Irukandji mocked. She lashed out again, and the sliver of lightning threw Hama to the saturated sod. "Weak spirits honor deals because they want to be protected from bigger, hungrier spirits. I'm about as big as a spirit can get. And so you know, your fumbling was about as useful as an Earthbender on the Ocean."

"I don't understand."

"You, on the other hand," she said, walking over to the two youths, "did help. Huuni's about as dumb as they come, and you kept her from getting killed. If she died while I was still incubating inside her brainpan, well, that'd be pretty inconvenient. Maybe even lethal. Can't be sure," she then reached out and tore the binds off with her bare hands. She then turned to Hama. "You, on the first hand, are a dangerous sociopath. Ordinarily, I'd leave it to Katara and the Avatar to sort you out, but since I can't honestly say if they're going to even show up this time, I guess this trash has to get thrown out right now."

"What are you ta–"

Irukandji silenced her with a third, and by far loudest lightning bolt, which struck the old woman square in the heart and drove her into the darkness. Irukandji just shook her head, and turned back to the two youths. "Well, don't have a heart attack thanking me," she said sarcastically.

"I don't understand what just happened," On-Ji said.

"I'm made of lightning. I needed something to munch on to get my strength back. Human synapses is like a raw-bones diet for me. Sure, I can survive, but I can't bulk up on rice and soybeans, if you catch my meaning."

"Oh...kay..." On-Ji said.

"Is she...?"

"Dead? As a doornail," Irukandji said, striding over to her, even as Shoji started to limp toward her. "Oh, wait, she's not dead..." Irukandji thrust down a hand once more, and a fourth lightning bolt slammed the old woman down once more. "...yeah, she's dead now. Don't feel bad, though. She's pretty much a monster in any reality. I've only seen her... three times, I think, where she wasn't. And that one was a far cry from what's going on here."

"You don't make a lot of sense. Are you insane or something?" On-Ji asked.

"Oh, the people who've asked me that," Irukandji said with a chuckle. She drew herself up, and looked at them with a level of honest appreciation which Huuni never had. "Let's level with ya; you two did me a solid. So I'm going to give you a little bit of advice. You ever get your hands on any kind of money, invest in copper."

"Copper?" Shoji asked.

"Yup. Copper."

"Copper's worthless," On-Ji stated.

"I have a feeling that it's going to experience a monumental increase in value in the next twenty to thirty years," she said with a smirk. She pointed toward where the mountain stood, obscured by the trees. "You might want to take her key and unlock the poor bastards she keeps chained up in the hills. They've had enough shit for one war."

"W...thank you?" On-Ji said carefully.

"Yeah. And don't feel bad about looting the old hag's house. She stole most of that money from her victims," she said. "Ta!"

"Ta?" Shoji asked.

Irukandji grinned wide, showing many teeth, and then with an electric 'zorp', she was gone. Shoji turned to On-Ji. "...what just happened?" he asked.

"I'm not sure..." On-Ji said.

There was a second 'zorp', and Irukandji was standing between the two youths, one arm looped around each's shoulder. "Oh, and one more thing. Piece of free advice if you will; Don't go anywhere east of Ember Island on the first day of autumn. Wouldn't want you two getting dead after all this trouble you put into... you know... not dying."

"Okay..." Shoji said.

"Right. Now, I've got to make sure the pots I left on the fire didn't boil over. Have fun, kids."

A last 'zorp', and the two youths were left alone in the rain-pounded clearing outside the inn, with a cooling, dead old woman, and a lot more questions than answers. Shoji turned to his friend. "Look, we can try to figure this all out later. Right now, there's people who need our help!"

He was off running again in a heartbeat. Behind him, On-Ji let out a world-weary sigh, and shook her head. "Agni help us if there's more like you out there," she muttered, but not harshly. And then, she was following him up into the mountains, to liberate the unjustly taken.

* * *

><p>It was the grunting which dragged Malu out of her starvation-induced delirium. It wasn't that she felt lethargic for the hunger; it actually drove her wild with energy, but ground like teeth. She shook her head, trying to convince herself that the grunting was in fact a real thing. But a second bellow, low and loud and bass sounded through the rock-walls of the Divide, and a smile, so long bereft of her face that it actually stung a little to do so, spread across her visage. She knew that sound. She hadn't heard it in a long time, but she knew it.<p>

She started to move more quickly, throwing aside the fist-full of worms she'd almost subconsciously eaten, and moved toward that sound. And then, she heard another sound. They were very much like that first rumbling bellow, but much higher in pitch, much shorter in duration. And when she finally shot around a bend in the river and by extension the rocks, she could see exactly what she'd expected. Huge and white and fuzzy stood the bison, the markings running dark brown and ragged down its back. And there were four other bison with her, each of them about the size of a large sofa, but dwarfed completely by her massive weight and dimensions. A cow bison, and her four calves, all of them munching contentedly at the harsh grasses which managed to eke a living in the Divide. Malu's hands flew to her mouth, and the grin threatened to topple her head right off.

"Oh... it's so beautiful," she said. "Hey there, _jangali baila_... What're you doing in a place like this?"

The bison turned toward her, its one great grey eye lazy. The calves were much more skittish, though, and with a series of bleats, they all took to the air, hovering above their mother, their relatively little tails paddling fiercely to keep aloft. "Oh, it's alright. I'm an airbender like you," Malu said, extending a hand toward the great beast. "See? We're alike. You like me, don't you?"

The snort should have been her first clue that it didn't. But then again, Malu had learned so thoroughly and so repeatedly of the inextricable bond which would form between a bison and an airbender that she rather expected it to arise of its own volition. The great beast balked back a step, but Malu was, at the moment, in absolute optimism mode. It was the first time she'd been within touching distance of the wondrous airbenders of the animal kingdom since her own companion was struck down out of the sky. "See? It's alright. I just want to..."

The bison let out a low, rattling bellow, this one obvious warning. It oriented itself toward Malu, who turned, expecting that something was standing behind her. She knew the Divide was crawling with canyon crawlers; she heard them every day, and their drone every night. But every time she thought she was coming close to them, the sounds they made fell silent; despite their fearsome and dangerous reputation – which was much more than rumor, based on her last misadventure in the Divide, which was however a century ago – she hadn't seen a single of the arthropodal monsters. As before, there was nothing behind her.

"What?" Malu asked, as the bison standing behind her let out another angry bellow. "What's out there? What's wrong?"

Malu heard a thumping behind her, and even though her brain told her it couldn't be what her instincts thought it was, she was already starting to move by the time the bison reached her. But as much as she was an airbender, so was it. And you wouldn't know it to see them, but bison could be quite capable of agility in both defense, or as was relevant at the moment, attack. Which was why, with a horrible tearing of agony through her body, Malu found herself hoist up on from the ground, by the tip of that enraged bison's horn. Malu reached down, feeling that foreign body which should not have logically passed through hers, and had just enough time to mutter "...but..."

Then, a twist of the great beast's head, and Malu was flung from the horn which had penetrated her, dashed against the rocks on the far side of the stream. Malu couldn't feel her legs. She could only stare back, over the water, at the bison who stomped its legs two by two, a signal that bison used against their predators as a warning that they could and would fight. Why would it use that against her? Why would it attack its fellow airbender? Bison didn't do that! "...why?" she asked, but the bison let out one more bellow, and then with a slap of its tail, took to the air with its young, all of them fleeing north as fast as the calves' airbending would take them. "I...I... don't understand..." she whispered. Why?

The answer to that question didn't appear. But more questions did. Such as how feeling was returning to her legs. Malu reached down, and pulled up the kavi to where the horn had lanced her. The skin there was... being pulled back into place. It was like some sort of dark threads were tearing her skin, pulling it like uncaring sutures until the wound was closed. As soon as her feet would allow, she rose upon them, pulling her kavi up higher and groping at her back. There was a scar, there, something of hot, fervent flesh and untidy healing. And the hunger was greater than ever. It gnawed at her, sending needles of white-hot pain through her eyeballs. She staggered forward, first past the scree, then into the pebbles and gravel, until she finally dropped to her hands and knees in the water. She sweated terribly. She hungered terribly.

And her fist was closed on something. Malu threw herself back, out of the water, that hand still closed. She landed on her backside, but trapped in an iron-like grip was a sizable fish, caught with her bare hand. "Oh... I should... let you go back into the..." she said, staring at the fish in her hand, and the hunger began to ramp until she was blinded by it. Nothing existed but that fish, and her hunger. "...water..."

Her breathing quickened, and she begged herself to stop. Bugs didn't count, but fish did! They were animals! She was a vegetarian! She didn't eat meat! It was wrong!

And not one of those things stopped her from launching into biting hard into the living fish, eating it raw and ruthless. The meat, as it passed into her stomach, brought the slightest, ever so incremental satiation of her hunger. It was like the difference between being stabbed with ten thousand needles before, and nine thousand nine hundred and eighty afterwords. And with that, a sob caught in her throat, even as she launched into another savage bite and swallow, not even bothering to chew.

"Why am I doing this!" She wept openly as she ate that fish. "What am I?"

And she was still hungry.

* * *

><p>He stood above the rubble, great pillars of stone come tumbling down to the ground despite that troublesome boy's best attempts at interference. Above him, the sky was painted an orange hue, lit by the passage of Sozin's Comet, his grandfather's legacy, the sword he would use to conquer the world. The only one in the whole wide world who could stop him, who would try to stop him, now lay in the scree and rubble at his feet.<p>

Ozai reached down, and plucked the boy up. He seemed so small, so fragile. Fitting. He had been a coward and fled from their first encounter. Their second had been much more in the Fire Lord's favor. With the power of Sozin's Comet searing through him, he had all of the power in the world. He clamped his other fist around the boy's throat, and began to squeeze, grinning as the Avatar's paltry resistance began to flag, to fail, his eyes roll up.

"It was always coming to this," Ozai said. "You were a fool to oppose me."

But even as the Avatar moved into death, a smile came to his young face. That caused Ozai to retract his grip slightly, mostly from the shock of it. As the boy dropped from his grip, he dissolved right away, vanishing into the air.

"Not a fool," another voice came through the stones. "Some people need to be opposed."

"Who is that? Show yourself! I will kill anybody who stands against me! No man can defeat me with Sozin's Comet running through my veins!" Ozai roared.

The harsh, electric zap of lightning was Ozai's only indication that he had to bound out of the way, because an instant later, the tumbledown of scree was blasted by a bolt from the blue, sending even more of the stones raining down and pelting him. Ozai turned, and saw a girl standing there, eyes golden and locked on his own, her face as focused and brutal as any he'd had himself. It was his daughter. "Fortunate that I am no man, then," Azula's mocking voice came.

"Impossible! You cannot know the cold-blooded fire!" Ozai screamed, snapping his arms through an arc, and following his own words with some lightning of his own. With a twisting motion, with _his brother's_ motion, she smashed that lightning bolt aside, deflecting it into one of the many stone pillars which made up this increasingly indistinct landscape.

"You don't know anything about me," she said. "All you do is destroy. You destroyed your brother. You destroyed his son. You destroyed your wife. And now, you're destroying me."

"I did what I had to do! You were not fit to rule!" Ozai shouted at her, his fists raising before him. "You cannot match me. I have Sozin's Comet on my side!"

"Have you forgotten, _Father_?" Azula said, that last word so dripping with condescension, "Sozin's Comet does not discriminate."

She lashed forward with a wash of golden flames so monumental that it seemed to erase the world. All Ozai could do was punch through, to twist the fire to his will, to project it forward.

Against his firstborn daughter.

Ozai's eyes snapped open as he released a clipped yell, and a flash of flame lashed above him at the canopy of his bed. Fortunately, it didn't reach high enough to set the whole bed alight. Still, the Fire Lord felt his heart pounding, his mind twisted into a knot, sweat pounding out of every pore. He sat still for a long moment, trying to regain a breath he didn't know he'd lost. He heard a shifting in the bed, and turned his eyes to the other who shared the mattress.

"Is something wrong, Fire Lord?" the woman asked, well acted concern in her voice. Akemi Fujitsuna was a talented mistress, one he had acquired even while still wed to his wife, although then, she'd had a different purpose; managing his affairs rather than sharing his bed. Ozai let his gaze fall upon her for a long moment.

"...no," Ozai said. "Nothing is wrong. Leave me. I wish to rest undisturbed."

Akemi's features flashed through suspicion, if so quickly that only somebody pointedly watching for it as Ozai had would spot it, before she gave a nod. "As the Fire Lord wishes."

She slipped away into the darkness to regain her effects and leave him in peace. Maybe it would work. Maybe a little bit of solitude would give his weary, overtaxed mind a chance to renew itself.

Maybe the nightmares about his daughter would end.

* * *

><p><strong>Slightly shorter, yeah, but there were a few plotlines which needed neatly tying up. You'll get more Avatar-related hijinks next chapter.<strong>

**To forestall a few questions; no, Malu's part in this story isn't ended. Just taken a turn for the antagonistic. Yes, I realize that Team Nila hasn't had much Avatar interaction yet. That changes once people start landing in Ba Sing Se. The loving-uncle-angry-nephew dynamic of Iroh and Zuko is replaced by the wary-uncle-obsessed-niece of Iroh and Azula.**

**And regarding Azula. She's only got three souls inside her... at the moment. One of them is in charge. One of them is sidelined and only free to snark and complain, and the last is less a force of personality, and more a metaphysical tire-patch, who's been leaking into Azula's brain from below. None of Azula, not Old'Zula nor Young'Zula nor Crazy'Zula, none of them has a full picture. Old'Zula's blinded by hatred and obsession. Young'Zula only has some of the memories of the last few years, and thus, lacks context. Crazy'Zula... you can guess why she's not helping things.**

**And for the record; I'm still considering whether I should reveal what Nila's name actually is.**


	27. The Ruin

**I had a lot of fun writing this one. Time will tell if others do, though.**

* * *

><p>He was atop Appa's howdah, the two of them cutting through the air as so many ships did in the sea below. Hundreds of them. Every single one of them was bright and shining silver, their hulls burning against the darkness ahead of them, and the black, volcanic shores beyond them. The day had come. Invading the Fire Nation. Ending the war.<p>

"Why doesn't this feel right?" Aang asked, as he looked down at the fleets which he was arrayed with and against. The whole thing just seemed... off kilter. For one thing, the ships ahead of him were not belching smoke, but those behind him were bellowing white steam. Silver ships, belching steam and smoke. Black hulls, with red sails. And there was somebody else guiding the bison.

No, not silver ships. He shook his head, and looked down again, those ships weren't silver; they were off-white. He shook his head, trying to understand what he was seeing, the ships of white against the ships of black, and a storm blowing in from the east. "What is going on?" he asked.

"You're awake, thank Agni," a man's voice said from before Aang, holding the reins of the air bison and directing it toward the black ships. He glanced back, and there was indeed another upon the beast's back. But it was no man that he'd ever seen before. He was ropy of build, gaunt of face. His golden eyes were sunken, rimmed by dark circles as though from constant exhaustion. His hair was pulled into a phoenix tail, set by a five-point flame. Aang had seen that flame before... but where? "I worried that they'd finally managed to kill you. Who'd have thought the Avatar so hard to kill, eh?"

"S...who are you?" Aang asked, as he felt a prickly pain in his head.

"That knock was pretty brutal. Just calm down," he said back over his shoulder. "I've got enough trouble trying to get this thing to listen to me," he let out a laugh. "I guess you were right about the bison, eh? Not the easiest beasties to train."

Aang rubbed a hand over his face, but when he did, it didn't feel right. Like his face... wasn't his face. "Where am I?"

"You are safe, Pata. Bhanvara was not willing to let you go so easily, were you Bhan?"

Appa let out a bellow at that. That flame. Where had he seen it before? But before he could get an answer out of his own muddled mind, the red-robed man began to bring the beast into a dive, slashing down through the clouds and toward the flotilla of boats which sailed daringly toward the invading force. "Are you nuts!" Aang asked.

"Pata, you've gotta calm down," the man said, before wheeling Appa to a slow, dropping the beast on the deck of the largest ship of that fleet. Aang's eyes widened with fear as he beheld the standard which fluttered blatant in the winds. A black flame, against a red field. "I told you they wouldn't listen to reason, but you just had to have your way. It's a miracle you got out in one piece."

"This is a Fire Nation ship!" Aang shouted. The driver of the bison nodded, as though that were the most obvious thing on this planet.

"Of course it is. Easterners can't float worth shit, the Whalesh are too busy killing each other, and the Water Tribes are too far away. We hold them here, or the Fire Nations fall," he said. Aang looked around, and saw that other ships had other standards. A five pointed golden flame against purple. A red dragon against black. A blue dragon against black. Even a tree, depicted with its leaves ablaze, all different standards, fluttering both on a line under the largest and clearest, and fluttering alone on different ships throughout the flotilla. A soldier in black and red leather armor ran to the man, bowing deep, his fist to his heart. "Report!"

"This force is almost the whole of the Storm Kings' naval assets. They outnumber us three to one. What are my orders, Fire Lord?" he asked quickly. And right then, as Aang slipped down the beast's back, he knew that flame. That headpiece, propped up in his phoenix tail was the signet of rulership over the Fire Nation.

"Only three to one, eh?" He asked. He scratched at his chin. "What do you think of our chances, Pata?"

"Storm Kings?" Aang asked. He finally looked down at his hands, and his eyes widened, when he beheld that they were both far darker than his own, and that they bore not the blue arrow of an Air Nomad, but the scarlet points of the Storm King. Even as he did, a part of him drifted out, and he was both being and seeing the scene at the same time. Vajrapata shook her head, taking a deep breath. "They have not sat on their laurels since I destroyed their capacity to fly. They have... strange airships. I do not control the sky. This will not be a level fight."

"Then we'll cheat," the Fire Lord said simply. He offered her a hand, which she eagerly took. "You know the Virtues of Flame almost as well as I do. In the end, Valor. Send them to their Hell so buried under the bodies of our dead that they shall never move again!"

"Those are... were... my people," Vajrapata said quietly, and the Fire Lord paused.

"I know, Pata. But this is the only way it can go now. We're out of options," He looked across the gap, to the white steam-ships which powered toward them. "We fight or we die, slaves eternal to an airbender empire."

Vajrapata nodded, and sighed, and tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Aang finally felt himself pulled free of Vajrapata completely, and hovered, spectral and incredibly confused above the scene. Piece by piece, as he looked around, he started to understand. The Fire Nation ship was all blackened wood, its weapons primitive, its soldiers clearly desperate, but there was hope in their eyes. Whatever wrath had overtaken the Fire Nation, it would be a much later thing. Right now, these people were fighting for freedom from oppression.

He was looking at a past life. Vajrapata leaned in, and wept on the Fire Lord's shoulder, and he comforted her. Moving in from the fringes, a man bearing the golden circle of Ba Sing Se laid another, comforting hand on her shoulder, while to her other side came a woman. Her robes were scarlet, a hood over her head, but still showing the blue-painted face. She laid an also blue-stained hand on the Avatar's other shoulder. But Aang turned, and he could see a line growing in the sky, something which nobody else could. They all went about their tasks, preparing for the battle which was, in Aang's time, long decided and forgotten. The line was a straight, black wound in the heavens, which finally opened in a snap, and a rush of power, revealing red and virulent black, an eye the size of the sky.

**AVATAR**.

Aang felt himself being dragged away from the vessel, up toward that impossible thing which waited above him, immense, powerful, and unimaginable. It pulled him until the fleet below him was a dusting of black flakes and a dusting of white, like a Pai Sho board abandoned upon the ocean. Aang felt his spectral body confined, constrained. He looked up at that thing, staring into that scarlet abyss. And when he did, it stared back at him. There was a blink, slamming shut with power and immensity which beggared Aang's understanding. An ebon cord began to drift down from that being in the sky, and it reached to where Aang was floating. He pulled as much as he could away from it, but there was no purchase, and no give in its grip. When it touched him, he screamed.

**HUNGER**.

He was a leaf on the wind, in this thing's presence. It overwhelmed and swamped him, it beat him down and set his skin ablaze. But even as it did, Aang _knew_ it. It wasn't just a spirit, angry or not. It was something much more than that.

This was Imbalance itself, given thought and action. The void caused by a century of his absence... but it was more than that. It was growing bigger by the day. All things in balance could last forever, in one form or another, but this thing had no balance. It could either grow or die, and it grew. It would grow until it was all that was. Until there was nowhere left to grow.

Then, the agony in Aang's soul ended, as he felt a powerful hand close on his upper arm, and his body was torn from the ebon grasp of Imbalance, and cast down toward the world, which had vanished into grey murk. Aang opened his eyes, and he beheld Korra, eyes glowing white with the Avatar's Bequest, staring after him, her gaze cast over her shoulder, as her arms began to spin through a mudra, lightning crackling around her fingers.

"**THE DESERT!**" the roar of a thousand voices came from her throat. One of those voices Aang himself. She launched forward, and with a crack of lightning, the might of Imbalance faltered, just a little. Just enough.

…

Aang's scream upon awakening tore through the camp, the colors to his eyes wholly too vibrant. He bounded out of his sleeping bag and kicked the boulder which Toph had slid into place to keep their sleeping place covert. Much to his surprise the stone didn't just roll away, empowered by airbending that he half expected, but exploded into grit and dust, which the winds instantly pulled away. "**Wake up!**" he shouted, his heart hammering in his chest, his voice echoing the legion.

"What happened? Did we get captured again?" Sokka's extremely drowsy voice came from the cave.

"Oh my gods, Aang!" Katara said.

"What? What's up with Twinkletoes?" Toph asked, being the only one already up completely.

"**We need to go to the desert!**" Aang, and hundreds of others said, and with a stomp of his foot, the earth catapulted the howdah from the ground to Appa's back, launched by a pillar of stone with the precision and skill which Aang himself utterly lacked.

"What's... Aang, why are you glowing?" Sokka then asked, emerging from the darkness. Aang looked down at himself, and started. His tattoos were glaring brighter than the morning sun, bathing the campsite with an otherworldly, evanescent light. Aang mastered his heart, the screaming in his head, the call to heedless haste. And when he did, the light dimmed, dimmer, gone.

"That was the Avatar State," Katara said, wiping the sleep from her eyes even as she got to her feet and moved to him. "What happened, Aang? What's this about a desert?" she asked. Aang looked to the northeast, past the Huang Zheng mountains, to where the Southern Earth Kingdoms gave way to the plains. "Aang, please, talk to us."

"We have go to now," Aang said urgently.

"Heh, sounds like somebody wants out of earthbending training," Toph said cockily.

The truth was, her earthbending lessons were about a tenth as unpleasant as Bumi's 'lessons' had been, but were still exhausting enough to have him drop like a sack at the end of every day he did them. And he still couldn't move a pebble, aggravatingly. But that was the least of his concerns. "The Avatars spoke to me," Aang said, patting the upset air bison which was understandably unhappy to have a howdah awaken it from its slumber. Appa calmed and quieted slightly at that. "They couldn't talk long, but there's somewhere I need to go. A desert."

"Si Wong," Toph said. "Why go to Si Wong? All they've got is perfume and misogyny."

"I don't know, but I'm convinced that I'll know what I'm looking for when I find it," Aang said. "And you should stay here. In case this is too–"

"Not a chance," Toph said, arms crossed before her.

"Nope, if you're going somewhere, we're going with you," Sokka said.

"Aang, you have to know, no matter what, you are not alone in this. You're stronger with us than without us," Katara said.

Aang looked at them, and hung his head. "Thanks, guys," he said. "Now we have to hurry. They don't contact me like that unless it's really important and..."

"We get it," Sokka said, dressing swiftly. "I guess we'd better get used to sand and heat. Sounds like a vacation, am I right, sis?"

"Oh... shut up," she said at a mutter, arms crossed before her.

* * *

><p>It was good to be king.<p>

While Zhao wasn't going to openly advertise his position as King of the North, he certainly had all of the perks which came with it. The blasted ice was all washed away, replaced by insulated metal, and his throne was no longer a dais of blue stone, but a proper, scarlet pedestal and baldachin, capped with the black, tripoint flame. With the elimination of ice from places of structural significance, he was able to pipe the heat left over from foundaries, which he assembled right beside the palace, into the palace proper, making the place as warm and toasty as any villa in the Fire Nation, if a great deal drier.

"No incidents of rebellion today, either, Lord Zhao," Kwon said with his usual, bored tone.

"Either the fight has finally gone out of them completely, or they're all frozen to death in the glaciers," Zhao said with a dismissive gesture. It had been a week since their last attempt, and that attempt had been bloody, but ended with every actor on the other side a burnt-up husk. "What about the miners?"

"They report an outstanding wealth of alumin and adamant, enough to build an entire ship out of Tribal Steel if we wanted to," Kwon said without eagerness. "They report 'it's like the Tribesmen don't even know how to mine'."

"Likely, they didn't," Zhao said. He flicked the page forward, noting the translations which were in place. He'd cracked her cypher months ago. Now it was just a matter of applying that translation throughout everything his oracle had written down. He gave an exhale of annoyance, that he was cut off from any writings she was producing now, any art which glimpsed the days yet to be, but he would make due with what he had.

He reached aside, and picked up his master copy, and when he did, he spotted something on its back cover. He lifted the book closer, in the blazing light from the lamps which surrounded his dais. There was a smudge on the back of the book he didn't remember before. A fingernail peeled it up, and it smelled of dried blood. He gave a glance around the room, but reminded himself that anybody who was going to copy his books would not be present now. And for all he knew, that smudge had been there for quite a while. It'd been weeks since he needed to go back to his baseline. He shook his head, and ran his finger through the pages, until he found the one he wanted.

"Ah, there we go," Zhao said. "The Great Divide, in so many words."

"Lord Zhao?" Kwon asked.

"Bring in the archers," Zhao ordered. Kwon nodded, and then made his way out of the room. A few moments later, a cadre of the red-masked archers, famous from ancient times and yore, moved swiftly to the base of his throne. As one, they bowed to him, an arrow head pointing toward him, his weapon to deploy as he saw fit.

"You called the Yu Yan?" the leader asked.

"Yes," Zhao said. "You will make all haste to the Great Divide, directly north of the dead city of Si Cheng. The Avatar will be passing through that area soon enough. Make sure he does not reach where he's going."

"As you command, my Lord," the Yu Yan archer said with proper respect and expedience. With a clap of his fist to his heart, he turned on his heel, and peeling back behind him, that arrow inverted itself, flying away from its master, into the heart of the Avatar. Zhao settled back into his throne, resting his chin upon his fist, and rereading what the Princess had given him. As he did, the fires flickered, casting a shadow across the burn on his face, and the cruel smile on his lips.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**The Ruin**

* * *

><p><em>The crashing of the sea against the hull was terrible, but it often was these days. Not like when Iroh was young; of all those in his immediate family, only he still remembered what the Fire Nation was like before the rains came, and stayed, and even then, it was a thing of a few years. The seas had indeed become almost untameably wild in the years since, and having a ship of this size upon it in those hellish storms was asking for trouble.<em>

_ "We should have stayed in port," Qiao muttered from where she sat on the edge of the bed, her arms pulled close around her ribs. It was not the first storm the two of them had weathered, and likely would not be the last one. At least she didn't look so positively green as she used to. Her sea legs were a long time in coming, his poor departed wife._

_ "It will be alright," he said comfortingly, riding the heaving of the decks with aplomb. He rubbed her back where she sat, and she made that lovely little moan she did when he reached a worrisome spot, and leaned back into him. "We have suffered worse."_

_ "Was the weather this bad the first time we came back to the East?" she asked._

_ "No, it was worse," Iroh confirmed. And doubly worse, because the first time she returned to her home continent, it was as part of a vanguard which was arrayed against Ba Sing Se. That had not been a good 'trip'. Not by any imagining. "You should lay down. You need your strength."_

_ "Please, I've been sicker than this a dozen times," Qiao dismissed, waving the notion aside. "But you've got something else on your mind, don't you?"_

_ "This is about you, my wife," Iroh began, but she cast a glance over her shoulder at him, and he fell silent. "Very well. What is your question?"_

_ "Don't start with that," Qiao said. "If you answered every question I had, you'd still tell me less than a tenth of what I deserve to know. So you're going to tell me what's weighing so heavy on your mind."_

_ Iroh had to nod at that. She was right. He was too private by a half, with everybody. "It is about Prince Zuko," he said. Qiao sighed. "What is it?"_

_ "You spend a lot of time on the boy. Are you trying to replace Lu Ten with him?" she asked._

_ "Are you trying to replace him with Azula?" Iroh snapped, before wincing. Qiao turned, gaping at him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said..."_

_ "No. I'm surprised you actually said it, but I can't blame you for it," she said. She stood, and started pacing slowly, and unsteadily as her path was coopted from time to time by the ship's movement. "I worry about Azula. She's talking again, and that's excellent, but it seems like she's missed so much. I mean... she was already pulled out of her classes for three years before your brother exiled her. And she seems so... angry, so irritable and tense. It's almost like she knows what she's supposed to be, and hates herself for not being it."_

_ "I had certain expectations of Azula. They've been utterly debunked," Iroh admitted. He gave a bitter laugh. "So much that I had expected has not come to pass."_

_ "I know," Qiao said. She sighed, and then nodded toward him. "So what has your mind in a tizzy about Zuko?"_

_ "It's not a 'tizzy'," Iroh said. "I'm just... surprised at him. He is growing up too fast. He is becoming too... adult."_

_ "He was a teenager when his father cast him out," Qiao said. "I wasn't much older when you met me."_

_ "Yes, but it's almost like he's fixated on his sister. I don't know what to do about that," he said._

_ "Nothing," Qiao said. Iroh looked to her. "You will do nothing. For the first time in their lives, they are brother and sister in more than just blood, and that has you afraid? I'd ask what was wrong with your family, if I didn't already know; the fact is, this is the way families are supposed to be. Brothers are supposed to want to protect sisters. That's the order of things."_

_ Iroh nodded slowly at that. "Perhaps... but I worry that it might be deeper than that," Iroh said simply. "That there might be something driving him beyond filial love."_

_ "Why?"_

_ "It is hard to explain," he said. "I just believe he's putting too much emphasis on her, he is unbalancing his life."_

_ She rolled her eyes at that. "Oh, you and your balance. If everything was balanced, when would anything interesting happen?"_

_ Iroh was about to make another point when there was a tapping at the door to their room, which caused husband and wife to share a confused glance. Doubly so when it wasn't followed by a voice. Qiao, already standing, took the door and opened it a crack. Iroh could see her eyes widen at what she beheld. "Is something wrong? Oh, you look ghastly..."_

_ "What is..." Iroh began, but Qiao opened the door further and showed Azula, her eyes puffy and red, as though from long and helpless weeping, and she clutched something to her chest. She stepped into the room, and looked up to her._

_ "I... I need..." she said stutteringly, before Qiao tutted and pulled the girl into an embrace, which the girl looked entirely too in-need of. Iroh just stared at the spectacle with the sort of baffled interest of watching a whole school of trouts climbing up a tree. Azula distressed was common enough. Azula openly weeping was a whole other beast._

_ "It's alright, Azula. What's wrong? Did you have another bad dream?" the older woman asked soothingly. After a moment of deep, harsh breaths obviously intended to keep sobs at bay, Azula pulled back, and turned that piece away from her chest, showing it to her aunt. "Oh... Oh, I see."_

_ "May I?" Iroh asked, moving to them. Azula's eye twitched at his voice, and the glance she shot him was in its first instant utterly venomous, before dulling to it's usual dislike and distance. Qiao cooed at her, and she finally turned the picture toward her uncle, and Iroh was taken aback by its subject matter. The portrait was a masterpiece, a thing of hours and hours of work, but it portrayed Azula herself, chained, battered, and destitute. Alone in the blackness, with only the heavy chains which constrained her to keep her company._

_ "Is this why you missed dinner, and breakfast?" Iroh asked idly reaching toward that portrait. The agony, the pain, the despair of that work was so clear it was palpable, almost like a scent which filled the air. Qiao shot him a look at that._

_ "I couldn't st-stop until it was finished," Azula said, that odd accent which had infected her regained use of the Huojian language quite thick today. "I can't look at it. I don't want this..."_

_ "Oh, you poor thing," Qiao said, pulling Azula back in for a second embrace. She pulled the painting from between them, and handed it to Iroh. "Azula, we're going to put this over here, in this drawer. Is that alright?"_

_ Azula nodded mutely, against Qiao's chest. It was a strange thing that she actively rebelled against any of her works being destroyed, even though so many of them were discomforting or actively painful for her to be near. And he didn't understand it then._

But he did now.

Iroh rubbed the shiny, ivory button between his finger and thumb, as he looked off into the distance, and back in time, drawing up memories from so long ago. He hadn't known then, but every single picture she'd made, in the course of her entire youth, was an attempt to purge her mind of memories which didn't belong there. The more that Iroh pondered on it, the more he was convinced that the Azula who now strode a few paces behind him, her eyes burning a metaphorical hole through the back of his skull, was wholly the invader of his niece, where the girl who had done so much painting and poetry was the girl he had known from her infancy, but under a hellish burden of... well...

"Don't think I'm going to give you an inch of leeway, traitor," Azula said behind him.

"One cannot be a traitor for something he has never believed in," Iroh said over his shoulder easily, as the two of them walked north, through the insistent but acceptable wind. The older Azula, that was the infection which needed to be purged, so that the true Azula, the proper Azula, could return. But, Iroh considered, that the Azula which returned to them might not be the same one which they had come to know over the years. That was why Iroh was so pensive, so cautious. He was hesitant to harm his niece, because failing anything else, he wanted to do proud the last wishes of his wife. But if things came down to Azula or the world, the girl would not worry the scales long. It was less a matter of could he kill the girl, if the need arose; it was purely a matter of 'would the need arise'?

Because it would murder his nephew as surely as her.

"You're not being awfully talkative today," Azula noted.

"I thought you preferred me to walk in silence?" Iroh asked with a smirk cast back at the girl.

"I would prefer you to walk in a different direction," Azula muttered.

"Then stop following me," Iroh offered. He could feel her glaring at him. Then, with a few strides, she overtook him and started walking at the fore, leaving him behind, even as she quietly muttered to herself under her breath, glaring down at something which to Iroh's eyes, was not there. "Does that suit you better?"

"No, because now _you're_ following _me_!" Azula snapped.

"What do you believe will happen when you have your revenge?" Iroh asked.

"It will be over."

"That was not an answer," Iroh stated. "When you find the Avatar, what will you do?"

"Oh, I'll think of something," she said, sweeping a hand down and up, until electricity crackled along her fingertips.

"That is not a plan," Iroh said. "What happened when you tried to take the Avatar with the help of your brother and I at Summavut? He escaped. What happened when you tried to murder the earthbender girl on your own? You nearly burned to death! You never think things through anymore. It is disgraceful."

She turned to face her uncle, a snort of blue flames emitting from her nostrils as she glared at him with eyes burning almost as hot. "You know nothing of disgrace, you fat, stupid old man," she said harshly. "You haven't earned the right to use that word."

"Then educate me. What will you do when you face the Avatar again?" he asked. "How will you surmount the layers of defense he gathers? How will you place yourself in a killing position? How will you fulfill your deed? How will you escape the scene of the crime once you have finished?"

"I..." she shook her head. "I'll think of it when it matters."

"The Azula I knew had a plan for everything," Iroh said.

"Then maybe you should ask the worthless eight-year-old you so value, then! Maybe she can sit and look pretty and be quiet, because that's what everybody wanted out of her. A doll, to be seen and then put away when important things happened," Azula snapped, which caused Iroh a moment's pause, especially considering she wasn't exactly wrong. Azula shook her head with annoyance. "You never understood me, Uncle, not now nor then. I will succeed where the girl failed."

"The girl didn't fail," Iroh pointed out. "She never had a chance to."

"And she never will," Azula said, but her tone wasn't quite as brutal as Iroh expected, and feared; it was not the tone which would have seen the old man pull lightning of his own. It was dark, grim, but it was hope.

Iroh fell back into silence, and the two unwilling companions continued to walk, north and through the mountains.

* * *

><p>"Have you seen it yet?" Sokka asked from the back of the bison, as he tied the light shirt from under his vest 'round his head, if only to keep the sun from baking it to a prune. Even as it inched toward the horizon, it was still oppressively hot.<p>

"I'm still looking, Sokka," Aang said from his place upon Appa's brow. "The desert's a bit bigger than I remember it being."

"Not surprising," Toph muttered from where she sat, knees tucked to her chest, in the back of the howdah. "The land 'round here hasn't gotten much annual rainfall at the best of times, and ever since the Great Drought began, the grasses have died off and the soil gives way to sand. And so, a desert gets bigger."

"Is it just me, or do things just seem to keep getting worse?" Katara asked, sweating herself into a puddle near the front of the saddle.

"Positive reinforcement," Sokka said with a shrug. "Any system which doesn't get reined in, just keeps going faster and faster."

"That's not what positive reinforcement is," Katara said.

"Well, it's one definition," Sokka answered her, somewhat testily. He then turned back to Toph, who at least wasn't going to treat him like an idiot. "Alright, where were we?"

"The prayer for the dead, I think," Toph answered. Sokka looked over the rubbings he'd made in Oma's Tomb, and spotted the point she was talking about. Slowly but surely, she was teaching him how to read a language thought three thousand years dead.

"_By our ancestors who broke their shields against the white-haired menace from the north, they have settled into the soil, and their strength now reaches up into our feet. In our struggles, they give us __strength. Their bodies, their souls from below, they bid up the grains and the rices, and they ask us __endure beyond what they could, to bring honor and pride to those who yet remain..._" Sokka went on in the dead language.

"Yeah, that's a lot like what we use now, if a bit more... grim," she said. Toph perked her head up after a moment of pondering. "Wait a minute; white-haired menace from the north?"

"Uh-huh, that's what it says right here," Sokka said. Toph started grinning at that.

"Well. I guess the Wiqing weren't just a myth and fireside horror story after all. Does it say anything else about them in there?" Toph pressed.

Sokka looked over the thing, but shook his head. "Sorry, Toph. I think that's the only thing I've got on hand."

"Oh. Well," she sighed and turned. "Take a break, Brain. I've got some thinkin' to do."

Sokka shrugged, and slid the rubbings back into the protective case which Toph demanded he obtain to protect them. Much as he liked the notion of learning something – potentially something which hadn't been known for thousands of years – the process of running every bit of information past Toph, who had a spectacular education in history for her age, was exhausting. Doubly so since she demanded every moment she wasn't training with the Avatar, and she had a lot more stamina than the rest of the group put together. Sokka left his rapidly dehydrating sister and hopped the rail, landing beside the highly focused Avatar, as the bison below them skudded through the air swiftly but with ease. "So... are we there yet?" Sokka asked.

"I'm not even completely sure where 'there' is," Aang admitted uneasily, his grey eyes continuing to swing along the horizon, looking for anything which wasn't more damned sand! "I mean, she only had time to say one thing, about the desert. And the desert's... well, it's not small, now is it?"

"Long as we don't fly into the Rotting Expanse to the north, we'll be fine," Toph's voice came over the rail.

"Oh, I know all about that," Aang said. Then he paused. "Unless that's where I'm supposed to go."

"Wait, what's the Rotting Expanse?" Sokka asked.

"It's a place no airbender is to ever fly," Aang said. "It doesn't seem to affect the bison, but any man or woman who goes in there dies slowly and painfully not long after leaving. Brother Pathik once said that there was an evil air there, and I'm not going to doubt his expertise, since he's lived pretty near it for..." he trailed off. "But then again, by now, he's probably gone."

"Hey, don't get down," Sokka said. "Avatar Kyoshi lived to be two hundred and thirty. Bumi's still around! Who's to say that Pathik couldn't swing right past a century?"

Aang gave a chuckle, and a slight smile came to his face. "Yeah... maybe you're right."

"Of course I am," Sokka gave the airbender a hearty clap on the back which almost pitched the kid forward. Toph was right. He _was_ pretty spindly. "I'm guessing, then, that this thing we're looking for is a 'you'll know it when you see it' kind of deal?"

"I have to assume."

"GUYS! I SEE IT!" Toph shouted from the rail, pointing into the distance. Instantly, Sokka was back up onto the howdah, leaning forward to pick out what she'd spotted, but there was nothing over there but the endless scrolling of the sand seas. Sokka's sudden excitement dropped into annoyance, and he turned to Toph, who was now leaning back, with the most smug smile on her face. "That's what it'll sound like when _one_ of you finds it," she said, waving a hand before her useless eyes again to prove her point.

"Very funny, Toph," Katara groused, and slumped back into the spot she made a raisin of herself upon.

"You should drink something," Sokka said. "You'll get dehydrated at this rate."

"I drink constantly. I haven't used the bathroom since we reached the desert!" Katara moped. In fact, the longer they spent here, the weaker she seemed to get, and her pallor was starting to become unsettlingly grey. "I don't like this place."

"I think it's nice enough. Nice and warm. Plenty of sunshine. Bit dry though," Sokka opined.

"Please. There's only one cloud in the sky and it's probably just a dust-storm," Katara said, pointing over Sokka's shoulder. Sokka spared it a glance, and then that glance became a double take. "See? Bad weather."

"No," Sokka said. He dug through their pack at the back of the howdah, until he extracted the spyglass he'd stolen from the Fire Nation months before, and peered through it. "That's... not a duststorm."

"Then what is it, o-holder of the telescope?" Toph asked from where she sat aponder.

He focused in on that cloud, orange against an indigo sky. It was close enough to the color of sand that a passing glance might have mistaken it, but Sokka wasn't just giving this thing a passing glance. So when it struck down with a violet bolt of lightning, lancing at something beyond the horizon, while it did drive Sokka to a blink, he knew something was off. What thunderheads would there possibly be in a desert like this? "How close are we to the edge of the desert?" Sokka asked.

"Actually, we're near the center of the southern portion," Aang answered from the bison. "What is that? I can't see that far..."

Sokka continued to watch, and as he did, the whole cloud shifted, boiling in and around itself, until it turned from the dusty-orange to an infected-wound pink, then into greens, which was about when Sokka stood in place. "Aang, remember how you'd 'know it when you saw it'?"

"Yeah?" the Avatar asked.

"I think I just saw it," Sokka said. "Its that cloud right over there. We should check that out."

Appa banked easily toward the cloud, which grew larger and larger in their unaided vision, until it suddenly winked out, like it had realized it was being watched and decided to hide. Sokka gave Aang a glance from the howdah, one which was returned in confused kind. "Did that just...?"

"Keep going," Sokka said. He pointed down. "The lightning burnt the sand into glass. We follow the glass, we find where that cloud came from."

"What kind of cloud disappears into thin air?" Aang asked.

"All of them?" Toph posited from Sokka's side. They all turned to her. "What? That's kinda what a cloud does."

"She's not wrong, Aang," Sokka said. "But this wasn't a normal cloud."

"Well, you have fun chasing clouds," she said, before shuddering for a moment. "Gods, what was that?"

"I didn't feel anything," Sokka said.

"No, I felt it, too," Katara groused, rising from the pool she'd been forming, and staring at the horizon. Aang, though, was wincing as though he were in a degree of physical discomfort. "Aang? What's wrong?"

"It just felt like somebody kicked me right in the bending," Aang said. "Sokka, are you sure you didn't feel that?"

"Nope. I feel great," Sokka offered. "Must be a bender thing."

"Lucky bugger," Toph noted. She shook her head. Then, her eyes went wide. "AANG DIVE NOW!"

With a clipped yelp, Aang followed her order, dropping the bison and all those aboard it roughly a dozen feet, landing Sokka at least with a jarring of teeth and a rolling of eyes. "Wh..." Sokka tried to illucidate.

"What was that about, Toph?" Katara asked.

"There was acid in the air," Toph said, her head swinging around. "I could _feel_ it! How can that be right? Acid doesn't just hang in the air!"

Sokka looked to the horizon again, and this time, just peeking over it, was something which stood against the oppressive blue of the sky. "Yeah, I think I could feel it, too," Aang said unsteadily. "It felt like... burning."

"Yeah," Toph offered with a nod, useless eyes fixated ahead of them all.

"Anybody care to explain how a blob of acid could hang invisibly in the air?" Sokka asked dryly as he brought that lens up again. There as a rock ahead of them. Of course, calling it a rock, as evidenced through the scope, was something of a disservice to the word. It was more obvious once he recognized what those semi-regular shapes along its edge were. Towers. The whole edge of the rock was in fact a wall, clad with a faded blue metal which was warped up its side. "Maybe that town might be able to tell us more."

"Town?" Katara asked. Oddly, despite her discomfort, she actually looked better of condition than she had been before they'd taken this detour. Sokka nodded, and pointed ahead of them. As he did, a new set of clouds boiled up as though reacting to their trespass, purple and green and orange, belching down violet lightning bolts. Then, the act of fury and defiance given, the clouds boiled away to nothing once again.

"Did... did you guys see that, too?" Aang asked.

"Yeah, Aang," Sokka said.

"What is this place?" Katara asked.

"I think that's something a closer look will answer," Aang offered. "This place _has_ to be the place the Avatars wanted me to go!"

Sokka looked ahead, but all he could feel was a sinking sensation his stomach as that great stone grew larger in their vision. He might not be a bender of the four elements, but he knew one thing with an almost mystical precision. He knew when things were going to go wrong.

* * *

><p>Sharif stared down at himself, the steady in and out of his own breathing as he slept. The others would be close by. His sister was keeping an eye on him; well, to be more accurate, she was watching him like a fire-hawk, but then again, in the state he was in at the moment, he could understand it. He wasn't exactly the easiest person to keep focused, and the great expanse of the Divide had no end to dangers along its twisting length. Crumbling rocks were only the most obvious and gradual of them. Ordinarily, they would have been fighting off canyon crawlers the whole trip through, but the others were taking care of that for the beleaguered and tired humans.<p>

As Sharif paced silently around himself, Grey Voice tracked his motions. Again, not surprising. Grey Voice had once been a companion to a shaman, and as Patriarch had said, shamans seemed to 'rub off' on those spirits which surround them.

**You should be sleeping, Scarred Child**.

Sharif turned, finally catching a glimpse of Patriarch himself. The stallion looked almost as weary as the travelers, but for different reasons. "I think it is time, Patriarch. If it is what you want, then I can do something to end this."

**I do not understand. I should not have endured as I have. Do you know a way to end this?**

Sharif nodded. "I do... but it will be dangerous."

**I have already died. There is no great terror in it for me. I simply wish things put as they were supposed to be. I wish an end**.

"This doesn't have to be the end," Sharif said.

**Yes, it does. It is the way. Beasts live until they don't. There is no eternal thereafter. I wish an end**.

"If that's what you want, then please, follow me," Sharif said. Patriarch, though, turned and gave a glance toward Grey Voice. The ancient mare's head tilted slightly, somewhere between inquisition and affirmation. Whatever 'words' passed between dead stallion and geriatric bird were not for Sharif's ears, and he did not attempt to intercept them. Patriarch then turned back to the human, and gave a very human nod. Sharif took a deep breath, and reached up between them, as though taking hold of the fabric of reality. Then, with teasing fingers, he eased it apart, like separating two sheets which had stuck together while drying. The spot in the air where he did was far darker, now, a hanging hole in reality, and one which would not last long. "Go through," Sharif said.

Sharif followed after the bird, and released his teasing fingers, letting the hole in reality fade away. In truth, he personally hadn't needed to do that to reach this place. But Patriarch was an animal spirit, and precious few of them ever learned the weaving ways into the True Spirit from where they resided in the Outer Sphere. As Sharif was not the Avatar, and could not become The Bridge, he had to make due with the holes which already existed.

** This place feels sickened**.

Sharif nodded. "It is, Patriarch," he answered. He started walking, following the buzzing in his head, operating on an instinct that even his artificially restored mind could not conceive or contemplate. But he knew for a fact that this was the way. It was the only one which could be. He walked amidst the waters which flowed through this gully in the Spirit World, moving ever closer to the center of the realm. The waters became... livelier, though, as he walked. It was something which caused him to stop outright, feeling the minute shift of current against his calves. Patriarch paused, behind him.

**Why do you stop, Scarred Child?**

"The water is flowing," Sharif said. "It never flowed before."

**Is it a threat?**

"I don't know, Patriarch," Sharif answered somewhat uselessly. He furrowed his brow, and pressed on, against that tiny current, and into the heart of the Spirit World. The minutes of wending up the stream turned into hours, a heady distance covered in this strange and illogical place. But the water continued to burble softly, and Sharif's mind continued to ask 'why?', as though he could both come up with an answer, and then retain it so it could be useful. In truth, he was doubly damned in that regard. Once he dismissed his artificial brain, he wouldn't likely even notice the water, let alone have the faculties to wonder at it. Sharif shook his head with aggravation. Whatever gods there were obviously mocked him, giving him such a talent and such a mind, before cruelly snuffing both with one strike of a hatchet. Sharif rubbed at the scar on his head, the ever-present reminder of who he could have been. Would have been. Never was.

The grim ponderings of the youth with the false-brain bore him straight up out of the rivers, into the headlands surrounding the Black City. He paused for a moment, glancing back at Patriarch. "This is a dangerous place. Why am I coming here?"

** You are the guide in this world, Scarred Child. I am as a chick from the egg**.

Sharif sighed, and walked, but hitched himself, and glanced aside, at an overlook of the sunken mockery of a mortal cityscape which dropped away from them. "That doesn't look natural..." Sharif said to himself, crossing the distance to the tree quickly, running a hand up its glowing blue bark. It hummed electric at him as he did, and its leaves were living sparks. For all its vibrancy, it felt... weak. Not just weak, but quiet. Like it was hiding itself. And considering what it was, and where it was, not surprising. "'Nothing exists there you do not plant yourself'," he quoted the shaman who had given that tidbit of knowledge. Who, then, planted this? Sharif shook his head. "This cannot be the right place. I will try again."

**Have haste, Scarred Child. The urge to flee comes strongly from this place. I will not be able to restrain myself much longer**.

Sharif nodded, and teased apart the world once again, ushering the bird through before him. When he released the sheets of what was, and turned, he gave a gasp of shock.

** It seems your instincts are proven and sound**.

Sharif was standing in Sentinel Rock. He was spectral and blue, as was Patriarch, but the streets were much the same as they had been left. To a point, at least. There had been much unmade about the fortress blocking southerly passage to Si Wong in those last terrible minutes. The heart of the stone had mushroomed out to the north, rupturing like a popped corn kernel, revealing to the greenish-brown sky what was once buried deep under the sandstone. The metalled walls still stood, though, if bent drastically out of shape. Even the buildings held a mockery of their original appearance. He could remember this street. It was the walk between Mother's house and Darvesh al'Jalani, the highest priest of this settlement. Even so, Ashan's grandfather was the better respected of the two. "I know the way," he said. "I think."

**Do not think. Know**.

Sharif rolled his eyes, and began to walk the streets, wending around hazards which no mere mortal eye could behold, but would afflict Sharif's sleeping astral body as harmfully as it could strike flesh and bone. The streets bent out of the shapes they were intended to, and his path became muddled. Doubly so when he had to outright abandon a path because the hazards, those 'witches jelly' and 'fruit punches' that his sister had so amusingly named, became too thick to pass for anything larger than a mouse. But provenance guided Sharif's feet, and fate his path. While his sister staunchly disbelieved in all things spiritual and outside of science, Sharif's view was slightly more open. He had to. It was the only way he could live. He turned a corner, to a street which now sloped down starkly and to the south, despite how it had, in his youth, run east-west and been flat as a pool of molten tin.

"There you are," Sharif said, pointing down that street, to the carnage which still lay there, abandoned in the streets. The bodies did not rot nor truly mummify, and there were no animals to speak of to scavange them, but considering the blasphemy Sharif visited on their remains, there was despite all that little left to assault the senses. Once the Blood left their bodies, there was almost nothing left but ashes, vaguely in the shape of what the holder of the Blood once was. But one shape was unlike the others. Undrained, unashened, and undisturbed.

**It is a strange thing to stand over one's own corpse**.

Sharif nodded at Patriarch's observation, at the great and powerful Patriarch prodding at the mangy, abandoned refuse which was his own body for forty years. "You are sure this must be the way of things? I don't know if..."

**All things must end, Scarred Child. That is the way of things**, the great bird said somberly. **This is how it must be, for all. I do not fear what comes, because I know it is right**.

"But is it?" Sharif asked.

**Don't second guess your elder**, the bird replied with something like sarcasm in its dark eyes. **I ****have seen much, and I have seen enough. I am not human. Let it end**.

"As you wish, Patriarch of the Proudest Brood," Sharif said. He reached down, laying a hand upon the still and vacant corpse of Patriarch, and reached the other back up to where Patriarch was, but couldn't quite make the distance. With a grumble in its throat, the great bird lowered itself to the ground, bending down its head, its eyes pressed closed. "I will miss you."

**Then let my memory be my immortality. I would want nothing more**.

Sharif felt a tear in his eye, strange as it was that he had no tear-ducts in his spectral body. He took in a deep breath, and blew a gentle breath toward the glowing form of Patriarch. As though fine dust baked into place, struck by a breeze, Patriarch's corpus broke down, drifting away as smoke in the winds. Sharif opened his eyes, and beheld that the corpse of Patriarch was the only thing of the great bird left. His spirit had passed into whatever there was for spirits after death, itself a mystery that none could answer. "Goodbye, Patriarch."

Sharif rose, and resolved to look upon his homeland, and his birthplace, one final time. He would never come here again; of that, he was as certain as the dawn. He prepared to step through the folds as he could do as easily as thought, but paused. And turned. And saw something he didn't expect.

"Sharif?" the Avatar asked, dumbfounded.

"Avatar?" Sharif asked, baffled. "What are you doing _here_?

* * *

><p>"Easy there, buddy," Aang said with some degree of nervousness, trying to calm the bison which now swung its great head to and fro, unable to keep its eyes from sliding along every ruined building and abnormal street as though the very structures were preparing to attack it. Sokka felt much the same way. Above them, almost centered over a rupturing point of this once-city, the alien clouds boiled, hurling lightning in any direction they damned well felt like, if lightning which emitted no thunderclap. In other words, crazy spirit lightning.<p>

"Whoa... This place feels _damn_ strange," Toph noted as she slowly picked her way around the scree and rubble.

"What do you mean?" Katara asked, rubbing her arms as though with chill. Although, in her defense, Sokka felt like doing that exact same thing. Toph shook her head with something approaching nervous anger.

"It just doesn't feel right."

"Well, it looks like everything here's made of sandstone. Could that be doing it?" Aang asked, moving to the earthbender's side. Without glancing his direction, she reached out and flicked his ear.

"I've trained with sandstone. I'm not some sort of reverse-sandbender, helpless when the rocks aren't bigger than my toes. I might suck with sand, but I know what it feels like. And it _doesn't_ feel like this."

"Then what does it feel like?" Sokka asked.

"...Remember the Mountain King's shack?" Toph asked.

"You mean this place feels bigger on the inside than it does on..." Aang began, but Sokka's eyes went wide, and in an instant, he dropped into a wary squat.

"What was that?" Sokka hissed, glancing about. All eyes turned to him.

"I didn't hear anything," Katara said carefully.

"It was like a scritching sound," Sokka said. He turned, and looked out behind him, to where the desert opened before them, one of the great metal panels laid out almost like a ramp. The vast majority of the city lay ahead of them, but this was the only place where Aang could convince Appa to land. The great beast still watched past them, stomping its legs in turn and growling deeply.

"That's not funny, Sokka. This place is spooky enough as it is," Aang said.

"Yeah. If something were there, I'd feel it," Toph pointed out.

"Unless it was flying," Aang amended, which didn't do any of them well for their peace of mind. "I mean... I haven't seen so much as a buzz-ard all day!"

"Not helping," Sokka said. "So this is obviously that thing we'd know when we saw it... what now?"

Aang scratched at his shaven pate for a moment, then pointed inward. "I think I'll have a better chance if I go toward the center of the town. Ruin. Thing."

"Well, move at 'er," Toph said. "I don't want to spend any more time amongst the grand and unnecessarily spooky place than I have to."

"And here I thought you considered yourself brave," Katara chided.

"Brave is standing up to a volcano when you figure there's a chance you can beat it. Stupid is... well..."

"Yeah, let's just get this place behind us as quickly as possible," Sokka affirmed. He walked, his eyes scanning the buildings around him. The signage was still for the most part intact, if deformed and warped. Still, he couldn't read them, because his understanding of Altuundili was limited to being able to understand it spoken, if spoken slowly. It was still a far sight better than Katara, who hadn't the first word of it. But there was something about this place which set his hairs a-tingle and his teeth to lock.

"Aang, do you feel that burning in the air?" Toph asked, her eyes turned to one side. Sokka diverted his glance to where Toph was looking. It didn't matter that his attention was diverted, because even had his eyes been front and center, he couldn't have avoided that which came next. With a crack of two great wooden boards slamming together, Sokka suddenly felt himself hurled into the air, an alarmed shriek loosing from his throat as he suddenly got much closer to that unnatural cloud than he ever wanted to. His descent was arrested a few yards short of the street, as he landed in a wad of air which had the cushioning characteristics of pudding. He sat up, and righted the lantern he'd been carrying so it didn't lose its oil and one of their two sources of light, more out of force of habit than an actual conscious choice.

"What happened, Sokka?" Katara asked, rushing toward him. Then, there was another crack of wood upon wood, and with a shriek of her own, Katara was launched airborne. Again, Aang bent his air into a cushion, and Sokka caught his sister, albeit upside down, preventing an unpleasant spill onto the pavers. She just sat there for a moment, swearing incoherently under her breath, before she shook her head and dispelled the shock from her system.

"Toph, don't move forward," Sokka ordered.

"Yeah, like you could pay me to, after what I just heard," she said with a smirk, arms crossed before her chest. "What's goin' on, Twinkletoes?"

"It's... air," Aang said, moving close to where they had been assaulted by the street. "It's a ball of elemental air, just sitting there. Doing nothing."

"I would _not_ call that nothing," Toph pointed out, covering the two sibling's position both elegantly and quickly.

"Toph, I think I know why you feel acid in the sky," Aang said. "Katara, do you feel water nearby?"

"Yeah, lots of it, some right over there," she said, pointing down the street a bit further. Sokka experimentally picked up a chunk of the rubble and hurled it in that direction. As it flew, it passed through a section of the street which rippled with the rock's passage, before landing on the far side, but not with a clack, but a plop. The rock burst like a rotten tomato and oozed along the flagstones. Sokka stared at it for a moment.

"Uh-huh. We are _not_ going that way," he said definitively.

"This whole place is trapped!" Toph exclaimed. "Why would somebody trap this place?"

"I don't know, Toph," Aang said. "But I'm pretty sure that the stories say that whatever a maze is hiding is usually at its center."

"But I don't think hugging the left hand wall is going to help us in this one. Because the wall might try to eat us," Sokka said.

"A wall will try to eat us?" Toph asked.

"The street just catapulted us a hundred feet into the air! I'm ready for anything at this point!" Sokka declared.

"Touche," Toph responded. "So how are we going to navigate this thing? I mean, I can sense earth where it shouldn't be... but it's not exactly precise. It's like trying to find the guy who's poking you with a stick exclusively by smell."

"Well, we're going to have to take it slow," Aang declared. "Maybe, we should tie a rope to each other, so nobody gets lost... Oh! And we can make lines so we don't lose our path, and..."

Sokka reached down and picked up another chunk of rock, throwing it down the alleyway off of Katara's Magical Death Field. It clattered through without incident. "Or, we can just follow the rocks."

"Or we could do that," Aang said, a little deflated that his intricate plans were already coming to naught. Toph, though, walked 'round that trap and gave Sokka a slug in the arm as she moved toward that alley.

"That's a good man. Thinking with rocks. Beautiful in its simplicity."

The silence returned, punctuated by the clattering of the rocks Sokka threw to mark their path. And it was not an easy path. Heading around the city would obviously be easy, but since they wanted to go inward, and soon, they had to press through fields of those damned traps. Some turned the rocks different colors. Some turned them into goop. At least twice, Sokka had to pick a new direction, because upon contact with the stone, the very air ahead of them exploded into flames or lightning, searing and scouring anything nearby. But no words were said. Besides the hammering of his heart, and the sound of their footfalls, there was silence. No wind. No thunder from the lightning over their heads, illuminating the darkness when the lanterns weren't enough. But Sokka held up short again.

"Stop!" he whispered harshly. "Do you hear that?"

There was silence, as all parties became still. Eyes flicked back and forth between the four teenagers who dared to enter this forbidden zone. Toph raised a finger, about to make a quip of some sort, when there was a slight rasping sound, which drove all the youths close together, huddling round their lanterns.

"I heard that..." Katara said, eyes flitting about. "It sounded like it was in that building."

"Hello! Is anybody there?" Aang asked, before Sokka, Katara, and Toph all three clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shhh! We don't know what's making that sound!" Sokka hissed. They all waited in silence, but whatever there was, it was not through that wall any longer. Sokka leaned toward the earthbender. "Did you... you know..."

Toph shook her head, a worried expression on her face.

"We should keep going," Aang said, as Sokka's hand dropped away. "I don't like this place."

Of that, Sokka could not help but agree. They moved deeper, past a building which looked even more ruined than those around it. Sokka paused as he passed it, looking at the manor house, which was twisted as though stretched and moved. He glanced to the nearest comparable structure. That one looked like it was a bladder, filled with air from within until it burst, and then frozen in the process of bursting. This one looked like somebody set a bomb off inside it, and then abandoned it to the twisting fate which befell it.

"Stop looking at architecture and move, Brain," Toph said, walking backward. But she suddenly became pale, and with a hissing sound like wind struggling to inch through a closed door, she suddenly found herself drifting backward, pulled back by a force she couldn't surmount with mere friction. Then, there was a loud 'whoomp', and with that, the ground under Toph dropped away with a mighty crack, leaving a rough hemisphere in the side of the roadway. Aang ran to the side, as the others did, but Toph was staring up, sweating hard. "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"

"Toph! Are you alright? What happened?" Katara asked.

"It's fine... For now. I did that on purpose," she said, staring upward with useless eyes.

"...why?" Aang asked.

"It was going to throw you straight down, wasn't it?" Sokka asked.

"Felt that way. Didn't feel like being made a smear. Ducked," She said. She reached her fists up just a little bit, then pounded down. The entire bottom of the hemisphere dropped about another inch. A second pound, and that inch became roughly a foot. Then, inching like she dared not raise higher than where her belly already rested, she inched her way up that wall, until Sokka was able to carefully reach down its edge and extract her from the crater she'd made. "Damn, this place plays rough."

"What was that?" Aang asked. "I can't feel anything."

"It's earth, but I didn't feel it 'till it was too late," Toph said. She reached into the scree of the street and plucked up a tin plate. Then, with an easy toss, she hurled it into the heart of that crater. That hissing sound picked up again, and this time, Sokka could see the edges of the air seem to pull in, before the whoomp sounded again, and that plate shot straight down with stupendous speed. So fast, in fact, that it embedded itself half its diameter into the stone at the base of the crater. "Well? Are you gonna stand there or are you gonna chuck rocks?"

"Yes, ma'am." Sokka said. He retrieved his lantern again, and flicked its container. Still sounded more full than empty. Best continue, then.

"Guys... Call me crazy, but do you remember what happened on the last day of winter?" Toph asked.

"Yeah. We got our asses handed to us," Sokka said.

"No, I mean besides that," Toph said. "Do you remember 'the sky turning red'?"

"I thought that was because Zhao was torturing the Moon spirit," Katara said.

"I'm not so sure about that. Well, maybe," Toph gave a shrug. "But Zha Yu said that something was happening far to the southeast. You think maybe he was talking about... here?"

"A massive event of spiritual importance which _didn't_ involve the Avatar?" Sokka asked. "Yeah, I'm going to file that under 'extremely unlikely'."

"Hey, I'm just spitballin' ideas. I don't hear you trying to come up with a reason for things bein' as messed up as they are," Toph said. Katara answered with a panicked shriek. Sokka immediately turned, and for just a fraction of a second, he could see something moving out of the street where the light fell.

"Yeah... I saw it," Sokka said.

"What are you guys talking about? I didn't feel anything out there," Toph said.

"Maybe it doesn't use legs," Sokka said with a worried glance to his sister.

Aang swallowed hard but glanced toward the mounting center of this place, which they had been steadily ascending, as if in a spiral. After all, they could only move as the streets allowed, since the buildings were just as teeming with those hateful traps as the street was, but the street had a lot more room to maneuver. "We should just keep going. The sooner we're out of this place which is actively trying to kill us, the better."

"You got that straight, Twinkletoes," Toph said uneasily. Her head turned to and fro, as though trying to 'spot' something right at the edge of her hearing. "This place is top-grade spooky."

There was a long stretch of silence, only punctuated by the clattering of Sokka's rocks showing them the path. They were nearing another corner, where only one of the streets led up and inward. The others sloped down and away. Thus, the path was obvious. Still, Sokka sent a proffered, sand-blasted shoe ahead of them. As it rolled to a stop, it didn't look quite as Sokka expected it to. No trembles in the air, and the others proceeded toward it heedless, but Sokka let out a clipped yelp. They all stopped at once.

"What is it, Sokka?" Aang asked.

"I think there's..."

Sokka was cut off by the sound of something shattering behind them. All turned as one, two lantern beams peering down the street. A sign waved squeaking on ill-oiled hinges, and a pot, which had been stable on its windowsill, now lay shattered in the street. They all looked to each other once more. "Move!" Katara whispered harshly, and the rest of them moved into the street Sokka had booted. He tried to halt them, but they disappeared around that corner fast as he could think. And since they weren't struck by lightning nor burst into flames, he had to give that odd glow a bye. So he followed.

And ran straight into the back of the others, who'd clumped up in a mass not a dozen steps past the corner. Sokka had to lean over Toph's head to see what was a head of them. And when he did, he was more than a little bit confused.

"Sharif?" Aang asked, as the glowing, spectral blue body of the Si Wongi shaman took them all in with a degree of confusion. He looked much as he had in Senlin, if a touch more ragged; one prominent difference here was that the wicked scar that ran vertically down his forehead was glowing brightly with silver light.

"Avatar?" he asked, his voice actually precise and clear, for a change. "What are you doing _here_?"

"I'm not even sure where here is," Aang admitted. "What is this place?"

"Who said that?" Toph asked, quite confused.

"Sharif," Katara said, indicating toward him.

"...there's nobody there," Toph said.

"This was my home," Sharif said, ignoring the earthbender. He looked past the Avatar, to where the others were gathered. "I could ask you what brings you to this deadly ruin, but I fair wager it has something to do with the Avatars."

"Yeah... How did you guess that? I thought you were..." Aang said, tapping at his head, until he paused. "Ohh..."

"Yes, you remember," Sharif said, tapping his scar.

"Yeah, well, I don't," Toph said. "Who's this guy?"

"We met him in Senlin, when Heibai had lost his name. I... thought he was simple-minded, though," Katara admitted.

"Can we cut this short? I'm pretty sure this place is trying to murder us!" Sokka stressed.

"So we're just going to trust the spooky voice coming out of nowhere?" Toph asked.

"It's not coming out of nowhere," Katara said. "I can see him clear as day... Wait. Why can I see you? Are you... dead?"

"No," Sharif shook his head, beckoning the others to follow him. They matched his path step for step. "My body is asleep, and I am projecting my astral form. This is an extension of my will, one I sent for a very specific purpose."

"Being?" Sokka asked, as he moved around a dead, but well preserved Ostrich Horse which was laying amidst a pool of ashes.

"Saying goodbye to an old friend," Sharif said sadly. He glanced back at them. "You are right to fear this place. Ever since Imbalance made itself known here, it tore holes through the veils of reality, making this place a spot where the mortal and Spirit worlds are almost one and the same. The worst of both realities manifest here."

"I heard things back there..."

Sharif shook his head with anger. "My hubris rivals my sister's, some days. I was a fool to invoke them. They are a dangerous spirit. Mainly because once they are invoked, they are almost impossible to be rid of."

"Spirits? I thought spirits were incorporeal," Katara prodded.

"Usually. I gave them form, in a bid to have revenge on the traitor who visited such death onto my people," he shook his head sadly. "And it was for naught. Imbalance escaped unharmed. The traitor likely does not even realize her crime. The family of my friend is dead, as are all the people I once knew. We have no home anymore."

"Sharif, stop," Aang said. "What happened? After Senlin?"

"We went home," Sharif said. "My sister thought to find Mother here. But she was nowhere to be found."

"Yeah, she was heading to Ba Sing Se as of couple months ago," Sokka piped up. Sharif rolled his eyes.

"Of course Mother would tell everybody but her children where she was heading. And doubly the joke that I cannot inform my sister that heading for Ba Sing Se was a proper decision."

"You're going to Ba Sing Se, too?"

"All roads lead there, it seems," he answered. "Pity I will not remember this conversation. It could have done my sister well."

"How is Nila doing?" Sokka asked.

"That is not her name," Sharif said idly, looking ahead of him. Sokka raised a brow, mildly confused. There was a lot which was going unsaid here, and he didn't understand it all. "Damn. We are blocked. Avatar, could you aid me?"

"With what?" he asked.

"Become the Bridge," he instructed.

"I... don't know how to do that," Aang admitted. Sharif glanced disbelieving at him. "It took all I had to even get into the Spirit world when I was in the Spirit Oasis, and that's got Spirit written all over it!"

"At least once, by the sound of it," Toph confirmed.

"This will not do. Alright. Do you feel the Fire before you?"

"It feels a bit warm..." Aang admitted.

"Push it," Sharif said.

"But... that'll set me on fire," Aang said with an understandable degree of trepidation.

"No, not with your body. With your will," he said. He made a shoving motion. "Push that fire away, out of our path."

Aang looked quite askance at the whole thing, which Sokka could sympathize with, but stood his ground, widening his stance, closing his eyes. Then, with a deep inhale and a grunt of effort, pushed. The air shimmered in the street ahead of them all, and a portion of it seemed to pull in on itself, wrapping against something else invisible, and pulling tighter, until with a loud snap, the shimmering ended, and something dropped onto the street. They all glanced at each other, then moved in to the object, finding what appeared to be a nail, but was extremely cold to the touch, and even seemed to be covering itself in hoarfrost as Sokka watched.

"Astounding," Sharif said. "I knew that such things sometimes manifested, but I never understood how. Pure elemental interaction!"

"What is it?" Katara asked.

"A nail," Sokka answered.

"An artifact," Sharif clarified. "Its purpose eludes me, but you would do well to hold it. These things all but impossible to find, and their use makes them practically beyond any price. You should..." he trailed off, glancing down the darkened streets. "We are not alone."

All lanterns turned, and filled that street at their backs with light. And they showed... something. They were bodies, perhaps a few inches shorter than Toph at their highest. But they had no real features. All that they were was a homunculus of rusty reds and browns, their misshapen arms ending with black claws. And they walked in the street, on the walls, and upon the roofs. They had no eyes, but that didn't stop Sokka from feeling watched. And their mouths, filled with black teeth, were just an opening which exposed raw, red blood.

"Are those..." Katara asked.

"Blood spirits," Sharif confirmed. "We must flee!"

The others didn't need two prompts to heed the shaman, and took off at a sprint, with the Si Wongi and the Avatar leading the way. The latter moved flailing as though trying to knock away vines trying to snare him. Sokka knew well enough that it was probably something much worse that he was batting aside. And as they ran, those mouths opened wide, and let out the most terrible shriek.

"Yeah, I'm all for running away from that!" Toph put in her two bits, ushering them all before her as she continued to run. She turned, slamming her fists together, and the walls of the buildings behind them slammed together, blocking their path. But insidious and unnatural was this thing, and it slipped right between the cracks of the barricade Toph formed, barely losing a step. On masse, they extended one clawed hand toward the group, shrieking their terrible song, and advancing faster, loping into a horrible sprint, impossible by any anatomy which Sokka could think of. "Did it work?" Toph asked.

"What'd'ya think?" Sokka shouted. Katara was next up, turning and lashing out with the water from her flask, a frozen blade of ice which slashed through the closest of those things. The blade passed through it with barely a ripple to its form, and they continued to advance.

"Water doesn't work either!" Katara said with obvious alarm in her voice.

"That's what I told you! I don't know how to kill these things!" Sharif said. "Once they have a form, they're almost unstoppable!"

Sokka turned, seeing one of them moving ahead of the pack, its loping gate overtaking the others which swarmed toward them, and bunched back on its 'legs', before hurling itself, shrieking, at Toph's back. In an instant, Sokka's hand went back to his case, and the boomerang was taking flight on instinct and instant mathematics. It slashed through the air, its sharpened and un-dulled edge tearing through the homunculus roughly at shoulder level. When it did, the weapon spun back up and around to Sokka once more, but the thing fell apart, landing in one great splat of fetid blood, followed by a second a yard or so away from it. That stain, once deposited, did not rise. Sharif paused in his flight, staring back.

"Oh..." Sharif said.

"See, that's what you spooky types get for overthinking things," Sokka said, running again, and keeping Toph up with the others. She might have stamina, but she was the shortest of them all, and had the shortest legs. "Seriously, you didn't think of simple violence?"

"That's not how I tend to solve things!" Sharif shouted.

"Well... shouldn't we just smash them, then?" Toph asked.

"Too many. Keep running," Aang said. The Avatar was right in that. Darkness had set in, illuminated by silent lightning, as they pushed into the heart of the city that once was.

Ahead of them, something blue was glowing.

* * *

><p>"I've got a question for you," Omo said in the darkness, which caused Kori to turn over on his bedroll. The waterbender distinctly hoped that would provide a sufficient answer for his fellow Child, but Omo was not to be put off, and with a strong-legged nudge, rolled Kori right out onto the ground. "I said, I have a question for you."<p>

"It can wait until morning," Kori said. "I've still got a watch, which I'm likely to snooze through, now that you've disrupted my sleep."

"Your sleep can wait," Omo said. Kori rolled his eyes, but sat up. Omo squatted down, his green eyes flicking toward where Yoji was asleep in her own bedroll, turned in to face the fire. Omo's bedding was further out, while Kori's was furthest of all. After all, while he was quite used to heat, he didn't have any particular love for it. Omo watched the firebender with a puzzled look on his face.

"Well, what is this great question?" Kori asked quietly.

"I've known her for a long time. Longer than most. But that's a sliver compared to how long you two have been together," he said. "She is not very open. I don't understand her."

"Well, I'd say your days of not understanding women are certainly coming to a middle," Kori pointed out, which drew a baleful glare from the large, robust Easterner. "You need to develop that sense of humor. There is much in this world that can only be laughed at, else cried over."

"The makeup," Omo said carefully. "Her skin is fine enough, even if it is almost as dark as yours. She has no pocks or acne, but she takes such pains to hide it, and under that ghastly shade."

"Her skin color is a source of great shame to her, as are her eyes – which is why she always hides them," Kori said seriously. He cracked only a momentary smirk. "I fail to see why; my own have people mistaking me for a Gurkha often enough to... well... maybe when you're older, I'll tell you about that."

"Shame?" Omo asked.

"Yes," Kori said, beckoning Omo to follow him. They moved away from the fire, where there would be no chance of their being overheard. "At the beginning of our lives, we were together. As is said in the Children, every Child is a Brother, every Child is a Sister. But there's a fairly significant chance that she is in fact my biological sister. And that shames her."

"I can see why," Omo muttered. Kori glared at him for a moment.

"No, you oaf. Think of what that means," he said. "In our infancy, we were cast out by our parents and left to die. Had we not been saved by the Fire Nation, we definitely would have. It shames her that she was cast out, even though she never says it."

"Then, why the makeup?" Omo asked.

"Because as much as she is, as proud as she is as a firebender for our adoptive homeland, she knows that she is not one of them, and will never be one of them. She hates what she is, the cast-off of another people, enough that she feels compelled to hide it. And she chooses that 'ghastly shade' because she believes she doesn't deserve to look like a National. There is a word for that sort of thinking, but it'd take more time than it's worth to explain what it means," Kori said.

"Sister," he said, shaking his head. "It certainly explains why she puts up with you."

"That is what family is for," Kori said. He glanced into the darkness of night. "Some days... I can almost remember what that place was like. So much blue and white. But the memories are like trying to remember a dream. I think Yoji remembers less of it, but that's probably for the best. She used to have nightmares. That somebody was trying to take her away from where she belonged."

"I can understand that," Omo said. "She must have struggled so hard to become a part of something, that her greatest fear would be losing it."

Kori nodded, but tucked his doubts into the back of his mind. They were not best aired here. Not yet. Not until he had some time in the Dragon Bone Catacombs to check something. And that eventuality was probably years off. "Of the Children, you will find none more loyal, more strident, nor more eager than Yoji. She stands at the Fire Lord's left hand, and by right. Every commendation she has, she earned not by overcoming the curse of her birthright, but by her skill and perseverance. But even now, she is alone."

"What do you mean?" Omo asked.

"Look at her," Kori said, casting a glance back toward the fire. Yoji slept as she often did, curled up as though trying to keep warm. "A brother as I am isn't enough. She needs more, and to gain a place where her birth is overlooked, she's had to push people away. She will never say it in words, but she is lonely. Dreadfully so."

Omo stared at him for a moment. "You're having me on, aren't you?"

Kori shook his head, face dead serious. "I have never been more plain and serious than I am now. Yoji is depending on us, and more than you think possible. I can only shoulder so much..."

"She's stronger than you think."

"So is a tower, but if the foundation crumbles..." Omo sighed, and nodded. "If we are strong for her, she will be all the stronger."

"You know, you're not such an ass, after all," Omo said.

Kori smirked. "I'm every bit the ass you think I am. I just have certain pockets of expertise that most would overlook."

"Go to sleep, Kori. I'm taking the watch," Omo said. He walked back to where he waited, but paused before mounting the boulder which he used as a look-out. "Why would _anybody_ abandon _her_?"

Kori shrugged, and got back into his bedroll. He had his own ideas in that... but like other thoughts, they were better left unaired.

* * *

><p>The blue glow was a sight to his eyes, one which was welcome and would have been comforting but for two things. One, they were being chased by an army of fetid, animated blood demons. Second, the source of that glow was much the same as came from Aang's tattoos. Which were starting to glow as well, and he started to feel a tearing right in the seat of his soul.<p>

But seeing Korra again was a miracle. She turned toward the youths moving toward her, her eyes burning with the power of the Avatar, draining away from Aang and into her through a process which he couldn't even think to explain.

"Oh my..." Sharif began.

"Get down!" the Avatar-yet-to-be roared, and her arms began to take sweeping motions. The party threw themselves away from the horde which was pursuing them, and when they were huddled against the buildings, Korra launched herself forward. From her hands, lightning danced. It lanced out in blasts which sounded with thunder to mock the silent bolts above, tearing through the legion which assembled hungry for more blood to add to their own. Every bolt left Aang feeling more drained, more torn, more brutalized, but every single one scythed through ranks of those foul monsters. Sharif, who had backed away from the maelstrom, looked on agape, utter disbelief in his eyes.

"Impossible," the Si Wongi shaman whispered into the slaughter. And it was that, because Korra obviously held no compunctions toward such niceties as 'fighting fair' or 'aversion to brutality'. She moved through their massed bodies, even as they tried to slash and rend at her, and every kick and slash of her hand snapped with lightning, tearing the blood-things to bits, dashing their foul corpus across the walls, the streets, into the buildings. One of them actually managed to bite the spectral Avatar on her shoulder, which prompted Korra to tear the goblin off of her, slam it into the pavers, and follow it with a thunderbolt empowered fist, which sent its blood flying all the way until it coated Sokka liberally. She glared up at the others, and the legion stopped its advance. While they had no eyes to glance nervously to each other with, even Aang could tell that the switch in their primitive minds had flipped from fight to flight. And with one last trailing shriek, they did exactly that, melting away from the blood-spattered battleground, owned whole and complete by the Avatar who would not even be born until the day of Aang's death. As the last of them vanished, the light fade from Korra's eyes, and Aang could feel his heart settle back into a more steady beat, no longer under that terrible suction, that vice-like pressure.

"Seems like I showed up in the nick of time, huh?" Korra asked brightly, flashing a grin at her previous life. The smile dropped away for a moment. "Although, I'm a little confused as to where 'here' is. Or where I just was. Doesn't look like the Spirit world I'm used to."

"This shouldn't be possible," Sharif said. "You were bending lightning!"

"Where does it say that a dead woman can't bend?" Korra asked, crossing her arms before her chest.

"It's rule one," Sharif said simply.

"Oh... well... it's a stupid rule," Korra said dismissively. "I'm glad you managed to get my message. I didn't know if you were in a condition to remember it. What with the whole 'almost getting eaten in your sleep' thing."

"Who is this?" Katara asked.

"Why does this crap always end up covering _me_?" Sokka whined. Toph handed him a towel. He gave her a raised brow.

"You can just keep it," Toph said.

"Wait... is that who I think it is?" Korra asked. She slipped past Aang, and when she looked upon Toph, her entire face brightened up almost as luminous as when the Avatar State had ignited in her eyes. "Holy ships it is! She's so little! And she's adorable!"

"WHAT?" Toph snapped at her savior. "Who are you callin' adorable?"

Korra, though, was in full fan-girl mode. "Let me just say that it's an honor to meet the woman herself. Astounding; the woman who changed the East Continent forever! She's right here!"

"Oh... Well," Toph began, somewhat confused.

"Who is this?" Sokka finally asked, having wiped the worst of the blood from his face, and now was in the process of abandoning his hopelessly fouled clothes. Sharif glanced his way, then let out a gack.

"What is he doing?" Sharif demanded.

"I could catch a disease wearing those," Sokka said, standing in his underwear. "I don't know how long that blood's been there."

"...You're naked..."

"No, I've still got my gotch on," Sokka said, mildly baffled. "And you didn't answer my question."

"Korra's an Avatar," Aang began, and Katara leaned in toward where Sharif's spectral body and Toph were standing side by side.

"She's one of his past lives," Katara explained.

"I know how the Avatar works, Tribesman," Sharif said testily.

"And she's not exactly right about that," Aang said. "Korra here... she's my _next_ life."

"WHAT?" it was Sharif's turn to now shriek. He palmed his face. "This must be some sort of ruse. A future Avatar _can not_ interact with their past! The Ban was put in place to prevent this thing from occurring!"

"The what?" Korra asked.

"I'm not sure," Aang admitted.

"The Ban!" Sharif shouted. "The mystic law which holds each procession of Avatars, one to the next, moving only forward in time, and never withershins! This cannot be! It would be like... Roku warning Yangchen of the South Water Tribe, or Vajrapata preventing the rise of The Monolith! It is impossible."

They all stared at him for a moment, then turned to Korra once more. Korra looked down at herself, and shrugged. "Yeah, that doesn't seem to be doing much to me," Korra said. "Gotta say, you look different without the beard, Aang."

"I grow a beard?" Aang asked.

"Yup," Korra said. "Manliest beard ever bearded. Anyway. I did some poking around and... wait," she paused, leaning down toward Katara. She stared at her fellow Tribesman for a moment, and reached out, as though to touch Katara's hair-loopies. Katara flinched back, which was somewhat moot, since it was unlikely that a spirit body could interact with the physical. Korra started to grin, though.

"I thought I recognized you! You must be Katara!" Korra said. She then leaned down and scooped Katara into a bearhug which Aang was pretty sure shouldn't be possible. "You're just how he described you! I always wanted a chance to meet you in person! Man, it's like the whole gang's here. Well, no Zuko, but he was a late addition anyway."

"WHAT?" Katara shrieked.

"Five gold Weight says Sokka's the next one to do that," Toph wagered.

"You said this was important," Aang said, trying to get the diverted future Avatar back onto track. Korra nodded, then beckoned the others to follow her, into what was obviously the highest point of this bursting, mutated city on the edge of oblivion.

"Right, right," She glanced toward Katara again and smiled, but turned her attention back to the Avatar. "I had some words with Wan Shi Tong. That guy's _jacked-up_. I mean, seriously; spirits are spooky as hell at the best of times, but that old fossil is rotting where he drones. As I can figure it, there's some sort of tunnel which got formed by a soul being torn out of my time, or thereabouts. He didn't make a whole lot of sense. The fact is, though, things aren't looking too hot here. Makes me wish I actually paid attention to Tenzin about that spirit-y stuff," She shrugged. "Well, that's the past. Or your future, depending."

"Sense, please, make some," Sokka said.

"Right, right," Korra said. "You know what you're fighting here?"

"The Fire Nation, Fire Lord Ozai," Toph answered.

"Small beans. The imbalance in the world has apparently 'bootstrapped itself to a level of sentience', which as I understand it, is a bad thing. Imbalance is going to eat everything unless you stop it."

"So... we're fighting... imbalance?" Sokka asked. "How is that possible?"

"Ask an expert. I'm just recalling the facts," Korra said, shoving an erupting sphere of fire out of her way to clear a path.

"Imbalance is a spirit entity, one which shouldn't have been able to exist," Sharif clarified. "I cannot believe this situation arises, but thus it is. Every ideal, animal, and even some events have their own spirits. Questions do, Ostrich Horses do, blood does, war does. But imbalance shouldn't. It isn't an event, or an ideal. It is the lack of one. It is like having..." he shook his head, and that scar burned a bit brighter for a moment, "a physical object without mass."

"I see," Sokka said, rubbing his chin.

"All spirits naturally find a state of balance in their environment. But Imbalance is the antithesis of that, like a bottomless hole in the world. No matter how much is thrown down it, it will never become full," Sharif explained. "Eventually, the hole is _all_ that will be left."

Korra gave a shrug toward Sharif. "This kid knows his stuff. Who is he?"

"Wait, you don't know him?"

"Should I?" Korra asked, pausing to look the boy over, before shrugging.

"I am Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar," Sharif said with annoyance.

"Doesn't ring a bell," Korra said.

"But... you know the rest of us," Katara said.

"Yeah, I couldn't not. You guys were famous," Korra pondered. "Even Haru lived large after your adventures."

Aang glanced back at his friends. "Who's Haru?"

"I don't know. Did we meet a Haru at some point?" Sokka asked.

Katara shrugged, and Toph shook her head. Korra looked baffled. "Earthbender, Katara here broke him out of prison while you were heading toward the North Pole?"

Katara's eyes flicked aside. "...nothing like that happened," she said.

Korra stared at Katara for a moment. "But... How does that work?" She shook her head. "You know what? Hell with it. Back to business. Whoever you are, Sharif bin whatever, you should give Aang some lessons. I could sure use them myself."

"Is anybody else here going to point out that time-travel violates several laws of physics?" Sokka asked drolly.

"Since you're behind the ball, and Wan Shi Tong obviously isn't going to be in any condition to tell you, you're going to have an opportunity to deal with the Fire Nation soon," she said. She pulled a scroll from her parka, and handed it toward Aang. He stared at it. "Don't just stand there, take it!"

"It's not real," Aang said. Korra rolled her eyes and pressed it into his hand. Despite its bluish glow, it felt as real as the sweat on Aang's brow. "Or maybe it is. What is this?"

"It's a history book," she said. "It talks about some disastrous defeat in some battle between the Fire Nation and some airbenders in some war I'd never heard of. Long story short; there's something called a Day of Black Sun. Solar Eclipse, naturally," she said, cutting off Sokka, who obviously came to that conclusion an instant too late to get credit for it. "If you're up in their faces when the moon's getting in the way of the sun, they won't have any fire to bend with. They won't be able to so much as heat a kettle of tea amongst them."

As Aang looked over the tale of valiant soldiers of the faltering Fire Nations being routed by the Storm Kings, the glow faded, until it was a scroll as ordinary as any in Sokka's pack, if illuminated beautifully and of outstanding quality. For almost ten minutes, the world had become dark, and the Storm Kings scythed through the Fire Nations' armies, ending in the death of the then Fire Lord. He could help but shake his head. The symbols were exactly the same, but their meanings couldn't be any more perfectly flipped. He looked up. "Thank you. This may have saved a lot of lives," Aang said.

"You're welcome," she said. "You're gonna need to find somebody good at predicting eclipses, though; at some point, Wan Shi Tong's planetarium filled up with sand."

"Sand?" Sokka asked.

"Hold on a second... Wan Shi Tong's Library is _real_?" Toph asked.

"Very," Sharif nodded. He then turned upon the middle aged dead woman before him. "I cannot conceive how you do this! The Ban..."

"Obviously is on vacation," Korra interrupted him. She turned, grinning, back to Aang. "As I see it, I'm just making sure history takes its proper course. I mean, if you don't live to a ripe old age and make all kinds of airbender babies with your little lady, then I get born a waterbender. Which ain't bad, don't get me wrong, but it's hard to go back when you're scaring the pants off of old guys with fire from the time you're six."

"This is madness. I must be going mad!" Sharif complained. "This must be what madness feels like."

"Oh, stop whining," Korra said. "Would you rather lose the War?"

"If it means that reality stops unraveling, then yes!" Sharif shouted, causing all eyes to turn to him. His expression was deadly serious. "I would happily live every day until the one I die in the chains of most abject slavery, if I had the knowledge that it stopped what is happening here. Your brutish successor, Avatar Aang, obviously is not the thinking sort, so I will tell you what she overlooks."

"Brutish?" Katara asked. Korra shrugged.

"I've been called worse," the dead woman answered.

"The very presence of this... Korra... indicates that The Ban, itself a fact bound into the fabric of reality by the greatest of spirits at the beginning of the Avatar Cycle, is if not broken, then so worn thin that great holes gape in its body. It is as if gravity stopped functioning, or inhaling no longer provided breath to the body. It is so outside any understanding of how reality works that I cannot understand how we are not already unmade," Sharif said with grim tones and darkened eyes. He pointed at her. "You might think this a joy and a lark, but I promise you, this is the most grave of all events. It is not your fault, but you are a symbol of a deadly breach in what is."

"How so?" Aang asked.

"Imbalance. Did your Avatar Aang face this threat in his time?" Sharif demanded of her. Korra shook her head. He pointed to Aang. "Imbalance seems to be if not unique to this world, then somehow tied to it. It violates the flow of time. How, I cannot say, but whatever manifested it came from the Spirit, the Hub Of The Wheel. It should have spread to all times, to all worlds. That means it needs something here, and only here can it be slain."

"How do you kill something which doesn't exist, though?" Sokka asked. Sharif nodded sagely.

"A wise question, and one I cannot yet answer," he turned back to Aang. "Deal with the Fire Nation as you can, but remember always that Imbalance is the true and greater threat."

"It's not that simple. I have to deal with both," Aang said. "I've got it on good authority that if I don't beat the Fire Nation by the time Sozin's Comet comes, then the world ends."

"That would... Oh... Oh, I see," Sharif said, the light of his body dimming as though growing pale. He affixed Aang with a steely gaze which he obviously could never muster in waking life. "Korra will be no teacher for you in what you need. You need to know the Void if you wish to..."

He trailed off, when the path that they had been following opened out, showing a great pit in its heart, edged by what looked like cliffs. But Aang's eyes were not looking around, but across. On the far side of the great, gaping maw, he could see a very familiar tree, its limbs and leaves glowing with blue, crackling light. He then looked down, and his eyes widened further, as he was staring down into the heart of the Black City. "How didn't I see this?" he asked.

"See what?" Korra asked.

"This town, it's not just twisted up," Aang said. "It's... been bent into looking like the Black City."

"You're almost right," Sharif nodded. "When Imbalance connected back to this world through its Host, it tore the fabric of reality apart here. In a very real way, the Black City and Sentinel Rock are now one and the same."

"Then that's the heart of the Spirit World?" Aang said. Sharif nodded. "Is this going to happen again?"

"Almost definitely," Sharif said. "It is only a matter of time and chance. Once Imbalance pushes its Host far enough, she will bridge the worlds again, and another part of _your_ world will turn into _its_ world. _This_ is the shape of the future, if we cannot stop Imbalance from its course."

There was silence, as each thought about what that meant. Obviously nobody thought that was a good thing.

And their pondering was cut short by a horrible shriek from their backs. They all turned, Sokka with his boomerang in hand, Korra smirking. "Oh, well, this is a nice break in the doldrum," the Avatar pointed out.

But she fell slightly silent when she saw what exactly was coming up the streets toward them. Sharif scowled. "Did you really think they were so easily intimidated? Blood Spirits are rapacious, hungering for their like. And they are adaptive. They know that the Horde will not stop you, so..."

"So they send the Brute," Aang answered, beholding the massive, distended but powerful form of the blood spirits, half-a-hundred screaming faces clumped together between its shoulders. It was the size of Appa easily, and the black claws which had been as long as knives were now clicked together, rotating in a sickening drill, tearing apart sandstone wherever they fell in the plodding advance of the dozen behemoths.

"Oh, hell..." Toph said. "I can feel _that_... Would this be a good time to run away?"

Aang answered her by tearing the bison whistle from the loop 'round his neck and pounding air through it, letting out the signal, before he paused. "Wait... how's Appa going to get here?"

"It's clear straight up and down," Sharif said. He looked down to the south. "I'll warn the beast. Korra; do you see that bunker in the center?"

"The ugly black thing between the ugly black things?" she asked.

"Indeed. Lightning is a form of purified energy, and the spirits can consume such power. Use it upon the skin of the Spirit World's heart! And be prepared to flee swiftly once you do. Wait as long as you dare before you do: You will have precious little time to escape once the Blowout begins."

"Wait," Toph began, but with a shimmering, Sharif vanished from their midst. Korra glanced to the brutes, which opened their half-hundred mouths each, and each let out that terrible shriek, tearing at the air even as their bodies decimated the buildings that flanked them. Korra looked like if she'd been alive, she might be sweating. "Oh, this isn't good. Hell with it. It's blood, blood can go squish!"

Toph launched forward, and when she landed, it was with a sweeping kick to her side, her bare toes dragging along the storefront, a ripple moving through the walls between she and the closest of those brutes, prompting the wall which was over it to sheer free of its foundations and tip onto the back of the blood demon. But rather than splat the thing as she had optimistically assumed, the brute caught the wall, its mad-drill hands digging into the stone, which it twisted and hurled back at the source of the assault.

To Toph's credit, she reacted instantly, bringing up a defensive bulwark which the wall burst across, but when she hurled the resulting bulwark forward, that beast and the one nearest it slammed that bulwark into sand with a coordinated slam of their 'fists'. Another shriek, and a third overtook the two, hurling itself bodily ahead of the pack, which still advanced in a more or less orderly and patient fashion. That one came closer though, and got a boomerang in one of its faces for its trouble. That made it flinch, only for an instant, and the gory boomerang returned to its source, which was caught with a quite understandably disgusted 'Ewwww!'

"Is that as long as you dare?" Aang asked.

"Just about," Korra answered. The Avatar of this day moved forward into the melee, slamming forward a blast of air which he'd constructed to hit like a battering-ram. It tore straight through the soupy body of the brute, sending foul blood splattering behind it, but not checking its advance. With another scream, this one of nearing triumph, it raised its 'fist', and began to bring it down, to smash Toph into more of its ilk.

Even as Aang tried to bend a vacuum to heave Toph out of the way, Katara was already skating past him on an ever refreshing skim of water from her pouch. Then, as she reached Toph's side, she hurled the remnants straight up with a great crash, sharpening the water and snapping it into a great blade of ice, which intercepted that dropping fist and sliced it clean off of the body it extended from. Toph managed to dodge aside before the 'fist' could otherwise crush her, but could not avoid the splatter of dead blood, and the clatter of tarnished iron claws sounded as a grim counterpart to the roar of anger from the brute before them. With a heave of its remaining arm, it smashed through that icy barricade, causing the two girls to scatter before its overwhelming might. The others were still well back, but this one was far too close.

Aang grit his teeth, his feet grinding into the sandy pavers under him, as he bent a great gale into his hands, and then demanded more. With the same technique he'd been trying to save Toph, he pulled the air into a tube of wind, ferocious and insistent as any hurricane or tornado, but heeding only the direction of the airbender at its mouth. With a last twist of his arms, that tube exploded into being, tearing at his kavi and the girls' clothes, but slamming whole into that brute which had outstripped its ilk. At first, it pushed through, but every step it took toward smashing the airbender, more and more of itself was blown out its own back. It's body reduced. It's mass decreased. A screaming head was blown out of the body, then another. The madman-fist raised, to smash Aang to bits, but he stood his ground, his grey eyes hard and unrelenting. It was only going to advance one more step if it did through him; it was not going to reach his family, his friends.

It was exhausting. It was exhilarating. Most importantly, it was working. The beast no longer advanced, its 'fist' faltering. It could only hold its ground, as more and more of it was being dashed into a stain. Then, it could not even do that. Aang began to step forward, until he was making broad paces, and launching himself forward, imbued with a battle-lust he could not understand. He wanted this fight. He wanted to show he was stronger. And he had no idea why. But when he landed from that bound, he twisted up again, as though to direct the wind in one final bludgeoning assault. But it was not air which leapt to his command.

It was stone.

The block of sandstone bounded out of the street with an ease which beggared Aang's imagination, barreling through the body of that brute, and dashing it to congealed oblivion. Aang paused, and looked down at his hands. The marks upon them were still as blue as the sky was supposed to be.

He'd just earthbent.

Aang. Just earthbent. Without the Avatars' help.

The bellow of an air bison sounded, bringing Aang back to reality, and drawing his attention first back, to where the people alive and dead, present and not, all retreated toward the descending escape plan. Aang, though, looked ahead. While he had been giving every effort to slay one of those abominations, the other dozen and more had advanced. They were already passing the fallen form of their crushed brother. The battle-lust drained away, and it was replaced with quite understandable terror, as Aang let out a scream of his own, which the blood answered in chorus, and beat the hastiest of retreats, actually making it to Appa first, despite the distance, and everybody else having a sizable head start.

"Aang, what were you thinking? You could have been killed!" Katara shouted as she clambered up Appa's flank. Aang could only shake his head, having no real answer to give her.

Then, there came a clunk, metal against metal, which sounded as though something in the heart of the Black City below them was trying to lurch to life. Korra wilted slightly, as though she'd spent a great deal of herself into that thing, and had to forceably heave herself up the bison, sprawling out in the howdah. "What is that?" Aang asked.

"Blowout," Sharif said. It will give us the time to leave, and conceal our presence here from Imbalance. Its nose is quite keen. If it were to track you down... That would be bad."

Aang could only nod at that, as the adrenaline began to pour out of him, leaving him tired and numb, shivering against the heat. "Come on, buddy, yip yip!" he ordered, and the bison was all too willing to obey. The thudding of metal against metal continued as they ascended, lit by flashes of white light, searing upward through those unnatural clouds, burning them away, showing the stars beyond them. But the thudding was coming to an end, and a hissing sound started, a rattling which started in Aang's very bones as he pulled out of his ascent and began to scream away from the lost fortress. And good that they did, because the groaning mounted, and an evil wind started behind them, searing up and away, into the heavens and vanishing behind them. Only then, vanished into the Spirit world, did the noise of the Blowout recede somewhat. Aang could understand why so many treated that thing with fear; it was a fearsome beast.

"That... was unpleasant," Korra declared. She looked out to the sands. "And I'm pretty sure this is where I have to get off. I'll do some more poking around. See if I can break reality a bit more to help you, you know how it goes?"

"Thank you, Avatar Korra," Aang said, turning to bow to her.

"Don't thank me yet," Korra said with a smirk. "After all, I ain't done till I'm born again... or something. Anyway; stay safe, and watch your ass if you're going to Ba Sing Se. That place is seriously not safe back in your day."

She stepped to the edge of the howdah, and tipping easily, fell away from the bison, dwindling into the distance over the ocean of sand, until her glow vanished. Sharif nodded, looking quite transparent, as though drained as much as Aang was.

"She is right, in that it is here we must part company for the time being," Sharif said.

"Wait," Aang said, bounding up to Sharif's side. He pulled the second trinket from his neck, the thong which held the Jade Toe. "This belonged to you, and it was of great help to me. You should have it back."

"Please, I cannot accept this back. A gift is a gift."

"But a gift used is a gift spent. Now, it must return to where it is useful," Aang pointed out.

"I gave this to you in your time of need. I have no such need," Sharif once again pushed the stone back.

"Sharif... you know what this is. You probably know what it does. And you know it's useless to me. Take it. Maybe it can help you, someday," Aang said, finishing his observation of Si Wongi etiquette. Sharif nodded, taking the stone from Aang's hand. When it passed form mortal to spectral hands, it changed from green to blue, and vanished into the spectral stuff of Sharif's body. "I'd be honored if you could teach me again."

"And you shall have that opportunity. But not today. The dawn will come, and I must awaken," Sharif said. "Until we can meet again, Avatar. Be safe, and heal the wounds of the world. I could have no less."

With another shimmer, Sharif was gone, leaving the living and the awake upon the beast's flying back. They all looked amongst each other, for a long, silent moment.

"... and it was all just a dream," Toph said.

"Damn it, I was gonna say that," Sokka complained.

But Aang's attention returned to the scroll which rattled in his kavi. Momo crawled into his lap, muttering its chatterings up at him. He patted its head, and thought about future, and how he was going to use an eclipse to end the war. And to be honest, he was kinda coming up empty on that.

* * *

><p>Ashan let out a great yawn, stretching with the first light of dawn creeping down into the Divide. Nila was already long up, though; her long company of Tzu Zi had seen the two coming to rise at the same time, so that they could be on Sharif's trail all the faster. She half wanted to chide her fellow Si Wongi for laziness. She also half wanted to still be asleep, so she held no moral high ground. "Finally, he rises. I thought we would have no sign of your movement until the sun hung high in the sky."<p>

"What? I had a good night's sleep," Ashan said testily. "It's remarkable how warm it is at night."

"The desert is a twice-cursed hellhole," Nila said with a roll of her eyes, before turning to Tzu Zi. "No offense intended."

"Oh, that's alright," she said.

"Come. We can be out of the Divide by dinner time, unless you'd prefer to keep the company of the canyon crawlers," Nila said. Ashan sighed, in a world-weary and put-upon way, and rose up, setting himself for the walk ahead of him. Nila shook her head sardonically, and looked around them. Aki, and the two ancient specimens of her species, all took to sleeping together off to one side. As Tzu Zi had put it 'girls have got to stick together', and the saying knew no species. She finished slinging the pack containing all of her remaining worldly possessions onto her back, and slung her firearm so that it was not caught against anything, before turning back into the camp. She scowled for a moment.

"What is it?" Ashan asked.

Nila didn't answer, instead walking past the embers of the fire to where Sharif was still curled up in his bedroll, quite unlike his usual behavior of being awake not much later than Nila herself, if even to no useful effect since he would usually just pick a direction and stare until somebody gave him something better to do or a direction in which to walk. Now, though, he was as good as comatose.

"_Awaken, you great, slumbering oaf_," she said, nudging Sharif with her foot. He grumbled something, and looked bleary-eyed at her. "_We leave the Divide. Rise so we can beat the sun to civilized lands._"

"_I'm still tired_," he complained, rising slowly and begrudgingly from his bedroll.

"_Well, that is your problem. Come. We depart,_" she said, turning away from her twin. She rolled her eyes as she rejoined the others in her party. "Poor poor Sharif; you'd think he hadn't gotten a moment's sleep," she said sarcastically. Ashan chuckled at that. If only Nila knew.

If only Sharif could tell her.

* * *

><p>Azula watched him, where he lay sleeping. The sun would be rising soon, and with it, she would have to suffer another day in the presence of traitors. Oh, how that chafed. It burned. It seared her as the sufferance of traitors ought. No matter what he said, he was the enemy of the Fire Nation, and he proved it time and time again. Every fight she had against him, from that trap which ended in idiocy, to his betrayal under Ba Sing Se, it all lashed at her like whips.<p>

And she'd had enough of it. He had only one thing right, of all the drivel he'd spewed. She needed a plan. And now, she had one. She wasn't going to let the Fire Nation fall. Not this time. And to make sure that happened, she was going to have to eliminate its enemies, and better her already remarkable achievements. Revenge was a fine dish, but it was a paltry meal to subsist the rest of her existence in. After all, she was not even fifteen years old again. She had an entire lifetime ahead of her. A life time stolen from somebody who was going to waste it, who was going to fail.

With her lips pulling into a grim smirk, she silently took the long bladed knife which she'd kept to this day, a final defense for when all else failed. Losing her fire was the most agonizing and horrible thing she had ever endured, but it had taught her valuable lessons, chief amongst them, never be unarmed. While a firebender was herself a weapon, one should always bear many weapons. And now, Azula _had_ many. She crept up to the snoring mass which was the Dragon of the West, and pulled that blade from its sheath. A single thrust, right into the liver, and he'd be dead in moments. The neck might be quicker, but from this angle, an almost impossible reach, and she needed him incapacitated instantly. After all, she had not come so far to underestimate her opponents. Not again. Never again.

She raised that blade up, preparing to plunge it 'twixt the old man's ribs.

And she was interrupted by a small fist hitting her very hard in the throat.

Azula's eyes bugged, and she made a strangled noise as her body forgot how to breathe, and she could see furious golden eyes staring at her as she scrabbled back. The girl Azula stomped over to her, and wrapped her fist around one of the elder Azula's bangs, and began to drag, causing Azula to have to scramble all the more inelegantly in order to keep her hair from being ripped out by the roots. Finally, with a heave which held much more strength than the girl should have been capable of, Azula was cast against a nearby tree. Azula took a sputtering, coughing moment to get her throat working again, and favored her younger self with a strangled sound of outrage.

"ENOUGH!" the girl shrieked, her usually cherubic expression replaced by a cold mask of rage. "I thought that you might be sensible. That we might be able to pool our resources for the good of the people important to us, and for our nation. Obviously, you are incapable of that."

"Iroh is a traitor."

"He is a kook and an airhead, but I will not believe him a traitor," the girl answered, her voice as flat as death. "And he is important to me. I didn't remember much, before. But... I remember now. He was there for me. That's more than I can say about most people. And you think you can take him away from me?"

"He's a..."

"And Zuko?" the girl's voice became louder, her mask slipping into demonic outrage. "You are really so debase that you would hurt your own brother? MY BROTHER?"

"He is the Avatar's lackey and a cancer on my nation."

"No. I thought you might be useful to me. You're proving pretty conclusively that you can't be trusted," the girl said. "Whatever you think you're going to do, forget it. Whatever you plan, consider it destroyed. Every person you hurt will be repayed on you a thousand fold, I swear it!"

"You can't be serious," Azula said, rising to her feet. The girl tracked her rise.

"I don't have the luxury of sarcasm," the girl answered. "If you try to hurt my family again, I will hurt you. I don't know how, yet, but I promise you, I will. I will find things that can twist the knife into your heart and rend it to bits. I will take everything which you hold dear and set them aflame. And if you think I'm not capable, then just look at yourself. What _couldn't_ you do, with the proper reasons?"

She stepped a bit closer, and stared up under her brows at Azula. "And now, you've given me all the reason I'll ever need. This is war, old woman. And it's a war I know for a fact that _I'm_ going to win."

* * *

><p>Iroh paused, still affecting his snore, as he glanced in the reflection of the open blade he held under his blankets. He could see her coming closer, her own knife rising. Even now, he pondered how he would explain Azula's death to Prince Zuko. Because he foresaw it coming very, very soon.<p>

Only it didn't. She recoiled back, but not out of horror. She clutched at her neck, and then staggered away from Iroh, slumping against a tree. Iroh's golden eyes narrowed slightly at that, not sure what to make of it. While she had, indeed, just saved her own life the only way she possibly could have, he didn't understand why, or why in this way. He turned the blade over, and read the symbols etched into the flat.

_Everything In Its Proper Time_.

Qiao had given him this knife years ago, and he used it to shave. It hadn't seen much use lately, considering his growing beard. The words seemed to be a snippet of prophecy, in retrospect. While there might not be as much time as Iroh would have wanted, he was going to have to trust that the time for illusions' end would come, and all would be revealed. And when that day came, he would not have an excuse, a commiseration to give to Zuko.

He'd have a sister, instead.

* * *

><p><strong>A bit of history and a lot of violence. The dynamic between Team Desert and Team Avatar takes a bit of time to set up, and the most interesting linchpin is actually Sharif. Because, in the waking world, he is meek and quiet, tending to stay out of peoples' way. But when he gets his brain back, he's actually a little bit arrogant, short tempered, and vain. Hubris passes through the house of Badesh in detail, after all. Why else would he possibly think that it would be a good idea to invoke Blood? In the actual writing of this, I've reached the point where everybody's in Ba Sing Se. The hardest part now is making sure that the cluster#### is as glorious as possible. And having Long Feng play everybody like a harp from hell is turning that into a fit of giggles.<strong>

**A bit more spiritual metaphysics, including some of the more fundamental rules of reality. Understandably, one of the most important ones is, if you're dead, you can't bend. That the rules have degraded enough to allow Korra to do as she has is telling. Also telling is that I've managed to predict Korra's attitude enough that, even though I wrote this chapter right around when the first episode came out, it still jives fairly well with what I've seen of her. Especially her performance in When Extremes Meet. But to explain something which will probably be asked; this is a Korra who did not study under Katara, because Katara was two years dead by the time Korra was born. Instead, she got up-close training with a very, very aged but skilled Toph Beifong. There are probably other questions I could answer, but since I can't predict them - yet - I'll just wait for them to get pointed out.**

**And for one final caveat, I'm the goddamned Nietzsche of my age - minus the writing style which was akin to having somebody screaming in your face. See if you can spot what I changed from the last version...**

_Leave a review._


	28. The Divide

**Quick advisory: This one gets a bit grisly right at the end. If you're not into that, might want to stop reading when they go to refill Katara's water-skin, if you catch my poorly constructed foreshadow. The last section isn't as bad.**

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><p>The breeze which wafted along the deck was actually damp, itself a massive change from their long slog along the base of the Divide until they had reached a part where they could clamber back out of it. Nila stared to the north as the ferry quietly chugged its way through the cleft separating Full Moon Bay from Chameleon Bay. Of all of them, the trip was only notable to one of them. Sharif stared north, motionless and expressionless, as blank as a slate. Tzu Zi had crossed far greater bodies of water, and in far worse conditions than a stiff breeze, so this was ideal for her to simply doff robes and sun herself in the rising spring. Nila had rode a sailboat on storm-tossed seas, and while she didn't emulate her friend in the sunning, she did take the moment where she could do nothing else and relax, and let the gentle singing of another passenger somewhere aft of them wash over them. Well, that and enjoy the <em>show<em>.

"_Host help me we're all going to die!_" Ashan shouted, clinging to the edge of Nila's chair as the ship gave a slight creak, passing over one of the wind-thrown 'waves', which barely stood, peak to trough, taller than Nila herself. Other rough and desperate looking refugees, of which there had been no shortage in that well hidden pier, turned toward the two of them questioningly, and Nila sighed.

"He has never been on a boat before," she said patiently.

"Heh. Desert rat should stay where he belongs," a middle aged, unattractive woman said. The way she stared down her nose pegged her as somebody who had come from wealth, and now was actively disgusted at having to travel with the likes of them. Nila's brow drew down.

"And where exactly does he belong? The desert? The same desert which produces the perfumes you try to hide your obvious malodor under? The south, source of every scrap of gold in this entire continent? Or are you simply referring to his low status?" She demanded. "Because I dare say that there will come an upsetting leveling when this boat reaches its port, one which will favor you far less then you hope."

"Well, I never..." she said, before storming off. There came a chuckle from somebody else, who was leaning against the rail. He was a tall, lithe youth, with wild hair and a strand of straw stuck 'twixt his teeth, which he rolled casually, very likely a nervous habit he'd adopted quite early in his life. His eyes were dark, and his face was young, but his stance was a fighter's as surely as any beih in Si Wong.

"I like your moxie, girl," he said, his voice quite smooth.

"Nila, you shouldn't do that. Those people could..." Ashan began.

"And who's this guy? Your brother?" he asked, turning to lean back against that rail.

Nila shook her head briskly, then nodded to Sharif. "That is my brother. And before you ask the obvious question, yes, he is simple. If you say any more on that matter, you will find Full Moon Bay much more hospitable than here."

"I like her," a raspy voice came from nearby, showing a similarly wild-haired youth, but Nila paused at her classification of this one.

"Well, Smellerbee's given you her seal of approval. I'm Jet."

"And I am trying to rest," Nila said, turning back toward the front of the ship. Ashan gave a nervous chuckle, but did not rise from the chair which had been built into the deck and wall of the ship.

"I am Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa. Your acquaintance is well made," Ashan said. "Forgive me for not rising. I have no desire to put my fate in the hands of Sobki today."

"He's afraid of the water," Nila clarified flatly.

"Water's nothing to be afraid of," Jet said.

"It is if you can't swim," that oddly named person piped up, causing eye-rolls from both Nila and Jet, which in turn caused a raised brow from the former. So something of a kindred spirit, then? "Come on. Shadow's gonna be back with our food any minute now."

"Yeah, yeah," Jet said. He looked to Tzu Zi and his smirk widened a bit. "Well, I hope you ladies are taking good care of yourselves. It'd break my heart if somebody did anything unpleasant to other travelers like us."

"I'll be fine," Nila said.

"So you know how to use that bow, I take it?" he asked, crossing his arms as he leaned.

"No."

"So..."

"I can keep her safe," Ashan said. "I am a sandbender, after all."

"Yeah, and how much sand is there around here?" Jet asked with a grin. Ashan wilted at that.

Nila leveled a flat look at her brother's oldest friend. "_If I wished to have your 'protection', I would ask for it. And since I wouldn't, you'll have to take my unconsciousness for permission._"

Ashan just stared back at her. "_You have a way of making me feel like an idiot, you know that?_"

She chuckled for a moment, then pulled the firearm up from where she'd propped it. "I have all of the protection I could desire."

"That's an odd looking club," Jet noted. Her opinion of him drastically dropped in that moment. She tucked it to her shoulder, picked a random gull flying a fairly significant distance away, sighted along the barrels, and pulled the trigger. There was a blast of flame and a gout of smoke, and a quarter of a mile away, the gull dropped out of the sky, dead long before it hit the water. She turned her bright green eyes back to his.

"As I said, I have all the protection I could desire," she lowered the smoking gun back to its place, ignoring the hubbub that her demonstration had caused.

"Umm... Nila? It might be a bad idea to shoot that thing on a boat full of scared people," Tzu Zi opined from Nila's side, not even bothering to open her eyes. Nila paused, and realized that Tzu Zi was quite right on that. The people who had been minding their own business before were now pointedly minding hers, and that was not something which Nila enjoyed at the best of times. She leaned back, and stared ahead of her, as her brother was doing at the front of the boat.

"This is all the food they had," a raspy woman's voice seemed to appear out of nowhere, actually causing a flinch from the two Si Wongi nearby. Its source appeared likewise, almost walking out of Jet's shadow, handing him a bowl of thin, oily soup. "It smells terrible. I smelled a lot better in there. Captain must be hording it for sale," she said impassively.

"Then demand some. You have money to pay for it, don't you?" Nila asked. The slender young woman with hair no longer than Nila's turned pale eyes upon her. Once again, Nila felt a desire to lean away.

"Who is this?" she asked.

"A couple from Si Wong, and her brother," he said.

"We're not a couple," Nila and Ashan managed to blurt simultaneously.

"Yeah, she'd never..."

"He is superstitious and..."

"...sense of humor like a buzz-ard..."

"...hopelessly traditional..."

"...too clever for her own good!"

"...know a good idea if it bit him!"

The pale eyed girl just blinked at them, and shrugged. "Yeah, I'm convinced," she said with the same flat tone she used pretty much all the time. A glance toward Tzu Zi lingered, though, before she shook her head, and placed her hand on Jet's arm. "We need a word."

"Can it wait? I'm just enjoying the breeze," Jet said, turning to face the bay once more.

"Now, Jet," she said, her flat tone finally slipping somewhat. Jet sighed, and walked away from the children of Si Wong. That left the oddly named Smellerbee standing nearby. Nila stared at the frankly unattractive Eastern girl. She stared back.

"So..." she said, obviously uncomfortable. "...you like boats?"

Nila sighed, rolled her eyes, and turned her gaze back toward the slowly approaching northern shore, and what appeared to her eyes as a mountain rising above them. Her mind, though, assigned a different title to that great mount which dominated the northern horizon. The walls of Ba Sing Se.

"I see your star, you left it burning for me; Mother, I'm he~e~ere..." that young man crooned somewhere near the middle of the ship, out of sight, and Nila could see the appropriateness of it.

"I'm coming, Mother. You'd best be ready for me," Nila said, her mind already churning to find the best way to locate and deposit Sharif as efficiently as possible; if a tenth of what she heard about Ba Sing Se was true, she would have to step lively in that city. But because she was looking forward, she didn't notice what many others had on this boat; that another was passing them, through the cleft in the other direction, its hull low on the water, as though weighed down by stacks of lead. She didn't see the standard, see the black flame. Just as well. She had enough to worry about.

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><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

**The Divide**

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><p>"KEEP YOUR KNEES HIGH, TWINKLETOES!" Toph's voice roaring through the echoing recesses of the Great Divide buffeted him as he tried to balance the boulder on his back, despite her extreme attempts to dislodge it. If he didn't know any better, he'd think that she was doing this just to be mean. But the fact was, his first earthbending, in the ruins of Sentinel Rock, had not been followed by a successful attempt. He didn't know why he'd succeeded that first time, and why he couldn't replicate it, but even still, he'd come a great deal further under Toph's tutelage – even being able to tremble pebbles under his own power – then he had under Bumi's.<p>

The unintended but pleasant side-effect was that both Aang's strength and his stamina, two aspects of his athleticism he utterly neglected before, were swiftly improving. While he certainly wouldn't beat Toph – let alone the unexpected powerhouse that Azula embodied – in an arm-wrestling contest, he now was at the point where he actually looked the proper strapping young teenager, rather than a lanky, too-tall child. With a hitch, he pulled the boulder into a better position for balance, just as Toph smacked on of his feet up, causing the hitch to become a launch, and the boulder flew aside out of his control. "Hey, that's not fair!"Aang said, leaning against the rock which had so long been leaning on him.

"You've gotta be ready for anything. You might be toughening up nicely, but you're still too flighty and too spindly for some of the real high end earthbending," Toph said as she shoved the rock out from under Aang with one foot, sending it crashing into the redstone walls of the Divide. "Still, a lot better than I feared. Horse stance!"

"Again?" Aang complained. "My hamstrings are still burning from the last time!"

"ROCK LIKE!" Toph snapped, and Aang quickly found himself in the much maligned horse stance once again. It seemed to be an an odd quantity in his life that all of the women around him tended to push him around. He wondered if that was telling of his character, or just that the universe liked to poke fun at him. Then again, the universe seemed to think that Aang was supposed to be lovey-dovey with Katara, so the universe was obviously insane. Toph bent the stone, and two pillars rose up under Aang's feet, propelling him about fifteen feet from the rock, giving him a decent view of the campsite, and managing to not disrupt his balance too much. That, too, was telling of her training. His instinct might always be to run away, but he could see what came from rooting your feet and standing your ground. He just hoped that the things she was telling him were actually reaching some useful end, towards earthbending.

While Aang had wanted to see what had become of the cities of Si Wong in his century of absence – he'd visited only once before, and found it quite enthralling – he was strongly vetoed by Toph, and when asked her reasons, Katara seconded the veto. Now that he had a moment to understand things, he could see why. But still, it felt like an opportunity missed. Not like the Great Divide. This was the largest canyon on the face of the planet; at its lowest point, Lake Mang-Gag, it was almost a mile below sea-level, a body of water so salty that nothing could live there, fed by trickles of water through streams like the one they were camped beside. It effectively split what was considered the Northern Earth Kingdoms from the Southern. It was so wide that even at its narrowest point, it could never sustain a bridge. Toph pointed out the ruins of The Monolith's attempt to do that very deed thousands of years before. It certainly didn't look like much of anything, just an oddly clear patch of out-of-place stone on the south side of The Divide.

It was a place Aang had always wanted to visit. He'd just never gotten a chance until right now. And he didn't even get a chance to enjoy it. And now, instead of wrangling with the canyon crawlers and spelunking in the deep-falls, he was trying to move rocks around. And failing. Which was more than a little infuriating. Toph wandered away, but Aang didn't loosen his stance; he knew she was 'watching' him. But if nothing else, the stretch of his calves and the time before him let him have a moment to think about something other than crushing weight, bruised knuckles, and general drop-dead-fatigue.

His own words were 'something's wrong with the universe', and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed that he was bang on in that respect. They might have brushed it off because of the whole Avatar State thing, but that he himself had put it out of his mind for so long showed that he really needed to get his act together. It was almost as though he and everybody with him had stood up and said 'ah yes, 'Imbalance', the metaphysical black hole which threatens the integrity of reality; we've dismissed those claims', and went on with their lives in willing ignorance. As he stooped and cramped, he felt like kicking himself, because there were so many questions he knew he should ask Korra, that were only obvious in hindsight. So many things left unsaid, unlearned, undone.

He slowly placed his fists together, and drew his breathing in, trying to focus through the pain, and the frustration. He wanted to stop this. He wanted to get down off of these pillars and give up. And he knew that he couldn't afford to. He was fighting against himself, like an Ostrich Horse which wanted to go two directions at once. He could either pick a path, or tear himself apart. And with that, his eyes popped open, and he tried to figure out what the hell that metaphor even meant. A shake of his head, though, and he was back to his consideration.

He thought about Vajrapata. That dream was a vision of times past, he now understood. It was something which happened to Avatars sometimes; one lifetime could look back upon deeds of another. It certainly explained why Aang had such vivid and unusual dreams in his childhood. He wasn't just imagining being Fire Lord Tenko, standing against the rampaging South Water Tribe on their own waves; he _was_ Fire Lord Tenko, and was simply remembering it. He wondered about things that he ordinarily wouldn't have wondered about. Toph said that there were three thousand years since the fall of The Monolith. But the world hadn't changed much in all that time. One nation became a hundred, then several dozen, then twenty, then five, but through it all, there were fundamental things which remained the same. Earthbenders in the east, firebenders in the west, waterbenders near the waves, and airbenders in the mountains and the distant places.

The world seemed resistant to change, he considered. Every force put upon it to alter itself tended to backfire. After all, Aang was continually told that the Fire Nation was the most technologically advanced people on the face of this planet, but much of that advancement came in one great rush starting a little over two centuries ago, after the fall of Chin the Conqueror. What, then, was the world doing for more than three millenia before that? The way people thought seemed to be much the same way. In the east, the old way was the best way. So too with Aang's nomadic kin; tradition was probably no small part of why Gyatso never told Aang about his birthright, and his responsibility. From the people he'd talked to, namely the Dragon of the East and the Mountain King, Avatars weren't supposed to even know about their unique status until their sixteenth birthday at the earliest. Another two years and five months, round-abouts for Aang. Only the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes ever dared to invent, to adapt, but for the latter, that only came when there was no other option.

Then, his mind drifted to Vajrapata herself. Time seemed to run in circles. Airbenders and firebenders at war with each other, again. Only when she was Avatar, she was trying to end tyranny and domination. And when Aang thought a moment on that, so was Aang. Why was it, it seemed that the airbender Avatars always got saddled with the most vicious conflicts in their lifetimes? Yangchen had to bring down the South Water Tribe. Vajrapata had to decimate her own people. And now, Aang was on that same path, but pointed at the nation which once stood at the forefront against cruel oppression. But even through that, the Avatar was never alone. Kyoshi had her husband and in time her daughter. Vajrapata had the young Prince of Ember at her side – before his father died at the Day of Black Sun – as well as the earthbender from the north and the waterbender from Great Whales. Yangchen had... well, Aang never paid attention, but he knew for a fact that she had a group of her own to keep her mind clear and her feet walking that narrow path.

Now Aang had his own group. Toph, the blind earthbender, imparting knowledge as through from the badgermoles themselves. Katara, ever eager, trying to keep a dying art alive in herself, and through him. Sokka... who was... good with a boomerang. Aang frowned a moment at that, but maybe there was more to being part of the Avatar's 'council' than the element you bent. Maybe Sokka's complete inability to let people become mopey, or his sarcastic wit, or his mad genius with all things mechanical... maybe those were just as important in their own ways. As he thought about things, he could with the same difficulty imagine going on without Sokka as he could imagine going on without Toph, or Katara, or anybody else.

As Aang pondered, Toph sidled back toward him, catching him completely off guard. She tutted lightly, shaking her head in annoyance, and positioned herself directly between the two pillars which held up each of Aang's feet, and lightly cleared her throat. Then, with a roar of "ROCK LIKE!" she slammed her fists into those pillars, causing a quake to ripple up through them, a naked attempt to dislodge the pesky airbender perched atop them.

While Aang might not be any kind of earthbender, at least not yet, he was not utterly unable to learn his lessons. The first lesson on the stubborn stone he'd ever gotten was standing his ground against a volcano. It was a lesson which settled deeper than he thought possible. With a grit of teeth and a grinding of feet into solid position, he weathered that shudder in the stone, not even budging from his footing. There was a moment of silence, then a grinding as Toph raised up on a pillar of her own, a smirk on her face. "You might actually be learning something," Toph said with smug satisfaction.

Aang couldn't help but smile at that.

"Wipe that smile of your face. We've got a long way to go until you're surfing rocks and punching volcanos in half," she said, and stomped the two of them back down to solid ground. Aang scratched at his shaven pate.

"Um... I already have punched a volcano in half."

"And have you done it recently?" Toph asked.

"Well... no, but..."

"Then I'm not impressed," Toph said. "Come on, Twinkletoes, I can't earthbend for you forever!"

"Yes, Sifu-Toph," Aang said with a degree of weariness. Katara, who was reading quietly near where Appa contently dozed, turned toward him with annoyance.

"Wait a second, why don't you ever call me Sifu-Katara?" she asked.

"...should I?" Aang asked.

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><p>The cockerels were not even close to crying out their summons for the sun, but still, the old man was awake, staring to the brightening sky to the east. Daylight always came. It was one of the certainties which all firebenders held closest to heart, and one the nation held closest to its soul in times of hardship and poverty. No matter how dark the night, no matter how grim the battle, no matter how lost all seemed, daylight always comes. Even if the sun rises through the smoke of a dozen burning cities, it rises. Even if you yourself are not alive to see it, it rises. It was a sort of fatalistic optimism which best described the Fire Nation all the way back to when they first conquered fire, learned the secrets of elemental martial arts from the dragons themselves, and changed the face of the world forever. Who could say what the world would have been without the firebenders and the waterbenders to take the natural world, a world which had never seen bending, and made it what it was today?<p>

He heard a grumbling nearby, the girl who both was and was not his niece shifting as the sun dragged her back awake. The disc had risen into view, but was still eclipsed by the horizon, bathing the world in golden red. He had a difficult time making up his mind about her. He knew she was a threat to both he and Prince Zuko, but at the same time, he had sworn to his wife that he would keep her safe. And there was something in the way she acted which gave Iroh an inkling of hope. After all, she didn't kill him when she'd had her chance. Even if he didn't know why she recoiled as she did with certainty – and he did have some theories as to why that was – the fact that she did not, that she would not later attempt it, told him that there was some fragment of the girl he'd come to care about still inside that mind.

Iroh looked out upon a hill, capped by a stunted tree. It called to mind old memories, once joyous, but later tainted by pain and regret. Of Qiao, carving life into stone with no more than a file and a chisel, under a pale grey sky, while Lu Ten played the less volatile version of Hide And Explode that she'd concocted. Iroh, then younger and fitter, running up to the tree on that other, distant hill. To the 'safe zone', only to be 'struck down' by his son, who bounded laughing onto his back. They all laughed.

Nobody was laughing when they last went to that hill; that was where they laid Lu Ten's memorial pool. It was raining when they swore that they would see him again, one day. It almost always rained in the West. He turned his attention back to the less dangerous of the room's two inhabitants. She was stirring more, now, as sleep fled her more concretely, and the sun's disk finally reached above the horizon by its whole height, and with a gasp and a twitch, she was awake and trying to untangle herself.

"Bad dreams?" Iroh asked placidly. Azula leveled a glare at him for his trouble. "Have some tea, it will help dispel the unpleasant vapors of the night."

"I don't need tea," Azula said sharply. "You'd probably poison it, anyway."

Iroh's frown came to his face, genuine despite his attempts to the contrary. "You obviously don't know me very well, Princess; if you did, you'd know that I would _never_ poison tea," he said, pouring himself a cup and sipping at it. It was a bit sharp, but remarkable given what he had access to. Azula still didn't take any, but drew herself up into a more proper sit.

"You want something from me, am I right?" Azula asked.

Iroh glanced toward that hill, that tree. Then, down to the road which ran near it, intersecting with two others. "I want a few things. What you have to offer is surprisingly small," Iroh said.

Her eyes narrowed, as she glanced around, face impassive. "I thought I recognized this place. This is where you and Zuko joined the Avatar and tried to capture me. So you would betray me again, would you?"

Iroh's eyebrow raised at that. "I cannot see Prince Zuko joining the Avatar," Iroh said. Well, not yet, anyway. Any other version of Zuko would probably have been rightfully suspicious of the Avatar, doubly so if the boy hadn't learned through caring for his sister to calm down and heed Iroh's advice. "Your brother – or rather, _her_ brother – is not the kind of young man who would turn against what he believed in so lightly, and I believe that is likely a trait which your Prince Zuko shared. Since you don't seem to see this as the end of your journey, I must assume you escaped that 'ambush', itself very likely simply a coincidence of appearance, somehow."

"Of course I did," Azula said. "All I had to do was injure you."

Iroh chuckled heartily at that. As though she even could. "That would be a surprising assault indeed."

"Why do you keep looking at that tree? What are you hiding?" Azula demanded. How quickly it seemed that their warden-prisoner relationship had reversed, despite it never having been such in the first place, and no bondage really existed.

"I'm thinking about my son, Lu Ten," Iroh said distantly.

"He was a screw-up," Azula said bitterly.

"He might have been," Iroh admitted.

"He didn't deserve to be Fire Lord," Azula continued.

"He might not," Iroh nodded. Lu Ten was a great many things, but a leader of men was not one of them. That was probably what lead to his demise.

"Father was right to take your place on the throne," Azula pressed.

"Of that, we have differing opinions," Iroh said, and obviously so. "I cannot say what sort of Fire Lord I would have made..."

"Weak, befuddled, and tea obsessed," Azula said in offer. Iroh gave her a flat glare.

"...but without reference I can never say, and neither can you. Who knows what strange fate would have befallen the Fire Nation had I rose to power instead of my brother? What world would we have lived in that saw me upon the Burning Throne instead of your father? Would we still be at war? If so, would we have won at Summavut? The great tragedy and something you must understand is that _we can never know_. All that we know is what happened in your time, and what happened in mine," Iroh said, running a hand down his beard as he poured himself another cup of tea. "I would like to think I would rule in a world at peace, that the war would have ended. But I cannot say, because fate decided that it was not my place to be Fire Lord."

"You allow fate to decide your path?" Azula asked. "Pathetic."

"Is that not what you do now?" Iroh asked. "You assume that everything you do will have relevance, that in slaying the girl, you can prevent some calamity to your daughter, who has not even been born yet. If that isn't a faith in fate, I cannot find a better example."

"I don't know why I put up with you," Azula muttered.

"Excellent tea and good advice," Iroh said, raising the former. "The secret to both is proper aging."

"I'm going," Azula said, getting to her feet.

"And I will follow."

"Do it and I will..." Azula began.

"What?" Iroh interrupted her, but without harshness. "What will you do? I know that you might be powerful. Perhaps the most powerful firebender alive. But I do not fear power. Will you ambush me? I am more watchful than you realize. Will you try to slash me with your knife? You will find its edges don't agree with my old hide. I believe if you were going to do something, you would have by now. You were never passive in your aggression. So stop making threats we both know you will not carry through upon."

Azula looked about ready to spit lightning bolts, but remained quiet. Iroh gave a glance to the tree, and to the place where three roads met. He had hoped that Zuko would have heeded his order, the one he'd left on the path to Omashu, and come to this place. But the fact that he saw the boy in Omashu told him that Prince Zuko would not be awaiting them in the abandoned city at the place where three roads met. And probably for the best that it had happened that way. Bumi might have been a strange man, but he knew what Zuko was to Iroh. The worst thing would be for Zuko to be alone in the world, without purpose or goal or direction. Even the simple thought of what might come of a Zuko without hope drove a shiver into the old man's spine.

"I don't like this," Azula said quietly.

"And yet, it continues," Iroh said. He rose, and dumped the last dregs of the tea in the pot out the window. One could never quite drink it all, it seemed. "You seem quite determined to impress my brother, but I know that he is not a man to regret any decision he has made, least of all toward the people he has hurt. And he has hurt you quite deeply. Anything you do will likely be seen as aggression against him."

"No, he will see my deeds and know that I am a worthy heir," she said. "This time, there will be no mistakes, no miscalculations. No trusting anybody who will betray me."

There was a heartbreaking, desperate loneliness in that last sentence which Iroh could tell was so genuine and real that it took his breath. So the flower blossomed, it seemed. Betrayal was always in her words; perhaps it was because betrayal caused a cruel injury to her? Iroh had a notion. "Azula, please, come with me."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I have something that you need to see," Iroh said. "Now stop being a petulant child and come!"

Her teeth gritted, but she obeyed, which was surprising in its own right. He sauntered out of the shack, and took up a stick, and scratched the flame into the dirt. "It is obvious that you are going to return to my brother despite my good advice. Since you are, you should know more advanced defensive techniques."

"You sound as though you think he's going to attack me," Azula said.

"I know he will," Iroh said flatly. "Your mastery of the cold-blooded fire is not this body's. When did you learn to control lightning?"

"I mastered lightning not long after I became thirteen," Azula said with a note of pride, which caused Iroh to pause. Ozai himself hadn't begun to learn bending the lightnings until he was twenty, and he was renowned as the Lord of Thunder, amongst his other monikers. Iroh looked back to the dirt.

"And you have..."

"At some point, you learned to redirect lightning, a feat I didn't think possible. To this day, I cannot say how you did that," she continued, growing annoyed toward the end.

"I see," Iroh said. "Very well. If you wish me to 'show my worth' to you, then I will tell you the secret of redirecting lightning."

She leaned back, skeptical. "You wouldn't."

"Watch me," Iroh said. This was probably the longest gamble he'd ever offered. He really hoped that it did not come up bust.

* * *

><p>Keen eyes were a necessity for this kind of work. They weren't the most important necessity, by far, but they were sorely needed to outmatch their prey. He scratched at the edge of the mask, where it dug into his cheek, but did not dislodge it. The face-paint which usually marked he and his like was in incredibly short supply both in the North, and in the East; besides, the paint would have become encrusted with dirt in a matter of minutes, and turned a drab, unpatriotic brown. The masks would suffice. Besides, that's the way things were in the old days. No, while keen eyes were important to his ilk, the much more important feature was being able to break habits of a lifetime. It was always said that earthbenders always stare below the horizon, to the stones which made up their culture and their soul. Firebenders, on the other hand, looked to the horizon, to greet the rising sun in the moments of its appearance. But for the Yu Yan, they needed to look up.<p>

Always up.

"Nothing yet," Ite said quietly, his own amber eyes drifting in sweeps from the nearby horizon, upward. While it would have been far easier if they'd just scaled the walls and looked down, it was doubly imprudent; first, it would have made them an obvious target to anybody looking from above. Second, the landscape of the Great Divide worked against them. Every climb they took to gain perspective would be canceled out by a descent, to reclimb somewhere else. Faster to just use the Divide against whoever else was within it. Lines of sight might be short, but sound carried far. In fact, that was a third thing one needed to be an effective Yu Yan Archer: Excellent hearing.

And because of that third factor, Vachir was able to pause, causing his counterpart to fall silent. It was barely more than the wind, but enough that he could make it out. Words. Not just words, but words in a tongue not often heard in this region. Tianxia was as common as the dirt under their feet, and while it claimed to have a hundred odd dialects, they all sounded roughly the same to his Huojian trained mind. But sounding quite different from those was the tongue of the children of the poles. That Pole-ish language was somewhere in the canyon right now, and its bearers speaking without regard to giving away their position. Which they'd just done.

"Go back to the others," Vachir whispered. "They are further northeast than Zhao predicted."

"That we found them at all is a miracle," Ite pointed out, and Vachir couldn't disagree with that.

"Go. I will ensure they do not escape," Vachir said. Without another word, Ite vanished back into the Divide, to rally the others of the Yu Yan. Today, the last Storm King would die. Today, the Yu Yan would finally be complete in their purpose.

* * *

><p>He didn't know exactly what he was looking at. It came part in parcel of not being a native to this continent. He'd heard descriptions of just about every animal under the sun, but it was the 'just about' which tended to come back and bite him in the blubber at any available opportunity. For example, he could name all three distinct species of Ostrich Horse just by the shape of their beaks, but when it came to identifying the adorable little ball of fluff and cute noises in front of him, he was drawing a blank. He pondered it a moment longer, rubbing at an imaginary beard, before sighing, and limbering his machete.<p>

"You know, you're awfully cute, but unfortunately for you, you're made of meat," Sokka said apologetically, as he readied his footing on the tree-limb. "You shouldn't get too upset. It's just the natural order of things. Big things eat smaller things... unless you're in Azul, and then, all bets are off. But it's just the way things go. If you were big and vicious, you'd probably be eating me."

The small brown thing continued pawing experimentally at the fist-sized tumbleweed, chirruping to itself with a detectable amount of joy. Sokka sighed. It was hard killing cute things, but cute things were just as edible as ugly things. Usually more so, in fact. And while Aang was always preaching a proper vegetarian existence, that was just no way to live. It was not a meal until there was meat in it, simple as that. So he screwed his feet, and prepared for the vault, pausing only to recalculate his trajectory so he didn't end up wedging himself in that rather deep looking crack in the ground.

And then, right as he pushed off, there was a rapid, staccato 'thack-thack-thack-thack' sound hitting the tree limb, and Sokka's triumphant and effective pounce became a shrieking flail, as his momentum, already imparted to his course, carried him off of his stable perch, but not toward the adorable meat-thing. No, he didn't have time to see the four arrows which now affixed his boot to the tree, but he could certainly feel their presence as he began to lever down, his movement turned from a vault into a rotation, until he was dangling upside down by one boot which was pinned to the wood. He blinked for a moment, then looked up. Arrows, he thought? Where the hell did those come from?

He immediately jumped to the probably correct assumption that somebody was trying to capture him, and heaved himself up. Pulling the arrows seemed about as useful as self-dentistry, so he pressed the machete, which he managed to cling to despite his tumble, to the leather of his boot, about to saw into the last bit of clothing he still had from the South Pole.

He was saved from having to destroy his footwear in the most inconvenient manner possible. Namely, by the appearance of four more arrows, which pinned his arm to the same tree limb, right beside his foot, leaving him dangling in a position which afforded him absolutely no leverage. On the ground below him, that adorable meat thing looked up and peeped at him. Sokka sighed. "You think I deserve this, don't you?" he asked. The meat-thing waggled its little tail in response, before bleating and running for the woods past him. And when two archers, decked with red face-masks emerged silently from the underbrush, bows drawn and ready, Sokka could see why.

He gave an awkward laugh. "Um..." he said. "Can we call this one a draw?"

The archer paused, looking up at him, and shook his head slowly.

* * *

><p>Practice brings perfection. Considering how long she'd been practicing her waterbending, she should have reached perfection a few years ago. But since she'd only had so briefly a teacher, she had to make do with what she had. The stream was small, and had very little flowing through it. Still, compared to the rest of the Great Divide, it was as bountiful as the seas. Vegetation, tough and hardy, clung to the edges of that brook with an eager intensity. Finding a place where it pooled in any useful amount was a task in and of itself. But one she took to eagerly, since she desperately, desperately needed a bath.<p>

She would have had them all land here, to use the pool more directly, but as experience with the young monk had taught her, it was pretty much _just_ the South Water Tribe who didn't have problems with the whole 'nudity' thing. For all the Avatar saw her as a sister, she didn't feel any desire to inflict that kind of embarrassment on him. He'd get over it sooner or later, she considered. After all, he'd probably find a girlfriend someday. Or maybe a boyfriend. She couldn't really be sure. Either way, body shame never did anybody any good.

She finished her bath a good five minutes ago, but even half-dressed, she couldn't resist the call of open water. With a wistful smile on her face, she bent it up out of the pool, into a delicate wheel, which she spun around her, delighting in a visceral sense the control of her element. As she did, she gave a moment to attempt all of the forms she knew, and read about. Just once, just to keep the forms fresh to her muscles. A flick, into the water whip. A twist, into the defense and riposte. Hands close to the core, for the octopus form. Hands wide for the water-knife. Closed fist for ice. Flared fingers for steam. As she worked through the forms, she started to sweat again, a fresh sweat, not like that caked on nonsense like she had to endure in the desert. She let her hands drop, as she reached the end of what she knew. There was footwork, also, but considering the mud, and her boots all the way over there, she didn't feel like working that, as well. Even so, as she affixed her heirloom necklace back in place, she felt like there was something she was overlooking. There was a form, something she knew was begging to be discovered, but she didn't quite know how to describe it, or what it meant.

From what she'd already learned about waterbending, there was a technique she should be capable of, which would be obvious to a decent lateral thinker. Since she was not her brother, it eluded her. And that annoyed her.

Her consideration was cut short, though, when she heard the slightest of 'goosh'es. One foot slipping from dry land into firm mud. Not even enough to get Momo worried. But Katara could feel something. She'd talked with Toph, about the way how the blind girl 'see's with her martial art. As she did, she started to wonder if she might, some day, do the same. It wasn't that, she believed, which turned her attention around, not the clear pseudo-vision of a finished and perfected technique. Just a shock where there ought not be one. And because of that tiny sound, that miniscule sensation, she saw a man moving toward her, bow drawn. As soon as her eyes fell upon him, the arrow was released, but her reflexes were honed by naked combat, and with a flick of her hand, a water knife slashed the arrow in half long before it reached her.

The archer was already pulling a second arrow, so she backed off. "Stay back! I'm warning you!" Katara shouted.

Another arrow away, and she pulled up the water again, into a barricade, one she snap froze before the projectile could clear it. In a flash, that archer pulled a second arrow, and fired it into the halted first. Then, a third, cleaving into the halted second. Each arrow caused the hole in the ice to widen, as well as Katara's eyes. She pulled more water up, to shore the barrier, but a whistling in the air pulled her attention to her left. In an instant, her defense was turned to offense, a new water knife, slashing through the netting which screamed through the air, send by arrows to ensnare her. She glanced between the two archers on her left, to the one in front of her.

"_Clever girl_," the archer before her noted without cruelty or scorn. Just a man doing his job. "_But not clever enough._"

Another snap of a bowstring, and this time, a line shot past her face. She flinched back from it, only to find it twisting back, and snaring one of her arms to her side. The three archers she could see, and the one which she couldn't, continued to fire those twisting lines, until she was no longer able to keep herself upright, and tipped over into the scant mud. Paralyzed. Trapped.

"_Collect her,_" the first archer said. She saw a hand reached down to grab her where the lines collected, right above her breast. She knew what she had to do.

"_OW! DAMN IT! SHE'S BITING ME!_"

* * *

><p>"Easy as pie," Jet concluded. "We'll be in and out before anybody even realizes."<p>

"Jet..." Mai said patiently. "I thought you said you were getting out of this."

"It's not banditry. _He's_ a bandit for holding back the food from these desperate refugees. We're the heroes, here!" Jet explained. Longshot, who had been as usual quietly sitting to one side, turned and gave the two of them a look, which clearly said 'and it's so obvious that you haven't been looking for a chance to play hero, Jet'. Jet frowned at that. "There's no need to be snide, Longshot."

"If anybody finds out, there'll be trouble," Smellerbee said, nodding slowly.

"Come on, guys. I thought you'd be with me on this one," Jet said. Mai sighed, as she was wont to do.

"Jet, we stole so we could feed starving children. The children are safe in Omashu, now," she pointed out. "We just need to worry about ourselves now. And I still wonder why you want to go to Ba Sing Se. Omashu seemed... well, dull as Hell, but better than living in the woods."

"A fresh start, Shadow," he said. "And Ba Sing Se's the place for it. Who knows. Maybe if we play our cards right, we can get to the Earth King, and get him to actually fight against the Fire Nation instead of..."

He trailed off. Mai raised an eyebrow at that. "Fresh start," she repeated. "And stealing from the ship's larder helps that how?"

"It doesn't," a testy voice came from the door to their tiny, one man cabin which now housed five. Of them, only Bug was asleep. All turned, Bug excluded, to the source of the voice, and she saw that Si Wongi girl from the deck, standing with a fist on her hip and an unamused look on her face. "The captain finds he has been robbed, he'll know exactly who to punish. Everyone. Your... fresh start, will begin and end in a prison cell."

"But this isn't justice," Jet snapped. "He should be helping these people, not hoarding things for himself."

"Why?" the girl asked. Jet sputtered a moment at that.

"You're defending him?"

"No, I think he's acting like a brigand. But why _must_ he share with the destitute?" she answered. "Self interest can make fools of wise-men. And it is a difficult thing to defeat. It takes a powerful motivator to overcome. I have no faith that you would be able to, not with thievery and distribution."

"And what would you do?" Mai asked, cutting off Jet before he said something insulting. The girl crossed her arms before her chest, and pondered a moment.

"I will speak to him, show him the error of his ways," she said with a snide twist to her words. Jet gave her a raised brow of suspicion. "The Sultan was right. My name does open doors. I am more the fool for not utilizing it more often."

"And who are you supposed to be?" Jet asked.

"I am the Dragon's Daughter," she said simply, before turning and walking away. "Don't do anything foolish while I'm gone."

Jet turned to her with a shrug. "I can't believe it," Mai said idly. "I never knew that woman had children."

"Who?" Jet pressed.

"You remember the man who almost won at Ba Sing Se?" Mai asked, leaning back against the wall, and almost vanishing against it. "That girl's mother is the reason he lost."

* * *

><p>"Come on... Mooooooove!" Aang muttered, thrusting his fists toward that stone before him, which had a 'victory notice' bearing the burned likeness of Lord Zhao upon it. Even now, he seemed to be openly mocking Aang for his failures. The rock did not move. Despite that immobility, and in fact its inorganicness, the Zhao Rock sneered at him.<p>

"Gotta give you a gold star for effort," Toph said, slugging him in the shoulder as she walked past. "But a big fat nothin' for effect. Come on, Twinkletoes. You chucked a rock in that crazy ass ruin!"

"Yeah, I know! It's driving me crazy!" Aang complained. "I know I can! I know I've done it, but I can't remember how!"

Appa, who had been watching Aang's futile struggles, gave a bass grunt, and plodded along the river, munching idly at the foliage. Aang walked over and scratched at the beast's drooping ears. "Maybe you're holding out on me," Toph said, moving closer, leaning in. "Maybe you're just not trying hard enough."

"But I've been working my arrow off since Omashu, and still nothing!" Aang said, turning to kick a rock, and managing to hurt his toe in the process. Toph 'stared' at him a moment longer, then sighed. "What? Am I not doing it well enough for you? This is all I've got!"

"Yeah, well, maybe this can start up again in the morning," she said. "You might be shaping up... slowly... but nobody said you'd be an earthbender overnight."

"...I kinda hoped..." Aang muttered.

"I think it's a bit more than just the skills you're missing out on," Toph said. "I've done a lot of thinking, about Oma and the First Avatar," she said. Aang paused for a moment, and then remembered that Sokka and Toph were both now fluent in a language three thousand years dead, and thus, didn't bother explaining what had the two of them up to all hours of the night. He turned to her, surprised. "Yeah, figured you'd be interested in that. See, it took _ages_ to teach the First Avatar, since she was from the Fire Nation and thought like a firebender. But I've also heard that Kyoshi was waterbending before she could even twist a breeze. I figure there's gotta be some component of the way you think in how hard it is to bend."

"That... makes a lot of sense, really," Aang said, scratching at his head. "Are you saying I don't think like an earthbender should?"

"Absolutely," Toph said without humor. "You're flighty, you run away far too much, you can't stick with anything. You're lazy, shiftless, and you never face your problems unless you've got nowhere else to turn. That's about as far from earthbending as possible. One day, you're gonna learn that not every problem's got some trickety-trick that can weasel you out of it; it'll have to be dealt with head on, full speed, and damn-the-landmines-march-to-the-walls! You can't reason with a landslide, you can't argue with a collapsing building, and you can't trick your way into earthbending."

"Then... maybe I'm just not cut out to be an earthbender," Aang said sadly.

"Don't be a wuss, Twinkletoes. I'll get you chuckin' rocks if it kills you," Toph said.

Aang's eyes went wide as they rounded a bend in the Divide, and he reached out, grabbing the blind earthbender. "Shh!" Aang hushed. Toph scowled in his general direction.

"What?" she demanded, but mercifully, quite quietly. Of course, she couldn't see.

Ahead of them, near where the campsite had been laid out, he could see both Katara and Sokka, bound and trussed on the ground, with a whole cadre of those frighteningly effective Yu Yan archers around them, keeping all directions observed. With a heave, he tackled the two of them to the ground. "Yu Yan," Aang said. "They've got Katara and Sokka!"

"Yu Yan?" Toph said. "Then you've got a problem. Those guys were formed specifically to bring down airbenders, back when there were still Storm Kings floating around."

"But... They have Katara and Sokka."

"And they'll kill you flat no matter what trick you try to pull with them," Toph said, getting up and pulling him, despite his best efforts, away from that clearing. "Like I said, especially trained to kill airbenders. They know every trick you've got, and have a counter for it. I hear they had a field day during the Purge, and the years after."

"So what? You want us to run away?" Aang asked, his voice strangled, finally tearing free of her drag. "I can't do that!" he caught her shirt. "I am _not_ going to leave them behind!"

With one stiff-armed shove, he was thrown down to the dirt, and Toph smirked above him. "Wasn't my intention to begin with," she said, clapping the dust from her palms. "Like your attitude, by the way. Very earthbender."

"So..." Aang said from his seat, confused. "...if we're not going to run, and I can't get close to them without killing me... what do I do?"

"How do you move a rock?" Toph asked. Aang stared at her for a moment, then turned, back toward that bend, where the Yu Yan lay in wait.

"Head on," he answered.

* * *

><p>"...As you are well aware, Fire is the element of power," Iroh said, as he dragged a box around the flame emblem he'd scratched into the ground. "It represents both creation and destruction, contains both yin and yang in almost equal measure. Because of their connection to Fire, the people of the Fire Nation are resourceful and strident, possessed of energy and will."<p>

Azula obviously was bored by the time he started talking, so he snapped his fingers, dragging her attention back to him. "Pay attention. This could save your life some day," he chastised. The fact that she shot him a glare meant that her attention was back on him, so he drew the glyph representing earth. "Earth, on the other hand, is patient and enduring. It neither creates nor destroys – it simply is. It is very strong in yin, very weak in yang. Because of this, the people connected to it are substantial, they are resilient and enduring. Their traditions are their shield, and their diverse peoples their strongest spear."

"And their biggest weakness," Azula noted.

"If they are weak, then how have we warred against them for ninety years and only managed to claim token portions of the continent?" Iroh asked. "They are strong because every time we defeat an enemy, learn his strategy, the next has a strategy utterly divorced from the one before. We must fight entirely new battles every time, and nothing may be taken for granted. They are balkanized, divided, but all part of a great whole, the whole of Earth," he then scratched the whirling vortices of the element of Air. "Air is the element of freedom, of mobility and chance. It is the opposite of Earth, and has the strength of yang that Earth has of yin, and respective weakness. It is the element associated with time, and history, and life. That it was in the hands of the Storm Kings was a great irony of its element. Water, finally," he said, drawing the great wave in the final position of the square, "is the element of change and transition. Where Air is life, Water is death. It is said that all began in water, and that in the end, all will come to water once again. Water, like Fire, can create and destroy. It has Fire's same balance of yin and yang..."

"Impossible," Azula snapped. "Waterbending is nothing like firebending."

"It is much more similar than you would believe," Iroh stated. "It may not seem it, but Fire and Water, while opposites, are more alike than any admit. We banded together against our greatest enemy. They devote themselves wholly to the good of their clans and Tribe. How are we different?"

"Basic sanitation," Azula quipped.

"They bathe in water almost freezing cold," Iroh said. "It is a very... bracing... experience."

"Ah, yes," Azula said, leaning forward. "How could I forget your little foray with those barbarians. Of course, you weren't very old when you wandered off, were you?"

Iroh schooled his expression to not betray him. She must have learned about another Iroh's past, one which was somewhat similar to his own. He ought not let it shake him. "You were taught, as most are, that the elements are separate. This could not be further from the truth," Iroh pressed on, drawing divisions between the elements, before encircling them one and all. "They are all part of a greater whole, something which could not exist if any were absent, or present in too much strength. By drawing wisdom from only one element, one philosophy, one aspect of the real, we allow our ideas to become stagnant and stale."

"We are in a revolution the world has never seen before, one which will twist your head with its scope," Azula said, her tone and expression turning from derision to something more akin to begrudging wonder. "The things I've seen over my years... it was like mankind had conquered magic and made technology of it. Carriages needing no beasts to bear them. A voice cast from one continent to the other clear as daylight, upon wings of copper wire. Buildings which stabbed down the clouds..." her eyes focused on him once again. "Don't dare say we are stagnant, old man."

"And this happened after your war ended," Iroh pointed out. "Once freedom had returned, and your version of the Avatar restored balance to the world. What do we create now? Weapons. That is our paradigm, that is our goal, that is our only focus. Your technological marvels cannot come about, not until somebody is willing to think freely, and see what lies beyond the horizon of his knowledge. While the Avatar represents all of the elements together in one person, it is possible to expand beyond one's own limitations by understanding the philosophies of the others, to make one a greater, wholer person."

"'Wholer' isn't a word."

"You have already done it," Iroh pointed out easily, pointing lightly to the whorls of wind, boxed off below the flame. Azula looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "When I watched you fight the Avatar, I saw not a firebender. You were not the firebender that any teacher in the West would make you. You firebent like an airbender would. Whether you realize it or not, or are willing to accept it or not," Iroh pressured when she started to raise a complaint, "you understand on some level that you are not as strong with your elements disparate as you are with them united."

She glared at him for a long moment, her jaw tense. "Fine. So I picked up a few useful techniques by stealing them from my enemy. That still doesn't make this any more valid."

"You picked up more than his techniques. Your art," Iroh continued. "It was a style this world has never seen, capturing the world as it is, rather than how one is expected to see it. That innovation requires freedom. Fire needs Air. It is in the Trinity of Flame itself. Air without Fire can continue, but Fire without Air chokes and dies."

"You sound like you have sympathy for our enemies."

"I see the world as it is," Iroh said, pointing the stick toward her. "And so do you. The technique of redirecting lightning was something I developed by observing the Water Tribesmen. They can turn attack into defense in a heartbeat, and from defense flow effortlessly and losslessly into attack in another. That is the precision and timing you need to turn lightning away from you."

"I always wondered how dum-dum ever managed to learn that trick," Azula said.

"It was not easily learned," Iroh muttered. She looked up at him. "Yes, I have already shared with your brother the secret. I had great concern for his safety. Although only he, I, and my brother..."

"And me," Azula said angrily.

"...could generate lightning, I believed that there was ample reason for him to know how to defend himself from the cold-blooded fire. And now, it is time for you, as well," he bade her rise, and pointed to his fingertips, stretched away from him. "You must create a path with your inner power, your chi, and have it flow in through your arms," he traced the path as he spoke. "It must travel up to the shoulder, then immediately down, into the stomach. This is the pool of chi – although in my case, it is more of a vast ocean. Ha! It is the pool of the energy of our souls, which give fuel to the fire we bend. If it is crippled, we lose our capacity to bend fire. While it is usually a small thing, it can expand to contain the energy of the lightning, but only very briefly," he stopped rubbing his belly, and continued tracing the path. "The energy must then pass up into the other shoulder, then out through the fingertips. The detour to the stomach is absolutely vital. The energy _must not_ pass through the heart. If it does, the damage could be monumental, every bit as fatal as doing nothing. Do you understand?"

"How do I know that you're not lying to me, teaching me dance-moves to amuse your twisted humor?" Azula asked.

"You don't," Iroh said. "And I hope that you never have to find out."

Azula glared for a long moment, then her head flinched to one side, and her scowl took on a more sickly look. "Fine," she said, with an odd amount of strain in it. "Let's get this farce over with."

* * *

><p>She paced slowly before the door, running through her head a number of questions. Chief amongst them was, of course, why am I even doing this? The answer, she decided, was because it needed to be done. For some reason, it didn't quite sit well enough with her. But it didn't matter. She was here, having already knocked, and would not be made a coward by her own brain. It was the one trait which she shared with all of the other dirt-dwelling Easterners; she was stubborn.<p>

The door cracked open, and the somewhat corpulent man peered out from the other side of it. "What do you want, girl?"

While it was somewhat pleasing, for reasons she didn't go into at this moment, to be immediately recognized for her gender once more, she had business to attend to. "You have a serious problem," Nila said without preamble.

"Pardon me?"

Nila pushed past him, into the upper room, which was directly above the kitchens and larder. He huffed at her temerity, but she didn't care. She stabbed down a finger onto is manifests. "You are serving foul, rancid food to the refugees on this ship, while it says clear as the sun in the sky that you have far better to offer them."

"You should not be in here, little girl," the man said, puffing out his chest. "This is my private cabin."

"Private for not much longer, I would fear," Nila pointed out. "There are a great many discontented rumblings below the decks. I can only assume that you are no veteran of this route?" she didn't wait for his stammering explanation that 'he'd been working in he south until recently' to finish before pressing on. "Then of course you would not know of the great desperation that so many of these refugees would display. How many are fleeing from the fall of Summavut, or the news that the Fire Nation turns its eyes East once more? A great many. And that great many are universally hungry."

"That is not my problem. I've been subsidized to bring them across the bay into Ba Sing Se. Not fill their stomachs."

"You'll find that the latter is the only way to effect the former," Nila pointed out. "Those discontented rumblings, included amongst other things, robbing your pantry, running you off the end of the boat, or else 'keel-hauling' you, which I can only imagine is something far worse, for it was spoken of in hushed tones."

"Who? What rat said that? I'll..."

"Not one. Not even a few," Nila said, affixing the older man with her emerald glare. "If they do not abandon those mutterings of their own free will, blood will come of it, and that blood will be neither theirs nor mine. If you wish to keep your boat, then you will have to better what they have already received. A peace offering. A fine dinner, and a fine breakfast, before setting into port. If not, the only thing on the platter, I fear, will be you."

"Of all the cheek," the captain said. "That food is worth real money. These people are worthless."

"The only people who are worthless are those who make themselves so. I have seen a great many non-worthless people since I came aboard," Nila said.

He shook his head. "You're asking me to essentially give away money. Who are you to demand that of me?"

Nila sighed, then looked him square in the eye. "You do not know me, but you should. You have heard of Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, the Dragon of the East. I am her daughter. I am Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar. And I am the only thing standing between you and bloody mutiny."

"That's... impossible. The Dragon of the East went into exile years ago!" he claimed. "The last time I or anybody saw her was at Ba Sing Se!"

Nila leaned forward. "Look me in the eye, and tell me I am not her daughter. Then, ask yourself one question. What do you stand to lose by inaction? An elephant mouse of prevention is a finer thing than an elephant tiger of cure after the fact. A fine dinner, and a fine breakfast, for the weary souls aboard. Is that so much? You lose some food you wish to gouge prices with. But in failure to do this, you risk the loss of all. Which weighs heavier for you?"

"You are a witch," he said sourly.

"I have been called worse by better," Nila said. The captain scowled at her for all he was worth, but she just stared impassively back, until finally he broke.

"Fine. I'll tell the cooks to ready a feast, and tell the rats on the planks that I pitched the fool responsible for lunch over the rail. Are you content with that?"

"I was content in either way," Nila said, turning toward the door. "I would just prefer to have an uneventful trip to Ba Sing Se. This seemed the easiest way to do so."

She stepped back through the door, which had remained somewhat ajar, and returned to the highest deck of the ship. As she did, Ashan leaned off of the wall where he had, at some point, appeared, and started walking with her. She gave a confused glance, but didn't start. She wasn't so easily startled after all. She made bombs as a hobby.

"_You are a very convincing bully,_" Ashan said in their native tongue of Altuundili.

"_Some people need sense beaten into them. I assume you do not approve?_" she asked with a sarcastic smirk.

"_You took time and effort to prevent bloodshed and despair. I could not approve more,_" Ashan said. Nila rolled her eyes. "_Oh, don't give me that. You did a good deed for a change! That's a good thing!_"

"_I neither ask nor want your approval, Ashan,_" Nila said pointedly, as she walked away.

"_I give it all the same._"

"_...you are so annoying,_" Nila muttered.

As they both passed below to where Tzu Zi and Sharif were staying, a third figure appeared out of the shadows, where she had been watching the two of them with pale, emotionless eyes. She gave a small, pleasantly surprised grunt in the back of her throat. "She's not bad," she said to nobody in particular, a bad habit she was going to have to break sooner or later. She then sighed. "'course, now this trip just got boring again."

* * *

><p>"How about you take this blindfold off, and I'll wipe that smile off your face?" Katara shouted, in as much surprise as she was that he didn't, as so many had before, gag her. She hadn't heard from Sokka for a while, but that was after they dragged him somewhere else because they thought the two siblings were conspiring in their native tongue. That they <em>were<em> was immaterial.

"I am not smiling," the archer answered back flatly.

She struggled against her bondage in a fashion which was becoming both worryingly routine and disturbingly familiar. In her entire life, she'd never been bound against her will even once, at least, before landing on Kyoshi Island. Ever since then, it had happened with disturbing and remarkable frequency. She also knew that these people did a far better job at restraining than most, giving her perhaps a few inches of movement across her entire body, and keeping her as far away from the water they'd captured her in as humanly possible. Smart and annoying. These people were the Sokka of Fire Nation adversaries. Only more effective.

She knew that Aang was out there. She knew that he would come back, and find them. And then... and then, he'd barter his life against theirs, because that was the sort of person he was. Whether or not the archers followed through on whatever deal they offered, the war would be over. The Fire Nation wins. In her head, she screamed at Aang to just go. Leave them behind. And at the same time, she knew he never, never would. Her hands clenched into tight fists, which squeezed the sweat from her palms. She knew she couldn't do anything, that fate would move on without her. She knew it, but she didn't accept it.

Because there was water nearby. Her brow rose under its black-cloth prison, as a conversation from so long ago came back to her mind.

_Yugoda let her hands drop to her lap, and the glowing which suffused the arm and shoulder of the wounded Tribesman dimmed, and he rose from his supine position with little more than a grunt, before shuffling out the door. "Are you just going to let him disrespect you like that?" Katara asked, as the soldier vanished into his milling, brutish ilk._

_ "He's not disrespectful," Yugoda said. "They have more important things on their minds than tact and manners."_

_ "But you just reattached his arm!"_

_ Yugoda shrugged. "It was a simple thing," she said, rising to pour herself some tepid broth to sip at. Katara gaped at that._

_ "His arm and his body came into this room in different order. How is that simple?"_

_ "You are still new to healing, young pupil," Yugoda said patiently. "Water is called the element of death, but it is also the basis for all life; it suffuses everything that lives. And by manipulating it, we can allow life to flourish, or if the case requires, snuff it out. There is water in everybody that lives. It is just a matter of seeing it, and knowing how to use it properly."_

_ "But... his arm was off," Katara stressed, still not able to believe what she'd just witnessed. It was, after all, her first session with the aged master healer. "You put it back on. I..."_

_ Yugoda smiled. "It's alright, Katara," she said kindly. "Sometimes, these lessons take some time to sink in. To heal or to harm, water is everywhere. Even in a severed limb, even in the winds of a desert. To a master waterbender, water is always at hand. You just need to expand your vision to see it. Now please, observe," Yugoda said, as another soldier limped into the hut, filthy, bloody, and expressionless. She should have seen how wrong things were, working with Yugoda. What had gone wrong with her cousins in the north? At least she still remembered those words, those important words_.

Water is always at hand.

It was a tentative thing at first, feeling the sweat in her palms. Water. Water with unpleasant stuff in it, but water. The more she felt it, flowing along her back and her arms and her hands, the more she was sure what Yugoda had intended when she'd told her that. Water is the element of life. Everything alive contains water.

And with a twist of her fingers, the sweat grew cold. Grew solid. Grew sharp.

* * *

><p>Vachir kept his eyes up. He had to. That was what the Yu Yan were. "He'll be coming back soon. He won't abandon his friends," Ite said, somewhat unnecessarily. Vachir considered chastizing his younger partner, but that wasn't his place, and honestly, he had better things to do. But still, he would inform the Captain that Ite had a serious problem shutting the hell up. Amongst the other bag of tricks that a Yu Yan needed to be truly successful was effective and proper use of silence.<p>

"I think I've got something over here," Dogo said very quietly from the other side of the camp. Not shout, nor even a full speak. Quietly enough to not travel, loud enough to be heard where it was intended. A lesson in itself, right there. "They must be coming for the Tribesman first."

"Bison?" Vachir asked.

"Yes."

Vachir turned to Ham, the largest of them, who looked like a living manifestation of his nickname, all meat and lacking the lithe body of his fellows. Just as well. Somebody had to carry that damned thing. Ham nodded, and lifted the machine, one invented only a century ago, to bring down the Storm Kings' Bison with a single shot. It wasn't a bow, not like had been used since the first Rebellion, but the Yu Yan used them all the same. After all, an arrow to a bison was less than a toothpick to a man. But a harpoon was a harpoon, no matter the scale.

The beast floated in the air, easily within range. And since it was within range, it would be within targeting distance. Ham was very good at using that mechanical device, and sighted it very intently, waiting for Vachir to announce the launch. After all, the Captain was overseeing the girl. Keep him divided and off guard. That was Zhao's order. And a good one.

Vachir looked up in the air, and when he did, he didn't like what he saw. "Hold fire," Vachir said, and Ham glanced back. Vachir nodded up toward the bison, which was scudding over them with lazy paddles of its tail. Even from this bad angle, Vachir could see that this bison not only lacked a saddle, but even the posture of one who ever had. Feral bison, nothing more. "Not the right one."

"Then where is the Avatar?" Ite asked.

Like many things in this world, the answer came very quickly, and with a great deal of noise and anguish. Hurling himself out of the water of the stream like some sort of River Demon, the Avatar landed with less than a whisper, but the other, the blind earthbender they'd been warned about, she was not so subtle. She landed with a crash of rocks, having been vomited up from the Divide itself, and immediately started to hurl stone about her with wild abandon. Without a word needing be said, the Yu Yan divided into two groups. The smaller group focused on the earthbender, keeping the air filled with projectiles, keeping her in a constant defense.

"Aang!" the Tribesman shouted from where he was encircled. "They took her to..." before Ham walked passed and kicked the boy face first into the ground. The earthbender obviously didn't like that, so flicked off a hefty stone, which burst across the back of Ham's skull.

Vachir picked up Ite, who was the only Yu Yan who had been both struck and leveled by her initial assault, and got him to join his larger group, sending waves of arrows at the Avatar. Ham, who had no targets, was given a moment to shake off the brick the size of his head which had deflected off of same. That he could at all was a remarkable thing. "These guys got some coordination to 'em!" the earthbender declared, even as she was beset. Vachir only offered the girl half a glance, and a little bit of confusion as to how a blind girl could possibly defend herself against attacks she could not possibly see. But it didn't matter. Vachir turned and with a draw of his bow, added to the maelstrom. It was less than a fraction of a second before he was firing a second, at where he knew the airbender would dodge to.

But the Avatar did not dodge. That alone caused Vachir pause.

"Where is Katara?" the Avatar demanded, as he whirled the air around him in a hellish band, causing any arrow trying to enter it to be thrown off of its course. He didn't dodge. He made the air dodge for him. Ite and Vachir shared a glance. They weren't sure what to do with this. But fast thinking was clearly a well-appreciated factor in Yu Yan recruitment, so all of them drew as one, and fired as one, one great, massed shot which could not be wholly dispersed nor deflected. Not by any airbender the Yu Yan had ever heard of.

But he did just that. He leaned back, to where he could see all of the attacks as one, and laid out a hand. And before that hand, the air seemed to waver, and quiver in a pudding-like fashion. An arrow struck it, and burst as though impacting an iron plate. And every other one which followed did exactly the same. An airbender, neither avoiding nor evading. It was like he was earthbending, but with the naked wind. And then, with feet dug into the soil, he twisted his arms, and lashed out with a gale which slammed into Ite, and sent the young archer flying through the canyon, as high as half a dozen yards in the air, and all the way until the Divide turned and the stream vanished from sight. The only mercy was that Ite struck water and not stone. It was slim mercy.

"Good one, Twinkletoes!" the earthbender said, before flicking out with a foot, which caused the stone to slide away from Dogo, leaving him face down in the dirt. But only for a split second, because with a flick of the girl's hands, a great pillar of stone slammed up into him, catapulting him away, dazed and confounded, into a pile on the ground. The others closed the gap Dogo left, but Vachir could start to see how this was going. He didn't like what it implied.

"Where is Katara?" the Avatar shouted once more, and the Yu Yan answered as they were trained to. With aerial murder. But it was to no avail. Their instincts were playing against them. Every whit of muscle memory pulled at their hands, to lead an evasion which did not come. This airbender stood his ground, and blocked their attacks. Vachir took one step back, out of rational concern. And the Avatar took that opportunity to pull the stream up and hit them with it. Not water from the stream. The stream itself. Rooted as the boy was, it still seemed a feat of surpassing ease to manhandle so much water, and to bash it about. The arrows still flew, but this time, they were smashed against rock-hard ice, deflected by air currents, or ignored because they flew at a target which didn't behave as it should have.

Vachir now had very real concern. The earthbender was still bottled up, but with the Avatar bending as no airbender they had ever faced, he was beginning to doubt that they had the leverage, the angles, and the advantage that they needed. A yelp of pain and surprise dragged Vachir's attention away from the immediate area of the Avatar, and showed that he had let much of the stream resume its course... or made it appear so. Now, it was rising up, like some sort of hell beast of the deep, grabbing 'hold of archers and heaving them about like toys. Concern turned to mild alarm.

Vachir pulled one of his smoke pellets and hurled it to the Avatar's feet. If nothing else, a moment of blindness would... and then he realized his oversight, even as it was still leaving his hand. The smoke did indeed bloom up from the pellet, but swirled around the Avatar at _his_ pleasure. He lashed forward once again, the water which undulated in a ring around him seeking devastating purchase. Vachir denied it, by heaving himself aside and ducking for a moment behind a small standing rock. He scrambled for his line arrow. He might still be able to slow the Avatar down. He just needed to get exactly the right angle.

The Avatar stopped.

Then turned to Vachir.

With a great stomp which sent the stones quivering in a line between Yu Yan and Avatar, the latter thrust forward, with one fist leading, single minded focus on his face. Vachir started to flinch down, to avoid the whip of water, or the gale of wind, secure behind his stone bastion. Then, there was the slightest grinding of stone, and Vachir looked straight down.

Mild alarm turned to near panic.

And near became complete as the Avatar's bending sent the rock directly into Vachir's chest, and carried him spiraling away from the fight, defeated by an airbender's earthbending.

* * *

><p>Extracting Sokka from his bondage was much easier done with the Yu Yan Archers dissolving away into the Divide. At some point, even Aang could see that the mathematics of this ambush had changed. And he couldn't help but feel a grin on his face as he unraveled knots, even as Toph hurled a few parting insults and boulders at the retreating Nationals. "Are you alright, Sokka? Where's Katara? How did they get you?" Aang asked, unable to keep his voice from its rapid rate.<p>

"I've been worse, she's in a box canyon less than a mile that way, and the universe hates me," Sokka answered, pushing himself to his feet. He immediately set about pulling through the bags which had been left on the ground, until he found his blue metal boomerang, which he hugged to his chest for a moment before slipping it back into his case. "Call me crazy, but I've got a feeling that they'll be back once they shock wears off. We better get my sister and run!"

Aang didn't see anything wrong with that suggestion. "Gotta say, you did good, Twinkletoes," Toph said, patting Aang on the back hard enough to send the Avatar a step forward. "You stood up to the enemy and faced 'em head on. Hell, more impressive, you stood up to me! You've got the makings of a half-way decent earthbender, I figure."

Sokka paused from hurling things into the howdah to glance Aang's way. "You know, that almost sounded like there was a compliment in there."

"Lap it up," Toph said. "I don't just give praise away."

That she did not, Aang thought. Her calling him half-way decent was probably the equivalent of some other bender pointing at him, white in the face, and shouting 'Gods and demons did you see that? How is that even possible?' before hyperventilating and passing out, foaming at the mouth. And as humorous as that mental image was, Aang had something else he needed attending to. "Toph, I..."

"Oh, trust me, I'm on it," she said, before walking through the canyon wall. Not that she created a passage or path; she walked into the wall, and vanished into it with the slight grinding of rocks which vanished quickly as she did. Aang didn't put more consideration into that, at the moment. She was obviously a good earthbender. She had to be. Aang was still starting. But he was bending earth, of his own volition, and of his own will. That was more than he could have said earlier this week. Aang whipped the air under him into a scooter, and upon it, shot along the gully at tremendous speeds. He had to. He didn't know how long it would be until the word of the fight reached Katara's warden, and when it did, what he would do.

It was something of a relief when he skidded to a stop in that dead end, carved by water and then drained of it, a null place in the chain. He could see Katara, blindfold over her eyes, bent back, as though trying to glare at her captors, to be brave even in bondage. There was only one which Aang could see, a man in a red mask, who noted Aang's entrance with a drawn bow and a steady, dark eye. "_Stay where you are, Avatar,_" he said quite calmly. "_This does not need to end in further bloodshed, for my men or for you._"

"_Let Katara go,_" Aang demanded.

"_An acceptable term,_" the archer said without stress. "_If it is in exchange for you._"

"Don't do it, Aang!" Katara shouted from her place. The archer sent a glance her direction, neither outraged nor annoyed. Just taking stock. She'd fallen silent, probably because she was sure he was going to slap her. He didn't. "He'll just..." she pressed on as that became clear.

"Silence," the archer demanded. "_I do not not know who you've dealt with before me. I am a man of my word, unlike, for example, Mong Ke and his Rough Rhinos. I do not betray. I do my job. My job is capturing the last Storm King. That would be you_."

"_The Storm Kings died out centuries ago. I'm not one of them. I never was!_" Aang stressed. The archer shrugged.

"_You fought like Storm Kings when the Purge came. My great grandmother died because of your kind. My father was paralyzed hunting those who escaped. As I see it, the Storm Kings are alive and well,_" he said without malice. How could somebody so hate filled be so calm? "_Contrary to your alarm, I haven't been conscripted to kill you. The King of the North wants you alive, and in chains. After he gets you... I can't say it matters to me._"

"He won't keep his word," Katara said. "He'll kill us as..."

"I would have no reason to," the man snapped, impatience finally tinging his words for an instant. He turned back to Aang, still staring along an arrow. "_I am many things, Storm King. But I am always professional. Surrender, and no harm will come to your companions by Yu Yan hands. I swear it._"

"_I can't take that offer,_" Aang said. "_You don't understand how important what I'm doing is. How much is at stake. I can't let the world burn, and I can't let everybody down._"

The archer let out a mild sigh. "_Your faith and beliefs are strong. Such a pity that they had to be arrayed against us. Make it rain, brothers_."

Aang squatted low, in a defensive posture, but his ears detected no whizzing of arrows, no snapping of bowstrings, no whispers of incoming antagonism. Just the hum of wind in the Divide, and the distant drone of the canyon crawlers. Suspicion entered the archer's eyes, and he started to back away, putting Katara between himself and the Avatar. "_I offered your friends safe passage for your surrender, but if you won't take that offer, then I'm afraid you must pay forfeits._"

But unnoticed by the archer, but not unnoticed by the Avatar, Katara was smirking smugly where she was on her knees. And Aang could also see why; the bonds which were supposed to be containing her, keeping her hands trapped behind her back and close to her feet, were one and all lying in a pool between her legs. Even as the smirk faded, and Katara started to flow into motion, Aang was doing likewise. A stomping step, and a rock kipped up away from the soil, projected by his will. Katara, though, was moving fast, twisting and lashing out with one hand. As she did, a sliver of ice lashed out from her grasp, and shot toward the archer. No, not the archer; at his bow. With the tiniest snickt, the cord parted, and the bow heaved forward, its tension lost completely, leaving the archer holding an arrow with a mildly baffled look on his face. Katara then hit the deck, as Aang moved seamlessly into the next part of his kata.

The simplest of earthbending techniques. To move a rock.

At calamitous speed.

It slammed the archer in the chest, smashing up up against the wall of the Divide, leaving him dazed and winded. Aang sprinted over to his surrogate sister and pulled her into a very fast, very happy embrace, before glancing past her, to the archer once more. "Yeah, I'm alright. I did most of my own saving," Katara noted with pride. The stone opened near the two of them, and about a dozen bodies flopped out of it, groaning and squirming on the ground, with a Toph striding upon their battered forms.

"Yeah, I could 'see' that," Toph said. "How'd you do it? They must have been smart enough to take your water away from you."

"I made my own water," Katara said, wicking some of the sweat from her brow, and levitating it above her palm. "First beerbending, now sweatbending," she said.

"Sweatbending?" Toph asked. "That's actually fairly genius. Stinky and sweaty, but genius."

The grumbling of Appa pulled the attention of those present to the most important thing at the moment; Escape. "Come on," Aang said. "We need to get out of here before they wake up."

"We could just off 'em," Toph pointed out. Sokka shook his head at that.

"That's not the way Aang here does things," he pointed out from his place on Appa's brow. "Something about 'inalienable rights to life' and 'possibility of future redemption' or something like that."

"Sounds exhausting," Toph said flatly.

"It definitely is," Sokka agreed. "Come on. Let's leave this horrible canyon behind us. Forever."

Katara was up on the saddle not long after that, but she immediately dug through the contents of their luggage, even as Aang gave his 'yip yip' and brought the beast into the sky. It wasn't long, maybe a few minutes, before she let out a hiss of alarm. Aang turned to her. "What is it?" he asked.

"Water," she said. "We left all of our water behind."

"No way are we going back to our campsite, Sugar Queen," Toph said vehemently.

"Sugar Queen?" Katara asked, baffled, but shook her head. "No. I've still got an empty skin I was stitching up. It's not like mine, but it'll keep water inside, and since we don't know where to get clean water ahead of us, we might need it."

"So we can just get water anywhere?" Sokka asked. "No problem."

With that, the beast took a dive, back down toward the divide, albeit a few miles away from where they went toe to toe with the people who were specifically trained to kill one of their number.

* * *

><p>The sun was beginning to wane in the heavens when the old man finally decided that she was doing it right. She still didn't believe, of course. He was a liar and a traitor. "This had better not be some stupid dance," Azula warned. "Something to amuse your twisted sense of humor."<p>

"My sense of humor is not twisted," Iroh said with a petulant note.

"Yeah, it is," her younger half agreed, however begrudgingly.

"Then prove it," Azula said. "Throw your lighting at me."

"WHAT?" the girl asked.

"What? Are you crazy?" Iroh asked, a frown instantly on his face. "I'm not going to throw lightning at you."

"Why not? It is the only way I'll know if this technique you've shown me is genuine."

"It's incredibly dangerous!" Iroh said. "And that's not the point of this. I'm teaching you something with the hope you will never have to use it. To ask for your own destruction is beyond foolish, it is idiotic. I am not going to wager that body's health on your ability to learn."

"See? Uncle Kook knows that you're not worth the air you're stealing from me," the young Azula pointed out.

"You shut your little mouth, you ratroach!" Azula snapped at the girl, before turning to Iroh. "So you would just have me take on faith that you're not making a fool of me, that you are acting in my best interests, and that you actually taught me something which, by your own admission, you had devised to use against members of your own family."

Iroh nodded. "Yes."

"A clear answer from him? Mark the calendar," the girl said with a roll of big golden eyes and a chuckle.

"And what do I have to base this faith on?" Azula asked, annoyance sliding into her words.

"That Zuko wants you to be alive when he sees you next," Iroh said, turning away from the more dangerous of they two. "We should depart. If you really are going to Ba Sing Se, then you have a long way to travel."

Azula took a moment to consider her next move. The obvious one, the one calling out to her, was a bolt of fire straight into the back of the old traitor's skull, end his long treason here and now. But the instant that thought floated through her consciousness, the young Azula was glaring at her. "Don't. Even. Try," the girl hissed, her words hotter than any flame.

"You wouldn't have the power to stop me," Azula said with a cruel sarcasm.

"I think you overestimate your own control, and underestimate my ability to hurt you," the girl answered her. A sadistic smirk came to the girl's cherubic face. "Go ahead. Try and do it. I dare you."

As tough as she thought she was, Azula had weathered far worse. And her smirk was darker by a half. With a swift and efficient movement, she began her attack, lashing out at the old man while his back was turned.

She didn't even get her arms half way into place before she felt a shifting in her, like a veil sliding over her mind. It felt like her brain was being thrown through a meat-grinder, and as it happened, every muscle in her body locked rigid, and a desperate, horrible wheeze escaped from her lungs. Her eyes bugged wide, and she tipped forward onto her face in the dirt. And then, just as the electricity started to crash through her brain, it stopped. Azula panted for a moment, quietly enough that the old man walking before her couldn't hear. She slowly, achingly pushed herself to her hands and knees. And the girl was smiling smugly, fists on her hips, right before Azula.

"Which one of us is stronger again? I'm afraid I didn't quite hear your answer," the girl said. Azula pushed herself to her feet, stiffly and awkwardly, and started to stagger after the old man. Her muscles would loosen, probably before he even thought to look back. But as it was, it was all she could do to keep herself believing that the tracks of tears down her face were stifled rage, and not cold, dark terror.

* * *

><p>Katara didn't take her time filling the skin, but when it proved leakier than she'd feared, she asked them to take a minute or so to patch it up. Sokka, ever the over-planner, agreed with her. After all, people could last a lot longer without food than without water. Toph was busy picking at her feet to be much of a talking companion at the moment, which left Aang wandering the edge of their momentary landing sight. And because of his wandering he heard an anguished bleat.<p>

Aang followed that bleating, until he saw a tiny brown form, huddling in a thorny bush. "Aww," Aang said. "What's a little saber-toothed moose lion cub doing all the way out here? Where's your mama, little buddy?"

It was truly remarkable the transformation these creatures went through over the course of their lives. Born tiny, relatively helpless, drab, and adorable, but maturing into something quite threatening. Those black button eyes would eventually lighten into an uneasy mottle. The teeth in its powerful maw would extend and sharpen to daggers as long as a man's hand, or longer. The body, now so small that Aang could easily lift it with a single hand, would develop into a vast wall of muscle and vitriol, widely accepted as the second most foul-tempered omnivorous hunter in the East Continent, after the obvious Platypus Bear. It pawed at Aang for a moment, and he let it back down onto the ground, and walked after it. It seemed to be making a clear and short path, and he could always shout if something went wrong.

The little cub hadn't gone far. And when Aang saw what lay around the corner he turned, the capacity to yell fled him utterly.

So much blood.

His grey eyes widened in horror as he beheld the scene before him. There were remains of animals strewn about with wild abandon, and more of that same as far toward the artificially close horizon as he cared to look. They hadn't been savaged, as such, but devoured, only the bones too big to fit into their predator's mouth left uneaten and hurled into piles. And the blood was... well... almost everywhere.

And Aang could see what he assumed was the cub's mother. His mind couldn't comprehend. In the Divide, there was no higher predator than the saber toothed moose lion. Since this place was no Azul at the worst of times, he could only wonder in his darkest dreams. And wonder harder, since that moose lion was not the only one so butchered, only the most recent, and the most whole of them. Aang slowly circled that great corpse, and when he saw what had created it, his brain locked up completely.

She was wearing a kavi.

It was little more than rags, now. But Aang could see the yellow and orange and red, put together like it had been stitched whole, only to be torn asunder again. Her hair was as black as Aang's eyebrows, her eyes hooded and darkened enough that he could only guess their color. And her pallor, where it was not brown with filth, was scarlet. The teenaged girl ate with a lunatic hunger, stripping out the offal and gulping it down without hesitation to chew. Aang felt a very real desire to be sick.

"...wha..." he said.

That might have been a mistake, because in an instant, that head twisted toward him, grey eyes wide and bloodshot. She paused, finally stopping her horrid feast. Her mouth worked, almost like it had forgotten how to form words. Maybe, if he was lucky, she had.

"Aa...Aang?" she asked. Aang leaned back. "H...how?"

"What are you doing?" Aang asked, his surprise beating out his horror. "Did you do all of this?"

"Y...you died... How?" she said, her hands still clawing at the innards of the beast, as though her body was trying to compel her to eat even now. "How are you alive?"

"Who are you?" Aang asked, even his outstanding good nature not enough to overcome his revulsion.

"It's me... Malu," she said, getting to her feet with a shaky – and for the bloodiness of it, ghastly – smile, blood and slabs of raw meat in her hands. Because of her seeming unwillingness to let go of one, she flopped it against her chest as she tried to introduce herself. "How are you alive?"

"Malu?" Aang asked, his disbelief stretched to his limit. He knew a Malu, once. She was one of the other airbenders, the one which just about everybody – Aang included – thought was surely the next Avatar. That it turned out to be Aang himself was a kick in the pants. But that Malu, serious, overachieving Malu could be this twisted person... It just didn't make sense. "That... You can't be Malu. She'd never do something like this!" let alone that she would probably be dead of old age by now.

"Something like what?" the young woman asked with an almost desperately oblivious chuckle. "You're not making any sense."

"You killed that thing! You're eating it!" Aang pointed out. She stopped, and looked down at the meat and gore which covered her fingers. Then she looked up, her expression gone from confusion to horror and pain.

"You don't understand," she said, almost at a wail. "...so hungry. Nothing else helps. Only this. I had to do it. I'm so hungry..."

She crammed both fists of meat into her mouth, and ate them with a single bite for the both of them. Even Sokka wasn't that kind of dedicated carnivore. "This isn't right! Air Nomads are vegetarian; we're not supposed to harm any living creature!"

"But I'm soooo hungry," her words becoming desperate, her eyes darkened, and her lips peeled back. It wasn't the teeth which caused Aang to take a retreating step. It was the fact that there was naked oblivion beyond them. The moose lion let out a terrified bleat of its own, and Malu's head tilted down, and a scream came from her mouth, so similar to those blood things from the ruin that it made Aang flinch. And when Malu hurled herself at the tiny creature, Aang responded immediately. A blast of airbending almost as hard as rubber, bashing her springing attack aside, and dashing her against the wall of the Divide. She bounced off and rolled to her feet, her eyes wild and insane. "So hungry! HAVE TO **EAT**!"

This time, when she hurled herself forward, it was not at the moose lion cub, but at Aang himself. He backed away, and only because of his hands fearfully before him did he managed to intercept her, as she snapped herself onto him, the air between them exploding out of the way so she could reach him in a fraction of the time any creature dealing with wind resistance would have. She was curled up, tipping him back as their combined weight was barely enough for Aang to keep balanced, and only then, because Toph had made such a point and good effort at toughening him up. Her scarletted fists were balled in his kavi, and his own could barely keep her from leaning in closer, from biting at him, as her teeth slammed shut with horrid clacks before his face.

"Aang what was that sound?" Sokka's voice came from somewhere back where they had gathered. All of the Avatar's effort, though was put into keeping the insane girl from tearing him apart. And it was obviously not quite enough. Head on wasn't the answer to this question, he realized. Sharif was more right than Aang had realized. Being Avatar wasn't just bending all the elements. It was thinking with four minds. And right now, he needed to be an airbender. With a flash of his hands, twisting away from her chest where they were holding her at bay, he spun an air scooter into existence between then, and let her try to close distance. When she did, her body was caught on the vortex of the bubble of wind, and twisted aside, causing one hand to rip free of its grip on his clothing. With that freed hand and her lost momentum, he flicked a hand, and a column of stone jutted up from the ground, striking her squarely in the face.

"Ooooh... sorry," Aang said, as she finally let him slip only due to her being knocked brutally away. It let him take a step back from her. She got up, eyes now reddened and twisted into utter madness. With a puff, she spat out the teeth he'd knocked loose, but as she kipped back to her squatting posture, he could see some sort of horrible energy tearing at her gums, and new teeth erupt bloodily from the gaps he'd created. "By the gods... What are you?"

"**AVATAR!**" she screamed, echoing through the Divide. "**HUNGRY!**"

And then he knew. He didn't know how it was possible, but he was as sure as of his own shadow on a sunny day. With another squeal, she twisted her arms again, bending the air out from between them, readying herself for another kinetic launch, but this time, Aang knew her trick, and countered it with yet another form of thought. Defend and counterattack. With a twist of his body, he ducked the launch, causing her to smash against the red stone of the Divide, and before she even turned to lash at him again, he was sinuously twisting the bloody water into a whip which he slammed over her, knocking her back once more. A glance aside revealed that Katara and Sokka had rounded the corner, he with the usual goofy grin, she with a look of stress and consternation. That grin turned to horror quickly, and stress turned into the cold mask of the Summavut veteran.

"Tui La, what the hell happened here?" Sokka asked.

Malu answered by rising, despite Aang's attempts to buffet her down. With a hand, she cast aside and a line of detonations moved through the air as it was burst in a wave. Katara instantly bent the water to her defense, creating a shield against it. The attack passed straight through it, and slammed her to the ground. Sokka, non-bender that he was, just opted to dodge it, and stayed on his feet, machete now in hand. Bloody maw, head and all, turned toward Aang, and she charged for the third time. This time, Aang's attempt to divert her was smashed through, his attempts to dodge countered when she caught one of his bending arms and twisted it up. Then, with her other hand, she grasped his throat, rising him up from the ground, crushing his wind pipe.

Fingers cut into the throat. Nails tore at skin. No air. No life.

But there were four elements, and in the Avatar's moment of most abject desperation, he called on one which he didn't even know he had in him. With his one remaining fist, thrust forward, the air between his knuckles and his former fellow airbender's face turned into fire. It lashed at her, and she recoiled, grip loosening slightly, but not enough. Because even though he'd cooked her head, she was still holding him, and when the smoke began to clear, her skin was already stretching back into place, pulled by horrible black cords each no larger than a hair. She screamed, that horrible wail of insanity and hunger from beyond the walls of regular reality, and pulled him closer, her fist closing all the tighter.

And then there was a machete in her skull. Her eyes lost their madness, her expression shifted into one of utter bafflement, and her hands fell limp. Sokka, machete in hand, followed her down as she slumped, his weapon still buried several inches into her head. With a yank he pulled it out, before pulling Aang away from her and behind him, weapon still before him. As Aang glanced around Sokka's back, he could see why. Those same black threads which knitted her skin were replicating the same process on her head, pulling the pink meats of her brain together, the bloody white of her skull. "I'm guessing she's not going to stay down," Sokka said, with real alarm. Aang nodded, and quickly blew hard on his bison whistle. Appa trundled around that corner a few moments later, and the two Tribesmen were quickly scrambling up its haunch, and Aang took his place in one bound to Appa's brow. But even as they did, Malu was slowly pushing herself to her feet once more.

"What are you doing? Let's get out of here!" Sokka stressed from the lip of the howdah, directly to Aang's back. But even as he reached for the reins, he could see that little moose lion cub, pawing at its mother. Aang felt his jaw set, and he leaned down to Appa, whispering his commands, and leaning back to Sokka.

"Go get Toph before it's too late!" Aang shouted, heaving the reins up and back, before bounding off of Appa's head. Malu was already turning from the larger targets to the more convenient ones. The small, adorable, helpless ones. With a twist of his arms, he shepherded the air between he and the cub aside, creating a tube of almost perfect vacuum. And then, with a punt of airbending at his back, he hurled himself through it, crossing the dozens of yards in a fraction of a second, leaving that tube with an audible and visceral thud. Malu was getting ready to hurl herself at the creature, so Aang wasted no time. With one hand, he grabbed the cub. With the other, he twirled open his glider, using that motion to buffet Malu away from them. It was just successful enough to stop her in her tracks, and give Aang the fraction of a second he needed to take to the sky, one hand guiding him, the other holding the terrified animal.

His flight was short, which was for the best, because he was bone tired. With a quite ungraceful landing, he dropped into the howdah, using his own body to comfort the drop for the young animal. Katara looked a little confused. "What just happened back there?" she asked.

"Yeah," Toph said, rotating her arm as though she'd pulled it. "You wander off for five minutes, and then Brain here is screaming holy terror and heaving me up onto the flying carpet at a sprint. Did the Yu Yan find us?"

Aang shook his head, and when he remembered who he was talking to, said aloud; "No. Something far worse."

"What could be worse than the Fire Nation getting ahold of you?" Katara asked.

"The end of the world," Aang said, pulling his knees to his chest, an shivering as the adrenaline poured out of his body, leaving him feeling weak, exhausted. "Irukandji was right. Imbalance is here, and I don't know if we can stop it."

Katara gaped in shock. "_That_ was Imbalance? That girl in the yellow robes?"

"That must be her Host," Toph said. "We should go back and kill her, then."

"Not possible," Sokka spoke up, even before Aang could voice his utter refusal to that plan. "That chick just doesn't seem capable of dying, even with a blade in her brain."

"Oh... well, that's a problem," Toph said. Then, there was a pause. "Two things, Twinkletoes. Is that a saber toothed moose lion cub I hear?"

"Yeah..."

"Huh. Second; where do we go now? Since I got you earthbending like an old hand, and all..."

"I don't know," Aang said. "I just don't know."

* * *

><p>"I must say, this food is far better than we got earlier," Ashan pointed out, as he gnawed on his kebab with gusto. Tzu Zi joined him with that same glee, while Sharif ate, as usual, with mechanical obligation, the same enthusiasm he'd shown when eating the dross. Nila just rolled her eyes.<p>

"Of course it is," Nila said. "What they gave before was not fit for the consumption of sheep pigs."

"I'm sure they tried their best," Tzu Zi stated diplomatically from where they had gathered, near the front of the ship as was their new-found custom. Nila scoffed.

"'Their best' gave at least a quarter of the passengers food poisoning," she stated. "I had a chat with the owner and made his position in this enterprise clear. After that, he had a change of thought."

"A change of thought which results in food of this quality is a fine change indeed," Ashan agreed, savoring his supper. Nila turned, and saw the pale woman appearing near their midst, albeit without the same flinch and stammer which Ashan and Tzu Zi gave.

"So you came through," she said, not asked. A glance toward Tzu Zi, her eyes resting there a bit longer than Nila was sure how to interpret, before shifting back to Nila herself. "Good. You preventing Jet from doing something dangerous and ill-advised."

"I did not do this for your Jet," Nila said plainly.

"I know," Shadow answered. "You're honest. That's a good quality. And you've done me a favor, in keeping Jet away from his old ways. He needs a fresh start more than most, and you proved he might find one. Thank you."

"It was just food," Nila said.

"Food that you got by talking to a man, rather than stealing it," Shadow pointed out. "Jet has lived a hard life, and I feel you could be a positive role model for him."

Nila leaned back, a scowl on her face. "I have no desire to shepherd your paramour through his life."

"And I won't ask you to," Shadow said. "But still, you did him a favor. One I won't forget."

"You're welcome to eat with us, if you like?" Tzu Zi said, extending a second skewer. Shadow frowned at the girl.

"...Ty Lee?" Shadow asked. Tzu Zi's smile faltered at that.

"N...no... My name's Tzu Zi," she said. Shadow shook her head, rubbing it with the heel of her hand.

"I see. I thought you were somebody I used to know, a long time ago," she said. She turned back to Nila. "I _will_ keep Jet from destroying himself, and you've made that easier. It's a debt I will repay," she said solemnly. She gave a nod each to Tzu Zi and Ashan, before slipping back into the background, and out of sight.

"A very stern girl," Ashan said contemplatively.

"She kinda reminds me of somebody I know," Tzu Zi said, giving a significant glance toward Nila.

"I am nothing like her," Nila said.

"Too serious, of strange habits, and a penchant towards being out of place?" Ashan noted. "Hmm. Who else do we know who showcases such tendencies?"

"Nothing. Like. Her." Nila stressed.

"Oh, she's just jealous 'cause Shadow's got a boyfriend and she doesn't," Tzu Zi said brightly.

"I am not seeking a mate, nor a paramour, nor a guest-for-the-evening!" Nila snapped.

"Such a shame. I think you'd be a very good girlfriend," Tzu Zi opined. Nila, of course, harrumphed at the notion, as Ashan chuckled, before returning to his kebab. Then, Tzu Zi seemed to reconsider. "But then again, with the way she thinks, she'd probably be the 'boyfriend' in any relationship she was in, an I right?"

Ashan had the decency to choke on the kebab, which set Nila to laughter.

* * *

><p><strong>First off, I swear I wrote the Malu part <span>long<span> before the Florida Cannibal. Remember that I have a roughly two month buffer.**

**The throw-down between Old'Zula and Lil'Zula is still waiting in the wings, but the two of them are learning that they are mutually incompatible. Old'Zula grew up somewhere closer to canon, pushed into a role of 'crazy little weapon' by her father and utterly ignored by her mother. Lil'Zula was at the center of a tug-of-war between Ursa and Ozai which ironically almost turned 3F Zuko into Canon Azula. The two 'Zulas don't understand each other, don't see eye to eye, and will punch each other in the throat, given an opportunity. It's just that Lil'Zula figured out how to first.**

**Also, just because Old'Zula is a generally hate-filled person, doesn't mean she's utterly without humanity. Remember that there's only one character in this fic who is a monster, and Azula ain't the one. She's bitter, yes, but that bitterness gives her a level of humanity in places that even Lil'Zula wouldn't be able to match. For example, Lil'Zula will walk blithely by a child being threatened, but Old'Zula will bring down the hammer on anybody so debase. Old'Zula had pleasant memories. Most of them were bound up in her children. That makes her a bit single minded, in certain ways.**

**Finally, Korra is not from 'the' future of 3F, because, as Sokka continuously says, the laws of physics prevent time-travel. She is from 'a' future. One where Azula murdered Aang.**

_Leave a review._


	29. The Serpent

"Reason for entry?" the overworked booth-worker said, his eyes down on the ream of forms he slid through with a speed and precision which spoke only to an enormous amount of repetition, which burned the movements into muscle memory. He didn't look very much older than she was, if even that; his skin was still bad, his hair in what she supposed was a 'fashionable' style for people of her age if not her gender. The fact that somebody so young was already at work instead of attending classes set off a quiet alarm bell in her mind.

"Family," Nila said simply.

"Returning to or seeking out?" he asked, equally disinterested, his eyes not even yet rising to look upon the motley group which stood before him.

"Does it matter?"

"One gets in, the other doesn't," he said with a shake of his head. "Ba Sing Se has a population of two and a half million, and that half million all came here right around the same time, so keeping track of everybody is essentially impossible. 'Seeking out' family is a pointless endeavor, and a waste of space, according to the Cultural Authority. Move along."

"I didn't say I was seeking out!" Nila snapped, which caused him to finally rise from his work, look at her, her brother, Ashan, and then, back to the form. "Mother is in Ba Sing Se, and I am bringing my simple brother back to her."

"What zone?" he asked. She paused at that. "Like I thought. Next!"

"Damn you, I am going in there even if you..." Nila began, but Ashan caught her shoulder, with a very urgent shake of his head. Nila scowled at him, but glanced the direction he subtly indicated, and saw that there was somebody standing with a degree of ease which could only speak to capacity for awe-inspiring violence. And he was paying very close attention to her. "...This isn't over. I wish to speak to your superior."

"Not going to happen. Next!" the man said, and the three of them were shouldered aside by a grey-haired man hauling a cart full of produce behind him. "Oh, don't even start with that, old man. No outside vegetables in Ba Sing Se. Security!"

"But I have the permit you asked me to get! It took me a week to pass their tests! It's..."

"I don't see it," the man said, as the old man scrabbled at his bags, growing all the more desperate with every passing moment, until it became obvious that the patience of all involved had run out, and the the security shook their heads with annoyance as they converged on him.

"But... My cabbages!" the old man wailed, as several green and gold liveried men came to confiscate his livelihood.

Nila stalked away, coming to a halt near a very overpopulated bench, which had just enough space – due in no small part to Nila's glaring demeanor – to fit her at its very edge. "_I have a strong desire to blow something up,_" she said in Altuundili.

"_Nila, please, not so loudly,_" Ashan warned. "_I do not like this place. There is a feel of many ears to these walls._"

"_I would be shocked if there was a single speaker of Altuundili in this entire compound,_" Nila pointed out.

"_Altuundili is not so rare a language, and I fear what would happen if some heard your intentions. They might react with understandable fear and severity!_" Ashan stressed.

"_You worry too much._"

"_And you worry not nearly enough,_" Ashan countered.

"I wonder how the Avatar is doing," Sharif said distantly, which caused the two other Si Wongi to turn to him in a degree of confusion. And the roughly middle-aged man sitting next to Nila as well.

"Don't tell me you're going to try that old yarn," he said. "The last guy who tried the 'I'm the Avatar, you have to let me in' ploy ended up thrown off of the wall. Turns out, it's a long way down if you can't airbend."

"I can well imagine it would be," Nila said. "Do any of us even look like the Avatar? I thought not. Mind your own business."

"I wouldn't know the Avatar if I tripped over him, but at least I admit it," he said. He gave her still-standing companions a weighing glance, and then turned back to her. "You're obviously the brains of your group," Ashan spluttered at that, "so you should think about coming back once the shift changes. Might be six hours, but nobody actually posts notices unless the entrant tries using violence to get in. A fresh face might see you in."

"You know this bureaucracy well," Ashan said.

"I have to," he said. He offered Nila a hand, reached 'cross his chest. "Iuchi, miss?"

"Nila Ba..." again, she was cut off by Ashan's shaking of the head. His paranoia was becoming endemic, it seemed. She took his hand for a brief shake. "Bantusi."

"I've been coming out here every week for almost six years," he said, pulling that hand to its brother and resting his chin upon it as he glared at the lines of booths. "I had a son who was a soldier out on the Walls. One day, he stopped sending home mail. Nobody would tell me what happened to him, so I started digging. This is as far as I got. But one day, I'm going to find him. One day."

"Six years ago?" Nila asked. She shrugged. "Perhaps he was a casualty when the Dragon of the West came."

He gave her a glance which was equal parts confusion and annoyance. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The two year siege of Ba Sing Se?" Nila said slowly. "Where Sativa Badesh broke Prince Iroh's army?"

"You make it sound like there's some sort of war going on," he shook his head briskly. "There is no war in Ba Sing Se. But something happened to my boy, and I'm going to find out."

"Well... Good luck with that," Nila said, suspicious as humanly possible. She turned to Ashan.

"_Yes, I was listening,_" Ashan said in Altuundili. "_No war in Ba Sing Se? That doesn't make __sense._"

"_He seemed quite adamant,_" Nila pointed out.

"_I was noticing that,_" Ashan said. "_Perhaps prudence comes with not pushing against that boundary. At least, not yet._"

"_Why, I'd almost say that was good advice,_" she pointed out.

"_Does that mean you will accept it?_" he asked hopefully.

"_We shall see._"

Ashan scowled. "_That sounds very much like a 'no' when it flies from your lips._"

"You guys wouldn't believe the line-up for the bathroom," Tzu Zi said brightly as she returned to their beleaguered group. "I had to cheat and sneak into the men's so I didn't wet myself."

"We didn't get in," Nila said. Iuchi grunted something disparaging beside her, but Nila ignored him, since he was no longer relevant. "That little dung-beetle is drunk upon his own perceived power."

"That one?" Tzu Zi asked. "He doesn't look so bad. Why didn't he let us in?"

"Because I could not tell him exactly where Mother is staying. Forgive me for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of the layout of Ba Sing Se!" Nila said with sarcasm.

"You don't?" Sharif asked, turning back to her, but his eyes still staring far past her.

"No, brother, I don't," she shook her head. "This is maddening. I thought surviving the desert would be the worst trials I would face in this journey. Now I need to deal with something deadlier than the forests of Azul; paperwork."

Tzu Zi chewed her lower lip for a moment, and then brightened happily. "Hold this for a minute, would you?" she asked. Nila was about to ask 'hold what', when Tzu Zi's robes came over her head and were drapped over Nila's face. She quickly pulled them away and draped them over Ashan's, who was staring gobsmacked that Tzu Zi was now queuing up behind several others in no more than her underwear.

"Close your mouth, Ashan," Nila said patiently.

"She's naked!"

"No, she is not," Nila pointed out. "Naked would be if she removed the rest of her clothing."

"But... It is scandalous to be so..."

"I'm supposed to remember something," Sharif said, playing with some sort of green rock which he'd picked up on his way into Ba Sing Se.

"Scandal is a relative thing, you will find," Nila said. "When I first met her, I believed as you do, that she dresses far too little and says far too much. The fact is, many dress in as little, or less. She is from another place, and holds other values. She is no less right to them than you are to yours."

"Heh, I thought you were going to say 'than I am to my own'."

"I have values," Nila said, getting up and letting Iuchi reclaim some of his seat. "You and I simply do not share exactly the same of them. Yours might get you punched in the face if voiced in the wrong moment. Mine might see me burned for witchcraft should I ever return to Si Wong. It is a matter of perspective and subjectivity."

"Values are absolute," he tried to argue. "The Enniad set them forth at the beginning to guide moral principle."

"And how convenient that this one faith, of all those on the planet, managed to strike upon the truth which all others managed to miss," Nila said sarcastically. Ashan seemed oddly upset by that.

"You mock my faith."

"Yes, as I mock everybody's faith," she said. "But not your religion. I cannot abide 'faith'. Belief which cannot be challenged or refined stands anathema to me. As I said, my values are not yours."

"I begin to see why Grandfather called you a heretical influence," Ashan said with a chortle and a shake of his head. Nila looked past her curly-haired peer to the booth, where Tzu Zi was now leaning forward and talking animatedly to the teller, no doubt intentionally giving him an easy and ready view of her admittedly spectacular cleavage. That a girl of fourteen years could have a body like that was envy-inducing, particularly in the fifteen-year old, and flat chested, Nila. He shook his head more briskly, turning away from her. "I have not even seen prostitutes so brazen."

"Do not speak of my friend such," Nila said harshly.

"I was saying a truth," Ashan snapped. Then he paused. "Why are we arguing so?"

"I am not sure," Nila said. "Perhaps the day has been too long and too fraught."

Ashan nodded at that, running his fingers along his brow, and muttered. "We must not allow our anger to divide us. I have great fears of this place. It is so strange, so unlike everything I am used to. I feel we are better united than divided."

Nila nodded. "Obviously enough," she said. Ashan glanced toward Tzu Zi, who leaned into the booth and gave the teller a big, excited kiss. "Not one word."

"I would not dream of it," Ashan said, and he kept that word as she skipped back over, and plucked her robe from where it was draped 'cross Ashan's arm and slipped back into it.

"Good news everyone!" she said. "We've got brown-level passes! It's only free passage into the Lower Ring, but I'm sure we can come up with something once we get there."

Nila felt a small smile come to her face. "You have made a trifle of a tragedy. Thank you."

"We've all got things we do well. Yours _isn't_ talking to people," Tzu Zi said simply. With a smile, she grabbed Sharif and Ashan, and began to bear them to yet another queue, this one heading into a stone cart which sat upon a granite rail. "We'll be in the city soon enough. Everything's going to be alright."

Nila sighed, and palmed her face. "You just had to go and say that, didn't you?"

Off to one corner, another watched with bright blue eyes, tracking them as they began to bicker about 'tempting fate' and 'promising to never say things like that'. Pointedly, he looked at the green eyed girl who dominated that conversation. "Hrm," he said to him self, deep in thought. "She might be the one."

But he still had to be careful. If there was one thing Ba Sing Se had taught him in the last five years, it was that you were _never_ safe inside the Walls.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

**The Serpent**

* * *

><p>She stopped in the middle of a snarky word, which was a clear indicator that something bad was happening. No matter which lifetime she was living, <em>nothing<em> got in the way of her snark. Well, that wasn't exactly true. There was one thing, one thing which was showing itself at this very moment. The girl was nowhere to be seen at the moment, and all the better for it. More and more, Azula was growing nervous about what that girl was capable of. If she could cripple Azula so quickly and so completely... She would be at the mercy of her enemies in a heartbeat.

The journey had turned to something of a death-march, broken only by the uneventful but irritating trip through the Divide. It was every bit as dull and unpleasant as she remembered it from decades past. In fact, had they not lucked upon those traders, and had Iroh not been so slick of tongue and beguiling of word, they'd probably still be down there, driven to distraction by the constant drone of the crawlers. They were not far north of the Divide even yet, but every hour of walk brought them closer to Ba Sing Se, toward victory. Toward the death of the Avatar.

But Azula's instincts had been long honed, not just by living under her father's tutelage, but by the threats to her own life which plagued her last years. Because of those instincts, she was already twisting into a wave of blue flame which intercepted scarlet, exploding that lesser assault in mid air and dropping cinders around she and the old man. Her only mistake in her defense was assuming that would be the end of it; she got a ram of ice in the gut for her foolishness.

She staggered back a few steps, putting her side by side with Iroh, as his placid and distant expression instantly focused on the now and present. "Ambush," he said direly.

"What was your first clue?" Azula snapped. "It's them."

With a grinding of stone, the earth bucked up to try and bludgeon the two of them, but each managed to bound from the impact point easily enough – which came as quite a surprise for Azula because Iroh was hardly a nimble-looking combatant – but each then had to dodge again as she and he were then cut at with fire and razor ice, respectively. As their evasion terminated, they were back to back with each other, a position Azula couldn't have wanted less, but for the simple fact that it meant any attack which tried to flank her would have to go through two hundred and forty pounds of Iroh first.

"She's got good reflexes," the Tribesman noted, as he sauntered into sight, almost invisible against the approaching twilight.

"Stop complimenting them, and defeat them," the firebender ordered, appearing on Azula's other fore quadrant. She didn't have to guess that the muscular earthbender would be facing Iroh directly.

"Who are you?" Iroh asked.

"That doesn't matter to you, now does it?" the girl asked with a flash of smirk.

"Your voice sounds familiar," Iroh said gravely, fists still out toward the earthbender. The firebender paused just a moment at that.

"You wouldn't know her," the earthbender said to Azula's back. "And chances are, you never will."

"So you want to kill me?" Azula asked. "Better have tried. Better have failed."

"For what its worth, it's not personal. To me, anyway," the Tribesman said with a shrug.

"Shut up, Kori," the Earthbender said with an aggravated note. "Just kill them!"

"Do you know who I am?" Iroh asked with a patient tone.

"The Dragon of the West," the firebender said, continuing her circuit around the two royals, to the point where she now vanished out of Azula's line of sight, and the earthbender entered it. "Former Crown Prince. Father to a fallen son. Deposed and turned traitor against his people, his nation, and his throne."

"Interesting," Iroh said. "Have we met somewhere? Have I met your family, perhaps?"

"I have no family," the firebender said, still sounding wary. From the look of the earthbender, in particular, they were just waiting for any excuse to cut loose and crush them. They only needed to know that their assault wouldn't be met with ruthless counterattack. Good thinking. The waterbender paused with a scowl.

"Yeah, thanks a lot, Yoji," he said with a note of amused betrayal.

"Shut up, Kori," the earthbender said again. It seemed to be something of rote action for the young man.

"You know," Iroh said. "I have heard that wearing such spectacles makes it difficult to see in darkness. Is that true?"

The answer came in the form of a jet of flame, a wave of stone, and a scythe of ice. Each was ducked, deflected, or avoided, leaving the two royals in much the same position, and the assassins still circling, their prodding attack obviously finding no purchase. "She must be blind as a bat," Azula pointed out.

"So she is," Iroh said. Then, with a twist of his arms, just once, the snap motion which she had only ever seen her father attempt, he tore electricity through the air, and with a thrust of his blunt fingers, sent it screaming toward that firebending assassin with one smooth, swift motion. But Azula's assumption was stymied, that she might have gotten somebody to deal with her problems, when it was obvious that he'd intentionally missed her, lashing the lightning bolt at eye-level, very close to her head, but not quite at it. The thunder clap sent the girl staggering away, and the earthbender broke off his counterattack, his green eyes widening.

"Yoji!" he shouted, before glaring vitriol at Iroh, who was now backing through the hole in their formation that the debilitation and deafening of the firebender had caused. Azula followed, as she didn't feel much like taking all three of them at once. She was well capable of it, but she knew from experience that a cornered badgermole was the most hellish opponent to kill.

With a twist of her own limbs, she tore the energy in her own body apart, into its yin and its yang, positive and negative. But as it crashed back together, there was some sort of hitch in her. And even as she furiously worked to steady it, to control and focus it, she was sure she could sense the girl's interference. Not this. Not her lightning. With a terrible crack, a vast and forking bolt of lightning seared away from the Azula, and caused the other two assassins to hurl themselves to the ground to avoid it.

It also lifted Azula clear off her feet and threw her backwards down the road, landing in a pile ahead of Iroh. She hadn't even known lightning was capable of such recoil. Iroh pulled her to her feet, and gave her a glare as he picked up the pace, vanishing into the woods off of the trail. It was a look which spoke that they would speak about that later. That it was something he knew every bit as well as she had something wrong with it. She gave one final glance over her shoulder, at the assassins picking themselves up, and then plunged into the woods.

"It would be nice, Princess Azula, to meet friends of yours who don't want to kill you," Iroh whispered with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

Azula offered a dark chuckle in reply. "That _would_ be a change. Keep moving if you want to lose them in the darkness."

* * *

><p>The people were celebrating. That was good. They'd had little enough to celebrate, lately. There was music playing throughout the de facto capital of the Water Tribe even late into the lengthening night. The change in Chimney Mountain from how it had been even a month ago was stark. Instead of the disheveled mound of cut-snow blocks and tarp tents, it was a proper city, anchored to the rocks which spread down from the mountain which gave their home its name. The sudden influx of population had also made most people turn from begrudgingly naming this place capitol, to openly doing so. After all, it was now the largest city in the South.<p>

And Hakoda stared north, at the stars which slowly turned along the horizon. The cold cut into him, as the South Polar winter returned quickly, and without sympathy or mercy. He stared north, and he missed his children enough that it burned.

"I wondered where you went," Yue's voice pulled him out of his melancholy. He forced a smile to his face, but he didn't doubt that it sat weary and tired on his visage. Yue was dressed beautifully, but that was no surprise, as the people which returned with her made sure that she got the best of everything. No, her dress this time was far more ostentatious than any which had been seen in this community for decades; in fact, the last time such a gown had existed, let alone been worn, was when Hakoda wed Kya. "You left in such a hurry. People were concerned you ate something which didn't agree with you."

"You should be back with your new husband," Hakoda said gently, motioning back to the community behind him. "This is your day, after all."

Her day. The people needed something to celebrate, and a wedding seemed about the right thing. Yue didn't seem to happy about it, either then, nor now. She sighed, and with a flick, knocked away a strand of snow-white hair which fell before her face. "It was never my day," she said with a sad note, and moved to sit at Hakoda's side. "May I ask you something, Chief Hakoda?"

"As long as you don't call me Chief right now," Hakoda answered.

"You are Chief. There might only be one Water Tribe, but you are its highest government," she pointed out, but stopped suddenly. She glanced away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't..."

"Your question?" Hakoda asked.

"When... when is it alright to say no?" she asked. Hakoda turned to her. "All my life, I've been doing what others wanted from me. I fought with my people because Father wanted it. I married Hahn because Master Pakku wanted it. I brought them here because Mother wanted it. I think that if Father had been right, that if the Moon Spirit had been so wounded, I would have sacrificed my life for it... When do _I_ get to say what I want? Is this all I am? Somebody else's... tool?"

Hakoda sighed. "You shouldn't have to think about these sorts of things," he said gently, resting a hand on the rich furs which lined her shoulder. "But since you are, then the time is now. You have spent your entire life sacrificing yourself for your Tribe. And it may well be that the Tribe exists today because of what you gave. But only you can ever be the judge of what you're willing to give," he turned to stare to the north, and she stared with him.

"How will I know if it's worth it, though?" she asked.

"You never do," Hakoda said with a shake of his head. "That's what experience teaches you. What gambles are worth taking. What things are worth. How much you lose here, if you don't do something there. For a long time, you've been a part of it. Now, you're going to be the one making decisions."

"You make it sound like you're going somewhere," Yue said with alarm. "You can't. Mother... well..."

"I am aware of Tanuuit's... weakness," Hakoda said. "And I'm not going anywhere. But if you ever want to be more than a figurehead for your community, you have to start taking chances, and suffering the penalties for your own failures. Sokka and Katara both knew, from a young age, that they were responsible in the end for their own lives. And look at what they've done with them. The Avatar is now their charge, and they are fighting to end the war with the Fire Nation at his side," he broke off, staring down to his boots. "I'm so proud of them."

There was the small sound of a sob at Hakoda's side, and he turned to her. She was crying quietly. "I wish Father could have said that to me," she said quietly.

"I don't know if it matters, and I don't know if it's worth anything," Hakoda said, pulling her into a fatherly embrace. "But I could not be prouder of you. You might as well be a daughter for the one I lost so many years ago."

He couldn't see, but she had a small smile at that. The smile slipped away by the time she pulled away, and she turned back toward the community behind them. "So I am in charge of my own fate?"

"As soon as you decide you are," Hakoda confirmed. "And if things ever get hard, and you can't see the path, remember that there are a lot of people who are traveling with you. You're not alone. That's a promise."

"Thank you," Yue said, taking a purging breath. She glanced back toward him, with those big blue eyes. "Have you thought about what Mother talked about?"

Hakoda nodded slowly. "She's not wrong," he said. "It's been... Gods... more than a decade since Kya died. Maybe it _is_ time to remarry."

Yue smiled at that, the small and reserved smile she often showed when she was not most comfortable. "Mother needs a man in her life, the people need some clear transition," she said. "And you are a... better man than my father was."

"No," Hakoda said instantly. "Whoever Arnook was when he died, he was a greater leader once, and a greater man, once. Remember that. Remember how he was, not how he died. I intend to."

"But... He almost destroyed us all," Yue said, clearly conflicted.

"And he is still your father. You can't stop loving the man, any more than I could ever stop loving my children. It might not be fair, but that's the way the world works," he pointed out. She nodded at that, with clear relief on her face. Obviously, she hadn't wanted to bring up the subject of how she grieved for her father. "You miss your father. You deserve to. Remember the happy times. Those are what matter, now."

She nodded, and leaned against the block of stone which jutted from the landscape, looking over the ice of the slowly sliding glacier. Only certain places, like Chimney Mountain, were truly solid in this continent. The others crept toward the sea, sometimes by feet, other times by miles a year. In fact, quite recently, one ill-advised city had drifted close enough to another, which was anchored in place that the two had become one community, and would likely remain so for another couple of decades or so until the first slid past the second. There was an impermanence to this place which was part of its stark beauty. And it resounded in Hakoda's Water Tribe heart.

It was not the only resounding going on. With a report like a cauldron being hit with a sledgehammer, a sphere of dark grey, clear even against the twilight, appeared nearby, causing both High Chief and newlywed to flinch back in alarm and confusion. That sphere expanded, first from the size of a fist, until it was roughly the size of the Avatar's bison. But then, with a sound like breaking glass, the sphere ruptured and broke, its shards vanishing into thin air. And at the center of that sphere was a pristine circle of lush, green grass. And standing upon that grass was an Easterner, who was holding a black-and-white striped ball.

And he was covered in bees.

The man looked around, confusion on his face, then he looked down. His eyes shot wide, and Hakoda got another note of confusion, as those eyes were each of green and brown. "_ARGH!_ _I'M COVERED IN BEES!_" the man screamed in Tianxia, pointing out the obvious. This, of course, prompted the bees to panic and depart flying in every direction, more than likely spurred on by the screaming and sprinting about of a terrified Easterner. Only once the last significant amount of bees was dislodged did the man calm down, panting, his hands upon his knees.

Yue glanced at Hakoda, the question obvious on her face even if she couldn't quite put words to it. Hakoda could only offer a baffled shrug and an 'i-dunno' grunt at the scene before him. The man glanced up at the two of them, then around him, to the barren wasteland of ice which was the South Pole.

"_Excuse me, I think I might have landed in the wrong spot,_" he said with a laugh. The two of them stared at him. "_What? Are there still bees on me?_"

"How did you...?" Yue said, astonished and confused.

He stared at her for a moment, and his mouth worked. "_Ah. Water Tribe._ Sorry about that," he said, as he transitioned into their language. He held up the black and white ball. "Dirak," as if that were an explanation. "Oddly, it usually doesn't send me so astray. I wish it'd stop covering me in bees, though."

"That isn't the first time it's done that?" Hakoda asked. Then, he shook his head. "Never mind. Why is there grass growing there?"

"It's a Spirit Artifact," the man said. "It lets you and anything nearby travel immense distances instantly. Has a couple of drawbacks, but..."

"The bees?" Yue asked, with a smile of mild amusement on her face. It was a fine thing to see.

"Yes, the bees," the man said. He then shuddered. "By the gods, but it is cold, isn't it? You wouldn't happen to have a fire or something for me to warm up next to, would you?"

"Of course," she said. "I am Yue. This is High Chief Hakoda."

He gave her a respectful nod, but broke into a grin when he heard Hakoda's name. "Really? Excellent!" Hakoda leaned back. That man simply had too much energy, it seemed. "I might not be where I expected, but I found somebody who could be of help."

"Who are you?" Hakoda asked with a degree of confusion.

"I am Zha Yu. You might have also heard of my other moniker, though," he said with a shrug.

"Which is?" Yue asked.

"The Mountain King."

* * *

><p>"It shouldn't be too hard to find your mother," Ashan said, as the cart slid easily along its rail, traversing the vast stretch of farmlands which separated the Outer from the Inner Walls. "After all, I have some degree of certainty that your mother will make herself known."<p>

"You underestimate the difficulty of the task," Nila said. She glanced over to her brother, who was shivering quietly in his seat. "What is wrong, now?"

"Something bad is here," Sharif said without elaboration.

"Well, perhaps we should just leave and avoid it completely," Nila said sarcastically.

"That would be best," Sharif agreed eagerly. Nila stared flatly at him, then palmed her face with annoyance.

"We are not leaving Ba Sing Se. Especially after so much effort was put to entering it!"

"Nila?" Ashan said.

"That isn't her name..." Sharif said quietly, resuming his trembling.

"What," the girl in question said with impatience.

"Don't look blatantly, but I believe that we are being followed," Ashan said.

"This cart has no place in which to hide. Who would be so brazen and stupid?" Nila asked.

"That man, from before," Ashan said. She scowled, but he shook his head vigorously. "No, do not be difficult on this, Nila. I have learned deeply when I am in danger and I feel it strongly now!"

"You are paranoid, itself ordinarily a worthwhile trait, but in this case pointless. These people are all refugees. Nobody is trying to murder you here," she cracked a smirk. "I dare say, that of all of us, Tzu Zi faces the greatest number of knives in the dark."

"How could you be so cold toward your friend?" Ashan asked.

"She's not wrong," Tzu Zi piped up from where she was leaning out the window, smiling broadly from the sunlight which streamed down. Both of the women knew why, as well. As not only a member of the Fire Nation nobility, but a firebender as well, she was doubly in jeopardy just being here. But Tzu Zi faced it as she faced all things, with enthusiasm and optimism, something which Nila could admire but not emulate. She might not be capable of understanding why, but she was sure as gravity and evolutionary heritage that of the lot of them, Tzu Zi was not just the happiest, but also the one having the most fun.

"The problem is easily enough dealt with," Nila said. "She keeps her bending bottled, and remains silent to her origins. And to any who ask, a lie."

"Good enough plan," a new voice entered the mix, causing all three involved in the conversation to button up quickly, and they turned to notice that from the crowd in the cart, somehow Shadow had appeared in their midst. Nila, now having a reason to look with greater effort, could also see the wild hair and focused eyes of Jet sitting against the wall, barely visible through the other passengers. Nila turned her attention back to the pale and drearily dressed young woman before her. "The easiest way to hide something is to make it seem like you have nothing worth hiding."

"How did you...?" Nila asked, baffled.

"Get past the booth-vendors? Used the distraction your little outburst created to swipe somebody's merchandise form. Somewhere out there, there's a cabbage merchant who has to spend a few more days buggering around the bureaucracy," she said without apology. "Like I said. I want to protect my own. Nothing will prevent that."

"You sound like you should try having more fun in your life," Tzu Zi pointed out, as she pulled herself back in from the window. Shadow gave a dry chuckle at that.

"Are you _sure_ you're not Ty Lee?" she asked. She shook her head. "Never mind. I've never been to Ba Sing Se before, but I've heard enough that I think I might be able to keep you out of the worst of it. Consider it repayment for your help on the boat."

"I can find my way perfectly well on my own, th..."

"_Nila, you are turning down apt and willing advice. Don't be blinded by pride,_" Ashan cut in in their native tongue. Turning back to her, he offered a smile and a bow. "We would be delighted to have your guidance and company, young miss."

"You know... you kinda look familiar," Tzu Zi said, stepping in front of Shadow, and scrutinizing her more closely. "Have we met somewhere?"

"Probably," Shadow said with a tone of boredom. Then again, many of her tones were 'of boredom', so it was hard to distinguish what particularly was meant by it. "We might have even gone to the same school."

"Oh, that's not likely," Tzu Zi said. "I mean, I went to school a loooong way away from here."

"So you did," Shadow said, deadpan. She turned, and glanced through the window of the tram, and gave a sigh. "The Inner Wall is coming up. Our stop won't be long after it."

"Excellent," Ashan said, with a wide grin. "You will see, finding your mother will be easy as falling down in the bath-house."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Nila asked, as the tram slipped into the confines of the wall, a long tunnel with light at its ends.

"Well, there's only so big a city can become, am I not right?" Ashan asked.

And they were answered by the tunnel ending, and the unimaginable scope of Ba Sing Se appearing before them. Thousands upon thousands of buildings, warehouses, stores, structures, towers, and water-works filled every direction of vision, to the point where the city vanished against the horizon. Ashan was agape at it, and even Nila had to let out a low whistle of awe. She was looking upon the home of more than two million human beings. A single settlement so outstandingly massive that it would no doubt be visible from the circuit of the moon. And somewhere in that ocean of humanity, there was a single droplet which Nila was seeking out. Her mother, in a maze a fraction the sum size of the continent.

"That... is a big city," Ashan said, his face quite grey.

"Yes, it is," Nila agreed.

"Wow! Look at that! There must be so many people here!" Tzu Zi said,leaning head and shoulders out of the window's opening to get a better look.

"Please keep head and limbs inside the train!" the voice of the tram's drivers came from the back, where they used their earthbending to propel the vehicle. Tzu Zi ducked back in, but was still grinning.

"And somewhere out there, my sister is probably..."

"Kah Ri, correct?" Nila asked.

"Yeah, that's the one," Tzu Zi answered.

"The lesbian," Nila prompted.

"...yeah, she's one of those, too, but that's not all she is. I mean, she's also an actor and stuff!" Tzu Zi said. Ashan in particular seemed baffled by the term 'lesbian'. Nila decided it was better if she did not explain.

"Ah," Shadow said, as though she finally figured out something. Nila gave her less than half a glance, before returning her attention to her friend.

"Do you know where she is?"

"Well... No. But I know where she sends her mail, so that's a start!" Tzu Zi was bouncing with enthusiasm by the end of it.

"Please don't jump on the train," the voice came from behind them.

"It couldn't possibly harm the ride," Nila snapped back.

"No, because it's distracting my copilot," the answer came, and Nila could see that the second of the two earthbenders propelling the tram was an adolescent boy, who was missing his stride because of his fixation on Tzu Zi.

"Shake your head, young man. Your eyes appear to be stuck," Nila said, stepping between he and the incognito firebender. He did exactly that, and after a moment, the ride gained a bit of the speed it had lost. She turned back to her companions.

"As much as I would like to discharge my brother, perhaps locating Kah Ri would be a fitting beginning," she said.

"So we're going there first?"

"Mother can wait. You have not seen your sister in far longer," Nila said.

"Ooooh! Thank you!" Tzu Zi said, pulling Nila into a hug. And then, she reached over and pulled Ashan in as well, causing the Si Wongi to give a baffled look, his eyes darting around.

She then skipped ahead of the others, causing Shadow to turn and mark her passage. "You have a rare and valuable thing in a friend like her," the gloomy woman said with a sort of quiet earnestness which Nila found hard to ignore. "Make sure you don't squander it."

"I would not dare to," Nila said simply, and genuinely.

"Good," she said, and then turned back toward Jet, managing not to vanish this time because Nila was tracking her movements, and even then, it was a tricky business. That woman could disappear into a crowd of three. Nila turned to Ashan, fist on her hip.

"See? Your paranoia and fears amounted to someone we know enough, and is no threat to us. You should calm yourself before you do yourself an injury," she declared.

"Maybe you're right," Ashan said. "But there's something... off... about this place. You can feel it too, surely?"

"If there is, it will be a problem dealt with in its proper time," Nila said. With the grinding of stone against stone, the tram slowed, and came to a crisp halt at a platform which was... well, covered in graffiti and looked like it had not been cleaned in a month, if not a year. She let out a breath, she hadn't known she was holding in, and waited until the crowd thinned, leaving only she and her companions behind. Then, with one momentous step, she entered the Great City. Under her breath, she whispered, "_...and soon my task will be at its end._"

* * *

><p>Under her breath, she sang as she always did, of the hundred songs which filled the air every night. It was one of the few pleasures she was allowed, as her parents tended to be entirely too strict, in her humble opinion. But then again, her parents were <em>her parents<em>. That meant they must know something she didn't. After all, she was barely twelve, and they'd had long lives, and she was only the very youngest of her siblings.

"She's doing it again," Ahroun said petulantly, causing her to stick her tongue out at him and continue singing quietly despite him.

"Tiva! Stop distracting your brother!" Mother's voice came sharp and cutting from the kitchen, all cut from red sandstone. The woman herself leaned back from her table, her greying black hair bound under a coif and her bright green eyes lancing the girl without mercy. "Nebt-Tet's mercy upon me, child. Must you be a constant distraction for your brothers?"

"I was being quiet," she complained.

"Do not speak back to me, daughter," the woman said, before leaning back out of sight, causing Ahroun to chuckle darkly. She shook her head, closed her book, and walked out of the room, past Mother at her table, past her two other brothers who were busy in the courtyard trying to level each other with furious blasts of sandbending. Of all of them in the family, even to her eldest sister, only she had been denied the aptitude to control the sand, something that her parents found deeply shameful. After all, Father was widely held to be the greatest sandbender of his generation. Mother was probably as good or better, if despite never having any opportunity to prove it. Sandbending wasn't a womanly art, after all.

There were many womanly arts, and one day, she would have to learn them all. She couldn't loaf around the house forever, after all. Some day, she would have a family of her own. With a scowl over her shoulder, she promised that she would not be the mother to her children that Mother was to her. Her over-the-shoulder scowl saw her path cross an infinitesimally small distance too close to the sparring twins, which caused the one not facing away from her to lean back toward the door.

"Mother! Tiva's getting in the way of our practice!"

"TIVA! What did I tell you about distracting your brothers!" Mother's voice shrieked out of the house. She sighed, and trudged away, out of the courtyard and into the street which ran from northeast to southwest, a ploy by the designers of the city to never have to walk directly toward the sun, neither at sunset or sunrise. It also made it the very devil for a non-local to navigate. It was probably a small part of why Nassar had stood against the barbarians to the south for hundreds of years.

She walked the streets, and the glances she got were as varied as the faces in the crowd. Nassar was a trade hub, after all, so many in the South Earth Kingdoms sold wares here, even settling down to live in the jewel of the Grit Ocean. Some people looked on her with a muted note of sympathy. They knew who her parents were, and they knew of her shortcoming. Some looked on her with a degree of scorn, for that same reason. Others looked on her with distaste, because she was always _reading_. And what sort of proper woman read, after all?

She knew exactly where she was going, which was why reaching her destination required no thought and little effort. With a matter of a few minutes, and only one condescending shove by an arrogant boy, she reached Tushu's Book Store, an unassuming piece of property tucked between a den of iniquity and a clothing store anybody with a working brain knew was actually a brothel. Which rather made it a den of iniquity itself, but at least it put up the effort to seem presentable. That Tushu was given such horrible property spoke to another attitude of her people, their disgust with outsiders. She never understood it. If it hadn't been for outside trade, everybody in Nassar would starve.

The door opened to a chime of a bell, which caused the short, broad-shouldered proprietor to glance in her direction, to smile.

"Sati! It's lovely to see you again. Have you finished _The Histories of the Ba Sing Se Riots_ already?" Tushu asked.

"No, I just had to leave that house," she said, slumping in the chair in the corner, pulling her book out and settling it into her lap, quickly locating where she'd left off. "Mother is being impossible again."

Tushu sighed. "It's a shame that there aren't more young people like you, Sati," he said. "Nobody around here seems to want to read, and that's just wrong."

"I know, right?" she answered, happy at the deepest level to have somebody whom she could talk to, even if he was four times her age and married, with a son who was still older than she was. "I mean... if you don't read, you can't learn important things, like about the Dog Rebellions, or why the Fire Nation started the War..."

"You don't need to convince me, Sati," he said. He looked back, as he heard something behind him. "No, it's just Sati, dearest. Are you going to say hello?"

The woman in question, Tushu's wife, was a local, with the same dusky complexion and black hand tattoos that the girl herself had. Although, for the girl, they were still fresh, and still stung a little. Reading was an escape from that discomfort, a way for her mind to separate from her body, and leave the trifles of pain behind. The woman gave an uneasy smile to her, which she returned without the unsteadiness. Mahktiba was always a shy girl, she supposed, or at least uncomfortable dealing with people. It didn't surprise her that there were so many like that; down here, woman could get married off as early as fourteen years, and their social circles never did grow very large. Once again, the girl's mind drifted away from the page, wondering about running away from home, fleeing north, to Ibn-Atal. Or better yet, fleeing south, and maybe even braving the Long Road and reaching Omashu! She'd heard some amazing things about that King Bumi, after all.

Then, she looked down, and realized that she'd missed most of what she was trying to read. With a sigh, she started again. Tushu moved around the store, keeping things tidy, orderly. Generally, performing the woman's tasks, but with a sort of pride and contentment which showed this was what _he_ wanted. There was much about culture outside the desert which she didn't understand. One day she would. One day, she'd be out there in the wide world, and the world would just have to deal with her!

"You seem a little more put upon than usual, Sati," Tushu said as he passed her by. "Are your hands still aching?"

"Yes, but I can handle it," she said honestly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Any time, little lady."

"Why did you come here?" she asked.

"Everybody should have books," he said with a shrug. "At least, that's what I thought when I arrived. I found other reasons to stay."

"Your woman."

"My... wife, Sati," he corrected. "And don't call her my woman. It's not like I own her."

She laughed at that, as though he were making a joke. That laughter died when it became obvious he wasn't. "I apologize. I didn't mean to offend. I'll just read quietly."

"Sati, even if you did offend me, it's alright. Sometimes, the uncomfortable things need to be said. I think that's a lot of the problem of what's going on these days," Tushu opined. Then, he paused, running a finger along a line of books with a look of consternation. "Sharif! Where is the _Abridged __Histories of the Monolith?_"

"It must be out back!" the man's son answered at a yell. Tushu shook his head with mild bemusement.

"I swear, there are days I feel this place would fall down around my ears if I slept in too late," Tushu said.

"I could help," she offered. He turned to her, his brown eyes twisted in calculation. "I mean..."

"No, you know, that might be a good idea," he said. "Another set of hands around here might just be what this place needs."

Her eyes became quite wide, and she hugged the book to her breast. "You mean it? I can work here?"

"I would be honored. After all, we–"

There was a feeling, like the entire world flipped upside down and crashed down onto her head. Then, there was long blackness.

And a light sliding along a rail.

"No, don't be afraid, Sativa," Tushu's voice came from the darkness, but weakly, and wetly. "It's going to be alright."

"No, no it isn't, Tushu! What happened out there?" she said.

"Don't go outside..."

A light, sliding around a rail.

The smell of death was beginning to pull in. Tushu had gone silent. Sharif was silent long before. The darkness was only illuminated by a single candle, it fluttering on its last flame. The woman, long quiet, looked at her, and gave her a single nod. A permission. She knew she wouldn't last, but that the girl was far less injured than she. The girl might survive.

And that was when the girl learned the taste of human blood. Bitter. Iron. But it kept her alive.

A light, sliding 'round its rail.

She staggered, clothes torn and filthy, bloody, out of the ruins of the home and place of business of her only friend. She expected to see the many buildings of Nassar dominating her vision. Instead, she saw rubble and ruin and encroaching sand. The grit on the rubble burned at her feet, a caustic sting with every step, numbing them. Damaging them. She would bear the burns for the rest of her life. She staggered the empty streets, having reached the point where the smell of human carrion no longer disturbed her. Staggering home.

There was no home.

She didn't cry then. Her eyes were dry. Just as well. She needed every drop of water to stay alive.

Under her breath, as she always did, she sang one of the hundred songs of the city of Nassar, staring down in her lap and reading the book. Ahroun looked on with growing annoyance, and...

…

"Has there been any progress?" the deep voice of the Grand Secretariat asked in the antechamber. Han shook his head, scratching at the edge of the patch which covered his missing eye.

"I'm afraid not, Grand Secretariat," Han said with a note of consternation. "Everything we've done seems to slip past her. It's almost as though she's erected some sort of mental barrier inside her psyche."

"That doesn't seem possible," Long Feng noted.

"I didn't think it _was_ possible," Han admitted. "But there is no other ready explanation. She must be reliving a memory inside her head, something so absolute, so visceral that she can focus on it to the exclusion of the entire world."

"Her first love, or the birth of her children perhaps?" Long Feng said with a note of disdain.

"I don't believe so," Han answered. He motioned for the Grand Secretariat to follow him into the room which housed their most valuable prisoner, their most important subject. The setup of the room was laughably simple, almost identical to the one they used for any other of their dissidents and troublemakers, but with a twist that the seat the woman was bound into was designed to hold certain psychotropic compounds, fed down a frequently changed reed into a wound in her upper arm. All in an attempt to break through a mental barricade. "Observe her expression."

Long Feng leaned in, and noted that her expression was one of fear and despair, not the blank, distant stare of a successfully remodeled subject, nor the sublime joy of a woman reliving pleasant dreams. "Remarkable," Long Feng said. After all, how many women dropped themselves into hell to spite a man? "Continue, as long as it takes. Do not damage her, though. I need her intellect intact."

"We might need to give her some time to recover, or perhaps devise a new strategy," Han said. "It might be that this simply _will not work_."

"If that's the case, then find one that will. I will not squander the potential of the Dragon of the East," Long Feng pointed out. Han nodded, then turned to the light, which circuited a rail in the center of the woman's field of view. Long Feng, though, departed, sparing a moment to glance at the chronometer which he kept stowed in one of the pockets of his green robes. He frowned at the time it displayed. He would have to trust his inferiors with this. He had an important meeting to attend, one he dared not be late for. Not after last time...

* * *

><p>Ashan stared into the abattoir. It wasn't much to look at, but then again, nothing within eyeshot was. For all he was awed at the overwhelming scale of the city of Ba Sing Se, once one got far enough down, got one's nose close enough to the ground, that scale vanished completely, and he didn't feel so encroached upon, so impressed upon, so crushed by humanity. Even though, rationally, he knew that outside of eyeshot there were just as many human beings living their lives, just as many buildings, and beyond an eyeshot of that just as many again, it didn't matter. He kept his eyes low. Just like any other of the hundred thousand souls he'd crossed paths with in the two hours since entering the Impenetrable City.<p>

"Well, have you got something in mind?" the remarkably hairy middle aged man asked from the front counter, which was bereft of goods. It made sense. This whole neighborhood seemed somewhat seedy. And once again, he reminded himself that much of the 'Lower Ring' shared in that quality. He couldn't think of why, but that was a matter of not having enough information yet. He'd see how things worked. That was rather what he did. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to order?"

"That flank is cut against grain," Ashan pointed out the exemplar cut kept behind glass. The man scowled at him.

"And what would you know about cutting meat, sand-foot?" he asked. Ashan wasn't sure if that was intended as a slur, so he decided to treat it as if it weren't. With a sigh, he pulled aside the drape of his robes to show the belt and brace of knives and sharpening implements which hung from it. The butcher leaned back. "Is that some kind of threat?"

"Why would I threaten? I mean only to tell you I know much about the cutting of meat," Ashan said, with a note of confusion.

"Are you saying that you're a better butcher than I am?" he asked, leaning forward.

"I do not mean to offend."

The man thumped his fist against the counter, and pointed at a door at the back of the store. "Well, if you've got airs, you'd better prove 'em," he said. "We'll see if your money is where your mouth is."

Of course, this whole thing had Ashan more than a little confused. All he'd done was point out a flaw in the man's technique, and suddenly, the man was defensive and confrontational. Still, he had more than enough time to waste. Nila and Tzu Zi had headed toward the Middle Ring, where Tzu Zi's sister was reputed to perform, but left with instructions where to rendezvous. Since there were still plenty of hours left in the day, he decided to take in the sights.

And those sights unsettled Ashan slightly. When he left Si Wong, he claimed it was because everything was too familiar, and reminded him too much of what he lost. That being the case, Ba Sing Se could be considered a godsend. Nothing was familiar here. He could see none with complexions like his own, and not a single word of Altuundili graced his ear. And there wasn't a grain of sand to be found, so he felt as isolated and alone as he ever had, even amidst this ocean of humanity. It was uncomfortable, for reasons quite opposite of what he'd expected.

The back room of the abattoir was much as Ashan expected it should be. There was a grate which was kept clean with a water hand-pump, and hooks dangled from the ceiling. There were many hooks, but very few of them actually held animals for butchering. It was either that the man was used to having much larger orders, or else simply had an unnatural and unhealthy fixation with hooks. Ashan sincerely hoped it was the former. The butcher crossed his thick, hirsute arms before his thick, hirsute chest, and nodded toward a sheep-pig half, which dangled still from the ceiling. "Let's see what you make of this, O' master butcher."

Ashan shrugged and pulled out the first of his many knives. If nothing else, doing something familiar in an unfamiliar place worked wonders to take his mind off of the stress and the strain. They had traveled like the devils themselves were on their heels, traveling from when Tzu Zi rose until when Nila could be convinced to sleep, and affording no complaint from anybody in the group who had external genitalia. Because of that, they reached Ba Sing Se from Chameleon Port in outstanding time. The downside was that it left everybody exhausted. Well, it left Ashan exhausted, at least; he could not speak for the firebender, who had some degree of military training despite her young age; he could also not speak for Nila, because he knew that her training was in all likelihood far harsher. He paused in his cutting of the loin, thinking about her. She didn't deserve to be so serious, so humorless, and so angry. If the world were a far farer place, she would be laughing and joyous, without the crushing responsibilities, without the suffocating expectations. The butcher leaned in, as though waiting for Ashan to prove he wasn't as good as his training demanded of him. With a roll of his eyes, Ashan continued, extracting a masterful loin, and rolling it into string with deft movements.

The truth was, when it came down to it, a casual and joyous Nila was no Nila at all. Everything she was now, she had to be. It was as much a part of her identity as her skin, her eyes, or her bones. Yes, she almost never laughed, but the way Ashan saw things, the wonderful was far too dear to give away freely, and far to precious to expend upon just anybody. When she did laugh, it was all the sweeter. While he knew she would be happier if she loosened up, and stopped taking herself so seriously, and stopped gauging herself against her mother's almost insurmountable reputation, he could only guide her to that path. She would take it or not on her on recognizance.

He smiled to himself as he considered that only a few months ago, she would never have taken that road if offered. As much as every ounce of him wanted to despise Malu for murdering his mother, he knew he could not hate her completely; for because of she and the firebender, Nila was closer to being a normal person than Ashan had ever known. Much as Sharif had been normal once, given the same impulses, humor, and stupid ideas that a person of his age was prone to, Nila was... well, she was born a strange Si Wongi girl, and would likely die by most accounts a strange Si Wongi woman. She was the only person Ashan had ever encountered who was _inspired_ by a man accidentally decapitating himself. With a shake of his head and a chuckle, he slammed down his cleave, and set aside the hoof next to the soup bones.

"Wait, you're supposed to throw that out," the Butcher pointed out at that hoof. Ashan paused before the creations of the last few minutes, which were a substantial amount of raw meats of many cuts, some laid out, some stacked, some bound in cord. Ashan glanced back to the hoof.

"I admit, hoof soup isn't the greatest of stocks, but it is filling, for what it lacks in taste," Ashan pointed out.

"Your people eat that stuff?" he asked.

"Sir, we eat anything we can kill," Ashan said honestly. Including, if the situation warranted, the bodies of the dead. It was a practice which Ashan already knew not to speak of; most Eastern nations, and in fact almost all of the world that Ashan had ever heard of, considered the practice ghoulish.

"Hoof soup," he repeated to himself, rubbing at his chin. Oddly, his head was the only part of his body not growing an all-concealing pelt. "Think people will buy it for the novelty?"

"Unlikely. It is filling, not appealing," Ashan admitted. But the butcher shrugged.

"Hell, it's still money I'd have been throwing away."

Ashan nodded, and set around to his butchery once more. His mind turned to Tzu Zi, then. It was a poorly kept secret that the girl was not simply a firebender, but in fact a member of Fire Nation nobility. He wondered from time to time if this was another case of the universe playing fast and loose with its own rules, to make daughter resemble mother. After all, Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar had seen a confidante and companion in the Mountain King. Now, her daughter was 'chumming about' with the child of the East's enemy. He had no suspicions of treachery in Nila, though. To betray, one must first have loyalty, and Nila's loyalty had always been to science and learning beyond any other. But in recent days, that loyalty had expanded to a clutch of friends, a commodity she had never held before. And that loyalty was every bit as fierce as her mother's had been at the Walls of Ba Sing Se years ago, but for its much smaller focus.

It was easy to see why Nila latched onto Tzu Zi. The firebender was exactly the kind of friend that Nila needed. Somebody patient, warm, and infinitely forgiving. And additionally, somebody who hadn't accidentally arranged for a brick to be hurled at her head, but that was a matter for the past, and one which would remain there. And she served a fine example to Nila; the hard headed young woman would learn how to act in society if nothing else than by simple osmosis. And while Ashan could definitely pick out the traces of envy from the scientist to the firebender, it was a matter of petty physicalities. Yes, Tzu Zi might be developed beyond her years, but Nila wasn't an ogre to behold. A distracted smile came to his face as he remembered his first look at her when she'd come back. She'd always been nimble, but when she returned, in those leg-hugging pants, showcasing a spectacular bottom, he'd had to take a moment to appreciate it. Then she walked into him. The rest was history.

"You've got a deft hand, I'll grant you that," the butcher said.

"And you have a need for another butcher," Ashan answered him. The butcher raised a brow at that. Ashan nodded toward the long abandoned, stained apron which hung, dusty, on its peg. "It has not seen a wearer in some time, I can imagine?"

"You've also got a thief's eyes," he said with a laugh.

"Was... that an insult?"

"Rou," he said, offering that meaty, hairy hand toward Ashan. He paused for a moment, but remembered what was expected of him after a moment. He took, and shook it for a moment.

"Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa."

Rou gave a confused glance. "How much of that was your name?"

"All of it. Most simply call me Ashan," he clarified. Rou chuckled at that.

"Think you can do that again?"

"Of course," Ashan said with a note of pride. "I can prepare and butcher everything from bison to tiger bear."

"You've worked bison? Good. We're getting an old cow in from the north pastures later today," Rou said. "Those things are murder on my back."

"They do weigh twelve tonnes or better," Ashan said. "Do you work in quarters or halves?"

Rou pointed upward, and Ashan reevaluated the forest of hooks on the ceiling. Come to think of it, that many might be _just_ enough to suspend a halved air-bison for butchery. "What do you think?"

Ashan already had his answer, so simply shrugged. The familiar was a comfort, in an unfamiliar place. And considering the dwindling nature of their finances, it would do everybody good to have money appear, rather than simply hemorrhage. Ashan rasped his blades across their whet stone. The day was scarcely past noon, and there was much work to be done.

* * *

><p>"Finally," Azula said, slapping away the brambles which still made their best efforts to cling to her clothing. It was telling that her own clothes were falling into tatters at an alarming rate. She really had to get some more durable clothing; say what one would about Tribesmen, their clothing tended to last, for example. "We are free of those psychopaths and idiots and have a clear path to Ba Sing Se."<p>

"Ah, yes," Iroh ran a hand down his beard, pondering it. Azula idly wondered what was passing through the old geezer's head, but decided that it either had something to do with treason or tea, or possibly an aphorism that she couldn't have decoded with the help of a genius like Hiroshi Sato. As that thought went through her head, she felt a sting of old, almost healed over outrage. Her son's father had worked for that admittedly brilliant businessman for more than a decade, only to have his legs cut out from under him as coldly and inpassionately as a wave breaking a bank. It was an odd feeling, being outraged for another. It wasn't something she was comfortable with. But she was still fairly sure if she ever encountered Hiroshi again, she was going to punch him in the face hard enough that he would regret what happened almost three decades ago in another lifetime. The bitter taste of revenge soothed her nerves, even if it did not improve her disposition. "That means we must take the Serpent's Pass."

"What?" Azula asked, caught out in her own thoughts unexpectedly. She couldn't afford to be outpaced by the old man. She needed her wits about her. After all, he'd betrayed the Fire Nation in her life time, and undoubtedly would again given the chance.

"We are too far east to reach the docks at Full Moon Bay," Iroh said patiently. "We are entirely too far west to catch a river barge at Burning Rock..."

"Burning what?"

"...Our oldest colony on this continent," Iroh said suspiciously. "Have you forgotten so much?"

Azula shook her head. Burning Rock. Of course. How had that slipped her mind? She had one of those. Well, she never did, but the Fire Nation did. She glanced around, but couldn't see the girl, doubtless the source of that mental interference.

She did see a great, great many symbols, though, carved into every tree, and hewn into every visible rock.

"I know what Burning Rock is, you old fool," Azula said defensively. "I was asking about that 'serpent's pass' of yours."

"A bridged isthmus crossing the bays," he said. He raised a brow toward her. "Of course, I would have to wonder about your ignorance of it. You were once quite adept in geography."

"I remembered the parts that mattered," Azula said.

"No, you remember your world, not this one," he said, as he started to move onto a path which easily turned northward, cutting through the copses and brambles. "If I was to guess, your world was a much emptier one than this. A world where there was no nation of Adamite heathens in the Southern Hemisphere. You seemed... most disturbed when we first docked there."

"Those islands were empty," Azula said, her usual biting tone vacant. "I hid there for years, plotting revenge against Zuko for stealing my throne. Raising Chiyo."

He didn't speak at that, just walked the path through the brambles. She mulled, a habit she was really going to have to break. It distracted her. "From what I recall of this region, that 'Serpent's Pass' would deposit you not far from the Wasteland of... some Easterner who doesn't really matter. It would not be far from there to the Walls."

"So you do remember," Iroh said simply. He nodded. "Several days walking, without something faster than our feet. And then what?"

"Excuse me?"

"Once we are at the walls, how do you suggest we enter Ba Sing Se?" his eyes had turned shrewd and cold.

"Simple. I locate that band of Kyoshi Warriors who are trying to rendezvous with the Avatar, and use their credentials and outfits to disguise myself. You can come up with your own solution," Azula said. Iroh halted, turning to face her squarely.

"The same Kyoshi Warriors whom you personally disbanded months ago, when you annexed their island?" Iroh asked flatly.

"No, the... Wait... What?"

"At the beginning of this madness, you and your brother went to Kyoshi Island without me," Iroh said. "You brought down their young warriors, and Zhao moved troops to conquer the island days after we left. That Kyoshi Warrior you are likely referring to, has been in prison since the beginning of winter."

"But..." Azula glanced aside, and could not see the girl, that source of her misery and confusion. But the colors of the world were growing to verdant. Too close. She clutched at her head. This wasn't the way things worked. It couldn't have changed. "I'll figure something out."

"No, you won't," Iroh said.

"I will lie, and cheat, and steal my way into that damned city if I have to! It wouldn't be the first time!" Azula screamed.

"And then what?" Iroh asked.

"Then, I bring down the walls," she said. "It was easy enough last time. This time, I should have it done in a fraction of the time."

"And then what?" Iroh asked.

"Then, I kill the Avatar, when his allies are few and cornered, and he has nowhere left to run."

"And if that fails?" Iroh pressed.

"It will not."

"AND IF THAT FAILS!" Iroh's voice raised into a sudden and irate roar. "You are so trapped in your idea of what _should_ happen, that you've become blinded to the fact that the world is changing and leaving you behind. Your assumptions are not just faulty, they are wrong! And you are wrong for believing in them! This is exactly why I tried to keep Zuko away from you at the North Pole. Your brash and unthinking actions could have seen you trapped, murdered by Tribesmen, or captured by Zhao! But do you listen to me?" he scoffed loudly. He stared at her, golden eyes to golden eyes. "And even when you did have him, you let him slip through your grasp. You never plan anymore. You just accept on faith that the universe will act as you hope it will."

"Please, this is close enough that even I can call it destiny," Azula said. "He's going to be in Ba Sing Se."

"Destiny? What do you know about destiny? Do you really believe that the universe is aligning itself for your ends? Have you become so conceited?"

"No, but..."

"So you're just being lazy, not bothering to do anything but coast by on simple luck?" Iroh asked.

"I am not lazy."

"When you were young, you were once called born lucky. But that luck has deserted you," Iroh said. "The way it now goes is 'Zuko lived lucky, Azula was lucky to be alive'. He sees his ups and downs, and he plans for them. It is time you either accept that you have been sabotaging yourself out of sheer laziness, and stop blaming everybody but the young woman responsible – you – or else give up on this endeavor entirely."

Azula glared at him. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then how are you getting into Ba Sing Se?" Iroh asked.

"I will think of..."

"HOW. ARE. YOU. GETTING. INTO. BA SING SE!" Iroh shouted. Azula recoiled from him. Everything she knew about her Uncle, soft-hearted, doddering old fool that he was, was in stark contrast to what she saw before her now. He even seemed _taller_ somehow, as he railed against her. He shook his head. "When you give me a plan, then we will advance. Until then, we move no further than here."

"If we don't move quickly, we will miss our window of opportunity," she said, stomping past him, until they were out from under the fairly sparse canopy of trees, and the path snaked around some low, rolling hills. She turned back to face him, when she saw a streak of white shoot over a nearby hillock. Her eyes shot wide, doubly so when she saw that its back held a saddle, and it was flying only a few hundred feet in the air. "The Avatar!" she shouted. That got the old bastard moving up to her side, but only to watch impassively as the beast scudded through the air, heading to the west. She continued pointing after it, but had to catch herself, and turned north once more. "But... He's going the wrong way."

"So how accurate was your predictive ability again?" Iroh asked. "We stay here, until you have a plan."

And watching that white blip vanish across the hilly horizon, she was starting to wonder if Iroh wasn't right. Things weren't the way she remembered them. And if that were the case, then maybe all the preparation in the world wouldn't be enough to keep up with it.

* * *

><p>"Is it just me, or does this place just seem really, really dangerous?" Tzu Zi asked, looking about the dingy streets. "There's lots of seedy looking people around here."<p>

"Of course. There are a lot of poor people in the Lower Ring, and poor people tend to be desperate, and desperate people tend to be dangerous. It is simply a matter of not inciting that desperation to violence, an easy enough task," Nila said.

"This place smells funny," Sharif complained quietly from Nila's side, his eyes locked on the dirt road they walked. Nila gave him a glance. Since when could he smell?

"Look, we'll be into the Middle Ring soon!" Tzu Zi pointed out happily. Nila, though, held a scowl as she leaned up on her toes to get a glimpse of what lay ahead of them. Namely, the gates.

"I don't think it will be so simple," Nila contended. But she didn't elaborate on it, despite Tzu Zi's worried look. Instead, she queued with all the others near the gate – that seemed to be a fact of daily living in Ba Sing Se; standing in line.

"Wow. There must be something really nice in the Middle Ring to attract this kind of crowd," Tzu Zi said, hope still clinging to her voice. "Right?"

"I think I'm going to be ill," Sharif complained.

Nila glanced quickly at her brother, and noted that he was seeming a bit more grey than brown, so she pulled Tzu Zi toward him. "Find him a bathroom quickly, before he spoils himself."

"Alright," Tzu Zi said, pulling the simple minded teenager away from the gate, and into a tenement housing nearby. Nila pursed her lips, but didn't speak to that, either. She had to shuffle aside, though, as somebody took a spot behind her.

"Your friend didn't look well," the young man said with a tone of boredom.

"He is seldom ill. I have seldom known a heartier constitution," Nila admitted. The man before her was probably in his early twenties, and was almost as dark as she. But he certainly didn't sound like any Si Wongi that she'd ever heard. For one thing, his Tianxia was utterly devoid of an Altuundili accent.

"You must be new to the City," he said.

"We arrived this morning," she said. Then, she paused. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Because the alternative is talking to him," the man pointed past her, at a corpulent man whose distant stare was in the same league as Sharif's, but gummed idly on a corn ear, big fists crossed at his belt. She had to admit, she was probably a better a conversational partner, and that was not saying much. "They say these walls are here to create order. Does that seem right to you?"

"Walls cannot create order, unless they are prison walls," Nila said with a shake of her head. "I have seen many walls since my arrival inside this city, and they are not to keep people separated. They are too easily passed, and too easily destroyed by concerted effort. No, the walls are here to create a degree of fire safety."

"Astute observation," he said.

"An obvious one," Nila contended. "This city houses more than two million people. A fire in such a metropolis could unmake untold lives and industry. But fire walls, preventing the spread of fires beyond a small area, mean that never shall much of the city be lost to a single calamity."

"You're wrong," the stranger said.

"What."

"There aren't two million people living here," he said. She raised a brow at that. "The actual number is closer to 'nobody has a sweet clue'. You're right about the walls, though, on both counts. Safety, and security. For somebody, anyway."

"You speak poorly of this place," she pointed out.

"I've seen much of it since I got here. Little of it turned out to be good," he said. He nodded toward the gates. "Why head for the Middle Ring?"

"My friend has a sister living there. We are attempting to meet her," she said. "And who are you to be so interested in my motives?"

"Qujeck Shaktson," he said. Nila couldn't help but raise a brow at that. "What?"

"Shacktson?"

"So?"

"You are a Tribesman, yes?" she asked.

"And Tribesmen don't tend to have surnames?" he asked. "Well, these people will give you one if you give them a whisker of a chance. I have a father named Shakt, so..."

"It is a foolish way," she shook her head.

"It's an old way," he contended. "And you are?"

"Nila," she answered simply. He prompted her forward. "I am nobody's son. The breasts should make that plentifully obvious."

"They would if they were apparent," he said sotto. He glanced aside, giving her the self-conscious opportunity to tug at her own shirt, confirming that she had not suddenly gone concave-of-chest while she wasn't paying attention. She rolled her eyes, getting her mind back away from where it should by rights only rest if she were a libidinous young boy, and back onto the situation before her. Namely, that the Tribesman was facing her once more. "So, Nila Nobody'sson, what, if I may ask, is that thing on your back?"

"Do you have an education in metallurgy, physics, and engineering?"

"I'm a professional waterbender," he said as a sardonic answer.

"Then it is above your understanding," she said, hitching her wrapped firearm up a mite so it could rest more comfortably.

"You don't let it touch the ground, and it weighs a bomb," he said. "Not a sword, too blunt. Not a club, the proportions are all wrong, and you don't have the body type of somebody who'd use one," a smirk came to his face. "Is that a firearm?"

Her brows rose at that. "You're smarter than you look."

"It's how I survive Ba Sing Se," he pointed out. She gave a nod to his question. "That's an unusual piece of equipment, particularly in the hands of one so young. They don't exactly hand those to just about anybody, doubly so in Si Wong."

"Have you been spying on me?" she asked, her knife slowly sliding to where she kept a knife, then after a moment's consideration past it to where she kept an incendiary lemon.

"You're dark skinned, you have green eyes, and you sound like Miss al-Jalani. It's not so hard to come to that conclusion," he said. "But you're right to be paranoid. The cutpurses, cutthroats, and destitute masses require the least of your attention. Observe," he nodded down the street, and Nila followed his motion. "That man has been sweeping that same spot for fifteen minutes. Which means?"

"He's watching something," Nila said, her eyes returning to the Tribesman.

"Indeed, but what?" he asked. "The answer is simple. He arrived when your friend did, and has been keeping a close eye on her."

"What?" she asked.

"Your friend, she's from a long ways away," Qujeck pointed out. "Some place... a bit west of here. There's people in this city who keep very close attention on that kind of people."

"Is that a threat?" Nila asked.

"Warning," he said. "While there may 'be no war in Ba Sing Se', you need to be very careful about the things you say around people," he broke off, and looked ahead of him, at the gates, and the queue leading to it which hadn't altered one step in that whole time. "And you must realize that this gate will not allow you through it."

"It has become apparent," Nila said. "Why?"

"Remember the sweeping man," Qujeck stressed. He glanced behind him, his gaze lingering. "And take great care what you say, and to whom. Assume every wall has a hostile ear pressed against it, and you'll live a lot longer."

He turned and started to walk away, leaving Nila somewhat baffled at the exchange which lead up to it. "Wait, why tell me such things?"

"Because somebody had to," he answered, not turning back. Nila shook her head in annoyance, and when she turned back around, she could see Tzu Zi slowly guiding the still-ill looking Sharif back to where Nila was standing. Nila chewed on her lip, thinking about the line, the walls, and that Tribesman, as the firebender finally reached her side.

"I don't think Sharif's going to be able to wait in line. We... we should wait until tomorrow to see Kah Ri," Tzu Zi said.

"Are you sure?" Nila asked. Tzu Zi looked quite saddened by that turn of events, but nodded. "Then we should go to where we said we would meet Ashan. And find a place to spend the night here in the Lower Ring."

"Yeah, that line doesn't look like it's moving at all," Tzu Zi said. She helped coax Sharif forward, even as he took every step with an expression of most perfect misery. "Come on, Sharif. We'll find you some place where you can lie down."

"Tha'll be good," Sharif said, his voice even more slurring than usual. The two of them walked past, and as they did, Sharif scratched at the back of his neck. Only because of that, did Nila see that there was a tiny, raised bump there. She moved closer as she rounded him, taking only a momentary glance at it. At the center of that bump was a tiny hole, a prick almost as tiny as a bug bite. But seeing it, and seeing the sudden 'illness' which had befallen her brother, she drew the conclusion which Qujeck was coaching her towards.

Somebody was trying to control her movements in Ba Sing Se.

She clenched a fist around the barrel of her gun that lay against her back, and made a quiet oath. They would fail. She was Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, and she had a duty. Nothing would stand in her way.

* * *

><p>"This place is great!" Smellerbee said with a level of enthusiasm. Longshot gave her a look which clearly said 'perhaps if you have six legs and eat human filth'. "Look at that bed! You could fit three of us on that thing!"<p>

"And there are five of us," Bug pointed out quietly. "At least the bathroom is nice. There's two of them for the floor!"

"What's your take on this, Shadow? You've been staying awfully quiet," Jet asked. Mai sighed, as she often did, and leaned against the wall.

"I really don't care. One place is as good as any other," she said. But Jet's gaze on her lingered a bit longer, a knowing glance, that he knew she was lying and was going to press her on it, if not now. "You should get some food."

"Wait, why am I always the one who gets 'volunteered' for getting groceries?" Bug complained.

"Because if you don't, you _endlessly_ complain about the eats," Smellerbee pointed out, giving Longshot a nudge. "I swear, I've never seen a pickier eater. Am I right?"

Longshot's idle shrug said 'you're not wrong, Bee.'

Bug bristled at that. The dual stereotype of being the unpleasable gourmand and the only one in the group who knew what a weevil-roach tasted like obviously didn't agree with her. "Fine. But just for that, I'm getting the nastiest cheese I can find. Real stinky stuff!"

With a huff, she zoomed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. It was telling about the quality of the door's craftsmanship that it immediately bounced back open, until Mai reached over and shut it more gently. Smellerbee, though, was already bouncing on the bed like a five year old. "And feel this mattress! It's better than anything I've ever felt before! It's not like sleeping on rocks at all!"

"Yeah, well, enjoy it," Jet said. "This is where we're going to be for a while."

"Maybe you should take a bath," Mai said flatly. "The tubs are up on the roofs. Nobody can watch you up there."

"Are you saying I'm filthy?"

"You are," Mai said simply.

"Yeah, but that's a personal choice," Smellerbee said defiant, arms crossed before chest. Longshot sighed, glancing at her with a look of 'your choice is going to smell worse than any cheese Bug comes back with'. She let out a grunt of shock at Longshot's silent, if cutting, remark. "There's no need to get nasty like that. Fine. I'll have a bath. First time for everything, am I right?"

"It's not as terrible as it sounds," Mai said.

"Yeah, you'd know, little miss pampered," Jet said with tone of mild mockery, one she nevertheless shot him a glare fore. "Go on, Bee. Don't drop the soap."

"Yeah, yeah," Smellerbee said, throwing a rude gesture behind her as she departed. Mai nodded Longshot after her.

"You should make sure she doesn't just dunk her head and call herself clean. We're going to have to live together in this tiny apartment for a while. I don't feel like having to smell everybody that whole time," she said. Longshot's eyes flicked toward where Smellerbee was retreating, then back to Mai. It was clearly a glance of 'are you really sure that's any sort of good idea?' "Fine. Then you'll be the one to sleep next to her in the closet."

A roll of his eyes, which even without Longshot's ability to pack whole paragraphs into a gesture would have been clearly 'fine, but this isn't my first choice.'

And with that, the former Fire Nation noble and the former child bandit, orphans both, were alone in their room. Jet closed the door again,and leaned against it, smiling toward her. "You've got something up your sleeve, don't you?" he asked.

"Knives."

"Something else," he prompted.

"I also keep quarrels and shuriken up there," Mai said with the slightest of smirks.

"You know what I mean," Jet said. "We could have 'started over' anywhere. Why Ba Sing Se?"

"It's safe," Mai lied. "The Fire Nation couldn't get in here with the Dragon of the West doing the thinking for them."

"Since when do you care about safe?" Jet asked.

"There's plenty of opportunities here," Mai lied again.

Jet wasn't having any of it. "I watched a man get robbed of his shoes on the way here. The only opportunities are banditry, and possibly hiring on to prevent banditry for somebody with a bit more money than we have. You're not telling me something. What is it?"

"Why would I lie to you?" Mai asked.

"Lots of reasons. If you thought you were protecting me, if you didn't like what I was doing, if you thought I was going to go off on some rampage of roaring revenge against the Fire Nation, or start persecuting random passer's-by as Fire Nation spies," he rattled off, without any clear indication that he was going to stop.

"Fine, then why would I lie to you about this?"

"I don't know. I was hoping that you'd tell me," Jet asked. He smiled then, that bedroom smile he thought melted her heart. And while it did do great things for improving her 'mood', it wasn't nearly as foolproof as he believed it was. "Come on. It's just the two of us. Bug, Bee, and Shot don't need to know about it."

"And why should you?"

"Mai, please," he said, that smile dropping away. "You want me to trust you, well, it doesn't work in a vacuum."

Mai stepped away from the wall. He wasn't wrong, after all. "Fine. We're not here for a 'fresh start'."

"As I suspected."

"There are some... friends of my family," she said. "People pretty high up. I believe if I can get in contact with them, we might be able to do more in a few months to hurt the Fire Nation than we've managed to do in years."

"I see," Jet said, his tones serious but his eyes cunning. "And you didn't want me to know about this?"

"I didn't want you to get your hopes up, in case it didn't work," Mai said. "I was always told that Ba Sing Se was the most dangerous city on the planet. And since I'm from Azul, that should really mean something to you."

Jet paced a line to the back of the room, then returned to her, his eyes down, pondering. "Who are you supposed to be contacting?"

"A man named How," she said. "Before the Dragon of the East got involved with the war, he was holding out against Prince Iroh better than anybody else. If he's still alive, he'll know how useful I am."

"How useful you are...?" Jet asked. "What's your plan exactly?"

"I'm the last daughter of an annihilated House," Mai said. "With his backing, and my name, I could bring down the Fire Nation from the inside."

"That's... ambitious."

"And I didn't want to bring you in because there's a very real possibility that you'd get killed," she said.

"So?" he asked. He flashed that smile again, and even Mai was annoyed to find that it was working a lot more now than it had been before. "Mai, if you want me to, I'll walk right up to the Fire Lord's bedchamber, knock real loud, and punch him in the teeth. I'm in this with you. No matter what."

She smiled, then, the small, subdued smile which was about all she could bring herself to muster. It was also the most genuine smile she had. "Thank you, Jet."

"So... tell me how you're going to kill the Fire Lord," Jet said. And that sounded every bit the invitation his tone made it out to be.

* * *

><p>"I think it's obvious who taught her how to throw lightning," Kori pointed out, as he leaned away from Yoji's face, giving her that fraction of a second to put her cracked spectacles back into place before the only other member of their group saw what lay beyond them. The rational part of her mind told her that it was a pointless affectation, but she still couldn't stand to leave that be. If there were some way she couldn't have eyes the color they were, she'd have painted them as she did her face, in a heartbeat and without a single regret.<p>

"And your ability to point out the obvious is undiminished," Omo said from where he was leaning against the rock. He faced Yoji more squarely. "How's your hearing?"

"The fact that I am able to respond to you should be some sign," Yoji pointed out.

"And your vision seems to have cleared," Kori said with a nod. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the universe was trying to kill you."

"It's been trying to kill me since infancy. It has yet to succeed," Yoji pointed out, rising and kneading out the tension in her shoulders and neck. Kori rolled his eyes at that.

"It only has to succeed once."

"So we're back on their trail?"

Yoji nodded at the earthbender's question. "The universe may be trying to kill me, but it's also sending a clear signal that our task is at hand. The Prince has left the traitors behind. We can kill them as easily as an insect and nobody will be the wiser," a smirk came to her lips. "Why, if we can do it quietly enough, Prince Zuko will never even know what became of them."

"I don't think we're that lucky," Kori said. He looked north. "Ba Sing Se, then."

"Really? Why would anybody willingly go into that rat-scorpion's nest?" Omo asked.

"There are two Ba Sing Se's," Kori said, as he ushered the others to follow him. "The first is, as you said, a rat-scorpion's nest, a destitute hell-hole where all the most deadly things from Azul are poured into green robes and called a city of two million. You know, a proper opinion of the place," Omo chuckled at that. "The other, on that vaunted other hand, is a paradise of innovation and stability – as though they don't realize that the two are mutually exclusive. Home to the most educated populace on earth, with the greatest medical facilities and the most well stocked university in the world, built upon the bones of a city as old as The Monolith itself. A city of walls and wonders."

"Don't tell me you believe that garbage," Omo said.

"What do you think?" Kori asked. "It is a dangerous place, but has somebody carefully crafting its image. Personally, I would wonder if that city actually existed, and wasn't just a massive pit full of corpses behind the vaunted Walls, were it not that once in a long, long while, somebody actually comes out of that place."

"It may not be yet, but give the Fire Nation some time," Yoji said. Kori shook his head.

"Killing the people of Ba Sing Se would be a waste. With a bit of effort, a lot could be made of a city like that. Imagine Ba Sing Se, but with the industrial complexes of Azul, the brilliant minds of Sato and Qin driving its development? Wouldn't that be a thing to behold?" Kori asked.

"Don't tell me you're going native," Omo said. Kori scoffed.

"It's not 'going native' to see how the world could be improved. I just think it's short sighted to destroy something simply because it stood against you once. Bear in mind that it's likely that your ancestors fought against the Fire Nation for decades, before the Fire Nation graciously drew you against its bosom."

"My ancestors were idiots," Omo said tersely.

"Oh, I can sympathize," Kori said. "After all, mine tried to kill me. That's just wasteful."

"If you say so," Omo said sarcastically.

"Can we please focus on the task ahead of us?" Yoji asked. She paused, though. "Omo, a word?"

"I'll just pick out the path," Kori said. "Don't do anything I'd regret."

"What?" Omo asked, but with a guffaw, Kori moved ahead, out of sight through the terrain. Omo shook his head and turned to her. "I swear, that Tribesman is as mad as his kin."

"He is Fire Nation. Even if he's not very good at it," she said.

"So what's on your mind?" he asked. My, but he was a pleasant sight for sore eyes. Literally. His worried expression was the first thing she'd beheld once the flash-blindness had worn off, and his voice the first he'd heard. And he was very, very appealing to both senses.

"I wished to..." she began, and suddenly found herself unable to get the right words out. So she did the thing that she'd promised herself never to do, chickened out, and changed what she was going to say. "...thank you for being so astute in your duties. If you hadn't been so timely, the Dragon might have put a lightning bolt into my head."

Omo smiled at that, a lop-sided grin on his chiseled jaw. "Well, the Fire Nation couldn't afford to lose you. You're one of the best that they've got."

She forced a tight-lipped smile onto her face. Nothing personal, then? That was actually disappointing. "Well, it was for the best that your reflexes were as good as they are. Now, we should get back to..."

"Yoji, there's something else you want to say, isn't there?" Omo asked, cutting her off and blocking her embarrassed stride toward her fellow Child. "I'll admit, I'm not the most perceptive, but I know when something's right in front of me. Have I done something to aggravate you? No, wait, has Kori? Because I know about you and he. I can understand why you put up with him, but you don't need to for his sake. He can work with other Children just as easily as with you."

"He and I? We aren't..."

"Brother and sister," he said. She flinched away in shame. Gently, he guided her chin back, to face him. She knew he couldn't see her eyes, which was for the best, because they were having a very hard time keeping stable and focused. "It's alright. You belong here. With us. Nobody's going to take you away from the Children, from Kori, or me. You don't need to be afraid of that."

"I'm not afraid," she said. Well, that was a lie.

"It's alright," Omo said, taking a step back, hands out to his sides. "If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. No harm done, and I'll consider this the end of it. But if there's something else going on, with one of the other Children, or somebody outside our group..."

"There's nothing going on," she said, and with a sigh, hung her head. "And there shouldn't be. There are rules against this. We cannot have Children liasing with Children. We do not know whose parents are whose. It divides loyalties and sows dissension. It's too much of a risk, and besides, nothing good could ever come of it."

"You're probably right," Omo said with a sigh. There was a long moment of silence.

"Just kiss her you hulking idiot!" Kori's voice came at a shout from some distance away. He turned to where the waterbender had left, bafflement on his face.

"He couldn't _possibly_ know that we were talking ab..." Omo began.

Yoji cut him off by following that distantly offered advice.

And it was good.

* * *

><p>"Is that sufficient?" Azula asked at long last, for she was starting to feel a bit hoarse from talking at such length. Still, it was the only way to get the doddering old teamonger walking again.<p>

"Barely," Iroh said, continuing to walk alongside her. "You leave much in the hands of chance."

"I sometimes leave things to fate, and the intricate machinations which can be predicted by any proper intellect, but chance? Never," Azula countered.

"I think you operate on predictions you cannot know the ends of," Iroh pointed out. "You are taking risks, basing today's strategy on your time's victory. Much may have changed. Much must have."

"As long as it is Long Feng and his Dai Li that control Ba Sing Se, then I know for a fact that I can deliver the city into Fire Nation hands," Azula said. She idly glanced aside, and while the symbols now abounded with such frequency that they even seemed to be writ in the veins of leaves, her younger self, that distracting and troublesome meddler, was nowhere to be found. Good. Some peace of mind was desperately needed.

The terrain had turned to hills once more, but it was obvious as they walked that they were moving on a spine of earth, for to either side, after very few miles, the land sloped sharply down, plunging to sea level very quickly. Iroh paused, and nodded. "We are close."

"To that 'Serpent's Pass' of yours?" Azula asked, somewhat pointlessly.

"Indeed," Iroh said, scratching at his beard. "It has been a few years since we destroyed the bridge connecting one isthmus to the other. I wonder if they ever rebuilt it?"

"They'd better have," Azula said.

"It shouldn't be too much of a problem," Iroh said. "After all, you were quite the capable swimmer when you were younger."

Azula shuddered at that. All of the worst times in her life were times when she was surrounded by water. Her first humiliation at the hands of Iroh, all those decades ago, when he first redirected her lightning and threw her over the side of her own ship. She would have drowned had not her otherwise useless marines fished her out, blubbering and coughing out lungs of water onto the docks. And again, when _that girl_ humiliated her on the Day of Sozin's Comet, leaving her trapped, chained, and defeated. And again, when she almost lost both of her children, when their boat capsized on their way to the East Continent. Water was terror and pain and death, wrapped in cold and suffocating darkness, and she wanted to keep it as far away from her as possible. Anything more than a bathtub's-worth was more than she'd ever need.

They didn't need to go much further before they came to an arch, which lay in the middle of that spine of land. At the top of that gate was a sign, which was carved in crisp, Tianxia lettering. 'Abandon Hope', it said.

And they weren't the only ones looking at it.

"Abandon hope? But hope is all we have..." a woman's disappointed moaning broke the silence. Azula glanced aside, and saw that they'd approached up a switchback which marched up the side of the spine, out of sight until they'd reached the top not a hundred yards away. The woman in question was heavily pregnant, and had a young man, probably the inflicter of that status upon her, guiding her steps.

"Best pay attention. Living on hope is a pointless exercise, and will only end in misery," Azula said bitterly.

"You must forgive my niece. She has had a difficult few weeks," Iroh said. "You can call me Mushi, and this is Aimei."

"Oh, well, I'm Than, and this is my wife Ying," the man said. "You must have been rejected from Full Moon Bay like we were, or you'd never attempt the Serpent's Pass."

"Somebody stole our tickets and all of our possessions," Ying said quietly. Azula rolled her eyes. Anybody who couldn't protect what was theirs, or otherwise arrange for its protection, didn't deserve to have it to begin with. "This is the only way we'll get to somewhere safe."

"Heh. Safe," Azula snorted. Iroh shot her a glance, but then moved to Ying's side, taking her other hand and guiding her forward. Of course that insane crack-pot would decide to slow them down by helping the useless. "No place is safe these days."

"Aimei, stop talking like that," Iroh snapped. He gave a sigh toward the pregnant woman. "My niece is prone to dark moods. Please be patient with her."

"It's alright. We've had our share of trouble, and we know others have too," Than said. With the two of them helping Ying, they finally started toward the spine of land, which narrowed until it was more a knife jutting up from the water than a path from dry land to dry land. It was going to be a very long day. "Tell me, do you really think that there's a monster out in the water?"

Azula sighed. Just when she thought that the day couldn't get any more aggravatingly terrible, the Universe went out of its way to make sure that it did.

* * *

><p>Nila backed away from the landlady, who stared at her with an expression which any would have discerned as 'take one more step toward my building and I stab you'. With barely a second thought, and managing to not throw the bigot a stink-face for her irrational and wordless denial, Nila crossed this building off of her mental list of places to stay. The list had started quite long, but between their unwillingness to trade in foreign coin – which meant that at some point Nila was going to have to find a money-changer and transfer her tiny supplies of gold and silver into local coinage – and the remarkable waiting lists that she'd encountered, it was seeming that the Tribesman's estimation of the city's population was more right than either had suspected. Not only were there many more than two million living here, there were so many that Ba Sing Se, the only city which could feed itself without leaving its front gate, was running out of places to put them all.<p>

"I need to lie down," Sharif said with misery from where he was left leaning against a lamp-post, which its like marched down the road showing the official pathway as opposed to the warren of alleyways that most people utilized. Easy to see why; the street had become a clogged artery of stalls, people, and garbage. "Did she say yes?"

"As with so many others, her hateful silence was the only answer she would give," Nila answered her brother. Sharif's gaze was still locked roughly on the horizon, but for all his obvious discomfort, there was something closer to a spark of thought in them. Of course, that could just be wishful thinking on Nila's part. The fact that, on some level and in some way, Sharif still existed within that dumb-struck brain hadn't really settled as something real to the girl. It wasn't that she was ignoring it, or that she didn't believe what she'd seen nor heard. Rather, it was too painful. That her brother, the only person who had connected to her in her early years, wasn't gone as she had previously believed? Nila had mourned her brother long ago. When Malu unleashed that hell upon her homeland, she'd witnessed Sharif rise from the dead. And she wasn't sure how to deal with that.

Nila pulled her brother through the stream of humanity, to where the girl in the dark red robes was talking animatedly with a storekeeper. Nila raised a brow at Tzu Zi's behavior, and when she saw why she was so excited, Nila couldn't help but groan.

"Do you not remember our depleting pool of finances? We have not the cash for such fripperies!" Nila snapped. Tzu Zi turned to her, her big brown eyes slightly hurt.

"But look at the shoes!" she said, motioning to something which Nila didn't readily recognize, especially not as footwear. "Aren't they pretty? And look at the color!"

"What are you talking about?" Nila asked. Tzu Zi pointed at a pair which had most baffled the Si Wongi girl, some sort of roughly crescent shaped device, albeit with one point of its mass coming to an almost needle-like point. Nila's brow could scarcely go higher. "That is not a shoe. I have worn shoes. I have seen shoes. That is... some sort of penetrating device!"

"You've never seen a stiletto before?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Of course I have, I have one right here," Nila said, hefting the slender blade, still in its sheath so not to invoke a panic, toward the firebender. Tzu Zi, though, shook her head.

"No, I meant a stiletto heel!"

"So they _are_ a weapon, then?" Nila asked.

"You need to get something other than weapons on your mind," Tzu Zi said. "They make you stand a certain way, so it gives you a special posture and makes your bum look bigger."

"The last thing I need is an augmentation of my ass. Besides, no human could _walk_ on that torture implement," Nila countered. "Besides, if I _wanted_ to restrict my ability to walk, I would have opted to be born before the Dog Rebellions."

"Hey, this isn't foot binding," the vendor finally cut in, as Nila had finally pushed a button which the broad faced man could not deny. "This is a shoe. You can take off a shoe. With footbinding, you're crippled for life."

Nila had to shrug. "Perhaps. Still, it seems a waste of money better spent on such things as food and shelter."

"I don't blame 'ya," the shoe-salesman said, settling back into his seat with the sort of posture of somebody who knew he was a punchline which the universe would revisit at its leisure. "...not much living to be made as a shoe salesman."

"Nobody asked you," Nila said. "Come along, Tzu Zi."

"But... awww."

Her haste was quite justified, after all. Night was coming, and even from what she'd seen of Ba Sing Se so far, she had no great desire to be trapped upon its streets in the night.

* * *

><p>The sudden rumble of stone was all the warning that Azula got, and she flattened herself against the wall of that switchbacking trail. Of course, in her haste, she'd also pushed the two time-consuming loads which Iroh demanded she bear to safety as well, and the slide of rock bounded past them before their startled, stupid faces. Azula didn't say a word as she released them and stepped away. The path had gotten very narrow, such that two people could walk abreast only if one of them had a death wish.<p>

"We're nearing the center," Iroh said.

"Obviously," Azula snarked. "...at the rate we're running out of path we'll soon need Ty Lee's skill at balancing to traverse it."

"Who?" Ying asked.

"An old friend," Azula said dismissively. She didn't notice Iroh's gaze become scrutinous at that. But since it seemed to have that sort of aspect much of the time when Azula was around, it was becoming increasingly hard to tell.

"I don't like this," Than said, staring ahead even as he had Ying's arm. "We'll be in plain sight of Full Moon Bay soon."

"It was inevitable. This isn't exactly a large path," Azula pointed out.

"Yeah, but the Fire Nation controls Full Moon Bay, and they have ships passing all the time," Than said. "I mean... they have to time their refugee ferries into those gaps in when the Fire Nation is in force. People are saying that the Fire Nation is building something up in the Wastelands."

Azula scowled at that. She remembered Qin's overweening pride at that overengineered mechanical abortion, that pipe dream which ended up shitting itself to death with only minor help by the Avatar and his band of cronies. That she missed a perfectly good opportunity to kill that little bastard was galling. That doing so also meant that Ty Lee was injured was unforgivable. She'd had ample reason to hate the Avatar back then... well, ample by Azula's then-anemic standards.

"It doesn't matter. I'd prefer to have this place behind me," Azula said, walking ahead of them, and having to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun as it crept down toward the western horizon. The air was still warm, and she could still feel the sun's power in her, but she knew that, soon enough, that would depart her. She turned, half way along that switchback, and cast an annoyed glance over her shoulder at the others, who lagged behind. "Well? Are you going to keep up, or are you going to lallygag until the Walls come crashing down?"

"She's pregnant!"

"So?" Azula asked. "Pregnant women can move every bit as fast as I can, if given proper incentive."

That was something she knew firsthand.

"Aimei, are you sure you should be standing out there?" Iroh asked. "Any ship could see you."

"Please, there's only one ship, and it's almost a mile away," Azula said, glancing out over the waters. "That's well outside trebuchet range."

"And if it doesn't have trebuchets?" Iroh asked. She frowned. If it didn't have trebuchets, then what _would_ it be armed with?

Her answer came in the form of a descending whistle. Iroh's eyes bugged wide. "RUN!" he screamed. And Azula actually did, hurling herself aside from something she could hear but not see. Because of that, when the explosive shell slammed against the stone and detonated, it sent shards of rock and debris flying around her, rather than through her.

"We must move quickly! They will follow that shot with more!" Iroh urged, and with that, Ying proved Azula's point, in running every bit as fast as Azula herself as she made her scrabbling way across that path. Another descending whistle saw Azula halting herself short, and luckly so, since it blasted the path ahead of her into a slide of rocks and scree which would have swept her straight off the sheer cliffs and down into the water. If the fall hadn't killed her, that water definitely would have. She shook her head, trying to get the ringing out of her ears, and that sensation that her skin was stretched too close to a firepit for comfort out of her perception, before she started running again, bounding from the larger, heavier rocks which would be anchored under their own weight for her passage.

The last few yards before the path turned again, so that it faced the east rather than the west, was marked by another descending whistle. Were they actively targeting her, or was the Universe just trying to kill her? Even without that aggravating child pointing it out, she knew that the latter option had to be the correct one. This time, she couldn't tell which way she had to go to avoid it, since she was still only barely able to hear at all. So when the shell landed just under the path, it took the stone walkway right out from under Azula's feet. She lurched, trying to keep her balance, trying to keep her stride, but there was no traction. How could there be? Where she was standing, there ceased to be a path.

She slid as the rock slid, but caught the edge of that horrible precipice with her fingertips. A flailing toe caught another hold, cementing her position, but she knew she didn't dare move. She hadn't the leverage to advance, and she knew her stamina could keep her here for a while, but not indefinitely. She looked up, and saw that Than and Ying were carefully edging around the crater in the path, hugging the back wall. Iroh, though, was staring down at her. So he was just going to leave her to die, was he? How very fitting for him.

At least, that was her thought before he flopped down on his belly and extended a hand toward her. "Take my hand! I can bring you back up!"

"Why would you?" Azula asked, ignorant of the confused look that Ying gave, as Than wasn't paying attention either.

"For _once in your life_ stop talking and accept that your family is trying to help you," Iroh shouted down at her. She looked down, at that hated water below. Up at her meager hand hold. And with a growl which would likely have convinced that Fire Nation crew to pick another target, preferably on another continent, she heaved her other hand up into Iroh's. She expected that it would only be a brace, to help her find her own way up, but with a single heave, Azula was being dragged up off of that unstable perch and up to solid ground. Iroh didn't wait for her to stand before skirting the edge of that fall himself.

And there was another whistle approaching. Azula kipped to her feet, and with a single bound crossed that gap, heaving herself forward at a roll as the last shell zipped over the top of the crest, and she watched it burst in the water of Chameleon Bay, sending up a great plume of water to mark its inaccuracy. "Those Fire Nation bastards are terrifyingly good shots," Than said.

"Azul might be masters of the cannon, but the rest of their countrymen haven't lagged behind, I think," Iroh said. "Come. We should rest at that wider spot ahead. If nothing else, a pregnant woman shouldn't have to endure such hardship so frequently, not at such a delicate time."

"Thank you, Mushi," she said. She rubbed at her rounded belly. "I never thought I could run like that."

"Terror is a potent motivator," Azula noted, leaning against the rocks. She knew she had the strength of body to keep going for hours, but just the visceral recognition that her own people were firing on her, trying to kill her... it left her drained.

* * *

><p>It was starting to worry the firebender that Nila's face was getting that tight. If she were a clockspring, she'd probably be close to bursting by now. Although, she could see why. Every place that they went to to try to find a roof over their head for the approaching night was rejecting them, sometimes loudly and violently. It took all of Tzu Zi's good nature to keep her from marching right up to those people and giving them a piece of her mind that they wouldn't soon forget.<p>

Also of concern was how the day seemed to have made a straight progression from good to bad to terribad. With nothing more than a bit of harmless flirting in the morning, she'd gotten them into this frankly amazing city, but ever since then, the day had been going steadily and starkly downhill. "It's going to be alright, Nila," Tzu Zi said.

"Would that you spoke from knowledge I lacked," Nila muttered. "I could use some good news for a change."

"Well..." Tzu Zi gave a moment to steady Sharif, who was looking quite unwell now. She didn't understand what had overtaken him; his sickness was quite sudden in its onset, and nobody else seemed to be ill. "I know that you prefer to have a roof over your head, but there's probably a few spots outside the Inner Walls where we could camp..."

Nila scowled at the very notion of camping. It was from her inherent preference of sleeping some place where people had put up walls that sapped their cash so quickly once they'd left Si Wong. For herself, Tzu Zi didn't mind either way. In fact, some of the best times she had in this land were when it was just she and Nila, under the open stars, the former trying to get the latter to open up, the latter seemingly out to convince the former that she was exactly as unpleasant as she believed herself. It was good that Tzu Zi had broken Nila of that kind of thinking. More or less.

"I will not sleep under a bush like some vagabond," Nila said clearly. "Besides, if we must reenter the city each morning, it would make finding my mother and your sister more time-consuming than it needs to be. Better to find a hovel somewhere."

"Yeah, but all the hovels are already taken," Tzu Zi said.

"Well, we will find one," Nila said. "And preferably soon. Ashan should have met us almost an hour ago. This will be difficult enough without our having to hunt down that clueless buffoon time and again."

Tzu Zi's brow knit with worry. "You're right. Where were we supposed to meet him?"

"One square over," Nila cast a thumb behind her. "I have been keeping an eye. Sharif is not so easily missed."

"But what if he's looking for us?"

"Then he is an idiot, and should remember the easiest way to be found when death isn't certainly on the line is to remain still until one finds you," Nila pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Tzu Zi said. "So... how about this place?"

She looked the building up and down. It didn't look like much, just five floors of painted over windows, rusting bars over the lower of them, and a door which hung lazily off of one hinge. The steps also appeared to be more rot than wood at this juncture. Nila shrugged. "I would remember asking at such a place."

"I've got a good feeling about this one," Tzu Zi said. "I'm sure that they'll let us in, no problem whatsoever! It'll be easy as pancakes!"

"Easy as panca...?" Nila began.

She was cut off when a gout of water dropped from the ceiling of that building, and somehow managed to land directly atop of Nila, and nobody else. Nila stood there, green eyes bugging from her head, hand still up as she was framing her question, sputtering out the dirty, sudsy water. A moment later, something thick splatted down directly behind Nila's back, probably coating her boots and pant-cuffs. Tzu Zi flinched, as any sane person would, at seeing a person so tightly wound being torqued a little bit tighter.

"Tzu Zi?"

"Yes, Nila?"

"Remember what we decided about tempting fate?" the Si Wongi girl asked with an extremely measured tone.

"Don't do it?" the firebender asked.

"Good girl."

"I don't feel well," Sharif murmured.

"I am aware, you need not remind me at the top and bottom of every hour!" Nila snapped. With one hand, she wicked her hair back, taking a moment to wring the... bathwater, Tzu Zi hoped... from it before knocking on the door. To nobody's great surprise, the knock sent the door tipping into the inner hallway, sending up a plume of dust where it landed. Nila turned back to Tzu Zi. "How fortunate we are that you have a good feeling."

"I said I was sorry," Tzu Zi said. Nila, though, sighed, and motioned the others in behind her. Since the firebender was in charge of Sharif's movements at the moment, she was the one who had to guide him in. She'd only made it five steps before a head peeked around the corner, which doubtless lead to the stairwell heading up to the higher floors. The head was greying, thin haired, and female. She was a hard looking woman, and while her face was entirely a different shape from the Dakongese, she had many of the same features as the women Tzu Zi had encountered in her time in the plains under the mandatory company of Khagan Khatun. Weathered, tired, and weary.

"Damn it all, somebody should fix that door," that woman said.

"Where is the superintendant of this tenement?" Nila asked.

"That's me," the woman pointed out.

Nila scowled at her. "...then you should be repairing the door," she pointed out. The woman shrugged. "I was told that you had rooms available."

"Sorry, just gave away my last vacancy a few minutes ago," she walked past them, pushing the door back up and shoving the bolts back into their long thread-stripped holes, leaving it in an aesthetically better shape than it had been before, but Tzu Zi knew that it would be falling down again in a matter of a few openings and closes. Nila growled, and launched into a quiet stream of what Tzu Zi guessed was profanity, because it was in that language which she didn't speak. And come to think of it, she didn't even know how to pronounce the name of the language which Nila was currently swearing in. "Hey, calm down. That's just how it goes. You wake up one morning with two empty rooms, and by dinner-time they're filled. That's life in Ba Sing Se."

"It does us no favors," Nila muttered.

"Yeah, well, if you can survive here, you can survive anywhere," the woman said with a chuckle.

"Not Azul..." Tzu Zi pointed out.

"Yeah, well, everything's tryin' to kill you in Azul," the superintendent pointed out.

"I would like to meet that lucky bastard, and see if he wants this room more than I," Nila said.

"Hey, I'm not going to let some stranger walk in and intimidate my tenants," she cut in. "Besides, he said that he had a few more who were going to be living with him, so good luck dislodging that lot."

"Who? Give me a name," Nila demanded.

The superintendent opened her mouth, then broke off. "Huh. Come to think of it, it's kinda needlessly long and hard to remember. And he talks like he's from the desert. There was an 'ibn' in there I think..."

"You don't think?" Tzu Zi began.

"You have my thanks, Missus Mun," Ashan's voice came from the superintendent's back. "Now keep those in the ice-box this time, and you won't need to buy again until next week."

"Of course it is," Nila said flatly. Ashan appeared 'round that corner, a smile on his face, and his hands dripping wet, which he wiped off on a towel upon his shoulder. That towel was somewhat stained with pink. Ashan and Nila shared a moment of staring, he with shock, she with grim annoyance. "Nila! By the Host the time! I had utterly forgotten!"

"That isn't her name..." Sharif muttered from his quiet place at Tzu Zi's side.

"You know this angry thug?" Mun asked, but without anger or incrimination. Ashan nodded. "And she's the one you were talking about?"

"Yes, she and Tzu Zi are the others. This is Sharif, her brother," Ashan went through introductions, which gave Nila a raised eyebrow, as though she was mildly surprised. And had Tzu Zi known that tradition dictated that men always be introduced before women, she would have understood Nila's reaction. But as it was, she just smiled and considered that the universe was a fundamentally good place after all.

"I see. Well, they're your problem, not mine. Unless they become my problem," she paused. "You're not going to become my problem, are you?"

"Oh, heavens no," Tzu Zi said.

"I will make no such promises," Nila offered.

"I want some soup," Sharif said, eyes still staring somewhere far below the floorboards.

"Eh, good enough," Mun said, before pulling a key from a great loop of them and handing it to Ashan. "Don't make me regret this, foreigner. And make sure rent is paid promptly."

"You have the first payment already," Ashan said. Mun shrugged, and headed back into her room under the stairwell. Nila turned to Ashan. "...Yes?"

"You have paid her? With what? Bad humor and unnecessary optimism?"

"You forget that of we two, I have a great deal of training in a reputable profession," Ashan said. "In fact, through that profession, I heard of this apartment, and my employer even deigned to put forth a voucher for my occupation. But I speak too long of myself. Tell me, how was your meeting with your sister, Tzu Zi?"

"We didn't get to her," Tzu Zi didn't bother keeping the disappointment out of her voice. Ashan gave a sigh, and a look of genuine sympathy for her.

"Well, perhaps tomorrow will be a kinder day than today. And Sharif... what is wrong with Sharif?"

"He suddenly took ill," Nila said. "And lucky indeed that you have a room, for illness in the streets can only become worse."

"Indeed it can," Ashan said. "The room is up on the second floor from the roof. It is a fine place; it has two beds and a cot to sleep upon."

"Good," Nila said. As Ashan guided them back, he finally broached the question which Tzu Zi was counting the minutes until he attacked.

"Nila?" she offered a grunt in answer. "Why are you soaking wet?"

Her growl was the only answer that anybody would have needed.

* * *

><p>His look clearly said 'you clean up well, all things considered', as he handed her another towel for her hair. "Yeah, and you'd be the one to notice it, you big perv," Smellerbee noted. Longshot clucked his tongue and glanced away.<p>

It was fairly cold water to bathe in, all things considered, but Shadow's recommendation had been a good one. After that soak, and some ablutions and abrasions, she'd probably dislodged a not insignificant fraction of her own body weight in filth and detritus. "I feel like a new woman!" she declared.

Longshot's subdued smirk said clearly 'you smell like one, too'.

"Yeah, laugh it up, bucko. You're bathing next!" she said, hurling her head-towel at him. He caught it before it flopped over his face as she'd hoped it would. He gave a shrug, which said 'and if I need my back scrubbed, you'll be the first I call', before turning to the tub. He raised a brow at it.

"Yeah, I'm scratching my head at that myself," she said. "I mean, it'd be a pain in the ass to drag it all the way to the alley. I say, just tip the thing over the side of the building."

'Is that wise?', his glance asked.

"Stop being such a little girl and help me move this thing," Smellerbee demanded, and with the two of them behind it, they were able to move that sloshing tub to the precipice of the building. Then, with a mighty heave, they upended it, sending first the water out of it, and then a moment later, the precipitate which had come off of Smellerbee in her bath. With a chuckle of a job properly half-assed, she let the tub settle back down into place. She was half way back to the door which lead down into the building when she heard something which she'd never heard before.

Longshot said "...uhhhh..."

Smellerbee turned to him, and saw that he was nodding toward the edge again. Smellerbee moved past him, and favored a glance down into the street below. Her eyes went wide when she saw that she'd managed to bulls-eye somebody with her bathwater. She shared a glance with the otherwise mute archer, and an understanding was shared between them.

Nevertheless, Smellerbee found a desire to put words to it. "Leg it!" she demanded. And with that, the two of them made a break for that door, and did not pause until they were safely out of sight.

* * *

><p>"<em>That<em> is not a bridge," Azula pointed out dryly. And to any reasonable observer of the drooping strand which crossed the gap between the southern end of the Serpent's Pass and the north, it was plainly obvious. That was not a bridge, so much as the first step of many to the creation of a bridge. Less a bridge, more of a half-imagined notion of a bridge. Simply put, that sagging mass of three ropes and an obviously unsafe line of planks to walk upon was no bridge she was going to happily walk upon.

She mulled to herself, remembering the good old days, when she crossed the Bay in the captain's quarters of a Fire Nation equipment freighter, and felt terribly hard-done-by for having to stoop so low.

"I admit, it is not an ideal path," Iroh placated, running a hand down his beard. "But we do not have another option. Unless you would rather swim?"

Azula's dark grumble was all the answer he needed for that.

"Does she not know how to swim?" Than asked her uncle, which the old man gave a chuckle for.

"She did once. I think she's just being fussy."

"Fussy?" Azula snapped.

"Ooh, we should keep moving," Ying said, her face contracting in a rictus of great discomfort.

"Why?"

Azula raised a brow as she glanced back where Ying had traveled, and noted the splatter a dozen or so paces behind them. "Because your woman is giving birth," Azula said flatly.

"WHAT?" Than shouted.

"A... Aimei, do not be absurd," Iroh said. Azula nodded back to where the woman's water now lay against the stone. "...oh."

"And Uncle... for a change... is right. We need to cross, since there's a wider spot right over there and we can barely stand on the path here, let alone drop a child onto it," she said.

"Well, come on then!" Than said, guiding his now barely in-labor wife to the foot of the bridge. Iroh gave them pause, though. "I thought you said..."

"I should attempt the crossing first," Iroh said. "If it can bear my weight – all of it – then you should be able to cross. If not, then I have saved you a tragedy."

"Oh... bless you, Mushi," Ying said, her face growing pale. Oh, first-births. They were always so clueless. Iroh, to his credit, didn't waste any time moving across that unstable 'bridge', and for all its rickety appearance, it held his girth and weight with nothing more than a mild complaint of hemp creaking. Iroh stopped at the far side, then beckoned the couple to cross. Azula, though, didn't.

She didn't want to get onto that bridge.

Not with so much water under her.

"Aimei! What are you doing? Come over here!" Iroh shouted from the other shore. Azula glanced down, then back up at him.

"It might take your weight, and may _just_ accept theirs. Mine with theirs will probably snap it," she lied. Well, it was a reasonable enough lie, all things considered.

"Come along, girl," Than shouted as the two of them reached the center point of the bridge, still moving briskly. "There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a bridge over open water. There's nothing going to reach out and attack you!"

And then, Azula knew exactly how doomed she was, because that sinking feeling in her gut started up again. That was the feeling Azula always got when the Universe was turning against her. She'd felt it quite a few times over her life. And she was feeling it now. That feeling was all that kept surprise from turning into horror, but instead into head-wagging weariness, when what came next appeared.

Of course, the others, not so schooled in the comedic cruelties of fate and chance, all let out a horrified scream as the great and powerful bulk of some sort of sea monster raised up from the deep, its face great and massive. It had iridescent scales, mostly blue or purple, but its head was an olive green, and its eyes were bright red, a serpent of the seas which a layman could be forgiven for thinking an off-colored dragon. Well, until that layman was proven an idiot for not notice the lack of wings and limbs, but that was neither here nor there because that great Serpent was now attacking.

"GET OFF THE BRIDGE YOU MORONS!" Azula screamed. They tried, those two fools from the East. But they had all the coordination of a drunken Komodo Rhino in their panic, and found themselves losing their footing, and only staying on the bridge because of panicked grip. Azula rolled her eyes, and prepared to consign them to their fate.

And she would have. In a heartbeat.

But something was shifting. Not so obvious as the great veil which swept over her at that bastard girl's behest, leaving her helpless and useless. No, this was much more subtle. It was a spider's feet, whispering across the surface of her cognition. Not orders. But will. An urge to be something more than selfish and self-preservatory. A foolish, idealistic notion of childhood, carefully weaved into her psyche by an unseen hand. Not much, but just enough to get Azula moving, enough to get Azula to lie to herself enough that if she didn't intercede, the beast would probably eat them, and the bridge together, leaving her stranded on this side of the isthmus.

And it was just strong enough to overwhelm her fear of drowning.

At first, Azula's steps were careful, almost comically so. But as she got her balance and learned how to move with the sway of the bridge, they stopped being so timid, and started to become strides in force. The beast had dived under the water again, but Azula was watching the ripples of the surface. She knew that it would be surfacing soon, and quite nearby. She finally approached the middle as well, and gave Than a shove toward the beach, and hauled Ying out of her difficult position with one hand and half a mind. She then shoved the woman to the man. "Get to the other side before this thing eats you..."

'You', of course, being punctuated by the beast rearing up again, its head and trailing whiskers dozens of yards above the surface of the bay. It looked down at Azula, and at the two near her, and let out a roar which smelled of salt-water and dead seafood. Azula didn't bother batting an eyelash, but the other two did as their fight-or-flight reflexes demanded of them and they fled with all possible haste. And for reasons even Azula couldn't justify to herself, she stood at the center of that bridge, and smirked up at the thing. Red eyes glared down at her, before turning toward the fleeing morsels. With a flick of her fingers, though, a bolt of flame lashed out at the creature.

The flame was golden.

Azula was momentarily shocked at its weakness, at its dimness, but with a shake of her head, she put more effort into her next assault, and this time, it burned as blue and hot as any flames she ever had. And this time, when the flames caressed the scales of the great monster, they did more than dry it of water. The beast roared once again, and turned its attention wholly onto the girl who had the audacity to strike at it. But when it lashed out in response to her assault, it didn't do so in any manner she would have predicted.

It opened its maw wide, and a jet of high pressure water blasted out. Azula's eyes went quite wide at that, and a sting of panic inched its way into her, but she managed to dodge aside of that blast, and keep her balance from the way that it hurled the bridge back and forth. The beast then turned its attacks low, and intentionally fired that blast short of her, causing a great mounting wave to smash at her, one she couldn't avoid. The impact of it hurled her right over the line which was at her back. Only a very timely grab prevented Azula from plunging right into the water, which hung only a yard or so under the lowest point of the bridge. Azula shook the shocking cold and wetness from her perception, then with a heave, pulled herself back up.

That wasn't going to stand. The beast was coiling down toward her, its maw opened slightly as though it expected it would be diving under to eat her out of the water. It could probably have consumed her in a single bite, without bothering to chew. But it was just a dumb beast. It certainly wasn't as smart as the Dragons once had been. And were again. So when Azula began to tear her arms around through the kata she knew by heart, she only did preliminary targeting. It wasn't like this thing would know to dodge, after all.

And it didn't. What it did do was just as shocking. Even as the energy tore itself apart, the thing recoiled slightly, and twisted its body into an odd posture. And when that energy finally begged for its release, it did so with thunder and a bolt clear across the blue. It also released with such a horrendous backlash that it sent Azula flying backward, only halted from a second plunge by using her legs to keep the rope from bypassing her completely. It was an awkward few seconds while she pulled her now upside-down self back onto the bridge, and those few seconds she expected to be of triumph and monster-slayage. Instead, the lightning bolt struck the creature, but the beast gave only the slightest of shivers, and the vast power of the lightning bolt began to arc down its skin, jumping constantly lower without ever apparently reaching the internal organs and muscles of the beast. Azula stared for a moment. Its skin must have been extraordinarily electroconductive, to be able to slough off a direct hit from her lightning with no harm whatsoever. It loosened itself, and turned to her once more, something almost like outrage in its scarlet eyes.

This time, when it lashed out, it wasn't from its maw. With a wave, the tail of the beast surged up from the deep, and blasted the entire length of the bridge. She was ready for it, and locked herself in place with both hands.

What she didn't expect was the entirety of that wave snap-freezing into ice. Her eyes darted around, a horrible fear reaching right down into her boots and shaking her like a leaf, despite her being utterly unable to move at all. No. Not again. Not like last time. Not frozen. Not in the water.

But then, there was that gentle urging in her mind. Well, less gentle and more annoyed and impatient, but not tolerating panic. There was a way out. One she'd missed last time because she was so distraught and distracted, so out of her mind that she could no longer properly use it. Uncle always said that fire came from the breath. And she still had a lung-full of the stuff. With a puff, she forced it out, and ignited it as it came. It was very little, but it had some heat in it, and she felt the ice clinging to her face become loose. She could move her mouth. Her features became a scowl, and she breathed out harder, blasting more of that air into fire. This time, she did it from the bottom of her lungs and her body quivered with the expenditure of it. She would be free, or she would die. There was no room for compromise. Nobody was going to save her.

So she saved herself.

With a blast of water exploding into steam, and that expansion causing the ice above it to literally explode away, she was breathing and free once again. The entire bridge was now a mere suggestion, one which was slowly starting to drift since it had dismoored from the side she'd started from. The entire structure was now a block of ice which almost spanned the gap at the heart of the Serpent's Pass. And the Serpent leaned back as she appeared back into the breathing world, almost like it was surprised. Azula drank deep of sweet, sweet air, and heaved herself out of her frozen coffin, and started to run, toward the side which had not yet broken away, the side where that idiot couple and her doddering uncle awaited. The beast let out another roar, and moved to cut her off, rising out of the water just off of the bridge, eyes locked on her. It reached back, and spat out another jet of water.

This time, Azula dug her feet into the ice, and cast both fists out to meet it. Water met brilliant azure flames. Water and flame became steam. And she matched the beast strength for strength, before the water began to wane. Then, as its angry roar had turned to something more concerned, the water died completely, and her blast of flames seared across the beast's face. With a howl of pain, it dropped back into the water, no doubt still alive, but clearly from its utter abandonment of the attack, not willing to face somebody capable of causing it pain, either.

Azula stared after it for a moment, then casually walked off the ice, onto the remnants of the bridge, and then onto solid land a good second and a half before the bulk of the shifting ice behind her was finally too much for this moorage to take, and the bridge snapped and was set adrift completely.

"That was..." Iroh began, something between awe and concern on his face.

"Stay away from us, you murderer!" Than shouted, trying to shield Ying from her.

"And who have I killed?" Azula asked. "Come on, Uncle."

"Well, nobody that I know but... But you're Fire Nation!"

"So are more than two hundred million other people on this planet. That is a great many murderers," Azula said sarcastically.

"Yeah, well... you are trying to kill us."

"I honestly don't care about you," Azula said. "Uncle. Move."

"Very well," Iroh said.

"Did you know about her?" Than asked.

"Of course. She is my niece, after all," Iroh said.

"Ooooh, Than, it hurts."

"That's alright, Ying," Than said. He turned to her. "Now... I think this is the part where you have to push, really hard!"

Azula could have kept walking, and in fact, the departing fancy that was sliding away from her mind would have probably not looked back. But the cold, bitter, angry core which was her being had a lot of memories, a lot of experiences which she would never be able to give to anybody alive today. Not only would they not believe her, but some of them just wouldn't make sense. That part of her, the old and harried part, stopped.

"Push? She's just broken her water. There are hours and hours before that comes," Azula said.

"What?" Than asked.

"If you try to push too early, you'll just exhaust yourself for when the _real_ difficult part comes," she said matter-of-factly, ignoring Iroh's calculating glance. She nodded up the defile to the widening spot above them. "Get her up there so she doesn't try to dilate on this cat-goat path."

"Why should I trust anything you have to say? You're Fire Nation! You're a firebender!"

Azula stared at him, disdain clear in her eyes. She raised her hand. "A show of hands; who here has delivered an infant?"

There was sheepish silence from the two Easterners. Azula turned to her uncle. "Being in the same room as your birthing wife doesn't count, since I know for a fact that the midwives did all the difficult work," she said. The old man's hand lowered. She turned back to the Easterners, as the only one left with a hand up. "That's what I thought. Now, you can either attempt to deliver a newborn with nothing but optimistic ignorance and whatever you're carrying on your back, or you can accept the help of an 'enemy firebender' who's happened to have delivered two children and knows the mistakes you're about to make."

"But..."

"JUST LET HER HELP!" Ying bellowed with remarkable volume, which caused Than to flinch.

"Yes, dear."

"Smart girl," Azula said. She pointed up to the clearing. "Go up, and find a place to rest. Since this is your first child, it will take quite a while to come."

"...thank you," Ying said to her, as she passed. "For everything."

"I have done nothing yet," Azula pointed out. Than kept trying to give her a stink face, but his attention was where it was supposed to be; on his woman. Iroh, though, kept his attention on Azula. He raised a brow. "What?"

"Why?" he asked, simply.

"They're idiots and without somebody who knows what she's doing, she and the child will probably die," Azula said flatly.

"No, why did you reveal yourself to them? That was an unnecessary risk," Iroh said.

"I couldn't run off that sea serpent with insults and harsh language," Azula answered.

"Why did you try to help them at all?" he then pressed.

"They were in my way, and wasting my time. I didn't feel like getting stranded on the wrong side of the gap," Azula gave her justifications.

"That is an excuse, not a reason," Iroh pointed out.

"Am I not allowed to indulge in foolish braggadocio from time to time?" Azula asked.

"That was not braggadocio," Iroh answered. "You wanted to save them."

"I wanted nothing of the sort," she said spikily.

"As you say," he said with a shrug. "I'll go boil some water."

"It's far too early for that," Azula pointed out, with a shake of her head.

"It is _never_ too early for tea," Iroh answered her. She couldn't help but sigh at that. No matter what lifetime she was in, no matter how much changed to her detriment, that man's love of tea was a constant around which _existence_ seemed to spin.

* * *

><p>Qujeck stared at the book at his hip once more, imagining all of the things he'd write into it. Back when he was young and stupid, he'd actually do it, penning the thoughts he'd had in the day, in an attempt to understand them, to gain wisdom from them. To know what he would say when he sent a letter back to his mother. It had been years since he could bring himself to put pen to paper to her. He wasn't the boy who left Summavut, not even close. In his darkest nightmares, Mother was there, and when she looked upon him, she saw a monster, some horrible twisted <em>thing<em> which had no place. A failure to his Tribe, a failure to his friends, and a failure to his family.

In a way, it was almost a relief when the rumors began to circulate, so quietly, amongst the lowest of the new refugees, that Summavut had fallen. Those rumors were, of course, very, very quickly silenced. But still, it was a comfort to Qujeck's weary mind that for his family, at least, there was closure. There was an end. He would never have to look upon Lana's disappointment, Shakt's disapproval and dismay. They were gone. He ran a thumb over the book, which hadn't been written in since _her_ death. Her death, his fault.

There was a lot he had to account for. And the truth of the matter was, he wasn't sure if the only thing he had to repay it would come close to being worth enough.

He sighed, and forced himself back into paying attention to his surroundings. His eyes swept the crowds below, which milled even in the darkness. They had to be nearby. He'd been watching them for quite a while, and only lost sight of them for a few minutes while he attended nature's call. But it had been hours, and none of his signals went up that they'd been spotted elsewhere. Which left Qujeck baffled.

"Where did you go, you little sand-devil?" he asked.

It was a tenuous strand that he had to walk. If he told her too much, he'd lose her, and any ability to repay his monumental debts in honor and life. If he told her too little, she would be useless to him. And worst of all, if she found how he was using her, she would lash out to spite him, and be just as useless as if she'd charged headlong into her own demise. A part of him wished that the girl would have been as biddable as Si Wongi women were purported to be, in fact supposed to be. The better part of him slapped that notion down – a weak and servile girl would be of no use.

He turned from the court which opened from the meeting of four streets, devoid of any decoration and thus cluttered with lean-tos and stalls, to the more ornamented square next to it, bearing the statue of some soldier, clad in armor most ancient, a statue which had been there in one form or another since Ba Sing Se was taken from the hands of the Monolith. One arm pointing to the west, while other beckoned, its boot on top of an unidentifiable chunk of debris. It was probably some leader in the rebellion which brought the Monolith crashing down. Nobody knew. There was a lot which went up in flames when the Monolith was torn down. Dare say, too much.

"I can wait all night, if I have to," Qujeck said, slowly panning toward the next square.

The shocking 'kra-thoom' almost made him wet himself, had he not already taken care of that hours ago, and not drank anything in the interum. A chunk of the stone which hemmed the roof burst into dust and shards, which caused Qujeck to flinch away, his hands tearing the water from his quick-draw flasks in a flash, blades of jagged ice now at his command to kill or ward, as the need would come. But what he saw left him both slightly baffled, and feeling something like an idiot.

"How fortunate that you shall not have to," the Si Wongi girl said sarcastically, still staring down that firearm at him.

"It was a mistake to fire a warning shot," Qujeck said. "Those things take forever to reload, and your opponent now knows exactly where you are. Either kill him with your first shot, or don't bother."

"Two barrels," she answered him. And when Qujeck observed more closely, he could see that she was right. And that the firearm she had been carrying about under a shroud was far more advanced than he thought possible. "I have two issues. First; 'sand-devil'?"

"You have a certain reputation," Qujeck answered.

"And second; what do you want with me?"

Nobody could say that she was not direct. "You are the daughter of Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, right?"

"I am she. What of it?"

"What are you doing here?" Qujeck asked, honestly wondering.

"I could ask you the same question."

"I live here," Qujeck said indignantly.

"Really?" she asked with suspicion.

"My room is right under your feet," Qujeck stated. She glanced at him, but didn't lower her firearm from what he had to assume was a lethal shot. "And you?"

"It would seem mine is a floor below yours."

"...You got a room in my apartment building?" Qujeck asked, letting the ice flow back into his flasks, if only so he could knead his brow.

"I had no knowledge that this was your home. Only that somebody was following me and directing my movements by poisoning my brother. Was that you?" the last came out as a quantifiable threat, which made Qujeck glad he'd put his ice away. She might have shot him after that question, had he given her any justification.

"No," She leaned forward, into her shot, it seemed. "But I think I know who did," he quickly offered. For all he didn't really care if he died, he was certainly in no rush to, not before he'd made up for his mistakes, and his failures. She leaned back, pondering a moment, then finally let her weapon lower from his head.

"Who?"

"What do you know about the Cultural Authority?" Qujeck asked. Best to ease her in slowly.

"That there is such a thing, having heard it only now," she answered him. "What are they?"

"Officially? They are the stewards and bureaucrats who oversee the daily workings of Ba Sing Se," she raised an eyebrow at him. "Unofficially? They control Ba Sing Se from the lowest Triad thug to the seat of the Earth King itself."

"A heady charge to make. Have you proof of this allegation?"

Qujeck sighed, and shook his head. He'd stopped trying to collect evidence against the Authority about a dozen bodies back. They were simply too good at covering their tracks. "No. I have only the things I've seen, the people I've cared about who've died because of them, because of the things that they saw."

"The Cultural Authority," she gave a slight chuckle. He raised an eyebrow. "In their language, it is a joke. Dai Li means 'overwhelming force'. A homophone, yes?"

"Not really."

Her moment of levity vanished completely, replaced by a somber and intense expression which she seemed to have inherited whole from her mother. "Why would they seek to control me?"

"Because of your mother, maybe?" Qujeck offered. "Or maybe because of your friends?"

"My friends? Ashan is only wanted dead in one backward city in one backward part of the world. Tzu Zi is..." she trailed off, as she dawned on the point Qujeck was implying. It was not a dawning of awe, though, on the girl's face. More annoyance that she hadn't figured it out sooner. "So these Dai Li of yours know about her? How?"

"It'd be a lot easier to list what the Dai Li don't know," Qujeck said. "If you want a piece of free advice? Don't antagonize anybody wearing green mandarin robes and a pan hat. If you do..."

"They'll kill me where I stand?" she asked dryly.

"If only," Qujeck said. "You'll disappear. Everybody who knows about you will disappear. Everybody who knows about _them_ will disappear. Every piece of paper in the city which bares your name will vanish. Every image of you, from a idle sketch, to a statue hewn into the side of a palace will be erased, removed from existence in a single night. Every person who knows your face will be struck blind. Every mention of your name will be silenced. Anything which cannot be traced to any but you will be destroyed. As far as the Impenetrable City will know, from that morning on, not only do you not exist, but you never existed, and it will be impossible for anybody to think otherwise."

She stared at him for a long moment. "Such a feat cannot be possible."

"The Dai Li are powerful, and they are petty. I'm not trying to scare you..."

"I watched as a demon turned my friend into a monster, and then shot her twice. I do not frighten easily," she said.

"You should be afraid," Qujeck urged. "Fear keeps you alive."

"And also paralyzes you when you need to act," she said, but gave a shrug. "So why have they made an enemy of you? Have they attempted and failed to erase you? Or was it somebody else?"

Qujeck glanced away. It was odd that somebody could see into his darkest failures so quickly, and so easily. She definitely was her mother's daughter. And perhaps more, because the woman herself didn't give that impressive a showing when Qujeck saw her.

"I see. So you are the only voice for the dead," she said. "And you want to use me to destroy them?"

"No! Well, maybe," Qujeck said. She was too quick, that one. "But that's not the point. I've lost enough people, seen enough good taken away from the world by those monsters in green. Maybe I just wanted to be sure that nothing happened to you, like it did for..."

"Why me?" she asked.

"Why not?"

"That is no answer."

"It doesn't need to be," Qujeck said. He turned back to the city. "They say while ugly lays only atop the skin, and beauty runs into the bone, you'll find that the inverse is true of Ba Sing Se. It's beauty and splendor only hide that it's rotten to its core. Don't do anything rash out there. This city's eaten enough of the young to last a thousand lifetimes."

"I will take that in the spirit it's offered. For now," she said. She glanced past him, to the north, toward the bright and shining higher rings in the distance. "Just don't get in my way."

She turned and strode through the door, letting it rattle closed behind her. Qujeck had to chuckle. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said.

Maybe things were looking up for a change?

* * *

><p>Azula sat quietly, near the stones which they'd taken shelter in from the wind. They hadn't even enough to make a roof over their heads. But since it was perpetually dry in the East, they had no fear for rain. And with Iroh brew tea and boiling water with a nice big fire, they were more than warm enough. She sat, and the woman beside her panted and wheezed, and occasionally screamed. Than just looked progressively more and more uncomfortable with the whole thing.<p>

"Aren't you going to do something?" Than asked. Azula sighed, then leaned down toward the ground, casually glancing up the pregnant woman's dress. Even now, after she'd explained, at length, why she was doing so, Than still got a look of indignation each time she did so. "That is..."

"Yes," Azula answered his question, catching him out and sputtering impotently. "I'll need your coat. You have cleaned it like I asked, right?"

"Yes, but I don't know why you..." Than began, handing over the bundle which had been his overcoat, before Iroh boiled it in water until it was cleaner than it probably had ever been since it was woven. She took it from him without asking and pulled up on Ying, drawing her up to a squat. His eyes bugged out at that. "What are you doing?"

"Your woman has dilated as wide as she is going to," Azula explained coldly. "From the look of her, her contractions are almost running in waves. You wanted to know when to push? Now is as good a time as any."

"Really? It's almost over?" Ying asked.

"Yes. Now, keep squatting," Azula said as she tried to lay down again. "It's far easier that way. Trust me."

"According to who? Your Fire Lord?"

"What would the Fire Lord know about birthing infants? Not only is he a man, he has a horde of physicians to do the hard work for him," Azula snapped, indignation in her voice masking the fact that she'd managed to lie without lying, and without trying to. "This is personal experience. Lying down makes it easy for a doctor to access her. It also makes the birth harder than it needs to be. Squatting helps. I'm not sure why."

She knew that for a fact, because for all the other difficulties around Daichi's birth, the position was not amongst them. Hell, it might have been because he was her second child, but with just a shift in the way she held herself, she was able to get him to practically drop out. Not that she could relate this tale to them. Her body was too young to have that kind of experience, not realistically. That her body was still a virgin at this point further stretched that credulity. No, let some things be unsaid.

Ying cried out again, her face a painting of intense discomfort and pain. Azula didn't have any expression at all on her, contrasting the panic of Ying's husband, and the careful distraction of Iroh at the fire. She was obviously bearing down, and pushing. From the way she was crushing Than's hand in her own grip told her that the contraction was there, and that she was pushing through it. Azula reached back, and her timing was perhaps a bit premature, as her grab was only at air, underneath a cap of hair. "Yes, the head is appearing," Azula related. Than brightened up, then realized his wife was crushing his hand, and let out a yelp of pain.

"Really?" Ying asked, so much hope in her voice. Azula only felt cold, and bitter at it. She'd lost more than these people would ever have. And for a reason which she couldn't selfishly justify to herself, she was helping them. She wanted to blame the girl for doing this to her. And at the same time, she knew that the girl wouldn't have helped these people if she could have. This was on no other head but her own. Another push, another scream, and this time, Azula felt something push into her hands. She bundled it quickly, and drew it up from the ground, wrapped in a clean coat for lack of anything better. It let out a keening cry, its toothless mouth opened wide, bleating with all of its tiny strength. Healthy, and alive. And Azula felt cold.

"My gods... it's so..." Than said.

"It's a boy," Azula said. "Enjoy it. Mushi, we're leaving."

"Wait," Than said.

"What?"

"You don't need to go."

"We're Fire Nation, remember? You hate us," Azula pointed out, still walking away from them.

"We could never hate somebody who did this for us," Ying said. "You protected us. You brought our son into the world."

"Maybe... maybe the Fire Nation isn't as bad as people say," Than admitted quietly. Azula raised a brow at them.

"What should we call him?" Ying asked. "He should have a unique name."

"Maybe Aimei should pick it," Than pointed out.

"Why should I care?" Azula asked.

"Aimei, this is a great honor they are showing you," Iroh said gently.

"And I'm the last person that they need to do it. There are thousands upon thousands of names. If you're having such trouble, just call him Lee, like everybody else in the world does," Azula shook her head.

"Aimei!" Iroh snapped. She sighed, and turned back to him. "I cannot say why you did this for them. I could not be more surprised that you did, in fact. But they are showing you favor and respect, and you spit on it? Show some respect of your own!"

"Respect is earned."

"And you have earned theirs," Iroh pointed out. "Don't denigrate it."

Azula sighed, and made a mental note that she was seemingly on a path in sighs alone to make up for Mai's absence from this world. "Fine. What were you going to call him?"

"Well, I was going to call him 'Hope' if he were a girl," Ying said. "But that just doesn't fit. Not with him. I need something... More appropriate."

Iroh looked at her. She turned her eyes to the ground, and turned her thoughts inward. Why was she so numb? She knew that she should at least feel something, if nothing else impatience. But she was floating in the world like a mind without a body. As soulless and hollow as an automaton. And she couldn't figure out why.

And then, she looked out onto the waves, to the symbols they formed as they rippled away in the wind which came down along the ridge of the Serpent's Pass. A story of loneliness. A thousand lines of poetry on being alone. Opportunities missed.

She pulled her eyes up, to the sparse clouds. Agni's blood, she was so cruel to Daichi. She didn't even realize it until now. Just because he wasn't a firebender, she dismissed him from her life. He was her son, and she cut him down time and time again. She failed as a mother, not just in Chiyo, but in him.

She didn't want to feel that pain again.

She knew she had to.

"Daichi," she said. Iroh raised a brow at that.

"What does it mean?" Ying asked, still shivering, but not from cold in their tiny shelter.

Azula shook her head. "It's just a name. It doesn't mean anything."

"Daichi..." Than said. "Yes. I think that will work. Hello, Daichi."

"Aimei..." Iroh said.

"Don't abandon him, and don't mistreat him," Azula said. "He's your son, and he deserves better of you."

"I never would," Than said, earnestly, honestly. "You'll live in a better world than the one I grew up in, Daichi, I swear it."

"...good," Azula said. Iroh motioned up the path, but she shook her head. It was still hours until morning truly rose, and she was exhausted, in more ways than she'd like to have believed possible. She walked over to the other side of that stand of rocks, glanced toward Iroh, to make sure he was paying closer attention to them than he was to her, and when he was, she pulled her knees up to her chest. She hugged them tight, and pressed her eyes shut with all her will. But it wasn't enough to contain the tears which began to force their way out. And so quietly, she wept for a son who she should have loved better.

Agni's Flame above... she was a terrible mother.

* * *

><p><strong>Everything slowly winding together like a clockspring before the pressure snaps and everything goes kaflooey.<strong> **As I said, I enjoy making protagonists suffer to earn whatever ending they get. Turns out, I make antagonists suffer, too. Old'Zula, as I've pointed out before, isn't a complete monster that some people assume. Just because she killed Katara, had her firebending ripped out, and then shanked Aang to death with a shiv, doesn't make her beyond all empathy. Consider why she did, for example; her daughter, the one person in the world whom she valued above herself, was brutally taken away from her. What mother would not want revenge for that? Old'Zula is operating on a faulty logic, and being a little bit irrational, but honestly, Lil'Zula is being just as irrational in thinking that if she captures the Avatar, that Daddy will love her again. The interactions between Old'Zula and Iroh were more hostile than I'd predicted, but it worked well to set them apart from the goofy coaching of Iroh and Zuko in canon. Old'Zula doesn't like Iroh. Iroh tolerates Old'Zula. But no more than that.**

**Second, there has been some discussion about Ozai, as well. Consider the following. His head'Zula is constantly tearing him down, pointing out his every shortcoming and failure, and generally treating him like a burning bag of dogcrap. And when exactly did she first appear to him, again? What had he just done when she first started intruding on his thoughts?**

**Fourth, as soon as I figured out who Nila was, I knew I had to do the shoe scene. All the way to the Al Bundy expy selling them.**

**Fifth, there is no third. Sixth, you'll get more Team Avatar in the next chapter. What? Even demigods get sick from time to time.**

_Leave a review._


	30. The Performer

Yue's hands flew to her mouth in shock. "Oh, he didn't!"

Zha Yu shrugged. "Oh, but he did."

"No man could be that stupid," Hakoda said around a chuckle.

"I never claimed he wasn't a moron. Just that he thought he could get young Aang into the Avatar State. A failure complete, of course. And a failure which demolished _another_ of my houses," the Mountain King finished with a grumbling tone. Yue's expression shifted from amused disbelief to confusion.

"Another?"

"That would be my seventh," he shook his head. "Every time I set down roots, something tears 'em up again. You'd think I did something stupid like throw a lewd gesture at Fate itself, the way things keep turning against me," he let out a long-suffering sigh.

"You can't lose hope," Yue said. "Someday, things will change."

Zha Yu shook his head at that. "The universe can tear down every building I erect until I'm living in a paper-box, but it won't bother me. Home isn't walls and ceiling and floor and hidden magical workshop. It's the people we care about, who we are, and what we're fighting for. Even as I stand right here, I am home."

"That sounds very lonely," Yue said.

"Not really," Zha Yu said. "My wife, her son, and our daughter are all somewhere relatively safe. And the Dragon was right, in that I can't just let this fight slip me by," he gave another chortle. "And with the way things are going, they may be better off if I'm out of the house for a while. One mad scientist is enough for a household, if you ask me."

Yue turned to Hakoda, and with a laugh, asked. "_Is it true that a man as mad as he could get married?_"

Hakoda couldn't help but laugh aloud at that. "_Yue, I've never seen this side of you,_" he answered in their shared language.

"_What? What's going on here?_" Hahn asked, bewildered and on the sidelines.

"_Your wife just made a joke at somebody's expense,_" Hakoda answered. Hahn looked surprised. "_Yes, I'm shocked as well._"

"_It wasn't that bad, was it?_" Yue asked, instantly shifting back to concern and embarrassment. Hakoda sighed, and patted her shoulder. "_I should apologize to him..._"

"You do remember I speak Yqanuac, don't you? Ah,well, I'm not being insulted, so it can't be that bad," the earthbender said, leaning into the fire which popped lazily in the center of the house. It was one of hundreds which had been formed overnight, pulled into shape by the waterbenders from the North Tribe... Well, now that he thought about things, there was no North Tribe. Just _the_ Water Tribe. Hakoda stared into the flames, and remembered the stories his father and Qejay would tell, the quiet hope of unification, of one Tribe rising to might and power once again. Their stars would go dim in the heavens to see how their dreams came to fruition.

"I'm sorry. It's just that before you, I'd never heard of anybody but a Tribesman learning our language." Yue said.

"Well, I figured I should at least know enough to know when I'm being insulted. That's pretty much the important bits, anyway."

Yue gave Hakoda a glance, and he could only shrug. Zha Yu was an odd turtleduck at the best of times. "So you were saying yesterday... about that thing...?"

"Oh, this?" he pulled out the orb once again. It was still black, but the white lines which stretched across it like the stripes of a tiger-dillo were now moving lazily across it. "Yeah. I've had this thing collecting... well, not dust, since it doesn't get dusty... for years. Figured this was as good a time as any to use it. They say Spirit Artifacts aren't telepathic, but I know for a fact that if they aren't then they've got some unthinking way of messing with ya'. Case in point, I get dropped by this thing here, instead of Ba Sing Se."

"Why are you going to Ba Sing Se?" Hakoda asked. The Mountain King leaned to and fro, before leaning in conspiratorially. Even Hahn mimicked the motion, even though hew as utterly unable to understand what the Easterner was saying.

"Let's just say that I heard a voice through the thunder that Sati's gotten herself into a peck of trouble."

The two Tribesmen stared at him. Well, three, but two of them understood him. "...how much is a 'peck'?" she asked.

"Roughly one mind-erasure and use as a political puppet, I'd guess," Zha Yu said. Hakoda leaned back.

"_...pretty big peck_," Yue noted.

"Mind erasure? That..." Hakoda wasn't sure what to make of that.

"You'd be shocked and horrified at the things that the true master of the Eternal City has at his disposal," Zha Yu said, his usual humor utterly absent. He scowled, a growl in his throat. "I told her not to go back there. Not with Joo Dee in tow."

"What?"

"Joo Dee tried to kill us once," he said. "We tried to deprogram her, but even to this day, I'm not sure we got all of that brainwashing out of her. If anybody smart enough back there realizes that, they could be in a lot of trouble."

"She's the Dragon of the East. She seems like she can take care of herself," Hakoda said.

"You've met her?" to which Hakoda nodded. Zha Yu scoffed. "_Seems_ is the operative word. When I knew her, she was a force of nature. But at some point in the last couple of years, she's gotten lazy. She's letting her reputation do all of her lifting for her. And worse, all of her thinking for her. She was always a ball of hubris and barely contained frustration, but when I first met her, she would at least admit that she could be wrong. Now? Not so much. That kind of attitude gets people killed, and doubly fast in a place like Ba Sing Se."

"You seem awfully critical of her," Yue said.

"Nobody else seems willing to be," Zha Yu answered, an edge still in his voice. She leaned away from him as though he'd profaned her. He shook his head, tenting his fingers and staring into the flames. "She's become bitter, and in her bitterness, she's allowed herself to become stupid. If I can save her from herself, I will, but I'm not going to sacrifice myself and my family for her. She's not worth that. Not to me."

"_Man, this guy got real angry in a hell of a hurry,_" Hahn noted from his place on the other side of the fire. "_What's he going on about, anyway?_"

Hakoda ignored him for the time being. "You said that this... Dirak?" Zha Yu nodded, and Hakoda continued, "brought you to the South Pole for a reason. Why?"

"Very likely, you," he answered. Hakoda stared at him.

"Me?"

"Yes. Just like the Artifacts like to mess with me..."

"The bees?" Yue asked.

"Yes, the bees," Zha Yu said, but turned back to Hakoda, "they also know something that I don't. The smartest thing I have in my brain is the ability to accept that there are things I don't understand. So I've been giving it a bit of thought. You still have soldiers up in the north. Well, the East, but it's well north of here. Am I right?"

"They were ordered to skirmish the Fire Nation at Chameleon Bay, but that was months ago," Hakoda said. "I don't even know if Ogan can hold them all together."

"He'll have to," Zha Yu said. He held the Dirak up to Hakoda. "This thing is counting down. When it's safe to use again, I'm going to have to go immediately. And I think you're going to have to come with me."

"Why?"

"Because we're going to need your men to save the Dragon from the snake," Zha Yu said with utter solemnity. "You know, little stuff."

* * *

><p>His body felt a dozen pounds lighter as consciousness returned to him in a wave, his aching joints no longer dragging at his every movement, his head no longer feeling stuffed with wool, his nose no longer running like a river. Besides the fairly unpleasant coating of flop-sweat that he found upon him with his waking, he felt fine. And that was a vast improvement over yesterday.<p>

He rose, cracking his joints as he did so, flopping his way out of his sleeping bag, and ran a hand over his head, feeling the stubble which was beginning to prick along his scalp. He'd have to deal with that sooner than later. It was starting to obscure things. He finished his cricking and cracking, even popping his toes in his socks, before letting out a mighty yawn. And that finished, he scratched his butt, and wandered out of the tent which had been erected over him.

"Well, look who's finally living again," Toph said, her back to him still. "See? Told ya he'd be fine."

"I didn't doubt it for a second," Katara said. "Still, that was a strange disease. I was told that waterbending could deal with illness as well as injury."

"Maybe you just didn't learn _this_ one," Sokka said, before continuing to recite from the massive rubbing that he'd taken way back in the Tomb of the Founders. Katara gave a shrug, since as far as Aang knew, Sokka was right.

"Still, you had us a bit worried," Katara said. "Do you think you're up for traveling?"

"I do, but I'm kinda at a loss of where we go from here," Aang admitted, rubbing the back of his head. It felt entirely too scritchy. He was definitely going to have to shave that before he left. "I mean, we got that intelligence from Korra, about the Day of Black Sun, but not when. And that's really inconvenient, 'cause we can't use it if we can't predict it."

"I've been giving some thought to that," Sokka broke in, causing a mild look of annoyance from the blind earthbender, if because it kept interrupting her 'reading'. "Seems like we need to find a planetarium, an Observatory, or maybe a university. Now, according to future-you, the best planetarium is choked with sand in a spooky spirit-library full of crazy ghosts. And most of the universities in the East are actually under Fire Nation control, since they've got both Gaoling and Burning Rock. So that leaves either hunting down that Observatory Teo mentioned a couple months back, or else the university at Ba Sing Se."

"Would Ba Sing Se University have that?" Katara asked.

"Definitely," Toph answered. "They've got the biggest libraries in the world. Watching sky-stuff would probably have a bigger selection than the books you've seen in your life."

"That's a lot of books," Katara said.

"Yup. Still, that Observatory sounds like a better bet to me," Toph said. She reached over and gave Sokka a slug in the side, with a frown on her face. "Come on, Brain. I can't read that on my own."

"Yeah, yeah," Sokka said, before continuing his narration. Aang turned from them, and leaned down to scoop up the little moose-lion cub which had accompanied them on their flight from the Great Divide. There had been a great gnashing of teeth regarding its name, since Sokka wanted to call him 'Tenger Etseg', after one of the Tribal deities. Katara, on the other hand, wanted to call him 'Pookykins', while Toph, ever the pragmatic, just wanted to call him 'Toothy'. Aang wasn't sure if they should even be naming it. It was a wild animal, one rescued out of desperation. Which, come to think of it, described their relationship with Momo fairly well also.

A wild animal that one of Aang's school-friends ate the mother of. He shivvered at that, and walked away from the people of the camp, scratching at the cub's belly as he went. He found a pleasant rock, and kipped atop it. Crossing his legs under him, he sat down, and set the cub beside him. It sat down, its stumpy tail waggling, and bleated up at him. He continued to scratch between its ears, as he stared out into the distance.

He wasn't sure how long it was before he heard footsteps approaching him. A glance showed Katara slowly scaling the rock, and sat opposite the cub, lending her hand to its back. It seemed quite contented, between two caring humans. "You look like you need to talk to somebody," Katara said.

"What was that thing?" Aang asked. "Back in the Divide, before I got sick all of the sudden?"

"The woman?" Katara asked. She shook her head. "I don't know, Aang."

"I mean... she looked like _her_. She _sounded_ like her. But an Air Nomad wouldn't do things like that! It doesn't make sense."

"She was an Air Nomad? Really?" Katara asked. "Well, she certainly didn't act like you. Or are you just a weird Air Nomad?" the last coming out with a prodding smile, as though she were trying to be Sokka in that moment. Not entirely succeeding, though.

"Yeah, but she was about as straight-laced as they came. Always serious, always cold, always focused on airbending. There was a _reason_ we all thought she was the Avatar, after all. She was _just that good_."

"So what happened?" Katara asked.

"Well, she certainly didn't get frozen in an iceberg. I would have noticed if she had," Aang said. "...wasn't very big in there."

"Maybe she had her own iceberg?"

Aang shrugged at that. "Yeah, but the only reason I didn't... you know, suffocate... was because the Avatars were sustaining me. For a while, I asked why I had to be Avatar, why I was the Avatar I am in a world like this. But the more I think about it, the more it seems like this was the way things _had_ to be. This was the world I _had_ to be Avatar in. It was a world which needed me, needed somebody who thinks the way I do," he fell silent for a long moment. "Katara?"

"Yes, Aang?"

"Can you promise me not to freak out?"

"I don't know. I can try," she said honestly.

"I think... Malu has Imbalance inside her," Aang said. She looked confused. "Capital 'I', Imbalance."

"Yeah, you've already said that. But if it's true, then... I can't imagine anything more horrible."

"Yeah," Aang said. "That might be how she lived so long. Irukandji lived for almost a century, and he wasn't anywhere near as powerful as Imbalance is. But why would she do that? Why would she let something that... _wrong_... inside of her? Didn't she know what it would do?"

"Maybe she didn't," Katara said. "Maybe she thought she was the Avatar, just like you did."

"What do you mean?" he asked her.

Katara leaned forward, clasping her fingers together. "Aang, what does it feel like just before you go into the Avatar State?"

"I'm... Losing myself," he said. "I can't hold on. And more than that, I don't want to. It's... terrifying."

"That sounds a lot like dying," Katara said solemnly. She turned to face him square, her bright blue eyes pools of compassion. "Aang, imagine if you were so hurt, so afraid, and so angry, that you wanted to let it go, to release what you think is your birthright, to _make things right_. But you don't have the birthright. You don't have anything. So when you unleash it, all you're doing is leaving yourself open. And if something bad is waiting, watching..."

"Oh... that's horrible," Aang said. He glanced away. "And you're probably right. She didn't even know she was letting it in," he sighed, his grey eyes dropping to grey stone. "Oh, Malu... you deserved better than that."

"Aang."

"Yes, Katara?"

"What happens if Malu dies?"

"Imbalance won't let her," he said.

"But if she did. What would happen?"

"I don't know," Aang said. "And frankly, I'm afraid to find out."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

**The Performer**

* * *

><p>Nila scowled as hard as her face could contain, as she looked over the implements which were arrayed in the shop which overlooked the divide between Lower Ring and Middle. Because of its placement, there were services here which could be found nowhere lower, but many places higher. And the most salient of those services were providing scientific apparatus which Nila had been hoping to replace for months! And what does she find, instead of distilleries and retorts, alembics and calcifiers and dessicators? Books on 'alchemy' and pseudoscience, snake-otter oil being sold for its 'miraculous medicinal properties'. And not one worthwhile tool outside of a set of bellows which any idiot could have slapped together in an hour using scrap lumber and a pig-cow hide.<p>

"This selection is disgraceful," Nila said. "You call yourself a chemist?"

"If you're not impressed with our curatives, purgatives, and elixirs, then I challenge you to find better, and for comparable prices," the shop-keeper said defensively. He was a middle-aged man, and from the smoothness of the skin of his hands and face, somebody who had never worked with a fortified acid in his life. To this day, Nila still had the bumpy mark on her palm from when she'd jury-rigged a powerful base to escape a pirate.

"That you offer such frippery is shameful. Where is your equipment?"

"What you see is what I offer," he said. "I can't be giving away all my secrets, after all."

"Secrets? This is not magic, you daft man; it is science! Science does not run on secrecy!"

"Well profit does!" he said. "I suggest you leave. I have no desire to sell to you."

"You have nothing I'd desire to purchase, you charlatan," Nila stormed out. The most frightening thing was that this was not the first 'chemist' which she'd ducked into. The last transition yard they'd attempted an hour and ten streets back had a similar venue, and was even worse. She was beginning to think that 'chemist' had a very different meaning in Ba Sing Se than it did in Si Wong. She also considered the unpleasant but likely possibility that she was going to have to create all of her own tools in this place. It wasn't an issue of if she could, but mostly that it was a monumental hassle.

She moved out into the street, and noted without expression that the side-street which she and Tzu Zi had talked about was now absent of guards. There was something refreshing about being clear of her brother for a while. Familiarity, it was said, bred contempt, but while Nila had actually learned to not revile her brother, there was only so much taking care of him that she could handle at a stretch. That stretch had been pulled taut a long time ago. She vanished into the crowds, just as Mother taught her. She'd even left her firearm at home, so that she was just another face in the crowd, invisible to any who wasn't specifically looking for her. And she kept an eye out for those that were.

The crowds milling about gave her plenty of opportunity to break off, duck through that opening between the buildings, which were supposed to be watched over. That it wasn't was a firebender's doing, and not in the way that most Easterners would expect. Tzu Zi had a very persuasive way about her, and Nila didn't ask how the girl was going to clear the path. She just took for granted that the girl would. And since she had, it had obviously been faith well placed. The path didn't move through the wall; that would have been too easy after all. But it did lead behind buildings, and those buildings broke easy line-of-sight from the post of the guards to her. So she had only to be patient, and wait while a particularly sizable clump of merchants and their laborers were waved through, and then quickly slip into their midst unnoticed, before she was through the gate and the wall which separated the Lower Ring from the Middle Ring.

Instantly, the quality of life jumped up by about a thousand gold Weight a year, that much was certain. While the buildings nearest to the gate were still of low quality, the street took an abrupt turn to the right, and as soon as one could no longer see the poor and the teeming masses of the destitute, the buildings turned to middle-class opulence – as much as those two terms could be bound together – well maintained and proudly decorated. A stark change from the Lower Ring, where if something didn't smell like urine, it was stained by it.

She was also beginning to see what that Tribesman was talking about. Ba Sing Se seemed to be the ultimate stratified society. Much as both the Dakongese and the Si Wongi were established from Caste societies, this one remained so, and then instilled its values right down into the rocks upon which they built. A perfect structure from which the high could exercise absolute control of the low. But there was something else. Nila didn't see it, at first, but she could feel it.

There was a lot of fear, up here.

"Hey, you there!" a voice came from behind her. She felt a start well up in her, but she forced herself to continue walking, not balk like a terrified animal. There were many beasts which would only chase if their prey fled. There was certainly no more obvious way to draw attention to herself. But the voice came closer. "You! Girl! Stop right there!"

And at that point, fleeing would have been more noticeful. She stopped, turning, and saw the man approaching from the turn she'd just abandoned. And her eyes deadened a little when she saw that he was dragging Tzu Zi with him. She let out a weary sigh, but managed not to knead her brow. The plan seemed so perfect, too. Well, it was proof positive that no plan was perfect, and that she needed to come up with a better one next time.

"Is there some issue?" Nila asked.

"I saw you slip through the guard post. That's against the law unless you have transit papers," he said. "So I figure you're some sort of wall-jumper."

"And why would you believe that?" Nila asked, calmly as possible.

"Because I saw through your little temptress' deception," he said, pulling Tzu Zi ahead of her. Her eyes were low, and her lip pouting.

"I'm sorry, Nila," she said. Nila sighed, and finally gave herself permission to palm her face. But then she looked from her friend, to the guard, and then back to her. She was wearing lipstick today, something she did infrequently – notably, it was a particular shade of pink. And she could see just a little bit of that same color on the side of the man's neck.

"I'm going to have to take you into custody," the guard said.

"Very well. I will tell your companions that you were engaged in lewd and lascivious behavior with a fourteen year old girl," Nila said idly. He paused, confusion painting his face. "You are of thirty years, yes? And if I am not mistaken, in Ba Sing Se at least, there are laws protecting the virtue of the young? Well, then I'm sure you will be quite willing to explain your actions with my friend."

"You _can't_ be fourteen," the guard said, confused, at Tzu Zi. The girl nodded. He turned back to her. "She isn't..."

"Yes, she is. She is no few months my younger," Nila pointed out. Her face turned to a smirk. "So by all means, report us. And we can then report you."

"I... Think this is better kept between us..." the guard said, letting Tzu Zi go. "Just don't do it again."

"Do what, guardsman?" Nila asked.

"...never mind. I'm going to go... boil a few things," he said, sounding quite distressed. Nila reached forward and grasped Tzu Zi's hand, drawing her forward and away from the guardsman. Tzu Zi still stared down at the flagstones under her feet.

"I only asked you to distract him. That was unnecessary."

"I got desperate," she said. "He was going to see you!"

"Then we could have tried again. You had no need to sully yourself on my behalf."

"Well, I'm not exactly sullied. I do feel a bit icky, but I could be ickier, I guess," she said, embarrassment now replacing shame.

"So you offered him less than I feared? Good. I hear that only sadness comes from casting about without foresight," Tzu Zi shrugged. Nila raised a brow. "Did not your mother teach you such things?"

"My Mom always taught me to follow my heart," she said.

"Your heart is a pump for blood. Listening to it would tell you nothing but 'wub-dub, wub-dub, wub-dub'."

"You know what I mean," she said, giving Nila a mild shove. Nila smirked at that. Much as she was glad that Tzu Zi took the time to give her a sense of humor, Nila was likewise glad that the firebender was beginning to develop a sense for sarcasm.

"Indeed. Following your heart is risky behavior, because the heart, as I understand things without being entirely literal, does not think. I prefer to follow my brain."

"That's just 'cause you've never been in love," Tzu Zi said.

"Of course not," Nila pointed out. "I am of only fifteen years! Who in such a short time could I have met who would inspire such odd behavior?"

"Well, there was that time in the desert..."

"I was confusing close friendship with romance. And you swore you wouldn't bring that up again!" Nila snapped.

"Right, right," Tzu Zi said. "Well, you're never too young to love. And never too old, either. I bet one day, you're gonna meet somebody and just fall head over heels for them."

"...my head is over my heels."

"It's a saying from back home. And now that you point it out, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, now does it?" she asked. Nila shrugged, and took a moment to glance into another 'chemist' as she passed it, hoping that the shoddy merchandise and idiotic ideas were a product of being parked in the Lower Ring. Sadly, from the glance, they were not. Luckily the crowds had thinned mightily, leaving them with much more room to walk through the people who went about their daily business. No longer was it shoulder to shoulder, at worst, only elbow to elbow.

"I don't know if I'm capable of that. You know how much I think about things. Romance just doesn't seem like it's... well... possible for me. All this 'defying explanation' and lofty talk just falls blankly in my ears," Nila admitted. "I am no romantic, that much is readily clear."

"Oh, say that again when you've met the right guy," she said.

"Can we please stop talking about hypothetical, unlikely love interests and return our attention to the task at hand?" Nila asked. After all, she was beginning to feel like those vapid bitches who made it a daily game to taunt her in her youth. It was not a comfortable sensation. "Now, where is the Ghong Theatre?"

"Yeah, it shouldn't be too far from here," Tzu Zi said, switching tracks almost instantly. "I picked these gates 'cause they were the closest, after all. It should only be a few streets that way. And true to her word, it was barely a few minutes of easy walking before they reached the edifice which stood proudly above the roofs of the buildings nearby. It seemed to be a structure of nine sides, which raised Nila's brow for her. Eight was the lucky number. What was nine to these people? Well, whatever the case was, she was going in.

"It's been so long," Tzu Zi said.

"It shall not be much longer, I think," Nila said. She paused. "Was this the manic one or the melancholy one?"

"No, Ty Lee's the hyper one," Tzu Zi answered. She paused, right at the doors, which stood open to workers who moved in and out with bundles of wood and cloth. Then, her courage screwed to the sticking place, she pressed on, and moved into the theatre.

* * *

><p>There were some perks to being the Fire Lord's mistress. She had been training for the position since it became clear that Azulon's mind was going, a prospective courtesan from the time she was barely sixteen years old. Of course, while she had worked to great lengths to keep herself desirable and perfect for entertaining her master, she also made sure that once she'd attracted one, that she become indispensable to him. In its way, it was a stroke of utmost luck that Prince Iroh would fall from both favor and succession. As he both preferred his wife to all other feminine presence, and was a weak-willed man, she knew for a fact that she would only follow him to her own destruction.<p>

And Akemi was not about to get herself killed for a fool.

She played the quiet, restful song on the flute, as her patron, national leader, and recent-times lover sat, straight backed, atop the Burning Throne. She sat two spots to his left, the position usually occupied by an heir left vacant. Tellingly, Ozai's right was also vacant, leaving she and the Fire Lord on the dais alone. His attention was forward, on the delegation from Azul. She made it seem like she was paying no attention, while surreptitiously noting everything they did, said, implied, or neglected. After all, she had to be indispensable, and the best way to do that was to be sharper than any sword, and far more deadily for it.

"When I say that we cannot offer more troops to redeploy into the East, I mean it as it is said. We _cannot_," the Azuli said. Ouzen was a politician to his toenails, one who had probably sat at the table with the Azul family for all of his formative years. The things the man said which could be trusted without first sifting it through a sieve could probably be counted on one hand, and not even reach the ring-finger. "There is not enough manpower to secure our borders and maintain our infrastructure."

"Then you should privatize your infrastructure," Ozai answered. "This is not a request, ambassador. It is a notice of action. You _will_ deliver on your master's promises."

"Those promises were made six years ago, when you were supposed to be sending our forces to 'an easy victory in the North'," Ouzen answered. "See how well your end of that arrangement held up."

Akemi paused in her playing. "You would be wise to speak with more respect, ambassador," she said, in honeyed tones, before continuing the tone. The frown on Ozai's face grew a bit deeper.

"That the Tribesmen had more fight in them than was expected is immaterial. If we wish to be victorious in this conflict, we must leverage our full strength. I've been hearing a lot of rumors about the Far West, Ambassador. Dark and traitorous rumors. The kinds of rumors which could cause untold havoc and destruction, if left unchecked. As I understand it, there are dissidents within Azuli borders, and their influence needs to be nipped."

"Fire Lord, threats are neither necessary nor appropriate," Ouzen said, showing a placating gesture. "It is a matter of reality, not politics."

"Then send the Ghurkas," Ozai offered.

"We cannot send them," Ouzen remained staunch. "Their numbers are still depleted from your brother's assault on Ba Sing Se, and..."

"You will not speak about _that man_ in this room!" Ozai snapped, which almost made Akemi miss a note in her tune. That was not what they'd discussed. He was supposed to rein in his emotions, so that he could reign over the shrew-minded, cold-eyed neighbors to the west. Akemi could see the calculation in Ouzen's eyes, at that outburst.

"I humbly apologize, Fire Lord. I will not utter it again," but the courtesan could see that Ouzen was filing a chink in the Fire Lord's armor away for later use. If there was one thing she could depend upon form those people, it was that they never gave up a vulnerability, once they'd discovered it. And Ozai was showing more than she'd ever known.

It was disconcerting.

There was a moment of silence in the vast chambers, but as she watched, she could see him twitch just a fraction toward her. No, not necessarily toward her. Simply to his left. "I grow tired of your disingenuous assertions, Ouzen. If you will not speak but the lies your masters force into your skull, then I have no use for you. I will have those men. You will provide them. That is not optional, it is not something you can dissect and litigate. It is an order from the master of your Nation. You will obey it."

"As the Fire Lord wishes," Ouzen said, bowing low enough that his forehead met with the shining obsidian of the floor. Then, with a whisk of his robes sliding with his abrupt rise, he turned and walked decorously out of the throneroom. Akemi let her song wind down, and when the silence was appropriate, she sat in it, her expression one of concern and annoyance. That might not have seemed it to a layman, but it was a victory for Azul's position. She knew what the law demanded of her offspring, and that Azul had more than a year to make a move against her patron before Tsuru could be officially declared a legitimate heir. It was a frustrating bind, that her daughter with this man be locked in this purgatory. Worse still, that it left him vulnerable, and by extension, herself vulnerable also.

And the most irritating of all things was that she was beginning to doubt her decision to grant him her first child.

She forced those thoughts out of her mind. Tsuru would cement Ozai's place, if she could keep Azul from the gates long enough. Tsuru would also give Akemi the leverage to ascend to Fire Lady. But failing that... she had other plans. Only a fool placed complete hope in a single endeavor.

"...not real..." she heard, at a whisper, from her patron, as he stared straight ahead.

"Pardon?"

Ozai gave a slight twitch, which in any other would probably have been a white-faced start of fright. He nodded toward the doors in the distance, through the trough of flames. "What is your opinion of this?"

"He leaves in a stronger position than he entered," Akemi said. After all, she had to be useful, and flattery was everything but. "You should coach yourself against your outbursts, even if they involve traitorous blood."

"You are right," he said, his tone masking his weariness. "Your recommendation?"

"There are several paths," she said. "He cannot be killed; his position in Azul's hierarchy is too low for it to be worthwhile. Another could easily take his place, and the Westerners have little fear of death. Pressure Azul's interests. Either attack their ability to produce in their capital through sabotage, or inflate the price of iron."

"I see," Ozai said. He grasped what she intended. Economic pressures could work both ways. Even though sabotaging what were essentially their own production facilities was a self-destructive turn, the wound of it would fall much harsher on Azul and its influence than it would upon Ozai and the war effort. And expensive iron meant that everything cost more over there, causing economic hardships, and discontent amongst their lower classes. Any or all of which would serve to keep Azul's attention on its own problems, and away from Ozai's. "Arrange both."

"As you wish, Fire Lord," she said.

She rose from her place, kneeling at her master's side, and he parted the flames for her. Appropriate, since she was no firebender herself. She walked with discrete steps toward the side entrance usually reserved for servants and messengers. She was patient enough to wait for when she could use the same passages as her patron proudly. The day would come, after all. As long as any man with a beating heart and a working penis sat upon that throne, she _would_ be Fire Lady.

"...you're not really here."

The urge to pause, to question whether she'd actually heard those words come from her patron's mouth was staggering, but she was a creature of poise. She did not allow it to halt her step. But there was not enough poise on this Earth to keep her from feeling a niggling fear in the back of her mind. That perhaps, as she feared, Ozai was not so sure a means of advancement as she had supposed. She slipped into shadows, where she could do her work.

* * *

><p>The place was a maze. From the worker's entrance, they had the relative fortune of nobody paying them any mind, with the exception of one person giving Nila an order for some sort of beverage which she could scarcely pronounce, and had forgotten most of by the time he finished talking. Considering the amount of instruction which went into simply describing it, it must have either been the most technical drink in existence, or the recipient absolutely deserved not to get it for being such a snob. Of course, Nila considered, it was more than likely that Kah Ri had something do with it.<p>

"This is going a lot better than I worried it would," Tzu Zi said cautiously. Sooner or later, Nila would break her of the habit of tempting fate. Not today, it seemed.

"The answer is obvious. Kah Ri is identical to you, is she not?" Nila asked. Tzu Zi nodded. "Obviously, if one sees you, they assume of her. And given her proclivity in partner, having her wandering through the back of the building with an appropriately aged girl is very much keeping to her character."

"Wait... are you saying they think you and me are...?"

"It is a fabrication they form inside their own minds, and serves us greatly. Let them keep it," Nila said with a wave of her hand.

"Yeah, but I thought you didn't like..."

"Do stop trailing off. It is a weakness of speech," Nila said. The stink-eye Tzu Zi gave her was refreshing. One of these days, Nila would also make a strong woman out of her. Even if not today, it seemed. "As for what I want, what should I care what others think of me? They do not prick me, so I do not bleed. They do not blaspheme me, so I shall not revenge. If I must avenge every wrong thing _thought_ about me, then the world would be nearly empty before I would be allowed to stop."

"Oh... That makes sense, I guess. I figured you'd be more defensive about it."

"There are things I'm much more defensive about, and for much better reasons," Nila said. She poked her head through another curtain, and ducked back in quickly when she saw that there were a good number of costumers chatting idly in there. As much as she trusted the ruse to allow them easy passage, somebody who knew Kah Ri as intimately as her wardrobe-masters would be able to pick her from her identical sister with ease. "For now, we should find something to conceal you. We may walk the guts of this place, but an edifice of this scale is not easily combed. Better to find your sister amongst the rabble, then follow her."

"Are you sure you should be calling them rabble?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Not important," Nila said. She paused, noting a ochre and green robe, obviously done in some parody of Si Wongi style, which was hanging from a line. She pulled it down and handed it to Tzu Zi. "This should get you into the crowds without incident."

"Ew... it's still wet!" she said.

"Have you a better solution?" Nila asked. Tzu Zi scowled, and grumbled, but slipped the robes over her clothing. Between the voluminous robes and the veil across her nose, there was almost no part of her visible. A complete disguise, if not a subtle one. She also felt an urge to palm her face at the design of the robes. Clearly, they were made by somebody trying to create 'authentic Si Wong' without ever having been there or seen what her people wore. For one thing, the sleeves were completely off. She shook her head. More important things to think about.

With that, she gave one last glance around, then ducked into another path, this one running past a line of latrines which was used in great force by the audiences during intermissions. "Do you have a plan to contact Kah Ri, too?"

"Your voice should be sufficient," Nila pointed out. Even with just her eyes visible, Tzu Zi visible brightened.

"Oh yeah! That's really easy."

"Sometimes the best plans are," Nila said. "So long as she doesn't assume that you are... what was her name again?"

"Gwen."

"Absurd name."

"Tell me about it," Tzu Zi said. The passage opened into a path, which showed a stairwell, twisting up in two directions, into a sort of ring which brought spectators to a second level of seating. Nila began to guide Tzu Zi toward the lower doors.

"We will be best staying low, amongst the many," Nila said.

"Hold on, have you become lost, mistress?" a voice called to them, causing Nila to flinch slightly. She glanced around her, but she and Tzu Zi were the only ones moving through the hall. The doorman up on the stairwell was focusing on them in particular, as well.

"This place is confusing of layout," Tzu Zi said, emulating Nila's accent, badly.

"A forgivable mistake. Your seats are waiting up here, mistress," the doorman said with a bow. Nila gave a glance toward Tzu Zi, and then to her robes. He didn't even now that these clothes were a prop? Then again, he seemed much better paid than the ushers and doormen of the theatre. Perhaps he was a private security man. And in that case, doubly the fool, for not knowing who was permitted. "...Pardon, but she will have to retake her seat with the others."

Referring to Nila, of course. Tzu Zi shook her head daintily. "Please forgive my friend's unorthodox dress. She is a friend from many years, having fallen upon difficult times. Her sufferings would make a man weep. Please, I must give her at least some comfort in this difficult time. Pray she come in with me?"

Did Nila really sound like _that_?

The guard thought for a moment. "Well, there can't be much harm. She doesn't look like she's going to hurt anybody. Just stay clear of miss al'Jalani. She is in a foul mood."

"Forgive my asking. Who is al'Jalani?" Nila asked, since Tzu Zi would be assumed to know. He looked to Tzu Zi, and Tzu Zi motioned for him to answer.

"Khalisa bint Seema al'Jalani," the guard said. "She is the ambassador from your homeland."

"Ah, I had forgotten," Nila said with obsequious tone. "Forgive a foolish friend?"

"Easily," Tzu Zi said magnanimously. The guard opened the door, and allowed them into the private booth. But calling it a private booth did not mean it was small. There were seats enough for five dozen people, and a good many of them were occupied. "Wow... look at this place," she said at a whisper.

"Someone from on high has invested much to bring such splendor here," Nila said, moving around the back row, to the seats somewhat closer the front at the far edge. Nila shook her head. "You were having entirely too much fun in the mocking of me, I think."

"What?"

"I don't sound like that."

"Yeah, you kinda do," Tzu Zi said with a grin which Nila could perceive straight through a veil. Nila shook her head, and took her seat.

"He didn't even get the name right. Her name would be Khalisa al'Jalani bint Seema," she shook her head. "These rubes know nothing of my culture."

"To be fair, you don't know a whole lot about it, either," Tzu Zi pointed out.

"Point taken."

"Shhh. We're trying to enjoy the music," the inhabitant of the seat beside Nila rebuked. Nila stared flatly at him, then shrugged. The music was quite pleasant, in its way, an Eastern song in a very old style. She didn't know its subject matter, because it was in a dialect of Tianxia too far removed from her understanding of it. It must have been some obscure offshoot of the Omashu dialectical family. But she had a fair understanding of the players on the stage, and what they represented.

"What's happening down there?" Tzu Zi asked at a whisper.

"It appears to be the origin tale," Nila said. "That would make this the Song of the Founder."

"Neat. I wonder who they have playing the lead?" she asked.

Nila didn't guess twice.

While Nila had never been particularly interested in history, and every bit as not-interested in the history of earthbending, she had learned enough through intellectual osmosis to know the players. The general, who started the war. The warrior king, who escalated things. The farmer's son, who climbed a mountain to escape it all. They were actually at that scene right about... now.

"And the universe plays with loaded dice in three, two..." Nila said idly, drawing confused glances from both sides.

Because when the player depicting Oma appeared at the crest of that 'mountain', earthbent in especially for this scene, one could be forgiven for thinking that Tzu Zi had mastered some form of teleportation, and was now acting opposite her male counterpart. Even the height and the distance didn't occlude that the two of them were practically identical in every respect. The eyes, the face, the body – which was too developed for her age – the only thing which would tell them apart was a generous dollop of makeup and a glamorous wardobe. Kah Ri began the song, as the two actors began to dance 'round each other at the crest of the 'mountain', and Nila nodded smugly.

"Oh my... That's her!" Tzu Zi said excitedly, drawing another shush from those sitting nearby. She restrained herself. "Did you know about this?"

"I moved from an place of educated assumption," Nila said. The universe did seem to enjoy toying with her, after all. It stood to reason that every now and again, the universe would inadvertently let something good slip by easily as well. Nila smirked. "Delicious irony, do you see?"

"...not really?"

"Oma, the founder of earthbending, portrayed by Fire Nation nobility," Nila chuckled. "Irony, yes?"

"I guess so..."

"Well, we know where she will be for at least..." Nila pulled out a chronometer she kept in a pocket. Blast, she'd forgotten to wind it again. A few twists and it was ticking again, if several hours off its proper time. "Forty minutes of an hour. We can intercept her at our leisure as she leaves."

And beside her, Tzu Zi was smiling brightly enough to make the rest of the room dim. It was a good feeling, sitting there. Nila had, as Tzu Zi would have put it, 'done good'.

* * *

><p>The door creaked as it opened, which was not a hopeful sign. Still, Sokka was trying to be 'Mister Positive' today. After all, they'd survived Yu Yan archers trying to kill them all, then survived almost getting eaten by a deranged airbender, and then, to top it all off, Sokka managed <em>not<em> to get sick off of whatever Aang had gotten. Well, the real topper was that Sokka's half-remembered directions to the place Teo used to live with his actual father actually bore out. The place was obviously the right one, because the building had a massive hole in it, and the whole region was flooded. Still, something might have survived.

"That isn't a good sign," the Avatar said.

"Ugh. Why'd they have to make this thing out of metal?" Toph said, giving the building a boot with her calloused foot. "You have fun rustling up whatever you're looking fore. I'll stay out here with fuzzy, flighty, and Destroyer."

"We're not calling her Destroyer," Katara countered.

"It's a male," Toph said. "I think."

"Are you sure? I can't really tell. There's not much to look at," Sokka said, scratching at his head. Ever since he'd stopped shaving the sides of his head, it was a quite cathartic experience to scratch there when he was puzzled. The itch was quite pleasant to sate.

"Whether it's a male or a female isn't important," Aang said. "I'll bring you out something to listen to if I find anything."

"Yeah, yeah," Toph said, dropping onto her back in the dried, cracked mud. Momo took one look at her, and did likewise, while the cub decided that it would prefer to wander over to Appa and chew on the pelt of its tail. Appa was a remarkably patient beast to put up with that. Sokka returned his attention to the ruined observatory. The landscape around it had once been lowlands, and there were still ruins of an old, defunct levy which poked up from the mud which marched right up to the door. Sokka also presumed that the Observatory was much higher than the surrounding lands; even still, that mud pushed against the door, and had to be cleared away by Toph before the door could budge. There was more of that mud within. The levy had broken, and flowed into the building unimpeded. Not surprising, considering the massive hole in the structure. In fact, Sokka considered as he scratched his wonderfully itchy head, that only the typically Earth Kingdom overengineering of this structure kept the gaping wound from causing the whole thing to collapse on itself.

"I don't think we'll find anything down here even if we dump all this muck back outside," Katara said, and the Avatar nodded with something between disappointment and acceptance. She was right. While a Water Tribe scroll might – _might_ – have survived under the muck for all these years, the Easterners used paper, and water destroyed paper as surely as the landscape of Azul killed the stupid. There was another floor, built of some metal which Sokka couldn't identify at distance, but only knew wasn't particularly ferrous since it wasn't rusty, that hung above the whole thing, and formed the top of the rift which gutted the wall.

"What even happened to this place?" Aang asked.

"Teo said that when he was little, there was a terrible flood nearby," she explained. "The farmers tried to shore the levy against it, but it kept failing, despite any amount of work or earthbending they put into it. Finally, Teo's father – his real father, I mean – asked everybody to flee to higher ground, while he worked some kind of motorized pump to give them the time to leave."

"Yeah, I think this is a piece of it," Sokka said, picking up a cracked, nearly decomposed half-ring of rubber.

She nodded, looking at the hole, now mounted up with long dried mud. "Teo's Dad and Zha Yu worked for hours, trying to keep the pumps working, so that the people in the valley could escape. But the longer the pumps ran, the more they started to overheat, or something. I don't remember what exactly went wrong," she gave a shrug. "Teo went to a whole other level of technical when he was describing it. I kinda zoned out. But the thing eventually started coming apart at the seams. They'd almost gotten everybody, but Teo's Dad wasn't going to leave until they were all gone. Zha Yu tried to convince him that he'd done enough. I guess Zha Yu failed, because the engines blew up. Something about the fuel being unstable. Teo's Dad didn't even try to escape. The Mountain King had to save the man's family, slog them out through a flood."

"Wow," Aang said. "Teo's Dad was really brave."

Katara nodded, and Sokka felt an urge to do likewise. It was one thing to be heroic when your back was to the wall. It was quite another to make sure that if only one person didn't make it out alive, it was going to be you. Especially for a man smart enough to know what was coming, to know with razor clarity. Dying in hopeful ignorance had its bravery, but dying when you knew that there was no other way, with nothing but the cold certainty of inevitability? Sokka wasn't sure he had the stones to pull something like that.

"If we're going to find anything, it'll be upstairs," Sokka said, breaking the moment of silence. The others nodded, but kept looking at the hole for a moment. Clearly, much as Sokka had consigned the 'leadership' of this little band of merry – not so merry in Toph's case – adventurers, he was going to have to move through the nostalgia and navel-gazing today. He idly pulled his boomerang from his case and spun it around his finger as he slowly ascended the stairwell. He paused, though, as he felt an odd sensation as he mounted those stairs. It was just a moment, like something wasn't entirely right in the world. But he shook his head, and moved up the stairs, still spinning his boomerang on his finger, and not looking down.

If he'd looked down, he'd have seen there was _no way_ that the structure of the stairway under his feet could have supported his weight.

And yet, for reasons only two Si Wongi children knew about in all the world, _it did_.

He left that impossible staircase behind him, and started leaning around corners. The structure of the building seemed to have held up well. Suspiciously well, in fact. Sokka kept twirling that boomerang on his finger, as he started to rub at his chin. The upper floor of this place was obviously not the uppermost. There was at least one higher than this, probably the one which held the telescope and its mechanism. This place almost seemed laid out as a living area, if a ruined one.

Something was wrong. The more he walked, silently, through the hallways, peeking into the rooms, the more he was sure about it. It wasn't the 'something is going to kill me' wrong, which he felt in the North, nor the 'the universe is going to make me miserable in five seconds' wrong which he felt much more frequently. This was a quiet unsettlement, a sensation in the center of his gut like he'd eaten a lead weight, and it kept pulling him down, a quiet but consistent reminder that something was _off_.

He spent a moment thinking about that sensation, trying to quantify it.

In a thousand other lifetimes, he would have pegged it instantly.

In a thousand other lifetimes, he would have stood with Yue as she died in the Spirit Oasis.

So focused was he on trying to peg that sensation that he actually had his boomerang slip from where it was twirling on his fingertip, and it bounced across the metal floor, clattering enough to break him out of his own bit of navel-gazing. Heh, just when he'd decided that it was up to him to keep that sort of behavior to a minimum, he found himself engaging in it himself. Well, it wasn't important. He had to find something which would tell them when the Day of Black Sun was happening. He stooped to pick up his boomerang, but as his fingers approached it, there was a snap, and something flicked out of the darkness, striking its blueness away from Sokka with a ping of metal bouncing off of metal once again. A few months ago, Sokka would have confined himself to a girlish scream of shock and terror. While that same scream more or less did appear in Sokka's throat, it was accompanied by a machete instantly at hand and borne toward the only source of that bolt which could have been possible.

The darkness parted, as some sort of light emitting device was leveled upon the Tribesman. But it wasn't like anything Sokka had ever seen before. It didn't seem to have a flame, and while bright, seemed to project much less light than a lantern.

"Put it down or the next one goes through your... Sokka?" the voice beyond that darkness ordered, but trailed off in bafflement.

"Teo?" Sokka recognized the voice. "What are you doing here?"

The light dropped, so it wasn't burning directly into Sokka's eyes. Now that he wasn't blinded by glare, he could see that it was a heavy, brick-like object with a tiny lens throwing that yellow light. And it certainly didn't seem to be a lantern. "Sokka? Is that really you?" he asked, and Sokka could now see that the other hand of the aspiring mad-scientist was clasping that crossbow. Only this one seemed to be a hellish-bodge of two weapons into one, to the dismay of both. Sokka didn't doubt that he could fire it a couple of times to a wind, though. Teo, to Sokka's relief, was grinning, though. "Is Katara here?"

"What? No 'how have you been?', no 'You look good Sokka', no 'remember that time we almost blew up my house', just jumping right to my sister?" Sokka said, putting his machete away, but begrudgingly. "You've gotta work on that tact, man. Besides, as her older brother, I reserve the right to pound on you a bit if you ever do anything stupid around her."

"Point taken," Teo said. He shrugged. "I hear this used to be my home. I was too young at the time to remember it, but Mom said this place should be a safe place to lie low."

"Hold on, I should probably tell Aang and the others to come up," he said.

"Oh, you can't go that way," Teo said. He then paused, that pool of light dipping a little lower. "Come to think of it, how'd you even get up here?"

"I used the stairs?"

"Sokka, there are no stairs over there," Teo said. Sokka's eyes widened for a moment, then he nodded behind him, still feeling that sensation in his gut. He expected to find his senses betrayed him, that he would find a gaping hole.

Instead, he found impossible stairs.

"Huh," Sokka said.

"Wait a minute. These weren't here yesterday," Teo said. He glanced to Sokka. "You should use the rope ladder to get down. I don't trust these. And I'm gonna tell Mom that you're here. I don't want her to worry."

"Yeah, you do that," Sokka said, finally seeing what had eluded him before. He scratched at his head, at that wonderful itch, because right now, more even than the Day of Black Sun, he had a new problem to puzzle through.

* * *

><p>The play was sliding easily through its denouement, the music from the flanks of the stage winding down, as the lights were snuffed one after another, until only the actress on the center of the stage was left alone, surrounded by darkness. She had to admit, the girl was a better actress than her sister was. Then again, in order to be a Fire National living in the most hostile place on this planet to her, she would have had to be. While Nila was often the kind to be bored when forced to endure anything not up for academic scrutiny, she felt no need to sleep through this experience, which was akin to another spending an hour at rapt attention.<p>

"There, she should be..." Nila began.

"Shh!" her neighbor hushed more loudly than Nila had herself spoken, bringing twice a bout of confusion from the Si Wongi girl. The play was over, after all. All that remained was the applause and the needless affectation of the playwright's and players' egos.

"Yeah, it's not done yet," Tzu Zi whispered. Nila raised a brow at that, but turned back to the stage. Quietly, a woman wearing red moved to the edge of the light. Kah Ri, portraying Oma, turned toward her, an almost palpable grief weighing upon her, and she spoke in that argot tongue. And the woman in red answered her, in an old but still understandable dialect of Huojian.

"_You are the woman who moves the stone? I come from the West, and believe you have much to teach me,_" she said, bowing her head, before the last light was snuffed, and the curtain was drawn over the stage. Nila gave a grunt at that.

"Yeah, that part never makes sense," her neighbor pointed out.

"Nila, was that?"

"I cannot say," Nila cut her off, despite being fairly certain who that last figure was. "We should go down into the crowd for when they aggrandize themselves. She will more easily hear you so."

"See, I was doing your accent perfectly."

"You were mocking me and I know it," Nila said without humor. Tzu Zi laughed, which drew the attention of others in the balcony.

"_Who is this girl who brays to such propaganda?_" the sour faced Si Wongi asked, and in Altuundili to make it all the harder for the subject to understand. She wasn't yet middle aged, but would be approaching it soon, and had a face which made it clear that her native expression was a disapproving scowl. Nila wagered heavy that this would be the ambassador herself.

"_She speaks on another subject,_" Nila answered. al'Jalani rose an eyebrow at that.

"_And she does not speak to her own actions?_"

"_She would not, to you,_" Nila replied. With a smirk, she gave a nod. "_Thrice thanked for your hospitality and an open seat. We shall take our leave,_" she turned to Tzu Zi. "We should leave, now."

"Not one step, Child of the South," al'Jalani demanded, rising to her feet. She wasn't very tall, though she had half a head on Mother. "Who are you to demand of my hospitality without my permission, and expect no repercussions? I should have you hung and flogged for this!"

"The Sultan would think poorly on that," Nila answered. "Go. Now."

"Guards, stop her!" al'Jalani shouted. Which caused a flip to switch in Nila's mind, from mild entertainment to the cold, calculation of survival, the same sort of impassive, unfeeling sense she had when she was in naked captivity on a pirate ship. What had she on hand? Very little; her gun was at the apartment. She had one explosive lemon, but that was insufficient to deal with the guards, spaced apart as they were. But there was something else. Tzu Zi's robe.

With a heave, she pulled the green robes off of Tzu Zi, leaving the firebender to squawk with surprise, before tying in a fraction of a second the end of one sleeve to the rail which kept fools from toppling down to the lower level, and then, grabbed Tzu Zi's arm and threw both of them over that precipice, hanging from the sleeve which was unbound. Their momentum was arrested, turning their drop into a swing, before the robe started to tear loudly. Nila released her grasp on the screaming firebender, and dropped her back-first onto the cushions of the seats, which had been vacated by the applauding audience. With the tearing continuing, Nila had no recourse but to brace herself for the drop, which happened a second later than she'd feared, and meant that her feet were under her when gravity took its due.

It was somewhere between dumb luck and muscle memory which saw Nila land straddling the backs of the chairs, unstable but upright, to hop into the aisle which ran toward the stage. A glance back showed al'Jalani screaming above, and the ushers which were preparing to direct foot-traffic now deputized to capture the Si Wongi girl.

"Couldn't you just have been nice for one minute?" Tzu Zi asked. "It'd be a lot simpler!"

"But less amusing," Nila said flatly, her eyes on that usher, who was moving in an eddy, as the people started to flare away from both she and the one who might be instigating a level of physical violence. The usher reached forward, trying to catch Nila by the arm, as though that would have instantly rendered her incapable of any defensive or hostile action. Instead, she leaned back, looping that grasping hand with the ruins of Tzu Zi's stolen robe, yanking him further, and then twisting him off of his balance so that he careened into the second usher who was attempting to do the same to Tzu Zi without that girl's knowing. "Don't just stand there! Rush the stage!" she urged, and Tzu Zi nodded with focus.

The crowd made no attempt to get in her way. From the looks of shock on their faces that Nila noted with a cold sort of clarity as she moved, it seemed as though they were utterly aghast that somebody would do such a thing. Not because it was heinous, but because it was _against decorum_. Nila vaulted the pit where the orchestra dwelt, even now still in the process of packing their music in, and landed with barely her toes on the stage. A brief moment of balance, and she turned, to help Tzu Zi make that same bound. And to a degree of frustration to the Si Wongi, the firebender made it without assistance. Powerful legs, that girl had. Unbeknown to her in that moment, it was a trait which ran in the family. "You should..."

"KAH RI!" Tzu Zi screamed, which neatly fulfilled Nila's recommendation. But as the two of them pushed aside the curtain, they found not the doppleganger of her greatest friend, but instead an assortment of baffled players, actors, and stagemen.

"You're not supposed to be on stage," the man who had portrayed Oma's lover said, now looking quite well since they'd erased the makeup which they'd used to make him appear brutalized.

"The lead. Where is she?" Nila asked.

"Who are you?" that player asked.

"Wait... How is that possible?" the one-line wonder who'd played the first Avatar asked, pointing at Tzu Zi.

"I asked a question. Answer it," Nila pressed.

"I don't know. When the commotion started, she ran back to her dressing room," he said. When Nila started in that direction, he caught her sleeve. "Wait, you can't go back there, it's not all-whoa!"

His assertion interrupted by a hip-throw, of course. Nila was in no mood for any further delays nor impediments. The other players flinched away from her, huddling into protective groups. Nila was actually rather surprised that no other man amongst them tried to strike her down for that. But she didn't care. She nodded, and Tzu Zi was already following her. "Nila, slow down!"

"I will slow down when I am not in danger of incarceration," Nila answered.

"If you'd just been nice, none of this would have happened," Tzu Zi pointed out critically, ducking under the same drape which lead into the 'tunnels' which moved toward where the actors prepared themselves.

"It was wasting time."

"There's always more time, Nila! If you just calmed down and thought about things..."

"Thought about things?" Nila spun to the firebender. "I do little else! My mind is in a constant whirl! It feels years since I have been able even to sleep!"

"Is that why you're so angry all the time? Why don't you just rest?" Tzu Zi asked.

"B-because if I relent in the slightest, everything falls apart! I must advance, or fail, and there is no time for this now!"

Nila was walking again, but this time, when Tzu Zi tried to halt her, she kept going, dragging the firebender behind her. "Nila, just stop!"

"Do you not wish to see your sister?"

"Yeah, but not if it means you snap and go all a-bibbledy," Tzu Zi said. That was enough to cause Nila a moment's pause.

"...a-bibbledy?"

"You know what I mean," Tzu Zi said. "Something's wrong, and you're not talking about it. Well, fine. But you can't hold it in forever. It's like those things you talk about, made of brass, lots of steam?" Nila supplied a guess, "Yeah, pressure cookers, that's the thing. You've been bottled up for so long that you're gonna blow if you don't let off some steam."

"Then I shall do so when we are not under threat of arrest. Does that suffice?"

"Well, not really but I don't see..."

"I think they went this way!" a voice came from their back, driving Nila to start running again. Only after about six strides, she came to a halt, and backpeddled, looking at a door with an interchangeable plaque resting upon it. She looked at it a moment, and turned to stare upward at nothing as she thought.

"Nila, what are you..."

"Yes, that's how they'd spell it," Nila said, and then gave the door a sharp kick, sending it off its rails and flat onto the floor. Nila stared down at it for a split moment. She'd really expected the door to turn, rather than slide. Oops. A shake of her head, and she bore the two in.

"Did you need to do that to the door?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Your sister will forgive me," she said. This was her dressing room. While the transliteration between languages was never exact, it did follow some rules. And names were the trickiest business, since they were phonetic rather than symbolic. Only Whalesh and Altuundili of the languages Nila knew of were phonetic, able to translate proper names perfectly. Otherwise, there was a degree of linguistic shift. Namely, that Kah Ri Baihu, became Kali Ba-u.

The room was vacant of the one they had hoped for, which drove a pang of frustration into Nila. She'd hoped that this would have simplified matters. The forgiveness of so indispensable a portion of the play would have done much to ameliorate the harm that Nila had done on impulse and reflex. Tzu Zi glanced around, and let out a sigh of despair. They were running out of time. Nila's mind, though, remained at its manic whirl. She picked out a hundred details. Chocolate, very dark. Not a gesture, from its simple packaging, something she just had for her own sake. Energy? Perhaps. No personal effects. The walls undecorated, unadorned. She felt no need to personalize this place, to make it her own. Why? A feeling of impermanence? Three coat pegs. Two bearing identical drab cloaks. The one in the center absent. Green eyes ran over the walls. And then saw an odd shadow.

She moved to that spot on the wall, running her fingers along its edge. And surely enough, she found a bump. A finger slipped along the seam in the drab panels of the wall, until she felt something in her way. A twist, and came a click. The panel swung in, showing a rat-way which seemed to dive under the theater.

"A secret passage? Why would that be there?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Who cares? Get in it!" Nila ushered, and pulled the firebender in after her as she moved into the darkness, kicking the panel shut behind them. Less than five seconds later, she could hear footfalls in the room behind them. Nila instantly clapped a blind hand over what she assumed would be Tzu Zi's mouth, but found instead, as the universe tended to mock her, Tzu Zi's chest. The 'gack' was enough to reorient the Si Wongi to the proper place to keep the firebender from asking anything, or speaking at all.

"Where did they go?"

"Wait, where's Kali?"

"Do you think they kidnapped her?"

"We should call the guard!"

Nila felt a sinking sensation. Great. She'd tried to engineer a reunion between two sisters, and now found herself very likely the focus of a city-wide manhunt.

"I made a mess of this, no?" Nila asked, her focus draining into exhaustion.

"You tried," Tzu Zi answered quietly. "That counts for something."

"We should find what's on the other end of this," Nila said. "That might get us out of the Ring before the noose closes. I will find another way."

"I know you will, Nila."

Nila nodded in the darkness, turned, and walked straight into a metal-clad wall. She grumbled to herself, which prompted the firebender to undertake her craft, igniting a flicker above her palm. The path, once revealed, was quite easy to follow, but didn't soothe Nila's mind. Her impatience and her pride had pulled defeat from the jaws of victory. Tzu Zi was right in that Nila's qualities included many things, but starkly excepted 'talking to people' from their number. She'd decided to walk in silence, and as the walk dragged on an unreasonable length, she started to wonder at the wisdom of that decision.

She also started to wonder where in the name of the many gods she personally disbelieved this rat-way was going.

It was only after that unreasonable length that the path finally stopped in its right-angle turns and sudden drops and rises, terminating at a ladder, its rungs all forged of long-tarnished bronze. Still, they seemed to hold her weight readily enough, so she ascended. She pushed up on the ceiling above her head, and it raised as a panel, showing the cellar of a dingy and drab building, much like the tenement house she was boarding in. But it was not her own, as the laws of coincidence couldn't be stretched that far, no matter how the universe loved to mock Nila. She pulled the silent firebender up behind her, sliding that panel back into place.

"Where are..."

There was the sound of a door closing not far away, and Nila's instincts started to whir again. Without proper care, she moved away from Tzu Zi, and to that door. It was not locked, sloppily enough. When she opened the door, it was apparent why; the lock was broken, wedged in its open state. She looked out into the hallway, and just preparing to slip out of the door, into the crowds beyond, was somebody wearing a cloak identical to those which had been hung on the pegs in the theatre. "With haste!"

Tzu Zi flinched, but Nila was already running, managing even to catch that door before it latched shut, and explode through it. That had the unfortunate effect of making her almost tumble down a rickety set of stairs. The building she had exited from was, indeed, a Lower Ring tenement building, if one in a different section of the Ring from where they were based. She cast her glance around, but the street was too crowded. She couldn't pick out that one cloak amongst all the madness. She panted with frustration, trying to give it a useful outlet, but it just crammed tighter, into a ball of frustration.

"Kah Ri!" the firebender screamed as soon as she cleared the threshold. A great many heads turned her way for a moment.

Only one head remained locked in their direction once that moment had passed. A head, with a face, which but for a dash of glamorous make-up and a hairstyle which probably cost more than Nila's entire outfit, looked exactly like Tzu Zi's.

"Sister?" she asked, confusion in her dark brown eyes. "...how?"

And at that point, Kah Ri Baihu was tackled by a hug by a squealing firebender.

* * *

><p>"<em>I'm actually surprised that you all came here<em>," Sul said, as usual in her native Whalesh, which left of their group Katara baffled. "_I thought this place was a bit further away from... well... anything than it seems._"

"Oh, trust me, it's every bit as far away as you thought it was," Aang said. The 'blonde' woman gave a shrug and a roll of the eyes, before leaning a glance toward her daughter, who sat, talking to stuffed animals and dolls, pouring them tea. "_And come to think of it, what are you doing this far from anybody? It's gotta be miles to the nearest town. It'd take all day to reach Shen Shen on that road._"

"_I don't use the road,_" Sul said simply. She glanced back to the balcony which ran 'round the edge of the building. "_Is not young Toph going to be joining us?_"

That question was answered by a rumbling, and a pillar of mud rose up until it was level with the rail, and a proud looking blind earthbender confidently hopped onto the metal platform, and then immediately her confident expression transformed into one of utmost annoyance. "Oh come on! Why's every-damn-thing made of metal these days?"

"_Would you like some tea, Toph?_" Sul asked.

"_Black and bitter, as I like it,_" Toph answered, very carefully picking her way into the room which was being used as a kitchen by the family. But then again, from the look of it, it probably had always been a kitchen, which raised a question about who had lived here first. From what Aang had seen of the way Zha Yu lived, he would never be this practical, or focused on the homely essentials. Toph, though, picked her way along the wall until she tripped over a small chair which was used to seat one of Cho'e's dolls, causing the girl to chastise Toph, and Toph to start swearing quietly under her breath, which caused Sul to frown with dismay.

"_The future will be less than kind to her kind, I fear,_" Sul said.

Aang leaned back, confused. "_What_?"

"_People are using more metal than stone nowadays. She sees with earthbending, and metal is not earth. Pah. But what would I know? I've always looked up, not down,_" she shrugged. Then, an airy laugh. "_Fitting that I start my life fascinated by the heavens, and spend my adult life struggling to enter them_."

Aang leaned back from that. "_Wait, are you saying you were the scientist here?_"

"_I wouldn't call myself a scientist. Just a very enthusiastic amateur_," Sul said humbly. She then leaned aside. "_Cho'e, don't touch that, you don't know where it's been_!"

Aang followed the woman out of the kitchen and into the open area which Toph was blindly navigating. For the reasons of her blindness, she wasn't looking into the heart of the chamber, which held the remnants of what was observation equipment, but now, held a whole other sort of device. It almost looked like a gigantic slingshot, if one not currently pulled taut. The glider Sul favored was resting in a place which would probably be easily caught by the pulled bands. "_Oh... I think I see how you get around_," Aang said. "_That's pretty ingenious._"

"What are y'all looking at?" Toph asked, as they passed her. "Am I missing something?"

"_How do you land the glider, Sul? I mean, there's no way you'd get it up here from below,_" Aang asked.

"_Very carefully,_" she said with a chuckle, taking Toph's hand, and guiding the blind earthbender with her. "_Come on, Toph_."

"_I don't need your help,_" she said defiantly, but notably didn't let go of the woman's grasp. "At least we didn't go to that library. That'd be worse. Somehow."

"Wan Shi Tong's library?" Aang asked. "It's still an option, I mean if nothing else works."

"Personally, I say leave all that spirity-crap if you can," Toph opined. "Spirits usually demand a price for what they give you, and I'm pretty sure any canny spirit would levy a price for 'saving the goddamned world' that sits pretty high. Don't want to think of what they'd try to get out of a clueless mark like you."

"Do you know much about the spirits?"

"I know a couple dozen stories, and the fact that certain motifs tend to be pretty consistent. Other than that, you should talk to that guy who doesn't exist; he knows a lot more about spirits."

"Who doesn't ex... Oh, Sharif," Aang nodded. "Yeah, I'm gonna have to find a way to get in contact with him. But he said he was heading for Ba Sing Se, so we might see him there if our path takes us east."

"Planning ahead? What a shocking development out of you," Toph said sardonically.

"Hah hah, Toph."

"I got my moments," she said. "So, Sweetness, you done getting buttered up by the mad scientist yet?"

"What?" Aang asked. Toph leaned over and planted a boot onto a door, sending it crashing open, and spilling the scene before Aang, but not the one Toph's introduction had prepared him for. Katara and Teo were indeed in that room, but Sokka was too, and any activity within was confined to the two young men, who paused from frantically constructing something metal and complicated looking. Both stared back like they'd been caught doing something naughty. "Ummmm."

The two young men shared a glance.

"You saw nothing," Sokka declared, and slammed the door shut. Toph leaned back.

"...the hell?" she asked.

"When it comes to Science and Sokka, I find it's best to just get out of the way," Aang said with a 'hands off' gesture. "_So, Sul, you know this place pretty well, right?_"

"_I know its every inch. My mother had this place built decades ago, back when my family still had money and... well... respectability_," Sul said. "_What do you need, young Avatar?_"

"_Do you have records of stellar events? Like, something that could tell us when the next eclipse is going to take place?_"

"_Solar or lunar eclipse?_" Sul asked.

"_Does that matter?_" Aang asked.

"Did somebody mention the eclipse?" Sokka asked, instantly at their side, through a method Aang could not identify, but left a door swinging open.

"Sokka, I-it's falling!" Teo's voice came through that doorway.

"It's alright, I got it!" Katara answered. "Tui La, this thing weighs a tonne!"

Sokka glanced back, then shrugged, as the problem had sorted itself. "So somebody's finally going after the whole 'day of Black Sun' business? Where do you keep your records?"

"That is the problematic part," Sul said. "We kept them downstairs."

Sokka stared at her, agape. "But you put them in a safe place, at least."

"Possibly."

"Whew. For a second there, I thought that this might have been bad," he said. He glanced through a hole in the floor. "Hey, Toph, there's a gap right there. Think you could give us an easy elevator?"

She leaned aside, pulling her hand away from her golden-haired guide, and made as though to look down the hole. An odd gesture, considering Toph never needed to 'look' at anything. But with an inelegant stomp, quite unlike her usual style – more akin to what she taught Aang than what she used in a fight – the mud and ground rose up into the gap, and she stepped onto it, instantly loosening the tension she'd been under since she stepped onto metal flooring. Sokka and Sul filled out the rest of the platform's capacity, and with another shift, the trio dropped out of sight. Aang hopped down the hole easily enough, his subconscious airbending giving him a whisper-light landing at their backs.

"So you kept predictive manuals somewhere safer than here?" Sokka asked, motioning to the mud which, upon Aang's stark realization that roughly half the height of this chamber was now submerged under silt. Sul nodded.

"_We kept most of our paperwork back here, near the... why is there a staircase here?_" Sul asked.

"I thought you said you knew this place," Toph asked.

"I did. This was not a staircase. It belongs over there," she pointed behind her, to another hole in the ceiling. But before them was a stairwell, one which Aang had seen exactly once before.

"No way. That's impossible," Aang said, kipping over to it, and feeling the cold metal under his fingers. It was a structure defying physics, obviously enough, but it was the look of the stairs which arrested Aang. The way that every step seemed to be a lattice of veins and arteries, all formed of rounded iron, dull but not rusted, and still very strong.

He'd walked these steps before speaking to Avatar Korra the first time.

"Something about this place is weird, I get that. Now the manuals?" Sokka pressured. Sul gave the stairwell one more glance, then shrugged and bade the others follow her. The chamber within was compacted closed, its door crumbling to rot, but the fact that the door still stood was telling.

"_All of the truly important literature we kept in here. Our almanacs, our reference manuals, our sales-receipts, that kind of thing,_" Sul said. "_Toph, could you help us with the door?_"

"I'll do ya one better," she said, and idly kicked the wall near the door. With a 'shunk' the wall slid aside, giving them a clear path into the room. The mud was inside as well as out, but at a much lower level, roughly standing at around where Aang's calves would have been were he actually on the original floor. And the small room still had standing shelves, bursting with literature. Sadly, while mud had not inundated this place, water had obviously made its way in, and only the top most shelf was intact, and even then, those shelves didn't look in the best condition.

"So what are we looking for?" Aang asked. Sokka just moved to that uppermost row, the one obviously not smudged to illegibility by a decade of water, and started to run his finger along the spines of the tomes in turn. His face showed greater and greater strain as he went, until he stopped stock still, and then retreated, tearing a book from the shelves with a triumphant laugh. "Is that?"

"Astronomical almanac!" Sokka said. He tore it open, and started to flip through it. "This thing'll have the predictions we need!"

"That's great," Aang said. "Although, now we gotta figure out what we do with that information. I mean, it's not like us and a rag-tag assortment of our friends and allies is going to be able to invade the Fire Nation's capital in less than ten minutes."

"I'm sure you'll come up with something," Toph said. But Sokka didn't look quite as pleased anymore. In fact, his flipping through pages was becoming quite frantic, until he finally flipped to the very end, and then turned to Sul with a disbelieving look on his face. Sul stood without speaking, quietly shaking her head, as Sokka went various shades of pale grey and red, as he seemed to vacillate between disbelief and outrage.

"What?" Aang asked.

"_I didn't remember how far that almanac went_," Sul said.

"The last prediction was three years ago," Sokka said, his voice very, very tense. With a sudden shout and a heave which sent the book flapping and fluttering in its rapid transit to the dried mud, he stomped to a corner, leaning against it with his brow. "Damn it all! Why is it that every time we find a way to make one step forward, the universe punts us a dozen back?"

"It'll be alright," Aang said comfortingly, and Sokka deflated a bit.

"Ba Sing Se," Sokka said. "I guess that's our last real option."

"I guess so," Aang echoed.

"Alright. Then we better get moving. We don't know how much time we have," Toph said.

"We can spend a night, at least," Aang said.

"Really? Here? With all the... metal?" Toph asked.

"I'll go tell Katara and Teo what we found," Sokka said.

Aang nodded. Sul watched the Tribesman and the earthbender leave, then turned back to Aang. "_And how do you feel about this?_"

Aang shook his head. "_Sokka put it best. It's like the universe doesn't want me to win._"

Sul shook her head. "_Any victory not earned in blood and tears has no weight nor value. Even if you don't believe you can do this, Avatar, others believe. I believe. Don't make a fool of my faith._"

Aang smiled at that. "_You've got a way with words,_" he said. Sul shrugged.

"_My husband must be rubbing off on me. Come upstairs; you should have some dinner before nightfall. Then, I can show you something really spectacular,_" she said, before moving through that ad hoc doorway. After a moment in that musty, muddy room, Aang followed. He couldn't stay in darkness and regret forever, after all.

* * *

><p>"What are you doing <em>here<em>?"

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Two identical girls with identical voices managed to ask in perfect unison. There was a blinking moment where both of them had no idea which was supposed to answer first. Nila, though, took a moment to stretch, cracking her joints and feeling a small measure of her tension release. After all, she'd managed to not completely bungle up something for a change.

And the fact that she could assign blame for bungles to herself was a relatively new development.

"I promised I'd visit and it's been almost a year and a half..."

"I thought you were a tax-collector or worse one of those goons which tried to kidnap me a couple weeks ago and..."

"Wait, kidnap?" Kah Ri broke off, as her sister had caught a thread which bore further inspection. "What's going on, Kah Ri?"

"We should go to my home," Kah Ri said, her dark eyes flitting furtively around. "I don't like being in the open."

Then you picked the wrong profession, Nila thought. And managed not to say aloud, if only with great difficulty. One girl led the other, but the first paused and glanced back as Nila followed after them. "What's she doing?" Kah Ri asked.

"She's a friend."

"Do you trust her?"

"With my life. Why, what's going on?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila rolled her eyes. She was beginning to think everybody in this family was insanely paranoid with Tzu Zi's sole exception. But then again, considering her sample-size discounting anecdotal evidence was, at the moment, three, she might have to reserve judgement for the time being. Kah Ri pointed to a building across the courtyard. She guessed that they were probably a mile or so from the tenement which all four of them had piled into, which while a tiny distance to travel out in the world, was a massive gulf once inside the Impenetrable City. There was a strangeness of scale which Nila was trying to really get her head around. The numbers, for example.

Two million. A population base so massive that it was only possible to maintain it through exhaustive farming in the Reaches. And considering how two was now considered a severe low-ball of the actual population of Ba Sing Se, she wondered how a city would be able to sustain itself on this level perpetually. Finding space was as simple as setting aside the naked rock buildings which all used for ease of construction and repair, and using metal frames, or concreted stone, and then using vertical reach to make up for horizontal spread. It would remain a logistical nightmare, though, until they implemented something like the Grand Fire Railway. Earthbending monorails could only take you so far. Untiring steel, and the physics of momentum would fare far more effectively.

But then again, she was hardly in a position to do anything about these things. These were just the winding, whirling thoughts of a girl with too much on her mind and lacking a focus to effectively latch on to.

The literally innumerable crowds swirled, and she was dragged with them, at the tail of two sisters. So was she swept up in a crashing wave of humanity upon the shores of the stoop of the building, which the resident fumblingly worked the lock. It wasn't until all were inside, the storm of strange faces and electric atmosphere of busy people had subsided that the actress calmed slightly, leaning her back against the door which Nila was the last one through. She seemed to breathe deep, then step off of the door, moving toward one of the closest apartments, her hands much steadier on the lock this time. Nila allowed her a moment to regain herself, but she could not be dissuaded from speech, not eternally.

"You have an unusual nervousness about you. Have you gained someone's ire?" Nila asked.

"She sounds funny," Kah Ri said.

"Don't be like that," Tzu Zi said with annoyance. "She's from the desert."

"So she's a stuck-up fearmonger like al'Jalani?" Kah Ri demanded. Tzu Zi sputtered at that, while Nila raised a brow.

"I'm standing right here."

"I'm well aware," Kah Ri doffed the robe and dropped it onto the peg on the wall. Nila turned attention from the girl to the room the girl lived in. While she was living there alone, it was almost like the place was untenanted. There was nothing personal in the building. While Tzu Zi clamored for girlish nicknacks to bring with her and 'decorate' with any time they stopped for more than twelve hours, this place was as barren as a prison cell. A glance into her bedroom proved the same. No pictures of family members, obviously enough, but also no trinkets from home, nor signs that anybody lived here at all. It even smelled musty, unused.

"My question stands. After all, there was a reason you brought us to your safe-house."

"Safe house? This is my apartment," Kah Ri said. She turned to her sister. "She's a bit weird, isn't she?"

"Yeah, but in a good way," Tzu Zi answered. Nila quickly reevaluated her opinion of this place. If this was not a bolt-hole, to escape to and therefore holding no sentimental value, then why was it so stark? Even Nila's room back in Sentinel Hill was a place that any who'd known her could point at a glance and know that the space was hers. Ashan was doing much the same with their tenement, which baffled Nila to no small degree. They were going to move on when Nila found out where Mother was.

And then a notion occurred to her. Maybe when they moved on, Ashan intended not to.

She would have to speak to him on that.

"My question yet stands," Nila pointed out in an awkward silence.

"Yeah, answer her, Kah Ri," Tzu Zi said.

"What do you want to hear? That I've inspired the wrath of a triad and am living in fear for my life?" Kah Ri asked.

"No, I would prefer something approaching the truth," Nila said, looking around. Ashan would probably have seen more, but Nila saw enough. "You make a wage which would have any one of those on the street spit with envy, but live in squalor. And deliberately so. Where springs your poverty? You are in a profession which would give you ample choice of pleasant company, but eschew it. Where springs your solitude?"

"Look, that's none of your business, stranger," Kah Ri snapped.

"Then tell me! I'm your sister, and I think _I_ deserve to know at least," she said. Kah Ri turned from her doppleganger to the Si Wongi girl, then back. And then, as though a cord at the top of her head had been cut, she slumped, all of her grace and poise dissolving away as she slumped into a chair. Her eyes, which had been snapping and sharp, became dull and lifeless.

"I'm tired, alright?" she said. "I've... I've done so much. Everything I always wanted. I could have anything. But... I can't make myself _care_. I mean... I should be happy, shouldn't I?"

Tzu Zi's hands rose to her mouth. "What do you mean?"

"I just feel... empty. Everything I do is meaningless. No matter how good I am, it's all fraud and lies. Everything I see is grey. It's all so dark, and dirty, and wrong, and there's nothing I can do to change it. No matter how hard I try. I'm going to fail. As sure as the sun rises," her chin lowered to her chest, and she stared at her feet. Tzu Zi stood in pained silence.

"You were wrong. She _is_ the melancholy one," Nila said. "I have seen such behavior. It comes in waves."

"You don't know anything about what I'm feeling," Kah Ri said bitterly.

"Perhaps not in this moment. But I do know solitude and I do know futility. In that, I may not be able to sympathize, but empathize definitely," it was awkward, trying to speak gently. But Nila had already managed to botch up one conversation to a spectacular degree. She was fairly sure the universe was throwing an opportunity to level that balance directly at her face. "There are days when I feel as though the world has grown too noisy, and no matter where I go, there is no escape of it. A thousand and five score ideas pound at my head, and I feel my must express them or suffer a bursting. I may not know the bleak as you do, but I do know the helplessness."

"You never said..." Tzu Zi said, a hand upon Nila's shoulder.

"I felt no need to burden you of it," Nila said defensively. A person's problems should be their own, after all. If one could not steel oneself, then one deserved what came of being a weak link in a strong chain.

"Well, you should have," Tzu Zi opined. She turned to her sister. "It's alright, you know? This will pass."

"So you claim," she said. "What if it doesn't?"

"It will," Nila said, pushing the only other chair at the table and sitting upon it. "I do not expect that you know much of the workings of thought, but all that you are lays not in your body, but your brain. And your brain, and my brain, they are not like those of so many others. They run to a different cycle. Yours burns low, sometimes, a candle flickering before the wax can be taken up and bolstering it again. Mine... is more like a thunderhead, a thousand sparks and great noise, but little direction unless I force upon it. But the candle waxes, and the storm passes. That is the way of things. Were it not, nei' you nor I would be having this dialogue."

Kah Ri was silent.

Nila turned to Tzu Zi. She sighed, and forced a small smile onto her face. "It's going to be alright, Kah Ri. I'll be here until the clouds go away, alright?"

"Really?"

"Of course," she said. "You're my sister," and with that, she sat on the edge of the table. "So I bet you're just salivating at the thought of everything your sister's been up to since I dropped you off at Full Moon Bay..."

The actress finally looked up from her shoes. "What happened to that bird? You couldn't have brought it in here."

"It has been stabled out in the Reaches," Nila said. More quietly she added, "and is much of the reason we live in squalor."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense," Kah Ri said.

"Well, when I went south, I passed through the Great Divide, and on my way, I ran into these two groups of refugees who were fleeing from the north for some reason. One of them were all rich and fancy, and the other were dirty and poor and stuff, so I got to talking with them, and..."

Nila leaned back in her own chair, and took the long story – which both she had heard and was not terribly interesting – to just look at what her mind was doing. Still spinning, but a bit slower. It had been a rough day. But as she had said, without a lie, the storm would pass.

But still, she was not one whit closer to finding Mother, and handing off her duty. She needed a better plan than 'wait and hope'. That never favored anybody. And as the ideas whirred, one of them popped out wholly on its own, and without any context which would have allowed her to figure it out in any circumstance but this. How. Specifically, a general named How. Mother had spoken of him quite a few times in the past, referring to him as 'the only working brain on the Wall, besides my own'. Mother might be difficult to track, doubly so if she was in the Upper Ring, but How would be close to the military, and the military kept to the Walls.

Nila could reach the Wall.

The beginnings of a new plan were conceived, even if it might be a while before she could really put effort of thought into them. After all, she was having a rough day. But that would pass.

* * *

><p>He paced, his feet bare and damp against the stone, his bath-robe pulled tight as he made a hither-and-yon circuit across the floor of the bath-chamber. As he walked, he stole glances to one side, where a roughly fifteen year old girl sat idly, legs crossed over the knee, filing at her nails. And he kept pacing, muttering under his breath, trying to work the nerve to disrobe, to bathe. But he couldn't summon it. He flexed his fists. One, with five fingers curling into a tight ball. The other, reddened, and missing several digits.<p>

Azula was watching him.

"Don't tell me you're shy," Azula's mocking voice came, above the risk-risk-risk of her file. She paused, raising her hand to her mouth in a sarcastic gesture. "Could it be that the great Fire Lord Ozai actually has some shame after all? Well, who would have thought it?"

"You are not real."

"And yet you speak to me as though I am," Azula answered. "Why would that be?"

"You are a figment of my imagination. An errant fancy, probably brought on by stale mustard on my dinner... or lack of sleep," Ozai said.

"And you wish to believe that strongly enough, and like the fish through the Dragon Gate, it might just come true," Azula said with that sing-song sardonism. She sat back. "Face it. You are losing control. Not just of your nation, but of yourself."

"I am in control!"

"Said the man to the figment of his imagination," Azula said with a smirk.

Ozai answered with a blast of flame, which slammed through the girl's body with tremendous force, but she sat, staring at her fingernails as though nothing were the matter. Because, of course, nothing was.

"You... are not real."

"And yet you continue to speak to me," Azula said.

"I am going to have my bath, and you are not going to stop me," Ozai demanded.

"What have I done to stop you so far?" Azula asked sweetly, and coldly. Then, the risk-risk-risk again, as she continued to file her nails. "You should face the facts, _Father_. You're a failure of a Fire Lord as much as you've ever been a failure as a parent. No matter how hard you try to tighten your grip, it all slips through your fingers. Imagine what would be if you hadn't been so childish, and threw out your children the moment they displeased you. Why, you might even still have control of the Ghurkas!"

"You know nothing of politics!"

"And you know nothing of parenting, so we're both in the dark," she said idly.

Ozai seethed, and glared at her. "What do you want, girl?"

"What does any child want from her father? To be loved and approved of. And yet you were incapable of the slightest whit of that, now weren't you? If I wasn't your mindless tool, then I had no use whatsoever. No wonder Mother left you. You were never really even human. Just a political machine wearing the skin of a man."

"Do not speak of that woman," Ozai warned.

"Or what, you'll burn more furniture at me?" Azula asked, with a chuckle. That chuckle went to a very dark place. "You need to face the fact that you are the source of every whit of your own woe. I could have been the daughter you always wanted, the heir you always wanted. But you had to be petty and cruel. So you forfeited everything. Wake up and smell the ashes, _Father_."

"I did what was best for the Fire Nation!" Ozai roared.

"And you cost them a thousand needless deaths in the North, and their souls far more than that. Have you ever actually looked into the eyes of one of those soldiers?" Azula asked, rising form her seat an sidling toward him, her hips sashaying in a manner more befitting the girl's mother than the girl herself. "Have you seen the horrible things that reflect in them? Seen what they feel they had to become to survive it? You tried to win a political point, and you cost men their souls."

"And what would you have done? Let them sit there, smug and secure, waiting to attack us?" Ozai demanded.

"I wouldn't have been an idiot about it," Azula said mockily. She turned away. "Uncle would have been twice the Fire Lord you are."

At that, Ozai could no longer hold his temper. With a scream and a blast of flame, he lashed out at her again, screaming, "I am a greater Fire Lord than my brother would ever be!"

When the flames and smoke cleared, he was alone. And there were sooty stains and a burning chair to mark his tantrum's passage. His chest heaved, and he could feel cold sweat crawling down his face. But he was alone. With a forced sort of ease, more a show of comfort than any real comfort, he doffed his robe and slipped into the water.

Outside, awaiting his entrance into the bath, Akemi was sweating as well, but for a different reason. She'd heard what he'd said. It was half of a conversation, but it couldn't have been more disturbing than if she'd heard all of it. Her mind started to balance things out, to see what belonged where. And the new equation was becoming clear as day to her. It would just be a matter of timing. Silently, she slipped inside the bath chamber. Until then, though, there were expectations upon her, and if she was wrong, far smarter to play all sides.

But she wondered why Ozai kept talking about his banished daughter. Dangerous thoughts lay that way.

* * *

><p>The night was cool, but the view was spectacular. "This is amazing. You can see everything up there," Katara remarked, prompting a smirk from the youth beside her. "I've never seen this many stars before!"<p>

"Oh, you lie," Sokka said. "We see plenty of stars back home."

"Yeah, but they don't look like these ones," she said, pointing to the glimmering cloud which easily slid along the rich, dark indigo of the sky. Teo nodded.

"That's why this observatory got built," he said. "This place is far enough from everybody with a lantern that there's no 'light pollution'. I'm pretty sure this is one of the only places on Earth where you can see the moon with the naked eye."

All present, mother and blind girl excluded all turned to him with disbelieving looks on their faces. "Um, anybody can see the moon," Aang pointed out.

"Yeah, just not tonight, since its a new moon and all," Sokka clarified somewhat pointlessly.

"No, I'm talking about the actual moon," Teo pointed to a spot in the heavens, which all followed. They all looked back at him. "It's right there."

"That's no moon," Aang said.

"Well, it's certainly no battle-station," Teo countered. "That's probably the last chunk of our honest-to-spirits moon which was left from whatever catapulted it into Big Demon thousands of years ago."

"That's just a theory," Toph said, staring to everybody's left. All turned to her. "What?"

"I'd ask you why you weren't looking up, but the answer's obvious," Sokka said.

"You've seen nothing once, you've seen it a thousand times," Toph answered with a shrug. "And claiming that a tiny chip of rock in space with miniscule weight and pathetic albedo is a moon is like calling Brain here the Avatar."

"..." Sokka stared agape.

"What? It was one of Keung's pet peeves," she said uncomfortably. "I prefer stuff I can touch."

"It is beautiful, though," Katara said. "...the maybe-moon notwithstanding."

"Yeah, I figured that you could use a sight like this before heading to Ba Sing Se," Teo said. "You don't get a sky like this in the city. Something like this is good for reminding you where you stand in the scale of things. It's important to have that kind of perspective. In fact, I'm starting to think that's maybe why people get in over their heads so much when they build up like that; they loose sight of the sky, reminding them that they're still a small part of a bigger whole."

"You might be right about that," Aang said. He looked to the East, his mind's eye filling in the impossible distance to the Walls themselves, the walls which, if Toph's ramblings were any indication, had held out every army since the fall of the Monolith. "We might not have gotten what we wanted here, but we got something that we needed."

Toph let out a stretch and a yawn. "Yeah, and I'm bored. I'm goin' to bed."

Aang nodded. "I should probably go too," he said. "It'll be an early morning tomorrow."

"Which means I'll probably have to turn in early as well. Still, you and I should talk about that thing you're doing," Sokka said, pointing a finger at Teo, which caused Katara a moment's pause. What were the two of them up to? Teo shrugged, but nodded.

Sul, on the other hand, said something in Whalesh which Katara couldn't follow, and planted a kiss on Teo's crown, which he complained and waved away almost immediately in the same tongue. Obviously something he found embarrassing. One of these days she was going to have to do as her brother demanded and just learn the language. But then again, considering the trouble she had reading Huojian, learning two at once might just be unreasonable.

That also left just the two of them up on the deck of the observatory, Katara realized.

"So..." Teo said.

"...so..." Katara answered.

"...some night, huh?" he asked.

"...yeah...pretty."

"...do you like... stuff?" he asked. She turned to him, and he winced away.

"What are you asking?" Katara asked. "Is something wrong?"

"It's just... we're alone. And it's lovely out..." he motioned, as though trying to explain himself, but Katara just stared blankly at him. "...and we're _alone_..."

"And?" she asked.

"Gods, it's like the universe is out to get me," Teo muttered. "Look. I like you. A lot. But I'm getting some pretty mixed signals out of you. I wanna know if I'm even wasting my time, here."

She leaned back. That was unusually direct for him. Usually, he tried some poorly veiled innuendo, got lost in his own metaphor, and then went off on an excited tangent about something about as divorced from romance as possible. He was an informative if unusual kind of conversationalist. "Wasting your time?"

"Damn it, that wasn't the right way of putting it, wasn't it?" He shook his head. "This is like that time when Dad farted and blamed it on Mom, even though they were the only two in the room."

"That wasn't very smart."

"I know! And every time you show up, I feel that same kind of stupid!"

"I make you stupid, do I?" Katara asked, leaning against her hand.

"That's not what I meant!"

"Then what did you mean?"

"I... You... Girls are impossible," he threw up his hands and got to his feet. She finally let out the laughter which she had been bottling up since he'd started talking. That got him to turn and look at her like she'd lost her damned mind. "What? Am I funny to you now?"

"A little bit, yeah," Katara admitted. She sat up, still giggling lightly. He just stammered at her. "Oh, calm down. You don't need to give me a stink-face."

"I'm very confused right now," Teo admitted.

"Look, you're a good guy..."

"...buuuut...?"

"Not but, and," she said. He leaned back. "And the only reason you've been picking up 'mixed signals' is because your receiver-thing is obviously out of... broken."

"...whut?"

She rolled her eyes and decided to make things clear enough even a thicky would be able to understand them. And since for the moment he seemed to have been struck stupid, it was probably the only thing he _could_ understand. So she smoothed out her thin, blue blouse, rose up, dusted her legs, and then grabbed his head and rode him all the way to the ground, a lip-lock which would likely have gotten her arrested in Si Wong.

"I...wha...bluh?" Teo said.

"Does that clarify things?" Katara asked.

"...not really, could I hear that last part again?" Teo offered with an uneasy grin. She got off of his chest and laughed. "So... are we going out?"

"Technically, we should be going in. Sokka's right, it'll probably be an early morning."

"You're leaving?"

She smiled back at him. "I'm the only waterbending teacher Aang's got. And even if I wasn't, Aang still needs me."

"Oh..." Teo said. He got to his feet, still a little unsteady. Tui La, they weren't kidding when they said that'd bring a man to his knees. Then again, unlike Sokka, Katara had many female role models to speak with after Dad and the other men left; those women tended to be extremely forthcoming on many, many subjects. "...Confused. But happier now."

"That's nice," she said. "You're going to have to meet my father at some point."

Teo nodded. "Yeah, Dad told me a lot about him. Wait, why?"

"Well, most marriages are arranged in the Water Tribes," she said. "And he'd need to get your measure to see if you're a worthy match. Don't worry, though. I'm pretty sure he'll at least give you a spear for the ceremonial mole-r bear hunt."

"What."

"The marriage, dummy," she said. She laced her fingers behind her back and swayed in place at the doorway. "After all, I'm _almost_ of marriageable age."

The way Teo's questioning finger wilted, the way he went deathly pale, she couldn't help but let out another uproar of laughter at him, before shaking her head and turning. "Oh, Teo, you are absolutely clueless."

"Apparently," he said with a strangled tone. Katara walked into the darkness of the ruined Observatory. She'd only made it four steps before she felt something slam into her arm with painful force in the blackness, almost sending her sideways into the other wall.

"That was a good one, Sweetness," Toph's voice appeared out of that void. Of course. She didn't need light to see. There was a shiff-sound as she carefully moved back through the metal halls.

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" Katara asked.

"Gotta say, out there, for the first time I can actually believe that you're Brain's sister," Toph said, still moving in the black.

"Thank...you?"

"No problem, _heartbreaker_," she said, chuckling to herself.

* * *

><p>Ashan glanced to the bow case again, and then with a sigh, shrugged, and picked it up. Nila wouldn't notice if he examined it, after all. She probably wouldn't notice if he burnt it and stuck it back together with Ostrich Horse glue. But he was careful. It was a good weapon, he guessed. He'd never had much contact with them, not like Nila or her mother did. The tools of his trade were meant to spill myoglobin, not blood. Still, he tested the draw, and found it a bit slack. Still, he could get the thing bowing back as it should. He glanced toward the door again, and then pulled out a pair of arrows he'd brought back on the way home.<p>

In a smooth motion, he nocked the arrow and drew the line to his cheek. A whisper, and it was away. A long moment later, far longer than anybody trained more than his remedial way in the bow would have accepted, he'd drawn the second, sighting down it, and released. It zipped through the air, and landed with a thunk less than an apple's breadth from the first in the laundry pole at the corner of the building. He shrugged. While he was no soldier by any stretch, it was good to know that Grandfather's lessons still held. He let out a sigh, and slipped the bow back into its leather case.

"You're not supposed to touch that," Sharif said from the tub, which he sat in quietly. Apparently he was overdue his bath, and since Ashan was certainly not going to be the one providing it, he was content to sit in an empty tub until somebody did. But there was another on the roof, a quiet fellow with dark eyes and big ears. The way he looked at Ashan was gauging and contemplative. It was almost like he was saying 'that was pretty good', but without saying a word. After that silent compliment, he returned to doing his own laundry, hanging from the other end of the line which stretched along the rooftop.

Ashan reached over to Sharif, laying a hand upon his shoulder. "She is not yet returned. We should go inside before the darkness is upon us."

"I need my bath," Sharif said stubbornly. Ashan sighed, and was about to press the issue when the door to the roof opened, and Tzu Zi stepped onto the 'pavilion' of sorts which existed up here. Nila followed after her, followed thereafter by Tzu Zi again.

That last part had Ashan somewhat confused, but only for a moment, before he started spotting differences. One was Tzu Zi, obviously enough. He knew his companion of these past few eventful weeks quite well. But the other was physically identical of proportion and feature, but had a different way about her. She seemed to hover somewhere between haught and misery, her eyes tired. Those eyes also bore remnants of make-up. So this would be the girl's actress sister? Ashan put a smile onto his face.

"So they had luck in finding you? Splendid," Ashan said. "Welcome to our shelter and shade for the moment. I am Ashan, and this is Sharif. I have no doubt you have spoken at great length with your sister and my friend?"

"This... is a lot more public than mine," she said.

"Ah, but this must be a step down from your accommodations in the Middle Ring. Please, join us inside. I have left a stew on, of thick pig-beef and hearty barleys," Ashan said. "Sharif, rise from that tub with haste! We have guests!"

"I need my bath," Sharif said, still stolid.

"Please, forgive my friend and the kind mistress Nila's brother; he is afflicted of mind," Ashan said.

"Wow, he doesn't let you get a word in edge-wise, does he?" the actress asked.

"I could not silence him with a gunshot," Nila answered.

"...it'd be nice having dinner in a full house," she said quietly. Ashan glanced from the actress to her sister, and then to Nila. Ah, so there was something off with her? Sad, but he knew a path to the end of it.

"Come inside. I also prepared some soothing tea and a cake of chocolate."

The actress perked up a touch upon hearing that. "Chocolate?"

"How'd you find chocolate in the Lower Ring?" Tzu Zi asked. Ashan shrugged.

"A little chocolate is worth much meat when coin is scarce. I see this as a proper use of it."

"I like chocolate," the actress said, happiness finally entering into her tones. Tzu Zi beckoned, and the two of them zipped back inside. Ashan made to follow them, but was caught by Nila. He gave a raised brow to her.

"_She is stricken by a melancholy. Strange that you did not alienate her._"

"_I told her I was beset by a similar affliction,_" Nila answered in Altuundili.

Ashan leaned back. "_...are you?_"

"_No. My mind might become crowded, but it is a boon, not an affliction,_" she said. She turned to Sharif. "_Come have dinner. Your bath can wait._"

"_But..._"

"_Do not argue with me in this, Sharif! Dinner, now!_"

"_Yes, sister,_" Sharif said neutrally, getting out of the tub and wandering back indoors.

"_You have something else on your mind,_" Ashan pointed out.

"_'There is no war in Ba Sing Se'_," she quoted. "_I have been distracted from it, but it remains with me. Something is afoot in this city. And with my luck, I will soon find myself upon the center of it_."

Ashan sighed and shook his head. "_You __are__ the plentiful font of your own misfortune, Nila._"

She smirked. "_You say that as though it were a detriment,_" she shrugged. "_I must ask of you to again look to Sharif. I must head out of the city in the morning; there is a soldier I must speak with._"

"_Regarding your mother?_"

She just gave him a neutral glance to answer his question. In a way, she shared the same quality of speechless communication that the other fellow on this rooftop had. Not that Nila had recognized him; her attention was elsewhere, and Ashan would not know him from a stranger on the street, of which there were quite many. "_Keep him safe. I depend upon you for this,_" Nila said. And Ashan nodded gravely at it. When that was said, she let out a breath she probably wasn't aware she was holding, then headed back into the building. Ashan watched her leave. He was somewhat ashamed to admit to himself that his gaze tracked her backside as it descended before turning out of view. It was a fine sight. He turned to the fellow with his laundry. "Women, such a painful delight, yes?"

The fellow tenant's easy shrug said something to the tune of 'what else is new in the world?'.

* * *

><p>The flight toward Ba Sing Se was swift. Doubly so since, unlike as Fate would have demanded upon so many other circumstances, they could make it upon the back of a bison. The lands around Ba Sing Se were simply called the Wasteland for obvious reasons; until they gave way to the Pillars of Heaven, and beyond those Wulong Forest, they were miles upon miles of sun-blasted, wind-tossed stone and scree, baked out of life by a complete lack of rain. Aang had once passed close to Ba Sing Se in his youth, and seen in the spring lush grasses swaying defiant in the winds, before the summer came and baked it into dust. But this was spring, and the grasses were nowhere to be seen.<p>

Yet another sign that the world was dangerously out of balance. It could not even hold to its own cycles anymore.

But Aang's attention was focused more on what he could see ahead of him, in the light of the late-morning. That there was a lot of smoke rising from the world ahead of him. That smoke put sweat onto his brow, and a tension into his reins. Appa took his subconscious command to rise higher, to get a longer line-of-sight. The others, sitting and talking amongst themselves mostly about Katara's hilarious seduction of a mad scientist, were oblivious to what Aang could see clear as day. And as the world turned under him, smoke became stacks. Stacks became engines. And finally, Sokka was the first to turn his gaze down, and when he did, his blue eyes shot wide.

"What is that?" Sokka asked.

It trailed behind it a great, split tail which lay black against the burnt-ochre of the stone beneath it, all of those many lines mounting upon each other, growing fatter, thicker, until it finally reached into the back of a machine. At first, it seemed simply a larger version of the Salamander Tank which had seen precious little use at Omashu. But upon its back was... something strange. Something which cracked and snarled with electric malice. And even as Aang soared, he could tell, that foot by foot, it was moving forward. And it was not alone. It stood amongst a dozen of its kin.

Slowly creeping toward the Wall of Ba Sing Se.

* * *

><p>"A letter for you, Lord Zhao," Kwon's voice broke Zhao out of his concentration. He considered rebuking the man, but Kwon was worth more than a cuff upside the head. So he just gave the man a scowl, and snatched the folded letter from him. Kwon could have come at a better time, or a worse one. He was in the process of refining Azula's Gambit, with which he could destroy the resistance to the Fire Lord once and for all. Her attempts were... effective, but crude. They lacked the logistical framework which would have made them spectacular. Why have a victory, when you could instead have an overwhelming victory?<p>

Zhao glanced to the seal of the letter, and raised his one remaining eyebrow when he beheld that it bore the seal of the Fire Lord. "You could have told me a Black Ribbon message had arrived."

"It was not sent Black Ribbon, my lord," Kwon said. Strange, Zhao thought. He leaned back in his seat, breaking the seal and opening the letter.

At once, he could tell it was not in Ozai's hand. While Zhao had little to compare it to, he knew for a fact that Ozai's script was precise and cutting, not the elegant and flowing hand which he beheld before him. As he started to read it, it minced no words in that.

"My dear Lord Zhao, Viceroy of the North and master of New Bhatthi, I hope this message finds you well," Zhao muttered to himself, before giving a glance toward Kwon.

"It was delivered with haste by private messenger from Hui Lo," Kwon said. "I will leave you to it."

From Hui Lo? That meant that somebody wanted it delivered quickly. That it wasn't Black Ribbon meant that somebody wanted it delivered quietly. Zhao raised an eyebrow, his only one, and turned back to the page, and lo, it revealed much.

"_You and I have had scarce chance to converse in the past,_

_but I have tracked your achievements with interest in recent years._

_I am Akemi Fujitsuna. You would likely know me as the Fire Lord's_

_personal courtesan and mistress, if you were to know me at all. I have_

_contacted you with dire and important news, which I fear calamity_

_would befall if they were to slip into the wrong hands. Thus, I could not_

_send it by military priority: Azul's spies are many and deeply situated_."

Zhao grunted. "Clever girl," he said, as she'd just confirmed many of his suspicions.

"_In the months since your victory against the barbarians of the Water_

_Tribes, the Fire Lord's health has taken a turn. It is nothing that can be_

_Spoken of publicly; only I know the whole of it. I come to you, as you_

_are likely the best recourse in what will be increasingly troubled times._

_To be frank and blunt;_

_I believe the Fire Lord is losing his mind._"

* * *

><p><strong>MUAHAHAHA! Watch as I sink your favorite ships with extreme prejudice! No canon pairing is safe! HAHAHAHAH!<strong>

**Nila continues to be self-defeating when left to her own devices. Her main problem is that she honestly expects that she's the most intelligent in any room she enters. While strictly speaking this is true, she's also unpleasant, which means that given any situation with a social component, she's gonna piss people off. A perfunctory apology would have gotten her out of the balcony in a heartbeat. Instead, she decided to action-hero it, and almost lost Tzu Zi's sister as a result. This is kind of Nila's fatal flaw. It's also refreshing, since she doesn't fall into any of the pitfalls 'traditional' female protagonists do. She doesn't define herself romantically, she carries her own narrative, and she has flaws which don't make her cute - she's not 'clumsy' or 'too beautiful'. Honestly, when she grows up, she'll have the same body type as Tali'Zorah from Mass Effect. No, her big flaw is that she's _damned_ unpleasant. Sweet if you get to know her, in a bitter, salty kind of way, but unpleasant if you don't.**

**The relationship between Iroh and Azula has always been tense. Bear in mind that even in the flashbacks, Iroh and Azula didn't get on well. He's been trying to be closer to her, in accordance to Qiao's last wishes, but their personalities clash. Now, especially, they have more common ground, but her added antagonism has tempered any added empathy that would be gained from each losing a beloved child. What Iroh wants out of this is to give Zuko back his sister. By proxy, that means that he wants Azula back to the way that she was. Pity he might not ever see it.**

**Finally, the death of Chiyo is something which will be mentioned obliquely in Book 3, but I'll give you one hint about it; by the time Katara killed Chiyo, she was _justified_ in doing it.**


	31. The Weapons of the Fire Nation

"This is... complex."

"Our initial designs called for a bore, but Sato quickly pointed out that there were too many interrelated points of failure," Qin said, his eyes flitting back and forth from the scene before him and the unexpected guest of honor who had graced the camp. Far be it to say that Qin was a nervous man. After having to deal with the Mountain King, he was fairly sure that any fear which existed in his body had been ground into dust, and blown away on a stiff breeze. But still, there was an understandable amount of trepidation considering who stood, eyes cold and wrathful, staring across the great rocky wastelands.

"So break one thing, the whole machine fails," he asked, his eyes blinking too slowly, as though it were taking effort of restraint to do only that. Qin shook his head, trying to dispel the nervousness and he pointed out the nearest of the machines to the wall. "Why are they tethered?"

"They are not tethered. Those are their power-feeds," he said. "Sato's personal design; they allow a gargantuan amount of electricity to be fed through the machine at once, and do so safely."

"And what exactly are they supposed to do?"

Qin moved to the telescope, which he used to view the Wall in detail. Notably, there was a massing of earthbenders quite near the towering machine. He could see one of them raising a hand for a signal, likely to begin hurling boulders at the approaching tower. "They are here to clear the walls," Qin said. "Observe."

Qin raised a hand, and a quarter of a mile away, a group of workers began to furiously work, toggling switches and rechecking lines. Until there was one last, loud clunk. Then, the deafening and deadly 'zorp' of a thunderstorm's worth of electricity being directed along the lines from the capacitor, through the lines, up the tower, and then lashing out into the air, toward the closest source of non-insulated ground. And the distance was perfect so that the headiest burst of that human manufactured lightning slammed into one of the earthbenders on the Wall, sending him flying back, before it's roughly wrist-sized arc bolted to another, then another, faster than the eye could track, leveling a dozen in less than a second. The arc ended, and the capacitor began to hum again, louder, louder. Louder. Then, a fresh 'zorp'. The machine continued to advance, but the earthbenders, naked to the world's very first directed energy weapon, could only flee outright, hurling a token assault of stones at the towers. The assault rebounded off of the rubber cladding the vast majority of the tower without incident or damage.

"...and what does this accomplish? There's still a wall in the way."

Qin tutted, before he remembered who he was talking to. "Well, each of them that makes it to the wall will deny a further degree of it to the enemy. Then, we can follow through on the same plan that your Uncle did years ago: We sap the wall, and pour through, protected by lightning."

The cold, golden eyes of the Crown Prince turned from the wall, to Qin. "You put a lot of faith in your machinery," he said, his voice as flat as the wastelands.

"And rightly so," Qin pointed out. "There is no safe approach to the towers. Even the Avatar wouldn't be able to get close to them. Sabotage is a practical impossibility. The weapons are invulnerable as long as they are active, and we have no reason to shut them down. We can be through the wall in less than a day."

Zuko stared, almost so still as to appear dead, then turned very slowly toward Qin. "You said Sato was here."

"Yes, I'm keeping him back with the generators. He would only get in the way at this point."

"I see," he said, facing the wall once more.

"If I might ask... where did you come from? I wasn't appraised of your return to the Fire Nation."

"I haven't informed the Fire Lord yet," Zuko said flatly.

"Well, forgive my confusion, but I believed that you were still... well... exiled," Qin said, well aware how far he was pushing his luck. But sometimes, luck had to be pushed; If he was abetting an enemy of the Fire Nation, knowing or not, he would face far worse than another two years babysitting the Mountain King.

"My father... changed his mind. He needs a solid heir," Zuko said without emotion. Hard as iron, and every bit as heartless. "I am needed. I can't turn away from the call."

"Well, that's a proper sentiment to hold," Qin said. He would have to confirm that, which meant a Black Ribbon letter to the Fire Nation, preferably delivered before the hour was out. That meant that he would have to find a way to keep the Prince close enough that he wouldn't be able to bolt if he turned traitor, but not so tightly that he would chafe should his 'return' be genuine.

Damn it all, now Qin was starting to _think_ like a damned politician.

"Please, enjoy some light refreshment. Today, we breach the walls of Ba Sing Se, and succeed where the traitor Prince Iroh failed," Qin said. Zuko just nodded slowly, eyes locked so very far ahead of him. Qin revised his estimate from 'within the hour' to 'within the next five minutes' for that Black Ribbon message.

The soldiers knew Qin well enough, after having served with him up in that Agni-forsaken mountain, that he was on-edge enough that they should guard his former guest. He snapped his fingers and beckoned over a man in a death's-head mask.

"You there," he said. "Black Ribbon to the Fire Lord. Zuko is at Thunder Dragon. Claiming return. Advise."

"At once, Minister Qin," the soldier said, bowing briefly, and then moving away swiftly. Qin, on the other hand, had a destination in mind. He moved back, following the thick, rubber-wrapped cords which connected the generators to the capacitors, from the capacitors to the arc-towers. He moved swiftly, having to pull up the knees of his robes so that he wouldn't trip over them. There was one fly in this ointment that he had to keep an eye on almost as much as the possibly returned Prince.

Nomura Sato.

The man himself was a somewhat light-set lad, and had the expression of an overexcited squirrel-dog most of the time. Even though his eyes were a dull shade of amber, for some reason they almost seemed to shine in his childlike glee. He was not much past the age of twenty, a mechanical wunderkind the likes of which hadn't been seen since the start of the Fire Nation Renaissance. A great many people had vested a lot of the hopes for the end of the war, and the continued dominance of the Fire Nation, on those narrow shoulders. And Qin knew that he was not exactly the sturdiest set.

"Ah! There you are!" he said brightly. "I've discovered a way to increase burn efficiency in our electrical dynamos by almost one point four eight percent!"

"One percent?" Qin asked, having been preempted of his own question.

"One _point four eight_ percent!" Sato corrected. "All I needed to do was tear the thing apart and scrape off some of the burrs on the innermost burn-chamber, rebuild them, and use Petroleum Grease on the seals. We should implement these changes at once!"

"But... Do you have any idea how much _time_ that would take? And how much any amount of Petroleum Grease _costs_, let alone enough to do all of that? No. Make due with what you have." One point four eight percent of a hog-monkey's eye, more like. Qin finally regathered his temper, which was always sorely strained when Sato was nearby. "Have you come up with any solutions for the capacitor problem?"

"Of course. Just string a line of moderate flow cable between their frames," Sato said with an off-hand motion, his attention now returning to a device schematic he had pinned up on a frame. Some sort of hoist, it looked like. Thus, was utterly pointless to Qin's purposes. With a clawed hand, Qin tore down that schematic, crumpling it into his palm. Sato's look became almost comically hurt. His thin-moustached upper lip quivered for a moment. "I was..."

"What we are doing now is more important than your pet projects, Sato. Remember that you are a loyal citizen of the Fire Nation. Try to act like it for once!"

"I understand, but could I have that back now...?"

"I don't think you do. You've got your head in the clouds like some sort of Storm King, and..."

"Did you get the new schematics I sent for the airships?" Sato asked, instantly bright and chipper again. Qin was taken aback.

"Yes, but..."

"Hot air wasn't the solution, just like I believed it would be. Light gas! All we have to do is industrialize Mifunoto's Process and we'll have enough to float a palace up there!" Sato said. "And electric engines! We would be able to fly all the way around the world on a single engine's load of coal!"

"Can we please remain at the task at hand?" Qin asked, his impatience showing again. Sato was about as easy to herd as a thousand cats.

"Ah, right right right, the generators. Well, I found a way to increase their efficiency by one point..."

"NO! NOT AGAIN!" Qin shouted, causing Sato to flinch. "The capacitor solution. Will it work?"

"Capacitor? Oh, yes, the capacitors. As long as there's an outlet from their frames, they'll be able to dump overflow into a neighbor. You'd need to have a simultaneous overflow from the entire network, or more energy than you'd get in an ocean storm, to blow the system then! Think of it as an emergency circuit!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. But it will work. That is what is important," Qin said, tossing the man his precious, precious schematic. Sato quickly uncrumpled it, and let out a disappointed sigh, running a hand through unruly dark hair. "Keep yourself focused on what's important. The generators, the capacitors."

Sato nodded for a moment, before pausing. He glanced to Qin. "You know, I'm wondering what we've been generating all this electrical power for. I mean, there's probably enough here to light up Azul or Caldera City for months, and we've only been burning for two days. What's going on over there?"

"That's none of your concern."

"It's my design; of course it's my concern!" Sato complained.

"Then it is classified above your clearance for secret information," Qin responded. He leaned down at the man. "You will do your part for the victory and glory of the Fire Nation. Other than that, you will not ask questions, and you will not get in the way. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Um... yes?" Sato said, his eyes, once brimming with enthusiasm and glee, now were muted and fearful.

"Good," Qin said. If only all geniuses were this easy to cow. "Now get back to work, Sato. We can't have that... brilliant... mind resting on its laurels."

"I... I guess so," Sato said, carefully re-pegging his wrinkly schematic back into place. It was no secret whatsoever that Sato was only given the opportunities he was because of patronage by wealthy and powerful people. Without that, he would be back in the gutter where they found him. Qin gave him a last look, to be sure he knew his place, and then turned back toward the front, ignoring the black smoke billowing out behind him. Energy generation was a dirty business, after all.

Unnoticed by Qin, though, a pair of golden eyes was watching from the distance. His guards likely not even aware that he'd slipped from their sight. That gaze turned passionlessly from Qin, to Sato. And in the mind of the Crown Prince, the boy who had for months only needed to speak a word and be welcomed home in glory, he formed a plan.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

**The Weapons of the Fire Nation**

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, my girl, but you'll need authorization to speak to General How," the soldier said with an apologetic tone.<p>

"Authorization? And where would I get such a thing? It took a day riding those rails to even find one who even knew the whereabouts of the man!" Nila exclaimed.

"Please, calm down," he said. "You're not helping your case."

Nila glared, and pointedly held her tongue before she said something disruptive, self-defeating, and stupid. She had to. Tzu Zi was spending the day catching up with her sister, and Ashan was at his new employment, which meant Nila had to undertake this little errand on her own. "I am calm," she said, forcing herself to be so. "To what end is this General How busy? May I suspect it has something to do with the curtain of smoke on the western horizon?"

The soldier palmed his face for a moment, and she knew that she was starting to annoy him. Which was not ideal, since she had neither leverage nor status over him. "Will you at least relay my message to him?"

The soldier sighed, but shrugged. "Well, it couldn't hurt," he pointed at her. "But if I do this, you must swear to _leave me alone_."

"I offer only to bother someone else if this fails," Nila offered.

"...well, that'll do," he said with a rolling of green eyes and a turn on his heel. The man himself was not visible, but it was clear he was in the wall's watchtower which dominated a stretch of the already landscape dominating Wall. The smoke was drifting with the wind, and likely would bypass the city entirely, but only an idiot would be so blind as to miss it all. And there was odd sounds somewhere to the north, something just on the verge of being audible, but not quite. Were there not so much wall in the way, she might be able to see more clearly. But she relegated herself to leaning back against the wall, shifting her gun out of her way so she didn't bend something.

All things considered, even with the annoyance of being utterly unable to unearth even the slightest whisper of where her Mother had secreted herself, Nila was, for a wonder, content. Yes, she'd had to custom-order a new laboratory's worth of equipment, and had no doubts that it would arrive in poor trim. Yes, she was living in a cramped apartment with little privacy and beholden to Ashan of all people for even that luxury. Yes, she was still caring for her brother long after she'd believed she'd have had to. She briefly wondered why she was content, before it occurred to her again. She was free. She remembered, as she leaned back there, something her mother had said to her, in a time of her utmost embarrassment and failure. Something which, in retrospect, was actually rather uplifting.

_Nila was still dragging the blade along her scalp, letting the last of the singed hair fall away. Good riddance, she thought, as she ran a hand over her now smooth head. Now, she'd never have to worry about it catching fire again. She stared at the reflection in the polished silver mirror. She still had the face she would have in the modern day, if with a bit of baby-fat still rounding her out. Of course, she wasn't even a teenager at that point. The scene behind Nila shifted, as the door to the lavatory opened, and Nila quickly found herself turning, hiding the razor behind her back. As if in shame._

_ Mother was staring at her. She didn't say a word. And she didn't scowl. She just stared at Nila, her head slowly tilting, as though to get a better view of what Nila had done to her own head. Nila quickly found herself slightly squirming under that sort of scrutiny. Then, Mother's fist fell upon her hip, and she cleared her throat._

_ "What is this?" she asked, her tone not angry or threatening._

_ "I... it caught aflame again," Nila admitted, her eyes down. "This seemed simpler."_

_ "You were forbidden playing with those substances. You disobeyed me," she said._

_ "I can do better next time! I swear it!"_

_ "You will do better next time?" Mother asked. "You stand before me with the price of your folly as clear as the shape of your head and you boldly claim that you feel no regret, and will do again in the future? What must you lose before you finally abandon this lunacy?"_

_ "I made a stupid mistake, and I'm not going to make it again," Nila stressed._

_ Mother sighed, palming her face with tattooed hands. "Archeophthese preserve this scientific idiot," she muttered. She pointed at Nila. "If I forbid you again, you will only flout my will again, and this time, likely blast yourself into orbit instead of losing your hair. So I can do nothing but rescind my censure. It will do no good as it stands."_

_ "So you support me?"_

_ "I have little other option," Mother pointed out with a growl. She thrust her finger under Nila's nose. "You are too stubborn to follow any path but the one you set. Then so be it!" she turned away. "If nothing else, you will at least write larger your name upon the writ of history than any other girl-child in this forsaken rock. The universe would have nothing less."_

Mother's words, delivered in annoyance and anger, they seemed to be proving somewhat predictive. In the few months since Nila's departure from Sentinel Rock, she had been party to the Avatar's defeat of a spirit beast, been prisoner of the Dakongese Khagan, seen the fall of the last great citadel of South Si Wong... she wondered what else would befall her. If history were any indication – and the scientific method demanded it was – then her future would only be more spectacularly dangerous. But she would rise to meet its challenges. Fifteen years living under the foot of her mother had done nothing for her social graces, but she wagered no other Si Wongi would survive what she had. Hell, drop her naked into Azul and she would outlast a legion. Not that she'd enjoy it, of course.

She broke away from her ruminations when she felt a loud 'whump' and a buffet of wind press her clothes to her. She glanced up, and saw that a bison had landed atop the wall, which caused Nila a moment's confusion. Bison tended to avoid places like the Wall, since there was nothing to eat there, and the bison wranglers were based out of the central Reaches so that they could manage their semi-feral 'flocks' without having to bounce in and out of the city all the time. So why was one up here, and so remarkably nonplussed by the many soldiers around it. She quickly moved to where a telescope sat on its bracket, and brought it to her eye. She immediately scowled, and had to pull the thing apart, pouring out some grit, and wiping the lens. These people were the barbarians, not she – a Si Wongi would never allow technology to fall into such disrepair!

The view through the lens the second time was better, but still not of Fire Nation precision. Still, she was able to pick out that the bison was saddled. Saddled! And more tellingly, there were people descending from its back. She could only see three, because the soldiers were swarming around the first who had dismounted. Of the three which remained, one was wearing blues, the other two greens and yellows. The three behind managed to move without the swarm, which followed the first. Nila gave a glance around, and noted that all of the soldiers' attention had been shifted to the bison and its passengers. She glanced toward the tower, and then back to where she had been waiting.

And she sighed, because she was fairly sure she was about to make a stupid decision.

With a shake of her head, she reduced the telescope again, hooking it into her belt. If they couldn't properly care for it, they didn't deserve to have it. It wouldn't have helped anybody in its previous state anyway. They lost nothing. That was the litany she told herself as she started to glide forward through the soldiers, all of them leaning and craning about to see who was ahead of them more clearly, and paying no attention to the teenaged girl now slipping through their midst. The tower grew closer, and she started to hear whispers.

"Is it true? Was that the Avatar?"

"I don't know, I just saw the Bison. But do you know anybody else who flies around on one of those wild beasts?"

"It can't be the Avatar. The Avatar was killed at Summavut!"

"No he wasn't!"

"Well, how could they have lost if he didn't?"

"Summavut?" Nila asked. That was a word which was on exactly none of the lips of the people in the Lower Ring. Which was surprising, since she'd seen a few who had the very look of Tribesmen about them, Qujeck Shacktson aside.

"Yeah, you remember? Fire Nation took the North? Renamed it's capital to something about ovens," a soldier said, not even looking at her. Probably not even aware that she wasn't supposed to be here. And here she thought that people really believed that 'there was no war in Ba Sing Se'. It must have been an impressive display of double-think to believe that, and yet have to fight them.

And then she remembered Iuchi. Maybe these soldiers just... _never_ came home.

She moved further, until she was ducking through a gap between a fat soldier and a fatter soldier, and then through the door which both were arguing over who would go into first. The room itself was broad and open, a swelling of soldiers around a raised pavilion, upon which rested some display she couldn't adequately see. There were two older men. One of them was stern and lantern-jawed, bearing a well trimmed beard, standing straight backed and vigilant. The other was much older, but not quite aged. He had a simpering way about him, and even the way he stood seemed to scream apologies. And both of them were giving audience to a boy who would not be more than thirteen.

"Well, the universe is making fun of me," Nila said lightly.

"We've already lost almost a hundred trying to retake the captured portion of the Wall," the simperer said. "No matter how hard we push, they just keep blasting us back!"

"That's because _you're_ running them into a meat-grinder," a vaguely familiar voice piped up. The source of it was a Tribesman wearing faded greens, his hair tied back, and his eyes clearly annoyed. "This thing isn't a bender; it's a machine. It doesn't get tired. It just kills as long as somebody keeps it turned on."

"Then we will turn it off. I have dispatched the Terra Team, and..." the weaker of the two men piped up. He was cut off as a runner moved past the airbender monk and his cronies, bowing and handing a message to the taller, the prouder of the two men. To General How. How opened the scroll, and when he read it, his lips pulled into a frown.

"The Terra Team has been wiped out to a man," How said, tension clear in his voice. The other wilted completely at that "Casualties are stark and brutal. This isn't a battle; this is a slaughter."

"What is their plan?" the girl Tribesman asked. "I saw what those things did from the air. You can't tear down a wall with lightning, after all."

"But you can keep people away from where you don't want them to be," the Avatar finished for her. The Tribesman nodded, stroking at his chin.

"This is a technology that we have never faced before, a weapon the likes of which I have no idea how to counter," How admitted. "I must humbly ask you, Avatar. Can you stop it?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to try," the Avatar swore.

"You'll just get yourself killed if you try to destroy the machine without understanding it," Nila said idly, rolling her eyes.

And she didn't know how, but How managed to hear her. He turned to her. He pointed at her. Her fight-or-flight reflex was staring to kick in, to tell her to beat feet until the Wall vanished over the horizon. But his words forestalled her. "I was wondering when you'd show up, Dragon's Daughter. I'd just learned you were in Ba Sing Se."

"So you know of me?"

"You? No. But I know of your mother, and if you're a fraction as clever as she was, then I could use your council. Let her through," he ordered. Nila tipped up her chin, something like a smirk on her face, as she moved up the dais, forming a third point between the parties of the Avatar, and the garrison of Ba Sing Se. Now that she could see the table, she could see that it was laid out with both a Wall schematic showing the point of attack, and some obviously panicked renditions of the weapon in question. It wasn't until Nila compared three and noted the elements in common that she could discard the notion that it was simply uneducated fighters outright panicking. "Have you seen anything like this before?"

"As I have not yet seen 'this', I must say no," Nila said. She pointed to the Tribesman. "You observed the machine from the air, yes?" he nodded, about to say something. She cut him off. "Sketch me a portrait of it. I must know what I am dealing with by uncontaminated eyes."

"That's... not a good idea," the Tribesman girl said.

"Why not?" Nila asked.

"He's... well, kinda terrible at drawing," she answered. Nila stared at her.

"I think he draws just great," the smallest of their group offered with a grin. When Nila looked upon her, it was fairly clear that as Sharif was struck smitten of mind, this girl was struck smitten of sight, her green eyes covered with a milky glaze, and bearing no pupil to speak of. The Tribesman broke out into a grin.

"Why thank you Toph, why don't the rest of you ever..." he began, then trailed off, his grandiose gesture wilting away. He stared annoyed at the blind girl. "Why do you always do that to me?"

"Because it's friggin' hilarious," she said with a quite unfeminine chortle.

"Avatar, have you met the Dragon's Daughter?" How asked.

"Briefly," the Avatar said. "I think I can draw what I saw. I got a pretty good look at it."

"Sufficient," Nila said. "The first step to dismantling this beast is to know how flows its blood. In Si Wong, there is a saying. '_Bu olebilir, o damlar eger_'. In Altuundili, it roughly means 'what bleeds, can be slain'."

"Then please hurry. The longer we take to defeat this thing, the more of our soldiers die."

"A problem which would go away if you stop throwing soldiers at it," The Avatar stressed. "Pull back. Don't sent people to die when you have an option of just falling back."

"We cannot give them the walls! They're our most potent defense!" the weakling protested. The blind girl scowled mightily at that.

"No they're not, you idjit. Your _soldiers_ are your strongest defense. The Wall is just a speed bump! Hell, give me an afternoon and I'd have the whole thing in rubble," She claimed, crossing her arms before her. Nila didn't bother restraining a laugh at that. She like this one. The Avatar did well to collect her.

"The young mistress is correct. We pull back from the lost wall," How said with a nod.

Nila wasted no time rounding the table to the others. "It has been a strange path," she said. "What sees you within Ba Sing Se?"

"Not much, just trying to save the world," the Avatar said brightly. Nila blinked in bafflement at that. She then turned to the Tribesman.

"You... Wait, yeah, you're that girl who quizzed me in Senlin," the Tribesman said. And at that, Nila finally recalled his name, mostly because she remembered an embarrassing conversation about him a while back. Sokka, son of Hakoda. He shrugged. "Gotta say, you look better with hair."

"It was cut off since it kept catching alight with my work," Nila said flatly.

He gave a chuckle. "Ever consider just tying it back? Or not leaning over something that can catch fire?" he asked.

She prepared an angry answer, but even inside her own mind, it was incredibly stupid once put to words. Doubly so, because he was right. Her simplest solution wasn't exactly the easiest one.

"Can we _please_ turn to the task at hand?" she asked forceably. After all, somebody had to keep Ba Sing Se from falling. And she was the only Badesh in the room.

* * *

><p>"If that's what you really want," she said, patting the beast on its nose. The eyeless creature let out a whining noise, like it wasn't exactly sure of its own decision, but she couldn't fault it. It was the one setting her path, at the moment.<p>

She looked to the north, across the great expanses of fields and orchards and woodlands. All of it was painstakingly maintained by the government of the city, because they had no desire to need anything they couldn't produce themselves. The only imports to the city were precious metals, because the mines under the city had long, long since been plumbed clean. She trusted the senses of her guide, and she trusted in herself her purpose. Nobody got away from her. It wasn't just a job; it was her reputation at stake. Since she'd not told anybody about the two that got away, that reputation was, for the moment, unblemished. Still, she knew. She remembered. And she wanted a nice, easy capture to prove she was back on her feet.

And if the easy way proved impossible, she had other ways.

"Alright, Nyla. You've rested long enough. Let's get going!" Jun said, bounding up onto the saddle of the shirshu, and began to tear her way along the expanses of the Reaches, following the unshakable nose of the tracker beast, hunting the most difficult of prey in the most hazardous of environments. Hunting one particular human being, in the guts of Ba Sing Se.

* * *

><p>The chamber was quiet, lit by pale green fires. It made for difficult reading to most, but he had adapted well enough to it over the years. It was a startling thing to realize that one had spent more than two decades dedicated to a cause, one which would see him through to his dying day, with all likelihood. He took it with aplomb, though. It was something which desperately needed doing. The city would not remain orderly and peaceful, unless forceful steps were taken.<p>

"Grand Secretariat," a woman said, bowing briefly as she entered the room. She was an attractive woman, he supposed, but it was much the same as saying to a deaf-man that a particular song had a lovely melody. Well into her middle age, she was as dedicated to the cause as he was, and was the only one who'd spent more years than he. They both _had_ to be dedicated. The alternative was chaos. "I have preliminary reports that there is an incursion by the Fire Nation at the wall overlooking the Western Reaches."

"How preliminary?"

"A few words on the wind amongst the soldiers at the South Gate. I've taken steps to curtail its spread, but..."

Long Feng set aside the scroll he'd been scanning, and faced the woman squarely. "Please be perfectly clear, Joo Dee. Assault, or _incursion_."

Joo Dee scowled, and shook her head. "I could not hear more, Grand Secretariat. The Fire Nation has had years to regroup; their losses in the North are more spiritual than military. If they've turned their attentions back upon us, they could do so in force."

Long Feng rubbed at his chin briefly. This was something which required a deft hand. Too little response when much was needed would cause a calamity which would take years and innumerable resources to repair. Too much response when little was needed would have inspired the people to panic and possibly riot against his authority. It was a balancing act, one he had to do blindfolded, since he could not be awake every hour of the day, and even if he could, there was only so far he could extend his network.

There were days he felt almost powerless, even as he pulled the strings of the greatest city on this Earth. Oh, the things a man would do for love.

Then, a thought occurred to him. "The garrison of the Lotus district. It houses known dissidents, does it not?"

"Several," she said with a nod.

"Solve two problems with one stroke. Mobilize the district garrison into the Reaches. If this is a false-alarm, then nothing is lost. If it's genuine, then we spend traitors and anarchists to give us the time to mount a meaningful defense," Long Feng ordered. Joo Dee nodded, without the mindless obedience of those who now bore her name. In a real way, she was the first among them, the 'template' from which the others had been molded. A distasteful practice, but both knew the costs of inaction.

"I will send word at once," she said. But she hesitated at the door.

"What else is there, Joo Dee?" Long Feng asked.

"Rumors only," she shook her head. "They say that a manned bison was seen landing on the Western Wall."

"Ludicrous. Only airbenders could ride those beasts," Long Feng said. But he paused. "But this could be a sign of things to come."

"Sir?"

He pondered, most notably on the point that the Avatar was an airbender. "Keep the lines of communication open, but quash anything from the Western Reaches. I want to hear what is happening outside my city."

"Of course, sir," she said with a nod, and departed. Ironic that when they had first met, he had been reporting to her. Of course, the vagueries of fate and destiny were best left to other, less useful minds than his. He picked up the scroll, and reread it again. No appreciable improvement in the conditioning of the Dragon. Her companions were remaining likewise non-compliant. It was more than vexing that the enemy would be every bit as disciplined and adept at resistance as he wagered his own were, and as dedicated to their cause. But a new option was opening to him. While he knew that leashing the Dragon of the East was only a matter of time, the Avatar could upset that. Unless...

Unless Long Feng attached a leash to the Avatar as well.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

Kori walked well ahead of where the others had stopped. He was probably the best adept of all the Children at navigating by night, due in no small part to the fact that his elemental patron was only really visible in the darkness. Ordinarily, he curtailed his night-owl-bear tendencies since he had to travel with the group. But with the Dragon and the Princess' trail vanishing toward the Walls of Ba Sing Se, they had to get creative. The two of them could vanish into the Rings like a drop of water into the ocean. And it would fall to Kori to come up with a plan to locate them again. Which was doubly difficult, since they first had to find a way past the walls in order to do it.

He emerged from the grassland on the north shore of Chameleon Bay, watching as the barest sliver of the moon appeared, a bright sickle just above the reach of the water. A breath pulled in humid air, a luxury he had felt precious little of since he came to this drought-afflicted continent. While he certainly put on an air of the lazy ne'er-do-well, it was much like Yoji's makeup. A front to show the world. He cared deeply for his sister, and for his nation, but in that order. Given the option between his duty and his family, he couldn't honestly say that he would hold true. It was something which kept him awake at nights, sometimes.

Amongst other things. It was almost a blessing that the rock-head got picked for this. For all Yoji could be a force of nature, she needed something to ground her. Now, Kori didn't have to shoulder that burden alone. And if getting regular sex put Yoji into a better mood, well, then that was just an added benefit.

"Man, when you put it that way, it's almost like I'm pimping my sister," Kori said to nobody with a chuckle. He shrugged, and started walking again. The bay was wide and deep, and rumored to be home to all manner of nasty beast. This was one of those cases where the rumors were true, though; reports of sporadic attack by Water Worms showed up from time to time. He wondered about them. Mostly whether he could take one in an honest fight. After a brief consideration of his martial prowess, he decided it'd be a slaughter, and that if he was extremely lucky, he _might_ make it cough a bit as it ate him. A shake of his head, and he tried to refocus on the problem at hand. The Wall. How to get past it.

He walked, and he pondered, and he kept his eyes to the next bend. Because of that, he saw a flicker of movement as he rounded a stand of rocks which jutted into the water. Even as he tried to shake the surf out of his boots, he wondered what it was he'd just seen.

His answer came in the form of a spear hurled at him.

With a clipped yelp, he bent the water up out of the bay into a tendril, which caught the spear and flicked it aside, before he twisted forward, lashing out blindly in the direction it had come from. He waited a long moment, dark blue eyes flicking about trying to find his assailant. But nothing happened. In fact, the silence was so crisp that only the sounds of the wind and Kori's own heart were clear. Then, he heard speaking.

And for a reason he could have understood if he'd asked the right questions, he almost understood what they were saying.

"There's clearly been some sort of mistake," Kori said in Tianxia. "I've got no money, I'll just be on my way."

The words came out again, this time louder, as though they were no longer trying to hide themselves. And somebody appeared seemingly out of the stone. But it was not earthbending, because it was silent as a grave. No, the man was simply very well camouflaged. Another joined him, dropping out of a tree. The two of them eyed him warily, their weapons still firmly in their hands. They were weapons made of the parts of dead animals, the weapons of savages. Only one thing, a boomerang which one motioned toward him while speaking, was made of metal. The distinctive blue alloy of the Water Tribesmen.

"Is there going to be some kind of problem?" Kori asked, glancing between the two. Water Tribe pirates? Well, there were certainly enough of their kind fleeing that some of them would have descended to banditry. He flexed his fists, readying for the assault, and for his defense. He might not be the greatest fighter of the Children, but he still wagered he could take on two non-benders.

"..._one of us!_"

Those were words he knew. It was like trying to read a book through sooty glass from across the yard, but the way that those sounds came together seemed to gel inside Kori's mind, forming something meaningful out of the meaningless.

"Who are you?" Kori demanded.

They shared a glance between them, and then one of them scowled. "_...not...North...speak...?_"

"How about we just do this in Tianxia?" he asked.

Another shared glance. "Do you not speak _Yqanuac_, stranger?" the man with the boomerang asked, if quite awkwardly.

"Perhaps I simply prefer a challenge," Kori said with a smirk. The boomerang man leaned back. "What?"

"Where from? North? South?"

"Somewhere around the middle," Kori said with a grin.

"_...not...look like...Misty Swamp!_"

"Could you try that again in a coherent language?" Kori asked.

"Sajuuk doesn't speak this language. You are far from home, yes?" Kori nodded, finally letting the water relax, but not drop completely. Draw them in, in case this was still a trap. "You will like having familiar things. Please, come with us. Our camp is ahead."

"You'd bring me into your camp without even hearing my name?"

"We have no names in the darkness. Only by the fire are they known," he said, as though Kori had made some sort of joke. The other said something which sounded suspicious and cautious, but the other shook his head vigorously. "Sajuuk thinks this strange. I told him that Tui and La act as they will."

Kori shrugged. "I guess they would," he offered. Let them act as they wanted. They were in an aquarium in New Bhatthi right now.

"Please, follow," the still unnamed of the two beckoned. Kori glanced at the other, then back the way he'd come. This better not take long. They were waiting on him, after all. He didn't take much seriously, but the same couldn't be said toward Yoji. The unnamed man moved forward, past a cleft in the rocks barely two arm-spans across, a pool of water so cramped that Kori would have likely walked clear past it without a second thought. The walls of this tiny fjord snaked to and fro, but soon enough, Kori could see light ahead of them.

The last twist brought a widening to Kori's eyes, because he simply couldn't believe that so many ships had made it up that twisting waterway, and cramped up the pool of water at its source. They were all the wood and hide hulls that had been engaged in phantom-attacks for the last few years. Was this the vaunted Ghost Navy? Well, this information alone was worth the trip in the darkness.

"_Sajuuk...didn't...not...of..._"

"_...one of us. He...out...not..._"

Kori's mind was whirling, trying to keep up with the rapid speech which was bandied about between the horde of Tribesmen which seemed to appear out of every direction. Most of them only showed themselves to give the newcomer a glance. A few kept a watch, forming a wall of dark faces and darker demeanors.

"Uh...what's going on?" Kori asked. One man shouldered his way through the crowds. This one was built like a wall, his arms thick, his neck thick, his trunk thick. His head was shaven, and his eyes a very dark blue, and he looked the infiltrating waterbender up and down.

"I hear you don't speak Yqanuac. What kind of Tribesman doesn't know the tongue?" this one asked him.

"One that's been away from home for a while," Kori said with a sardonic tone.

"They say you're a waterbender. Prove it," he said.

"Or what?"

"Or we tie you to a rock and throw you into the deep. One way or another, you waterbend," he said with a shrug. Kori sighed, and then easily plucked up a strand of water, bending it into a blob which he levitated between his fingers. The others gave a gasp at him. The bald one, though, just nodded. "Good. Welcome to the camp."

"That's it?" he asked. "I walk up and bend some water and I'm part of your secret club?"

"Any waterbender is an enemy of the Fire Nation. That makes them a friend of ours," he offered. "My name is Ogan. I'm in charge here. You've already met Hajgiir, my second-in-command, and his brother in law, Sajuuk."

"Kori."

Ogan looked Kori up and down, a smirk coming to his face. "Make yourself at home. You're among friends at last."

Oh, how little they knew.

* * *

><p>"So now you see our problem?" Sokka asked, pointing at the behemoths which rose above the blowing dust. Their noise was lost to the distance, becoming only a low rumble, with occasional pops as a particularly meaty bolt of electricity made its appearance. His companion in this sojourn was the Si Wongi girl, as the others had remained behind, either to heal those that could be healed, or else to try to figure out some way of tricking the Fire Nation. That was wasting time, mostly. The Fire Nation had a good strategy, and following it would lead to victory, unless somebody did something to counter it. They were not going to be tricked.<p>

"Indeed," the Si Wongi girl said, handing up the telescope again. "And I believe I know their strategum."

"Oh?"

"Advance the lightning engines to the Wall, clearing it of defenders," she said, striking the dust from her pants. "Then, shut off the middle generators, giving them a naked expanse of wall to destroy by bombs, mortars, and undercutting. If the earthbenders try to do something uncharacteristically clever, they can turn the central towers back on with a moment's notice. Well thought out. And showing a deep understanding of a physical theory."

"Don't tell me you're admiring them," Sokka said sarcastically. She turned to him, somewhat suspicious, but she must have been able to tell that he was being sarcastic, if after a moment's consideration, so she shrugged.

"Their invasion makes finding Mother more difficult. I have not the patience for such difficulties," she said. She scratched at her hair, and from the way she did, he could tell she was still getting used to having it. All told, it was almost as short as Sokka's. Nah, not that dramatic upon any sort of inspection, but still, it was the shortest hair he'd seen on a woman. "Do you know the engineering of electricity?"

"Just what I learned from Zha Yu," Sokka said. "That guy has a way of turning any conversation into the most enthusiastic lesson you've ever seen."

"Zha Yu? The Mountain King?" she asked. She then scoffed. "I had heard him dead."

"No, but he does lose houses on a suspiciously frequent basis," Sokka said with a shrug. She chuckled at that. Sokka paused. "Wait, I've got his research guide."

"He gave you his...?"

"Yeah, I told him that the Universe acting as it does to mess with me personally, I'd have a chance to give it back to him before the spring was out," Sokka said, digging through the bag which hung from one shoulder. Then, with a triumphant laugh – which sounded almost identical to his other laughs – he hoisted a badly battered, poorly bound collection of notes and scribblings into the air. The sun seemed to shine off of it, which was impossible since the thing was bound in tea-stained wood. Nila's eyes shot wide at that, and before he was even ready to hand it to her, it was in her hands. He wasn't even sure how she snatched it so effortlessly.

"This is remarkable. That's wrong. I am told that Mother once traveled with him but – that's wrong, oh wait, he noticed it – I had not known he yet lived. You live a strange life, Tribesman."

"Sokka, please," he offered.

"Whatever," she said. She read in silence for a long moment, muttering to herself in the language of Altuundili, which Sokka couldn't understand but could recognize by sound.

"Sooo... How'd you end up in Ba Sing Se?" Sokka asked.

"I walked. It was a very long journey," Nila said, still flipping forward

"I mean in a more general sense," he said. "I mean, the whole reason that me and my sister are out here is because we kinda got exiled."

She paused, looking up to him with bright green eyes. She gave a chortle, then looked down again. "Fitting that the Tribesmen would banish the only of them with a brain."

"Yeah, well... some sort of sexist joke back at you!" Sokka said, and then palmed his face. Had he really said that?

"Did you really say that?" Nila asked. "You are an absurd man."

"Says the girl who took it upon herself to fight the army of the Fire Nation."

"That's different," she claimed.

"Please, you're like a female me," Sokka said with a shake of his head. "We're both smarter than our siblings, we're both normal where they're weird, and we've both got a target on our back from fate itself."

"You assume much."

"Do I assume correctly?"

Her dark grumble was all the answer he needed in that one.

"The only real difference between us is that I've learned to face this garbage with a sense of humor. You've gotta learn to laugh at things."

"I laugh... enough."

Sokka couldn't help but bray at that. She shook her head, serious and focused on the pages again, reading with remarkable speed. Then again, she was probably just skimming at the moment. She let out a 'hrm', and flipped back.

"Find something?" Sokka asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Your 'hrm' implied it."

"I was pondering that such power must be released in jolts, for otherwise, it would be far too weak," she said. "That means they have a capacitor – a device for buffering a great pulse of power before release."

"Even I know that's a drastic simplification," Sokka said.

"You know your engineering. Good. So keep up. These capacitors are the flesh of the beast, showing 'tween its impenetrable hide. If you would have this beast bleed, your bullet must land there, and nowhere else."

"My what?"

"Bullet," she said, tapping her gun. He decided that would bear scrutiny at another time. "Like trying to strike down a Buzz-ard, timing will be key. Destroy the capacitor as the charge is weak, you have struck the beast a pin-prick. Destroy that same capacitor as the charge is strong? Cataclysm."

Sokka started walking back toward the tower, and she followed, her eyes still down on the book. "It's almost a shame to destroy the thing. If it wasn't a deadly death-beam, I'm pretty sure I'd hesitate."

"Deadly death-beam is redundant," she said.

"Yeah, well, from the looks of it, I'm pretty sure it warrants some redundancy," Sokka offered. So how are we supposed to get close enough to bust open the capacitors? And what do the capacitors even look like?"

"You need only follow your ear. They produce a hum quite unlike any the world can otherwise produce," she pointed out.

"So we don't need to look at 'em? Bonus," Toph said, instantly at their side. Nila fell still, and stared at the girl.

"And what manner of girl are you?"

"The badass kind," Toph answered. Nila stared for a moment longer, then shrugged.

"Very well. Yes, the capacitors could be of many shapes, but no alteration in shape can hide the smell of ozone nor the sound of the power within it. Find those, and you will find your weak point. My great concern is that there will be more than one."

"What's wrong with that? More stuff to break," Toph said, punching her palm.

"You may fluke and destroy a first, but they will defend a second against all comers," Nila pointed out.

"Yeah, we've gotta find a way to make sure all the capacitors go down at once. But what about the engines, the towers?"

"Without the lightning, they are toothless," Nila said. "They can be smote at your leisure."

"Heh, _smote_," Toph said.

"And what do you contribute to the Avatar, again, girl?" Nila asked. "It is obvious that this one provides the intellect, and his sister succor and comfort. What does that make you?"

"I'm his earthbending teacher," Toph said, mildly insulted. Sokka had a feeling Nila did that a lot to people.

"...I see."

"So who's gonna be on this team?" Toph asked.

Nila glanced between them, as they waited expectantly. "Don't be mad. I am no saboteur."

"Come on, you came up with the brilliant plan. Are you saying you didn't want to see it through?" Sokka cajoled.

"Only a foolish general leads from the front lines, and I will not have you imply towards my foolishness."

"I didn't imply anything," Sokka said. "A woman tells a man she's not wearing underwear, that's implying something. I just thought you were..."

"_I'm_ not wearing underwear," Nila said with a note of confusion. "I have worn none since they were stolen by pirates. What could that _possibly_ imply?"

"You're not wearing underwear?" Sokka asked.

"Your underwear was stolen by _pirates_?" Toph asked.

"Yeah, answer that one first," Sokka amended. Nila looked quite annoyed, either by the fact that they were inquiring as to the state or absence of her undergarments or that she was forced to recall a harrowing tale involving pirates. And underwear.

Yeah, that was probably going to be on his mind all day, now.

"I was kidnapped several months ago. They wanted my bombs. I said no. I had not the time to recover my robes. As I had departed from my home thinking my journey to be a short one, I neglected such luxuries as extra clothing. I have no doubt that my underwear burned when Tzu Zi set fire to their ship."

"...Yeah, I'm gonna want to hear the long version of that at some point," Toph said with a grin.

Nila glanced at him. "She loves stories."

"Hrm."

"That's what I thought," Sokka said. "So you're not going to help us bloody the Fire Nation's nose?"

"I have no quarrel with the Fire Nation. Only that they would make finding Mother more difficult, if not impossible. In fact, my best friend is a firebender," she pointed out. "Besides, I am not some hero out of myth; myths are often only that. I will account myself where I am most useful, and that is not down amongst soldiers and lightning."

"Eh, suit yourself," Toph said. "You're missing out on a... you know a firebender?"

"Yes, Tzu Zi. My friend."

"Hey, Brain, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Possibly, but where would we find twenty inflated bladders on such short notice?" Sokka asked. Both turned to him, confounded. He grinned.

"Twinkletoes needs a firebending master. Her friend's a firebender..."

"Yeah, I figured that out."

"What?" Nila asked.

"How'd your friend like to teach the Avatar how to firebend?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know. You'd need to ask her," she said simply. Fair enough, Sokka thought. Nila walked past them all, into the tower which rose above the bulk of the wall, opening the door with her foot so she could continue reading. Sokka offered Toph a shrug, and followed after her.

"I like her," Toph opined.

"Thought you might," Sokka said.

"So... you and she gettin' physical?"

"You're kidding right?" Sokka asked. "We've had two conversations in the entire time we've both been alive."

"Yeah, but your bodies are telling a different tale," she said, she slapped a hand against the stone. "I might not be able to see colors, but I know if somebody's blushing or if their heart's racing. And the two of you got pretty... excited... back there."

"Of course I was excited! I've finally got somebody who I can talk to about this kind of high-end engineering!" Sokka exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how often I've seen _Dad's_ eyes glaze over when I talked about stuff back before he left Chimney Mountain?"

"I literally have no idea what you're talking about," Toph said flatly, and Sokka sighed, heading in after the Si Wongi girl.

"We've got a plan," Sokka announced as he reached the table. He pointed at How, who was turning away from the Avatar. "Do you play Pai Sho, How?"

"From time to time," he said.

"Then you know what a Big Fat is?" Sokka asked.

"A unit or units which are a sufficient threat that they cannot be ignored, but constitute a small portion of your or your opponent's forces. Why?" How asked, tugging at his beard.

"That's what we've got here," he said.

"The Tribesman is correct," the Si Wongi said, setting the book aside. "The towers are acting as the Fire Nation's Big Fat, which gives them mobility unquestioned. If we are to defeat them, we need to eliminate that capacity. They will have to fall back, as we will be able to respond freely once it is gone."

"Sokka."

"What?" Nila asked.

"The Tribesman's name is Sokka."

"Whatever," she said with a flick of her tattooed hand toward him. He could only roll his eyes at that. "We must send somebody into the heart of that army, to destroy the capacitors of the Arc Towers before they have cleared the walls. This will likely be a suicide mission, but..."

"I'll do it," Aang piped up.

She stared at him, then turned to face the other soldiers. "As I have said, it will likely be a suicide mission, so you must select only your best and most stalwart."

"I said, I'll do it," Aang said.

"And are you having difficulty understanding the meaning of 'suicide mission'?" Nila asked.

"No, but enough people have gotten hurt because of me; I can't just stand aside, and I certainly can't run away," Aang said, his fists tightening on his staff. "Where will the capacitors be?"

Nila sighed, and said, had any in the room been able to understand her '_may fortune smile upon the stupid, for we seem to be many this day_'. "Very well. If you are so eager to die for the cause, then this is what you must do..."

* * *

><p>Her first plan failed before it began.<p>

She had once been renowned for her ability to nest plans within plans, parallel to plans, and divorced from plans entirely, an ever-whirring and hellish symphony of predetermination. After years of that, and a short lapse of insanity, she'd gotten... well... lazy. That's what part of her called her life after her escape from prison. Others might have called it 'sensible', being as she had an infant daughter to raise, but for quite a few years, she simply couldn't comprehend that politics was a game that nobody could play forever. Once she came to that decision, she started learning improvisation, and when she did that, her ability to plan long-term essentially flew out a window.

Her second plan to breach the walls of Ba Sing Se was aborted after only a few minutes, as it had become apparent that continuation would only result in failure and possible capture. While incarceration by the Dai Li was an important step of her later plot, it would have to be at the proper time, when the pieces had assumed their perfect positions. Doing so too early would just have her rotting in a cell.

Her third was crossed off the list as she retreated from the second; the doom of the second doomed the third. Through it all, Iroh didn't say a word. It was lucky he hadn't. If he had, she probably would have snapped and hurled lightning at him, which would have been pointless, since he could just redirect it. That was a frustration and a half. And all the more vexing since she wasn't even sure if he actually taught her the secret of it.

That brought the two of them, a day later and a day hungrier, to the fourth plan, which was moronic for its simplicity.

"Reason for entry into Ba Sing Se?" the teenaged clerk asked, eyes down and on his work. It wasn't until plan five that she would have to seduce him. Lucky that she was the one involved and not that clueless girl; she remembered how catastrophic her even furtive attempts at seduction had been when she was this age. If there was one thing that the years had taught her, it was how to not terrify a man out of his wits.

Unless that's what he wanted.

"We're war refugees," Azula said, trying very hard to make her voice sound dull and boring, and in doing so, somewhat managing to hide the accent of a language which never existed in this world. "This is the only safe place. If they find us, they'll kill us. So we have to make sure they don't find us."

"Criminal or political?"

"My parents were on the wrong side of a war," she said. "Uncle here stayed out of it, but..."

"Political asylum?" he shrugged, and started hammering away at forms with a bevy of rubber stamps. "References?"

Oh... that was something she hadn't accounted for. Casually, she leaned forward, tugging at her neckline to help start to free some cleavage; it was a resource which she had precious little of at this tender age. Oh, but to have her maternal breasts again! "Are you sure you need that? I'm no threat to anybody," she lied sweetly.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't..." the clerk began, vexingly looking her in the eye. Then again, as she'd admitted to herself, there was little cleavage to catch the boy's attention.

"Aimei! I told you not to run ahead!" a familiar voice came from behind Azula, causing her eyes to dart wide and her head to swivel. Iroh silently turned, and took in the young couple whom Azula had abandoned on the road. Her expression flicked into confusion, and then alarm. They could ruin everything! But Ying, infant Daichi in hand, moved up to the clerk with a look of maternal forbearance that Azula couldn't have lied better in emulating. She made a note of it for later, if at some point in the next ten years she needed to pull off a con such as this again. "You'll have to forgive my younger sister. She gets ahead of herself sometimes."

"She's your sister?" the clerk asked. "And that would make him?"

"Than is my husband. I am Ying. You must have met Aimei and Mushi? Is something wrong here?"

"I need references for her claim of political asylum. Who would vouch for you?" he asked.

"Well... We know a scholar named Keung in Gaoling, but we don't know if..."

The clerk leaned back and pulled out a book roughly as thick as Azula's torso, flopped it open at around the middle, and scanned through pages, until his finger fell upon one in particular. "Ah, yes, Professor Keung has returned to Ba Sing Se University almost a month ago. And he'd vouch for you?"

Than nodded vigorously. "He taught us how to read and write. I'm sure of it."

The clerk looked down at a form, and sighed. "Bugger it. Fine, instead of have to fill out a desk-full of paper-work, I'm just going to say that he's given his voucher. Tell noone."

"Your secret is safe with us," Ying said sweetly. Another flurry of stamps, paperwork filed away, and he tugged a set of green cards with brown rings upon them.

"Your request has been filed and will undergo appeals by the Cultural Authority but I don't see any real problems. These are provisional visas granting access to and freedom of housing within the lower rings. In the event that an audit occurs, be sure to answer the summons promptly and have your voucher ready and willing to offer his support for best possible results. Welcome to Ba Sing Se, citizen."

"Excellent," Iroh said. He then immediately turned away from the queue and the booth and ran down a tea-vendor whom he'd had his eye on for the last ten minutes. Azula, on the other hand, walked briskly toward the tram-cart which would lead into the city. Last time, she didn't need to go through so much time-consuming nonsense. Of course, last time, she had an impervious disguise and the 'good word' of the Avatar himself to see her into the City. She stepped into the empty tram, moving right to the front, and turned, facing the two Easterners and their offspring as they moved in behind her.

"What do you want?" Azula demanded, allowing her accent to return, since repressing it took more effort than it was worth.

"What do you mean? You needed help, and those people looked like they weren't going to let you in," Than said.

"Besides, this way, we get into Ba Sing Se before supper-time," Ying pointed out. "That line was moving so slooooow!"

"Cutting the queue notwithstanding," Azula snapped. "You want something from me. This was a ploy to put me into your debt, wasn't it?"

"Maybe we're just repaying the favor of you bringing our boy into this world?" Than asked. He shrugged. "Look, you're paranoid. I get that. I mean, If I was a..."

"Than," Ying said with a warning tone.

"...outsider like you," Than continued, "then you'd have every right to be. But I've only got one question, and I want you to answer it honestly. Are you here to spy on the city?"

"No," Azula said honestly. She wasn't here to spy. She was here to conquer.

"So I've got no duty to stop you," Than said. "The world isn't as bad as you think it is Aimei, or whatever you call yourself. There are good people out there. You just need to give 'em a chance."

She stared at him, then to his wife, then to Iroh, who wandered into the tram with a look of disappointment on his face.

"Best tea in Ba Sing Se? Bah. More like coldest tea in Ba Sing Se," he complained, taking a sulking seat near Azula, not even acknowledging the others nearby.

"You keep your enemies close so that you can stab them in the back. Distance solves everything," she declared. Ying sighed.

"...if you really believe that, then you must be a very lonely person," she said sadly, and then guided her husband toward the back of the tram.

And the worst part was, Ying wasn't wrong.

* * *

><p>The Tribesmen burst into raucous laughter once again, leaving two in their midst silent. One was silent purely by dint of understanding neither the joke, nor the language which it was spoken in. The other was silent because, well, Kori wasn't sure. Just that the bald, blocky man didn't laugh very much. The sun had risen hours and hours ago, but he knew that they were watching him like a firehawk, and that his egress would not go unnoticed. And, unlike most who would have found themselves in this situation, he wondered <em>why<em>.

"Sajuuk was just telling of the time when he was a lad, and he snuck into Qejay's hut. Trying to steal his imported wine," Ogan relayed seriously. "If you'd ever tasted Tribal Hunt-Wine, you'd understand why. Have you?"

"Can't say that I have," Kori said.

"Well, he sneaks in, and finds Qejay with his mistress. So..."

"I imagine there was some screaming," Kori smirked.

"More throwing and cursing. Qejay chased him all the way out into the Little Slide, naked and hairy as a bison, before he gave up and turned back. Wife kicked him out when she heard of it. Wasn't the first time. Woman had the patience of an Adamite saint. Daughter did, too."

"I wouldn't put up with that, were I in her shoes," Kori said, glancing toward a gap in the rocks which might lead him away. They would be looking for him soon, and his path would lead them blundering into these barbarians. That was not an outcome he was going to allow. Ogan shrugged.

"Tribesmen put up with a lot for family," Ogan said. Around the ashen pit which had held last night's fire, the men were talking again, but this time, of an almost funereal tone. On some of the faces of those men, tears glistened. "You must not remember much of your heritage to not know that."

"I've been... away from home for a while," Kori said.

"I can well imagine..." he turned to the men, and stomped a foot on the ground, breaking one of them off mid sentence. "_No. I... son... one of us, now... alone... wife, Sedna... girl, looks like..._"

Kori got to his feet and skirted away from his ignorant captor, toward that cleft in the rocks. A cavern would be less than ideal, but even if he could separate them out a bit, pick them off and knock them out, he could escape against a diminished force. Just not all of them, and certainly not all at once. He had to get back to the others, before it was too late. These people might think him a Tribesman, but no matter the source of his blood, his heart lay with the people who saved him from early and horrible death. He darted into the shadows between the rocks, and began to grope his way through. There was one thing fortunate about being in the Fire Nation, it was that one learned how to adapt to darkness very quickly. For all it was the nation supposedly blessed by Agni, and purported to once boast as many as three hundred days of sun per year, it was a dark place to live these days.

His path started only at the tips of his fingers. But as his eyes adjusted, he quickly came to the understanding that this was not an escape route, and his nose confirmed that suspicion. He'd tried to escape by ducking into the Tribesmen's privy-pit.

Kori kneaded his brow. Of course, things had to be difficult now, didn't they?

With an irritated groan, he turned and moved back out of the cleft. Just in time to see Tribesmen commiserating with each other. He just raised a brow at it. Ogan glanced his direction and got to his feet. "They mourn the loss of their children."

"Big family?" Kori asked, not really interested.

"No, many small ones," Ogan said. "I know the feeling."

"Illness, I take it?" Kori asked, still looking around for a way out.

"Stolen. By the Fire Nation," Ogan answered, just as sternly as ever. Kori frowned at that, since it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

"Why would the Fire Nation steal your children?"

"Don't know. Just know that it did. Must have been trying to cull waterbenders again. Isn't the first time," Ogan said with a grim nod. "Sajuuk lost two. The Chief lost his daughter. Same as Bato. They took my son, and one of the bastards 'left' a daughter behind," he said.

"You took his child?"

"He..." Ogan struggled to find a word, "was unpleasant to my wife. My daughter resulted from it."

Kori took a moment to think about that; while it was known that the Fire Nation pursued a course of war against the South Water Tribe in the earlier years of the World War, that was because it was believed that the Avatar had been reborn into the Water Tribes, and they were trying to prevent the enemies of the Fire Nation from indoctrinating him against the only real beacon for civilization and advancement in this world. However, as the years dragged on, and the Avatar didn't appear on the world-stage, they figured that they might have imprisoned him until his death, likely not even realizing they'd had him in their hands, before bringing war to the Earth Kingdoms, which would logically bear the next of them. That the Avatar turned out to be an airbender struck everybody by surprise.

So why would the Fire Nation attack the South Water Tribe again?

What would they have to gain by it?

Who would have ordered it?

"Well, I am sorry for your loss, but I can't say I feel any real empathy for you," Kori said honestly.

"Never thought I'd see my son again," Ogan said, staring out over the men, and the trickle of stream which brought this 'bay' to the true Chameleon Bay. Kori leaned back a bit.

"So you've managed to reunite with him?" Kori asked. "Which is he?"

"He's standing right there," Ogan said, nodding past Kori. Kori turned, but there was nobody there.

"There's nobody..." Kori fell silent. "You're talking about me, aren't you?"

"It's been a while."

An uneasy smile came to Kori's face. "I'm afraid you have me mistaken for somebody else," he said.

"Nope. Know my son."

"I was abandoned by my family a long time ago. I've come to terms with that. When was your son supposedly taken, anyway?" Kori said, trying to keep heat out of his voice. Heat he wasn't sure why it was even there. The man was wrong, and that was that.

"When you were three years old," Ogan said evenly, not displaying the sort of obsessive exuberance that a man should show when reuniting with a son lost perhaps forever. "Be around thirteen years ago. No... Fourteen, since the month changed."

...which was right around when the Fire Nation claimed to have found them. Down to the week.

"I don't know what to tell you, Tribesman. I'm not your lost son."

"May be that you don't believe it. Don't make it untrue."

"It's absurd and it's wrong," Kori said. But tellingly, he didn't believe it even as it came from his mouth.

He'd had his doubts before. Doubts he didn't air with others, but doubts nonetheless. Some of the things that his foster-parents had claimed didn't quite jive once one looked deeper. Of course, there weren't many of the Children who _had_ foster-parents; Only a select few such as himself and his... well, chances were she wasn't his sister if this was true, but Yoji, and Omo, and... Yeah. All of the benders. Particularly, the benders who didn't work in fire.

Except for Yoji. That was the part of the puzzle which didn't make sense, but for a different reason than before. The entire board had shifted, with her remaining the same, and the reasons for her incongruence couldn't be more different.

Kori kneaded his temple. There were days when it was damned unpleasant to be just about the only one in the Children who was capable of seeing the big picture. Mainly, it was because sometimes the big picture was made up of little pictures that you didn't expect, and didn't know how to react to. "Look, I need to get back on the road. Some of my friends are going to be passing this way, soon, and I should..."

"_Ogan! …two...down...firebender!_"

Kori turned to the blocky man who claimed to be his father. "Hajgiir says there are two walking along the bay. One looks like she might be a firebender."

"Maybe I should deal with this. Yoji, my friend, she has a strange sense of fashion," Kori said swiftly.

"If you say," Ogan said. "Bring them here. Better than being out on the road."

"We're heading into the City. We can't dawdle here," Kori answered, moving through the men and past the boats. Several Tribesmen gave wary nods toward their commander as he saw the boy through the lines. Ogan scowled at the last part, until Kori realized there was a word the man didn't know how to translate. "You know what? Just see me to the edge of camp. I hope you find your son. Your real son. The one which isn't me," Kori amended. Ogan just watched him.

"Talk to your friends," he eventually said, nodding ahead of him. "I'll make sure we don't gut 'em."

"Like you even could," Kori muttered under his breath. He didn't look back after he moved through the rocks, the Tribesmen giving him no contest to his passage. But at their back, Ogan watched.

"_Are you sure that was your boy, Ogan?_" Sajuuk asked.

"_Positive. He has my eyes, and Sedna's skin,_" Ogan answered. "_I would recognize him were he a skeleton in Si Wong._"

Sajuuk scowled. "_Then why did he not recognize you? Why does he not speak our tongue?_"

"_You know how young our children were when they were taken. May be that he just doesn't remember. May be that he got away from the Fire Nation, lived in Great Whales a spell,_" Ogan said.

"_But you don't know,_" Sajuuk pressed.

"_Nope. Doesn't matter. My son's alive,_" Ogan said stonily.

"_I thought you'd be happier,_" Sajuuk said.

Ogan turned to him, the slightest wisp of a smile coming to that broad, dour face. "_My child returned to me. I am the happiest man alive,_" he said. And then he looked out to the water again. "_And may be that yours might be as well. It's a good sign. Tui and La are with us._"

"_I worry about these 'friends' of his,_" Sajuuk said.

"_Then we bring them in, like I was planning to,_" Ogan ordered, before turning back to his tent, and to the attention of things that a year ago, he would never have thought himself capable of.

* * *

><p>The ground of the Wastelands was lit with grey light, as the sun passed through no small amount of coal-smoke before it could reach the baked earth. These were lands which hadn't seen appreciable growth of plantlife in three hundred years, since Chin the Conqueror's legendary siege of Ba Sing Se. Like the Dragon of the West would later, it ended in failure, but only after years, and after stripping the countryside so bare that nothing could ever grow again. Even the spirits avoided the Wastelands, except for spirits of violence, anger, and blood. While poppies might grow on battlefields, sometimes, a place could simply be too soaked in it. And that described the lands outside the Great Walls precisely.<p>

It was a boon and a bane to attackers. It afforded no cover from attack from the wall, but offered no obstacles for assault. Line of sight was clear and easy, but without a logistical genius working on the back lines, the soldiers would quickly starve; there was not much to eat out here. The only things that these Fire Nation soldiers had seen since their arrival – barring the semi-feral bison which paddled around the air near Ba Sing Se – were a pair of ancient, rickety looking Ostrich Horses who didn't even appear to be worth the effort to butcher. It was grim, dirty, hungry, and bleak. Just like always.

"SAPPERS!" the cry went out, which caused a blind earthbender to growl and then pound her feet, causing the cracked earth to blossom out, showcasing a small cadre of earthbenders, one waterbender, and one Tribesman with a boomerang.

"Figures they'd be listening," Toph muttered, before flicking forward with an almost off-hand gesture, which rose a slab of stone that caught the engineer across the gut, sending him flying and groaning. Aang quickly glanced around.

"Are we there yet?" he asked, his staff lowered to ward off opposition.

"I swear, if you ask me that one more time, I'm turning this tunnel around and going back to Ba Sing Se!" Toph shouted. The earthbenders all moved out, forming a protective detail around the Avatar and his similarly young cadre. Not too many, just around twenty. Sokka, on the other hand, was already looking around.

"No, we're in the cord-bundle," he answered, gesturing toward the great black serpent, almost as tall as he was, which coiled past them before slowly splitting down into dozens of more modestly sized cords. "Which means that's probably the capacitor."

Aang looked ahead of him, through the lines of soldiers, to something which rose above their heads. It was painted bright white, a clear sign of how dangerous it was, and stood out starkly against the curtain of smog which lay behind it. "How do we get there?"

"How do you move a rock, Twinkletoes?" Toph asked.

"I don't think that's gonna work here," Sokka said.

"With all due respect, Avatar, can we start moving? We're sitting turtle-ducks out here," the actual soldier before the Avatar piped up.

"Sorry. Right. Move toward the white capaci-whatever!"

"Well cut a path," the soldier said. "Tribesman, bring that monster down."

"If it bleeds I can kill it," Sokka quoted. Then, the soldiers, as one, stomped the ground, forming a set of stone blocks, which they then immediately tackled into, and started to rush the distance. Fire Nation assaults, be they fireballs or mortar-shells, exploded across that bulwark, causing the earthbenders behind to falter, but not fail. It was impressive. And it was sign that the youths had to advance quickly.

Obviously, Aang was the fastest of them. He whipped the air into a scooter which gave him speed and maneuverability the likes of which nobody present could match. Even as the earthbenders advanced, forming a blocking line, dragging attention away from the Avatar's intended target, Aang was shooting past them, off on a tangent, zipping past the artillerymen and engineers and soldiers. No few times, Aang had to either hop off of his ball to avoid a slash of the spear, or rebound his scooter off of somebody's face to keep from getting trapped in a knot of them. Finding the line was not easy, and he didn't doubt that the chaos he left in his wake would not last even long enough.

But it didn't have to. While Katara was slower than he in absolute terms, she didn't care about things like 'people standing in the way'. While the Wastelands were dead as rocks, they were not as hopelessly dry as most of the East. So she skated forward on a plane of ice she made as she needed. When she ran out of water, she pulled more from one of many brackish pools that dotted the landscape in the lee of rocks and scree. And if people tried to stop her, she froze them in a wall of ice, and kept on moving, not even hesitating, not relenting, just advancing, without pity or pause. And because of that ruthless advance, when Aang found himself in truly deep water, metaphorically speaking, with soldiers converging from every direction save up to trap him, she was a welcome sight.

It was odd to think that she'd once claimed she wasn't a fighter. The way she moved now put lie to that claim. It wasn't as graceful as the movements that Aang had seen out of Master Pakku, but it was no less effective. Her movements were brutish, but powerful, and when she flicked out a whip of water, the target not only felt it, but probably accounted it the last thing before he or she was knocked unconscious. Aang released the ball, and took up some of the water that Katara was offering, twisting it into whips of his own. While Katara was, of them all, the undisputed mistress of water, he was only a timely application of effort behind her, and tellingly, Aang was Katara's pupil.

Strange, how his mind seemed to have divided into four at some point. He couldn't exactly say when it happened. Maybe it was always like that. Maybe now, he just saw it, and understood it. There was a time for defense, a time for attack, a time for flight and a time for surrender, but that time could be any or none, and switch in an instant. He had to think with four brains to be the Avatar everybody wanted him to be. The trick was, he still had no idea how to think like a firebender. 'Hold your ground' the earthbender in him would say, 'let them break their teeth for a while'. But then, the airbender would answer 'No, we gotta keep moving', while the waterbender would break in 'why not try both?'

And in what had to be a wounding of the prides of roughly two dozen National soldiers, two teenagers were breaking their line. And when that internal airbender broke in with 'Path's clear, run for it!', Aang didn't hesitate. Instantly, he was bending air again, though not into a scooter. This time, it was heaving air out of a great tube, and bunching it behind him. With a thump of nature complaining about the inequity, Aang found himself catapulted forward by the laws of physics themselves, and as those smart people always said back in the South Temple, momentum was easier to maintain than impart. So once an Avatar was in motion, it tended to stay in motion. A glance back confirmed that Katara had broken free of the soldiers as well, and Aang was on a direct course with the Capacitor. It was getting quite close.

With a skid which sent the detritus he'd picked up in his sprint racing before him, Aang came to a stop, punctuated by a flick of his staff which took an air blast and hurled it at a bewildered looking mechanic, which sent the man bowling away down a gentle slope. Aang then turned to the monstrocity before him, and he finally paused, as all four sections of his Avatar mind all had one simple question.

What the heck was he supposed to do with this thing?

"Man that thing looks complicated," he said to nobody in particular. If there was a benefit to being small, fast moving, and surrounded by chaos, it was that he had a moment to consider before anybody would notice that he didn't belong there. There were dozens of cranks and knobs and dials, all showing things which Aang hadn't the first clue what they meant. So he stood for a moment, scratching at his pate. A moment needed for Katara to finally catch up.

"What are you doing just standing around here for? Break the thing!" she shouted.

"Yeah, but how? I don't even know what I would do to break it," Aang pointed out.

"Just hit it with a rock or something," Katara offered, glancing around to the chaos surrounding them. Why weren't there more people here?

"That'd be a bad idea," Sokka answered to both's surprise. They turned, and saw him riding up on a Komodo Rhino. Both leaned back in confusion.

"Where did you get that thing?" Aang asked.

"How do you even know how to ride that thing?" Katara bettered.

"Long story, funny story! Well, story for later," Sokka bounded off the beast and gave it's haunch a swat, sending it running away into the Fire Nationals. "Me and Nila have given this some thought, and we're pretty sure that if you weld that thing wide open, it won't break the capacitor, but it'll make all the towers useless. They won't be able to arc more than five feet!"

"So how do we 'weld it wide open'?" Aang asked, casting a hand toward the great white, rubber-clad behemoth. "I can't even see what I'm supposed to be working with!"

"Grim terror laying within darkest day, harbinger of a thousand screams, Violence glorious and sanguine; heed!"

"The ghosts of the battlefield of a century's conflicts, awaken, and return to the nightmares of times best forgotten!"

Aang turned, as the voices almost fell over each other. There were two, one a girl, the other a lad, both roughly Sokka's age. But he couldn't see them. "Did you guys hear that?" Aang asked.

"I can't hear anything over all this shouting!" Katara answered. Aang looked around again. Still nothing, but there was a sensation on the back of his neck, like the fine hairs there were trying to stand on end.

"Furious fortunes brought once more to bear, and bearing the gifts of ten thousand battles, red and slick and true!"

"Breaker of blades! Shatterer of shields! Scales of honor observe! Alight upon the field and show the land the pinnacle of battles! The truest of swords..."

"...the avatar of Vengeance."

Aang had a sinking feeling. So he closed his eyes, and tapped into that understanding that Sharif had once showed him. And when he opened his eyes once more, he was seeing into two worlds. He could see the Inner Sphere, his friends, the battle, the capacitor... but he could also see the Outer. And there were two more in the Outer that he hadn't seen before.

"Oh... this could be bad," Aang muttered, as the two of them gave a start, glancing to each other. They looked enough alike that they would have to be siblings, and were dressed in identical uniforms, red and gold, with differences only in the basic dimensions of a teenaged girl versus a teenaged boy.

"Is he seeing us?" the boy asked.

"Don't lose focus! Keep going!" the girl snapped. He shook his head.

"Rise from your ignoble graves for a final battle..."

"...and let your mettle be known," the girl finished, and as she did, Aang could see motes of orange color rising up out of the ground, and gathering together.

Katara let out a scream, as the eye that looked in the Inner Sphere beheld what those orange spirits were forming. It was a sort of golem, almost, forming from the inside out, made entirely out of rust and broken bronze weapons. It had no face, no voice, no eyes, but he didn't need to any of that to know that it was as thinking and cunning as any spirit was.

They'd called a spirit of Violence to the battlefield. And the gods have mercy on anybody nearby.

With the only shriek it was capable, that of metal grinding against metal, it began to rush forward, its only thought and intent bringing slaughter to first the Avatar, and then doubtless anybody else it could find.

* * *

><p>Nila watched the battle from on high with her telescope. They'd certainly gotten of to a good start, which hit an immediate snag, which they then recovered from. She should have known that they'd be listening for subterranean travel; the Fire Nation didn't get to their current place of martial might by being a collective of fools. So she watched as the earthbenders appeared in the midst of that battle line, near the great cords which fed the beast. And she watched as the Avatar moved ahead.<p>

"This plan is audacious. Do you really believe it will work?" How asked her.

"I cannot know until it either has or has not," Nila pointed out. But she could see something troubling. "Take this."

"What?" How asked, even as he took the lens. "What is it?"

"That man is preparing to kill the Avatar," she said. She pulled her rifle around. "Tell me where this bullet lands."

She then sighted down her barrel, directly at the target she'd intended, and pulled the trigger. With a mighty bang, the gun recoiled into her shoulder. She brought the weapon back to her shoulder, and waited. "It's about..."

"Be precise!"

"Ten feet short, and twenty feet left," How said. Nila ran the numbers in her head, even checking the fluttering of their standards, before turning her rifle up and aside. She looked down, at the mortar which was about to drop a shell directly onto the hapless demigod's head, held her rifle pointing a different direction from it, and then pulled the trigger once more. It twisted her badly, causing her to swear lightly with discomfort. Whatever else she'd done with this gun, she'd made it kick three times harder than it should have. There was a moment of silence, and then, in the great distance, there was an explosion. Not a huge one, by any standard, but enough to tear an artillery-piece apart as its shell was detonated inside the barrel.

"That was... incredible," How said. She had to give an appreciating nod herself at that.

"I was not sure if it would work," she admitted. She then looked back much closer, to where the Avatar was now stationary beside the capacitor. She took the lens and held it to her eye. And waited. "What is your failure of understanding, Avatar? Destroy the thing!"

"What is it?" How asked.

"He is hesitating!" she muttered, handing off the scope again. She heaved back on the lever, allowing the firing mechanism to open, before biting and sliding a pair of fresh slugs into place. "His hesitation will be the end of him!"

"Wait, is that..." How began. He gave a grunt. "Well, that was remarkable."

"What was?"

"The Tribesman just stole somebody's Komodo Rhino," How said.

Nila beckoned and the general gave the lens back to her. "As I have no place here, I cannot demand of you, but should you not be preparing to retake the lost wall and scuttle the towers?"

How gave a small smile, and nodded. "Everything is waiting for the Avatar and our team on the ground. Until then, all we can do is wait."

She rolled her eyes. Even with all those years of patient experimenting under her metaphorical belt, she still loathed little more than waiting. She brought that lens up again, and gave a concerned frown. Only this time, there was no Eastern general to question why. And with the shot much closer, she didn't need somebody to spot the bullet's fall.

At least, she hoped not.

* * *

><p>The Avatar's reaction was, understandably, to stand in shock. The others, much less grounded in the metaphysics of spiritualism and more versed in the fine art of 'gettin' crap done', as Toph would so eloquently put it, were not so afflicted. In fact, the girl herself launched into the scene surfing atop a slab of stone, which she slid off and let the momentum carry into the golem's middle. It barely made the thing back off two steps.<p>

"Holy crap is that one of the blood things?" Toph immediately roared, even as she tore more blocks of stone up past the cracked mud to hurl at it.

"It's made of metal!" Sokka answered. He hurled his boomerang at it, but it just spanged off the 'head' with no ill effects whatsoever. When he caught it, he gave himself a groan. "And _why_ did I honestly think that'd do something?"

Katara was next up, lashing forward at the now advancing automaton spirit with wickedly sharp blades of ice, hurled with precision and power, first biting into the rust, then through it. Aang felt a moment of heartening, before those wounds, existing only for a moment, filled in with a substance which looked like liquid rust and burnt wood, sealing the gaps as though they never were.

"This isn't your fight," Aang said. "Find a way to take down that machine! I'll deal with the spirit!"

"It's a spirit?" Katara asked, backing away as her attacks were rendered moot.

"Hell with that. It's got a body, which means I can slow it down," Toph offered, and began to send waves of stone at the thing, raising up walls between the humans and the spirit made manifest. Aang, though glanced past it, at the two siblings in red-and-gold armor.

"You shouldn't have called this thing! You can't control it!" Aang shouted.

"Holy crap he can see us," one of them said with a degree of nervousness.

"Calm down, Hisui, you've faced Blowouts before. This is just one kid."

"It's the Avatar, Hai!"

Hai glanced back at Aang, then to his sister. "Good point."

"What the hell is Twinkletoes..."

"There must be shamans out there somewhere," Sokka answered over his shoulder. "Let him deal with the mystical spookiness. Just keep big, rusty, and angry from slaughtering us!"

And with that, Aang pressed his eyes closed, and did what his once-teacher demanded of him. He cleared his mind, and let the words come.

EMPOWERING PRIDE, VAINGLORIOUS AND TRANSGRESSIVE, TRANSFORMATIVE AND AWESOME;

GEAR OF THE MIGHTY.

LOOSE THE SHACKLES WHICH BIND TO THE SMALL, AND BECOME SOMETHING LARGER.

AS THE BEHEMOTH SMASHES AGAINST YOUR WORKS, YE MIGHT, STAND PROUD AND DENY!

AS DESPAIR BOWS YOUR HEAD AND LEADENS YOUR STEPS, RENEW AND ENERGIZE!

AND AS BRUTAL AND UGLY VIOLENCE VISITS UPON YOUR GLORY, RETALIATE!

TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS, AND TO WHOM DESERVES IT, ETERNITY!

Aang immediately thought that might have been the wrong spirit to evoke, though, as doing so caused Toph to shriek in agony, her entire body tensing as though electrocuted from the inside. Quite a few of the soldiers nearby did as well, and Aang could see why. Wisping out of their bodies came something like a wind of light, which began to swirl and blow across the baked mud, which immediately turned black and humus-y, glistening as though bearing specks of gold. It lashed out, hurling itself bodily at Violence, but the golem was not so easily rebuked. While Pride was being pulled from the living hearts and minds of those around, and would vanish as they did, Violence had a mass, a weight of time and bloody conflict behind it. And more troublingly, in order to maintain Pride, Aang had to keep it in his left hand.

Toph tried to get to her feet, probably feeling like a part of her soul had been torn out – because in a real way, it had – as Violence advanced, bringing ruin where its feet fell, turning that fertile, gold-laced humus back into lifeless clay as it stomped. One of the earthbenders General How had sent with them moved too close, and with its arm extending to make the distance, it smashed the man aside, sending him spinning through the air. Katara, still backing up until she bumped into where her brother was fiddling with controls, had her eyes wide. "A-a-aang... Do something!"

"Don't just stand there, do something!" Hisui coached.

"He's using Pride... What's the counter to Pride?" Hui said.

"We don't have... wait, we just might," Hisui answered. "Leaden weights and iron shoes, chains of gold upon the back, damnable Sloth lurch forth!"

"Sloth! Right!" Hui cleared his voice. "As your greatness stands at the gates of glory, let it turn away. As your finest stands in triumph, he shall falter. As your wisest ponders, silence take his tongue. As your cunning thinks his strategy, let him hesitate!"

Aang instantly felt his entire body start to go numb, as Sloth personally targeted him. Of course it did; of those in his group, he was easily the laziest. And since somebody knew that, they were using it against him. Even as his mind raced to find something to counteract the lethargy and the apathy which was beginning to overtake his body and mind, his focus began to slip. His eyes became leaden, drifting half-closed, as his stance started to falter. And while Violence advanced, only partly hindered by Pride, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Aang, what's going on back there?" Sokka asked, still furiously working the machine. Aang, though, couldn't see why he bothered. He just wanted to lie down. He just wanted to sleep. He stumbled from his stance, landing on his butt on the peat. So soft. So comfortable. Might as well take a nap.

"Wake the hell up Twinkletoes! We're dyin' out here!" Toph shrieked. She had overcome the agony of having her soul flensed to empower a spirit, and was now the only thing visible holding back the golem of Violence. But Aang couldn't see anything, anymore. His vision had gone gray. His face was slack and expressionless. "Come on, Twinkletoes! Don't you dare give up on me!"

"Toph look out!" Katara screamed.

Wet against his skin. Aang's head drifted downward, as he prepared to slump into unconsciousness. But those almost unseeing eyes finally saw something. Blood. Not his. That caused what felt like the first beating of his heart in almost a minute, as he could finally shake off that hideous apathy, that fatigue, and look up.

And behold Violence, standing entirely too close, its head tilted to one side, as it held Toph aloft. The earthbender was impaled onto one of its short-sword claws through her upper chest. Aang's eyes widened. How could he let this happen?

* * *

><p>Hundreds of yards away, a Si Wongi was staring down iron sights. Her breathing slowed, the sweat flowing down her brow the only bother she even noticed. The gun wasn't in her hands anymore, not really; she was the gun. And she knew it every inch as well as she knew herself. So as her finger tensed tighter, tighter, every tense coming between her heartbeats, she had no doubt as to the shot's destination.<p>

With a crack, and a massive recoil, the bullet was away, tearing across distance with remarkable precision. It had to have precision; its target was both very small, and quite far away. It was the shot Nila would speak of for the rest of her life, one the likes of which only many more years of experience would allow her to replicate or better. It was almost as though every whit of terrible luck she had ever suffered in her misfortunate life had been weighing up a scale, waiting for this exact moment, for everything to go perfectly, perfectly right.

And a ball of hard steel, traveling hundreds of yards per second, smashed into the brittle bronze of a sword which made up a golem's talon, snapping it off and sending an impaled earthbender to the ground. Nila brought the gun back to her cheek, and barely hesitated, just waiting between the heartbeats again, to send another one down the vast ranges, to make that thing regret trying to oppose her plans. The scales had spoken though. A lifetime's worth of luck had been poured into a bullet. Her _previous_ bullet.

And the weight of the balance came crashing down with her second attempt. There was only the slightest hint that something was going wrong before everything did. Guns were an imprecise science at best. She had been only five years old when she was first introduced to the device; the braggadocio of a trader from Ababa, wagering his weapon against the marksmanship of the Sipahi. They Sipahi had taken their shot, and proved their capability. She had been eagerly awaiting what the trader had to offer against them. He raised that gun to his shoulder, pulled the trigger, and blew his own head off. The gun had malfunctioned, causing all of the vast forces of the weapon to erupt backward rather than be guided as directed. Even seeing that, at her so-young age, fascinated her. Grimly, of course, but fascinated. She wanted to do better. And she spent the next ten years doing just that, step by step. Which was why, for example, her firing mechanism opened sideways.

When the misfire exploded in her gun, it belched out to the side, scattering the guts of the gun across the Wall of Ba Sing Se, and only burning and lacerating Nila's cheek and hand.

Nila recoiled from her own weapon, dropping it and flapping the pain in her hand for a moment. Then, she looked down at what had been her greatest weapon, once. She gave a weary sigh. The barrel was peeled and the most intricate works were utterly defunct. "Such a pity," she said, scooping up the ruined weapon with her unwounded hand and chucking it over the wall, into the Wastelands. "I can help you no more this day, Avatar. Your victory can be only on your own head."

* * *

><p>Watching Toph drop to the ground was what snapped Aang completely out of the spell the others had placed upon him. And when it did, he was leaping to his feet, and already invoking with all the fury that watching a friend being hurt could instill in him.<p>

BURNING WRATH, ARBITER OF SCALES, JUSTICE MADE BLIND AND DEAF;

GEAR OF RETRIBUTION.

STAND AGAINST THE VIOLATOR, THE DEVASTATOR OF WHAT IS RIGHT!

RESIST THE CARNAGE, THE THOUGHTLESS BRUTALITY OF THE UNTHINKING, THE UNFEELING!

REBUKE THE THOUGHTLESS SLAUGHTER AND REVENGE THE BLOOD SPILLED UPON THESE BRUTALIZED LANDS!

REVENGE AGAINST THE GODS OF DEATH WHICH CAN ONLY CAUSE A WORLD OF AGONY AND SUFFERING!

Aang's right fist, raised up as he felt a wrath the likes of which he could barely understand, glowed white. He wasn't even entirely sure how he was sliding into the Avatar State, only that he was, and he wanted more than anything else _for people to stop hurting his friends_!

Katara raced past Aang, grabbing 'hold of Toph and dragging her away from the golem which now turned its 'head' toward Aang, only to find a black fog rising up around its feet. Even as the two shamans in the Spirit world exchanged terrified glances, that fog began to split out, a dusting of grey falling upon the ground. Ashes. And from those ashes, fire rose up. It wasn't firebending, nor even strictly flames. They were white and heated as Agni in the sky, unforgiving as a Polar blizzard, and relentless as a Fire National with what he thought was a good idea. Violence struck at those flames, but every time it did, the flames melted it. Its claws turned to pools of orange metal. Its flesh cracked and split as its body was first re-smelted, and then, heated beyond until it turned into a puddle. And this was not just an assault on the body of a golem. On its most basic level, Aang was attacking the Violence of the Wasteland itself.

If he wanted to, he could have banished the concept from this part of the world forever.

He had the power.

But he had... something like control. It wasn't so much directing the Avatar State, since he was barely even aware that he was in it. The words in his head, crashing like waves against the shore, they were white noise. He thrust both fists toward the two shamans standing back from the fray.

SPHERES WITHIN SPHERES, CIRCLES WITHIN CIRCLES, WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS;

GEAR OF 'IS'.

BEFORE YOU STAND BLASPHEMERS AND TRAITORS AGAINST YOUR MAJESTY.

BEFORE YOU STAND SABOTEURS IN YOUR GREAT ENGINES, VANDALS TO YOUR GREAT DESIGN.

THEY HAVE NO PLACE WITHIN YOUR SIGHT.

REMOVE THEM.

The two shamans exchanged a worried glance, and then started to make to flee, but the realm bent around them, holding them in place no matter what effort they expended, even turning them so that they would face the Avatar once again. With a wrath which filtered more from a hundred lifetimes of pain and loss than any he could summon inside himself, he gave a nod.

And the Outer Sphere twisted on itself, like a bubble-breaking, only inside out and backwards. Then, with that anti-pop, the two shamans were gone. Aang didn't know where.

Most terrifyingly, he didn't care.

With that Bequest of power still thundering through him, he turned toward the machine, which was the source of all this woe and anguish. With a howl which sounded of a thousand throats, he clawed a hand upwardly, and with it, came the stone. But this was not just a rock, something to be bandied about and set aside when finished; this was larger than a house, solid and granite and dense, his instrument of utmost revenge.

He barely even aimed it. With that howl still on his lips, he slammed the rock down, sheering it through the top half of the capacitor, missing Sokka's head by about a foot. He barely noticed, let alone cared. The capacitor split open, and then let out a great and ear-splitting 'zorp' as it could no longer contain its charge, instantly rendered defunct. The Avatar looked upon what it had done... and it was content.

Aang, though, wilted to the ground like his bones had melted.

"Avatar, are you alright?" the first voice he heard was one of the soldiers, who had propped the boy upright. Aang blinked away confusion, and a wave of quite natural fatigue, and glanced over to Toph.

"What happened to her? Is she alright?" he asked, scrambling toward the blind earthbender. Katara was waterbending furiously, but Toph looked incredibly pale. "Gods, no!"

"It was alright. You busted it good," Toph muttered.

"She's bleeding internally," Katara said. "I don't know if I can..."

"Katara! You have to save her!" Aang pleaded.

"Even if I stop the bleeding, none of it's where it needs to be! It's all around her lungs and heart! She'll suffocate even..." Katara trailed off. She stared for a moment, which saw Aang growing all the more terrified.

"Katara, you're scaring me!"

"I'm an idiot," Katara said distantly. Her gaze flicked to Aang. "When I say, pull that out."

"I thought you weren't supp..."

"Just do it on three!" Katara snapped. In Aang's opinion, 'three' came far too early, and when it arrived, Toph screamed in pain at it. Aang could see why. It couldn't be pleasant having a sword pulled out of you. Katara's hands grew quite stiff, her eyes pressed shut. Whatever she was bending, it wasn't obvious, not at first. Then, like a puppeteer drawing up strings, she pulled, and from that wound came a great blob of blood, which Aang immediately lurched to cover. "No, it's alright! I've got it."

"You've _got it_?" Aang asked. "That's her blood!"

"There's water in places you'd never expect," Katara said, her eyes still pressed closed, drawing that blob up. It was quite large, and Toph looked quite pale. "In our sweat, in our urine, and even in our blood. I can bend water, Aang. Any water. And I can put it back."

She pressed downward with those stiff-fingered hands, and the blob drew into the wound, which gave Toph a shiver; itself, more sign of life than she'd showcased recently. "What..."

"You've figured out healing? Heal her!" Katara said, face now fixed in concentration. "I don't know how long I can hold her blood in."

Aang started, and then pulled some of the ice Katara had left abandoned, pulling it to his hands. He knew he'd done this before. He could remember doing it. And as he focused back, to when he helped somebody else in pain and trapped and alone, almost the exact same feelings came back, for the girl on the ground. She was hurting. He could make the pain stop.

In healing terms, it was the equivalent of taking a sledgehammer to remove a hangnail.

The light on his hand didn't glow with pail evanescent light, as Katara's would. It blazed like the sun. It blazed like the Avatar. Because he _was not going to let his friend die._ He pressed that glory to her wound, and the water flowed, pulling the wound from its deepest reaches, urging it to mend, giving of the Avatar to save another. From the outside inward, flesh knitted. Arteries closed. Katara gave a grunt of relief, as she finally released her brutish grasp of Toph's blood supply, and allowed it flow again. Aang pulled back, the wound not closed on the surface, not yet, but Toph was already trying to get to her feet, despite being so dizzy that only Aang and Katara together could get her to a sit.

"Oh... that sucked," Toph noted. Katara's eyes opened.

"She's stable, but we need to get her out of here," Katara said.

"I feel fine," Toph obviously lied.

"Your blood vessels are weak. I'm not going to let you hurt yourself," Katara said. Aang beckoned over to the soldier who had given them some space. In fact, the entire battle had given them some space.

"What happened?" Aang asked.

"They saw you going in the Avatar State, and they weren't suicidal," the soldier offered. "They'll probably have some stern words with you, now that you've stopped glowing."

"Guys, we've got a bigger problem," Sokka announced from the ruins of the capacitor.

"What could be worse than Toph dying?" Katara demanded.

"I'm dying?" Toph asked with confusion.

"Not anymore," Katara answered. "Help her up."

"Don't you dare pick me up you..." Toph began, before the soldier scooped her up despite it. "Alright, but if you drop me, I swear I'm kickin' your ass!"

"Taken under advisement, ma'am."

"You're gonna want to see this, Aang," Sokka said, his tone quite bleak. Aang gave a nod to Katara, then to the soldier, who was quickly moving to regroup with what remained of his fellows, before bending the air and sending himself up to where the Tribesman had perched himself. The Avatar followed the pointed finger of his surrogate brother, to the wall. Where the Arc Towers were still advancing, an still arcing. And now, Aang could see that the great cable coming out of this capacitor was not the only one. He could see three others.

"This was... We barely did anything," Aang said.

"So do we go back or do we press forward?" Sokka asked.

"I've gotta go back with Toph," Katara said. "She's still in a delicate state..."

"WHO YOU CALLIN' DELICATE?" Toph's roar could be heard even above the bursting of shells and the crashing of machinery, and even at the distance it was quickly accruing.

"I'm sorry, but if you have to do this, I won't be able to help you," she said. She moaned. "We have to go back."

"No," Aang said, as the earthbender inside him put its metaphorical foot down. "If we go back, we won't be able to get back to where we are now; they'll have more soldiers and defenses. If we're going to stop this weapon, it has to be now."

"I'm with Aang on this," Sokka said, even though his eyes obviously told that he didn't like his chances. Katara had tears in her eyes as she pulled Sokka into a desperate hug, and then another for Aang.

"Whatever happens... come back," she demanded of them.

"I wasn't aware I had another option," Sokka said with an unsteady smirk.

* * *

><p>Qin was in a fine bluster by the time he reached the generator stack where Sato was bustling. "Tell me your fix was more than a 'theory'!"<p>

"Excuse me?" the little man asked, distracted. "I was in the middle of a..."

"I don't care if you were having tea with the Fire Lord. The Avatar has destroyed a capacitor! Will the others hold?" Qin shouted. Sato flinched back.

"Well... not the _Fire Lord_ but..." Sato said, gesturing past him into the structure which blocked Qin's sight.

"What!" Qin shrieked.

"Qin wants to know if three capacitors is enough to supply power to the Arc Towers," the Prince's flat tone came from that structure, before the melancholy royal showed himself, almost appearing out of darkness itself.

"Well, as long as they weren't attached to the one which went down, there should be no collateral at all wait a minute what do you mean, Arc Towers?" Sato said, changing his tone from placation to confusion over the course of a word.

"That's classified above your..." Qin snapped.

"They're using your capacitors to feed massive towers to throw electricity at the defenders of Ba Sing Se's Great Wall," Zuko said. Qin stared aghast at the deadpan royal.

"But... What... Why would you do that? That's incredibly dangerous. Somebody could get hurt!" Sato said, rubbing at his eyes and fidgeting in confusion.

"There are things about this operation you don't..." Qin once again tried to head the man off, but Zuko shrugged.

"They're using you to design weapons. Big surprise," he said.

"Weapons? WEAPONS?" Sato screamed. "I refuse to be a weaponsmith! I am an inventor! I'm using science to help people, not kill them!"

"Shut your idiot mouth, Sato," Qin barked. "Did you even give a moment's thought as to why this was happening outside the fortified city of our greatest cultural enemies?"

"I wouldn't call them enemies," Sato offered.

"Shut up! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Qin shouted. "How could somebody so brilliant be such a moron? You can't honestly say you didn't know what was going on here. You can't be that dense!"

"Well, now that I do know, I will be no part of this," Sato said stoutly, crossing his arms in a show of defiance. "I don't care what you do to me. I will not make your weapons."

"This is an act of treason against the Fire Nation," Qin said. "I am ordering you to..."

"Actually, he's not a part of any military command, so you can't order him to do anything," Zuko pointed out. "While he can be lauded for using his brilliance for the good of our nation, he can't be punished for withholding it, unless he uses it against us."

"You are _not_ helping!"

Zuko shrugged in a lethargic manner. "The Avatar is going to attack the next closest capacitor. I'll go out there and deal with the situation personally."

With that, the royal unbuttoned the bright red cloak and let it fall to the ground, before walking with increasing pace toward the battleground, before vanishing into the milling groups of artillerymen, engineers, and soldiers. Qin seethed, and turned his attention back to Nomura Sato.

"This is not over, Sato. You cling to your 'moral victory' all you want, but I promise you, the repercussions of this will echo long and loud."

"I've already risen once," Sato said. "They don't call me the Phoenix Child for nothing."

Qin paused, turning to face him again. "Who _ever_ has called you that?"

"I did. Just now. Isn't it catchy?" Sato asked, brightly. Qin could not resist the impulse, so he palmed his head with a crisp slap which echoed across the generator stacks. Sato was going to be the death of him.

* * *

><p>"You know, you're looking a lot more bright and chipper today," Tzu Zi said, as she moved up through the hallways of the apartment. Kah Ri nodded lightly.<p>

"Maybe... I just needed to be reminded that I still have family out there," she said.

"Well, whatever the reason, it's good to see you smiling. Again. For a change," Tzu Zi said.

"I smile all the time."

"Yeah, but that's you pretending to smile. I like when you just, you know... smile!"

"Not everybody goes through life with a grin on their face like Ty Lee," Kah Ri pointed out.

"That's no reason why people shouldn't smile when the mood takes them. I don't know about you, but this past year, away from home and all the people who wanted stuff from us... it's been the happiest of my life. What about you?"

Kah Ri was silent for a moment, pausing on the steps. "I really don't know. I mean, I'd barely started to figure out who I was before I ran. What if we're just trying too much, too fast?"

"Not possible," Tzu Zi said confidently. "Would you rather look back on your youth and regret the things you did, or the things you didn't have the courage to do?"

"What kind of question is that? The stupid things you do stay with you forever," her identical sibling answered.

"And we learn from them. As Nila would say, in doing nothing, we learn nothing, and we learn it well."

Kah Ri rolled her eyes. "What is her deal, anyway? Does she have a thing with Ashan?"

"I don't think so, but I _know_ he's got a crush on her," Tzu Zi said, and the two continued their ascent.

"And she's just stringing him along? That's just cruel."

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know about it," Tzu Zi said. "I mean, as smart as she is – and she is pretty much the smartest person I've ever met – she can be pretty oblivious to some stuff. You know, acting like a human being kinds of stuff."

"How did you _ever_ manage to become friends with her?" Kah Ri asked, and then paused. "Oh, wait, you're Tzu Zi, and you'd be friends with the _Avatar_ if he gave you a chance."

"You know, I probably would," Tzu Zi said. "From the things I hear about him, he sounds like a sweet guy."

They reached Tzu Zi's floor, and she almost without thought moved to the door which opened into the apartment they shared. "You know, Mom would probably kill us if she knew what we were doing. You, admitting you'd be friends with our national enemy; me, _acting_ and pursuing romance with my own gender. She'd just blow a fuse."

Tzu Zi couldn't help but laugh at her sister's observation, pushing open the door easily and walking into the room. "She probably would. Have you been keeping in touch with her?"

"How? It's not like these people use messenger hawks," Kah Ri pointed out. Then, the door clicked closed.

Tzu Zi might not have been the smartest of her brood, but she was smart enough to know that the door didn't do that. Not on its own. She spun, fire dripping from her fists, as she faced a grown woman sitting in a chair in a spot which was obscured by the door when it opened. Tzu Zi felt herself chill a bit, even go slightly pale, as she beheld somebody whom she distinctly hoped she'd never see again.

"Hello, ladies," Jun, the bounty hunter said.

"What are you doing here?" Tzu Zi demanded.

"How did you get in here? And who are you?" Kah Ri added.

"I never lose a payday," Jun said. "Here I thought it'd be a hell of a task getting ahold of you, and it turns out your trails converge here. How convenient."

"You'd better not try that again. This time, I promise, I won't be so nice," Tzu Zi said.

"Ooh, I'm shaking in my boots," Jun said sarcastically. She then leaned forward in the chair, smirking. "If I wanted you paralyzed and helpless, I would have brought Nyla in through the window. But that'd mean I'd have to pay the damage deposit, since yours definitely wouldn't cover replacing a wall and window both, and that just seemed like a huge hassle."

"What do you want?" Kah Ri demanded, then. Jun turned her smirk to the actress.

"She wants to capture us, and bring us to Gwen," Tzu Zi answered that question.

"Gwen? Why would... Oh. So she's gone full-evil, has she?" Kah Ri asked.

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure she's the only one who didn't leave," Tzu Zi said. Then she shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I'm not going back there, and definitely not with you!"

"You know, there are two ways that this can go down. You can either come with me for the reasons I offer, or you can get stung, tied up, and dragged back," Jun said patiently.

"What reasons could you possibly have for us to go with you willingly?"

"Ordinarily, I don't get invested in a hunt," Jun said, inspecting her fingernails. "Never pays off to put your pride in there. But this time, I did a bit of snooping around on your family. I think you'll come willingly."

"Try me," Tzu Zi said, her usually bright and friendly face pulled into anger and imminent violence.

"Your mother is dying," Jun said simply.

The fire went out.

"That can't be true," Kah Ri was the one with the strength to voice the opinion of both sisters.

"If it isn't, then somebody's doing a lot of very careful and resource consuming lying," Jun said. "From the doctors I beat some truth out of, she's got about a month. Maybe two. At the longest, she'll survive until the start of summer."

"But... that means that Gwen..." Tzu Zi said, confounded.

"Wants you home so you can say goodbye to your mother?" Jun finished for her. "I don't know why she didn't just send a sparrow-rat. It'd be a lot simpler, and it would mean I didn't have to go into Ba Sing Goddamn Se."

"Tzu Zi, if this is true, we have to go," Kah Ri said.

"If," Tzu Zi countered. "And... I don't think I can. I mean... Nila needs me."

"Mom needs you!" Kah Ri answered.

"I don't know!" Tzu Zi threw up her hands. "I can't make this decision, not now!"

"Well, make it fast. I'm pretty sure Gwen will decline to pay me if I don't bring you in before your mom bumps off," Jun said idly.

"Look, just give me a day or so," she said. "Can you do that?"

"Eh," Jun said with a shrug. "There's a couple of decent bars around here. But if you try to run, remember that I can track you to the other side of the planet."

"I'm done running," Tzu Zi said.

If Jun was telling the truth, then she had to leave.

If she wasn't, then Tzu Zi was being an idiot for even considering it.

Jun didn't seem like she was lying. Tzu Zi needed help on this one. And there was only one person she knew smart enough to see this for what it was.

If nothing else, it'd give Tzu Zi a chance to say goodbye to Nila.

* * *

><p>The sun was quite high in the sky before they even considered leaving camp.<p>

"Do you think he knows?" Omo asked, as they moved through water-eroded rocks and scree which marbled the edges of northern Chameleon Bay.

Yoji shot him an exasperated look. "I wouldn't be surprised if he went on 'long recon' just to make it happen. I swear he thinks I'm a child, some days."

"That... wasn't child's play," Omo said, with a chuckle. Once again, Yoji was glad for what makeup she had, in that it hid an embarrassing blush. As they'd run out of the waterproof variety long ago, she'd had to make due with what she could steal from the region, and that tended to be more... well, Eastern colored. While she definitely didn't look like a local, different in face and figure, at least she didn't show the skin she was born with.

Well, not now, anyway.

"So-o-o... Should we talk about what just happened?" Omo asked.

"What is there to talk about?" Yoji asked.

"Well, breaking rules, your own points about divided loyalties," Omo began ticking them off his fingers, "the insufferable smugness of Kori, and the off chance of pregnancy."

"Please, you know me better than that," Yoji said with a shake of her head. She would have children when she was older, slower, and less useful. "That was a pleasant diversion, one I might have to visit again in the future."

"You'll find no complaints from me," Omo said with a broad and toothy grin, the kind he just didn't show around people. It was genuine and heartfelt. That she was the source of something so rare and wonderful sparked something inside her that she really didn't know how to classify. It was a good something, at least. That grin dropped to a distant smirk. "You're right, though. We've got to stay focused on the task at hand. Namely, how we kill Azula and Iroh."

"Lightning would solve many problems," Yoji pointed out with a tone of annoyance. "Oh, but I do harangue myself for not pressing the Fire Lord for instruction."

"You don't need to kick yourself about that," Omo said. "After all, it's not like the Fire Lord is about to hand over the most terrifying firebending technique in the world to just anybody..."

"So I'm just anybody, now?" she asked, an eyebrow raised.

He scowled at her. "Don't start with that. You know what I meant."

"You have no sense of humor," she muttered.

"Said the caldron, remarking on the hearth's blackness."

"You are _insufferable_ after sex, you know that?"

"No, I can honestly say I didn't," Omo said, grinning once more. Yoji was torn between wanting to punch him in the stomach, and kiss him. Either would have stopped the grin. Strange how he'd had a sense of humor hiding in there all this time. No wonder he and Kori didn't get along. Kori was just a more easy-going version of the earthbender, when you got down to it. "So... where exactly did he say he was going?"

"Who? Kori, right," she shook her head. It was hard to dispel the images which were burnt into her memory. Like how good he looked without – back on the task at hand, she chastised herself. She was not some lovesick schoolgirl, after all. She was one of the most skilled and trusted agents of the Fire Lord. She took a breath, and then nodded ahead of them. "He left an obvious trail, so he must have expected to double back to rendezvous with us. Of course, if he'd found a way into the city, I would like to think he'd have returned to us before now."

"Unless he got his fool self captured," Omo said, his tones now serious again. Good to know that they could keep their minds on the pressing. Well, not _that_ kind of pressing. _Damn it brain_! That was a notion, as Omo had raised, that was a troublesome one.

"What do you believe the likelihood of that to be?" she asked.

"Well, there's captured, and then there's '_captured_'," Omo said. "Knowing Kori, he's probably the latter, and just waiting for a way to slither his way out."

"That was almost an endorsement of his capabilities," Yoji noted.

"A mistake I'll not repeat in the future," Omo said seriously, but with an undertone of obvious sarcasm.

She was about to continue their jibing and entirely-too-easy insults on their fellow Child, but she heard something ahead of them. Omo froze solid, and flicked an eye toward her. She lowered into a more combative stance. "They are fanning out," she whispered.

More noise, this coming along the rocks and scree, and it a pounding of feet. She leaned back, prepared to summon and hurl flame with a single sinuous motion, to launch into combat for her life. Well, for somebody else's life, but she would certainly be in the heart of it. It was almost a disappointment when she beheld Kori skidding around the corner on the pebbles and gravel. Yoji's eye twitched a moment behind its dark spectacles, then turned to the rocks overlooking the three. "_Who is following you?_" she immediately asked in the Hui Temple Tongue.

"_Whatever you do, __don't__ firebend,_" Kori blurted out. It was an understandable 'secret code', in that it had enough in common with both Eastern and Western tongues that it sounded like it could be from either or neither. Given the polyglot nature of Tianxia, it sounded just another dialect. She gave him a scowl, but opened her hands. "You can come out, they know you're there."

There was more shiffing and grinding of people moving across hard rock, and a small group of Tribesmen appeared, overlooking them all with spears held easily, but their eyes sharp. As soon as they revealed themselves, Yoji almost ignored Kori's instruction, to hurl fireballs at them. But they didn't have the soulless, glassy eyes of the North Tribesmen, that horrible living-undead demeanor which would close only when their bodys began to rot. These were watching the Children with wary curiosity. There was expression on those faces, soul in those eyes. They talked amongst themselves. One of them said something which caused several others to chuckle.

And for some reason, it was familiar.

"It's rude to talk a language they don't speak, Sajuuk. And what the hell are you doing following me?" Kori demanded in Tianxia, annoyance clear in his tone.

"My orders," a voice came from the back of that group of Tribesmen. This one was broad, bald, and looked like he ate rocks for a hobby. "Had to make sure you didn't get... lost."

"Well, I didn't. These are the friends I was talking about," Kori said.

"_Leave it to Kori to fraternize with the enemy,_" Omo whispered. Yoji gave him a level glance than turned back to Kori.

"I assume you have an explanation for this?" Yoji asked.

"Got lost, found some Tribesmen. Then, proceeded to spend a day eating meat and hearing about their troubles. Very engrossing, also quite time consuming. But I assume you barely noticed I was gone, am I right?" Kori finished with a smirk which beggared Yoji's ability to avoid punching him. And since she'd avoided that reaction enough today, she offered him a swat upside the head. That smirk turned to Omo. "Feisty in the morning, isn't she?"

"You are a pervert," Omo said flatly.

"Beside the point," Kori said.

"An earthbender and a... Dakongese? You make strange friends," the broad Tribesmen noted.

"That's the way my travels took me," Kori answered the man.

"_Who is that?_" Omo asked quietly.

"_Some tribal leader I think,_" Kori replied. He clasped his hands behind his back. "If that's all you're here for, we really need to be heading into Ba Sing Se."

"Then join us," the leader said. "We need to resupply. Cracking the fleet is a nearly impossible task. Need more food, bandages. Little things."

"_They're attacking us?_"

"_Not at the moment,_" Kori answered Yoji's indignant question. "Forgive my confusion, but I think I'll have better luck heading in alone. The Earth King probably doesn't relish the idea of having a horde of Tribesmen inside his walls..."

"Nonsense. We're welcome all the way to the Lower Ring," the leader answered. Yoji gave a glance to Kori, one of cunning and warning. Essentially, a glance of 'don't screw this up'.

"Well, if you wish us to join you inside the Walls, how are we to refuse?" she asked. The leader nodded, and was about to say something, but then turned to her, his dark blue eyes scrutinizing her intensely. She stood in silence, and a bit of concern, as he watched her. Then, he shook his head.

"Good. We leave at sundown," the leader said. The other Tribesmen nattered amongst themselves, heading off out of sight, that leader being the last to turn. After all, he was the one who made sure that the others followed them back.

"_You know, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you arranged this,_" Omo pointed out.

"_I'm good, but I'm not __that__ good,_" she said. But then she shrugged, a smirk coming to bright red lips. "_But sometimes in life, it's more important to be lucky than to be good._"

"Excellent. Fish and cheese for everyone," Kori said with exuberance. They all stared at him. "What?"

"You are an ass, Kori," Omo said.

"A _fine_ ass," Kori corrected. Some things, well, they never changed.

* * *

><p>The host of the Fire Nation grew thicker as the two teenagers approached the bright white mass of the next capacitor. Two against thousands. Still, as long as Aang had his staff and Sokka his boomerang, they would have to try. If the Fire Nation won here, then there wouldn't be much of a world left to fight against the Fire Nation when the Day of Black Sun hit.<p>

"I... don't think we're gonna win this," Sokka said, his tone hushed.

"Not unless I go into the Avatar State!" Aang shouted, casting his arms wide, and waiting for the power, the glow to suffuse him.

Nothing came.

"Um, Aang? You do know you're not glowing, right?"

"I said... AVATAR STATE!" he shouted again. And again, noting stirred inside him. That was confusing on top of his exhaustion; the instant Toph got a claw through her, he was glowing like the sun. But now that he needed that power, it eluded him.

"Yeah, I don't think that's working," Sokka opined. He stared at the men, and at the burbling which moved through their ranks as something approached. "Got any bright ideas?"

"I was about to ask you that," Aang admitted.

"So that's a no, then?" Sokka asked.

"I guess it is," Aang answered.

"Well... it's been fun," Sokka said, hefting his boomerang, and standing his ground. Toph might be the toughest blind girl he knew, Katara the bravest 'non-fighter', but when it came to untamed grit, Sokka had them beat.

"I guess so," Aang answered. Finally, that rippling of the soldiers erupted, as men moved pointedly out of the way of somebody approaching. Aang's eyes tightened into a squint, and then widened as they recognized the person in question.

"Oh, now how the hell did he pull that off," Sokka asked.

Understandable, since Prince Zuko was standing in the open ground between the capacitor and the Avatar. He gave a glance over his shoulder, and those Fire Nation troops all backed off a bit. Beyond them, that capacitor looked different than the one Aang split in half. There were more cords attached to it, leading to other white behemoths in the distance. Finally, Zuko's golden eyes turned back to Aang.

"So they weren't just panicking," Zuko's voice carried the distance, despite his soft tones and not really trying to project too hard.

"What are you doing here, Zuko? I thought you... weren't like this!" Aang said, throwing a hand wide in confusion.

"A word," Zuko said. "That's all I would have needed to go back. A word, and Father would welcome me back to the Fire Nation as his heir. Glory, prestige, power. Control. How could anybody turn something like that down?"

"Why are you talking to him? Kick his ass!" Sokka interrupted.

"Shut your mouth, peasant!" Zuko snapped, before turning back to the Avatar. "I want you to understand exactly why I'm standing here. Why things have to be the way that they are. I want there to be no misunderstandings. I am going to be absolutely clear."

"I'm sorry, Zuko. I'm sorry I was wrong about you," Aang said. "And I'm sorry about your sister."

Zuko's face seemed to tighten, even at that distance, at the mention of Azula. "So you know why I have to do this."

"You have to protect your family," Aang said. And before him, Zuko's arms tore wide and fast, and from his splayed fingertips came great streamers of lightning, gathering in first respectable, then prodigious, then finally terrifying amounts. It roped up his arms, crackling behind his head and seeming to give him some sort of electric aura. Even though Aang knew less than nothing about lightningbending, other than it was apparently a thing which existed, he knew that what Zuko was holding in right now was far more than any human being should have been able to contain. Enough to cause bodily agony and damage. Aang leaned onto the balls of his feet, ready to dodge as he needed. Wondering if he could avoid it all.

That wonder was somewhat moot, though. Because Zuko turned, and with a roar of incredible wrath, he lashed out with both hands, and two great bolts of lightning seared over the heads of the scattering soldiers, slamming into the side of the white-shelled capacitor, before melting through that shell and bathing the guts of it. The bolt continued, not weakening in the slightest, that scream continuing unabated. And then, there was a great bang, as the top of the capacitor burst with a belch of greenish smoke. The lightning bolt from Zuko's hands cut off instantly, but the devastation continued. It moved down the line which connected it to the other capacitors. Sokka would have told him that the 'release line' would have served to prevent short-circuits, a dangerous event which would have destroyed the device. But the machine would only be able to contain so much power at a time, before the thing was simply overwhelmed on all fronts, and the safety mechanism became a portal for even more destruction. Aang didn't know this. All he knew was that one after another, the capacitors popped like corn kernels.

There was utter silence on the battlefield, as the Avatar and the Tribesman were too far to hear Zuko's heavy, exhausted breathing.

"The Prince has gone mad! Run!" a call came out, and the soldiers began to dissolve away, moving back toward the sources of all that black smoke which choked the horizon. Zuko watched them leave. Aang watched Zuko, before walking the distance to stand at the young man's back.

"...why?" Aang asked.

"Are you going to destroy the Fire Lord?" Zuko asked, his tone very tight and angry.

"If we have to," Aang said.

"Aang, why are you..." Sokka said, standing well back.

"Good," Zuko responded. He turned, and his face was one of cold and despondent wrath. "I've lost my family. I don't have anything left. Now, I'm a traitor, and my father will have to disown me."

"Yeah, I think Aang's 'why' is a good question right about now," Sokka opined.

"You want to destroy the Fire Lord, and I'm going to help you," Zuko said flatly. He looked off into the western distance. "Because when you do, then maybe Azula will have a place to return home to."

"You didn't have to..." Aang began. "You could have stayed with your people."

"Those stopped being my people the moment they threw my sister out of her home," Zuko answered. "Now are you going to accept my aid in ridding the world of my father, or aren't you?"

"You want to kill your father?" Sokka asked.

"Don't you?"

"Yeah, but that's different," Sokka answered. "I mean, he's not _my_ father."

"And if your father banished your sister, erased her from your family, would you feel so warmly about him then?" Zuko asked, walking past. "Where are you quartered?"

"The Wall," Aang said. "Zuko wait! What happened to you? You've gotten so angry and..."

"The world showed me how cruel and indifferent it really was," Zuko answered. And without another word, he walked toward the Great Walls, as the generals of the Fire Nation army started to get their force back under control. Aang knew it was time to leave. He wasn't a soldier, after all. The battle had turned, but it was far from over.

As he moved toward the wall, staying behind the angry firebender, he gave a glance to Sokka. "_Yeah, __firebender_," Sokka said quietly in Yqanuac. "_But are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, he seems a bit more psychotic than the last time we met him._"

"_He'll calm down. He's in a lot of pain right now. But that'll pass,_" Aang offered.

"_I can speak Yqanuac, you realize?_" Zuko's tense voice came from their fore.

The rest of the walk was in silence.

* * *

><p>Zuko had returned to the Fire Nation. The message still sat in the Fire Lord's hand, as he sat in his study, pausing in his stamping of official forms. The message was quite brief, but to the point. Zuko had rendezvoused with Qin's force at Thunder Dragon, their newest assault on Ba Sing Se. That meant that Ozai had an heir. That meant he could finally see an end to the interminable deadlock with Montoya.<p>

"You're so hopeful, aren't you? Isn't that sweet?" Azula's words mocked him. He studiously ignored them. The news was good. He could suppress her. Ignore her. After all, his son was returning home. Without Iroh or Azula to sully him.

"Fire Lord, new messages have arrived," a page said, bowing very low at the door.

"Stop wasting my time and bring them here," Ozai snapped. The page rose, eyes averted to the floor and set the various scrolls onto the table, before moving away just as quickly. Ozai shook his head, a smirk on his lips. Good news. It was so rare in appearing these days. He scanned over the scrolls, seeing various markers of intent. Tax. Tax. Petition. That one he burned outright. But after that, he saw one with a black ribbon, fallen under the others. He checked its source. "Thunder Dragon. Excellent."

It was only a few hours since Qin's Black Ribbon message had arrived with that relieving news. This was probably confirmation of that, a second sent in case the first didn't make it. He snapped the ribbon and unfurled it, a mere formality at this point. But when he did, he could see Qin's script on the message, and it looked... furious.

And as Ozai read its contents, he could feel his blood boiling in his veins. With a snarl and a flash of flames, he smashed that missive to the floor, then blasted it with a gout of fire until even the spools it was carried on were reduced to ashes.

"So Zuko has formally thrown in with your enemies?" Azula asked, leaning past his shoulder. "You put so much faith into him, and this is how you're repaid. You have no right to be indignant, since this was all your fault to begin with."

"Shut up."

She smirked, painted lips pulling aside. "After all, it was your decision to invest so much effort into wooing him, so much time and pride and hope. All because you didn't want the girl to be the next Fire Lord."

"That isn't true. I needed somebody strong!" Ozai snapped at his daughter.

"_I_ was strong," she answered humorlessly. "Do you remember what I shouted at my brother's Agni Kai? Do you? I think you do, because it certainly caused you to hesitate then!"

"That is irrelevant."

"I shouted 'Kill him, Father; kill him now!'," she answered. "It would have solved so much, if you had. I could have been the heir you wanted. But you did the expedient thing. Instead of being a father, you opted to be a politician. And now, what do you have to show for it?"

"I am still Fire Lord!" Ozai shouted.

She shrugged, stepping back into the darkness. "But for _how long_?" she asked.

And Ozai was alone with his wrath, as he lashed out with flames against the walls.

* * *

><p>It was a matter of willpower that he didn't break out into a sprint. The source of that willpower was the simple understanding that anything out of the ordinary would raise questions, and questions were the last things that he needed following around like hungry ghosts. He had made promises to many, some long ago, but not a single one of them held a candle to the one he was trying to keep now.<p>

The crowds of Ba Sing Se were thinning, as the evening grew longer and the skys began to purple and dim, which gave him ample room to walk. But as he'd mentioned, he'd have been sprinting had he thought he'd get away with it. That made it all the more aggravating when a young woman in green robes sidled up and began moving with him. He shot a glance to the young woman with the vacant stare and empty smile.

"What do you want, Joo Dee?" Long Feng asked to the puppet.

"I was told to deliver a message," the puppet said.

Long Feng sighed, not pausing in his advance. "What is it, Joo Dee?"

"General How sent word to the Earth King that the Fire Nation is attacking the Western Wall. The mobilized troops in the Reaches were able to hold them back, and repel the invasion force from the walls. Also, the Avatar has arrived in Ba Sing Se."

"What?" Long Feng asked, then shook his head. She couldn't elaborate if she wanted to. If How said that the Avatar had entered Ba Sing Se, then How honestly believed that the Avatar had entered Ba Sing Se. Long Feng came to a halt at a corner, rubbing his forehead. He cast a glance back toward the offices of the Cultural Authority. This needed a direct and firm hand. But... he'd made promises. "Never mind. Joo Dee, return to the Secretariats with the following orders. 'Do not engage the Avatar'. 'Track the Avatar'. Also, 'reconnoiter the Avatar'. Is that clear?"

"Of course, Minister," Joo Dee bowed, her tones still that hollow sing-song that all of her like had pounded into their skulls. "Do you need any other assistence?"

"Go away, Joo Dee," Long Feng snapped, which caused him to take a moment to collect himself. She was already walking away, but it didn't really matter. There was no apologizing to them; as well apologize to a tree-stump. They were just another cost of trying to maintain this city from anarchy. So much was. The costs seemed to only get steeper the longer he went. He had to be more careful, more cunning, and patient as a spiderfly. Then, he gave a start, as he realized he had somewhere to be.

Doubtless, when he returned to his offices tomorrow, he would be buried under a deluge of the Avatar's actions over the hours he'd been absent; if there was one thing which Avatars absolutely excelled at, it was stirring up a preponderance of trouble. Managing that sort of devastating influence would take subtlety. That was the great trial of his position. He had to react to everybody, and could expect only hatred and revulsion if anything about him was made public, while his enemies had the freedom to act as they would in the light of day.

Twenty years with the Authority, and so much remained exactly the same.

Finally, with his feet beginning to ache in his shoes, he reached what appeared to any outside observer to be a perfectly ordinary Middle Ring dwelling, a small house, independent of its neighbors, but sacrificing size for that luxury. Unlike just about everything else about the Grand Secretariat's life, this one trifle managed to be exactly what it appeared. He took a breath, then slid open the doors.

The candle on the table was mostly a pool of wax, which told him much of what he needed to know about the situation. He let out a sigh, and leaned slowly aside to where the other occupant of this house would be sitting, reading under a lantern.

"You're late," he said.

"I know."

"You didn't come home last night," he further pointed out.

"I know."

"But that pales to the fact that you're late."

"I know."

He slowly closed his book, and turned to face Long Feng. He was only two years older than Long Feng himself, and unlike the latter, managed to keep all of his hair – although, it was much greyer than Long Feng's by a strong margin. "Is that all you're going to say about it? 'I know'?"

"What am I supposed to say?" Long Feng asked.

"'I'm sorry, I was late for our important dinner', or 'my employer is a slave-driving tyrant, and I was thinking about you the entire time', perhaps?" he said, smirking sarcastically. Long Feng sighed. Dun rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't start with that."

"For what it's worth, I am sorry," Long Feng said. Dun rose, setting his book aside.

"You need to confront that manager of yours," Dun said gently. "He's working you to death, and I will not abide that. He needs to understand that the city of Ba Sing Se isn't going to crumble to dust the moment you're not at your desk."

Long Feng couldn't look Dun in the eye. "Sometimes, I wonder if that's true..."

"Oh, there you go again," Dun shook his head. "I swear, you work like you're the Earth King trying to keep Chin at bay. The world won't end if you take a day off. In fact, I think I'm going to have a word with that manager of yours."

"Dun, please, don't do that," Long Feng said. How had it ever gotten so easy to lie to him? Oh, right; years of necessity.

Dun took Long Feng's hand. "At this point, I'd rather you unemployed than you dead from exhaustion. I can tell, even now, you're bringing your work home with you. You promised that you'd stop doing that! Something has to change."

Long Feng could only nod. Dun was the reason all of this began in the first place. Twenty years, trying to turn Ba Sing Se into a place which would celebrate their love. Instead, the only thing he'd ever managed to do was to make it no longer illegal. If he were less of a human being, he would have abandoned the relationship which, if revealed, would only be subject to revulsion and scorn. But he had Dun, and in Dun, he had purpose. "Maybe soon," Long Feng said. "But..."

"Not right now," Dun finished for him. "I understand."

There was a silence between them.

"I'll warm up the dinner," Dun said quietly, moving back into the kitchen, leaving Long Feng in the study. Two decades trying to change a system which didn't want to be changed, until he'd reached the point where he could change anything, but finally understood why he _shouldn't_. And he could not tell a soul. And now, the Avatar was in the city.

This was going to be a long night, devoid of pleasant dreams.

* * *

><p><strong>You wanted to know where Zuko was? There he be. It's a lot easier, now that everybody's in the same place, to drive their narratives together.<strong>

**In retrospect, I've noticed that every time that I write a knock-down drag-out fight, where the teeth are flying and bones are creaking, I tend to do so from a female point of view. Usually, that point of view is Azula, but I've done so with Katara as well; you'd almost think I had some kind of fetish. It's probably because I have a great deal of confidence that somebody like Azula can give as much as she takes. And usually more. Pity that as long as she's in Ba Sing Se, she's relegated to using her fists, feet, and forehead since firebending would get her Dai Li'd.**

**You might be a bit confused by Sato. No, he's not Hiroshi. Intentional, I assure you. Nomura is Hiroshi's father. Himself, a genius inventor, but having absolutely no head for money, economy, or common sense whatsoever. He's a classic case of having somebody have all of the intellect in the world, being able to see the writing of the gods in the heavens, and then tripping over his own feet. Where Hiroshi was... well, kinda a dick, Nomura is principled and good, just an utter flake. Genius Ditz, I guess you'd say. He's the kind of guy who lives celebrated in his era, and manages to die penniless in a tenement house.**

**Guess the cat's out of the bag on Kori, though. Whoever guessed who he was was spot on. The problem is, he still doesn't believe it. Kori, of the present three, is the only Child who looks at the Big Picture. Omo keeps his eyes low. Yoji's too busy trying to plan their next move. Only the waterbender bothers looking at the context of that they're doing. And the context is increasingly unsettling to him. There's only one monster in this Fic, and they're not him. Even Long Feng's not a complete asshole. He's doing everything because he believes that he's the only one who can, and because he honestly believes that the alternative is far, far worse. I kind of feel sorry for him.**

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	32. The City of Rings

If it wasn't the most tense elevator ride, as they all stood on a slab of rock which was being swiftly bent up to the crest of Ba Sing Se's Great Wall, then it was not far off of it. All of that tension was directed at one figure in particular, still wearing black and red from when he'd very publicly and destructively destroyed the crux of an army's hitherto unexpected and unstoppable plan of victory, Sokka's included. Of the lot of them – and there were far fewer now, moving lethargically as the sun set through black smoke – only Aang, the Avatar, wasn't staring hate and daggers at the firebender amongst them.

"Sooooo," Aang began. "...how are things?"

Zuko answered Aang's innocent question with a death glare. Then again, Sokka could read between the lines well enough to know that if Zuko, ever the persistent thorn in their sides, was defecting, it was because something far worse was waiting for him at home. Zuko crossed his arms, and put on a steady grump.

"How do you think?" Zuko asked quietly.

"How did you get out of prison in Omashu?" Aang then asked.

"The King pardoned me. That man is insane," Zuko muttered.

Everybody on the slab, once again Aang excluded, joined in a knowing nod.

The slab reached the wall's precipice, and the exhausted earthbenders began to pile off, forming a circle around Zuko as he moved. From the way he walked, he could have been alone on the wall. He certainly didn't acknowledge anybody. But Sokka could hear the whispers. 'Did we get a prisoner?' they would ask. 'The Avatar is safe! Thank the Gods!', they would say. 'Is that Nomura Sato?' which caused Sokka a moment's confusion. 'Is it safe to go out onto the walls again?'

To that, Sokka had an answer. "Yeah, and you'd better do it quick," he said loudly enough that he could be heard over the murmuring. That caused a bit of hubbub as the soldiers pressed against the ring of earthbenders, streaming to defensive positions which, less than an hour ago, would have only served to contain them as they died. These guys knew their business well. It was a pity that they had so little experience fighting the Fire Nation. Two sieges does not an education make, after all. The word spread in both directions, obviously, since soon enough, Sokka could see a somewhat familiar sight ahead of him. Well, familiar save for the bandages.

"Nila? What happened to you?" Sokka asked. She had bandages wrapping her right hand, which she held tenderly as thought it even now caused her great pain, and there were stitches holding a weal in her cheek closed. Well, less a weal, now; they'd obviously stitched her up while Katara was still out in the field. Now, the skin between those stitches was pristine. That Katara hadn't moved on to the hand was probably a measure of triage more than anything else; there were many injured soldiers, and a barely-stable Toph, to deal with, while only one Katara to go around.

"My gun misfired," the Si Wongi girl answered casually. "Had I been as foolish as most in its construction, I would likely be lacking a jaw, if not a head."

Sokka goggled at her for a second. "Then why do you use such a death-trap weapon to begin with?"

"Because it is elegant and interesting," Nila answered, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. Then again, to her, it might be. He couldn't speak for her culture. "That was an astounding thing the boy did down there. Never had I thought I would witness the Avatar in full spirit before my eyes," She then paused, and turned to the other in the bubble amidst the river of soldiers. "And who exactly is this, who dresses like a depressed Dakongman?"

"That's just Zuko. He's not important," Sokka dismissed. Zuko shot him a glare at that. "Were you the one which saved Toph when that thing made of metal tried to kill her?"

She shrugged. "I cannot say how I managed to make that shot. The target was two fingers tall, and most of a mile away. It was fortune most high that I did not land that bullet inside your earthbending friend's skull."

"Toph is here?" Zuko asked

"You know Toph?" Sokka asked.

"Why does it surprise you that he knows this Toph?" Nila asked.

"Well, they don't exactly operate on the same side of 'tagonism. We like to think of ourselves as Pro, whereas he's decidedly more Ant."

"Tribesman, do me a favor? Shut up."

Nila gave a glance to the irate firebender, and then leaned toward Sokka. "Does your Dakongese friend always berate you so?"

"He's not Dakongese," Sokka pointed out. She glanced at him again.

"Are you sure?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure," Sokka nodded. Finally, the bubble burst as it couldn't fit whole into the portcullis which stood between the tower and the expanse of the wall. The inside of the tower was actually better lit than outside, as torches and lanterns were now burning, whereas the sun had to traverse smoke and a low horizon. And the first thing he saw, after blinking his eyes into seeing properly, was Toph, who was shoving what appeared to be a medical orderly out of her way. She had a rather large grin on her face.

"So the 'glowing badass' returns? Did you personally send the Fire Nation running with their tails between their legs?" Toph asked.

"Not exactly," Aang said.

Her grin died. "Tell me we didn't lose again."

"No," Sokka explained. "We ruined their 'perfect plan', and now it's up to the soldiers to win the fight."

"Toph, what are you doing up? You'll hurt yourself!" Katara finally rushed into sight.

"Oh, clam it Sugar Queen. I feel fine!"

"If I feel so fine upon suffering a rusty blade to my lung, then I should count myself fortunate. If you do not wish to rupture something and die, I suggest you listen to the Tribesman," Nila said flatly.

"You think you can push me around, lady?"

"In your current state, I could do so with one hand tied aside. And fortunately, it seems that I am so!"

"Avatar! You've returned!" General How's voice boomed over the rest of them. "I've received word that the walls can be secured. We've also gotten some timely support from the Reaches. They're retaking lost sections before the Fire Nation can sap them. I'd call this operation a success," he then looked up, to Sokka's left, and fell silent. "Is that who I think it is?"

Aang glanced between the general and the firebender. "...probably?"

Toph frowned, and nodded sideways toward Zuko. "So I'm not just bein' light-headed in thinking that pouty-pants is standing right over there, am I?"

"I thought you believed yourself 'just fine'," Nila said with a smirk.

"Oh, cram it, Boomstick," Toph snapped.

"What are you doing here, Zuko?" Katara demanded.

"That is a very good question," How answered, not with rage, but with very clear suspicion. "Most other Generals of the Wall, let along citizens of Ba Sing Se in general, would have you killed on sight, if not simply arrested and cast in chains. I'm not that much of an idiot. Why are you here, Prince Zuko?"

Nila glanced to Sokka, mouthing 'prince?'. Sokka had to shrug. She rolled her eyes with a shake of the head.

"He's here under my permission," Aang said. "Nobody is taking him prisoner."

"What? I thought that was the whole point of this," Sokka said.

Zuko sighed, then looked up at the General. "My father is a madman who sacrificed countless lives to engage in a wholesale and pointless slaughter. He'll probably do the same again in the East as he has in the North. All I care about at this point is making sure he is thrown from the Burning Throne as quickly as is humanly possible."

"You are offering allegiance to the Earth Kingdoms?" How asked.

"No. I'm just joining the right side," Zuko answered. How gave a slow shake of his head.

"That will have to do. If you are a guest of the Avatar, you are a guest of Ba Sing Se at his pleasure and patience, and must be afforded the same privileges. Tradition demands as much," he pointed a finger at him. "But this is not going to go over well. The people might still clamor for your blood."

"The _people_ won't," Zuko said flatly. "We both know why."

There was a long stare, a long silence between the Prince and the General. Then, the General nodded. "You're not wrong. Spirits help me, but you're not wrong. Soldiers, clear the room."

Without a word said, every soldier turned and left the chamber, leaving only the Avatar, his friends, the Prince, and an explosion obsessed girl from the desert. "What was that for?" Aang asked.

"Because what I'm about to say must not leave this room. Is that clear?" How said. "This is for your safety as well as mine. Leave Ba Sing Se."

"We can't," Aang said, with confusion and incredulity.

"Not until I found what I have come for," Nila said, but with a more stern and stubborn tone.

How sighed. "Then I suggest you practice stealth and tact. There are certain factions which can and will do you harm if they find any way to leverage you."

"How will that be any different from living in any city?" Toph asked, swaying slightly on her feet. How muttered to himself. Then, he walked around the table which housed the battlefield they had all just left, and extracted a collection of leaflets. All of them bore a golden seal. He handed them out, one by one, to the teenagers before him.

"These are Green Level Passes, they allow entry to the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. If you must stay, use the housing that I reserved in the Richu district..." he began, but Nila cut him off, waving her ticket.

"I require more."

"I can't offer you much more than..."

"More tickets," she clarified as she could see he was misunderstanding her. "My group numbers four, and I have no desire to see them wallow in squalor."

How nodded. "Easily done. Now, what exactly did you come to the City to find?"

"We need to get into the University," Sokka began.

"Where is my mother?" Nila spoke on top of him. He frowned, and turned to her.

"I thought Sharif told you that she was here," Sokka said.

"Sharif has said nothing of the sort. He is... well, afflicted of mind," Nila said, obviously changing her description mid-stream. Sokka gave a glance to Aang, and Aang had a nod-on. Oh, and right then, Sokka finally understood some of the more cryptic things that the glowing shaman said. He couldn't tell Nila, because when he was awake, he didn't have a working brain!

Man, that's gotta kick a few physicians in the teeth, having somebody who is both mentally exceptional and damaged simultaneously.

"Why do you think I would know where your mother is?"

"She spoke of you often enough, relating to your relative sanity amidst a sea of incompetence. Were I to vest my interests in a party, sight unseen, I would err on the side of capability," Nila said.

"Does she talk like that all the time?" Toph asked.

"It's beginning to seem so," Sokka offered. Nila gave him a glare, then turned back to How.

"Whatever the case, I would speak to you more, and in private. These are not things for outsiders to hear," she said. How gave her a solemn nod.

"And what about Pouty-pants?" Toph asked.

"Pouty-pants?" Zuko asked, an eyebrow raising at that.

"As long as the Avatar vouches for him, he is the Avatar's responsibility," How said.

Sokka felt a tickling in his brain, and then pawed at his bag. "Look, I know this is partial information at best, but there's something called the Day of Black Sun. It's a solar eclipse. The Fire Nation will lose its bending when it happens."

"And do you know when this 'day of Black Sun' will occur?"

"That's what we're here to find out," Sokka admitted. How nodded.

"Then I suggest you try finding out. This information isn't any use to us if it's as vague as it stands now," How said. He glanced amongst them. "If there's nothing else, I have an army to repel."

"Thank you for your help," Aang bowed to the man, and How nodded back. Zuko just watched the whole affair with a brooding look on his face. "Come on, guys. We should get out of their way."

"Yes," Nila said. "And you will speak to me later," she demanded of the General, who gave a distant nod, already engrossing himself in a strategy. "I assume that you would prefer to take your own path into the city. I can return to my companions easily enough."

"Nonsense," the Avatar said brightly. "I'd love to meet your friends!"

Nila glanced at Sokka, as they moved down a stairwell to what was essentially a rail-station, formed of solid granite. He could only shrug. "This is the guy who, one day after learning he was the Avatar, dragged us to an island to surf on the backs of gigantic koi," Sokka said.

"So he is a child?"

"Something like that," Sokka answered.

"Stop making fun of him. The last few months have stretched him further than you could believe. He's had his entire world turned upside down," Katara said.

"Yeah, and you shoulda' seen how he was before I started pounding him into shape," Toph offered. "Guy was flighty as a lemur."

"And he is not now?" Nila asked.

Aang, though, turned to Zuko. "The last time I saw you, you were in Omashu. How did you get all the way here so quickly?" he asked, as they took their seats in the tram. Toph still looked pale and unsteady, but then again, she had lost quite a bit of blood before Katara could shove what remained back into her. Zuko leaned forward on his drab, brown seat, his eyes staring through the floor.

"There is a technique in firebending which is unknown to almost everybody. You know how heat makes things expand, and cold makes them contract? Using firebending, one can drag the heat from one place to another. If they do that enough, it causes distance itself to collapse between one point and another, so that a thousand miles can be crossed in a single step."

Aang's eyes were wide. Nila's one hand raised, as she was clearly puzzling through the physics of that, and found them wanting. She was about to point something out, when the Avatar said. "Really?"

Zuko rolled his eyes. "No, of course not. I stole three Ostrich Horses and rode them to death one after another to get here. Agni's Blood, you'll believe anything," Zuko said with annoyance. He glared at the boy. "How are you _not dead yet?_"

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

**The City of Rings**

* * *

><p>Qujeck watched, as he always did. He didn't have many other options at the moment. He'd also gotten very good at watching. Listening. Being aware. So when an Azuli girl appeared next to him, it was less a matter of start and surprise, and more a glance in her direction. "So she finally emerges," the Tribesman said.<p>

"Been keeping track?" Shadow asked. Not her real name. He didn't know her real name, but then again, his information network was both confined to the city of Ba Sing Se, and at the moment, utterly defunct. It would take months to replace even the basics of it; the Dai Li had been brutal, swift, and almost absolutely thorough in rooting it out. "What is your business in this city?"

"Why does anybody with a working brain come to Ba Sing Se? I was searching for something. Now, all I want is some revenge."

Shadow nodded. "I know that feeling."

"Dai Li?"

"Fire Nation," Shadow clarified. She turned to him. "What exactly is a 'Dai Li'?"

"So you're a War orphan, are you?" Qujeck asked.

"You didn't answer my question," Shadow said. And he wasn't about to.

"Who are you going to be taking revenge on? A troop leader who burned your village down? Or do you set your sights higher?" Qujeck asked, keeping an eye out on the streets. How fateful that the one who had been in charge of reconnaissance would be the only one left in the end.

"I intend to bring down the Fire Lord," she said simply. Qujeck glanced to her. Her face was stony and cold, lacking the spirited rage that the foolish would display. Not only did she mean what she said, she held no illusions about the pain she would suffer to complete it. That, he found interesting. And in time, might find useful.

* * *

><p>"And this would be my domicile," Nila said, gesturing toward the building before her. As she half-expected, the door was fallen flat onto the stoop once again, and it was every bit as dingy as it had been when she left it the previous morning. Now, the sun had set, and the traffic had turned from the day-dwellers to the night-dwellers, as this city never truly went abed entirely. Still, there were far fewer of the latter than the former, so moving was easy enough.<p>

"What a dump," Zuko, the supposed Fire Nation prince noted flatly.

"I like it. Livin' in a place like this builds character," Toph, the blind earthbender, countered.

"Then you're welcome to it."

"Eh, it'd grow on you, too. I guarantee it," the earthbender said, leaning aside to punch the firebender in the arm. He didn't scowl, as Nila most certainly would have at such an assault, but just rubbed his arm, and waved ahead. Of the lot of Avatar's group, only the Tribesman's sister declined to join their transit into the Lower Ring. Rather, she joined How as he went directly to the Middle. Still, it made for a crowd of strangers which Nila was ill-equipped to cater to.

"It does seem a bit bleak," the Avatar noted. And she felt no desire to gainsay him. Without speaking more, she headed into the building, which was actually more dim within than it had been without, even in the night. Thus, she blundered headlong into Ashan, almost tripping over his legs and faceplanting onto the floor. Only Ashan's timely grab prevented it.

"Nila, we must stop meeting so," Ashan said. He raised a brow when she scowled at him. "Your time on the Wall has been eventful, I can tell. Did that death-trap you wear upon your back finally betray you?"

"That's not her name..." Sharif, who was standing quietly nearby, muttered.

"Who is this?" the Tribesman asked. Ashan turned, heaving Nila properly to her feet.

"Welcome! I am Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa. How do you know my dear friend?" Ashan asked brightly, grin wide upon his face.

"I'm Aang," the Avatar answered just as brightly. "This is Sokka, that's Toph, Zuko's the one back there glaring at everybody, and these..." Aang hefted up something brown and fuzzy, while something black, white, and fuzzy landed on his shoulder, "are Momo and... have we decided on a name for the cub, yet?"

"We're still figuring that out," Sokka said with a shrug. "I say we just call him Meat-thing."

"We are _not_ calling him Meat-thing," Aang said with an annoyed tone.

"You... keep pets," Nila asked. She had not noticed them on the ride in. How they'd managed to smuggle them within baffled her.

"They're not pets. They're fuzzy friends," Toph said mockingly. "I'm just glad that the big one doesn't get in the way as much as these ones do. That'd be a nightmare."

Aang, though, bowed toward Sharif, which caused Nila's brow to raise in confusion. Sharif's too. "I was hoping I'd see you again soon. I'm sure you have much to teach me," the Avatar said. The two Si Wongi shared a glance.

"Sharif is incapable of teaching a fish how to swim," Nila pointed out.

"Do I know you?" Sharif asked distractedly.

The others glanced amongst themselves. Minus Zuko, as usual, who took it all in with a bland sort of acceptance. Aang, though, looked concerned. "Of course you do! We talked just a few weeks a... and again I remember what you keep telling me," Aang's tone shifted from earnestness to weariness half way through. "Look, we met in Senlin, and again in the ruins in Si Wong."

"We met you in no ruins," Nila said. "I would remember such a calamity."

"Nila, please. Speak with respect to the guest!" Ashan said, scandalized. Of course he was.

"Oh! The Avatar, of course!" Sharif clapped a hand over his scar. He shot them all a guilty smile. "I apologize. My mind? It wanders sometimes."

"If that is a wander, I would fear to see it 'lost'," Nila noted.

"Wait... Avatar?" Ashan asked.

"Yes. The boy is the Avatar. Please, contain yourself," Nila said flatly. Ashan just stared at her, like his world had gone mad. Then again, it had. He was just having a hard time accepting that fact.

"_You mock and jibe the Avatar? Have you taken leave of your senses?_" Ashan asked in their native tongue.

"I mock and jibe everyone," Nila answered in Tianxia, to make the point clear. "Enough of this standing about. Come. The others await above. Come and meet them if you care to."

Of course, they did, and followed after Nila in a great file as they tromped up the stairs. Ashan alone kept close by Nila's side. "_Could you tell me what madness of fate has transpired to summon this?_" Ashan asked.

"_The Fire Nation was engaging in a technologically brilliant invasion of the Western Wall, and..._" Nila began

"_The Fire Nation is invading?_" Ashan asked, his tone deeply concerned.

"_...yes. However, we destroyed their experimental weapons. Now, the battle is man-upon-man, __and from what I could see of the Fire Nation's supply lines, as noted by General How, they are not equipped to withstand the rigors of a long siege._"

"_You go to meet with a general to ask of your mother, and instead find yourself valiantly repelling the foreign hordes from the walls, gaining the respect and admiration of __the Avatar__ in the process. Fate plays a very strange game with you, Nila,_" Ashan pointed out.

"_There was little valor. I simply made a plan, and it was followed out. And when it failed, as all plans must upon assault by the enemy, a timely betrayal by the son of the Fire Lord prevented calamity_," she finished.

Ashan glanced to the firebender at the back of their ranks. "_The Fire Lord's son?_" Ashan asked. She nodded impatiently. "_You have kept company with both the Avatar and the son of the Fire Lord in the same day? Surely the Heavenly Host must have laid out a star in the heavens for you alone, to have so much fortune befall you at once!_"

"_Fortune? My gun exploded. I consider that far worse fortune than any chance meeting with an over-enthusiastic demigod or melancholy royal._"

"_Fortune finds its way both fair and foul, Nila,_" Ashan pointed out.

"_You think too much._"

"_Says the woman who spent the last ten years cloistered in a laboratory,_" Ashan jibed lightly. She scowled at him. But he was not wrong. As the reached the proper floor, and took their place before the proper doorway, Ashan turned to the others, that wide grin back into place upon his visage. "Come and be welcome in our humble abode; I'm sure Tzu Zi will be beside herself with joy for new guests."

"Our abode for the next five minutes," Nila corrected. Ashan gave her a look. "We're moving to the Richu district immediately."

"Oh. Well, it is the same distance from work. I will lose nothing," he said with a shrug. She flicked the Green Level Pass at him, and he caught it easily enough, which gave Nila time to open the door, and showcase two worried looking identical girls. Nila was instantly on edge. Sadly, the press of the group behind her forced her into the room before she could take proper stock, once again, leaving only the firebender outside.

"Are you Tzu Zi?" the Avatar asked, bouncing past her.

"Have we met somewhere before?" The Tribesman then asked. The two identical girls both looked confused. Nila began to glance around. Something was wrong. There was an unusual smell in the air.

"Nila's told us all about you," the Avatar continued. "Is it true you rescued her from pirates?"

"Yeah, but that was a while ago. Nila? Something's happened," Tzu Zi said, managing to keep her attention on Nila.

"What?" Nila asked.

"She's going home," a woman's voice answered from the bedroom. Nila's eyes shot wide, as she instantly recognized that tone, that casual arrogance. In a flash, she'd pulled out the last of her explosive lemons, ready to hurl it. The pale woman raised a hand. "Easy there, tiger-wolf. I'm here on business, not pleasure."

"Get out of my room," Nila demanded.

"I take it those two know each other?" Toph asked, giving Zuko a nudge.

"How should I know?" he answered her.

"Calm down, there's no reason to bring ballistics into this," she glanced to Nila's hip, noting that it was vacant. "Or not. Anyway..."

"Speak quickly or be blinded! I swore to you what would come as forfeit to this; you violated it, to your own peril!" Nila spat.

"Nila, stop!" Tzu Zi shouted. That caused Nila's arm to hitch a bit. All eyes fell on the firebender girl. "Nila... Mom's sick. Back home, I mean."

Nila looked to Kah Ri, who nodded sadly. Nila looked back to her friend. "And you're sure this is not a ploy for her to gain you willingly?"

"Pretty sure," she answered.

"'Pretty sure' is not nearly sure enough," Nila pointed out.

"This is our family. We have to go back," Kah Ri said.

"But..." Nila began. And vexingly, wasn't sure how to finish.

"I'm sorry, Nila. I mean... I knew that one day we'd have to go our different ways. I just didn't think it'd be so soon," Tzu Zi said quietly.

"So you are just going to leave?" Nila said, unable to hide the betrayal in her voice.

"Nila... This isn't goodbye. It's just, so long for a while. And for what it's worth, from the moment I picked you up off the dirt in Dakong, I wouldn't do anything differently," Tzu Zi said, as she walked close to Nila, and pulled the latter into a hug. For some reason, it hurt more than it should have. Or maybe that was just Nila's imagination.

"Except for the pirate thing?" Toph offered from the back.

"Stop ruining their moment," Sokka said lightly. "That's _my_ thing."

Nila accepted the hug as it was offered, though, until her eyes opened once more, glaring at the casual-seeming bounty hunter who was leaning against the doorframe. "Be forewarned, bounty-hunter; if your notice is anything less than utterly genuine..."

"Yeah, I know, you'll make me wish I was dead," she said sarcastically.

"No. I will simply kill you."

The bounty-hunter scoffed. "As though you even could."

"I will build a machine to kill you," Nila amended. And then, amended again; "I will conquer a nation to house the machine which I build to kill you. Doubt me, and betray your word, at your own peril. I offer only a guarantee for what will come of it."

The bounty-hunter gave Nila a glance, then to the others, the Avatar in particular, before back to her. "You're a bit spooky when you want to be, you realize that?" Nila glared at her, and she laughed. "Be thankful I've only got room for one on my saddle, there, Avatar; otherwise, I might consider taking you along for the trip."

"I'd like to see you try that," Sokka chuckled. She shrugged, though, obviously not thinking it worth her time to answer that charge.

"You've gotten everything you wanted to bring along?" she asked.

"Well, we've gotta go get Aki," Tzu Zi pointed out. "She's stabled down in the Southeast Reaches."

"Fine. Back to the Fire Nation by Burning Rock," she said. She sauntered out of the room, casting a salute back inside. "Nice to see you're still alive, Prince Pouty."

Zuko seethed at that.

"Have you two met or something?" the Avatar asked.

"Briefly," he uttered, and left it at that. Nila, though, just felt hollowed out. Her friend was gone. She _left_ her. While rationally, Nila could understand exactly why – as for all Tzu Zi and her siblings had vacated their home and family, they still deeply loved and respected their forebearers and would loath to see them harmed – for some reason, in a place Nila wasn't exactly sure how to properly explain, it hurt more than anything she'd felt. Ever. Even more than that alkali burn on her hand. Even more than a gun exploding in her hands. Even worse than the caning she'd gotten after the first time she set her hair afire. It hurt worse than being wrong. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

"_This is difficult for you, I can see,_" Ashan said gently. "_If you wish, I can join you into the Middle Ring. You would do well to have a familiar face at hand_."

Nila nodded. Because for all Ashan was about as annoying a presence as one could be, he was, after a fashion, a friend. And she needed friends right now.

"Wow. That wasn't anything like I expected," the Avatar said. "Should... we go?"

"No," Nila shook her head. "We all shall go this night to the homes that the General has provided. This place... holds ghosts for me now."

The Avatar nodded. For all he seemed younger than she, he appeared to have a wisdom to him, something beyond simple years. He was somebody who thought, and thought deeply. But that was beside the point. Tzu Zi was leaving, and despite those around her, Nila felt alone again.

* * *

><p>Iroh was honestly somewhat agape at viewing Ba Sing Se during the daytime. The closest he had ever come in his life was when he'd managed to rupture the Great Wall and spill into the Reaches. The inner walls still blocked the spread of the city from view. And he did not keep even that view long. But this was a sight to behold, clear enough. It was all the more telling, then, that Azula didn't even seem to note anything as the city-scape flew by. Sixty years old and more, Iroh was delighted and inspired. But Azula? She was jaded. She had seen this city before, a lifetime earlier. And she'd seen cities likely that put this one to shame, built in years yet unrevealed.<p>

"Are you done gawking?" Azula said quietly. She hadn't spoken much since Serpent's Pass. Even the few words she'd offered at the plaza those miles behind them were a glut to the dearth she now suffered. It was off-putting and confusing. She didn't seem the young woman even that Iroh had sparred with on their long walk to the Walls.

"It is no surprise that you don't as well," Iroh admitted. "But never in my life did I think I'd be standing in the streets of Ba Sing Se. And now I am as a tourist! Destiny is a funny thing, Niece."

"There is no destiny. Only the choices we make and what comes of them," Azula answered, a tone of bitterness slipping into her voice.

"You seem changed of late, Niece," Iroh noted. "Ever since the water worm. Are you alright?"

"What does it matter, so long as _she's_ fine?" Azula demanded. Iroh shrugged.

"Perhaps I don't enjoy watching people in pain, no matter who they are?" Iroh pointed out.

"Then it's definitely for the best that you didn't end up as Fire Lord," she said. Iroh shot her a look. Nobody was listening, obviously; they all had their own lives to attend to. And they were probably all drowsy; the sun had only just risen, and while the two of them slept in an alley, it was simply because even Iroh's legendary gregariousness couldn't have wrangled them a room under such circumstances.

"You should speak more carefully, _Aimei_," Iroh stressed.

"The worst that would happen would be you being captured by the Dai Li early, and thus ruining your chance to betray me," she answered, obviously still distracted, because that was something that Iroh was sure she never would have willingly said. So he had been captured in this other world, had he? If circumstances permitted, he might just see about altering that. But there were other things which demanded his attention. Namely, what came next.

"My niece, you have spoken very little about how you intend to eliminate the 'threat' of the Avatar," Iroh pressed, as Azula roughly pushed past an older man who was personally hauling a cart of cabbages. He let out a yelp of terror, and only through remarkable reflex caught his falling produce, before emiting a sigh of relief which was more in keeping from catching a baby who'd fallen out a window.

"I will use the city against itself," she said. "That much can not have changed."

"How?" Iroh asked, grabbing her arm and dragging her to a halt. She instantly heaved her arm away from his, but stood, facing him. "How are you going to do it?"

"I thought you said we should hold our tongue in public?" she asked mockingly.

"It's that you're holding your brain in private that has me concerned!" Iroh pointed out. "You're not thinking things through!"

"I have prepared for this moment for the last forty years, old man," Azula said coldly. "And this time, I'll do it better. Nobody will be hur... Stop talking about things you know nothing about!"

Iroh raised a brow. So somebody she actually cared about was injured the last time she did 'this'? Interesting and perhaps important. He would bear that in mind. "Whatever unspoken plans you have in mind, they will be folly if you don't find a roof over your head and dinner on your plate."

"What?" Azula demanded, half-way into turning away from him.

"There are practicalities that you overlook. You claim to have lived in poverty, but I see nothing but the arrogance of wealth. How will you feed yourself? Where will you sleep? How will you keep yourself safe until the time is right?" Iroh asked, easily keeping up with her despite her deliberately ground-eating pace.

"Stay out of my business," she snapped, pointing an angry finger at him. "You can either assist me or you can be crushed under my heel, Uncle; because I guarantee, you _will not_ get in my way."

Iroh cocked his head aside at that. What had prompted that reaction? The Azula he'd known even from their highly uncomfortable crossing of the continent was much more level-headed than this. Perhaps it was that she was close to something she saw as a defining moment in a life she now never lived? He could not say. But he would have to be wary, because she was growing unstable. He just needed to talk to a few people, some people of learning; they might know a... alternative path. Something that would evict an unwanted personality from an enslaved mind.

If not in Ba Sing Se, then such information existed nowhere else on this Earth.

* * *

><p>Zuko awoke with the dawn, as always. But he stayed on his back, staring at stone ceilings. Agni's blood, he'd really done it now, hadn't he? Betraying his people... That stung in a way he thought erased entirely from him. And he had a decent idea of why. He would instantly slap the face of the Fire Nation for Azula, for his family. But for himself? Because that was what this felt like, even though he knew he was trying to operate from a different justification; it felt like a power-grab. And that didn't sit well in either his stomach, nor his mind.<p>

The others were already about their morning routine, of which Zuko knew next to nothing, when the door opened. He glanced down, past his feet on the mattress, to see the peasant girl closing the door behind her, a very serious expression on her face. He rolled his eyes. He knew that something like this was probably going to happen.

"Zuko, we need to talk," she said simply.

Zuko sat up, still feeling exhausted despite his long sleep. Not surprising; he'd just crossed a continent in remarkable time. A sarcastic fragment of his mind noted that if there existed a long-distance speed-record for the voyage of Omashu to Ba Sing Se, he'd certainly set a new record. "Oh?" he asked flatly.

"I don't know what you're playing at," she said, serious giving way to tightly controlled anger. "And honestly, I don't care. You can teach Aang firebending, and that's exactly what you're going to do..."

"Because if I don't, you'll kill me," Zuko finished for her. She was taken aback that he had the gall to interrupt her.

"Well, I..."

"This is where you threaten me, tell me that if I give any indication that I'm going back to the Fire Nation, if I betray your Avatar, if I work against your best interests, or return to behaviors you decide are 'too much like my old ways', that you'll take it upon yourself to end my 'interference'," he chuckled darkly. "A commendable thought, but not realistic."

"Not realistic?" she demanded. "I can slash you to bits!"

"If you can get your water close enough," Zuko said without emotion. "Meanwhile, I can burst any target I please like a melon from a mile away. But you want to impress on me that you'll be watching? Consider me 'impressed'. Now let me rest."

"Wh...You can't be this calm about this!"

He leveled a golden-eyed glare at her. "I spent the last three years of my life trying to make my sister safe, and I learned what having a family was supposed to be like. Now, I've got nothing. When word reaches my father, I'll be as wanted an enemy as the airbender out there. I've made myself an enemy of my own people, because I wanted to do the right thing for somebody who wants me dead. Life holds no terror for me, least of all in you."

"Your family is insane."

"What's left of it," Zuko agreed. "Go away. I'm tired."

"Do you really think you can order me around?" Katara asked, her arms crossed before her chest.

"Honestly, I don't care. Just go away," he flopped back down on the mattress, and felt every rock-solid muscle in his entire body. It was like he was entirely built of too-tight wire. Whatever rejoinders the waterbender was going to utter, she held her tongue. Just as well; Zuko wasn't going to pay attention anyway. He was, as he said, simply and utterly exhausted.

The door sliding shut was a welcome sound. He stared up at the ceiling, until he slid into dark, and unpleasant dreams once again.

He was awakened from those formless nightmares by a kick to the foot, which instantly saw him spin to his his feet, fire dripping from his fists, a rictus of utter wrath on his face. A rictus which dropped into mild confusion when he saw who'd delivered that kick. "They told me you were over here sulkin'," Toph said easily, one hand against the wooden wall. He glanced down. Her bare feet were flexing against the wooden panels here. So she couldn't 'see' on wood, like she couldn't on metal?

"I do not sulk," Zuko said, letting the flames go out.

"Yeah, and you also didn't freak out and firebend in your bedroom," Toph pointed out. She turned and leaned against the wall, her eyes down, since she didn't have any benefit to turning them toward him. "I heard about what happened with your sister in Omashu. That's mega-rough."

"Rough doesn't begin to cover it," Zuko said. "Are you going to threaten me, too?"

She did face him this time, a chuckle in her throat. "Threaten you? For what? Caring about your family? Havin' the balls to do what needs doing even if it sucks to do it? Hell, Sugarqueen should be givin' you a _medal_!"

"You sound like you don't like her much," Zuko said, moving to the earthbender's side, and slumping against that wall himself.

"Eh, there are times that I can't stand her. Then, there's times where she tears a sword out of my lung and forces the blood back in so I don't die," Toph offered. Zuko scowled, the clear though to 'What?' so obvious to the way he glanced at her that she turned, tugging on her collar and exposing the topmost of a neophyte breast, and notably, the ragged, seemingly aged scar running atop it. "She said that since Twinkletoes did the healing, it'd leave a scar. Is it badass?"

"The scar?" Zuko asked. She nodded eagerly. "I...guess so?"

"Sweeeeet," she laughed. "Dad would have a heart attack and die if he saw it."

"So if you're not here to 'put the fear of Agni' into me, why are you here? You don't look very well."

"Yeah, well, losing a third of your body's blood tends to leave you a bit wimpy," she said. Zuko leaned back. "What?"

"What happened this time?"

"The sword in the lung?"

"That was an old scar."

"It happened yesterday," Toph answered. Then, Zuko rolled his eyes. Of course it did. She had one waterbender, two if you counted the Avatar, and waterbenders were renowned for their capability in keeping people from dying. "I'm just here 'cause you looked like you needed somebody who wasn't going to jump onto your back and beat you with a clue-stick when you've already written a treatise on the subject."

"I... see," Zuko said. He sighed. "She's not going to accept me. I'm pretty sure that means her brother won't either. And the Avatar only wants me for what I can offer. It's like being in the Fire Nation all over again."

"First of all, you're way off about Twinkletoes," Toph pointed out. And Zuko wondered how the Avatar had warranted the moniker 'Twinkletoes' from her, but that was a story for a different day. "He hasn't got a manipulative bone in his body. And believe me, if he did, I'd have found it when I was pounding earthbending into his big bald head. If he said he wanted you here, then he meant it. And for exactly the reasons he gave you," she gave a sighing chuckle, and shrugged. "I swear, that kid's naivety is gonna get us all lynched one of these days."

"On that, I can't help but agree," Zuko answered.

"And as for Brain? I don't even think it's a case of 'he'll come around', so much as 'he'll stop griping as soon as he's got breakfast in him'. He might be a smart one, but that doesn't mean he's a man of intricacies and nuances."

"That's... good to know," Zuko said.

"As for the Si Wongi... Hell, I don't know her from a hole in the ground, so I can't say."

"Then why'd you bring her up?"

"Because mark my words, in a month – two, tops – she's gonna be a part of this insane, dysfunctional little family that Aang's building up," Toph wagered.

"Based on what?" Zuko asked.

"Hell, he gathered _you_, didn't he?" she asked. And she had a point, at that. Despite himself, Zuko found himself chuckling at that. She reached over toward him, her hand lightly on his shoulder, even though she still stared straight ahead of her. "He might not be bright, but I can also pretty much guarantee, whatever's goin' on with your sister, he'll get to the bottom of that, too."

He stared at her for a moment. "...thanks," he offered.

She then turned that pat into a remarkably strong punch into that same arm. "Well, that's my quota for talkin' about _girly stuff_ for the day. And I feel like hell, so I'm going to take a page from your book, and I'm spending the rest of today asleep," she said with a nod and a grin. She then rose to her feet, and with fingers trailing on wood, she made her way around the outside of the room until she vanished out the door. And despite himself, Zuko still had a small smile on his face.

Because even after everything he'd done, he wasn't alone.

* * *

><p>The tapping on the door caused Nila's head to twist in the relative darkness. She'd shuttered all of the windows in the room off of the living area for simple enough reasons; some of the chemicals she worked with were violently photoreactive. That she already had a chemical workshop set up after only twelve hours in the house – of which she spent five asleep – would have been absolutely in keeping with what people knew about her character, if any such people still existed. Only Mother would have called it 'typical Nila', and she had no care what Gashuin would call it. Beside those two, everybody else who knew anything about her, was dead. She shook her head, and refocused on her refinements. Trying to get the alembic to work without shattering because of terrible workmanship was no easy task. When that knocking came again, she leaned out of the darkness, and beheld that Sharif was staring down at a spider which was moving across the floor, oblivious to anything else in the room. And the fact that she could no longer smell breakfast told her that a significant amount of time had passed since Ashan prepared it. The house was silent.<p>

Tzu Zi was gone.

Nila sighed, shaking her head. She could not begrudge the firebender her decisions; at least this, unlike the last friend who had departed, did not do so by slaughtering all of the people from Nila's childhood. If she'd read more fiction in her youth instead of physics and chemistry texts, she might have realized the irony in having someone bring such devastation to her place of birth. As it was, she didn't think about it at all. Instead, she rose, snuffing the flames under the devices so they wouldn't continue to heat and explode while she dealt with this unknown irritant.

"In the name of all that is wise and learned, what do you want?" Nila demanded as she heaved open the door. Standing outside, one fist raised for another knock, was a bemused Tribesman. She stared at him for a moment.

"So... Settling in well?" he asked.

"What do you want, Tribesman?" she asked.

"Sokka."

"Whatever," she dismissed. "You should have less pride of it. It is a woman's name."

"Excuse me? Sokka's plenty manly," the Tribesman said, his voice breaking slightly as he tried to make himself sound deeper voiced than he was.

"Nila. Sativa. Latifah. All women's names. Can you not see the pattern?"

"They all end in 'ah'?" Sokka asked. "You do realize that all names don't work that way."

"Indeed. Now, what do you want? And not that tired saw. You have come here under a purpose. I would know what it is it," she demanded.

The Tribesman looked mildly insulted. "I meant exactly what I said. You looked like somebody'd kicked your puppy to death – but since your friend just left, I figured there was a good reason for it – and I figured that you might need some company."

"I require no company. I have survived perfectly well without for fourteen years. I shall survive without it beyond," she turned away.

"Yeah, survive. There isn't much fun in just surviving," the Tribesman pointed out, entering despite her not giving permission. If she were any true Si Wongi, she would have pulled a knife on him for that transgression. Luckily for him, she was not. "So what are you going to do now?"

"First... I am going to build a new gun," she said. "After that, I have little else. Someone must watch Sharif. I will not have him 'getting lost' in this city. Not after the things I have seen in the Lower Rings."

Sokka shrugged. "That sounds sensible enough."

Nila looked at her chemical room, but then sighed. All of the work there would take a while to start again, and when it did, it would have to be started from scratch. "As I have little else to do even in this moment, I can ask what brought you to this city of walls and secrets."

"Oh, just saving the world," he said, sauntering about. He gave a 'hello' to Sharif, but the shaman was too busy observing a spider to pay any attention. It had started climbing a wall, and Sharif was watching it with as much intensity as his shattered mind could gather. "Horrible death from beyond the veils of mortal understanding, using loopholes in the rules of reality to beat our opponents. You know, basic Avatar stuff."

"If that is such you consider basic, it would be a fearful thing to see what you consider complex."

The Tribesman laughed at that, an open and braying sort of laughter which was usually directed at her. When he wound down, it was to an easy-going chuckle. "You've got a point, there. Life just gets a whole lot weirder whenever the Avatar's anywhere nearby. Things which really shouldn't happen, just kinda do."

"He sounds afflicted by the same curse of luck that I have," she muttered. "I have oft repeated that anything which may go wrong, inevitably will, and reality has taken no pains to prove me wrong."

"Anything that can go wrong, will?" Sokka asked, rubbing his chin. "I'm gonna have to remember that one. I'll call it Nila's Law."

"Flatterer," she said flatly.

"I do my best," he gave a shrug. He gave a gesture towards Sharif. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to join me to the University, but..."

"The University may be upon the Middle Ring, but requires a Gold Level Pass to enter," Nila pointed out. "Anything which bridges two districts has restrictions to the higher level. You will not be allowed in, not with that," she pointed to his pack, where he no doubt had his Ring Pass.

Sokka's expression wilted quite a bit. "Really?"

"It was an early question I asked of one of those unsettling guides I saw in the streets," Nila only resisted the urge to shudder at the recollection of that woman by the time elapsed having dulled the sensation. While informative, she had been... too enthusiastic. Unhealthily so. "And for what do intend to invade the seat of learning? If you want lessons on physics and chemistry, I dare say you would be best served anywhere but in school. Their ideas on what constitutes scientific method are... absurd."

"Taken under advisement. But no, I need their library," Sokka said. "They say it's the most complete on Earth..."

"Wan Shi Tong's is bigger," Sharif said quietly nearby, now craning his neck upward to watch that spider begin to spin a web in the corner of the room.

"And I hear it's also filled with sand," Sokka finished. Sharif didn't answer. "Anyway. Just popped in to see that you were alright. I think Aang's going to be making dinner, and since it's not Katara's cooking, it won't be terrible. You can join us if you like."

"A pleasant offer, but I cannot say I will accept. I have things of my own to undertake. I cannot say how they will sit with a schedule."

"Fair enough," Sokka said, moving toward the door. "Offer still stands, though. No reason to be all alone in an empty house."

She shook her head, rolling her eyes, and closed the door after him. She was only going to be alone in the house until she could find Mother. Then... Then she would go somewhere else. Probably to the Fire Nation. Tzu Zi had helped Nila through difficult times. It would be only proper for Nila to return that favor. But every thing had to be in its proper time. So she turned to the sheet of paper she'd left almost completed when the notion to prepare some powder had struck her, and she started finalizing the new design.

It would be her next masterpiece.

* * *

><p>A little thing like the law working against him wasn't going to slow Sokka down. He'd had worse. He'd lied through his teeth to the man who captured Summavut. He'd fought against overwhelming numbers in the Wastelands. At a mere fifteen years of age, Sokka had lived a life which would beggar the fortunes of a man three times as many. And everything he survived, he survived not by being strong or tough – well, at least slightly tough – but rather, by being clever. If you can't face a problem head-on because it would be suicidal and failure-sure, find another way.<p>

After all, there had to be a way that Middle Ring students got into the University, otherwise they would have just built it entirely in the Upper Ring.

A bit of consideration had him stumped on the exact process. He might be clever, Sokka the Water Tribesman, but he was clever in ways of science and lateral thinking. This was a system he had no working knowledge of. Which meant, he'd need to talk to somebody who did. Which was why Sokka did what no 'real man' would in that situation. He swallowed his pride, and he asked passers-by for help.

Sokka's humility saw him sauntering across two districts. If that could even be called a saunter at that point... But still, the half-useful comments and recommendations steered him into the Hu Lao District, and he finally found one of the people he was repeatedly recommended to find. She was a woman perhaps five or ten years older than Sokka, her hair done up in a very precise style, her clothes immaculate. But what set her apart from her peers in the small kiosk off of the very broad thoroughfare was that smile. It was very wide, true, but it was also unsettlingly empty. Like she wasn't smiling for real.

In a way, the way she smiled reminded Sokka of Sharif. "Hello, there lady," Sokka said. "I was told to talk to you..."

"Welcome, young friend, to the greatest city on Earth. I am Joo Dee. How may I help you this fine day?" she asked with entirely too much exuberance and glee. Sokka leaned back, ignoring the crowds passing around him. That was something he was still trying to come to grips with; he'd seen more people in his mile-and-a-half walk from his house to this kiosk than were alive in the South Water Tribe. Were he a less educated and erudite person, it likely would have driven him to distraction. As it was, it was just slightly unnerving, being so encroached upon. He was just glad he didn't have to live in one of those hellish tenement houses that he'd seen on his way in.

"Huh. I've got a friend who's mother's name is Joo Dee," Sokka noted.

"Ah ha ha ha, what a coincidence," Joo Dee answered. That laugh just didn't sound right at all. "How can we help you today?"

"I need to talk to somebody in charge of getting onto the University."

"You will need a Gold Level Pass to enter University grounds; a Green Level Pass is insufficient," Joo Dee pointed out enthusiastically.

"Yeah... I know," Sokka pointed out warily. "Look, I need one of your special passes that let's a Greener like me go into the school."

"You will have to talk to one of our Cultural Authority ministers," Joo Dee said with that same sickening pleasantness. To somebody who didn't speak Tianxia as a native language, the term which stuck out was Dai Li. Mostly because while a native Tianxia speaker would just nod and let the word move on, somebody who had learned the language would instantly try to figure out what the word meant, and the first definition which came to the Tribesman's mind was 'Overwhelming power', before the obvious intended one came to mind. "They have an office just down the street. You need only look for the Seal of Ba Sing Se."

"Yeah, I'll do that," Sokka said.

"Please enjoy your stay in the safety, and security, of Ba Sing Se," She said bowing to him. He couldn't back away from her fast enough. It was an odd feeling, being swept along a crowd. But it seemed to be the easiest way to get where he was going. And soon enough, he swam out of that stream before a fairly imposing structure of brown stone, hanging a banner with the three-rings of Ba Sing Se upon it. Men in green robes shuffled about without hesitation; likely, they had a lot of work to do. Ba Sing Se reeked of people keeping busy.

Sokka walked past a small group of those quietly chatting green-robe-guys, and rang a bell which was bolted to a wall next to an admission desk. Nobody was sitting there. Sokka glanced around, then rang the bell again.

"Just come in," a deep voice came from a room on the other side of the desk. "Our receptionist is absent."

Sokka glanced around, but since nobody anywhere nearby seemed to be paying any mind, Sokka shrugged and hopped the counter, sliding past the shelves filled with about a hundred and eight or ten thousand different kinds of forms of one description or another. The were all so dreadfully boring even from a glance that Sokka felt no need to investigate further, and this was the same boy who only stopped playing with fire _the third time_ it set his parka aflame. He moved through a narrow doorway, and found himself staring at the back of a man sitting at a desk settled into the nook of a very small room. The man was balding, but the dark hair he had left was pulled into something like a braid which fell down his back. He also had the sort of segregated mustache and beard which seemed quite popular in Ba Sing Se from the Tribesman's perspective. And his eyes were quite annoyed.

"The door was to your right," the man said with little humor. Sokka glanced back, and realized that yes, there was a way for people to get here that didn't involve jumping through the booth. Oops. The man shook his head, though, and gestured swiftly to the chair before him. "What brings you to the offices of the Dai Li," Cultural Authority, Sokka, get that translation working, "today?"

"Do you work for them?"

"I am a cultural minister. I work at the behest and privilege of the Earth King to serve his people," he said with a note of straining patience. "My name is Long Feng. Now please, what is your business here today?"

Sokka shrugged, and sat down. The man was obviously buried under work, since this place seemed critically understaffed. "I need a pass to enter the University," Sokka explained. "I need to see something in their libraries, but I hear you need some pretty high clearance to get in there."

"The University is one of Ba Sing Se's cultural heritage sites. There are buildings on that campus older than the Earth King's palace. Understandably, we have to regulate the traffic through the site to ensure that unwanted presences don't vandalize, or simply accidentally damage, a priceless and irreplaceable cultural treasure," Long Feng said. He tilted his head to one side. "You must not have transfer papers from another institute of learning, or you would have said so by now. Where were you educated?"

"Oh, here and there," he said, but shook his head. "Look, that doesn't really matter. I just need to get into the library to look up some information which is vital to ending the war against the Fire Nation."

At that, the man leaned back. "Interesting. What information is this?"

Sokka paused. "I'm... not sure I should be telling just anybody. I mean, if they learned that what we knew, then..."

Long Feng rolled his eyes. "If a member of the Earth King's own staff cannot be trusted with discretion, than who can?"

Sokka had to see the point in that. "Alright. Whenever there's a solar eclipse, firebenders lose their bending," Sokka explained. "So I just need to find out when the next solar eclipse is coming, and we can use that window of opportunity to deal the Fire Nation a crushing blow!"

"That is an ambitious prospect," Long Feng admitted. "But with what force? And at whose behest?"

"Does it matter? The war has to stop!" Sokka pressed. The minister raised a placating hand.

"Citizen, please calm yourself. You must understand that it is the regulation of the Cultural Authority not to discuss the war effort with the people of Ba Sing Se. Burying them under a deluge of seemingly inevitable bad-news would only drive them to despair, and from despair, into anarchy."

Sokka leaned back from the minister. "So you don't tell people that they're fighting right now against the Fire Nation?"

"We don't tell them that we're losing. We don't tell them how powerful that their enemy has become. We don't tell them that the only thing standing between their freedom and a Fire Nation boot is a wall and the lives of several thousand brave soldiers. What could that possibly serve? What good did knowledge of their approaching doom do to the North Water Tribesmen?"

Sokka scratched at the back of his neck. This guy did have a point, after all.

"We take great pains to avoid invoking a panic, which would achieve nothing but needless anguish. If the Dai Li," Cultural Authority... "does nothing else, it can do that. But... as for your request," Long Feng reached under his desk for a long moment, before pulling out a form. "I can begin the application today. The only problem is... no, it shouldn't concern you."

"What is it?" Sokka asked, leaning forward once more. If he'd been more perceptive, he might have noticed that instant of satisfaction in Long Feng's eyes.

"It does not concern you. This is a matter for the Authority. We shouldn't need to outsource our troubleshooting to teenaged civilians," Long Feng said, pride clear in his voice.

"Civilian? I've fought on the Spikerim at Summavut when the city fell! I infiltrated the Fire Nation during the Winter Solstice! I'm about as far from a civilian as you're gonna get," Sokka said, crossing his arms before his chest with a smug expression. And now that he thought about it, that was some astounding stuff that he'd done in the last couple months. Long Feng sighed, and stared at the form which he was filling in for a moment. Then, he looked up.

"If you won't be dissuaded, then perhaps you can be of some small help. In an unofficial capacity," he clarified. Sokka shrugged. Long Feng glanced through the door leading out, and gave a nod. Sokka leaned over and shut it. "There are... anarchist elements in the city. The reason we are so understaffed is because of what they have done to our network of ministers. I don't know how, and I especially cannot understand why, but they are striking at the vulnerable heart of the city, and laughing as it bleeds."

"Do you know who's behind all this stuff?" Sokka asked.

"It is a Tribesman, but I don't know anything but his name. Qujeck," Long Feng explained. Sokka's head backed up a couple of months, to a bunch of pirates. It couldn't be the same Qujeck, could it? No, the universe might play fast and loose with the Avatar, but only when the Avatar was _around_. They were a quarter of a planet away when that happened. "If you learn anything about this wayward Water Tribesman, you must inform a constable immediately. _Do not_ try to apprehend him, or whatever agents he has. He is known to be dangerous."

"I'll keep that in mind. So how long do you think this is going to take?" Sokka asked.

"The machinery of Ba Sing Se is ponderous at the best of times. Ordinarily, such a request would be filled in a week, perhaps a fortnight. At the moment, I honestly cannot say," Long Feng said. "Sign this."

Sokka quickly scratched his name.

"Very well mister... How do you pronounce that?"

"Sokka. It's pronounced with an 'okka'."

"Very well, Sokka with an 'okka'. I will file this immediately. Good day, citizen," Long Feng set the form into a bin with a number of others. Sokka rose to leave, but at the proper door this time. And when he did, he paused. He didn't see Long Feng's smirk.

"Quick question... how fast would this thing get pushed through if I dealt with that little anarchist problem?" Sokka asked.

"I imagine very quickly," Long Feng said with a distracted tone. "Ba Sing Se rewards its heroes well, no matter whence they come."

And with that, Sokka had an idea.

And with that idea, Long Feng gave himself a mental pat on the back.

* * *

><p>Azula glared for all she was worth. "If you tell anybody about this, I will murder you," she said with a remarkably calm tone of voice.<p>

"Do you have an apron in a larger size?" Iroh asked, straining for all his worth to connect the strands together behind his back. Azula's teeth ground at the ignominy of it all. She thought she'd managed to escape the dreaded _service profession_ thirty years ago. When the worth of her art overtook what she could make playing nice with local idiots and perverts, she gave up her smock without a second glance or thought. And here she was in one again.

"I have some string in the back," the tea-master offered. "Please, enjoy some tea while I find it."

Well, twist an old idiots arm, why don't you, Azula thought. Iroh let the apron hang limp across his chest as the man ducked into the back. "This is humiliating and I look ridiculous."

"It is also the best wages that I could find on such short notice," Iroh said pleasantly, pouring himself a cup of tea and raising it toward her. Her suspicious glare was enough of an indication that she lacked interest. "If we don't have money, we live on the street. Is that what you want, Niece?"

"I would prefer not wasting time pretending to live with these insects," Azula said. "I am waiting for my opportunity, not attempting to start a life here."

"Life can happen when you least expect it," Iroh noted, sipping the tea, before he gave a disgusted expression. "This is terrible! It's just a bunch of hot leaf juice!"

"All tea is hot leaf juice, you fool," she pointed out. He glared at her with the closest thing to outrage that she'd ever seen on his face, including the time when she'd taunted him on his way to Ashfall Prison. Come to think of it, that was a long time ago, and he had been... remarkably calm about it.

"I cannot believe that I would hear something like that from a member of my own family," He said, leaning out the window and hurling the contents of the pot out it. "Even if there are mitigating circumstances! There are going to be a few changes around here."

She watched as he quickly set about brewing, and a piece of a puzzle she'd stopped teasing at three decades ago and more fell into place. She'd often wondered how Iroh had managed to become such a renowned tea-maker in Ba Sing Se. She'd always assumed after the fact that his allies in that flower-cult had arranged it. But if this was any indication, he might well have worked his way up from the very bottom.

She shook her head, and leaned against a wall, losing herself inside her own mind. There was a buzzing in her head that she didn't quite know how to place. It was like the power-station she'd slept under in Republic City for the last two months as she waited for her bones to heal, so she could finally make her last assault on the Avatar. Only, it seemed like it was born inside her own skull. Besides that, it was oddly quiet. She hadn't seen that troublesome brat in weeks. That didn't mean that she could let her guard down, though. The girl was probably waiting for something. A moment to strike when Azula was at her weakest. Well, Azula had lived far too long to be taken down by any eight year old, even if that eight year old was technically herself.

"What is that marvelous smell?" the tea-master asked as he returned into the room. The interim, short as it was, saw Iroh brewing a fresh pot of tea, and true to the man's proven mastery, it was quite pleasant to the nose. Iroh poured him a cup, and the man drank it rapturously. "Why, Mushi, this is spectacular! Did you bring your own blend?"

"No, I just knew how to properly accent what was already there," Iroh said humbly. "A proper tea is like a proper gentleman; of many portions, all blended in moderation, and bearing many experiences for it."

"This will sell like hotcakes!" the tea-master enthused. "I've got a feeling like I pulled a lifetime's luck in hiring you."

"You may well have," Iroh said with an easy shrug.

"You, girl..."

"Aimei," Iroh supplied, likely to interrupt Azula from snapping at him. Nobody called Azula 'girl'. Not if they wished to have the same consistency of skin afterwords.

"Right. Go and clear the tables and set out the sign. Dim Pang's Teahouse is going to be filled to bursting. I can just see it!"

Azula rolled her eyes for all they were worth, and began to move through the uninhabited tables, gathering the cups and without any real thought stacking them onto a tray she'd grabbed. This was just a diversion. Something to fill the hours until she was ready. And then, she would doff this damnable smock and set it on fire. But until then...

"Open yet?" a raspy voice asked, laced with disinterest and boredom. Azula, lost in her own angry mutterings almost missed it completely. "Dim, would you mind pouring me something that'll keep me awake?"

"We have a new brewer. Mushi!"

Azula turned, looking at the newcomer to the store. After a second, Azula discerned that it was in fact a girl, teenaged and perhaps a year older than Azula herself. Her hair, black and shiny, was cut very short, though. Almost as short as Daichi kept his. Would keep his. Would never keep his. She shivered at the memory of someone who would never again be. But with that thought cleared of her head, she moved without comment to offload the cups that she'd gathered. The girl took the mug of tea that Uncle offered and drank it, obviously bracing herself for something terrible but questionably medicinal. Instead, she leaned back with surprise.

"This is... remarkably good," the girl said. At that, Azula paused in moving those cups. Where had she heard that voice before? It was so familiar.

"The secret ingredient is love," Iroh said sappily.

The girl sighed. "Whatever," she uttered, flipping Uncle a coin, finishing the tea, an walking out. But even as she did, there was a clack on the floor, as the last teacup slid from Azula's suddenly numb hand, and she turned to watch the girl's exodus. No. It was impossible. She was _dead_ in this world.

"You should be more careful, Niece. It could have cracked or broken," Iroh said, picking up the cup.

"...Mai?" Azula asked.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

* * *

><p>The whole house seemed to be crackling with energy. Or possibly electricity from next door. Toph retired to sleep at the late, late hour of noon, which he could sorta understand since she got a lot closer to death than any teenager really should, and she probably still felt terrible. Katara, on the other hand, was busy keeping a not-very-surreptitious eye on the newcomer to the house. Sokka was off in the city somewhere, leaving only the Avatar and the Fire Lord's son without something to do. And the tension of it was starting to drive Aang giddy.<p>

To the point that he was on the edge of his seat, a grin pulling at his lips every moment of every minute. A firebender! Somebody who could teach him firebending! He'd actually be able to master all four elements before it was too late! Of course, the firebender in question was sitting silently, staring at a wall. Letting that tension build.

Zuko turned to him. "What?" he demanded.

"So-when-do-you-think-we're-gonna-start-firebending-training-'cause-I-need-to-learn-it-fast-and-if-I-don't-then-the-world's-probably-gonna-end-and-I-really-shouldn't-be-putting-this-much-pressure-on-you-should-I?" Aang streamed.

Zuko blinked at him.

"I'm sorry. I just thought that... well, after Jeong Jeong, I'd lost my last chance to learn firebending from a master. Of course, you'll do, but..."

"Are you saying I'm not a firebending master?" Zuko asked.

"That's not what I said! I didn't mean that! I..." he trailed off. "It's just... We always beat you before, and..."

"You beat me because I wasn't trying to kill you," Zuko said. He ignited a flame above his palm. "Fire is a destructive element. It's strongest when it's intention is destruction. It's weakest when you try to use it for anything else."

"I... don't think that's actually the way it works," Aang said suspiciously.

"Who's the firebender in this room, you or me?" Zuko asked testily.

"You, but I'm not sure that..."

"The point is moot. I can't train you. Not here," he glanced around.

"What? Why not?"

Zuko rubbed at his forehead. "Because we're in a wooden building inside a city which is at open war with firebenders. _When_ you screw up, _you'll_ burn the house down, and _I'll_ get thrown in prison. I didn't turn my back on my nation to rot in a cell under the Caves of Zutara."

He had a point at that. "Can I ask you a question?" Aang asked.

"You don't seem to have anything but questions," Zuko said quietly.

"Why do you hate your father?"

"I thought the answer was obvious," Zuko said. Aang shrugged. The older teenager lifted his long, now-shaggy and scruffy hair away from the left side of his face. "My father decided that when I decided to do what's right, I required a lesson in humility on my face."

"He did that to you?" Aang asked.

Zuko chuckled, darkly. "He almost burned my eye out. But I got him back. Blasted a few of his fingers off with lightning."

Aang pulled his legs up on the chair he was patiently waiting on, tucking his knees to his chest. "I can't imagine how a family could work like that," Aang said.

"And what would you know about family?" Zuko snapped. "You're an orphan from a race of orphans. Your kind never had parents, never had familes. So don't you dare try to judge mine!"

"I'm not judging. I just don't know why your father would do that to you," Aang said. Zuko glanced away. "Is it... because of Azula?"

Zuko's slowly heating glare was all the answer Aang got, needed, or wanted.

"Is she as sick as people say she is?"

"You should know. You had her as your prisoner for a week," he muttered, glaring a hole in the floorboards.

"She wasn't a prisoner," Aang contested. "I mean, yeah, she couldn't leave, but that was because I was fairly sure she was gonna try to hurt Katara. I mean, she seemed well enough. A bit hard to understand with that accent, but..."

"Well enough," he shook his head. He let out a bitter laugh. "You know, growing up, I used to _hate_ her."

"Really?" Aang asked.

"She was just better at me in everything. A better firebender, a better student. She got all the attention from both Mom and Dad. They'd get into these screaming matches about her. Not me. I was just the one who popped out first. She was born lucky, I was lucky to be born," he said.

"But that changed," Aang pointed out. Zuko's lip pulled into something like a wistful smile.

"Yeah... when she got sick, she stopped terrorizing me, and... and I got Uncle and Auntie to be the parents I never really got from Mom and Dad. I don't know if she'd not gotten sick, if I'd be here right now. Not just in Ba Sing Se, I mean if I'd even be alive."

"I think you're selling yourself short," Aang said.

"Heh. Azula stopped being a terror, and she became a sister. And I know I should feel shame about it, that the only reason I got to be Father's favorite was because his first choice was crippled, but actually having something to teach, somebody to take care of..." he let out a quiet sigh. "It's a better feeling than you'd know."

"I think I understand completely," Aang said. "And for what it's worth, I promise you that I'll find a way to make sure Azula comes back safe."

"I'm not sure there's an Azula left," Zuko's tones returned to cold and bitter. "Uncle tried to warn me that she was _different_, that she would change. I didn't believe him. I couldn't believe him. The last time I looked into her eyes... she hated me. My sister _hated_ me. Despised me. And she's got every reason to," he rose to his feet, and walked to the shuttered window, pushing it open and letting some more light enter the room. Aang didn't follow. "I wasn't always the best brother. I lied to her. I betrayed her trust to protect her life and safety."

"That's what brothers do," Aang said. "They protect their family."

"And you'd know?" Zuko glanced back, over his left shoulder.

"Yes," Aang said. "I might not be blood, but to Sokka and Katara, I'm kin. I am the brother they never had. And I cherish that. If I had to lie to them to keep them safe, I probably would. You can't beat yourself up over trying to do the right thing. At least you tried."

"Trying doesn't amount to much," Zuko commiserated.

"But if you never try, nothing good ever comes," Aang pointed out.

"Spoken like a true airbender," he said with a roll of his eyes. "You know, when I first met you, I was sure you were going to kill us."

"Me? Why?" Aang asked.

"Storm Kings," Zuko said, still staring out the window. Aang gave an 'ah' at that. "How... shocking... that you're some mouthy kid who actually tries to adhere to a form of pacifism, who never lashes out in anger or heedless violence. You must think the worst of my people."

"Not even a little bit," Aang admitted. "Nations aren't bad. Only people can be. And there are a lot of good people to balance them out."

"The balance seems a bit tipped these days," Zuko muttered again.

"So I'll just have to un-tip it," Aang said with a shrug as he got to his feet. "That's what the Avatar's about. I think."

"You think?" Zuko asked.

"Yeah, well, I'm still kinda new to this," he said.

"Hey Aang, listen to this," Katara said from outside the room. "The Earth King is throwing an entire high-society party to commemorate the birthday of his pet bear!"

Aang frowned. "Surely you mean his platypus bear?" Aang asked. Katara came to the door, looking querulously at the newsreel.

"No..." she answered.

"Snake-bear?" Zuko offered.

"Tiger-bear?" Aang tried again.

"Skunk-bear?" Toph's voice came from the other room, surprising all three.

Katara just shook her head. "It just says... _bear_."

There was a moment of pristine silence.

"This city is weird," Zuko noted, closing the windows and dropping the room back into relative darkness.

* * *

><p>"I didn't think that you'd meet me here," Qujeck said as he looked up from the half-barrel which had been converted into a clothes-washer, all the way up on the roof. The timing was fortuitous. He had laundry, after all.<p>

"As long as you don't expect me to help," the Westerner said with a drab and unaffected tone.

She wasn't the only one to come up from the rooms in the tenement below. She'd brought her entire crew, as it were. One of them was taller, with dark hair and incisive eyes, a sprig of wheat clenched 'twixt his teeth. The next was somewhat more ropey than he, with big dark eyes and flaring ears, all under a ratty pan-hat. Next down the line of tallest to shortest was an Easterner who was just reaching the point where she was sloughing her baby-fat and filling out. She'd probably be gorgeous if she actually put in a bit of effort toward it. The last was that one's polar opposite, in that no amount of effort, no matter how extreme, would ever make her attractive.

"So what's this guy's deal?" the tall youth asked.

"Have you noticed that there's something... off... about this city?" Qujeck asked.

"A bit," he answered. "Shadow, what's this guy's game?"

"Just listen to him, Jet," she hushed him.

Jet turned his attention back to the Tribesman, who gave a shrug. "There are forces at work in the shadows of Ba Sing Se which mean only ill. I have warned another potential agent about them, and I will again for you. Do you know who rules Ba Sing Se?"

"The Earth King, Kuei," the cuter of the two yet-unnamed girls offered.

"And who rules him?"

There was silence.

"His bear?" the ugly one chanced. That in turn caused a ripple of laughter from the other girl, a roll of the eyes from the quiet boy, a guffaw from Jet, and a shake of the head from Shadow.

"Not quite," Qujeck said. "The Earth King is a puppet, a marionette whose strings are pulled by the people who should be doing his bidding."

"So you've brought us to talk to a crazy person," Jet asked.

"I'm just providing facts," Qujeck said. He'd gotten the same reaction from many people. Quite a few of those people later swallowed their words of derision when the truth became clear to them. All of those who had, were now dead, or worse. "The office of the Cultural Authority is more powerful than it should be. It takes in more money, it recruits more people than it should. It has too many buildings for its purpose, too many men on its payroll. The evidence is there if you look for it. But if you look too closely, or too carelessly, bad things start to happen around you."

"And why should that matter to us?" the ugly one asked.

"Shut up for a second Smellerbee," Jet answered. "What about that general, Shadow?"

"The military doesn't even know it's being controlled. A few might, but I cannot say more than that. Any soldier who comes back never speaks about what happened during their time on the Wall. I can only assume that those that can or do, vanish. As far as the populace of the city is concerned, there is no war in Ba Sing Se," Qujeck said. "They aren't aware of the World War. They aren't even aware that so many of their children are dying for them. They live in an ignorance which is controlled from bottom to top."

"What do you want?" Shadow asked.

"I want to set the halls of power on fire and watch as the green bugs scuttle. I want them to have to face the bright daylight, and know that there are no shadows left for them to hide in. I want them _accountable_. And if you help me, I guarantee you, you'll get what you're looking for as well, Shadow."

"Which is?" she asked.

"The ear of a general, a plan to overthrow the Fire Lord," he answered her. She remained stony-faced, but he could tell that she was trying to figure out where he'd overheard that, when, and how much he was going to use against her. "Somewhat weak, though. You're a subject of sympathy because of your destroyed noble house, but you'd need more than the token you could get to inspire the West to open insurrection."

"You shouldn't listen at windows. It's a good way to get shot," Shadow answered him. "And that's moot. There's been a change in plans."

"Really?" Jet asked.

"We had a plan?" the cute one asked. The quiet one rolled his eyes, something which even Qujeck who'd known him only in passing through the halls, interpreted as 'and you'd always be the last to know'.

"Yes, but it will require convincing somebody who might require some... careful maneuvering to agree. The last child of a dead house has some utility. But a battered, publicly sympathetic _princess_?" Shadow asked. And at that, Qujeck could only raise a brow.

* * *

><p>Toph twirled the splinter between her fingers as she sat, soaking her feet in warm water and leaning back against the wall. While she seldom bothered bathing like this when she could get away with it – water around her feet made her essentially blind, after all – there was something to be said for little indulgences when she couldn't do anything else. After all, much as she might bluster, she knew that she'd probably faint dead away if she tried doing anything more than a brisk walk. The splinter had been buried at the bottom of Twinkletoes' things, and when she felt it, she knew she wanted to mess around with it. It was shaped like a jagged shard of metal, but was soft like fresh cheese. It was also slightly warmer than her hand. She wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't feel like the nail. Besides, Twinkletoes kept that super-special spirit nail on him pretty much all the time. He was welcome to it.<p>

Toph stuck the sliver behind her ear, and let out a mild sigh of contentment. She'd learned a long time ago that there was a lot more enjoyment in the little luxuries than there was in all the bare essentials that you'd ever get. And as Toph saw it, a person should have a few glaring contradictions in them; it was an essential part of their character. The only difference to how Dad would have wanted her raised, was that she prioritized the wrong kinds of luxuries. A great fight, a hearty meal, and a foot-soak beat the hell out of poetry and knitting. How the hell was she supposed to knit, anyway? She couldn't even 'see' her needles!

There was a knock at the door, which caused Toph to roll her eyes. "Who is it?"

"...Katara," the answer came after a confused pause. Mostly because most people were used to her knowing who was knocking from the other side of a wall. Earthbending vision for the win! "Are you alright in there? You've been in the bathroom for a long time."

"Oh, I'm just shiny," Toph answered.

"...could you wrap it up, then? This is the only bathroom in the house!" Katara shouted. Toph rolled a useless set of eyes, and sighed. All good things must come to an end, or so a certain author once opined. She got up, and kicked the water bucket over, letting the warm water spill into the drains which sent the effluence into some sewer or another. As soon as her feet were on the stone, though she could track that water-flow down to its source, if she so desired. And she really didn't. It was bad enough that she could feel the neighbor on the other side from the Si Wongi was cheating on her husband, at this very moment. With a grunt, she toned down her sight so it didn't extend beyond the reaches of the house.

With a jaunty whistle, she sauntered out of the bathroom, to have a fairly desperate seeming waterbender bolt past her. She rolled her eyes and kept walking. Directly toward the Avatar, who was sitting lotus in the room he shared with the Water Tribesmen. Bein' all lazy and such. That was unforgivable. With a boot, she kicked the door open to his room, causing him to flinch and recoil. "On your feet, earthbender!" Toph shouted, and ignored the surge of light-headedness that such exertion brought.

"Toph? I was just..."

"Gold-bricking is what you were doing. Now get on your feet and start chuckin' rocks!" Toph ordered.

Twinkletoes, for all his slowly developing sensibility, glanced around in confusion. "...but we're indoors."

"Then you'll have to throw 'em around nice and carefully, then!" Toph pointed out.

"Are you sure you should be doing this," Aang asked, even though he got into a more earthbending stance. "I mean, Katara said that..."

"The only one who'll be doing anything strenuous, _unless you screw up_, is you. Now show me your golem stance," Toph said. Aang did one better, instead of pulling the stone to his body piecemeal, he threw himself to the ground in a sort of bounding roll, and with it, he encased himself in a thin gloss of stone in one swoop. Toph was going to have to remember that one, since she saw no reason she couldn't use it herself. "Good. Now. Deflections. Don't let them get past you, and don't let them hit you..." Toph reached forward, and stripped a portion of his armor away, leaving his chest and abdomen exposed, "where it could kill you were I trying."

The complaints which Twinkletoes no doubt had in droves were silenced when Toph started flicking discs of relatively light but no doubt painful stone at him with one finger, even as she leaned against a wall lazily. She had to say, he was slowly getting better at this. His movements, even encased in stone as he was, were becoming more purposeful, less jerky. More like somebody who was amongst the stone, rather than simply brute-forcing it into compliance.

"Do you have to keep doing this kind of – ow – training?" Aang asked as one slipped past his deflection. Toph was intentionally sending them on erratic paths. "I mean – hey that almost hit my face! – shouldn't I be learning some other stuff by now?"

"You learn as fast as I say you do. Everything I know I learned step by step, each one building to the next. You do not skip steps. You do not jump ahead. And you do not..." Toph flicked another disc, and this one struck him squarely in the chest, without him even trying to block it. Toph scowled. "Damn it, Twinkletoes, at least make it look like you're trying!"

"That one blindsided me," the avatar said, changing his stance a bit. Toph shook her head with annoyance, and then flicked another. This one on a different, but no easier trajectory. It shot through his defenses like he was an open window, and drove him back a step, releasing another grunt of pain.

"Come _on!_ Even I could see that one coming, and I'm _blind_!" Toph pointed out, peeling down her eyelids to prove her point.

"I... must have been distracted," Aang said. She rolled her useless eyes and flicked a third. And that one, just like the two before, penetrated his defenses effortlessly, he not even seeming to try to block it. "Ow!"

"What is wrong with you, Twinkletoes?" Toph demanded.

And from the next room, there was a 'wham' as she heard somebody walk into a door. She 'saw' Aang's armor fall away, and he took a step toward her, only to trip over the armor he'd just dropped off, and paw along the floor, his heartrate starting to hammer all the faster. From the next room, she could hear Prince Pouty starting to let out a confused stream of Huojian profanity. And from the bathroom, she could feel Sugar Queen pawing her own way to the door, before throwing it open.

"Tui La, how long was I in there? Who turned out all the lights?" Katara asked.

"Toph... I can't see," Aang said.

"What?" she said.

"Guys? Are you out there?" Katara asked.

"What's going on? I can't see anything," Zuko said, fumbling for the door and lurching through it, only to blunder directly into Katara, sending them both down in a pile in the kitchen. Toph started to 'glance' around, expanding her 'vision' to the street... only it wouldn't go. She couldn't make it bigger, like she usually could. With a note of something approaching panic, she pulled at her ear, trying to think about what was going on. They couldn't all go blind at the same time, could they?

When she did, she dislodged that splinter. As soon as it hit the ground, Aang's pawing ceased, which was for the best, because he was about to knock over a brazier which was probably what kept the chill out of the room. He stopped, turned, and looked up at Toph. "Holy pig-cows. I can see!"

"Get off me you firebending buffoon!" Katara demanded, and Toph heard a slap out there. "Ow! What was that for?"

"You bit me!" Zuko answered with equal outrage. Twinkletoes looked at Toph again, as she quickly plucked the splinter between her toes and raised it behind her back to a waiting hand, even though she wasn't exactly sure why she was hiding it.

"Toph, did... did something happen?" Aang asked.

"You all started complaining about blindness," Toph said, hiding her uncomfortableness at the whole situation. "I was about to start giving you grief over it, but then you snapped out of it."

"Oh... That was... scary," Aang said, and with a sweep of his foot, he flattened the floor. He turned toward her for a second. "Maybe we should hold off on earthbending training for a little while, alright?"

"Eh, if you're so desperate to be lazy, I ain't gonna stop you," Toph faked nonchalance, and moseyed away. It was a very tense mosey, however, one which ended as soon as she ducked outside the door into the roughly ten square meters of 'back yard'. She opened her hand, and felt the warmth of the Splinter within it. Now, it was pulsing slightly. Like a tiny, tiny heartbeat. Had _she_ done that? With _this_ spirit thing?

Now that was some scary juju.

* * *

><p>Sokka knew that something was a bit wrong when he saw green robes gathered in larger numbers as he approached the houses where he and the others lived. Some of the people he passed, not so clad, were sitting down on the streets, arms tucked close to them as though they were in a degree of shock. The number of such people increased as he got closer, reaching its absolute zenith about three doors down.<p>

"What in the name of the holy fish is going on here?" Sokka asked.

"Tribesman!" the Si Wongi girl's voice cut through the muted chatter. He could see her at her front door, neither panicking nor bleeding, as some were. In fact, she looked upon the whole scene with a sort of cynical bafflement. "So you did not walk off of a bridge. Your sister is beside herself."

"My question kinda stands," Sokka pointed out. Nila shrugged.

"The people complained that a spell of blindness descended upon them with great suddenness. Thus why the men in green arrive; they are no doubt trying to ensure that there is no gaseous poison or dust-borne agent of attack," she shook her head, thumbing back straight black hair where it fell in an unruly strand before her eyes.

"Blindness? Did you get struck blind too?" Sokka asked.

"No," she said with annoyance. Sokka stared at her, the 'why' about an instant from being voiced, before she let out a sigh and a shrug. "But then again, as I was in the dark-room with volatile substances, I would scarce even notice a few minutes of blindness."

"So a bubble of blindness just popped in this district," Sokka said, rubbing his chin. "This smells like spirit-world shenanigans."

"You would jump immediately to that conclusion?" she asked with annoyance.

"I've spent half a year with the Avatar. When he's around, the obvious solution is never the correct one. Usually it lands somewhere between 'absurd' and 'impossible'. And I just realized I was defending hokus-pokus to a scientist," he caught himself. "Yup. My life's weird."

"This is not a frequent position?" she asked.

"Noooo," Sokka said, with a glance aside, he muttered, "...stupid Makapu."

"You might be right. Sharif said something about a 'Splinter going off'. Then again, he spent the last five hours watching a spiderfly spin a web. He could just be babbling at this point."

"Are you willing to take that chance?" Sokka asked, as he finally reached his own front door. Nila rolled her eyes, and went to her own door. He was reaching for his door when she cleared her throat, dragging his attention back to her.

"One final thing before dinner, Tribesman," she said, throwing wide her door. "I'm not wearing any undergarments."

Sokka stared at her, and invariably his gaze started to drop to her flaring hips, not in any way concealed by her form fitting pants, before his jaw set. "That's not funny."

Her face had a rare smile of mischief upon it. "Oh, but it is," she said. And with that, she let out a chuckle and ducked into her house. Sokka rolled his own eyes. One of these days, he was going to have to stop surrounding himself with attractive, pushy women. It didn't even occur to him that he hadn't pined over Yue in a solid month. So much else had taken her place, it seemed.

Within the house, there sat a firebender and a waterbender glaring at each other. Zuko was binding bandages around his forearm, bandages which were slightly pinkened in an oval pattern which Sokka instantly pegged as a human bite. Katara, on the other hand, had a bright red handprint on her face. Sokka glanced between the two of them. "What."

"She bit me," Zuko said with an understandable degree of wroth.

"He slapped me!"

"You bit me first!"

"You ran into me!"

"I. Was. Blind!" Zuko snapped.

Sokka broke the mood by bursting into laughter. The two benders put aside their remarkably petty dispute and turned to him, gobsmacked that somebody could find them so comedic. And he couldn't help himself. It was just too crazy. He could either laugh or cry, and he learned a long time ago that even if crying could be pointedly manly, it was unpleasant. Runny nose and all that. So he laughed. From the time when they committed Mom to the ocean, he laughed. Somebody had to.

"What's so funny?" Katara demanded.

"You two!" Sokka couldn't contain his fit. "Tui La, this is insane! You all go blind and the first thing you do is attack each other! Ha!"

"I didn't attack her, it was self-defense when..." Zuko began.

"I was panicked, since this oaf just slammed into..." Katara also began, but both realized that they were trying to justify themselves, glanced at each other, then turned away in a huff and in silence. Sokka wiped away a laughter-tear and walked past them.

"I'm going to talk to the ones who didn't take blindness as a chance to play out a hissy-fit," Sokka said with his most patronizing tone, if only to see his sister stew all the harder. Zuko's glare was deflected as Zuko walked past by a small gesture toward her and a shrug. Essentially 'sisters, too easy'. At that, Zuko rolled his eyes, but remained at a huff. They would likely remain as such for a while.

He slid open the back door to the room, showing Aang tenderly prodding at some bruises across his chest and belly. Sokka glanced around. "Where's Toph?" Sokka asked. Aang looked up.

"Sokka, are you alright? Did you get blinded?" Aang asked. "How many arrows do I have?"

"Five. Unless you've added a few while I was out," Sokka answered. "What happened to you?"

"Well, I was training with Toph, and suddenly I couldn't block her rocks. I mean, I _thought_ I could see them, but..." he shook his head.

"Yowch. Anyway," Sokka said with all the decorum and aplomb he showed to any diplomatic situation. "I've got bad news and good news."

"Good news first!" Aang said brightly, instantly ignoring his welts.

Sokka shrugged. "The good news doesn't make any sense 'till you hear the bad," Sokka pointed out. "The bad news is that a university pass will take about a month to go through at the current rate," Aang's eyes shot wide at that. "But there's the good news. If we help Long Feng track down some criminals and anarchists which have been causing some problems, he can get the whole thing sorted out in a hurry. We'll be into that university in a week, tops!"

"A week? That's a lot better. I mean, the comet is only a few months away as it is," Aang pointed out.

"Yeah, have you come up with any brilliant plans on how to deal with that whole 'end of the world' gaff, yet?" Sokka asked. Aang hung his head, and shook it slowly. Sokka sighed. "Well, you'll think of something. Or I will, and I'll steal all your glory. Either way, it works for me. I prefer living to oblivion, after all."

"I thought you might," Aang said brightly. "Oh, is somebody still watching dinner? We're still having the neighbors over, right?"

"I'm sure dinner will be fine," Sokka placated. He, on the other hand, moved past the Avatar and threw open the window to the 'back yard', as pompously named as the tiny patch of land was. He then immediately turned to his left and saw Toph leaning against the outside wall. "Huh? Oh, there you are."

"Nice to see you too, Brain," she answered, her tone distracted.

"Is something the matter?" Sokka asked. "Besides the whole everybody around here going blind thi... I mean..."

"I'm _aware_ that I'm blind," Toph said testily. "You know, I think I'm going to have some words with some friends of my parents tomorrow. I mean, Mom's gotta be in the city somewhere, and she'll come running when she realizes that I am too. Might be helpful."

Sokka stared at her. "Did you hit your head on something while everybody was blind?" Sokka asked.

"What?" Toph asked incredulously.

"You just seriously offered, 'I'm gonna call my mommy' as a plan," Sokka pointed out. Toph's expression became blank for a moment. Then, the usual rancor returned.

"You shut your mouth! I did not!" Toph shouted.

"I think you did! Does Tuofu miss her mommy?" Sokka mocked.

"I will kick your ass!" Toph warned.

"Then mommy will kiss it and make it all bett..." Sokka trailed off.

"Did you just say that my mother can kiss your ass?" Toph asked, tones growing as glacial as a Water Tribe toilet. Sokka stared for a panicked moment. And then, he started running. Which was for the best, because an outraged Toph was hot on his heels.

* * *

><p>"News from Badesh?" Long Feng asked, as he strode briskly through the cavernous halls of the Earth King's palace. Servants were engaged in the day-to-day deluge of tasks required to keep up appearances. That's all that ever happened around this place these days. Say what you would about the previous Earth King, he was a more <em>active<em> despot. The greatest kindness that Badesh and her ilk had ever done was in killing him sixteen years ago. That one act sealed Long Feng's ascension to his status as Grand Secretariat, at the cost of playing regent from the shadows to a useless child. Han shook his head.

"I'm sorry, sir. I can't seem to make any useful progress into her. She's not responding to any of the signals that we send. It's like she's gone catatonic," he growled.

"And her companions."

"As she goes, so goes their nation," Han answered. "If you require, we can undertake some more extreme methods, but that might not guarantee her loyalty. Or her capability."

"I will not sacrifice one whit of her. She must be who she was at the Wall, and who she was when she separated the Fifty-First's head from his shoulders. I cannot afford any less," Long Feng snapped. He took a moment to adjust the neck of his robes, then cleared his throat. "Have you had someone research the datum I sent you?"

"We found references to a 'darkest day for the Fire Nations' in Storm King historical texts. A solar eclipse, as you specified, which allowed a spectacular rout," Han admitted. "We have consulted with the professor, and deduced that there is only one total eclipse to be had this year, and another three in the next five years. We have the date and time, of course," Han provided the paperwork. The eclipse scheduled for this year seemed to fall very near the end of summer. Long Feng smiled.

"Excellent," he said. Any leverage was for the best, in this never-ending war. Unless he could personally end it... It wouldn't even take very much, if their timing was good enough. And if they had the _right leadership_. He had a thought. "What about our other guests?"

"Joo Dee is with them, sir," Han said. "If there is nothing more, I will return to trying to crack Badesh."

"Please do. We now have a deadline. If this war is going to end this year, she must be my agent before the end of summer," Long Feng directed. "Make it so."

"As you wish," Han bowed away, and vanished into the halls. Long Feng, though, took a turn and headed into the palatial quarters given to foreign dignitaries. At present, there were precious, precious few. Only a few people from the smallest, weakest kingdoms in the lands south and west. The others were strong enough that they did not fear what having no ear in the Earth King's court would lose them. Or else, too ignorant to know any better, as was the case for al'Jalani, whom Long Feng walked past without fanfare or acknowledgment.

Finally, having moved past all the other inhabitants, scarce though they were, and then past a huge bank of vacant rooms, he came upon one which was being guarded by a maid. A graying-haired maid with dark, incisive eyes and an air which an experienced person would label 'overwhelmingly dangerous'. The pattern upon which all Joo Dee which came after gave her superior a nod. But as he turned to the door, she rose to her feet. She was taller than he was, unusual for both her gender and ethnicity. "He is not alone," she said simply. "The lady is with him."

"I see," Long Feng noted, tugging at his sprig of beard. "Thank you for the forewarning."

She nodded, and sat back down, leaving Long Feng to push open the doors, and enter into the foyer. The room was built as securely as a prison. Which was fitting, since that was exactly what it was. Still, it was a prison gilt in finest gold and upholstered with finest silks and dove-goose down pillows. As opulent an oubliette one would never otherwise find, and entirely at Long Feng's disposal. After all, he was not a thug. Some prisoners had certain requirements.

"Have you acclimated well, Emperor?" Long Feng asked. The unnaturally eyed man turned away from his companion, and slammed his cup of tea down on the silver-wrought tray so hard that it shattered, throwing steaming beverage at random. The other just pulled away so it didn't splash her.

"This is an outrage and an act of war against Great Whales!" Zeruel the Second shouted.

"So I take it you have not reconsidered my offer."

"To be a puppet ruler, dancing to the jerks of your string? I would rather die and be buried head-first in an unmarked grave," Zeruel spat on to the floor. He pointed a ring-adorned finger at the Grand Secretariat. "You play a fools game, and you will reap a fools harvest, mark my very words. When the time comes that I am free of this durance vile, I will bring down a terrible vengeance upon those who have hindered me, in His name!"

Long Feng let the religious drivel wash over him. "Regardless, the offer remains. After all, we plan to have the Fire Nation reeling on all fronts by the end of summer," he said nonchalantly. "And as for you, madam?"

"You have nothing to offer me, snake," the woman snapped, golden eyes narrowing.

"Oh, I think I might," Long Feng said. It was just a matter of ratifying a few rumors. Making sure a few things were true, or at least, true enough to use. After all, it was amazing what people would do for family. "I might surprise you."

"You have insulted my patience and the lady's tolerance long enough. Away with you!" Zeruel brusquely waved away. Long Feng shrugged, and turned. He already had an agent of the Avatar turned against his fellow Tribesman and thorn in Long Feng's side. It was just a matter of could he turn the Avatar as well?

As the door clicked shut behind him, he considered. "Perhaps I must assume more direct control of the Avatar situation," he mused. And as he nurtured that thought, he walked away from the prisoners to a golden cage, barely acknowledging Joo Dee's nod. Bigger things to think about. Ending a war. Preserving a city. Important things.

* * *

><p>Real work.<p>

She wanted to burn everything.

"That was a brisker day than I've had in years!" the owner gushed, which caused the aged tea fanatic to scoff lightly. "I've never seen anybody produce Gyokuro with leaves from the corner market before!"

"It's all in the handling, I assure you," Iroh said with a pleased if dismissive wave.

"I see a lot of business in our future," Dim continued. Azula turned when she heard the door sliding open, and a number of brutish looking men entering the tea-house. She stifled a sigh. Another serving, which meant another hour demeaning herself to these yokels.

"That's good to hear, Dim," the smallest of those brutes said, rolling his shoulders. "When business is good for you... business is good for us."

"Dianxi, what are you..." Dim began. "I'm so sorry, Dianxi, but things haven't exactly gone to plan, and..."

"I thought you just said that you had a brisk day, and all kinds of extra business coming in," Dianxi countered, before flicking a finger toward one of his goons. Azula's suspicions of the man's intentions were confirmed when the goon casually flipped over one of the tables, causing the dishes which she hadn't gathered yet to shatter on the floor. "I don't like it when people lie to me about money, Dim. You know that."

"A brisk day doesn't make up for a slow week. Please, Dianxi, just give me twenty four hours..."

And there was something sliding in Azula's mind. The subtle fingers plucking her strings once again. Not heroism, she'd never believe that. But outrage? Annoyance? Oh, those she would believe.

"Are you just going to stand there and let that man rob you blind?" Azula asked. Dianxi's attention turned to her.

"Well, it looks like our little lady has a lip on her. Just stay out of the way, girl, and we won't need to muss up that pretty face."

"I don't know what's more pathetic," Azula continued, as she moved a still-hot pot onto her tray, her eyes burning into the goon. "That Dim is such a coward as to pay protection moneys to you, or that you are so cowardly as to call so many to muscle him."

"I don't like the way she's talkin', boss," the table-flipper noted.

Dianxi gave a sigh, and shook his head. "You coulda' walked out of here without a black eye. Now, looks like we're gonna have to hand out some lessons."

The closer of the two goons in the building grabbed her forearm. She answered by driving her other fist so hard into his sternum that it creaked just a little under her knuckles. He was driven back, his grasp slipping from her arm as he staggered back, trying to get his breath back. Dianxi's eye twitched just a bit.

"Aimei, what are you..." Dim began.

And then Azula tipped up the tray, which was fortunate, because the table-flipper was trying to send a fist into her face. Instead, it hit hammered bronze. Spinning back and flapping a hand with at least one broken knuckle, he gave Azula the opportunity to catch the now falling pot with a toe, and kick it directly into Dianxi's face, scalding him with Iroh's tea. She stood proud amidst the violence. This was what she was good at. "I suggest you run off with your tail between your legs," Azula said.

"You bitch! Boys! Bring down the house!" Dianxi screamed. And then, there came a rumbling. Azula reacted faster than she thought possible. With a foot, she kicked a chair at Dianxi, which he caught. But that wasn't the point. The point was to give her something to land on. She hurled herself forward onto that chair with all the mass and momentum she could acquire given the small distance, and with him unable to stay standing, the two were catapulted out of the door, into the street, he smacking his head against the stone, she rolling to her feet just past him.

And she was not even close to being alone. The fingers in her mind, not even really noticeable to the young woman now riding on the rush of adrenaline, recoiled slightly. Something had been miscalculated. Part of her didn't care. She could see an earthbender nearby, obvious because of his stance, preparing to undercut the shop. She answered him with a very strong kick right up 'twixt his wide-set legs. Another sent a rock at her, and it pounded into her back, causing a familiar amount of pain and sending her stumbling. The next rock, though, she managed to slide out of the way of, the same sort of sinuous motions she had first seen in an airbender monk. The second stone became a third, then a seventh, and then, began to surge in form multiple directions. And she weaved through them all. Until she found the right one.

One was moving just a bit slower than the others, its edges a bit more rounded. As it slipped past, she slammed her hands around it, and though it pulled her off her feet, it was only for a moment. She landed in a spin, and hurled that stone directly at its source, bursting it over his face with nothing but raw muscle-power. The two earthbenders still standing exchanged a nervous glance, and parted, as a third, fourth, and fifth joined them to circle Azula. She did the math. It didn't look good.

She could hear noise inside the tea-house. She didn't doubt that Iroh was probably being beaten to within an inch of his life by the thugs. Otherwise, he'd firebend, and give himself away. She was restraining herself for much the same reason. And that restraint was costing her.

The first furtive attack was easily enough warded by a kick to the inner thigh, which sent the man hobbling back in pain. Unfortunately, it gave the one behind her ample opportunity to collide with her back, pinning one arm to her side. She heaved back with an elbow, but his head was as well as made of stone. And the attempt gave the others a chance to move in. She could do little but pull in her tongue and grit her teeth as a fist collided with her jaw. It hurt, and she could immediately taste blood where her lips had been split against her teeth, but she answered by kicking higher, and driving the wind out of that one's lungs with a toe to the diaphragm.

The one behind her was trying to get her off her feet, level her to the ground. She knew what would come next if that happened. She hurled her head straight back, and was rewarded with another flit of stars through her vision, but also the meaty crunch of a nose breaking. She heaved her elbow back again, this time lower, catching him in the side of the neck. His grip was still as sure as stone. Another fist coming toward her stomach. She clenched her muscles there, and gave him no more than a grunt for his effort. He then followed that with a hook which caught her in the nose. No crunch, but more brilliant pain, and she could feel wet on her upper lip as well as dribbling past her lower. Azula kicked all the higher, with the confidence that the momentarily stunned thug at her back couldn't bear her down. With thighs no less powerful than the arms binding her in place, she pulled the pig who thought he had the right to strike her in, until his face was pressed up against her groin, her legs hooked around his neck.

Then, with a heave, there was an entirely different kind of crack.

He dropped to the ground, and as her feet hit the street, her eyes went wide. One of the earthbenders was sending a sharp shard of stone at her face. She hooked her feet behind the knees of her captor, and heaved herself down, causing her to slip through his grasp until she was being cradled at bosom level instead of diaphragm level. This was just enough leeway that when she twisted her head aside, it nicked her temple, instead of impaling her face, before bouncing off the goon's skull. Finally, released.

She flicked her nose with the heel of a hand, casting away the blood on it. Five on one, still, since Dianxi was getting to his feet after that mild concussion. He moved fastest, hurling a bludgeon toward her which was part of the chair she'd pinned him with. She caught it and twisted the hand, popping it out of his grasp and letting his heedless momentum carry him straight past her, before hurling that same bludgeon at the face of the earthbender who tried to murder her. He let out a 'gack' and ducked aside, but he put himself in a position which made it impossible for him to avoid her brutal haymaker. It caught him square in the teeth, which opened her knuckles, but sent him sprawling on his back onto the ground. It actually took him a second to stop sliding. Four on one. She spun, putting the fallen at her back.

Dianxi looked almost as red as the burns on his face. "Don't just stand there you useless tits! Grab her!" he roared.

And she moved gracefully. She moved swiftly. And she moved right into the grasping hands of three men who were as strong as she was, and far larger besides. It wasn't a matter of mobility. It was a matter of numbers and inevitability. If she used her fire, she would win. And then everything would fall apart. So even as she hurled profanities in their own language at them, absorbing a knee to her kidney for the trouble, she was driven to her knees, and there was little she could have done to change that. They'd stopped underestimating her. Now, they were treating her with the respect of a dangerous opponent, and that meant doing as she would have; stacking the deck against her so completely that she had no real means of resistance whatsoever.

When he came close, she spat blood at him, just to prove her point. "What now? Open your pants? I'll bite it off, you piece of garbage!" Azula shouted.

"I've got to send a message," he said, scowling against pain, and pulled a knife from his belt. "And that message is best writ in blood, girl. Kind of a pity. You'd'a been useful on the other side of this."

"Aimei! No!" Iroh shouted as he came to the door of the shop, behind and out of Azula's sight, as she was both grasped hand, foot, and neck, glaring up at the hoodlum. His arm pulled back, and she pulled in a breath. Fire or no – exposure or no – she was not going to die to this _nobody_.

A conviction which proved moot. Her vision, clouded by multiple blows to the face and head, couldn't see the source of it, but a strand seemed to zip out of the distance, coiling 'round and trapping that hand with the blade. When he tried to thrust forward, it barely made it half the distance between them. He then turned back, and saw why.

A knife appeared in the hand which was squeezing Azula's jaw and holding it facing forward, causing it to release. Another scream, as the hoodlum holding her right arm and leg reflexively released her. The slightest of glances to that direction showed that there was now an arrow plunging into his kneecap. With now only one grown man trying to hold her down, Azula had the leverage to get a foot under her, and heave. The sudden shift of momentum carried the two of them into the doorframe of Dim's Tea House. She drove her shoulder into his sternum, then pounded her fist lower into his manhood. Then, she chopped hard at his throat, causing him to finally release his grip of her other arm. Her finishing punch was forestalled as a dented kettle swung past her and bashed the earthbender thug in the side of the head, driving it against the wood, and sending him unconscious. She glanced to the purveyor of that kettle. A very angry Iroh was standing there, his fists white-knuckled 'round that tea-implement. Past him, she could see that both of the goons were unconscious on the floor of the tea house.

"What were you thinking?" Iroh demanded of her. But her answer was forestalled as another came close to them, rushing forward with a pair of hook-swords. As Dianxi was still tangled, he couldn't retreat, and found his balance utterly upset and undercut by the young man, his feet pulled out from under him, landing him flat on his face. With a twist of the two weapons together into one hand, he swung down, flicking the weapon ninety degrees, before colliding the blunt of the two hooks into the thug's ear. He then stood over the man, looking about as cocky as a teenager could. Azula ignored him for a moment, and faced Iroh, spitting out a bit more blood.

"I was thinking, 'I sure would like to get paid this week'," she said with her usual sing-song sarcasm, which sounded a bit off because of both her accent and the raggedness of the tone through a bleeding nose. She then turned away from her uncle, toward the young man who had knocked the extortionist unconscious. "And who are you supposed to be?"

"Me? I'm just stranger," he said, smirking with a sprig of wheat 'twixt his teeth. How anybody would ever think it reasonable to fight with that, she could not say. Then again, she'd never seen anybody foolish enough to fight with hook-swords, either. First time for everything, it seemed.

"What has happened here?" a new voice came, which caused Azula a moment's alarm. She turned around, already in a firebending pose, before remembering that she didn't dare produce so much as a spark. Not yet. There were two men, wearing drab armor and papered caps, were standing near where the haymakered goon was still groaning on the ground.

"Oh, thank the gods!" Dim expounded. "Dianxi Szuan tried to murder my tea server! If these passers-by hadn't helped, they would have... I don't even want to think about it!" he said with wild gesticulations.

"Is that the truth, young lady?" they said, turning their attention to the teenaged girl who was already starting to bruise and was freely bleeding. She swallowed her pride for a moment, despite being the destroyer of half their force single handedly.

"Yes. I was so terrified," she said, making her voice small and weak.

"There are two more inside. I was able to subdue them, but I feared for my niece's safety," Iroh indicated inside the tea-house.

"We'll have to call more people in," the constable indicated. He faced Azula directly. "You don't need to be afraid anymore. You're safe now," and then to the newcomer with the hook-swords. "And as for you, be it known that vigilantism is not acceptable in Ba Sing Se. That said you did save a young lady's life. I thank you on behalf of the City, young man."

"I came here for a fresh start. Funny how that turned out," he said. Azula glanced past him, and her meek mask fell as soon as she saw pale eyes watching her, in that all-too-familiar face.

"Couldn't let an old friend get hurt," Mai said, her tone as usual bored and nonchalant. Iroh gave a glance to her, and then to Azula. Azula frowned to Mai. Seeing her once was... odd. Seeing her again, now? She didn't have a word for that. Mai moved a bit closer, crossing her arms before her as the constables began to shackle the goons in stone, and the known earthbenders in metal manacles. Beyond, Azula could see two more. A reasonably attractive Easterner who bundled up a meteor hammer, and a lanky young man with big ears and a ratty pan hat hiding a bow under his cloak. "Would you mind if I talk to my old friend in private?"

Iroh kept his eye on her, but Mai guided Azula off to one side, sitting her down on a bench. Around, Azula could now see that there was quite the gallery of witnesses, rubberneckers, and lookieloos. But she had a fairly good notion that none of them was going to offer testimony. The Dai Li had them all so scared of their own shadows that they'd never stick their neck out, for or against anybody. "It's been a long time," Azula said evenly.

Mai's eyebrow rose. "You recognize me?"

"Of course I do," Azula said with a note of contempt. One she reined in. "I was told you were dead."

"And _I_ was told _you_ were dead. That's the way these things go I guess," Mai said with a dismissive shrug. "I see your uncle is well."

"And I see you've taken up with a band of bandits, from the looks of things," Azula answered. The big-eared one shot her a look which clearly said 'this one's got a tongue like a knife.' "I'd ask what you're doing alive, but that doesn't matter. What are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are," Mai said. "Only now, we've got a chance of it working."

Azula raised an eyebrow at that. Had her old friend, in the absence of distractions like parents and Zuzu, matured into something of an astute political animal? "Whatever do you mean?" Azula asked with sing-song sweetness.

"They know who you are," Mai said. "And we know what you're capable of. It's just a matter of getting to the right place at the right time."

"Count me in," Azula said without hesitation. Her own plans were strung with a degree of mutability for circumstances much like this, albeit not this one exactly. A small part of her was bouncing with glee that Mai had somehow come back from the dead. That part was quite muted by years of harboring betrayal and resentment. And her other self was remaining quite mum on the situation. "The city won't know what hit it," she promised.

"I like her spirit," the swordsman said with a smirk. Azula ignored him. "You should come by our place when you're able. I'm sure you two have a lot of catching up to do."

Azula nodded, and moved to her Uncle, who still had a disapproving look on his face. Let him.

But unnoticed, unseen by any, even the only one who could have, an eight year old girl was standing over one particular Easterner, whose eyes now stared blindly, and his chest lay still on the street. Her hands were pressed to her mouth in shock, her big golden eyes leaking terrified tears. "Oh... oh my god. Agni's flame... I _killed_ someone," the young Azula whispered in shock and horror.

* * *

><p><strong>Fun chapter to write. And your first Azula-issued ass-whupping. There's a lot of set up, I know, but considering how out-of-canon that things have gotten by the time they landed in Ba Sing Se, there needs to be a little bit of explanation. <strong>

**In response to the note that I tend to underdescribe the locations I use; that's a long-time weakness of mine. I've always been of a mind that narrative is driven by action and word, not visual. Any amount of screen taken up by telling how something looks is effort which I would rather put forth either deepening the world or describing how Azula breaks somebody's nose with her elbow. Call it a writer's conceit. We've all got them.**

**Next chapter was the one which I was waiting since roughly a quarter of the way through the first 'season' to create, specifically Sharif's Scene. As soon as I knew how his character would react, I absolutely knew that I had to do 'that' with him. But I get ahead of myself, especially since it'll probably be around two weeks before the next one comes out. Lacking questions in the previous reviews, I sign off.**

_Leave a review._


	33. The Tales of Ba Sing Se

_Long Feng's Tale_:

His sleep was, as usual, fitful and restless. Not surprising considering the monumental strain which he found himself under, every single day. And no days more so than the few he'd had recently. He had been flying between the primary offices in the Upper Ring and the ones close to his home on a practically hourly basis, trying to prepare for whatever calamitous event would ride on the tails of the Avatar's covert entry into his city. He'd planned for a thousand outcomes. Had a thousand contingencies. He expected every plot and maneuver under the sun, and planned accordingly, to mitigate the damage that the uneducated boy could do in naïve ignorance. And the Avatar did the one thing which Long Feng had specifically not accounted for. He did absolutely nothing.

The rest of his party were busy as bumblebeevers, managing to slip his noose in three different ways, but the Avatar himself almost never even left the house. For a week and more, just silence and lethargy. That house had become a black-hole in his network, nobody in, nothing out. And with every day, he could feel the tick-tick-ticking of a mechanism outside his control, something slowly pulling into a deadly configuration. A bomb which would undo everything he had worked so hard to maintain. And still, from the Avatar, silence.

It was maddening.

Long Feng pulled off the thin sheet he slept under, rubbing at a headache which made demands of him that his body would not be long capable of permitting. Exhaustion upon awaking, and long hours of work, together conspired to make dead-men of even the healthiest. And Long Feng had partaken of both in reckless measure in the last few weeks. He glanced over his shoulder, but Dun's spot was, as to be expected, vacant. He glanced toward the window, and noted the angle of the daylight. It was entire too steep. Green eyes flashed wide, and he pulled himself to his feet, digging the pocket chronometer from the drawer at the far side of the room. He goggled at the time.

A hasty dressing later, and Long Feng was moving into the dining area of the small house he shared. "Why did you allow me to oversleep so long?" Long Feng asked. It was hard to cut off the demanding tone he would use with his inferiors, which was all of the Dai Li. Dun deserved better than that. Dun glanced toward him from the table.

"You looked like you needed the rest," he said simply. "And just so you know, you're not the only one panicking about your sleeping habits. Your coworker has already popped in," Dun waved toward where Joo Dee was sipping easily at tea. Her eyes spoke a mirth which Long Feng had to restrain himself mightily not to crush. After all, this was the one place in this city where the Grand Secretariat was allowed to be simply Long Feng. He would not destroy that, as surely as he would not destroy Ba Sing Se. Long Feng looked at her, and she stared back.

"So if you're done sleeping, we can head into work together," she said with a professional tone. She turned a smile toward Dun, but it was a hollow one. Joo Dee had never understood nor approved of Long Feng's personal life. And the first thing that Long Feng did upon ascending above her was making it very clear that she would never be able to disparage it again. "Thank you for the tea. It was quite bracing. But I must bring my coworker. The city can't run if nobody works the machinery, no?"

"I know what you mean, but would it kill you to put in a word to his supervisor? Nobody needs to be worked as hard as he is," Dun said, turning away and setting away the tea set. Long Feng waited until Joo Dee finished her cup, then walked out the door. A few seconds later, she was matching his stride.

"I told you not to come to my house anymore, Joo Dee. Do we need to revisit that conversation?" he asked.

"You were two hours late. Some feared that the anarchists had found out who you are," Joo Dee pointed out. "You wished me to report on the Tribesman and the Blind Girl?"

"Have you kept watch on the professor?" Long Feng asked. It was almost insulting how easily that they'd slipped past his means of blockading them. The earthbender girl simply demanded Professor Keung's time, and the man gave it, in his offices. That was the most aggravating part of the Avatar's cadre; they had an uncanny ability to cut through the red tape which was Ba Sing Se's vital bureaucracy as though with a sword. Sooner or later, they would cut something irreplaceable. It was becoming frightening how little he knew about the Avatar's cadre, and what contacts they might have in the City.

"Yes, and we have set him up on a 'research journey' to the Southern Reaches," Joo Dee answered. "I wonder why you keep them grasping at straws. Would not giving them what they want speed them away from the city faster?"

"If only," Long Feng said. He knew that as soon as the Avatar had everything that they were looking for from within the bureaucracy, then they would move against the font of it. After all, the Avatar needed an army, and at the moment, Long Feng _was_ the army. As soon as that was discovered, or revealed, he would be a prime target. He was a skilled enough earthbender, true, but he held no illusions of how he would fare against the Avatar. "What more have you found out about the Avatar and his cadre?"

"Precious little, I fear," Joo Dee reported. "The blind girl is a thug, but an intelligent one, and with surprising connections. The waterbender is quiet, and beneath notice in this. The most worrying of that group are Prince Zuko, who is a protected enemy of the state, and the other Tribesman, who is a complete unknown entity. We know their names, but not much more than that."

Long Feng growled as he walked. If only he had the supreme power he needed. He could crush the Fire Nation Prince without incident or argument. Then again, if he had that kind of power, he could just outright remove the Avatar from his city. "News from Badesh?"

"Catatonic, still," Joo Dee reported. "There is word of the Dragon's Daughter in the city, however."

"Explain," Long Feng said.

"It is shaped like itself. Badesh had children," Joo Dee clarified. Long Feng took a moment to rub at his unshaven chin. Haste made a mockery of his usual prim appearance. That news could be of great value to him. If Badesh had a child, especially within the Walls, then he could use that child against her. Somehow. "I have had al'Jalani issue some sort of decree against young women living alone in the city. Lewd and licentious behavior, no?" she chuckled. "Doubtful al'Jalani even knows she is our mouthpiece, since it is quite in keeping with her other pressed policies."

"That will do little but turn her fellow Si Wongi against her and cause Unrest in the Lower Ring," Long Feng dismissed, but rethought the notion. "Of course, the Si Wongi are primarily contained in the Lower Rings, which will limit the girl's movement. Find her. Discover where she is hiding, and track her down. Bring her in at any cost when you do."

"Of course, Long Feng," Joo Dee said evenly.

"I want you to step up the watch of the Avatar's residence. I need to know what is happening inside those walls!" Long Feng demanded. The two walked in silence for a long moment. "Is there anything else?"

"Yes. General How has been been frequenting his housing in the Middle Ring. We believe that is how the Avatar entered without our permission," Joo Dee informed. So there was a plot afoot between the Avatar and the Five Generals? "It's likely not what you think. He never enters the Avatar's housing. Always the one adjacent to it. Stays briefly, no more than an hour, and then leaves."

"And you are telling me that we cannot enter that building, either?"

"Well, we had somebody get inside, but they were blinded by some sort of incendiary device and then hit with a stick until they were driven out into the street before they could discover anything of note. Whatever defenses How has put up are quite... unusual. And unexpected," Joo Dee said, her lips pulling into consternation. If Long Feng thought he had any kind of good luck, he might have considered that How was simply keeping a mistress there. Long Feng knew better.

He seethed. "They are mocking me. They are taking away a chunk of _my_ city. They are playing me for a fool and I _will not_ dance to that tune."

"Then we'd best prepare for a storm," Joo Dee said. "Whatever the Avatar is doing, he won't be keeping quiet much longer. Airbenders are hardly patient creatures. And especially not young ones," she gave him a glance. "I know that much from family."

Considering her grandfather had been a Nomad who survived the Purge, it held more weight than would most. But she was an expert on the Air Nomads the same way that Long Feng was an expert on firebending. And history had little bearing on this. It was the prize, to be guarded jealously and protected from such fools as the Avatar who might disrupt it. No, this would have to be solved the way that Kyoshi had mandated; with dirty hands and cold hearts.

A very long way away, two young men stared through a lens, through the ruler-straight streets. "So that's the man who usurped the Earth King?" Jet asked.

"The very same," Qujeck answered. "Now that you know the face of the enemy, we should leave before he knows yours."

Jet stared hatred at the man who had the audacity to think himself an agent for the Earth Kingdoms. He was as bad as the Fire Nation. While Jet's long fight against the West had been, momentarily, curtailed, he knew that this was _wrong_, and it needed to be _stopped_. Mai would agree with him. He knew that.

Or at least, he hoped she would.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13<strong>

**The Tales of Ba Sing Se**

* * *

><p><em>Katara's Tale<em>:

She opened the earthbender's door, only to find the room empty. While Katara was surprised that so early in the morning she'd already be up – especially considering how much of a layabout she'd been on their trip from Ru Nan to Omashu, she had something of a justification as she shared a room with Zuko, and he was up with the sun. Just thinking about that firebender set her teeth to a grit. Rationally, she knew that she should have had no trouble with him. He was offering to help, despite the massive cost to himself, to somebody who should have been his enemy. But still, every time she thought about him, she couldn't help but label him as 'the enemy', the twisted royal obsessed with his sister's wellbeing. The man who got her exiled from her home. It was irrational, it was illogical, but it didn't matter. Katara still felt as she felt. It was just a miracle that Toph could put up with him as much as she did.

That raised the point of where Toph was going all the time. Yes, it was clearly the university, but according to the blind girl, the library staff was about the most unhelpful bunch of louts this side of Great Whales, and demanded she look up what she wanted herself. That she managed to find as much as she did, given her obvious handicap, was a miracle of good timing and kismet. She returned with less and less good news every day. And paradoxically, in a better and better mood.

She leaned in, looking down the hole which plunged out of sight in the inside corner of the room. She knew that the drop bypassed the sewers of the City, into a space of old ruins and glowing crystals, the outermost fringes of the city which the Monolith had founded thirty centuries ago. Unobserved and untraced, it was the perfect place for the traitorous prince to teach Aang how to firebend. That it was Zuko's idea didn't raise Katara's opinion of him.

She was about to close the door to that room when there was a grinding of stone against stone. Rising up from that hole came the two inhabitants of it, Zuko at a kneel, Aang bending them upward. When he brought their lift to a halt, it was with a huge grin and bright eyes. Katara gave Zuko a mildly venomous glance, then faced Aang more directly. "You look pleased this morning, Aang," Katara said.

"Yeah! Look what I can do!" Aang enthused, before pressing both hands together. Then, with a twist of his fingers and an almost comedic scowl of concentration, he pulled those hands apart, and three little balls of flame ignited between his palms. Then, the scowl became a broad, silly grin, and the fireballs began to spin at a truly remarkable speed, until they blended together in her vision like some sort of fiery ring.

"Wow, that's great, Aang," Katara said genuinely. Zuko, though stalked to the wall and leaned against it, staring ahead of him.

"It's a party trick. Even _I_ was doing better by the time I was eight," Zuko said. Katara put fists to hips.

"He's trying as hard as he can, and learning as fast as you'll teach him. You have no right to belittle him like that!"

He didn't even turn to her. "You've got it backwards. I'm teaching as fast as he'll learn. At this rate, he'll still be trying to get his breathing right by the time you need to face my father."

"Oh, come on! I can hold my breath forever!"

"It's not about breathing in and out, it's about stoking the..." he paused. Like he was trying to scrounge up somebody else's words. "It's about giving fuel to the Pool of Chi, down in the stomach. It's like a furnace, and you have to give it air, otherwise your stomach-fire goes out and you're helpless."

Both stared at him, one with fire still spinning. "That... didn't make a whole lot of sense," Aang pointed out. "And I'd know."

He glanced away from them. In anger or embarrassment, she couldn't say. "It's just the kind of thing Uncle would say all the time. It doesn't matter. Now leave me alone. I'm starving and I can't teach more until you get your head out of the clouds. I'm getting dinner. We'll try again later."

Zuko walked over to the table and began to spoon himself cold jook. Well, if that's what he wanted, he could have it. She moved to the outside world, letting the sun strike her in the face as she opened the door. The weather was certainly becoming nice. Well, as nice as weather in the drought-stricken East could become. She reached for the newsreel where it would be waiting, but her hand closed on nothing. Huh. Maybe they were late in delivering it?

"Tribesman!" a call came, sharp and abrupt from the house next door. The Si Wongi girl was obviously demanding attention for some reason. Katara rolled her eyes and moved to the side of the houses.

"Yes?" Katara asked. The window to what looked like some sort of explosion waiting to happen was thrown open, and the dark young woman was vigorously rasping at a pipe where she stood at the aperture. She turned toward Katara, an expression of mild confusion on her face.

"The other Tribesman," the Si Wongi clarified. The window to Katara's room flew open, and her brother lazed forward, leaning on the window-sill, a smirk on his face.

"Yyyyes?" Sokka asked.

"I thought it prudent to inform you; I'm not wearing any underwear," she said, with a mischievous smirk on her face. Katara's eyebrows rose at that. Was she saying what Katara thought she was saying?

"Oh, that's just fine. I'm not wearing any _pants_!" Sokka said, standing tall and proud in his underwear. With a smug look, he turned and walked back into the room, proud as any peacock-frog. It was Nila's turn for eyes to be wide and baffled. Then, she slowly palmed her face with a tattooed hand.

"I'm not really sure what I _should_ have expected," she noted to herself, with the Tribesman overhearing it. She then turned, noted Katara and sighed. "As long as you are dropping eaves, you'd might as well come in. Sharif is driving me to insanity."

"Dropping eaves?" Katara asked, but the Si Wongi had already walked away from her window, giving Katara no alternative but to walk into the house to intercept them. While the floor plan for the houses were similar, a roughly 'L' shaped main area, flanked by a bedroom on one side, and the bathroom and a second bedroom on the other, they could scarcely be more different. Namely, all of what should have been in a bedroom was piled into a corner, save the cot, which ran along the wall next to a door. The place also smelled slightly acrid, but with hints of sulfur and mint. The biggest change, though, was the rugs. While Toph demanded that the floor be as uninterrupted as possible, they had apparently gone the other way and made sure that the floor was about as well padded as most beds.

"You have not been into this house, yes?" Nila asked.

"Well, some of us wait to be invited before barging in," she said with a roll of her eyes toward the other building, where her brother _had better be putting on pants_. "What do you need?"

"A conversation with somebody who does not yammer on about spirit nonsense, lest I lose my very mind," Nila said frankly, before seating herself on the carpets seemingly at random. Katara tucked her legs under her and did the same. Say what you would, having so many rugs did make the place more comfy. "As I understand it, you are a bender of water," she trailed off. "...how's that treating you?"

"Good. Good..." Katara answered. Nila glanced away, and twisted at a button in her shirt. "So... Do you... talk to people very much?"

"No."

That was obvious. "So why talk to me?"

"Because Ashan talks about butchery, about manly things for a manly mind. While I hold no monopoly on its alternative, it grows tiresome," she then grew silent. Then sighed. "I miss Tzu Zi."

"Your friend? The firebender?" Katara asked. Nila nodded. "She must have been a dear friend."

"The first I have had," Nila answered. That actually explained quite a bit. "It is infuriating. I know rationally that she had to do what she did. That family is amongst the most of the important. But why do I wish to hate her, to lash out at her for this? She is my friend, and I wish her ill? What madness is this?"

"It's alright," Katara said. "Sometimes, the brain and the heart don't exactly agree with each other."

"The heart pumps blood. If it and the brain disagree, it is called a heart attack," Nila pointed out humorlessly.

"I think you know what I mean," Katara said. At least, she hoped Nila did, otherwise this conversation was going to be a lot longer and more difficult than it had to be. Nila's shrug and nod loosened a knot of worry in Katara. Explanation was something that Sokka might have delighted in, but Katara just liked... talking. "It's alright to feel these things; it doesn't make you a bad person. I mean, the fact that you worry about it means that you can't be all bad. We all feel betrayed by people we're close to, sometimes. But there comes a point where we just have to forgive what others do to us, or else, we'll spend the rest of our lives alone."

"Sometimes, I wonder if such would not be preferable. It seems every friend I make turns away from me. Tzu Zi, and Malu before her," she shook her head.

"Excuse me, what?" Katara asked. It couldn't be the same one...

"Malu, an airbender we met in our travels," Nila said with a note of bitterness, but causing a gasp of shock from Katara. "She released a demon into my home, and destroyed it. I had to shoot her in the heart, and I very much doubt I did any harm to her."

"You didn't," Katara said. Nila glanced her direction. "We found her, in the Great Divide. She was... trying to eat Aang."

"She has fallen to cannibalism?" Nila turned away, eyes pressed shut, and muttered something in another language. When Katara pressed with a 'what was that?', she faced the Tribesman more squarely, upon wiping away welling tears. They did not become more, though. "She oft complained of ravenous hunger in our time together. To see it has become so dire. I would not have wished it upon her. She by times infuriated me, mocked me constantly, always testing my wits. But when that thing erupted from her, and made a mockery of my home... it hurt. It hurts to remember her."

Katara reached to give the girl a pat on the shoulder, a comfort, but the girl shrugged her away. "I think I understand. You still wish she was here, don't you?"

"I do. It makes no sense, but I do," Nila said quietly. "Have you met any who inspired such... muddy sentiment?"

Before Katara could shut it out, Zuko came to mind. "No... yes," she said. Nila raised a brow. "The Prince..."

"Has he betrayed you?"

"Yes."

"And you desire to destroy him?"

"What? No!" she said. "I mean, I want him to stop being so arrogant, and I know that he's doing this for all the wrong reasons, but... It's like you said. I can't get my instincts to agree with my brain. I know that if it comes down to Aang or his sister, he's going to choose his sister."

"So he is a good brother," Nila summed up.

"What? That's not what I..."

"You complain about him, saying that he is this monster in man's flesh, but his sin is being true to his family? Were he a Si Wongi who offered any less, he would be stripped naked and whipped into the Grit Ocean for his unmanful behavior," Nila said. "Would you do any less with your brother?"

"Aang against Sokka?" Katara said. She really didn't know the answer to that.

"No, not for your Avatar. He is as much a sibling as your brother is. That can be seen at a glance. No, for another person. A person of importance to many others, besides yourself. Some... high-chief of your people, for example."

"My father is High Chief," Katara said. Nila blinked at her.

"So you are royalty?"

"No, not exactly," Katara shook her head. "This is getting too complicated."

"Nothing is less complicated than a love amidst a family, if you were to ask the opinion of one such as Ashan," she said, gesturing to one of the bedrooms. She then shrugged. "I heed Mother because she has done me services, both in shelter and in education, for many years. I cannot say that I love her. Not honestly..."

"But what about Sharif?" Katara asked. "You can't deny you love your brother."

"I did. I do. It's complicated," she sighed. "The brother whom I was most close to vanished with a stroke of a blade. Now, I know that he lives on, buried inside a wounded mind. It is... complicated."

Katara leaned back a bit. "You don't talk about this stuff very much, do you?"

"I have little opportunity," Nila admitted. "Most find me... offputting."

"You _are_ fairly abrasive," Katara said, before her brain caught up with her mouth and told her to shut up before the catty-comment hit the air. But contrary to any reasonable reaction to it, the Si Wongi teenager just nodded, as though she was well aware of her problem. "But I mean, you've got friends. Look at Ashan! He obviously thinks a lot of you, otherwise he wouldn't be here."

"He had no option but to follow us. He said that his home, and thinking of it, is too painful since his mother's demise," Nila dismissed.

"But you're a long way from home now. Why wouldn't he just stop somewhere else?" Katara said. "Do you think that he might be... _interested_ in you?"

"Don't be absurd. As well be attracted to a cactus, for it is both more personable and less spiky."

"I don't know. He does linger his looks in your direction every morning when he leaves," Katara said teasingly. Nila just stared at her flatly, and the teasing sort of died out. "Or not..."

"I need to collect a few things. I was going to ask the Tribesman for aid, but since you are here, I would ask it of you. You can ward my brother, can you not? He sometimes wanders, and without Ashan to keep him within doors, I fear he would vanish. As hard as he was to find in the East, he would be the very devil to find in Ba Sing Se," Nila said. It didn't seem much like a request.

Still, Katara put on a smile. If nothing else, this girl did seem like she needed a friend. "I'll do it. Don't worry about your brother. I've got plenty of experience reining in wayward siblings."

"Excellent," Nila got to her feet, and ducked into that room beside the bed. It was pitch black inside. When she came out, she paused, pointing behind her. "Do not enter that room. Much of everything within can and will kill you if mishandled. Clear?"

Katara nodded.

"I will be back soon enough," Nila said. She then pounded on the door opposite her, and shouted something through it. The only word which Katara could pick out from that brief and seemingly angry tirade was her own name. Nila then turned back to Katara. "He is being stubborn. If you give him an inch of patience, he will waste a mile."

And with that, she left. Katara watched after her, before having a worrying notion, and moving to the boy's door. What were the chances that he wasn't even in here? She didn't like her odds. So she carefully slid the door open. And to her frank surprise and amazement, the scarred, fifteen year old Si Wongi youth was sitting exactly where a reasonable person would expect him to. His back was to the window, sun lighting just barely off of his relatively long black hair. His eyes were very soft, it seemed, as they looked down to the saber-toothed moose-lion cub which had at some point wandered over. "So there it is. I wondered where it'd gotten to," Katara said, stooping to pick up the squirming ball of brown fuzz. Sharif continued to watch it, so she paused from leaving, now that her curiosity had been sated. "Is something wrong?"

"The child misses its mother," Sharif said distantly. Was he talking about the cub, or himself? She sat down across from him, and the cub let out peeping noises.

"That's natural, I guess," Katara said. "But maybe we can help it anyway."

"Some wounds can't heal. Not completely. But..." he gesticulated, trying to find the words and failing, before just shaking his head. Katara glanced to the scar which plunged down toward his eye. "Some hurts are too great."

"Some... but not always," she said. "Sharif... have you ever thought about what you'd do if you had your whole mind back?"

"I don't understand."

"I'm a waterbender. A healer," she clarified. "I could... try to repair some of the damage. Maybe it might make it easier to think."

"Some hurts are too great, too old," Sharif dismissed.

"Please. Let me try," she said. She pulled the water from her flask, and it glowed gently on her hands as she laid a palm to his brow. He pulled back a bit, but more out of seeming reluctance than fear. She felt the energy flowing in and around him, and felt for the wound. But there wasn't one. Or rather, the wound was too old. It was like there was nothing left to heal. "This doesn't make sense. I've helped reattach limbs. This should be the same thing!"

"I can't complete the puzzle. Somebody hid the parts," Sharif said.

She continued to search, to scour, to overturn every metaphorical rock. But it was like trying to pick up wet soap. Every attempt shot out of her fingers the instant she tried to apply purchase. And the more she tried, the more she thought he might have a point. She might have reattached limbs, but that was just restoring something to its rightful state. Everything which was damaged, destroyed, in Sharif was now long gone. There was a gap, a fluid filled bolus between his skull and where his brain now began, a wound so long healed that there was nothing more she could do for him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I... I guess there really is nothing I can do."

Sharif gently leaned forward, and pressed one finger to her lips, staring with an odd intensity into her eyes. "Shhh. Quiet. I hear something."

"What? What do you..." a blink, and the room changed, "hear...?"

She blinked to herself, and glanced around. Where had Sharif gone? And why had the angle of the sun changed? She glanced back at the door, and saw that the cub was anxiously pawing at it, as if clamoring to be out. She got to her feet, opening the door, and moving beyond. The sun had shifted in the sky, that much was clear. How? What had just happened to her?

* * *

><p><em>Azula's Tale<em>:

"Leaves on the vine, falling so slow; like tiny, fragile shells, drifting in the foam," the old man sang quietly, kneeling before a single flag of stone, set into an otherwise uninhabited hill, just within sight of the Great Wall. And Azula felt no desire to mockery. Not now. Just looking at the earnest mourning, the freely shed and uninhibited tears on the old general's face, she could as well insult him now as she could burn off her own face.

She knew that pain. She had lived it.

"Why didn't you move him home?" Azula asked quietly, where she stood at the old man's shoulder.

He didn't answer her, just stared at the burning incense which sat in the soil beside the unmarked headstone. "Sweeeet soldier boy, comes marching home... bra-a-ave soldier boy; comes marching home..."

She didn't know what to say to that. So she just laid a hand onto his shoulder. And as she stared at the nephew she barely knew, at the point where he died, she thought about her own child. She had died much like this, far from home and the people who cared about her. Chiyo's father no doubt laughed about it when he heard. Fitting that the last thing he learned from Azula before she killed him was why exactly he had to die. The look of heartbreak, distraught and destroyed... it slaked a baleful thirst in her to crush that out of him. She inhaled sharply, and wiped at her eyes with her other hand. This was no time to be thinking about Chiyo, about her death. At least, she told herself that. The truth was, she was getting tired. Tired of focusing on her death so much. Tired of hating

Part of her just wanted it to stop.

And at that, she pulled her hand back, and growled silently, only inside her own mind. This is your doing, isn't it, she demanded in her thoughts. You're doing this to me. Making me doubt my purpose! Trying to make me weak! But of course, there was no answer to that. She hadn't seen the child in weeks and weeks. While a part of her wondered if the child had finally vanished completely, the cynicism of Azula knew better. She was just waiting for something, a feint to unleash her fiendish plot. "I'm going back," she said to the old man, as close to a normal, spiteless dialogue as she'd ever had with him. Iroh didn't respond, just kept staring down at the stone. She turned, and she left him, thinking of a different set of eyes, a different smile. A different life.

"You didn't need to come," Iroh said, just as she was moving out of earshot. She turned, but didn't answer him. Yes, she did, but she wouldn't say as much. Bitter as she was, she knew first hand that no parent who'd lost a child should be alone with that grief. It rotted at you. She kept her silence to the tram-station, which was located beside a granary full of wheats and barley. She had to ride in with a load of grain, but she didn't complain. She'd suffered worse. She once slept in a stall with an Ostrich Horse while seven months pregnant. She glanced down at her body, so young and nubile, and so powerful. It bore neither the scars of aging nor childbirth. And it was increasingly feeling more comfortable than the battered frame she had departed.

Soon, this body would simply be hers, not just the body of a girl she'd supplanted. The tram emptied her and its contents into the outermost fringes of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring, necessitating a longer walk, amidst the teeming poor and destitute. She was as blind to them. She didn't care about them. They didn't matter. Perhaps the girl would have thought differently, but _she_ was not here. They were just a river flowing past her. She cut through it, heading toward the hovel which she and her uncle had taken to living in, a row of flat-houses clustered around a common well.

Doubt was starting to eat at her. What if Iroh was right? What if so much had already changed that she couldn't keep it reined in anymore? What if everything that that stupid girl had done in her ignorance over the last few months had irrevocably altered the flow of events? But that kind of thinking was counterproductive. If things had changed, then she would change also. If events shifted, she would come up with a new plan, to counteract them. After all, the linchpin of her plan lay with the Dai Li and Long Feng. Surely, that could not have changed so much.

And then she heard _That Girl_.

The careful words in practiced Tianxia froze Azula in her step, as she entered a relatively open bit, a courtyard in the center of a district which was dominated by outsiders and refugees. She almost started moving again, the wrath starting to boil in her, when a knot of Tribesmen pushed into that same courtyard. They spread out quickly, but while the many Tribesmen had their blues and whites alike, there were three which stood out. Well, two, in this company. One of them was a broad-shouldered and beefily muscled Easterner. The other was made up as a Easterner as well, but wore reds and a pair of cracked and crumbling smoked spectacles. The last, the Tribesman, looked much like his ilk, but was picked out in that as the group looked upon Azula, his eyes remained locked on her, while the rest of the Tribesmen continued to try to move past.

There was a pristine moment of silent confusion. Then, a moment of calculation. A word from Azula would see the Tribesmen pouncing on the enemy with their number. But, identically, a word from that firebender, who sounded so much like _That Girl_, would see those same Tribesmen unite against her. The bruises on her face had faded to a pale yellow, and her knuckles still clacked slightly when she tried painting, lessons that she was neither invulnerable nor proof from defeat, especially against greater numbers. So she drew a card from the deck of subtlety. And she started walking.

Her eyes stayed locked on the trio, who had against all common sense entered the city amidst Tribesmen – Tribesmen! – and were now barring her way passively. She walked, past them. They didn't move to stop her, even though the recognition had to be complete and instant. She gave herself a wide berth, especially from that Tribesman. A touch from him and she'd be weeping for her mother. So she passed between the earthbender and the firebender. She could tell that they'd came to the same conclusions that she had. That they couldn't reveal her without revealing themselves. But what should have caused Azula dire concern, was that as Azula passed the firebender, that falsely pale girl began to smirk.

She frowned as she walked past, confused as to what that meant.

"She stole my purse! Thief!" the firebender turned, pointing at Azula and screaming.

"Get back here you little cutpurse!" the earthbender shouted, instantly moving at a sprint. And Azula wasn't about to be caught by him. She broke off at her utmost, which was probably even faster than he. But while she was restricted from using all talents to protect herself, as an Easterner in face and fashion, he was anything but. She felt rather than saw his stamp of a foot, heard rather than felt the stone leaping toward her. So she paused at just the right second, so that the spear which would have struck her in the back instead erupted blunt under her foot. She tipped her balance to be catapulted forward, somersaulting in the air to give a condescending smirk at the earthbender who had just given her means to escape her, before landing at a roll on a flat rooftop.

She was already running again, when she saw something rise up from the streets, skating on a plane of ice he created as needed. The Tribesman. His hands began to glow horribly as he moved closer. A touch and she was dead. So she instantly halted her advance, causing him to shoot past her, and have to spin back around, a task which required both time and space. Space he was denied by a building rising up just ahead of him. As his eyes were locked on her, he had the misfortune of missing the building, and then turning straight into it, smashing through a second story window. Azula glanced down into the street, and there was no shortage of confused eyes staring up, even as a woman's confused screaming erupted from that room which had seen the sudden ingress of a waterbender.

"Would you like a towel, madam?" the Tribesman's voice said clearly from within, followed by a loud slap. "I suppose I deserved that."

Azula bounded off the roof, landing on a street-tough to cushion her fall. She then pushed herself up, rubbing her chest from the cracking of on ribcage into another. It didn't hurt as much as that time she had to jump out of a fourth story window with a traitor tangled in her grasp and land on that traitor to survive. She had barely got her breathing, and her heart, stabilized when there was another rumble, and she had to duck and weave out of the way of another block of stone, flying out of a wall to try to brain her. She bounded and rolled, coming up just in time to see a knife flashing toward her face. With movements imbued into muscle memory, rather than combat training, she caught that wrist, and twisted. The firebender who'd tried to stab her was levered face-first into a wall, cracking those spectacles even further.

"Yoji!" the earthbender bellowed, and when he turned to see Azula levering her into that wall, his face instantly turned the bright red of utter rage. Azula didn't have time but to twist the knife out of the firebender's hand before she had to run, otherwise face the wrath of somebody who was probably physically stronger than her. She took off at a sprint once again, moving through the warren of alleys, trying to break pursuit, to get some distance. To start hunting, herself. But every time she was about to turn a corner, the earthbender spotted her, or the firebender did.

She finally spotted a door which stood open. She ducked into it without a second thought, and slammed the door shut behind her. There was an odd smell in the air, and when she turned, she could see why. The windows had all been shuttered,which only served to better hem the smell of burning opium. She'd wandered into a drug den. The various partakers were all laying about, their eyes glassy and hollow, breathing shallowly as their vice of choice poisoned them. She glanced about. Nobody was paying her any mind. She doubted they were even aware she was there.

She started to move through their prone and supine forms, but had only crossed half the open space by the time the wall burst open with a rumble of stone falling. She turned. The earthbender and the firebender were standing there. They took in the scene. Then, the firebender smirked. So did Azula.

Because they were unseen, the firebender lashed out with golden flame. Because she had nobody she cared about watching her, Azula answered with azure. It was like trying to dance drunk on a sinking ship, as barely cogent bodies interrupted every bit of footwork, but they moved closer, pounding and deflecting fire with fire, and Azula having to do likewise against stone blocks which the earthbender flicked toward her at every opportunity. Every assault she made was blunted against the outnumbering side. Every defense was hard pressed by the double threat of impact and combustion. But Azula had decades of experience on these two upstarts. Her feet slipped into the gaps between recumbent bodies as easily as walking across a clear dance-floor. Her fists lashed out with flames which bathed the hovel with ghostly blue light. Her opponent answered with flames which bathed the rooms in bloody sunset.

She was losing. While she had the stamina advantage on the girl, the young man could probably fight her into the ground. Literally. And she wasn't about to give over any advantage. Time, as well, was working against her. She could stand against two, but could she, when the rest of the Tribesmen found her, stand against twenty? With firebending, definitely. Without, definitely not. She could see how this fight was going to play out in her current state, and she didn't like it. She could tell, just from the way that the other firebender moved, she could as well. So Azula did something unexpected.

She didn't bother dodging when the earthbender sent a slab in her direction. Tensing her abdomen for the blow, she fought to keep air in her lungs as the momentum imparted sent her catapulting through the the poorly-constructed wall. She was hoping to fly out the window, but that windowframe followed her into the street. She, though, rolled sideways, and got her feet under her, before starting to run once again. The pain in her stomach was tremendous, but she'd suffered worse. She had to get to a point where she could start picking them off. That was her only real option.

She glanced two ways down a street, and realized that she wasn't exactly sure where she was. Somewhere in the southern districts of the Lower Rings, but beyond that, she'd found herself turned-around. She growled, and picked a direction essentially at random. Any direction was vastly superior to staying still. She started to run, trying to cut through the crowds, to break any possible line of sight. But the crowds, they became thick, hampering her every attempt at flight and egress. Obviously, she'd picked the wrong direction, because the sweep of the crowds was trying to carry her back towards where she was trying to escape. She had barely made it a hundred feet from where she'd started, all the back-steps counted in, by the time she felt rather than saw the earthbender approaching. His entrance was marked by a wall exploding into the streets, causing a lot of screaming and people clamoring away. His eyes didn't even sweep past before locking onto Azula, and then without a word, he charged. She could as easily dodge an avalanche.

The earthbender's tackle carried her over the cascading bodies of refugees and the poor, before smashing her into a decorative display holding cheap knock-offs of fancy shoes. The proprietor bounded up from his seat in horror, as they ruined his livelihood, then he paused, gave a shrug, and just moved his seat aside to watch the earthbender start to strangle a woman he didn't know on the floor of his store. Since Azula was still rattled from the take-down, she didn't have the reflexes to block his naked choke, nor was quite strong enough to pry his fingers back.

Why was it that so many people tried to kill her in the last few weeks? That thought seemed to drift through an increasingly underutilized mind before she realized she had her hand on something. Something sharp...ish. She pulled it up, flipped it in her grasp and drove it spike-first into his hands, which caused him to release reflexively, allowing her a much-needed breath. She then twirled the stiletto-heel in her grip again, and smashed it into the side of his head. Sadly, she hadn't nearly the leverage to drive the footwear through his temple, but it was enough to get him rolling to one side.

"Omo! I will _kill_ you!" the firebender's shriek came, giving Azula only a fraction of a second to react before she, too, barreled into the Princess. It was a second well spent. She pulled the girl's own knife from where she'd stowed it in her belt, grasped the incoming fist, and spun the girl shoulder-first into the rail of the shoe-store before pinning it there via a knife driven between the bones of her arm. The firebender let out a hard-stifled growl of pain, but couldn't pull away. After all, if Azula hadn't penetrated an artery with her attack, the extraction of it might. Azula backed off, breathing deeply, trying to get that air back into her lungs.

"You should try bett–" Azula began.

Then, there was a hand on her shoulder. She twisted toward it, to throw it off, but the light of the water-glove shifted from moody white to sickly green and black, causing an overwhelming pain and agony to wrack through every fiber of Azula's being, like she was being torn apart, one cell after another, but all at once. Her scream wasn't even that, it was a howl of a beast in a trap they couldn't escape. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her every weary, battered muscle locking solid. She also was fairly sure she felt her bladder loosen, but she was beyond caring about such minor indignities at this point. Death would have been a sweet gift, at this point.

She dropped to the ground, curled up into a fetal huddle. Her skin felt like it had been stripped off, set on fire, dipped in acid, rubbed with salt, then set on fire again. She could no more control her helpless crying than she could her bladder; both allowed salty water where she would have rather'd not. "You've _really_ got to work on your peripheral vision, girl. Falling for the same trick _twice_? That's just shameful," the Tribesman said sardonically.

"What happened?" Omo, the earthbender said, as he shook some sense into his head.

"I saved the day. Hooray," the Tribesman offered with a sarcastic flare and flat tone. The water on his hands turned white, and he eased the knife out of the arm of the firebender. Yoji, her name was. Azula could barely see them, just splashes of fuzzy color. She couldn't stop shaking. After a moment's ministration to the impaled firebender from the waterbender, she was tenderly clutching her arm, but didn't seem likely to bleed to death any time soon. The Tribesman addressed the crowd. "This girl tried to steal from and murder us. She's getting what she deserves."

No. No this would not end this way! Azula screamed at her body to obey her, but those screams were quiet. Even her mind seemed dulled against the impenetrable bulwark of overwhelming agony. She could barely think, hardly see, and couldn't move her body more than to flex and unflex her fingertips. Fitting she would die just as much of a failure as she had been before. She couldn't save anybody...

Even as the Tribesman reached down to grab her collar and drag her away, he hitched, rolling his shoulder forward with a shout of alarm and pain. And even Azula's diminished vision could see why. There were almost a half-dozen small quarrels jutting out of his shoulderblade.

They moved like a pack of wolfbats, sweeping forward with precision and unity much the same as the team they were assaulting. They lacked the bending of their opponents, but as Azula had had proven to her, bending did not always trump not-bending. There were many tricks which a person could pull to level that battlefield. Such as the somewhat-pretty Easterner – they called her Bug for some reason – lashing the recoiling waterbender's hands away from Azula, pulling him off his balance. Another, a smaller uglier Easterner girl – Smellerbee – darted through the developing melee, sliding to a stop next to Azula and grabbing Azula's shirt-collar with both hands, her own chipped dagger clutched 'twixt her teeth, and started to drag the stricken firebender away. The earthbender almost took an arrow to the knee, but a quickly raised barricade prevented that infirmity, but he still got a shuriken storm pinning one of his arms to the quickly crumbling frame of the shoe stall. With a heave, he tore the whole sleeve off to free himself.

The owner still watched with a somewhat interested expression on his face from nearby.

Azula was dragged away, and Yoji was having none of it. She lashed forward, trying to gut the barely conscious princess with the knife which had moments before been driven through her arm. She was deflected by a flick of hook-swords, before Jet took his place, striding over Azula's form as she was dragged back. Yoji darted back, then flicked down her other hand, dropping another knife from a holster on her arm into that other hand. She tried to move forward, but Jet... he almost danced. It was a glorious clatter of blade upon blade, one Azula was barely able to comprehend in her current state. She slashed and lunged. He bounded back, sweeping low so she had to retreat or be swept off her footing. Before she could recover, he hooked his two blades together, and twirled, sending the twinned weapons spinning all the farther. The sharpened pommel-end of the hook swords bit into her flesh as she tried to back off, causing red to start to drip out onto her shirt, barely noticeable but for the fact that Yoji tested it with a hand which came back crimson. And those fingers quickly started to darken, as concealing make-up was washed away in blood.

"We got 'er?" Jet said over his shoulder, pulling that second hook-sword back into his hands. He flashed a smirk to her. "We've _got_ to stop meeting like this."

"We should go," Mai's voice was very focused, where she'd reached down under Azula's armpit and dragged her to a slump rather than a drag.

"We've got 'em on the ropes!" Jet contested. But that statement was quickly put to lie. While Jet's group had numbers on Azula's would-be-assassins, they _didn't_ have numbers on a knot of irate and manipulated Tribesmen. "...or not!"

With that, Bug and the big-eared archer Longshot both hurled down flasks into the street. When they shattered, they released a heady billow of grey smoke, obscuring all sight in the equivalent of a pea-soup fog. Azula found herself shifted until she had one shoulder supported by Jet, the other by Mai. "We need to get out of here," Mai said with unusual emotion. Azual didn't remember her being so passionate. Then again, she hadn't really known Mai that well at all, she considered in her battered state of mental fogginess. Better than anybody in her life at that age, and yet not at all. Pathetic.

"You'll get no disagreement from me. Guys! Hit the alleys!" he shouted. That they stayed on the streets afterwords was probably a simple but effective feint. Not that Azula was in any state to appreciate or denigrate it. She just wanted to sleep until her body stopped hurting. "You were lucky we were nearby. That could have gotten ugly. Come on. We'll stash you at our place."

Azula didn't offer so much as a word in response. After all, she still hadn't entirely come to grips with the fact her old friend and band of merry brutes managed to keep saving her life.

Back behind them, as a smoke cleared leaving confused, angry Tribesmen and some people who'd tried to commit murder in broad daylight, an owner of a barely-successful shoe-stall let out a sigh. "Well, I guess show's over, Il," he said to himself. And then with a shudder. "Time to go home to th' wife."

He walked away, bringing only his somewhat comfy chair, as the framework of his shoe-stall finally gave up completely, and collapsed in on itself.

* * *

><p><em>Sharif's Tale<em>:

There was life and life here. It flew through two domains, making demands of both. Demands which one side seldom heard. But he heard. He could hear the songs from the Outer Sphere, the ideal spirits hard at work being, feeding off what gave them birth, becoming stronger so that they wouldn't be eaten by another ideal spirit, in a cycle of spiritual cannibalism which eventually resulted in something like Koh or Wan Shi Tong. Greed, given time and proper power, could become a spirit of an entire economy, driving a nation to the loftiest of heights, or else miring it in the most terrible corruption as it whispered greasy promises into heedless ears. It wasn't a historical knowledge which told the shaman this, as he walked through the worst parts of the Lower Rings. To him, it was instinctual. He knew it as he knew that human beings were born with a nose on their face.

He walked without direction, and he sang quietly, without tune, the same song he had been steadily singing since his injury. It was a song which never repeated itself, always inventing itself anew. If he had his mind whole, he would know what that song meant; if he had his mind whole, he would never have been capable of hearing it. He couldn't have said how he got to where he was standing. He knew how to get back; that path still lingered in his mind, and rested beside the path he had walked first out of his house in Sentinel Rock, all the way to Senlin, and back again. It was a strange sensation, knowing every place one had ever been. How to get there. What the landmarks were. But when he stopped, staring at the sign before him, he couldn't figure out what it meant. It was pink, glowing glass with a lantern behind it. The writing didn't make any sense to him, either. What sort of bath house didn't have a bath in it?

"Well, are you going to just stand there, or are you going to come in?" a woman he didn't know asked him. He glanced up and down the street. There were other pink lamps. Other signs he didn't understand. Had he a sense of smell, let alone a complete mind, he would know this place for what it was. As he lacked both, he shrugged and entered the building with blithe and simple innocence. The first thought which occurred to him within that place was 'they shouldn't stoke the stoves so highly, it is obviously disagreeing with the women'. Sights which should have beggared and fixated the mind of a young man of Sharif's age slid over him, as unable to affect him as the taste of food. There were men and women. The women wore less than the men did. Probably because it was so warm in here.

"Well, aren't you a rugged looking man?" another woman asked him. He didn't know her either.

"You are not familiar," Sharif said with a dismissive tone. He started to cock his head, ignoring the scanty attire of the women around him, even to the point where some of the women lounged and chatted in clothes which were as good as nudity.

"Would you like me to _become_ familiar?" she asked with an unusual tone.

"You... aren't the one I'm here for. I hear something," Sharif dismissed again. The woman gave a shrug and a sigh, and moved off to talk with other women and a man. It didn't occur to Sharif that the only reason he was even permitted within was because his broad frame and scarred-brow gave him an illusion of at least five extra years. Much didn't occur to Sharif. He continued to follow his ear, listening to that song, as he sang quietly to himself.

"Well, hello there stranger," another woman he didn't know said.

"We understand you are interested in a different kind," yet another continued. That last one had the familiar inflections and complexion of home. He tilted his head down to her hands. No tattooes. He stared at them for a moment. Why would a Si Wongi be in Ba Sing Se?

"Usually people look a bit higher," the other one coached, tipping Sharif's chin up so that his gaze fell upon the Si Wongi's chest. He blinked without comprehension. Then, he turned up to her eyes.

"_Do you miss your parents?_" Sharif asked her. She leaned back, her smile starting to curdle.

"_W...what do you mean, distant cousin?_" the Si Wongi asked.

"_You must be very far from home. They must be on your mind,_" Sharif stressed. She seemed to pale a bit, as though actually thinking of something she found unpleasant. Even painful. "_I'm sure you are on __their__ minds as well, distant cousin,_" he said. He tilted his head at her attire. "_You must also be sweltering in this place to be so underdressed. Perhaps you should find a cooler work-place?_"

The Si Wongi stared at him, but her eyes welled with tears for a moment, before she started sobbing with shame, and running toward the back of the building. The other stared at her, and back to Sharif, with utter bafflement, and no small amount of blame. "What did you _say_ to her?" the woman demanded angrily.

"I... don't know," Sharif said. "I just..." he trailed off, as his nose, so long bereft of any mortal sensation, caught a whiff of something. "Your friend is in great need of a... a friend. She might need further clothing, as well. This place is too warm for her."

She looked at him, an expression of disbelief and outrage on her face, before scoffing and hurrying after her friend. Sharif blinked mutely after them for a moment, then moved toward a different archway, which moved parallel to the one the Si Wongi had fled down. A large man with a wooden hammer shifted to block that archway, and Sharif came to a stop. "Somebody expecting you, sand-devil?" he asked.

"Yes," Sharif said with confidence and some degree of truth. There was something waiting beyond. Something waiting for somebody like him. The large man tilted his thick, close-cropped head and scrutinized Sharif.

"Then you've already paid?"

"The cost was very great," Sharif admitted, not understanding what the man meant, "but much was required, after all."

"Very well. Don't interrupt the other patrons in their 'fun', or we'll have another talk, savvy?"

Sharif blinked. "Why would I interrupt fun?" he asked.

"Just making sure we have an understanding," he said, and cast a thumb over his shoulder. Sharif walked on by, breathing in deeply. Were his sense of smell intact, they would be assaulted by the stink of old sweat, and other less savory and hygienic bodily fluids. But when that hatchet smote his brain, it left a great void in his sensorum. Had he never been injured, he would have never had that void, nor the instinctive need to fill it with stimulus. He wouldn't have learned how to sniff out spirits where they didn't belong.

He opened a door. The room was dimly lit, the illuminating lantern kept quite hooded. He could hear a woman very close by. Then, he could feel a hand starting to rub up and down his chest. "Well, aren't you a sweet one. Come to sample some of our... fine wares?"

"Who are you?" Sharif asked.

"What's a name, sweetheart?" that woman continued, dragging fingers along his chest. She was fairly average of appearance, strictly speaking. Any but Sharif would have said, though, that she carried herself with the posture and mannerisms of raw lust given human form. He closed his eyes, then opened them again.

The room was filled with lust.

"You don't belong here," Sharif said.

"Oh, don't tell me you want to take me away from this place," the woman said. "It's sweet, but everybody's got their passion. Mine is... well... passion."

"Get out of her," Sharif ordered. The woman, green of eye and paler of flesh than he, stopped, staring at him with confusion.

"What?" she asked.

"You don't belong here. Get out."

"I don't know what you mean," she said. "Security! I have..."

Overwhelming Lust, breaker of chains, insatiable hunger, unslakeable thirst, Queen and Sycophant in Scarlet and Purple;

Gear of the Verdant

Who seeks the rut shall find it amongst beasts, an eternity in the mud.

Who seeks the flesh shall find it amongst the savage, cruel and brutal and bloody.

Who seeks the flame shall find it amongst the bonfire, overpowering and consuming.

Stand before me now, Spirit, and know your measure.

The prayer struck her like an earthbender's brick. She flew backward, away from him, and was pinned to the wall, as the venous spirit rose to the fore, throbbing just under her skin, illuminating it from within. **Go away shaman, this one is mine!**

"No, she does not belong to you. For what did she agree?" Sharif asked.

**A Child!** the spirit spat with rancor.

"And have you repayed her?" Sharif asked.

**She is barren as the dust! I will take what I want!**

Sharif shook his head. "You entered accord with a shaman, then betrayed her. That is not allowed."

**Your rules are a thing of humans for humans! I am more!**

Sharif shook his head slowly. "No. You broke the rules. That comes with a price."

**I will not release her. She is mine! I will take what I want!**

Sharif glanced toward the bed, which was damp with unpleasant substances he was unable to truly think about, and the geas upon her less shifted and more teleported the unfortunate Host so that she was lying on her back on a relatively clean part of that mattress. With a motion propelled by instinct, he reached down with both hands to her essentially naked body. One hand, he reached toward her face. A thumb was placed in the center of her brow, his longest finger settling onto the top of her crown through unwashed hair. The other hand moved much lower, saved only by the innocence and chastity of its intent from being molestation, his thumb splaying further up to settle just under her navel.

**No! I don't want to go! This place is perfect for me!**

"You broke your promise. You lied to this shaman. This is the price of lies," Sharif said calmly. And then, with a puff of breath, he blew down onto her chest, and there was a scream. It was great and terrible and rocked the foundations of the building, as Sharif opened the pathways through the woman's chakras, and the void of the Outer Sphere sucked the spirit out. Sharif moved quickly, plucking the fleeing spirit between two fingers. He stared at it as it struggled, but it could not escape him.

The door slammed open behind him, an the large man with the hammer was looking like he was about to splatter Sharif's head with it. But he hesitated. Mostly because the woman was now sitting up, looking slightly confused, but utterly unhurt, and to his eyes, Sharif was staring at his own fingers. "What's going on in here? You want this one gone, Bu?" he asked gruffly.

"It's... alright Jia," the woman, Bu, said. "It's actually alright. I'm free!"

"Whut?" Jia muttered, and leaned back, his mallet sliding down to the floor when Sharif found himself tackled by a cheerfully weeping woman. "Um... I'm going to talk to the madam."

"Oh, thank you, all the gods in the heavens bless you! The things that thing made me do!" she continued to weep and pull Sharif close. "I thought... I thought I'd never be free of it. Oh, gods, thank you..."

"How long have you been a shaman?" Sharif asked.

"All my life..." she answered, sitting back on the floor.

"You should have known better," Sharif said. He glanced toward his fingers again and made to release the spirit which he no longer really remembered why he was restraining. She gave a sharp, fearful intake of breath. "What?"

"You did all that to get it out and you're just going to let it loose again?" she asked.

"Oh... right, my mind... it wanders sometimes," Sharif said with a guilty laugh. "It is hard to think, sometimes. Things become... difficult," he forcefully snapped the fingers containing the offending spirit, discorporating it and scattering it into pieces. No longer was it the spirit which tried to overwhelm this poor woman. And likely, it never would be again. "It was most unfortunate that you were lied to. It did not tell you it was a spirit of lust, did it?"

"It told me... no, it didn't," Bu shook her head, shuddering. "Gods, I just want to be away from this place," he eyes shot wide. "No! My husband! He'll never take me back!"

"Does he know of your gift, and the dangers it carries?" Sharif asked, confused.

"Yes, but..."

"Will not telling the truth explain things?" Sharif asked.

"Would you tell anybody something like... this?" Bu asked, gesturing around her.

"I don't understand," he said. "Is this about the child?"

"The things I've done can't be forgiven. Not by anything," she said, sadly.

"Have you tried?" Sharif inquired. He then looked aside, seeing something wafting through the walls of the next room. "Ah. There's what I was looking for."

"What?" she asked, as he reached past her ear and pulled something out of the air. It was pale, almost white. He took her hand, and pressed it into her palm, then took that palm and pressed it, in turn, onto her lower belly. She glanced down with alarm, then up at him.

"When you reunite with your husband, he will give you a child," Sharif said, rising to his feet. He smiled, distantly. "There. The song sounds right again."

"I... that was a... how did you even _see_ it?" she asked.

Sharif didn't know how to answer it. And he didn't. She just sat there, crying helplessly and joyfully, as he walked away, heading back the paths he had walked, to where his sister would expect him. An idle thought, flitting only for an instant through his mind, was that he might have just gotten the Tribeswoman into trouble. It didn't last. Such thoughts never did.

After he left, Bu tore her 'room' apart, until she found what she was looking for. A cloak. She threw it over her shoulders, cinching it tight at the waist with a belt. It might not be much, but it was more than she'd worn in more than a month. The door swung open, and the shaman remaining was confronted by an ostentatiously dressed woman who ran these women's lives like slaves, and the burly guardian of their physical corpus. Bu stood tall, squaring her shoulders.

"I understand there's been a bit of a commotion in... why are you wearing that?" the madam asked with disapproval.

That look of disapproval vanished quickly as Bu, shaman and devoted wife, and soldier of Ba Sing Se's famed 466th Corps, broke that bitch's nose.

* * *

><p><em>Toph and Zuko's Tale<em>:

Toph entered Zuko's room as she entered every room, without any subtlety or care for what was happening within. Zuko glanced down over the length of his supine body, raising his unruly hair out of the way to make it clearer. "What do you want?"

"You're coming with me," she said with a very brook-no-nonsense tone. Zuko scowled, and levered himself to a sit.

"And why exactly am I doing that?" Zuko asked levelly. It took a lot of effort out of him to do that.

"'Cause you're stewing away in here, and if you stay inside these walls much longer, it's likely to drive you crazy," Toph answered. And then, the smirk on her face started to grow into a grin. "'Sides, today I feel like celebrating!"

"...with me?"

"Well, Brain's off hunting Boomstick's brother with Sugarqueen and Twinkletoes is... probably out building a zoo or something. That leaves you. On your feet, Sparky!" she said, giving the ground a stout kick, which served to launch the melancholy firebender to a stand. He scowled and growled at her, but she took it remarkably in stride. This was going to be harder to be a wrathful outsider than he thought if she wasn't going to let him be miserably alone. "Come on. I'm buyin' dinner."

Zuko glanced back to his bed, and came to the understandable conclusion that he wasn't likely going to be getting any more sleep until the sun went down. He let out a sigh, and started trudging after the earthbender. His mind had been on his sister of late, and that inevitably spiraled him into a bleak mood. So he walked after her, right out of the doors of this tiny shack in the overwhelming vastness of the man-made ocean which was Ba Sing Se. As he walked, he kept his head down, his eyes on the ground. He had a fair degree of certainty that people wouldn't instantly connect golden eyes to Fire Nation nobility, but he wouldn't put it past some wrathful war-orphan to assume he was some sort of spy and call the guards on him.

"Boy, you're being chatty today," Toph said with an elbow in the ribs. Zuko shook his head.

"Wasn't aware you wanted me to speak," he said.

"Come on! Ask me what I'm so damned happy about!" she pressed.

Zuko shrugged. "I don't know. You figured out how to bend metal?" he asked vaguely.

"Good one," she said. "Nah, take a look at this!" she then thrust a piece of paper at Zuko.

"Big-Tim Jung's fried and curried noodles?" Zuko asked.

"Damn it, wrong one," Toph dug through her pockets again. "Paper all sounds about the same to me. This must be it," she held out a new piece of paper toward Zuko. This one caused his eyebrows to rise a bit.

"...doctorate?" he asked. Toph grinned. "Your real name is _Tuofu_?"

"Damn it!" Toph snatched the scrip back and tried very hard to stare balefully at it. Oh, the trials of blindness. "I told him that it was Toph! I always go by _Toph_!"

"This requires a moment's explanation," Zuko said flatly. "Why does that say that you're a doctor of history?"

"'Cause I am!" Toph pumped a fist into the air. "I met up with my old tutor from Gaoling at the university, and we got to talking. He thought I should present what I found outside Omashu. We spent a couple days working out a thesis defense, and just like that, I'm the youngest damned doctor the East has ever seen! Doctor at thirteen! Eat that, space-coyote!"

Zuko frowned. "Space-coyote?" he asked.

"Some of the Eastern gods get _kinda_ weird," Toph dismissed. She then started grinning again. "So that's my big news of the day. Unless you've got Twinkletoes able to go 'glowing badass' at will, then I think of the two of us, I'm by far the happier. And that means, celebration! If I could legally drink, I would!"

"Nobody's going to be selling you alcohol for a while," Zuko noted.

"You callin' me short?" Toph demanded.

"A little bit, yeah," Zuko agreed. And then, he waited for the physical counterattack. Strangely, it didn't come.

"Eh, you got me there," she said. The grin didn't diminish much, though. "Still, doctor! Dad's gonna lose his mind when he hears about this! Mom'll be beside herself!"

"I didn't know you thought about your parents that much," Zuko said.

"Everybody does," Toph dismissed. "I mean, for the longest time, I thought they were just a couple of lame rich guys who wouldn't know real fun or responsibility if it walked up and punched 'em. Then I find my mom used to be a heroic badass. Dad's still a drip, but half ain't bad."

"My father's a monster who sent thousands to a pointless death, and my mother loved my sister more than me," Zuko answered that charge.

"If you don't stop being mopey, I'm gonna beat you until your morale improves. Is that clear?" Toph warned. Zuko frowned. How was that supposed to work? He shrugged. "Alright. Noodles. You guys eat curry in the West?"

"We eat things which make curry feel like milk," Zuko said with a rare smirk.

"Is that a challenge, Sparky?"

"I believe it is, Bandit."

"Bandit?"

"It... 'the legend of the Blind Bandit'?" Zuko asked. She looked baffled. "It's a bedtime story where I'm from."

"Oh, hell I like that one," she chuckled. "_Bandit_. Sweeeet."

* * *

><p><em>Nila and Ashan's Tale<em>:

"...and if you try to coat it in talcum and sell it as 'white' then I swear to which ever god you choose that I will, upon putting out the fire you caused, visit a terrible retribution for your laxity. Is that clear?" Nila's voice came ahead of him, as clear and recognizable as anybody's. While Ashan hadn't the first idea what she was talking about – though he well wagered that it had something to do with either General How or that room she'd strictly forbade all from entering – he knew that she was obviously in a tense mood. Ordinarily, to anybody else who knew her, they would take her aside and try to calm her down. Ashan, though, enjoyed when she was angry. In her anger, she was prone to honesty.

"As the blood flows through my veins, who would think that I would find you here?" Ashan asked with a tone of sarcasm, as he moved through the door and into the pharmacy. Strange that she would have to locate substances for weapons in a place intended to heal. It spoke either to her strange methods, or the city's strange priorities. Nila turned back to him, her eyes at a heady glare, before she let out a puff of angry air.

"Has my order been perfectly clear to you, or need I repeat it?" Nila demanded. The clerk nodded vigorously, although, she likely would have done the same regardless simply to have somebody like Nila out of the door. "Good. What are you doing here, Ashan?"

"_My respectable employer has decided that since the bison half was finished in record time, that I would have the rest of the day and evening off. I thought it fitting that I should do it in the company of a fine and fair maiden,_" he said, motioning out the door. Nila stared at him suspiciously, but began to walk out into the streets.

"_And where exactly did you intend to find her?_" Nila asked dryly.

"_You sell yourself too poorly, Nila. Come. I wish to treat you to a culinary delight,_" he said pleasantly.

She scowled at him. "Why?"

"Because," he began, then trailed off. He nodded to one side, and ducked out of the foot-traffic which filled the middle ring street, into the relative darkness of the alleyway. When he continued, he continued in the language of the land. "Because I feel a cause for celebration, Nila. Recall how you once said that a sandbender is an earthbender with a restricted view?"

"I do not believe I used such pleasant terms," Nila pointed out. "What of it?"

Ashan took a calming breath, then with great precision and power, stomped a foot forward. When it did, he felt that infinitesimal twist in his soul, the almost imperceptible sensation of bending in action. There was likely no sand within miles, and all of that mandated for the creation of glass. But instead, when he exerted his will, his focus, into the ground, it was the stone which answered him, popping up a block of stone roughly a foot from the pavers around it. Ashan beamed proudly. Nila just looked at it, no real impression on her face, and shrugged.

"That's all?" she asked.

"That's all, she asks?" Ashan said, shaking his head. "Nila, I had spent my entire life believing that I would only bend the sands to my will. This is an advancement I could never have foreseen, almost as though bending metal itself! Could you not be more happy for me?"

"You are only doing what I said you could have done all along," she said with a shrug.

"You are impossible to impress," Ashan pointed out.

"Not impossible. Just appropriately difficult," Nila answered, a smirk on her face. She rolled her eyes. "Very well. If it will soothe your prickled pride, I will join you in your wonton celebration. You would take us where? An opera? I have seen enough of those to last a lifetime."

Ashan was not disuaded, though. "Oh, I believe that I have come up with something more suiting your tastes. Please, join me."

"Suiting my tastes? What is it?" she asked.

"Ah, please. I could not spoil the surprise," she glared at him when he didn't answer. And she didn't ask again, as was her particular custom. He offered a hand toward her, and she rolled her eyes, giving his shoulder a shove. "Please, a hand if nothing else. There will be a blindfolding later."

"Blindfolding? Ashan, were you any but you, I would accuse you of banditry and break your legs," Nila pointed out, not amused.

"I beg only that you indulge this, for it will be to your great benefit," Ashan said. She scoffed, but took his hand and began to be led through the streets of Ba Sing Se. Notably, they were heading east, toward the fringes of the Richu District. It had taken a bit of asking amongst the customers of the butchery to locate this place, but as soon as he had heard of it, even third hand, Ashan knew that he would have to bring Nila there, for she would never forgive him had he not. He also had a grin on his face, as he moved through the crowds, just because he was feeling good about his life. He had employment, he had broken bread with the Avatar – itself an event he could never have guessed would be in his future – and now had the hand of a lovely lady in his, on the way to something he did not doubt would delight her. The weight of Latifah, her death, and her life before it, it was a lesser thing today, something not gone, but shifted aside.

Ashan was not built for melancholy. He was built to live well, to be virtuous as the Host would ask, and be kind. He chose to be apt and perceptive as well. For example, he knew that the Avatar, for all his bluster, felt himself trapped in something of a rut. Worse, that he was keeping secrets from his friends. Ashan did not pry, for that was not his way, and he didn't sense that the secrets would be dangerous, but there was a tension there that the airbender didn't seem capable of dispelling. The house felt of it. The Tribesman still looked to the south sometimes with longing, but whether that was for their exiled home or for somebody left behind in that exile, Ashan could not say. The waterbender was an open book, all pages clear to see, and all of those pages spoke wrath towards the firebender. It amazed Ashan that they would not keep _that_ a secret from him. There was little animosity between the Fire Nation and Si Wong – for the two had never been in direct conflict – but they had to believe that he would feel a tug of loyalty to the Earth King. He did not, of course, but that was not something they could have known.

There were secrets, and truths, out in the open where all could see, and much of it made Ashan uncomfortable. But none as uncomfortable as the furtive glances he would get when the subject of the Fire Nation was broached with any but the Avatar's company. The way that people glanced about them when the very words were used. They were being watched. The people knew it, and spoke more softly, and always to get the topic away to somewhere safer as fast as possible. Ashan never inquired as to why. He didn't have to. Somebody was controlling the discourse of the people. He was also fairly sure who.

"This is becoming absurd, Ashan. Tell me where we are going," Nila demanded.

"I would not spoil this surprise," Ashan countered.

"I dislike surprises. They tend to be explosive," Nila said flatly.

"I am certain you will enjoy this one," Ashan pressed. When she stared disbelief at him, he rolled his eyes. "I know, because I am fairly certain that any other young woman would slap me and say unkind things about my lineage were I to bring them there."

"...a brothel?" Nila asked.

"What? No!" Ashan shook his head. He rolled his eyes. For all his ability to suss things out, he swore to the Host that he would never understand the mind of women. Or perhaps, it was more a specific problem, in that Nila alone thought along paths no one could predict. He brought her to a stop and twisted a veil into a blindfold, holding it toward her face. "Please, indulge me with just a sliver of trust. Have I not earned so little?"

She stared at him, one eyebrow raised. "If you do anything disgusting, or reveal that same, I will shoot you," she promised.

Ashan frowned. "I thought your new gun was not complete."

"It is complete enough to shoot you," she clarified. "Very well."

Ashan quickly tied the veil over her eyes, and took her hand in his again. Her hands were much unlike those of women he grew up with. Grandfather had probably had him betrothed behind his back, but Ashan had not been idle in his adolescence. While the girls from Sentinel Rock were, as Nila would have said, vapid and hateful shrews, some of them did have positive qualities, and Ashan had explored them. That brought a sting to him. All of those young women, to the very last, was now dead in the ruin of a lost city. All but Nila, who's hands were scarred and burned and callused, unlike the silky palms of 'normal' women. That was telling. Soft things did not last. But hard, but strong? They endured. The procession of grinning Si Wongi man and scowling Si Wongi woman set a few heads a-pivot, but as Ashan saw it, let them. When he reached his destination, it was just a matter of giving a nod toward the doorman, who had been warned ahead of this endeavor, and they were inside.

"We are off the street," Nila said. "Where are we?"

Ashan answered that question in the most dramatic way possible, with a flick of a blindfold.

Revealing guns. Hundreds of them.

Her eyes were instantly as wide as plates, and her face twitched toward a more rapturous expression than Ashan had ever seen upon her. It was like watching the sun rise. "You..." she stammered. "This is... It can only be Hua Jin Bai!"

Ashan, about to reveal that point, stuttered a bit. "You know of master Bai?"

"He is the foremost collector of firearms in the world. _Of course_ I know of him," she batted his arm, before breaking into a grin and moving forward from the entryway, instantly pressing her face against a glass case holding an ornate device which Ashan could only assume was tasked for ballistic murder. The doorman, observing this, took a few steps inside.

"You are aware, young sir, that Master Bai will be most displeased if your mistress damages anything," he warned.

"Have faith. She could better build a gun than destroy it," Ashan placated. The doorman gave a shrug, then returned to his post. Ashan felt a grin on his own face, upon noting the similar expression on Nila. So rare and precious a thing stood to be enjoyed to its fullest. "Was I correct in believing this would pique your interest?"

"I could kiss you, for this gift," she said, her eyes locked on another piece in a different rack, before darting over to it. She plucked it down, hefting it to her shoulder and sighting down its barrel. "Such a clever sight. I shall have to copy it."

"I thought it would impress," Ashan said with a smile.

"You are not the fool some assume you to be," she answered him. Well, for her, that was praise. He would take it. She set the weapon back in its place, and scanned the rooms, built into the back of Bai's manor, where he kept his weapons. "Come, I wish to show you something."

"I thought I would be the one playing guide in this," Ashan said lightly.

"You forget my areas of expertise," she said with a roll of the eyes. She then went to a relatively plain looking weapon and plucked it down, before clearing a bit of space on a workbench that sat in a dark corner. Then, without any asking of permission, she proceeded to disassemble it. Ashan's eyes went wide. "Do not be so alarmed. Come. See."

Ashan, still concerned, moved forward to observe, as she had separated the barrel from its wooden housing, and held it up so that he could stare down through it toward a lantern. "I am not sure what I am to see."

"Do you see the markings through the innards?" Nila asked. Now that she mentioned it, he did, almost like lines had been etched into the inside of the tube. "They are intended to stabilize the shot by imparting spin, allowing much greater range and accuracy. That was the great failure of my previous design. One I will correct with my next. This one also is sub-standard, but every failure is a brick toward overtopping the wall of success."

"You know these very well," Ashan said. "Not surprising, I must say."

"What was that?" she asked, as she stared down the tube herself.

"Oh, nothing," Ashan said, dropping the subject. After all, he couldn't say how traumatic it had been for the young Nila – barely even called that, at that point – to watch a man die before her. The only answer more unpleasant than 'very' would be his next option of 'not at all'. He just watched her for a moment, smiling to himself. She seemed... joyous. Surrounded by the objects of her passion, unfettered in her examination of them.

She reassembled the gun, if a bit more slowly than she'd taken it apart, muttering something about 'death-trap firing mechanisms' and the like, before her path took her toward a courtyard, itself also roofed over partially and playing host to other racks of weapons, though not all of these, guns. "Whatever impulse brought you to take me here, it was a good one, Ashan," she said.

"I am pleased to be so well thought of," he said with a bit of a bow. She then glanced toward him.

"Are you... no, it cannot be. She is wrong and absurd besides."

Ashan cocked his head to a side. "Who is, Nila?"

"The Tribeswoman. She believes that you harbor some sort of attraction toward me. I told her that she was being ridiculous," Nila waved a tattooed hand dismissively. Ashan shrugged, and Nila heard the silence for exactly what it was. She fell silent, and turned toward him over her shoulder. "It _is_ ridiculous, is it not?"

"Well..." Ashan said with a shrug.

"You are a madman," Nila said with finality. "There can be no other explanation. What madness is within you that you pursue a woman who almost strangled you to death!"

"To my defense, I did deserve that," Ashan said with a shrug.

"That is no defense!" she blurted. "You cannot..."

"I can and I do," Ashan interrupted her, which stopped her dead. "Does this alarm you?"

"No. Confuse yes, but alarm no," she broke off. "What do you want?"

"The presence of beauty and intelligence, kindness and wit?" he answered with a fair degree of smarm, which earned him a glare.

"I can provide one of those four," she said flatly.

"I rather think you exemplify all," Ashan said.

"Then you are blind as well as insane," she assumed.

"Please, do not be so harsh toward yourself," Ashan said. "You..."

"This is idiotic," she said. Ashan leaned back at her vehemence. And then, raised a brow as she revealed she was not talking about him, but rather, something on a rack which she picked up and took into her hand. It looked like a firearm, but it was tiny, only a bit over a foot long, lacking anything to press into the shoulder. "What idiot creates a firearm of these dimensions? This is no weapon. This is a toy!"

"Should you be handling that so roughly?" Ashan asked. She brandished it up into the air idly.

"What idiot would put a gun into his collection loaded?" she asked, pulling the trigger to prove a point. The point, though, announced itself with a terrible 'boom', and an acrid cloud of grey smoke. The two of them looked at each other, then to the weapon, which still had a wisp of smoke drifting up out of its barrel in her hand. "...well..."

"I may be a ridiculous blind fool, but as I was never named deaf, I believe it would be prudent to flee," Ashan prompted.

"No, not until I tell whoever did this that they are being an idiot," Nila said.

"Nila, please, we are in dangerous ground. Let us simply leave!" he said.

"What danger? Since the Fire Nation was pushed off of the walls, we have been seldom safer," Nila answered. Ashan moved close to her, taking the handgun from her and setting it back into its rack.

"Nila, there is a danger in this city which does not speak its own name. It is insidious and omnipresent, and those two combined cause me to fear its power. It cannot be wise to rouse it against you!"

"Oh, that," she shrugged. "I am aware of it."

He stared at her. "You are aware?" he asked.

"Yes. I had words with a conspiracy theorist, and promised to keep an open eye. Thus far, I have seen little."

"Then you have not been looking in the proper directions. Nila, please, if you have trusted me in nothing else, trust me in this. Come, before calamity crashes down upon us!"

She sighed. "Very well. If it will please your superstitions and worries," she said. "But mark my words, I am coming back here and giving Bai a word on the practice of safe gun-keeping!"

"And I am sure that it will be a terrible and frightful one, that I only hope to be witness to. But it shall not be today. Come," Ashan guided her through a gate into a garden, and from that garden, into an alley. Nila looked a little annoyed that she had to abandon all those interesting guns, but otherwise, unbowed. "But I do fear that in our haste, we have turned ourselves about. Do you know where we are?"

"Was I to memorize a map of Ba Sing Se before this outing?" Nila asked flatly.

Ashan clapped himself on the forehead for his lack of foresight. Had he been truly thinking, he would have foreseen that they would in all likelihood have to leave the estate in a much greater hurry than they had entered it. So he flagged down a woman who was walking down the streets. She was well dressed, in her way, the sort of dress which faded into a crowd. Her hair-style was very precise, and suited the middle-aged woman quiet well. Her eyes were disquieting, though. Bright green, they stared as flat as a deadman's. "Can I help you, sir?" she asked, her tones very high and sing-songy. Ashan was no ear for accents, so he couldn't say that they sounded almost rigidly happy.

"Yes, I seem to have gotten us lost in my hurry. Could you tell me how to get back to the Inner Richu?" Ashan asked. No point in putting Nila on the spot. No good came of pointing out that somebody was wrong when that somebody made bombs as a hobby.

"I can see why you would be in a hurry," the woman said with that too-brightness in her voice, her grin not deviating one hair. As the words came, Ashan slowly became a bit more... nervous about her. "You must be eager to return your young lady before the curfew expires."

"Who said I was _his_ young lady?" Nila asked darkly.

"Forgive me if I presume," the delicate-looking woman said with a cheery tone and an apologetic bow. "From the way you spoke, I had assumed that you were dating."

Ashan made a strangled noise in his throat, as he had been making terminating gestures behind Nila's back as he saw which way the woman's phrase was turning, and was unable to cease her in time. Nila did then turn to him.

"Well, if this is going to be any proper courtship, you had best feed me," she said with dry sarcasm, and a look in her eyes which promised dire repercussions.

"I should never have told you of my intentions, should I have?" Ashan bemoaned.

"Not if you expected to live with dignity," Nila answered.

"Splendid!" the guide declared. "I am Joo Dee, and I can be your guide and chaparone if you so desire."

"We do not..." Nila began.

"I know of many fine restaurants catering to many styles. Why, there is a fine establishment overlooking Lake Laogai which I believe would suit the two of you perfectly!" she expounded, and then began to politely usher the two Si Wongi ahead of her, to the east.

Nila stared murder. Ashan couldn't stop shaking his head. And still, Ashan was content with the result.

* * *

><p><em>Toph and Zuko's Tale<em>:

"Is everything completely to your liking?" the server asked, which startled Zuko out of a binge-eat. It was a bad habit he'd gotten into since leaving Uncle and Azula; he tended to go for a long time without eating, essentially forgetting how hungry he was. When his hunger moved to the fore, it demanded much to fill. He swallowed another spicy mouthful. The server was an attractive girl, probably around his age. Green eyed and somewhat darker complected. Buxom, also, and possessing the lazy smile of a cat.

"Not really. I thought you said this stuff was supposed to be spicy," Toph said from the other side of the table.

"Well, don't you know what they say? Spice stunts the growth," the server said playfully. "I'm sure your brother here wants you to grow up big and strong."

"She's not my sister," Zuko pointed out neutrally. The girl's eyes widened a bit.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to presume... daughter?" she asked.

Zuko leaned back, crossing his arms and staring under his eyebrows at her. "Exactly how old do I look?"

"Good point," the girl said. That smile came back. "Well, if you want it spicier, we have a sauce in back we can put on it. But it can get a little bit... intense."

"Bring it on!" Toph declared, pumping two fists into the air. The server could only chuckle and walk back toward the back. Zuko allowed himself to follow her egress with a glance, secure in that nobody present would judge. Jin, her name was, was the kind of woman whom you'd hate to see go, but love to watch leave. He turned to face the young doctor in front of him – and that was something he was going to have to ask the Tribesman about at some point, since it seemed unnatural and ill-advised – and cleared his throat.

"You were checking out the waitress, weren't you?" Toph asked, picking at her teeth with her fingernails. He scowled at her. "Duh, of course I noticed. I'm blind, not an idiot."

"What of it?"

"Oh, nothing," she said, her eyes rolling away, but there was just a hint of red in her cheeks. Almost like she'd almost managed to suppress a blush and didn't quite pull it off.

"I didn't know you liked spicy food," Zuko began. "I thought Easterners didn't eat hot."

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly 'most Easterners', now am I?" she asked. Jin returned swiftly, and set down a bottle which was about the size of Zuko's thumb onto the table. Toph instantly took it, and when her hands closed on it, she scowled. "Wait, what the hell is this? Are you playing me?"

"Just a few drops," Jin warned. Zuko smirked, since he knew what was coming, and saw no need to prevent it. He tapped Jin's arm and mimed drinking, and the girl gave a nod, before heading back into the restaurant's kitchen. Toph, though, stared at the tiny bottle like it had done her personal insult.

"'Just a few drops'," Toph mocked, before dumping roughly half of it onto her noodles and pigken. "I swear, if people don't stop treating me like a little kid soon, I'm going to start doling out beatings, and I won't stop until the OH MY GODS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!"

Which is when Zuko finally erupted into laughter, such a basic and normal thing that he had been denied for so long that he actually tipped over and fell out of his chair, his sides aching and his face sore. He didn't stop laughing, watching how Toph's attempt to shovel more noodles into her mouth had turned into wide eyes, then outright panic in the blind girl as the pepper-grease burst into culinary fire. She was in no real danger, though a lot of discomfort; there were people who made weapons out of this condiment but that required some real talent. Zuko had just about gathered himself from his first real burst of laughter in months when Jin reappeared at his side, a pitcher of milk in hand.

"You should probably give that to her," Zuko said, still chuckling. Agni's blood, that was something he'd needed for a long time, to laugh like that. Jin handed the jug to Toph, who upended it and drank it about as fast as it would fall, white streams falling down her neck where her mouth couldn't open wide enough. Jin resisted giggling her own self as she moved back into the restaurant. Zuko sat back down in his chair, the most smug look on his face. Toph, who was now leaning forward on the table, oblivious to the looks she was getting from other patrons, and 'stared' daggers at Zuko.

"You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?"

"I cannot confirm nor deny," Zuko said. He then took that bottle, added the prescribed three drops, stirred it through his noodles, and continued to eat. It did give them a quite pleasant bite, and a burn which reminded him of Fire Nation cuisine. Not the same richness of flavor, but the heat was a pleasant memento.

"You're a sadist," Toph accused, pointing a finger at him.

"I've been called worse," Zuko answered.

"You think I'm real funny, don't you?" she demanded.

"You've got your moments," Zuko said.

She 'glared' at him for a moment longer, then shrugged. "Well, nobody can say that you're treating me like a glass doll. I appreciate that."

"Please," Zuko said around noodles. "I'm well aware that you're probably the toughest one in that house."

"Probably?"

"I survived fighting the Avatar. Have you?" Zuko asked.

"...touche," she said. "Blagh. My mouth feels like fire. Order me s'more milk."

Zuko shrugged and turned, flagging down Jin, calling for another pitcher of milk to help the throat-smote earthbender. And behind his back, with a twist of her hands, Toph turned the entire tabletop, reversing their plates, while holding the mostly empty jug in one hand. He turned back, and prodded into what he assumed were his noodles. "I have to say, I didn't expect to have a whole lot of friends here. I'm glad that at least that I had you at my back in that house. It was... uncomfortable."

"Eh, I know you're not all that bad. A bit of a tool, sometimes, and you've got a bad habit of pissing people off. Then again, lots of people do that. Hell, I do!" she said, flaring her hands. "Folks like us gotta stick together, since the world just isn't ready for us."

Zuko chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind," he then bit into the noodles, and his eyes tightened as his mouth felt like somebody had just firebent inside it. But unlike Toph, he'd had a lifetime's experience with spicy food tempering his reaction. She 'stared' with an expectant grin at him. "That was _not_ funny," Zuko said, swallowing, which made him at least that much more successful than Toph had been. Toph laughed at him.

"That was a _little bit_ funny," she said, and managed to extract one mouthful of proper noodles before Zuko swapped the bowls back to their proper place. Jin reappeared with a fresh jug, which she presented to Toph. Zuko took it, and drank heavily of it, quenching the fire in his maw.

The rest of the dinner, which began with a fresh bowl for Toph, went forth with little conversation, but a lot of Zuko shaking his head in bemusement and a lot of trailing chortles from the earthbender. She paid, as she claimed she would, and they took to the streets. The locale for the curry house was in the courtyards which surrounded both sides of the walls which separated the Lower from the Middle Rings, a rare spot of relative affluence in a deprived place, or else a blight and eyesore amidst a zone of affluence. It all depended on which perspective was being viewed. And all of it made Zuko sick.

"You don't like this, do you?" Toph asked.

"This isn't the way we did things," he said. "If you work harder then those around you, you go further. You get more. You rise higher. But here... it's messed up. There's nowhere to go but down, and everybody knows it. No wonder there's so much crime everywhere."

"Man, you've got some way of ruining a good walk, you know that?" Toph said, slugging him in the arm strongly enough to knock him off of his stride. Of course, what they were passing, as they ambled through the Lower Ring side of things, was not exactly pleasant viewing. There was a well dressed woman, standing at the top of a sort of dais, one which had a rickety look about it. She, and a great deal of the people gathered before her, were all as darkly complected as the Avatar's new neighbors, that Si Wongi couple and her brother. He guessed they all shared the same heritage. And probably the same language, since Zuko hadn't the first clue what was being said.

"Are you getting all this?" Zuko asked.

"Oh, her," Toph said, shrugging. "It's just more of Ambassador al'Jalani's race-baiting."

Zuko glanced at her. "What?"

"She's claiming that the Si Wongi are relegated to a ghetto," Toph said. She listened for a moment longer. "And there's a lot of morality twisting going on in there. The way she's going, makes me glad neither of us is a Tribesman. Some of that crap probably qualifies as hate-crimes. She's got a message, but it's not exactly clear. Altuundili's not exactly an easy language to translate by ear."

"You speak Altuundili?" Zuko asked.

"I speak a lot of languages. Comes with having the best education money could afford," Toph said with a bit of annoyance. Zuko had to see the logic in that. She continued to listen in, as Zuko shifted on his feet. Even without being able to speak the language, he could tell things were getting... dicey. "...uh-oh."

"Uh-oh?" Zuko asked.

"They're starting to gear down into blaming the Fire Nation for all of this," Toph said. "We should probably mosey while the moseying is good."

"That sounds like a good idea," Zuko said. He and Toph then proceeded around the back of the rickety platform she was standing on, intending to give both Khalisa al'Jalani and her followers a wide berth. But there was something which was simultaneously a good thing and a bad thing to both of those taking that ambling path. The good thing was that both had excellent hearing, so that when the whistle of an incoming projectile hit their ears, both instinctively dodged out of the way of it, leaning to different sides each. That definitely saved Zuko's life, and probably Toph's as well. But, there was a downside to their almost super-human dodge.

That downside came in the form of a stage crashing itself apart, a critical support crushed by the momentum of an unseen but not unnoticed bullet. Al'Jalani toppled off onto the pavers, and the entire thing slumped to one side, leaving nothing between an entire horde of keyed-up Si Wongi refugees, and two people standing close to where the platform had failed.

"They're going to assume we did that, aren't they?" Zuko said with a tone of disappointed annoyance.

"They've already made that assumption," Toph agreed. "Run?"

"RUN!" Zuko shouted, grabbing her hand and hauling her behind him as he took off at a sprint. While he didn't know the difference between earthbenders and sandbenders beyond that they considered themselves a different entity, he had to believe that Toph didn't stand and fight meant that she didn't have confidence that she could deal with two hundred at once. The pace might have quickened further, but Zuko had to restrain himself, as Toph couldn't keep the same pace he could. Not without 'cheating' and destroying the streets, anyway.

Zuko began to duck through alleys, moving away from the rough, beige claystone and into red, striated sandstones. That he knew the difference was only due to years traveling where people cared about such things. And that obviously was a cause for concern to the earthbender. "To your left!" Toph shouted. Zuko juked right, bowling over a garbage can, as the left-hand wall exploded down, a black-veiled Si Wongi shouting angrily at him. Toph pulled her hand free, then bent with great power, causing that wall to reestablish itself, hurling the Si Wongi back into the room he'd burst through. "Come on! Keep running! We've gotta get out of the ghetto!"

They moved almost without speech, both understanding the consequences of failure. Mostly to him, he'd considered. She could get out of there with nothing more than some money changing hands. Zuko, though, would be dead as a doornail. The warrens continued, and they pressed through, only one more close-call being interrupted by Zuko thinking fast and upending a garbage pale over the Si Wongi's upper body and kicking his legs out from under him, before taking off at a run again.

They probably operated in silence and sprinting speeds for almost fifteen minutes before the sandstone gave way to granite, and even then, another five before they stopped running, plunking themselves down, side by side, on a bench which overlooked a poorly maintained public park. The grass was mostly weeds. The pond was just wet scum. But the presence of a walled place to sit was almost a blessing from Agni Himself.

"Well. That was interesting," Toph said, sweating but not breathing too deeply.

"We – or rather I – was almost killed back there," Zuko pointed out with annoyance.

"Yeah, well, it's still a lot more interesting than I thought my first date was _going_ to be," Toph said with a smug. Zuko shook his head, glancing away.

Then what she said settled into his brain.

"Your first _what_?" he asked. And her only answer, at that point, was slowly reddening right back to her ears.

* * *

><p><em>Nila and Ashan's Tale<em>:

The sun had cast the sky into oranges and reds by the time the three of them got off the stone-tram, which seemed specifically built to bring people out to the lake. This one landed very close to the restaurant that the pushy woman had specified, but there were other buildings here, as a small community within the Eastern Reaches grew up around the de-facto reservoir of Ba Sing Se. "_Ashan, could you tell me why we are still under the thumb of a pushy civil servant_?" Nila asked in Altuundili.

Ashan, who had been watching Joo Dee surreptitiously since their introduction, gave a shrug. "_I honestly could not. But you demanded food, and this place seems quite a pleasant place for a..._"

Nila turned her attention to the guide, who had been grinning her way forward through the beaten paths. "You. Mandarin. You had earlier spoken of a curfew. I had heard nothing of its sort."

"The Earth King magnanimously agreed that for the protection of the Si Wongi peoples living within the walls of the Greatest City on Earth, that they should observe a curfew between the hours marking dusk to dawn. There has been much turmoil and strife in the Lower Ring, and Ambassador al'Jalani can only do so much."

"She is a fool and a bigot," Nila muttered. To Joo Dee; "You are no longer needed. Go away."

"Please, I would be failing as a host if I did not see you safely to your destination," Joo Dee said entirely too happily. Nila and Ashan shared a glance, both for different reasons. Hers was an acknowledging of annoyance. His was a gauging of his companion's suspicion. Sadly, while Nila had a lightning wit for weaponry and explosives, when it came to people, she was repeatedly and utterly oblivious. The restaurant held a bustling clientele, mostly those who wore resplendent silks and linens, clothes edged with mink and ermine; the women in particular wore an odd sort of flaring dress which she had never seen the like of. She certainly hoped she would not have to pay the prices expected of such 'high-class' occupants.

"Welcome to the Lake House. Have you made a reservation, mister...?" the host said with a bow. Ashan glanced to her again, and Nila turned her annoyance upon Joo Dee.

"You brought us a half-hour out of our way to a place which demands a reservation?" she asked, her tones low and angry.

Joo Dee, though, didn't stop grinning. "Surely you can provide a space for a young couple. It is only appropriate."

The host first looked up to her, a calm dismissal clear in his posture even to Nila, but when he actually looked at her, he blanched, and... started sweating a bit? No, that must have been a figment of Nila's imagination. "W-why yes. Of course. I'm sure that there's a... an open table... somewhere..." he said, furiously digging through his register, as Joo Dee stood there. Grinning. Finally, he called over an usher, and whispered something urgently to him. The usher's eyes shot wide, then he scarpered into the building. Less than three minutes later, the usher came back and nodded toward the host. "It seems that a table has just opened. And look at this! There's nobody reserving it! How fortunate that is," he said, with a nervous laugh.

"Splendid!" Joo Dee agreed. "Come. We shall have you fed. But do sign your names on his register. It is only polite."

Ashan still watched her, but quickly scribed his name. Nila did the same, writing her name for the first time on paper for quite a long time. She was much more experienced etching it into wood or metal. Joo Dee, thankfully, remained behind as the two of them moved into the restaurant proper. It was much as she assumed, a place for rich people to eat rich foods. But as the two Si Wongi, both wearing what was not thread-bare but still nonetheless lower clothing then those many, not a single head turned toward them. Not even the casual shifting of glances as conversation continued. Almost like they were being very carefully ignored.

Well, it was no more than Nila was used to enduring when forced into social events. Mother had, thankfully, stopped trying not long after Nila's seventh birthday. Hitting the old sultan's young harem-born son in the face with a carafe did her no social favors. Sharif had thought it hilarious and appropriate. Amjad had always been an insufferable child. Fitting that Wahid, despite the many lines of separation barring him, succeeded instead of he. They sat in a table which rested in something like a balcony, overlooking the substantial Lake Laogai, and noted that there was no menu to peruse nor sign of what cuisine was on offer. A waiter approached them, his stance very stiff. She assumed it was just this establishment's way. It was actually fear.

"Welcome to the Lake House. What will you be having this evening?" he asked.

"What do you serve?" Ashan asked. "I see no menus."

"And more to the point, how can we know what we are paying for. Unlike your usual clientele, money _is_ an object to us," Nila pointed out.

"Our prices are... reasonable and our menu is what is asked of us. So please, ask," he said, his lips pulling into something like a smile. Well, the smile of somebody suffering extreme sea-sickness, but still.

"Oh. Then... I will have çorba and a gözleme of your choosing," Ashan said.

"You come all this way to eat soup and a meat-pie?" Nila chided. "I will have what is most popular here."

"Excellent choices. They will be prepared to your satisfaction," he said, and ducked away before Ashan could get another word in.

"You will have to expand your palate sooner or later, Ashan," Nila said, turning her chair a bit so that she had a more clear view of the waters. The waters were dark, now, since the sun was setting to their backs, and the restaurant threw a long shadow. "I still cannot fathom why you would find me appealing. I have it on good authority that I am a hateful, unattractive shrew."

"And whose authority would that be? Gashuin's?" Ashan asked, his attention being dragged back to her. "You overlook the better parts of yourself, Nila. I have no doubt that Tzu Zi spent no small amount of time relating that same fact."

Nila didn't feel like arguing with him, right now. Especially since her belly was starting to complain. She hadn't eaten lunch, after all. Or breakfast, now that she considered. Some people had such trouble keeping a svelte figure; Nila's trick was to forget meals. That and walking the length of a continent. "Well, if you will not indulge my fantasy that I am a heinous troll, then answer me this; what insanity has infested you to set your gaze upon me? Have you sustained one too many blows to the head? I have heard nothing of this on our journey here."

"Well, there was little time or proper opportunity to say such things," Ashan said with a shrug.

She turned and glared at him. "You _pined_ for me – me! – the entire trip north?"

"I would not be so brash as to call it pining, please," Ashan said with a placating gesture. "I simply wish to court. If you find me lacking in interest or unpleasant to your senses, then it will be the end of things, and I will consider them well explored and lamentably left."

Nila raised an eyebrow. "You are being oddly reasonable in this, Ashan."

"I have no patience for the jockeying and politicking that most 'relationships' from my homeland require. What is learned of a woman in such things? Only how much they are able to resist your influence. Had I wanted that, I would have..." Ashan threw up his hands, unable to come up with a proper metaphor.

"Played suit to an electrical capacitor?" Nila offered.

"Yes! Wait! What?" Ashan asked, too enthusiastic to have another clarify that he didn't notice that the clarification to his ears wasn't. He took a purging breath, and shook his head, flicking a black curl back from his eyes. "I do not wish to crack a whip for a servile, meek, stupid woman. I wish to have a partner, not a slave. Is that so unreasonable?"

"For a Si Wongi?" she asked.

"Your own mother was nobody's slave, nobody's lesser," Ashan pointed out.

"She also lived miserably alone for my entire lifetime," Nila answered. But then she sighed. "But I have fair surety that such things fall more squarely onto her own shoulders than merely onto Mankind as a whole. She was not easy to speak to, for anyone. Even had she not bastards, she doubtless would not have had a husband."

"Such harsh words about your own mother!" Ashan said with shock. She turned a glare to him, and the expression dissolved into a grin, as she had somewhat expected it might. She was slowly – _slowly_ – becoming more capable of gauging when people were trying to tease her, and not react explosively. "But I feel you are not wrong. Say what you would of Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, she was in many ways her own worst enemy."

"And you would know so much about my mother," Nila said, rolling her eyes.

"More than you might think, Nila," Ashan said. "I have always listened. She is a hubristic woman. Whatever she has come to Ba Sing Se for, I have no doubt that you will discover it, for it will not be a thing in shadows and quiet for long. And I worry what might have come had she already made her attempt."

Nila leaned forward. "How so?"

"Nila, I have been keeping very close attention to... certain parties... since we came into the city. There is a pall of fear which has settled over the streets of Ba Sing Se, and it will allow none escape it. Have you not noticed the way people limit their speech? Did you not observe the strangeness of some of the women in particular? In our 'guide', Joo Dee?"

"I was not blind to it," Nila said testily. But she shrugged. "I simply do not know what it means. I keep a wary eye, not a paranoid one."

"This may well be a situation where paranoia is the order of the day," Ashan pointed out. He broke off, and motioned her to silence, as the waiter returned with two bowls of soup. One was thin and oily, the other yellow and had something brown floating in it. Nila raised an eyebrow. Sea-prune soup? What insanity was there to make such a thing popular in Ba Sing Se? She shrugged, and began to eat, finding it very unusual but not quite distasteful. "What is this?" Ashan asked.

"Your soup, sir," the waiter said.

"I asked for çorba, not whatever this may be," Ashan said. "Are you to say that my main-course will simply be shredded... pig-chicken in a dough-crust?"

"...no, of course not," he said, his smile twitching into fear, then back. "I'm sure it will be more to your liking if this doesn't satisfy."

He turned and practically bolted inside. Nila leaned across the table, a spoon in hand. "You do realize that these people likely have never heard of such a dish, let alone know how to create it."

"Exactly why I asked for it," Ashan noted, his eyes growing uncharacteristically hard. "You were watching the waiter's reactions, yes?"

"I was... why?"

"When I chastised him, he showed not annoyance nor spite, or even boredom. He showed fear. Fear for life and limb. What is there to make of that?"

Nila stared at Ashan for a long moment, as the truth slowly dawned on her. He had seen it all along. "This place is not safe," Nila declared.

"Indeed not. Whatever force casts the shadow upon Ba Sing Se, it is felt strongly here. They fear not my reprisal, but the shade-casters'. And more, they fear it greatly. We should leave." Nila felt no need to argue that. She rose, pushed her seat back, and turned into the restaurant.

There were a dozen men in green robes waiting there. Everybody else pointedly ignored that they existed. Nila flicked her eyes to Ashan. One, as nondescript as any other, stepped forward. "Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, please come with us. It will be... easier, that way."

* * *

><p><em>Toph and Zuko's Tale<em>:

"Well, that went well," Zuko deadpanned, as he looked through the shattered window of an abandoned building. Outside, the Si Wongi were out for blood, and sweeping through the streets like a dervish.

"Y'know, I figure they might be dispersed enough that I could cut a hole through 'em," Toph offered. While Toph couldn't see the look on his face, once for the darkness in which the two of them huddled, and twice because she was – after all – blind, his posture spoke reluctance. "What?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Zuko said, turning his back to the window, slumping under it. She sat at his side. "If we leave a trail, they're going to be able to find it. They're just hunting us for an accident. If we give them a real reason to want to kill us, they'll never stop. As it is, they'll probably get bored and give up... sooner or later."

Toph gave a chuckle at that. "The _firebender_ is the one urging caution. Now I know that I'm pallin' around with the Avatar. This kind of crap just doesn't happen in a sane world," she muttered.

"I learned that caution is important a long time ago. If I wasn't as cautious as I am, the Avatar would probably be dead right now, if not worse, and we'd be in a lot more trouble than... this."

"And how'd that happen?" Toph asked. Zuko shrugged.

"I had a good teacher," his tones had some bitterness in them.

"No, the dead or worse thing," Toph gave him a shove to prove her annoyance. The look he gave her, was, usual, lost on her.

"Zhao captured the Avatar a few months ago. I freed him before Zhao could do worse than uncomfortable imprisonment. Figures. I finally start understanding the things that Uncle kept saying, and when I do, it's too late to help my family with them," he sighed, lightly. "No wonder my family keeps leaving me behind. All I ever do is get in their way."

"Now that isn't remotely true," Toph said.

"And how would you know that?" Zuko demanded, his tone becoming heated and raw.

"Because I remember what your Uncle said about you when we first met. That he trusted that you'd do the right thing. And you know what? Joining the Avatar even if it meant losing your throne, that took a lot of balls," she gave a shrug. "I can't say for how you two left, but I know that if he's the same guy I shared a boat with, then I know he's probably bursting with pride."

Zuko was silent for a long moment, his form still hunched a bit. "Maybe you're right," he admitted.

"Damn straight I'm right!" Toph said, giving him a slug in the arm.

"There is one thing, though..." Zuko said, puzzled.

"What?"

"Where exactly did you get it in your head that we were a couple?" Zuko asked.

"Aaaah," Toph said, tapping fingers together. "Y'see, it was kinda a bit of a surprise for me, too. Mostly 'cause I wanted that crazy wolfbat in Makapu to be wrong, but when things kept lining up..."

"You're not answering my question."

"Fine. I like that you don't treat me like I'm weak and frail and useless, just because I'm little and blind. Pretty much from the start, you treated me like the badass I am, and I've never had that before! So sue me if I don't feel a bit... warmly."

"Warmly," Zuko repeated.

"Oi! Don't push me out of my comfort zone! I'm close enough to the edge as it is," Toph warned. "If you can't handle it, then I'll drop it. But it'll be your loss, Sparky," Toph pointed at him.

"Right now, I'm just not in any kind of good place for a relationship," Zuko said, shaking his head. "Maybe when Father is gone, when Azula is safe and this war is over, and the world is no longer on the edge of annihilation, maybe then I can think about that. But not right now," he said.

Toph let out a breath of relief. Honestly, she wasn't even sure if she was ready to pursue this, but the opportunity seemed right. "Later, then," she said, with a nod. "I can be plenty patient."

"No you can't," Zuko said with a scowl. "You couldn't even wait for a decent age to get a doctorate."

"Don't blame me for being brilliant," Toph chided.

"I'm blaming you for being impetuous," Zuko countered. He then leaned out the window again. She could feel that there were still people moving through the streets, no doubt at least a few of them hoping ill-will upon them. Had she not quickly ducked into this building, bending straight through a brick wall, they'd probably still be out there, running. "But still, it's good to have somebody on this side who doesn't treat me like a rotten fish. Thank you, for that."

"Any time, Sparky," Toph said. "So what'd'ya think our chances of making it back to the Middle Ring are?"

"Tonight, nil," Zuko said. He nodded into the building they were squatting in. "So I recommend picking a cot. They might be enraged, but I doubt they'll resort to breaking and entering to find us."

"And if they do, either one of us'll hear 'em a mile coming," Toph finished his thought. The two of them moved away from the window, each angling toward a separate, tiny, cramped bed room. At the threshold, though, Zuko paused.

"You know... before the bloodthirsty mob..." Zuko said, hesitantly. "...tonight was nice."

"Yeah, it was," Toph agreed. And then, they bunkered down for the night.

For in the morning, there would be a lot of questions that needed answering.

* * *

><p><strong>...Yup. As soon as I knew what Sharif's character was, what his specific injury entailed, I knew that during the Tales chapter, he was going to stumble into a brothel. Does that make me a bad person? Possibly. Does it make me an entertaining writer? I'd like to think so.<strong>

**Long Feng in this story is interesting to write, because he's so self-deluded. Despite ruling over all of Ba Sing Se, he sees the Dai Li as a fragile and faltering battle-line against encroaching darkness. He's already won, and he thinks that he's slowly losing ground. That delusion plays first and foremost into why he's the Grand Secretariat; Long Feng honestly believes in himself that if a strong, decisive, and sane Earth King were to arise, that he could set aside the mantel of Grand Secretariat and allow himself to fade back into the darkness. But the truth is, and he can't admit it even to himself, that he is deliberately keeping anybody from rising up to fulfill those criteria. He keeps Kuei ignorant and weak. He keeps the people afraid. He keeps heros of the previous generation locked under a lake. He's telling himself that he will be a benevolent dictator until a better leader can take his place, while at the same time preventing that from ever happening. He can't allow himself to see what he's doing. A man's got to have his rationalizations, after all.**

**I also have to say that I like the chemistry that developed between Zuko and Toph. While Zuph is still a ways in the offing (age difference, you know) and even Zuko admits that he's in no position to have any kind of relationship with his current mindset, for the first time in a long time, Zuko's managed to make a friend outside his immediate family. The two of them just seem to bounce off each other in amusing ways. It's an underexplored relationship, even in its platonic form**.

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	34. Nila's Lost Day

Zha Yu stood back as the High Chief said his goodbyes. These weren't Zha Yu's people, after all, and while he did delight in spoiling tender moments, even he knew that there was a time and a place. The place was not a will-shattered, demoralized host of shell-shocked atrocity victims, and the time was not now. Hakoda had pulled Yue and Hahn aside, and was talking quietly to them in their own language. Zha Yu, as he was wont to do, allowed himself to overhear.

"_While I'm gone, they will be looking to you, Yue. You're Arnook's daughter, and that still holds some weight with them. More than that, you are the Victorious Princess. They remember how much you sacrificed for them._"

"_I don't know if I'm ready for this kind of responsibility,_" Yue said. Hakoda sighed.

"_We never are. That's the thing about responsibility. It comes when we least want it, and either breaks us or makes us strong enough to bear it. I'm sure that you're strong enough, Yue. No daughter of mine, step- or otherwise, would be anything less_," he said, patting her caringly on the shoulder. "_And as for you... don't get in her way_."

Hahn leaned back. "_What?_"

"_I'm serious. If I come back and my home is a puddle, I'm blaming you,_" Hakoda said with an impressive deadpan. "_You don't want the High Chief blaming you, is that clear?_"

"_That's hardly fair,_" Hahn complained.

"_If you were just listening, you'd notice I said life seldom was. Good luck, Yue,_" he leaned in to plant a kiss onto her hairline. "_Keep our people strong._"

"_I will,_" Yue said, a small smile on her face. "_...thank you._"

"_Don't thank me yet,_" Hakoda said. Hakoda then moved to Zha Yu's side. The two men stood side by side, and Hakoda momentarily leaned toward him. "You were listening, I presume?"

"I always listen. Otherwise I might miss something important," Zha Yu said. He cracked a smirk of his own. "Why the third degree on your sort-of-son-in-law?"

"He married the girl my son was in love with," Hakoda said. He gave the Mountain King a glance. "If I did any less, I'd be a traitor to my brood."

Zha Yu couldn't help but laugh at that. "Would that all fathers could think the same way. Of course, I'm one to talk. I'm pretty sure that every boyfriend Cho'e gets is going to run for the hills screaming by the time I'm done with them."

Hakoda turned to the earthbender more directly. "How are we supposed to get to your 'friends', anyway?"

"The fast way. Also, the most dangerous way possible short of walking through the Spirit World," Zha Yu said. He reached into his coat and pulled out that sphere, black with white stripes running along it. Or perhaps white with black stripes. But since the stripes moved, joined, split, and vacillated, it was hard to definitively pick which. In his hand, it felt slightly warm, especially compared to the brisk air of the south polar autumn. It also felt slightly fuzzy, like it was coated in the soft down of mudcomb bees. "You might want to close your eyes for this, Hakoda. It can be a bit intense the first time."

"Is this going to end with us covered in bees?" Hakoda asked levelly.

"No. Well, maybe. That happens only about forty percent of the time," Zha Yu said. "Nothing to worry about."

"That's still bad odds," Hakoda said.

"Look, would you rather walk?" Zha Yu asked.

"If it means I don't get covered in bees," Hakoda said with a smirk. Zha Yu just sighed, shook his head with a smirk of his own. It was refreshing to meet somebody with a sense of humor. Bato's had been a long time forming, and Piandao's had been gallows humor at best. Only Llewenydd was good for a laugh, since Sati was about as humorless as a swarm of bees. And now, one was dead, and the others... he didn't even know. He pressed his eyes shut, and held the ball, the Dirak artifact, high above his head. Usually, one had to precisely picture the inverse of your destination, substituting voids for objects and places. It was a tricky process, which lead to his experiments dropping him in Great Whales, Caldera City, and an iceberg floating past Henhiavut. So he did what was a lot easier, a lot harder to predict, and gave him a fairly good notion that the artifact was not only sapient, but liked to mess with people.

"_Take me where I need to go_," Zha Yu whispered in Uou, the language of spirits. With his eyes pressed closed, only his body could tell him that things were changing. The cold instantly vanished, replaced by a comparatively warm sense of nothingness, and his balance stopped working, like he'd suddenly found himself falling. But the sensation was short lived, because his weight quickly dropped back into his boots, and he felt himself tipping sideways, before letting out a surprised yelp and falling over, with Hakoda landing in a pile on top of him, as warmth took the place of cold, and surprised shouting took the place of pristine silence.

Zha Yu looked around, and saw why they'd fallen over. There was a dome of ice, carved right out of the glacier with their teleportation, which had tipped and dumped them, now rolling itself back to an equilibrium point now that the pesky humans weren't bothering it. The crowd – and there was quite a crowd – looked on with surprise, disbelief, and confusion. Hakoda rolled off of Zha Yu and looked around.

"Where are we?" Hakoda asked.

"From the omnipresence of walls, I'd say Ba Sing Se," Zha Yu quipped. He got to his feet, pocketing the Dirak. He took a deep breath. "From the smell – or rather the lack of an offensive one – I'd say we were in the Middle Ring. And from the blood droplets leading into that alley we're... wait a second."

Hakoda glanced toward him. "Hey, you two? Is that your ice?" somebody said in the crowd, dragging the Tribesman's attention away. A glance back to Zha Yu. Then, a smirk.

"Yes! Free samples to anybody with an ice-pick! Fresh as you'll find in the Polar Glaciers!" he said, waving his arms grandiosely. There was a murmur running through the crowd, before there were a few pleased expressions, and people moving forward with stilettos to start chipping away at it. "Be sure to visit my new franchise, Polarbear-dog's Shaved Ice! You'll see us soon!"

"Did you just come up with that off the top of your head?" Zha Yu asked.

"People are willing to overlook anything if they believe it's a marketing ploy," Hakoda said. "Now where's that blood going?"

Zha Yu motioned the other man to follow him, moving away from the people moving in to enjoy their fresh ice. It was likely a luxury that they hadn't entertained in years, since before General Iroh's attempt at cracking the Great Wall. Or, more accurately, since the snake shut those walls, and made it so hard to believe in a simple truth. They moved out of the crisp light of the early morning and into the long shadows cast by a low sun, and through the relatively uncluttered alleyway. That the buildings here were spaced fairly apart made it clear to see ahead of them. And it made the source of those blood droplets clear and obvious.

"Tui La, look at this poor... girl," Hakoda said, as they turned the battered, bleeding teenager over. "Who would do something like this?"

"A more important question would be, who in the Middle Ring would do something like this," Zha Yu corrected. "Do you recognize her?"

"No. She might be a Tribesman, from her color," Hakoda said, and then he skinned back an eyelid. What they saw there made both cringe. They tried the other. Bright green. "No. Not a Tribesman. Si Wongi, maybe."

"Si Wongi are relegated to the Lower Ring," Zha Yu said with a note of confusion. "Does she have any identifying papers? Who is she? How did she get up here?"

"Maybe we should figure that out once we know if she's going to live or not. She's probably going to lose that eye... unless..." Hakoda trailed off.

"You have an idea, don't you?" Zha Yu asked.

"I heard from some of the refugees that some Tribesmen fled south before the fall of Summavut, moving to Ba Sing Se to avoid Arnook's madness. There were waterbenders and healers amongst them. Probably why Arnook got so mad toward the end, so controlling. He could see his personal army slipping away. If we can find some of those waterbenders, we'll find the best healers left alive in this world," Hakoda said.

"That's a pretty good idea. But how do we get her to the healers? They'd be in the Lower Rings, too," Zha Yu pointed out. He paused, though, as Hakoda wiped some of the blood off of the girl's hands, and what he thought was dried blood turned out to be embedded ink. Zha Yu's eyes shot wide. "Oh... my."

"What is it?"

"I think I know who this is," Zha Yu said.

"Who? Who is it?"

"You remember the Dragon of the East? I'm pretty sure this is her daughter," Zha Yu let out a growl. "What is she doing _here_? She was supposed to go home! Nothing ever happens in Si Wong."

"This is Sati's girl? Hakoda asked. Zha Yu nodded. "Then we'd better get her to a healer fast. Maybe this is what that sphere of yours was aiming us at. You said it did have a way of taking you where you needed to go?"

"It did at that," Zha Yu agreed. He pulled off his cloak and used it to wrap the unconscious teenager. "Gods, I wonder what happened to her? It looks like somebody almost managed to murder her."

"We can worry about that later," Hakoda said, hoisting the girl up into his arms, before moving back and out of the alleyway, crossing the street, and making for the shadows where they were undoubtedly safer. Zha Yu gave a chuckle, though, as the crossed another threshold into shadow.

"I was just going to say, 'I wonder what the other guy looks like'," Zha Yu pointed out.

Not thirty seconds after they vanished from sight and earshot, two more Tribesmen walked down that street, pulling a distracted Si Wongi with them. "Come on, Sharif. Your house is just another block that way," Sokka said.

"Something doesn't feel right," Sharif complained.

"Feel right? We had to dig you out of a brothel district! You should have seen the looks those people were giving us!" Katara griped.

"Hey, look at that. Free ice," Sokka said, craning his neck back around.

"If you want ice, I can make you ice," Katara snipped. Sokka grinned, though.

"Yeah, but this is ice you didn't prepare. It'll taste better."

She stopped to give him a glare, which had been boiling up for several hours. "It's ice. It tastes like frozen water."

"You're obviously no connoisseur of ice," Sokka blithely stated. She muttered something dark and blasphemous, before continuing to their home. It had been a long night for both of them.

The day had only just risen.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14<strong>

**Nila's Lost Day**

* * *

><p>"Nila I promise that this isn't what it looks like. I swear I never thought he would get away from me, but..." Katara began explaining herself even as she walked through the door to the Si Wongi's house. She trailed off when she was greeted by silence, not even the popping of a fire, or the bubbling of the girl's dangerous alchemicals.<p>

Sokka shoved in behind her, pushing Sharif before him as he entered the room. He glanced down at the floor, and gave a smirk. "I wonder if that'll finally be enough carpeting for her," he offered. He then glanced around. "Looks like nobody's home."

"Great," Katara said, throwing up her hands. "She's probably out looking for Sharif on her own, and will bite my head off the moment she gets back."

"My sister isn't here," Sharif said distantly, his glazed eyes slowly panning around the house.

"No, she isn't, Sharif," Sokka said idly. He shrugged. "Well, I think she'll probably be in a more forgiving mood because he's back here safe and sound. That's gotta be worth something."

"Do you think so?"

"Nah, she'll probably shoot you with that gun thing," Sokka countered effortlessly, and brayed laughter at Katara's poleaxed expression. "You're too easy, sis."

"This isn't funny! He could have been hurt! All because I couldn't keep track of him!"

"It is kinda funny," Sokka contended.

"It's funny because it's not going to hurt you when it comes," Katara pointed out.

"That's the essence of comedy in any situation."

"I hope that lady is alright," Sharif said distantly.

"What lady?" Katara asked, confused.

Sokka gave a nervous chuckle, and leaned toward her. "Do you think he... you know..."

"Just because we dragged him out of a brothel district doesn't mean he... I mean, he couldn't..." Katara was flabbergasted. "I don't even think he's interested in women, because of his injury."

"Unless the injury happened between his legs, I'd say there's a chance he was interested. Weren't you, Sharif?"

"I don't understand."

"That place we found you," Sokka coached.

"Oh... that was a strange place. They kept the buildings too hot for the women working there."

Katara frowned at the Si Wongi who spoke with quiet earnestness. "Why do you say that?"

"They were wearing so little. They must have been baking before I arrived," Sharif said with a degree of confidence which Katara wagered only mental disability could imbue into something so patently wrong. Of course, she was incorrect in that assessment, but she was sheltered and only a young woman herself. She shook her head, palming her forehead.

"Where would Nila be at this time of day?" she asked.

"That isn't her name," Sharif answered almost automatically.

"What? Well, what is her name then?" Katara asked. Sharif turned, raising a finger to his pronouncement, and then lapsed into fumbling silence.

"I don't remember," he said. There was a chirpy growl at the door, and Sokka pushed the door out to reveal the cub which they'd taken in. It was quickly growing, and soon would be big enough that it'd take both arms to lift it, but still had the blunted tusks, minimal horns, and brown fuzziness which made it adorable. It padded in, curled up on the carpets, and went to sleep. "Oh, my little friend is back. So comfortable, it is."

"Katara, why would Nila be away like this? She's smarter than that. If she thought Sharif was missing again, wouldn't she get our help?" Sokka asked.

"Would she?" Katara reflected the question back at him. Sokka nodded, then stopped, and pondered. And then, shrugged.

"You're right, she just might have. She's a stubborn girl. Like, crazy stubborn. She'd walk through a wall before admitting there might be a door she could use," Sokka gave a shrug. Katara smirked. She'd said much the same thing about Sokka, once. And his stubborn streaks remained as legendary today as they were when they were children.

"Should we go out and find her?"

"That's a bad plan. When you're lost, and you know somebody's looking for you, _you_ don't try looking for _them_," Sokka shook his head. "We should stay right here. When she needs a place to sleep, she'll come back here and be slightly furious that you let Sharif go, rather then extremely furious that she couldn't find him at all."

"You don't need to paint me as the lax overseer in this," Katara muttered. "It's not my fault he used spirit magic on me."

"HAH! You called it spirit magic!" Sokka said triumphant.

"So what? It wasn't bending. I think that qualifies under at least slightly magical," she said, crossing her arms with annoyance. She loved her brother, but he did get under her skin sometimes.

"Would somebody tell me what you're all doing in this house?" Zuko's soft voice came from the doorway. "I thought we lived next door."

Instantly Katara's pique turned into simmering resentment. She glared daggers at the firebender, despite having admitted to the resident of this building that there might well be no valid reason for doing so. Still, the heart wanted what it wanted, and it _wanted_ to beat Zuko black and blue with a rotting fish. "Yeah, is there some sort of party over here?" Toph's voice came from behind the firebender, who lurched somewhat as he was shoved aside. As Katara actually turned her attention to the two of them, rather than pointedly and studiously ignoring the source of that lightly lisping voice, she saw that they were both filthy, like they'd slept in a gutter.

"What happened to you two?" Katara asked.

"Celebration," Toph said off handedly. She stumbled as she mounted the carpets, and gave a groan. "Oh, come on! That just isn't funny! How do you people see with this stupid shag underfoot?"

"Perfectly well, thank you," Sokka said. "Celebrating what?"

"She got a doctorate," Zuko said, which caused Toph to turn and punch him very hard in the arm. He hissed with the pain of it, which caused Katara to smirk.

"Hey! I'm the one who gets to deliver the good news! You ruined it," Toph said sternly.

"Part of the reason I did it," Zuko offered with a smirk of his own. Toph glared at a bookshelf which was roughly in Zuko's direction, before shaking her head and turning somewhat back toward the Tribesmen.

"So where's Boomgirl and Chewtoy? I thought they were here pretty much every hour of the day. Well, not Chewtoy, 'cause he's got an actual job, but..."

"We don't know. We think maybe she left to find Sharif," Sokka cast a thumb behind him, which even Katara knew had to be pointless, because with the layers of carpeting underfoot, Toph would be utterly unable to perceive it. "How did you getting a doctorate end up covering you in filth?"

"Long story," Toph said.

"We almost got lynched by a bunch of bloodthirsty Si Wongi and had to sleep in a condemned building," Zuko answered. Which got him another punch for his trouble.

"Stop ruining my stories by making them sound so dull!" Toph complained.

"Brevity is the heart of wit," Zuko answered, rubbing his wounded arm. "They might be next door, and wondering why everybody's _punching me in their house_."

That was a possibility that Katara simply hadn't considered. With an ushering gesture, and some actual ushering for Toph, they all spilled back out onto the street, moved one doorway over, and entered into the vastly different – for all the buildings identical layout – edifice which Sokka's inventively named Team Avatar used as their temporary base of operations. And it was just as quiet as the Si Wongis' house had been.

"Where is the Avatar?" Zuko asked.

"Who wants to wager that he's helping Nila search for her brother in the city?" Sokka asked.

"That isn't her name," Sharif said with distracted tone. There was a nattering sound, as Momo flapped around the room, some sort of anxiety infesting him.

"So you said about staying here?" Katara asked.

"Still our best option," Sokka shrugged. "Since now we've gotta find Aang, too, and I imagine he'd be a bit hard to spot wandering the streets."

"He's not wrong," Zuko offered. Katara gave a glance toward him. He'd already spoken more to them all, and more openly, in the last five minutes than he had in the last nine days beforehand. "We should stay put. They'll come back."

"What happened to you two out there, really?" Sokka asked. Toph shrugged.

"Just a friendly night on the town," she said with a smirk, and a nudge, which happened to be into the same arm she'd belted twice. Thus, it ellicited a hiss of pain from the firebender.

"Watch it," he said idly.

"Oh, you know you like it," she said proudly.

And not a one of them wondered why Momo was so beside himself in agitation.

* * *

><p>"Is that...?" the brother asked, tears failing to well in his dry, dry eyes.<p>

"It has to be. Please, Agni, it has to be," the sister pleaded. He started running, ignoring the hitch in his step from the burns on his leg, while she fought to keep her path stable from the light-headedness. They both knew full well that there was a good chance that they would emerge dead, but at this point, there was little else to do but try. So when they dove through the fissure in the flesh of the Spirit World, it was into torrential rainfall, buffeted by scarlet light from guttering pyres.

Both dropped to their knees, dunking their faces into the ankle-deep puddles which filled every courtyard, heedlessly and powerfully drawing in every drop of water they could, as quickly as they could. Even as they felt the crackling and crumbling of their bodies, they fought to undo it, replacing water for water lost. Finally, when they could drink no more, and the pain stabilized, if not reduced, they both flopped onto their backs, soaking and saturating themselves in the downpour, staring up at black thunderheads.

"We're... alive?" Hisui asked.

"I can't believe it. We actually got out of... that place," he said. "Where _were_ we?"

"I don't know, brother. I don't know," She stared up into the rain, grateful that the droplets soothed her aching eyes. "I... don't think anybody's ever been there, though. Those things didn't look... human."

Hai gave a croaking laugh, staring up at the rain. "And if we never go back, it'll be too soon. Agni's Blood, I hurt all over."

"I'm taking that as an indication to never get into a fight with the Avatar again," Hisui pointed out. The two siblings shared a shudder at the thought of the places that they had been. At the things they had seen. The Silver Men. The Long Roads through the endless darkness. A more vindictive person than they would have sworn revenge on the Avatar for inflicting that torment, that exile. But it took only a shared glance between the two of them to know that they would never, ever, stand before the Avatar again.

Not even for the Fire Lord. They knew what was at stake.

"I feel like I'm dead," Hisui griped, rubbing her head and feeling how the skin was only now starting to plump up again, drinking as greedily from the rain as the rest of her had. "And I'm pretty sure if we stay out here, we'll die of exposure. Which would make that whole walk a bit moot."

"Whatever you say, Sis," Hai said, sitting up, and hauling her to her feet. The two of them, each propping up the other, stumbled into the palace, which they had appeared in the center of a courtyard of. Home. They moved into the broad and vaulting corridors, dripping as they went, wearing mere scraps of what once had been resplendent – and durable – armor, and the attendants gave something of an outcry at their appearance.

The two shamans, though, continued, ignoring the presence of those worry-warts and sycophants. They had to report the failure of Thunder Dragon to the Fire Lord. And also request never to be sent anywhere near _him_ again. As they walked, though, a familiar figure appeared to their weathered vision. She was a typical Azuli, which was to say she was slender, pale, and exuded an aura of utmost deadliness. Her shiny black hair fell almost to her ankles, would that she didn't keep it in a bun. And her eyes looked like silver. Needless to say, Hai was absolutely in love with her. "So you two aren't dead?"

"Of course not. Hasn't anybody ever told you?" Hai asked. "Children never die. We just grow up into rocks. We need to talk to the Fire Lord."

Maryah gave a shrug, a smirk coming to her face as she started to walk beside her fellow children, albeit being the only of the three of them who looked the part. "If this is about Thunder Dragon, you can save your breath. He knows it was a failure, and that his son is a traitor. He's not taking it well."

"What? Zuko can't have turned traitor," Hisui said, a hand flashing to cracked lips.

"You're just saying that because you think he's cute," Maryah mocked, which caused Hisui to blush furiously and glance away. She knew she wasn't very attractive, so that constituted a low-blow. "It is what it is. Prince Zuko has thrown in with the Avatar," Maryah shrugged. "I can't imagine why, but he did. Maybe he's just a masochist, and he wants to fail."

"You hold a high opinion of our chances. This war is hardly over," Hai pointed out. They turned another corner, and moved past a line of guards which seemed a bit further out than the siblings remembered. And when they passed it, they could see the usual line ahead of them. Both gave a confused look to their Azuli fellow Child.

"The Fire Lord mandated added security. Without an heir, it's only a matter of time before Montoya makes his move."

"What about the bastard?" Hai asked.

Maryah flashed a knife-like grin at that. "And here I thought you weren't paying attention. Girl's too young. He can't recognize her 'till she proves she won't die suddenly in the night for no reason."

"When the Azuli are around, lots of people die in the night for no reason, at any age," Hisui pointed out at a grumble.

Maryah gave a shrug. "Say what you will of my countrymen, we're good at what we do. That means the Children have to be better. I'm sure he'll see you, now," she then gave the closed doors a trio of sharp kicks near the base, as the soldiers milling in the hallways gave them strange looks. Not surprising. The two shamans looked like they'd crawled on their bellies through the broken glass of Hell. In a way, they really had. "He's been in a deadly mood for a while. I recommend keeping it brief and getting the hell out of there as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Maryah," Hai said.

"What?" she said, her jaw set. "I just don't want to see the only decent shamans in the Children get exiled because they couldn't keep their mouths shut when they could have."

The three of them proceeded in silence toward the hall of the Burning Throne. And it was clear that something was odd, because the flames were missing from the trough. And the one usually in charge of those flames was pacing on the shiny obsidian before them. The two shamans gave the Azuli a confused glance. Maryah seemed just as confused as they. Mostly because, even though Ozai was pacing, he was smiling.

Their confusion fled quickly, though, when he saw them, and that smile matured into something they were familiar with. It was the smile of a man about to do murder. "Ah. Children. Excellent," he said. "You will accompany me."

"Where, Fire Lord?" Hai asked.

"We are going on a journey," he said. As he moved closer, it was obvious that he wasn't really paying attention to them. And also obvious that his eyes were sunken, his skin gaunt. It looked like he hadn't slept in a week. "Everybody around me is either incompetent or treasonous in their hearts. If there is any hope of crushing the enemies of the Fire Nation, I'll have to do it myself!"

"Fire Lord, we must report on Operation Thunder Dragon..." Hai said carefully, which drew a sharp look from Maryah.

"A failure. Just as everything which passes out of my hands is. No. I must assume direct control of this situation. And that means, we are going to deal with things personally," he said, his tone quivering with expectation... and possibly anger and anxiety as well.

"W-where are we going, Fire Lord?" Hisui asked.

"Where else? We are going to Ba Sing Se," Ozai said with a smirk. Maryah leaned back.

"Fire Lord, I cannot advise this. That is a trip of weeks! Think of what the Azuli will do in your absence!" she pointed out. "And if you go to Ba Sing Se, how long then? Their walls couldn't fall to Thunder Dragon, and only..." she obviously was cutting herself off before she mentioned Ozai's brother. It was known that Iroh was not welcome in the capitol for quite a few years before Zhao named him traitor at Summavut. No need to incite their patron.

"Not weeks. A few days," Ozai said. "And the walls will be no obstacle to me."

The two shamans shared a glance, since they thought they knew what that meant. "I don't know if we will be capable of such... exertion," Hai admitted.

"What exertion?" Ozai snapped. He then looked at them more closely. "Your uniform is a shambles. Replace it and join me at the docks. We leave before sunrise."

With that, Ozai turned and departed from the hall, muttering to himself under his breath. The two shamans and the Azuli all turned to themselves. "Has he been like this the whole time?" Hisui asked quietly.

"It's gotten worse since Summavut," Maryah admitted.

"Why the docks?" Hai asked. "There's no rifts at the docks..."

"I think I know what he means," Maryah said. "Don't worry. You'll get plenty of rest for what's to come."

"You aren't coming?"

She shrugged. "Somebody's got to keep my ilk from killing his whore's daughter. Who better?" she asked, flicking knives into her hands. Hai gave a sigh.

"It's just... it'd have been better if you were with us."

"You don't say," Hisui said, cuffing him upside the head, which caused a clump of it to fall out. Yeesh, she made a point not to comb too vigorously for a few days. "Come on. The Fire Lord awaits us."

* * *

><p>Long Feng was making his way home, after that long, hectic night, and one of the puppets matched him step for step. "She managed to escape," she concluded. Long Feng leveled a glare at her, as she walked with that same empty smile and those same hollow eyes. The shadowed master of the city let a growl percolate in his throat.<p>

"'She managed to escape'? That's all you can say about it? Dead agents! Dead politicians and bureaucrats! Am I the only person in this city trying to keep things stable?" Long Feng muttered darkly.

"I am not sure I understand," the puppet said.

Long Feng took a calming breath, anchoring his rock-solid control, first of himself, then of his city. That was the way of things. If he slipped, then the city would surely follow. That he would not allow. "She can't have gotten far. She is no Avatar. She is a bendingless teenaged girl with no friends, no allies, and no support. Find her, and bring her in alive. Dead, she is of no use to us."

"As you say, minister," the puppet said. "The newest guest is still safely sedated. We will await your personal involvement to proceed."

"Good," Long Feng said quietly. Slow and steady, quiet and careful, those were the watch-words of his entire life. "Find out where the girl has gone to ground. Find out who helped her escape. I refuse to believe that my enemies are so powerful that they can topple my city singlehandedly."

The puppet nodded once more, and then kept walking, since Long Feng had arrived at his door. He made a note to assign a Joo Dee to the Avatar's residence soon; his hand was going to become obvious soon enough. Best that hand be closed into a strangling fist before the throat realized it could escape. And the one who'd just left was as good as any other. But for now, he had a home to return to.

Without this, nothing else mattered.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

"_I assume that you have some miraculous plan to escape this calamity?_" Ashan asked, glancing aside to Nila. She, unlike he, hadn't raised her hands in fear. She just stared, eyes starting to flick first from the green robed men, to the room around them all.

"_I am improving in the arts of improvisation,_" Nila answered. She tilted her head. "On whose authority do you claim to arrest us?"

"That isn't yours to know," the green robe at the front snapped. Nila glared.

"You are Dai Li, are you not? Overwhelming power. I refuse to acknowledge your authority until I see a law which I have violated in my residence," Nila answered.

The Dai Li scowled. "You can either come with us quietly, or we will use force to subdue you. I recommend you come peaceably."

"On what charges? Upon what grounds? For what reasons?" Nila demanded. And as she did, her hands started to slide surreptitiously toward her soup. The Dai Li at the fore finally tired of her demands, and stepped forward from his ilk to loom over her more directly. And her hands caught bowl.

"This is your final warning, girl. Come with us now, or face the consequences," he demanded.

So she slammed the bowl full of scaldingly hot, oily soup into his face. Almost operating of one mind, Ashan twisted his arms down and then back up, causing a block of stone to rise up behind the agent. Blinded as he was by sea-prune stew, he could only topple backwards onto his back. The others, though, flanked out also of one mind, some of them bounding and sticking onto the walls like spiderflies. "_Out the window!_" Nila shouted, turning and bounding toward the railing which overlooked a long but survivable fall. Ashan was at her side in a moment, and as she was readying to drop, she felt his hand close on the waist of her pants, and heave back. She was about to angrily demand why when a black streak shot up from the ground, slamming into the stone above her face. It was a fist, rendered in dark basalt, which looked to have landed with enough power to cleave straight through her chestplate. She rolled to the edge, and had to duck back, as a second streak came up, bursting the rail she had peeked over.

There were more Dai Li below. Why so many? How so suddenly? She then had to shove Ashan aside, as a similar streak shot through the doorway from within, and almost slammed into his head. Likely, whatever treatment they wanted for her, would be doubly the lethal for him. After all, they likely considered him 'collateral damage' at best, and 'an obstacle' at worst.

"_This is insanity! How do we escape?_" Ashan asked, before his eyes went wide and he turned, slamming the base of his fist into a wall, and a block of it shot into the restaurant. It was obvious that the brick had a Dai Li stuck to it, and the way he landed was neither graceful nor painless.

"We are a barbed arrow in a wound, Ashan. The only way out, is through the blood and the meat," Nila said. She kicked to her feet, and heaved Ashan up with her, as they both dove into the restaurant's interior. The entire venue had devolved into screaming and violence, pandemonium and panic. Stone fists and great chunks of the structure were being thrown through the air, almost exclusively in Nila and Ashan's direction. They were outnumbered, surrounded, and outgunned.

Nila was just getting started. She kicked a table out from under one of the Dai Li which bounded down toward her, causing him to land on his hands and knees. She remedied that landing by kicking him very hard in the face. She felt something crack under her toes. Thank you, Tzu Zi, for 'buying' me sensible boots, Nila thought. She had only a moment to recover from the kick which left a Dai Li insensate on the floor when she felt something slam into the side of her neck, causing stars to alight in her vision, and her breath to vanish, as something tightened upon her throat. She felt herself turned, and saw Ashan reaching for her neck, and then, the strangulation ended with the sound of crumbling rock. "_Come! We must flee!_" Ashan snapped, terror clear in his tones and frankly, pointing out the obvious.

The two of them had made it all of three steps through the maelstrom before Ashan's step was curtailed, a stone fist slamming his arm against a wall and pinning it there. Nila instantly scanned the battleground, noting every Dai Li standing. There were more than a few. So she pulled a platter from a table and whipped it at the one which looked like he was offering a modicum more concentration than the others. The platter became a discus which caught the agent at eye-level, before shattering and sending shards in. Not expected, but absolutely welcomed.

_"Mother, when will I ever need to know the discus? It is a stupid weapon!" Nila had, once, long ago, complained._

_ "You will thank me for this some day, child. Now do it again and do it correctly. Sharif is doing it correctly!"_

_ "Sharif is showing off," the ten-year-old Nila complained, and picked up another discus. "...stupid weapon._"

The grip on Ashan's arm loosened enough that he could bend the hand off of him, and dive behind a table as the agents turned from sending barrages of basalt gloves to sending hundreds of coin-sized pebbles at them, at incredible speed. Nila could feel the structural integrity of the tipped table starting to vanish. "_We cannot keep this pace! Make a hole in the wall!_"

"_I have been trying!_" Ashan said. He then cast out a sweep of the hand, and the stone lurched away from the wall of the structure, crumbling to dust and revealing metal underneath it. Nila gawked at it. Who built a stone house full of metal? The answer was absurd but obvious. Somebody who wanted to capture earthbenders without incident, and without any chance of escape. Well, Nila was making perfectly clear that this was not going to be a case without incident. He glanced aside, then shifted his posture, catching the arms of the table, and motion to the other side for Nila. "_Raise the table. I need to see them!_"

"_This had better work,_" Nila said. Not a threat. An ardent, desperate hope. She heaved as he did, and they hoisted the table onto another, giving them room to almost stand. But not quite, as Nila learned to her displeasure; a chip of stone, perhaps as big as a finger, managed to burst through the edge of the table and crack into her head, splitting her scalp and causing blood to start running down her face. Ashan glanced around the table, and then with a grandiose gesture only possible for their added room, he slammed his feet down, and thrust his hands up. The floor and ceiling of the restaurant surged together in the center, leaving a gap only an inch high between them, and cutting off the barrage completely. But temporarily.

The Dai Li were already repositioning, and likely amending their tactics. Everything which failed was abandoned, that much was clear. They weren't brainless lackeys who would throw themselves upon the swords of their betters. She sprinted toward the doors leading outside once again, this time clearing a third of the room before a Dai Li interrupted her. The agent sent out both hands, black stone flared wide, trying to catch her arms and pin her down. She managed to duck one hand, but the other dug furrows into her flesh at the almost-miss, more blood dripping down into her shirt. Ashan was driven back, with the crack of a rib snapping, as that almost-strike caught him much more squarely. But with a twist, he burst the fists into dust, and continued, after only a moment of twisting his face into a rictus of pain.

"_You can still run?_"

"_To the ends of the earth_," Ashan answered her. The exit was close, but the Dai Li were moving to close it off. So they redoubled their efforts. She made it only a tiny distance before she felt her feet getting yanked out from under her. She slammed chin-first into the stone, fairly sure she felt her teeth loosen in her jaw, and stars once again flit through her eyes. And then, she started to drag, away from the door. Away from escape. She glanced over her shoulder. A Dai Li was reeling her in as though she were some sort of fish. She caught a glass goblet as she was hauled, and clutched hard. She would need utmost timing. Luckily, she had it.

The agent didn't say a word as she was brought to a halt, the grip on her ankle almost bone-breakingly tight. A fist tangled into her hair and dragged her up, instantly driving a fist into her diaphragm and casting the wind out of her. But she didn't need her wind to strike back. Despite the agony of being held aloft by her roots, she jammed the goblet into the side of the man's neck. As it shattered, she pushed harder, twisted, and pushed harder still, driving it deeper and deeper, until finally, red started to pulse out around it, and the man fell to the ground, clutching at his punctured carotid. Nila finally allowed herself a moment to try to start breathing again. It took more time than she would have liked. A glance up, and she could see a fist of stone catch Ashan across the forehead, splitting the skin and causing his face to vanish behind red.

And the Dai Li advanced toward them, implacable as death.

* * *

><p>Calling that tavern a den of iniquity did disservice to dens and iniquity both. All the more reason for it to be the most sought-after meeting place for those who had much to lose, and much to hide. Places such as these ones developed a reputation which made them watched by authorities, but usually, watched for the wrong reasons, and by the wrong people. And anybody who hadn't forgotten the finer points of subtlety could get away with murder and treason in such dank environs. Needless to say, those weren't on the agenda at the moment. The Mountain King gave a glance to the man who was his current companion; over the course of his life, he'd had many. He was quite a bit older than he looked. Then again, whether it was his distant if present blood-connection to the supercentinarian King Bumi, or just that he'd lead a life well lived, the years didn't drag as heavily on him as did most. Hakoda, the man to Zha Yu's side, looked his age. The man had a bit of guile to him, but just enough to know that he was a child playing in a field of fire-mines, and had enough sense to watch where he set his foot. Sati had once been so careful. The years had made her arrogant.<p>

"She's not going to get better propped up against a box," Hakoda whispered urgently. "I should be out there."

"There are ways that things are done," Zha Yu pointed out. "If I invite myself openly, but bring another quietly, the doors will remain closed to us. She's hidden. For the moment, she's safe. There's nothing else you or I could do to help her, anyway."

"That doesn't mean I like it," Hakoda muttered. Zha Yu took a seat before a Pai Sho board. There was a meek, mousy looking woman sitting opposite him, a woman out of place amongst the shouting and the boors, the craven, the depraved, and the licentious. A target so obvious that nobody could see it. And not the person that Zha Yu was expecting.

"Would you mind a small wager on a friendly game?" Zha Yu asked, setting down a silver coin. One rubble was childish stakes, but it, and the words which joined it, were a code kept carefully secret. There were snakes in the long grass, especially in places like this.

"The visitor has the first move," the woman said, her dark eyes flitting around nervously. Zha Yu placed his White Lotus at the heart of the board. "A-ah... So I see you favor the White Lotus gambit?"

"An interesting if illegal move. Will you allow it?"

"There is always allowance for those who follow the old ways," she said, still nervous in tone and cadence. She and Zha Yu then alternated laying tiles. But something was wrong. She made a mistake. Zha Yu's brow furrowed, but he continued. She might be new, and nervous. Or... Another mistake, a very specific mistake, turned suspicion into alarm. He glanced up to her, his green and brown eyes locking with her nearly black. He forced a smile onto his lips. It didn't reach his eyes.

"Well, I can see how this game is shaping up. I believe you will have me soon enough. Take your coin. You're welcome to it," Zha Yu said.

"Good – I mean... It's fortunate that you didn't prolong the inevitable," she said, staying still so forcefully that Zha Yu knew it was the only way she could keep from trembling. Zha Yu gave her a nod, then rose, grabbing Hakoda's shoulder as he turned and heading out the door.

"What was all that about?" Hakoda asked.

"The Order is compromised in Ba Sing Se. I have to assume that means that my old contacts are dead or worse, and that Sati has been captured," Zha Yu muttered as he walked, speaking just loud enough that it wouldn't carry past the Tribesman amidst the din.

"That's a lot from a few bad Pai Sho moves," Hakoda said. "Who did you say you worked for again?"

"Not for. With," Zha Yu corrected. "There's no real leadership. Just a group of like-minded old-people who know that the world can't continue on the course it's on, and are willing to take action to stop it."

Hakoda smirked. "How old do you have to be to join?"

"Old enough to know that some things are worth sacrificing safety, comfort, and blood for," Zha Yu answered, as the two of them moved out the door and around the building. The girl was exactly where they'd left her, breathing shallowly but otherwise showing no real signs of life. Considering the state of her, they'd had to unmake her clothing just to get rid of the infection risk it presented. The blanket Zha Yu bought straight out of a laundryshop was her only adornment, but it was blessedly clean. She looked in poor shape. And would likely get worse without help. Hakoda scooped her up, and the two of them continued moving through the warren of streets.

Getting the injured girl down out of the Middle Ring had been almost contemptuously easy. It was the easiest thing, in fact; they just told the truth, that they were trying to find a waterbender to heal an injured girl. Of course, that truth had been levied high with lies, such as claiming that the girl was Hakoda's daughter, or the implicit understanding that they were both Middle Ring natives. Exiting the Middle Ring was easy. Getting back in would be very, very difficult. Especially since the only Green Level Pass they had amongst them was covered in blood. Zha Yu had planned on retrieving his old Gold Level Pass, but if the Order was in hiding, then that might well already be in the hands of the snake. Or just burned or stolen. There was no accounting for taste, after all.

"Well, what do we do now?" Hakoda asked. There was a distinct note of tension in his voice. And a distinct sensation of protectiveness. Then again, Zha Yu knew why. He'd heard _that_ story. He'd lost his firstborn daughter long ago, and now, a girl who was around the same age as the one he'd had left was lying nearly dead in his arms. It had to weigh heavy on him. It would weigh heavy on any sane human.

"South," Zha Yu said. "The waterworks of lower Ba Sing Se is in the south end of the Lower Ring. My guess is that any waterbenders in the city would gather there," he gave a shrug. "Closer to their element, and such."

"That's a pretty weak argument," Hakoda pointed out.

"Well, forgive me for having my best plan prove utterly useless!" Zha Yu said with annoyance, before sighing and palming his face. "I'm sorry, I'm just angry that we've lost so much ground. This used to be the heart of our Order. Now, the heart is missing beats, there's clots in its arteries, and its doctor is advising it that it can either stop eating sweets or it'll lose a foot."

"...that metaphor went somewhere unexpected, didn't it?" Hakoda asked.

"...maybe a little," Zha Yu admitted. "At least it didn't go toward a greasy finger."

"Maybe you should stop talking for a while, and start looking for Tribesmen," Hakoda said.

"Found one," Zha Yu said. Hakoda twisted his neck, looking in all directions, then stopped, and glared at Zha Yu.

"You meant me, didn't you?"

Zha Yu grinned. And contrary to the grim expectations he'd held, Hakoda started laughing. The conversation as they walked, the girl cradled in the Tribesman's arms, was mostly about old jokes, old stories, old loves lost and won. Old battles, victorious and ignominious. Both had done quite a bit of walking in their lives. The journey through packed, filthy streets was no task of endurance. Only time. Time which the Mountain King was fairly sure they were slowly running out of.

"Hold on," Hakoda said, edging Zha Yu behind him as they entered a piece of Lower Ring which looked essentially identical to any other. His face, though, had gone from jovial and nostalgic to the planes and focus of a hunting beast. The Tribesman's eyes saw something that Zha Yu's did not. Zha Yu grunted his confusion. "There. That towel."

"The blue one?" Zha Yu asked.

"That's the sign of the Borguk Clan. I've traded with them quite a bit when I was young. Back before the War reached them," Hakoda clarified somewhat pointlessly.

"Borguk? Should that be familiar to me?" Zha Yu asked.

"Probably not. Famous waterbending warriors, but in recent years, their line filled up with daughters. Which works for us, if that is what I think it is."

"And if it isn't?" Zha Yu said, having to root himself against the crowds which brushed and buffeted past him.

"Then we're knocking on the door of somebody who bought a Tribesman's towel, and we look like idiots," Hakoda said. And then, he was walking toward the tenement building. Obviously, looking the fool was not a problem which ranked high on Hakoda's hierarchy of things to avoid. Such would have been obvious to anybody who spent any amount of time talking to the man.

The doors were in poor shape, but at least weren't laying flat on the patio like the building next to it. Zha Yu, who still had hands to use, knocked sharply on it. "I assume you have some way of contacting your Tribal ilk? Because if not, I doubt we're getting past this door."

"I hadn't thought of it. I'm just going to improvise," Hakoda said distantly, as the girl in his arms let out a sound, a few words muttered insensately in Altuundili. While Zha Yu was proficient in it, hearing it slurred made it undecipherable. That made Hakoda pull the girl in a little closer, his face growing all the more protective. This might not be _his_ daughter, but today, she would be as well protected as her.

The door opened, as Zha Yu was concocting a worthwhile lie to tell the superintendent, something that would get them inside.

It was made somewhat moot by blue eyes staring back at them. "What's going on out here? Why are you..." he asked in heavily accented and difficult Tianxia. Then, he looked down at the injured girl. "_Cousin, is that your child?_"

"_No, but she is badly hurt, and I need a waterbender to heal her. Is the Borguk Clan truly under this roof?_" Hakoda asked.

"_Something like it,_" the superintendent, that somehow miraculously a Tribesman, said. "_Come inside. Not you, you can stay out..._"

"_He comes with me. I wouldn't have made it here without him_," Hakoda countered. The Tribesman glanced between the two of them, then sighed and beckoned the Mountain King enter as well, before closing the door. On the other side of that door, Zha Yu could see a plethora of heavy locks, several of which the man slid closed. He turned back to Hakoda.

"_My name is Arsuk. This is our home._"

"_Our_?" Zha Yu asked.

"_You speak the tongue of glaciers and cold winds? Surprising_," Arsuk muttered.

Hakoda shook his head. "_He's a surprising man. What did you mean, 'something like it'?_" he demanded.

"_The Borguk are here, but they've lost their nerve_," Arsuk said.

"_Wait, all of them?_" Hakoda asked.

"_The whole family,_" Arsuk answered. As they moved, Zha Yu could see doors cracking open. Eyes of blue and brown, skin dark of shade, one and all they cautiously peered out. "_Arnook was going mad. We fled while we still had our heads. We heard that the Spikerim fell at the end of winter. Are the rumors true?_"

Hakoda sighed, and nodded. "_Arnook is dead, and Summavut has fallen_," Hakoda reported. "_Why did you come __here__?_"

"_Can you think of a place farther from Arnook's grasp?_" Arsuk asked. "_Bad enough to share a name with that madman. I had to mangle it just so I could look at myself in the mirror each morning. Who is this girl, then, if she is no blood of yours?_"

"_The child of a friend,_" Zha Yu answered for Hakoda.

"_Blood stands thicker than wine, Easterner, and family values higher than friendship these days,_" Arsuk pointed out. Hakoda stomped a foot, which turned the Tribesman to him.

"_You __will__ heal her,_" Hakoda demanded. "_As long as there is one waterbender of Borguk's line, she will be healed, today!_"

"_What does that make her to you, then?_"

"_A child who needs help,_" Hakoda answered. Arsuk gave him a confused look, then realization dawned on him.

"_You're Southern Tribe, aren't you? I thought the accent sounded different,_" he reached out and patted Hakoda on the shoulder, sympathy clear in his face. "_For what it's worth, I think I know the pain __you've felt for the loss of your children as clearly as any. I lost a daughter to the Fire Nation three years ago, before we decided to flee south. This war is insane, and brings insanity out in people._"

"_That it does,_" Hakoda agreed. "_Where is Borguk?_"

Arsuk beckoned them up the stairs. "_They stay on the top floor. It's quieter up there. Not as many people. I fought on the Spikerim for a while, but nothing like what they had to do. I swear, some of them, it makes you wonder how much of their soul is left,_" he shook his head, his wolf's tail swinging behind him. "_Talk quiet and carefully. They'll see you if they can._"

"_Any healers amongst them?_" Zha Yu asked.

Arsuk let out a bitter laugh. "_Once you've fought the Fire Nation in the North, everybody's a healer. Either that, or dead. They've suffered worse than most. Remember that. And for the love of hearthfire, don't pick a fight with them. The last time they snapped and went on a rampage, it took everything we had to calm them down before somebody important died,_" Arsuk said, coming to a halt before a door at the second highest level of the building. The roof stood above, but nobody would live up there. It attracted too much risk, since any earthbender could easily climb up and loot them. The door opened, and inside...

There were three, in the room which was devoid of any decoration. All of them had shaved heads, which was significant in that one of them was a woman. One of the men stared ahead, unmoving, his eyes almost glassy to look at. The woman was minutely more spirited, slowly stirring a pot of stew. The last, and the oldest, had a beard to make up for what was likely natural baldness. That one looked the most lively of them all, and turned a cautious eye toward the newcomers the moment the door opened.

"_What do you want of me. I'm old, and I have little desire to see the bloody-minded_," he said.

"_Old Borguk? You're alive?_" Hakoda asked.

"_Who's asking?_" Old Borguk asked. Then, he tilted his head. "_Wait... Hakoda of the South. You've come a long way to this pile of dung on a fire. What do you want from us? Did Arnook send you __to collect his scattered warriors, or is there mercy in the universe enough to find him dead?_"

"_Arnook is dead, and I have no need of fighters. Borguk Clan had strong healers, and the girl needs help. Can you help her?_"

"_Why should I help you? I'm sick of hurting, and I'm sick of fighting,_" Old Borguk asked.

Hakoda took a quiet breath, and looked the man in the eye. "_Because your High Chief has asked it of you._"

"_High Chief?_" Old Borguk asked, reading between the metaphorical lines. "_So... you killed Arnook in the Circle of Knives. Good for you,_" he said. "_But good deeds don't fill bellies. Especially when my grandson and granddaughter are in no condition to earn for themselves._"

"I have money," Zha Yu said. Old Borguk turned his attention to the Easterner.

"Good. Pay upfront, and I'll look after the girl," he cracked his knuckles, then walked over and whispered to the girl. She turned toward him, her hands picking at her scalp. Zha Yu could see why their heads were shaved. She'd likely have pulled her own hair out by the roots had they not. Nervous habits were born like weeds in times of terror. Old Borguk laid the girl out on a cot, and the girl began to set water aglow upon her hands. Zha Yu just tossed the old man his entire purse of silver. He had a second on him, and the girl's life was worth all of it and more.

"Rough start," Zha Yu muttered, as he leaned against a wall, Hakoda slumping beside him.

"But it _is_ a start. That's not nothing," Hakoda pointed out.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier:<em>

Seeing Ashan's face bloodied as it was sparked a rage in her she didn't know was possible. Not that somebody had damaged him because she felt any significant romantic attraction to him – that was entirely premature – but because at its most basic level, for all her failures as a Si Wongi, in attacking Ashan, they attacked her. More personally, she was not going to allow _anybody_ to hurt her friends. Even if those friends did make her contemplate murder from time to time. She was already running, her ankle sending out searing jolts every time she put weight onto it, but she didn't care. With increasingly blood-slicked hands, she grabbed a chair from a hastily evacuated table, and hurled it ahead of her. While she was useless with a bow, there were certain things she learned well. Riflery she had learned on her own, and of her own initiative. The knife she knew well enough not to stab herself in the thigh. But what Nila had excelled at, was the catch-as-catch-can style of 'self defense' Mother had foist upon her. So if a chair to an offending face would help save a friend, then that chair would fly, true and swift.

It smashed into the Dai Li who was closest to Ashan, giving him a chance to catch his balance, swipe the blood from his eyes, and then hurl a decorative centerpiece at another Dai Li who was lashing forward with a block of stone. Not nearly so effective in injury, it did serve a valuable purpose in exploding into flower petals, detritus, and some sort of silver, hanging powder which must have burned the lungs, because the Dai Li started coughing as soon as he tried to send another block through. Nila had almost crossed the distance, so quickly grabbed a fallen pepper mill, and slammed it against the stone of a pillar which rose for no structural reason, but served to break the cap off of it. She felt a thud slam into her from behind, and had to dive to the floor, so that the fist which had grabbed at her waist could continue past with a rip of tearing cloth, and just barely miss snagging agonizingly in her hair. She didn't look back. She didn't have the time. Another Dai Li was closing on Ashan.

She pushed herself to a sprint without a word, ignoring the pain from the various wounds and what was assuredly a broken backrib, and splashed the entire vessel's worth of pepper grease into the face of the abductor, causing him to fall back, clutching at his face and screaming. "_Can you still run?_" Nila asked, for the third time in as many minutes.

"_Like the storm,_" Ashan said, but between her wounded foot and his obvious concussion, they were hobbling out painfully slow, and she knew that there would be more outside.

There were more than Nila expected. Because the crowd which had started fleeing as soon as the fight began was still trying to press out through the doors, and they were not intended for such traffic. She glanced around, but the only windows were built too high on the walls, and there was no easy way for her to reach them, let alone a swift enough one. The only way out, was through.

"Don't let them escape! Bring them down! We need her alive!" a voice called from somewhere unseen, but Nila was already attempting to belie his efforts. Supporting each other as they fled, they descended down the short flight of stairs to the reception area, and the hordes of terrified diners who were now trapped between two layers of Dai Li. Nila glanced back just in time to be able to shove Ashan to the floor, and slam herself downward as well, as an entire step of the stairway flew towards their backs. By dropping, they only ensured that it would slam into the crowd, instead. If the Dai Li cared, they did not show it. Their focus was entirely on the Si Wongi. The screaming had turned from alarm to pants-wetting terror, as names were shouted and people, men and women both, began to weep in mortal terror.

The crowd was huddled on the floor, lying down, trying to stay away from the blood and the broken bodies of innocent victims. That meant that Nila had a way through the door. She hauled Ashan up and started to run over the bodies of the fearful, stepping on shoulders, backs or faces as the need arrived. But she cleared the door, just in time to have another stone glove slam into the back of her neck, and send her flying off of the patio, its fingers tightening into her spine for a moment, before there was a crumbling sensation and it fell away. No doubt a sandbender/earthbender to the rescue, and she felt no sting even inwardly to complain. She glanced up, and saw that other Dai Li were arrayed in an arrow-head formation, the foremost of them reaching into a very odd pouch on his hip. The pouch looked to be made of iron. When he withdrew the hand, it was covered in shiny black, clicking as beyond-razor-sharp shards slid past each other in movement.

Obsidian.

Others began to arm themselves likewise, but they were a select and supposedly elite few. The first had almost reached her, and she had barely returned to her feet – since it was getting damnably hard to keep thinking straight after all the blows to the head – when there was a rumble, and then a boom, followed by a wall of stone rising right into his chin, sending him somersaulting through the air, broken teeth completing the arc of his transit. A fuzzy part of her cognition knew that there was a mathematical formula which their movement described, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what it was.

She shook her head, and made herself focus. Injury wasn't going to stop her. She just needed to push through. Ashan, at her back, did something with earthbending which caused the patio to slide up over the doors. While that would give their pursuers very little pause, and her ambushers none, it was something. Maybe. Nila, though, pulled the only actual weapon she had on her, tearing an explosive lemon out of the secret pocket, and primed it, before throwing it straight up, turning away with her fingers blocking her eyes and firmly plugging her nostrils. Just as she could hear the stone shoes of the Dai Li surround her, there was a loud bang, followed by wheezing, and stumbling. Nila didn't open her eyes. She didn't dare. So she planted her feet, squared a shoulder, and barreled forward, managing to clip one of the Dai Li enough that she almost fell over, but he definitely did. Her face burned like fire, but after she made it five paces, she opened her eyes and started breathing again. Many of the Dai Li were taken by paroxysms of coughing, but not her. She hoped that the blood wouldn't drip the grease into her eyes, but that was a hope which would be seen true or not in the next few minutes, not the next few seconds.

She couldn't see where Ashan was, but she could see the enemy. There were two of them, one of them holding an obsidian glove, the other not. She limped aside of the dark stone fist of the blunter of two weapons, and then had to dodge more nimbly to avoid the razor slash of the blades. Since she was physically incapable of more agility at this point, it caught at the flesh near her ear and tore down, causing warmth to start to flood down her neck. Not pulse, though. He hadn't hit an artery.

She stumbled backwards, and then ducked another swipe by the lesser armed of the two. She couldn't deal with both alone. And there would be more, if they learned that milk would cure them. Ashan... likely had his own problems, as surely not all had focused upon her. So she dodged as best she could. And it wasn't enough. There was no more tearing sound, but she could tell by the way her clothes felt that his slashing hand was getting entirely too close to her, if not opening her up, a perfect incision as a time. She needed the right moment. And then she had it, dragging the knife from her belt and thrusting upward.

Just as that hand came back around and scoured up. She pulled her head back at what would have been a desperate defense, weaponized into attack, but she couldn't pull back far enough, and in an instant, half of the world's light vanished, and she felt like she'd suddenly wept an hour down her cheek. But her momentum was not so easily deferred, and the stiletto rammed up through his chin, through his mouth, and then right past his palette into his brainpan. The twisting motion of her agony and his instantaneous demise caused the weapon to buckle, and then snap off the blade inside his head. Just about her worst-case scenario, actually. Well, it got worse, because the other Dai Li was charging toward her, and tackled her clear off her feet, slamming her into the side of an advertisement kiosk which stood near the center of the courtyard. She let out a scream, and punched him in the side of the neck as hard as she could, but all she managed to do was hurt her fist. She didn't know how long she had. She had to get free. She had to flee. She had to get Ashan away from here before they killed him, and captured her! Twice in bondage was enough for her lifetime thank-you-very-much!

But when she finally got his face back into her field of vision, which seemed markedly more restricted at the moment, it wasn't to cold focus, nor hot-blooded wrath. It was a look of utter disbelief, and a leaking of blood from his nostrils. Then, she looked a bit more to the side, and saw that Ashan's fist was clenched around an irregular shard of stone, which he'd driven into the man's temple. The Dai Li fell away, and Ashan stared, agape after it.

"_Nebt-het forgive me, I find myself a murderer!_" Ashan said. He looked in terrible shape. His face was already swelling from blows, and one of his arms hung almost uselessly at his side, even as he palmed away blood from his eyes. But he pressed those eyes closed, and shook his head. He had to know this wasn't the time. "_Nila, are you alright? I saw... Djehuty's Blood! Nila!_"

Nila pushed off the kiosk, and glanced back, where the other Dai Li were still writhing on the ground. The detritus hadn't been cleared yet from the door, for reasons she couldn't comprehend. They had to be running out of time. "_We must flee, Ashan!_"

"_Nila, your eye! Do you not feel the pain of it?_" Ashan asked, flopping his useless arm over her shoulder to help the two of them walk. She touched her cheek, and found it was much pinker than the blood should have been. Like something had watered it down. Then, she moved the finger a little higher... and noticed she couldn't see it. She shuddered, and grit her teeth.

"_It can be suffered later in safety, or else never! Flee, you soft-hearted fool!_" Nila ordered. The two of them limped, putting distance between the screams, the blood, the fear.

And slowly...

...slowly...

things got dark.

and cold.

And then she felt herself falling toward the stone streets, as the adrenaline gave out, and consciousness fled her completely.

* * *

><p>The feet walked, but the soul didn't guide them.<p>

Grey eyes flit around the landscape, but as with the feet, they weren't controlled by the person whose body they belonged to. It was just a matter of person-puppetry, of something jerking her along one step at a time, feeling a constant agony, an insatiable hunger. The hunger scoured through the poor airbender's mind, flaying her senses with brutal and unrelenting stimulus, constant demands. Eat the meat. Drink the blood. Keep walking.

"So... hungry..." Malu's lips twitched. There was nothing to eat here, on the easternmost edge of the Great Divide. She had done nothing else since she got here. Usually, the Divide would be alive with the song of birds, and underscored by the steady thrum of the Canyon Crawlers. The night would be heralded in by the hum of cicadas. The morning, the call of moose-lions, warning others of their like to stay away, because this little piece of the Divide was theirs. She walked, and the tiny portion of her mind which was still intact knew that it had to expect this song of nature.

Silence.

Not surprising. One would only need to follow the trail of the dead, those bits which she was not physically capable of eating, to find the path she had walked. The Divide should have been alive and a calamity of din, but it was silent, because Malu, and the thing inside of her, had eaten anything which dared make a noise. Birds? Struck from the air with airbending. Crawlers? Smashed to bits, and their ichors drunk. Moose-lions? Well, they weren't stamina hunters, and at the moment, there was no force on this planet, not violence nor pain nor death, which would keep Malu from her feast. The only things which evaded her, which sent her wailing into the sky, were the bison, whom she could neither ground nor tear apart, despite the bounty of desperately desired food that each represented.

As Malu walked, she wept. The pain was reason enough to weep, spreading through her as a cancer, unrelenting and unbearable. But far worse even than that pain was the knowledge. That she was a failure as an Air Nomad. That she was a horrible person. That she was a monster. That she was helpless. That there was no hope for her.

She could feel the pain, the fear, the guilt, all of it tearing her apart. Soon she wouldn't care. Maybe, soon, she wouldn't be human at all anymore, and the pain would stop. Or at least, she wouldn't care about it. And the thought of that made her weep all the harder.

She was almost naked, but nobody would be able to tell that at first glance. Between the layers of mud and other less pleasant, viscous substances, she was covered from her jaw to her toes. She looked every inch of her the wild-woman. And appropriately. She didn't care. The only thoughts Malu had, at the moment, were to the pain, to the hunger, and to the guilt. How fortunate that she'd never been particularly vain. Her steps dragged in the mud of the trickle of water which moved down into the canyon, and her sobbing became more ragged, more pain-infused.

She just wanted it to stop.

As she wept, the remnants of her kavi lifted away from her back, as a great festering tumor began to mount there, expanding swiftly and unnoticed by the unfortunate host of it. The skin roiled and mounted, as though it was playing host to a rapidly increasing number of roiling worms. It boiled higher, stretching her skin until it was almost transparent, revealing the undulating blackness under it, a mass almost as big as Malu was, rising up behind her neck, as she sobbingly trudged in a direction she could not pick, for reasons she could not fathom.

Then, a burst.

She barely noticed the pain of her skin erupting, so great was her constant agony. To any lay observer, it looked like a boil of black blood had exploded from her back, spraying everything in the surrounding landscape with that dark fluid, a great wedge of the Divide darkened by its presence as it splattered against rocks and settled into the stream. Then, the skin, hanging down around the ruins of her kavi like a skin cloak, began to pull together again, the black threads insistently tugging it into place, making it whole. She never looked back, at the darker canyon behind her. She couldn't even think to. She just kept walking.

To a shaman observer, though, the scene was far more dire. She kept suffling forward, away from the devastation she'd wrought, unaware that as she walked away, the acid of Imbalances blood ate, not at the stone or the water, but at the fabric of reality itself. Its blood was not black, nor grey. It was clear as water. But there was darkness, there, clear for any to see. They saw only the side effect of its hunger, as it vomited forth its bile onto the Mortal World, and dissolved it, leaving only the naked Spirit underneath it. As she walked the Divide, she had done so dozens of times, huge swaths of the canyon no longer truly a place in the physical world. The veil between that world and the Spirit world had been worn through completely.

The Great Divide, as of Malu's passage, no longer existed. In its place, the tepid waterways, the silence, the darkness of the dying Spirit World.

"I'm so hungry," Malu wept, as she kept walking. "Please... somebody..."

Feet shuffled through the mud, as the hunger continued wailing unabated. No relief. And her body willed her forward. It was almost like Malu was trapped in a corner of a room inside her own mind, curled up into a fetal ball and shivering, waiting for the next travesty, the next abomination, the next agony. As it was, she just wept, and walked.

"...make it stop..."

* * *

><p>Mai continued leaning against the wall as she waited for Azula to regain consciousness. Whatever that waterbender had done to her seriously did a number on her. "You think she's gonna make it?" Smellerbee asked.<p>

"She'll make it," Mai said simply. Longshot raised a brow toward her, a clear 'she was in pretty rough shape last time we intervened as well', to which she answered. "She'll make it."

Longshot's shrug needed no translation. Jet, though, was pacing. He had a look in his eyes, like he was a wolfbat stalking something through the dark. The glances he shot toward Azula weren't the kindest. Mai sighed, and pushed herself off the wall. A glance toward Longshot had the same effect that his glances had on others. It told him to stay here and watch over the unconscious firebender. She then grabbed Jet's arm as he completed another circuit and dragged him from the room.

"Whoa, what? M... Shadow, what are you...?" Jet began, even as she was closing the door and moving up toward the roof.

"You've got murder in your eyes, Jet," Mai said simply.

"What? I do not."

She pushed open the door to the roof, relieved to find it empty despite the hour. Usually there was somebody doing laundry. Then again, ever since the Dragon's Daughter left, the place had quieted down quite a bit. "You do. You keep looking at Azula like you want to see what she looks like on the inside," Mai pointed out, her usually flat tones heating up.

"I'm telling you, I'm not like that! Not anymore!"

"You tried to kill me when you first met me, and you had the same look in your eyes then as you do now," Mai pointed out, crossing her arms before her chest. Jet glanced away, shame slowly working to overtake irrational rage. "This is because of what she is, isn't it?"

"Firebenders took everything away from me," Jet managed to keep his voice low, but his tone was as hot as the subject they described.

"Yeah, and I blame _waterbenders_ for my parents' deaths," Mai said with her usual sarcasm. Jet thrust a hand down.

"She's the daughter of the enemy! The man even you swore to kill!" Jet hissed.

"Daughter of. Not the Fire Lord himself," Mai stressed, her eyes snapping. "By that logic, you should have killed me when I was nine, since I am still technically Fire Nation nobility."

"Hey, shut up! Do you want all of Ba Sing Se to hear you?" Jet glanced around with alarm. And damn it, he was right. Mai took a purging breath, which sounded like a sigh, but was directed at her own rashness rather than somebody else's stupidity. He took her to the laundry pole, and the two of them sat down, elbow to elbow, at its base. "Something else is bothering you, isn't it?"

"We're going nowhere," Mai muttered. "I thought... for sure... that if we made it to Ba Sing Se, we could do something. Make something happen," She sighed, then, again at herself. "Shows what I know."

"It was a better plan than I had," Jet pointed out. "I... I know, in my brain, that she's your old friend, and that I should treat her nice and sweet, but... The way she looks at me..."

He let out a breath of his own. Mai turned to him. "What?" she asked.

"You know about how I lost my home," Jet pointed out. "When... that happened... there was a firebender. I barely made it out. The stink was so... and he looked at me, with such disdain, such dismissal. I wasn't even worth the effort to murder," he turned to look her in the eye. "Azula looks at me like that. I hate it. Every time I do, I just get–"

"I think I understand," Mai said. She laced her fingers through his, pulling his hand close. "Azula's... never been exactly nice. She's a lot stronger than I thought she'd be, given the things I'd heard about her, but when she was young, she was the social circle's bully. Some things don't change."

Jet nodded, staring at her hand through his. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just seeing something that isn't there."

"Don't make a habit of it," Mai warned with a sardonic smirk. The two of them remained up there for a while, just feeling the breeze as it wafted along the rooftops. Honestly, it wasn't terrible. After a long pause, and a deep breath, she turned to her partner in crimes and many other things. "So. Figure you're calm enough to go back in there?"

"I was perfectly calm," Jet said testily.

"Jet," she said simply.

"I was! Wasn't going to do a damned thing!"

She rolled her eyes. "Sure you weren't," she answered him, then the two of them went to the door, heading down into the building. "Have you ever thought about what you'll do, when this war is over?"

Jet's eyes dropped to the floor, and a tremor ran through him. "...no. I don't think I can afford to. 'Cause the minute I do, that's when I'll be distracted enough to make a big mistake."

She sighed. "Fair enough."

As they moved down, they passed the Tribesman, who gave them a nod in their passing. She gave a cautious one back, then whispered to Jet that he should go ahead. The whisper hinted at dire ramifications if he lost his temper. For all she stopped learning the finer points of Azuli etiquette at the age of eight, she still had some of the requisite skills. She then turned back to the Tribesman, who was busy installing a new hinge on his door.

Her fists went to her hips. "What?"

"You bring a lot of trouble with you," Qujeck noted, still staring at his door, for all the world not holding any meaningful conversation. "Good pick on the Princess, but that's going to bring blood. 'Specially once Long Feng smells it in the water."

"She's an old friend. I wasn't about to let her get killed, by thugs or assassins," Mai pointed out.

"Good. She's a powerful symbol. In some circles, she's an even more powerful one than the Avatar. And sadly, she's the kind of symbol which doesn't translate into a martyr, so you'd best be cautious," he finally turned a glance toward her. "Assassins?"

"They had to be," Mai said. "They were trained the way that makes me think they were intended to counter my kith. It's obvious in the way they fight. Constant pressure, fighting as a unified front, and always having somebody to capitalize on mistakes. Somebody wanted very powerfully for her to be dead. I think I know who."

"You should add one more to that list," Qujeck said idly. "If Long Feng can pin the Princess' murder on the Fire Lord, the West falls into chaos. War stops, and turns inward. If I were an evil man, or worse, a principled one, I'd be the first to put a knife into her; it certainly saves a few lives."

"You are a bit of a monster," Mai pointed out.

"I just see things as they are," Qujeck tested his hinge. It worked perfectly. So he took it apart and reinstalled it. "Ozai's already a military failure, an economic millstone, and a social turtleduck. Add in kinslayer, and you've got a revolution even without your esteemed Coordinator pricking at his back."

"You've put a lot of thought into this," Mai said.

"The worst thing for me would be Azula dying. Every day that Ozai is sending men against the walls is another day I can get closer to striking off the serpent's head," Qujeck said grimly. So he was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? Well, it certainly beat the inverse. He gave her a glance. "Keep her safe. But most importantly, don't let them know about her. The only thing worse would be if he got ahold of... the Avatar or something."

"As if he even could," Mai said. She turned away , descending the floors to where they were staying. They were roughly in the middle, vertically, of the building, so the trip wasn't so arduous, either to the roof or to the ground floor, given they tended to have a break in the middle of it. The door to their abode was in better shape than most, in that it closed securely and locked without fail. She knocked eight times on the door, and after a moment, it swung out, and she skirted inside.

"So the Princess finally awakens," Mai said, crossing her arms before her. Azula, who looked like she'd been beaten to within an inch of her life, scowled at her.

"I _must_ stop making a habit of being rescued. It's embarrassing," she said with her usual sing-song sarcasm ruined by a hoarse voice. She groaned, rubbing at her shoulder, where the purple bruise was at its deepest. It spread all the way past her ear, vanishing behind her hair. "Did you kill them?"

"Didn't have a chance to. Sorry to disappoint," Mai said flatly. "Too many witnesses, also, angry Tribesmen."

She scowled. "They'll get what's coming to them," she promised. She slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "I need to get back to the house, before Uncle decides that he needs to come looking for me," Azula said, an odd inflection in her admittedly bafflingly accented voice. Then again, there was quite a bit which baffled Mai a little bit about her old friend.

"I thought you didn't like your uncle," Mai said.

"I don't. But he can be annoying in the worst and most unproductive ways when he doesn't get what he wants. That's also beside the point," Azula got to her feet, which was an impressive feat considering her state. It spoke to her resilience, if nothing else.

Azula was about to declare something, but the door opened with a thud, and a number of weapons instantly leapt to hand, as all turned to face the intruder. Then, all but the fists of a firebender were set aside, albeit with looks of consternation and annoyance, to which Bug at least had the decency to look somewhat contrite. "I just got word from How. He wants to talk to you. I figured you might want to bring him up to speed on the whole... you know... her... thing..."

All stared at Bug. "She's not the smart one of the group, is she?" Azula asked bitingly.

"Nope," Smellerbee noted.

"Not a chance," Jet confirmed. Longshot just gave a concise shake of his head.

"Then don't let me keep you waiting. Anything to keep Uncle in the dark," she said, contradicting what she'd just announced earlier, which caused Mai to give her a confused glance. Azula turned to her. "What?"

"Didn't you just say...?" Mai began, trying to point out Azula's rapid contradiction.

"Oh, and I should mention, he's only got a few minutes, and he'll be arriving pretty freakin' soon," Bug cut her off. "Come on, guys! This is the big time!"

"It will wait," Mai noted with a roll of her eyes. But it would be on her mind the duration.

* * *

><p>"Will she live?" Hakoda asked, leaning over the girl.<p>

"That's a stupid question. 'Will she live'," Old Borguk mocked. "Tunu is the finest... was the finest... healer in her generation. Only Yugoda could do better, and that was because of a seventy year gap in experience."

"I was asking a simple question, which I consider a part of the price I paid. What's the answer to it?" Hakoda asked testily. There was a reason why he tried to avoid dealing with Borguk Clan. Old Borguk turned an icy glare at the High Chief, but only paused a moment to tease at his white beard, before looking the teenager over more thoroughly.

"She's still out, but that's blood loss. The wounds are closed, so she won't lose any more, and she'll recover from the shock in a day or so. Maybe shorter if she's tough as a polarbear dog. Doesn't look it. She's a spindly thing," he gave a motion toward Tunu, and the girl turned her attention to the abdomen, which had received few injuries. The old man skinned back the girl's eyelid, showing a whole and furnished eyeball where once there had been a bloody void. "Eye's back, too. Tunu's good at her job."

Hakoda looked at it for a moment, confused. "Is it supposed to be... blue... like that?"

"That goes away," Old Borguk dismissed. "Everybody's eyes come in blue, then turn to their right color over a few weeks. Couldn't tell you why. I'm a fighter, not some nurse."

Hakoda nodded. So she'd be fine. That was a weight off. "Why weren't you there, when the Spikerim fell?" Hakoda asked, his curiosity finally getting the better of him.

"That's a pretty personal question," Old Borguk muttered.

"Do you have anything better to talk about?"

"Point," he grumbled, crossing his arms before him, glaring as though through the walls. "Arnook had lost his mind. But that meant big things for me and mine. We were the best warriors in the North. Our daughters, the best healers. I figured that a nice stretch of combat, a few months, would give me the clout to get Yakone a betrothal to the chief's daughter. Then, instead of a border skirmish, our fleets against a few raiding ships, they sent the entire navy, and pushed us all the way back to our citadel in Summavut. As for him... well, you can see for yourself," Old Borguk nodded briskly toward where the young man stared into the distance, his lips quivering slightly, as though he was quietly talking to himself, or else, constantly on the edge of weeping. Borguk shook his head. "That war was supposed to be my ticket to power. Instead, I sacrificed every child I had. A few of my grandchildren, too. And for what? We lose in the end. Our culture is gone, our people scattered to the winds, and the bastard firebenders own our sacred lands!"

"What was the turning point?" Hakoda asked.

Old Borguk chewed on his beard for a moment, as though torn between his gruff resistance to talk at all, and a very human need to tell somebody about something which was clearly and deeply bothering him. With a sigh, he let the human win. "I really don't know. It must have been a lot of things, and I can't point to one. Seeing my friends' children lost, either to death or blood-drunk despite it... Shakt, Urs' boy, he was a quiet child. Gentle. The war turned him savage. We kept losing ground. There wasn't any real hope. And the grandchildren, every time they came back, they were a little bit worse."

Hakoda could understand. He'd only seen the very end of the process, when it was already too late for most of them. Old Borguk, on the other hand, had watched the entire slide into madness, and seen the horrifying nature of the dead-souled soldiers kept alive long after their bodies ought lie down and freeze, their souls so strained by the trip to and from the Sea of Souls that it wasn't really in either place, anymore. And to see it happen slowly, to the people that he loved...

"Then... they started having the women fight," he said with an almost spit of disgust. That tone, though, held a lot of pain, beyond its revulsion. "Bad enough to see Yakone toughened up a bit. To see Tunu... It just wasn't right. She wasn't built for the Spikerim," a sigh, deep and regretful. "I don't think any of us were. Not really."

Hakoda nodded. He could understand the feeling. The Northern Water Tribesmen were a remarkably patriarchal lot, and tended to relegate women to the hearth and the home. To see them so swiflty levied against the clashing of armies would be akin to having them send their children to fight. And quite a few had to do that as well, for the extra psychological trauma. It was something so out of context for their society, that it alone was almost enough to break minds, something only done in the face of extinction. "Arsuk said the whole of Borguk Clan was here. Where are the rest of them. I thought you had almost a a dozen daughters."

Borguk shook his head, slowly.

"And what about your scores of grandchildren?" Hakoda asked. Borguk once again shook his head, slowly, his eyes pressed tight. Hakoda rested a hand on his fellow grieving father, another man who had lost children. And more.

"My great grandchildren are being raised by others. Tunu had one, my other daughters, five amongst them. Everything I know tells me that Tunu should be raising her sister's children, but... I can't help but think everything I know is wrong. Everything I know almost got us destroyed as a people. So yes, a few children get raised by already overtaxed mothers, living in poverty, because the one who the customs dictate isn't able to do it herself," Old Borguk gave a snarl, and swept a kettle off of the countertop in a show of rage. The crash of it caused both of his grandchildren to flinch violently. After a moment, and no other show of wrath, Tunu returned to carefully healing the girl, while Yakone returned to senseless muttering. "...to hell with the old customs. All they do is murder our children."

Hakoda could see where the old man was coming from. He'd personally hoped that the North would come to its senses about some of its more idiotic practices eventually. But not the way that it did. And not with a cost so high.

"_You should ask him about your men,_" Zha Yu said, from where he was leaning quietly near the door. Borguk gave the earthbender a glance, then turned back to Hakoda.

"He's right. I should. You've been here longer than most. Have you heard anything about a group of South Water Tribesmen of late?" he asked. Then, his eyes rolled. "Of course, they'd probably be outside the Walls, most of the time, but..."

"I know of the ones you're talking about," Borguk cut him off. "Ogan's men. We spoke. He doesn't waste words. I like that. Who's he to you?"

"Technically, he's in charge of my 'army'," Hakoda answered. "I'm told I'm going to need his help."

This time, with a glance toward Zha Yu, who shrugged.

"Just order him. Unless things are as anarchic as Arnook said they were down South, he'll listen," Borguk dismissed.

"The problem is I don't know where he is," Arnook pointed out.

Borguk shrugged, scratching at his neck. "Laying low. Got into a bit of a fight with a couple of criminals, and wanted to duck the police for a while 'cause of the collateral damage they caused. Probably up in the Northern Lower Ring. They'll come back here, though. This is the only place they can get what they need."

"So it's a matter of waiting for them?" Hakoda asked. "That's better news than I expected."

"Well, aren't you a lucky one?" Borguk muttered sardonically.

Hakoda left the old man to his own devices, and stood beside Zha Yu. "_Are you sure about what you heard? I mean, where did it even come from?_"

"_Like I said, I heard a voice in the thunder,_" Zha Yu gave a shrug. "_There are certain... players... whom I've developed a rapport with over the years. This one is a bit more recent then most, but has been most helpful in some respects._"

"_You make it sound like you're talking to a spirit,_" Hakoda pointed out. Zha Yu's glance toward him, his brown eye sliding toward him just a bit, told him the truth of it. "_Really? I thought you weren't a shaman_."

"_Not all spirits need a shaman around to speak,_" Zha Yu said. "_Some are actually more dangerous if there is. I talked to Koh forty years ago in the Pillars of Heaven, and if there'd been a shaman within a hundred miles, I'd have lost my face for certain. Not everything believed is believed because it's true._"

"_Fair enough,_" Hakoda said. And he thought about his task, beyond just the girl. Namely, he started wondering how he was supposed to help her mother.

* * *

><p>One would have expected it to be a more grandiose affair, seeing history return to life in this fashion. A technological marvel, thought lost for almost a millennium, not simply returned to life, but with its heart beating stronger than it had in its first life, its limbs and sinews tauter, its form grander. Had the need not been so pressing, he would have made a spectacle of it, chosen a day when the rain wasn't driving hard enough to sting the flesh, maybe even waiting until one where the sun broke through the clouds. The crowds would have numbered in the thousands, the tens of thousands. Innumerable eyes craned skyward as they beheld the absolute and unshakable truth that they were part of the greatest nation on this Earth.<p>

Instead, in the small hours of the morning, the reborn technology of the Storm Kings rose into the sky, buffeted by the rain and the winds, its form only three-quarters finished. All of the grand ornamentation was missing. The dark red paint which was scheduled to coat the uppermost parts, a clear symbol that Fire had surpassed Air, was almost absent. Even the bomb-bays were currently non-functional. They didn't have to be, though. This was a task requiring speed, stealth, and discretion. A failure of any of those three spelled disaster.

The Fire Nation airship, the first of its kind, even its incomplete state, rose effortlessly through the storm, through the concealment of the clouds. And the Fire Lord stood at the prow, his eyes to the east. To his destination.

"You're being an idiot," Azula's taunting voice came from behind him. He clenched his fists, whole and wounded, as tightly as he could. Anything to dispel that despicable child. "Do you really think I'm that easy to ignore? I should have thought you smarter than this, _Father_."

"You are not here," Ozai said quietly, his face stoic, even as it was pelted by rain and occasional pebbles of hail.

"I'm always here. You can try to ignore me, but I am not going away," Azula said, mocking him. "You don't have nearly the strength to rid yourself of me. That's why you had to order your lackeys to do it for you. You're a coward."

"I did what needed to be done," Ozai stressed. "You were too weak! You were not ready!"

"So I deserved to die," Azula finished for him. He turned, and glared at her. The rain passed right through her, not dripping down her clothes as it did Ozai's. And still, he couldn't seem to evict the image, the sound of her from his mind. She shook her head with slow disdain. "No wonder everything you touch fails. You don't even know _why I'm here_."

Ozai turned back toward the east, as the clouds began to thin, rising as they were. And then, a part completely, rising up into a valley in the landscape of the storm.

And the sun was rising.

* * *

><p>How's eyes grew wide the moment they all entered the room, which was itself a shack out in the Western Reaches far from the prying eyes of the Dai Li and their shadowed leader. He had to be careful. This city was a viper's nest. One, he'd expected. The other, once he'd recognized her, threw him for an understandable loop.<p>

"Is that who I think it is?" How asked, holding his composure. The one he was more familiar with raised a thin brow at his question.

"I suppose that depends on who you think it is," she said, her raspy voice laced with sarcasm. How shot her a look, but then turned her attention back to the one in question.

"I had no idea you were in the city. It's a miracle that you haven't already been discovered," How said, giving the royal a truncated bow. She answered that with a smirk. Not one of malevolence, but rather, a self-satisfied expression, that one was where one ought be. He stepped away from his chair, and she took it without incident. How glanced to the scion of Loyo Lah with query plain his his expression.

"Somebody tried to assassinate her," the noble said without any buildup. It was an admirable trait, more than likely borne of a desire to leave her people's damnable circuitousness behind. It worked to his benefit.

"Someone?" How asked. His thoughts turned instantly to the Grand Secretariat. "We can't have that. You need to be safe if your part in this is to be fulfilled. And your part is critical, make no mistake," How maintained.

"Good to know I'm out of the limelight," the other noble gave a shrug.

"And what _exactly_ is this plan of yours?" the Fire Nation's Princess asked, her accented tones almost over-sweet. But he ignored it. She would see the benefit of this plan soon enough that she would quell any thoughts of self-defensive betrayal.

"The plan is to install a new Fire Lord on the Burning Throne," he summarized. Her brows rose at that. "Ambitious, I know, but I can think of no other way to prevent the slow devastation which that man will wrought upon us."

"You do realize the person you're talking about 'replacing' is my father," the Princess pointed out, starting to inspect her nails. They were broken and some of them on her left hand had outright fallen out.

"Given the things he's done to you over the years, I can only imagine the sense of relief there would be in seeing him off the Burning Throne," How said, opening up a map and unfurling it. It was a rudimentary map of the Bay of Tenko, within which the capital of Caldera City resided. "All you need to do is be there when the gates fall, and this terror will end, and you will be able to end this war before any more blood is shed."

"And that's all you need from me?" the princess asked.

How nodded, slowly. "I understand that you might feel a sense of trepidation about this. The things he did to you over the years were harsh to the point of cruelty. Everybody knows what a monster that man is, to treat his own ailing daughter so poorly. There are many who will see you as a new dawn for the Fire Nation. Honestly, I am one of them. Doubly so, now that Prince Zuko has defected."

"What."

How looked up from the map, to see Azula a bit agape at that news. The other noble, too, had a look of confusion and disbelief on her otherwise well controlled features. "Indeed. It's news well concealed but I have seen it with my very eyes. The Fire Lord's son, departing in the company of the Avatar. I would've never thought I'd see the day."

"That's impossible," the Princess stated.

"I thought you would be more happy. That means that we won't have to supplant your brother as well," How counseled.

She just shook her head, a baffled expression on her face. "_...how? Why?_" she asked, in her own tongue. Then a few more words, which he was unable to translate, but were he able to, he would have known to be 'and why so soon? What has changed?'. With a fresh shake, she focused on him more clearly. "That is irrelevant. What is your plan?"

"The plan is simple. We keep you safe, first of all. I know some people in the city who can keep an eye on you inconspicuously, something my own men could not. Then, I'll have to find a way to recover the Dragon."

"I doubt my Uncle would be willing to help you in this," the Princess said with a roll of golden eyes.

"Why would I recruit the Dragon of the West. I was speaking of the Dragon of the East."

"...who?"

"The woman who beat your Uncle at the walls," the other noble said, a look of concern flitting onto her features for a moment. Then, banished behind a mask of boredom and disinterest. Azula flinched slightly, and then nodded.

"Right. Her. Why is she so important?" the Princess asked. "And why can't you reach her?"

"She's important because she's one of the better military minds out there. And we can't reach her, because we're fairly sure that the Cultural Authority got its hands on her before I knew she was in the city."

"Really?" the Princess asked, a smirk growing on her face.

"Yes. We'd only come to this conclusion in the last day or so; I've not even had a chance to inform her daughter of it, yet," he said. He also made a note to head to speak with her as soon as possible. This was the sort of thing which the girl would no doubt want to be a part of. However little that worked to her safety or self-interest.

"I think I might be of some help in that," the girl said, that smirk growing mildly malevolent, which caused How a moment's pause. But only a moment's.

"Appreciated, but unnecessary. We need you safe for when the time is right," he coached. He then turned to the other noble, who was standing silently next to the Princess, the wild-haired peasant she was associated with close at hand. "And for you, thank you for bringing this to my attention. As a wise woman once said, you've made a trifle of a tragedy. And don't fear that I forget my promises. Even if you aren't the lynchpin of justice against the man who killed your family, I _will_ ensure you are there to witness it."

"Good," she said simply.

It was fortunate that the General wasn't privy to Azula's thoughts, for they would have outright terrified him. Because for all the difficulties in concentration she'd suffered of late, a plan was forming in her devious little brain. She would 'help', these Easterners with their little game, until the time came for them to attempt their glorious invasion of her homeland. At which point, from the inside, she would burst them like a blood-sausage, and step onto black sands with these scum floating dead in the water behind her, her honor strong, and her head held high, and all of her enemies dealt with at once.

There would be no Day of Black Sun when she was done with them. And the Fire Nation would stand tall, forever.

And a part of her – not even the part which was in open rebellion against her, even – couldn't help but wonder if she was pointing herself at the right goal.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>:

She didn't know how long she'd been unconscious. Long enough that her lips had started to puff up, her tongue feeling like it was a size too big for her mouth, and her remaining eye puff almost closed. She could see only a sliver of the world. And she could hear little, over the roaring in her ears. She slowly picked herself up, and when she did, she felt cloth pulling at her wounds. Somebody had tied bandages around them while she was under. But she didn't know who.

Then, like a brick to the head from a hateful Si Wongi, she remembered. Ashan. He was holding her up as she fled. Toward the tramway. Towards escape.

She felt so weak, so light-headed, as she got her feet under her. She glanced around, trying to figure out where she was. The buildings looked good, well kept. It must have taken a miracle for him to get her past the walls of the Middle Ring. She couldn't even conceive of how he did. Then again, she couldn't conceive of how to make a sandwich at the moment, so it was likely a function of a blow to the head and critically low levels of blood.

"Are you there, Ashan?" her own voice sounded pitiful and weak, to her numbed ears. Much of her skin felt numb. "Ashan?"

Silence, but for the roaring of her ears. She pulled the blanket which was bound 'round her closer, and started to walk. She had only to exit the darkened alley, and spot the road-signs – with her single remaining eye – to take a gasp of shock. So close. He'd brought them only a few blocks from home. She turned, ignoring the people who eyed her suspiciously, trying to see where he'd gone. There was no blood coming out of the alley. No sign of him.

She needed help. That was an overwhelming, biological imperative. Something her body overrode her brain and screamed into her ears. So she walked. Toward home. Toward the waterbender who could save her life. If she wanted to. Nila quietly hoped she wanted to. She quietly hoped that for once in her life, Nila hadn't burned a bridge she needed to cross before she crossed it. She walked, and she grew weaker with every step.

Flits of memories drifted up toward her, as she walked.

_"Nila, what are you doing in there?" Mother's voice called to her. "You have to finish your practices!"_

_ "I hate my practices; they are stupid and brutish!" Nila shouted down from her room, where she was slowly assembling the first firearm she had ever constructed in her life. Her hair had already been shaved off at that point, so she had nothing drooping down in front of her eyes, hunched over as she was before her device._

_ There was a tromping up the stairs, as Mother made her presence known in the way she only ever did with family; loudly. When the sounds of footfalls reached the other side of the door, there was a pause. Nila didn't imagine why, so couldn't know what went through her mother's mind in that instant. But a moment after that, the door swung open, showing Mother's annoyed expression._

_ "Would you mind explaining this to me?" Mother's question made it clear that 'no' was not an answer._

_ "I am doing something ten thousand times more worthy than throwing plates at straw-men," Nila said, turning her back on her first firearm, almost sheltering it defensively._

_ "You would turn your back on what I have to teach you?" Mother asked, an edge of annoyance clear in her tones._

_ "I am no fighter! I have no wish to be! This, this," she grasped her firearm and held it before her, "this is the future of technology. This is my future. You can take your sword and your bow; in the future, they will be made obsolete by such as this!"_

_ "You speak highly of trinkets, daughter," Mother said. She tilted her head. "So you have no desire to see the world across the draw of a bow?"_

_ "I would like to think myself less brutish than that," Nila muttered._

_ "No less brutish, but perhaps less stupid," Mother pointed out. She stared at her daughter. Her daughter stared back. Sharif, still of his proper mind at that point, looked upon both with nervousness at the tension. "Very well. If you will be no warrior, then I shall not waste time in teaching it. See that your current path takes you farther than your imagination deigns. Much has been lost to idle dreams."_

_ "Anybody who doesn't see what I'm creating has worth..._

"Is an idiot," Nila muttered across broken, puffy lips, causing a fresh taste of copper in her mouth as the wounds were pulled open. They weren't the only ones. As she walked, the bandages, inexpertly bound, snagged on things she bumped against, unable to hold her course. Slowly, the wounds, held shut, opened once more, staining the blanket over her shoulders and hooding her head and making it slowly turn black.

It was less than memories which flitted to her, next. Just flashes of words. A sensation of an arm around her waist, supporting her weight. A smell. The sound of panicking breathing.

_"Please, you have to help her..._"

Nila walked, and she walked alone.

_"I'm sorry, Nila. I don't think I can go on..._"

Nila walked, and she walked alone.

_"Ha! Grandfather would be ashamed. You've finally turned me into a criminal, Nila..._"

Nila walked, and home was so close. Just one kip through an alleyway, a few back-doors away. The blanket had been lost somewhere, sliding out of numbed fingers, leaving her standing in rags, dripping blood from reopened wounds into a trail marking her passage. She stumbled, listed, and righted herself.

_"...I might never get to say it again... but I love you, Nila... I have for so long..._"

Her eyes rolled up into her head, and she collapsed into the alley, so close to safety. So close, and yet so far. And nothing but nightmares to greet her.

* * *

><p><strong>Remember how I said that I torture my characters? Yeah... If you're not at least a little bit of a sadist, there's no way you can produce a decent narrative. Unless you ply your trade in children's literature, but I digress.<strong>

**Some have been wondering 'what Azula's frigging problem is'. The problem is that she's got three people crammed inside one brain. And that's not something which is supposed to happen. Needless to say, there tend to be side-effects to that sort of thing. _Dire_ side effects. And as for Malu... well, she's got the bigger bad living inside her skin. That doesn't end well. Oddly, one of those two conditions will be sorted out by the end of this 'season', although in the worst possible way.**

**Of course, at this point, the most pressing question is... where is Aang during all of this?**

**Expect a bit of a delay to the next chapter. Family things have come up. Should be dealt with by the end of the month, but that's going to slow me down regardless.**


	35. The Anarchist

The sun was setting over Ba Sing Se, and nobody came home. When the sun rose the next morning, a particular house, in a nondescript neighborhood, in a utterly average district of the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se, began to become distinctly worried.

"He should be back by now. What if something happened to him?" Katara asked.

"I'm sure the Avatar can take care of himself," Zuko said from where he sat near the back door. That comment drew a glare from the waterbender, but it rolled off of him.

"Sparky's right. It'll do the kid some good to beat the night. Put some hair on his chest," Toph agreed.

"Of course you'd agree with him," Katara muttered.

"I'm starting to get a bit worried about Nila and Ashan," Sokka pointed out. Katara gave a confused glance his way. "From everything I know about that guy, he's about as level headed as you get. He'd never do something stupid like spend a night out in the streets when you can regroup and pound pavement in the morning, refreshed and ready..."

"That's just wishful thinking 'cause you think everybody's as lazy as you," Toph said.

"What was your point?" Zuko cut her off, which lead to her giving a death glare to a door to Zuko's left.

"I'm starting to think that the reason they didn't come back, is because, for some reason, they can't," Sokka said. "I mean, Ashan's careful, and Nila's about as capable as anybody I've ever met. Aang might be a bit... flighty... but that just furthers my point. Why wouldn't they be back, yet? If it was because they got lost, Aang finds the house. If it was because somebody got hurt, Aang flies back and tells you, Katara. The only reason that they wouldn't be back yet is because something isn't letting Aang out to warn us."

"That's... paranoid, perhaps a bit panicky, but given what we know, probably not wrong," Zuko said, rubbing at his neck. "What do we do now?"

"I'm not sure. I think we might need to talk to the minister I met earlier. He might know more than we do."

"Well, in that case, somebody's gotta stay behind to look after the moron," Toph pointed out.

"Toph!"

"What? He is! He's got the mind of a kid! That's the _literal definition_!" Toph exclaimed.

"It's still not nice," Katara countered.

"I guess I'm going to be the one staying behind, then," Zuko said.

"...really?" Katara asked, no doubt because she herself was about to volunteer for the task.

"The only reason I got out into the streets unaccosted was because Toph made very sure of it. I've had my walk through Ba Sing Se. Besides, if this ends in a fight, and I'm fairly sure it will, I can't do much without inciting a panic or burning down most of a district."

"That's remarkably even-headed of you," Katara admitted. Zuko nodded, then went into his room. "Well, that means me, Toph, and Sokka are going to talk to this minister and see what's what. I mean, anything involving the Avatar's gotta be big news."

"That's my thought," Sokka agreed. Zuko opened his door and tossed his swords to Sokka, who caught them awkwardly. "...what?" he asked.

"Don't break them," Zuko said direly. "They're pretty much the only thing I have left from home. You could probably make better use than I could."

"What are you talking about? You were trained within an inch of your life with those things," Toph pointed out. "Sokka's just..."

"A Summavut veteran," Katara finished. "...so am I."

There was a moment of silence. "Aaaawkward," Sokka said. He buckled the twin dao swords to his belt, settling them aside. They were a lot heavier than his machete, but probably would do a lot better if something needed cutting in a serious fashion. He gave the firebender a serious, earnest nod, which the firebender returned, before dropping to a squat near the mind-wounded shaman, who continued to stare into the gently glowing embers of the mornings fire. "Well, Team Avatar, move out!"

"Who made you the leader, anyway?" Katara asked.

"Default," Sokka, Toph, and Zuko all managed to answer in the same instant, which was funny for two reasons. Only one of them had Sokka chuckling, though. They moved out into the street, the door sliding shut behind them, and Sokka lead the way.

And not as far as he thought he'd have to. They had barely made it two blocks, albeit past an alley blocked off by green robed men, before they saw just the man they were looking for hustling toward them. Sokka halted, and the others did likewise. The grown man's eyes widened a bit at the sight of them, but he otherwise didn't falter in his composure.

"Long Feng, we were just coming to talk to you," Sokka said. "We think something bad has happened to a friend of ours."

"Which friend is this?" Long Feng asked, his tones guarded.

"...the one which isn't here right now?" Toph said. Long Feng's eyes turned toward Toph, and then, there was a minute grinding sound which Sokka couldn't place.

"Ah, yes. Your friend. I fear that something very unpleasant has happened to him. I hear rumors that there was an incident quite recently down in the Lower Ring," he said. He beckoned the others to follow him, and they did. "In the wake of a civil uprising amongst the Si Wongi denizens of the Lower Wards, there has been increased activity amongst the sects of anarchists and disestablishmentarialists, seeking to exploit the chaos to their own ends. Some of them have been making very active strides against the machinery of the city, be it the facilities which provide water and mail, or other vital services. Some have been more direct."

"Are you saying that somebody has kidnapped our friend?" Sokka asked.

"Almost assuredly," Long Feng said. "And the most dangerous and direct of them is the one which you and I had mentioned previously. The Tribesman and his cabal are one of the most dangerous forces currently festering in the underbelly of this city, and one which would stand to benefit much from its collapse. I _cannot_ allow that to happen."

"If they've got Twinkletoes, then we have to do something to stop 'em," Toph pointed out.

"And to that end, I can be of some assistance," Long Feng continued, entering a building, a lushly carpetted kiosk which looked like a much smaller version of the offices Sokka had first talked to the man in. And at the moment, Sokka was feeling like a royal idiot for not pursuing this insane Water Tribesman earlier. _He_ could have prevented this! Toph gave a scowl as she mounted the carpet, and Long Feng turned to face them more properly. "If you bring down this anarchist and his network of rabble-rousers and terrorists, I can offer you full immunity to anything you do in the pursuit of your associate. I want that man brought down, and I'm not going to allow legal technicality to stand in the way any longer. Is that acceptable?"

"Yeah, fine, but what can you tell me about the Tribesman himself?" Katara said.

"I have already given your associate," Long Feng motioned toward Sokka, and Toph kept staring in the direction of an unoccupied chair, "the beginnings of my information on him. In the interim, I have learned more. He bases his organization out of a section of tenement housing, which is an enclave favored by the refugees from the North Water Tribe who have arrived several years ago. He seeks to blend in with his own, and subvert them against this city, no doubt. While I know you bear a certain loyalty to your people, bear in mind that they will likely brook no attack against him, no matter how valid or appropriate. Be prepared to face them if you cannot separate him from his horde."

"Alright. Anything else?" Sokka asked, as Long Feng handed over a warrant for the Tribesman's arrest, even listing a housing number which seemed vaguely familiar.

"Only that I fear he might have brought in others to assist him in something immediate and deadly. I can think of no other reason for bringing more than three dozen Tribesmen into the city at this time. Be wary, guest of Ba Sing Se. And be cautious. I do not doubt that he has your friend, and is going to use him toward his goals. For his sake, as well as the sake of this City, bring this monster down."

Sokka nodded earnestly. "I'll do it. If he's got our friend, then he's no man of my Tribe. Isn't that right, Katara?"

Katara answered with a brisk nod. Then looked to Toph. Since Toph was standing on carpet and couldn't 'see' Katara, the latter had to nudge the former. "Oh, what? Are we finally going to start knocking heads?"

"Ensure that they're the right heads," Long Feng said with a tone of exasperation.

"Yeah, yeah," Toph said. "Come on, guys! Twinkletoes needs our help!"

Sokka followed after the blind earthbender, into the streets of Ba Sing Se.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15<strong>

**The Anarchist**

* * *

><p>"You have something on your mind, Tribesman," Omo was, as usual to his nature, blunt and to the point. Kori gave a glance over his shoulder, and shrugged.<p>

"I have a lot of things on my mind," he said smoothly. "Could you be more specific?"

"Ever since the Tribesmen brought us into the city, you've been off your game. Is this going to continue?" Omo asked.

"Define 'off my game'," Kori said. "Because I could fair say you're almost as distracted as I am. Albeit by our industrious leader's ass."

"That's beside the point," Omo dismissed. "I can be professional when the task requires it. You, on the other hand, have your head in the clouds. What are you, a Storm King or something?"

"No, I'm just thinking about these Tribesmen," he said.

"What? Have they claimed you as one of their own?" Omo asked.

"Yes, actually," Kori said, striking the dust from his hips as he rose from his squat in a corner of the hovel. Yoji was, at the moment, outside, so wouldn't overhear them. No reason to have them all in jeopardy at the same time, after all. There was no telling what kind of sociopaths Azula had recruited to her defense. It was an oversight which Kori wasn't going to make again. Although, truth be told, there were a great many things which concerned him about the situation, the least of which being what would happen if they made any mistakes.

The most of which was whether their presence here was a mistake in and of itself.

Omo raised a brow at that. "So they're trying to woo you to fight for the other side? With what? Promises of companionship and camaraderie?"

Kori gestured vaguely out the window which overlooked the shanty-town the Tribesmen had laid low in for the last few days. "You see the bald one, built like an older, darker you?" Kori asked. Omo nodded. "He claims he's my father."

Omo turned his eyes back to him. "And what did you say about that?"

"That _my_ father tried to murder me," Kori answered easily. "Don't worry about _me_, Kori. I'd worry about them."

"I'd worry about Yoji. Somebody tries that on her, she might try to kill him," Omo pointed out.

"Now you're thinking laterally. Good trick. I'd give you a gold star and a biscuit if I had either."

"Just because I'm in a relationship with your sister doesn't mean you're exempt from beatings, Tribesman," Omo pointed out sternly. Kori grinned, but it didn't really reach his eyes. Too many things he took for granted were starting to show the lines where they didn't match up. Too many things the Tribesmen said fitted in much more effortlessly. But he didn't raise his concerns. There were bigger things to worry about. And more immediate ones.

"Just make sure that nobody declares Yoji his long-lost daughter, and we'll be fine."

"So that bald man didn't claim Yoji too? I guess that puts paid to any claim that he's your sire," Omo said with a chuckle.

Kori didn't believe that, not really.

"Have you ever thought about your parents, Omo? Your real ones, I mean."

"They were idiots who wouldn't recognize they were on the wrong side of a war. End of story," Omo said with a shrug. "If they cared about me, they wouldn't have gotten themselves dead."

"Unless the only reason they got dead was because they were trying to protect you," Kori said.

"From what? It's not like the Fire Nation is going to slaughter children," Omo said with a note of disgust.

Of course, Kori was aware that they already had, by the thousands, during the Purge. All of the children of the Storm Kings that they could get their hands on, in fact. Honestly, Kori wasn't sure what the truth was, at this point, but he was at least open to the possibility of finding it out. That skirted very, very close to treason. Thus, he kept his mouth closed.

The door opened, and the makeup-caked third of their trio leaned in. "There is chatter amongst the savages. I believe they're preparing to move. We should use them as cover to approach the Princess in strength."

"Absolutely," Omo agreed. "Kori?"

"Just a second," Kori said. He moved past the two of them, and approached Ogan, who was already heaving a monumental stack of supplies onto his back like it was nothing. "Why are you moving now? You said that..."

Ogan flicked his dark blue eyes in Kori's direction, and grumbled for a moment. "Got a runner from the Burroughs. Says the High Chief's in the city. If he is, then we've gotta find out why."

"The High Chief? I thought he died at Summavut?"

"No, the other one," Ogan said. "Give your head a shake, boy. Hakoda."

Kori's eyebrow rose at that. There was a high bounty on that man's head already for the irritation he'd been against the Fire Nation in the past. And he sounded like somebody that Kori would need to have a word with. "Well then. Lead the way."

Ogan gave a nod, then started walking, and while the conversation amongst the Tribesmen didn't falter in the slightest, they also didn't miss a step in following after him. This was going to be an... interesting day.

* * *

><p>"You know, now that I look at this place, it's kind of a dump," Katara said.<p>

"I know this place is a dump and I can't even look at it!" Toph countered.

"It's the smell, isn't it?" Sokka blithely mentioned. The Lower Ring was easy for them to enter, given their Green Level Passes, but it was practically a magnitude of scale larger than the Middle Ring, expanding out in every direction, pushing against the Inner Walls to the point where those walls, in places, buckled back and were earthbent aside into the Reaches to allow more building room. The smell that he'd mentioned was a mixture of dry sewage and rotting food, human sweat, human waste, and human anger. The last of those positively seethed throughout the Lower Ring of late, according to Toph. And Sokka could definitely see what she was talking about.

While they were dressed in their 'fightin' clothes', as Toph had put it, they still looked a bit out of place. Sokka's green cotton pants and proper Tribal Blue shirt stood out starkly to the browns and drab olives of the people eking their way through life under poverty, both in their cleanliness and their good repair. For the latter, Sokka had to say that Sharif was a godsend. That kid could stitch circles around all the women of Chimney Mountain. Katara was still dressed in her favorite outfit, all of it blue and white, and all of it probably worth a month's wages to some of these people. Only Toph blended in, because she was dirty, her clothes were the same ragged kit she'd gotten into a fight in last night, and she 'glared' around her like she wanted to punch somebody in a sensitive area.

"How much do we know about this man who has Aang, Sokka?" Katara asked.

"A bit. I know what he looks like, I know some of his aliases, where he frequents," Sokka ticked them off his fingers.

"Care to share with the class?" Toph asked.

"He's a bit shorter than Dad, clean shaven, keeps his hair short, dresses like a local, speaks perfect Tianxia. He goes by Tanoak, Ji, and Qujeck, and he stays in the Burroughs with other refugees of Summavut."

"There are other refugees here? Why didn't you tell me that?" Katara asked.

"I thought it was more important to stay quiet," Sokka gave a guilty shrug. "I mean, you know how things tend to go around us. One minute, we're having tea with distant relatives, and the next, the house is on fire, ninjas are jumping out of the chamber pots, and an evil spirit tries to eat Momo."

There was a moment of silence as Katara gave her brother the most comical 'what the hell is wrong with you' face her face could sustain. Toph broke the silence with a chuckle. "You know, I think Brain's right on this one. Weird stuff _does_ happen around you."

"Look, even if you were a big doofus for not telling me about waterbenders in the city," she thrust a finger at Sokka's face, "– which, believe me, we are going to have a talk about –" the finger retracted, "the important thing right now is Aang. I don't know what this Tanoak/Ji/Qujeck wants with him, but I can't imagine it'd be good."

"Could just want a hostage. Just about anybody would love to be able to bend the Earth King over a barrel if they were angry and crazy enough. The Avatar's just the thing to try something like that, 'specially given how the war's going," Toph pointed out. And then she paused, her 'gaze' going long. "Damn it, Dad! Stop teaching me stuff!"

"It could be a lot more than that, though. What if he wants to sell Aang to the Fire Lord?" Sokka asked.

"No Tribesman would ever do that," Katara contended.

"And no Tribesman would ever send his daughter to her death against an army," Sokka pointed out humorlessly, causing both siblings to shudder at the memory of the cold-dead eyes of a man who was bereft of soul long before his body stopped moving, and bereft of mind long before then. "We don't know what this guy wants. So we're going to have to make sure whatever it is, it doesn't happen."

Katara gave a glance back to Toph. "Do you have anything to add?"

"What? Nah. I just remembered the last Qujeck I met. Back when I was doing Earth Rumble, he was the only waterbender worth sharing a biscuit with. We ended up going head to head when I won my title. Probably isn't the same guy, though."

"Given his name is Tanoak, I'd agree with that," Katara pointed out.

"Especially since Long Feng said that he hasn't left the city in half a decade," Sokka pointed out. Toph just gave a shrug and followed after. "The Burroughs aren't too far ahead, so stay sharp. This guy could have literally anybody working for him, and I don't want to walk into another trap."

"Another?" Toph asked.

"Long story," Katara said with a wave of her hand.

* * *

><p>"What are you looking at, Jet?" Smellerbee asked over his shoulder, where the two of them sat at the edge of the building.<p>

"Tribesmen," Jet answered, the lens still pressed to his eye.

"You might not have noticed, but there's plenty of them a block that way," the girl cast a thumb over her shoulder.

"Not those ones. These Tribesmen are different," he said. "They're the ones who tried to kill Shadow's old friend..."

"The princess," Smellerbee supplied.

"Yes, the princess," Jet agreed. "Tribal mercenaries are some of the most ruthless that you'll find. And there's no telling who hired them. Tell Longshot and Bug to get ready. We might have trouble."

"Whatever you say, Jet," she answered, before descending back into the building. Mai, on the other hand, remained up top with him. "What's your take on this?"

"Not sure," she said. "Like you said, lots of people want Azula dead. The Grand Secretariat, my family, her father. And that really doesn't matter very much. If they cause trouble, we'll deal with them."

"Practical as always," Jet said. She gave him a smirk, then vanished from his sight as she so often did.

* * *

><p>Iroh was wrapped up in his own worries. Azula hadn't returned in the night, which caused him a great deal of concern. It was both from the fact that the girl might have done something to reveal herself – and she was frankly amazed that Azula had the restraint <em>not<em> to firebend when those thugs were about to stab her – and from the fact that, at his most basic level, he didn't want his niece to be hurt. How strange that he still hoped that hope. He knew she was, if not gone, then at the moment deeply suppressed inside that mind. And yet, Iroh hoped.

Her plan to take the city was simple but would doubtless be effective, but it hinged on the element of fear. If she could make the Dai Li fear her wrath more than that of their leadership, then Ba Sing Se would fold. If she couldn't, she was in for a rude awakening. She had given other plans, other schemes, but they were obviously ones she was devising on the spot, in some ways more complete, but obviously not what she'd had in mind. She operated from an assumption that her reputation would make her a useful ally and a dangerously formidable enemy. She simply didn't seem to understand that it just wasn't the case. Azula was not a name to be feared. Well, in the Far West it was, because it was almost the most common name in that part of the Fire Nation, and there were enough armed, dangerous women to make it stick and bleed. Princess Azula, on the other hand, was a known, and a figure of sympathy and pity, not terror.

The door opened with a creak, and two entered. One was a Tribesman, as were many who went about their business in this part of the city. They didn't frequently stop in, though; Tribesmen apparently weren't much for tea. It was a baffling proposition. Disliking tea was like disliking breathing! This one, though, looked much less ragged than his numerous peers, a man still in the prime of his life, and his eyes not marked by horror and loss. The other, though, was one Iroh knew well. Golden eyes narrowed, as they met brown and green.

"Welcome," Iroh said, almost managing to keep the gruffness out of his voice. "Will you be having tea or a light meal today?"

"Just tea, thank you," the Tribesman said. The other, though, watched Iroh as he turned, took a kettle, and poured some cups. The old man set them down before the Tribesman and his Eastern companion, and moved toward the back of the store. He was forestalled, though, by the Easterner clearing his throat.

"I suppose this tea derives from the tuber of the Fireshade plant. Very piquant," the Easterner said. "It's been a while since... I had tea from such a place."

The Tribesman sipped at it, but shot a confused glance toward Iroh. So he wasn't in the know, was he? Iroh focused on the Easterner, one he'd known by several names. One of which, he'd only earned after the two of them fought to a standstill.

"I am surprised to find the Mountain King in my establishment," Iroh said.

"I'm surprised to be in it," Zha Yu answered. A smile flashed to his face, but not his eyes. "I'm being a bad host. This is Hakoda. He and I have some business in Ba Sing Se. I suppose you do as well."

"Family business," Iroh said flatly. The wound between the two of them old and scabbed over. It wasn't precisely dislike. More like mutual distaste. "What do you want, Zha Yu?"

"You're still sore about that little scrap we had?" the earthbender asked.

"That was forty years ago. I put it behind me," Iroh answered. "Have you?"

Hakoda, whom Iroh now recognized as the High Chief of the South Water Tribe, shot a glance toward the Easterner. "How old _are_ you, anyway?" he asked.

"Old enough," both benders answered in unison. Zha Yu, though, was the one who pressed the lull in speech. "What are you doing here, really? It can't be spying. You're not that kind. And it's not for sabotage, otherwise they'd be inside the Walls by now," Zha Yu answered.

"As I said. I am here for family business."

"Your nephew?" the Tribesman asked.

"My niece," Iroh answered. "I could ask the same of you. Why are you in Ba Sing Se? Of the two of us, I'm not sure which _he'd_ rather see dead."

"Also family business, only not my family," Zha Yu answered, sipping the tea. He made a pleased noise. "Say what you would about your methods, you always did make excellent tea."

"A life without hobbies is dry. So is a life without tea."

"So... do you two hate each other or not?" Hakoda asked, leaning back in his chair.

"No," Zha Yu said.

"We have... put our differences behind us in recent years," Iroh said. Zha Yu shrugged.

"I don't know how much it's worth, but I am sorry for the loss of your wife. Qiao Beifong was a good woman," Zha Yu offered.

"She died in her homeland. More or less," Iroh said quietly. "I still miss her. Dreadfully."

"It's hard letting go of something close to you. Especially if it's a part of you for so long," the Mountain King commiserated.

Hakoda nodded. "We've all lost things," he said, adding his own grimness to the pall of the room. "Wives. Children... well, not you, but..."

"I've lost a son as well," Zha Yu said. Hakoda turned to him. "It was a long time ago. He took with a bad crowd, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop what he set in motion. I don't know where he is, or if he's even alive. An old wound. It seems like we've all got them."

"What do you want, besides tea and biscuits?" Iroh asked.

"What happened to the Order in the city?" Zha Yu asked.

"You're bold in asking that question," Iroh pointed out.

"I'm a bold person."

"I do not know. I've made no attempts to contact them. Obviously, that was a good decision," Iroh teased at his beard, which now splayed down onto his chest. "I would guess that the serpent has burrowed under the skin, and now puppets its limbs from within. How did you escape the venom?"

"I know the old codes," Zha Yu answered. "I could have done well to teach them to Sati more carefully, it seems."

"You seek the Dragon of the East?" Iroh asked.

"Yes. We'll need her for what's to come," Zha Yu said. He raised a hand. "And don't give me that show of huff and betrayal. We both know that you've been deemed a traitor by the Fire Lord and that you were never the mindless obedient that Ozai demands of his followers. You know what's going to happen at the end of this summer, and you know what'll happen if we don't stop it."

"The decimation of the world," Iroh said, sitting down at the table adjacent to them.

"The _end_ of the world," Zha Yu countered. Hakoda nodded, which was surprising. Iroh hadn't expected him to be in the know. Although, the end seemed a bit needlessly cataclysmic. He raised that very point. "I'm not being dramatic. I heard a voice in the thunder a little while back. If the Avatar doesn't stop your brother, the world dies, not under a flame, but in the belly of the beast."

"A strong statement. What proof do you offer?" Iroh asked.

"None. Only my word as a Grand Master."

"A word carries little weight in times like this," Iroh said.

"Our word once weighed heavier than all the armies of the Monolith," Zha Yu countered. "And perhaps it can again. I came in here looking for a drink and something to fill the time until Hakoda's allies return to the Burroughs. Instead, I find a potential ally."

"I can't help you," Iroh said. "My niece needs guidance. She is... unsettled of late."

"Then bring her too," Hakoda said, as though it was as simple as that. "She has to know how badly the world will suffer under Ozai's rulership."

"I don't think she's aware. Or worse, that she doesn't believe. Or worse still, that she doesn't care," Iroh said.

"Please, just remember what we all believe in," Zha Yu said. "Remember what's at stake."

"You claim is at stake."

"I don't make claims lightly. You know that about me," Zha Yu countered.

Iroh couldn't help but nod. The man was right, after all. The door slid open once more, this time showing in a very well dressed individual and one who was obviously the man's bodyguard. He broke into a wide grin upon seeing Iroh, while Iroh himself shifted his expression to one more open and personable, rising to wave to a table. "Please, sit down."

"You must be the genius behind this incredible brew," the wealthy man said. "I hope for his sake that your employer is paying you very, very well."

"Well, you know what they say," Iroh shrugged, "'good tea is its own reward'..."

* * *

><p>"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Katara said at a whisper.<p>

"What?" Sokka asked.

"Look!" she pointed ahead of them, to Toph's dismay. While she could see everything within a certain area, once outside that area she was effectively blind. Well, she was more than 'effectively' blind, _since she was blind_, but such was thinking when Toph was involved. Her brother followed her point and tracked it to its target. The target being, in this case, a lanky young man with a long face, big ears, and wearing a ratty straw cap. And he was carrying a bow, as he watched the traffic past the alleyway which they'd managed to flank behind him through.

"I can't believe it!" Katara hissed, very quietly. She knew how good that guy could hear. "They said they were getting out of banditry!"

"Technically, they did. Now they're on to anarchy," Sokka posited. She gave him a look.

"Who are you guys talking about?" Toph asked.

"See that guy?" Sokka asked, then his face went blank as he recalled who he was talking to. "There's a guy down there with a bow. We've met him before. He tried to kill my sister and slaughter a town, once."

"...By himself?"

"No, he had help," Katara said. "How much you wanna bet that Jet's somewhere out there, pulling his strings?"

As if on cue, the wild-haired young man with the dark, incisive eyes ducked into the alley, leaning toward the archer. The two siblings leaned back to Toph. "What are they saying?" Sokka asked.

"'Have you seen the Tribesmen yet?'," Toph answered, her ear perked directly toward them, so she was talking toward a wall. "...'then keep your ears peeled. We don't want them sneaking up on us. Shadow'll kill me if anybody lays a hand on our 'guest'."

"You don't think?" Sokka asked.

"Aang," Katara said. She rose, but Sokka instantly caught her wrist and pulled her back down. "What are you doing?"

"We can't let them ambush us," Sokka whispered. "Every time somebody does, we lose, and I have to flee the city without my pants. And I _like_ these pants."

"So what do we do?" she asked.

"Just wait a second," Sokka coached. They did, as Longshot gave Jet a glance which, for their poor angle and long distance, couldn't decode. After that, Jet let out a laugh, nodded, and moved back out of the alleyway. "See? Easy as pancakes."

"So how do we take 'im down without raising an alarm?" Toph asked.

Katara didn't need to think twice. She bounded out of their hiding place, eliciting a strangled noise from Sokka's throat, and bent the water of her flasks into an icy rail which she silently slid down, before gathering that whole tube back into its liquid state, and lashing it forward in a grand water whip, coiling it around the archer's face and torso, before heaving back. Such was the power of her bending that he was pulled entirely off of his footing, and slammed into the wall behind her, after almost colliding with her mid-air. Then, with a twist and and a slamming shut of fists, he was frozen into place, a block of ice obscuring his voice and preventing his movement. It'd hold him for about an hour, she figured. After that, all bets were off.

Toph leaned over the outcropping they'd secreted behind and let out a low whistle. "Damn. Didn't know you had that in you."

"My sister's just full of surprises," Sokka said. He bounded down, and stalked up to the man. "We should interrogate him..."

"No, he wouldn't know anything," Katara said. "We need to get our hands on Jet. Even if Tanoak is in charge, Jet will be his second-in-command. Fitting that a monster like him should end up here," Katara said.

"So... he's a bad guy, then?" Toph asked.

"Yup," Sokka said. He tapped her on the shoulder, and pointed around. "We need you to see if you can find Aang. Katara and I will deal with Jet, and this Tanoak guy. They all moved in different directions, all pursuing one goal in three different ways. Leaving behind an archer frozen to a wall. After a few minutes, as the ice fell away from his jaw, he did something quite unusual for him.

He muttered; "...wha?"

* * *

><p>"Did you see him?" Yoji asked as she leaned toward the waterbender.<p>

"Of course I saw him," he answered.

"He's the one who pulled her away," Omo finished. "He's working for her."

"That means he knows where she is," Yoji clarified. She gave a glance toward Kori. "How likely do you think it is that you can convince your fellow Tribesmen that these Easterners are a threat to them?"

"Who said these are 'my' Tribesmen?" Kori asked with an unusual level of peevishness. Of course he was tense. They'd touched on something he couldn't quite see, a state of living he very much didn't enjoy. It was one he was going to have to dedicate time and energy to exploring. Because if it didn't, he felt sure he'd regret it. Omo raised a brow at his words, but Kori brushed them off. "But to answer your question, very likely. I just need to lie a bit. Not even very much."

"Then I suggest you do so. We can scarce afford another incident like last time. That took entirely too much time to recover from," Yoji pointed out. Kori nodded, then broke away, moving toward the bald one, Ogan, who was easily moving in the center of the mass of blue and white which comprised the contingent of Tribesmen.

"We've got a problem," Kori said, falling in beside the bruiser.

"We've all got problems, son."

Kori tried very hard not to react to that. "More specifically; you remember that band of cut-throats which tried to kill us a few days ago?"

"Yes."

"They're here," he said. "Don't look for them."

"I'll know 'em soon enough," Ogan said, keeping his gaze forward, but dark blue eyes started flicking amongst the alleys, windows, and rooftops. "What's their problem?"

"Don't know. They just took an instant and intense disliking to me," Kori said with a flashed smirk. Ogan let out a single chuckle.

"So they would," Ogan said. "Stay close. We'll flush 'em out."

"Don't kill them. I want to know why they're after us," Kori pointed out.

"They won't die unless we want 'em to," Ogan said. A flick of a smile. "We're good at that."

Kori didn't doubt that of the bald, bulky man for one second. After all, he looked the sort who could snap an earthbender like Omo like a twig, even though they were about the same size; there was just an air about the bald one. A foot-thick layer of restraint around an edge which could cut diamond.

He didn't want to admit to himself, but the same could and had been said about him.

* * *

><p>Jet wasn't having a good morning, all things considered. While it had started out better than some, with Mai sleeping in as she always did, it quickly went down hill, as that Tribesman from upstairs said that he'd heard a word on the thunder that said something bad was coming their way, something coming after them directly. Whether that Qujeck fellow was telling the truth about where he heard it was open for debate. What wasn't, was that Mai latched onto that news like a harrier.<p>

"Are you sure about your friend?" Jet asked her as she appeared at his side.

"What do you mean?" Mai asked, her tones not bored today, but distracted.

"I mean she seemed to be a bit... confused."

"Right around the time I got exiled, she fell sick in the mind. Even struck mad, she's still probably a better candidate for her father's position than he is."

"This whole thing has me... concerned," Jet said. "I feel like somebody's setting us up."

"Why?" Mai asked, her attention drifting to him for a moment.

"I'm not sure. Just call it a gut feeling," Jet said. His eyes scanned the streets, the windows, the roofs. "This is a day of ill omens."

"Didn't think you were that superstitious," Mai said with a chuckle.

Jet didn't answer her. It was a feeling, like a tingling in his teeth, telling him that somebody was about to try to kill him. He'd had that feeling quite a few times over the years. Every time it did, something went wrong, and they had to get the hell out of dodge. By the end, they started dodging before the badness even hit the ground. He felt a strong urge to dodge now.

So when there came a cutting sound in the air, directed precisely at his ear, it was only by the grace of his skill with his blades, and their ready position at his back, that he twisted them into a sort of pavise, giving the boomerang something besides his temple to slam into. His blades still slammed against his head, but given the much larger site of impact, while it hurt more, it didn't knock him right out. He didn't need to glance at its retreating profile to confirm what he expected, the blue Tribal Steel of the weapon as it returned to its master. "I hate it when I'm right!" Jet shouted, pulling the blades before him, trying to see where the attack had come from.

The crowds had fallen quiet, their eyes locking onto the ground before their feet, and they made all possible effort to not notice anything around them, and made all possible haste to flee before the fight which was coming enveloped them. It was a tendency which Jet could understand, if not appreciate. Mai was instantly at his back, her expression going from boredom to raptor-like focus in a heartbeat, and he knew that she likely had a fist-full of knives in each hand, ready to stab or hurl as the need demanded.

And their expectations of attack where completely validated when the rush of water reached their ears. Jet ducked low, slamming the spikes of his blades' pommels into the street, and locking himself in place. Mai, on the other hand, had no such good fortune, and when that torrent of water arrived, she could only be swept away with it. It blinded Jet, stinging at his face with immense hydraulic power, but he was rooted. He couldn't even really see when the slam abated, simply rushing headlong against the source of that pressure, a roar in his throat, and a rushing in his ears. His shoulder, leveled low, collided with something, but before he even registered that it was giving a lot more ground than it should have, his hook-swords were sweeping low, catching the ankles and heaving them out from under the waterbender.

He dropped low, planting a knee on the waterbender's chest to pin it down, but something felt off about it. Namely, the chest felt a bit 'squishier' than a man's would. The stars finally cleared from his vision, and while he could see the stunned expression of a Water Tribesman, it wasn't the one he expected. So confused was he at that, that he actually paused, instead of bringing those blades down. "Katara?" he asked. "What are you do–"

He was cut off by his instincts flicking one of his blades up, barely keeping a machete from opening his neck, and the wrath of the blow causing him to roll off of the waterbender. When he righted himself, weapons still forward, he had to deflect a spike of ice directed at his face, but still didn't understand. Sokka was quickly pulling his sister to his feet, cold blue eyes locked onto Jet himself. The Tribesman said something to his sister in the Tribesman's tongue, so Jet couldn't listen in, but whatever it was, it drew a complaint from her, which brought out a few words from him, not angry or domineering, more authoritative, then, she growled, nodded, and ran off, heading toward where Mai had been swept by her first attack.

"I knew you were bad news, Jet," Sokka said. "I should have known you'd end up doing something like this."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jet answered, his confusion plain. Sokka, though, was not in an expository mood, so when he advanced, he did so with a sharp edge leading. The animosity of the attack was such that Jet, who accounted himself a fairly good swordsman, found himself being driven back by it. It was also a lot more effective than Jet remembered the Tribesman being. It was almost like he spent a month in constant battle at some point. It wasn't until Jet started listening, trying to push back, that he realized what Sokka was doing. He was goading Jet into attacking, so he could more effectively counterattack. And his counterattacks were only themselves blocked by luck, skill, and exceptional timing.

But there was one thing working for Jet to Sokka's detriment. That machete wasn't made of steel, Tribal or otherwise. It was whittled from the hard-packed ivory of a walrus-whale. Its edge would be sharp, yes, but anything but durable. So instead of trying to attack Sokka, Jet focused his attention, his attacks, and his strength, at the Tribesman's weapon.

"What did you do to him?" Sokka shouted, as he ducked past Jet's latest offensive, if only to the sound of tearing fabric from an almost-hit.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Jet repeated.

"I know you took him! You might as well be working for the Fire Nation!" Sokka snapped. At that, all reason and rationality just about flew out the damned window. With a rending slash from both blades, he caught the machete in a pincer between their hooks, and heaved apart, snapping the Tribesman's weapon about four inches past the handle.

"I am nothing like them!" Jet roared, swinging wildly, but the Tribesman ducked the flurry, and with a hiss of metal escaping a scabbard, he found his next blow, a two-handed downward sweep, blocked by shining white metal. Jet fumed, as he pushed down, trying to break the guard, to get the Tribesman off balance. Not because he knew why Sokka was trying to kill him. No, right now, he was operating off of rage. And that lack of clarity cost him, when Sokka twisted aside, heaved, and hip-tossed Jet into a cabbage cart.

"MY CAB..." the vendor began, but then, looking up and down the street, at the chaos erupting around him. "...not worth it."

Jet quickly pushed himself off the produce, a hair away from steel biting into him and making a salad out him instead of the produce under his back. Jet wedged himself against the wall, and heaved with his legs, causing that cabbage cart to upend on the Tribesman, capturing the blade under its weight and the cabbages atop it. Jet pushed himself to his feet, and saw that Sokka still had a blade, somehow. It didn't occur to him that the hilt ought have been a clue. The guard wasn't the full round of most swords; it was an almost semi-circle. A hilt for twin dao. "Nobody calls me a National, Tribesman. NOBODY!"

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it," Sokka said darkly, his eyes cold as ice. Whatever had happened had made a dire man out of the jovial Water Tribesman, that much was clear. And if he didn't stand down, Jet would have to make him a dead one.

* * *

><p>"They're here!" the call caused Azula's eyes to snap open instantly. She still felt like hell, her skin tingling where it wasn't aching, but she got to her feet despite her body's protestations in an instant. She hadn't been asleep, as such, merely pondering, thinking about how she could turn this to her advantage most effectively. While she knew she could crush the attack from within, there had to be an option of greater advantage. She just had to find it.<p>

She didn't limp as she left the room, which raised a confused glance from the Easterner who was playing nursemaid to her. Azula didn't care. She recovered quickly. Faster in her youth than now... only now, she was young again. There were things which didn't stay well in her mind. She didn't know why she was having trouble concentrating. It was almost like important knowledge was slipping away from her, somehow. But she didn't focus on that. She focused on the fact that she could a hear a fight happening right outside the window. She moved to the end of the hall, and looked down. She could see water slashing in tight arcs, trying to bowl down the dark-clad Westerner hidden within Ba Sing Se. _That Girl_.

Azula's snort of wrath came out with fire, involuntarily, but she was beyond noticing at the moment. "I'm going to kill her," she said, her mind locking onto a single track and ignoring all others.

"Whoa, wait a second," Bug said, standing in her way. "You're too valuable. If I let you get hurt, Jet and Shadow'll tan my hide!"

"Get out of my way, child," Azula warned direly, only the utmost of concentration keeping azure flames from dripping from her fists. Burning down the house she was standing in wouldn't do her any good.

"Hey, I'm probably older than you!" Bug said with annoyance.

"I think I found her," a voice came from just out of earshot. It was familiar enough that Azula dropped pretense, and let flames come to her hands. Thus, when there was a rumbling of stone from the back-alley, she immediately counteracted an explosion of stone with a naked explosion, sending the still unseen burly earthbender toppling down to the ground level, a significant fall which she didn't assume would do him any lasting harm. Earthbenders were amongst the toughest of the tough. Bug instantly put her meteor hammer to hand, but it would be of precious little use in this cramped environ. And Azula had no desire to continue a fight here if she had any conceivable option against.

Sadly, that was cut short when another bounded through the smoke and debris, smashing forward with a wide bolt of water which smashed Azula squarely in the chest, sending her arcing through the hallway such that her head was bent down by the ceiling, before crashing against the bottom of the hallway window she'd been standing next to when that fight had broken out below. She shook stars from her vision, and saw that the waterbender wasn't that girl, but rather the assassin who had humbled her twice. The water on his hands was glowing, and his expression was amiable, rather than ruthless. He was obviously preparing to say something he imagined contrite, but his leg hitched, and he glanced down to see it wrapped in the cord of the meteor hammer of the girl who was rising from the dust and detritus like some sort of undead. She gave a heave, to pull him from his footing. Sadly, the waterbender slammed his hand to a doorframe, and the water snap froze into ice. So while he was heaved, it wasn't off his feet. In fact, it gave him perfect leverage to wrap his other hand around that cord and pull all the harder, back toward him.

Bug, being the smaller of the two, was sent staggering forward. Only to be caught by a hand which once again glowed with sickly light. She let out a horrid scream, her entire body convulsing before collapsing to the ground. He gave his hands a rub, then turned back toward her. "Now, where were w–"

She informed him with a punch to the head. That sent him staggering, so she followed it up with a chop to the throat, which stole his voice and his wind, and then, hooking his neck with one hand, driving her knee up into his ribs and causing his air to vacate him completely. His dark blue eyes seemed just about ready to pop right out of his head. As he backed off, she then lashed out again with a foot, driving it right into the fork of his legs, which brought him down to his knees. Finally, she twisted her arms around, and then drove them both forward, two fingers leading from each hand. She expected lightning, and a dead Tribesman.

Instead, she got an explosion which embedded her in a now empty window-frame. And she had no idea why it didn't work. It had the pleasant side-effect, though, of that explosion catapulting the Tribesman back through the hole he'd entered in. Still, instead of seeing him splat against the wall, a hand caught him and caused him to arc aside, before Azula spotted black spectacles – cracked and crumbling – looking in. "Catch," the assassin said, letting the Tribesman drop below. Probably to be caught by the earthbender. She didn't say another word, though, not even a hubristic boast of confidence in her success. She just kipped into the room and came out firing.

Azula furiously bent, keeping the flame from smashing either into her or into something which would immediately set alight. It wasn't easy. She knew the stakes. So she started to advance. The only worthwhile defense was overwhelming offense. So as the bolts of scarlet fire pummeled her, she pressed through, until the two teenagers were hurling fire at each other from barely more than a pace apart. It was shadow boxing. She might as well be fighting a minutely less powerful version of herself. One who knew her every move as well as she did. There was no trick present in her mind that this assassin didn't already have in her repertoire, that much was obvious. While Azula did have raw strength, she was going into this fight hurt, at less than optimum capacity. The assassin was, apparently despite her impalement the day before yesterday, fresh. If only waterbenders could be bought, at any price, Azula mused. But she did not muse long.

Much as the Princess valued her stamina training, such that she could outlast an average earthbender, or even a good one, she knew for a fact that she was gassing out and running out of momentum. She would have to end this quickly, or else, suffer an end she really rather wouldn't.

And then the most unexpected thing happened. One moment, the assassin was doing her best to fulfill her moniker, and the next, a ceramic jug of water was bursting over her head, drenching her and sending her staggering toward Azula. Azula grabbed the collar of the stumbling killer and then brought her forehead down with brutal intent, smashing the girl between her eyes. It hurt Azula, but dazed the assassin far more. Still, when Azula tried to follow it with a punch to the teeth, the firebender managed to turn away a bit, so that her fist slid along the girl's cheek rather than impacting her teeth. Azula recouped that miss by catching the girl in the lips with an elbow, levying a chop to the front of the firebender's neck. Then, she turned and smashed the assassin face first into a door, causing the glasses to shatter and crumble away completely, leaving a bent wire-frame devoid of glass on the killer's face. Her eyes were pressed tight from the pain or the shock, though, so Azula didn't bother looking beyond that she had momentum. There was something off about her skin, though. No time to think about it. She took a mighty step back, then another, driving an uppercut into the assassin's ribs each time, until the window was right at Azula's back. Then, with a roar and a heave, she sent the girl flying out it. With nobody to break her fall, she would have to depend upon her neck for that honor.

"Man, that was _close_. You alright?" Smellerbee asked, still trying to advance past where she'd brained the assassin with a basin. Azula ignored her, and made sure that the assassin was yesterdays' problem

But as she looked out, she let out a growl of frustration in that she'd managed to aim her would-be killer into the remains of a crumbled cabbage cart. Vegetables slowed her landing, a bit. As she watched, an older Tribesman came running to her side. Azula then noticed what she'd almost missed before. Her skin was far darker where Azula had hit her. And when she checked her fists, she could see why. They were caked with makeup.

That firebending assassin was as dark as a Tribesman herself.

How was that _possible_?

* * *

><p>"Something's wrong," Zha Yu said. He gave Hakoda a nod. "Talk to your men. They should be here soon. I've got things to do."<p>

"What, you're just running off?" Hakoda asked.

"I might have gathered a few enemies in my last time in Ba Sing Se," the Mountain King admitted.

"Enemies? _You_? Noooo, what are the chances," Hakoda scoffed. Zha Yu just affixed him with a flat look. "Oh, so they're _those_ kind of enemies," Hakoda clarified, sensing the solemnity.

"I can't help anybody if I'm chained to a chair getting my brain sucked out, and I've seen a few people I know are Dai Li watchdogs gathering nearby. I can't be here. You, on the other hand," Zha Yu shrugged. "Good luck, and the gods grant you speed. You'll need it, I think."

"Where?" Hakoda asked.

"Where we landed the first time," Zha Yu answered the question. So they had a place to rendezvous, which was useful in and of itself, if a bit tricky given that Hakoda still didn't have any kind of Ring Pass. The earthbender didn't say another word, though, and began to outright run away. Leaving a Tribesman far away from his home and anything he knew how to deal with. Hakoda could adapt. That was water's strength, after all. So he followed his ear, and started... yes, he could hear Tribal voices in Tribal tongues, but they were still approaching. He began to move toward them, and was almost bowled over by three teenagers, one wearing dark spectacles which were on their last legs, who all pressed past without apology or word spoken. He put it out of his mind immediately.

His ears lead him true, and after less than a minute at a jog through the alleys, he was stumbling into the center of a knot of Tribesmen, most hauling some sort of supplies. All eyes fell upon him, and then no few of his men stopped, rubbing their eyes with expressions of shock.

"_Chief Hakoda? Is that really you?_" Sajuuk asked.

"_Sajuuk, it's good to see you well. Where is Ogan?_" Hakoda said, clapping the man on the shoulder.

"_Right here,_" Ogan answered. "_Things have gotten strange_."

"_They're about to get stranger_," Hakoda said. "_Who's behind this fighting in the streets?_"

"_Some anarchist_," Ogan said. "_Not my business. Hakoda, before you say one more thing, something incredible happened._"

Hakoda paused. Those were words he did not expect to hear from Ogan, the stoic and humorless hunter whom Hakoda had grown up with from their shared infancy. "_What is it?_"

"_My son, Ked. He's alive,_" Ogan said, his tone slightly more vibrant than usual. Not that most would be able to tell, but Hakoda could. "_He's here in the city. You just missed him._"

"_Your son lives? Why did he leave you, then?_"

"_He doesn't know that he's my son. Can't seem to accept it,_" Ogan's expression grew a shade darker. "_Doesn't want to see me as his father. Maybe it's been too long._"

"_That's good news. Sedna will be beside herself with joy,_" Hakoda offered.

"_So will you,_" Ogan said. Hakoda gave a 'what the hell?' look, and Ogan nodded. "_Hikaoh is alive, too. Just saw her. Wearing makeup, but she's got enough of her mother in her that I could spot it._"

"_My... my daughter is alive? She's here in the city?_" Hakoda asked, his world starting to spin slightly.

"_Need a seat, Chief?_" Ogan asked.

Hakoda shook his head, both to answer, and to get some of the shock out of his system. "_Are you __sure__?_"

"_Sure as it was my boy,_" Ogan said.

"_...why Ba Sing Se?_" Hakoda asked, baffled.

"_You're not gonna like this part,_" Ogan said. Hakoda urged him on despite it. "_I think she's working for the Fire Nation._"

"..._what_."

* * *

><p>"You swore you'd stop this!" Katara screamed as she lashed out with a torrent of water, heaving it up out of the wells which dotted the courtyards here. "I thought you were better than this!"<p>

"Yeah, you're one to talk!" Mai gave a dry laugh, as she moved through those assaults. In its way, it was refreshing, having a fight like this. A lot of the same technique's she'd learned to avoid firebenders worked without change. The only one she had to mind was that water could bend back, and hit her from behind if she stopped moving for more than a second. So she didn't.

She also didn't let up on the attack. While she didn't really believe in that old firebender yarn, she knew that every second you were putting pressure on somebody trying to kill you, was a second they couldn't use their whole strength pursuing that end. So as Katara tried to sweep her aside, to catch her feet under her with ice and lock her down, Mai was hurling a veritable barrage at the Tribeswoman. Attacks against the exiled noble were swiftly pulled into defense, a duck and weave aided by a tendril of water to deflect a knife. A shield of ice to encase a shuriken and a quarrel. The single and largest problem with Mai's strategy was that it depended on ammunition.

She might have a lot on her, but it wasn't limitless. She was going to have to get more aggressive.

"How could you do that to him? He stood up for you!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Mai snapped, before hurling another blade at the girl. This one was aimed much more violently. She expected that the girl would duck aside, or freeze it in place, but it would tire her to do so more often. A flick of her wrists brought knives to her hands as she leapt up and away from a low sweep which cleared the road for what was probably the first time in a century, but she was already clinging to a rickety sign by the time it finished. So when Mai attacked again, her aim was thrown off, somewhat, by the sign pulling out of its moorings. The knife she threw, rather than simply forcing the girl to dodge aside, slammed into the side of the waterbender's shoulder, causing the girl to let out a cry of pain and surprise.

Mai rolled to her feet after hitting the ground shoulder-first, and had to kip away again immediately, since the first blood spilt obviously awakened some sort of histrionic rage in that girl, and her bludgeoning tendrils had become slashing knives of razor ice. "Give us back the Avatar!" the girl screamed.

"Wait, what?" Mai asked, confusion in her face but not her stance. So when the girl didn't allow time for a real answer, Mai was already bounding aside and then behind a lamp-post, dodging two strikes which would have split her vertically and horizontally, respectively. "I haven't seen the Avatar in months!"

"That's a lie and you _know it_!" Katara roared, twisting those blades back into water, which Mai had to leap back from the post to avoid being overwhelmed by. It still managed to soak up one of her sleeves, though, and upon seeing that, the girl clenched her fists like she was trying to squeeze blood from rocks. The water instantly froze into ice, leaving Mai slightly off her balance, and locked into place. Not a good position to be in against a waterbender. Katara raised her hands, and shards broke off from that pillar holding her down, spears as deadly as any which had seen the battlefields of old. Oh, this wasn't good. "Tell me what you've done to him, now!"

Mai couldn't have given that waterbender an answer if she wanted to. So she did the smart thing, and with her other hand, started cutting. A flash of knives, and she had separated her sleeve from her shirt, and quickly bracing her feet against the pillar of ice, she popped her arm out of its prison. She landed at a roll, only to have to roll again as those spears slashed down toward her. As she did, she could feel tearing, both on her arm and her side, where she didn't quite get all the way out of their path. When Mai stopped, she was near a cabbage which seemed to have rolled all the way down the street from a defunct cart. She didn't have much left in the way of knives, so with a flick, the produce became projectile. And Katara, preparing for another assault, wasn't quite able to shift into defense, so she got brained by a cabbage.

Mai finally managed to get off her hands and knees, for what felt like the first time in an hour. Her cloak was a ragged ruin which was strewn about the neighborhood, torn off piece by piece. Her dark shirt was now more of a vest than anything else, and she only had one, barely loaded quarrel launcher left. No more knives in her hold-outs. No more shuriken at her hip. There were a few left belted around her right thigh, but at this point, it'd take more time to get them than she had, so they were roughly useless. She could also feel blood running down her arm, painting her almost-white flesh with scarlet. More dampened her shirt. This wasn't going well.

"Not so tough now, are you?" Katara asked, still advancing despite a knife still stuck in her arm.

"We don't have the Avatar. Why would we?" Mai said, her voice flat and angry, but her phrasing more or less pleading. Not that she'd admit so if anybody asked.

"I don't know, maybe because you're working with an _anarchist_?" Katara snapped. Mai leaned back in confusion at that.

"...what's your point?" Mai queried.

* * *

><p>This wasn't going well. That was the first coherent thought which passed through Yoji's mind after the sudden stop. Since she didn't feel her life ebbing out of her, nor the horrible pain of broken bones, she had to assume some miracle had occurred. She smelled smashed cabbage. Yes, that would have to be it. She still hurt, and when she reached up to her face, she noted that her fingers went right through where the lenses of her spectacles ought be. "Oh, damn," she muttered, her voice somewhat froggy. So the Princess could save herself from an ambush even without help? She was getting well trained by the Dragon, then. This had just gotten difficult. She tried to get up once, but since her grip was on a cabbage head, and a partially smashed one at that, it slid rather than give purchase, and left her flat on her back.<p>

"It's alright, I've got you," a voice intruded on the blackness. She slowly pulled her eyes open, to see that, indeed, her glasses were ruined. Also, there was a Tribesman looking down at her. And it wasn't Kori.

"Get away from me, barbarian," Yoji snapped, instantly flicking a bolt of fire toward him. He ducked aside easily, which made her drop back onto her side, but his face took on an almost poleaxed expression of disbelief. And then, Yoji realized what she'd just done. She'd just showed what she really was to one of those Tribesmen. Oh, that was going to make things _even more_ difficult.

"...I don't understand," he said, his shining blue eyes almost seeming to water just to watch her. "How is this possible?"

"Get out of my way, old man," she demanded of him. She rolled to her chest and noticed something embedded in the ruins of the cart she'd landed in. A single dao broadsword. She then reached down, touching her ribs, and feeling the slightest nick in her skin. Had she landed a few inches in the wrong direction, she'd have gotten impaled by that thing. But since she wasn't, it was useful to her. She grabbed the hilt and used it to pull herself out of the sloppy mess she'd made, and slowly, painfully, make her way to her feet.

"Hikaoh, this can't be true..."

Hika... Yoji stopped. It was like somebody punched her in the soul. But she shook her head. She had a duty to the Fire Nation, and to the Fire Lord. She didn't have time for distractions. She didn't even turn back, as she spotted a fight which had gotten in her way. Between some Easterner and... oh, well, that was something. A Tribesman with the other half of the Twin Dao. And from the looks of things, it was that waterbender from Omashu's brother, the one who was trying to protect the Avatar. No reason not to deal with a few enemies of her people at one time.

* * *

><p>Toph was trying to be the discrete one, for a change, using the back-alleys and the dark paths to find the head of this spider-snake and cut it off. She could hear as well as 'see' the fight going on out in the main thoroughfare, but as much as she wanted to just wade into things, she knew she couldn't. She had other duties.<p>

"Catch..." a voice came from somewhere above her. She shifted her glance up and forward, and saw a burly man catching another, who was dropped by... Oh crap.

"That didn't go well," the croaking, throat-punched voice of that godsdamned waterbender offered, before the burly one dropped him to the ground. "Oh, thanks for that."

"You couldn't beat her. I'm going up to help Yoji. Don't screw this up any more than you already have," the earthbender demanded.

"...I think it might be a bit late for that," the waterbender pointed out, and nodded toward Toph.

"Well, that's unfortunate," the earthbender said. And then, with a twist, Toph found a wall racing toward her head. She raised up one fist swiftly, bringing up a wall which that barrage burst against inches before it dashed her to bits. The earthbender paused, and tilted his head. "I know you from somewhere, don't I?"

"You'd better. I'm the best damned earthbender in the world," Toph said, cracking her knuckles.

Her opponent, the same one who tried to flatten Sparky and Twinkletoes in Omashu, instantly bounded forward, and when he landed, she could feel at least three different bends coming off of him at the same time. Well, that certainly took some talent. She had more, though. She powered through, weaving past the first assault which speared up out of the ground to impale her, then ducking under a block of the alleyway hurling toward her face. The last, a few bricks of masonry, she simply punched into dust as they reached her.

She instantly felt where he was going to move next. So she slapped her foot sideways, and a ripple of unseen earthbending surged toward him. Timing was paramount, so even before the attack had reached him, she was slashing forward with her follow-up, a three fingered flick which would send him soaring through the air via pressure on a very sensitive area. The first hit struck, and dragged the earthbender's footing around and wide, so he was almost doing the splits. But contrary to her expectations – clutching at a wounded groin in agony – he simply spun with it, obviously as flexible as he was burly, and when her finisher reached him, he used it to right himself, before snapping off that pillar and hurling it at Toph. He was good.

She was better. As that pillar reached her, she simply lashed forward with her brow and headbutted the damned thing. It exploded into chunks. Chunks she then twisted 'round herself and encased herself with completely, a mobile rocky armor. Then, propelled by naked earthbending power, she surged forward, slamming into him and driving him back. At first, he was carried along down that alley, but sooner than she liked, he got his feet back onto the ground, and dug in. Her momentum slowed, and eventually stopped completely. Then, with a heave, he pushed her one step back. Oh, that wasn't good.

Then, he pulled back from her charge for the briefest of moments, before lashing down with a knife-edged chop to the front of her 'armor', which caused it to split and fall away under that strike. She was already trying to pull it back into place when a thick, meaty hand closed into her shirt, and heaved her out of it with the rumble of crumbling rock. She landed on her back with a grunt of pain. But she didn't lay idle long. She could 'see' that waterbender making his move. While she didn't see why one hand would be so dangerous, she didn't give him the luxury of opportunity. She bent hard and fast, and in the instant before he laid that hand onto her neck, her neck, chin, and jaw were all encased in stone. She could practically hear the 'oh shit' in the waterbender's expression, before she slammed down one foot. Doing so popped up a column under the waterbender which took his weight off of her. As she rolled out from under him, she swept a gauntlet onto her hand, and pushed hard with it, slamming him sideways into the wall, before grabbing above with her other hand, and rolling the wall down to encase him like a spring-roll.

She turned her attention back to the earthbender just in time to get clipped in the chest by a brick. It hurt, pretty badly, but she only lost about a pace of ground. While she certainly could stick around and fight this guy who'd tried to kill her that one time, she had better things to do with her time.

"A little help?" the waterbender asked.

Toph, on the other hand, gave the earthbender a parting wave. "So long, dunderhead!" she declared, before leaping through a wall and sealing it behind her in the instant of her passage. She repeated the same trick twice, passing through the living room of a family of huddling Tribesmen and then past another family of the poor and destitute who were likewise staying down and away from windows. Toph paused, since she 'saw' something she didn't expect.

"No way... that can't be," she said, 'looking' up.

"Please, just leave us alone! We haven't done anything!" the man of the house pleaded.

"Keep your underpants on. Just catching my breath," Toph dismissed. Another 'glance' upward, and that familiar sensation, that unmistakable certainty of a known presence, was gone. That baffled her all the more. She had felt the heartbeat as clearly as her own, the same trembles, the same stances and tics, just a few floors up and a hallway away. And then? Nothing. Only the slightest grind of stone against stone, which Toph didn't think to track. She then 'looked' out into the streets, before releasing another surprised grunt. "...Well, I know I recognize _that_ one."

* * *

><p>The fight was hardly fair. Sokka was a would-be hunter from the South Pole, who'd fell backwards into befriending the Avatar and saving him from himself – and the Fire Nation by extension. His opponent was a war-bitten youth who'd literally spent more than half his life with a blade in his hand. And yet, because of the differences between them, the strange paths that the two of them walked, the gulf in skill was much smaller than one should have expected. Still enough to leave Sokka bouncing back more often than he ever dared to attack. But those attacks he did press gave him ground. Never with an edge, though.<p>

Sokka was a one-handed fighter. That much was obvious, whereas Jet had weapons for attack and defense simultaneously. A parry and swipe was what one would expect from a beginner. Jet had a suspiciously Western tendency, though, to attack without cease. Every attack lead to the next. Never a pause for breath or defense. That was the strength arrayed against Sokka. Sokka was good at turning strength against itself. And he had an open hand to do it with.

As Jet hooked his blades together, twirling like some sort of savage dancer and having the weapon leap far longer than one alone could bite, Sokka quickly pulled a chair into its path. While the blades continued in their arc, they did so much more slowly than Jet would have intended. Instead of popping right back into his hands, they fell still about three quarters of the way there. And the jerk to pull them back in was enough time to allow the Tribesman to get inside Jet's protective bubble of steel and deliver both boots, airborne and at high velocity, to the center of the anarchist's chest. Sokka landed on his back, as did Jet. Both got up almost simultaneously, almost nose to nose as they each pressed again, in their own way. Sokka kept his borrowed blade close to him, an edge toward his aggressor, almost as though trying to hug it through the man. That constant shift in angle and position meant that Jet, who's weapons were hardly so handy, had to reposition constantly to avoid getting lacerated. It was easy for Sokka. It would grow less so for Jet. Until Jet did something unexpected, and headbutted Sokka in the face. Both were stunned a moment, as was the case for every head-butt, but Jet recovered just a touch faster.

Jet had finally hooked Sokka's blade near its guard with the crescent-guards of his own weapon, and was about to thrust the spike-pommel into Sokka's shoulder when his eyes went wide, and that weapon instantly flew over his own shoulder and there was a clang from Jet's back. With a spin, he twisted away from Sokka, a hiss of sparks flying away where metal ground past metal with extreme force, Jet moving away, both hook blades before him. And Sokka now found himself standing before a teenaged girl with oddly discolored skin, who was holding the other half of Zuko's twin dao. Her eyes, intently focused on Sokka, were bright blue, and where her skin wasn't the parchment complexion of a local, it was easily as dark as Sokka's own.

"And who the hell are _you_?" Jet demanded, flicking up a blade in each hand toward the two people who'd tried to kill him in the last minute.

"Nemesis," the stranger answered. And then, she launched herself, blade first, at Sokka. Where each of Jet and Sokka were taught purely through the rigors of naked and unrestricted combat – and their respective styles showed it – this one, she was obviously taught by somebody. Where Jet's style was mobility in attack, and Sokka's mobility in defense, hers was more like a waltz, shifting between the two to the beat of an unheard and unpredictable tune.

When Sokka parried her attack away, she turned that same attack toward Jet, who himself had to ward it with another clang of steel. "So why are you trying to kill _me_?" Sokka asked, almost losing a hand at 'trying' for her lightning counterattack.

"You're an enemy of my homeland," she said, her bright blue eyes making that statement a bit... confusing. "You serve the Avatar. You have to die."

"That's a bad reason!" Sokka answered, barely keeping her sword away from his ear. The ring of the weapons colliding still echoed in his head, though. She immediately turned to cut low, causing Jet to hop out of the blade's way, before twirling once more and slamming a boot into his abdomen before he could land, causing him to sprawl back. "So why are you trying to kill him?" Sokka asked.

"Like you even need to know," Yoji said.

Behind Sokka, there was a sound of crashing masonry and lumber, and a loud grunt of pain. He gave a glance over his shoulder to see that Smellerbee, the ambiguously female swordfighter of Jet's crew, was now lying on her face, bleeding from her nose, on the street.

"Bee!" Jet shouted, getting to his feet, and having to catch and redirect the swordswoman's blade as he did so.

"I'm sorry, Jet. I couldn't stop them... Those guys got Azula..."

"WHAT?" Sokka shrieked. "Azula's _here_?"

Sokka's answer was forestalled by a blade clipping him upside the head, sending him stumbling and staggering away. The only reason it had been the flat and not the cutting edge was because Jet's last-moment interference hooked the girl's ankle as she lunged, causing a deadly thrust to turn into a batter. She still spun and kicked Jet in the face before rolling back onto her feet and returned triumphant to her feet, a smirk on her face. Sokka tried very hard to regain his balance – and keep down his breakfast – as his world was spinning.

"Well, I take it that's my cue to leave. Well, as soon as I kill you, anyway," she limbered her arm, as Sokka tried to get his balance back. It didn't entirely work, as he still swayed in place, his sword-arm like a noodle. "Any ally of the Avatar is an enemy of mine."

She rushed forward, that sword cutting the air directly toward Sokka's neck.

Only to be interrupted by a torrent of water blasting over Sokka's shoulder and into her face.

* * *

><p>Nightmares fled in a moment of agony, which parted into dull ache and a pounding head. Hands slowly, almost numbly, reached up and quested along her face. Damp. Right, she had been bleeding. She didn't smell blood, though. Eyes – or rather eye – opened, and it was dark. She could hear a rumbling somewhere out of her perception. That was all she could hear, that rumbling. They quested a little bit higher, to confirm what she'd concussedly believed.<p>

One eye... two eyes.

Huh.

Must have been a bad dream.

She immediately turned onto her side, flopped most of the way onto her belly and vomited bile onto the floor.

No, obviously not just a dream. Vision slowly returned, fuzzing in more swiftly with one side than the other. That the other side fuzzed in at all left her mindly baffled. No. She had to get up. She tried, and when she did, she almost went face-first into her own vomit. Not pleasant. Slower next time. This time, it felt like her limbs were made of lead, tied to her torso with rotting threads. But she managed to gain momentum, and then purchase. Her feet were bare against the wooden floor, and she wobbled when she rose, but she was standing.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice sounding a bit odd to her ears. A bit more raspy than she was used to. She focused her attention through the fog in her mind, and saw a pair of Tribesmen, woman and man, huddled together. Well, the woman was doing the huddling, flinching every time that rumble in Nila's voice grew louder. The man just stared into the distance as Sharif would. "What is going on out there?"

"Don't go outside," the Tribeswoman said with a very small, very fearful voice.

No. She didn't have that luxury. She didn't know where she was, and she wasn't wearing her own clothing, but that never stopped her before. She had to get back to the others. They had to know.

And Nila began to walk, out of a tenement building almost identical to the one she'd lived in for weeks.

Because that particular one was just down the street.

* * *

><p>"He's trying to burn down the city!" Katara pointed out, keeping the water which was both her spear and her shield limber and loose, even though she was starting to tire. "It'll be like handing Ba Sing Se over to the Fire Nation!"<p>

"You don't know what you're talking about. Have you even bothered to take a look around?" Shadow countered, standing with her posture slightly hunched, her eyes snapping. "If this is the order that you want to preserve, then I want no part in it. _No_ rulership is preferable to _this_ rulership!"

"And where does Aang fit into your twisted little plan?" Katara snapped. Yes, she was furious. She had a right to be. Her friend was in danger, and this... traitor was the cause of it.

"Why would I have anything to do with the Avatar? Do you think I'm insane?" Shadow answered. Katara saw that she'd moved out of her balance just a bit, so decided to end this. The sooner she got past the lies, the sooner she could save Aang.

It didn't occur to her, in her current state of wrath, that the other girl might be telling the truth.

Katara lashed out with a whip, which her foe dodged and weaved around, ducking under it, leaning aside it, whatever it took to keep from being flattened, tripped, or frozen. She was remarkably good at getting out of the way of attacks. And that was infuriating. So Katara did something different. She simply exploded all of her water into steam, and then flash froze it into a slush, which slowed the girl down. She tried to freeze Shadow into place, but just as Katara had her dead to rights, she managed to pop free – at the cost of her boots – and now charged forward on the icy platform Katara had made. Katara's eyes bugged as the other girl shouldered down and slammed straight into Katara's chest. Katara flew back, while Shadow rolled to an almost immediate stop at the end of the ice. She expected that a wall would arrest her at worst, and a broken cabbage cart at best.

Instead, she got strong hands and a grunt of confusion.

"Thanks," she said, pushing away and flicking the water out of her other flask without looking back.

"_Katara? Is that really you?_" an all-too-familiar voice asked. Katara's entire brain shut down for a second, her body locked as it tried to understand what didn't make sense. How? She turned, heedless of the fact that she was in a fight, and saw her father, standing only a pace behind her. Hakoda's expression was... strained. Like he wanted to be happy, but the effort was at the moment too much. Shadow went completely forgotten behind her.

"_Dad? What are you doing in Ba Sing Se?_" she asked.

"_I could ask you the same question. What's going on? Who are these people you're fighting?_" Hakoda asked, his knife in hand and fists tight. That was the signal Katara needed to turn and face Shadow, who still watched them warily, before glancing aside of them and spotting another clash, between Sokka and Jet.

"_I'm trying to save Aang from these anarchists!_" Katara said vehemently.

Hakoda moved forward, glancing at Katara's foe, and shook his head slowly. "...Katara... I think you're fighting the wrong person."

"_What_?" Katara demanded. "_How could you say that!_"

"He's right," Shadow said. "I've got no reason to be fighting you. I don't know what happened to your friend, but sure as the sun rises it wasn't us who took him."

"_Katara, this is important. I think I've found your..._" Hakoda said, catching Katara's shoulder and pulling her attention to him.

She was cut off when his eyes went wide and he cried out in alarm. Katara turned to see that Sokka and Jet's sword-fight had been interrupted by a third, with mismatched skin-tone and one of Sokka's twin dao. She trounced both with almost contemptuous ease, before a window cracked open and Jet's other female goon dropped onto the street from above.

"I'm sorry, Jet. I couldn't stop them... Those guys got Azula..."

"Azula is here?" Katara demanded, her water instantly forming into razor blades.

"Katara, this isn't the time. That girl is y– SOKKA NO!" Hakoda broke off, as the girl lunged for Sokka's throat with the blade. But Katara could see something, just past Sokka's shoulder. Just a flash of blue and white.

And that flash became a tsunami. Heaving a torrent of water out of a well, he smashed it around Sokka and directly into the would-be killer, flattening her against the street, before twisting that water up and around, and then slamming it down again. She instantly recognized the person doing the slamming. It was the person whom Sokka had been tasked to find. The heart of this group of anarchists; Tanoak. He looked just as ruthless as any North Water Tribesman that Katara had ever seen in Henhiavut. He smashed the swordswoman around, hurled her into street and stall, until finally, she dropped to her knees for a moment. Katara's eyes widened when she saw the face which stared back at her.

Water had scoured everything which hid its true nature. She couldn't have said that it was her mother's face, since Katara didn't have any conscious recollection of her mother's features, but there was enough semblance between that girl and Katara herself – the shape of the face, the mouth, the eyes, the nose even the way that her hair went when it was soaked – that she instantly knew that this person had to be an immediate relative. Katara blinked in bafflement.

"Katara... why are there two of you... and why's one wearing red?" Sokka asked, still stumbling as he walked from a blow to the head.

"I assume you're here looking for my head? Well, it won't come easily," Tanoak said.

"I'm guessing Long Feng used them against us without telling them a damned thing," Shadow interrupted. He glanced toward her, but kept his water flowing 'twixt his hands.

"_Why are you doing this, Hikaoh?_" Hakoda asked, heartbreak clear in his voice.

Hikaoh.

Katara's older sister.

Hikaoh, if that was indeed her, slowly pushed her way up from her knees, standing soaking and defiant. "Quit your babbling, savage. You have nothing to say that I want to hear," she said. That voice tugged at Katara's oldest memories as well. She had Kya's voice. "I've wasted enough time here."

"How is this possible?" Katara asked her father, her eyes locked on the Tribesman that she knew for a fact was a firebender. "Seriously; HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!"

"Hikaoh, please, you don't need to do this," Hakoda pleaded. Hikaoh's left eye twitched just a bit.

"My name... is _Yoji_."

"Somebody need an exit?" another Tribesman asked, rushing to Hikaoh's side, and hurling down a handfull of discolored lemons. Katara's eyes went wide – the worst of all possible reactions – as it burst, sending pepper grease and pepper powder into the air, the streets, and her face. When finally she scraped the worst of it away with her ice, and cleared her vision, Hikaoh and the other Tribesman were gone.

"What the hell happened?" Jet demanded, throwing away a bolt of cloth he'd protected his face with.

"There's no way that's who I think it is," Toph announced, coming into sight. Tanoak turned to her. "...I think it is. Qujeck Shaktson, my old enemy."

"Enemy? We fought twice, and you beat me both times," the waterbender remaining said, still rubbing at an eye.

"OH GODS! WHY DOES EVERYTHING HURT?" Sokka screamed. Katara did him a favor and started healing the pain, before the burn. But she still kept her attention on Tanoak/Qujeck.

"You're the son of Shakt and Lana?" Hakoda asked. There was a band devoid of pepper across his eyes, where he'd covered it with his sleeve. Tui La, was it _just_ her and Sokka who actually got hit by that bomb? "Zha Yu's spoke about you. What just happened here?"

"Zha Yu? Why would the Mountain King be involved with..." Katara began, before breaking off to cough.

"As I understand it, he's been trying to break a stranglehold on the East for decades," Hakoda said. He looked to Toph. "Do you know where they went?"

"Nice to 'see' you too," Toph said with a rolling of her own useless eyes. She shook her head. "Wherever they went, they went there fast. And there's too much chaos to pick out them in particular. Why? What's goin' on?"

"_DAMN IT!_" Hakoda screamed, rage in his voice for the first time that Katara could remember. Such, that he kicked a stall hard enough to break one of its support posts. When he turned back to her, his eyes were pressed tight, as though to hold in tears. Because that was what they were doing.

"A bit of explanation remains in order," Qujeck repeated.

"You're not holding the Avatar captive, are you?" Toph asked. "And you'd better not lie. I can tell when people are lying."

"Why would I kidnap the Avatar? I want him out there, keeping Long Feng's eyes off me so I can do my work!"

"So you are fighting," a fit of coughs, "Long Feng! What'd he ever do to you?"

Qujeck turned his icy blue eyes to Sokka, before waving his arm wide. "Do I need to start a list?"

"Long Feng's just some paper-pusher in the Middle Ring," Sokka said.

"No. He's a _lot_ more than that," Qujeck said. He looked past them all, to where Jet was now standing at Shadow's side. "Get your friends. We've got to move before the Dai Li get us completely surrounded."

Katara raised her hands, ice moving with them. "I'm not going anywhere with you!" she shouted. "Even if you don't have our friend, you're still..." and at that, she trailed off, because she realized that lacking that, there was no real point to conflict. After all, what stakes had they in the politics of a city they, in all likelihood, would never need to come back to? She prayed silently and desperately for a distraction to make her look a little less like an idiot.

"What are you idiots doing?" the hoarse Si Wongi accent was about as good as she was going to get. They all turned down the street, and all of Katara's friends and family reacted with a start – Toph excluded since she couldn't 'see' that far. Nila was standing there, unsteadily, her arms hanging limply at her sides, and her head waggling from side to side slowly as though she couldn't quite keep her balance. Strangely, her left eye was now a sort of moldy blue-white color. She was also wearing Katara was fairly sure she'd never wear voluntarily.

"Nila, why are you wearing Water Tribe underwear?" Sokka said, still trying to get his head out of 'stunned' and into 'coherent'. The Si Wongi stopped, looked down, then back at him.

"So I am. Qujeck, why, oh why, are you trying to kill the Avatar's guardians?" Nila asked flatly.

"There seems to have been some sort of misunderstanding," Qujeck said.

"You shouldn't be up. You're still weak," Hakoda said.

"Wait, how does Nila know him? And how do _you_ know _her_?" Katara asked, pointing from her father to Nila.

"We met earlier," both men said in unison. Qujeck spoke first. "I tried to warn her about the Dai Li. Sadly, it seems she's seen the worst of it first hand."

"I found her in an alley and brought her down here to be healed," Hakoda explained.

"...idiot. I was nearly home. The waterbender could have healed me," Nila limply pointed at Katara. "I know what happened to Mother. The Dai Li have her."

"Great. Can we please get out of the street before somebody murders us?"

"Wait, what about Azula?" Katara asked. "What are you people doing with that snake?"

"The Princess?" Hakoda asked.

"We were trying to end the war," Qujeck said. He picked up Smellerbee and laid a glowing hand on her neck. "The Dai Li ran off with her before I could stop them. Damn it all! This is all going wrong!"

"What is?" Hakoda asked.

"If they kill her and frame Ozai, Azul attacks Ozai and I lose my chance at Long Feng!"

Hakoda gaped at him. "So you're only going to save her life so you can avenge a petty feud?"

"PETTY?" Qujeck screamed. "How many hundreds of people have died in this city since that monster became Grand Secretariat? How many thousands? How many millions have lived under fearful slavery?"

"Two?" Toph supplied. All eyes turned to her. "What? He wanted a number."

"Qujeck is right. For the wrong reasons, but he's right. We can't talk about this here, and not now. If Long Feng is really the enemy, then he's played us all for fools," Hakoda said, standing between everybody with placating gestures. "We need to regroup. And we need to find out what happened to the Avatar."

* * *

><p>Yoji stopped, staring at Kori, darkening with anger."What do you mean, '<em>we're<em> not the ones who got her'?"

* * *

><p>The bag over her head was an insult to her station and her intelligence. She knew perfectly well where they were taking her. She could track every turn and descent, could identify the change in the sound as the cobbled roads of the Middle Ring became the metaled roads of the Upper, and then precisely hewn granite as they moved under the Royal Palace. She could practically count the steps as they moved down, down, down, into the caves of Zutara, and the bones of the city which predated Ba Sing Se. She had fought when they took her, until she realized who they were, and what that meant the day had become. So long it had been that she couldn't remember the exact date, but if it was today, then so be it.<p>

Azula had fought, yes, but fighting intentionally to lose was something that didn't come easily to her. She wagered one of them was never going to be able to chew on that side of his mouth anymore. But in its way, it just made it all the more realistic. Verisimilitude was key in this. Long Feng had to honestly believe that she'd misstepped and landed in his web. So she kept making noise against the gag between her teeth, but it wasn't desperate cries, as they would assume. She was actually loudly and angrily singing a lullaby she had soothed Chiyo and Daichi to sleep with. She could wait.

Ba Sing Se would fall again.

…

But not all of her believed it.

* * *

><p>"You have a lot of luck," the mind-wounded Si Wongi said. Zuko rolled his eyes, even though they were at the moment pressed closed, and concentrated on perfecting his breathing. It was a task he'd done innumerable times, during their trip across the wide world on that tiny ship. It was calming. He needed to be calm. There was a grunt nearby, and Zuko ignored it. His arm still ached a bit from where the door hit him, but that would fade soon enough, even without Katara's aid – for he very much doubted that she'd offer it. "It is like the swarm 'round my sister. Only more dy...dyma... fluid."<p>

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Zuko said simply, his eyes pressed closed. He heard something shifting. "Stop that."

"Why is she so empty?" Sharif asked.

"I couldn't tell you," Zuko said. He cracked an eye open just for a second, glanced at whom Sharif was talking about, confirmed she was still there, and then closed his eyes again.

It had been hours ago that a knock had come to the door. Hours of impatient waiting for the others to get back with the Avatar. All of this would fall apart without him. He would fail his family without the Avatar. There was irony in that thought. Had the past played out any way but as it had, it probably would have made a monster of him. He sat, watching Sharif slowly but meticulously repairing one of the waterbender's dresses when that knock came. He was suspicious, of course, but there's only so suspicious a person _can_ be. And he certainly couldn't let the Si Wongi open the door. It'd probably start an international incident. So he slid the door open just a crack.

There was a woman standing out there, with a pale complexion, bright green eyes, and a very, very wide grin. "What do you want?" He'd asked.

"Hello. I am Joo Dee," the woman said. "I am here to perform a survey on the inhabitants of this residence. May I please come in?"

"No," Zuko said.

"It is very rude to keep a city official standing outside," she said brightly, in a sort of hollowed out sing-song. Too bright by a half, and almost as tinny as a kettle-drum. "This will only take a moment."

"I said you can't come in."

"I must insist, sir," the woman said, placing a hand on the door. "Are you the registered owner of this domicile?"

"Yes, now go away," Zuko said. Everything about this situation had caused him to go from paranoia to outright alarm. Somebody was trying to get into this building. The Avatar's building. He didn't know who, but he could guess why.

"Could you please sign some paperwork to that effect?" Joo Dee asked.

"Just pass it through the door."

"Oh, no. This must never leave my personal possession," she claimed brightly. "One does not just hand out such forms. Think of the havoc they could cause if improperly cataloged."

Zuko stared at the woman, his eyes blazing. Her eyes stared back, almost hollow. Almost like glass. And the grin never altered one whit. With a heave, Zuko tried to slam the door shut in her face. All he managed to do was catch her hand in the threshold. Any normal person would have yelped in pain at having one's finger's mashed. Not a sound from her. And not a warning before the door exploded out of its stone runners and crumpled in a corner, and she stepped into the room, her fists now closed and her stance lowering. That grin didn't change.

"I am afraid you are not welcome in Ba Sing Se," she said happily. So Zuko did the sensible thing, grabbed a stool which sat in the corner next to the door, and hit her in the face with it.

He'd tied her up, hand and foot, using the Tribesman's rope, and had been waiting like this ever since. Sharif had even managed to repair the door to working if aesthetically displeasing order in the hours which passed. But Zuko needed to be focused. He didn't know what to do at this point. It had come completely out of nowhere, and he was left somewhat at a loss. Uncle would know what to do... but Uncle wasn't here. He would have to sort this out when the others got back. After all, he had hit a woman in the face simply because she broke the door and creeped the hell out of him.

The entrance didn't come from the door, as Zuko expected, but rather from the room he and Toph shared, the pit they used to train the Avatar in his firebending. The first voices he heard coming up out of that tunnel were the two Tribesmen, but that they were talking in angry tones didn't bode well. Zuko turned to them, reaching behind him and snuffing the candles he was meditating before with a flick of his hand. There was another grind, as the 'lift' descended back down to pick up Toph. Why hadn't she come up with them?

"We've got a bit of a problem," Zuko said, as soon as the door opened.

"So do we," Sokka said. The grinding came back up, and two more exited the lift. One was a wild-haired Easterner with a pair of hook-swords on his back. The other was... oddly familiar. A teenaged girl who he couldn't quite place. Like he'd seen her in a previous lifetime or something. The lift descended once more. "It was a set up! Long Feng was just leading us around by the nose this entire time!"

"I could have told you that," the girl said with dry, raspy sardonism.

The lift ascended again, this time with two more Tribesmen upon it, one middle aged, the other spanning the gap. The older of the two looked concerned, but the younger looked like was ready to chew ore and spit nails. "And who are these people?" Zuko asked.

"So my son was right. The Prince _is_ on your side," that Tribesman noted, his tones neutral.

"We don't lie about these things, Dad," Katara said. Ah. That explained it. Well, not really, but Zuko didn't care about any of the specifics.

"So if I've got this right, Long Feng," Zuko gestured toward Sokka, "used us as his personal hatchetmen to deal with... whoever you are, I assume," Zuko motioned toward the other yet-unnamed Tribesman. "And then tried to hunt you down like turtleducks once the dust was settling?" he finished.

"Zha Yu was right. That place was crawling with those green robed guys! I thought they were just bureaucrats!" Sokka thumped his own head. "I can't believe I was that big of an idiot!"

"Let's be fair, you're just a moderately sized idiot," Zuko said deadpan. Katara glared at him as a smirk came to his face. But strangely enough, her father burst into laughter at that. The laughter died quickly, though, when nobody else joined him. "So what else... Have we met before?" he broke off, turning to the pale eyed girl.

"A long time ago," she said simply. Zuko thought back. It only took a moment.

"Mai? I thought you were dead," Zuko noted. He gave a small smirk. "Been a while since the apple and the fountain, huh?"

"It has," she said. She then looked past him. "Who's that?"

"This," Zuko said, as the lift descended once again, turning to the bound, gagged, and hooded earthbender woman who tried to ambush him, "is a random stranger who smashed down my door and tried to earthbend at me. She won't answer any questions I give her. I think she was trying to kill me."

Zuko pulled the hood off of her head, and the eyes of the Tribesmen all grew wide. The lift raised again, and the all stared in shock, as the familiar footfalls of a bare-footed earthbender sounded in the back room. Full house, it seemed. Zuko, though was confused at the reaction he got to the intruder. "What?" he asked. "Do you know her?"

Toph's footfalls halted. Then sped up, and she burst through the wall rather than divert even as far as the doorway. She didn't even seal it up behind her, which had the misfortunate side-effect of covering the mind-wounded Si Wongi in dust and pebbles. Her eyes might well have been milky and useless, but they 'stared' in utter disbelief at the person whom Zuko was pinning to the floor under the weight of a foot. "...Sparky, what the hell are you doing with _my mother_ tied up on the floor?"

The other Si Wongi lurched out of the room, looked at the girl on the floor, then back up at the others. They didn't even register her. "Your mother?" Zuko asked. He quickly reached down and pulled the gag from her mouth. She didn't scream for help. In fact, as soon as he did, an empty grin returned to her face. "You're her mother?" Zuko demanded.

"I do not know what you mean," she said in that same sing-song tone.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Toph asked.

"I am sorry. You must have me mistaken for somebody else," she said brightly.

"That's her. I know _I_ recognize her," Katara said. "Sokka, Dad, help her into my room. I don't like this."

With that, the two Tribesmen, father and son, moved Toph's mother out of her 'sight'. Toph 'stared' after them with a look of horror and confusion on her features. "You alright?" Zuko asked.

She punched him in the kidney. "What do you _think_?" she shouted, before stomping after them. Zuko rubbed his side, and turned to the Si Wongi.

"Things went that badly?"

"You wouldn't believe," the Easterner said direly.

Zuko looked back. "Where's the other one? That other Si Wongi guy?"

Nila, holding up her unsteady form with one arm, just tilted her head forward a bit, and then shook it from side to side, very, very slowly.

* * *

><p>The head lolled down, lacking even the strength to hold the neck upright. Two men stared at him, both of them in awe. "You have outdone yourself this time, Han," Long Feng admitted. "How soon do you think you can begin the processing?"<p>

"It has already begun, Grand Secretariat," Han said with a nod. "He will be kept in a sedated state at all times. No point tempting fate, after all. We have affixed the jade collar, so he won't be giving us any surprises on _that_ front either."

"Practice utmost discretion," Long Feng advised. "This might be the beginning of a new, glorious era for Ba Sing Se."

The head lolled back, showing a blue arrow, covered by a whisper of black stubble, and grey eyes staring glassily into the distance. The two Dai Li, master and servant, turned and left the Avatar to the drugs and the torments which they would use to break him, and then mold him into whatever they needed.

Far away, but still in the same compound, a tiny heartbeat started. It was something which fell well under the threshold of perception for the guard of the room, who never released his eyes from his duty. The heartbeat started at a lurch, then started to grow faster. Faster. Against the Dai Li's back, a thin green light began to shine from where an important prisoner's personal effects were locked, cataloged and filed away. It almost seemed to roll out of the pouch which contained it of its own volition. It was green, misshapen as though one were making a toe out of green stone. As the heart beat, that flicker of light pulsed. Then, with a barely audible thud, the light grew dark.

And, elsewhere still, green eyes opened.

* * *

><p><strong>I can only blame sickness and the immense size of the book 2 finale for how long it took to put this out there. To answer a question regarding the timeline, it's a canonical one season per book. Also, Azula's problems are a lot deeper than an arrogance about her abilities and her faith in the future. They are an increasing inability to discern reality. Which is neither Young!Zula nor Old!Zula's fault. Funny, how everybody keeps saying there's three !Zulas... right?<strong>

**Except Sharif, who says there's four. But that's for later. ****Next chapter's also a fairly long one, but that's to be expected given the amount of players involved in the Lake Laogai infilitration.**

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><p><em>Leave a review.<em>


	36. Lake Laogai

Toph was beside herself.

It was a state which was so unexpected, by anybody who knew the first thing about her, that it caused all those who did little recourse but to stand and stare. She had, for all of them, always been a bulwark of stability and determination. But seeing her now, so confused, so struck-down... it was troubling on many levels.

"Mom, come on, you can't have forgotten me! I'm your daughter!" Toph pleaded.

"I am sorry. You must have me mistaken for somebody else," Toph's mother said. "I have been told that I have a familiar face. Perhaps it is just that I _look_ like your mother?"

"This isn't funny, Mom! You know I'm blind. What happened to you?" she said, urgency twisting her voice away from its usual low tones and into something almost hysterical. Sokka felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see it was Zuko.

"We should give her a minute," the royal said quietly, softly. And Sokka couldn't help but agree. Sokka grabbed his sister and dragged her away from the room leaving Toph and her mother within. The others, all of them, had gathered in the main room, and were talking quietly. They looked up as the survivors exited, their words falling silent.

"How is she?" Hakoda asked.

"Toph or her mother?" Katara asked. Hakoda shrugged. Katara shook her head, unable to answer the question.

"You shouldn't keep one of those things in here," Qujeck said direly. "I don't know how, but they always know when one of their Joo Dees goes down, and they always drop a fearful hammer when they do. Just kill it, before it can betray us."

"Hey, that _thing i_s Toph's Mom," Sokka said.

"How could you be so heartless?"

Qujeck turned in his seat, facing them rather than the fire as he had before. His eyes were cold, almost the same sort of cold as the North Tribesmen Sokka had fought beside. But not quite as dead. No, there was anger still in those eyes. "You don't know what they do to those things. I don't either. Whoever that woman was, she's not her anymore. She's a hollowed out shell, a person-in-name-only. Something Long Feng will use and dispose of at its most convenient opportunity. You think you can actually talk to one? You can't. They don't think. They just follow orders. This one's orders are to kill the Prince," Qujeck motioned toward Zuko. "It will not rest, it will not relent, and it will not stop until it does that. If you value the Prince's life, you'll kill that thing. If you value your own, you'll do it quickly."

"How can you be so heartless?" Katara asked again, moving up to Qujeck's face to make her point.

"Give it five years in this city, and if you survive, you'd make the exact same decision," Qujeck said. "Long Feng lured you in with high-minded and self-deprecating talk about how the Dai Li are under siege. They're not. They have every advantage. They've got all of the weapons. They can spend them whenever they want, on whomever they want, without consequence."

"They have my mother," Nila said quietly, where she was eating a stew which Dad had cooked in the interim.

"And that means that when he's done with her, he'll have the most lauded military commander of the age at his beck and call. If he has the Avatar, too? Then he'll have the world on a leash," Qujeck finished.

"What happened to you, that made you so bitter?" Katara asked.

Qujeck scowled, and looked away. "It doesn't matter."

"Does it?" Sokka asked. "I mean, did you lose friends? Family? 'Cause you've still got family in the South Pole."

"My family died when Summavut fell," Qujeck said.

"...no... Lana is still alive," Katara said. Qujeck turned to her, and when he did, his pallor grew fairly grey. Not hope and expectation. Quiet dread.

"I... see..." he said. He shook his head, and pointed into the room. "It doesn't matter. That thing is a threat to us, no matter who it used to be. Deal with it now, or don't come crying to me when you have to deal with the consequences."

"Calm down, cousin," Hakoda said, his voice stern. He turned to the others. "I'm both confused and worried. We're down people, and we don't know what happened to them. Nila, I'm told there was another with you?"

"There was," Nila answered woodenly.

"Where is he now?"

"Likely dead," Nila answered, just as woodenly. Sokka winced at that. He'd heard soldiers talking like that. She was probably in a degree of shock. She turned, her now-mismatched eyes managing at least a spark of anger. "After all, they only wanted _me_ alive."

"We need to do something unexpected," Zuko declared. All eyes turned to him. "Uncle had a saying which I don't really remember, but it more or less goes that if your enemy is hitting you where you're weak, the only way to defend yourself is to hit _him_ where _he's_ weak. However much it hurts you to not defend, it will hurt him more by orders of chaos. Everything you have all been doing since reaching Ba Sing Se has just been reacting to what's happened to you. And so was I."

Zuko clenched his fists. Fire wafted up from them. "And look what it got us? I'm tired of waiting for the next hit to land. We need to hit the Dai Li back, and we need to hit them where it'll hurt them."

"Easier said than... done," Qujeck said, barely managing to maintain his composure over the spectacle of a firebender before him. Odd, how Sokka had gotten used to the idea that the guy who'd hounded them most of the way around the world was now on their side. He imagined it had to be much harder for somebody who came out of Summavut, given what happened to it, to accept. He shook his head, obviously kicking down a strong desire to instantly mete out some 'justice', and faced Zuko with renewed willpower. "I've been trying for years to find where the Dai Li have dug their roots. The only thing I can assume is that they're under the sewers somewhere, but Ba Sing Se is huge, and they could be almost anywhere."

"Faulty assumption," Nila said. "You assume since you see them in the city, they are quartered in the city. I was attacked near Lake Laogai. It is far from the city, or its sewers."

"Wait... Lake Laogai? Why were you at Lake Laogai?" Sokka asked.

"He wished to 'wine and dine' me," Nila said in continued neutral tones. "Given I do not imbibe such toxins, and the food was poor, I have to wonder if..."

"Told you," Katara whispered.

"Not the time," Sokka pointed out. Katara nodded, obviously knowing that, but feeling a bratty sister urge to point it out.

"...if they're not based in the sewers, they could be _anywhere_," Qujeck mused with a look of mild horror.

"Look, you're putting the cart before the Ostrich Horse," Hakoda pointed out. He pointed at the other room. "She might well remember something which might be useful. If Nila's right, and she got captured with Badesh, then she might remember where the Dai Li took them. If she remembers that, she might be able to tell us."

"Impossible," Qujeck contended. "I've never been able to break one of those things open. It'd take monumental willpower on the part of the Joo Dee, and by the time the Dai Li are done with them, there's nothing left in there at all! You're hoping for a miracle which _will not come_."

"Well, we've gotta do something!" Sokka said. "We can't just let them do that to Aang, too!"

"I know! I just have no idea what to do!" Qujeck answered angrily.

Zuko looked amongst them, and shook his head. "Well, you're going to have to do something. Even if it's the wrong thing. Because nobody else is going to save him, that's for certain."

* * *

><p>"Send a report to the Grand Secretariat. Badesh is rousing from her catatonic state," the guard said, still facing the woman in question. There were two of them in the cell at all times. And sometimes, that was quite a bit of a disgusting proposition, as she never left the room, even to void herself. But Long Feng – and common sense for that matter – were quite clear. She was a potential danger, and no dangers would be brooked.<p>

He watched the woman, dusky of skin and tattooed of hands, as she slowly started to stir. This was something which the leadership was waiting for with bated breath. He didn't dare take his eyes off of her.

"What was that? I didn't hear you," the one outside the door asked.

He turned, just enough that she was in the periphery of his view, and repeated himself. It wasn't really a mistake. It was barely even an opening. There was another, after all, to keep anything bad from happening. Most of the time, not even the most supernaturally talented human could exploit such a tiny gap. But when the Jade Toe was activated, it guaranteed only one thing; a way out. He wasn't aware of that. So when the glass of the lamp hit him in the side of the face, he hadn't even registered that Badesh had started moving, that she was free of her restraints.

He stumbled into the door, and she was already leaping past him, stabbing the one at his side in the throat with the bamboo which had been used to keep her drugged. Then, still lightning swift, she thrust an arm through the tiny gap into the room beyond, heaving back with her feet braced against that door so that the Dai Li on the other side was pulled face-flush against it. Then, with a mighty thrust, she pounded that bamboo rod into his eye. She then thrust her other arm through, as the guard was unsteadily trying to regain his senses, pulling the keys and bringing them into the lock, twisting blindly until the door opened. He thrust a hand toward her, a stone glove powering toward her. She almost managed to get out of the way, but they were both wounded people at the moment, and his attack wasn't quite up to the task of bringing her down. So she rolled with it, moved past him to the sound of tearing fabric at the shoulder of her shirt, and looped an arm under his neck.

His eyes bulged for just a moment, as he understood what happened. Then, with a shift in weight and leverage, his neck popped, and the light left his eyes.

Sativa leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily as she tried to get her world to stop spinning. This was her only chance. She knew that clearly. With a pant, she slapped herself across the face, the stars in her eyes driving away the confusion for a moment. Then, with her senses for the moment settled – if not completely under her control – she reached through that gap, and twisted, until the door became unlocked, and she stumbled out into the living brain of the Dai Li.

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><p><strong>Chapter 16<strong>

**Lake Laogai**

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><p>Katara hated when she was at a loss. She didn't like to say so aloud, but she liked being in control of her own fate. Before, that manifested in trying to out-bossy Sokka, but now, she just tried to make sure that there was always direction for Team Avatar, as Sokka had so imaginatively dubbed them, always a new task, a new step in the right direction toward the end of the war, and the end of the threat that Imbalance posed. Now... without Aang, they were dead in the water, becalmed on flat seas far from home. She bent the water out of the pump, not bothering with the sweaty labor of drawing it up; the pumps had to go very, very deep to find water, these days. She heard reports about wells going dry in the north side of the city. Another way that Imbalance was making itself known, Aang said.<p>

She pulled most of the water into her flask, but part of it she simply drank. It was getting very, very warm, of late. Dad said that the weather actually got a lot warmer toward what these people called summer, but she didn't really believe it until she started to feel it as now. If this was still spring, what hellish dry and heat would summer bring? It was amazing that the East could produce crops at all.

Her ponderings hit a bit of a snag as a grunt pulled her attention to the back wall of the 'yard', as somebody flopped over it. Instantly, water was at hand, a sinewy bolt ready to lash out, to incapacitate as the need would have. "You don't belong here!" Katara snapped, before she realized who had just done the tumbling. He was now sitting on the ground, his green and brown eyes heavy lidded, one of them almost swollen shut. He had a blanket, reddened, wound 'round his head, and his beard had turned to the color of rust. "Wait... Zha Yu?"

"Oh. Good. The last yard wasn't the right one," Zha Yu said with distant tones. "I told Hakoda to meet me. Must have gotten distracted."

"Are you alright?" Katara asked, the water forming onto her hands.

"That depends. Is there something sticking out of my back?" Zha Yu asked, turning it toward her, and she gave a gasp, spotting the knife which was plunged to its hilt into his back. "...I'll take that as a yes. Could you do something about it? I can't quite reach it."

"What happened to you?" Katara asked, extracting the weapon. It turned out not to be as deep as she'd feared, since it'd snapped off part of its length before plunging in. She immediately put a glowing hand to the wound, and with a focus of her will, prevented the blood from pumping out, as she started to heal. It was getting easier, since she saved Toph's life. She could actually multitask, now, when bending blood.

"Dai Li. More than I expected. Got most of them, though," Zha Yu let out a laugh. He then groaned lightly, rolling his shoulders back into her hand, likely feeling a release from the pain as her waterbending did its work. "Reminds me of the old days. Only back then, I had to live with it if I got stabbed."

"Something terrible's happened," Katara said. "The Dai Li have Aang!"

He turned toward her, glaring with his mismatched eyes. "Are you certain?" she nodded. "Then we've got to find out where they've got him."

"But we don't even know where to start," Katara lamented. Zha Yu rose to his feet, wincing still, but looked into the building, whose door still stood open. "And worse, we're not sure what's wrong with Toph's Mom. She's..."

"She's here?" Zha Yu asked.

He didn't wait for her to answer him, rather, stomping into the building. The door slid open a bit further to let him in, and when it did, all hands leapt to weapons, and all eyes turned dangerously toward him. "Who the hell is this?" Qujeck immediately demanded.

"The woman. The Joo Dee. Is she restrained?" Zha Yu asked.

"To within an inch of her life. Answer my question!" Qujeck demanded.

"I'm the Mountain King. Show me."

Dad waved Zha Yu into the room where Toph was still pleading with her mother, almost looking like she was about to cry. It was a disturbing thing to see on Toph. She was _not_ this... emotional. She turned half way, and her expression grew tight. "What happened to her?" Toph immediately shouted, pointing at her mother.

"Toph, calm down, you're only going to make this worse if you panic," Zha Yu said clearly. He gently pulled her away from her mother. "Yingsue Beifong was a person who came to be recently. Before that, she was Joo Dee. Joo Dee are the tools of Ba Sing Se, they have been for decades."

"What do you mean?" Zuko was the one to ask the obvious question, leaning on the edge of the doorframe.

Zha Yu stared at Toph's mother for a long moment, before waving toward her. "We met Joo Dee about twenty years ago, the first time Sati tried to bring down the Dai Li. She was our 'guide and chaparone'. We thought she was just a spy, so we tried to turn her. Turned out, she, and all of the other Joo Dee like her, are brainwashed and programmed. Perfect sleeper agents, to be activated and disposed of at the Grand Secretariat's leisure," he shook his head. "We don't know her real name. We don't know who she was before Xiahou got his hands on her..."

"Who?" Sokka asked.

"Grand Secretariat Xiahou, back in the day," Zha Yu dismissed. "Long Feng wasn't always in control of Ba Sing Se."

"What happened to her?" Toph asked.

"We... we gave her a name, even if it wasn't hers. We gave her a purpose. And we gave her a choice," Zha Yu said. "She made a life for herself," he shook his head, eyes welling. "I should have never let her go with Sati."

"She's going to come back, though, right?" Toph asked. "Mom's still in there somewhere, right? RIGHT?"

"I don't know, Toph," Zha Yu said. "We couldn't find anything about her before she tried to kill us, and she couldn't remember anything about that time. Her childhood, her youth, all of who she was before us is gone forever. And that means that..."

"No!" Toph snapped. "Mom isn't gone!"

"You have to accept the fact that that thing isn't your mother anymore," Qujeck said, not gently, but at least not cruelly.

"I wonder," Sharif whispered, from the back of the pack. The others ignored him, though.

"I'm sorry, Toph, but we have to be pragmatic," Zha Yu said. "The Avatar is the most important thing right now..."

"To you!" Toph snapped, punching Zha Yu in the gut. And oddly, it was Toph who was the one flapping her hand in pain from the blow. "This isn't right! Mom was the only one who understood me... it's not fair!"

Tears began to leak from her eyes, and she turned away, not wanting anybody to see her like that. Katara moved to give the girl the hug she looked like she desperately needed, but she was forestalled by a pale hand on her shoulder. She looked back, in confusion, at Zuko as he shook his head, and proceeded to supplant Katara as the purveyor of a needed embrace. Toph didn't sob, but her shoulders did shake. At Katara's back, Nila just stared on, her expression wooden. Hollow. Dead.

And Sharif stood beside Yingsue Beifong's bound body, and reached idly through the air around him, as though trying to pick fluff from an air-current.

"...even if we can, we don't know where they're keeping the Avatar..." Dad pointed out.

"...the point. We have to hit them now, before they can..." Qujeck countered.

"...reckless. They're just waiting for us to make a mistake so they can..." Zha Yu piled in. Their words all mushed together in Katara's hearing. And her eyes were locked on a Si Wongi youth, who finally seemed to catch something. No, not seemed. When he did, a spark lit in the air, glowing white like a magnesium fire – and thank you Sokka for almost burning my eyebrows off with that, Katara idly thought – as he lowered himself to his knees at the grown woman's side.

And when he spoke, his voice wasn't the stuttering, slurring mess it was every time he opened his mouth. No, when he spoke, it was with _authority_, with _power_.

"Mysterious void, unanswerable question, inescapable answer, Key to the Forgotten Kingdom;

Gear of Memory.

The gates to the Forsaken City stand barred and locked; infiltrate.

The windows which allow the sun stand shuttered; cast open.

The Five-Score-and-Eight keys to the Nation of the Soul, where all are one, free of weakness and death; reveal.

The doom which befell the City of the Keepers; revoke.

The river shall flow, and at its mouth, one shall find the truth of all things, laid upon the sand.

Return what has been taken."

With that, the light burned all the brighter, until all had to turn away from it, and Sharif pressed the glow into Yingsue's brow. Then, the glow slowly died out, until the others were blinking away the afterimage from their sight, and Sharif simply stared into the distance once more, his eyes not on anybody or anything nearby.

"What did you do?" Sokka asked.

"I... do not know," Sharif said. "She needed a... a light."

"Mom?" Toph said, breaking away from Zuko and moving to Yingsue. "Mom, are you there?"

The woman looked to her, and sweat broke out on her face. "I... I know you," she said. "I... my head. I can feel..."

"Yingsue?" Zha Yu asked, squatting down before her, hoisting her up from her hogtied position. "Is that you?"

"...papa?" she asked. Zha Yu gave a nervous laugh.

"Yes. Papa's here," Zha Yu said.

"...I was scared," her voice was small. "There was... A man. And he said something to me. And then, I was... I couldn't hear or see or feel. It was so dark..."

"A man? Bald, green eyes, deep voice?" Zha Yu asked. Beifong nodded. "Long Feng. What did he say? Do you remember?"

"He said... something about a lake. A..."

"Lake Laogai," Nila said from the back of the room. All turned to her. "It is the only lake inside the Reaches. It is where I was attacked."

"They must have a facility at Lake Laogai," Sokka said, with a snap of his fingers. "That's where they'll be keeping Aang!"

"Then that's where we're going," Shadow piped in, and Jet, at her back, nodded grimly.

"This isn't your fight," Katara said.

"They tried to get us to kill each other," Jet shrugged. "'In the enemy of my enemy, I can oft find a friend'."

"Who said that?" Sokka asked.

"Some dead guy," Jet dismissed the question. "This guy's making the city a hell-scape. He's got the Avatar in his dungeon and he doesn't seem to care if the rest of the world burns. He's gotta go down. And I figure I can help."

"I don't need your help," Katara muttered.

"Why not?" Jet asked.

"Because you keep going too far!" Katara answered. "Every time you have a reasonable problem, you come up with an unreasonable answer. If it hadn't been for us, how many people down in that town would have died? Hundreds? Maybe thousands?"

Jet glanced away, shame clear in his face. "I made a mistake," Jet said simply.

"Katara, we don't have enough people fighting on our side to be picky," Sokka pointed out. "Jet, you're with us. We've gotta move fast, though. Between that fight in the Lower Ring and whatever Zha Yu did on his way here, we've probably got a lot of danger coming in real fast. I don't think we'll be safe staying here in the Middle Ring any longer."

"He's right," Dad said. "I'll take Yingsue and – Sharif, was it? – some place safe in the Reaches. Sokka, Katara... save the Avatar. I know you can," he said, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

Katara nodded, and went to gather anything which she couldn't live without. Sokka, though, turned and looked to Nila. "You should go with Dad."

"No. I can stand, and I can fight," Nila said.

"No offense, but you look like hell," Sokka said. "Is this smart?"

"Smart? No. But necessary, yes," she answered. And there was anger in her answer, something deep and visceral, something she didn't seem able to really quantify in herself. "I will get my gun, and I will join you. I might not be as strong as some, but I don't need strength when physics can do my slaying."

"...we don't really do a lot of killing in Team Avatar," Sokka pointed out. She glared at him, with those temporarily mismatched eyes of hers.

"Then you have no concept of justice, Tribesman. Their lives were forfeit the moment they killed Ashan. They simply have not realized it yet," she swore.

* * *

><p>Dai glanced around the room of the house. There was a smell in the air, one he couldn't immediately place. He slipped through the window, landing silently on the floor, his dark green robes silent in his passage. Many of his fellow agents had tried to get into this building, and were usually driven off with gas and beatings. He would have to be careful not to let the same come to him. After all, Long Feng demanded to know what had happened to this building. To know what treachery had befallen him in this city.<p>

He moved through the room slowly, his every footfall a spider's step upon glass, no sign of his passage left behind. The room, lit by the slanting light of the early evening, was that of a man, obvious by the dark robes and the belt of cutlery left sitting on the stool near the door. Strange. There'd been no word of a man living here. He moved further, opening the door oh-so-slowly, and looking beyond.

The kitchen was likewise empty. Its fire was snuffed. It was also piled high with rugs and carpeting, likely to make it all but impossible to approach from below, without being so obvious as a layer of iron. Whoever was indeed dwelling here was a shrewd one. And one which Dai would have to be wary of. He glanced next into the privy, stone gloves ready to fly in case he'd caught the dweller at a squat. But the privy stood empty. He leaned out the back window, confirming that there was no ambush outside. And the yard to the next house was likewise vacant. Good. He'd be heading there, next.

Dai only had one place left to check. He paused, glancing down at the bed which had been hauled out and set atop the carpets near the door. Strange. But he needed to confirm what was happening here. And the smell was strongest coming from around this door. So, slowly, carefully, he opened the last door in the building. As he did, his eyes went wide, as he beheld an array of alchemical devices, yes, but also what they were making, and what had been left behind.

Ten barrels of blasting jelly, marked in Si Wongi sitting in a puddle of what clearly wasn't water, and a heaping, loose pile of a white, granular substance which even now hissed and smoked. Dai glanced aside, and his eyes widened as he saw a discolored lemon there, mashed by the door's transit. He tried to step back, out of the way of the blast of pepper grease.

Only this particular lemon contained white phosphorus.

* * *

><p>The shuddering bang which rose up into the air caused all of those nearby to let out a gasp of alarm, all turning back the direction that the group was departing. Even the group itself turned back in surprise and confusion. Only one did not. She didn't miss her stride, her angry glare forward. "What the hell was <em>that<em>?" Toph asked.

"Somebody entered my house," Nila answered. She had her minimalist rifle shouldered, and a leather bow-case rode her hip. "They will know we are moving against them. That realization will be somewhat lost in confusion, for a time."

"You _blew up_ the house?" Katara asked.

"I no longer need it," Nila pointed out.

Toph 'glanced' to Sokka. "I like this one," she said with a smirk.

* * *

><p>It was a remarkably simple task to blend in, once she had secreted a corpse somewhere nobody would look for it and taken the robes from its back. The steep cone of the hat on her head made it not-immediately-obvious that she didn't belong there. Most Dai Li were men, after all. In fact, all but a handful were. It was that handful which were the most dangerous of them, however. She walked, her head tipped down and her hands mostly covered by her sleeves, passing by others as they ghosted through the halls. She was in the very heart of the beast. And she had to know if she was here alone.<p>

"Tiva, you useless child. You should be ashamed of yourself," her mother screamed in her ear. She ignored her, though. Mother was decades dead. "I taught you better than to trifle in what is not your concern!"

Perhaps. Mother had wanted Sativa to be a 'good girl', which was to say, a meek and pliant girl. She couldn't say whom she would have been had Nassar not suddenly and mysteriously been struck down, but she was sure meek was not it.

"You are a stupid child, and you're paying the price for it now. All of your friends, dead. Everybody you ever loved, lost, because You. Did. Not. THINK!" Mother continued.

The worst part about that was that she wasn't entirely wrong. Not that Sativa could answer her hallucination. Both because she was fairly sure that would mark her instantly as an intruder and because the drugs in her system would fade eventually. She needed to focus. She needed to think like a power-hungry sociopath; she needed to know where they kept their records. So even as she walked, she forced herself to think. This place was very damp. Close to water, and in great abundance. That meant that they had to be under a lake, since she couldn't detect the slightest hint of salt. And the nearest lake was Laogai. She also knew that whatever documentation would be in a safe, dry place. That meant deeper, near the bottom but not quite there. Far enough away from the lake that the roof wouldn't drip, high enough off the foundation that the water wouldn't pool.

The hallways were all laid out as a maze. Likely so that those like her would become mired and lost in it. She had no desire to indulge that design philosophy. While her hearing was compromised by the rantings of a ghost, she could, somewhat, trust her sense of smell. Water, standing water in the dark, had a funk. And she could follow that funk. So she followed her nose, down into the complex.

She had made such a mess of this. Her pride demanded she place the blame on Joo Dee, for betraying her. But honestly, the fault could only fall on her own shoulders. Zha Yu had warned her. Bato warned her. Even Piandao had warned her. But had she listened? No. She knew better than all of them, after all. And see what came of it; she didn't even know if they were alive or dead. If the latter, they would only be the first of a great many. Her hubris had made a fool of her, and now she needed to atone. Not for herself. For those who believed in her.

And it made a fool of her again as she blundered into a green-robed man coming 'round a corner. He didn't snarl and shout 'watch where you're going', as it was not the Dai Li's way to do such things. Instead, as he turned to view her more carefully, his eyes shot wide. Her disguise would work from casual viewing, yes, but nothing more involved than that. So she had to act faster. She flicked a hand up, and hurled her only weapon. It was a shard of obsidian, taken from the iron pouch of one of those that had been guarding her. She'd specifically selected the largest one, one only about the size of her thumb, and wrapped half of it in cloth so she could carry it without cutting herself to ribbons. And as it was a poor weapon, she only got one stab with it, and she had to make it count.

Her aim was not ruined from her time in captivity, and the shard lodged straight in the Dai Li's larynx. Unable to cry out with his vocal cords severed, he could only back away, his eyes bugging out and his hands closing around the razor shard, trying to stem the blood which wasn't yet truly flowing. She'd missed the veins and arteries. Still, he was defenseless enough that she could push off of the far wall and use the momentum to slam him against the nearer, stunning him and causing his head to drop enough that she could knee him in the nose.

As he fell to the floor, she grabbed his shoulders, and ardously dragged him into a threshold, marked by a heavy stone door, pausing only to slam it against his head twice before bringing him the rest of the way in. She quickly checked him for a useful weapon to a non-earthbender. Of course, she found none. She glanced behind her. The room was one of the brainwashing chambers, such as the one she'd awoken in. This one, though, was not in use. There wasn't even a lamp on the track.

No weapons, endless supplies of enemies, and an angry figment of her imagination trying very hard to distract her. Not the best of situations. But Sativa paused, looking down at the man once again. Perhaps... She reached into the man's sleeves, and pulled out the prospector's chains which ran up to a loop near his armpits. Not a weapon... but it could be useful. And she didn't have much else going for her at the moment.

A minute later, she slipped back out in silence, and continued down.

A door was open, though, as she carefully navigated that maze. She knew she was at least one level lower than she'd started, but beyond that, she hadn't a clue. And she could feel dry air ahead. She peeked through a cracked doorway, and saw a lifetime's worth of reading within. It was almost a library. She glanced behind her, and seeing none to stand in her way, she ducked in. As soon as she was in the room, she knew that this was no library. The symbol of Ba Sing Se, the three-level ring, was inlaid on the floor, and the fireplace and sconces burned with green flames. This was a dry place, alright. She looked to the table which rested in a corner. A notice journal.

"You're a worthless child, and you'll be a hopeless mother. Better you'd died in Nassar than be inflicted on the world! You are a failure in all things!"

"This is not the time, Mother," Sativa indulged the fantasy a moment, flipping the journal back a number of pages. They all seemed to date to today, talking about some Tribesman, and the gaggle of fools sent to assassinate him. Not relevant. She almost turned away from the book when she spotted a notice, scrawled in haste.

_The Dragon's Daughter cannot have gotten far. Find her!_

Sativa paused at that. Surely they couldn't mean... And yet, it seemed that it was the only likely answer. "Nila, by the sands what are you doing in this city, you stupid girl!" Sativa whispered. She then paged back, and her eyes widened. Three agents dead, a dozen injured. And at that, a smile slid slowly onto her face. "...But I see you have learned well what I taught you," she said.

She had two problems, now. Her own followers, and her daughter. What Nila could possibly be doing in Ba Sing Se baffled her, but it would be dealt with apace. She didn't even pay close attention to the 'other Si Wongi', who had been quietly incinerated. After all, Sativa had only ever known Ashan ibn-Ali in the most passing of terms. And the living were much more urgent than the dead. So she started to read, one quickly skimmed volume at a time, before feeding it to the fire.

Even if she failed again, today, she was going to give Long Feng a wound which would fester until it claimed him. She swore to gods she didn't believe in anymore that she would achieve if nothing else, that.

* * *

><p>"This is the lake," the Fire Lord's son pointed out. "It's... less imposing than I'd expected."<p>

Nila, though, was glaring at a building in the distance, almost lost in the waving air over the water. The building where that ambush began. The site where Ashan was struck the wound which doubtless claimed him. She didn't even know where his body was. And that caused her an incredible sort of pain. But she had tasks to perform and a duty to her Mother. She would not abandon either lightly. "We must find an entrance," she, as had Zuko, pointed out the obvious.

"I feel something just over there," the blind girl offered, pointing to her right. With a sweeping stomp, the water bucked out and rippled toward the shore, as a pillar erupted from its surface. Then, another shift, and a stone path lurched out toward that pillar.

"This feels too easy," Zha Yu said. "Where are the guards? Where are the defenses?"

"This is obviously a trap. We must simply take pains to spring it harmlessly," Nila said.

"Good eye," Sokka said. Toph flicked a thumb, and the 'cap' of the pillar flipped off and into the water, showing a descent path which plunged into some faintly green-lit path below. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Jet, you're with me."

"Feelings mutual, Sokka," Jet replied, and descended after the Tribesman. Zha Yu turned and gave Nila a glance.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" he asked, quietly.

"I would not forgive myself were I not," Nila answered.

"That's not what I asked."

"Yes, it was," Nila said. As soon as Jet was out of sight, Nila carefully lowered herself down the ladders. Instantly, she went from dry and baking to wet and cold. If nothing else, the juxtaposition slapped some clarity into her. She needed focus. She'd lost a fair amount of blood, after all, and could use any edge she could find. Zha Yu, the waterbender, the quiet one, and the blind girl followed after her, giving her just a moment to clear the ladder before feet started treading on hands. Good to see they weren't slowing down for her, at least. The last down the ladder were the Prince and the Mountain King.

"This place is spooky," Katara noted.

"You're afraid? Good. Remember that. This place is probably the most dangerous place on Earth right now," Zha Yu said, flexing his hands. While the waterbender's healing had righted his wounds, she could tell he, like she, wasn't at his best.

"I don't see anything threatening," Jet noted, his swords nonetheless in hand.

"Hope that continues," Sokka added. The lot of them moved forward, and as they did, they could hear something ahead. The clatter of footsteps. But not headed toward them, at least it didn't immediately seem so. They started to decline after a minute, and the group let out their collected breath, and started to move forward once more, with two warriors holding the walls, the others moving up after them.

"How are we going to find Aang in this?" Katara asked at a whisper.

"We'll find a way," Toph pointed out. "I can feel him from a mile off, remember?"

"Oh, right," Katara said with a note of relief. It must have been handy having such competent people around. For a certain degree of competence, anyway. They passed an almost unnoticeable threshold in the tunnel, and most of them passed without issue. But one in particular didn't. Since the swordsman and the Tribesman were both keeping to the walls, they avoided the trigger. Since Katara, and Nila were all light-framed, they passed over it – one at a time – without activating it or even noticing it. But when two hundred and ten pounds of Zha Yu stepped onto a finely balanced pressure plate, it sunk in with a click.

That click was followed by a ping, and a rushing of descending metal. Zuko had somehow either foreseen it, or otherwise simply had the preternatural reaction speed to react to it, grabbing Toph by the back of her collar and hauling her back before the thick iron shutter could smash her in half. Nila spun to see a bulkhead slamming into place, separating their party in two. Locking the half which could 'detect' the Avatar on the wrong side.

"Tui La! That almost hit her!" Katara exclaimed.

"I'm alright. You can let go of me, Sparky," Toph's muffled voice came through the metal. "It'll take more than that to get the better of Toph Beifong. I'll just... Huh."

"What is it?" Zha Yu asked.

"Just a second," Toph continued, almost inaudibly. There was a rumble. "Oh, hell no."

"What's going on?" Sokka asked.

"Toph and some of the others are trapped," Katara said.

"Mai?" Jet said, instantly moving to the metal slab. "Are you alright, Mai?"

"Wasn't even close when it fell," the bored voice barely managed to get through.

"We've got a problem," Toph announced. "That metal goes as far as I can 'see' in all directions. That place is coated in it! I'm stuck on the outside!"

"We'll find some way to open this thing from the inside," Sokka said. "You just keep anybody from capturing you or blocking us in."

"Aye aye, Captain Boomerang," Toph's answer came sarcastically.

"Hardly an auspicious beginning," Nila noted. She turned. "And it will get worse. I hear men approaching."

"We should hide," Zha Yu said. "There's no point fighting our way both in and out of this place."

"Indeed," Nila said, and with that, they all plunged into a side room, and away from their companions and friends behind them.

* * *

><p>Toph gave the bulkhead another solid kick as she growled with almost feral annoyance. "Come on! There's gotta be another way into this place!"<p>

Beside her, the slender National gave a motion which Toph interpreted as a roll of the eyes. "There would be, if the waterbender wasn't stuck on the other side of the bulkhead," she pointed out, her tone low and raspy, and somewhat bored.

"We'll have to find another way in," Zuko pressed. "They must have other entrances."

"I wouldn't, if I were doing this," the National pointed out.

Toph answered the both of them by giving the bulkhead another kick. She had to focus, and right now, she was too angry. Her mom was... they'd done something to her. She hated that it affected her like it did. She was supposed to be tough! She was supposed to be harder than rocks! But no, as soon as Mom forgets Toph's name, the girl just breaks down and cries. There were precious few times in the earthbender's life where she felt girly, and that was one of them – it was not a sensation she enjoyed.

The funny thing was, there was a rational part of her mind, a quiet little voice trying to whisper over an avalanche, which told her that it was alright to hurt. Mom was awesome. The loss of awesome was a thing to be lamented and mourned. And that quiet voice pressed a bit further, and said, even were Mom not awesome, it'd still be alright to cry for her. Needless to say, Toph wasn't listening to that little voice right now.

"She's... not giving up, is she?" the girl whom was called either Shadow or Mai – likely the latter – pointed out.

"She doesn't tend to," Zuko said. There was a hiss as he pulled out his twin dao. "Keep an eye on the entrance. We can't afford to get surrounded down here."

"Because there's every reason they'd fall short of just removing the roof and drowning us," Mai said, tone laden with dry snark.

"It won't be their first option, but we're going to make them regret using it so late," Zuko said with what Toph imagined to be a smirk, as she continued rock-stubbornly kicking that bulkhead. There had to be a way through. It was just a matter of persistence. There was too much on the line for impossibility right now.

And honestly, she was in no mood for reality to get in the way of her punching a hole through this iron plate. The frenzy of kicks and punches was pretty much the only catharsis which kept her from dropping into open weeping. That was something Toph would not allow.

"How did you survive, Mai?" Zuko asked, watching that path to the outside world, as Toph pounded away on the metal.

"I could ask you the same thing," Mai returned. Zuko's flat glance was obvious. "I got smuggled out. Even Ozai's trained killers didn't have the heart to kill a wide eyed, sniveling little girl."

"You? Snivel? I don't believe it," Zuko said.

She sighed, as was her custom. "That was the most afraid I've ever been in my life. Ever since then... Things just don't frighten me as much. I've seen the bottom of the abyss. It has golden eyes. No offense."

"None taken," Zuko answered.

"After that, some servants of my family bought me a liner ticket out to the colonies. Money ran out pretty much immediately, and I ended up stealing in the streets so that I could eat," Mai continued. She turned to Toph. "Are you seriously going to punch that plate all day?"

"If I have to," Toph answered, ignoring the sore sensation which was beginning to seep into her limbs with each blow.

"Whatever," Mai shook her head. "A town I was squatting in got burned to the ground by the Fire Nation. I ganged up with a couple of other orphans to survive. Jet was with them. The rest is history."

"I'm just surprised," Zuko said. She glanced toward him. "I never thought you'd be a 'freedom fighter' against your own nation."

"Says the Crown Prince who pals around with the Avatar," Mai pointed out.

"That's... not the same," Zuko muttered.

"How isn't it?" Mai asked. "We've both grown up, because we had to. And part of growing up was both of us finding out that your father's an asshole."

"Don't talk about my family like that," Zuko said. Toph punctuated his sentence with a really massive kick.

"What, you're defending your father?" Mai asked, anger lighting into her tones.

"I..." he shook his head. "Force of habit, I guess."

"You are some piece of work, Zuzu," Mai said with a roll of her eyes.

"Don't call me that. Only Azula calls me that," Zuko's tone became distant toward the end.

"What's up with her, anyway?" Mai asked. "I know she was sick when... everything happened. I haven't exactly kept up, and I couldn't get the..."

"Ow! Damn it!" Toph interrupted Mai's train of speech as one of her knuckles popped painfully. Both turned to her, then back to each other, and Toph continued pounding away.

"It's a complicated story. Some of the parts are... kinda hard to believe," Zuko said, staring ahead. "She was sick for a long time. I... took care of her. Helped her get better. For a given amount of better, I guess. And it wasn't like before, when we were at the palace. Azula was actually a sister, instead of 'my rival for the throne'. There were times when," Zuko broke off with a distant chuckle, "when even when she was being an absolute brat, I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be, or anybody else I'd rather be related to."

"...I wasn't aware," Mai said.

Zuko seemed to slump, just a tiny tiny bit. "But that changed when the Avatar appeared. Instead of being content to wander the seas, she got obsessed. First with the Avatar, then with Katara. I'm pretty sure that Azula... and this is the craziest part... might be able to see the future."

"That _does_ sound fairly crazy," Mai noted.

"The thing was, everything she predicted turned out pretty much as she said it would. Kyoshi Island. Crescent Island. Bomei. Summavut," Zuko gave a shrug. "She even knew _just when_ the Avatar would be reaching Ba Sing Se! But since Summavut... something changed. She seems so much more angry. Hateful, even," his head dipped a little bit more. "I feel like I'm losing my sister again. I can't stand it."

Mai didn't have an answer to that, and Toph continued kicking at the bulkhead, ignoring the pain in her body since it helped her ignore the pain in her soul. Zuko quickly flinched erect, and reached out, tapping Toph on the shoulder with a blade. "What are you?" Toph demanded, before he cut her off.

"Quiet for a second," he said. She ceased her kicking for that second.

"Did you hear that?" Mai asked.

"I did," Toph agreed. "We've got company," she then turned back to the bulkhead. "Keep them off me. I'm making a hole if it kills me."

"You do realize bending metal is impossible?" Mai asked.

"Don't care."

"You're wasting your time," Mai pressed.

"Don't care!" Toph shouted.

"Let her try," Zuko said. There was a hiss of steel over steel as his blades flicked forward. "And we can deal with these Dai Li."

"You do _so_ know how to show a girl a good time," Mai said with a dry tone.

"Yeah, he does," Toph agreed, before her foot slammed into the bulkhead again.

* * *

><p>The passage through the underground fortress was harrowing, as they had to avoid every whisper of stone against stone so as not to give away their position. It was obvious to Sokka that the place was on high-alert, since the trap had been sprung and the Dai Li all knew it. Sokka, Katara, Jet, Nila and Zha Yu all passed through that hallway as silently as they could, because the alternative was grim indeed.<p>

"Where do you think they have Aang?" Katara said at the barest whisper.

"Some place well guarded," Jet offered equally quietly. "Someplace near the center."

It was as good a place as any to start. Given the labyrinthine nature of the facility, in was as good as any other direction. If only the only issue was the guards. As Sokka passed by rooms, he could hear things. Unpleasant things.

"What are they doing?" Sokka asked, pausing to press an ear to a door. It was Nila who pulled him away from it.

"It does not matter. You must find your Avatar. I must find my mother," she said pointedly.

"Nila's right. We can't save everybody today," Zha Yu said, his eyes hard and his expression grim.

"What do you mean?" Katara asked.

His question was answered as the group passed by one room, lit from within by green, ethereal light. From out the cracked door came voices.

"Hello, my name is Joo Dee," a man intoned.

"Hello, my name is Joo Dee," a chorus of women's voices answered, hollow and emotionless.

"It is so good that we have the walls creating order."

"It is so good that we have the walls creating order."

Sokka peeked into the room, and Nila moved beside him. There were at least twenty women in there, all staring forward unblinking, assuredly unseeing. They stood like dolls, stared like dolls, and spoke like dolls – if dolls could speak, itself a disturbing notion. He could see Nila looking in with him, and her expression was murderous. The only thing which kept her from barging in, gun blazing, was Sokka being in her way. "Come on," Sokka whispered, guiding her away. Her eyes remained locked on that scene within, though, until the line of sight was broken, and she finally returned her glare forward.

"Long Feng needs to _die_," Zha Yu's voice was as angry as it was quiet, barely reaching from he to they. Nila nodded once. Up, down, stop. Sokka turned his attention to other things.

"There is no war in Ba Sing Se," the Dai Li agent coached.

"There is no war in Ba Sing Se," the women mimicked.

If only.

* * *

><p>"Where are they?" Long Feng's voice was low and angry, but then again, considering the events of the past few hours, he had every right to be angry. An explosion which rocked the Middle Ring, leveling two houses, both of which were supposed to be under his scrutiny. Now, they would only ever find the barest fragments of whatever treason was brewing behind those closed doors.<p>

"We're not sure," Han said. "Their trail ends almost immediately, since they turned into a bath house and vanished from our observation. We have to assume they're using the Zutara understructure to move unnoticed."

"Then they could be anywhere. Even under the Upper Ring," Long Feng said. He snapped a glance toward his subordinate. "Quadruple the guard and cancel all of the Earth King's appointments. I will not have the Avatar's cronies turning that hopeless child against me. It's a complication I _do not need_."

"It will, before the top of the hour," Han gave a nod. "What about the prisoners?"

"Prepare to lock down the facility and keep both the Avatar and the Dragon under utmost security. The last thing we need is a breakout," Long Feng said, turning the corner to his personal study, here in the guts of the Lake Laogai facility. And as soon as he opened the door, he was knocked onto his back by a billow of flames, which lapped with golden light, consuming every scrap of paper within. For a moment, Long Feng stared dumbly at it. But only a moment.

"We have infiltrators. They aren't heading for the Earth King. They're coming here," Long Feng said.

"I'll secure the Avatar," Han said, before outright running 'round a corner. Long Feng, though, moved upward, bending the stone out of his way to make it swifter, and strode with haste and purpose to where his first valuable prisoner was kept. It took him only a moment to unlock the heavy door, but even as he did, he smelled blood and death. Opening the door confirmed his suspicions. The chair which had contained the Dragon of the East stood empty, and three guards were all piled into a corner.

"No. Not today," Long Feng swore. He would not lose Ba Sing Se to these anarchists! He turned on his heel, and strode away, green eyes glaring as the darkness draped around him as a cloak.

* * *

><p>The six-legged beast let out a bellow of fear, chained as it was to the floor at the center of the room, as the great doors into its chamber slid open slightly. But that fear reaction, however justified as it was in a prey animal who was in a terrifying environment, was short lived. Because the person who stood before it was about as physically unintimidating as a human could be. She tipped the hat off of her head, letting it fall aside.<p>

"Not who you expected, I presume?" Sativa asked dryly. The beast let out a snort, then lumbered forward to sniff at her. "Yes, I was somewhat surprised to read that you were he-ack!"

She was interrupted by the bison leveling a tongue upside her face. She couldn't help but let out a laugh at the absurdity of it.

"You must be desperate for company. And _I_ need a way _out_," she muttered to herself, if only to keep the voices which ranted in her mind at bay for a little while longer. She knew what it was to be drugged. This was worse. But she would endure. She'd endured worse. So she started hunting for a way to burst the bison's binds.

* * *

><p>"Hold on, I hear something," Sokka called them up short. Impatient eyes fell upon him, as he gestured them close to a vent located close to a ceiling. "Did any of you hear that?"<p>

"I didn't hear anything," Katara said.

"Shut up for a second," Jet said, which drew a glance of ire from the waterbender. "Yeah, I hear it, too. A voice."

"We are in a facility run by the enemy. Of course there are to be voices," Nila pointed out.

"No, I've heard this one before," Sokka whispered.

He leaned up on his toes, getting an ear as close to the grating as he could manage.

"I don't suppose you could bring me a pillow? The cell floor is quite hard. Good for the back, murder on the neck," the voice said with dry sarcasm.

"Silence, criminal. You're coming with us."

"Torture again, is it? I thought you'd gotten bored with me."

"Bato?" Sokka asked. "We need to get in there! They're going to move him somewhere."

"How? Those voices could be coming from anywhere," Katara pointed out.

"Keep going, I'll get Bato," Zha Yu said.

"What? What are you..." Jet asked, but Zha Yu hurled himself through the grated wall, and began to slam through the walls after it, bending each one to a crumble with his passage, and causing a veritable cacophony of noise, which left the teenagers baffled.

"I thought we were being quiet," Sokka muttered.

"Not any more, it seems," Nila said, and then gave him a shove with her rifle.

"They'll be coming for us," Katara said, water at the ready for attack.

"Then we must surprise them when they do," Nila answered.

"Where do we go from here?" Sokka asked.

"That place looks as good as any," Jet pointed ahead of him with his blades, to a door which seemed slightly larger than those around it. As they approached, Sokka could see a green-robed figure entering the same hall as they, not very far, and facing them. There as a moment of confusion on the teenagers end, which lasted a bit longer than on the Dai Li agent's. So it was the Dai Li that launched his fists one after the other toward the group. But they were aimed at Nila, who was the only bearer of a ranged weapon. Jet twisted before them, slashing each fist in half with his hook-swords and saving Nila from a pummeling nobody was sure she'd be able to handle. Sokka, though, pulled out a rock.

It was a perfectly normal rock, just about the size of his fist. Nice and dense, good shape. Which made it ideal for hurling at people's heads. Sokka didn't need to think twice to know the angle, the way his arm would wheel through the air. That rock launched like poetry, like science itself, describing a perfect arc as muscle power worked in synergy with gravity to brain a man from across the room.

All of that, interrupted by an ear-splitting boom, and the Dai Li being hurled back off of his feet, a red hole opening in the center of his chest. The stone clattered past, skittering down the hall since its target was no longer in its path. Sokka glanced back. "I had him! You didn't need to..."

"You were wasting time, and he would have arisen," Nila said, biting another bullet and shoving it into place. Katara gave Sokka a concerned glance. Jet, though, nodded, then swiftly shouldered open the door, showing a room with a cage built into one side of it. As soon as he entered, he was yanked from his feet. Sokka had to move quickly, grabbing Jet by the back of his shirt to arrest him, which had the lamentable consequence of tearing one of Jet's sleeves off. Katara was next into the breach, sending out a flurry of shards of ice, which pinned the Dai Li back in his cubby-hole, unable to move, while another hovered ominously before him.

"Where do you keep the prisoners?" Sokka asked him, pointing a club in his direction.

"Or what, you'll melt at me?" the Dai Li asked without humor.

Sokka gave a glance to Katara, who seemed to be at a bit of a loss. "Jet, try to..."

Once again, Nila interrupted them with a gunshot, which slammed into the man's knee to the sound of a scream of agony and a steady reddening of his robes. "The Dai Li have captured the Dragon of the East. Where is she? If you dissemble, I will favor your other knee. I have many bullets. You have fewer joints."

"Nila, this is cold blooded. You're better than this," Jet said, concern in his voice.

"Apparently, I am not," Nila said coldly. She bit a new bullet and loaded it, rocking back the hammer with finality. "Where are you keeping the Dragon? Your answer or your other knee."

"Down in the subbasement. She's one level below the Avatar," the man said, panic clear in his voice. Nila nodded, and shouldered her weapon.

"Nila, what was that?" Katara asked, getting into the Si Wongi's way.

"Step aside."

"You just shot somebody in the chest! And another one in the knee! What is wrong with you?"

"They hurt my family. Directly. Their order is implicit in Mother's torment. I can do no less than this," Nila said.

"Nila, calm down," Sokka said. At his back, Katara was healing the Dai Li to staunch the bleeding, and Jet was breaking into the cage. "It's going to be alright. You don't need to do this."

"Who are you, Tribesman, to know what I must or must not do?" Nila's voice grew hot. "Were it your mother, would you do any less?"

"I... I'd still try other things first," Sokka said. "You can't _fix_ murder. You can't take it back."

Nila glared at them. "If properly done, no fixing would be needed. Some threats are not reasonable. Some will not relent or surrender. What then? No, ignore that. We are wasting time!"

"This look familiar to you?" Jet's voice came from the cage, as he brandished a short spear which was lined with fur and etched with carvings.

"Bato's spear!" Katara said.

Sokka, though, looked near where Jet was standing, and his eyes fell on a pair of long, slender swords which had been stacked carefully in a nook. He leaned past Jet and pulled them out. Then, with a flick, he unsheathed one, showcasing a blade as black as midnight. "Piandao's swords," Sokka said. He glanced to Nila. "We can't waste any more time. We need to find Aang."

"I need to find Mother," Nila said.

"One will find the other. Come on!" Jet coached with a wave of the arm. And with that, and a icy glare back at the Dai Li which was now supine on the floor, they departed from the storeroom. Only now, a black blade rode Sokka's hip.

* * *

><p>Another stone exploded as it rebounded off of steel, but the hurler of that stone was not so easily dispatched. A blast of flame, cast from Zuko's heel sent the green robed Dai Li staggering back, but it wasn't until Mai flicked forward with both hands, and a net of blades trapped the man to the wall, did they pause.<p>

"I'm starting to run low," Mai pointed out dryly, her bright eyes focused coldly on the path behind them. There were others in this ruin. At least they couldn't approach from behind, as Toph, who was still rock-stubbornly pounding away at that bulkhead, wouldn't give the space. Zuko wanted to ask her to stop, to point out that there was no use, that they would have to come up with an exit strategy on their own. Not just because she was punching her fists bloody, but because the noise was distracting. But he didn't. Because this gave Toph hope. And like Uncle said, he refused to be the one to take away somebody's hope.

"So. You and Jet, huh?" Zuko said, trying to drown out the pounding of flesh into metal.

"So. You and the earthbender, huh?" Mai countered.

"We're not..."

"He and I never..." Both he and Toph managed to say at the same time.

"That's what I thought," Mai said with her eyes rolling, before turning her attention back to the path before them, where their enemies would appear. "How long do you think 'till they say 'hell with it, let's just drown them'?"

"Don't give them any ideas," Zuko said flatly. "Seriously, though. What's up with that boyfriend of yours? He doesn't seem your type."

"And you'd know my type?" Mai asked.

"Good point."

"I might have been into tall, dork, and handsome when my parents got killed, but things change," she said, with a significant glance toward Zuko at the second adjective.

"Are you calling me a dork?"

"You were when we were kids," Mai said with a smirk.

"That was years ago!"

"And you're not denying it," Mai continued.

"I was not a dork!"

"I know you're lyyying," Toph said around the grunts of pain from her punches.

"I like her. She doesn't let you get away with anything," Mai said. "You're a cute couple."

"We're _not_ a couple," Zuko contended. Then, he tilted his head just a bit. Because he heard something. The rasp of stone against stone. So that when the wall burst away from beside him, he was already moving, cleaving the incoming stone gloves and bursting the stone shoes before they could crush either he, Toph, or Mai. Then, with a twist, he flicked fire down those swords and used them to lash at the Dai Li, driving him back into that hole he'd emerged from. A blade zipped over Zuko's shoulder, its spin seemingly timed perfectly to crack him between the eyes with the hilt of the dagger. He staggered back, and Toph buried him with an off-hand motion, before returning her full attention to punching and kicking the bulkhead.

"You're just good friends," Mai confirmed, not even breathing hard. "Guess how it started between Jet and I."

"Must have been rough," Zuko said.

"...Not as much as you'd think," Mai said quietly, rubbing her arms. Not because she was cold or nervous. She was likely checking to see how much ammunition she had left. And from the way her scowl lit briefly onto her face, that answer was 'not very much'. "I miss my parents. I wish they weren't gone. But because of their death, I got to be _free_ for the first time in my life. I wasn't who I am until they were gone."

Zuko gave a nod, his hand clasping on the girl's shoulder in sympathy. "I know how that feels. If it wasn't for Azula, I'd probably have gone crazy out here with Uncle and Aunty Shou..."

"Well, speaking of..." she trailed off, which caused Zuko a moment's alarm. "More."

"It just never ends, does it?" Zuko asked, flicking his blade into his other hand, and preparing for another wave to break over him.

* * *

><p>Bato glanced over his shoulder, listening as the booms came closer. The Dai Li who were practically holding him up paused in their exodus, but a third, who was wearing a slightly fancier badge, shot them a glare. "Don't stand there. Keep moving."<p>

"That's getting awfully close," the one on Bato's left commented. The next boom rattled the stone in the wall near them, and caused both to drop Bato to the floor, raising fists in a simultaneous show of defense. Dust still drifted down from that boom, and the Dai Li all stood with utmost focus, waiting for literally anything to come through that wall and attack them.

And the booms stopped. There was a moment of silence, one Bato took to roll his shoulders and limber his shackled wrists. And then, nothing. The Tribesman glanced back at the Dai Li, who were now starting to sweat, their gazes going a bit wider, looking up and down the hall, trying to find out what had become of that demolishing force.

It – or rather he – tapped one of them on the shoulder. As he turned, it was to be met by an incoming, meaty fist. The blow spun the man like a top, his eyes already rolled up into his head from the jarring impact. The one opposite him flew into a flurry of action, casting out both gloves and shoes, but the attacker bruted through them, only allowing them to impart rotation with their jarring impacts, so that when he reached the Dai Li, it was with a back-elbow into the jaw, which landed with a terrible crunch of dislocating bone. Another block was hurled at the attacker's head, which he ducked under so it caught the Dai Li he was assaulting in the forehead. But he was out of position, and out of time.

The officer of the Dai Li was already leaping into position, doubtless to send forth a spear of sharp rock into the brick-like infiltrator. Bato wasn't entirely helpless, though; he caught the landing foot of the officer between his ankles and twisted hard, causing the delicate balance to be thrown completely overboard, causing him not to land with momentum and power, but rather, face first at high speed. Bato then twisted his body sideways and hammer-punched the officer in the back of the head, which caused him to fall still on the ground, just as the first Dai Li struck finished his spinning and fell unconscious near Bato's feet.

"I had him," Zha Yu muttered.

"Sure you did," Bato answered. "Mind giving me a hand up?"

Zha Yu lifted the Tribesman to his feet, then bent up a pillar of stone which he set between Bato's wrists. "You don't seem surprised to see me," Zha Yu opined.

"I know you," Bato answered, as Zha Yu twisted some especially hard stone in a brutal arc, and slammed it down on Bato's manacles. The first blow dented them, but it wasn't until the second that they parted. "I know you wouldn't leave Sati behind."

"This is bigger than Sati," Zha Yu said. "And it's bigger than Long Feng. Get that into your head right now or I'm leaving you behind."

"Whoa, calm down," Bato said with a placating gesture. "I'm obviously a bit behind. What's happened during my little stint in the durance vile?"

"Much," Zha Yu summed, and started guiding Bato down a corridor. "And it'd take too long to explain it right now. We need to find the Avatar and get out."

"The Avatar is _here_?" Bato asked. "You weren't kidding."

"I seldom am," Zha Yu answered.

"_Fei hua_, you lie all the time."

"...yeah, but don't let anybody know that," Zha Yu said with rolled eyes and a nod.

* * *

><p>Things had gotten much easier, since she was given leave to abandon skulking about. Then again, when one was in the company of a ten tonne, irate beast, one had little remaining room for subtlety. While there was scarcely enough room for the bison to traverse the halls, it was enough that it cleared a path for Sativa to follow, usually by bodily running down Dai Li. It was beyond stymying that these people didn't carry a single weapon which could be used by a non-bender. She was fast running out of tricks she had any faith would work.<p>

She had little recourse but to follow, after all. The passage was only the proper size to allow the bison in one direction, which she had to assume lead to an exit. Lucky she had an easy path to follow, in her condition. It was hard to focus any sort of distance with whatever was flowing through her veins at the moment. Every corridor she passed, though, felt like a betrayal. She was leaving behind Bato and Piandao and Joo... No, she had left Joo Dee behind long ago. It had only taken her twenty years to realize it.

The bison stopped, after having flattened and pinned another Dai Li under a massive foot, and pawed with its foremost paw at a door, as though trying to find a way to squeeze through a hole a fraction the size of its own head. Sativa raised a brow at that. The bison wanted something. She squeezed past its bulk, to the frame of a tetrahedral door wrought in stone. It didn't take much strength to shove it aside, which was for the best. Inside, she only had a moment to react before a stone glove hit her in the face. Luckily, for all her diminished strength, she was still every bit as quick. She ducked under and wove into the room, casting out the prospector's chain which she'd looted from another Dai Li a dozen bodies back. The loop first twisted around one Dai Li's arm, then another's neck. She pulled and twisted tight, causing one to punch the other. There were two more, though, and Sati was now surrounded.

With hands like lightning, she tore the iron pouch of obsidian shards from the belt of the neck-wrapped one, and cast them in a ballistic fan at one encroaching Dai Li, putting out his eyes in pain and anguish. The other, she hurled the empty pouch at, but he batted it aside and moved in on her. She dodged back, wrapping his fist too in that chain, and hauling him down and into her rising knee. It was then that she felt a pressure slam into her chest and neck, slamming her back.

She still held that chain, though. And because of that, her new position was choking the life out of one Dai Li, even as the other dizzily pulled himself back upright. "You won't escape, Dragon."

"Release me or your companion dies," Sativa hissed.

"You are in no position to make demands."

"Physics and anatomy make demands. You ignore them," Sativa pointed out, a smirk on her face even with her dire situation. The one on the ground let out a gagging sound, his eyes bulging from his head, and his fists tight on the chain which was digging into his neck. The one standing flicked a glance between his companion and his target. He started to sweat.

And Sativa threw the chain to him. He caught it in mild bafflement, but because of that, his grip on his own stone fist fluttered away for a moment, giving Sati the moment she needed to push off of the wall, her fist driving blunt-fingered into his adam's apple. She then caught a lamp which was slowly circling a track and smash it into the face of the almost-choked one, which sent him to the floor as well. Only then did she feel the pain of her injuries, as the adrenaline began to pool out of her. That lamp was _very_ hot.

"Whatever you sought, beast, it had better be worth..." Sativa trailed off as her vision cleared enough that she could make out the insensate boy upon the seat in the darkness. And most importantly, make out the blue arrow tattooed upon his brow. "...it."

Sativa turned, and could see a large eye peering into the room with her. "You are a faithful companion. You do service to your master," she said to the bison, before turning to free the Avatar from his bondage. The bison, for its part, let out an almost pleased sounding bellow.

* * *

><p>The Great Divide was no more.<p>

Once the longest canyon in the world, now it was no longer _part_ of the world. It was an elsewhere-place, something outside the rules and bounds of reality. Corroded by the fetid blood of something which had no place in existence, the waters carried it throughout the long reaches of the canyon, to its very center. The vessel of that blood had walked almost the whole length, from west to east, and every place her feet fell, death followed with her. Death of beasts. Death of the world.

There was very little left of her. Just some flesh, held together by an alien will, which drove her towards food, towards something which could abate its never-ending hunger. So she walked. And as she rose out of what was once the Great Divide, she looked up, into the distance. It was over the horizon, but her eyes could see beyond distance, now. They could see what lay outside space. And they could see... bison.

Mothers and calves. Floating and cavorting over the ruins of a destroyed temple. The temple of what had once been her people. There was other meat. Closer meat. More convenient meat. But what was left of Malu wanted... to go home. To see the places which were once hers. The places which once mattered to _her_.

_Malu_ wanted to go back to the East Air Temple.

And with her last real iota of strength, _she_ started walking toward it.

* * *

><p>Sokka shook his head, trying to clear his vision. He could feel the water on his temples, as his sister worked her bending to counteract the concussion he'd been dealt by the ambush. Two Dai Li working together was a beast quite unlike dealing with one alone, especially when they had the element of surprise.<p>

"I'm alright, help Jet!" Sokka waved his sister off. He'd probably only been down for a matter of moments, but those moments had swung the fight against them. He was on his feet quickly, advancing on the nearer of the two Dai Li, the one which was grappling with Nila trying to wrest the rifle from her grasp. He had only reached a kneel by the time the Dai Li beat the blood-deprived Si Wongi girl, and then twisted it back around and caught her in the teeth with her own weapon. While Nila fell back with a cry of pain and anger, Sokka was hurling himself up. The black blade hissed from its scabbard, as it was the only weapon he felt comfortable using; while the white counterpart was a _very_ nice weapon, it just felt... off... and the club was shattered about a dozen rooms ago.

That Dai Li was perceptive, and he was quick, and his parry deflected the slash along the metal of the weapon's back end. The black blade also peeled a shaving a quarter of an inch thick off of it in the process. The Dai Li's eyes flashed to that, then kicked a block at Sokka, doubtless trying to get range, to get room. A flick of water, flash freezing the man's feet to the ground, denied him that option for a moment, but even as Sokka had cleaved the stone and was trying to get close once more, the Dai Li bent the path enough to shatter the ice, and kipped back, just ahead of a beyond-razor sharp tip. Sokka only managed to slice green silk. But most important, he had the Dai Li sweating.

With Nila down, Katara had to divide her attention between two hostile and elitely trained earthbenders, to keep both off of their balance, since she hadn't the materiel to do more at the moment. Jet was doing as Sokka was, fighting the bender without bending, and doing a fairly passable job of it. Sokka pressed forward, twisting the blade back. It wasn't the sort of elegant movement that the sword's real master would have employed; then again, had the blade's master been here, both Dai Li would have been cut down in seconds. Still, Sokka was a more-than-gifted amateur, and his practice with the machete bordered on masturbatory, so some of the skills passed over. Like the importance of where Sokka put his feet.

It wasn't elegant; it was ugly. It wasn't civilized; it was brutish. It was the swordsmanship of the South Water Tribe, and like all the things of the South, it might not have been pretty, but by the gods, did it ever do the trick. The Dai Li had no option other than to try to block the incoming blows with his earthbending, since he knew with certainty that his weapon wouldn't do. And even then, the stone barely slowed the blade down. And Sokka was cutting closer and closer to the man's throat. He had to dodge both Katara and Sokka's blade. It was something for which, for her prodigy skill and his wildly unpredictable improvisations, he was not up to task.

One cut which would have taken him in the neck had he not dodged aside managed to still cut, if very lightly, along the jaw of the Dai Li. While that did paint the man with his first blood of the day, it also had the side-effect of cutting the strap which held on the man's protective pan-hat. It slid off his head almost instantly, with the way he had to weave and dodge. Sokka's swings then moved up, trying for his eyes, with the intention of causing him to duck back from those cuts. The Dai Li retreated until there was a wall at his back. Then, Sokka pulled a cut, and sent the pommel straight into the man's sternum, driving him back into that wall, and his chin exposed from the unexpected impact. Thus, it only required a flick of his other hand to slam the consciousness out of the Dai Li, skull to stone.

Jet, on the other hand, was practically toying with his. It was less a matter of finding the opening so much as building momentum. While the swordsman had started back-footed, he was quickly adapting to the logistics, the realities of fighting against earthbenders, and particularly ones as subtle as this. His blows never seemed to land as he'd want them. So he changed up, using the hook points to tangle in clothing, to trip him up, to slow him down. He pressured the man, shattering obsidian claws and tearing robes. But he was only biding time. He couldn't put the man down without killing him. And that had been driven into Jet's head ten-thousand times, that there was no killing civilians, nor Easterners. Even Eastern civilians as evil as this man, and those that believed as he did.

It was a matter of seconds after Sokka smashed skull to flagstone that Katara turned her full attention to Jet's target. And when she did, it was effective, brutal, merciless, and swift. The pummeling, gout upon gout of almost rock-hard water, drove the Dai Li flat onto his back, trying in vain to rise through it, before she finally finished with a blast which caught him at a kneel and sent him careening down the hall, only to land in silence and near stillness a dozen yards behind them. "Is that all of them?" Katara asked.

"It seems like," Jet said. Katara nodded, and then did her healing-trick on Nila, which brought her to her feet with what Sokka incorrectly assumed was a litany of swears in her native tongue. She turned to Sokka, then to her weapon on the ground. When it reached there, they became wide, and she shoved Katara aside, lurching to grasp her weapon to her bosom. Jet gave Sokka an aside glance. "I guess we know where her heart lies."

"Give her a break. She's had a really rough past couple of days," Sokka pointed out. He then turned to the door where they'd been ambushed, as it was still open.

"I am very impressed. Please forgive me for not applauding," Piandao's weary voice came from within. He looked like hell. He likely hadn't shaved in months, and those months must have been filled with regular beatings. The most stark and crippling degredation had to be that his right arm ended one hand shorter than it used to.

"We're here to help," Sokka said, moving to the man's manacled wrists and with a heave, severing the chains which held the man aloft. He dropped to his knees, themselves bloody, with a grunt. "How did you get captured? Did the Dragon, too?"

"Where is my mother?" Nila interrupted, shifting her weapon back behind her.

"Where's the Avatar, is a better question," Jet pointed out.

"One at a time," Piandao said, even as Katara started working on him as well. "We were outfoxed by Long Feng. Sati was his primary objective. Me, Bato, and Joo Dee were just... collateral damage. If they're keeping your mother or the Avatar here, they'll be a few levels down, through the atrium."

"There's an atrium?" Sokka asked. "How big _is_ this place?"

"Oh... There's nothing I can do about..." Katara said mournfully.

"It's alright," Piandao said, pain clear in his expression, even as Nila helped him to his feet. "I have a spare, and am almost as proficient with it."

"These belong to you," Sokka said, handing forward the two blades. Piandao stared down at them, and then took the white blade in his one remaining hand. "Could you help fasten this?" he quietly asked the Si Wongi girl. Nila scowled at him, but tied the belt which held the scabbard in place. Sokka offered the other, but Piandao waved it away.

"I only have one hand to fight with, Sokka of the Water Tribe. It needs a new master, after these harrowing years."

"...What?"

"This is a waste of time which would better be spent locating Mother!" Nila pointed out harshly. Piandao nodded to her.

"She's right. We need to move quickly. The Dai Li will be returning in greater numbers sooner than we'd like."

Sokka nodded at that, and at Piandao's direction, they began toward the 'atrium' which promised access to the lower levels of the compound. The path was obvious, in that it was the largest that the facility had to offer. And it ended abruptly at a closed bulkhead, which caused Sokka to howl at the air. "WHHYYY! DOEEES! THIIIS! KEEEEP HAPPENNING?" he shrieked.

Then, there was a massive 'whump', and the bulkhead deformed. That cut Sokka short, even before he clued in that he had a sword that seemed to cleanly cut metal. The second drove he and all with him back a step, as the bulkhead deformed further, bowing out and toward them.

"What is that?" Katara asked.

"It does not matter. Be prepared for anything," Nila said, shouldering her rifle.

The third bang echoed through the complex, as the infiltrators and the saved backed away just a little bit further. The fourth came with a calamitous crash of shrieking metal being torn from metal. And staring them down, from the other side of that bulkhead... was Appa.

"Appa?" Katara asked. The bison gave a light bellow, and then trundled over the deformed bulkhead to give her a lick. "What are you doing here, Appa?"

"Saving its master, it seems," a familiar, raspy voice came from the bison's flank. Pressing around the ten tonne beast came the a woman who Sokka hadn't seen in months. But now, as he'd gotten to know her daughter well, he could see the descent from one to the other. Sativa and Nila, for example, shared a pronounced – even sharp – nose, and a wide mouth, and green eyes. Nila's hair, though, was wavy where Sativa's was straight. Oddly, mother and daughter almost had a symmetry of injury at the moment, as well, as one of Nila's eyes was discolored, and one of Sativa's was swollen shut. The biggest difference between the two, really, was that the older was shouldering the slumping form of Aang as she advanced. She turned to take in Piandao. "I see you have survived. Good," she said. But there was something in her eyes beyond what was in her words. Almost an unbreathed sigh of mortal relief. She turned her attention toward her daughter. "And what in gods' names are you doing here?"

"Hello, mother," Nila said sarcastically, as she pulled the leather bow-case from her hip and idly tossed it to her mother. The Dragon of the East caught it with a scowl.

"Don't take that tone with me, child," she said. Katara was already pulling Aang off of Sativa's shoulder and running the glowing water over him as well, but he didn't immediately perk up as the others had. "I never told you to come to Ba Sing Se. This place is dangerous."

"You gave me a duty. I am here to discharge it. I have found Sharif," Nila said.

"Really? You came to this city of murderers and intrigue for that?" Sativa asked. "You are a girl obsessed!"

"You told me not to return until you had! And when I did, my house was destroyed!" Nila snapped. Sativa reached out and slapped her daughter at that, which caused all to turn and stare wide eyed at her.

"I told you not to take that tone," Sativa said with heat. "I had to make a point."

"To a dead man," Nila answered, not rubbing the welt on her cheek which had to sting. "Sentinel Rock is a ruin. It was destroyed by..."

"Khatun Noyan?"

"No, she is a crippled woman," Nila answered. "By Imbalance Itself."

Sativa blinked for a moment, then turned to the others. "I suppose I am somewhat out of context. And we are in no place to hold this conversation. We must leave."

"Wait," Katara said. "You're just going to walk out of here after abusing your own child?"

Nila scowled at that. "What abuse has she leveled? She is right. We must leave."

"What about the Mountain King?" Jet asked.

That was his cue to 'surf' through a wall on the far end of the corridor, mostly by dint of having tackled a Dai Li through said wall and sliding with him when they landed. That Dai Li didn't look in the best of shape when Zha Yu was done with him. He looked up, and then offered a moment of grin.

"I suppose I do still know how to make an entrance," the Mountain King mused, getting to his feet. He looked the newcomers over. "I'm disappointed in you, Sati. You should have done better than this."

"Disappointed? You abandoned us."

"I couldn't join you then. And if you'd had any sense, you would have held back until everybody was ready," Zha Yu pointed out. Bato, looking almost as haggard as Piandao, limped through the hole in the wall. That was everybody, it seemed.

"What's wrong with Aang?" Jet asked, pointing a hook-sword at him.

"I don't know; he won't wake up!" Katara said.

"And he would not. He was doubtless kept deeply sedated," Sativa said. "And he will return to such unless we liberate him quickly."

"So, less talky, more runny?" Zha Yu asked, casting a thumb over his shoulder. Sokka felt no desire to disagree.

* * *

><p>Toph was punching almost as fast as her heart was beating. The skin on her knuckles, itself almost as hard as the rocks she bent, was splitting, bleeding, howling in pain with every blow. But she wasn't going to give up. Not now. If she failed this, then she... She didn't want to think about it. So she fixated on the nevertheless wildly irrational belief that somehow, if she made a hole here, she would get her mother back.<p>

How pathetic that sounded in her own head. Her focus was so locked before her, on the bulkhead, that she could barely 'see' behind her. Barely see that Mai was trying with her own torn-off sleeve to garrotte a Dai Li which was still fighting to finish a bleary, exhausted Zuko. Could barely see the bodies of the unconscious earthbenders beyond them. Or of the dead bodies outside the passage, weighted and buried in the lake. She didn't see that. She didn't see anything, except for the bulkhead.

"Why!" she screamed, with a punch into the metal.

"Won't!" she continued, with another blow. This one seemed to reverberate in a way which was familiar, though.

"You!" she pressed harder, an even mightier punch. This time, she was sure she could 'see' the metal, feel the shockwaves moving through it as she struck it. Feel that... metal wasn't something outside of earth. Metal was _of_ the earth.

"BEND?" she shrieked with her final blow.

And under that blow, the metal plating deflected almost a foot with the impact. There was a moment of silence, which was punctuated by a startled gurgling sound as Mai finally got purchase and choked that son of a bitch out. Toph, too, was slightly shocked by it. So she did it again, with that same sensation, that same understanding, that same drive. That same power.

And the metal yielded under her grasp like putty. She stared in awe, and her gawking expression slowly turned into a grin, as she slammed both fists forward into the center of the dent she'd made, and then tore in opposite directions, a motion accompanied by the shriek of tearing metal, as the bulkhead was ripped apart. By Toph Beifong's bending.

"...I must be unconscious, because I _thought_ I just saw Toph bend metal," Zuko said with his tones lightheaded and slurring, as he tried to get back to his feet. Mai just stared in outright confusion. The Dai Li who was still pinned to the wall nearby looked like... yup, he wet himself. Toph pumped both fists into the air, then cast a finger at those behind her.

"I am Toph Beifong!" She screamed. "And I am the GREATEST! EARTHBENDER! IN THE WORLD!"

Mai gaped for a moment longer, then shrugged, nodded, and glanced back to the Dai Li who remained conscious. "And don't you dunderheads ever forget it," the glum-toned woman added with obvious sarcastic delight.

"Come on, you crazy bastards. Let's go save the Avatar!" Toph said, more confident, more assured, more powerful than she'd been since that horrific discovery.

If an earthbender could bend metal, then Toph could have her family back.

Impossible was nothing.

Right?

* * *

><p>"Now the tricky part," Sokka said. "How do we get past that bulkhead?"<p>

"We either go around it or we open it," Zha Yu answered.

"Around?" Jet asked.

"Did you really think that they encapsulated this thing on all six sides with metal? That'd bankrupt an entire kingdom!" Zha Yu pointed out. "They let water keep out most of the interlopers. And who among us, I wonder, could make something useful with that?"

"We can't just leave. Toph's in the tunnels behind us," Katara pointed out.

"Also Zuko," Sokka chimed in. Katara offered a moment of scowl at that, but was otherwise quiet.

"And M...Shadow," Jet offered.

"We all know who she is, you can stop with the pseudonyms," Zha Yu said peevishly as he led the bison – and by extension, all of them – toward freedom. "If we go back, they'll be waiting for us."

"I'm not leaving Toph behind," Katara said, her eyes cold and her tone stubborn. Bato patted Zha Yu on the shoulder.

"She's got that look on her face. There's no convincing her otherwise," Bato pointed out, his voice raspy and slightly hoarse. "Which means 'around' is now out of the question."

Zha Yu glanced to the others, who all gave nods, save the Dragon and her Daughter, who just seemed tired, and pointedly not watching each other. "Well, I guess that's decided. Out the front door then. And the gods have mercy on us."

"What do you think's going to be waiting for us?" Jet asked.

"Probably Dai Li, and a lot of them," Sokka answered. "I'd say the best option is to cut through, then run like hell."

The corridor opened into a chamber which Sokka didn't remember coming through the first time. Probably because they'd stuck to the side paths so much on their way in. This one, though, was vaulting, wide, and bounded by some sort of 'sewage system', which at the moment was shut off leaving the perimeter essentially dry. The far side of the room was host to a small knot of green robed men. One of them, notably not wearing any hat, turned to face them. Green eyes blazed with outrage and malice, as the 'mild mannered' dignitary whom Sokka had been led around by the nose by moved away from his ilk and stared the group down.

"You have proven yourselves enemies of the city of Ba Sing Se, the Earth King, and the peoples of the East Continent, collectively and individually," Long Feng pronounced. "Surrender and you will not face immediate execution for your crimes against us in this time of war."

Sokka gave a glance to his sister. "...Did you really think somebody was going to agree to those terms?"

"I am not finished," Long Feng continued. "If you surrender, then you, Sokka of the South Water Tribe, and you, Katara of same, and you, Jet of lost Roanapur, you will be permitted to leave, provided you never return to Ba Sing Se as long as you live. This offer extends to your earthbender Toph Beifong, as well."

"I notice you have not given such freedom to me," Nila pointed out from Sokka's back.

"Or Aang," Katara added.

"The Avatar, the Dragon of the East, and her lackeys are all enemies of the state and must be dealt with appropriately. This is your solitary chance to escape your demise. I suggest you take it," Long Feng said with finality.

Sokka gave a glance over his shoulder, to the people he'd fought with, against, besides, occasionally atop or below. The people he'd known for months, or years, or weeks. There were no words said. There didn't need to be. Sokka turned back to Long Feng. "Nuts."

Long Feng stared, confounded.

"He means no," Zha Yu clarified.

"Then this will be on your own head," Long Feng raised a hand. Sokka looked up, and his eyes widened as he saw that the high ceiling of this room was playing host to dozens of these green demons. "Kill everybody but the Avatar and the Dragon of the–"

He was cut off by the blast of a gunshot. Time seemed to slow even as Sokka unconsciously recoiled away from the sudden noise beside his ear. _Of course_, Nila cut off his tirade by shooting him. He couldn't see the bullet, since it traveled entirely too fast, but he knew that it was flying, if not directly at, then very close to Long Feng's head. Long Feng managed to tilt his head aside as that bullet approached, but not quite enough – as there was too little time and not enough distance – to clear it completely, so it burned a red line along his cheek-bone under his left eye. He also spun into motion, slamming up with both fists as his footing solidified, causing a ripple to return toward Nila almost as fast as the bullet she'd fired. Aimed directly at her, and doubtless, large enough that even a small discrepancy in aim wouldn't amount to a miss. And Nila was in no position or condition to dodge.

Luckily, she didn't have to, as Jet pushed her bodily out of the way, and the impact took him in the chest instead of her. Jet was hurled back, rolling to a stop near the entrance of the chamber, and a black blade seemed to fly into Sokka's hand, as he roared a traitor's name. Katara, on the other hand, called out his victim's, and ran to the teenager's side, hands glowing.

"Deal with these anarchists!" Long Feng shouted, clutching his face, before turning and departing from the room.

The Dai Li began to drop, landing with grace and poise, before hurling stone fists and feet. The first wave of such was caught in a wall which Zha Yu pulled up into being. He cast it down on the Dai Li with a crash, even as Sokka was wading forward through the onslaught to get a bead on Long Feng himself. Sokka wasn't the most wrathful person in the world – possibly not even the most wrathful in the room – but he hated being played for a fool, almost as much as he hated watching those that he cared for getting hurt. And Aang, it was apparent, was hurt badly.

One fist caught him in the upper chest, spinning him around, but he used the momentum to sweep the leg from under a Dai Li so that he fell over a railing, before dropping a stomp onto the knee of that man so that it bent in the wrong direction. He ducked under a second, and slashed a third to dust. But every step he took saw the impacts leveled against him increasing a dozen fold. At first, it seemed it would just be a hard slog. But with dozens of yards left to traverse, it was proving patently impossible. Between the earthbent blocks and the gloves and the shoes and everything else, Sokka could barely keep his footing.

Salvation came, as it often enough did, in the form of a bison. Appa, either enraged that it was under attack, or else simply sickened that it was still under ground, bounced over the weary, battered men who were holding the Avatar, and landed in the midst of the Dai Li's grouping. With a slam of its heavy tail, half of that cluster was cast into the walls, if not hurled down a drain-pipe. Sokka was moving forward again.

An arrow snicked past him, but not in the direction he expected. It wasn't passing his face from the fore, but rather from his back. The target was clear, as a Dai Li spun and fell, his neck pierced through. Sokka could guess that was the Dragon of the East's work. The Mountain King was busy, trying to keep three of the Dai Li from overwhelming them outright; as it was, he had one in a headlock while his earthbending kept the others from helping the first. No, wait, _other_; one of the Dai Li who was circling Zha Yu fell to his knees as a shaft erupted from his thigh. The Dragon's handiwork.

Sokka twisted through the space, trying to cut a path to the exit on the other side. Black metal cut through stone, exploding it into dust. Through flesh, exploding it into thin shocks of blood and alarmed cries of pain as the Dai Li couldn't quite get out of his way. So far, he wagered none of it lethal. Yet. But the Dai Li were massing, and the going would only get harder.

"Do you think the beast can push through all of this rabble?" Nila shouted at him, as she closed her gun once more.

"We're going to find out in a second," Sokka shouted over his shoulder, and for his trouble, got a slash across the face from an obsidian glove. It wasn't nearly as painful as he'd expected it to be, but then again, he was quick, and wagered it didn't get him very deeply. Not true, but it calmed his mind for the twist and slash to get some ground. It was bizarre that the would-be hunter and would-be warrior found himself the tip of the spear which cut into the green flesh of the enemy. It was even more bizarre that the Dai Li gave him just as much concern and attention as anybody else. Didn't they know he was just a peasant from the South Water Tribe? Didn't they know he was just a romantically hopeless teenager with more intellect than sense?

Obviously not, as two Dai Li in unison launched attacks. He dusted one of them, but the other slammed him horribly in the shoulder, causing an explosion of pain as the joint was popped out of his socket, and he twisted, and fell. Only by the sword biting into the ground did he arrest himself from being flat on his face, and even then, it was to another explosion of pain as his weight was being supported by a dislocated shoulder. It was less than a second before another glove latched onto his neck, and began to squeeze.

And then, an explosion, and the squeezing reversed, crumbling away. Sokka felt himself being hauled up to his feet by his good arm. His first instinct when he saw a dark hand in blue pulling him up was to thank his sister, but the green eyed glare out against the foes was definitely not. "I owe you one, Nila," Sokka said.

"You owe me several. To repay them, you must not die," she countered, before ducking a brick and smashing her rifle-butt into the chest of a Dai Li, driving him off of his assault for a moment.

"We need a better plan!" Zha Yu said, as he smashed a Dai Li face into his knee.

And in Sokka's pain and confusion, the solution became obvious.

"Appa! Yip yip!" he shouted.

The ten tonne magical flying behemoth, which had been encroached into the passage in, let out a bellow and surged forward, bursting the aegis of Dai Li who were trying to contain it. With an almost savage roar, it landed just before Sokka, side on, and twisted further in its landing, slamming its broad tail to the ground. The blast of airbending sent the Dai Li before them scattering to the proverbial winds. Proverbial, only because they were currently under a lake, and thus lacked wind.

"I think we can move Jet," Katara shouted from her place at the back of the pack.

"Then we had best do so quickly," Nila said, pausing only to bite a new bullet. Less than half of the group could fight, and of that half, only a portion of it could now fight effectively. They were running out of time, even with a remarkably angry bison doing the brunt of the heavy lifting.

They were getting overwhelmed.

Then, there was another crash. This one sounded like metal on stone. Sokka had only just gotten his black sword settled into his other hand when a bulkhead came hurtling out of the exit path, leveling several of the Dai Li who were trying to be rear-guards. They broke back, trying to prepare for what siege engine had somehow infiltrated their secret facility, only to be presented with a small, pale, blind girl.

"Toph! You got in!" Katara exclaimed, even as she tried to manage to both drag Jet and flick whips at any Dai Li who got too close.

"And you won't believe how I did it," Toph said with a huge grin, which was a mistake, because it allowed no less than four Dai Li to send forth streaming prospector's chains, tipped with a devious manacle to each, which clamped around one of her proudly posed extremities. But when they heaved, it was not Toph who was cast off her feet. She turned and twirled, and the Dai Li found themselves yanked onto their chests. Toph swirled her hand around, gathering up all the chains and then with a move which almost looked like bending, she flicked it at one of the corners, sending all four spinning away. "Oops. Secret's out I guess."

"Enough of that. Get out before you're overwhelmed!" Zuko shouted, twisting his arms through a form as he stormed past the earthbender. As he did, lightning followed his splayed fingertips, which caused the Dai Li who were capable of seeing it not only a moment's pause, but a moment's panic. But only a moment's, because after that, he cast out both hands, fingers wide, and a net of exploding lightning seared through the room, raking along unfriendly bodies and stone alike. No beam was immense enough, to Sokka's estimation, to cause fatal damage, but the effect of saturating a room with lightning was pretty spectacular.

And most important, it opened a door. One that the group took without a moment's hesitation.

* * *

><p>Long Feng tapped a finger to a cheek, and winced as it came away red. Not because he had any particular vanity. No, the reason he dreaded having that mark upon him was that he'd need to find some way to explain it. And there weren't many excuses which would fly with this sort of injury. Bruises? Surely even a minister has a few stumbles. Broken bones? Sometimes those stumbles happen as one mounts a staircase. Stab wounds? An unfortunate mugging, and yes, the constabulary has been notified. But a gunshot? Considering the global rarity of the weapon, no excuse would do. Not with Dun.<p>

"You got out, Grand Secretariat?" Han asked, looking a little worse for wear as he quickly matched step with his master.

"The facility has been compromised. Remove the Joo Dees and stave the roof," Long Feng declared.

"But... sir, that facility is three generations old. It houses..."

"Ashes," Long Feng cut him off. "The Dragon of the East saw to that. The Dai Li have recovered from greater setbacks than this. It shall again."

"As you command, Grand Secretariat," Han said with a short bow. Long Feng glanced back to the shoreline, and was greeted by the sight he wanted least to see. A bison, with the dark dots of people clinging to its back and flank, paddling away up toward the night sky. No doubt, it would vanish into the Reaches, until the Avatar returned for his revenge.

"Find out where the Avatar is going. If he cannot be taken alive, then so be it," Long Feng added.

Han glanced back, his one eye filled with concern, but he didn't voice them, whatever they were. He nodded once more.

Long Feng continued walking, toward the Lake House and the tram which lead there. He had to regroup, and the oldest facility was currently still situated in the Zutara Ruins. It hadn't a fraction the innovations Lake Laogai had, but it would do. He had scarcely made it to the edge of the square when he saw somebody he didn't expect. Joo Dee, the definitive edition, running toward the Lake, heedless of whomever could see her. It was a strange thing indeed to see the older woman at a sprint. She glanced his direction, and slowed to a stagger, and then stopped entirely, hands upon knees, as she caught her breath. Long Feng came closer.

"What is the matter with you? Don't you know that this sort of behavior..." Long Feng began, but paused as he saw that she was drenched in sweat, and not all of it was, obviously, from her run. Her eyes bespoke terror.

"I don't know how," she said, between gasping for air, "but the Fire Lord is _here_!"

"WHAT?" Long Feng shouted.

"He's in the Earth King's Palace right now. I don't know how this is possible!" Joo Dee seemed flabbergasted.

Long Feng glared at her, then to the west, where the Impenetrable City lay. Well, apparently not as impenetrable as he would have hoped. "I will deal with this personally," Long Feng said. Dun was wrong. This place _would_ crumble if he took a day off.

* * *

><p>The mumbling was distracting. Kori glanced over to where two of them were sleeping, the larger wrapped 'round the smaller, in their back-alley hovel. He knew the sound of his perhaps-sister's nightmares. They were out in force tonight. She muttered something, under her breath. He wanted to call it gibberish, but some old and almost forgotten part of him half-recognized it. He couldn't say what it was but... And he wouldn't say it aloud, in the wakeful day, but...<p>

Yoji had just muttered something in Yqanuac.

With a great flinch, she jerked free of Omo's arms with a clipped yelp of "No!" which caused the beast of a man to rouse. She lay there, one of his arms still on her shoulder.

"Whuh? Something wrong, Yoj?" Omo asked, blearily.

"No. No, nothing is wrong," she said, and to her credit, she sounded it. But Kori could see the sweat which covered her face, even though it was only out of the corner of his eye. Somebody had to prepare for tomorrow, and of the lot of them, Kori – for all his constant accusation of laziness – needed the least sleep. At night, anyway. She needed rest to get back onto her game.

He didn't comment, as Yoji shifted back into Omo's beefy embrace, but she didn't go back to sleep for quite a while. Kori could imagine why.

That imagination bordered on treason.

* * *

><p><strong>Welp. The finale for 'season two' took about as long as I could have expected it to. Big chapter. Much shenanigans. Less lightning than I expected, and not from <em>who<em> I expected. But that's an issue for another day.**

**Iroh's repeated words to Zuko in Book 2 were "Destiny can be a funny thing," and while he's not here to repeat them as he usually would, not to Zuko at least, the sentiment continues as it should. Bear in mind, also, the 'tagline' for the season. A house divided against itself will not stand. There's a lot going on here, and very little of it is to the Gaang in general or Azula in particular's benefit.**

**I'm not going to lie, it gets a bit tricky juggling... everybody. There's certainly enough of them to work with. I'll be glad when Book Three is in its swing and I can trim down the storylines I need to follow again to just... three-ish. Simplicity is a trademark of good writers, as it forms a momentum all its own despite its lack of elegance or complication. So let's see where this goes, now that everything is absolutely flying to hell and there's no chance of Season Three happening as listed because they can't even land on the Eastern Shores.**

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><p><em>Leave a review.<em>


	37. The Spirit World

Speed was an integral part of being an effective minister of the Cultural Authority. The ability to move swiftly when needed was invaluable. Usually, it meant being able to masterfully manipulate the bureaucracy. But just as validly, it could mean being able to be where one is needed when one is needed. Long Feng had already failed that.

How? That was the thought which kept bouncing throughout his thoughts as he hurried with almost undignified haste toward the innermost sanctums of the Earth King's palace. How had the Fire Lord made it here? How had he gotten an audience with the insipid child without raising a fuss, let alone an alarm? His legs were burning, from all the near-running he'd found himself doing, his arms burned from the furious bending which almost derailed a monorail in places to get him back into the heart of the city from its outer reaches with haste. He was exhausted. But his mind was a-whirl.

There had to be some trick. Had the Fire Lord been so brazen, so suicidally confident as to brave the Spirit Roads? Unlikely. Doubly so, since Long Feng was fairly sure that those like the Fire Lord couldn't walk them if he'd wanted to. Only shamans, or the Avatar, could. A fine thing that that one became leader rather than his brother. Had Prince Iroh ascended, he likely would have been popping in for tea on a weekly basis. Long Feng paused, before the doors of King Kuei's sitting room, smoothing out the disheveled rumples in his robes, soothing back the hair. He pulled a small mirror from a pocket, and gently prodded at the burning wound on his face. Joo Dee's art in makeup had hidden it, but it stung furiously. He took his breath, and then, pushed open the doors.

Kuei, the fifty second Earth King of Ba Sing Se, looked up as Long Feng strode through the doors. Kuei was a small man, narrow shouldered and narrow jawed. His eyes were small and wide-set, and his entire visage screamed weakness and undeserved prestige. It wasn't just that Long Feng had spent his entire twenty year career resenting that worthless brat, from the spectacles on his nose to the curled tips of his slippers. It was that Kuei was the very thing which the Dai Li were created to oppose. A stupid, worthless ruler, who would oversee chaos and adversity, be challenged by anybody with right mind or right ideas. If that meant burying the man in paperwork such that the world never saw him, then it was a feat Long Feng was more than willing to do for the sake of order and prosperity.

The other in the room, sitting comfortably in bright reds and rich blacks, was Kuei's polar opposite. Despite the lack of gold or fine jewels the likes of which adorned the smaller man, one could never mistake that this one was a ruler of men and women. A person of power. That was the greatest differenc between them. Not the golden eyes to green, the long tail of beard to clean-shavenness. It was that Fire Lord Ozai was powerful, where Kuei was weak.

"Ah, Minister Long Feng. You must meet my guest," Kuei said brightly, ignorantly. He waved his cup effetely toward the enemy. "I am told that Fire Lord Azulon has chosen Ozai, his second born, as his heir. Isn't that quite unusual?"

"The Fire Lord has always been a... meritocracy. We earn what we have," Ozai said, sipping of his tea. Oh, but if Long Feng could have had access to that tea-pot for just ten seconds before they started to drink of it. Then there would be two poisoned corpses, and a new idiot child on the throne. Which, in retrospect, didn't solve any of Long Feng's problems. But the thinking of it did make him feel just a little bit better.

"We were not prepared to accept visitors or guests," Long Feng said in neutral tone. "Especially not at this late an hour."

"Don't be rude to our foreign visitor," Kuei admonished. "He's traveled an incredibly far way just to be here. Tell me, is it true what they say about your capitol city?"

"That it was built inside a tamed volcano? Yes, that is true," Ozai said, but his eyes remained on Long Feng. "I suppose there's much that I could tell you about my homeland, if I had the time."

How? That question still demanded of Long Feng's cognition. How had he reached the Earth King without the Dai Li stopping him? Where were the guards? Where were Long Feng's agents? There was supposed to be somebody baby-sitting this fool at every minute of the day!

"Forgive my impertinence, but the Earth King will be retiring shortly. The hour is late, and he has many tasks he will be required to attend to in the morning," Long Feng said.

"I do?" Kuei asked.

"Yes, my King. You do," Long Feng said with only the slightest hint of annoyance. He turned his attention back to Ozai. "If you desire, we can arrange a further meeting when the Earth King's schedule allows."

"I think I'm able to keep talking for a while," Kuei said.

"My King, you know that your duties can be taxing. It is better to be prepared and rested for them," Long Feng said sternly. Kuei paused, glancing between the foreign leader and his minister, then he sighed.

"I suppose I should heed the council of my advisors," he said, as though long-suffering. Kuei hadn't learned the _first thing_ about suffering. "But it has been a fascinating interlude. Do you think we can speak further when I have an appropriate time?"

"Of course," Ozai said. His eyes turned to Long Feng, a significant look in them. "It's not like there's a war going on, after all."

Kuei let out a laugh at that. "How droll! Everybody knows that there hasn't been a war in the East Continent in generations!" Almost hidden behind the tea-cup, Ozai was smirking. Watching Long Feng. Ozai gave the young fool a nod, as the man departed through doors leading toward the back of the room. It wasn't until they were closed and latched that Long Feng stepped closer to the Fire Lord.

"You must either be insanely brave, or insanely stupid to sit there," Long Feng whispered.

"I prefer confident in the capabilities of my agents," Ozai said, setting down the tea-cup. "After all, they've proven infinitely more effective than your rabble."

"I cannot help but wonder what you hope to gain here, Fire Lord. At a word, I could have you thrown in shackles into the Zutara Ruins. The World War would end by daybreak."

"But will you?" Ozai asked. He leaned forward, smirking still, rubbing the white gloved hands together. "Because if it were to become known that there was a war, even one you 'ended', it might... unbalance... the delicate system you've got running in this city. I know what you want. The war ending doesn't give it to you."

"You know nothing of me," Long Feng said.

"I could surprise you," Ozai said, rising to his feet. He looked Long Feng up and down. "You are peasant born. You rose from nothing. You had to scratch and scrabble for everything you ever had. That ruthlessness has informed every decision you've ever made. You fear the dark not _because_ it is dark, but because of what others can do in it. You want control, and you are willing to sell anything, even your very soul, to have it. Your very existence is a small man railing against fate, and demanding more than is his place."

Long Feng glared. "An interesting fiction."

"Not fiction, I think," Ozai started to circle him. "I don't denigrate you for rising from the dirt. It shows a spirit most becoming to a firebender. Were you a child of the West, you could have gotten far. Much farther than here. But you happened not to be. Instead, you are here, saddled with a hopeless task, under a worthless leader. You lack the divine right of rulership, simply because you chanced not to be born to the right sire and mother. You chafe, because you know that, were you in that boy's place, you could be _so much more_."

"And what of you?" Long Feng asked, still watching him. "The second-born son of a drastically unpopular Fire Lord. The son of The Monster. I had heard that it would take a particular kind of man to accrue greater infamy than that of Azulon, but somehow, in only six years, you've managed to do it. A crushingly Pyrrhic victory against the North, against a people a fraction of your population, which took years and lives untold."

As Long Feng continued, Ozai's confident mockery dropped away into obvious restrained anger. "You know not of what you speak."

"The 'Victory at Summavut' is a term of mockery," Long Feng pressed on. "Something earned long after it was wanted, for far more than its cost. As I understand, your soldiers at the wall when they besieged Ba Sing Se under your brother were eager to the point of impetuousness to fight. I wonder how they stand now? Are they still steady, or does their will buckle?"

"My brother was a fool and a coward," Ozai said.

"And somehow, he managed to almost breach the Inner Walls. You, on the other hand, have never gotten a soldier beyond the Outer," Long Feng pointed out. Smoke began to drift up from Ozai's gloves. Long Feng kept his stance loose and ready, just in case he'd have to actually fight the man. He didn't like his chances, but he would take them as needed. "Your economy flounders, and I have no doubt that your approval is scarcely better than your Father's had been. Which makes me wonder what level of desperation sees you here."

"I am not desperate," Ozai said forcefully, the leather of his gloves creaking even as they smoldered. There was a moment, his head twitching minutely to one side. Then, a slow smile began to spread once more. "I am a paragon of calm and clarity. And honestly, I think we have much to offer each other."

"What do you mean?" Long Feng asked, confused.

That smile became a dark, venomous grin. "I thought you'd never ask..."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 17<strong>

**The Spirit World**

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><p>"What is wrong with the Avatar?" Hakoda asked instantly, as Katara let him slide down from where they'd been holding him manually on the beast's back. After all, they'd had neither time nor opportunity to recover Appa's saddle, and thus had to flee without. It was just a miracle that Appa had made it as far as it did, considering the sheer mass of people upon its back.<p>

"I don't know, Dad," Katara said, worry clear on her face. "I mean, I used my healing, and as far as I can tell, he's fine. I mean, there's nothing physically wrong with him, but he won't wake up!"

"That might be due to the Dai Li's chemicals," the ragged voice of the Dragon of the East noted. Sokka turned toward her. She and her daughter both had been icily silent during the flight, which was remarkable since he was fairly sure that neither of them had ridden on a bison before, and he knew from experience that it tended to be an exhilarating experience. After all, both Zha Yu and Bato both hollered with the best of them as they screamed across the terrain. "They would have taken no chances in keeping the Avatar secure. He is likely very deeply sedated."

"That is not so," her daughter interjected. "Were he simply sedated, the smelling salts would have aroused him."

"What do you know about comas, girl?" the woman asked.

"As much as you, if not more," Nila declared, staring her mother in the eye. The only reason their glares weren't identical was because Nila's once-wounded eye was still, at the moment, a discolored moldy-blue. "Did you really assume me so idle as to not know a drugged man from a comatose on?"

"This isn't helping the Avatar," Zha Yu interrupted, standing between the mother and daughter. He pointed to Hakoda. "You are sure you weren't followed?"

Hakoda leveled a look of wan derision toward Zha Yu, clearly a little bit insulted by the implication. "I'm a South Water Tribesman," he answered. The clearing that they were hiding in was a lightning-struck dead-spot in the midst of a bamboo cultivation. The tall, over-sturdy 'grass' which flanked them in every direction was likely culled regularly for building materials amongst the poor and non-bending. It was still cold, and quite dark, as the moon was hidden from view by the 'canopy' the bamboo imparted. "So if the Avatar isn't injured, why would he be in a coma?"

Sokka rubbed his chin. As he did, the black-and-white lemur whom had been much neglected of late flapped down into the clearing and began to tug and pick at Aang's insensate form, only breaking off when it was pounced upon by a saber-toothed moose-lion cub. There was something out of place about all of this. Aang was in trouble. When Aang got in trouble, he tended to go all Glowing Badass. So why hadn't he?

"Can somebody light a lantern?" Sokka asked. Zuko provided the next best thing, but just igniting a ball of fire over his hand. "Good enough," Sokka said. He leaned down, and actually gave Aang an inspection, not with waterbender healing, not with 'shiatsu' or anything else. He just looked at the kid. His clothes looked rumpled and torn. He had fading bruises from his capture. But there was something which caught Sokka's attention. He pulled Aang's kavi away from his neck, showing a narrow band which encircled his neck. "What is this?"

"It looks like a choker," Zuko said.

"Obviously," Katara replied with dry sarcasm.

"Katara, you're not being helpful," Hakoda said sternly. He leaned closer as well, running a finger along it. It seemed to be perfectly sized so that it just barely dug into Aang's neck, giving him room enough to breathe, to swallow with discomfort, but no more than that. "This thing... doesn't seem natural. Zha Yu, have you seen something like this before?"

"Yes," the man said. "It's a Death Ring."

"What!" Katara shouted.

"It's not as grim as it sounds, but not by much," Zha Yu said. He turned to the eldest woman amongst them. "You could tell the tale better than I could."

"Llewenydd is dead. Let him lie," Sativa shook her head.

"This is important. Tell them," Zha Yu said.

"Very well. The Death Ring is a device which if locked on a shaman's body contains their spirit inside its mortal shell. As long as it remains on the shaman's neck, the shaman can not speak to spirits, nor affect the spirit world in any way. They are trapped, muted, and neutered," Sativa said. "It was a device made out of fear to control what people did not understand, one the victim may never remove from himself."

"When we first met a friend, one we lost some time ago, he was hanging from his ankles from a rafter, one of these things on his neck," Piandao added.

"If it contained the Avatar inside his body, he ought be conscious," Nila pointed out.

"Unless..." Sokka said. "Sharif? Where's Sharif?"

"Oh no," Nila seemed to go a bit pale, until the scarred youth wandered into the clearing from the outer bamboos. Nila let out a sigh of relief. "You could well set me into a fit, the way you often vanish!"

"What is going on? Why is the Avatar not here?" Sharif asked.

"He is right before you boy. Shake your head and clear your eyes," Sativa said.

"I think Sharif's got it right," Sokka said. "Sharif, is the Avatar here?"

"No. No he isn't," Sharif said, his gaze locked somewhere in the distance.

"But his body _is_, right?"

"...his flesh is there. But he is not there. The he is not... _there,_" Sharif shook his head, rubbing his scar as though he couldn't figure out how to explain himself better. Luckily, Sokka had a good idea what he meant.

"Aang isn't in his body," Sokka said. "When they snapped this puppy onto him, he was probably half way into the Avatar State, so he wasn't... you know... local. But if we pull this thing off, like so..." Sokka somewhat harshly tore the device from the young Avatar's neck. It came loose with a pop of its delicate locking mechanism being burst. And when it came off... nothing happened.

Glances were exchanged all around.

"I expected something more dramatic," Hakoda pointed out. And Sokka braced himself again for something to happen, since the universe had impeccable comedic timing. But still, nothing came.

"So we have rescued a vegetable?" Nila asked.

"Give some respect to the Avatar, girl!" her mother said harshly.

"I give him all the respect he requires of me, which is for the moment none," Nila told her.

"There's something I'm missing," Sokka scratched at his head. He knew that as much as the universe liked messing with him, he knew that it was the kind of thing which could be understood. There was a reason he was a believer in rationality and science, amongst other things; it was because they _made sense_. They could be _predicted_. They could be _explained_. And if there was something which he didn't know how to explain, it meant that there was a part of the equation he hadn't figured out, hadn't identified quite yet.

"Sokka, what if he never wakes up?" Katara asked, her eyes flicking around the clearing, clear even in the dim light.

"...Then we press on without him," Zuko said. "It's not the best solution, it's the only one."

"How could you be so heartless? He's our only hope!"

"I'm not being heartless. I'm being sensible. At any point in this little journey of yours, the Avatar could have died. What would you have done if he had? Gone home? Said 'so much for the world, we did our best, but the Avatar's gone so we give up'?" Zuko asked. He shook his head sharply. "No. You keep going. You keep fighting. Because that's what needs to be done. Ozai needs to fall. This war needs to end. And if the Avatar," he thrust a finger toward the supine youth, "can't be the one to do it, then somebody else will just have to!"

"There has to be another way," Katara said.

"Then_ find it_," Zuko said. "If there's a way to wake up the Avatar, do it. But don't spend the rest of your life hoping. Either do something or move on."

"That sounds like a rather grimmer form of advice an old friend once gave me," Zha Yu said.

"Then your friend and Uncle have the same taste in advice-giving," Zuko muttered.

"I... think I can find him," Sharif said.

"What?" Katara asked.

"The Avatar. I think that I can find him. But I will need to go away. To the Spirit World. I need to find the Avatar to find the Avatar," he said.

"What are you talking about?" Zha Yu asked.

"Korra? You're going to ask Korra to find Aang?" Katara asked the shaman.

"Who is Avatar Korra?" Sativa asked.

"She's the Avatar that comes after Aang," Sokka explained.

"...you must mean 'before' Aang, and that was Roku," Zha Yu said.

"No, after," Sokka agreed. "Which is annoying because she won't tell me if I become rich or famous in my old age."

The elders all shared glances amongst themselves, Hakoda excluded. "That isn't possible," Zha Yu finally said.

"That's what _I_ said," Sokka said.

"It violates several laws of physics," Nila added.

"I said that, too!" Sokka continued. "And yet, as far as we can tell, she's legit."

"How? How can it be that the next Avatar can appear before this one? It makes no sense!" the Dragon of the East asked.

Sharif, though, had settled himself down onto the ground before the senseless form of the Avatar, and crossed his legs. His eyes slid shut, and his distant, wistful expression faded into grim concentration. A hand reached aside, and he then rubbed against his brow. After he did that, Sokka was sure that he could see, just the slightest shade against the darkness, that his scar was a bit brighter than the skin around it.

"I suppose it's all moot at this point. It's Sharif's journey, now," Sokka said. He patted the simple shaman on his shoulder. "Good luck, and good hunting. We need him."

* * *

><p>The pat of bare, ragged feet against stone was accompanied by the bare, ragged sound of her breathing. Even as she was approaching, the beasts, the prey, had all abandoned the ground and now circled above, bellowing and bleating down at her. The bison knew that she was a threat, that she would devour them whole if given the slightest sliver of a chance. The hunger was more than enough, after all. She could have devoured the world, would only her jaws open wide enough.<p>

Feet moved, shufflingly, along the ruined stones of a ruined path. It spiraled upward, a mound at its center where once a tower vaulted into the heavens. Of all of the temples of the Air Nomads, the East had been struck by far the worst. Not simply broken down and invaded, it was subsequently blasted into rubble, such that only a fraction of its infrastructure remained. Whether done as an insult to the people who once called it home, or because they feared that there might have been some defensive device hidden in the depths was lost to history, and the minds of the soldiers involved. Malu had been here, once, and a long time ago. This was where the Day of Fire found her.

This was where her people died.

The pustule of acrid blood wasn't welling up as it had in the Divide. She didn't know why. She didn't even have the energy to think that it might be something worth considering. All that went through her battered, weary mind was that the hunger was every bit as great as it was before, and the agony which went with it was as appropriately vast. But there was enough left of her, after a fashion, to have the slightest sense of relief. To be home. To be in a place where she was once happy.

It wasn't much.

It was all she had.

She continued to ascend that mound, her feet dragging along the flat flags of stone, spiraling up as her path took her around its edge. To the west, she could see the mountains where she had hidden for years. Where the hunger began. When she moved to face south, she could almost see, with her impossible vision, the edges of the South Pole, and the Island of Da-Aer, where she was born. Lots of children were born on Da-Aer. Now, only two were left of an entire generation. Herself, now a slave to this insatiable hunger, and Aang, the lazy layabout who somehow was now several years younger than her, rather than a day older. Oh, and apparently he was the Avatar.

Her life was a mockery of reason.

She continued the spiral, moving up in pain. The hunger demanded food, and she knew that it wouldn't be too long before it puppeted her form to lash out at the bison overhead. That was a level she had not yet sunk to. But she likely would today, whether she wanted to or not. East, and the wild coast of Azul past the storms of the Sea, became the North, and Summavut. Only, it didn't look like she'd expected. Too black. Too metal. Too... Fire Nation. She let the thought fade from her mind. There wasn't room for it. Just hunger.

She reached the top of the mound, and she could feel the terrible grinding inside her guts screaming at her. Eat. Eat now. She swung her head upward, but as she did so, it slid past a slender man who was kneeling calmly in the center of the mound. He was old. His skin was dark and weathered by the elements. While bald, he had a great beard which hung to his belt, white as snow on the mountaintops as it nearly concealed that he was wearing only a loincloth. He looked frail, ancient, and slow.

He looked like food.

The hunger was calling the shots, as Malu's back arched forward, her center of balance lowering, her lips peeling back, her eyes bulging in their sockets. Her hands formed grisly claws, already twitching at the opportunity to rend flesh from bone. To eat. To fight down this horrible hunger. Anything to ease the hunger. With a howl, her legs projected her toward the old man, her next meal, and the aversion to cannibalism was completely gone from her battered, broken psyche. She just wanted the pain to stop.

And it did in the most unusual way.

As her pounce brought her close, the old man spun up and out of her path, eyes still closed and face still placid. As she zoomed past him, though, stiff fingers zipped out and jabbed her in the shoulder, the hip, and the thigh. She landed, and spun to bound again, but when she tried, her body didn't obey her. Not entirely. She instead managed to fall over herself. And when she tried to right her body, to launch into a fresh attack, she found that her right arm and leg were completely numb and powerless. So she powered off of her other leg instead. This time, spinning like a leaf in a whorl of wind, the man slipped under her attack and jabbed stiff fingertips into her neck, solar-plexus, navel, and the inside of her elbow in lightning succession.

She landed chin-first on the stone of the mound, but it didn't hurt, even though it split her face open from the impact. The grim black threads began tugging her skin closed, but she didn't feel agony. She didn't feel anything. She was completely benumbed. She would have wept in joy at the sudden absence of agony, if she even had the mastery of herself remaining to weep. Her vision swam, and then faded into grey, as old, weathered fingers carefully manipulated the skin near her hairline, and her entire body fell still but for the slow shift of her breathing.

The guru looked down upon the battered form of the girl, wearing only the barest tatters of an Air Nomad nun's robes. He shook his head slowly, sadly, grey eyes soft upon her. "Oh, what has befallen this poor and wayward daughter?" the guru asked the universe. And the universe answered him as it always did, in silence and introspection.

* * *

><p>In a very cardinal way, the sense of where an Avatar was existed inside Sharif for his entire life. It was more that he was so sensitive to the process of spirits, the way that they behaved, that he knew instantly when the great tide which was the Avatar was forcing his way amongst them. For many years, that great tidal pull was in one spot, far to the south. Then, it started moving around, and he followed it that way.<p>

Now, there were two of them.

He knew this place. It was a place which he'd visited many, many times throughout his life. The dangers to the Moorage were relatively plentiful, but when the blowouts came, it was a place of relative safety. If nothing else, the Wheelhouse offered lots of room, and adequate protection. His path, seeking that high-point in the tide of spiritual energy, brought him here, as he ran headlong along the flowing waters which now connected all of these places in the Spirit World. The flow was far stronger now than it had ever been before. Even as he stood, he could feel the water insistently tugging at his ankles, burbling over the rocks where once it stood clear and reflective as glass. Almost like... there was more power to the flow, now. Or... more water, perhaps?

He shook his head. He wasn't seeing enough of the picture to make sense of it, yet. Even with his mind augmented, there was simply too much left unknown. He turned his attentions up. The rise from the low waters of the Moorage to the great behemoth which gave this realm its moniker was quite steep indeed, and Sharif had to scramble up without dignity to ascend it. Great and barren forms twisted up toward the skies, almost like dead roots trying to imitate trees. But the greatest and singular feature, was the ship itself.

It looked like a Fire Nation vessel, if one knew the layout of such a craft. Its hull was all sheets of dull, grey metal, its prow a sharp point, and a wheelhouse not far back of it. But unlike any seaworthy Fire Nation vessel, it looked more like a half-formed idea of a ship than a real one. Somebody's half-considered fancy put to metal and held in place by... not rivets, that much was obvious. In fact, Sharif could see no reason why the plates of metal which clumsily outlined the 'vessel' – which was also of completely the wrong dimensions to have any sort of sea handiness – even stayed attached as he walked over them. The whole craft was crashed into the stone of the hills, rubble spilling onto its deck. The rubble was lit with blue light.

"There you are," Sharif said, looking through his fingers before his eyes as he approached the glowing form which hovered just above the deck of that almost-ship. She hadn't changed her appearance from the last time that he'd seen her, but since he could barely remember their last meeting, it was as well a new meeting. She was middle aged, from the look of her, and powerfully built for a woman regardless, glowing a semi-transparent blue in form and fashion. Dressed in what looked like futuristic versions of Water Tribe attire, she had her eyes closed, her legs crossed, and her fists pressed together. Sharif could remember little of their last conversation, true, but he could remember one thing above all else; she was a violation in what should be.

Sharif clambered over the side of the ship, dropping down with a clang against the deck. He walked up to her, and she remained oblivious to him. He cleared his throat, and she remained oblivious.

"This is wasting time," Sharif muttered. "Avatar Korra! Bear me attention!"

Glowing eyes opened, before the glow parted until spectral blue eyes took their place. One could be forgiven for thinking that Sharif and Korra looked much alike. The differences between a dead Avatar and a projected shaman were, to a point, mostly academic, after all. "Oh, there you are. I was wondering if you'd show up again."

"Have you been seeking me?" Sharif asked.

"Not particularly, but better than nothing, I guess," she uncurled from her position, now 'standing' on the deck below her. "I got into contact with some of the spirits I met when I was younger. Turns out, you aren't the only one who doesn't think I should be here. They did admit they knew me, though. Who's breaking causality now?" she asked the moon, which for some reason Sharif never uncovered had a staring eye on its surface. That eye-moon didn't answer the dead would-become-Avatar.

Sharif shook his head. When time-travel appeared, tenses became an obvious problem.

"You have been having fun, I notice," Sharif said dryly. "That is all well and good, but for now, we have a much more important task."

"Really? You're going to lower yourself to work with an 'abomination against the natural order'?" Korra asked sarcastically.

"I assume that I referred to you such last we met?" Sharif asked.

"Pretty much."

"Fitting, because you are," Sharif said. "But I need such as you to my ends."

"And those ends would be?" Korra asked, a smug look on her face.

"I must find what has become of Avatar Aang's mind, before his body withers away and dies," Sharif said. That caused Korra's smugness to vanish in a quite pleasing manner.

"Aang's dying?"

"I have not told the others. Unless his spirit finds its way back to his body, the body will perish, and fairly soon," Sharif said. The last was an exaggeration, as Aang had days before the damage to the connection from his body to his soul became dangerous, but anything which spurred this troublesome woman faster would doubtless be a boon.

"Then we better haul ass!" Korra said, and took one step. Then, she paused, looked down, and frowned in confusion. "Wait a second. Where the heck am I?"

"Did you not come to the Moorage on your own?" Sharif asked.

"...what's a Moorage?" she asked. She then looked around. "And what the heck happened to the Spirit World while I was resting?"

"That is a tale which would take longer to tell than the current Avatar has to live," Sharif said. "You will learn what is needed as it is needed, I can promise you that. But for now, we need to have haste. Reality itself hangs in a delicate balance."

"Always does when the Avatar's involved," Korra said easily, and started to follow after him, as he vaulted over the side of the ship and made his way back up against the current of the river.

* * *

><p>He let the crunching of dry bamboo announce him, since he wasn't sure whether he trusted his voice at the moment. This was the sort of thing he usually left to Katara, but since she was busy trying to de-liquify Jet's ribs – and the flight had been understandably harrowing for the poor bugger considering his injury – now that she had time for more than a passing fix. The one back here, though, was not suffering from anything that waterbending could fix. No broken limbs, no torn flesh. But it was easy to tell, even for somebody as famously oblivious as Sokka, that Nila was a wounded young woman.<p>

Her total reaction to his approach was turning a glance in his direction, before she returned to simply sitting, her half-complete rifle across her knees, and a blank expression on her face. "Came to check up, see if you were alright," Sokka offered.

"Others need more attention than I," Nila said.

"May be true, but that's not what I'm interested in," Sokka said. He sat down opposite her, trying to get a gauge of her. She looked... exhausted. Weary. Beaten. "So how about you stop trying to be tougher than your mother, and tell me if you're _really_ alright?"

"What do you know of my mother?" Nila asked, probably rhetorically.

"Not much," Sokka said. "How about you enlighten me?"

"She is... frustration incarnate. Nothing I do is good enough for her. I find Sharif, having had to traverse the whole of the continent to do so. I bring her home, to find home destroyed. I then track down Mother, and free her from bondage. Well, she freed herself, but her exodus was by my influence," she shook her head. "But is it enough for a word of praise? No. Not from she."

"Some people are just... mean," Sokka said. Nila turned a flat glare toward him.

"That is the sum of your observations? Some people are rude and unpleasant? I could have told as much, using myself as example," she shook her head slowly. "I thought... that this would have ended some other way. That she would appreciate me more."

"I think she does," Sokka said. "She's just terrible at showing it."

"How terrible could one be? _I_ am terrible," Nila pointed out.

"Actually, you're rude but I've had worse. I've _deserved_ worse," he amended. "You know that you're not all bad, because otherwise you'd never have any friends."

"Who says that I do?" Nila asked.

"The firebender," Sokka said. "Tzu Zi, you said her name was? She's your friend. Malu, even though she went crazy and tried to eat Aang. Friend. And you know what? Me and Katara, too. You've got friends. More than you'd think."

Nila gave a mild scoff, and then her gaze drifted down to her weapon.

"...but that's not all that's bothering you, is it?"

She shook her head. Left, right, stop. Sokka turned, looking back into the heart of the clearing, where the others had gathered against the night, not even lighting a fire for fear of the bamboo catching alight, and creating a beacon for the Dai Li to find. And there was one person who was conspicuously absent from that gathering. "This is about Ashan, isn't it?"

She gave another dry chuckle. "You have the eyes of a thief, and the canny as well," she said.

"I'll take that as a compliment. What happened to him?" Sokka asked.

"He has been slain," she said simply, quietly.

"Really?" Sokka said, a sinking feeling dropping into his gut. That was a shame. Ashan always seemed like a nice guy. And had a decent sense of humor. "How did it happen? I mean, if you don't mind my asking."

She glanced up at him, then down to her weapon once more. "We were ambushed, in an eatery not far from Lake Laogai. That much you know. I was hurt badly in the flight from it. Ashan... he bore me all the way to the Middle Ring, despite his own grievous hurts. When the Dai Li closed on us, he hid me, and drew them away. When I woke up, he was long gone. But I know... I know from the wounds he had that he would not have lasted long. They have no waterbender-healers. He was... doomed."

"That's awful," Sokka said, shaking his head slowly.

"And the worst part? The last words I actually recall him saying? That he loved me," Her eyes pressed shut. "Loved _me_! He was a fool! He should have... should have..."

"It sounds like he just might have," Sokka said. "And I know what it's like to lose somebody you love."

"No, you don't," Nila said, her usual sharpness dulled. "The minx you pine for is only married to another man. You need only seduce her away. Ashan is dead. Likely, the only one who was so masochistic to bear such sentiment for me died with him."

"Oh, you're not that bad," Sokka said, lapsing into humor even though his brain told him this wasn't the right time. "I mean, how many guys would love to have a chick who can... blow up his house... yeah, I kinda lost my train of thought on that one."

"You see my problem? I am a destructive presence. Where I walk, death follows."

"Death follows everybody," Sokka waved the notion away. "The trick is to make it have to wait to get you."

She stared down for a while longer. "I don't understand how people deal with this."

"Losing friends?"

She nodded.

"It's never easy," Sokka said. "It hurts, and the pain seems like it won't ever go away. That's when it's important to remember that you're not alone. You're never alone, Nila. We've got your back."

"So you claim."

Sokka looked back at the clearing, where the shaman and the Avatar were claiming most of the attention of the group. "Tell you what," Sokka offered. "How about you come with us when we go to kick the Fire Lord's butt?"

"Excuse me?" Nila asked, the first expression which wasn't abject grief coming to her face since they'd landed.

"I know you heard me. Your mother can't respect you? Hell with her! Join Team Avatar and see the world, in the process of saving it!"

"That is the sorriest offer I have ever heard," Nila said flatly, but with a smirk on her face.

"Yeah, well, we don't exactly go around recruiting people at random. Usually, they come to us with the whole 'let's go save the world' thing," Sokka rubbed the back of his neck.

"That much is obvious, for I would not be the one million and first in a million-man army being levied against a blind fishwife for such a spiel," Nila pointed out.

"You'd better be careful of those blind fishwives. They can surprise you," Sokka said.

"How?"

"Ancient blind-fishwife secret. Sadly, I'm not privy to them," Sokka said with a roll of his eyes.

She stared at him for a moment. "You are a strange beast, Tribesman."

"Sokka."

"Whatever," she said. Sokka rose to his feet, and turned toward where the others were still waiting for the dawn. "Wait."

"What?" Sokka asked.

She didn't look up at him. "Stay," she said quietly. "For a while."

Sokka nodded. "Of course. Wouldn't dream of anything but."

Nila snorted. "Liar," and then, the two sat in the quiet of the night.

* * *

><p>"It's a remarkably simple thing, the politics of nations, when you get right down to it," Ozai said smoothly, as he started to pace up and down the room before Ba Sing Se's true master. If there was nothing in the world else that Ozai could be thankful of his daughter for, it was the intelligence which forewarned him about the Grand Secretariat. "You could rule them with money, tell them that if they side with you, you'll back them when the night grows dark. You could rule them with fear, whispers around every corner, and the ever-present dread of death or worse keeping the lower orders in line. But those take too much effort. Money runs out. Fear becomes numb."<p>

"You would be surprised how afraid people can be," the shrewd Easterner said dryly.

Ozai's smile tilted up a bit, and as he began to make his next point, he heard a voice interrupting him. "You do realize that he's smarter than you," Azula opined. "He'll wring you out with a plan as stupid as yours."

Ozai took a moment to clear his throat, so that he wouldn't shout her down. This wasn't the time for this nonsense. "Me? I rule with power. Keep the lower classes hungry for more, and dangle just enough that they will constantly war against themselves to attain it. If you do it right, you don't sacrifice much. And that's what this war is, between your nation and mine. A pointless sacrifice."

"Like all of the soldiers you threw away in Summavut?" Azula chided. She gave an expression of mock surprise. "Well, I'll be. The fool can actually learn from his own mistakes. Dress me blue and call me a waterbender."

The Grand Secretariat tilted his head slightly, pondering. "You cannot mean what I think you mean."

"Why can I not?" Ozai asked. "I've learned the value of certain things in my tenure as the Fire Lord. My father thought that Ba Sing Se would be his crown jewel. I'm not so avaricious..."

"...you could have fooled me," Azula said, inspecting her nails.

"...nor so foolish."

"Again, you could have fooled me."

Ozai's eye flicked toward her, just a tiniest glare of warning to the phantasm, before turning his attention back to where it belonged. He didn't notice, though, that the Grand Secretariat had noted his distraction, and filed it away. "What is there to be gained by more ruthless and pointless fighting, when we both know how this is going to end; armies at the gates, fire in the sky, and earth crashing down."

"That can be taken in several ways," Long Feng noted.

"So why not preempt the whole business? A simple agreement, between leaders of men," Ozai said. "You abstain from any military action in the East Continent, as you have for the last few decades, and in exchange, your city will remain in your capable hands."

"As a viceroy of the Fire Nation?" Long Feng asked. "Unacceptable."

"I told you he wouldn't go for it. Long Feng isn't a sycophantic toady, like the rest of your court is," Azula taunted. "He knows that once he opens those gates, he won't be able to close them again."

"You read too much into this," Ozai said, his first words slightly more forceful than he'd wanted them, as he interrupted his daughter. He forced the smile back onto his face, and changed his tactic. "Non aggression. Non interference. Keep your city however you see fit. I just want the East."

"You expect me to sell a continent to preserve one city?" Long Feng asked.

"We both know that's a rhetorical question," Ozai said with a note of snideness. "And we both know the answer is yes."

"You are... surprisingly well informed, then," Long Feng said. "But I still feel this is somewhat one-sided. You expect me to give you everything in exchange for nothing. That is not how bartering works. Especially when I have _her_ as my private guest," Long Feng rubbed at his mustaches, letting the implication sink in. Ozai paused a moment. Who? Who would Long Feng possibly have that he thought he could leverage Ozai with?

"Who do you think?" Azula asked sourly. "Some father you are. Throw me out of my home and cast me into the dungeon of your worst enemies."

For some reason, that thought felt very sour in Ozai's stomach. But no more sour than what he said next. "I don't care about your guest, whomever she may be. Hang her in an oubliette for all I care. You will take the offer as it stands now, or else suffer the consequences in the future. I cannot guarantee, for example, that your walls will remain as secure tomorrow as they are today."

"You would sell her so swiftly?" Long Feng asked quietly.

"You are a terrible excuse for a human being," Azula snapped. Shut up, Ozai thought, as loud as he could. Shut up, you weakling girl! Why couldn't you have been stronger?

"Make your choice, Long Feng," Ozai said. "Peace or war? Safety or chaos?"

Long Feng stared green fire at him, but Ozai let it wash over him. "Very well. An armistice, then."

"So good to see that diplomacy can prevail in these trying times," Ozai said with sarcasm, and a smirk on his face.

"Your own child..." Azula shook her head, disappointment clear on her face.

"I presume that you will want this kept quiet," Long Feng said with obvious distaste. "When will you call your soldiers back from my walls?"

"Soon enough," Ozai said. "A week, ten days at the most. Things have to look convincing. There's an image which needs to be maintained."

"Pity the image is as hollow as your soul," Azula muttered. Ozai's eye twitched, but he managed to prevent himself from lashing out and screaming at her. She didn't know the first thing about politics, or the things he'd had to do to keep the Fire Nation whole since Father died. Her sickness tore the family apart. It was Azula's fault that everything happened as it did! Had she not fallen sick, Ursa wouldn't have had to...

"...is there something else?" Long Feng asked.

"What do you mean?" Ozai snapped, somewhat more sharply than he would have intended.

"You seem... distracted," he said.

Ozai forced a smile back onto his face. "Forgive me. The night is late, and I am fatigued. Firebenders rise with the sun, after all."

"Then you should rest. I can have our finest rooms made available to you," Long Feng said with a disingenuous smile.

"So that I could disappear in the night and never be seen again? I think not," he said. "You can enter, now."

"What?" Long Feng asked. As he watched, though, there was a shimmer in the air, and two youths in their late teens seemed to walk out of open space. They had been waiting in some sort of reflection of reality during the entire conversation, to make sure that nothing untoward happened. They were very good at their jobs, and he intended to commend them for it. The two Children flanked their leader, and he motioned toward them.

"The Children, of course. So good that you've decided to agree to my terms. I hear that these young men and women have... remarkable skills."

"Is that a threat?" Ozai asked.

"Why would I threaten Ba Sing Se? I thought there was an armistice in place?" Ozai asked tauntingly. He walked toward the window, and flicked out a flash of fire. In a matter of moments, there was a dull 'whoosh'ing sound above, as the airship moved into place. "And besides, if I wanted to threaten you, I'd show you how I got here."

Long Feng stared at him, but Ozai had tired of the games. And he tired of Azula looking at him like he was garbage. She didn't understand. This had to happen. He had to keep the East off balance, at least until the day that Sozin's Comet returned. Then, he would burn the armistice and the city both to dust in its wake. It was not a betrayal of trust if one party of that trust was dead, after all. Ozai grabbed the rope-ladder which dangled from the underside of the airship, and bounded out the window, swinging away with his robes fluttering in the early morning breeze. The airship began to climb, and the two shaman Children both joined the ladder lower down, leaving only Long Feng staring out, and up, in shock and terror.

Because, to that poor bastard's mind, he was witnessing the rebirth of the Storm Kings. Only now, they bowed to the Fire Lord. As it should have been a thousand years ago.

"You are going to pay, for what you've done," Azula's voice reached him at a whisper in his ear. Against the roaring of the wind, it should have been lost, but instead rang clear as a bell. He felt a shudder run through him.

"I will do whatever is needed for the Fire Nation to be supreme," Ozai promised. "You can't stop me."

"My lord?" one of the Children asked. "Did you say something?"

Ozai glanced down at the youths, but held his tongue for a moment. This was getting out of hand. "Rise," he ordered them. "The Burning Throne is calling us home."

* * *

><p>"What are you going to do, Grand Secretariat?" Han asked, joining his master at the window, staring as that impossible machine <em>flew away<em> into the distance.

"What do you mean?" Long Feng asked.

"I listened to the plan. Do you really intend to honor an armistice?" Han asked.

"Of course not," Long Feng answered. "But let him think that I will. It gives me freedom to rebuild some of what the Avatar has cost me. When summer comes, we can rid ourselves of the Fire Lord, and much of the dead-weight of our leadership in one fell swoop."

"So you intend to ambush them during the Day of Black Sun. Fitting," Han posited.

"I would be a fool not to," Long Feng answered. "Have the Dai Li located the Avatar?"

"Not yet, Grand Secretariat. His allies have hidden him very, very well. They might well have fled the city."

"I am not so fortunate," Long Feng muttered. "Inform the guards that they are to treat every airborne contact as hostile, and respond accordingly. The Avatar will find Ba Sing Se much less friendly to him than when he remembers."

"I will do so at once," Han said. But he hesitated. "Was there anything else?"

Long Feng almost said no, but in fact there _was_. He was silent for a moment, and didn't look at Han when he gave the next order. "Send a messenger to my home. Tell Dun that I won't be returning for several days. Work just got... hectic."

"At once, Grand Secretariat," Han said.

* * *

><p>"So it's not my imagination that the current's a heck of a lot stronger than it used to be?" Korra asked as she slogged through the waist-deep stream which served as both the arteries and highways of the fractured and hemorrhaging Spirit World. Their passage had been fairly uneventful, due to the water, but its insistent tug was becoming troublesome, and worrisome, to the young shaman who guided them forward.<p>

"Would that I could expect an Avatar, who ought be the finest of us, to know what the symbols of a Spirit World mean," Sharif muttered under his breath. But because of the silence of the darkness around them, it carried clearly.

"Hey! I was a teenager when I learned this crap. Stuff came up, and it slipped my mind!"

"Slipped my mind, she says," Sharif rolled his eyes. "As well forget how to pass through the rifts. As well forget how to open the World Eyes! I could sooner forget how to _breathe_!"

"You're an up-tight little bug, aren't you?" Korra said, leaning in to pinch his cheek. "I should set you up with my kid. She was about your age when I croaked."

"And what would I do with her?" Sharif asked.

Korra stared at him, confused. "A teenage boy is asking me what he's supposed to do with a teenaged girl? Are you serious?" then she paused. "Oh, you're gay!"

"I have no interest at all," Sharif said, turning away.

"...how does that work?" Korra asked.

"One could easily blame it upon an injury of the brain. It serves me well, though, in that I am not distracted by fleshy things," Sharif pointed out. "The state of the world is not best left in the hands of hormonal youths."

"Hey, the world got along just find in the hands of hormonal youths before you, and after you, too," Korra moved to his side, sloshing through the water.

"I suppose you speak from personal experience?" Sharif asked wanly.

"You bet. I was saving the world from the time I was seventeen!" Korra said proudly.

"And how much easier would said saving have been had you the perspective of the day of your demise?" Sharif asked.

"I would have..." Korra began, but her up-thrust finger wilted, and her posture slumped a bit. "You might have a point."

"I am well aware."

"That still doesn't mean there's no place for it. Some of my best memories are from my love-life," she said with a nudge. Sharif rolled his eyes.

"You can cajole me as you will, it will not stir me. There is no passion nor lust in me. There has never been. Now please, focus on the important task, of finding our erstwhile Avatar!"

"You're not a lot of fun, are you?" Korra asked.

"Of the two of us, one must be the driving intellect," Sharif countered. Korra paused in the stream.

"Hey!" she complained. But she caught up a few moments later. "So... where are we going, anyway?"

"I am using you to direct my path," Sharif said. He glanced back to her look of confusion. "I take it that in your time upon the Spirit World, you learned its rules?"

"More or less," she said. "How two points in the Spirit World can be much closer together than two points in the world, and how distance isn't set in stone, a few things like that."

"...I see," Sharif said. "You might find they are somewhat different here. The stream connects the remaining pockets of the realm. The pockets themselves are not always laid out in the same order. I have explored them long, but I cannot make sense of their arrangement. Thus, I use your essence, even though you ought not exist, as a lodestone to direct me."

"Sounds complex," she said with a frown. She then glanced to a crevasse, where one smaller stream met the one they were wading through. "Where does that go?"

"I am not sure," Sharif said. "From the flow, I would say one of the orchards. Perhaps the Cage."

"That doesn't sound too frie–" Korra began.

She was cut off by the sound of metal slamming into metal, echoing throughout the entire black sky. The sound made Sharif's blood run cold.

"No. No, not now. There cannot be so much bad fortune in my life!" Sharif said, dread in his tone.

"What was that? I hear that sound from time to time but..."

Sharif didn't let her finish. He grabbed her hand and dragged her, practically at a sprint, up that crevasse and into the dead garden beyond it. "There is not time for explanation! Follow me or face obliteration!" Sharif screamed as he navigated the narrow confines of the divide. So focused was he, in fact, on his flight from the sound, which thudded powerfully from behind them, that he let his instincts falter. So when he emerged from the crevasse, he was moving too quickly to prevent stepping in a blob of elemental earth; in this case, taking the form of a powerful acid.

Sharif dropped at a roll to the ground, clutching his blue, phantasmal leg, and watching with horror as the lowest part of the extremity began to melt away. The agony was unbelievable, and his screams were a proper accompaniment for it. But after the first howl of anguish, he clenched his teeth, and rolled onto his chest.

"What's going on? Why are you so OH YUE'S BLOOD LOOK AT YOUR LEG!" Korra shouted. She then reached down and hoist Sharif off the ground, supporting his weight under one shoulder. "What was that?"

"I am a fool and twice a fool!" Sharif hissed. "I should have foreseen that!"

"Sharif, what's going on!" Korra shouted at him from a foot away.

The blast of sound cleared his agony for a moment, enough to glance over his other shoulder, and note the discoloring sky behind them. "We must make for the Cage, standing there!" Sharif pointed ahead of them. "It will protect us from what is to come."

The Cage was only somewhat appropriately named, in that there was a metallic structure which rose out of the trees, curling up like a sort of metal-frame pot. The bars were quite far enough for anything man-sized to slip between them, but it still maintained a sense of being a prison, if not for people. Korra was quick to her feet, at least, and was able to shoulder his weight. Another thud in the sky, and an electric crackle at their backs, as the bruise-color began to sweep forward, outpacing them. Sharif fixated only on the Cage before them.

He felt it an instant before they both hit it, and was able to shove the two of them aside with his one remaining foot so that they didn't barrel straight into it. The elemental air, which would have ground them into paste, instead threw them hard aside, dashing them against the crumbling earth of a hillock. "What was that?" Korra shouted.

"There are many dangers! One is catching up with us! The Cage, you clueless Avatar! The Cage!" Sharif shouted. Korra was on her feet and moving again, though, and with a last heave, came to a jolting stop in the center of that twist of metal rods. Sharif dropped to a pained sit, rubbing his knee, below which his leg abruptly ended. It would take a short while for him to restore the limb, now that he had a chance for focus. "Do not move beyond the rails. Death awaits if you do," Sharif said, teeth still grit.

"Noted," Korra said with a shrug. Sharif then looked up, to what he expected; death and dead wood. Instead, he found faint light, spiraling up the trunks, pulsing like the beats of tiny hearts. The last thud came, and the sky turned from burnt orange, to inflamed-flesh pink. And a wind began to sound. "That is..."

"The Spirit World on its knees," Sharif finished for her. The wind grew louder, and a tremor began to rumble the ground. The trees, though, began to glow more brightly, tendrils of light beginning to reach out from the trunk in a spectral imitation of branches, of leaves. He was watching the Cage come to life. And he wasn't sure what had changed to make it so. "It will be upon us shortly."

Korra nodded, but then tipped her head.

"What is it?" Sharif asked.

"I hear somebody coming," the Avatar said, glancing behind them.

"Another shaman who has blundered in at the perfectly worst moment," Sharif said, turning behind him, as the winds began to blow dust around the Cage. He could see somebody scrabbling down the wall, somebody slender and agile. Somebody approaching from the beyond. Somebody moving in a beeline for the Cage. "Pity he shall not reach us."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Korra asked. "And... wait isn't that..."

"If there was, I would have knowledge beyond that of the Avatar himself," Sharif said quietly. And then, even as he watched the wall of multi-hued annihilation approaching, he could hear something behind him. Not just the pounding of feet. He could hear very, very foul language. In Altuundili.

Sharif turned, shocked, as that approaching form took a great leap off of a stone much closer than Sharif would have predicted to be reached in that given time, and swung from the bar of the Cage into the ground in its midst. She, and it was a she, rolled to a stop, hands on the ground before her, panting for lack of breath. Sharif's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider. In that moment, the wind of death crashed upon the Cage, and swept beyond it, leaving those within it untouched.

"How can this be?" Sharif whispered.

"You simply have to be the luckiest chick I have ever met," Korra said, clapping the girl on the shoulder. The girl struck the hand off brusquely and rose to her feet. "And I've met Asami, so that means something."

"Luck would be me not landing _here_ after so taxing a day!" Nila snapped, glaring up at the dead Avatar. Then, frowning. "Wait. Who are you?"

"Sister?" Sharif asked.

"Sharif? What are you doing here?"

"I would ask you that same question! You are no shaman!" Sharif pointed out.

"And yet here I am," Nila said. Of them all, she seemed the most substantial, almost as though she were here in the flesh. She looked down at his foot. "You stepped into a Fruit Punch, didn't you."

"A what?" both shaman and Avatar asked at once.

Nila palmed her face. "Just when I thought I could get a good night's sleep..."

* * *

><p>Sokka was, as usual, snoring like a rusty saw trying and failing to bite through rock-hard cherry. He might have looked like he was just sitting there, arms crossed on his chest, but the snore gave him away. The other, nearby, was lying down, and likewise snoring, if not nearly the same volume. She honestly didn't know what to make of those two. The mad-scientist and the gunslinger. But she had to admit, right now, that chick needed a friend.<p>

The painful truth, though, was that Toph needed one right now, too. The others were already asleep, as the day had been long and arduous, and the night growing short. The sun would rise soon, but they'd probably sleep through it, sheltered as they were. Toph, though, could sleep with her eyes open to the noon-sun. Perk of being blind. She kept 'looking' toward where Mom had separated from the others, the older people and the young. Toph didn't even give Twinkletoes and Brainless a thought as she quietly crept over to her mother.

A part of her hated that she felt this way. Hated that she felt weak and small and _girly_. That it hurt when Mom looked toward her, and felt nothing. Or seemed to feel nothing. She hated that after all those years trying to prove herself to her parents, she was right back doing it as soon as they reappeared in her life. "Mom?" Toph asked quietly. She turned her head toward the blind girl, but from the way she sat, from the beat of her heart, from her posture, she might as well have been staring at a stranger.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean," Mom said.

"This can't be real," Toph said quietly, desperately. "I mean, I finally find out that my mom was awesome covered awesome with awesome filling, and the next time I see you, it's only 'cause Sparky hit you in the head with a stool? That's not right. It's not fair!"

Mom lowered her gaze. "Life isn't," she answered, haltingly. She looked toward the others. "I... don't remember much. I know some things... The boy is the Avatar. I know Prince Zuko, who he is, where he's from. I know... Zha Yu. But..."

"But you don't remember me," Toph finished for her.

She nodded, slowly. Regretfully. "I am sorry," she said, voice breaking. "There's this great gaping hole in my life, and I don't know what goes there. Somebody stole my past."

"I know who, too," Toph said.

"What are you going to do?" Mom asked.

"I... don't know," Toph said, sitting beside her mother. "Twinkletoes... the Avatar, I mean... he's already earthbending. He's even got a bit of firebending to him. He could end the war tomorrow," she shook her head. "Maybe... it's time to go home."

"Home?" Mom asked. "It... wouldn't be my home. I don't remember."

"What do you remember? Do you remember Dad?" Toph asked, trying hard to keep the tears from her eyes. This wasn't fair! It just wasn't!

Mom shook her head. "I don't. I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing! Why are you apologizing! You should be angry! You should be pissed off that somebody took your life from you!" Toph blurted.

"You'll wake the others if–" Mom began.

"Then let 'em wake," Toph asserted. "The Mom I know wouldn't take this lying down. And that means, neither will you."

"Maybe I'm not the mother you knew," Mom said quietly, her gaze down into her lap.

"I refuse to believe that," Toph said. "Maybe the memories will come back?"

"Zha Yu says that if they're gone... they're probably gone for good," Mom said.

"And what does he know? He still probably thinks that metalbending is impossible! I know you're still in there, Mom."

"I don't know," Mom glanced away. Toph finally lost the rigid control she'd been enforcing on herself, and grabbed the woman. Not to shake her, to slap some sense into her. No, she just clenched onto Mom's waist, buried her face in her shoulder, and quietly sobbed.

"I want my family back," Toph said, finally saying something honest. "I want my Mom back."

"I don't remember you, Toph," Mom said quietly. But then, Toph could feel arms reaching around her, cradling her gently, pulling her close. "But... I remember _this_."

"Really?" Toph asked.

Mom didn't answer. She just held Toph close, as the tears of catharsis finally flowed out, the stress of months ebbing away. The crickets chirping was the background melody to the scene, punctuated by Sokka's snoring and the crunch of bamboo being rolled over by one of the men. "Toph," Mom finally said. "Tell me a story about a blind earthbender girl. Tell me about her family."

Toph's laugh was still half sob. She didn't sleep that night.

She was okay with that.

* * *

><p>The Blowout had rumbled past, leaving the trees around the Cage in full bloom, white and indigo leaves swaying in the last breeze of its passage, and Nila had to palm her face at the scene before her. "<em>I am well aware you had come into the spirit to find the Avatar. I simply thought you meant the current one,<em>" Nila pointed out.

"_One will find the other,_" Sharif muttered, as his limb slowly started to regrow. Nila leaned back.

"_How is it you do such a thing? My grievous wounds stand with me 'till I awaken_," she pointed out.

"_It is a matter of remembering that your flesh here stands ephemeral. And you have not yet answered my question as to how you came to be in this place! It should be barred to you! Have you been so long a shaman without my knowledge?_"

"_If I am a shaman, then __you__ are the Avatar,_" Nila muttered.

"Um, could somebody speak in a language I do? This is starting to feel a little ostracizing," Korra said, with a hand raised to get their attention.

"Avatar, this is my sister. Most call her Nila. She should not be able to be here," Sharif said, as his foot returned to coherence. It was a trick she would have to discover herself, if only to avoid having to limp around like a fool.

"So this is the storied Avatar-yet-unborn," Nila said, turning to face the older woman. It was strange to think that this woman would not be born for at least another fifty years, let alone the other fifty which were evident upon her features. "You are aware that your very existence defies the laws of physics."

"People keep saying that," Korra rolled her eyes. "And people keep assuming that I know their futures. Which, for some of 'em, I do, but it's not like I actually paid attention in history class."

"So the breach in the cosmos is self-closing by her own laziness. The universe has a sense of humor, and it is twisted," Nila noted.

"Hey!"

"Sister, please desist from taunting the Avatar," Sharif said, now on his feet again.

"Brother, I would not desist from taunting the Avatar would one enter its self-same State," Nila muttered.

Sharif barked a laugh at that, and for a moment, was quiet. "I miss this," Sharif said.

"I miss it more than you could imagine," Nila said quietly, before pulling her brother in for a hug. She shook her head over his shoulder. "It was a cruel fate which took you from me. Crueler still to leave behind what it did."

"I was always there, in some way," Sharif said, gently. "And I will _always_ be there, Sister."

"Aw, how sweet," Korra said with a smirk. "Now, about this whole 'where's Aang buggered off to' thing?"

Nila released her embrace and nodded. "Though she stands in defiance of causality, she is right," Nila said. "Would that we had some clue as to his whereabouts."

She then paused, and looked around.

"_What do you seek?_" Sharif asked.

"_I am tempting fate, and seeing what it casts at me. The presence of an Avatar nearby must make it an irresistible target_," Nila answered.

"...what?" Korra asked, before she stopped, and glanced out into the 'forest' which was starting to calm down, and moderate its glow. "Wait, I know that sound."

"What sound?" Nila asked. Then she heard it. The shadows on the ground began to drift away, no longer cast by the diffuse light of the trees, pulling in until they stood as a great black void between the Cage and the treeline. Then, the white light from the leaves began to coalesce, surrounding and containing that darkness, so that it seemed to form a mirror, with two smokey panels. Nila's eyes bulged, and her urge to flee was almost overwhelming. "No, this is not even fair..."

"Heibai!" Korra shouted happily. The twirling panes of darkness seemed to shift, and flow, down onto the ground, where they formed the body of a massive panda, which sat staring at them placidly. It grunted at her, and she walked up to scratch its snout. "You remember me, don't ya?"

"You know this spirit?"

"He and I go way back. Aang made friends with him before my time," Korra said, leaning on the beast.

"Then how could he remember you, as you are not yet born?" Nila asked.

"Spirits do not have the same sense of time that we do," Sharif said. "Time flows strangely in this place."

"That much is obvious," Nila muttered. "What can this panda beast tell you?"

"Don't listen to the angry girl. She's just... Oh. Well, I guess she's got a reason to be angry, then," Korra said, as the bear glanced toward her. Korra rolled her eyes and shook her head. "That's what you get when you abduct people. It doesn't end well!"

"You are speaking to this brute?" Nila asked.

"Indeed. As am I," Sharif said. Heibai turned toward him, next. "You are welcome to bask, but please, do so with focus. Where is the Avatar?"

There was a moment of silence, after which, Sharif hung his head and Korra palmed her face.

"No, the current Avatar, not _that one,_" Sharif clarified.

"Hey, _that one_ has a name," Korra said, arms crossed before her chest.

"So she screams with every fiber of her countenance," Sharif noted. Nila barked a laugh at that.

The panda broke apart, drifting up into the air, reforming itself as the twinned panes of smoked glass, bounded by white light. The panes spun in, merging at an odd angle with themselves, and the white flowed in, painting roughly a scene upon their face, white upon black.

Sharif looked at it, and shook his head, frustration clear on his scarred face. "Damnation upon the Most High! I do not know this place!"

"Yeah, it doesn't look like anywhere I've ever been," Korra noted.

"You do not know this place?" Nila asked, incredulously. The scene was of a great tree, slumping over the ruins of a metal framed structure, the whole of it a scant dozen or so feet above the lapping of a shore. "This is the Death Garden. It lies at an edge of the Sea of Souls. I have been there uncounted times."

"That does little to help us, Sister. The Sea of Souls is remarkably hard to reach," Sharif shook his head.

"Are you daft? I said I have been there countless times. I know the path to it better than I know my own face," Nila shook her head. "I swear, Sharif. I have been coming here for years, and have memorized much of it. You could have been coming far longer, and have done precious little, it seems."

"Forgive me for living with a smote brain," Sharif muttered.

"So, we've got a destination?" Korra asked.

"Indeed. And we shall need your clout, I think, when we reach it," Nila said. She paused, though, standing before the portraiture. "You have served well... Heibai."

The panels rotated back away, and the panda reformed itself. It looked down at her, and pressed its nose to her forehead, even though she leaned back to avoid it. When it did, she got... not a vision. More an understanding. An enlightenment. She staggered back a step under the weight of it, and looked to Sharif, in shock. "...this is what you have been concealing from me?"

"What?" Sharif asked. He then turned to Heibai. "You swore you would not reveal it!"

"So the Avatar was not being facetious towards 'the end of the world'," Nila said, rubbing her face. "I can see the import, now. This must be done."

Sharif paused in his tirade, glancing back to her. Heibai turned a glance which would have been classified as 'smug' had it been human, and had Nila been paying attention to it. "...never mind," Sharif uttered quietly.

"So we've got a direction? Let's put the pedal down!" Korra said. Both Si Wongi frowned after her as she moved toward the crevasse at the edge of the Cage Garden.

"...the pedal of what?" Sharif asked. Both Nila and Heibai both shrugged their ignorance, before the latter dissolved into motes of light, and the garden, for the moment, grew brighter.

* * *

><p>Music swirled around Iroh, the up-beat tempos of his distant homeland. He could hear the vibrancy in the notes as he danced, Qiao light as a feather in his arms. He could smell the faint spices, the incense in the air. She was smiling up at him, those dark eyes almost seeming to shine. They both had reason to be happy. It was their wedding. They didn't know then that she was already a month pregnant with Lu Ten when the ceremony was made official, but the timing couldn't have been better. Iroh, a younger, fitter Iroh, beamed. Qiao beamed back.<p>

The crowd swirling around them gave them space, as was befitting his relative high station. But there was something strange about that crowd. Namely, it didn't look... complete. Like the crowd was only an impression of a crowd. Like the song was only a memory of a song. But Iroh, focused on holding onto this joyous moment, set those concerns aside. If he was dreaming, then he dreamed well.

"I want this to last forever," Qiao whispered into his ear, holding him close for a moment, before they parted in a graceful step.

"There's no reason it shouldn't," Iroh offered, all the heady impetuousness of his relative youth showing.

"You charmer," Qiao said, twirling as he spun her 'round, then coming close once more.

"He's always been that way," a new voice said, something jarring to the memory. Iroh's expression darkened slightly, and he looked up. The woman before him was dark, dressed in fine blue silks and jewelry, a vision of beauty, to be sure, but for some reason, Iroh was sure she didn't belong here. First of all, she looked like a Water Tribesman. And at this point in their history, they were still at war with the South. Then, Iroh smelled something amidst the memories of spices. Just a hint of ozone. She sidled closer, and laid a hand onto the shoulders of each of the then-newlyweds. "Do you mind terribly if I take the charming groom for a spin?"

Qiao glanced to Iroh, confused, but put on a graceful smile and gave a nod. "Of course. This is as much your day as it is mine," she said. Or at least, he imagined that's what she would have said, were this situation happening. The spirit wafted up and took Iroh back into the press of the crowd, which now encroached on them at all sides.

"Gotta say, nice place to spend your night," the spirit said.

"Tell me who you are, spirit. I was enjoying my dream," Iroh said irately even as he danced with it.

"Oh, you know who I am," she promised. Iroh pondered for a moment, as he sent her through a low dip, and the answer appeared to him.

"Irukandji," Iroh said. "I thought our last meeting would be the final one."

"Sadly, no," Irukandji said, leading him as though she were in control. "I've been trying to find your niece. Where is she?"

"You do not know? I thought you would keep better tabs on her, considering you are the cause of her current malady," Iroh pointed out.

"I've checked the usual suspects," Irukandji said, ignoring his jibe. "But the acrobat is back in Ember and the depressed one is living in a slum about a mile that way," Irukandji nodded in a direction that Iroh was certain was random. Direction had very little relation between the dream and the waking worlds. "Since Zuko's with the Avatar and she'd be bearing a fairly understandable grudge against him, you were my next option."

"Zuko has joined the Avatar?" Iroh asked.

"Yeah. Real bitter about it, too," Irukandji said. "You've got a messed up family. And I'd know messed up. My brother is literally a monkey."

Iroh nodded, a small smile creeping onto his face. "I am pleased," Iroh said. "I had long feared that Zuko might fall into despair. That he might turn his back on the right path, and take the easy road. If nothing else, I have taught him that the easy roads only lead down."

"That doesn't help with the Azula bit, is what I'm getting at," Irukandji pointed out.

"I did not invite you here, so I feel no desire to tell you anything," Iroh pointed out. The woman he was dancing with raised a dark brow at that.

"Iroh, you know as well as I do that if this came to a real fight, I'd smash you flat, even inside your own mind. You know what I am. _Who_ I am," she pointed out. "So how about we have a civil conversation inside one of your pleasant dreams, instead of a donnybrook?"

Iroh glared at her, but then sighed, and nodded. "Very well. But not this one. I do not want this memory sullied by the likes of spirits uninvited."

"Fair enough," Irukandji said, backing away from him, and snapping its fingers. The scene changed from the chaotic dance, and a young and vibrant Iroh, to the apartment he was now sleeping in, and he, old and fat.

"I do not know where Azula is," Iroh said outright. "She informed me two days ago that she wanted some time with 'old friends'. I know that she is concocting some foolish notion to overthrow the government of Ba Sing Se. I fear that she might be just successful enough to cause the leader of this place to retaliate."

"Great. You don't know either," Irukandji rolled her eyes.

"Why are you so interested in her? You are the one who damaged her, made her this way," Iroh asked.

"Damage? Azula's perfectly fine," Irukandji said. "Better than fine! Had I not done what I'd done, then..."

"The family would have been torn apart from within?" Iroh asked, interrupting the spirit. Irukandji gaped for a moment, then nodded. "So you have some knowledge of future events?"

"No, but I'm a good judge of how things are going. I've seen similar enough stories enough times before. I've been doing this for... quite a while," she said.

"Taking the dead for passage into worlds to which they do not belong," Iroh finished. "Have you not considered that you might be the cause of all of this imbalance which has beset the world?"

"Don't you hang that on my head," Irukandji thrust a warning finger toward him. "I dropped Azula into herself at the age of eight, and surfed back another eighty. All of this," she waved around her, "was already set in motion by the time I got there. Otherwise, wouldn't you think I'd just grab the first soul out of here?"

"How can you be certain that you have not damaged the veils between worlds with your wanton wanderlust?" Iroh asked.

"Because it is part of what I am," Irukandji said darkly. "I cross the veils because it is part of me. Existence _allows_ it. I do it because I hunger for it. I exist, Dragon of the West. I am not some blackness from outside reality. Unlike Imbalance, I have a _place_ here. I have a _purpose_. And my purpose has let me see things you would not believe."

"So why Azula?"

"To spare her the pain she could have suffered. To give a bitter old woman a chance to rediscover joy. Because I like stirring the pot when it's at a boil. A lot of reasons," she said, sipping at a cup of tea which appeared in her hands. "But as for you? I don't feel much need to explain myself. I'm trying to keep reality from ending. Can you say the same?"

"Trying?" Iroh asked.

"It's a lot harder than I thought it would be," she muttered. "I try to put out every fire I come across, but it's spreading too fast. I don't know where the Host is. The Avatar is down for the count. Your brother seems to be losing his mind..."

Iroh leaned back. "Ozai is falling?"

"I wouldn't say falling. Just going nuts," Irukandji clarified. "Honestly, I'm worried. I don't know if there's enough strength left in existence to fight Imbalance, at this point. The only hope is that we find some way to seal the Host."

"So you would sell one to save the universe?" Iroh asked, nodding.

"I didn't say that it was a good solution," Irukandji said, with a shudder. "And I certainly wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the poor son-of-a-bitch that Imbalance has horned Its way into when we do, but it would be the best of all possible solutions. For most people. Not the Host, of course."

"And for that, you need the Avatar?" Iroh asked.

"A little bit, yeah," Irukandji said. "Because I need somebody who can wake up Koh, and he's about the heaviest hitter I've got on speed-dial since Agni went into hiding."

Iroh made assumption from context and let the odd term slide past. "And what does this have to do with my niece?" he asked. "...especially if this is, as you say, not entirely your fault?"

"Because I know she can help... somehow," Irukandji said, waving as though trying to summon up words. "Look, I'm not into prophesy. That's a thing for charlatans and Void Spirits, and I'm neither. But I've got a feeling in my synapses that your niece might be the second-most important piece on the board."

"After the Avatar," Iroh noted.

"After _me_," Irukandji corrected with a tone of scandal.

"I will only aid you if you swear to restore her," Iroh said.

"I can't," Irukandji stated.

"Cannot, or will not?"

"Yes," Irukandji answered. When Iroh scowled, she rolled her eyes. "I can't turn her back into the girl she was when Oldzula landed in her brain. That girl's long gone. I can't even turn her into the girl you knew on your little boat trip, since she's spent at least the last few months radically changing since Summavut. The old one is in charge, at the moment. And that's what needs to be. The world needs Azula. All of her. Not the girl, not the teenager, not the bitter old bitch. It needs _all of her_."

"You don't offer much," Iroh noted.

Irukandji shook her head, slowly. "Because that's what I get for trying to save the world," she scoffed. "Next time, I'm leaving it to you meat-things. You can all die in oblivion for all I care."

"We both know you're lying," Iroh noted, sipping tea, which he spontaneously manifested into his own hand. It was marvelous.

"Damn it. And I thought I was becoming less transparent," Irukandji muttered. She affixed Iroh with a blue-eyed glare. "Find your niece. Keep her safe, and when you find her, tell me. This could be the most important thing you ever do, in the history of existence."

"Of course I will keep my niece safe," Iroh said. And a smile came to his lips. "It's what Qiao wanted."

* * *

><p>"You know, I don't see why everybody dotes on him so much," Korra opined from their back rank, as they moved away from the flowing waters, and through the fallen stones. She knew this path well, since the Death Garden was the best of both worlds when it came to surviving until she awakened. While it had traps, they were few, and it was well protected from Blowouts in the wooden embrace of its centerpiece. "He's kinda like a slightly less arrogant version of you."<p>

"People dote because they see me as I am without my proper mind," Sharif said. "Fair said, I am all but helpless without the false-brain to think with. With it, I am my sister's brother."

"More impressive, you are your sister's contemporary," Nila improved. "That is a very select fraternity."

"Aren't we proud of ourselves?" Korra asked, smirk on face and arms crossed before chest.

"Says the woman who apparently picked fights with criminals because she could," Sharif said with a roll of the eyes.

"Who told you about that?" Korra asked, scratching at her hair.

"The Void has many answers," Sharif said simply.

"...are you sure he's not being needlessly cryptic on purpose?" Korra asked, leaning in toward Nila.

"He is a shaman," Nila answered. And it was all the answer she needed to provide. Korra let out a grunt of annoyance.

Even as she dreamed herself into this dead spirit world, her mind kept going back to Ashan. Ashan, who had sacrificed himself for her. Ashan who would never see a proper burial, because of her. Who would never see his home again, because of her. Who lost his family, because of her. By all rights, he should have despised her, for bringing so much calamity to his door. And instead...

She had long declared that she had no understanding of humanity. Usually, it was uttered when they did something which disappointed and annoyed her. In this, though, she could honestly say that she didn't know why he'd done many of the things he'd done, and not out of exasperation or impatience. It was often said – usually by herself – that there was no such thing as true altruism, for every good deed was a forepayment for a return of favor. But were that the case, then Ashan would have been forepaying for years and years, without any sign of a return on his effort. No, that theory didn't hold even as much water as a bucket without a bottom. There had to be something else.

Romantic attraction was something which was outside of Nila's understanding, thus, she shelved it. Rather, she tried to deal with the fundamental underpinnings. To understand why he put up with her. It couldn't be because of a romantic attraction. Surely, humans were not such short sighted beings as to become lustfully engaged with counterparts they couldn't otherwise stand! She turned the problem over in her head as she moved up through the extremely narrow cleft which ran up the cliff-face, so claustrophobic that they couldn't have walked abreast if they'd wanted to. The only thing besides the suffusive light was the stone, of various dark greys and black, upon which they stood.

"So, 'Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar'; tell me something. Why haven't I heard of you?" Korra asked, not even breathing deeply. Then again, given her physique, even in middle age and death, it shouldn't have been surprising.

"I do not understand," Nila said over her shoulder.

"Aang's a legend. Zuko's the Fire Lord. Well, former Fire Lord; his daughter takes over for him and his grandkid's in the navy. Sokka founded Republic City. So where were you during all of this?"

"I am not sure what you mean," Nila said, pausing as she glanced between two clefts. She reached down and plucked up a few pebbles, throwing one down each. One of them bounced back toward her. She chose the other fork.

"I'm just saying, I know the future. It's my past," Korra said. "So if you're palling around with my previous me, why haven't I heard about it?"

"Maybe I would much prefer to be left alone," Nila pointed out.

"...nah, I don't think it works like that. Even Haru had the spotlight on him, and he was, like, nobody in the long-run," she continued. She then paused. "I wonder if somebody tried to suppress knowledge of your existence."

"How lovely. I am deemed worthy enough by history to be forced into obscurity," Nila muttered.

"For the last time, cease this! You are altering things you cannot understand nor predict!" Sharif said, but Korra shoved him idly away.

"Well, let's see," Korra said. "Maybe we need to look at your father..."

"We do not know who our father is," Sharif pointed out.

"Then your mother, maybe. Who is she?"

At that, Nila turned in confusion. "You cannot be serious. You do not know of the Dragon of the East?"

Korra raised an eyebrow at them. "I know a Dragon of the _West_. Are you saying you're related to Prince Iroh?"

"No, not the Fire Lord's brother. _The woman who defeated him_ at Ba Sing Se," Nila snapped.

Korra glanced between both siblings. "...Iroh was beaten by General How. A man. So I'm lead to remember."

"This is pointless," Nila cut the Avatar off, her attention so focused on the path before her that she neglected to consciously discover the secret Korra was unwittingly keeping. It did manage to slide quietly into her mind, but not knowingly, not yet. "The Sea of Souls is ahead."

"We cannot be so soon to the Sea of Souls," Sharif said, clambering up beside her, and giving her a look when she gently pushed him away from a place where he'd almost stepped on a Springboard which likely would have launched him clear to the bottom of the crevasse. "It is impassable to any but the dead! And besides, the elsewhere-ways are only passable through the rivers."

"For a shaman, you seem to know precious little about your own realm," Nila pointed out, as she crested the pinnacle of dull, grey rocks and looked out upon a listless sea, lapping almost begrudgingly at grey sands. Given the height they had reached, it was obvious that 'sea level' was much higher than the rest of the Spirit World, or else that space had itself bent back upon itself to accommodate the Sea's placement. Given their location, it could be either.

"She's good," Korra said. She looked up and down the shore. "Man, been a long time since I was here."

"Do not touch the water," Nila said.

"We are not morons," Sharif said testily.

"You are much of the time," Nila pointed out.

"Yes, but even I am no so much the moron as to touch that tide," Sharif answered evenly.

"Yeah, even I know that's bad news," Korra said. She stood, staring out onto the water, and as she did, the fog over the seas began to mount up, forming into something almost like a human shape. Korra's eyes hardened a bit when she saw it, and she glanced down, as though in shame. "Damn. That's one face I didn't want to see again."

"We all have regrets," Nila said, keeping Ashan firmly out of her mind. She didn't want to see him here. Honestly, she didn't think she'd be able to bear it.

"The duty of the living to the dead is to learn, and to honor them by living well," Sharif said with a nod. "I have to wonder. How is it you know this place as the Sea of Souls? It is not a place commonly known."

"I have spent years traipsing about this place," Nila said with a scowl. "When its nature was revealed to me, I made certain deductions of logic. Any with a brain would have done likewise."

Sharif gave a shrug and a nod, since he obviously knew she had a point. "Come then, sister. One way or the other should lead to this Death Garden of yours."

"Are they really _there_?" Korra asked.

"No," Sharif answered, taking her hand in his, slowly pulling her in Nila's wake. "Only your memories of them, bitter or sweet."

Korra let out a muted laugh. A bitter laugh. "I suppose that's for the best. After all that... It took a long time before I could look at myself in the mirror again."

"_As I have you for guide, why do we need her, sister?_" Sharif asked sarcastically.

"_I would rather have an Avatar and not require one, than require one and lack,_" Nila answered simply.

Sharif released Korra's hand once they were certain that she would continue walking with them. Out of the corner of her eye, though, Nila could see why they were so concerned. Rising out of the mist, forming from the darkness above the water, she could see faces. Thousands of them. All of the people she had known in her childhood. The bullies. The idiots. The braggards. The fools. The only face she didn't see was that of Gashuin, which was fitting, since she knew he lived. They didn't address her, or try to clamor for her attention. Fitting, since she didn't give it. But she was still aware of them.

And she forcefully didn't think of Ashan.

The Death Garden announced itself in a most unusual way. By a soft, golden glow. Unlike most places that Nila had come to in the Spirit World, there was never the sense of cloying, the sense of being almost-touched by ghostly hands, here. It slid off of her like dust in a bath as she came closer. The sky, too, changed. While it was still grey, it was now a grey tinged lightly with gold, like sun trying to fight its way through thick clouds. Almost succeeding. But most important of all the differences was the ground. Not cracked mud, nor stone-chips worn down by decades of Blowouts, it was an honest humus, thinly layered atop simple clay. Their steps didn't crunch, here. It was quiet as the grave, warm as the womb, and peaceful as death.

The 'waters' lapped here, too, but at something which looked like twisted stone, bounding up out of its tides and then back down into the shore. Clay, all. She had half a mind to think that something great and massive had crafted this landscape out of boredom, then left it to cover over in detritus for a century. She wasn't entirely wrong, but she wasn't aware of that. Besides the golden glow, there were few other things here. A ruined building was clear amongst them. From the metal poles, it almost seemed like some sort of mockery of a Dakongese ger. Whatever it was supposed to be, though, was erased by the fact that a great tree had fallen atop it, smashing through it and unmaking it.

The tree itself was more 'tree-like' than most she could see. It didn't seem petrified, its limbs were intact, if wilting. It simply looked old, and dead. Finally passing back into the soil. An end, fitting for its place. "Where would the Avatar be?" Nila asked.

"Let's see, if I were a twelve..."

"Thirteen," Nila corrected.

"...year old Monk scared for my life, where would I be?"

All three shared a glance.

"He's in the tree," all answered the question as one. Nila turned the bend first, and saw the form, knees crossed, fists together, and eyes glowing furiously.

"Oh, this isn't good," Korra said.

"It seldom is," Sharif muttered.

* * *

><p>"There's been no word of the Avatar's whereabouts," Han reported, as Long Feng flinched back into full consciousness. The long nights were taking their toll on him both mentally and physically. He leveled a only somewhat unsteady gaze upon his inferior, and nodded out of the room that Long Feng had, initially, only come into to read a report. The report became a sit down. The sit down became a nap. Walking would bring him back into coherence, if nothing else.<p>

"We have to assume that he is waiting for us to show our hand," Long Feng presumed. "There is nothing that can be done except prepare for the worst of all eventualities. Keep the young fool in the dark as long as is humanly possible, and keep the Avatar away from him. I will not have that outsider destroy what I have dedicated most of my life toward."

"And if it becomes necessary to destroy him?" Han asked.

"You have my permission, and my encouragement. His interference couldn't have come at a less opportune time," Long Feng muttered. "And if nothing else, the years until the next Avatar arises will ensure that by the time she or he appears, Ba Sing Se will be safeguarded against it."

Han shook his head, sighing. There was a bag under his remaining eye, showing that he might not quite be as tired as Long Feng, but the gulf was not nearly as great as one might have imagined. "We planned for everything but the Avatar," Han bemoaned.

"A century has rendered us lazy and dim," Long Feng muttered, fighting back a yawn which was both unseemly and unwanted. "We will have to be better."

Han nodded, and turned toward a different branch of the palace. "The Avatar will not breach the King's palace."

"See that he doesn't," Long Feng said as the man vanished into shadows of an ill-lit hall. He knew he should have a touch more focus, of objectivity, but the thought most pressing on him at the moment was 'how am I going to apologize to Dun'? The gods knew he deserved better than this. And he would _get_ better, even if it was over Long Feng's corpse.

* * *

><p>The sun was rising, and Zuko watched as the sky over the bamboo turned from purple to something approaching blue. "No surprise that you're an early riser," master Piandao said, from where he, too, watched the sky shift hues.<p>

"It's in my blood," Zuko said. "I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. Especially after Grandfather sent a hundred men to kill you."

"That was a long time ago," Piandao said, waving the point away, albeit with a stump. He paused, looking down to the ruin which once ended with a right hand. "And a hand, ago."

"I've learned well," Zuko offered. "Your skill already has passed into able hands."

"That's the thing," Piandao muttered, rubbing at his unshaven face with his remaining left. "One does not ever stop seeking new students. You learned well, and properly, Prince Zuko. I always respected that about you. You didn't grasp why, not at first, but you did in time. Your uncle would be proud of you, if he saw you here."

Zuko turned away. "Uncle... I'm not sure what to think about him," he glanced up at the sky once again. "On one hand, he lied to me. On the other, he was _right_."

"It might surprise you to know that you and Iroh are more alike than not," Piandao said. "You aren't the only child of a Fire Lord who spent his teenage years wandering the world."

"So Uncle keeps regaling me," Zuko muttered, crossing his arms. He then looked to the crippled swordsman. "What will you do now?"

"The same thing I have always done," Piandao said. "Just with a single hand instead of two."

"I thought you'd take this as an opportunity to stop," Zuko said. Piandao gave a shrug, and glanced toward the sleeping body of the older woman amongst them. Well, the one who was dark-skinned.

"I couldn't. I've always known that I'd rather follow than lead. Much the same, I'd rather teach than stagnate. I already have my eye on a new student."

"The Avatar?" Zuko asked. Piandao gave a chuckle at that.

"Not exactly," he said, giving a nod to the distant corner where the Tribesman was snoring loudly enough to challenge the frogs for mating rights – and win. Zuko's brow rose.

"Him?" Zuko asked. Piandao nodded. "_Him_."

"Yes, him," Piandao said.

"He's..." Zuko waved his hands, trying to come up with a proper descriptor.

"Remarkably fast on his feet, both physically and mentally. Inventive, intelligent, willing to learn, willing to be wrong, and more important than anything, willing to do what needs to be done, no matter the cost to himself," Piandao pointed out. "He might lack for skill, but that is what teaching is _for_."

Zuko just scoffed lightly. Not in dismissal, more like mild amusement. Of course, the master-swordsman would have a perfectly valid reason for an insane choice. It just jarred, to have the finest sword in the West training the biggest dolt in the South. The two then turned toward where Sharif and the Avatar were still kneeling, silently. "Do you think he'll wake up soon?" Zuko asked.

"He had better," Piandao muttered. "For all our sakes."

* * *

><p>The blast of power sent Sharif flying onto his back the moment he tried to approach the Avatar. Nila pulled him to his feet, and he gave a grunt of surprise. "What is the meaning of this?" Sharif asked. The Avatar glared with burning eyes dead ahead. "Do you not hear me, Avatar?"<p>

"Oh, this doesn't seem good," Korra said, walking a bit closer. She glanced toward them. "If he's going all Avatar State on us, why aren't I? I mean, he's pre-me, after all."

Sharif gently pulled away from his sister, and moved to the edge off the wall of force which had shoved him so rudely back. "Avatar, you must listen, and heed swiftly. There is a great upending in the world. You must see to it, or a great darkness will fall!"

The Avatar glared.

"Come on, Aang. You were always telling me that I had to fight my demons, no matter how terrifying they were," Korra pleaded, moving a little bit closer. Such, she was now standing in the barrier of energy, and it seemed to flick off of her. The Avatar glared, in silence. "We need you, Aang. Don't leave us like this. Don't keep me from getting born! History will be so much worse without me!"

"Arrogant," Sharif muttered.

"I would much like to see what this one would do in that one's place," Nila said, flicking a tattooed finger between Korra and Aang's position, respectively.

"You cannot be serious," Sharif said with alarm.

"...I'd probably kick some Fire Nation ass," Korra offered. "Aang, please, listen to us. We know you're hurt and afraid, but you're not alone."

"We are ready to stand beside you, to fight against the coming darkness. But we cannot do it alone. Be our beacon against the darkness, Avatar!" Sharif implored. "Return, that we may undo a century of harm!"

The Avatar glared, unmoved.

"Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment," Korra scratched at her head.

"Begging?" Nila asked. "You beg and plead at the demigod to come to your aid?"

"Your own words show the logic of the path," Sharif pointed out.

Nila shook her head and walked forward, only to bounce off of the same field of energy which had rebuffed Sharif. But not Korra. "Ow," she muttered. "Brother, even demigods can be petulant. I could name a dozen from our nation's own mythology. Power corrupts hearts, minds, and souls. Some, more than others," she looked at him. "He is very afraid, and will not bear coaxing."

"Then how do we get him out?" Korra asked, standing astride that barrier. Nila glanced at her, then beyond her, to the Avatar. Then, back to the dead older woman once more.

"You are dead, yes?"

"The ghostly pallor not give that away to you?" the woman said sarcastically.

"And ghosts have a certain control of their corporeality, yes?" she asked.

"Well... I'm not sure. I mean, it's not like I've tried," Korra muttered, scratching her chin.

"Then you would do well to become intangible," Nila said. Korra shifted, and Nila raised a finger with a tut. "Right as you stand, if you please."

Korra gave Nila a look of confusion. Sharif was just baffled, and shrugged. So she rolled her eyes, and then pressed them shut. "I don't know, Nila. This seems like a waste of effort to me."

Nila, though, was already walking. First toward the would-eventually-be Avatar... then through her. It was a strange, goosebump raising experience, passing through the body of the dead. But she allowed Nila through the barrier the Avatar had erected around himself. And that let her get close enough to the demigod himself for her own brand of encouragement.

It started when she reached out, grabbed one of his flaring ears, and twisted.

"Listen closely, you fearful child," Nila snapped. "You have been dealt a blow? Feh! I have suffered far worse! You have been defeated by your enemies? My own have killed the dear and the departed of mine! So you are not allowed to wallow here in the dreams of the dying while I of all people am still willing to fight!"

"Sister, have you lost your mind!" Sharif shouted, but it was oddly muted on the other side of the barrier. And the Avatar's face twisted into shock and pain, even as his eyes still blared light.

"In staying here when those depending on you need you, you are proving yourself worse than a coward; you are a traitor to them!" Nila continued. "You had as best be fighting on the side of this Imbalance that you so vehemently claim to oppose! While it consumes by mindless hunger, you _have chosen_ to ignore the pleas of those dear to you, so that makes you a far worse monster, I would wager."

"Um, Nila? Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Nila then released the Avatar's twisted ear and gave him a strong armed slap across the face. When she did, the light on his hands, and in his eyes, finally faded away, and he clutched his cheek in shock. "If you would be the Avatar, then you would do it now. You have fallen. It stands to you to rise again. If not, then you are no hero, simply another of history's innumerable cowards."

"Why did you slap me?" Aang asked.

"So you now listen?" Nila asked, arms crossed on her chest. Then, with a whump, the barrier the Avatar had been projecting finally fell, and Sharif almost stumbled forward as he'd been leaning forward against it. "You must return to your form, Avatar. Others await you."

"What happened?" Aang asked.

"It is a long story, and one best told under the sun, not this..." Nila waved her ink-darkened hands vaguely around them.

"Korra? Is that you?" Aang asked.

"Yup," Korra said. "We were worried about ya, little-buddy," she continued.

"Huh," then, his eyes widened. "Oh no. I've got to warn them!"

"Warn them about wh–" Nila began, but was cut off when the light returned to the Avatar's eyes, and erased everything else.

* * *

><p>Korra opened her eyes to a featureless grey, which pressed in from all sides. Silence, as well. She slowly started to look around, to gain her bearings, but a chuckle from directly behind her took her attention much more fully. She turned, and saw that she was not alone in this void. Sharif was here, too, floating with his legs tucked up underneath him. "Whoa, what just happened?" Korra asked, waving her hands around.<p>

"The Avatar... dispelled us," Sharif shrugged. "I needed more time, to speak to you while I still had the capability."

"Where are we?" Korra asked.

"It is difficult to explain. Think of it as my dreamscape, if you must," Sharif said. He opened his eyes, a hard and focused look on them. "Avatar Korra, you might well be a fool and a sign of darkness in the days ahead, but I have doubts I will be able to teach the current Avatar what he needs to know to succeed in what is likely the grimmest of all paths. Thus, that duty may fall to you. Can you do it?"

"You bet I will."

"That was not my question. My question is 'can' you," Sharif asked.

"...I've been Avatar longer than he's been alive," Korra said.

"Longevity is little succor when knowledge is needed," Sharif muttered. His form began to bleach, and drift away as though being blown away by a gentle breeze. "Damnation and hells, I am awakening."

"Look, you can count on me. I'll make sure Aang's ready for what's coming," Korra swore.

"See that you do," Sharif said, his body now half-missing. "I believe he alone can wa_ke Koh, and he will be necessary for what s t co_

Then, Sharif was gone.

An instant later, Korra was, too.

* * *

><p>Sokka's yawn and stretch might have had the inadvertent side-effect of punching Nila, but while she did grumble darkly as she was ousted from sleep, shockingly enough, it wasn't directed at him. Rather, she pushed herself to her feet and moved over to Sharif, speaking loudly at his sitting, yet sleeping, form. Since it was in Altuundili, Sokka couldn't listen in. But whatever she was saying, it obviously wasn't getting through, because she kicked him in the shoulder lightly, causing him to topple over, and finally awaken.<p>

"What has happened?" Sharif said. "Did I find the Avatar and the Avatar?"

The answer to that came in the form of a flare of white light, belting out of Aang's arrows, and in the moment his eyes opened, they as well. He sucked in a gasp, as though he'd forgotten to breathe for days, then slowly sat up, clutching at his head. Likely, the poor kid had a ripping headache from sleeping in so late. "There is your answer, Brother," Nila said, turning to the newly awakened member of their group. "So the petulant sleeper finally returns to his duty? Good."

"What? Petulant?" Sokka asked. Nila glanced back at him, and pointed at Aang.

"He was being needlessly contrary and difficult."

"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Katara asked, near where Dad and Zuko were cooking breakfast.

"Yes," Nila said, unbaited.

"I... don't really know what happened," Aang shook his head for a moment, but then, it came up, his eyes flaring with urgency. "Oh no! Sokka, you've got to stop dealing with those Cultural Authority guys! They're..."

"Secretly controlling every aspect of life in Ba Sing Se under a pall of violence, darkness, and terror?" Sokka finished for him. "Yeah, we figured that out."

Aang got a very worried look on his face. "Oh, man... How long was I out?"

"A few days," Sokka said. "Toph broke the rules of reality while you were sleeping. Good times."

"So she claims. I'll believe it when I see it," Zha Yu said, coming in from the outskirts of the bamboo patch. He gave Aang a swat on the back as he walked past him. "Good to see you're up and about."

The swat had, of course, sent Aang forward onto his face. Aang, though, got back up, if a bit unsteadily. "...guys, what do we do now?"

And that was a question that Sokka didn't have a witty, snappy answer for. Silence descended back onto the clearing, save the gentle pop of a well isolated fire, and the tuneless humming of a brain-damaged shaman.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, we're on the final stretch for this 'season'; there's only one more breather 'episode' for the Gaang, and for those who aren't in the Gaang, it's not a breather.<strong>

**If you haven't already guessed (and if you haven't by this point, are you sure you're actually _reading_ this story?) the Spirit World is going to play a massive part in the third 'book', and everything that has been going on Malu-related is going to get kicked up a few notches. So far, Imbalance has turned the Fire Nation into a rain-washed, perpetually cloudy bog, put the East under a sixty year drought, and made every ocean on the planet borderline unnavigable. To quote every pessimist ever; it's going to get worse.**

**You've got to be a bit of a sadist to be a writer. If you're not willing to make people suffer, then you're not doing justice to the story, and to the world that they live in. If they get a happy ending, it's got to be clawed up to. If they get a victory, it's by the skin of their teeth, one that in the end they all drop to the ground, coughing up little chunks of lung. Anything without cost is without value, and so it is with success. But I ramble too long. This took far shorter to write than I would have anticipated. Lucky you. Let's see how the next one does.**

_Leave a review._


	38. The Earth King

Aang's eyes opened to the sound of crunching bamboo. His sleep had been so dark, so deep and so unassailable that he'd barely made it two hours into the morning before he was tripping over his own words and his eyelids became leaden. It might have been the 'torture' he'd endured, or something else, but he felt terrible when he came out of the Spirit World. He felt distinctly less so, now. Although, frankly, he had no idea what time it was.

He pushed himself up to a sit, as the rustling of bamboo caused two blades to slip into two hands, one the sole remaining of its owner, the other, a Tribesman very far from home. It wasn't until the source of the noise revealed itself to be another Tribesman that the two swordsmen relaxed somewhat. Katara, though, seemed still on her guard. The newcomer looked Aang up and down, and then gave a grunt.

"So the Avatar awakens at last," he said. He turned to the others. "The Dai Li are sweeping the Reaches, trying to make sure that you're gone. And frankly, I'm a little confused as to why you're not."

"You don't have a lot of faith in us, do you Qujeck?" Sokka asked.

Aang's brow drew down, and he turned to Katara. "Wait a second. Wasn't Lana's son named Qujeck?"

She nodded, and Aang turned his attention back to the low-burning waterbender before him. "You're preaching to the converted, Qujeck," Zha Yu said with a shrug. "If I had any say, they'd be headed anywhere but here as of yesterday."

"You discount their courage and their skills," the Dragon of the East pointed out.

"Sati, we've been over this. This isn't the time," Zha Yu said.

"If not now, then when? When the serpent dies of old age, will that be the proper time? Or will that be too soon, since you will have no sense of his successor?" Nila's mother launched in. It was becoming extremely evident to the young Avatar that Nila, despite any protestations she would offer to the alternative, was her mother's daughter.

"The Dragon is right. We have a unique ability to strike, while the Grand Secretariat is weak," Qujeck pointed out.

"We've lost too much already!" Zha Yu snapped. "Sati, you and yours were held for _months_, Piandao is crippled, and it took everything we had to get the Avatar out of that maw! What are you trying to accomplish?"

"What, we're leaving?" Toph asked, entering the clearing a few steps ahead of her mother. "_Finally_. I've seen enough of this city, and _I can't even see_!"

"I'm not sure," Sokka said, scratching at his head. "I mean, we've got momentum. We have Long Feng and his goons on the back foot. Probably the first time they've been that way in a long while. This might be the best chance we've got of getting the Earth King out from under him, and getting his armies for the Day of Black Sun."

The Dragon of the East turned a nod toward Sokka. "See, the Tribesmen are in agreement with me."

"I wouldn't say all of them," Hakoda said. "Son, you have to know that this is a dangerous game. The Earth King is probably the best defended person on this Earth."

"All I have to do is talk to him," Aang said. "He'll see the truth. I know it."

"That is a foolhardy notion. Anything you say will be twisted by his advisers, pouring poison into his ears with your every word," Nila piped up. "Leave the fool to his fate."

"You will be silent, girl!" her mother snapped. "Do not speak on what you do not understand."

"I wager I understand more than well enough," Nila said, not backing down in the slightest. "You are consumed by pride and you will not allow your failures go unavenged! And your durance under Lake Laogai is what came of it!"

"It was a risk we all took knowing what we stood to gain," Sativa said.

"And what you stood to lose," Katara pointed out, giving a slow nod toward Piandao, with his missing right hand.

"Guys," Aang said.

"I'm just saying, we might have only had one real victory over them, but that's momentum. We should roll with it," Sokka posited. "Am I right, Dad?"

Hakoda held his tongue, but Zha Yu wasn't so mum. "There's momentum and then there's suicide. You don't have perspective on this, Sokka."

"I believe he might have more than you give him credence," Piandao said. "Sokka is right."

"Are you kidding?" Zha Yu asked. "You're down a hand, and..."

"And I still have my mind, my feet, and my knowledge. The young man is right; we might never have as good a chance to defeat Long Feng as we do right now. It isn't a matter of should we take it, but rather, how could we not?"

"Guys?" Aang said.

"So you are infected by Mother's madness?" Nila asked. She threw her hands up into the air. "So be it! I leave you to your fates, however grim! I have done my duty to family!"

"Stop being disrespectful, girl," Sativa said.

"It is not disrespectful to point out a stupid idea as stupid," Nila contended.

"She's got a point, Sati," Bato agreed.

"Long Feng must pay for what he's done," Qujeck agreed vehemently. Eyes turned to him, and he shook his head. "And I don't even mean to me. How many have lived under a pall of terror since he rose to power? This has to stop! And it can stop now!"

"I'm still voting we leave this dump and fly to Omashu," Toph said with a shrug. "Bumi might be crazy, but he's a lot saner than the situation here."

"This is more than just armies," Sokka said. "This is wrong. We have a chance to make it right."

"GUYS!" Aang shouted, causing everybody to stop talking over him, and turn toward him. Silence reigned for a long, long moment. "I know that you don't agree on what to do. And while I'm supposed to be the great moderator, the fact is, I'm just some kid from the South Air Temple. I can't speak for anybody else, but... I think Sokka's right. We have to do something, because we might be the only ones who can. I can't ask anybody else to come with me, but I know I've got to try."

There was silence once more. "Thank you, Avatar," Sativa said with a nod.

"What about them?" Zha Yu asked, tilting his head toward Toph's mother and Nila's brother. "If you all go gallivanting after Long Feng, who's going to take care of them?"

"I can take care of myself," the elder Beifong said, with a bit of defensiveness in her tone.

"Yingsue, it's not that, it's..." Zha Yu began, his tones growing soft, paternal.

"I still feel an urge to call you Papa, but that doesn't mean I'm a child," Beifong said. She paused, breathing slowly, and glanced toward Sharif. "I will keep the young man safe. Do what you must."

"Mom, are you sure that..." Toph began, but Beifong just gave the girl a glance, and Toph fell silent.

Zha Yu, though, sighed, palming his head. "Well, I see things have swung against me," he said.

"That's the problem with democracies," Qujeck said with a smirk. "Finally, a chance to do some real damage to that man's evil empire."

"No," Zha Yu said, cutting the Tribesman off abruptly. "We are there to liberate the Earth King, not to exact a personal vendetta. Is that clear?"

"Who placed you in charge? I thought you wanted nothing to do with this?" Qujeck demanded.

"If we're going to do something stupid, we might as well be smart about it," Zha Yu pointed out. He stepped to the side of the great bison, which was effectively making up an entire wall of the bamboo clearing, as it lay contently munching on shoots while the lemur and the moose-lion cub tussled between its folded in legs. "Avatar, if you're going into that palace, you're going to need us. We know where the Earth King is. Without guidance, you'd be blundering through that building for days. Will you have us?"

"Of course," Aang said, getting to his feet. "And thank you."

"Do not thank them yet," Nila said, slipping the strap for her rifle over her shoulder. "They have yet to achieve anything."

Her mother muttered something at her in Altuundili, which caused Nila to smirk smugly, probably not what the Dragon of the East intended. "Very well," she switched into their common tongue. "Today will see us victorious or dead, with no room for error between."

"That's a grim way of putting it," Sokka said. He extended a hand toward his sister and father. "Sis? Dad? Are we doing this?"

Katara took a moment, then nodded, moving to the bison. Hakoda, though, hesitated quite a bit longer. "Aang, there's something you need to know," he said. Aang raised a brow. "My eldest daughter, Katara and Sokka's sister... she's alive. And she's working for the Fire Nation."

"Remember that firebender at Omashu?" Sokka asked.

"The one trying to kill my sister," Zuko pressed, grimly. He actually got Aang to start, since he'd been so quiet and so still that Aang had completely forgotten he was there. Aang, though, gaped.

"_That's_ Hikaoh?" he asked. Hakoda nodded.

"I can't go with you. I've got to find my daughter," he said. "I'm sorry, but this is something I should have done a decade ago."

Aang nodded. "I understand. Good luck, Hakoda."

"Thank you, Avatar," he said.

Zuko, though, rose to his feet. "I would have appreciated if somebody told me that _the Dai Li had taken Azula yesterday_," he said burningly to where the recovering Jet and the silent Mai were still in the shadows.

"Didn't want to cause you to freak out, I guess," Sokka offered. Zuko glared, but not at Sokka and the others. Then, he turned, his eyes still down.

"I'm in," he said. "I need to find her."

"So this is it," Aang said, hefting his staff, and laying a hand on Appa's flank. "We're bringing the Earth King into the World War."

"And the spirits have mercy on the fools who do it," Nila said, before giving her grudging support in the only way she knew how: by mounting the bison, and preparing for madness.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 18<strong>

**The Earth King**

* * *

><p>"... and that's when I told him 'If you're really going to try to hunt platypus bears with nothing more than a bow, then the only trophy you're going to get will be carved into your hide'!" Hua Jin Bai said, around a laugh which sent his corpulent belly to rolling. The others, easily as wealthy as he, if not from the same enterprises, gave their own polite laughter, save for a few cases. Those cases tended to be those who had fought their way to wealth, as he had, or else, those who were mad enough to enjoy the same sorts of diversions.<p>

"You always do have the finest stories, Hua," Bu Yumsun Hong said indulgently. She was about as interesting as cold jook, anyway, so he ignored her.

"Tell us again about your wild adventure with the savage Tribesman in the west," Naru asked, dressed in all her finery as though she were an enterprising gentleman. The impropriety of it had caused quite a stir when she entered the party, but Hua knew her well enough that it didn't surprise him. She went with skirts about as peacefully as powder went with fire. "The one with the wild-eyed barbarians and the hatchetman."

"Ah, yes," Bai said, settling into his chair, his fingers laced on his chest. While pot-bellied, his hands hadn't swollen as most of his sort would have; he didn't allow them. Fat fingers couldn't pull triggers. "There I was, almost twenty five years ago. Working as a trader up and down the coast between Merchant's Pier and Chin. I was just on my way back south, when a boat came over the waves in the teeth of a storm. I only know of one kind of man who'll brave that kind of weather; the Tribesman. I thought it might be a chance for more wealth, since they were always good traders in pelts, and I had more than enough to double my earnings. But not to be, I fear. Because this particular Tribesman and his wild band, they had other ideas. Ideas, I dare say, of _piracy_!"

Bai was getting right into the story-telling mood, but was caught short when his butler cleared his throat discretely at his shoulder. Hua glanced back. "Yes, what is it?"

"There is somebody at the door for you, sir," the butler said quietly.

"That's odd. I had thought that all of my guests had arrived," Bai mused.

"He said 'he was invited to tour the garden'," the butler continued. At that, Hua's left eye flicked just a bit. Now, that was something he didn't need tonight. Still, he forced a wide smile under his waxed mustache and pushed himself to his feet against the groaning of his chair.

"You will have to forgive the interruption," Bai said genteelly, "but I cannot be a poor host at my own party."

"Oh, we'll be waiting for when you get back," Naru said, raising a glass of liqueur as she did. Bai then turned and headed away from the opulence of his sitting room, filled with the wealthy and well-to-do, and entered a hall filled with tasteful murals purchased from the West. The butler fell in at his side.

"Did you send him away?" Hua asked.

"I attempted to, sir," the butler said. "Since he didn't seem your usual sort, nor one your children would be associated with. He was, however, quite adamant."

"Damn and twice damned. This is the last thing I need," Hua said. He took a breath, and calmed himself. "Perhaps I overthink things. It cannot be for what I assume. We will see what the Lotus requires of me."

"Very good, sir," the butler said, throwing open a door before his master, and showing the way into a tastefully adorned foyer. Within were... things Hua Jin Bai didn't expect. First and dominating the room was a ten tonne bison, which was scratching its back against a pillar. Hua's body locked rigid, trying to think of any reason why one of those beasts would be inside his house, and also trying to think if he had an appropriate firearm to bring it down before it caused too much structural damage. He did, but it might take a few minutes to load.

Then, he started noticing others. One and all, they looked battered, beaten, and weary. Some were middle aged. Others, teenagers at best. But two stood out from all the others, instantly drawing Hua Jin Bai's eyes to them. They were both shorter than average, one considerably so. A Si Wongi woman, and a brick of a man, with respectively green and brown eyes. "What is the meaning of this?" Hua managed to choke out, trying to find some sense in the situation.

"Bai? Been a while," the Mountain King said. "It's time that you repaid that favor."

"No, you cannot be serious. What is that thing doing in my house?" he pointed at the bison.

"Belongs to the Avatar. Now, about that thing we agreed to," Zha Yu said, trying to get Bai's attention back on him, but the old trader's mind floundered.

"The Avatar?" he asked. "Don't be absurd. The Avatar vanished a century ago!"

At that, the bald-headed one with the blue arrows tattooed to his head and hands gave a wave. "Actually, I was just encased inside an iceberg," the gawky teenager said brightly.

"...what."

"That's the Avatar," Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation said, further convincing Hua Jin Bai that he was simply having some sort of unimaginably strange dream.

"I... think I need to sit down," Hua said, letting his weight settle onto a bench which ran beside the door. Because of that, he was in just the right position to see another Si Wongi emerging from his workshops, a keg under her arm. "What – DON'T TOUCH THAT! That's incredibly dangerous!"

"Precisely why I sought it," the teenaged Si Wongi answered. She then thrust a tattoed finger up under his nose. "And you have been most lax in the care of your weapons. Did you not know that you left a firearm loaded in your collection! That is inexcusable!"

"I did?" Bai asked.

Prince Zuko nodded, as well as a girl with milky green eyes. "Bai, look at me," Zha Yu said, snapping his fingers until he turned almost numbly to the Mountain King. "We did you a pretty stern favor a long time ago. And now, the time has come to collect."

"Oh, what do you want?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"We're going to bring down the Grand Secretariat of the Dai Li," another Tribesman said, his voice positively caustic. Hua glanced to him, then back to the Mountain King, then to the 'Avatar' who was standing with a dopy grin on his face beside the royal who by all common sense should be trying to kill him. Hua looked at the madness before him, came to a decision, and awakened the pirate in him.

"What? That's it?" he asked. "I thought you were going to ask for something unreasonable."

When the world went mad, after all, only the truly stupid opted to remain sane.

* * *

><p>"Yoji, you've really outdone yourself this time," Kori muttered quietly as they walked the broad, clean thoroughfares of the Upper Ring with ease and impunity. Honestly, he couldn't say how she'd managed to pull that off in less than a day, but he was impressed nonetheless.<p>

"You were a fool to doubt her," Omo pointed out.

"I didn't doubt her. I was just pointing out she's hit a new level," Kori clarified.

"The Dai Li have Azula in their grasp. For all we know, they're going to use her against the Fire Lord. That's not something we can allow," Yoji pointed out. She then smirked, pulling up at painted lips. "And if we happen to cause some strife amongst the Fire Lord's enemies in the process, then so much the better."

"The real question is, how do we find them?" Kori asked.

"This is a trick I've been working on for a while now," Omo said, beckoning them into an alley beside a tea-shop. When he was confident nobody was looking too closely, he got down on one knee, and slammed his hand, fingers clawed, into the stone of the ground. There was a strange tremor which ran up through Kori's soles, and Omo's eyes were pressed shut.

"What was that?"

"Figured out that earthbending has a few other uses than just hurling rocks," Omo pointed out. Yoji smiled at that. Omo rose to his feet, striking the dust from his hands. "There's something down there. Deeper than the sewers. If I was going to be hiding prisoners, that's where I'd do it."

Kori was quietly impressed that they were working together as cohesively, after the minor hiccups that they'd had. Omo was definitely helping Yoji focus, which was a help to their task. The biggest concern of the waterbender, though, was something far more fundamental. Something named Hikaoh. He kept the smug smile on his face, but inside, he was sweating cold.

It wasn't just Ogan, and his so-called son. It wasn't the Tribesman in the Lower Ring, managing to spook Yoji, itself a nearly unrivaled accomplishment. No, there was too much about all this which sent Kori's 'Fei Hua Detector' buzzing, too many lies, too many things left unsaid. It was fundamental, it was in the lowest levels of his understanding of reality. Were he any but he, he would have never thought to look, to question, but that was how things were. It was more than her sleeping murmurings of Yqanuac – now that he knew it well enough to recognize it, he realized she had spoken it in her sleep since they were children – or a desperate man's pleas.

Kori was beginning to wonder if Ogan might be right. If somewhere, some time long ago, a boy named Ked was taken from his home, and a Child named Kori was crafted in his place.

If true, then there were certain people who had a lot to answer for.

"The first thing we need to do is find out where the entrances are," Yoji pointed out, bringing Kori back to the moment. "Logical layouts indicate that somebody like Azula would be kept some place where she couldn't destroy her way out. The Zutara ruins are ancient, and probably unstable. Architects, geologists, earthbenders. And we need to work fast."

"Together, or..." Omo asked.

"Of course," she said with a scowl. "Otherwise Kori would doom us all from afar."

"So glad to know I have your complete confidence and assurance," Kori said smoothly, and the girl who may or may not be his sister gave a sardonic smirk at his jibe. And he continued to think over a problem which he could, as yet, find no answer to.

* * *

><p>It was beyond brazen, to fly into the heart of Ba Sing Se under a naked sky in the broad day light. It was beyond madness to make a full and frontal assault on the Earth King's palace, after all, and everybody involved knew it. The ripple of explosions below and behind them barely penetrated the wind, but that they did at all managed to bring a wince to Aang's face with each successive pop. Each, a bomb that Bai, in his faculty of 'distraction', was using to blow up somebody's house, somebody's business. Aang had made absolutely sure that Bai knew not to set off one of those bombs unless nobody was there. If Bai lied, or was careless... Aang didn't want to think about that.<p>

"If we survive this, I am going to buy us a saddle!" Toph roared from where she was clinging to the bison's pelt. "Riding bare-back is terrifying!"

"Not something I'd recommend," Qujeck chimed in, from beside her where he clung. There was a reason why they were flying low over the rooftops of Ba Sing Se on their approach. Appa couldn't get much more altitude, not with the heavy burden which was laden upon it's back. Aang, though stared ahead at the approaching vista before him. The Dragon of the East, the lightest of the adults involved, leaned forward, pointing ahead.

"This entire structure is the palace. Their defenses around the edges are nigh impassable, but not from the sky. Land as close as you dare to the buildings in the center," she ordered against wind and transit.

"I don't see what the big problem is," Sokka shouted up from his spot. "They probably don't even know that we're he–"

If Aang had been a more cynical person, he'd have palmed his face at Sokka having so obviously and blatantly tempted fate. As it was, he only had the option of pulling Appa into a dive to hurl them all under the path of a block of stone roughly as wide as Appa's belly which hurtled up into the air to strike them all down.

"Air-borne rocks!" Toph shouted.

"How did you see that? You're supposed to be blind!" Qujeck shouted.

Toph allowed herself the moment of panic to reach over and punch him in the kidney, if not as brutally as she usually would, for doubting her. "Greatest earthbender _in the world_, dunderhead."

"If you say so," Qujeck rubbed his side, but his tone was utter doubt. And the exchange was exactly as long as it took for the next volley to launch into the heavens, seeking to bring down an airborne pest. Below, a veritable horde of black and green armored Royal House Guard were sending out block after block with a discipline and precision which would have been devastatingly effective if it were, say, used against the Fire Nation. Instead, it was trying to kill the Avatar.

Aang shifted his weight on Appa's horn, and the bison took the cues as well as he would have had Aang had time for reins. Doing so, he got the massive, airborne behemoth to start to weave and dodge through the onslaught, even gaining altitude to some degree. But as they approached the 'firing line', the attacks came closer together. More precise. So much so, that he gave a bit of a start when one block which was flying on a near-certain intercept course veered off, wobbling its way toward the ground. A glance back showed Zha Yu retaking his grasp on Appa's hide. "We're almost there! Eyes forward!"

Appa was pulling ever higher as the firing line passed underneath them, and Aang was indeed focused. But not so focused that he didn't see a block flying at him from the corner of his eye. He didn't even rise from his place at the horn. He just cast out a hand, and all of his lessons on pig-headedness and earthbending – where one ended and the other began was something of a mystery at this point – surged forth, and he willed that block to stop. The laws of physics had something else to say on the matter, so rather than simply dropping down to the ground, the block burst into gravel and dust, pelting the Avatar and those with him, but not striking them down as they might have. Appa burst through the cloud, slightly browner for the experience, but perhaps a bit wiser.

"They're not letting up, Avatar!" Zha Yu shouted. He pointed down. "I'll clear a spot to land!"

"What?" Aang asked, not sure he'd heard what he thought he did. Of course, a certain level of surety came upon him when the man released his grip, stood up, and let the wind send him flying off of Appa's back, streaking toward the ground. Aang pulled hard over, trying to get Appa turned about, to get under Zha Yu and prevent this suicide plunge, but even as Aang was turning, Zha Yu was orienting himself in the air, so that he was coming down one fist cocked back, and the other as though gauging his spot. When he landed, even Aang could feel the earthbending, pounding down so hard that the ground buckled down like pudding, cushioning his landing a little bit, if at the expense of the rest of the immediate area hurling itself upward, great cracks and columns of disrupted stone launching upward. Much of the firing line was, in a moment of madness and brute-earthbending, undone.

Aang brought the bison back around, finally reaching the ground. And not a moment too soon. Even as he was settling Appa to the ground, there was a charge approaching, almost a stampede of Ostrich Horses, clad in armor, their riders grim-faced and their lances couched. Aang hurled himself off of Appa's horn and swept his staff out, a great billow of wind causing that entire diamond-shaped charge of cavalry to buckle and get blasted into disarray, their charge muted only a few dozen feet away from where Zha Yu was unsteadily getting to his feet.

"That was a lot easier when I was young," the Mountain King muttered, as the rest of them caught up, and overtook him.

"Don't let the invaders advance! Cut them off!"

The Ostrich Horses were wheeling about, and Aang felt no real desire to hurt animals nor men. There had to be a way to disarm this. So he held out a hand, and let his instincts guide him.

"GLORIOUS BEAST OF THE LONG PATHS, CLOUD OF DUST IN THE SUNRISE

THEY OF METAL SKIN AND METAL WILL;

YOUR TIME IS NOT TODAY.

THEIR WILL IS NOT YOUR COMMAND.

YOUR COURAGE IS NOT ABSOLUTE, BUT YOUR SPEED, IS.

THROW OFF YOUR SHACKLES THIS DAY, AND LIVE TO RUN ANOTHER."

As Aang watched, the words tumbling from his mouth, the wheeling Ostrich Horses began to falter, and then buck and rear, sending their riders to the ground if they were lucky, and dragging them from their bridles were they not, as they scattered in every direction save at Aang and the others. He barely had time to smirk before he was being shoved forward, and a metal ring sounded in the air, followed by a crumbling of stone. Sokka was standing where Aang had been, and a block was rattling along the ground behind him.

"We've got more company," he said, pointing that black blade at the new horde of Earth Kingdom soldiers who had spread out in two great files to either side of their approach, and now bombarded the Avatar and those with him, trying to pummel them all into submission.

"On it!" Toph shouted, bounding forward and beginning to punch the incoming blocks out of the air, before she started acting rather than reacting, and sending her own, smaller, but faster projectiles to intercept the stones mid-air, and burst them far from where they could do any harm. Zha Yu, slowly getting his wits back about him, began to shield himself more directly, summoning a rolling wall, which the stones deflected off of, or simply burst to pebbles.

"Avatar, keep them moving!" the Dragon of the East shouted, as she took a shot at one of the guards. The arrow hit him in the armored shoulder, knocking him back a pace and causing the block he was about to project with his earthbending to harmlessly crash to the ground. Before, a third column was rushing toward them, spears out before them, even as Sokka kept Aang safe by preventing any outside attack from reaching him. He gave a moment's thought how he was going to stop this new charge afoot. He couldn't use the spirits. How could he...

"_You all seem famished! Have a lemon!_" Nila shouted with a sort of slightly-worrying glee in her own tongue as she sent a swollen, miscolored lemon flying over his head and let it come to a halt right at the foremost soldier's feet. An instant later, the fruit detonated into a greasy brown cloud which had every spearman come to a lurching halt, coughing, wheezing, and pawing at their eyes. Aang gaped at her, and she shrugged back. "What? You asked they not be slain? They are not slain."

"That wasn't nice."

"I never guaranteed nice. Only non-lethal," Nila pointed out, and pulled out another lemon from the bag at her side, tipping it toward him as though to make a point. Aang turned with a scowl and sent out a gust of wind, causing the cloud to get blown aside. Unfortunately, he had to wince as that cloud then caused a similar state in the soldiers standing over there.

"Oooh. Sorry!" Aang said, before he started to press forward once again, knocking down stones that peppered them from the fore with every element at his disposal.

Behind him, there were two waterbenders, standing back to back, water-whips flicking out with precision, but perhaps more force than strictly required. Every time one of those great bludgeons knocked down and stunned the guardsmen, Katara winced slightly. She knew, after all, that these people weren't the enemy. Not really. They were just doing their job for the wrong people. Qujeck, on the other hand, had no such compunctions or compassion. He'd watched good people die for the people these fools were protecting. His largess was leaving them breathing. The two were a study of Tribal Styles. Katara, the brutish forms of the South, effective, but inelegant. Qujeck, the almost sinuous forms of the North, a dance with destruction. But for all that, no more effective than she.

Sokka was on one side of Aang, and he heard a clang of steel on the other. A glance showed Zuko, his eyes burning golden in the daylight. His twin dao were out and he was now on Aang's other flank. "We're wasting time. Cut through!" Zuko shouted. Ahead, through the men and the ornaments of the broad pavilion, there ran a low stream, bridged by a discreet structure which the earthbenders of the Earth King had barricade to within an inch of their lives. This was Katara's time to shine, apparently. She pulled all of the water she was using to club soldiers senseless and formed a ramp of it, and skated forward and up that ramp, over the stream which cut off their advance. Even as she did, she was bending the water in it up and around her, spinning like a dancer, and her momentum was passed to the water almost whole. Such, when she landed, it lashed out like a great spring exploding, and threw the great host of earthbenders off of their perch, down into the stream, some of them outright unconscious. Aang did them a favor and snap froze the waters they were in, and those upstream, with a blast of glacial air, as he bounded over what for him was a tiny gap, and to others, a nigh-insurmountable chasm.

Ahead, the ascent. It loomed up from the pavilion like a man-made mountain... which is essentially what it was, come to think of it. It probably took a while for the earthbenders to get this whole expanse raised above the, admittedly, already raised plateau around it, and even longer still to plunk a palace on top of that hill. Whatever the case, there was a lot of stairs ahead of them, and those stairs were teeming with black and green. Aang slapped a soldier away from him absent-mindedly with a swat of air, trying to think how they were going to get up there, through all of that. Getting back on Appa wasn't exactly the best of ideas, given how many soldiers there were, and – Oh Crap!

Aang actually managed to interrupt his own train of thought when he finally saw the top of the stairway, and to two singularly massive statues of badger moles – it the symbol of the rulership of Ba Sing Se – were being manhandled up by a squad of earthbenders to each. And with a shout lost to distance and din, they hurled those two meteoric projectiles down. Aang spun back, twisting the stone up as he did. Zha Yu, able to see what had Aang so alarmed, and having the reflexes to react to it, helped, drawing up yet more stone, which the two shifted past each other, and formed into a great domed shell, a shield which dwarfed even Appa, as was the intention of it, spreading out and over the slightly baffled friends and allies who were still fighting against attacks from all sides. Their sudden darkness caused at least one to swear. Probably Nila. Then, there was a light bang nearby, and more swearing, definitely Nila.

"What was..." Zuko began, but was cut off when there was an almost world-ending crunch, and the shell that the Avatar and the Mountain King had produced had barely – barely – managed to bear up to the first. And the second cracked it sternly, dust flying in and spraying at their feet. But they weren't dashed to a smear, so that was a win, Aang figured. "Never mind."

"You could have warned me, airbender!" Nila shouted as first Appa, and then all the rest, piled out of the shelter he'd made. She was pouring what looked like milk on the side of her face and her arm, one hand of which looked like it was bleeding. "It is not wise to interrupt somebody using live explosives!"

"Didn't have much time," Aang admitted. "How are we getting up there?" Aang pointed ahead of them, the almost insurmountable climb, and the hordes descending with spears and hammers.

"Yeah, I wasn't looking forward to taking stairs either," Toph said, idly shoving Aang aside and moving to the foot of that great staircase, raising her hands up. Then, with a grunt of extreme effort, she slammed those arms down and in, as though heaving a rug out from under a house. But when she did, every step of that ascent twisted, going from a staggered walkway, to a near-perfect slope. The soldiers, already holding the momentum of their attack, had no way to stop, and began to tumble and slide as there was no longer any place for them to stop. "Alright. Next problem?"

Zha Yu grinned, as she beckoned the others close to him. "You are your mother's daughter," he shouted to cover the distance, short as it was, to her.

"Damn straight I am," Toph said with a wide grin of her own. Then, with Aang twigging to what was coming next, they all started to bend. Between the three earthbenders, there was more than enough muscle to shift a great block of stone upon which Appa and the others stood, and bear it up that slope even as the soldiers tumbled down it.

"Oh, sorry!" Katara said, as one of them almost landed on the platform with them, then slid off with a yelp of alarm.

"We're on your side! Seriously!" Sokka said.

"Do you really think they will believe that, Tribesman?" Nila asked flatly.

"I... Go play with your lemons," Sokka said flatly to her. She then smirked. They were just past the half way point, and the soldiers had gathered at the top, readying an ambush. Not a good one, since _Aang_ could see it coming.

"I might not get another chance to say this, Tribesman, but..." she then grinned. "I am not wearing underwear."

Sokka turned to her, agape. "Is this _really_ the time for that?"

"The look on your face proves that it is," she said smugly, before pulling out a fresh 'lemon', her attention now squarely ahead of her.

"She's nuts," Sokka said to the girl's mother.

"I am well aware," Sativa said with a tired tone.

Aang dropped his earthbending as they drew close, since the forces above were tipping burning oil down the slope toward them. Katara and Aang moved side by side, and in unison, parting the flow of oil and streaming it along the edges of the platform as it raised. The furrow it left in its passage would contain it after the oil missed its mark, so it wouldn't burn the soldiers still tumbling. Aang then diverted his attention once more to the soldiers themselves. Even though the ascent had been slowed by Aang no longer earthbending, they were still going to arrive quite shortly, and needed somewhere to get off in order to do that. So Aang twisted around, a great and spiraling bound, before flicking open the tail of his staff and hurling a blast of air up and at the men waiting above. It was cast so strongly, in fact, that it almost looked like a tiny tornado by the time it sent the soldiers tumbling away, stunned and out of their path.

With a thud, the platform came to a halt, and they were moving again. Zha Yu and Toph both raised up walls, hemming off the flanking maneuver which a squad of infantry was trying to complete. A shove from the two, young and old, girl and man, sent the squads rolling away, clearing the top of the stairway. And with that, they were inside the Palace.

The columns of the outer Palace gave way to dark green and gold, even the floor bearing a faintly olive coloration. There were a spattering of royal guards, decked out in ceremonial regalia which, no doubt, was at least as effective as the rough kit the other soldiers were using. That all proved moot, though, since as soon as Toph entered the room, she slammed her feet down hard on the ground, and pillars rose up to pin those fighters to the ceiling. "Where do we go now?" Aang asked.

"How should I know? I still want to _leave_ Ba Sing Se!" Toph shouted. Zha Yu and the Dragon of the East, though, both pointed in the same direction.

"This way," both said in unison.

"Beats having to check every door," Sokka said brightly.

"You have a strangely high mood," Nila pointed out. "Can we be sure that he has not been brainwashed by the Dai Li?"

"You speak lightly on a dark subject, girl," Sativa said without humor.

"That's something you shouldn't joke about," Qujeck agreed, anger in his tones. They were moving forward, through opulence which had survived since the days of Kyoshi. Some of it longer, although there was admittedly quite a lot lost during the Ba Sing Se Riots. It fell to Aang, Toph, and Katara to deal with anybody whom made aggressive gestures, since they always seemed to be the first to react.

The whole group came to a halt, though, at a wall of bright white robes, and shining scimitars. Aang and the youngers all moved to the front, their own weapons forward. "Stand aside! We're trying to reach the Earth King!" Sokka shouted.

"Then it is my duty to stop you," a woman's voice said sternly from behind that wall of fighters. "Darvesh, remove this affront to our Liege."

"_You will do no such thing_!" Sativa snapped, forcing her way past Zuko and Sokka, and into the front of that horde of Darvesh. As soon as she appeared, the dark-complected men in their pristine white robes started to glance amongst themselves, their precise stances faltering just a bit. "_You are playing tool to a fool, al'Jalani. You will reap a fool's harvest. But do not be so foolish as to consign these with you_."

"_Is that..._" one of the Darvesh asked in his native tongue, as had Sativa.

"_It cannot be any other than she_," another answered.

"_You presume much, peasant from the South_," al'Jalani said, and since the Darvesh weren't in locked step at this point, Aang could see her. She was a sour looking woman, sure enough. "_I am welcome here. You are a stain on our nation. One which has defamed us for far too long as it is!_"

"What?" Katara asked.

"Hell if I know," Qujeck muttered.

"Darvesh, destroy that traitor to our kind," al'Jalani ordered, casting out an arm. Aang gripped his staff tighter, but the Darvesh outright turned to her, confusion in their faces at best, and disbelief at worst.

"_You cannot be serious, ambassador. She might be a hateful woman, but she is still a hero against the Fire Nation_," one Darvesh pointed out.

"_Are you defying me?_" al'Jalani asked, her tones becoming shrill.

"_We are sworn only to ensure that the duties of Ambassador are undertaken well and smoothly,_" the Darvesh answered with annoyance. "_There is no place which demands we must kill at your word. Brothers, this is no fight of ours_."

And with that, the horde of white robed swordsmen put those blades away, and walked into the rooms on either side of the hall, leaving a baffled, enraged, and exasperated Si Wongi ambassador standing alone before the Avatar's group. "Don't push your luck, I guess," Zuko said dryly as he slid his own blades home for a moment, and the others started to walk past the sputtering, wrathful woman.

All but one.

Qujeck paused before her, glaring at her until she turned her attention to him. "What do you want, filth?"

"I've had enough of your hate-mongering politics," Qujeck said, before introducing his fist to her face. She went down like a sack, which caused Aang to wince.

"You shouldn't hit women!" Aang said.

"That, wasn't a woman," Qujeck said, flapping his hand, and he came to join the advancing party. Just as they reached massive, golden and jade-inlayed doors. He stared up at them, his face implacable. "His final line of defense. Let's see where that snake slithers to, now..."

"Is it locked?" Katara asked. Toph walked up and slammed both fists against the foot of that massive portal, and the whole thing bent outward, before tearing free of its hinges and crashing to the floor, rolling slightly. Everybody who wasn't Zuko stared at her in awe, since what she'd just done was, by just about every proper notion, _impossible_. "W...was that thing filled with stone?"

"Gold and iron," Toph said, patting her hands, smugly, as she advanced. The others shared glances amongst themselves. Except Zuko.

"Oh, yeah. I thought I should tell you that Toph's a metalbender now," Zuko said dryly. "Would have brought it up earlier, but she 'didn't want it spoiled'."

"I _thought_ I'd seen..." Sokka said, raising a finger, but he was quickly left as the others moved forward, content to accept what their eyes told them. Aang was foremost amongst them. The chamber within was vast, olive-stone floored and with great pillars holding a dome overhead, carved with the names and likenesses of hundreds of East Continent gods from antiquity and modern times, a tacit symbol that the rulership in Ba Sing Se was legitimized from below as well as from within.

Everything, from the carvings in the dome, to the statues set into the pillars, to the very cut of the stone in the floor, all drew attention to exactly one place. A dais, raised slightly over the level of the rest of the room, bearing the roughly-life-sized rendition of a badger-mole, crafted out of solid gold. Its claws, cupped together, formed a sort of baldachin over the cushion laden throne itself. And at the very center of all of this opulence, all of these displays of power and authority, was a man. He wasn't a large man. Narrow faced, and narrow shouldered, he didn't _look_ the part of an Earth King, but his regalia couldn't be anything but. The group ran the distance until they were closer to the foot of the dais, so that the room would swallow their words.

"Earth King Kuei!" Aang shouted. "We need to speak to you! This is incredibly important!"

The others gathered around him, not able to keep up with his pace, obviously, but he couldn't begrudge them that. What he could begrudge was the appearance of Long Feng, gliding around the edge of the baldachin, and standing at the Earth King's left hand. "These are the forces I warned would attempt to overthrow you," Long Feng said quietly. Still, the whole room was constructed to make the words on the dais carry all the way to the back wall, so all heard them well enough.

"No we're not! We're actually on your side," Sokka pleaded.

"You have a strange way of showing it," the Earth King spoke, his voice sounding... well... young. Immature. "You assault my personal guards. You damage my palace, panic my mounts, and break my fancy door..." he shook his head briefly. "What reason should I have to trust you?"

Zuko glanced behind them, at the catastrophe left in their wake. "Well, he knows when to call a shovel a shovel."

"If you wish to put any weight to your claims, lower your weapons in my presence," Kuei said testily. Aang glanced to the young, and the old. The old shook their heads. The young shrugged. Aang held his staff out before him, and let it fall to the floor. It was followed by the blades of Sokka and Zuko, the rifle of Nila, and a boulder held aloft by Toph. Aang glanced back to the others, and after a long, obviously unwilling moment, the Mountain King and the Dragon of the East disarmed as well. Qujeck glared hatefully at Long Feng.

"You have to do this," Katara whispered at him. "It's our only chance."

The Northern waterbender's teeth grit, but he forced the water back into his flasks. He certainly didn't look happy about it, though. Aang, though, turned to the king and put on his most winning smile. "See? That should prove that we have the best of intentions, your Earthiness!"

"Detain them," Long Feng said flatly. And in a flash of movement and pressure, and a grinding of stone slamming shut around stone, Aang was detained. So were everybody else.

Well, except for the two oldest, who reacted fast enough – or simply had enough paranoia – to avoid the attempt. The Dragon didn't draw her bow, but she made it very clear that she could, and would, very quickly.

"What are you doing?" Aang asked, completely incredulous.

"We dropped our weapons! We're your allies!" Sokka shouted.

"Yes, and they are obviously going to believe it if you shout it loud enough," Nila said sarcastically.

"Remove these traitors from the Earth King's sight."

"You will not do this," the Dragon snapped. "The Avatar is not to be treated this way, not by you, not again!"

"The Avatar?" Kuei asked.

"Yes. The Avatar," the Dragon said. Aang could see a wall of Dai Li approaching from the shadows, and knew that even with her reflexes, she wouldn't be able to avoid them all. Kuei leaned forward, though.

"You are the Avatar?" he asked with suspicion. Sativa leaned back, confused.

"You do not know who I am?" she asked, mildly insulted.

"And why do you think that is?" Zha Yu pointed out. He, instead, pointed at Aang. "That's the Avatar."

Aang waved his hand at the Earth King, almost effortlessly bursting the bonds, before allowing it to be recaptured. No point in making a needless fuss. Long Feng, though, gave a wan expression. "What does it matter? They are enemies of the state."

"And on what grounds?" Zha Yu asked. "On what crimes? Anarchy? Treason? Sedition? Or have you even bothered writing them out?" the Mountain King broke off, as something large, furry, and brown sauntered up to where he and the Avatar were standing abreast. Zha Yu frowned at the beast in the green vest and funny little hat, up until it started licking Aang's ear. "...Bosco?"

"Hmmm," the Earth King pondered, as the Dai Li got closer. "I am inclined to hear this stranger out. After all, Bosco seems to like them."

Even Aang could tell that Long Feng was fighting mightily not to palm his face. Aang stepped forward, leaving the creature to grunt pleasantly, scratched on its cheek by the Mountain King. "Earth King Kuei, there is a war going on. A war which has been purposefully hidden from you. For the last century, the Fire Nation has been waging a war of aggression against not only the Earth Kingdoms, but all of the free peoples of the world. The Dai Li have kept the knowledge of the World War from you in order to keep power for themselves," Aang said. "It's a conspiracy to control Ba Sing Se, and control _you_."

Long Feng put on a contemptuous look. "A secret war? How ridiculous."

"It _is_ unlikely," the Earth King agreed. "I certainly would have heard of such a thing. Especially if it had gone on as long as you claim. Why, my father would have spoken to me about it, if it had!"

Sokka pointed at Long Feng. "Your advisor tried to kidnap the Avatar and use him against us! He did the same thing to Toph's mother, and we don't think she'll ever recover from what he did to her! He's kept the entire city under a pall of fear for decades."

"This is all very unlikely," Kuei said, leaning back. Long Feng leaned in to him.

"You are right to doubt them, my liege," he whispered, once again, the words carrying by simple acoustics. "They are part of an anarchist cell which I have been tracking. They must have become desperate indeed to attempt something so brazen. I will remove them and their trouble-making permanently."

Kuei nodded. "I must heed the advice of my minster," he said.

"You are wasting your breath. Long Feng has the leash tightly around him," Nila said bitterly.

"Damn you Long Feng! This isn't over!" Qujeck roared, bucking against the Dai Li which now held him.

"ENOUGH!" Zha Yu roared. He glared at the Earth King. "You may not have heard of Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, but I know you've heard of _me_."

"He is just one of them," Long Feng began, but Zha Yu cut him off.

"I am the Mountain King. I crushed the Daughter of Knives at the edge of the Bomei River. I stood with the wounded of Senlin against the blaze in the high summer," Zha Yu recounted. "I ended the rebellion of Xi Qu _with a word_. If you don't know who I am, then this is no Earth Kingdom worth serving."

"This is..." Long Feng began again.

"The Mountain King?" Kuei's voice perked up instantly, his eyes widening. "This is... unbelievable! I had heard that you were dead!"

"Reports of my demise are... for some parties... sadly exaggerated," Zha Yu said with a smirk, and a significant glance toward Long Feng. "I know that what the Avatar says seems absurd, but even if you don't believe him, believe me. Believe the one who brought your grandfather out of the assassination attempt in the first year of his rule..."

"How old _is_ this guy, anyway?" Sokka asked quietly. Aang had no recourse but to shrug.

"I can prove to you that the Earth Kingdoms and the Fire Nation are at war," he declared.

"That... You must understand. This is very hard for me to believe. I had tea with the Fire Lord only a day ago. He didn't mention anything about a war!" Kuei said, shaking his head. There was a fearful glance exchanged by the party. Oh, this wasn't good. "But... even as much as I must trust my advisor, the Mountain King has earned my ear, through a simple debt of my forefathers. What is it that you would show me?"

"It cannot be shown here, sadly," Zha Yu said.

"Lake Laogai?" Nila asked quietly. Sativa shook her head.

"They will have destroyed the complex by now," she said. "No, he will be shown..."

"The battle at the Wall!" Sokka blurted out. "It's only been a couple of weeks. The Fire Nation had supplies for _months_!"

"I am not sure what to think," Kuei said.

"He is a traitor and an anarchist," Long Feng said.

"And he is the reason I am alive today," Kuei agreed. "Release them, Dai Li agents. If they have proof. They will show it. If the proof is wanting, then Long Feng, you may do as you recommended."

Long Feng wasn't sweating, but he looked like he wanted to. The bonds dropped away from Aang's wrists, as well as those with him. "That was not much of a victory," Nila muttered.

"Sometimes, we have to take what victories we get," Sokka informed her.

"Yeah, sucks, I know," Toph agreed.

* * *

><p>Eyes slammed open.<p>

Her breathing was ragged, her throat burning like she'd gargled razor-blades and rock-salt. In fact, every part of her hurt to some degree or another. Her skin felt too tight. Her limbs, creaking on the edge of snapping outright. But the hunger... it was still there, but distant. Like there was a wall, between it and she. The greatest pity was that she could feel that wall buckling, that the hunger would return as inevitable as the dusk. Her gaze was locked low, on her knees which were pointing forward, her legs tucked under her in a lotus position.

Then, she noticed the smell, or rather, the lack of it. So long had she suffered under the stink of blood and worse things that she had grown accustomed to it. Now, it seemed absent, and she was shocked at the change. Her eyes flit, and she could see her hands, clean and whole, laying upturned on her knees. And she wasn't wearing rags, the bearest vestige of a nun's garments. No, even from what she could see, she was clad in a robe, bright yellow and orange, as though fresh from the dyers, the cloth of it gentle across her shoulders as though straight out of the loom.

At this point, Malu was very, very confused.

"You have many questions," a voice said to her. A voice which convinced her that she had finally completely lost her mind. At least insanity wasn't as painful as what came before it, then. "I have only one, so I can wait to answer yours."

"You aren't real," Malu croaked. "You died, a century ago."

Her eyes told a different story, as she beheld the slender, white-bearded and loincloth clothed man who was sitting in an identical pose as she, his eyes serenely closed, a faint twist of a sublime smile on his lips. "Does it alarm you to see me again?" the lay brother asked, as calmly as a leaf slipping through the breeze toward a creek. "If so, then I must apologize. That was not my intention."

"Brother Pathik, you aren't here. I'm just... crazy. I wish I was dead. I wish this was over," she said, her chest heaving, as she admitted what she couldn't have said before. Because _it_ wouldn't let her.

"Shhh," Pathik said soothingly, and her growing sobs somehow died in her throat, leaving her equally confounded, but somehow becalmed. "I have watched over these lands since my airbending brothers fled from the flames. I always felt that there was something important in my destiny, a vital task which I had to perform here. Samsara is woven without the knowledge of such simple men as I. I am simply a leaf on the wind, going where it bears me."

"But... even if they didn't... you would have died of old age," she tried to justify to herself.

"I am old, yes," Pathik said, offering a whisper of a nod. "Others have been older. My task, my destiny, it kept me here."

"But... but I looked for you! Years after the Purge, I searched for _anybody_! I was alone!" she shouted, eyes welling once more.

A tiny sigh. "In that, I can claim only ignorance, and cowardice," Pathik said with a tone of apology. "But I am a wiser man, now. I know my purpose. I know my place. It is here, and it is now."

"Wh... why doesn't it hurt so bad?" Malu asked, her voice almost failing her.

"I have composed a yoga to focus your mind, to separate your spirit from it," he said easily. "It was a complicated thing. I doubt you were aware as it happened. It was not until the sunrise that it ceased its wailing. It was not until now, that you spoke."

"Can... can you keep it away?" she asked.

"That lies at the heart of my question," Pathik said, opening his eyes slowly, and looking upon her. "I know that you are possessed by something alien and cruel, that it does unimaginable things to you. Some would leave you in this hellish existence, trapped between salvation and damnation, and much closer to the latter, forever. I am not so cruel. I have discovered many things, in the last one hundred years. I have discovered that not only shamans can cast out an unwanted spirit," he gave a limp shrug. "I have also learned an excellent dish for when I am feeling peckish."

"What do you want?" she asked.

"You are in pain," Pathik said. "You do not deserve this."

"I want it to stop," she said, so desperately.

"My question is this," Pathik said, and the gravity of it caused Malu to hesitate before blurting out 'yes anything! Please'. "How much would you give, to be free of the monster which lies within your skin?"

Malu stared at him, her eyes still brimming. "...anything."

"How much would you sacrifice to cast the demon out?" he continued.

"Everything."

"And if you knew that your salvation was the damnation of the world, that to gain your comfort, you would damn all others to the suffering you have endured, would you ask it then?" Pathik finished, his question in full.

Malu stared at him. She wanted so badly to say yes. Anything. Anybody. Everything.

But she knew it was wrong. "...no," she whispered. "...I... if they hurt like I hurt... I couldn't do it."

Pathik nodded. And Malu felt doom set upon her. "That is what I thought your answer would be," Pathik said, his voice barely a whisper.

"Can... can you at least make it so it doesn't hurt anymore... for a while?" Malu asked.

"I asked you that question," Pathik said, pushing through her query, "because I needed to know how much of you was left."

"What?" Malu asked.

"Whatever creature is chained within your body, it has tried to destroy your mind, take it for its own. It has tried to erase your soul, turn you to its ends in all ways. It is obvious that it has failed."

"But... you said..."

Brother Pathik shook his head gently. "If I allowed even one to suffer, then as well to doom the world. The world and the one, they are connected, and they are the same. Every wound you have suffered, is a wound to the world. The easy paths only lead down the mountain, but at the peak there lies treasures beyond all imagining and worth. You must understand the risks," he rose to his feet, slowly, even so, showing that he wasn't even so frail as he appeared. "The task will be perilous. You will be walking a razor edge. And even if you are successful, the wounds this creature has inflicted on you may be too severe. My efforts might only release you to your death."

"I'm willing to take that risk," Malu said, her voice a rasp.

Pathik smiled, then. A gentle, reassuring smile. He walked over to her, cupping her cheek with his hand. "Then sleep, child. The end will begin soon enough."

And Malu's world returned to blackness once more.

* * *

><p>Azula was growing impatient. She knew that the Avatar should be making his move against Long Feng soon, and when he did, she would be there to pick up the pieces. Pieces she would forge together into a blade she would thrust through its former master's heart. It would be better than last time. This time, there would be no mistakes. She would not lose anybody dear to her.<p>

This time, Ty Lee would be alright.

It was a bizarre thought, one she knew wasn't exactly rational. Hell, she hadn't even seen Ty Lee for... She wasn't even sure. As far as she could remember, the acrobat could be just about anywhere by now. But still, that was what kept demanding her focus. Because, against reason and sensibility, if she did this perfectly, Ty Lee would be safe.

She had to be perfect. Anything less wasn't good enough.

The chamber they had secured her was a far cry from the cell where she was brought to Long Feng a lifetime ago. This was more of a cave than a cell. And come to think of it, it rather reminded her of the pit she'd dropped Zuzu into, last time. A grinding on one of the walls drew her attention, and she forced her back straight from the almost feral pacing she had been doing to keep her mind off of the slow progress of seconds into minutes, minutes into hours. Hours into days? She couldn't say. But the grinding was a change, like the growling of her stomach. She faced the opening portal, and the cadre of green robed Dai Li who were standing on the other side of it.

"You are to be moved," the Dai Li said simply. "Come with us. It will be easier if you don't resist."

Azula gave them a haughty glare, and walked into their midst, for all the world appearing that she was their charge, and they, her bodyguards. And soon enough, that would be a reality as well as a fantasy. She just had to get at Long Feng at the right moment. And that moment was coming soon. The procession brought her through the black stoned ruins, by fortune's base known both to her and to these people as the Zutara Ruins, if likely for different reasons. It passed with bleak similarity, and with as little to mark the passage of distance and time as there was with her growing hunger, and the irregularity of her sleep.

She knew that she was far down. It was a miserable feeling, to be so far from the sun. She couldn't sleep, and at the same time, felt dead on her feet. She knew from practice that she could barely conjure a candle-flame. She had been down here too long. But she couldn't let that sway her. She needed focus for what was ahead. Ahead, though, took a left turn, and entered into a metal-framed door, and within that, a metal-paneled room. She raised a brow at that, but her eyes were quickly drawn to a platter of pedestrian food left on a small, built in table.

"Enter. Eat," the Dai Li ordered. She gave a scoff, ignoring his orders, and passing that threshold at her own pace. She glanced back at them, and they watched her, warily as though of some wild animal. Fitting. As soon as her heel cleared that threshold, though, the door slammed down, locking into place and dropping the room into darkness, until the crystals started to glow from where they poked through the metal cladding, filling the room with a pale green light. A glance, to confirm her solitude, then she descended upon that platter like the wild beast they believed her.

She would have liked to have said that in her hunger, she ate with the poise and grace becoming the daughter of the rightful Fire Lord. Would have liked.

While not foul, it was hardly a feast, and hardly up to even her own personal standards when she had begrudgingly learned to cook, if only to prevent the starvation of both she and her daughter. She had... learned many harsh lessons in her life. Cooking was one of them. Honestly, she'd say she'd gotten fairly good at it. But that was a lifetime ago. Now, she had to focus on important things. Bringing down Ba Sing Se. Killing the Avatar. Making sure he stayed dead, this time.

Somehow, that would make everything better again.

"I know you're still there," Azula said to nobody, and to herself. "I can feel you... slithering around. Trying to weaken me. Confuse me. It won't work! I am _stronger_ than you!"

Silence answered her.

"Fine. Stay quiet," she snapped, her eyes still locked on her plate. She was yelling around eating. Not exactly dignified, but the fact was, at the moment, Azula didn't care. "It's too late to stop me now. I already have everything in motion. Even your manipulations can't stand in my way," she broke off to take a very deep swig of the water from the included tankard. "So why did you envy me so? I can understand it, there are a lot of good reasons to. I'm older, wiser, and more powerful than you could hope to become on your own. It must have eaten away at you to know that you wasted all those years in weakness, getting doted on by Zuzu of all people, when you could have been making yourself stronger, carving an empire out of a hostile world on the strength of my own back. You're pathetic. A broken, worthless child. Azula, the little monster who mommy and daddy never loved."

"That isn't true," a voice came from behind her.

It wasn't the girl.

"Please. We both knew that Zuzu was the only one who you ever paid attention to," she said, pointedly not turning to the voice, which sounded so much like Mother. Just the girl trying something new to fool her. "And I don't even know why I'm bothering to talk to you. There's nothing to say."

"Azula, why are you talking like this?" Mother's question sounded confused.

"Because you _made_ me like this!" Azula screamed, pushing away from the table hard enough that the tray almost slid off of its top. Yes, the illusion was a multifaceted one, it seemed. It wasn't her own weak, tiny self which faced her, but a facade of the mother who never loved her. Who thought she was a monster.

And in a way, she was right. Azula stood her ground against that illusion. "So what do you want now? To convince me that I'm wrong? To tell me that my only chance is to buckle under to whatever you offer? I'm not that stupid. You only offer weakness and defeat."

"Zuli, I don't understand," the image of her mother said.

"Don't. Call. Me. That," she hissed through grit teeth. "I don't care what you have to say. You are as much of a liar now as you've ever been. It was never about me. It was always about _you_! Trying to use me in your little games!"

"Azula, stop this at once!" Mother shouted, her face not fearful, not withdrawing, but actually somewhat angry. "You're screaming like a madwoman and it is making no sense whatsoever!"

"And why should I agree to anything which the traitorous bitch who killed Grandfather has to say?" Azula said, rolling her eyes and her words dripping with venom. She turned aside, preparing to return to her long-overdue meal, but was frankly stunned when she felt a slap crash into her cheek. It actually caused her to stagger a step to the side.

"_I did it for you!_" Mother shouted, tears beginning to run down her face, as she looked at her daughter. And then, to her hand, and she went deathly pale. "Oh... Oh, no, I shouldn't have done that."

"You realize how quickly the illusion fails," Azula muttered. "Leave me to my solitude, you pathetic liar. You've got nothing to say that I want to hear."

But she didn't. She just slumped to the floor, and started weeping. And Azula ignored that figment of her divided mind, returning to the mechanical task of eating. She had to focus, ignore that pathetic image, and prepare herself. She swallowed, glancing down to her plate. Still some left. Then, she glanced back up, at a pair of furious golden eyes.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" her younger self asked. Demanded. In a rage.

"Your trick failed," she muttered.

And the girl reached forward, grabbing one of the bangs which framed Azula's face, and hauled her attention aside – well, it was that or have her hair pulled out by the roots – to the other image behind her. "You think I did that?" her younger self thrust out a finger at where Mother was weeping, her face in her hands.

"Of course you did," she answered.

"Then why am I standing here?" she asked acidicly.

Azula glanced to the girl holding her by her hair, then back to her Mother...

Her mother.

...oh.

* * *

><p>"So this is a train? It is very... public," Kuei said, flanked on all sides by his guard, leaving precious little space for the rest of Aang's group to sit at the front. Zuko scoffed at that comment.<p>

"This isn't a train," he said. "The Grand Azul Line, that's a train. It's third class is better than this... trolley."

"You've never been on a train before?" Katara asked, interjecting over Zuko.

"I've never been out of the palace!" Kuei said with enthusiasm. Aang glanced to one of the guards, who offered a meager shrug, and Aang let it drop.

"Wait a second. How can you be Earth King if you've never actually visited anything that you're supposed to rule?" Sokka asked.

"It is a complicated thing," Sativa said. "Best not ponder it."

Nila, on the other hand, leaned toward him. "The power of the throne has... declined, of late."

"What? No it hasn't!" Kuei said, a little confused. "My rule is just as sure as my father's, or his father's."

"But you've never been to... Omashu, say?" Sokka pressed.

"No Earth King has ever been beyond the Walls," Kuei said.

"Categorically untrue," Nila muttered to Sokka.

"No, it isn't! It's what I was always told!"

"By whom?" Sativa asked.

Kuei rose a finger, "By my advisors and educators..."

"Which included..." Zha Yu prompted, not even bothering to look back.

"Long F... I begin to see your position," Kuei said, that finger wilting.

The tram continued to speed along its tracks, propelled by the earthbenders behind it, and racing over the fields and villages of the Western Reaches. Aang couldn't help but watch those villages as they shot past them. It was a strange thing to consider, that there were whole communities which never uprooted; people who never went more than a few dozen miles from the place they were born in their entire lives. And even then, it was likely that despite being sandwiched between two rings of walls, welcome beyond neither, this place, these people, probably lived as well as any could dare to hope.

"So you really have no idea that there's been a war for a hundred years?" Zuko asked the Earth King, his tones flat and very dry.

"It flies in the face of all logic!" he said. "I mean, they have a fraction of our population, a sliver of our agricultural base! It's not a question of why they'd go to war with us, it's a question of _how_!"

"Trust me. My family has a long history of fighting yours," he said.

"And why is that?" Kuei asked.

"You should know, if you had tea with the _Fire Lord_," and there was venom in those words. Kuei, though, seemed oblivious. Ahead of them, the Great Walls loomed, and the track started to ascend so that it could reach the actual upper level of that great bastion. Aang winced slightly as he saw the smoke which still wafted above the ramparts, the occasional thud in the air of something heavy hitting something solid.

"If you still think that we're not at war with the Fire Nation, this is going to come as something of a shock," Aang said, as the tram came to a stop, nestled in a shielded nook, just beyond the edge of the wall. He moved out of the tram first, as was his nature, and guided the others behind him, through the claustrophobic hallway which lead out of the stone bunker the tram took shelter in. The sun glared into the darkness, and erupted into a tableau of mayhem.

Aang bounded up onto the crenelations, balancing as easily as breathing, as he swept out his staff slowly over the entire scene. Soldiers hefting battered, burned, and lacerated soldiers into the towers, where they could be seen to as much as could be offered. Earthbenders furiously bending, trying to undo grievous harm done probably minutes ago by the exploding projectiles of the Fire Nation, holding the Great Wall together through little more than their grit and perseverance. Archers, not wearing the colors of the Earth Kingdom and thus possibly mercenaries, firing down on the battleground from on high. And there was the sound of shouting, of metal rattling against metal. The sound of engines thundering. The sound of machines being torn apart.

Kuei was pale as a widow's dress as he walked to the edge of the wall, staring down onto the pandemonium. The tide of battle below was slow, especially compared to what it had been when the machines – which still stood in various degrees of destruction along the Wall – had been spearheading the assault. But it was probably more fighting than the young Earth King had ever seen in his life. Fighting that he likely couldn't even conceive of. "...My word..." he said numbly, staring out over the carnage.

"What are you doing, bringing the Earth King here?" Long Feng's voice pulled Aang's attention to the man who approached from... seemingly within the wall it self, frankly. "This place is a dangerous point of contention from the bandits and anarchists outside! You are putting him in needless danger!"

"Anarchists? Bandits?" Sokka asked, incredulously. "I've gotta say, I'd be pretty scared if I _ever_ found bandits who had enough guys and money to throw an attack at the Great Wall."

"Weak story, serpent," Sativa said flatly.

"The notion that this is a Fire Nation attack is what is a weak story. You are manipulating events to suit your story! I would not be surprised if all of those men who are fighting our brave soldiers are here at your beck and call!" he pointed an accusing finger at the Avatar.

"Quick question," Sokka asked of Kuei, who slowly turned to face him. "Have you ever noticed how there's so few Air Nomads around, right now?"

"Wh... yes. I guess..." he said.

"Have you ever wondered why that was?" Sokka asked.

"I heard there was a..." he began, but he slowly turned toward Long Feng. "There was no plague, was there?"

"If my people ever contracted a plague, we had a thousand ways to avoid contracting it," Aang said earnestly. "And besides, if we had a disease, one that could wipe us out, don't you think it'd have gotten _everywhere_?"

"You still have no evidence that this is proof to your theory," Long Feng said.

Nila, though, produced a telescope from a pouch at her side, and handed it to the Earth King. "If you would entertain me? Turn your gaze thusly."

She pointed the pale, confounded royal to the wall, and pointed into the distance, where the tents of the enemy were barely visible across the grey, dead landscape of the Wasteland. He rose the lens to his eye. Aang knew, both from his sharp eyes, and first hand knowledge, what the Earth King would see.

"...a three point flame. Black on red," Kuei said. "The... the Fire Nation is at war with us."

"This is a fabrication. I warned you about how devious these anarchists are. We must return to the Palace before it is too late," Long Feng stated. But Kuei looked to him, and shook his head.

"Not today, Grand Secretariat," he said, color starting to return to him. "I... I was a fool for far too long. Too trusting. Too _content_. And this is what it got me. Dai Li, arrest the Grand Secretariat, on charges of High Treason against the Throne and people of Ba Sing Se."

Aang's eyes shot wide, as he faced the two Dai Li who had escorted Long Feng. Frankly, Aang was a little shocked to notice them at all. He hadn't even seen them when they arose with Long Feng. They shared a glance, then as one, cast out a net of chains. A net, which caught and entangled Long Feng, hauling him back into their grasp.

"What is this! You cannot be serious!" Long Feng shouted. "You cannot do this! You need me now more than ever! More than you can even conceive!"

"Remove this traitor from my sight," Kuei said, sounding somewhere between disgusted, disappointed... and afraid.

"Hoooyeah! Long Feng is loooong gone!" Sokka shouted, thrusting out mocking fingers at the arrested manipulator. Nila turned to him, a scowl on her face, as he let out a braying laugh. "Oh, I've been _waiting_ to use that one."

"Then perhaps you should have waited longer. It might have decayed and allowed a better jibe to arise in its place," she said.

"Must you ruin every moment?"

"It counts highly amongst my list of pleasures in life," she agreed. Qujeck, though, simply glared at Long Feng as he was borne back to the elevator which had brought him up.

"This isn't over," the waterbender said coldly.

"Of course it is," Aang said. "Long Feng is finished. We've won."

Qujeck shook his head. "I'm not that much of an idiot. He's got a plan for this. Mark my words. It won't end, Avatar, until that man is _dead_."

* * *

><p>The Grand Secretariat's orders were quite distinct, and very clear. While it was clear even to an agent such as Guhn that the Avatar's plot surely had help from amongst the inner circle, it was shocking indeed to find who in particular had dragged so much attention away from the Earth King's palace. That cause now lay in chains, being dragged by a bruised and burnt Guhn, toward where their more publicly known headquarters lay.<p>

"You should have seen the look on your face when that lemon exploded," the corpulent trader guffawed, even as he was manacled and beaten black and blue. "Say what you will about her manners, that girl has a flare for the dramatic!"

"Shut up, Bai," Guhn said as he continued to shove the traitor ahead of him.

It was fortunate, in Guhn's eyes, that he wasn't higher in the hierarchy than he was. As it stood, he only had to deal with the vandals, rather than have to fix what the vandals destroyed. The path of chaos that Bai had cut through the Upper Ring staggered the mind; it was almost as bad as the storied Dog Rebellion, only delivered in less than an hour by a few dozen. Any Dai Li who tried to apprehend those explosive-toting anarchists found themselves beset by specialty bombs filled with lung-clogging and eye-burning fog.

Guhn had had a very rough, very _long_ day.

"Do you think that they'll increase the tariffs to cover the damage?" Bai asked. "There was quite a bit."

"I'm sure that we'll take it out of _you_, one pound of fat at a time," Guhn muttered. The time for Dai Li professionalism ended about a dozen explosions ago. Guhn just wanted to hand this traitor over to the Secretariats, then drink himself unconscious until his next shift. He was fairly certain that, at this point, he deserved it.

"So harsh. It was all in good fun," Bai said with a bloody grin.

"Good fun? The White Rose district is practically a ruins!" Guhn snapped, giving Bai a shove so that he went face first into a stationary wagon. Bai, madman that he seemed to have become overnight, laughed uproariously at that. Guhn stared at the chuckling Bai for a moment, before reminding himself that this bastard wasn't Guhn's problem anymore. Soon as he was handed over, let the higher ups deal with the crazy person. "Keep walking."

"You know, back in the day, you would have never caught me," Bai said, spitting some blood onto the street as Guhn continued to drag him along.

"Then fortunate for me that this is _my_ day, and not yours," Guhn said, a scowl on his face. Gods above and below, it hurt to even scowl with that vile powder stuck to him! "And your fortunes are going to take a turn, I fear. Since we didn't catch your accomplices, we're going to have to extract them from you. I hear, it's not a kind process."

"Oh, I've had worse," Bai said with a scoff. Guhn _sooo_ wanted this day to be over.

That desire was not helped when somebody barreled into his back, sending him forward into Bai, toppling the latter, and then sending him atop the overweight anarchist. "Out of my way, Smokey!" a voice taunted him. Guhn looked up, just in time to see blue turning a corner ahead. Guhn snarled, and pulled out a second set of manacles, before hooking the chain of the one confining Guhn's arms behind his back to a solid bronze post which held up an awning.

"Stay here!" Guhn demanded, before taking off at a run.

"Like I had a choice," Bai pointed out, but Guhn wasn't listening. For all he knew, this was one of Bai's accomplices from before. Thus why he chained Bai to a metal pole; it couldn't be bent. He rounded that corner, and saw the man in blue dart down a darkened section of the alleyway. Gritting his teeth, Guhn pursued, his battered body perhaps not offering quite the dexterity the Dai Li were renowned for, but for all that, it was still far better than most would assume. He reached that intersection, and saw the figure in blue at its end. This alley was capped by a wall, and the thug had no way out. Guhn lashed out with a pair of earthbending kicks, casting away the stone shoes he was wearing. With that, he was essentially disarmed; his gloves had been used up during the mayhem. Guhn smirked as the first hit squarely in the back, and the second scored higher, smashing into the figure's head. But to Guhn's surprise, the head didn't snap forward, nor a grunt of surprise and injury fill the air. No, that head... popped off and rolled into a corner. Guhn's eyes drew wide.

Silently as a snow-tiger, a Tribesman dropped from his hiding place, clutching to a relief carving, and padded up behind the Dai Li even as the attacks were being launched. So when he stared, stunned, at what was before him, there was no time to react before that Tribesman hooked a crook of a boomerang under the foot bearing all of the Dai Li's weight, and heaved, sending the man face-first into the stone of the alley. In an instant, the Tribesman was dropping down onto the Dai Li's back, driving a knee into his ribs and compacting his lungs, but that was just to keep him off balance. Then, a blade appeared before the Dai Li's eye, burnished blue of Tribal Steel.

"If you don't want what happened to him to happen to you, you'd better tell me what I want to know," the Tribesman demanded. Guhn gave himself the luxury of turning his head, looking back. The barbarian crushing him was middle aged, with a close beard running along his jaw, his hair bound in a fairly traditional way, and hints of burns peeking out from the neck of his clothing.

"...I need a drink" Guhn muttered into the dirt. This day just got a lot longer.

* * *

><p>Azula stared at her mother.<p>

"How?" she demanded.

"Oh, Agni's flame, what is wrong with you?" her younger self said, giving the older a slap in the face. It stung as though she'd done it to herself, with her own much stronger hands. "The first time we see Mother in years, and the only thing which comes to your mind is 'Oh', and 'How'?"

"I thought you might be more interested than I was," Azula muttered to her younger self. "After all, she can't have treated you any better than she treated me."

"Zuli, what is going on?" Ursa asked, her eyes still filled with the tears she had barely started shedding. "Why are you talking like that?"

"_I'm_ the one asking questions here, _Mother_," Azula snapped, her fists clenching tight. "After all, you've given up any right to ask me anything the day you tore our family apart!"

"Zuli... Azula... You have to understand. I didn't have a choice," Ursa said, her voice slowly regaining control, but it was still flooded with... emotion.

Azula remembered that sound, the way she was speaking. She'd felt that way before.

No, not now. "Stop distracting me," Azula hissed at her younger self.

"I'm not doing anything," the girl said smugly.

"...I'm not trying to distract you," Ursa said, confused. "When you got sick, I was terrified. I knew what Azulon would do if he discovered that his son's favored heir was... 'defective'. I listened to him when Ozai spoke to his father. He tried to offer your life for his brother's rightful throne."

"We both know that's a lie. The only one in any danger in that family was Zuzu, and that's because he was born worthless, and will die worthless," Azula muttered.

"Azula! Don't speak that way about your brother!" Ursa said sternly. Now there was the Ursa that Azula remembered.

"I think I've got the right," Azula snapped back. "Father would never spend my life like that."

"That we agree on this fills me with shame," her younger self said with a look of disgust.

Ursa shook her head slowly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Then you don't know your father like I do. He wasn't always so ambitious. There was a time where he honestly would have done _anything_ for the good of the Fire Nation. But... things stagnated," she explained. Lied. "Zuli, I know you don't want to hear this, but it's the truth; Ozai wanted you gone, because he thought it was the best thing for the Fire Nation."

"That's insane!" her younger self shouted, quivering with disbelief. "You're lying! Father would never do that to me!"

"So he's a patriot at heart?" Azula asked sarcastically. "So, please regale me with the story of how you selflessly murdered an old man in his bedroom and fled into the night a step ahead of justice."

"It's more complicated than that," Ursa said. She sighed, then looked Azula in the eyes, with eyes so much like her own. "Zuli... Killing Azulon was _Ozai's_ idea."

"That's a lie!" both of her said, but the younger one with much more vehemence.

Ursa shook her head. "I wish it wasn't. I wish I didn't have to see the look in Ozai's eyes when he told me that he was going to have to kill his own father. It hurt him. In ways I'm not sure you understand," Ursa said. She let out a quiet, bitter laugh. "Even then, he was trying to do what was best for the Nation. Saving his children from a vain, demented old tyrant."

"Don't paint yourself as noble in this," Azula snapped, pushing her mother back with a single finger in the center of the older woman's chest. Older, but not much bigger, all told. Between the mass Azula put on in muscle and her own earlier-than-remembered growth spurt, she was almost eye to eye with her Mother now, rather than only when she met the woman again decades from now... from then... Tenses were increasingly becoming a pain. "You just wanted your favorite child to live, so you killed him without a second thought."

"Yes," Ursa said, which Azula smirked at. Ursa sighed, and shook her head. "I swore – I _swore_! – that I wouldn't repeat my mother's mistake of loving one child more than another... but Azula, I did all of this for _you_."

"Try again with something which doesn't sound ridiculous."

"It's the truth, Zuli," Ursa said, stepping closer to her daughter once more. "I didn't want to lose you. I didn't want to lose you or your brother to that insane old bastard. If I could trade my life for my childrens', I would have. And in my way, I did."

"...Mama? Is that true?" the little girl asked, her eyes starting to water.

"Oh, _shut up_ you gullible little bitch," Azula ordered her younger self.

"What?" Ursa asked, taking a step back from her.

"Damn it, why won't you listen to her!" the girl shouted. "My parents fought for me, to save me! _Me_, not you!"

"And the fact that you buy into this pointless drivel is all the more pathetic," Azula continued in her sing-song mockery. But a look of horror dawned on the girl's face. "Oh, what now?"

"Who are you talking to?" Ursa asked, a look of suspicion on her face, but Azula wasn't paying attention to her at that point.

"...Father... offered to kill _me_?" the girl asked. She shook her head. "No, that can't be right. Father loves me!"

"It's time that you grow up, you pathetic child," Azula barked. "I learned that Ozai didn't love me when he left me for Zuzu to pluck like a turtle-duck. Welcome to the real world. It's time to accept the fact that our father is a bastard and get on with our lives."

"No!" the girl shouted, and then kicked Azula in the chest, hard enough to send Azula stumbling back against the wall. Ursa's eyes went wide at that, but once again, Azula wasn't paying attention. "This is wrong! _Father loves me_! I know it!"

"You're a fool. I've been letting you keep your illusions 'cause they didn't get in my way," Azula muttered.

"Shut up!" The girl said, kicking out Azula's knee, so that she dropped to a squat, before driving a fist straight into Azula's nose. "Shut up shut up_ shut up_!"

Azula blinked away the stars from her eyes from the hit, and offered a sadistic smirk to her younger self. "Now you know why I am the way I am, stupid girl. Welcome to reality."

"Azula, what in Agni's name are you doing to yourself?" Ursa asked, by her expression aghast.

"Nothing," Azula answered, slowly getting to her feet. In the blink of an eye, the girl was gone, her frustrated sobs echoing in the room after her exodus. "Now leave me alone. You've got nothing to say that I want to hear."

"...Zuli, please, talk to me. What is going on?" Ursa asked. Begged.

Azula stubbornly sat down at the table, and began to eat once again. She had better things to worry about than the girl's temper tantrums, or her mother's lies. Important things. Taking over Ba Sing Se, killing the Avatar, making sure the Avatar stayed dead. She thought, and she ate.

"...what happened to my daughter?" Ursa asked at Azula's back.

Azula didn't feel like answering her.

* * *

><p>Kuei stood for a rather long time, staring at his throne and the baldachin above it, and Aang wasn't sure what to make of his expression. Conflicted, yes, but there was a lot more to it that the young monk simply didn't have the weight of years and experience to decode. But he held his tongue, unlike Sokka and Nila, who were taking turns inventing new and insulting monikers for the now incarcerated Long Feng, respectively zany and dry. Finally, Kuei reached up, touching the golden badger-mole claws, and letting out a hiss, pulling back a finger, pricked on old but sharp metal.<p>

He turned, then, and sat, his face in his palm. "I cannot believe I have been so stupid, for so long," Kuei said, his head shaking slowly. "All this time, I thought that I was skillfully ruling the greatest metropolis on this Earth... but the truth was, I was just dancing to the jerking of my puppetmaster's strings, never bothering to look up and see the puppeteer himself. If I was a king of a realm I _deserved_, I would be a king of fools. And now that my eyes are open... I can't help but wonder how we can even move forward. We're at _war_! With the Fire Nation!"

"Might be a century out of date, but at least you're seeing the truth now," Zuko said. He pointed behind him, past the Avatar and the others near him. "With the might of Ba Sing Se, we can bring an end to my father's tyranny."

"You would trade a Fire Lord for an Earth King?" Kuei asked.

"No. I would take Father's place on the Burning Throne," Zuko said. He shrugged. "I don't want a war, with you or anybody else. I just want this all to stop."

"This is a difficult situation you've put me in," Kuei said, chin upon fist. "Even Ba Sing Se's massive garrisons would have to be stripped practically bare to fight a Fire Nation the likes of which you've described. And there is little guarantee that the war would even end if we were successful."

"Zuko is as good as his word," Aang piped up. Kuei gave a glance to him, but winced a bit.

"I am sorry, Avatar, but if nothing else, Long Feng has taught me that I cannot believe everything I hear. It is too much, with too great a chance of failure."

"Maybe not," Sokka said, breaking off his jibing with the Si Wongi girl to move to Zuko's side. "When the sun is eclipsed by the moon, the firebenders lose all of their abilities; they'd be rendered helpless for as long as the sun was missing from the sky. It wouldn't be the first time a firebender army got routed by a Day of Black Sun. We just need to know when, and strike when they're at their weakest."

"Do you know when this day is?" Kuei asked, suddenly quite interested.

"Not yet. But now that we're not having to jump through a thousand hoops to find anything worth knowing, it shouldn't take more than a few hours to find out," Sokka said. Behind them, there came the sound of footfalls, and Aang glanced over his shoulder to see General How approaching the Earth King. He looked at the group gathered, somewhere between shock and awe, and then lowered himself to a knee.

"I don't know..." Kuei said quietly, still addressing the Tribesman and ignoring the general in line with Aang.

"The Fire Nation isn't going to stop hammering at your walls until they crumble, and they march soldiers through your streets," Sokka pointed out. "You can either sit here and wait for that to happen, or you can take a chance, seize the initiative, and go on the offensive. It's in your hands to end the World War. Yours... and his," Sokka said, waving a hand toward How.

"Earth King, it is an honor to finally meet you," How said. "I am General How of the Great Wall Defense Force."

"The Avatar has mentioned you," Kuei said. And he shook his head again. "What kind of Earth King have I even been, that I don't know my own military leaders?"

"The kind that Long Feng wanted," How said. He turned, and clapped a broad hand on Aang's narrow shoulder. "Bless you, Avatar. You have done the impossible. I feared that we would be living under Long Feng's tyranny for the rest of his days."

"This isn't over," Qujeck pointed out, from where he was leaning in a pillar's shadow. "Keep watch over him every hour of every day. He's got a plan to reverse this setback, mark my words."

"I am sparing no expense and taking no chances in his incarceration," How said. "He will be on trial in a matter of days. For his crimes, I wouldn't be surprised if he faced execution in a week."

"You don't have to..." Aang began.

"He does," Zuko said with a nod. "I know his kind. They won't stop coming, _ever_, until they're dead. And even then, you have to spend a week with their corpse to make sure that they're not faking it."

"That's... a bit harsh," Aang said.

Zuko blinked slowly, then turned to Sokka. "How've the burns healed?"

"I see your point," Sokka muttered, rubbing at his chest with the heel of a hand. Aang didn't, but he didn't press it, either, since Sokka's mood seemed to have taken a nose-dive. "I'm sorry, Aang. But he's too dangerous. The longer this takes, the more chance he has to ruin all that we've managed to achieve here."

Aang glanced to his feet. "...doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Then don't," Katara said quietly from Aang's other side. "Just because it's necessary doesn't mean we have to agree with it, or enjoy it," she got a distant look on her face, no doubt thinking of the Spikerim, and the fall of Summavut. "But we can't turn away, either. Sometimes, it might be better to do the wrong thing, than to do nothing at all."

Aang didn't have anything to respond to that. How moved to the foot of the Earth King's dais and beckoned in from the door. "Long Feng's offices have been raided and his personal effects have been seized. We don't know if any of this is of use to you, but we have found some things which might be of note."

A clerk approached with a collapsible table and opened it, setting a box atop it. How reached inside, and extracted what seemed to be an arrest warrant. "Sokka, Katara, I think this might be most of interest to you," he said, handing them a sheaf.

Katara flicked through them quickly, and Sokka's eyes began to widen. "Katara, these are the guys! The guys from home!"

"I see Sajuuk and Ogan and..." Katara shook her head. "Why were they arrested?" she asked.

"I don't know. But we are releasing them as soon as possible," How said. He gave them a bit of a shrug. "It might do them well to see a familiar face."

"Yeah," Sokka said distantly.

"Um... have you heard anything from our father? Chief Hakoda?" she asked. How frowned, then examined the box once more.

"I'm sorry. There doesn't seem to be anything in here about him. Why? Is he missing?"

"He said he had to find our sister," Sokka said. "Is there anything on her? A girl named Hikaoh..."

"She said her name was Yoji," Katara interrupted. How shook his head.

"You must understand, there is more in those offices than can be run through in a month. These were just the gems most visible in the dross," How said. "And you have an important task, Sokka of the South Water Tribe. You must find the Day of Black Sun, before it's too late."

Sokka nodded, then handed the papers he'd taken back to his sister. "I won't let you down," he said, seriously, before turning and starting the long departure. How then handed something to Zuko.

"Troubling sightings leaving the Great Wall only days ago," How said. Zuko looked at the scroll, then turned to Aang, and tossed it lightly to the airbender. Aang opened it, and his eyes widened at what he beheld.

"Is... is that what I think it is?" Aang asked.

"If you think it looks like a Storm King flying fortress, then yes," Zuko said. He turned to How. "How many?"

"Only one, but..."

"But Ozai will be making many, many more," Zuko finished for him.

"I don't suppose there's anything for me in there?" Toph asked wryly.

"Miss Beifong? No, but there is a letter which has been directed to a _Yingsue_ Beifong. Do you know her?"

"That's Mom," Toph said, taking the thing, then handing it to Katara, due to the obvious shortcomings of being blind. Katara scanned it.

"It's from your father, Toph," Katara said. "He's still in Ru Nan, but he says... He wants you to be safe. A lot of this is for your mother, but that keeps coming up."

Toph scoffed and shook her head. "Dad's such a weenie."

Nila, in that brief interlude, had moved up to the box, and taken something from it. Aang tried to lean around her, to see what it was, but her harsh glare drove him back when he attempted. "Sorry. Never mind," Aang said.

"Best you didn't," she said coldly, before walking out of the room.

How then carefully lifted what looked like a long tooth out of the bin. "One of our shamans claims this is a spirit artifact of some kind. As the Avatar, it should be in your hands."

"Thanks, I guess," Aang said, as the tooth was passed to his hand. But the instant it hit his skin, it started to blacken and crumble, causing Aang to go rigid and still. He glanced up toward How, who was likewise struck still. "Oh no! I didn't do anything! I swear!"

"...What just happened?" How asked.

"I... I don't know," Aang said. He dropped the crumbling ash to the floor, where it continued to grow finer and finer, until it just seemed to vanish completely. "...I hope that wasn't important."

"Now we might never know," How said. "But if it was, then we'll have to make due without it."

Aang nodded, and turned his attention to Katara, and began to talk about old friends, old family, and new responsibilities.

He didn't notice that the frosty nail in one of his pockets had started to beat subtly, like a second heart outside of his chest.

* * *

><p>Long Feng stewed. He knew he had little recourse at the moment but to cool his heels. Trapped inside an iron-clad cell under the Royal Palace, he was now a prisoner in his own prison. There was a degree of irony in that.<p>

So much had gone wrong, so quickly. All because of the Avatar. He had been shepherding the greatest city on Earth toward a secure and plentiful future, and now, it was going to crumble away to nothing because an idealistic fool kicked over something he shouldn't have. Long Feng wished he could have said it was an act of spite on behalf of the young Avatar, but he was at least more honest with himself than that; The Avatar did as he did, not out of spite, but out of naivety and the direction of foul council.

Badesh once again. She had been, in her way, the architect of his ascension to power. Kuei's father, Huo Wa, had been a divisive figure, but he wielded his authority like a cudgel. The Dai Li wasn't about policing, then, it was about trying to save Ba Sing Se from its ruler. Too many people listened to Huo Wa when Long Feng knew better. Too many people were willing to follow where he lead, no matter the blood-tides of Hell which awaited them down those paths. It was irony again, that Long Feng had beseeched Badesh, almost two decades ago, to help end that fat, brutish tyrant.

Destiny played strange games, it seemed.

After Badesh killed Huo Wa, and a significant portion of the man's extended bastard family collaterally – as the man had been known for his brutish tastes as much as his brutish temperament – the crown essentially defaulted to Kuei. A boy. Not even a well educated one. Simply the boy who hadn't tried to kill Badesh's troupe of assassins on their way out. The one not groomed for rulership. The fool.

That stung almost as much as Long Feng's current predicament. Had a stronger, saner Earth King ascended, so much of what Long Feng'd had to do in the last sixteen years would never have been needed! But no, he had to be saddled playing regent in the shadows for an insipid layabout. _Every thing_ that Long Feng had done was to keep that fool safe and away from anything which was fragile and important, to prevent an all-out succession crisis, to keep Ba Sing Se running smoothly.

To keep the World War from reaching into the walls.

There was a rattle at the door, and a panel slid up, before a tray of food slid along the floor. Long Feng turned a glance toward it, but he felt no hunger. He just felt empty. A failure at so vital a task; he was more than the beating heart of Ba Sing Se, he was its directing brain. Without him... chaos.

"Sir," a vaguely familiar voice came from the door. "The Five Generals and the Earth King have declared you an enemy of the state. The Dai Li remain loyal to its Grand Secretariat."

And as a beam of light, cutting through the clouds, Long Feng's spirit was lifted just a little. And a small smile came to his face. "What has happened?"

"The Avatar is pressing forward on the Black Sun invasion, sir," the Dai Li agent said. Long Feng rose to look through the bars of the door. The man was dressed in the attire of an Earth King's Royal Guardsman, no doubt removed delicately from a cooling corpse. "Your trial begins the day after tomorrow. Most expect your execution would be several days after that. We have other ideas."

"Excellent," Long Feng said. "Keep me apprised on the situation as it develops."

"Of course, Grand Secretariat," his faithful agent said, before turning and walking away once more. Destiny may well play strange games, but it could never be said that Long Feng was a simpleton when it came to such games. Now that he had a hand at the board, he frankly relished the opportunity to see this game's conclusion.

Ba Sing Se would be safe, secure, and under control once more. _No matter what_.

* * *

><p>Nila had stopped walking, so far away from the others, so far away from any others, that they couldn't have found her without the blind one's ability to see through walls. Given the wooden flooring, though, even <em>she<em> would be stymied. She stopped, because some part of her had declared 'no further. Not one more step', and as much as rationally she wanted to press on, there were some things which she simply didn't have the strength of spirit to overwhelm.

She stopped, and she slumped into a chair in a quiet, unattended room, her breathing heavy, as she reached into her pocket, and pulled out the signal of her worst fears, her worst predictions. It was a tiny painting, no larger than a palm, framed carefully, of a white-haired woman dancing. Latifah. Even though Nila had never seen the woman so much as twitch in her admittedly short lifetime, it was obvious who the subject was. And doubly so, since Nila had noted Ashan carrying this with him, glancing at it from time to time.

He _never_ let it out of his grasp.

A wracking sob hit her chest, as she pulled her legs up and pulled them close, as though through simple compression, she could curtail her weeping. No avail. Why? That was a question which kept repeating in her mind. Why must I keep losing friends? There was no answer to that question, though. And the girl who tried to intellectualize everything, to rationalize everything, could do nothing to make sense of, let alone prevent, her own helpless weeping, her own mourning.

Nila finally, after days running on adrenaline and anger, gave herself permission to grieve.

* * *

><p><em>Leave a review.<em>


	39. The Void

The first sensation that returned to her was that of something slick sliding past her teeth and tongue, coating her throat as she involuntarily swallowed. It tasted somewhere between sweet and foul, an unholy mixture of bananas, pickles, onions, and something else she couldn't put her finger on. Since she _couldn't_ move her fingers at the moment, the saying was more accurate than she could have believed. The featureless grey began to break apart, mote by mote, until she could see stars overhead. The prickling numbness gave way until she could feel a wind against her face.

The hunger was still there, every bit as terrible as it had ever been... but it seemed distant. Somebody else's hunger.

She swallowed, and the concoction did nothing to feed that beast. Her eyes swam for a moment, until they beheld the slender form of Brother Pathik before her, finishing tipping an austere wooden bowl of something yellow toward her. She drank it without question, since the alternative was choking. When she was finished, she smacked her lips, trying to clear the unpleasant aftertaste from her palate. To no avail, sadly. She looked to Pathik, and she tried to understand.

"Where are we?" she asked, her words slow, like they'd been dragged through mud just so they could see the sky.

"We are atop the ruins of the temple," Pathik said. His eyes opened sluggishly, and as always, he had a serene smile on his white-bearded face. "I sense you have many questions."

"...how are you still alive?" she asked.

"One of the greatest lies of this world is the lie of death. It is an illusion," Pathik said, which answered her _in no way whatsoever_.

"What did you just push down my throat?"

"A mixture which is a wonderful purifier," Pathik said, with a slight shrug. "Perhaps not the most appropriate, given the scale of what needs purifying, but there is a power to symbols."

Her lips worked dumbly for a moment, as she tried to pick one question out of the myriad to put voice to. Finally, a salient one rose to the fore. "Are... you a shaman?"

"No," Pathik said. "Not all of the kin of the Air Nomads were benders, nor all shamans. I am... something else."

"Then how can you exorcise this thing?" Malu asked, confusion starting to give way to a bit of worry.

"I cannot," Pathik admitted evenly, which caused a cold brick of terror to settle into her ravenous stomach. "Only _you_ have that strength."

"I _don't_," she tried to shake her head. "If I did, none of this would have ever happened. If I did... I'd have kicked it out on my own by now!"

"There are things which I do know," Pathik calmly said, his voice almost as soothing as a lullaby. "Not all things are of spirits and bending. Some are more universal. More ephemeral. And there is a strength in you that may well surprise you. Once we begin, though, it cannot be stopped," he looked her squarely in the eye. "If you attempt to halt at any point once we begin, there will be no second attempt. You will be consumed by the creature which hides under your skin. You must have focus, and wisdom, and will, and strength. I can provide the first two. You must provide the rest."

"What do I do?" Malu asked.

Pathik nodded once, then tipped his head back. Malu couldn't do the same herself. "Tell me what you know about the Chakras, daughter of the winds," he said.

"Nodes of the energy of the soul," Malu quickly and effortlessly recited. "Divided into seven Chakras and one hundred eight sub-chakras which can manipulate them throughout the human form. The energy flowing through them determines what we are, vain or humble, meek or mighty..."

"You speak as one who has read many books," Pathik gently cut her off. "What do _you_ know about Chakras?"

"...I was just telling you," she said.

"You were telling me what you knew that others knew about Chakras. Not the knowledge of a woman alone, derived in contemplation, through adversity and trial, through victory and failure."

Malu glanced away. When he put it that way, she honestly didn't know anything, only what others who came before her said. "I... guess I don't know much."

"Do not be ashamed of ignorance, child," Pathik said. "No canvas is so valued as one which is blank and ready, for nothing can stain what comes upon it. He rose to his feet, and rested a hand amidst her hair. "There are, as you said, seven Chakras of importance in this. The first is here, at the crown of the head. It deals with cosmic energy and enlightenment itself, and in the presence of distraction and earthly attachment, it is weakened, and falters."

"What do you need me to do?" she asked. Pathik patted her lightly on the head, as though trying to comfort a fussing child, before returning to a lotus kneel before her.

"Consider the things which tie you to the world, which distract you from living a life well lived. Think, on that which keeps you from becoming who you were meant to be."

Malu's eyes drifted down once again. "I don't know _who_ I'm meant to be."

She looked up again, and she could see... herself. She was painted in stars, a spectre of blue-white light against the darkness of the night, but her eyes were brightest of all, as though she were looking at some representation of herself in the Avatar State. She looked down, and she wasn't on the roof anymore. No, she seemed to be hovering, high above the planet. And below... she could see the world starting to _burn_.

A red line started to slide across the edge of the abyss in which the sparkling, Avatar Malu rested. But the line halted, and she could hear Pathik's voice. "These are the things which tie your focus, your energy to this world. If you wish to become healed, and whole, you have to let them go."

"Let go of what? That I was ever so stupid that I thought I was the Avatar?"

"Yes."

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Just like that."

Her eyes flitted over to the red line, so starkly out of place, but she returned them to the burning world, to the testament to her vanity which hung in the heavens. She closed her eyes, and she... willed them away. She gave them up. The world had already burned, a century ago. Malu was not the Avatar. Aang was. Lazy, layabout Aang was the Avatar, and _not her_.

She was just an airbender.

Malu was an airbender.

She opened her eyes, and breathed a little easier. Her fingers twitched, curling in an involuntary movement, as a weight lifted from her shoulders. She wasn't the Avatar. Never was. And that wasn't her fault. She couldn't have done anything about it.

So now, she stopped trying to be something she wasn't.

"Very good," Pathik said kindly, smiling to her as he rose, and scooped her up in his stick-like arms. Honestly, she had no idea how a tiny old man could have such strength. "You have begun the journey to your power, to your freedom. It will not be easy. Others have much greater difficulties letting go of what binds them to this world. They feel they have more to lose."

"I'm all I've got," she said, her tone quiet, sad.

"This is the first step of many, child," Pathik said, as he bore her down a stairwell, and they both vanished into darkness. But his voice didn't leave. "And I was not exaggerating the danger. You must be strong, and face what comes with an open heart and a keen mind."

"Or I'm done for."

"Or _we are all_ done for," Pathik's voice sounded just a little bit unhappy at that. "Rest, child. The next trial will be more difficult. Sleep. We will face it together, in the dawn."

And with his words, Malu's mind fled into something like sleep, but far darker, far quieter. Something _just_ this side of the grave.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 19<strong>

**The Void**

* * *

><p>The knocking on Iroh's door dragged his attention away from the pot of jook which he was stirring on the stove. In truth, it was just another distraction in a long list. He didn't even have half a mind on what would be his breakfast. Azula hadn't come home. Not for several days. While Iroh wasn't above thinking that she'd gone off on her own, struck off with the old friend who had reconciled with her after the incident at Pang's tea-shop, this had him increasingly worried. Especially since Irukandji made its requirements clear. Iroh looked back to his jook, and noticed a strange odor. He sighed. In his long inattention, it had caught and burned, at least a little. Still edible, but it would be like bargain tea – something partook, but hardly enjoyed.<p>

Iroh got to his feet, wiping off spatters on his apron. He would soon need to undertake the 'grand opening' of his new teahouse. It felt oddly empty, to have to do it alone. Some part of him wished that Zuko was here. Or even the Azula whom he had traveled with on his old, battered ship. But it was too late to whine, to complain that things weren't happening the way he wanted. If he had everything he wanted, he'd be the Fire Lord, Lu Ten and Qiao would be alive, and he would be _absolutely miserable_.

"Who is it?" Iroh shouted to the door.

There came a thump on the wall, followed by silence. Iroh's eyes narrowed briefly. "A stranger in the darkness. Who could be more trustworthy?" the answer came, a tone laden with sarcastic wit. That had Iroh all the more confounded. It was not a voice he knew from first impressions. He moved to the edge of the door, and slid it open a finger's-width, to see what lay beyond it. In the false dawn in the Upper Ring, the streets were almost clear, lit either pale blue by the waxing moon or by spots yellow by the lanterns much closer to Earth. It took a moment of maneuvering to see who had knocked, and when he did, Iroh was all the more suspicious. In fact, he was coming very close to running out of more suspicious to get.

The Tribesman looked to be in an unhappy mood, tempered by a degree of anger and a lot of focus. While his face was hidden in the shade of a pan hat, his stance revealed what his face would not. Most of what it said would have screamed 'fight' to Iroh, but the way he was standing was obviously not to intimidate or ambush Iroh. No, there was something else going on here. "Who are you?" Iroh asked.

"I'm told we share a mutual friend," the Tribesman said with an odd tone, flipping a small coin-like object through the air, managing to get it through the gap in the door. Iroh caught it, and held it to the light. It was a black Pai Sho piece, carefully marked with a white lotus. Iroh looked back up to the Tribesman. Was this one of the fallen Pakku's proteges?

"Who dares knock at the garden gate?" Iroh attempted.

"Somebody baring gifts and bad intentions," the Tribesman answered, which was about as far from what a White Lotus member ought said as could be. But still, Iroh had a feeling that there was enough going on that he needed to bench some of his paranoia. The explosions yesterday were probably a sign of things to come, he considered. Hard times made for strange friends. "Do you mind if I come in? I've got a guest that you might want to meet."

"If your intentions are honorable, I will allow you in," Iroh said.

"They're probably not," the Tribesman said, as Iroh opened the door for him. "But I don't have a lot of options at the moment."

"Who was this guest?" Iroh asked. And the Tribesman answered by reaching down and dragging a bound and gagged man in green robes out from a wicker basket and pushing him over onto his chest just past Iroh's threshold. Iroh turned from the Dai Li agent on the floor to the man who'd delivered him. "...I see. Is there a reason you have brought this person here?"

"He's being uncooperative. I'm told you're good at changing that," he said. He stepped into the light and doffed the hat, and Iroh blinked at who he saw. He certainly didn't expect to meet this particular Tribesman again, particularly under these circumstances.

"Hakoda. We meet again," Iroh said, with a slight bow to the man who was technically his social superior. "Much of my confusion is now assuaged."

"Are these walls safe?" Hakoda asked. His usual good humor seemed to be a thin mask over darkness and violence today; thus it was with Tribesmen. When on their good side, you could enjoy a hundred songs and jokes and good humor. When on their bad side... well, suffice to say, Iroh made a point of not getting on Tribesmen's bad sides.

"Safer than most in this Ring," Iroh said. "Who is this person? What do you want with him?"

"One second," Hakoda said, before leaning out the door. "This is the right one, you can stop hiding now."

"Who...?" Iroh asked, a question not answered until a bruised and battered Hua Jin Bai entered on Hakoda's prompting. Iroh's eyebrows rose. "This explains the explosions, then."

Bai gave a bow to Iroh. "Honored be in the presence of a master," he said. "Can you believe they were going to actually arrest _me_? Me! They should be so fortunate!"

"You are still the pirate you were in your youth," Iroh confirmed.

"He knows where my daughter is," Hakoda said. "And I thought you might like to know why."

"How so?" Iroh asked.

Hakoda reached down, to pull the gag from the Dai Li's face. But only first after pressing a blade to the side of his neck. "We're clear?" he asked the man. The Dai Li nodded. "Tell me who your newest prisoner of note is in Ba Sing Se."

"Princess Azula, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai," the Dai Li said, but not exactly willingly. Iroh's eyes then narrowed. Hakoda gave a nod to the old man.

"My daughter is hunting your niece. If we want our families to stay intact, we're going to have to work together on this," Hakoda said. And Iroh didn't see any reason to disagree with him. But one thing stuck out from his understanding of the situation.

"You have children, yes?" Iroh asked. "Why do you not include them in this?"

Hakoda's eyes fell to the floor, and he shook his head slowly, leaning against the wall. "I can't do that to them. If I'm wrong, if that's not her... or worse, if it is, and she refuses to believe it... I can take that. My daughter died a long time ago. But for them? They've already had their family broken up once. I won't do that to them again."

"Then we will have to see what we can do, for both of our families," Iroh said gravely, and then, he turned his attention on the bound Dai Li who still languished on the floor. The Dai Li went pale. He was right to.

* * *

><p>Sokka skidded to a stop, just outside the war room of the Council of Five, catching his breath with great difficulty. It was a long run from the University to the Palace. Well, that wasn't accurate. It was only twenty minutes from the fringe of the University to the fringe of the Palace, but it was almost another half hour at a sprint to cross the massive edifice just to reach the center of it. It was times like this where he wished he'd had the presence of mind to ask to borrow Appa.<p>

After breathing hard, restoring a bit of brown to his skin instead of its grey, he forced himself upright. If he was going to make an ass of himself, he'd do it standing upright. Just like Dad taught him. He pushed the door open, and was greeted by a lot more light then he expected to see, at this hour of the night. Of course, as soon as the Earth King arrested Long Feng and agreed that the Avatar's plan was the only one which could save them all, he made sure people were pulling an all nighter. The man himself was probably... yup; a glance confirmed that Kuei, although present to the deliberations, wasn't taking part because he was asleep in his sedan chair. How turned his attention to the door, and then nodded.

"Generals, this is Sokka; son of Hakoda, High Chief of the South Water Tribe," How gave as introduction.

"This is Hakodason? Not exactly what I expected," the clean-shaven and very-short-haired general to How's left said.

"Nothing is what _you_ expect," the sole woman amongst the Generals said. She was a hard bitten one, her skin seeming to have the same toughness, texture, and rigidity of old, sun-baked leather. "What is his business here?"

"I've found the information I was looking for," Sokka said, striding up toward the massive table which dominated the center of the room. Upon it rested a map of the entire world. One which, Sokka could tell with even a passing glance, wasn't the most accurate. At some point on this trip, Sokka had become something of an expert on cartography. He set down a scroll, and rolled it out, so that it eclipsed roughly where Chimney Mountain would have been if it were indicated on this map. "The professor in charge of stellar phenomenon had a 'sudden leave of absense', but I went through his almanac; there's going to be a solar eclipse before the end of summer."

"That is excellent news," How said.

"That's the problem," Sokka said, which caused eyes to shift to him, so that he could give an explanation. "See, when I said 'before the end of summer', I meant '_barely_ before the end of summer'. As in, _three days_ before change of seasons!"

"I fail to see your reason for concern," the simpering general said with suspicion.

"I take it, then, that nobody informed you about Sozin's Comet?" Sokka asked, and then groaned when they all looked at him as though he postulated the existence of a second head growing out of every human being's elbow. "Look, the short version is this; On the last day of summer, Sozin's Comet comes back, and when it does, the Fire Nation wins."

"The what?" the woman asked.

"Sozin's Comet. The thing which let Fire Lord Sozin wipe out the Air Nomads a century ago," Sokka pressed. "Lets the firebenders do crazy-powerful crap as long as it's in the sky."

"Essentially, you're saying that we have a time-crunch until the Fire Nation's true secret weapon can be deployed, as it were," How said. He gave a shake of his head. "It's essentially irrelevant, since, as you said, the Day of Black Sun comes several days before it."

"But it's cutting it a bit close," Sokka said.

"If there is _no World War_ when Sozin's Comet arrives, then it can come and go however it wants," How pointed out, and had a point at that.

"I guess you're right," Sokka said. As well as cartography, Sokka had also learned a valuable lesson on this trip that if somebody proved you wrong, you didn't get defensive about it, because that tended to end with you hogtied by your own belt while armored teenage girls laughed at you. "Can you be prepared by then?"

"Indeed," he said. He made a motion, and green stone markers slid across the face of the map, toward the bay which split the Fire Nation roughly in half. "In the days approaching the Black Sun Invasion, we will position ourselves here, off of Ember Island. The perpetual storms of the Fire Nation will mask our presence, until we are ready to make our advance toward Caldera City, just in time for the eclipse."

"Inelegant," the woman general noted. "We should bring in Badesh."

"No offense intended, General Fei, but perhaps she's endured enough for the time being," How said. "As valuable as her tactical acumen might be, we have Jong-Uu who is more than capable enough."

Jong-Uu gave a nod at that. "Is there anything else you guys need?"

How turned to Sokka, who'd spoken up, and nodded. "We will give the Earth King the seal to authorize the invasion when he awakens. But as for you, I recommend you rest and recouperate. You've done your duty well, so you can rest easy. The war is finally in proper hands."

Wow. If that wasn't a statement of utmost hubris, Sokka hadn't heard it. He turned away from the Generals and their council, and wondered for a moment if it was a good idea to let them strategize without without somebody like him to keep an eye on them. And that, too, sounded like a notion of hubris. Sokka might have done some rather amazing things with the last few months of his life, but where in the name of Tui and La did he get off thinking that he had any place controlling the discourse of what was likely going to be the most important battle of the War?

Sokka walked back out of the room, crushing a yawn behind his fist as he did so; the hour was indeed quite late. Midnight had probably come and gone. While he was usually good for quite a while longer, the truth was... he was exhausted. He'd run himself ragged for days. The only one who'd pushed harder, longer, was Nila! And that was because people were already trying to kill her while he and his sister were dragging Sharif out of a pink-lantern district. And as much as Sokka wanted to check up on his sister at this moment, or to reconnect with the men from his childhood home, he could barely keep his eyes open. It had taken hours of scouring the libraries, even with the full assistance of both the staff and Toph, to find even as much as he did. No wonder Toph, on her own, floundered in the weeks they'd been here.

He picked a random direction, and started walking. There were innumerable rooms in the Royal Palace, most intended for state visitors from the kingdoms south and west. Honestly, there were a hundred different rooms in each wing, and three wings to chose from. So it was a slim chance indeed that he would happen upon one which was being used. Still, he didn't consider the odds – the universe liked two things, apparently; making the unlikely inevitable, and making Sokka's life more complicated and unpleasant than it needed to be.

He walked, and passed by a small knot of white-robed Si Wongi. He didn't give them a nod as they passed, nor they he, but the one at the center of that knot bulged eyes at him, and not happily. Sokka didn't even give al'Jalani another glance, though. Apparently, she'd deserved Qujeck's punch in the face a dozen times over with the things she'd done to turn her race against his. If he wasn't so tired, he'd have torn a strip off of her for that. She glared at his back as he walked on. No skin off his nose.

Another yawn, threatening to pull his eyes closed and send him to sleep where he was standing. Yeah, it was time to turn in. Zuko had taken to bed quite a while ago. Firebender, after all. Toph didn't even bother going to the meeting, opting to lay out as soon as she was done finding the Day. So it was just him awake at this ungodly hour, as he pushed open a door into a darkened room.

Well, not _quite_ just him.

"What do you want?" Nila's voice came out of the darkness, sounding a touch ragged.

"Oh, yeesh. I thought this one wasn't being used."

"As did I," she said. Sokka squinted, and could make her out on the wide chair opposite the bed. She seemed to be holding something.

"...are you alright?"

"Do I _sound_ alright?" she asked.

"You sound angry as hell, but that could just be you at a standing state," Sokka noted. He moved a bit closer, and reached for one of the strike-matches which were apparently selling like hot-cakes in the city; instant fire in seconds. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, right. Wide spread city fires. Lucky that Ba Sing Se had so many walls, in that regard. The light bloomed into the lamp, showing what Sokka had half-way expected, and the other half-way didn't think possible.

Nila had been _crying_. "Ugh. Why do you torment me so? Snuff that light."

Sokka shook his head, though. "Something is wrong. What is it?"

"It is not your concern!" she said.

"What if I want to make it my concern?" Sokka asked, arms crossed before him. "I'll admit, I might not know you as well as some of your other friends did, but I know that you're not the sobbing type. So by all means, let it out. What's wrong?"

Nila didn't look at him. Instead, she just reached up, a tiny, slightly torn portrait in her hands. A dancing woman, looked like. "Anybody I'd know?"

"Unlikely," she said. "Latifah died when the Beast destroyed my city. And the bearer of this died because _this_ city became as a beast."

Sokka let out a sigh, and sat beside her on the wide chair. There was plenty of room for them, after all. "I know it's not easy, now. We've all lost things. But like I said back in the bamboo; if you need to talk about it..."

"You will be there to listen?" she asked.

"Oh, gods no. I'm not the kind of person who talks about feelings. It'd be _unmanly_!" Sokka said, with mock indignation. Nila turned to him, annoyance on her face, before there was a moment of hesitation.

"You are being sarcastic," she said.

"Took you a while to figure that out," Sokka said. "Strange, since you do it so much yourself."

"I do not," she said.

"...yeah, you kind of do," he countered. He yawned, stretching his arms up as he did. When he did, though, Nila leaned away. "Wha?"

"I have seen young louts attempt such before in a hope of teasing a girl into a grope," Nila said flatly. Sokka then glanced up at his own arms, and realized that what he was doing might be misinterpreted.

"Well, I'm not a groping kind of guy," Sokka said. Technically lied. He wasn't going to turn it down if it showed up, after all. He might not have been the 'lout' he was when he left the village, but he still had blood in his veins and testicles between his legs. "You're probably more exhausted than I am. You should go to bed."

"I think I'll stay here," she said. Sokka scoffed, and moved to scoop her up, intending to deposit her on the bed if need be. She interrupted him with a fist in the nose.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked.

"You had ill intentions!" Nila answered.

"I wanted to put you to bed, so I can find a room and spend some time comatose," Sokka said around an aching nose. It didn't seem to be bleeding, luckily enough. "Now come on. And don't do that again. You might punch me in the forehead and break your hand."

"You claim a thick skull with pride? You are of a strange breed," she noted. Sokka then scooped her up to a hiss of alarm from her, before taking her the dozen steps and essentially dropping her onto the green bedspread. "I told you...!"

"Yeah, well, you can tell me again in the morning," he said. He pointed behind him. "I'll be out there somewhere. I don't doubt you'll awake me with your indignant screaming. And... wait a second."

Sokka stopped, and looked back. Then down at one of his forearms. They were reddened. He turned to her, a note of fear coming onto his face.

"Nila, are you hurt?" he asked.

"What?" the Si Wongi girl asked, even as she begrudgingly pulled a blanket over her.

"You're bleeding," Sokka said, pointing at the chair she had been sitting on, and his own forearm.

"As I do every month," she said dryly. "Put out the light when you leave."

Sokka thought that answer through a moment. "Oh," he said, as it clicked into place. Then, another moment, this time of mounting disgust. He looked down at his arm, and shivered a bit. "Ew."

* * *

><p>Aang didn't snore in his sleep, but he was dreaming. The dreams didn't have a real structure, but there was something which kept popping up in them. Golden eyes. Golden eyes, and danger. He fought through a dead forest in flames, trying to reach... somebody. Before it was too late. It wasn't a terror he felt, not for himself. Like... if he wasn't fast enough, strong enough, <em>Avatar<em> enough, then somebody else would be the one to pay the price.

He awoke with grunt of surprise, which was repeated when a dark hand continued to jostle him. "What? I'm awake, you can stop shoving me," he said. The hand finally stopped, and he blinked a few times, as his vision came into focus. He'd half suspected it might be Hakoda, as Sokka's hands weren't quite so broad. But the person standing over where Aang slept against Appa's fuzzy leg was not a Tribesman. Sharif stared down at him, or rather, down through him, as his gaze didn't have a whole lot of focus to it. "Sharif? What is it?"

"I need to go," he said.

"You should tell your mother," Aang said. "She might worry."

"No. I... _we_... need to go. We. Yes," he said, nodding vigorously.

"I don't understand," Aang said. "Why do we need to go? Is something wrong?"

"It is too loud here," Sharif said to the silence of night. Well, not silence, not completely. As large and distant as the courtyards of the Royal Palace were from the bulk of Ba Sing Se, there was still a buzzing of din from people living their lives on a nocturnal cycle. "We need to go to some place less barren. Some place more... full."

Aang stared at the shaman for a long moment, before his still-barely-awake mind kicked in, and he figured out, roughly, what Sharif was talking about. "Oh, I get it. You want to go some place with more spirits?"

"They need me to teach you. Important things," he said.

"Teach me?" Aang asked. He sat up. "What do they want you to teach me?"

"How to be Avatar," he said. Aang's eyes opened wider. "How to hear the void."

"Can it wait until morning?" Aang asked, his natural laziness trying to trump his also natural curiosity to see what he could learn.

"We must go now. There is so much to learn," Sharif said, awkwardly crawling up the flank of the beast, holding himself in place on Appa's back. Aang gave a glance toward the Palace which dominated his view, and to the people within it. He should probably tell them where he was going. So they wouldn't worry.

"Just a second, Sharif," Aang said, before bounding down onto the smooth stone walkway which ran between the ornamental and decorative plants. With a finger of focus, he etched a note into the grounds.

_Gone to Reaches_

_with Sharif_

_Be back soon._

_Aang_

"Alright. Let's get going, buddy," he said, giving Appa's great head a bit of a push. The beast let out a groan, and shook its head lightly. "Come on. Up and at 'em. Yip yip!"

With another mild, if base, mumble of protest, Appa got first to its feet, and then bounded into the air. "Finally, I get to learn how to use the Avatar State correctly!" Aang said. "How are you going to do it? Some sort of chakra thing? Dim Mak massage?"

"I... am not sure," Sharif said. "Not yet. The way will become clear."

"Oh... I guess you know what you're talking about," Aang said. But still, it was with a note of glowing hope that he flew to the west, the sky starting to lighten gently behind him as the sun came up once more.

* * *

><p>The light began to pour into Malu's eyes, and she found herself staring toward the rising of the sun. She blinked slowly, her head beginning to bob, to waver, but the distant rancor of her hunger settled her attention exactly where it needed to be. She flicked her eyes to one side, noting the ancient guru who was kneeling at her side, his form no doubt maintaining a yoga which kept that thing inside Malu at bay. For the moment, at least.<p>

"You have awakened. Please, drink this," he said, tipping another bowl of that unpleasant concoction past Malu's lips. She gagged a little as she swallowed it, only because of her unending hunger did she not spit it back up. Food was food. Malu found herself licking her lips, trying to make sure that even though it tasted terrible, it all went down. Pathik turned toward the sunrise, as she did. "The next Chakra we must open is the Chakra of Light," he reached gently over, and tapped a finger in the center of her brow. "It is the wellspring of insight, and is sullied by illusions."

"I think I know what's clogged that one," Malu muttered.

"You would be wrong," Pathik said, but as usual, not harshly. "There is a more fundamental illusion that you have fallen prey to, one which blankets all of this world. It is a grander thing than personal hubris."

Malu frowned, trying to figure out what he meant. "I don't understand."

"Why does the world find itself at war?" Pathik asked. Huh. Malu wouldn't have wagered he'd even notice a war going on around him. Malu swallowed, again holding down the sour funk of banana-onion-pickle.

"It's not just because the Fire Nation started it," she said.

"It is a deeper illusion than that, I am afraid," Pathik said calmly.

"They're trying to take over the world. They've brought violence to everybody!"

"And what is the illusion behind that?" Pathik asked. Malu stared to the sun for a long moment. And as the sun rose, starting to slowly creep up over the horizon, she felt a similar understanding rising up within her.

"...because they're just like we are," Malu said. "The Fire Nation's not bad. They're people, like Tribesmen and Easterners and anybody else. Fighting as though they're different from the rest of the world; set apart. But they're not. We're all the same."

"You see the illusion, then," Pathik said. "The illusion of separation is the greatest of lies, greater than any you have told yourself. In service to this lie, you have walked a path of revenge, and received the fruits of such a stunted and twisted tree. But in seeing beyond it, that all are connected in this world, you finally see the path which can lead into a new day. They live as though they are apart, but they are one."

"But what about the elements?" Malu asked.

"Even the elements are one," Pathik said. "There are elements to all of us; fire in our ambition and will, water in our adaption and loyalty, earth in our resilience, and air in our freedom. When we are balanced, a whole unto ourselves, we are greatest. The elements are four parts of the same whole. Just as all human beings are part of one nation, that only lives apart because they cannot see the truth."

Malu blinked slowly. It was simple, now that she actually knew what to look for. It was almost like she was trying to learn it the entire time she was walking the East with Nila and Tzu Zi. The firebender had probably been the kindest person that Malu had ever known, and since she'd known Nomad Elders like Gyatso, she knew kindness well. There was probably more firebender in _Nila_ then there was in Tzu Zi.

All were one.

There was a lurch inside her, like her stomach trying to flip itself inside out. She groaned as she slumped forward a bit, the pain radiating out from where that hunger was, for the moment, barricaded. "Ohhh. What _was_ that?" she asked.

"The path you are walking is a dangerous one," Pathik said. "Each Chakra you open tears out more of the abomination's grip on your soul. And each Chakra in turn is one the beast has a greater grip upon. They will be more difficult, one upon the other, until you reach the end. That will be hardest of all, I fear. I can sense that its roots are sunk deeply."

Pathik rose, and put one of Malu's arms over his shoulder. Even as he rose, Malu's legs felt leaden and tingled unpleasantly with every jolt of weight upon them. But still, with a difficulty usually reserved to people walking on pegs, she hobbled with him, spiraling down the ruins of the tower. "If it's going to get harder, do we have to do it all right now?"

"The moment you started this path, your hours in this world became numbered," Pathik said. "It will be a delicate balance, between the strength you hold between tearing the abomination free of your Chakras, and the amount of time it would take for it to overwhelm you completely, now that the gates are open. Too long, you are lost. Too fast, you will not have recovered enough."

"I can do another," Malu said. Pathik turned a glance toward her, not so much questioning, as gauging. "I _can_ do another," she repeated.

"Then best it were done swiftly," the guru said, and gently let her down onto the stone, aiding her in getting her feet shifted into a proper place. The howling pain was closer, now, the barricade a bit weaker. With pin-pricked fingers, she tipped the next bowl of that greasy off-yellow mess down her throat as soon as offered, and let out a much-unwelcome burp as it passed. He squatted down into a lotus beside her, and reached out aside, tapping old, calloused fingers to the front of her neck. "The next Chakra which must be opened, is the Chakra of Sound, here."

There was a pounding in Malu's head, which muffled the next few words that came from the guru's mouth. It almost sounded like a heart the size of a mountain, made entirely of iron, beating sternly, implacably, right behind her eyes. She shook her head, forcing that cacophony to one side. "Could you say that again? I... wasn't paying attention."

"You were," Pathik said. "The Sound Chakra is the guide to our truths, and is weakened by lies. The lies we tell ourselves," he turned to her, and gently pushed her eyelids down. "What are _your_ lies, child?"

It was almost like seeing it again. Elder Tengeh's knowing look as she mastered in minutes what her fellow pupils would take months to begin. The intense discussions that he, Gyatso, and Midwife Szei would have, always falling quiet whenever she approached. And then...

Malu was standing in Sentinel Rock once more, the shouts of anger and hatred pouring through the streets, as she threw up her hands upon a frustrated growl. "Fine! You wanna know the truth? I'm not just an airbender, alright? I'm the Avatar! I've been hiding for years, but now, I'm going to bring the fight back to the Fire Nation... no offense Tzu Zi."

The truth at last. She expected Tzu Zi to turn on her, right then and there. She expected... a lot of things. Disbelief was amongst them, but fear and awe should have been first and foremost. Instead, there was a suspicious glance between the two girls, and a dull shaking of the head of the scarred youth in the back of them. "You're _not_ the Avatar," Ashan said clearly, almost as though it was self-evident. The utter surety of it made Malu's confidence waver a bit.

"Of course I am," she answered his charge. Nila only shook her head, slightly. "Of course I am!"

"You are not the Avatar," Nila said, her voice... almost sad. "We've met the Avatar. You are _not him_."

And in the sky, a red line began to split the night. Malu heaved her eyes open, as easy as ripping off her own skin. And that red line... it was still there...

"What is the lie you have told yourself?" Pathik's voice sounded like it was coming from the far side of a mountain.

"I am not the Avatar," Malu said.

"And you know this to be a lie?"

"I am not the Avatar!" Malu shouted. The red line began to grow, and that horrendous, metallic banging was threatening to overtake all of her senses, to tear apart her mind.

"You must not lie about your own nature," Pathik said, his voice... hurried? The red began to split, veins of black beginning to creep out, where it split the sky, trying to ignore the sun. "You must accept yourself as you are, no matter how that may be. Even if it is painful! Even if it is less!"

Malu pressed her eyes shut once again, and this time, she drilled that simple statement into her mind, and then, past it, into her soul. I am not the Avatar. I never was.

Malu _was not_ the Avatar.

And then, with a crash, the pounding ended, but only to a sensation the likes of a thousand quills erupting from inside her and bursting out of her skin. She let out a shriek of agony at the feeling, crumpling to the ground, as a wail sounded in that barricaded part of her. Her entire body throbbed, and she felt like she should be bleeding from every pore.

A tentative swipe of her face. Sweat, not blood.

She pushed herself up, past the lacerated feeling in her palms, the ragged feeling of the rest of her. She looked up into the sky. Nothing but the growing light of a breaking dawn. Pathik was now before her, sitting with his back to a precipice. "You have freed the Sound Chakra. Its influence grows more tenuous."

"What _was_ that?" Malu asked, her voice ragged.

"I was not speaking in allegory when I said that the abomination has its claws embedded into your soul," Pathik said with sadness and sympathy. "And each one below the next, it is embedded much more deeply. I am sorry, my child, but this is the least of the agonies it will inflict upon you to tighten its grip."

"How do you know so much about it?" Malu asked, finally returning to a sit. And the fact that she could said something. She didn't know what, but something. More unsettling, though, was that the hunger was returning. Growing more vicious. More sadistic. And it was getting closer. The barricade was falling.

"I know many things," Pathik said. "And sometimes, knowledge brings very little comfort."

"I've got to keep going," Malu said.

"Yes, but not now. You are wracked. Rest for a time," Pathik said.

"But you said I had to do this before..." Malu began.

She was cut off when Pathik gently laid fingers on her brow and the bridge of her nose. And an instant later, she slumped down into unconsciousness.

But the hunger was _waiting_ for her there.

* * *

><p>They had removed <em>Mother<em> hours ago. Whomever thought it was a good idea to store the two of them together had probably done so in a dreadfully misguided attempt to seem sympathetic, to paint themselves as a potential ally. She knew their manipulations, as they were transparent to somebody who'd spent decades seeing through more subtle masks. Long Feng was an old enemy. One which, to his credit, did rise up to torment her a few times after she'd thought he'd have the good sense to vanish into obscurity, but the truth of the matter was just much better at the game than he was.

She flicked golden eyes toward the door, and to the nervous looking Dai Li beyond it. To most, there was no sign of that nervousness. Once again, Azula was the kind who'd broken harder. She knew what it looked like when they were sweating on the inside. And from the pallor, from the involuntary and frequent swallowing, from the way he kept glancing toward her as though to make absolutely certain that she was still there... it confirmed her belief.

The time had come.

Azula rose to her feet, idly pushing off of the stool and standing before the bars which separated prisoner from warden. "I am prepared to see Long Feng, now," Azula said, a smirk on her lips. The Dai Li looked at her, a brow raised.

"And who exactly is that supposed to be?" the disguised Dai Li asked.

"Why, your Grand Secretariat, of course. The man who has led the Dai Li since the assassination of the father of the current Earth King. The man who convinced two million people that 'there was no war in Ba Sing Se'. He is expecting me."

"I would have been informed," he began, obviously unaware that he let slip that not only was there a Long Feng who ruled Ba Sing Se, but that there was dire calamity about him at the moment.

"Does the Grand Secretariat of the 'Greatest City on Earth' lay out every iota of his daily living to you? Are you so presumptuous to think that you know the machinations of a man at least a dozen times your intellectual superior?" Azula browbeat him. She nodded sternly to one side. "Long Feng was cast down by the Avatar and his cronies, because he was unable to hide his failure at the Wall. So now comes the point where I enter into the picture."

The Dai Li blinked at her for a few seconds, then vanished from sight, as silently as a ghost. Azula just smiled, and not in any friendly manner. Years; no, decades of her life had been leading up to this moment. A perfect coup, not a drop of blood spilled. At least, not a drop that mattered. Not like last time. And from here, she would have momentum. From Ba Sing Se, she would have the power, the armies, the authority to hunt down the Avatar no matter where in the world he fled. She would chase him down no matter how high he flew, no matter how far, and she would destroy him so utterly that Agni itself could shine for a thousand years and never reveal his reincarnating soul.

That would give her peace.. right?

Footfalls approached the door, and Azula held herself upright and stern, her eyes focused and her expression anything but helpless. A woman, older and greying haired, opened the door and slid it aside, taking a measure of Azula even as Azula took a measure of her. "So you are the Princess Azula. You aren't what I expected," the woman said, the Ba Sing Se accent thick in her voice.

"I frequently defy expectations," Azula said. "Long Feng is ready for me. Take me to him."

"I will be the arbiter of who you see, if any," the woman said.

"Supervisor Joo Dee, we've just gotten the verdict back," a voice came from behind the older woman. She glanced aside. "Guilty, ma'am. To be executed in four days."

"So you see how little time you have left," Azula said. This woman was probably his second in command, if not his mistress. She hadn't met this woman before, not back then, but that might have been simple bad synchronicity. "Without my aid, Long Feng will lose this city to the Avatar. The Dai Li will crumble to dust, to be blown away by the passing of ages. Is that what you want, Joo Dee? To be the ignominious footnote on the back page of history? Or do you want something better?"

Joo Dee stared at her, those eyes of her flat and cold, but measuring her very, very carefully. And the decades of confidence, the years of physical preparation, they shone through. Unknown to Azula... the decade of inconsolable rage did as well.

"Bring her. Hoi, get her a disguise," Joo Dee said. And Azula's smirk widened, as she began to walk, flanked by the earthbenders who had fire in their hearts, but water in their guts. This would be _glorious_.

* * *

><p>The sun was well risen when Sharif had picked a spot, on the northeast shore of Lake Laogai, as far from the city as one could be realistically and still remain within the Reaches. Aang watched the shaman as he unsteadily picked his spot, glancing around as though trying to take note of things which Aang couldn't see. Even when he opened the World Eyes, there were obviously things he wasn't understanding, things Sharif could see that he could not.<p>

"So is this where you're going to teach me how to become the Avatar?" Aang asked, still unable to mask the excitement, of his birthright being completed, and with sufficient time to spare!

"Avatar? Why would I teach you to be Avatar? Avatars are an Avatar thing," Sharif said, but then, he shook his head, and rubbed his brow. "Oh... Oh, I see. Yes, it is a thing of Void," he offered a guilty smile. "My mind? It wanders sometimes."

Aang stared at him, face flat. "...do you know how to make me go into the Avatar state?"

"No. You do," Sharif pointed out. Aang shook his head.

"No, I don't."

"You don't know what to listen for. The voices are quiet, and amongst so many. To hear the message, you must listen _between,_" Sharif said, sitting down on the dusty ground, covered in dried, withered grasses even as it clung to the edge of the lake. It was the weather, Aang guessed. Usually, these grasses would burn away in the summer heat. But with so little rainfall – Aang hadn't seen so much as a drop since they came in from the coast – plants had a hard time taking root anywhere, and an even harder time _keeping_ that root.

"I don't understand, Sharif," Aang said. Sharif reached forward, and grabbed Aang's staff. "Oh! Wait! That's a delicate instrument!"

"What?" Sharif asked, then looked at the staff. "Oh, yes yes. A finger will do."

Sharif handed the glider staff back, and stooped to begin drawing in the cracked dirt. It started with a circle, which he quartered. "You know a thing of elements. The Four. The Balance, yes?"

"Yes, I do," Aang said. "I have to think with four minds to be Avatar. I have to bend with four souls... kinda."

"No. Yes," Sharif shook his head, then shrugged. "There is more. You bend. The elements, you bend them. But you do not _see_ them. Why do you not see them?"

Aang was quiet, waiting for him to answer his own question, but the scarred Si Wongi didn't.

"Um... should you maybe do that thing where you make your scar glow?" Aang asked.

"I do not know what you mean," Sharif said.

"The thing with the fake brain?" Aang said.

"Oh. No. There is no time. I must know. The hard lessons are strictest learned. Things that... fit. Not easy to say. Must be heard, and understood," he shook his head, and then pointed at the circle once more. "What do you see, Avatar?"

"Four elements," Aang said, quickly scratching in a quick symbol for each, in its own slice of the pie.

"No! No do not be so simple! What do you _see_, Avatar?" Sharif stressed, pointing at the circle once more.

Aang stared down at it, trying to understand the message that the mentally wounded young man was trying to give, that he was only capable of giving in this state. He pointed at the circle, and he waited, not really so much patiently as without any notion of haste. Aang flopped down into a squat before the circle, rubbing his chin. It had to be something fundamental. Something basic, but profound. Something that was staring him in the face such that Sharif couldn't see anything but it, yet it eluded Aang.

Yeesh. Zuko was right. Aang _was_ an idiot sometimes.

"What do you see, _Avatar_?" Sharif asked once more, pointing at the center of the circle.

"Four elements," Aang said, but he stared at Sharif's finger, right at the point where all quarters touched, right at the heart of the symbol. "...and all four are one."

"Yes. That is Void," Sharif said.

"Void is all four elements?"

"Yes. No. It is Other." Sharif shook his head, muttering to himself in broken Altuundili of such poor form that Aang couldn't decipher it. "It is the All, and the None. It is the bind, and the breach."

Aang reached down, and widened the lines between the elements. "This is the Void. The balance between the elements, the definition of the elements. Without the other elements, each couldn't exist. But without the void, one couldn't be different from the other, is that what you're saying?"

"No. Yes."

Aang threw up his hands in the air. "Ugh! Sharif, can't you give me _one_ straight answer?"

"Answers _are_," Sharif said, as though it was painfully obvious. Aang was about to chastise him, try to get him back onto topic, but there was something about the earnestness, the way he stared a thousand yards through Aang.

"Wait... Answers are _Void_?" Aang clarified.

"Yes. No."

"You're not making any sense! Are answers Void or aren't they?"

"Yes."

Aang just stared at him. It was lucky he had a shaved head, because he was fairly sure that this would have had him tearing his hair out by the roots if he'd had to do it for any length of time. It only happened slowly, dawning like a bison falling asleep on somebody's foot, that Sharif... was actually saying something. Just in about the hardest way to understand, since he was so damned literal. He was a lot like his sister, in that, Aang figured.

"Alright," Aang said, screwing his patience to the sticking place – good gods, was this what it was like for others to teach _him_? – and leaned toward Sharif once more. "Are you saying that answers are void, but are not all that is void?"

"Yes."

Aang let out a sigh of relief. "Finally. What else is Void."

"Void is, and it is not. The only thing void is _not_ is Imbalance," Sharif said. Then, he shook his head. "No. No, there is more. Void is less... not, and more... outside. But void is not Imbalance. Void _cannot be_ Imbalance."

Aang scratched his head. "So is Void that which connects the elements, even as it allows them to be defined?" he hazarded.

"Yes."

"It is the gap between them, and at the same time, the force which holds them together."

"Yes."

"And the Avatar is..."

"The word of the Void," Sharif said. "They speak through you. You are Void. You are the answer. You are the breach, and the bind."

Aang sat back, agape. "...how is this supposed to teach me how to enter the Avatar State at will?"

"The young prick fingers but I can sew," Sharif said simply.

Aang blinked. "...are you saying that if I don't understand what I am, I can't control it?"

Sharif stared for a long time, then tilted his head aside, glancing toward the north. Then, he turned back to Aang. "Yes."

"Great, and..."

"No."

Aang let out a growl which could have belonged to a Storm King. "Why isn't anything ever simple!"

"Void is," Sharif said.

Aang gathered his patience, which was beginning to fray. He'd sometimes heard it said that no Air Nomad monk could ever earn the right to claim patience and zen until they'd had hyperactive children. This was probably about the same level of... urg! Aang didn't even have a completely broken metaphor to come up with how frustrating this whole thing was. He pointed at the very center of the circle.

"Is this where the Avatar is?" Aang asked. Sharif shook his head, and reached forward, tapping Aang on the chest and on the crown of his head.

"No. _This_ is where the Avatar is," he said.

Aang glared. Sharif stared glassily through him. This was going to be a very, _very_ long day.

* * *

><p>What sun there was didn't reach into the ruins, and blackness surrounded her the likes of which usually only could be found in her most horrible nightmares. But not as stifling, nor as brutal, nor as cold. And not as lonely. Even as she sat in the complete darkness, she knew she wasn't alone. The grinding of the hunger was a sort of companion, but the guru, who shared the darkness with her, there was a connection in that. <em>Somebody<em> was fighting for Malu.

Malu blinked a few times, not completely sure that she was conscious. It as only because of the ache of her muscles, the familiar and different pain compared to her hunger, that she assumed that she was. "Brother Pathik? Are you still there?"

"Of course, my child," he answered her gently, and Malu felt wood bump into her lip. She carefully tipped it back, pouring it down her throat so quickly that she barely even tasted it. And more power to her; she definitely hadn't acquired a taste for that horrible garbage. She felt an old finger touch the crown of her head. "So far, you have opened three of the chakras. The ones that the abomination had the weakest grasp on," he moved down, tapping her upon the brow, then at the front of her throat. "But there is one, which while must be opened, holds no seeds of the beast's corruption."

"Where?" Malu asked.

The hand lifted from her throat, and tapped very lightly in the center of her chest, between her breasts. She blinked a few times at that, but the finger was withdrawn once the point was made. "The Heart Chakra is the bastion of love, in all of its forms. It is clouded and stifled by abundance of grief. Where has your grief taken you, child?"

Malu turned aside, even though there wasn't much point in the blackness. She sighed, and she thought about... everybody. Tengeh, Gyatso, Iruka. Mom. Dad. She turned her eyes forward again, but they widened, as she could see... everybody.

At the fore were her parents. Air Nomads traditionally weren't supposed to be raised by their parents, or even know who they were. Malu's own had flouted that convention, to their own detriment. But it meant that Malu had something that few Air Nomad children ever did; roots. She didn't look to the Elders for guidance, for approval, for tradition. She looked closer. Beyond, marching back in ranks upon ranks, swelling out, came everybody she had ever known, and lost. There was even an open space where she once would have considered Aang, despite his miraculous survival of the Day of Fire. Tears began to leak from her eyes, as she looked on the history which only she could remember, and the victims of a war that only she would now mourn.

"Are... they really there?" Malu asked, even as she reached forward, just to touch Mom's hand one more time.

"I am sorry, child, but they are a part of you, not this place," Pathik said, and one by one, the spectres began to break apart, like baked dust struck by a gale. They whorled, and they swelled, a great cloud rising out of what once had been a host a hundred thousand strong. Malu watched, and it was like losing them – losing everybody – all over again. Her chest wracked with painful sobs, as the isolation began to encroach once more. It was her, and the Avatar, and he would never take her in after what she'd done. After what she'd _become_. There was a sigh at Malu's side. "I can sense the enormity of the loss you feel, child," Pathik said, sympathy clear in his words. "But you must not fall to despair. Love is a force of nature, something which cannot be destroyed by time or fire. It is like the soul, even in death, it finds rebirth. Rebirth in new love, and new friendship.

The dust cleared, showing two teenaged girls standing where once there had been legion. One, pale and long-haired, brown eyes staring at her with kindness, a small if warm smile perpetually on her lips. The other looked outright sour, but there was something like an acerbic acceptance in her expression. Stubble-headed sarcastic Si Wongi, and kind-hearted firebender renegade. The first friends she'd had in years. It wasn't so much a tearing of claws out of flesh, that she felt. It was a swell, and upwelling of resolve. She would be strong, for them. She wouldn't let them down again. She wouldn't be blind or weak or afraid. Even if this killed her, it would be a better world, because those two still remained in it.

"Let the pain flow away, down the river," Pathik said quietly, and the darkness slowly mounted, and the forms of the two girls whom she'd adventured and traveled with faded away. Malu was still sobbing, but it was a less wretched thing, now. And it was something she could, with a bit of effort, master. "Very good. The next will be the hardest yet, and each after it, worse. Hold onto that strength, child; you shall need it."

* * *

><p>Long Feng turned to the rattle of keys to his door, his eye taking in his trusted lieutenant. And because of that, he got a scowl on his face. "I thought we agreed it would be most prudent not to come here," Long Feng said to Joo Dee.<p>

"The situation warranted your personal attention," Joo Dee answered. He gave a motion, and Long Feng's eyes widened somewhat, this time in outright confusion. He certainly recognized the person who had been brought before him – he would have had to have been an outright fool not to! – but there was no scenario devised in his mind which would require her for something like _this_. Princess Azula was a political pawn, and not capable of more.

"Explain yourself, Joo Dee," Long Feng said, his patience already thin.

"You are trapped as a result of your failure to maintain a grip on the Earth King," the girl answered, edging out the woman who was escorting her. Long Feng turned his attention to her. The accent was unexpected, and so was her force. He only had barely learned of Azula's place in his compound by the time the Avatar's coup was in full force. There were many things he could have planned to do with her, but... those were operating off of certain expectations.

Expectations the living article did not adhere to.

"Joo Dee?" Long Feng asked.

"You will speak to me, or not at all," Azula interrupted him, "and you _will not_ speak over my head. Accept these terms, or accept your fate. Which, as I understand it, comes to an ignominious conclusion in half a week."

Long Feng glared at her, and shot a look to Joo Dee promising harsh words later, but not for what he had initially assumed. So the Princess had a level of cunning that had been hidden from him? That opened her utility _greatly_. He leaned forward, hands clasped behind his back. "What do you _want_?"

A smirk came to her face. "I'm here to offer you salvation," Azula said, darkly. "You want to rule Ba Sing Se? I see no reason to stop you. But you have something I require to meet _my_ ends. I consider it a remarkably fair trade."

"And what do you have that I do not?" Long Feng asked.

"Autonomy," Azula said. "I am the last thing they will expect, for reasons you're no doubt aware. And more, I have already learned the lessons in fighting that _creature_ that you are denied."

Now, Long Feng was interested. "What would you do, in such a situation?" he asked.

"Your execution is in four days? Let them think that," she said. "The time has come to bring the Five Generals to heel, and put a boot onto the back of the Earth King's neck. You know it. I know it. You have at your disposal the most disciplined and dangerous earthbenders on the planet. Under my dispatch, they will reclaim the city from the hands which would bungle it," that smile suddenly turned innocent, or some mockery of innocence that she knew wouldn't entirely transit. "And all that I ask is for a token force, to end the Avatar, and his cronies once and for all."

"I had not taken you for a patriot," Long Feng said. "How will this act stand in the eyes of your father?"

"Who knows, and who cares?" Azula answered, her expression becoming dark and drab. "_He_ is not here. This is the only offer I will extend to you, Long Feng. Are you interested, or are you not?"

Behind a silent smile, the machinery of Long Feng's mind was whirring, and he liked the shape of what came of it. This... would do very nicely.

* * *

><p>Hours passed in what seemed like... well, eons. There was a strange relativity of time, Aang had discovered, that when wrapped in joy, a lifetime could pass in a moment, while agonies could turn moments into lifetimes. He was feeling the latter at the moment. He thought over that metaphor he'd devised in his mind, and then shook his head. Time is relative? Preposterous. No wonder people had such a hard time following his trains of thought. They went in weird directions.<p>

"So," Aang said, trying to sum up what had taken Sharif so long to say. "the Void is the connector, definer, divider, and expression of the four elements, and also a strong aspect of what is fundamental to the Avatar. Void is the voice of the Spirit World, the answer to questions and the questions themselves. It is the prophet and the historian, the infant and the crone. Right?"

"Yes." Sharif said, even as he mechanically ate the bread which Aang had given him.

"But, and this is important," Aang suddenly grabbed the youth's shoulders. "HOW DOES THIS HELP ME GET INTO THE AVATAR STATE?"

Sharif chewed for several more seconds, staring at a place very far beyond Aang's head, until he fell still. "The door cannot open without a key," Sharif said. Aang threw up his hands with a growl of frustration that he must have borrowed whole from Zuko, since there was so much in common with it. "The key cannot mould without the sand. The sand cannot form without the master."

"You're not making any sense," Aang accused.

Sharif swallowed, then glanced aside, at a waft of purple light, a spirit of some description, which joined the innumerable other ones which either circled Sharif, or else outright clung to him like a blizzard of radiant fluffs. "One leads to another. A city is a pile of bricks."

Aang stared at him for a moment.

"A city is a pile of..." he began, and then his eyes widened. "Wait, you're saying that one leads to another? That bricks make buildings, and buildings make cities, so... something about the void is vitally important to being the Avatar?"

Sharif stared at him, and Aang braced himself for the worst of all possible answers; the non-answer.

"Yes."

"Why doesn't anything ever make – what?" Aang broke off, mid-frustrated-tirade, when he realized what Sharif had, indeed, said. "Wait, the void builds the Avatar?"

"Yes."

"How?" Aang asked.

Sharif's head seemed to bob side to side, causing the fluff upon him, and the spirits around him to spin away before settling back into place. "It is what you are for," he said. "To be voice for the first. To fight which cannot be defeated," he shook his head. "The Avatar is the light against the darkness."

Aang slowly nodded, drawing his own assumptions from the meander that Sharif spoke. But with a sigh, he settled back onto his crossed legs and faced Sharif directly. "Alright. What is next?"

"Next, you need to speak to the void. Its voice is quiet."

Aang sat, and he looked around. "Which one is void?" Aang asked. Sharif raised a hand, and the whole host which had wafted upon him broke and fled at random, although not with apparent panic. He extended a hand, and through the World Eyes, Aang could see Sharif rubbing at the fabric of the world, teasing apart where it had folded over its own breach, until a tiny aperture stood, connecting one world to the other. And when he did, a whisper of silvery light approached, hovering above his fingers. Aang stared at it. "Is that it?"

"Yes."

Aang leaned in closer, looking at the amorphous blob, notable only for the light it emitted, and didn't quite get it. "How can something so small be so powerful?" Aang asked.

"You do not see," Sharif said sadly. He rose, leaving the silvery mote to rise up and stay level with him as he did. He beckoned Aang to stand, and the Avatar did. The silvery mote moved close to Sharif's ear, and he nodded. "This will not be pleasant."

"What won't be ple–"

Sharif reached forward abruptly, slamming a palm into the center of Aang's chest, and the other flattening against his arrow, pressing down as though trying to pop Aang's head. Then, there was... pressure. It welled up inside Aang as though there were something inside his body, pressing outward against his skin. Threatening to tear him apart. "What are you doing?" Aang asked.

"What does it say?" Sharif asked, his tone still as distracted and distant as ever, somehow managing to break through the horrible roaring in Aang's ears which cut off all other sound.

"I can't hear anything!" Aang said, as the pressure, the _power_, became almost unbearable. He staggered back, trying to break Sharif's grip. The shaman matched him, step for step. "Sharif stop! It's hurting me!"

"You can see the light, but not the candle," Sharif said. "Open your eyes."

"The World Eyes are open!" Aang pointed out at a scream.

"No. Open. Your. Eyes." Sharif demanded. And when Aang closed them next, in a rictus of agony, they opened to something truly unexpected.

They opened to a bath of golden light. The pain stopped instantly, and the noise dropped away completely. It was a pristine silence beyond any that Aang had ever known. He glanced down at himself, and started at the realization that his body was transparent. "...hoooh boy," Aang said. "Sharif? Can you hear me?"

**The eyes of the Avatar are open.**

Aang flinched back, recoiling from the mote of silver, which still showed against the unimaginable vastness of the projector of that golden light. "What are you?"

**I am.**

"Are you a void spirit?"

**I am.**

"Do you know how I can enter the Avatar State at will?" Aang asked, trying to look between his fingers at the blinding glory beyond.

**Yes.**

Aang's face became flat, and he wished he could level a dry glare at that thing. "Are you going to tell me?"

**Yes.**

Aang stood in silence. "When?"

** ...I am.**

Aang stood agape. "What do you mean? You're not telling me anything! When are you going to teach me what I need to know? The whole of reality _needs_ me to be able to enter the Avatar State!"

**Yes**.

"Then why aren't you teaching me right now?" he shouted.

** I am.**

Aang paused, looking down at his hands. Nope, still blue. "No, you're not," Aang said.

**I am.**

Aang grumbled. But he was an airbender monk, even despite his young age. He sat down, on the ground, and collected his temper, however badly it had been frayed in the difficult conversations with Sharif that lead to this point. He took a purging breath, his eyes pressed closed against the majesty. "What do you need to tell me?" Aang asked it.

**The center has fallen. The fringes cannot hold.**

Aang frowned for a moment. "Your home? The Black City?"

**The center has fallen.**

"What is Imbalance? How did it do this to the Spirit World?"

**It is outside my answers. I cannot see how it came to become. I can see only the shadow upon the wall of the cave.**

Aang sighed. "What is happening to the Spirit World? Why has the center fallen?"

**Hunger. All consuming. Insatiable. We were not prepared. We did not see the fall, only after did it enter our sight.**

Aang tilted his head slightly. "Why do you say that you didn't see it, but you did?"

There was a long silence. Almost like the thing was trying to find a way to explain itself. **We did not see what happened, until it... happened.**

Aang frowned lightly. "...does the Void see the future?"

**No.**

"Well..." Aang began.

**We are in the future. We are in the past. We are all, everywhere, everywhen. I am watching your birth. I am watching your death. I am watching she who comes after you. I am watching he who came before you.**

Aang's eyes opened then... and the majesty was not so much dimmer, as less overwhelming. "Are you saying that you couldn't see Imbalance, what it was doing, until it was too late? That you couldn't see it the way you see everything else?" Aang asked.

**Yes. It is a cipher to our vision.**

Aang nodded. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

**You could not hear the voice.**

"But Sharif could? Why?"

**The shaman is a unique individual. Strong. But calm. He does not order; he listens. He does not demand; he requests. He is like the Avatar. He is what the center requires. **

Aang sighed. "Was it because of his injury?"

Another silence. **Yes.**

Aang slowly bowed before the spirit before him. "Can you tell me, in _this_ moment, what I need to do to end this conflict, to stop Imbalance before it's too late?"

**No.**

Aang had feared that'd be the answer. "Why not?"

**It is not time.**

"But when will it be time?" Aang demanded at a yell.

**When the fires burn bright once more. When the betrayers are betrayed, when a family fights itself on the brink of crumbling into madness. When a child asks forgiveness; when a child gives forgiveness. When a family reunites; before a family is sundered. When the heavens war with the land; before the world goes dim. When the heart grows cold. Before the end. When the time is right.**

"Is there anything you can tell me right now?" Aang asked. "Like... what was that tooth relic for?"

** It has served its purpose.**

Aang frowned. "Which was?"

**You.**

"I don't understand," Aang said.

**It will keep you where you are. It will allow a tomorrow. The time is not right. You must return.**

"Where did I go?" Aang asked, suddenly confused. There was another long silence.

** ...I am.**

And with that, the light faded, until the world returned around him, like the light was folding into itself, until only a tiny scrap of silver light remained, floating between Avatar and shaman, under the darkness of the approaching full moon. And with that, Aang's eyes shot wide open. "Wait a second! Why is it nighttime?" he asked of the shaman.

"You had to listen," Sharif said, gesticulating vaguely. "...that takes time."

Aang blinked, the after-image of the Void spirit – the _actual_ form of the void spirit, and not the tiny whisper of itself that it allowed to be seen – still lingered in Aang's mind like a twist of sourness after eating a lemon. "What was that?" Aang asked.

"The Form." Sharif said. "It is a _deeper_ sight."

Aang nodded slowly. "...I'm sorry I was so impatient with you. It's obvious that there's a lot I don't know about being a shaman. Can... you tell me more about that?"

Sharif blinked as he stared through Aang, his head shifting side to side as though trying to catch a glimpse of something, or like a man so tired he was barely standing on his feet. "I... can try."

"I'll accept whatever you can give me," Aang said with a bow.

* * *

><p>"Not here," Yoji said, her eyes flitting around the room even as she walked past it. There wasn't anybody else in the hallway but they, but she wasn't about to give any indication of what she was doing, not to these dire phantoms in green robes. It had taken a lot of effort and solid planning to get their hands on the disguises that they had; she wasn't about to negate that with sloppy investigation work.<p>

"That much is obvious," Kori answered, walking ahead of them with his hands in irons. While she and Omo could conceivably pass for locals, he because he was one and she because she was even in her late teenage years as tall as most Easterners ever became, Kori could be nothing but a Tribesman. So they used that to their advantage. As soon as they were past the outermost checkpoints, 'moving a person of interest' gave them almost free rein to move as they would.

"Any idea where they would have taken her?" Omo asked, giving Kori a shove which meant that he was staggering as another Dai Li passed the corridor they were in. Yoji smirked at that. Omo had a way of making even deliberate and purposeful deeds seem brash and ill-conceived, when the need called for it. He was good at what he did, and what he did, was manipulate people.

That was what the Children were for, after all.

The Dai Li continued on, not sparing them more than the barest glance as they went. Kori retook his footing, and glanced back. "We don't have many options at this point. Searching would take days that I don't think we have. We need to find somebody who knows where she is," Kori pointed out, not barbing Omo for the shove. They three knew each other too well for such pettiness. He gave a shrug. "It might be a poor suggestion, but I think we've reached the point where we're going to have to split and find her that way."

Yoji glanced toward Omo and Kori, where they stood fore and back at her side. He wasn't wrong. There was only so much that Yoji could plan for, much as she'd like to believe the opposite. And when the plan failed? You moved to a contingency. When you run out of contingencies? Well, that was what she had Kori for. He was good at improvising. "You aren't wrong," she said.

"I thought so," Kori said with a smirk. "I'll go with Yoji, you..."

"Actually," Yoji said, cutting him off, "it might be better if _Omo_ stuck with you. It would raise less questions than me."

Kori glanced at her, and shrugged. "Point taken. Not too many women in the Dai Li, and fewer still looking like you."

"Was that a compliment?" Yoji asked.

"Please. We both know I find you physically repugnant," Kori said blithely.

"As you should," Yoji pointed out. She looked to Omo. "Don't let him get you into trouble."

"Trust me. He won't," Omo said, smiling at her. She felt herself smiling back, even a moment after he turned away down a different hall, pushing Kori ahead of him. She chastised herself for being such a love-struck girl. At least, she tried to. Because, as much as the rational part of Yoji's mind knew that fraternizing with Omo – if that term could even be used to describe what had happened between them – was bad news, another part of her pretty much wanted to wrap her... arms... around him and never let go.

And another part, equally irrational but much more unsettling, was one which reminded her of one very important fact, the kind of which made her so useful to the Children; Omo was good at manipulating people. That thought kept recurring to her. What if... what if he was just doing to her what he did to everybody else? After all, the Children were tools of the Fire Nation, first and foremost. And tools needed to be kept sharp. She shook her head. This entire line of un-reason wasn't doing her any benefit in finding where these green robed assassins had taken Yoji's quarry. It was about as easy as walking through magma, but she forced herself to get it out of her mind.

She was of the Children. She was better than this.

A side-trip down another path revealed more Dai Li, heading toward where one was taking off robes and changing into the outfit of one of the palace's royal guards. She rose an eyebrow at that. While she did know that there was a fair degree of turmoil at the moment within the Dai Li, the possibility of using them to infiltrate yet deeper was an inviting one. A less intelligent agent would probably considered using such a disguise to assassinate the Earth King. Yoji knew better. The Fire Lord had the Earth King exactly where he wanted him. But access to the Palace, unmolested and unrestricted? _Useful_.

Yoji kept her distance, orbiting the agent who was changing his disguise, always making herself innocuous, out of sight. It was a matter of waiting for him to finish, itself not a long process. Then, the hunt was one once more. There was no reason to believe that a prisoner such as the leader of the Dai Li would be left in the Dai Li's care. And he would be the kind of man to know where Azula was, if anybody did; after all, it was his men who took her from Yoji's grasp. It would just be a matter of extracting that information.

She followed, getting closer in degrees of subtlety to the impostor, her eyes always alert for a place for the deed itself to take place. Some place private. Some place quiet. Some place with a door. A smirk came to her face as she saw such a lovely location, just ahead of him. She picked up her pace, and was almost walking on his heels by the time the door was at their side. Just the briefest glance behind, to make sure nobody was observing, and then she took one swift step forward, hooking her leg behind the infiltrator's. She then heaved up and back on the helmet, exposing the throat, which she sent a knife-hand chop into. His cry of alarm came out as a shocked gurgle, and hands flew to neck. He tried to swing at her, but her next blow was a fist to the face, which sent his head rebounding against the floor. The helmet had cushioned the blow, it seemed, but he was still stunned. Less than three seconds, and not much more than a whisper.

Yoji kicked the door open and dragged the impostor into the room, which stood in dull and unadorned bricks. Obviously not a prison cell, since the door was neither metal nor locking. But it didn't matter. He'd be unconscious in a cupboard before too long. She quickly started to pull of his ceremonial armor, piling it conveniently on hand. She had only pulled her own robes over her head to start putting that armor on when she heard the door open once again. Her eyes went wide, even though they were trapped in a prison of green silk.

"Look away! I'm naked!" Yoji screeched, which at least caused the intruder with her to hesitate, which gave her the opportunity to simply shuck the robe away. Contrary her words, she still wore undergarments, and truth told, they were much easier to fight in. There were two of them, one tall, the other short and fat. She lashed forward with a gout of furious flames, to blast both into the corner where she could dispose of them later. The _last_ thing she expected was the fat one to blast her flames away with his own.

As she turned her assault into a low wave – which the fat firebender cut with a chi knife – the other was rushing her. She sent a backhand of flame at him, but he ducked around it like water around a rock, before slapping her on the back. She kicked him in the knee, which caused him to falter, but not as much as she'd have thought, since he used his position to shoulder-check her hard enough to send her back-first into a wall.

She pushed off the wall, preparing to leap into attack...

And didn't.

She glanced back, and then pushed hard again, but this time she could feel something unyielding tugging at the skin of her back. She glared forward, and cast out fists of fire, which the fat one once again deflected aside. The tall one then threw, one after another, four more white-powdered balls at Yoji, each one either splattering over her ankle and locking it down as well, or hitting the wall behind her. Then, with a final surge, both rushed forward, and the tall one forced her arms back into that goop that the balls had contained.

She was trapped.

"I feared that I would find her here," that voice which called rage to heart said, the tone gravely and decrepit. The hat was tipped off, showing the golden eyes and grey beard of the traitor, Iroh. "And that means you were more right about the danger to my niece than you knew."

"I will tell you nothing," Yoji promised. But the other was likewise letting his hat fall to the floor. She turned to him, and had a second take. No. Not him again.

Skin dark and eyes blue, a trim-bearded Tribesman stared at her with obvious and overwhelming emotion. But as to what he said? It was very, very succinct.

"Hello, Hikaoh."

* * *

><p>"This will be unpleasant. I can assure you of this," Pathik warned, as they settled into the ruins of what once had been the East Temple's smithy, where the bridles and tack of the sky bison had been forged. "From this point on, there can be no rest. I know how terrible it will be for you, child, but whatever strength you have gathered, you have gathered it for now."<p>

Malu nodded, eyes hard as that hunger tore at her. "I'm ready."

Pathik shook his head slowly, and sadly. "No, you are not. But must do so anyway."

Malu slowly shifted how she was sitting on the floor of the smithy, and Pathik joined her, crossing his legs under him as his fingers joined in meditation. "The next chakra is the second most dangerous. It is the Fire Chakra, located in the stomach."

"It's what's doing this to me?"

"No. But it is a place of great power and infestation to what has claimed you," Pathik answered. "It is filled by power, sometimes literally, and is barricaded by shame. If you would tear out the abomination, you must relinquish your shame, that it clings so jealously to. What has given you shame, child, more than anything else?"

Malu's eyes lowered to the floor of the smithy, and she let out a sigh, as the most painful of all memories boiled up to her. As they came, the smithy seemed to dissolve away, leaving the night, and the fire, and the screams.

It was like standing before herself. Only she wasn't standing. She ran. This Malu from four or a hundred years ago ducked and sprang, trying to avoid the bolts of massive, unbelievable fire which even the weakest of the firebenders seemed capable of. Every soldier was the birth of a pillar of fire which brought noon to the dusk. Her airbending wasn't enough to keep her safe, not by a mile. A strong enough wind could snuff a flame, yes, but not when that flame was larger than the Temple was tall!

"Mom! Dad!" Malu screamed, coming to a halt only for a moment, and lucky that she had, since one of the firebenders in those spiky uniforms turned toward her and swept out with a blaze of horrible glory. Only by running straight up a wall did she manage to avoid its all consuming mass. Instantly upon landing past its fading edge, she hurled a bolt of air so tight that it was almost solid; it slammed into the firebender with a clank of cracking iron, and the soldier went down in a squirming pile. It was the first time that Malu had ever used her airbending to hurt somebody, severely and intentionally. And she was too scared, too focused to even bother trying to understand it.

Her feet blurred, and the air displaced around her swept behind her as a bow-wave as she rocketed across what was once the vast and open fields of the Eastern Air Temple. Firebenders above tried to smash her down with their gargantuan flames, but she was too fast, and she was too focused. She didn't notice them; rather, she ignored them, and shot past them. Only at the outer fringe, near where the bison-pens began, did she slow. "Mom! Where are you! Dad, are you alright?"

"Malu? Are you alright?" Mom's voice was an instant balm to her panicking mind. But she moved from relief to panic again in a heartbeat as she ducked into that stall, and couldn't see Dad. Mom was there – although she looked positively ashen – as well as one of the other, older Monks, but not dad. Well, there were some brutally burnt people, but no Dad.

"Mom, what's going on? Why are the firebenders trying to kill us?" Malu asked, trying to make this day make some kind of sense. Mom was... holding onto one of the burnt people. "Where's Dad?"

And Mom was crying. Malu looked to her mother... and then at the burnt corpse in her arms. Oh... Oh no...

"Malu, you have to get away. Somebody needs to survive this. Somebody who knows what you know," the elder nun said sternly, even as she breathed deeply and wrapped bindings over what had to be horribly painful burns.

"Why? Why did they kill Dad?" Malu asked, dropping to her knees in front of her mother.

"Malu! Do your duty!" the nun ordered.

"To hell with my duty! My Dad is dead!" Malu screamed back at the old woman. Mom, though, just looked at Malu.

"You have to hide. Promise me you'll hide, Malu," Mom said. Malu was shaking her head, trying to deny all of this, even to herself. "No! I don't care, just promise me!"

The next question to Malu's lips was 'come with me'... but when Mom shifted, Malu could see that she didn't have much of anything left of her legs. No wonder she was so pale. Malu swallowed a sob, and, tears in her eyes, nodded. "Alright. I promise, Mother," Malu swore.

The nun glanced 'round the corner, and winced, shaking her head. "They're breaking through... how did they get so _powerful_?" the nun asked, mostly to herself.

Mom turned to her, her eyes fierce even if she looked minutes away from shock, or worse. "You're scaring Malu," she said, voice ragged. The nun turned back to her.

"She _should_ be scared. She should be _running_!" the nun countered. But Malu turned from her, back to her mother.

"...Mom?" she asked, unable to summon anything else to say. Mom reached up to her, slipping a hand under her hair behind her neck, and bringing their foreheads together. The forearm Malu could see was cracked and oozing, although unlike her legs, not cooked to the bone.

"Just run, baby," Mom said, her voice a desperate whisper. "Please. Don't make _this_ pointless."

This. The family that she'd had, in defiance of every tradition the Air Nomads had. This. Malu didn't even say yes. She just nodded, sobbing in her throat. Mom whispered something as she let Malu go, but Malu didn't hear it, not then. In retrospect... it sounded like 'I'm proud of you'.

And Malu was running again. She screamed through the temple grounds, both metaphorically and literally. She didn't even bother to slow until she was on the outskirts, and she jammed her fingers into her mouth and let out a hard breath. No human would have heard it, but the sound ticked the ears of any bison within miles. She looked around. Nothing. She did it again. This time, she started running even as she finished, to see the bison-pens themselves.

So much flame.

So much death.

"Ihah? Ihah, are you there?" Malu asked, barely able to breath for the smoke and the sobs. For the stink. Burnt hair. "Ihah! Please!"

There was a grumble, and a mound of burned hair struggled to get up, its six legs not giving it complete purchase. "Ihah!" Malu cried, hugging the beast's head even though doing so probably hurt it. The beast let out a weak groan, and Malu scrambled up onto its brow, holding onto the one horn Ihah had left. "Come on, Ihah. I know it hurts, but you've gotta do this for me. Can you, Ihah?" the bison let out a rumble, but there was resolve in that sound. "Yip yip."

Ihah began to rise, first to its feet, and then, out of the pens and into the sky. Malu looked down, on the ruins of what had once been her home. She could see... dots. Others. Not firebenders. She should have tried to save them. She had the only Bison in the sky.

But she turned away.

And a red line split the sky, running perpendicular to the blazing wound which was the comet which presaged this death. Malu turned to it, and the vision began to fade, but that red line remained. Until it started to open.

"You must accept that this choice is one you have made," Pathik's voice came through the void. And the red line began to expand, opening into an Eye of Terror.

"Brother Pathik, what's going on?" Malu asked, real terror in her voice.

"You are seeing the infestation inside you. You must be strong," Pathik warned. "Why do you feel shame?"

"I could have helped those people! I could have at least tried!" Malu shouted, as that eye turned on her, and began to see her. She could see black wisps breaking off of the twisting lines which made up the Eye's corpus and drift toward her, blind and idiot, seeking and grasping.

"And had you failed?" Pathik asked. "You cannot undo the past. You can only move forward with the world as it stands."

Fear and shame mixed, tears flowing down her face as she beheld the trophy of her arrogance, of her cowardice. "I should have gone back," she said. "Even if it killed me, I should have gone back!"

"You _cannot_ undo the past," Pathik repeated. "And you cannot dwell in it. Nobody can walk into the future looking backwards.

**HUNGER**

The word tore at Malu, tearing at her guts even as it crashed against her ears. "I don't..." Malu began, but Pathik was there. Malu couldn't see him, but he was there, with her. His very proximity burned like a beacon in the fog.

"You must move beyond the shame of what happened on that day," Pathik said sternly, yet still serenely. "The fate which was woven for you into Samsara willed you not die in the fires. Instead, you are here, now. As you should not have shame for something which you could not have changed, you should not have the arrogance to believe you can change what was."

"But..." Malu began, as the dark wisps began to trace along her face. Each was a violation, claws ripping at her soul. Each made her numb. Made her... want to just give up.

It wasn't until right then that Malu understood. She pressed her eyes closed, her fists slamming together, and she gathered her will. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the Eye, but the fingers of blackness had receded. "I was young," she said, simply and calmly. "I was afraid. It wasn't my fault."

Then, there was a bang, like a mountain crashing into another, larger mountain.

And a moment later, it felt like her eyes exploded.

The agony of it tore at her, as she abandoned the shame she'd lived with for all these years, the raking claws of the beast tore at her, trying to find new purchase. Each rabid rake was more painful than anything she had ever experienced in her life, even if it gave no ground. Each stole the wind from her lungs in unending screaming. Each stole the water from her body in unstoppable tears. Each stole the blood in her veins, which now dribbled out of her nose.

And then, there was a lurch, something fetid and foul, so long stuck to her that she'd built her entire life balancing against it, that when it came free and fell off, she found herself suddenly barely able to remember which way was down. The pain cut off in an instant. The void disappeared. The Eye of Terror, vanished.

And Malu felt like she'd just been murdered to death. But somehow, wasn't dead. She panted, tasting the blood from her nose, which she wiped away with a hand that stood almost as ashen as Mom had been. "Is it..." Malu asked, turning to Pathik.

"Yes. You have cleared away its infestation upon your Fire Chakra," Pathik said. "You have abandoned the shame which had so burdened you, and doing so, made it impossible for the abomination to cling to you there. But its hold is still tight. Only you have the strength to free yourself."

Malu nodded. In its way... she felt good. Even as the pain of the hunger was practically back to the state it had been before, there was a faint wisp of a smile curling at the corner of her mouth. She couldn't change the past, but if she survived this, then maybe she could build a better future. Just like Mom and the Elder had intended. Gods knew Aang wouldn't be exactly aces as a teacher!

"What now?" Malu asked, her voice still ragged from the screaming.

"Next," Pathik said, rising to his feet. Malu rose, easily as she had for the last four or hundred years, "we must deal with the child of your shame, for it has grown to a great and fearsome beast of its own."

Malu knew what was coming. "...guilt."

And at that, Pathik only nodded, before handing her a bowl of banana-onion-pickle slime.

* * *

><p>Toph turned as she 'saw' somebody walking up behind her, not to look at him, since she obviously couldn't, but rather just so she'd have a good ear in if either started talking. He didn't seem willing, so she did first. "Didn't figure I'd see you out this far, Sparky," Toph said as she kicked a pebble in the park so that it landed in a pond and in all likelihood spooked some fish.<p>

"I needed to get out of there," Zuko said. While she couldn't tell what expression he had on his face, she knew from the tension of his body – he was tighter than any clock-spring she'd ever encountered – that understatement was the order of the day. "They're hiding her from me. I know it."

"Your sister?" Toph asked. Zuko didn't answer her, he just stormed up to the edge of the water, where Toph was, and leaned hard and pointedly against the lantern post near it. "Have you thought about just beating it out of them?" Toph asked.

Zuko turned toward her, probably with a look on his face the likes of which said 'do you think I'm an idiot?', but then he shook his head. "I can't touch them. If I do, they'll know. They'll hurt her."

"Gotta say, Sparky, you might be underestimating what your Sis is capable of," Toph said. Zuko let out a light, almost bitter chuckle.

"It helps me sleep at night," Zuko said.

"Fei Hua. You never sleep," she countered.

"I didn't know you watched," Zuko said dryly. And Toph blushed a bit. Damn it, girl! Get your act together! "It's not that I don't think she's... tough enough," and he said that like he didn't want to believe it, but had to, "it's that I'm afraid of what happens if she... tries to do something rash. Gets in over her head. Azula always was... a bit of an instigator."

"Hah," Toph said. "I wouldn't be surprised from what I saw of her if she wasn't already trying to take over Ba Sing Se!"

Zuko let out one laugh at that. "Can you just imagine?"

"Oh, I easily can," Toph said. She held herself haughtily. "You there, Dai Li peasant! Obey me and betray your master! Good, now take over the Earth Kingdoms for me this instant!"

"Your impersonation is terrible," Zuko pointed out.

"Is yours any better?" Toph asked.

Zuko was silent for a moment. "That's not the point."

"Face it. Your sister doesn't need you to hold her hand. Heck, I'm pretty sure she'd be sick of it by now if you had," Toph pointed out. Then, she gave a shrug. "That is, if she's anything like me. And from what I know about her, she kinda is."

"You're not like my sister," Zuko said. "You're just loud."

"You say that like it's a bad thing!"

Zuko just shrugged. He glanced behind him and shook his head. "I need to get some air. Get away from all this... noise. Uncle always said that a man is at his best when his mind is focused, and I don't feel very focused right now."

Toph was about to offer a sarcastic comment when she heard something, like something metal slamming against something larger, also metal, echoing across the heavens. She frowned, and turned to the south east. "Did you hear that?" she asked.

"I heard something," Zuko said. Then, he shook his head. "I'll be back in a day or so. I have to..." he didn't seem able to describe what he needed, either because he didn't want her to know, or because he didn't know how to say it.

"Blow off some steam?" Toph asked.

"Yeah. That works," Zuko said.

"Good. Then I'll be the one keepin' ya out of trouble," she said, slugging him in the arm. Zuko turned to her, very likely a confused expression on his face.

"You? Keep _out_ of trouble? I'd have to accuse _you_ of brainwashing for a comment like that," Zuko pointed out.

"Oh... shut up!" Toph said. And while Zuko didn't answer her, she could tell he was smirking. "How about I just tag along and point out to all the people you pass that you're the Fire Nation Prince? Lots of fun to be had that way!"

"You do remember that most of Ba Sing Se isn't aware that our nations are at war?" Zuko pointed out drolly.

Toph's shoulders slumped. "You're taking all the fun out of this," Toph muttered, as she began to move after him as he started to walk toward the edge of the Palace, and then, the city beyond it.

"_You_ said I needed a hobby," Zuko answered her. Nobody was allowed to be that smug around her! She just had to find out the right way to get him back.

* * *

><p>The water pounding on Malu's shoulders was frigidly cold, chilling her to the bones. So cold, in fact, that it was becoming painful, flattening her hair against her head and causing her new kavi to stick to her skin. The pain was a relief, though. It distracted her from the hunger.<p>

"The Water Chakra, I'm guessing?" Malu asked through chattering teeth. Pathik, likewise sitting under the spray, nodded serenely, not even batting an eyelash at the deluge.

"It is located in the loins," Pathik said, gesturing vaguely. "It is the seat of pleasure, but is choked by guilt. The abomination has clung powerfully to this place, into the guilt you have gathered. But its hold is less strong than had been upon your shame. Your guilts are newer. Your shames ran to the bone. But still, the beast continues to hold to your guilts. So what leaves you unable to sleep in the night? What sets your soul to tears? What in you needs redemption more than light or life?"

Malu shivered and sputtered, the water crashing over her, and she closed her eyes. But when she opened them...

Blood.

A wail, coming from her own lips, as she let _that thing_ rise to the fore, bearing her toward the sky on threads of corruption and worse. She could see the world begin to twist under its power, as the people who had so swiftly become friends stared up at her in mounting horror. As the newest one, the unscarred Si Wongi boy fell to his knees in terrified prayer.

She could feel the arrow through her neck. Feel the bullet through her heart. Each should have killed her, were this a fair and just world. And then, she started to feel the death. All of it. It was her fault. Because she thought she was something that she wasn't. Because she never questioned her belief. Because she let it _out_.

And she felt more death. This time, between her teeth. No longer were men dying around her. Beasts were. Bugs. Fishes. And then, anything she could catch. And she caught _everything_. And everything she caught, she ate, red and raw, blood and warm meat sliding down her throat in heedless abandon. Worse than heedless; blasphemous. This was so against everything that she was, that she promised that she would be. Not just to eat meat, the flesh of another living thing, but to mercilessly and wantonly slaughter everything she could find to get it.

She was a murderer, both of beast and man.

And it was tearing her apart just as much as the hunger was.

"You must accept these things which you have done," Pathik said quietly.

"How can I accept _this_?" Malu asked, looking at the horror she had created. The dead eyes of those things she ate, staring at her as though asking 'why?'. Before she ate the eyes as well.

"You can no more change the things which have happened, than you could will yourself be the Avatar. They have happened. And while it has _shaped_ you, there is no reason for it to _define_ you," Pathik said. "You have to be able to forgive yourself, or you will never be free. Not just of the abomination, but of your own self-hatred."

Malu looked down, her eyes on the water splattering around her. "What if I don't deserve to be forgiven?" she asked.

"You do," Pathik said.

"No, I don't," Malu said. "All of those people, all of those innocent people, they're dead because of me! Because of what I did! I'm not an Air Nomad; I'm a monster!"

"Child, you must be wary, this way leads to..."

"I don't deserve a second chance," Malu said, and as she pushed herself up against the pounding of the water, a great red line opened, tearing through the space of what was, somehow both in the sky and in the cave, an Eye of Terror, watching her. "Nila should have just burnt my body to ashes when she had a chance!"

"This is what the abomination wants, to tighten its hold," Pathik warned.

"I'm a horrible person," Malu said, her fingers clutched around her face. But she didn't feel cold, not anymore. Now, she felt like she was about to burn from the inside out. "No wonder this thing ended up inside me."

**THE VESSEL**

"Child, you must listen to me," Pathik said, now standing before her, still dripping wet, but his eyes were as stern and hard as flint. "If you surrender to your guilt, then the abomination will have a hold upon you that you will never be able to slough. It will own you; it will own your soul and mind as surely as it owns your body."

"That's what I deserve! To be a shell with something like that inside it!" Malu said.

**THE VESSEL IS**

"Listen to the words which you are saying," Pathik said. "Listen to them, and ask yourself, are these your words? Or are they the words it is giving you? Are you its slave, or are you its enemy? Do you stand against the darkness, or at its foot?"

Malu swallowed hard, trying to listen to the guru's words, to understand their meaning. A part of her told her that they were meaningless, and that it would be so much easier to just give up. To make the pain stop. To not be so...

No. No, this wasn't right. Malu looked down at her hands. There were no tattooes upon them, as she never really considered herself a master of the airbending arts. Even though she knew more than most practitioners alive in her day, she was humble enough in that. That was Air Nomad. She thought she was Avatar, yes, but that drove her to try to be the best Avatar that there ever was, instead of just allowing what came to come. That was Air Nomad. When people wronged her, she didn't seek revenge, not petty spite. She might have gotten them back, but she never answered a closed fist with a closed fist. That was Air Nomad.

She stared at her naked hands, and the water dribbling through them.

"I..." she said.

**THE VESSEL IS REA**

"I'm better than this," Malu said. And then, there was a crash, of metal against metal, of something so massive that its scale beggared her understanding. It was almost like that Eye of Terror blinked, in shock. If it even understood such a concept. "I will be better than this. I'm not who it wants me to be. I can be better!"

**NO. THE VESSEL IS READY.**

"It was my fault that they died, but..." Malu said, as that hunger reached a crescendo throughout her. "...but I will be _better_. I will be a better person. I will learn from that. I will_ move on_ from it," she stressed, even though it felt like the water that struck her body was hissing away to steam. And the reason why it felt like that, unnoticed by her, was because it was. "I will learn from my mistakes. I won't let them hold me down, turn me into something I'm not. I won't give in to that thing, or to anything else. I have something which the world needs. I can't throw it away, not out of self-pity. I _deserve_ to be _forgiven_."

And then, even as the sensation of pleasure began to swell through her, it was crushed, unmade, and for that brief sting of joy, crushed all the harder by the mind-twisting agony which dropped onto her head as though it a mountain falling from the heavens. Her mind was smashed like glass, reformed, then smashed again, the wrathful raging of the beast inside her skin flailing and striking at her in complete and maniac hatred.

**YOU ARE THE VESSEL. YOU ARE READY. YOU WILL...**

"NO!" Malu screamed through the agony, through the blindness that the agony placed upon her, through the coppery taste in her mouth and the twisting in her guts. "I deserve to be forgiven!"

And then, another wail, a crash of mountains colliding, and that Eye of Terror folded in on itself, and then, the line pulled closed. It snapped out of existence with nary a whisper. And Malu, screaming with agony, as blood seeped from her nose and mouth, fell to the bank of the stream, crawling up out of the water on curled and numb hands. It felt as though somebody had ripped her whole skin off of her. And the pain lingered, even as Pathik moved to her side, gently bringing her up. "That was a stronger reaction than I expected. Your guilt runs deep," Pathik said. "But now, and I am sorry, child, you must confront your final trial. There is no time to rest. As you have felt, the beast is crashing at the gates to your soul. You must cast it out, now or never."

Malu nodded dumbly, not even trying to flick the wet hair out of her eyes. "I'll... I'll do it," she mumbled. She wiped her bleeding nose and spat yet more blood onto the ground, limping with Pathik's help toward the site of the last Chakra's release.

Behind her, that blood she spat onto the ground hissed and bubbled, as it ate away at the fabric of reality, creating a hole the size of a man's fist into the Spirit World.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you're going to be alright, Nila?" the Tribesman asked. In most other circumstances, she would have given him a brutal glaring for presuming upon her capabilities. At the moment, though, she was just glad for the company. And to be completely honest, she wasn't sure the answer to that question.<p>

"You did not need to come," she pointed out.

The Tribesman shrugged. "I've got a thing for cute girls in trouble. What can I say?"

"Then you have missed your mark by a wide margin," Nila muttered, even as some small and irrational part of her accepted the hidden compliment and filed it away to be poked and prodded later. Strange, how even the irrational parts of herself could be so scientific in their madness. "Bring it here."

The Tribesman nodded, and lugged the flag of white stone – dolomite, as she had specified – and set it down onto the hilltop. There was already another unmarked flagstone on this hill, a testament to some other who had died long before from the wear of it. The remnants of a pair of sticks of incense remained powdered atop that other flag; without a rain to wash them away, and sheltered as it was from the wind, the flagstone would likely linger there, perhaps indefinitely. Nila pushed the fresh stone into a better position, lining it up with the one before. If nothing else, she could at least be tidy.

"Is there something I should say?" the Tribesman asked earnestly. "I didn't know him very well. Not like you did."

"I... am not sure," Nila admitted. "There are rites. I may well have bungled them."

The Tribesman set a hand onto her shoulder, and she instantly lifted it off and set it aside. She took a step aside, and pulled the tiny painting from her pocket. "You did the best you could," he said, as she stared at that rendition. "I'm sure that in the extremely unlikely event that Ashan is watching from somewhere, he's happy with how you did it."

"Extremely unlikely," Nila repeated. And for once, she wished she was as incapable of rationality as would be required to believe in speaking to the dead. To at least give Ashan a goodbye. Or even... a thank you. The Tribesman gave a nod.

"He was a good guy. I could tell that much about him. He deserved better than this. And maybe he finally got it. Maybe. Hypothetically speaking."

"Your irrationality is showing," Nila pointed out, turning to face the Tribesman who had joined her in this foray. "He was, as you said, a good man. Better than he had rights to be. Better than I deserved in friendship or otherwise. And now, that friendship has ended him."

"It wasn't your fault," the Tribesman pointed out. "If you're going to be mad at somebody, be mad at Long Feng. End of the day, he's the one responsible for what happened to you two."

Nila nodded. "You are not wrong, Tribesman," she said. Sokka gave a sigh, and looked down to the flagstone, resting atop the grass beside one which had long sunk into it.

"Should somebody etch his name, or something?" Sokka asked.

"No. That, I know, is not our way. The reminder should be to those who he left behind. Those who do not remember him, need not be made to," she gave a shrug. "My people's ways are strange."

"I'm not one to judge. _My_ people sled on penguins," he answered her. And from the look on his face, he had likely done so himself. She turned to the stone, and laid the picture atop it. While she had not so much as ashes to bury here, at least, there was some part of him that could be memorialized.

"_Go into the arms of the Highest Host with honor and dignity, Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa,_" she said. There was something more to the prayer, but she had never paid attention to it, thus it eluded her now.

There was a long silence, until the Tribesman coughed slightly. "So what do we do now?"

"We go back," Nila said. "Perhaps your flighty Avatar and my equally flighty brother shall have returned by now."

She had turned and started to walk toward where the grain-cart came to a halt, a walk of about two miles, when something arrested her feet. It was a sound, one she had heard many times before. But not in the waking world. Not while her feet were rested firmly in the Mortal World. Metal against metal, echoing through the skies, a sound from her nightmares.

She turned to the southeast, and her sudden turn caused Sokka to do likewise. "What is it?" he asked. "I thought you wanted to be back in time for the execution... morbid as that may be."

"Did you hear that sound?" Nila demanded, her blood cold.

"I didn't hear..." the Tribesman began, but halted as the sound echoed forth once again. "...wait... that sounds familiar. Where did I..."

"The Blowout," Nila said. "But why here?"

"What?" Sokka asked.

Nila turned to him, eyes flashing. "We must collect your Avatar and his pet. Something transpires to the southeast. Something from outside the mortal ken."

"...so how would you know about it?" Sokka asked.

"...just follow and heed me," Nila said. The Tribesman gave a chuckle.

"And here I thought you were going to taunt me with underwear-lessness on our way back."

"It seemed in bad taste to remind you of the obvious," Nila pointed out, and they began to move more swiftly to their passage in from the Reaches, she leading as the Tribesman fell a pace behind in baffled silence.

* * *

><p>Malu still hurt pretty much everywhere as she more collapsed than sat onto the stone which lay in the very deepest point of the Eastern Air Temple. They called this area the Trials of the Deep, the vault in which the elders of the airbender monks would steel themselves to stillness in darkness and stagnant air, fighting their very nature in order to better understand it, to gain a level of enlightenment. There were statues of Avatars long past which cycled the wall. Unlike those at the South or North Temples, though, they didn't try to portray specific past incarnations. Just the cycle of air, to water, to earth, to fire. Even looking around almost upset Malu's balance, though, and it took Pathik's gentle hand to steady her.<p>

"It's time, isn't it?" she asked, still unable to rid the taste of her own blood from her mouth. Pathik nodded gently. No words needed to be said on that regard. They had already been uttered, discussed. Talked to death. The final Chakra, where the infestation took root. Its strongest bastion. Its most resilient grip. If there was any mercy at this point, it was that she didn't feel hungry anymore; there was too much pain, everywhere, for her to feel hunger.

"The final Chakra is the Earth Chakra, located at the base of the spine," Pathik said, his voice still serene, but there was an edge to it, just the slightest alteration of tone in his words. A tone of deep-set but almost-hidden fear. Whether for Malu, or of Malu, she couldn't say. "It is concerned with survival, safety, security, and peace. It is disrupted... by _fear_."

Malu knew the drill at this point, and her eyes slid closed. "I'm ready."

"Then you must picture your greatest fear, and not succumb to it. This is as far as I can take you. The rest, is all upon your shoulders," Pathik said. And this time, the voice was almost sad.

Malu tried to think about what made her afraid. That thing inside her? Definitely. But she couldn't picture it. She tried to, but it was too... big. Too amorphous. The only thing she had on it was that one great and terrible eye. Still, she tried to focus on it, opening her eyes once and twice and again, but each time, not seeing the object of her terror. Instead, only the crude statues, and an ancient, bearded man in a yoga.

She kept trying. Imbalance. Oblivion. The hunger. She tried everything she could think of which connected to that thing inside of her. But nothing... stuck. It was smooth as glass.

She let out a groan, and tapped her hand to her side. When it came back, it was bloody. Her eyes widened at that, and she pulled up the tail of her kavi. The skin on her side had pulled apart as though it were rotting cloth, and blood oozed out lazily. She turned a fearful glance toward Pathik.

"That is the threat. It knows its time is short. It will have you, one way or the other," Pathik said.

She hadn't even noticed the specific pain of her flesh tearing, amidst the clamor of everything else. She stared at her hand for a long moment, and then, like a bolt from the heavens, she realized something. She was _overlooking_ something. The pain gave her focus, clarity. It made her ignore the obvious – her agonizing hunger – so that she could feel a bodily pain more strongly. And then masked a bodily pain amongst it. There was a third factor obscuring her life, something which was _before_ Imbalance, _before_ the hunger.

Not a connection, a cause.

How did it get in?

And Malu cast her mind back, though the fog of anguish and suffering, to a time, near a century ago. She was alone. Ihah had died bringing Malu to safety, succumbing from her wounds within seconds of landing in the mountains. Sadly, those seconds were in the wrong direction of landing, so the plummet had snapped her legs, for the shock and the exhaustion she'd felt. She huddled in a cave, her legs bound with the most basic of splints, for months until she could walk again. It would be almost a year before she had the courage to leave the mountain, and see what had become of the world, and her once-and-no-longer home.

She saw the Eastern Air Temple in ashes. She swore vengeance. Was that it? Hatred? No, no it ran deeper than that. There was a reason she was so hateful in that moment, when she looked at ashes and ruined stone.

She sat, and when she opened her eyes, she wasn't looking at the vault. She was seeing another day. Herself, looking much as she did at this very moment. But fleeing. A home-made staff, whittled from gnarled branches, barely keeping the firebenders at bay. While they no longer possessed the incredible strength that they had when they purged the monks from the world, they now had numbers, coordination, and she had no allies whatsoever. She fought them for weeks in the mountains, tricking and dispiriting them. Sapping away their morale. Making them give up; for all she hated, it wasn't murderous. No then. Not now, when she thought about it. Some part of her still saw Fire Nationals as people, and their military divorced from that. She couldn't hate a people any more than she could hate all humanity. So why did she hate at all?

Right. The month of hell.

They had smoked her out. All of her bolt holes, so carefully created and hidden, so arduously stocked with the 'offerings' that locals left for her, burnt. Her every turn was beset by fire. Her attempts at flight, swatted down. She didn't understand why they were expending so much effort to kill one airbender. Or rather, she did, but because of a completely incorrect reason. They backed her to a wall. They had her beaten. Surrounded.

She had been so afraid. So she finally tried what she'd not dared to before that point. She tried to enter the Avatar State.

Her eyes widened. That was it. That was its base. How it got in.

There was a rumble, as the roof seemed to crack, and red light began to pour down into the room. Ridiculous, considering the vault was the lowest point of this structure. Her hair, long and shaggy from having not been cut in... well, a century... began to dance in a growing breeze. But she ignored it. That was the reason. Fear. Terror for her life.

Fear of the fire.

The fire burst into being, surrounding her, casting blazing heat and light into her eyes. Somewhere through that veil of light there was a figure, spikes rising from the shoulders. No, not one. An army. Ten thousand soldiers, in their death's-head helmets. And at their back, another figure, this one alone. Back straight, head level. A five-point flame resting atop the phoenix-tail his hair had been set in.

This was her greatest fear? Not something noble like the eradication of all that the Air Nomads were. Not something grandiose, that she wouldn't be able to collect the justice that her people so rightly deserved. No, it was small, petty, pathetic.

She'd let Imbalance in, because she didn't want to die.

The breeze rose, and begat a gale, which tore through the room she was kneeling in. She tried to ignore it, but after a few moments staring forward at that flame, those beyond it, and the message contained therein, a gust physically pushed her aside. She had to arduously push herself up, dripping dark blood onto the tiles as she did so; even that small of a fall tore the gossamer-thin flesh on her cheek, and caused blood to surge from between her teeth.

"This isn't happening," she said.

"It is!" Pathik's voice had a note of quite real terror in it, which was enough for Malu to glance to her side, and behold the guru still in a yoga, but his eyes were wide as saucers and borne straight up. The last vestiges of the ceiling of the room – and by virtue of this room being the lowest, every other mote of the Eastern Air Temple – cracked and drifted up and away, revealing that in the night, there was one star which hung low, red, and vicious. The rubble of the temple orbited upward, as though trapped in a very gradual and deliberate tornado, and that hateful eye, larger across than all of Ba Sing Se, hung in the air, glaring down.

"Wh... how..." Malu muttered.

**THE VESSEL IS READY**

Malu's teeth, bleeding though they were, grit, and she forced herself, even as she felt the skin tearing with every motion, her innards rupturing with every internal shift, to a stand. She put her back straight, and glared straight up, even as her breath shredded her lungs. Everything hurt. It hurt worse than the hunger. It hurt like dying.

"I. Am. Not..." Malu began.

"You must confront your fears, not the abomination!" Pathik warned. "The fears are an illusion you must master, not the beast which feeds upon them! You must surrender your fears! Not your life!"

The eye glared, and the black wisps reached down, tracing her cheeks, tearing them open further to greater agony even with such a tiny touch; every touch was a violation. She could feel this thing inside her, for the first time. She knew what it was. She knew its nature. She could feel it, in a way she couldn't deny nor explain, not to anybody but the Avatar, if even he. The fingers came with whispers. Promises.

**SURRENDER AND THE PAIN WILL STOP**

"The pain never ends," Malu said, her voice strangely calm. Almost madly calm. That was a fundamental fact of life, an underpinning of entire philosophies. Life hurt. It always would. Even in the best of times, there would be pain. But did that mean that she would flee, abandon life, because it might hurt? No. No, because she had a calling. She had a reason.

**SURRENDER AND YOU WILL HAVE REVENGE**

"I... don't want it," Malu said, understanding that very basic notion for the first time. She didn't want _revenge_. She wanted her people safe. She wanted the Air Nomads to continue, in any form. She wanted the war to stop. Not because it put her in danger, but because the world had been wounded enough. It was bleeding. Dying. And it deserved to heal. It wasn't about revenge. It never was.

**SURRENDER AND I WILL GIVE YOU POWER**

"I don't need it," Malu said. She already had all the power she would ever need. Even had she lost the ability to bend a breeze for the rest of her life, or see the slightest spirit until her dying day, she had all the power anybody could ever ask for. She stared up, defiant, at the being which would, she now knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, end reality itself. And in that, she showed more power than she thought possible. Even as blood dribbled down the arms which hung at her sides, as her lips stood cracked and peeling, her teeth red and bloody, she was not...

**SURRENDER AND **

"No," Malu whispered into that pandemonium. "You have nothing I want. Except your egress."

Her lips pulled back as her face formed a hard scowl. "Go. You are not wanted here anymore."

The black wisps, which had been caressing her, began to drift up, with greater speed, with greater anger, until they started to bind around her throat in a great and tightening noose. Others reached down, pinching her arms to her sides, her legs together. The Eye of Terror glared down at her. She glared back up at it, as her throat began to crush under that squeezing force. So she made her last words good ones.

"I am not afraid of you," she said, the slightest smile coming to her lips. She smiled, because for the first time, ever, it was true. She wasn't afraid. What came after this would come, but in this moment, she was not afraid. And in that moment, that single and pristine moment, there was peace. Silence. Numbness.

…

And then, with a howl which tore off half of the mountain and sent it spraying a thousand miles away, the bearer of the binds around Malu pulled hard in every direction. And the pain spiked once more, before it went away completely into absolute darkness, and she, with it.

* * *

><p>He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been out in the Reaches with Sharif, only that he'd eaten at least once and was hungry again. But the hours – or perhaps days – that had passed had been frustrating but enlightening. Dragging knowledge kicking and screaming out of somebody barely able to elucidate it was a long, drawn out, taxing, and frustrating process. But Aang had learned something important. Not how to enter the Avatar State; apparently, 'the time wasn't right' for that yet. No, in the absence of that lesson, he learned something he should have learned a long time ago.<p>

How to _really_ talk to spirits.

While the vast and overwhelming majority of them still clung to Sharif, more and more of them drifted closer to Aang than had before. Their voices were so quiet, but now, unlike before, Aang could at least hear them. He knew that they spoke. Not what they said, not unless he focused, saw their Form. A lesson like that, he was pretty sure, should have been given a long time ago. Or at least, sought a long time ago. After all, he'd spent weeks sitting on his hands in the Middle Ring. Why hadn't he had a long talk with Sharif in that time? What kept getting in his way? The more he thought about it, the weaker his excuses seemed to be.

"I think it's time we go back," Aang said.

"...why?" Sharif asked, as he stared into the southerly distance, the nearly-set sun throwing long shadows and the first stars winking on in the eastern horizon.

"Be...cause the sun's going down, and we're out of food?" Aang offered. Sharif blinked, then looked over to where Appa was contentedly chewing on the dry grasses which were even here fairly sparse, and the lemur which chattered and yammered as it picked at the beast's fur and horns. The six-legged bison gave an idle grunt to its life-long companion then returned to chewing. Aang nodded, as though that had been an offer of agreement. "See, Appa's with me on this one."

"Oh." Sharif said. "Well... I think... I don't know if there's more that I could teach you. Not yet. They say it isn't time yet. The sacrifice is not yet breaking free."

Aang raised an eyebrow at Sharif, but considering the way that he was now aware that the Void talked, it made a lot more sense, those cryptic things which Sharif had said. Somehow, taking a hatchet to the face had somehow turned Sharif into exactly the kind of shaman who could think the way the Void did, to some degree. And for the life of him, Aang wished that it hadn't, that Sharif hadn't lost his mind in the way that he had. It was profoundly sad, and unfair. Especially to his family. "Sharif... do you ever think about what you'd have been like? You know, if you hadn't gotten hurt?"

Sharif blinked at the Avatar, as though he didn't understand the question. "I am not hurt. I feel no pain."

"I mean your head," Aang said.

Sharif rubbed at the scar on his brow, and blinked a few more times. "Oh... I don't know. Something else. Maybe. I don't know."

"Has anybody ever tried to heal the injury?" Aang asked.

"The faithful sister tried. The faithful sister could not. Nothing to heal. I feel no pain."

Aang sighed at that, but got to his feet, helping Sharif up as well. An odd thing to do, considering how much bigger Sharif was than Aang, but the Si Wongi didn't seem to have any initiative of his own, at times. "Let's get back to the others. They're probably wondering what's taking us so long as it is."

"Sister does fret. She should not. It ages her," Sharif said quietly. But just as they reached the bison's side, Sharif violently pulled away from Aang, spinning around and facing the south. "What."

Aang turned as well, as the bison behind him let out a snarl of fear, backing away before rearing up and hopping back almost a dozen yards before landing again. Had Appa almost run away without him? That wasn't something that Appa would do... But then, as Aang looked south again, he could see anything with wings had taken to the sky, darkening the horizon under a weight of terrified birds. Then, Aang heard something. Something meaty, something visceral, something larger than the mountains or the earth, something colder than the void of outer space.

Something familiar.

"Do you hear that?" Aang asked. Sharif, his eyes now focused, if on something over the horizon and far away, only nodded, his expression no longer confusion or dopey inattention, but very real fear. "That sounded like..."

Aang was cut off when he spotted a shockwave in the distance. The waving wheat, which struggled up despite the drought and the approaching summer, bucked in an almost solid line, before screaming toward them as a wall. In three seconds, it over took them, a horrid din of sound, the noise of a mountain being torn to shreds from hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. But the most terrible, the most horrible thing? The red, brightening the southern horizon in defiance of the setting sun. A red which rose, gaining definition as it divorced itself from the hard line where the heavens met the earth, until it was a clear and obvious shape.

A red eye, staring straight down from the sky.

But not staring at Aang.

"That cannot be..." Sharif said.

"I _know_ that," Aang said, backing up toward Appa, pulling Sharif with him. "That's Imbalance! That thing tried to eat me!"

"We have to flee!" Sharif said.

"No, we've got to find out what he's looking at!" Aang countered. "Anything that can catch his attention's got to be something I need to know!"

"I... that is..." Sharif, baffled as ever, couldn't come up with the words to express his consternation at Aang's plan. "Not wise."

Aang stared at Sharif, who was somehow being the moderating voice in this conversation. He hung his head for a second. "You're right. I need to get my friends, too. I can't do this alone."

Aang turned and bounded up onto Appa's brow, but at his back, Sharif stared at him like he'd finally found somebody more brain-damaged than he. But after only a few moments of that mute and confused staring, the shaman likewise clambered up the white flank of the beast. With a 'yip yip', Appa was airborne, with Momo keeping up as he couldn't just sleep in somebody's lap or the saddle. Neither was available.

They flew, back into the heart of the city, overpassing the inner walls, the Outer Ring. The whole of Ba Sing Se passed at a streak, hundreds of thousands of buildings under their feet as they rocketted toward the Upper Ring, toward the Earth King's Palace. Toward friends, allies, and a force to be reckoned with. Aang kept glancing over his shoulder, and in stark defiance of his own desire that this be just some sort of strange dream, the Eye of Terror remained hanging in the sky, staring down at something which was over the horizon to the southeast.

Aang looked forward again, just in time to let out a terrified yelp and dive Appa down, because he'd almost been hit in the face by a flare. Aang wheeled around, and from the contrail of the flare alone he could tell that it was coming from the monorail below him. He stared down at it, at the cart which was grinding along its path, trying to figure out why somebody would shoot at him.

"Sister's aim is improving," Sharif noted distantly, not even having cried out at the sudden maneuvering. Nila did that? She must have been trying to catch Aang's attention. He swooped low, riding along side that train, and saw Sokka waving vigorously at him, pointing back at the horizon, and shouting something which was lost in the wind. Nila, though, remained silent, focused. Sokka then ran to the back, leaned hard out the window, and shouted something to the men propelling the craft. The cart started to grind to a halt, nowhere near a departure station, and when it did, Aang let Appa levitate gently beside it.

"Sokka, what are you..." Aang began.

"The Eye of Terror has returned," Nila interrupted him, barging past Aang and clutching her way to her brother's side. "As you have my brother, we have what we need."

Aang glanced to Sokka, who shrugged, before clambering on himself. "I'm just in this for the ride," the Tribesman said with an uneasy laugh. But when he turned to the south, saw that thing floating so high above the world, even his unsteady smile started to fall apart. Aang turned to Nila.

"You almost shot me in the face!"

"I needed your attention, and have received it. Now, we must..." Nila began, but was cut off by Sokka.

"She's pretty sure that thing is majorly bad news," Sokka explained simply. Nila shot a glare at him, but in its wake, nodded. "So what're we doing here, Aang? Are we being smart or are we doing the usual Avatar-y thing?"

"I fear I already know the answer to that," Nila said flatly.

Aang nodded, and was about to wheel Appa around, when he saw something familiar below him. Two figures, one tall and lanky, the other tiny and bare-footed. The lanky one pointed up, and then the small one did what was obviously earthbending, sending a diagonal pillar of rock catapulting them into the sky. They approached rapidly, and Aang bounded off of Appa's brow to flick open his staff and wheel it swiftly creating a cushion of air which Zuko and Toph landed into, rather than either shooting past the Air Bison or else slamming into its legs.

"Was that necessary?" Zuko asked, as he dropped out of the air-pocket onto Appa's broad back.

Toph, though, answered at a squawk as she first fell out of the air-pocket, then promptly lost her balance and almost pitched straight over the side of the bison. Only a timely grab by Sokka kept her from plummeting at least forty feet. She pulled herself up, and cuffed Sokka on the shoulder for the save, before not really turning to Zuko and answering, "Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"You could have warned me," he said.

"Would have taken the fun out of it," she said. She then not-turned to Aang. "Had to wonder what you're doing flying this low over Ba Sing Se. Did it have anything to do with that noise like a mountain exploded?"

"I was going to find out, once I had some help. I just need to get Katara, and then..." Aang began.

"I'm not sure we have time," Sokka pointed out. "Whatever that thing is, it's nasty-lookin' and getting nastier."

A glance to the south proved Sokka's words true. The Eye, which previously just burned hatefully down, was now shuddering and quaking. Specks, tiny for the distance and thus massive indeed, flitted between Aang and the surface of that unnatural behemoth. Aang gave a nod. "I think you're right. We should go now. Besides, Katara's about as safe as anybody _could_ be right now."

There were a couple of nodded heads at that, but Sharif's gaze was fixated to the south. It became much easier for him as Aang turned Appa about, and began to speed toward the Eye of Terror, toward Imbalance's avatar in this mortal world. There was no excitement on any of Appa's riders. Just focus for some. For the Si Wongi, and for Aang, though, the expression was fear and fear alone. Mostly, because they knew what they were getting into.

They were back over the reaches, when the red light beaming down from the Eye began to darken, and blackness began to well up from inside the red, whipping around it like the colorful veils of Si Wongi dancers. There was another sound, one which carried over the distance. It was rage, and hate, and violence, and brutality. It was hunger and madness and cruelty. But to Aang's mind, as he had learned the secrets of Form, it was also words.

**THIS IS NOT OVER**

Then, in the distance, the red burst, exploding in all directions, motes of red and black streaking through the air. Some vanished without ever touching the ground. Others seared up into the sky, as though joining the stars. But below, Aang could see another shockwave coming, blasting leaves from trees as it passed.

"EVERYBODY HOLD ON!" Aang roared, and sawed hard on the reins he'd created out of simple rope, causing Appa to twist violently in the air, and give the blast its tail and legs rather than a plain table to sweep the passengers off of. The blast hit every bit as hard as Aang feared it might, sending Appa barreling forward. Screams of terror and surprise abounded at Aang's back, and ahead of him, he could see Zuko plummeting. Aang pulled on the reins once more, diving under the falling firebender, and gently slowing down under him, arresting his drop only a few hundred feet from the unforgiving, baked earth.

Zuko, looking a bit more wide-eyed and alert than the aloof and distant figure he'd been for weeks, breathed deep, clutching at his heart as though he was sure it was going to fall out of his ribcage. "You... You saved my life."

"I always save my friends," Aang said, and pulled up and back, toward the Great Wall, which had done nothing to stem that shockwave. When he reached it, he could see why.

There was a tower slammed through it. An entire tower, bright, white stone capped in bronze, had seemingly impaled and brought tumbling down a roughly hundred foot wide section of the Great Wall, and the devastation was clear beyond. The tower was all cracks and fissures, as that impact had almost shattered it completely, but for the incredible hardness of the rock the tower was made of. The softer rock of the Great Wall stood no chance against such a battering ram.

"What is that?" Sokka asked, staring down.

Aang stared at it, and knew _exactly_ what it was. "That's the spire of the Eastern Air Temple," he said. And then, he looked to the south once more, through the hole in the Great Wall. This, he decided after all of that thought and rumination, was not good.

It was an opinion shared by everybody on Appa's back, because everybody knew _exactly_ how far away the Eastern Air Temple was.

* * *

><p>"This is taking us nowhere fast," Kori muttered back to his 'jailer' who followed in his wake. Omo let out a quiet grunt of acknowledgment, but otherwise didn't answer. "Something must have gone wrong with Yoji, otherwise she'd have gotten back to us by now."<p>

"You underestimate her," Omo said.

"I _know_ her," Kori answered back, still quiet. A glance behind him showed that the other Dai Li who was in the hallway turned a corner and vanished from sight. "Her layers of contingencies only go so far down. And if we keep going like this, we'll never find Azula until the Avatar does. And if that happens... well, she'll be out of our hands."

"You underestimate _us_," Omo pointed out.

"I _know_ us," Kori replied. "We need a regroup and a new strategy. These corridors run for miles under the city, floor upon floor of maze and megalomania," he scowled for a long moment. "We need something to draw Azula out. Or else, cause them to have to scramble to move her."

"That's for Yoji to decide," Omo said.

"You really aren't big on that whole personal initiative thing, are you?" Kori asked dryly. Omo just shrugged.

"What can I say? I know my place. Unlike some people I know," he said, punctuating 'some' with a shove which sent Kori staggering forward. The Tribesman shot a glance over his shoulder which said 'Really, Omo?', but the earthbender ignored it blithely.

"There's knowing your place and then there's being willfully ignorant," Kori pointed out. "And besides, my wrists are starting to chafe, here. I can't work my 'magic water' if I'm so raw that my arms are cracking."

"You've done better with worse," Omo said. Kori rolled his eyes and stepped forward into a t-junction. But as soon as he did, his eyes shot wide at a voice in the distance, and he slammed himself straight back into Omo's chest. It was shock and confusion that drove the burly man back, not Kori's musclepower. "What in the name of..."

"Shh!" Kori shushed urgently, and flattened himself against that corner, glancing beyond it with the corner of his eye. There was an army walking through that much-broader hall, not far away, at least a thousand men in green robes and conical hats. But they were all upon the heels of one in particular. A teenaged girl, wearing a green dress and her hair held in place with bronze pins, golden eyes flashing surely as her lips pulled into a dark smile. Princess Azula? Here? Working for the _Dai Li_? Kori motioned around the corner, and Omo took a scant glance, before pulling back in, concern clear on his face. He saw it, too.

"...of the loyalists. What about..." one of the Dai Li walking in Azula's wake began, only to be cut off.

"As long as you have your men in position for Long Feng's execution, then the rest will fall into place. And as for the Five Generals?"

"They can be neutralized swiftly," the Dai Li said. Kori ushered Omo back, and they had to duck into the threshold of a supply closet to stay out of sight. "When the Avatar returns, he will find a very different Ba Sing Se waiting for him."

"This seems somewhat drastic," a different Dai Li pointed out.

"This coup is for you a matter of life and death," Azula said, crossing that intersection, and the horde of Dai Li following after her, silent enough that her words could still be quite clearly heard even over their massive number. "The Generals and the Earth King have to be removed simultaneously. Are you doubting my leadership?"

"...well..."

"You had best cease," Azula said, and the horde came to a halt, no doubt as she wheeled on the one who had doubted her. "Long Feng placed you under _my_ command to overthrow this government before the Avatar's influence becomes unshakable. If you lack the resolve, then leave now. Because if you don't, and I find any whisper of hesitation, betrayal, or disloyalty from this instant forward, I will _snuff it out_. Am I being completely clear?"

A moment of silence.

"AM I BEING CLEAR?" her voice burned with indignant anger.

"Yes, of course, ma'am," the Dai Li said, and then, the column of secret police continued to move past the intersection. Kori turned a glance toward Omo, and Omo returned it, just as nervously.

"...Something isn't going according to plan," Kori said.

"You don't say," Omo replied flatly.

* * *

><p><strong>We're steadily coming to a head, now aren't we? But which way are the chips going to fall? Well, I already know. The rest of you are probably going to have to be left hanging for a couple weeks.<strong>

**This chapter was surprisingly easy to write; probably because the interactions between Sharif and Aang were so fun and interesting. If you can find two characters to bounce off of each other, make them do so as frequently as feasible. Sharif trying to teach Aang was one such moment. And while I wish I could have said I planned from the start to have Void speak with their... unique... cadance and syntax, it was something which occurred to me into the second book that there had to be a reason why Sharif could talk to them when so few others could. And having his thought processes rendered at least a little bit alien made the most sense.**

**Malu's journey was also an intentional inversion of Aang's from The Guru. Where Aang starts centered, and grows more unsettled as he raises up, Malu starts terrified and desperate, and the danger grows as it descends into the fundamental aspects of her. Imbalance is something which is, for all its alien nature, primal and base. It dwells in shadows, and clings to anything near it like a sticky cancer. Malu, at her lowest level, is a frightened airbender girl. Until now, she never even realized how afraid she was. It'd have been better if she hadn't had to confront that terror while Imbalance was preparing to rip her to shreds.**

**How unfortunate that things so seldom turn out well for our protagonists.**

**No one ever said being good was easy.**

* * *

><p><em>Leave a Review.<em>


	40. Destiny

Panic was pretty much guaranteed from the amount of devastation which had erupted in the East, but Aang and those with him on the back of Appa couldn't, for the life of them, figure out where it was coming from. It swelled the further south and east that they went, already reaching a fever pitch less than half way to the long-ago annexed city of Burning Rock. Of course, in that scant distance past the Great Wall, the amount of very-recently deposited rubble increased dramatically, some of the chunks big as houses, suddenly dropped into rice-paddies or onto somebody's front yard.

"I start to question the sanity of moving _towards_ something capable of dislodging such masses," Nila muttered under her breath, but Aang shook his head.

"You didn't hear what I did. It said 'this isn't over', and I've got no reason to think he was lying," Aang said.

"Besides, we all know you were questioning the sanity the moment you got onto Appa's back," Toph pointed out, as the beast in question scudded down and landed next to a carriage which had halted next to a bridge which had half of its structure smashed down by a block of granite, choking the water and closing the road. "Another stop?" she asked.

"Would you rather go into it blind?" Sokka asked, before he realized what he said.

"What do you _think_, you lanky goon?" Toph asked with a dry roll of her useless eyes.

"Right... sorry."

Zuko cut them all off by dropping off of Appa's flank, slamming his fist several times into the side of the carriage, and waiting with a glare for the door to open. When it did, he reached in and pulled the effete young man out and slammed him against the side of the carriage. "What did you see?" the firebender demanded.

"Who do you think you are, handling me this way?" the young man said with indignation, even as Aang winced and tried to make placating motions to Zuko, but Zuko was having none of it.

"The person who's going to make your day worse if you waste any of his time," Zuko answered. "What did you see?"

The rich young man stared at Zuko, but Zuko's glare in return was a few thousand degrees hotter, so he started sweating, and swallowing nervously. "I... Uh... It came from the sky, after that strange thunder to the south. Scared off my team. I have my man running them down before they break a leg or..."

"South east?" Zuko demanded. The wealthy young man nodded. Zuko grit his teeth, and glanced back to Aang. "Burning Rock is directly east. The only thing southeast of here are villages, and..."

"The Eastern Air Temple," Aang finished for him. Zuko let the youth drop back to the ground, as he'd been holding him off of his footing for that entire duration by his shirt, which was now hopelessly wrinkled. Aang gave a quick glance to his companions, but he didn't like their reactions. Sokka was contemplative, and while strange wasn't disconcerting. It was Toph and Nila who concerned him. Both looked on in their own ways with knowing looks and approving nods. "I don't get it. The East Temple is abandoned!"

"Not abandoned enough," Zuko and Sokka managed to overlap each other. It was the Tribesman who continued, though. "Aang, something major happened down there. Do you think you're up to whatever you find? 'Cause I'm starting to think it's not going to be pretty."

Aang stared at his feet for a long moment, then took a deep breath. "I'm going to have to be," Aang said. "It's the only thing which w–"

Aang was cut off by a lightning bolt landing about ten feet away from them all, lancing down out of a clear sky. He and all others flinched away from it, blinking away the glare and rubbing at ears which now rang furiously. But as soon as the after-image fled and the ringing died down, there was one more in this impromptu gathering of most of Sokka's enthusiastically monikered Team Avatar. One with dark skin and an elegant blue dress. She glanced first to Appa, and to the siblings atop it, before her brow furrowed, and she turned to those who had left it. "Oh, thank me. Do you have _any_ idea how hard you are to track down?" Irukandji asked.

"Irukandji? What are you doing here? Where _were_ you?" Aang asked.

"Had to prevent the end of the world coming too soon. Takes a lot out of a spirit," Irukandji waved the question away.

"This is a Host?" Nila asked.

"Ah, there's my favorite pyromaniac," Irukandji said, grinning at Nila. Then, she shrugged. "Well, second favorite. You're lucky," she pointed from Aang to her. "Most of the time, she's not around."

"We're a bit short on time," Zuko cut her off, ever the pragmatist. "Why exactly were you–"

"Why aren't you at the East Air Temple?" Irukandji asked. And at around that point, there was a glimmer of revelation in Zuko, of recognition. And a growing spark of rage.

"We're heading there!" Aang pointed out.

"Not the issue. Why aren't you _already_ there?" she asked.

"...because I didn't know I was supposed to?" Aang tried. Irukandji rolled her eyes.

"Great. Leave it to Pathik to drop the ball."

"...Brother Pathik is alive?" Aang asked.

The others just shrugged. Zuko, on the other hand, snapped his fingers in front of Irukandji's eyes. "Focus!" he snapped. "I want answers out of you. What did you do to my sister!"

Irukandji caught Zuko's wrathful finger and bent it back, but he didn't flinch as she'd no doubt intended. "I saved her life," Irukandji said darkly. "And she's not even appreciative."

"You made her insane!" Zuko shouted.

"She was already insane!" Irukandji shouted back. She then released the finger and crossed her arms. "The only thing I did was try to fix a mistake I'd made eighty years ago. Forgive me, for trying to eliminate mental illness from your crazy-ass family."

"Excuse me?" Aang asked, a hand raised as though bearing a question to a teacher. "Could you tell me why I'm supposed to be at the East Air Temple, and what it has to do with the big explosion we just heard."

"Pathik's supposed to be teaching you how to get into the Avatar State and wait a second... explosion?" Irukandji asked.

"Not as smart as you like to think you are, are you?" Zuko opined.

"I've. Been. Busy," Irukandji said, before turning her gaze back to the Avatar. "Things are getting worse, Avatar. Namely, the Great Divide is gone."

There were a lot of people staring at her as though she'd just gone mad. Aang wasn't entirely sure she hadn't, with a pronouncement like that. It was the effete man who cleared his throat at that.

"...where did it go?"

"Good question," Irukandji began, turning to him. "Oh, wait, you're not important," before turning back to Aang. "Good question. The answer's pretty obvious if you think about it."

"Nowhere," Aang asked.

"Bingo," Irukandji said. "It's _gone_. It's not in the Spirit world or this one. It's somewhere between the two. Sort of like those two's," with a finger thrust toward the siblings Badesh, "now utterly defunct home. I need to get my hands on the Host before it's too late. And that means I need you, before the Eye of Terror opens again."

"...it just did," Aang admitted, as though it were some shameful secret. Irukandji, who had been turning away, very slowly turned back. And when she did, her blue eyes were glowing as though tiny lightning bolts were playing across her irises.

"...what did you just say?" she asked with remarkable calm.

"It blew up the Eastern Air Temple, from the looks of things," Sokka said, glancing to the block of granite cratered into the side of the meager stream. Irukandji just stared at Aang for a long moment. Then, he glanced first to the southeast, and then turned straight around and stared as though toward Ba Sing Se.

"...Okay. Change of plans," she said. "If I know Long Feng – and believe me, I've seen this part of the story enough times to know him pretty me-damned well – he's in the process of openly usurping the Earth King right now, since you're all out of the Palace."

"What?" Aang asked.

"Oh, and there's a better than fifty-fifty chance that Azula's going to betray him and conquer Ba Sing Se in his place," Irukandji continued. She found her dress being grabbed in the same uncouth manner by the same person as had interrogated the rich youth, Zuko's face a portrait of barely constrained rage. And when she slapped him in the cheek to the sound of an electric short-circuit, he fell stumbling back, that expression changing to one of utter stunned befuddlement. "Hey, don't get grabby," she warned, before turning to Aang once again. "You'd better get back there. This one's probably not going to just arrest Katara. She'll probably torture and kill her."

Aang shook his head. "No... that..."

"Don't just stand there you big-eared idiot! Fly and save your girlfriend!" Irukandji demanded, pointing her finger north.

"What?" Sokka asked. "My sister _isn't_ his girlfriend. That'd be... _ew_!"

"I was not even aware that the Avatar had interest in women," Nila said flatly.

"She's right, though," Aang said. "We can't let Long Feng take Ba Sing Se, even if the rest of that is gibberish. We need to go back."

"What about the East Air Temple?" Toph asked with a very dubious gesture as she said the last part.

Aang glanced south, and sighed. "It'll have to wait. Maybe for a long time," he gave a tiny, and unhappy laugh. "Seems like the universe just doesn't want me going back to the Temples, these days."

"This isn't over, spirit," Zuko said, a bit slurringly as it seemed his tongue was numb.

"For all of our sakes, I really hope that you're right," Irukandji said. She pointed at Zuko. "Don't let your sister die. I've got enough problems without that going wrong, too."

"You say that like it's an option," Zuko said. But Irukandji answered him with another thunderbolt, this time rising up from the ground and vanishing into the sky. He stared after it for a long moment, before turning to Aang. "Well, are you just going to stand there? Go save your Earth King!"

"And Azula, if we find her," Aang promised.

"Great. We keep saving the people who try to kill us," Sokka said with rolling sarcasm.

"Is this a frequent occurrence for you?" Nila asked him.

"More than you'd believe, Nila. More than you'd believe."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 20<strong>

**Destiny**

* * *

><p>There was a sensation alien to her, just barely touching her. A slightest pressure of something against the clothes over her skin. She didn't know how to define it except for absence at this point. It was an absence of agony, an absence of terror, an absence of... a number of things, many of them unpleasant. What wasn't missing, though, was the hunger. It wasn't quite as mind-tearingly agonizing, but it was still there. As constant a thing as the breath in her lungs or the wind over the mountains. Her entire body felt strange. Not quite foreign, but close to it. She opened her eyes, but she felt her eyelids drag against something, and the action gave her no vision.<p>

"...whut...?" she murmured past a tingling tongue.

"You are awake. Excellent," the guru's voice slipped into her ears, sounding oddly tinny, oddly loud. "I feared the worst when you opened the Earth Chakra. But you remain, strong as ever."

"I..." Malu said.

"Here. Have some of this," she felt delicate fingers in her hair, guiding her up, and felt a rim of wood against her lips, almost painful for sensitivity. A slow tip poured the familiar slime down her throat. "You have done what I doubted possible. You evicted the abomination from your form. But this was not done without cost."

"I don undersan?" she said, slurring past banana-onion-pickle slime.

"When the abomination entered you, it was a ploy to protect if from any attempt to destroy it. And that ploy left it vulnerable to being sealed away. Within you. Forever," Pathik slowly unwound the bandages which were holding her eyes shut, and the light seared her eyes as it entered, even though it was only coming from a single candle, in a cave, connected to a crater. She blinked the stunning light away. "But as you have released it, it is not possible to bind. You are free, but there is nothing of value without cost. Do you understand?"

She nodded, drinking greedily, before throwing the saucer aside and grabbing the next, already offered.

"My part in your destiny is coming to a close," Pathik said. "But your part in Samsara has not ended. It does not take transcendent wisdom to know that you have a part to play in what is to come. The Avatar will need you, now more than ever. The Shards, once housed in your flesh, resound with you. You will protect him."

"Bu haow? I mide hurd him!" she said, still eating with all of the grace of a shig.

"You doubt yourself, as well you might, given what has happened to you," Pathik said sadly. "But I have faith that you are a tool for good, not evil; balance, not annihilation. The Avatar is the shining light of this age, and you will be there to let him shine brighter. That is your destiny. That is your birthright."

Malu continued to eat, despite the terrible flavor and the sickening texture. She knew that Pathik was telling the truth. It wasn't just that she could be that person, now. She _had_ to be. It was the only way to balance the karma of her cowardice, her ignorance, her terror. If Malu ever wanted to be a good person, after all of the harm she'd done, she would _have_ to do this.

"You are doubtless tired," Pathik said, as he handed her a third bowl, "but there is no rest for the righteous. And when you go, you will need to go quickly. Which is why I have located this."

Malu's eyes went wide as she looked upon the glider staff which he pulled from the ground behind him. It was aged, his wood a delicate brown, and the whorls of the wind were intricately etched into the mechanism which held the cloth wing abroad. She took it, and looked up at Pathik. She knew this glider. This had belonged to Mother, her fairest possession from the time before she 'settled down', and brought Father into the family. She had once roamed the wide world on this glider, soaring above the clouds, laughing at gravity... She'd kept it for as long as Malu could remember. It was never far from her side... until that last day, until those fires. Malu had played with this as a child, started flying long before anybody said she should have under the eye of Mother alone. This was as much a part of Malu as her own spine.

Her fingers slid along its surface, the worn and smooth wood calling memories of laughter and joy. Mother's smile. Father's helpless glee. And the awe of the elders, that somebody so young as she could be so skilled. She looked up at Pathik, as he stared placidly, gently, down to where she was still laying recumbent on the stone. She had her past again. And now, she had a future.

"Do you have anything to say?" Pathik asked her, quietly, as he took the emptied bowl from her, and pulled out another. Malu swallowed one final time, and then looked at it. Then, she looked down at herself, her pristine kavi no doubt replaced from the one she'd saturated with blood from Imbalance's torment. She had questions. How am I alive would certainly be one of them. But there was one thing which pressed out of her lips before even that, something far more important, and profound.

"I'm... full," she said. Pathik smiled, and she let out a sob, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "I'm full," she repeated, her arms pulling close to herself, before Pathik moved closer, and she grappled onto him as though he were a rock against a raging river. "I'm full!"

"I know, child. I know," Pathik said.

Malu sobbed, helplessly, but for a change, not hopelessly. In fact, for the first time in years, her tears were caused by a surfeit of hope, rather than a dearth. She squeezed the old man, crying into his shoulder, and feeling for the first time that she could remember, that she was not hungry. And it was glorious.

* * *

><p>"You don't know what you're talking about," Yoji said, glaring at the man who had the audacity to claim parentage. She felt a distinct desire to burn his face off just for that alone. She knew what her father had done to her, leaving her to die like an unwanted pet.<p>

"I think you do," the Tribesman said. "I think you remember something about your infancy. Some fragment. A song, a smell, a sound, something."

"The only things I remember are in my nightmares," Yoji said. And then, because the man was the perfect distance away, she spat at him. He managed to dodge it, frustratingly. "Even if you were the man who sired me, you have nothing I want. My father left me to die in the snow! Is that the man you're claiming to be? If it is, then you're wasting my time as well as your own with this little... stunt."

"Hikaoh..." the man said.

"Yoji. My name... is Yoji," she stressed. He turned to the Dragon of the West, but the fat man only shrugged.

"If that's what you want to be called, then that's what I'll call you," he said very gently, as though he didn't want to frighten her. As if he even could. He might have the advantage for the moment, but unless he capitalized on it by slitting her throat, she'd find her way free of this sticky bondage soon enough, and make him regret wasting the opportunity. "My daughter was taken away from me, when she was very young. Fourteen years ago, when my daughter was only three years old. The Fire Nation came and took her away. Took _you_ away."

"The Fire Nation saved me, from a _certain death_," Yoji countered.

"Some part of you knows that I'm telling the truth," the man said. He glanced up to her, looking her in the eyes. "Do you ever remember your mother? Her name was Kya. She died, trying to protect you."

"I don't remember anybody named Kya. And I wouldn't, because I put that horrible place out of my mind the moment I got brought to my new home," Yoji said. "What are you trying to do? Break my loyalty? Sew doubts into my mind? Well, you won't succeed. The only father I need is the Fire Lord. And you are no Fire Lord."

The man seemed visibly wounded by that, but she didn't follow-up. After all, she knew that she was the target of interrogation, of manipulation at this moment. She was certain that this was but another ruse. The fat old man gently bore the barbarian aside. "Regardless of your paternity, I know why you are here. You want to kill the Princess. You probably want to kill me, as well. But you are too late. Your mission is a failure."

"As long as I draw breath, I have not failed," she promised.

"The Crown Prince has cast down his titles and joined the Avatar," the Dragon of the West claimed. "You are pursuing a folly, a waste of time, effort, and life. What more damage _can we do_ to the Prince, now that he has turned his back on the Fire Nation completely?"

"You should take a page from _his_ book," she said, nodding toward the stricken Tribesman. "At least he tries to make his fabrications plausible."

"What you believe, however falsely, is irrelevant," the Dragon said coldly. "The only thing which matters to me is my niece. You have proven a dogged pursuer, so I know you know where she is."

"Assuming I did, why would I give that information to you?" Yoji asked darkly.

"Because you don't want to ever learn why I came to be called the Dragon of the West," Iroh promised, every bit as darkly as she. And despite everything she knew about him, everything she'd ever believed, there was a look in those golden eyes which promised dire and brutal proof of his honesty, if she required it. Still, Yoji made herself give a derisive scoff. "You would do well not to try my patience. Not today."

The Tribesman turned to the Dragon and muttered something in his own barbarian tongue, his tones angry. Iroh just gave a glance toward him, then turned back to her. And for some reason, she could almost... understand... what the Tribesman was saying.

"If it comes to that, then I will answer to you. If it doesn't, I answer to myself," the Dragon answered the savage. The Tribesman glanced between the Dragon of the West, and Yoji herself, and his hand seemed to flinch toward reaching for a weapon.

"You don't have the guts," Yoji said.

"Hikaoh, please," the Tribesman said again, quietly. Desperately. "I know that some part of you remembers your home. Some part of you knows that you don't belong there, a tool for the Fire Lord. Some part of you is _still my daughter_!"

She swung her gaze to him, finding it a lot hotter than she expected it to be. "Whoever this Hikaoh person was, she died a long time ago. You're chasing a fantasy, savage! I am not who you think I am!"

"Yes, you are," the Tribesman said.

"You have no proof," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"You're missing a toe-nail on your left foot," he said. "You lost it when one of the yaks stepped on it when you were still a toddler."

Yoji swallowed at that. It was as that man said. One of her toes was, indeed, sans nail, and had been as long as she could remember. "You don't know anything about me," she said, despite it.

"You've also got birthmarks on your back, right down the middle," he said.

"I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to convince me to join the _Avatar_, aren't you?" she asked. She shook her head. "The Avatar is a force for chaos, a destroyer of unity and a rebirth of the Agni-damned Storm Kings. Any who side with him, deserve to be his slaves!"

"I've met the Avatar. He is not the slave-taking type," Iroh said.

"Of course, you'd say that."

Yoji tensed an arm, as she had been doing experimentally since this little strange interrogation began. And each time, there was less and less movement, but she could feel that the bondage was becoming more and more brittle, as well. It was just a matter of timing, strength, and speed.

"Where is my niece?" Iroh asked again.

"Aren't you desperate to know?" she asked with a smirk.

"No. I am beginning to lose my patience, though," Iroh said, pushing her chest against the wall with a stubby finger.

The Tribesman slapped that finger away, and said something harsh to the old man. She wanted to believe it was gibberish, but...

He'd said, "_Don't you lay a finger on my daughter._"

She wasn't sure how she knew that. Or why, for some reason, she was absolutely sure that she'd heard that exact sentence somewhere before. She fought through that confusion with a blast of fire, directed from her feet, which rocketed her up enough to snap the sticky resinous goop that she'd been affixed to. She twisted in the air, and slammed down with a brutal axe-kick of flame, one which the Dragon of the West had to shove the Tribesman out of the way of, and absorb the impact of with his own skill.

"I'd love to stick around, pardon the pun, but I've got some people to kill," Yoji said, as she flapped the now shattered goop from her wrists.

"Hikaoh..." the Tribesman said from the floor.

"_Stop calling me that!_" Yoji shouted down at him.

"_Never. I know my eyes, and I know my heart_," he answered. As Yoji thrust forward with a two-fisted blast of fire, it didn't occur to her that the last interplay had been entirely in Yqanuac. She followed that blast with two more, spinning and twisting to get ever more power into her explosive blows, but the Dragon managed to cut them apart and smash them aside just as easily. She glanced only momentarily to the door. She knew, rationally, that she couldn't do this on her own. The Dragon of the West was a fearsomely difficult opponent, for all his sloth and age. She'd need the others to deal with him. And the only way to tell them so, was to reach them.

"This is not over," Iroh said to her, as she paused in her barrage. Why hadn't he pressed the attack? Was he _that_ convinced of the Tribesman's lies? She let out a howl of angry effort as she blasted both fists forward, and the column of golden flames began to push the foe back, until she had a clear and uncluttered line to the door. When she let off, she was smirking.

"Oh, on that, you're right, traitor. This is only just beginning," she said. And then, with a final fan of flames, she hurled herself through the door, and immediately started bending swiftly into concussive blasts which sent the Dai Li who had overheard either their conversation or her wratful firebending, and sending them flying into opposite walls. She hit the ground running, per se, and didn't stop until two corners and twelve rapidly blindsided Dai Li later, where she found one, on his own, emerging from an interrogation room.

She leapt at him, planting both feet into the center of his surprised and confused chest, and then detonated the air under her bootsoles. The blast, muffled by leather and silk, sent the man rolling back into the room, not completely able to understand what has just happened to him. Yoji had no inclination to allow him to figure it out. She bounded atop him, mounting him and holding his jaw in one hand, with two fingers raised with a lancet of flame before an eye. "I have been wandering through this compound for long enough as it is. Tell me where Princess Azula is, and I'll be able to leave before I have to spend time cutting things off of you."

"You don't have the nerve," the Dai Li hissed against her hand. She moved that hand higher, covering his mouth, and pounding one of his hands against the bottom of the wall, before blasting out a surge of fire and immolating one of his fingers completely off. His scream of shock and pain was hidden under her palm.

"Do I?" she asked. "Now, tell me what I want to know, or you stand to lose extremities you are far more proud of. Clear?"

The Dai Li nodded. How quickly they cracked, when they weren't the ones doling out terror and agony. She shifted her hand, ready to slam it back into place if necessary. "The execution. She'll be there."

"Whose?"

"Long Feng's. It's a trap for the Earth King and the Generals."

She frowned at that. It didn't make sense from what Yoji knew of Azula. But then again, what Yoji knew of Azula had been repeatedly proven incomplete over the last few weeks. She forced that frown into a sickly-sweet smile. "See? Was that so hard? You can rest now."

And with that, she stood and drove her heel straight into his head, cracking it against the floor. He'd probably survive, but he'd have a headache for a while. And that wasn't her problem. Now, she just had to find a way to kill Azula, preferably in such a way that made Ba Sing Se vulnerable to Fire Nation annexation.

"This is going to be a busy day," she said to herself, since the two other inhabitants of the room, for various reasons, were unconscious.

* * *

><p>"What do we do now?" Iroh asked.<p>

"I think my daughter has provided for us," Hakoda said, grabbing one of the stunned Dai Li who had been leveled outside the door, and dragging him into the room. He put a knife under the man's eyes. "Tell me what I want to know, or I start cutting things off."

"You don't have the nerve," the Dai Li said, as he regained his composure. Hakoda showed the man just how wrong he was on that point.

"You are allowing your anger to make a monster of you," Iroh said, as he quickly hog-tied the other Dai Li agent.

"My daughter is afraid, confused, and in danger. If being a monster saves her, then that's a price I'm willing to pay," Hakoda said.

* * *

><p>Katara scratched at the head of the little brown beastie, who would no doubt grow up to be a massive brown beastie, as she looked to the south. There had been a lot of weird noises earlier in the day. A part of her was more than worried that it might have been something to do with Aang. The message he'd left writ in the floor wasn't exactly clear on when he'd be back, or what he was doing. Or why he had a mentally damaged shaman with him. There were more than enough things about this whole situation which had her on edge.<p>

"You should pay more attention," Qujeck said, as he moved back into a waterbending form. "You're never safe in Ba Sing Se, least of all when you're a waterbender."

"Long Feng is dealt with," she said, getting back to her feet, letting the yet-unnamed saber-toothed moose-lion cub nose its way under her parka and stay there, its stubby brown tail poking out. "And in about a half hour, the execution you're so desperate to play witness to will happen, and he'll be dealt with for good. You should calm down."

Qujeck, ever the ball of nervous wrath, shook his head, his hands flowing through blade-like motions, and the water under his command following suit. "I can't calm down. Not until I know he's dead. Not until I know that there's no more tricks, no more back-up plans, no more ways for him to slip out like he always does. You don't get it, Katara. You haven't lost as much to him as I have. I can't sleep, knowing he's still alive. I need justice."

"This doesn't sound like justice," Katara said, starting to mimic the older waterbender. "It sounds like you're out for blood. Lana wouldn't want that."

"Don't bring my mother into this," Qujeck said, and a bit bitterly.

"It's the truth," Katara said. "You have to know when to let go. If you can't, then this will eat you. Just look at Jet!"

"Wait, what am I doing in this conversation?" the still recovering swordsman asked, where he and his girlfriend were slouching in the shadows.

"He learned that you can't let hate blind you. And he's a better person now. Isn't that right?" she asked.

"Well..." Jet rubbed the back of his neck.

"Good enough," the girl who was actually called Mai pointed out. And then she shrugged. "And if he ever goes back on that... well? I'll stab 'im."

"Aren't I the luckiest guy around, to have a lady like you at my side?" Jet said, pulling her a bit closer to him.

"Flatterer."

Qujeck let out a shout, and slammed the ice blade into a pillar. "I don't know how you can be so flippant! Do you really expect that this time, unlike every other, will somehow manage to go _right_? Are you really that _dense_?"

"Easy there," Jet said, as Mai took a step away from him, and began to... well, play with knives. He shrugged, and rolled the sprig of wheat in his teeth. "If you're that focused on the bad-guy getting an axe through the neck, just go and watch."

"That isn't the point. You're just... sitting around, doing nothing. You should be..." Qujeck gesticulated, but couldn't come up with what he wanted, so he just threw up his hands and stalked to the other end of the room. Jet gave a suspicious glance to Mai, and leaned toward her.

"...seriously, was I _that_ bad?" he asked.

"Mm-hm," Mai answered him, not turning from the knives she twirled amongst her fingers.

"You know, maybe we should go to after him," Katara pointed out. Both of the other teenagers gave her a mildly baffled look. "Look, everything about what's going on today leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Somebody's going to die because of something I did. But if I do anything to stop it, everything gets worse. Imagine how Qujeck's feeling right now."

"Angry," Jet said. "Very."

"I was referring to..." Katara began, but Jet cut her off with a shake of his head.

"I know that kind of anger, Katara. It almost killed me. If it weren't for Mai, it probably would have, by now. 'Comes a point where you can't keep hating, but the waterbender hasn't figured that out yet."

Mai raised an eyebrow at him, almost clearly saying 'and?'.

Jet rolled his eyes. "_And_, even despite all that, I'm still thinking he might be right. You say today feels wrong? Well, I think you're right. But probably no for the same reasons. I haven't seen so much as a whisker of those green robed buggers since Lake Laogai. They're up to something. Or hiding something. But I guarantee, it ain't gonna be good for us."

Katara stared after the vacating Tribesman, and then turned to the recuperating swordsman. She let out a sigh, a vent of willpower she couldn't withhold any longer. "Fine. We'll go. But..."

"Doesn't feel right. I get it," Mai said flatly. She then motioned along, and the others of their little goon-squad seemed to appear out of the woodwork, archer, sticker, and binder in tow as Katara walked with them, but separate from them. She couldn't say it to herself, but there was still a part of her which definitely didn't want to have anything to do with Jet. People only changed so much. She doubted that he could turn his back on hatred and revenge so completely.

He'd be watching Long Feng Die. She'd be watching him.

* * *

><p>Long Feng tilted his head to one side, as the door clanged open to the cell. The footsteps stopped just past the threshold, not approaching to accost him or loudly demanding his attention. In fact, it was as though the intruder were quietly awaiting acknowledgment. Which he was. Because Long Feng had trained his people well. He turned his head slightly, to glance over his shoulder. The man beyond was wearing the armor of the Royal Guard, but he didn't doubt that it would be one of his own under that helmet.<p>

"The arrangements are in place, Grand Secretariat," the agent said. "The locations of the Five Generals and the Earth King have been plotted, planned, and prepared for. The necessary contingencies are in place."

"And the Fire Nation Princess is cooperating?" Long Feng asked as he rose to his feet.

"She's taking charge," the agent said with a note of understandable surprise. "I wouldn't have expected this level of ardor from her. She isn't what I'd have expected."

"No," Long Feng said. "She is more capable than her reputation leads one to believe. But that is a piffle compared to the importance of her task. When she is finished with it, she will be dealt with, appropriately."

"Of course, Grand Secretariat. It is time to go," the agent said, motioning that Long Feng was to approach. He did so, and even offered his hands for shackles. But he knew well that the manacles would not be locked, nor the guard composed of any whom he hadn't overseen the training of, nor any actor in the play at hand any but his own. Well, save one. The agent brought him out, and the troupe of his ilk pressed in, as though a force to prevent any escape by bending for the Grand Secretariat. Hardly that.

"The Earth King, I assume, will not be present for the messy business of my 'execution'?" Long Feng asked.

"No. But we have forces in place to neutralize him swiftly," he said. Long Feng let the silence be his query. "The Princess decided to see to that, personally."

Long Feng smiled lightly, as their group finally rose up into the sunlight, which caused that smile to fade into a mild wince as it proved far brighter than he'd become accustomed to. "The useless child _should_ be within her capabilities, even if we still vastly overestimate them. May I assume that we are to rendezvous at the throne-room?"

"Of course. There are other matters that require dealing with than... than..." Long Feng trailed off, because the path that they walked, brought him close to a face that he both did not expect, and desperately didn't want to see him.

Dun.

There were questions flashing through Long Feng's mind. How had he gotten into the Upper Ring? Why would he be here, of all places, at all times? How was he going to explain this to him? The answers to those questions, even with that panicked moment of thought, were clear. He got into the Upper Ring, because Dun knew that's where the Cultural Authority's main headquarters were, and Dun was nothing if not insanely persistent. He was here, because the offices were only a few blocks further in. As for the timing, he could only rail against the universe. But how he could explain this... Honestly, he couldn't.

"Long Feng, what's going on?" Dun asked. He looked at the soldiers pressed around him. "Why are these... are those shackles? What are you doing to him?"

"Dun, I can explain..."

"It'd better be a good one!" Dun said, concern beating out indignation in his voice. "You've been gone for a week! A week! And now, I find you in manacles? What is going on? And for the love of the gods, tell me the truth!"

Long Feng's eyes went down, and the soldiers around him halted, sharing confused glances. But none said a word. Had they, Long Feng would have made an example of them in the most gruesome way, at the earliest possible opportunity. They knew their place. But as for him... Long Feng, for once in his life, had no plan, no contingency, no scheme which would duck responsibility, or ameliorate damage. He just had himself, the binds on his arms, and the soldiers around him, and then Dun. He shook his head, slowly. "I don't know what to tell you..."

"Everything!" Dun stressed. He tried to step closer, but the soldiers knew enough to keep up appearances, and held him at bay. "What is going on? Why are you in chains?"

"I..." Long Feng began, but he didn't know how to finish. The weight of decades of lies, crashing down in one gargantuan heap, crushing him. And he couldn't escape it any more than could the Earth King evade his destiny. He took a breath. "You deserve better than I've been able to give you."

Dun just stared at him. "Why can't you tell me the truth?"

"Because it's kinder this way," Long Feng said. The look on Dun's face was heartbreaking, but Long Feng would rather lose him to heartbreak than lose him to assassination. One, he could live with, if barely. The other, he simply couldn't. The guards around him finally took the cue, and gave him a brusque shove, again keeping up appearances, to get him starting movement again. Long Feng cast a glance, full of shame and regret, toward Dun. Dun just stared back, and looked stricken. Why couldn't Long Feng tell the man he loved the truth?

Because he didn't know how to, anymore. Simple as that. The agent before him had a scowl on his face. "This complicates things."

"Don't," Long Feng demanded simply. "Don't you dare. Don't even finish that thought."

"But he..."

"If you offer one more word down that line of reasoning, you will not be the only one to suffer for it," Long Feng promised heatedly. The agent then, wisely, kept his quiet. And Long Feng's mind ran all the faster, as his heart was wounded. He might lose everything, but he wouldn't lose Ba Sing Se. Not to the Avatar. Not today. That thought gave him far less comfort than he'd hoped it would have.

* * *

><p>Qujeck's knuckles cracked and popped as he manipulated them, a nervous habit he'd picked up on that night, all those months ago, which left him alone in Ba Sing Se. He wasn't afraid, not particularly. Ba Sing Se had a way of pounding the scared out of you. But he was deeply, deeply worried. Something was going to go wrong. It always seemed to. He could feel it in his bones that something wasn't right, that things had gone out of control. Or had never been under control to begin with. And that feeling didn't diminish when he beheld the Grand Secretariat, the master puppeteer of the city of walls and secrets, being shoved into the courtyard. It was only one of many courtyards, out of the way on the outskirts of the Royal Palace's grounds, but it was secure, it was private, and it had all the amenities required for a headsman and his craft.<p>

The black-veiled headsman stood to one side, the long, curved blade of his profession resting with its clipped tip lightly touching the stone of the floor. Casual, of course. You could call Si Wongi a lot of things, but nervous didn't tend to be one of them. "What am I not seeing?" Qujeck asked, as his eyes flit around the small crowd, mostly present to prevent escape attempts, and to bear witness to the deed. Qujeck glanced down and aside, and could see Katara, the young and naïve waterbender from the South Water Tribe staring at the man as well. There was a glance, connecting the two warriors from the opposite sides of the planet, and then, he looked on. She had her cadre. His own, was dead, because of Long Feng. And Qujeck still knew that he was overlooking something.

The guards parted aside, and showed Long Feng to the headsman. Hands pressed down on the man's shoulders, bringing him to his knees, and the headsman gave a glance to an official, who stepped forward with a scroll. "Long Feng, you stand accused and convicted of High Treason against the Earth King, Treason against the City of Ba Sing Se, murder most foul, acts of terrorism against this City and its people, sedition of the Earth King's authority, and the Avatar's Violation, as well as the abuse and assault upon the Avatar himself. For these crimes and... countless... others, you are to be struck head from neck, in accordance to the laws of this city-state. Do you have any final declarations?"

"Yes," Long Feng said. Qujeck's eyes widened. Something was about to happen. Qujeck quietly opened the flask at his side. "You have done your job well. Now go away."

"...excuse me?" the mandarin asked.

Qujeck glanced down, as a ripple of alarm came from the minor crowd below... but not all of the crowd. Notably, those who weren't alarmed, were acting as though of one mind, and one will, predetermined. Oh, no.

Katara seemed to sense it, then, and went for her own flask. But she was a moment too late. The guardsman swept low with his pole-arm, and smashed her ankle hard enough to probably break it, causing the waterbender to fall to the floor with a scream of agony, before spinning the weapon and driving the heel of it into the girl's ribs. She reflexively curled fetal to try to protect herself. Qujeck, though, was already fighting. With a whip, he smashed the one turning to him in the throat, hard enough to collapse his windpipe, hopefully. But failing that, it was still more than enough to send the man tumbling off of Qujeck's lofty vantage-point. Another flick, and that whip of water pulled a Dai Li agent down from a pillar, high above, and slammed him into the ground; a save, from the corner of a Tribesman's eye.

Down below, Long Feng casually rose from his place on his knees, casting off his shackles. Qujeck's eyes twitched, a side-effect of frustrated and lunatic fury. "NO!" he screamed. "NOT AGAIN!"

Qujeck wasn't alone in that sentiment. One of the guards, who had somehow penetrated the field of Dai Li infiltrators, was bearing down on the Grand Secretariat, spear leading. Long Feng barely batted an eye. With one hand, he brought up a wall of stone, upon which that spear snapped. Then, the executioner buried a very heavy sword into a very vulnerable chest, and Long Feng continued to walk away.

"Put the waterbender somewhere secure. I want the Avatar to have something besides revenge on his mind," Long Feng said loudly enough to be heard over the tumult. Qujeck glanced down to the girl, who still tried to fight, lashing out with a sloppy but resolute blast of water from her crumpled form, but while it did knock aside one Dai Li agent, the others pounced upon her like a swarm of feral and starving rats. He looked away. She was lost.

Qujeck glanced below. Somebody had to stop this. Now. With a growl of wrath, he twisted the water he was bending into a spiral, one leading down to the ground. He leapt onto it, freezing it to ice and spinning his way to the ground, before taking that entire coil and turning it back into water, then ice once more in a bulwark to prevent those same stone fists as flew about at random from crippling him as well. Then, with a grunt of hatred, he sent the bulwark out, smashing down the enemy before him. "THIS ISN'T OVER, LONG FENG!" Qujeck roared at the departing puppetmaster's back. The man turned, and scowled lightly.

"...am I _supposed_ to know you?" he asked, a smirk on his face. Qujeck's blood boiled in his veins, and it cried out for more to be spilled. He surged forward, but only one step, because after that, he had a hook-sword in his way, catching on his tunic. He spun in a fury, but he had no water to bend at his aggressor. And no aggressor, either. Jet grabbed Qujeck's shoulder and started to pull backward.

"Don't throw yourself away! He's got this one! We need to make his victory _bitter_!" Jet shouted.

Qujeck snarled at Jet, but he knew, in the rational part of his mind, that the teenage boy was thinking with a far clearer head than he at the moment. And that was what he needed. Mai moved in, eyes sliding through the crowds, and knives between her fingers, as she made sure no Dai Li got close to them. Long Feng? He turned, with a chuckle lost to the din, and continued walking. "We need to get to the Earth King," Mai shouted.

"What?" Qujeck asked.

"That guy will be defenseless, and there's nobody here but us to warn them," Mai continued.

"She's right," Jet said.

Qujeck let out a snort which, had he been a firebender, would surely have lit with fire. "Find the Mountain King and the Dragon of the East, then," Qujeck said. "And find them fast."

Jet nodded, and let Qujeck finally free of the hooks of his blades. Mai, though, stared after the departing Grand Secretariat for just a moment longer, a quiet sigh in her throat. "So much for the Earth Kingdoms," she whispered. Then, she followed after, pausing only long enough to flick a knife at a nearby Dai Li and send him tumbling down a staircase.

* * *

><p>Azula was grinning, as she stormed down the corridors, toward the Earth King's throne. Oh, how she would <em>enjoy<em> sitting their once more. Her greatest triumph, repeated without tragedy. And she would even have ample opportunity to deal with Mother, now that she knew where that traitorous woman had secreted herself. This – all of this – would be glorious. She twisted her arms behind her, then surged forth with a blast of azure flame which sent the doors, obviously recently replaced on their frames, bouncing into the throne room, and the Dai Li behind her began to spread out in a great rank. "Well, this is a familiar sight," she said, striding forward with all the confidence that decades of preparation warranted.

And then, she had to heave her body aside, as an arrow almost speared her heart. That wasn't what she expected. There was somebody ahead of her. People she didn't recognize. One of them looked vaguely like the insane King of New Ozai, albeit significantly younger. Another, some Tribesman she didn't recall. The last was a dusky-skinned woman in loose clothing and bearing a bow, as well as a very angry look on her face. Almost slipping under her estimation was of course the Earth King himself. She hadn't taken them into account, so she refused to underestimate them. She glanced to the Tribesman, and twisted her arms, letting lightning gather along her fingertips, before thrusting forward, intending to end likely the most destructive of them in one stroke.

That attempt, and the lightning-bolt which spawned it, went quite wild, as something slammed into her shoulder, throwing her arm up and the lightning raking along the badger-mole baldachin. A glance aside showed that an arrow, from that same woman, had found a target in her chest. She took a step back, and pulled the shaft from where it had embedded loosely into her armor. "You're going to have to do better than that," she promised.

"I intend to," the woman answered, then fired again, but this time in a completely different direction. A half-glance showed that the arrow found its target, one of the Dai Li who was trying to flank her. Azula didn't waste any time. And she didn't pay attention to the blood dribbling down where the point had just pierced a bit further than the armor had allowed for. She hurled herself forward in fire and destruction, only to have a great wall raise up between herself and the Earth King's bodyguards. The stone shattered at the impact of her assault, but it had held long enough for its purpose.

"Take the Earth King and get out of here!" that heterochromatic man shouted, his attention sliding along Azula and her minions. She downshifted her expectation of the Tribesman. A lackey, only. So she focused on the Earth King... No, not the Earth King. The other one. The man with the strange eyes. She shook her head. Focus, woman! This is important!

She surged forward, sweeping her arms forward and down, and bathing just about all of the floor which wasn't holding Dai Li with cerulean flames, but the archeress simply bounded back onto the dais, while the earthbender rose himself above the conflagration. Which put him right in position for her next assault, a barrage of fire bolts, which he had to intercept with stone to keep them away from her. A squad of Dai Li pounced as one at him, but he flicked a hand in their direction, and a great slab of the floor rose up and slammed them all away. He was good. She was better.

She twisted her arm again, but this time, hadn't even gotten the smell of ozone begun when she found herself being knocked to the floor by a very sharp blow to her side. She growled, and took a step before the searing pain caused her to pause. She tapped her side. The armor had been breached, there. Blood dribbled out. She looked up at what had dealt that blow, and her eyes twitched a bit. "So you were a traitor after all, Piandao? Why am I not surprised?"

The swordsman looked haggared, his complexion hardly the rich oaken that she remembered. As well, and most notably, he was missing a hand. But the blade which remained true in the one remaining was lightly stained with red, just at the tip. He looked almost aghast to see her, and confusion was clearly the order of his day. "Wait... Princess Azula? What is going on?"

"I'm taking over the Earth Kingdom in Father's name. And if you want to survive, you'll stop fighting me."

Piandao hesitated, but not long enough. With a twist, he cut apart stone gloves and shoes trying to catch and clobber him, and then with a swift thrust which saw him lunging on one foot, he brought down one Dai Li who had wandered far too close, before twirling back to face Azula, his back to a pillar. "You were supposed to end this war, not make it worse!" he shouted at her.

"I am ending it," she said, with a smirk. "My way. The right way."

She lashed out with flames again, and while Piandao was quick enough to skirt around the pillar and let her assault take it instead of he, the focus she needed distracted her long enough for an up-thrust of stone to smash into her uninjured side. It lifted her from her feet and sent her rolling, but she was quick to push herself away from the ground. That earthbender needed to die. No. He couldn't die, because she wasn't a murderer. Wait, yes she was. Hold on.

There was a tingling sensation in her body, starting on her tongue and radiating into her skull, then down her neck. No. No! Not now! With a snarl of anger and the focus which came with it, she lashed out with a great lash of blue toward the woman atop the dais. She would pick them off, one by one, starting with the annoying ones. The woman in the loose clothing saw the attack and managed to dodge it, but the lash sheared through part of her sleeve, as well as the throne of the Earth King himself. One of the arms simply fell away, melted off in its entirety.

She advanced, and the others retreated, with increasing speed. The Earth King wasn't there anymore. Had they taken him? Of course they had. What kind of thinking was that? Her advance shuddered, and faltered, as she slapped herself hard in the face. It didn't dispel the fuzziness which was clouding her vision, nor choking up her thoughts. "I don't have time for this, you idiot girl!" she snarled. She looked up, and the dais was clear. The flames had died down and the Dai Li were sweeping forward. How long had she been distracted? She shook her head sternly. This wasn't the time to be side-tracked.

"Where are they?" she demanded of a Dai Li nearby.

"They seem to have taken to the lower ruins," the agent said.

"And what about the Generals?" she asked.

"Three of five are in custody," the man continued. She smirked, then, and took a few of the steps up toward the sundered throne.

"Excellent. I'd say today has been a success," she said. She turned, and saw that Long Feng was approaching. Ah, the master stroke. "You are, as usual, late to do any of the heavy lifting. A poor trait in anybody claiming to be a leader."

"I never claim to lead," Long Feng said. He gave a mild shrug. "You must be aware this is the point where I double-cross you, and throw you into prison."

"And I know this is the point where your orders don't exactly see fruition," she countered. Long Feng raised an eyebrow at her. "The Dai Li aren't stupid. They know that the only way they live to see tomorrow is by backing the right leader in the war. And sadly, they know it isn't you. You're a manipulator, one who has done commendable things given his humble beginnings, but you deserve to rule Ba Sing Se less even than the brat you've done all of this to unseat."

"An interesting theory," Long Feng said.

"The Dai Li are waiting, to bow down to whomever sits upon that throne," Azula nodded behind her. She smiled. "So... bow down."

Long Feng looked... not afraid?

Bored.

"Arrest her," he said. And then the chains flew. Snaring Azula's hands, before a mighty heave sent her sprawling forward off of the dais and landing on her chin on the ground. The shock of it sent a jolt through the fuzz which was threatening to overtake her thinking, but she shook it away. What just happened? This wasn't the way it went! Long Feng squatted down before her, and looked her in the eye. She took in a breath, and as she tried to blast it out in flame, a stone hand slammed into her jaw, holding it shut, her teeth clenched. The flames escaped her nostrils, but nowhere near the Grand Secretariat. "One thing you have failed to take into account, Princess, is reputation. For these men, your reputation is... somewhat lacking. What you've shown them over the last few days is only words, in their eyes. Your speeches, your threats? They ring hollow. But as for me? My reputation is more than mere words. My reputation is a force unto itself. It is solid. It is fact. You offer them words. I offer them order. And that is why your hubris fails you."

"No," past grit teeth and a jaw that couldn't open all the way.

"Deny it if you will. It won't change the fact. _I_ rule Ba Sing Se. Not you, nor your father. That will never change, as long as I have blood in my veins," Long Feng said sternly, almost sadistically. "And since you hold so little apparent value to the Fire Lord, I have precious little use for you. For the moment, at least. I know that your mind might be a much disputed minefield of delirium and psychosis, but I have no doubts that I can mould it into something much more useful to me. I broke the Dragon of the East, and I will break you, too."

"I refuse to be outplayed by _you_," Azula snarled through a clenched jaw. Long Feng laughed, then, and not a kind one. He smiled down at her, in the most patronizing way.

"Princess, you will soon find that you were _never even a player_," Long Feng said. "Take her away."

And as they did so, Azula howled in futility, in rage.

In desperation.

* * *

><p>The city was quiet, as they flew over it. To Aang's ears, too quiet. Irukandji hadn't steered Aang wrong in anything but her presupposition on his romantic leanings, so when she said, as firmly and as desperately as she did, that Long Feng was a whisker away from bursting his bonds and outright taking control of Ba Sing Se, Aang didn't need to be convinced twice to heed. "We're almost there," Aang said, perhaps somewhat pointlessly, as all those present knew that perfectly well.<p>

The bison swooped lower, as they crossed the threshold into the Upper Ring, and Appa's toes practically tore up shingles as they all passed, finally clearing the stately manors and reaching the unrivaled opulence of the Royal Palace itself. Even as they were flying over, Aang spotted a familiar figure below, striding toward the heart of the compound, just as he passed through a forest of pillars. Aang leaned hard to Appa's ear, and whispered a command, before screwing his legs in and bounding off of the bison's bow. The sheer momentum of it caused him to have to scooter or faceplant, and a faceplant at that velocity would have covered a great deal of the Earth King's house in little bits of airbender-skin. Even so, he leapt off of his scooter, and still stumbled a few steps, before turning toward the tall, neatly-bearded General How. "General How! You're in danger!"

How's brows drew down, and he glanced from side to side. "From where?" he asked. It was a relief to have somebody whom didn't need convincing of every little thing.

"Long Feng. He's gotten out of prison somehow!" Aang said. How turned back to him.

"You're sure?" he asked. Aang nodded. "Then we'll have to gather the other Generals and the Earth King before it's too late."

Aang turned, and flinched, hinging his body away from chains which shot past him, clattering against stone. Others, aimed at How rather than Aang, found their mark and locked with a clack. There was a mighty heave from the sources of those chains, but Aang pulled hard and tore down one of the pillars, smashing it down onto the length between How and whatever source there was. He was trapped, with about three feet of movement standing, but How was at the very least, not in the clutches of the Dai Li. For the moment.

"Your timing is, as usual, impeccable," How noted, as he tried to pry the manacles off of his arms and ankles, but had equal success in either – none. "Could you move that stone, now?"

"It's the only thing keeping you here," Aang said, twisting his staff around and trying to see where the earthbenders were lurking. The earthbender in him had him searching the ground, first. But it was the airbender which poked its head in swiftly thereafter, and reminded him that Dai Li weren't exactly typical earthbenders. He looked up. And he found them, scuttling across the high pillars like stupendously dangerous insects. A twist of the staff, and a bolt of wind howled up toward them, but it did no more than ruffle their robes; they were using earthbending to cling to the stone, so what harm could a breeze do to them?

"I can't do much from here," How warned, trying to keep his back to the pillar so he'd have enough room to bend, but even so, Aang doubted the man could do very much, per his word. Aang looked up, and managed to bound aside, just as stone fists almost smashed him in the face. Even as he was twisting, he let his hands drop into fists, hard as stone and brutal as the storm. When the thrust back up, it was not to the movement of stone, nor water – which there was far too little of nearby – but of _fire_.

He didn't want to hurt the Dai Li, not really, but he had no other options. His bolts of flame were comparatively weak, in that he'd had little practice and little experience, and besides that, he was 'pulling' them to ensure that they didn't burn somebody to death. Still, the flames leaping at his command were enough to get the Dai Li above to scatter, to move. And every time one of them loosed from his rocky perch, Aang was ready to intercept them with a blast of wind, hurling them into the distance to a hard and long landing. A broken bone or five was bad, yes, but one would have to be a monster to intentionally burn somebody.

The Dai Li pressed in, and one of the blasts of scarlet fire launching from Aang's fist was interrupted as his limb was smashed hard, and wheeled him about. He then felt that limb pull back and up, trying to haul him from his feet. It was swift earthbending, causing the very ground beneath him to buck, which prevented him losing his footing entirely. And an iota of bending after that to gain control of the stone glove wrapped 'round his wrist, before smashing it into the ground and causing it to crumble to dust.

"Your left!" How said, and he thrust out a block in that direction. The Dai Li who advanced, hurling himself in a move like a dancer toward them managed to burst through How's attack, but Aang twisted and swept low with a broom of flames which caused the Dai Li to have to bound over, or lose his feet. Then, Aang's next move, tearing a chunk of the fallen pillar and hurling it out with his bending, caught the man mid-air and sent him flopping onto his back. "How many do you see, Avatar?" How asked, his eyes locked on the limited angles he could see. Aang took a moment to bound atop the pillar, and what he saw on the other side disturbed him greatly. Mainly, because he stopped counting at thirty, and there were _a lot more_ than thirty.

"We've got a bit of a problem," Aang admitted, as he jumped down to the General's side. "I'm going to have to cut those chains, somehow."

"Well, unless you know of somebody who can break metal with his bare hands, that could take a while," How pointed out, his humorless tone belying the sarcasm to his words.

"Oh, I do. She's just not here yet," Aang said. How's eyes shot wide, and his lips parted in an alarmed rictus, but Aang didn't have a chance to hear what the General saw. Mostly because something slammed into the back of his neck, and heaved back. Aang was torn off of his feet and sent rolling down the floor of the forest of stone. Fingers, hard as the mountains, began to squeeze, cutting off his wind-pipe and breathing. Oh, this wasn't good. He lashed out, practically blind, with fire-bolts, trying to shake the grip of this hand free. He wasn't so good an earthbender that he could bend what he couldn't see; that was, for the moment, beyond him. So he tried fire. And failing that, he heaved air past the crushing fingers, trying to force something into his lungs. And not really succeeding.

He needed help.

It came with a blast like thunder. The stone crumbled away, and Aang shook his head, breathing deep for the near choking he'd received. He looked ahead, and he could see three Dai Li ahead of him. But one of them was staggering back, stunned, and holding a spot on his chest which was steadily staining black. Then, he tipped back, and fell. "What just happ–"

Aang was greeted by another blast, this one which caused one of the other two Dai Li to spin back, red drizzling away from one shoulder where a bullet burst through it. That one fell to the ground with a shout of surprise and pain, and Aang felt himself being dragged to his feet by an angry Si Wongi girl. Smoke was still curling away from the barrel of her gun-thing. "You are surprisingly often a boy in need of rescue," Nila noted, as she bit off the end of a wad of paper, and then slammed it into her weapon. The Dai Li bolted aside as she raised the weapon and fired; this bullet only blasted shards off of a pillar.

"Where are the rest of you?" Aang asked.

"Fast approaching. I was faster," she said. She glanced aside, and then had to duck under another fist which was seeming to scream through the air and put a hole through her head. That Dai Li advanced right into close combat, and the Si Wongi had to smash his hands away with her weapon. "Go! Save the General and get your Earth King!"

"What about you?" Aang said, as he twisted a blast of wind which sent the Dai Li flying away. She shot a mildly condescending look toward him.

"I am the Dragon's Daughter."

Fair enough, he thought. He moved back to the pillar, but found that it was cracked and splitting. Obviously, somebody didn't want it there, anymore. Just as Aang reached it, there was a blast of exploding stone, one which Aang only evaded by raising a block from the ground before him and deflecting that shrapnel away. He could see the Dai Li beyond, and they were bracing themselves to heave How off of his footing, which itself would be a severe problem for any earthbender. One needed a firm foundation to out-stubborn a stone. Lacking it, well...

Aang landed with a twist, and sent a veritable tornado through that gap, but the Dai Li had rooted themselves, and used the energy Aang expended to heave. Aang felt How stumble into his back, causing the Avatar to have to brace himself, to bring the much larger earthbender to a halt. It wasn't easy; in fact, it tore up the floor under his heels, but he managed to prevent the General's passage. But he couldn't do anything else. And there were _plenty_ of spare Dai Li agents on this side of the fracas.

It was a sigh of relief which Aang didn't know he had in him when a figure in green and blue streaked past, and a black tongue caught against the chains pulled taught. The black, meteoric metal clove through the chains, one after another, with a sound like distant bells, before Aang found himself stumbling backward and almost tipping straight back onto the stumbled earthbender behind him. Sokka rooted himself, the blade out and ready, focus hard in his blue eyes. "Sokka!"

"General, get to the Bison!" Sokka ordered. He twisted and cut a stone glove out of the air before him, but a second set of clangs pulled Aang's attention to a second swordsman.

"I'd listen to the bumpkin, General," Zuko said, his twin dao out and forming a protective web of sharp steel around him. "They can't fly. Yet."

Sokka shot him a glare. "Who are you calling a bumpkin?" he demanded.

"This isn't the time, you idjits!" Toph said as she stomped past, hurling a sizable portion of a pillar at a cluster of green-robed insurrectionists. "You find what happened to his sister," she pointed a finger at Sokka as she stomped by. "I'm getting Mom and her cronies. Great? Great."

"Toph, wait!" Aang called after her as she cut a short-lived breach through the Dai Li. "You can't go in there alone!"

"Watch me!"

Aang stared in bafflement at the blind earthbender, but only for an instant, because the Dai Li weren't so courteous as to allow him any time for bemusement. He started to retreat, blasting the Dai Li who tried to cut him off or chain him down with air and warding them away with fire. Once they reached the edge of that forest of columns, Appa was waiting for them. How bounded from his place at the head of the stairs and the stone catapulted him a bit further, landing with a swing and a clutch onto the furry hide of the ten tonne flying beast. The others weren't far behind Aang, with Nila's exception. She was still in the thick, surrounded on all sides. And she'd not last long.

"Zuko," Aang said, turning to the firebender. "Protect General How. Take Appa up and keep him there until we find Katara and Kuei and the others."

Zuko glanced back. "Azula's in there, somewhere."

"I'll find her, I promise," Aang said. "I swear."

Zuko glared at the Avatar for a long moment. "You'd better keep your word, airbender. If you don't..."

"I will," Aang vowed. Zuko nodded, then, reluctantly, and bounded onto the best, grabbing the ropes Aang had strung for reins. "Appa? Yip yip!"

The bison let out a grumbling bellow, and rose away, just ahead of stones being hurled to prevent that. Aang turned to those who remained. "Sokka, save Nila. Sharif, you... Wait. Sharif?"

"We need to go down," he said, urgently.

"What are you doing here?" Aang asked.

"Helping. We need to go down," he said, his words still slurred and almost illegible. Aang glanced toward Nila, where she just took a stone fist in the face which sent her stumbling to one knee. The ring of green robes got a lot closer. Aang just motioned for all to follow, and clacked open his glider. He took a bound, and as indicated either by practice or by a Tribesman's quick instruction, both teenagers grabbed onto Aang's shoulders as he used his airbending to bear him up and soaring between the stone, before crashing down into the heart of a knot of antagonism, his landing marked by a rippling out of stone which hurled Dai Li from their footing, and landed Nila squarely on her back.

"Need a hand?" Sokka asked as he pulled her to her feet. She glanced in panic around her until she found her weapon, and snatched it up.

"I need a hundred, and a hundred guns to fill them. Yours will have to do... Brother? Are you _mad_?" she broke off, as she noticed her sibling with her.

"The secrets are below," Sharif said. Aang circled around the three teenagers, his glider staff before him, ready to ward what he needed to. But he didn't doubt that against a dozen and a half Dai Li, he wouldn't last long. They were simply deciding, silently and amidst themselves, who was going to go first.

Aang did, by slamming that staff down once more, and causing the stone beneath their feet to swallow them up.

* * *

><p>She crashed down the ramp, rolling to a stop in a room full of green hued light. It emitted from every crystal nearby, the same kind and quality as had been found in the tunnel to New Ozai. Only this was in much greater abundance, so that everything near her was clear as the early dawn. She forced herself to her feet and furiously wiped at the split lip she'd gotten from her first humiliating tumble.<p>

"This is what all of your scheming and preparation has been leading to, you old hag," the girl's voice said from nearby. Azula didn't even hesitate to lash out with fire, searing and blackening the crystals in the direction of that sound. "All of that time and effort, wasted. I could have told you you'd find some way to muck it up. Your entire life is one big failure after another."

"You don't know _anything_ about me!" Azula raved, her head swinging to find out where that girl had gone.

"I know more than you think," the girl said, and Azula caught a glimpse of her. Even though her rational mind would have told her that the girl was a figment, and thus proofed against firebending, at this point, Azula wasn't thinking very rationally, and launched out with another searing blast, coating another brace of crystals with soot. Making the room go a little bit darker. The voice seemed to shift, coming from another direction. "I know that you turned your me into your personal ball of hate against people who you see as your enemies. And you know what? I don't think they are."

"Then you're a traitor as well as a coward!" Azula shrieked, flaring out at her next glimpse of the girl, causing the lights to dim all the further.

"Oh, will you listen to yourself?" the girl chided, and suddenly appearing as though whispering into Azula's ear. "You called yourself a traitor. If only you could hear yourself."

Azula spun and lashed out with fire... but the fire was smoking, guttering, and edging down toward green rather than the pristine blue she'd spent decades refining and practicing. "You're not going to fool me, you useless girl! This is a... a _minor setback_! I _will_ find a way to rule this city!"

"No, you won't," the girl said, a whisper of movement before the last brace of crystals jutting from the floor. Azula turned and with a howl of wrath, blasted smokey, now scarlet flames at the outcropping, and dropping her into darkness. She ignited an oily yellow flame above her palm, and glared at the girl who now stared back at her, as arrogant as a cutpurse caught. "You've managed to fail in every way possible. I'm not the traitor to my homeland; you are! I'm not the screw up my father cast out; YOU ARE! This is all your fault! If you hadn't have come along, none of this would have happened!"

"You were too weak!" Azula screamed.

"You were too crazy!" the girl shouted back, her fists balled up as her face turned almost as red as her dress. "Everything you've ever done has been to make things worse! If you're all I have to look forward to in my old age, I think I'd rather hang myself!"

"That can be arranged, you little brat," Azula promised, however time-paradox-inducing such a feat would prove to be. And the girl knew it, somehow.

"Listen to yourself. You're out of your mind, and you still think that the universe and everybody in it will bend to your will. You're pathetic! A crazy old _bitch_ with no grasp of reality!"

At the edge of the pool of light, Azula could see another, but that one didn't monopolize her attention as the girl did. That other one was perhaps only as old as she was now, but didn't look nearly so strong or vigorous. In fact, she just hugged her knees to her chest and rocked quietly, staring into the distance.

"I will crush you like an insect," Azula promised.

"You couldn't if you wanted to!" the girl shouted back. "That's your shameful little secret, isn't it? You _need_ me to exist. Well, you know what? I _don't_ need you!"

"Too loud. Too loud," the rocking girl in the edge of the light muttered to herself.

"Oh, please. If you really had any way of getting rid of me, you would have done so ages ago," Azula mocked, and the girl ground her teeth, glaring up with fury at the older version of herself. "The fact is, this is my body now. There's nothing you can do to change that fact. I'll get out of this prison, and when I do, I will burn the _world_ to kill that waterbender."

The girl suddenly was flying at Azula, and punched her in the gut, which drove the woman back, her wind knocked out. She staggered to a halt, and cracked a sadistic smirk. "Oh, is that the best you've got?" she asked. The girl's lips writhed as her fists tightened again. "That's your greatest failure, girl. You've got no resolve. You've got no will to do what needs to be done; and that's why I'm here. To save you from yourself!"

"I'd rather be dead than have you here!" the girl snapped. "You hurt my brother, you hurt my uncle, and you detest my mother! You're _nothing_ like me at all!"

"Too loud!" the other muttered loudly, but both continued to ignore her.

"No, and that's my greatest strength over you. I don't have any of your weaknesses, any of your pitiful sentimentality," she strode up to the girl, glaring down at her. "I will be the salvation of my people, and it will be over your quiet annihilation!"

"You underestimate my power," the girl snapped.

"And you overestimate your chances," Azula answered. "I've been preparing for this for forty Agni-damned years. I'm not going to fail because of some scheming earthbender, and I'm _definitely_ not going to fail to some milquetoast, naïve idiot!"

"I swear on Mother's name that I will find a way to kill you!" the girl screamed.

"And I swear on my daughter's that you're going to fail!" Azula answered back. "And I know with certainty that my word's a lot stronger than yours is. Otherwise, you'd be here, instead of there!"

"This must be why Mother left!" the girl screamed back at her. "The first time I opened my eyes after you squeezed into my head, she saw _you_!"

"And if your sniveling hadn't side-tracked me, I'd have killed that bitch years ago, and..."

"QUIET PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

The scream of the third girl slammed through the other two like a wave of lightning. Azula's body locked rigid, and the air was forced out of her lungs as her diaphragm contracted, to a ghastly and horrid groan. The girl, so struck, seemed to shatter, her scintillating parts flying back as though blasted back by a bomb, before dissolving away into the ground. The girl who emitted that horrible wail too shook herself apart, unraveling like a poorly knit coat, until there was only one, standing in absolute darkness. One, who tipped straight forward onto her face to the crack of a forehead against rock, and began to convulse wildly, destructively.

And nobody was there to help her. Nobody.

* * *

><p>A thunderbolt heralded the arrival of a spirit, and did so with a smoking crater rather than a mild sooty stain, as she usually would. Instantly, Irukandji's eyes took in what once was the Eastern Air Temple. Now, there wasn't even a mountain there. It had been blasted down past the bedrock, into the layers beneath it. The lowest levels of that place were now open to the naked sky. She waved a hand through the air, feeling the ephemera of this place. It all felt wrong. Like walking through a room a dozen people had vomited in.<p>

She looked down at the empty vault, and with a flick of thought, she was there, again buffeted by the thunderbolt which bore her. "No," Irukandji said, as she looked at the discarded, shredded kavi which lay neatly folded beside the foot of a statue. "Where is she?"

"Whom do you seek, spirit and host?" a placid voice asked. Irukandji swung to it like a wild-woman; that wasn't too far from how it felt at the moment.

"Pathik, you crazy old hermit," Irukandji said, and not kindly. "You were supposed to be teaching Aang about the Avatar State. Epic fail on your part."

"I had a different destiny," Pathik said serenely, as he slowly packed a bit of food into a bindle and bound it shut. "I helped somebody who was otherwise doomed to torment eternal."

Irukandji blinked a few times. "You didn't," it said.

"I did," Pathik said. "I have freed the girl from the horrible spirit which had overtaken her."

Irukandji stared at the old man for a long moment, then let out a scream which echoed in thunder, before storming to the man's face and howling at him. "You idiot! Having Imbalance inside that girl was the best chance _any of us_ had to survive!"

Pathik nodded. "It was."

Irukandji stared at the old man, chest heaving, and decided to get some good old-fashioned catharsis, namely by punching the contrary old bastard's teeth in. Her first strike was every bit as swift as the lightning which was Irukandji's nature, but when it slammed, it wasn't to an old man's head deforming, but rather, as though she'd punched the spiritual equivalent of a cast-iron mountain. She pulled her hand back, and saw that Pathik had warded her blow with only two fingers, held up casually before him.

"But it was not fair," he continued. "The child deserved better. She did not deserve damnation eternal for something which was no fault of her own."

"Are you out of your mind?" Irukandji screamed, flapping a pained hand. "Without it inside her... I don't even know if there's a way that existence can survive! You just doomed _everybody_ alive, dead, and anywhere in any universe to a horrible consumption – including the girl you just 'saved'! How can you _possibly_ justify that?"

"I do not justify myself. I simply did what was right."

"It _wasn't_ right! Right was saving everybody!" Irukandji snapped back.

"No. That was _expedient_. The expedient paths only lead downward, into the oblivion you speak of. It will take more to be free, to be true."

"You're not making any sense," Irukandji said. "_I'm_ supposed to be the crazy one!"

"My destiny was set in motion on the day of my birth. I have fulfilled it, at long last," Pathik said, slinging that spartan bindle over his shoulder. "For the first time, I am free. And that freedom comes with trusting that others will make the right choices. As the child has. As you will."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Irukandji demanded, snapping in front of him.

"Everyone must make sacrifices to a noble end," Pathik said. "Some... greater than others."

"_I_ don't sacrifice," Irukandji scoffed.

"Destiny can be a... funny thing," Pathik said, and began to walk, up and out of the crater. Away from the ruins of the Eastern Air Temple. Irukandji just stared at it, shaking its head slowly. What now? That was the question which repeated and baffled its mind. Lucky that Huuni hadn't the responsibility to come up with a solution, because if Irukandji, who was light-years smarter than her, couldn't, then it was a complete toss-up as to who could.

She stared at at the mountains, but they were silent to her. Imbalance had been here, and the spirits had fled en masse. But there was still that feeling. Of something fundamentally wrong with existence here. Irukandji shivered, not from cold nor nerves. A coward always survived, and Irukandji had long been a coward. With another bolt of lightning, Irukandji disappeared.

Not too soon, either. Because reaching toward her back was a hand, formed whole out of utter blackness, extending to an arm, to a shoulder, to a body like a girl in her late teens. Any who had known Malu would say that the body was hers. But the face... Malu had never such a terrible maw, so shrieking with darkness and terror, nor eyes a glowing and virulent red, pulsing with black striations. There were no words in that mouth. Only hunger. The shadows nearby formed others, identical to the first. They all looked inward, at the multitude which was themselves. A silent understanding, something too strange for mortal minds to comprehend. Then, they all faded back into shadows, winking out of existence one after another, as the Shards of Imbalance began to hunt.

* * *

><p>It should have been obvious that this was a really terrible idea the moment she said it. But then again, Toph Beifong hadn't exactly been well renowned for her abilities of critical thinking. She had barely made it three halls in before she was under siege. But luckily for her, she was the greatest earthbender in the world. When the Dai Li came, she made sure that they broke their teeth – literally in some cases – against stone and brick. And she pressed deeper. She glanced around her, making note that for the immediate moment, there wasn't actively trying to kill her. So she took that moment to slam her palm against a wall, and feel the vibrations pulsing out from her strike.<p>

The wave propagated out, reflecting around the corners and down into the servant's passages in a way which gave her a 'sight' far greater than anybody with working eyes. At least, far greater in a situation like this, where there was never more than a stone's-throw from another corner, another intersection, another ambush. The wave reflected back, showing more of those snaky buggers, but not moving toward her. Away. Oh, that bore inspection.

She started to run again, her short legs making up in intensity what they lost in distance of stride. She got herself enough momentum that when she came to an intersection she knew was awaiting her glorious presence for an ambush, she was able to drop to her knees and lean back, sliding under the barrage which zipped by over her chest and her sightless eyes. She popped back up with a twist, heaving blocks the size of her head at the foremost of each passage's Dai Li, before hitting the ground running, and running hard.

The matter wasn't that she would get flattened in a single fight. She'd fought plenty of earthbenders. No, the problem, such as it was, was that they were grinding her down with simple attrition. Every time an attack came a bit too close, scraped her a little, bludgeoned her a little, that was a pain which built up. Bruises on top of bruises. Yeah, she could take it. The question was how long. She had outpaced her 'scan' at this point, so she could only sense a few dozen yards ahead of herself with every sprinting foot-fall. Thus, when the wall to her left exploded, it managed to catch her off guard.

She rooted her feet, sliding from her momentum, and slammed her fists up, causing a great wall to leap into the path of the Dai Li who tried to ambush her. She then slammed her foot against that wall and sent it back about ten feet, smashing into the man and hurling him back. She tipped her ear to the path behind her. Yup, they were still following. She ground her foot along the ground, feeling just for a moment the vibrations. There was a clear path, but it wasn't an easy one, somewhere not completely choked with green robed antagonism – as if Toph even knew what 'green' was. It was a path through quite a few walls. That got a smirk onto Toph's face.

She turned immediately and ran through the door which was opposite the Dai Li's ambush, and continued running straight forward, even though there was no door to exit in that direction. Thus, she made one. She barreled through the crumbling rubble even before it settled, and sprinted out of the dust which resulted. Another room, this one with the door on the proper side, but locked. So she went through the closed door itself, causing the lock to fall out and clatter to the ground in her passing. She didn't notice the stone fist shrieking toward her, so it knocked her off of her stride as it landed a glancing punch into her ribs. Oh, that wasn't good. She took a hard intake of breath to get her wind back, and then she pushed forward again, ignoring the source of that attack. There wasn't time. She made herself a hole, one she closed in her wake. It'd slow them down only a moment, but moments were the measure of her quest at this point. She'd take what she could get. She kept running, smashing through walls with all of the couth of a drunken demolitionist. She was outpacing her ability to 'see'. But she knew how narrow her window of opportunity was. She had to use it to its utmost.

A younger her would have just fought any Dai Li agents she found. She'd gotten a lesson on how that goes in the interim. She had to save her fighting for when she couldn't get away, for when it would do the most good. She burst through another wall, this time misjudging her advance and tripping over a thick ridge of carpeting. She managed to turn her fall into a roll, but the shag underfoot and underpalm made it impossible to 'see' what was going on. Who in their right mind would lay out a rug in a place like this? She essentially crawled to the edge, and as soon as she found solid stone, she got back to her feet. She then took one step off of that rug before she realized something pretty important.

Namely, that she was completely surrounded. She didn't turn, as she didn't have to, but she knew that there had to be fifty of them around her, before, behind, to each side. The had flared out as she crawled on her hands and knees to a place where she could see. "This has gone on long enough, traitor. Surrender and we will show a degree of mercy," one of them said, standing in a form which spoke nothing else but readiness of action. Toph didn't glance at him, either.

"We both know how much a degree of mercy is with you guys," she said sarcastically.

"Are you going to resist?" the Dai Li asked. Toph frowned for a moment, then remembered something. She reached into her pants' back pocket, and dug out a squishy feeling sliver. She squeezed it between her fingers a few times, before tucking it behind her ear.

"Buddy, I haven't _begun_ to resist," she said, cracking her knuckles, as she felt her sphere of perception swiftly tighten in. It was a matter of dodging by ear to sweep up a tilting flagstone and block the stone-gloves which tried to catch and assail her. She moved through the melee, honestly, kinda like Twinkletoes did. She was very glad that nobody was around to see her fighting like some fluff-brained airbender, but at the moment, that was what she had. So she slipped through their attacks, breaking those that she couldn't. Shoes and gloves exploded to shards and dust against her fists, against her elbows. Against her feet. That was the one which smarted the most. It was like being poked in the eye, she figured. Her sphere of 'sight' continued to pull in, and the attackers got closer and closer, now lashing out with the prospector's chains, trying to snag and upend her. She let them lock around her wrists, but when the Dai Li tried to heave back, they only pulled back a chunk of metal roughly two feet past their sleeves. The rest belonged to Toph. She quickly twirled the chains, three upon each arm, and used her bending, her _metal_bending, to fuse them into a heavy stick. All the better to beat an idiot with.

She was slogging forward, and slammed the metal rod in her hand into the face of a Dai Li agent, who was starting to flail a bit at random. The attacks, screaming through the wind, ceased. And the voices of the agents began to rise up, first in alarm, then in panic.

"What's going on? How'd it get so dark?"

"Where is she? I lost track of her!"

"She's there!" one shouted, before launching an attack which smashed one of his compatriots to the ground. "I think I got her!"

"That was me! Are you blind or something?"

"Oh gods. Oh gods I'm blind!" another shouted. Toph's sphere of sight was only about six paces ahead of her, but she didn't run, at this point. She walked. Calmly. Carefully. And every time a man in robes entered her 'sight', she hit him with a rod of metal. The alarm and fear from the agents around her melded into a single din of combat, as she carefully cut her way through the middle of them all. They launched attacks, almost all of which came nowhere near her. She just walked.

As she walked, turning a corner and beginning her way down a corridor, her vision started to expand out again, something she hadn't really expected, but wasn't about to complain about. At first, it was about as feeble as her very first tremorsight had been. Only able to see the stationary and the substantial. But as she moved, swatting Dai Li who got in her way to the ground as she went, it became more refined. Motion. Ahead, she knew that she was in the clear, and not far beyond that would be where she caught wind of whomever else the Dai Li were mobilizing against. She had a fair idea of who. But there was still one Dai Li in her way.

She tried to skirt him, but somehow, he managed to blindly but luckily grab Toph by the shoulder, and heave her against a wall. The impact of it cracked stars into Toph's vision but she shook her head. The Dai Li didn't take chances, opting to raise up a slab of floor to crush her with. Once again, it'd have been a better plan had he not been facing the greatest earthbender in the world. So when that block lurched toward her, she simply set her feet, crossed her arms before her chest, and let the stone burst against her. "Nice try, numbnuts!" she laughed, before almost casually knocking the black and gold hat off of his head with a flick of her rod at his temple. She tapped the floor near where the Dai Li was moaning, but found she couldn't quite get the resolution she needed. She needed to see far. "Well, it was fun while it lasted. Eh, buddy?" she asked, glancing toward the moaning Dai Li agent. When she did, she felt... odd.

Was... that _green_?

She shook her head, and pulled the sliver from behind her ear. Must have been just her brain acting up after meeting the wall too hard. Blind people couldn't see colors, of course. That was just preposterous. She slipped the sliver into her pocket, and the wave of her earthbending again reached far, showing not only the back of the force of enemy earthbenders advancing away from her... but also the rubble still settling of another Earth Bender fighting them.

"Well, if it ain't the Mountain King," she said as she chucked the rods away so they wouldn't weigh her down, and started running once more. After all, somebody had to pull those old fools out of the proverbial fire, right?

* * *

><p>Katara continued to limp on her wounded ankle, trying to keep weight off of it with every step. They'd cast her down into the dimness of this cavern, sealing the way back up behind them; she had no intention of being anywhere for them to find. So she hobbled away, leaning against the wall and moving where the cave would take her.<p>

There was mercy in that she wasn't blind. The crystals down here gave a mild glow of green light. It was similar, if stronger, than the glow which had brought she, her family, and a crazy broken firebender out of the caves under the mountain. She half wondered if there was some connection, this place to that. But at the moment, she just kept hobbling. Usually, it was a terrible idea to get oneself lost in a cave, but usually, those kinds of people didn't have a Toph. She glanced behind her, listening quietly, holding her breath even so that there would be no sounds but those which were cast toward her. Nothing.

With a mild groan, she slid down the wall a bit, curling her wounded leg up onto a rounded bit of crystal, and carefully prodded at the swollen ankle. Painful, definitely, but from the feeling of it, not broken. Slim comfort. She just sat there a moment, taking the time to sweep the flop-sweat which poured off of her brow and using it to start to heal the tenderness of her extremity. That was a skill she was glad she discovered; they may have taken away her flask and much of her water, but as long as she had blood, she was not disarmed. The swelling decreased as she worked the faintly glowing sweat over her foot, until it wasn't a stabbing pain so much as a dull ache. That would have to do. She was something of an expert at triage, at this point; the Spikerim had taught her as much. Now, that she could stand without leaning, walk without hobbling, she needed to keep moving.

"Toph, you better be looking for me," Katara said quietly, before considering what to do with the sweat she'd accrued. She didn't have anything to store it in, after all. She sighed, and just compressed it into salty ice, bringing it with her. No use wasting what might be a finite resource, after all. She walked, slowly at first, but picking up her pace as she saw a place which was partially collapsed, a space barely a foot and a half across between a crystal and the wall, before it narrowed all the further. But she knew she could fit through it. Barely. She took a few breaths, then exhaled deeply, forcing herself sideways through that very narrow gap, if painfully, before coming loose on the other side. It wouldn't slow down something like a Dai Li agent long, but if they didn't know they had to go past it... She reached up and jumped to a rock which jutted out of the crumbling shale and put her whole weight onto it. There was first a grinding, then a more ominous crack, which Katara took as her cue to let go and back away. A few seconds after she did, there was another crack, and that rock she'd held to shifted out of its place in the ceiling, dropping against the glowing crystal and sealing her way back. "That should keep them guessing, at least for a little while."

She turned, and let the illumination guide her way. As she went, she frowned lightly, and shook her head. "I can't believe Qujeck was _right_!" she said. She threw up her hands and scoffed. "And why am I not surprised? I should have known Long Feng would be all sneaky-snake on us! Ugh, I am such a _moron_!"

She shook her head, and pushed the hair away from her face. At some point in either their hauling or their unceremonious dumping they'd torn off the ribbon keeping her hair braided, so now it just lay in a wavy heap down her back. She had half a notion to pull a string and tie it back. Only half, though; she needed to keep moving. The area ahead was darker, though. That wouldn't stop her. It just meant there were less crystals lighting it up. In fact, that might work to her benefit. With a resolute smirk on her face, she moved forward into the darkness.

Things had gone so wrong, so fast. She hoped that Aang was coming. But in a way, she hoped he wasn't. Mostly because she was fairly certain that she was the bait for a trap set for him. Aang saw her as a sister, and she knew from experience that Aang'd do anything for family. She slowed her movement as the light died out entirely, and began to edge her way forward, questing with her hands and her toes. Lucky that she had, or she'd have missed the corner and walked straight into a wall. Even so, as she advanced, her toe got stubbed at least a dozen times, cracking into stones unseen on the ground. She glanced up and back, and could see only the faintest outlines of green behind her, and nothing at all ahead. "Huh. I wonder why this part's so dark when everywhere else is so bright?"

She kept moving, trying to find a center to that darkness. She had exactly one handful of water to work with, and she knew that it meant she'd need to have ambush at her side. She kept carefully picking her way forward, but once again, her toe caught on something as she pushed it forward. But unlike the innumerable other rocks her battered tootsies had located, this one had a degree of give, and let out a grunt when it impacted.

Katara stumbled back, until her back thudded against something. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see you there... for obvious reasons."

She could hear breathing in that darkness, breathing growing faster, but nothing but that. No, wait. A scraping of somebody dragging himself across the dirt. She pushed away from the wall, and saw an outline in green, before glancing back. Her hand was covered in oily soot, which she'd rubbed off of a crystal. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the ball of ice. "I'm going to brighten things up a bit. Don't be afraid, whoever you are."

She spread that ice out into her palm and used it to wipe the soot from the crystal, and with each swipe, more light spilled into the room they stood in. Why soot, though? Why would this place have fires and nowhere else? Unless something had been burned here, potentially a long time ago... She didn't have time to worry about those sorts of things. She cleared off the relevant half of a crystal, and recompressed her ice ball. This time, though, it was as black as a coal. Whoever got this thing in the head was going to regret it for days. "Alright, now let's get a good look at..." Katara said, turning to whomever shared this room with her.

She trailed off at what she saw.

"What."

The other occupant in the room was quite familiar to Katara, but not like this. Her clothes, merely a green undershirt and a black vest, and torn white hosery, were all filthy and ragged, as though they'd been ground against stone. Her hands were raw and her fingers bloody, her knees abraded. Dry blood marked by a stain a spot around her lips, and her eyes were so far beyond bloodshot that one of them was entirely red... around a golden iris.

"Azula?" Katara asked, so shocked, so horrified that she actually didn't have enough emotional cognizance left over to be angry. No, wait, there it was. Shock didn't last long, after all. Katara crossed her arms before her chest with a smug look on her face. "Well, I guess you finally got what was coming to you, didn't you?"

The firebender slowly, unsteadily, raised her gaze from the boots to the face, and when she did, she seemed to recoil. Katara smirked all the harder.

"Not so tough now, are you?" Katara asked.

Azula answered by screaming. Katara took a step back, mostly because that scream wasn't hatred or blood-lust. It was abject and animal terror. Azula scooted away, until she was on the very edge of the blackness once again, before pulling her legs close to her chest and huddling against them. Katara blinked a few times, mostly because she needed a few seconds for her brain to recognize that, indeed, that had just happened.

"No. Not real. Not real. She wouldn't be real. She can't hurt me. She's not real," the firebender muttered, but oddly, without any of the accent which had mushed and mangled every other pronouncement of hate and murder that she'd ever given. Katara frowned in bemusement, before taking a step toward Azula. Azula let out a squawk and retreated a bit more, squirming back.

"What are you trying to pull?" Katara demanded.

"She's not really here. She can't hurt me. If I can't see her, she's not really there. Not listening. She can't say anything to me. She can't hurt me anymore..." the firebender continued, a mantra of madness.

"Oh, I get it," Katara said. "This is some little scheme of yours to get your hands on Aang. You..."

"NO! Keep him away! He took my soul! Tore it right out!" Azula howled. But then, she shook her head. "No... No I still have my soul. That didn't happen. It happened to the Old Woman, not to me. I still have my soul. He didn't take it from me. I was already dead."

"I don't believe this little play of yours," Katara said, tapping her foot. "You're just waiting for the right moment to strike. I know that. Clear as polar ice."

"She can't hurt me. I can't hear her. She's not talking to me," Azula litanied, her eyes hard on the ground. "She can't kill me again."

"Kill you _again_?" Katara asked. She shook her head. "You're not fooling me, Azula. Do you think I'm just going to do whatever you want because you play up the sympathy card? Well, you're wrong! I know what you'd do to us if you had your way! You'd do like you did in Summavut, send my people scattering to the winds!"

"I... no. She's not here. It didn't happen. Zhao died in the North. The North Stands. She's _lying_ to me," and then, a brief sob, before a wracking breath. "Don't cry, you _stupid girl_! You're _better_ than that! You're supposed to be _perfect_!"

Katara leaned back, her hands out and to her sides. "Tui La... you're not playing are you. You're really this crazy."

"I'm... I'm not perfect? _Why_ couldn't I be perfect? Why did they leave me? Why did they _abandon_ me?" she asked, sobbing more with each question. Then a growl. "No. They're gone. Mai is dead. Ty Lee is dead. And I am... why am I not dead? She _killed_ me. Killed me under Sozin's Comet. I remember dying... Why am I not dead? I don't understand..."

"W...who killed you?" Katara asked, leaning down toward her. Golden eyes flicked up toward her, and she spat what Katara was fairly sure was blood onto the stone.

"_She_ did. The Avatar's _whore_. No, not that one. The Avatar's... I don't know what _she_ was to _her_. She did it, since my brother couldn't."

"Zuko tried to kill you?" Katara asked. That didn't sound like Zuko at all. Tui La, Zuko practically worshiped the ground Azula walked on. Trying to hurt her at all just didn't sound right. And then, Katara started to put the pieces together, and the shape they took surprised her. "Wait a second. Killed you under Sozin's Comet? That's not for another three months!"

"It's already happened. I... Years? I don't understand. I was dead, and then there was a girl, and Mother, and Zuzu, and..." she shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. It's not right. That _isn't good enough_!"

Katara thought about that for a long moment. "Azula... how many of _you_ are there?" she asked, carefully.

"So loud. They won't stop _screaming_ at each other," she said, her fists pressing into the sides of her head. "Quiet please! _Make it stop_!"

* * *

><p>"We're lost, aren't we, Aang?" Sokka asked in the relative darkness.<p>

"No, I'm just not sure exactly where I am," Aang said. Nila let out a growl at his back.

"I should have taken my chances with the Dai Li," she muttered. Then, there was a pause, as she glanced toward her brother who ambled essentially helplessly forward. "...if certain factors had not intervened."

"I've gotta give Aang my support on this one," Sokka said. "I can deal with one, two if I'm lucky. But twenty? That's just a death-wish."

"So we are consigned to wandering fruitlessly the sewers under the Royal Palace," she said. "Have you not even bothered to mark your passage?"

"With what?" Aang asked.

"With what, asks the earthbender," Nila said caustically. Oh.

"Well, it's all kinda moot, as I still don't know where to even start looking," he said.

"Katara's probably in some place they can keep an eye on her," Sokka said, taking a moment to lean on the wall of the sewer and rub his chin. He wasn't happy going through sewage, but then again, who in their right mind would have been? Only Sharif, who was without smell or taste, was immune to the funk. Who knew that rich people could be so smelly?

"We are looking for somebody?" Sharif asked, blinking slowly. All turned to him, but he was at this moment staring through Aang's head. "Why didn't you just find him? Her? It?"

"A task more easily said than done, brother," Nila pointed out.

"You know Form. Use it. Find what you seek," Sharif stressed. Sokka gave a glance toward Aang, and gave a shrug of bewilderment.

"Would... would that work?" Aang asked.

"All is one. You know where she is. You just haven't seen it," Sharif offered with a shrug.

Nila glanced between Aang and Sokka. "I assume this makes some form of sense to you?"

"It kinda does," Aang said. He ushered Sokka aside, so he had room to actually squat down on the pavers which lay just above the level of the effluence. His legs tucked under him, he pressed his fists together, joining arrows at the knuckles and pressed his eyes closed. Form was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, in terms of spirits. It was like a drawing on a piece of paper suddenly realizing that there was a world of depth, as well as height and width, and trying to see into a place its eyes had never been intended for. Somehow, Aang had done it. Sharif had done it. Others had done it before him. Others would do it after him. So he first opened the World Eyes, and then, opened them further.

A flash of green light. A crone, a child, and a traumatized wreck, somehow all the same person, tearing herself apart.

Freedom, a gust of wind, bearing a body upward which once feared eternity on the ground.

Rage, inconsolable, as the tsunami swept through stone and flesh with equal apathy.

Confusion, as a child tried to deny herself, even as she struggled to hold onto what she was.

This wasn't getting Aang what he wanted. He needed to see finer, with more resolution. He needed to know what was going on beyond the symbols. He needed Form. He needed the meaning. He took in a deep breath, and forced it out slowly, and as he did, there was a tingling throughout his body, as a power seeped into his being, one he neither truly understood nor currently controlled.

As he focused, symbols became clearer. Faces became distinct. First, he thought he saw exactly what he needed to. He saw Katara's face... only for some reason he knew in his soul, it wasn't her. The hair was wrong – no loopies – and Aang strongly doubted that Katara would ever look that murderous. Nor so conflicted. A glance back. A glance forward. And then, the not-Katara forged ahead, vanishing into shadows.

He recognized the tsunami, taking a hateful delight in the brutality he visited on the vague green shapes which flitted into the edge of the vision. A Tribesman with no home, who had given up his family in exchange for revenge. But he wasn't alone. There was a lifeline, holding him back. A hook of steel.

The next confused him. A scape of sky, with a figure soaring through it. Red wings, and an orange body. Not a bird, though. Was this some sort of image of his future? No. He somehow just felt that this was right now. So it had to mean something beyond the obvious, because the only airbender besides Aang was a crazy cannibal lady.

Then, the last. First, a girl, golden eyed, gouging at the face of a grey-haired, hardbitten woman with her long fingernails. The woman held the girl just out of reach, her rough hands squeezing the girl's neck shut. Standing between both, hands clutched with murderous intent onto either throat was... Azula... but not an Azula that Aang knew. This was was thinner. Less strong and muscular. And her eyes didn't look right. She was screaming. Aang could hear her words. Quiet. Please. Make it stop.

All three were her. He didn't know how, but all three of them were Azula. He focused his attention in, onto that last vision, and demanded more. The three became one, who was... huddled on the floor in a place so dark that it only shone with a faint green light. And another was near her. The power, the pain in Aang's head began to ramp as he forced himself to look even closer, to see what she could see, to feel the connection between all things and _know_.

Aang's eyes slammed open, and a faint white light faded away around him. "I know where Katara is," he said, managing to substitute 'Azula' for 'Katara' at the last possible instant, although both were accurate since both were in the same place.

"What? Really?" Nila asked, skeptical.

"It's Avatar-shenanigans. You get used to it," Sokka waved her questions away. "Where is she, Aang?"

"Down. Far down," Aang said, as he spun and slammed a hole into the side of the sewer, one which began to descend steeply. "Down in the bones of the first city of Ba Sing Se, buried under layers of city stretching back five thousand years."

"Five thousand years? That is before even the Monolith," Nila said. Aang nodded earnestly, and sparked a light above his hand as he descended. Nila raised a brow. "I am lesser a student of history; was there a city those milliennia ago?"

"Yup," Sokka said. "Although it belonged to weird looking folk who made a point of getting _really_ frickin' angry all the time."

"And you know this..."

"Because I'm how _Doctor_ Toph Beifong knows about the Wiqing," Sokka said with a bit of pride.

"...so why is she the doctor and not you?"

Sokka deflated a bit at that. "You know, that's a good question!"

"Down is a dangerous direction," Sharif said. "It is... dark down there."

"You are old enough that you need not fear the dark. Come, Sharif!" Nila chastized, and dragged her brother down into the hole which Aang was preparing to extend. They had far to go. And honestly, Aang wasn't sure what exactly he'd find when he got there.

* * *

><p>"Come on, get up!" Bato shouted, as he scooped Piandao up from where he'd stumbled, his teeth grit in pain. Both looked battered and bloodied, as the Dai Li knew who the most important targets were. "Sati, is the Earth King still... here?"<p>

Sativa took a few moments to catch her breath, not something she needed to do frequently, and took stock of her situation. Whatever brainwashing that Joo Dee had been under fatefully hadn't triggered again, and for that reason alone did they bear her presence. That, and the understandable wrath of an impressively and impossibly powerful young earthbender. She didn't look well, and didn't say much once the fighting started. The Earth King was still in their grasp, but with her own quiver empty and nothing but knives in her hands, they lacked range. With the Mountain King starting to finally show his wounds as well, they would soon lose defense as well. And Sati honestly didn't have a plan for what to do from this point. Everything she had was improvisation, spur of the moment actions to prevent a complete and instantaneous catastrophe.

"He is here," Sati said. "Zha Yu. A moment. I need counsel."

Zha Yu, of all of them, looked the most beaten, and conversely, the most ready. If there was a single spot on his body not either playing host to a bruise, a laceration, or a hard stone scrape, then she was a Tribesman and her children were heirs to Summavut. But even as he fought to keep his wind, and tried to rotate some mobility and sensation into aching arms, he had a look of resolution to him. He wouldn't be the first to fall, that much was clear. "What is it?"

"What now?" she asked simply. Zha Yu raised a brow, then shrugged. He wasn't about to make a joke in a time like this.

"And I thought you'd rather die than accept the advice of somebody with testicles," he said with a chuckle. Never mind that, he obviously still was able to make a joke at a time like this. He shook his head at her death glare. "Getting Kuei out is our priority, but we need to find a way to get as much of the Council of Five out as well. Don't leave Long Feng with anything."

"We can assume that Jong-Uu, Qing, and Fong are firmly in Long Feng's clutches," Sati said, motioning others to follow her. Zha Yu gave Kuei a mild shove, and the squirrelly, immature man meekly obeyed. "That leaves How and Sung."

"Leave Sung," Zha Yu shook his head. "He's a useless tactician and strategist."

"On the contrary," Sati said, shaking her head. "He is a logistical genius. That man could land an army upon the face of the moon, and somehow find a way to give them two hearty meals and a warm blanket each day. If we fight an international war, we shall need that."

Zha Yu gave a hesitant nod. "You might have a point."

"Of course I do. If I know one thing well, it is war," Sativa pointed out.

"Wait!" Kuei said, freezing still and causing Zha Yu to walk into him. "What about Bosco?"

"Your pet? He is of no great consequence," Sativa said dryly.

"I'm not going anywhere without Bosco!" Kuei said, folding his arms petulantly before him. Sativa stared at this contrary man, and sighed, rubbing her brow with tattooed hands.

"You do realize that if we side-track, even so far as to find your pet on our first attempt, we make it effortless for Long Feng's men to capture us?" she asked. Kuei, though, was as adamant as somebody who looked like he did could be. She ground her teeth, and thrust a finger toward him. "Stay here. Piandao?"

"I couldn't say," the faltering swordsman admitted. "It is conceivably possible to reach where Kuei's pet would be... but we'd have no exit strategy."

"We _currently_ have no exit strategy," Bato pointed out, limbering one arm which'd had to be popped back into its socket fairly recently. He did so tentatively and gingerly, even as Joo Dee now supported Piandao's slumped form with his handless arm over her shoulders.

"What about the Avatar? Could his bison not bear us up?"

"With a _bear_ on its back?" Piandao asked with a pained laugh. He shook his head. "It doesn't matter how well, the young man has tamed it, nothing is domestic enough to let a bear ride it over the horizon."

"I... might have a way out," Zha Yu said. All turned to him, and he pulled an orb out of his jacket. It was black and white, stripes drifting lazily across its surface. "It'll be a tight fit, but this will recycle in the next hour or so. Rough trip, and we might not land where we want to, but we'll be far away from here. That's what matters in this case."

"You are mad," Piandao said. "That thing almost killed Llewenydd!"

"It only does that one time in a hundred, and if you're fast enough, you can get out of the way," Zha Yu said. He shrugged. "Its our only way out, period."

The Dragon of the East nodded. "Very well. The Avatar is safely out of Long Feng's clutches. It is time to be bold. You shall have your pet, but thereafter, you will swiftly find yourself in exile, far away from your splendors. Do you understand this?"

"I... I guess so," Kuei said haltingly.

"There is no guessing, Earth King. You either understand, or you do not. You will be as a peasant, a stateless man amongst the East. You will have but the clothes on your back, and that which others deign give you. Do. You. Understand?"

Kuei couldn't answer with words, so opted to simply nod. She nodded as well, and then pointed up. "Zha Yu, it is time to do something insane. If you would indulge me?"

"I most certainly would," Zha Yu said, and then, he gathered them all close together, before bearing them upward, through the floors of the Royal Palace atop a pillar of stone.

A little more than a minute later, a dirty and angry blind girl came to a skidding halt, before slamming a palm into that same pillar. "Oh, you crazy old bastard," Toph Beifong said, a smirk nevertheless coming to her mouth. "Ready or not, here comes the Toph!"

And then, she was borne upward as well.

* * *

><p>"Is this beast supposed to be flying like <em>this<em>?" How shouted from where he clung desperately to the bison's pelt. Zuko didn't dare flick a glance back to him, because it took every whit of his effort to keep the creature from bolting out of his control.

"You're asking the wrong person," Zuko snapped over his shoulder, "but I'm guessing, no!"

Zuko couldn't be blamed for this, of course. While Aang had told him to get How out of harm's reach, even several hundred yards in the air was a reasonable assumption of 'out of harm's reach'. It wasn't like he was facing down against Storm Kings or firebenders; earthbenders were slaves to the dirt. It was for that reason that the black streaks shooting up toward them were such a surprise.

"We seem to be losing altitude," How shouted forward.

"I'm aware!" Zuko shouted back, even as he sawed on the reins and tried to dodge between those black streaks. The bison might have been a resilient and implacable brute, but like anything large, a sufficient number of bug-bites could kill it. And each 'bug-bite' in this case, was a stone glove, compacted into the beast's shaggy hair like a mat of mange. Each a bit more weight, slowing the beast down a bit more, so more gloves could catch hold, and slow it down all the further.

"The ground's coming up fairly fast!" How said, alarm clear in his voice.

"You're not helping," Zuko snapped over his shoulder, even as he dodged the occasional boulders which were launched to try to intercept the bison in its path. He heaved back on the reins, but the bison didn't pull up. Probably because, at this point, it couldn't. Zuko glanced aside. "If I'm very lucky – and I tend to be – I might be able to get you near the Middle Ring at this rate."

"As long as I'm in Ba Sing Se, I might as well be a dead-man," How shouted against wind. "What's your other plan?"

Zuko shrugged uncomfortably, the reins biting into his palms. "I'm still working on that," he said, quietly enough that the old general couldn't hear him. Another barrage of black, this time plowed through because the bison became more sluggish with each attack. Zuko muttered various angry things at the incoming projectiles, and then hoped that his luck was on the upswing right now. Because he'd need it. He stood on the beast's brow, hooking the reins 'round one of his calves, and then began to blast out with bolts of fire, golden and swift, a counter-barrage smashing through the gloves as they approached. He blasted down first a dozen, then a score. It would have been impressive, had there not been a hundred streaking upward. One of them slammed shut around his sleeve, its momentum carrying him backward despite his swordsman's balance, and a second latching onto his ankle dumped him onto his back. And without a level or stable surface, that meant he started to slide.

He'd only made it two feet before the reins arrested him, but it left him dangling just beside the bison's eye, and he couldn't reach his boot to pull himself up. The bison let out a bellow, which to Zuko's desperate ears was a warning, and then started to rotate. First slowly, then with adding speed until Zuko had something to grab onto – Appa's black lips – and force himself around and back into place. "I guess I owe you for that one," he said on his way back 'twixt the horns. He shot a glance back. The white fur of the bison was slowly vanishing, under weight upon weight of dark stone, locked into place. If Zuko didn't care about Appa's long-term condition, he could just blast the stone pods off, but... that would probably cripple it. And the weight was only increasing.

"You almost threw me off of this monster!" How shouted forward.

"You're welcome," Zuko snapped, before taking the reins back in hand. He looked around, and could see nothing but buildings, and a quick estimation of drop over distance told him that there was no way but down. And he couldn't leave the others behind. Not after he'd gone this far. Without the Avatar, Ozai would be on the Burning Throne forever... or long enough to do irreparable harm. Without the Avatar, there was no way to make his homeland safe for his sister.

And to be honest, it just didn't feel _right_, leaving the others behind like that.

"We're going down. What's a defensible courtyard?" Zuko shouted. How frowned for a moment, but then pointed, to one which was at the heart of a somewhat spartan looking structure. Likely the Royal Garrison. Zuko pulled the reins over, but the bison resisted him. "You're going to have to trust me on this one, bison," Zuko muttered under his breath. And the bison answered with a bellow. Or at least, a naïve part of Zuko's mind ascribed that bellow as an answer. Appa then began to turn, even as its toes smashed through the highest adornments of the outer buildings, knocking over statues and dropping grotesques and waterspouts to clang or shatter against the courtyard as their material demanded. The beast spread its legs out wide, but even so, when it hit the ground, it did so at a slide which sent ornate mosaics flying out of their seat.

"Why did we land?" How asked, as he slid off of the beast's back.

"I thought it'd be obvious," Zuko cast a thumb at the coat of Appa, which was now almost salt-and-pepper for the hanging adornments weighing it down. "Seal this place up. I need to let the Avatar know I'm h–"

Zuko was cut off when something struck him in the back of the head. He was thrown from his feet, and the impact sent him hard onto his face on those mosaiced cobbles. He slowly pushed himself up, rubbing the back of his head, and feeling the sting, there. Yes, as expected, something hit him hard enough to split his scalp. Luckily, it wouldn't ruin this shirt. Red didn't show blood very well.

"Prince Zuko! Look out!" How shouted. Zuko glanced from the general to where he was facing, and saw that there were a pair of Dai Li sliding down the roofs and landing with soft patters. One of them launched chains at How, but this time, the General only allowed one to catch him. The other, hurled another glove at Zuko.

Zuko kipped straight up, allowing the glove to pass just underneath him, and then rolled aside. There was no time to be bleary. He had to send the signal, that he'd agreed on. But to do that, he'd need a few seconds more than these green robed ghosts were going to allow him. He looked ahead of him, and saw his swords where they'd been dropped. No point in leaving those down there. Zuko punched forward with bolts of fire, but the Dai Li had that well in hand, raising blocks to shield himself, before sending those same blocks in attack toward Zuko. He quickly found himself pressed onto the defense, as the overwhelming offense of the clear-headed Dai Li agent trumped the slightly concussed cognition of a defensive firebender. He needed an edge. Both figuratively and literally.

Zuko fought his way forward, using the Dai Li's attacks to give him gaps for advancement. Just a few more feet. He didn't even pay attention to the insane earthbending duel between the general and the Dai Li agent, both of whom were on different sides of the same chain. He had to focus on his own problems. Zuko swept low, a sweeping kick which sent a rippling wave of fire at the Dai Li's feet, and then twisted his entire body around a second time to level a second right on the heels of the first, but noticeably higher. The effect intended was that the Dai Li would bound to avoid the first, and be perfectly placed for the second. Only the Dai Li had better reactions than that, and twisted mid-air, passing above one and below the other. But he'd been thrown off of his balance, just for a moment. A moment Zuko used. He hurled himself to the blades, very near the still recovering Dai Li, and slammed his fingers around the double hilts, and pulled up.

Only to have a boot slam down onto the scabbard, an instant before he could draw. Zuko glanced up, but didn't have any limb in the right position to bend flame. The Dai Li twisted his arm back, and then began to thrust forward, a stone glove preparing to fly down and smash in the Fire Nation Prince's face. Only it didn't, because of a different streak zooming through the air. This one, white.

With a screaming and chattering that Zuko honestly didn't think that he'd have to endure again before the whole 'boy in the iceberg' business, a lemur shot down out of the heavens and attached itself to the Dai Li agent's face, pounding, scratching, pulling, and generally being an overwhelming distraction of an animal. The Dai Li took a step back, and Zuko turned his attention to the other. Two grown men, tied together, and lashing at each other with earthbending at essentially zero range. Zuko glanced to the one which was now wheeling, trying to claw Momo off of his face, and deftly pulled his blades, letting the motion clock the man in the back of the neck with the pommels, dropping the man to his knees, before Zuko's boot to the back of his head finished things, leaving a somewhat irate looking lemur flapping about, and a Dai Li agent with a scratched and bruised face and a broken conical hat.

"Go do that again for him," Zuko ordered the Lemur. It stared at him, flapping itself in place and chattering insensibly. Unlike with Appa, Zuko felt no inclination to believe that the lemur was understanding what he was saying. Zuko rolled his eyes, and then ran behind the Dai Li, the stiff scabbard in his other hand with the twin blades in his right, and clouted the man in the ear with the blunter of the two objects. That gave How plenty of time to loop the chain around the Dai Li agent's head and choke him right out.

"Now what?" How asked, as he heaved on the chain.

Zuko took a breath, trying to screw his focus to the sticking place and shake off the stars in his vision. He had to do this right. And more importantly, somebody had to be listening. He twisted his blades and his arms with them through a familiar mudra, but as they did, the blades began to hum, as though there were some life and song to them. But that was only because of a side effect of his bending. They hummed louder, a sound quite unlike any otherwise heard in the world, until the energy that he'd torn apart inside himself came crashing back together, and he thrust a sword straight up. A bolt of lightning, crisp and utterly out of place, shot straight into the sky. "And if they didn't hear that. We do it over and over until somebody does.

"I could just clear the bison," How said, still struggling with the resilient Dai Li agent. Zuko shook his head. The bison was battered and beaten. It panted as though it had just flown half-way around the world, and its posture was listing and its eyes, glassy.

"Won't help," Zuko said. "It's on the Avatar, now."

* * *

><p>Iroh halted, turning toward a window, which caused Hakoda to falter as well. "What is it?" the Tribesman asked, looking around in alarm. Their disguises had, for the moment, held, so they weren't accosted as they swept the Palace, looking for his niece and the other man's daughter, but that was little help. The Palace was every bit as large as Iroh had imagined it. That was working against him.<p>

"Zuko has given his signal," Iroh said.

"What signal?" Hakoda asked.

"One he agreed he would only use in utmost peril. He is trapped, and in danger," Iroh said. He glanced to the hall ahead of him, then back to Hakoda. "I am sorry, but I have to help my nephew. I cannot divide myself against my family, and my _nephew_, at least, is in that direction."

Hakoda seemed to have something on his tongue, but he held it in. He shook his head for a moment, but finally gave a nod. "I understand. Go. I'll find Hikaoh."

"Just be prepared," Iroh warned. "You have seen what has become of her, and regaining it... might break your heart completely."

"That's a price I'm willing to pay," Hakoda said.

"So often said, before the bill comes due," Iroh muttered with a shake of his head. He patted the Tribesman on the arm. "Good luck, and swift passage. I fear you will need both."

* * *

><p>"Are you sure this is the right way, Jet?" Smellerbee asked, and not for the fifth time.<p>

"I'm telling you, this is the way that the guy kept coming from," Jet answered.

"That leaves a lot of ground," Bug answered.

"Don't split up. It'd be suicide," the waterbender pointed out. "We'll either find him or we won't, but if we stay here much longer, we're going to face a lot more Dai Li than we've been seeing so far."

"What makes you think that?" Jet asked.

"Because these ones are just the Dai Li that haunt the Middle and Upper Rings. The plain-clothes agents match their number _combined_, and would be coming in from the Lower Ring by now," Qujeck pointed out.

Jet did a bit of math in his head, and when that failed, he gave a querulous shrug to the others with him. Longshot's look simply said 'a lot'. Mai nodded at that assessment, and added her own. "More than a lot."

"Yeesh. Could be a problem," Jet said mildly. But even as his next flippant remark was being born on his tongue, it promptly died and was replaced by an expression of utmost solemnity, his eyes flashing hard and sharp like chert as he waved a hand to cause the others to halt or else get a sword through their shirt. The others looked at his back, and waited. "We're not alone."

"News, that is not," Qujeck muttered, but quietly.

Jet ignored the Tribesman and edged his way toward a threshold which lead from one ward of the Earth King's Palace to another, demarcated mostly by shifts of decoration. He waited, and he listened. He could hear the whisper grinding of stone being dragged along stone, but lightly, and he started to send his eyes through the fluted columns which made up the atrium amidst these wards. Every pillar held statues, or plinths with ancient relics. A larcenous part of Jet wanted to have a run through of this place before he left, but that part of him was slapped thoroughly down by the part of him which fancied himself a patriot. If he was going to steal from his own people, then he'd might as well be one of Ozai's brutes.

He couldn't see him. Jet knew that there was a Dai Li agent up there. While he didn't doubt that if there were only one – itself not a sure bet – they could take him, ambush could swing things pretty starkly, and very quickly. They were using the tactics Jet favored. Hit and fade, never stay still, and never fight when the opponent is dug in. That sort of fighting had worn them all down, since that so-called execution. They were starting to slow down. Even the young only had so much stamina, after all. Jet cast a glance back to Longshot, and the quiet archer caught his silent meaning, stalking forward on gum-soled shoes, silent on the stone. He didn't even look. He just slowly turned his head, left to right, and back again, as he with great deliberation pulled an arrow from the quiver at his hip. The one at his shoulder was long empty.

Longshot's sweeping halted, and his thick brows drew down, in focus. Then, he turned to face in one particular direction. He leaned a bit back and to the side, and nodded. Then, in a smooth and single motion, he brought up the bow, drew back the arrow, and let fly, a snap of bowstring and the hiss of fletchings sounding across the room, until there was a clack as it hit one of the pillars. Jet gave Longshot an alarmed glance, as it wasn't like Longshot to miss, but the archer just flicked him a glance. 'Wait for it'. The next sound to be heard was a meaty thwack as the deflected arrrow slammed into something, followed by a clipped but not-completely-stifled shout of pain, followed by a cry of alarm, followed by an impact of body against floor. 'You can say it'.

"That was a hell of a shot, Longshot," Jet said, and he nodded into the room again. Longshot shok his head, clearly 'I didn't hear anybody else. If there are, they're good at hiding'. Then, Jet led them all forward once again.

"You know your sniper well," Qujeck said.

"Yeah, he's a real chatty one," Jet said with a chuckle, as he pressed forward into the pillars. Whoever decided that this would be the architectural theme of the Royal Palace should have been dragged into the streets and beaten with dead elephant rats. All that it did was make it incredibly easy for people to ambush folk. He passed the Dai Li agent, who was clutching at his leg, where the arrow had neatly punched through his kneecap. Jet knew from experience just how much that hurt, so the fact that he wasn't moaning in pain was a bit remarkable. The agent's eyes shot wide, and he pulled stone out of the column behind him, to hurl it in brick form at Jet, but even as he was trying to haul it out, a lash whipped around he and the pillar both, binding his arm up by his head and his other down at his side. Bug then leaned around the pillar, scowling lightly.

"One of these days, you're gonna do that and somebody's gonna waste you," his resident master weaponizer of all things ropey pointed out sourly.

"Never gonna happen," Jet said. He clucked his tongue as he walked past the Dai Li, and toward the first glimmer of sunlight he'd seen since fleeing the courtyard where Long Feng was supposed to die. "Glad I'm not him. That's got to be a career ending injury."

Behind him, unnoticed by the teenagers, Qujeck paused by the Dai Li, and glanced down at him.

"How right he is," Qujeck muttered, then quickly pulled the arrow out of the man's knee. The man let out a groan, but not more than that. Qujeck quickly pulled the water, balling it around the whole arrow, and drifting the thing to the center of the man's chest. Then, with a subtle but powerful twist, slammed that arrow straight in, nailing the man to the floor. Qujeck then turned, pulling his water back to himself, if a little redder, and following after the others. Unlike even the professed freedom fighter, Qujeck held no illusions that the revolution would be civilized.

* * *

><p>Hatred and rage had changed to pity, and she wasn't sure how or when. Azula just shivered, staring at Katara in outright terror, until she didn't. Until there was a tremor running through her, and she let out a terrible groan and started to twitch helplessly. Even Katara's much announced – usually by Sokka during the old days – vindictive streak wasn't enough to keep her standing by and letting somebody suffer, even if it was somebody as crazy and dangerous as Azula.<p>

Azula couldn't use the water in her pocket on Azula; she knew it'd be too impure by now. But Azula was sweating a lot, and bleeding quite a bit as well. It was almost an experiment, to see if she could still bend blood, but it proved just as viable today as it had on that desperate battlefield. And strangely, healing seemed all the easier with it. Not that she could do much. Close the wounds in Azula's tongue where she bit it to shreds. Repair muscles torn by heedless and helpless jerking. But when she tried to soothe the mind, she didn't feel any change for the better. Just an endless swirl of chaotic and self-destructive energy.

The eyes flit open, after that long spell of catatonia, and she blinked a few times as though in confusion. "Wh..where..."

"You're awake?" Katara asked.

Azula's face pulled into a humorless scowl. "...course awake. How else... would I ask that question?"

Katara slowly moved away from her. "You're not going to scream at me again, are you?" she asked.

"Why? Who are you supposed to be, other than a filthy peasant?" Azula muttered. And without that accent, again. She worked her jaw for a moment. "Wait. Why can't I feel my legs?"

"You should," she said, growing more suspicious by the moment. "There's nothing wrong with your neck or your back."

Golden eyes flit around, but they didn't rest on anything for very long. "I... I can't move..."

"C... I can't believe I'm saying this, but calm down, Azula," Katara said.

"What has happened to me? Have I been poisoned?"

"What are you doing?" Katara asked. "Don't you have any idea what's going on?"

"Yes. I was... Trying to capture the Avatar... for some reason... Why would I do that? He's been missing for a century," she seemed confounded. But those eyes flit to Katara once again. "Do I know you? You seem familiar. You are one of Mai's friends, aren't you? You've go the look of a Gork about you, if you don't mind the term."

Katara shook her head for a moment. "Seriously. Hatred, terror, and now indifference? Can't you make up your mind about me?" she asked, and only half serious.

"Don't be absurd. I am not afraid of anybody," She said with a roll of her eyes. Then, she stopped. "Wait. Uncle. There was a ship... and Zuzu. And a pillar of light."

Katara shook her head, and moved so that both she and Azula were in the same pool of greenish light. "Since you're not wolfbat-shit crazy," Katara said, borrowing a term from her brother's more vulgar library, "I need to know why there seem to be three of you."

Azula blinked a few times, and then stared straight up at the ceiling. Then, those eyes widened. "Agni's flame... I'm not alone in here," she said with a note of disgust. "Who did this to me? Who are these people?"

"Does your brother know about your madness?" Katara asked. Azula glared a hateful look at Katara, so she shrugged and amended that, "or at least, this specific madness?"

"I am _perfectly_ sane," she said venemously. "It's the _others_ who are crazy."

Katara leaned forward, "...and who are the others?"

"I think that th.. ta... oh sar... sar... no I can fau..." she let out a groan of annoyance. "Qua... My worv – woorrv – damn it!"

"What's happening?" Katara asked, and Azula's response was another of those brutal groans, her body pulling in, her eyes rolling back, and then she started to thrash and flail once again, trapped in the grips of a spastic fit. All Katara could do was keep her from smashing her head against rocks as she did so.

"This is absolutely crazy," Katara said.

And then, the wall slammed down, and orange light poured into the room. Katara blinked against it, being able to see in useful color again. And it took her a moment to realize that she didn't need the ball of black water she had in her palm, because that flame was lit over the palm of a tattooed hand. "Katara! You're alright!" Aang said with obvious joy and rushed to give her a tackling embrace which drove her a couple of steps back from where Azula had dropped from thrashing into catatonia and twitching. "I was so worried, and everything's going wrong, and people are getting hurt, and Irukandji said that Long Feng got out and his Dai Li are taking over Ba Sing Se and OH MY GODS YOUR DRESS IS ON FIRE I'M SORRY!"

Katara looked to her sleeve and noted that it was, indeed, smoldering from Aang's firebending, but she slapped it out with a moment of shock before he took a few steps directly backward, and didn't heed Sokka's warning, so managed to trip over Azula and land on his back, legs splayed over her. "I assume from his shouting that he has found your sister?" Nila's voice came from the tunnel above, but Aang's eyes were locked onto Azula.

"What happened?" Aang said, pulling his legs off of her. "Did you...?"

The way he looked at her, that this was a question he didn't want to ask but felt he had to, hurt just a bit directed at Katara. "I'm trying to help her, but there's something wrong with her," Katara said, trying to explain herself. "She's having thrashing fits and even when she's not, she's not in her right mind. She was either terrified of me, or didn't know who I was. This is _bad_, Aang."

At the Avatar's back, Sokka was joined by the Si Wongi girl, and then her brother for some reason. Aang looked positively beside himself, staring down at Azula, and Katara had no idea why. Sharif, though, stared down at Azula. And that was worth noting, since he most definitely was focused on the girl, rather than a thousand yards beyond her.

"One and one and one... is one. But it doesn't fit," Sharif said. He looked up at Aang. "Where is the fourth?"

"This is not the time to yammer, brother," Nila said, stooping down to pull Azula's arm over her shoulder and bear her up. "If we are here to save the wayward prince's sister, we have done so. Now let us leave this city before it kills us."

"What about your Mom?" Sokka asked, as she reached him, heading up to the inclined tunnel Aang had come down through.

"I have no doubts that she will escape this coup," she muttered.

"She didn't escape last time Long Feng set his sights on her," Sokka pointed out. Nila halted, hung her head, and sighed.

"Damn you and your faultless logic. We shall save Mother, as well, then. And damn you for forcing me to."

"Better damned than orphaned, I think," Sokka said with a shrug. He turned to Aang. "Are you gonna be alright?"

"Everything's going wrong so fast," Aang said, despairing. "I... I thought things would be different, this time."

"They will," Katara promised. "We've still got hope."

"Hope is precious little succor when your foe has a blade to your throat," Nila shouted from above.

"And we've got us, and we've got you," Katara continued. "I'd back us against Fire Lord Ozai and anything he's got to throw against us any day of the week."

"Besides, I've already started working on a back-up plan for the day of Black Sun," Sokka said. "Come on. I'll tell you on the way up."

"Really?" Aang said, brightening a bit. He nodded, and started to ascend, serving as the group's light source as they moved to an upper chamber. Sokka, though, turned to Katara, and beckoned her toward him.

"So, have any adventures while I was out in the Reaches?"

"Got proven wrong by a paranoid nutbag," she said. "Also learned that Azula _can_ talk without a weird accent."

"Should I even ask how you got away from the Dai Li?" Sokka asked.

Katara slowly shook her head. "I'm not really sure that I _did_."

* * *

><p>"General Sung, I presume?" Piandao said dryly as he helped the old and laughable logistician to his feet.<p>

"What is going on?" Sung asked, even as Sati deftly popped the locks on the manacles and released his arms and legs from bondage. The Dai Li on the other end of those chains were for the moment stationary, and cutting off hands to free the chains was both messy and a bit brutal, in Zha Yu's opinion.

"We're saving your life. Where are the other Generals?"

"I don't know," Sung said, even in terror apologetic. "When... when I asked, they said I was 'the fourth', so I think they've got them already. Dai Li! This is treason most high!"

"Long Feng seems to be in a treasonous mood right now," Sati said with a roll of her eyes, and leaned slightly to look past Zha Yu, to see Bato and Kuei jogging down the hallway. Followed by a ton of brown fur topped in a jaunty green hat.

"I take it you have found clear to prevent your pet from becoming a coat?" Sati asked. Kuei looked a little aghast at that, but the Dragon of the East was already turning to the Mountain King. "Now that we have run out of pointless side treks, it is time to leave."

"I couldn't agree more," Zha Yu said. "I heard the Prince's panic signal a few minutes ago."

"What? He is in the city again? Is he a fool, or just foolhardy?"

"Unlucky, more likely," Piandao offered, rotating his one good arm trying to get the feeling back into it.

"We've got a problem," Joo Dee said, where she was until then standing silent, her hands pressed against the stone of the walls. "We've got Dai Li starting to converge on us... and somebody big is coming with them."

"Then we must flee," Sati said.

"A tactic which would have been most useful months ago," Bato pointed out with utter monotone.

"You can mock my hubris later, when we are not on the cusp of dying or worse!"

"We're always on the cusp of dying or worse. I think you do it just to keep people from being able to criticize you," Zha Yu pointed out.

"Enough!" Sativa said. "How much time do we have?"

"About two minutes," Joo Dee said, then she halted. "No, wait. Less."

All that Zha Yu needed to hear. With a thrust, he smashed down the walls and formed his own hallway into the distance, cleaving through rooms and servants passages with utter disdain for purpose, and with that new path opened, all began to flood into it. Zha Yu wasn't the only one, he wagered, who was exhausted. Sativa looked on the verge of simply slumping against a wall and sleeping for an hour or twelve. Fighting, or at least, fighting on this scale for this long, it was a _young_ person's game.

They didn't so much run as briskly jog, as it was the best speed they could manage, and as they went, Zha Yu could hear others coming closer. Walls crumbling as unkind hands wanted ways through them. They wouldn't follow directly in the group's wake, because the Dai Li weren't idiots. But they had ways of making up time.

"Get down!" Piandao's shout was followed immediately by the swordsman tackling the Dragon of the East to the floor, as a web of chains began to shoot from both perpendiculars, trying to snare them in a cross fire. Zha Yu flicked up with his toe, hurling a brick first at one side, then the other, but with the sheer amount of dust and debris which choked sight and lung, he couldn't hit worth a damn. The two on the ground rolled forward until they were out from under the net, and then began to sprint. Joo Dee, though, raised up her hands toward the center of that metal morass and bent, a spoked and jagged pillar rising roughly to chest height, before it started to twist, catching all of that metal in its juts and grooves, and hauling inward. First, there was a bit of resistance, but resistance proved futile, and the bearers of those chains came stumbling and sliding into view, being dragged to and then trapped against the capstan of her bending.

At that, Zha Yu couldn't help but give a bit of a paternal smile of approval. She wasn't much of a human being when they first found her, but as works-in-progress go, she turned out fairly well. Smart, inventive, and quick on her feet. And despite his worst fears... some of that was still there.

Zha Yu bounded over them, pulling a section of the floor with him as he did, encasing them as mired as they were inside a cocoon which held them utterly in place. There were very few people who could bend without motion. He supremely doubted that any random agent of the Dai Li would be that special somebody. As he ran, he caught the arm of Kuei with one and the arm of Joo Dee with the other. "Alright, we're not out of the woods yet," Zha Yu said.

"Woods? I thought we were still in the palace?" Kuei asked alarmed. Bosco just gave a burbling grunt and sauntered along with them, clearly the calmest of anybody in the room. Then again, the bear had little to fear from recapture.

Zha Yu had almost caught up with Sati and Piandao when ahead of them, he could see Bato, who was sprinting back toward them. Zha Yu skidded to a halt. "Not that way!" the Tribesman said with alarm burning through his legendary composure. Zha Yu turned to the servant's pass which he was closest to, and made it only two steps before black stone gloves hurled at him, trying to catch his throat, his wrists, anything to slow him down. Instead, they caught a brick, which he snapped toward it in a moment of remarkable luck and reaction time, which turned both to dust. Not that way, either.

"We've got somebody coming from behind?" Joo Dee asked.

"And from the sides," Bato said, ducking back around the corner just as something slammed into the stonework, causing it to splinter and clatter to the floor.

"Wait... I think I know who that is," Joo Dee said, her eyes not focused on anything.

"This isn't the time for reunions, you daft woman!" Sativa snapped, pulling her knives back into hand. "We must stand here, until they break in the slightest, or we do."

"We could just go down," Zha Yu hazarded. Joo Dee shook her head. "What? Why not?"

"Take a guess, Papa," Joo Dee said with a look of exhaustion.

Bato let out a mild sigh, into the crumbling, the rumbling, and the destruction. "Well, it was nice knowing you. Oh wait, it wasn't," he contracted with a scowl.

"You loved it," Zha Yu pointed out.

Bato was stony for a moment, then the slightest smirk broke his facade. "It's certainly been memorable."

Zha Yu's witty rejoinder was cut off by a brick slamming into his shoulder. It hurt as much as any he'd taken over the years, with the added detriment that he probably wouldn't heal as well from it and the fact that he was surrounded by people who'd see fit to deny him even that opportunity. Surrogate daughter and surrogate father stood, back to back, waiting for the waves to crash. And oh, how they did.

It went from silence to pandemonium in a blink of an eye. A white blade danced through metal chains, slashing them down every time that one managed to affix a limb. A short, faintly blue spear moved through the men, who tried to stay mobile, but they couldn't keep up with a spectre of death from the South Water Tribe. Sativa's blades ended any who got close enough, usually in one deft thrust. And Zha Yu, and Joo Dee? They fought. They fought, working a circle around the cowering and terrified Kuei, walls rising out of the floor to their will, bricks flying at near-random. But it wasn't enough.

Until an unexpected voice joined the melee.

"Comin' through, old guys!"

And with that, Zha Yu found his back being vaulted, and bare feet slammed down on the ruptured and shattered stone before his eyes, before the teenage girl rolled up, and when she did, she cast out both hands toward Kuei. But the wall she called into being was well beyond him, and slammed forward along the hallway, until it started to crest and break like a storm-thrown wave. Toph Beifong took two steps forward before being snared by a chain, but with Piandao nowhere near enough to help her. So she helped herself, twisting that chain around and doing that seemingly impossible metalbending, tearing those chains apart with her bare hands. Two Dai Li tried to flatten her with rams hurled from opposing directions. Toph just brought the floor up starkly and abruptly enough that it's appearance, a square column in the center of the floor, sent her flying into the air. When she landed, it was with a fist leading, which split that pillar in two, before a furious twist of both arms sent the bisected block flying in both directions.

It was glorious. It was every bit what Zha Yu should have expected from a child of Joo Dee. "You're not doing a good job of getting out of here," Toph pointed out, as her feet slid along the cratered floor like she was skating upon a smooth pane of ice, weaving through the attacks of the Dai Li and sending precise and focused counterattacks which they could neither dodge nor counter. Not effectively, anyway. She thrust her hand to one side. "Sparky's having some trouble that way; Twinkletoes will know to go there."

"Who?" Kuei asked.

"Move your feet, you sorry sad sack!" Toph roared at the Earth King, and the man let out an eep and started to move as she'd indicated. "I figure it's time to show the old guy's how this is done."

"And won't that be an education?" Sativa asked with sarcasm in her tones. But Zha Yu knew better. He knew that it _would_ be an education. One he was eager to observe.

* * *

><p>Aang had barely reached the open plaza of a long buried market when he could feel something tickling the back of his neck. Something foul, destructive, and wrong. And because Aang was an airbender and not, say, a firebender, he had the reactions to be able to get out of the way as a perversely glowing hand swept toward him, driving him back and hinging him back. The next, trying to sweep down onto him, was deflected when Aang kicked up with a foot and blasted the green-robed... waterbender?... from his feet and sent him rolling.<p>

"Whoa! What was that? Sokka asked, where he was now essentially draping the Princess over his shoulder. Sokka was answered with flame, which Katara dutifully moved in front of, and tore water from the standing pools around the lost site to snuff it into a great billow of steam. She then twisted that water a bit further, and sent it hurtling forth at something unseen by Aang, but obviously not be she, and the crisp crack told the Avatar that she'd connected with something.

"Can you not go four minutes without being attacked?" Nila asked, raising her gun to her shoulder and aiming it at the waterbender. Blue eyes under a conical hat went wide, and he hurled himself aside, but Nila's aim was undone by a block smashing into her back, which sent her to her knees with a quite unfeminine grunt of pain.

Aang turned, Katara taking his back, and the three encircled them, one appearing out of the mist of an aborted flame, blue eyes blazing and the most focused, hating look on her face. On a face which could have been Katara's own, but those hands, they did not dance with water, but rather, naked golden flames. What was this? "Who are you?"

"The Avatar and the Princess. That's one target away from a perfect day," the girl said, with so-much-like Katara's voice.

"Hikaoh, you can stop this," Katara said. The firebender's eye flitted in what seemed a nervous twitch.

"Don't. You. _Dare_. Call. Me. That," she said, and then she launched forward with flame. Aang shifted places with Katara, and blunted that attack with a blast of airbending... but it wasn't working, so he halted his twirling motions and moved lower, pulling the stone up in flakes and flecks, sending them through the fire and sapping the heat enough that while the silica did burn into glass, the wind could hurl the whole mess back and away from him.

"That's your sister?" Aang asked. "But she's a firebender!"

"I am not your sister," Hikaoh shouted. Aang's next question was cut off as he could see water whipping toward him, so he snapped it away with his own waterbending, wresting control of that whip and then flicking it back at its creator. But the waterbender was good; Even as Aang controlled the whip, the waterbender was controlling him, maneuvering him through his defense into a place where Aang had to let out a clipped yelp of alarm and hurl himself to the floor to avoid being leveled by a significant portion of a nearby wall.

"Can we make this quick?" the waterbender asked Hikaoh and the earthbender. "I'd like to be out of here _before_ people realize that we don't belong here."

"Slim chance of that, Kori," the earthbender jibed, and then began to move with the others, sending out a barrage of attacks which Aang was barely able to shield Katara from, and he took quite a few of those hits himself in her stead. Fitting, since Katara had the full and undesirable attention of her sister who somehow was a firebender and wanted to kill her. Aang had a decent notion that this was something which had happened while he was a 'guest' of the Dai Li, and nobody'd filled him in on it. He hated that feeling. Not as much as he hated the feeling of a rib breaking, now that he could say for certain that he knew the comparison between them.

"I'm surprised you managed to dodge my ambush. _Azula_ never could," Kori, the waterbender said, in tones almost conversational but for their subject matter. "Kind of a pity that she's got to die. She might be a bit beefy, but she's stil cute as a b–"

Kori was cut off when he was hit in the face with a boomerang, which sent him stumbling back a few steps, a stunned look on his face. Sokka caught his returning weapon, and then faced the others down. "Why is it nobody ever pays attention to me? My boomerang is _plenty_ deadly."

"You... are insane," Nila pointed out. And then, she raised her gun and fired at the earthbender. His eyes went wide, but even before he could get the wall up, there was a crack and he was falling back, barely keeping himself from landing on the floor, and those robes quickly started to turn black. "That is how you do it."

Hikaoh's eyes, which were already filled with murderous intent... somehow became worse. Her assaults faltered, fire still nonetheless pooling in her hands, and her lip quivered a bit. "O...Omo!"

The earthbender, Omo by name, let out a groan, trying to take his feet, but stumbling and sinking to his knees, a look of abject agony on his face. And Hikaoh's whole attention, almost to the point of utterly ignoring Aang and Azula and Katara all, was on the Si Wongi. "_You die __now__, whore!_" she screamed. In Yqanuac.

And then, there was flame. A lot of it. Aang managed to slam forward his fists, with water and air together into a slurry of ice which rendered that flame into steam, but that wall of steam was getting closer with every second, and she didn't seem to want to stop. Aang couldn't do a damn thing to stop Kori, the waterbender, from lashing out with a whip of water which slammed Sokka and by extension Azula to the ground with the thwack which promised intense bruising at least, and broken bones at worst. Kori, unlike Hikaho, wasn't focused on murder, though; he was clearing a path to the gun-shot earthbender. That path lead straight through Aang and Katara.

Aang tried to get out of Kori's way – as Aang didn't want 'Omo' to die any more than they did – but Katara was too focused on her sister, and notably keeping said sister from barbequing Nila, so one waterbender collided with another as Katara took a step back. Both tumbled to the stone in something of a heap, and the wall of flame moved closer as it fell to Aang alone to hold it back. On the ground, Kori's arms began to glow, the water coating them taking on a sickening, pus-like florescence. He slammed that hand into Katara's face, but she caught that hand and twisted, the water now coating her hands blazing purest white, as she pushed him off of her and rolled so that she was now mounted atop him.

"Let it be known that I don't like hitting girls," Kori said, tension in his voice even as he tried to force his destructive and _wrong_ waterbending upon Katara. Katara got a bit of a frown on her face for a fraction of a moment before Kori's other fist jabbed up into her ribs, stealing her breath. He then twisted that same arm starkly up and cracked her in the forehead with his elbow, which sent her sprawling back, and giving him room to move.

Aang knew he wasn't going to hold this conflagration at bay with wind nor water alone. He had to do more. Stone wouldn't cut it. She'd just move around it and start again. So he focused on the heat which rested in his belly, the pool of Chi that Zuko and his uncle had so ceremoniously called, and grasped hold of the flame _in_side him, before making it the flame _out_side him.

Gold met gold, and for the first time since the onslaught began, he was gaining ground. Flames, fanned by wind, were stronger than flames alone. The only reason that she was holding against Aang's push was because he was a rank novice with firebending, and she, obviously, was a long-practiced expert. She cut the flames and ducked aside, letting his torrent sear past her, and launched herself with a rocket of flames behind her toward Aang, and beyond him, toward Nila. Aang could only sweep stone around him to root him in place, but that just gave Hikaoh a place to land her feet, and when the explosion ripped through the stone armor he'd crafted, it sent him skidding along the floor.

That left Nila essentially at Hikaoh's mercy – which was obviously quite scant. Nila, though, didn't try to run behind rocks nor reload her gun which had at some point been coated in a deluge by the waterbender (a canny notion, given even the little which Aang knew about how a firearm worked). She got into Hikaoh's face, and started to move almost like an airbender. But not really. Airbending was an art aped from the bison, borne from the practice of circle-walking. This was more like a dervish in the desert. Hikaoh's flame lanced, violent, wrathful, unabated, but innaccurate. Every thrust of the fist and attendant blast of fire was marked with Nila getting out of its way, standing inside the range of Hikaoh's punches. A rocket-kick was forestalled with a stomp to the top of the rising knee. A crescent kick, warded with the metal of Nila's rifle to the back of her calf. At that point, Nila had the notion to kick the side of Hikaoh's standing knee, which caused the firebender to tip and fall. Aang would have called that a victory, if Hikaoh hadn't blasted with a bolt of flame from her foot even as she fell, which caught Nila squarely in the chest and sent her flying backward.

Kori was only a few paces away from where Omo was on his hands and knees, bleeding onto the stone, when he suddenly reversed momentum with no warning and great speed. He fell onto his back, a cloud of black dust rising from the pulverized stone glove which had cracked and burst against his chest. Aang didn't have time to glance, but he knew that it could only mean one thing. The Dai Li had come. Hikaoh launched herself through the air, landing next to where Nila was trying to shake the stars out of her vision and ignore the cracked, blistered skin of her belly which showed through the burnt shirt. She raised a hand, with a chop which seared with fire. But it was Sharif who came to Nila's rescue. He didn't attack. He just stepped over Nila, one hand raised, and held it before Hikaoh's face. His eyes _focused_ on hers.

"Do you know who you _really_ are?" he asked, his voice as calm as ever, and even a bit more legible. Hikaoh's dark face seemed to go black with rage, and then she brought that fist back and down, and gave Sharif a haymaker which, in Aang's currently mildly befuddled state, seemed to hit Sharif so hard that he fell out of reality. Aang blinked, and noted that yes, Sharif had indeed vanished after that punch, but it had given Nila time enough to slam her heel down onto the top of Hikaoh's foot, rise while slamming her rifle into Hikaoh's liver, and then bound past, landing somewhat ungracefully but leaving a firebending Tribeswoman with a rictus of something between pain and inconsolable wrath.

"Come on, we've got to get out of here!" Sokka shouted, which dragged Aang's attention to the way that they'd come. True to the expectation that Kori's ambush had instilled, the Dai Li were coming out of the stonework, swamping them with dozens upon dozens of agents, as well as equally as many men in shabby clothing who no doubt were simply Dai Li of a different uniform.

"_Sister, you can come with us!_" Katara shouted, and Hikaoh glared at them all.

"You have nothing I want," the firebender snarled, and then something started to happen with her hands. It wasn't like when Zuko was demonstrating lightning. This was much more primal. The bolts of electricity seared along the loosened strands of her hair, and ran up between her fingers as she bent back, probably pulling the power from within herself, and then bearing it forward. At Nila, again.

Aang didn't think twice. He just hurled himself into the path of that lightning bolt, something which filled the subterranean chamber with a deafening din. But he didn't just intend to give that bolt an easier target. He tore up the ground, in a line between Hikaoh, Aang, and Nila, and started raising it. The bolt tore through the stone even as it was brought into place. The wall was quickly at Aang's head's height, but even with just his bending, he could feel it being unmade in the instant he raised it, so that he didn't even have a chance to hit the floor before the stone directly before his grasping hands exploded, sending Aang, Nila, and Katara all rolling away from it, a fresh bang and cascading stone clear in his sight.

Aang shook his head again, trying to clear his vision, and prepare for Hikaoh's next assault. But it didn't come. Instead, a dark hand seemed to reach down and scoop him to his feet. Aang glanced back, and was a bit startled to find Hakoda there, knife in his other hand, pulling them toward a corner of the room. "Wait, when'd you get here?" Aang asked. "And where'd Hikaoh go?"

"Wrong time to be asking those questions," Hakoda said, and upon facing the direction Hikaoh had been, he could see why. A legion of Dai Li agents was advancing on them, and they didn't seem to have friendly intentions. Of the trio of assassins, only the gut-shot one remained, and he was being pulled from the ground and dragged away by other green-robed people even as the army advanced toward them.

"Is Azula alright?" Aang asked.

"Is _she_ alright?" Nila asked, indignant. Then, her eyes widened, and she tipped to her hands and knees, causing their whole group to halt in their retreat. With a gag, she seemed to cough up some bile, and her eyes became bloodshot.

"What is it, Nila?" Katara asked. Nila glanced around, panic clear on her face.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Who?" Hakoda demanded, still retreating before the horde, but now hauling her as Aang was on his feet.

"Sharif! Where is he! I can't tell where he is!" she swung her gaze like a madwoman, but she seemed more frantic than ever Aang'd seen her.

"Nila, we either flee now, die, or worse," Hakoda pointed out. "What would you prefer?"

Nila's snarl was her answer. But her savage turning-away hid the fact that she was on the verge of tears.

* * *

><p>"What's going on? Where am I?" Yoji demanded, as she was not standing on grey stone lit by odd trees. She turned, and fastened her glare on the Children's resident shamans, Hisui and Hai. "What..."<p>

"You were about to get killed. The Fire Lord doesn't want that," Hisui said.

Yoji stomped up to the shaman, and grabbed the gorget of the red and gold armor. "Omo is back there! I need to save him!"

"Get ahold of yourself," Hai shouted, pulling the two of them apart. He glared at Yoji, his amber eyes meeting her blue. "If Omo comes here, he'll die, sure as the sunrise."

"Kori can heal him," Yoji said, a touch too desperately for her liking, but it was too late to change that.

"This is the Spirit World. It's the only place that's safe from the Avatar, and_ you can't bend here!_" Hisui snapped at Yoji.

Kori, who limped up beside Yoji, nodded, making bending motions with his flask, but to no avail. Yoji's lips writhed, and she lashed out with a bolt of flame, but it wouldn't come. It was like the pool of chi was empty, here. She vigorously shook her head. "There's got to be a way to save him! We can..."

"If we bring him here, he _will_ die. That is a fact, Yoji," Hai shouted at her. "Up there, he's got a slim chance. Down here, he's got none. _Do you understand?_"

Yoji trembled, turning back the way she'd come, as though she could get one last glance of Omo, but the Spirit World was not so kind. All she could see was a cliff-face of desaturated grey stone, and the twisted, gnarled trunks of bizarre, purple-glowing trees. She turned and faced the Shamans again. "I am never going to forgive you for this."

"I can live with that," Hai said. He motioned for his sister to attend Yoji, while he himself reached behind a tree-trunk and hauled a Si Wongi youth to his feet. His eyes were blank and hollow, like they had been carved from green glass, and his body seemed to be listless and powerless. There was a thin, green band which was latched tightly around his neck.

"Who is this?" Kori asked.

"The Fire Lord's got a bounty on him, and a fairly big one," Hisui answered. She gave a sigh, and an apologetic glance to Yoji. "There's no reason this has to be a total loss."

"Azula is still alive..." Yoji began.

"And is obviously dying. We didn't just pop in to save you from the Dai Li. We watched her. She's falling apart. Her mind is crumbling completely," Hai pointed out.

"And it's all moot in the fact that Zuko is a traitor to the Fire Nation," Hisui followed up, sounding slightly bitter. Yoji shook her head. "I'm serious. It happened. Damage done. Yoji... let's go home. We've all done enough."

Yoji turned away from them all, and launched a scream into the black heavens, wrath and loss and desperation... and loneliness... All of the things she wasn't allowed to show. That she couldn't afford to show. But right now, she couldn't help herself. Omo was dying, and she couldn't help him.

That brown bitch was going to _die_ for this.

* * *

><p>Finding the Earth King coincided with the Dragon of the East, which itself was part and parcel with the other firebender amongst Mai's former friends. Well, current friends, but current after a long period of estrangement. Getting there? Remarkably easy. Nobody was specifically looking for them, after all, so even the few Dai Li who did spot them at a distance never gave so much as a token pursuit. Only those who stumbled upon them up close, likely upon recognizing Qujeck out of all of them, bothered to try and kill them. It was a little insulting, actually. She considered herself <em>entirely<em> worth murdering by the East Continent.

"How many?" Mai asked again, as Zuko glanced around a corner, then lashed out with a blast of fire which no doubt sent the Dai Li, who were trying to breach the stone fortifications which General How and the blind girl were constantly rebuilding from Dai Li assault, scattering.

"A lot," Zuko said with a degree of grit. "Where's the Avatar? I know I can't keep this up much longer."

"One way or another," Mai agreed. She'd run out of knives ages ago, all since taking part in the siege, and only had the ones not specifically balanced for throwing left. They were longer than most knives, and weighted differently; they were made for brutal slashes which parted limbs from bodies, or heads from necks. No great surprise that a native of Azul would keep khukris on her person at all times. That was just civilized.

"Why aren't we flying away? I thought that bison could fly!" Kuei shouted from where he cowered against Bosco, who despite his ursine nature, also seemed to be cowering.

"If it does, it won't reach the Middle Ring before its heart explodes," Qujeck pointed out. "We make our stand here."

"Well, that's grim," Bug noted, still keeping an eye out, acting as the spotter for Longshot's longshots. That he didn't miss was handy.

"Don't be idiotic," the Dragon said. "All we can do here is die. We must collect the Avatar, and find a way to flee."

"I've got it," Zha Yu pointed out, tapping the side of his jacket. "We're just waiting on the Avatar."

Mai peeked 'round the corner and gave a scowl at what she saw. "They seem to be regrouping. Or perhaps, planning something," Mai said.

"Probably the latter," the Dragon of the East offered.

Toph, though, swung her head about, ceasing in her bending in resistance to the earthbenders without, and started to 'stare' down, her eyes wide and focused somewhere beyond her feet. "Uh, guys? We've got _a lot_ incoming from below!" Toph shouted.

"How many's a lot?" Zuko shouted.

The answer came in the form of part of the wall, and then part of the palace beyond it, crumbling as it was torn apart from something rising up below it. Mai wished she could have said she wasn't shocked and a bit surprised, but such things were beyond her in hard times. They could scarcely be harder. She clutched her khukri's tighter, but that would do little against an army of earthbenders.

"Wait... Is that Aang?" Zha Yu asked, staring through the gaping hole in their defenses, and the destroyed section of the sub-palace they were in the heart of. True enough, the Avatar was one of the people lurching out of that hole. But he and those with him weren't the only, and there was a wall of Dai Li between the Avatar and the bison. Zha Yu cast a hand toward him. "Get over here, Aang! It's the only way out!"

"Impossible. There are too many, and his are too injured. We will have to retrieve him," Sativa said. Zha Yu nodded, and he glanced her way. Mai shrugged, as she wasn't best spent throwing her life away on a rescue mission against overwhelming odds. She was just here to stab idiots. Jet glanced at her, and gave a shrug, as though asking.

"Ugh. Fine," she said, and then went to save the Avatar.

* * *

><p>It felt like weeks since they'd started fighting, and every part of Katara demanded rest, respite, and a day's worth of sleep. Since she wasn't about to get any of that any time soon, she soldiered on, but it was getting worse with every step. She was already light headed and her vision was blurring. With the added weight of the nearly insensate Nila and the totally insensate Azula, they were barely able to stumble.<p>

"Come here! You have go get over here!" Zha Yu's voice called out across the mayhem, but there was no end in sight. Not with the Dai Li surrounding them, pressing in on them. Katara had to drop Nila to the ground, and pull every drop of water – which wasn't much – into an anemic Octopus Form to keep the multitude of attackers at bay. Even then, she could do not one whit more. Still, if she just held on long enough, Toph and the others would reach her.

Aang, who was trying valiantly to blast the Dai Li away with blasts of wind, was slowing down, his eyes looking increasingly hollow. "Don't know... how much... more of this... I can manage," he said, exhaustion his tone of voice.

Katara wanted to answer him, but a flick from the corner of her eye beheld an arrow, streaking toward her. Reflexes born of the Spikerim slapped the projectile away, but she was baffled by it nonetheless. Had somebody's shot gone wrong? No, the answer was more dire than that. Men in rough clothing were manning the outer walls, and they carried bows rather than stone gloves. They must have been sick and tired of people dusting their projectiles. Katara glanced forward, to where Toph was trying to smash through the Dai Li facing Aang's group, and her eyes widened as a streak shot low, almost missing Toph. But not quite. It skewered right through one of her feet. The earthbender let out a horrible cry of agony, her run ending abruptly and with a faceplant, but she rolled immediately onto her back, clutching the impaled extremity with a rictus of anguish upon her face.

"Toph!" Aang shouted.

"Damn it! Toph!" Zuko's voice came from somewhere within the maelstrom, and flame marked his approach, but dimly compared to the other things around him. He burst through the wall of humanity, his swords slashing through the air...

...only to be smashed down, his body hurled to the ground by a pair of earthbenders and pelted with kicks and stones. He was struggling to stand, a begrudgingly given testament to his resilience, but he could only get up as far as one knee. Another flick of motion, but this time, Katara couldn't deflect it, and it slammed into and penetrated Sokka's gut, causing him to drop Azula and stagger back, slowly dropping to his knees.

They were losing.

They were getting slaughtered.

And Aang's tattoos were glowing.

"**NO MORE!**" he announced with the voice of the legion, as his eyes blazed with light. His hands raised, and with them, came the stone. Every stone. The Dai Li faltered, and took a retreating step, but it wasn't enough to placate the Avatar's wrath. He flashed forward those hands, and the rubble hurled itself at the Dai Li, robed or not. Some it smashed unconscious. Some... Katara was fairly sure they were worse off than that. "**NOBODY WILL HURT MY FRIENDS.**"

With the Dai Li parted, Zuko managed to regain his footing, just in time to be overtaken by Bato, the Dragon of the East, Jet and Mai. Aang floated, his feet hovering above the ground, and he turned his eyes down. With a blazing hand, he gripped the shaft of the arrow through Sokka's gut and pulled it out. Her brother gave a cry of alarm and pain, but no further blood dribbled out of the wound, and Sokka had a look of shock and surprise on his face even as Jet hauled up Azula and draped her over his shoulder like a bag of oats. "That... hurt less than I thought it would."

"Run you fools!" the elder Badesh coached, but she paused, as she beheld her daughter on the ground. Just a glance, one of tension, between duty and family. With a flinch, she ran to her daughter's side, letting Katara keep up the defensive. "Nila? Are you alive, Nila?"

"She's pretty badly hurt," Katara told the woman. "And Sharif is gone."

"What? How could she do this? He was..." Sativa began.

Katara cut her off by slapping her.

"Nila gave _everything_ to save Sharif! Don't you dare insult her for failing something which _couldn't be done_!" Katara roared. Sativa turned back to her, not even rubbing the welt on her dusky cheek.

"This isn't the time for this," Sokka shouted, as he stepped between the two of them and scooped up Nila a great deal more gently than had Azula been. The hiss of pain and sallow complexion told Katara that Sokka was doing the girl a favor being so delicate. Zuko, though, seemed now torn between Azula and Toph. He decided on Toph, as Azula had her own carrier, but it was a decision long and precious seconds in the making.

Katara cut off her glare on Nila's mother to look to the path. It was quickly closing in again, and another group had pressed in on their backs to surround the Avatar. But since he was in the Avatar State, that meant things were going to be going very wrong for Long Feng's terror-troops. Aang, and all of his past lives, raised a hand. "**STAND ASIDE IF YOU WISH TO LIVE**," the legion declared.

Glances were exchanged on all sides, but the rings of soldiers stood their ground, however tentatively. There was a very slow blink, as Aang brought his arms to his sides, and with a flex, caused lightning to arc from his fingertips. "**SO BE IT.**"

"Aang, no!" Katara shouted up to him, halting in her advance toward the great mound which was Appa, and all those with it. "Don't do it!"

Aang raked out a hand, and lightning surged with it. But the Dai Li weren't stupid, nor slow. Every one of them brought up a protective barricade to halt those bolts. But only just. They were sent flying by exploding stone, and the Avatar State gave Aang a power so far beyond theirs it wasn't even funny. The first rank buckled, showing the second. And within the second, even Katara could pick out the bald head of Long Feng. Aang's eyes focused on him, turning his back to Katara and the others.

"**YOU ARE THE SOURCE OF THIS MISERY,**" the Avatar declared. "**IT WILL DIE WITH YOU.**"

This time, Aang's fist smashed forth with flame, which sent the Dai Li scrambling ahead of their master, building up a bunker before him. The stone quickly turned red under the Avatar's assault, and started to melt, until the Dai Li abandoned their defense and simply hurled themselves away, to safety. Aang rose higher, propelled upward by a wind which defied gravity. Long Feng was lying on the ground, and between the blocks of stone now orbiting Aang's body and the lightning dancing down his tattooed arms, he had to know that his end was nigh.

"**SO ENDS THE TYRANT.**"

Long Feng's desperate eyes flicked to Katara. She wasn't sure why. He then took a deep breath.

"Sativa Badesh! The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai!"

Katara was baffled why Long Feng thought that would save him.

"I would be... honored to accept the invitation," Sativa's answer was all the more baffling.

"Kill the Avatar!" Long Feng shouted, as Aang's hands finished the circling gesture which preceded lightning. And fast as the flash which Aang was summoning, Sativa picked up the bloody arrow which had been in Sokka's chest, put it to her bow, drew, and released. Straight into Aang's back. The arrow streaked up, to Aang's blindside, and slammed through the middle of his spine, sinking in almost its whole length. The white glow which marched up the back of his head dimmed and became blue, the lightning frizzed and crackled away, and Aang tipped back, the winds no longer carrying him, with an arrowhead jutting through from where it obviously transfixed his heart.

And then, Sativa had the most confused look on her face, and dropped her bow in horror. "What have I done?" she asked.

Katara didn't even listen. She gathered up every drop of water and bent it into a wave which she used to bear herself up, and then downward slowly as she caught her falling friend. His eyes were wide, and his mouth worked soundlessly, his hands clenching and unclenching. "I can't... it hurts..." Aang said.

"It's going to be alright," Katara lied. If she had time, she could heal this; she'd done better with worse in Summavut. But that was the problem. Katara didn't have time. Long Feng got to his feet, and dusted off his robes.

"Sativa, kill the girl as well," Long Feng ordered, and Katara turned to the Si Wongi woman. Sativa's face was writ large with hatred, a glare first on Katara, then to the knife in her hand, then to Long Feng himself.

Katara was baffled how quickly Sativa hurled that knife. So quickly that nobody would have been able to dodge it unless they knew for a fact it was coming. Thus, it slammed into Long Feng's shoulder without a twitch of resistance. "Go to hell you _katil picsz_!" She then grabbed Aang by his kavi, and started to drag. Katara held him in place. "Don't be stubborn, girl! I cannot undo what he has made of me, but I can at least thwart his ills!"

"You shot Aang!" Katara said, balling up her water and using it to level Sativa to the ground. He was dying, and it was that woman's fault. The lines were closing in. It was over.

* * *

><p>The lines were closing in, and it seemed like it was over. All of the actors were spent, the play preparing for its denouement. All but one, and one who streaked down from the sky in a bolt of yellow and orange.<p>

She landed with a thud of displaced air, before swinging her mother's glider in a broad arc before her, twisting the wind even as she sent it out in a wave to roll and toss all who encountered it. She had no idea who these people were, but they were trying to hurt the Avatar, and airbenders had to look out for each other, these days. It was the least she could do. The green-robed men were sent flying.

The hiss of arrows streaking toward her caused her to whirl her staff around her, creating an impenetrable bubble of wind around herself, Aang, his Tribesmen friends, and some Si Wongi woman who looked vaguely familiar. "Man, talk about your impeccable timing," Malu quipped, as the arrows were deflected away, and she then sent that shield tearing away in a gale which caused a big, beefy looking fellow to bowl down several of his cohorts. This was easy, she'd just managed to think, when something stone-hard took a grip of her hair and started to pull it back. She couldn't see anybody behind her, though. A groping hand into her messy black locks found... a glove made of stone. Dai Li? They were _real_? She guessed that whoever had done that was standing behind her, so she sent her blast of wind in that direction, and a moment later, the grip loosened enough that Malu could pull the glove free of her hair.

The Tribeswoman looked at Malu in shock. "Who are you and..." she began, but was cut off when Malu slashed with her staff over her head and deflected more inbound arrows. "Right, no time..."

"Go," Aang said very quietly, where he was on the ground with an arrow through his heart. "...run..."

"I'm not leaving you here, Aang," the Tribeswoman promised.

"...already gone... just don't accept it, yet," the Avatar said with a very sad laugh. Malu, though sent out a whirl of airbending above their heads, driving everybody back, and touched Aang's skin. It was clammy. And cold, right there. It was a sensitivity like having one's skin blasted by desert sand. The Spirit World howled at her, and all things of it called out in song. Something on Aang's body was singing loudly. She thrust her hand into the pocket of Aang's ripped and singed kavi, and her hand closed on a nail, covered in frost.

"Katara, why are you taking so... Oh gods that isn't good," a bulky older man with eyes respectively green and brown shouted as he approached, his stance low. Probably an earthbender. "Oh..."

"Do you trust me, Tribeswoman?" Malu asked.

"I don't know who you are!"

"We met... briefly... in the Divide," the Tribeswoman flinched. "It was a bad time for me! I'm better now. Do you trust me? I can save him!"

She stared at Malu, then down to Aang, then back up at the earthbender nearby. "How?" she asked, blue eyes fierce. Malu held up the nail. She heard its song. She knew what it meant. The earthbender's eyes went wide.

"That's a Bright-Nail," he said. "Where did you _find_ that?"

"In his pocket," Malu said. She stared at the Tribeswoman. "Trust me, and don't stop me."

"Why? What do you do with..." the Tribeswoman asked, but was cut off when Malu raised that nail high above her, and then slammed it down, directly into the center of Aang's forehead, right at the tip of the arrow upon his brow. Instantly, his skin gained a sort of icy sheen, and became as cold as an arctic wind. "ARE YOU INSANE?"

"That's what the Bright-Nail does," the earthbender instructed. "It makes things fr–"

He was cut off when a block of stone smashed into his arm and struck with a terrible crack of shattering bone. He let out a howl of pain, and Malu could see that the Dai Li were closing in once more. And doing so swiftly. She couldn't hold them all off. But she could try. And maybe, that'd be enough to earn her at least some small redemption. Not an entire one, but a little.

She spun to her feet, twisting the wind with her along her stave and letting it lash out as a tornado, rumbling away and sweeping the encroaching horde to the winds. But that left her wide open for a green robed man, who had launched himself in at her flank, his hands covered in shining obsidian and ready to rake her throat to shreds.

He was interrupted, and launched backward, by a blaze of golden flame. The earthbender gave a start of surprise at seeing the old, squat, balding man with the grey beard among them. "Iroh? What are you doing here?"

"Saving the Avatar," the old firebender said. He looked at Malu, a moment longer than he ought have, but he seemed to take her measure and find it sufficient. The slightest nod, and he turned and cast out flame in bolts and arcs, holding the Dai Li at bay. "Take him away before it is too late! I will keep them away from you!"

"You don't need to do this!" the earthbender shouted.

Iroh, whoever that would be, sent a blast of fire right past Malu's shoulder, which intercepted and smashed back another attempt to blindside her, and he looked to the earthbender. "Yes, I do, Mountain King. Get the Avatar to safety. Even I pale compared to that."

"You heard him: go!" Malu shouted, causing the Tribeswoman to flinch.

"No! You've got Imbalance inside of you!"

"Not anymore, I don't," Malu said. "It's a long story, one _I can't tell here_."

"Katara, please. This is our only chance," the grandiosely named Mountain King said, his tone tight with the pain of his broken arm. The Tribeswoman grimaced, but gave Malu a nod, permission for the other airbender to pick up the other of Aang's icy-cold arms and start to bear him toward the bison in the midst of rubble. The earthbender, despite his broken arm, paused briefly to pick up the fallen Si Wongi woman, which caused Katara – the Tribeswoman – to go wrathful over her shoulder.

"What are you doing? She's the one who did this to him!"

"_Long Feng_ did it to him," the Mountain King answered even as he jogged with her under his arm like a keg of rum. "He just used her body to do it."

"We can't trust her!" Katara countered. At that, the Mountain King could only give a pained shrug with a wounded limb. They fell back, and Malu offered one last glance, to the insanely brave firebender who was saving the Avatar's life. Whoever he was, he was a hundred times more heroic than she. She only glanced back for a moment. He lashed out with flame, driving some of the Dai Li back, always back. But while he spun and blasted with his flames, he couldn't defend himself from all angles at all times. Blocks of stone burst through his defenses, smashing into him and knocking him back, but he always retook his footing. Barely. Each brick that slammed into the old man's ribs was a subtle destruction of his ability to fight back. The Dai Li got closer. Then, one of them got close enough that he could latch a stone-glove to the firebender's wrist, which he locked to the ground where the grey-bearded man had fallen to a knee. His resistance spent, the Dai Li began to fall upon him with vengeance such as she couldn't bear to watch any longer.

The group that they moved toward was in almost as bad a shape as Aang was. Some were pierced by arrows. Others burnt. Some, bludgeoned into near-unconsciousness. But Malu's eyes went widest when she saw an old friend amongst the fallen. "Nila! Nila, are you alright?" she asked, letting Katara shoulder Aang's weight now that they were at Aang's bison's side. Nila looked positively ashen, and Malu could tell just from a touch that it wasn't because of the burns on her belly. No, there was a wound imprinted on her soul, a tether rudely severed at a moment of critical vulnerability. She didn't know more. Only that a friend was hurting.

"It's time to go," the Mountain King announced.

"No! I'm not letting Long Feng win," another Tribesman, probably in his mid twenties, declared.

"He's already won," Katara told him.

"No," a broad eared youth with a bow and a ratty pan hat interrupted. Almost all looked at him in shock and surprise. Malu alone didn't know that Longshot wasn't a man of many words. "We can still help the city. This is important."

"Longshot, are you sure about this?" a battered, wild haired youth with hookswords in one hand asked. Longshot gave a nod, and two women, one pretty, the other not, stood behind him, nodding in agreement. The wild-haired one gave a grimace, but clapped a hand onto Longshot's shoulder. "Make me proud."

"Get into contact with Bai," the Mountain King instructed them, as he fished an orb out of his pocket. "He'll know how to go from here. Go to Bai, got it?"

Longshot gave a silent nod, and his cadre backed away from the others, who were grouped tightly around the lathered bison. One handsome young man rose from the side of an obviously ill girl who could be his sister, and looked out onto the battleground. "Wait... is that Uncle?"

"Yes," the Mountain King said, his eyes pressed closed, that orb against his brow. Malu could hear its song. Dirak, the ocean outside of what is. The path, and the traveler. That handsome man threw a hand out toward him.

"I've got to help him!"

"It's too late, Zuko. He made his choice," a one-handed older gentleman said softly. "And you've made yours."

A glance to the supine young lady. Zuko, as he was called, gave a glance toward his uncle, who was even now being beaten down by the Dai Li. More Dai Li had broken off, though, and were approaching their hardship-weathered group at great speed. Zuko gave a shout to the sky which lit with flame, before he panted, and gave a glance to the one-handed man. "You're right. I hate it, but you're right."

"How are we supposed to get away?" Katara asked.

"Quickly," the Mountain King answered. He opened his eyes, and raised the sphere high over his head. There was a whisper, his thoughts passing through the sphere and audible to anybody who knew the tune. It was a plea, a quiet one, a desperate one, and a clear one.

"_...take me somewhere safe..._"

The sphere grew in the Mountain King's hand, despite remaining the same size. It quickly enveloped first the earthbender, then those immediately around him, growing wider and wider until it slid past Malu like a soap-bubble. When it did, the world didn't so much become dark, as became void. There was a nothingness around her, one which others shared, until they, too started to fade away, leaving only that sphere, floating before her. She lost any sense of gravity. There was a lurch in her stomach, but she swallowed it. There was a buzzing in her soul. That, she turned and faced.

In the void, a red line appeared, stretching from infinite horizon to infinite horizon, before it opened into the familiar, red and black Eye of Terror. It stared. Malu stared back.

**YOU CANNOT RUN.**

"Watch me," Malu said to it, a smirk on her face.

Then, with a fresh lurch, her weight settled into her boots once more, and she was standing atop cracked mud at the foot of what appeared to be a stellar observatory. The others were with her, all standing exactly as they had been. The stone under their feet, unlike Malu's, was the mosaic cobbles of that courtyard, though; she had drifted off of them in transit, somehow. She didn't question it, not at the moment.

"Where are we?" the hookswordsman asked.

"This is... my old home," the Mountain King said with a bit of confusion.

"Whatever it is, you will need to take anything you cannot bear to lose and leave quickly," Malu warned. All eyes turned to her.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because the Shards of Imbalance know this place, and they'll be here soon," Malu said, knowing its truth despite having no real evidence even of herself to back it. She just knew it, like she knew that song of the spirits.

"What about Aang?" Katara demanded, from where she remained at his side.

"He could remain like that until the sun blows up in the sky," Malu said. "That's what the Bright-Nail does. It puts you in a state of stasis until it's removed. He _can't_ die right now."

"Hate to be the one to ask the stupid questions," the arrow-lamed girl with the eyes which spoke of blindness pointed out, where she leaned against Zuko in a bid to keep the weight off of her impaled foot, "but what in the tides of hell are we supposed to do now?"

It was the other Tribesman, the youngest of the three men who looked to the West. "We still need to invade the Fire Nation. I guess we're doing it without the Earth King's help."

"Hey, I can help!" an effete looking man piped up. That young Tribesman looked at him.

"No you can't," he said dismissively. Malu, though, had a bit of a query. She leaned toward the bearded Tribesman directly beside her.

"What is that brown thing?" She asked.

"That's the Earth King's bear," he answered distractedly.

"..._just_ bear?" she asked. The Tribesmen all shrugged.

* * *

><p>He felt a bit of weight off of his shoulders. Not much, but a little. Having the Grand Secretariat placated, even for the short while he would, was a great deal of a relief. He strode through the hallways of the great Fire Palace, the crown jewel of Caldera City in particular and the Fire Nation in general, and did so with some renewed vigor. He, of course, intended to betray Long Feng at the first possible opportunity, but Ozai was confident that when that betrayal came, it would be so crushing as to grind the little man into the dust. He felt a bit like celebrating. So he rapped on his own doorway, something that few would think him do. But still, there were appearances to uphold. But there was no answer. He scowled, and pushed the door open. "Akemi? Where are you, my sweet? I have such wonderful news to tell you."<p>

The answer came from a maid who was cleaning the corner of his bedchamber. She bowed low, her brow upon the stone. "I am sorry, Fire Lord, but Mistress Fujitsuna departed Caldera City several days ago."

Ozai scowled. "When is she due to return?" he asked. This wasn't like her. Especially not since the child was still in her crib. He'd checked.

"I do not know, Fire Lord," the maid said, her voice quivering.

"Leave. I have no need of you," he said, his disappointment outweighed by the suspicion gnawing at him. Where had she gone? Not to Azul, certainly, but barring that... where?

Half a world away, Long Feng sat on a throne that had been vacated for him, his chin on his knuckles, and he stared down onto the floor and tried to ignore the pain of the stab-wound on his other shoulder. He heard footsteps approaching him, not the subtle glide of stone against stone. He glanced over, and gave a start as he beheld Dun standing next to him. "What are you doing here?"

"What am _I_ doing here? What are _you_ doing _there_?" he asked, pointing at the throne. He let out a long-suffering sigh. "Why didn't you tell me any of this? Didn't you trust me?"

Long Feng let out his own sigh at that. "I did. But... this was the only way I could think of to keep you safe. That was what was important to me," he stood, and turned to face the wall. "I will understand if you don't wish to speak to me again."

There was a long moment of silence, and then, he felt a hand in his. "Then you don't understand me very well," Dun said gently. Long Feng felt himself pulled into an embrace that, frankly, he needed, even ignoring the pain of the still angry tear in his shoulder to take it. But even then, a part of his mind was contemplating how best to betray the Fire Lord's cease-fire. There was only so human a man like Long Feng could afford to be, after all.

Somewhere roughly in the middle, an arrow was torn out of a teenaged boy's chest, waterbending furiously into the wound which knitted itself closed, as a nail degraded into rust upon its extraction. The teenaged boy in question's eyes snapped open, and he took a deep breath, but then they rolled back, and he slipped back into unconsciousness. "Aang!" Katara shouted, before turning on Malu. "You said he'd be alright!"

"He is... more or less. It's a shock to his system," Zha Yu pointed out. "Give him time. He'll wake up."

Katara gave a nod, but a glare toward Malu, before she moved over to the others who needed healing. Malu, though, squatted down beside Nila. Her eyes looked diseased and bloodshot, but they locked onto her quickly enough. "Nila... I'm..." Malu began, only to be slapped in the face by a tattooed hand. Malu slowly turned back toward Nila, understanding completely. "I get it. You don't have to forgive me for wh–"

Malu was again cut off, as the still-ill Nila nevertheless pulled Malu into a very tight embrace. One Malu returned eagerly. Desperately. Because she wasn't alone.

And far to the north, amidst soot and black iron where once great ice and soapstone structures lay, a king over a savage land leaned forward on his own, impromptu throne. It wasn't much, just a place to sit... maybe a bit more gilding than strictly necessary, but considering the victory he had won here, he wagered he'd deserved a bit of finery. It was the guest before him which had him mildly confused.

"Forgive me, but I hadn't expected you to arrive in person," Zhao said, the burn on his face pulling one eye into a suspicious glare that his other mimicked. "And especially not bearing gifts."

The gift in question was a painting, by Princess Azula, no less. The one which she'd painted and repainted every time it was destroyed. A horde of Tribesmen and green armored Easterners, rampaging through the streets of Caldera City, while a black sun hung overhead. Azula's warning of what was to come, what was to be avoided.

"I sensed a change in the tides. I do not intend to sacrifice myself for a hopeless cause," she answered him.

"And you see me as the greatest of your options?" Zhao asked. The woman before him gave a mild shrug. She was a shrewd one, shrewd enough to know that he appreciated cold honesty over mindless flattery. Appreciated _now_, of course. There had been a time where he was much less... experienced. "And what of the Fire Lord?"

"I believe I am sharing the room with him," she said with a small smile. They were in the throne-room alone, not surprising given the late hour of her arrival, so such a statement wouldn't be taken... askance.

Zhao smirked all the wider. "Then... as the next Fire Lord, I welcome you, Akemi Fujitsuna, to New Bhatti. I'm sure that things will be to your satisfaction," he said.

She smiled, quietly, patiently at that. "I have no doubt that they shall."

* * *

><p>The End<p>

of

Book Two: Chaos

* * *

><p><strong>Destiny, as Iroh has often said, can be a funny thing. It might not repeat itself, but it often rhymes, twisting back on itself as a helix. The same symbols come up again, and again, but their meanings don't necessarily stay the same.<strong>

**Unlike Canon, where they got a victory in book one, and a major defeat in book two in which they fled with absolutely nothing more than what they started out with, not so much in this one. They were instead dealt the overwhelming defeat in book one, while in book two, they managed to get out with both the Earth King and two of the Council of Five. Add to that a standing, independant Omashu, and you're looking at a different kind of war. One that, honestly, they can't afford to lose.**

**With the release of the Shards into the world - a direct side effect of exorcising Imbalance from Malu - the Earth has gone from teetering on the precipice of disaster to outright sliding down it. Without any mortal flesh to constrain them to the rules of reality, they are free to rewrite them. And they're not exactly kind in how they do so. In terms of threat, I'd say they're pretty high.**

**I found myself tearing through this chapter a bit haphazardly when I first wrote it. I had to go back and flesh a few things out a bit, which caused it's fairly monumental length that you might have noticed. Now, I'm going to keep writing, and burn through to the end of Book Three, because as soon as I do that, I can take off half of my nightly writing allotment, and proudly say that i've created something half again as big as War and Peace, in a single work. This is my smug face.**

**And finally: Aang's in for a bit of a shock when he wakes up. Because guess who's going to be waiting for him?**


	41. The Invasion

Thu-thud.

Thu-thud.

Thu...

Thu-thud.

The pain radiated through his chest with each missed heartbeat. A pain he couldn't understand. Not the least of which was how he felt so weak. Every muscle in his body felt like they were carved from wood, or some sort of semi-resilient putty. His limbs were leaden, and the world seemed to buck and spin even as he was lying flat.

"Ugh..."

The first word from his mouth in this strange, dark place wasn't exactly the most graceful or uplifting, but considering what had happened...

Come to think of it, what _had_ happened?

In the darkness, he tried to remember. It took longer than he'd expect; it was like his mind was packed with fuzz and running about half as fast as it should. Ba Sing Se. The Eastern Air Temple got blown up by... something. But they didn't even get there. Because... "Long Feng took over Ba Sing Se?" he asked, seemingly shocked by the words, by the memories. He tried to rub his face, but only managed to slap himself with an extremity which felt like a day-old fish. Still, that did bring something like clarity, because pain was a useful motivator. He couldn't say who taught him that. Maybe Zuko. Probably Zhao. Ba Sing Se.

"I was in the Avatar State... what happened?" he asked nobody, and his hand flopped down onto his bare chest, where it found a nub of scar-tissue, right over his heart. Blinking in the darkness, he prodded at that stiff old wound for a long moment, before a frightening notion occurred to him, and he awkwardly climbed fingers up his back... until they found a nearly identical wound in his back.

"What happened?" he repeated, and he flexed his fingers, trying to call in fire, to light his world. But it didn't work. Not the first time at least. There was another odd lurch, as his heart missed a few beats, before thundering back to life and slowly plateauing again at a rate which didn't make him feel like he was about to keel over. He breathed deeply, and flexed his fingers. A ball of dim, red flame appeared, burning lazily, but casting the room in scarlet relief.

And showing that there was already a lot of red, here. Aang's gasp of shock was enough to snuff that flame. The next attempt at lighting it was slightly more successful, but by the time he managed it, he was hoping that what he'd seen was a mistake. Some sort of... he couldn't come up with a proper – or improper – metaphor for what he wanted. Under a golden glow, his worst suspicions were confirmed. The walls were black steel, and the decorations and standards were all tripoint flames, black against red. Fire Nation, all.

He tried to kip to his feet, but managed to trip over his lack of balance and fall flat on his face. With a moment to mutter '...ow', he slowly pushed himself up to a crawl. The room continued to buck and spin, and he had precious little purchase in it. He needed to get out of here. There had to be some way out of this room. He looked around, but couldn't see anything but a pile of bandages – useless, since his injury seemed long healed – and a sort of overcoat which had been cast aside. Aang stumbled over to it, giving it a look. It was red, as all things in this room seemed to be, but it was better than wandering bare-chested. He pulled his arms into it, but could help but feel another wave of faintness overtake him.

That was getting very, very annoying.

With a deep breath, he forced himself up again, and almost fell a second time, but this time managed to keep his balance. He stumbled his way to the door, which he began to lightly tap at, trying to figure out where the lock was. There was an old trick to opening locks, one that Kuzon had taught him, a century ago. He just couldn't quite remember how it went, so he leaned on the valve for the hatch, and continued to rap, until his weight on the valve caused it to lurch down, and the bolt to slide out of place. The door swung open.

"Huh. Guess I must have remembered the trick without realizing it," Aang said to himself. He started to walk out of the room, but his footing was far from sure; the floor didn't seem to want to be consistent in which direction was down, so he found himself ricocheting off of the walls as he headed to a stairway. A black iron stairway... He'd seen this sort of thing before.

"Am I on a ship?" he asked.

"Aang? Are you awake?" a voice asked at his back. One which ignited every self-defensive neuron in his brain. The last time he heard that voice, it's source tried to eat him. He didn't even turn to face her; he just hurled a blast of wind at the would-be cannibal, which sent her barreling toward the far wall, before making his swift if lurching way up the stairs and to the door. He hurled the valve open with all of the haste available to his weakened and leaden form.

When he opened that door, it was a fraction of a second before he was absolutely soaking wet.

Between the driving rain and the spray over the hull every time it crested the brutal and unforgiving waves, it was a miracle that the ship hadn't been swamped under the sheer volume of this deluge. He only looked to the prow, as it carved upward into a massive wave, and was in awe at the power of the storm. He knew that weather got bad on the oceans. He'd been in it when they fled south from Summavut. But this? This was a whole other beast. That greatest wave, which looked poised to smash the ship to scrap-iron, suddenly parted, its crash and crush diverting away. Only a little bit. Just enough for the ship to slip through the gap, if with a solid thrashing along the hull. As they cleared that wave, Aang could see, only for a moment, the blue form of a waterbender, right at the forecastle. Breaking the waves so that the ship would live.

Going outside wasn't going to work.

This place was as good as a prison, but all of the little things kept bothering him. Why would a waterbender work with the Fire Nation, especially considering what had happened to them? He wasn't thinking clearly, and continued to not think clearly as he ascended, letting that door hang open to the storm, into the higher levels of the ship. What happened? That question continued to rattle in his brain. He was in the Palace... Azula was hurt. Oh, no. Azula! He looked to and fro, in a vain attempt to locate her through osmosis. He continued to lurch, this time fleeing that voice which called his name, told him to stop running. Like he'd _stop_ so Imbalance could eat him!

There was more, though, as he moved ever higher. Royal Palace. People were hurt. Dai Li were everywhere. And Aang... He'd gone into the Avatar State. He could have stopped everything. He could have ended Long Feng's coup single-handedly. Why didn't he? That question rebounded to him, and he found himself rubbing at that scar in the center of his chest. He finally reached the highest point that this stairwell would take him, part of the way up the tower which no-doubt commanded quite a bit of the ship, and forged inward. He only made it ten steps before he saw a door, open to the hall, and heard voices coming from within. Accents. Some the tones of Ba Sing Se. Others, Si Wongi. One had a Huo Jian twist on it. He came to that threshold, and blinked a few times, trying to shake the darkness which had occluded his vision.

They were here. The Mountain King, the Dragon of the East, Toph. Her mother, Zuko, General How. Hakoda, Bato, Sokka. "I..." Aang began.

"Aang! You're awake!" Sokka said with enthusiasm and glee, quickly hauling Aang into a bear-hug. He then turned Aang toward the others at the table. "See? I told you this kid was a tough one!"

"He looks as though he is about to fall over," Sativa pointed out having given him only a glance before returning to her maps.

"Considering his dire predicament, it is a miracle he even lives," her daughter pointed out tersely.

"Guys, that airbender, the one that's got Imbalance inside her? She's on the ship!" Aang blurted, his words falling over themselves like a bunch of impatient people fighting to be first through a narrow doorway.

"We know," Nila said. "It was surprising to see her again."

Aang stared at he, and he clawed at his cheeks. "WHY AREN'T YOU PANICKING ABOUT THIS?" he shouted.

"Please, there is no shouting in the war room," Piandao said with a smirk, waving at Aang to calm himself.

"Aang? Are you up there?" the Host's voice called from behind, and Aang rooted himself before the door.

"Everybody, stay behind me. I'll try to hold her off as long as I can," Aang promised.

She poked her head around the corner, a confused look on her face and one eyebrow raised. "Hold me off? And here I thought I was a touch more welcome than that by now."

"Mysterious Void, the arrow which pierces the finest armor, the sign of–" Aang began.

"Oh, knock it off. I'm not a Host anymore," Malu said.

"But... how?" he asked.

Malu's face took on a momentarily haunted look. Her grey eyes met his for a moment. "It wasn't easy."

"I don't feel right," Aang said, as his world continued to spin, and far more than the mere bucking of the waves – as much as it could be called 'mere' given those waves – could account for.

"Buddy, you'd better lie down," Sokka offered.

"I..." Aang began, but his eyes started to roll up into his head, and all strength left his limbs and he wavered severely, as his heart thudded without direction and purpose, before falling utterly still.

"Somebody catch him, he's going to f..." Toph said urgently, but was cut off when the Avatar hit the floor. "...all."

Nila stared at the Avatar on the floor. "So this is the hand of our salvation?" she asked. Sokka could only give her a shrug. "I see then. We are doomed."

Aang's heart started beating again, but consciousness would be a while in coming back.

* * *

><p>Hundreds of miles away, there stood an observatory. It had been a home, once. Then abandoned. Then, again a home. Now, abandoned for a second time, this time with great haste. And just barely enough haste, all things considered, as a being of inky shadow walked silently through the shadowed hallways. It had arrived mere minutes after the group, who had arrived by the Dirak artifact, departed. The kettle on the stove was still warm. But the Shard didn't pay attention to that. It was hunting something far more ephemeral than heat or human flesh. It was hunting a spirit. It was hunting the Avatar.<p>

To call it mindless would be doing it disservice. It could think, but only in ways utterly alien and foreign to any normal person. It didn't understand that it could have followed subtle tracks toward the river, followed that river to Merchant's Pier, followed the clues that the Avatar was aboard a stolen Fire Nation ship. It didn't think in this direction.

Other Shards started to join it, scouring that place. For the Avatar. For the void which spoke to it. One and all, they found nothing. There was no word spoken by any of that mass, who were lightless but for the evil and arcane red and black pulsing of their eyes. But there was an understanding. They didn't have what they wanted. But they could have... something else.

They moved apart, walking through the walls and dropping down to the base of the Observatory, forming a perfect ring around it. More and more of the Shards appeared, filling the gaps until they had it fenced in completely. Then, one and all, they raised their hands. There was a crash of metal against metal, erupting from no less than a hundred throats, and the Observatory... changed. Its walls buckled and twisted, stretching upward even as the metal flaked and rusted. The sunlight no longer fell on it properly, an unnatural pall getting in the way. The whole structure began to bend, and crack, and crumble... then it halted, in its twisted and unnatural form.

But not really, because it wasn't there anymore. The Observatory no longer was. In its place, a different observatory, one situated wholly in the Spirit World. The Shards began to wink out, vanishing into that false dusk, until there was only one left. It swung its head left and right, before picking a direction, and starting to walk. It seemed at random. That seeming was half right.

* * *

><p><strong>Three Families, Book 3: Order<strong>

**Chapter 1:**

**The Invasion**

* * *

><p>An airbender grumbled as consciousness slowly returned to him, and he rubbed at his eye groggily, feeling the uneven beat of the heart in his chest, the spiderweb traces of pain that a bad beat sent through him. They were frequent enough, and quiet enough, that after only a minute or so, he'd gotten used to them to the point where he could put them out of his mind. Another grunt, this time coming from deeper, as his stomach announced that it <em>would<em> compete with the heart for the attention of the brain, no matter how that temperamental piece of meat wanted to behave.

"I figured you'd be hungry. Have some of this," a voice said. Aang opened his eyes. And he saw Imbalance staring back at him.

He let out a yelp and pushed back, but after a moment, he could tell that he wasn't in a nightmare. Maybe a very strange dream, because Sokka and Katara and Toph were all crowded in the room, the former two playing some sort of card-game, and the latter looking unbelievably bored. Teo stood behind Katara, whispering down into her ear as she worked her hand. She cracked a smile at that, a fairly warm one. "Guys... what is she doing here?" Aang asked quietly, afraid even to move out of a frankly idiotic conception that if he moved, she would pounce on him. There would be no pouncing today.

"It's a bit of a long story," the other airbender said. Aang glanced to Katara, but a finger was snapped in front of his face, and she leaned into his line of sight, looking mildly annoyed. "Hey, you're talking to me right now, kiddo."

"Kiddo?" Aang asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know. Technically you're a day older than me. Yahoo," she said, and her body disagreed with that statement completely. She couldn't be a day younger than seventeen. "But this is the way things are now. I thought some dumb things. Made a few really dumb choices. And that's how I ended up here."

Aang's brow rose, unable to really parse what she was trying to tell him. "...Are you still a Host?"

"No."

"Since when?" Aang asked. There was a stab of pain in his chest as his heart stopped beating again. "Ooooh, why does it keep doing that?"

Katara was instantly moving to his side and leaving Teo where he leaned against a wall. She eased him back to a recline rather than a nervous squat. "Just take it easy. There is scar-tissue on your heart, and until you're used to it, it will take some time for your heart to learn how to beat properly again."

"And I thought I had a monopoly of getting my heart shot out," Malu said with sarcasm and a roll of grey eyes. Toph turned a scowl in her general direction. "Ask Nila. She's the one who did it. In her defense, I definitely needed shooting."

Aang leaned forward, against Katara's advice. "What happened to you?" Aang asked. "How did you survive? Where did you go? Were there others?"

Malu blinked for a moment. "In reverse order: No, I looked for months, but I couldn't find anybody; I hid in the mountains near the Eastern Air Temple, until I couldn't anymore; technically, I didn't survive – I got Hosted and as I understand, that keeps you young; and finally, I thought I was the Avatar, so when I tried to go 'glowing badass' – as that one puts it," she gestured toward Sokka, who gave a nod, "Imbalance had a perfect chance to slip into somebody. It's why it's been slowly killing the world for the last century. Because I was a coward."

"Now tell 'im the best part," Toph said dryly.

"There's a better part?" Aang asked.

"I was being sarcastic," the earthbender noted.

Malu cleared her throat, and looked up at Aang with a very serious expression. "Aang, while Imbalance was inside me, it couldn't do much. It was safe, but it was hog-tied. Have you ever wondered why things like Sentinel Rock or the Great Divide could happen so quickly, but hadn't for the last hundred years? Because without an opening, without me letting down my guard, it couldn't. Now... It's got nothing left holding It back."

"So... freeing you made things worse," Aang summarized. Malu bit her lower lip, and nodded. Aang looked to the others. "...am I really awake?"

Toph answered that by taking a shoe lying on the floor and hurling it at Aang's head. It hurt the way that a shoe-to-the-head ought to. Aang glared at her. "Did you really need to..."

"Yyyyup."

"Well, I've got a feeling that this is going into spirit mumbo-jumbo, so I'm going to go make sure Mom and Sis are comfortable," Teo said, casting a thumb over his shoulder. Katara gave him a very warm look as he left. Not surprising, even in his wounded state, that those two would have spent time together. He might have been... distracted, but he was hardly blind.

Aang leaned forward, wincing through another lance of pain, and rubbing his face. Then, his eyes shot open. "Wait a minute. I had an arrow through me. I wasn't just hurt. I was dead!"

"No, only mostly dead," Malu corrected. "And..."

"Turns out this 'spirit-magic mumbo-jumbo's actually a bit useful," Sokka said from where he was trying to surreptitiously alter his and his sister's hands so that hers would be worse, as her attention was currently on Aang. "Remember that nail you picked up the first time we met Sharif? Turns out, if you drive that into your brain it _keeps you from dying_. Ain't artifacts the weirdest things?"

Aang blinked a few times, then turned to Katara. "How did I get here? Where is here? I... how long was I out?" he asked

"We used that sphere," Katara began.

"Dirak," Sokka interjected.

"...to get to Teo's observatory. From there, we stole a boat at Merchant's Pier, since it'd gotten annexed a few months ago by the Fire Nation," Katara soldiered on, ignoring her brother's interruptions. "We're somewhere near Senlin, I think. And you were... unconscious... for more than a week."

"A week?" Aang asked, again rubbing his chest.

Katara nodded. "I like your hair."

"I HAVE HAIR?" Aang shouted, clapping hands over his pate. While he did still feel his scalp, it was hidden under the bristles of new growth. Malu reached aside and brought up a mirror, reflecting his face back upon it. It was weird, seeing himself like that; despite his young age, he actually looked a bit haggard. But the biggest change was that the blue sweep of his arrow was by-and-large hidden under short black hair. Only the point, inked onto his forehead, remained visible. "Ugh. This just keeps getting worse!"

"I may be directly responsible for the world ending, and having hair is worse," Malu said flatly.

"Kid's got priority issues," Sokka said with a shrug.

"And how did you get so friendly with her so fast?"

"Nila," Sokka said. "They go way back."

"We go back to this past winter. And stop cheating, you're just getting blatant with it, now," Malu said, slapping Sokka's hand.

Aang sat for a long moment, turning all of this over in his head. "Well... what are we going to do?"

"Long story short? We're invading the Fire Nation," Sokka said. "Only we're not going to be doing it without Ba Sing Se's say-so. Long Feng owns that place. So we're going to gather our most trusted friends and allies and bum-rush 'em on the Day of Black Sun."

"...And how many friends and allies is this again?" Aang felt compelled to ask.

"Don't be like that. Bumi's got an army he can lend an old friend, I'm sure of it," Sokka said brightly.

"Stop it," Malu said, and slapped Sokka's hand again.

"I'm not going to keep playing if you keep cheating," Katara told him.

"Hey, I'm only leveling the playing field. I know you spent five minutes stacking the deck!" he complained. Katara got a flabbergasted expression and huffed her incredulity, but even Aang could see through her facade. She tried to deflect for a few more moments, before the door banged open, and Nila walked in, a very sour expression on her face, and a lemur draped over her head.

"You are a masochist to feed this thing. All it ever does is screech and befoul all it flies over," Nila said darkly to Sokka.

"Hey, Momo's great. He gets along fine with Destroyer," Sokka began.

"We're not calling the cub Destroyer, Sokka," Malu cut him off flatly, with much the same tone as Katara always would.

"You lost naming veto when you ate its mother," Sokka said blithely, which made Malu set her jaw. Momo offered a few chitters, and flew over to Aang, picking and prodding at him with its nimble little fingers. Sokka turned to Nila, and winced. "Ooh. Been talking to your mother again, haven't you?"

"Would that my hands were broad enough, I would _strangle_ her," she made a choking out gesture with her own tattooed hands.

Aang looked at everybody, and definitely noticed who was missing. "Guys... where's Sharif? And Zuko? And what about Azula?"

Everybody went silent for a moment, even Nila, who let her hands fall back to her sides. She looked around at everybody else. "Well, are you going to tell him, or must I, Tribesman?"

"Sokka," Sokka corrected her.

"Whatever," she dismissed. She looked a bit haunted, and her hands formed into fists. "My brother... he is missing. He was lost when you fought these ones' wayward sister. I... do not know where he is."

"You'll find him, I know it," Sokka tried to reassure her, but she shook her head sternly.

"You say that without understanding. I have always known where my brother is! To the degree-minute upon any map, to the mile by dead reckoning! Now he is... gone!"

Malu nodded at that. Aang looked at her. "She's a twin," Malu said, as though that explained it. Aang thought about it for a moment, though, and it actually did make sense. Twins shared more than just a womb, after all; they were two halves of the same soul. And even if one soul turned out to be a shaman and the other's wasn't... there was still a connection there. A connection which transcended distance, consciousness, or dimension. A connection which could pull a sleeping secularist into the Spirit World in her dreams.

Nila took a breath, steadying herself, and looked up at him again. Her eyes were now both properly green again, so that was an improvement over how he'd last seen her. "And as for the Prince; he is with his sister, and she is not well."

Aang felt his skin growing a bit cold. "How... not well... are we talking about here?"

Nila just slowly shook her head. "She is how Sharif was, in the time immediately after he was struck in the brain. Her words are nonsense, she runs a high fever, and she cannot control her body. Her brother has the patience of a Darvesh to see to her in such condition."

That Katara nodded told Aang that things were every bit as bad as he assumed. "I need to see her."

"What? Why?" Katara asked.

Aang didn't have an answer for that. Not one that she'd understand. So he answered by getting to his feet, and starting to walk into the halls of the ship that rolled on eternally storm-lashed tides.

* * *

><p>She wasn't sure if it was a miracle of sheer luck, or whether the message had somehow gotten to her, but the six of them all managed to get home. Back to the island desert, one of the few places in the Fire Nation where one could see the sun... sometimes. They made it back, in time. The weather had turned, and rains pounded down on the wastelands, flooding the mines and bringing production of coal to a crawl. Low production of coal now meant that her family was in for a rough winter coming. And a frugal summer in between.<p>

And still, despite their waning wealth, she couldn't deny Mother's request. Despite her waning health, even, they took her, moving furtively from island to island, until they finally reached the mainland. Then, a long voyage on the rails, over the mountains into Azul. The most dangerous place in the world. All because Mother wanted to see the sun set over that ocean one more time. And she wasn't going to say no, not now. The others might have pegged her as the 'evil sister', but the fact was, she was just trying to be pragmatic, but there was only so far pragmatism went before family got in the way.

She turned, and looked at the five sisters who looked essentially identical to her, and the one who seemed simply a sub-standard imitation of the others. While Zhu Di might falter on the physical appearance front, she had a mind better than any other. Kah Ri, ever the fashion-plate, did her best to outshine the others, which was difficult because Ty Lee's ignorant but raw charisma worked wonders. Rai Lee, always staying back from the others. Her hair, unlike the others, was cut almost boyishly short, but just as brown, and her dark eyes didn't look to Mother, nor out to the ocean. Aan Jee stayed near the quietest of the sisters, but in her case, it wasn't out of discomfort, but a long-standing habit of staying out of the public eye. Those in her 'line of work' didn't survive long by being brash. And finally Tzu Zi, back from her jaunt across the East Continent with the Si Wongi and the monster from the Storm Kings. It had strained credulity, but if she knew nothing else, Gwen knew that there was more to the world than she was presently aware. It was a problem she constantly sought to rectify.

She sighed, staring out over that water, trying to ignore the sensation that something was going to leap at them and try to kill them. Since she was in Azul, it was a very real possibility. Another sigh that she couldn't be so fortunate as to have something break the tension. "Is anybody going to say anything?" she asked.

Her sisters answered in their silence. Mother just lay still, her body withered away so that she had to be moved around in a litter. She barely even looked human. But there was enough – just enough – that she knew that the woman deserved... something. She wasn't sure what. She hadn't the years of experience to put it into words, but she needed something. Maybe now, she'd gotten it.

And it had cost Gwen her firstborn child, metaphorically speaking, to get all of the sisters Baihu into one room. Mother couldn't praise her. She couldn't say a word. "Fine," Gwen said. She looked to the litter-bearer, and nodded. He started to gently raise the woman back up, bringing her to the carriage which she'd had to ride alone because of her condition. "That was... distinctly unsatisfying."

"M-m-maybe she just wanted all of us to be t-t-together again?" Rai Lee offered. Not sobbing. Just stammering, as was her way.

Tzu Zi shrugged, but cleared her throat, causing the bearer to pause. She pulled something from a pocket, and laid it into Mother's bony hand. Gwen only got a glimpse of it. It seemed a leaf, from a tree like a maple, but it seemed made of softly glowing white light. The glow every-so-slowly started to dim, though, and she was cut off from closer scrutiny as Tzu Zi put Mother's other hand atop it. Mother... let out a tiny sigh.

Tzu Zi turned to Gwen, as Mother was loaded into the carriage. All of them knew that she wouldn't survive the trip back. They would be orphans this time next fortnight. Wealthy orphans, but still. "We're a family," Tzu Zi said, putting Mother behind her physically and addressing the others. "That means we've got to take what's coming. No matter how much it hurts. We're Baihu. We're not going to vanish. We're going to leave a mark on the Fire Nation. For Mom."

Gwen could see other heads nodding, but in her own head, she already had a plan for leaving a mark on the Fire Nation. Although, it involved emptying its throne.

* * *

><p>"Zuko? Can I come in?" Aang asked, his heart thudding in his chest both unevenly and a little bit painfully as he asked.<p>

"If I said no, would you go away?" Zuko asked through the doorway.

"Yes."

There was a silence, and then the door opened. Just a crack, so that Aang could see the left side of Zuko's face, and that he looked how Aang felt. "I heard you were up. I was... going to come up at some point."

His tones were distracted, distant. He looked like he hadn't slept in as long as Aang had been comatose. The door opened, and the first smell that impacted Aang's senses was that of human waste. The lights were dimmed, but there was a lump upon the cot which was the source of both that smell, and a great deal of concern for the two young men withstanding it. "She's gotten worse, hasn't she?" Aang asked gently.

"She's got no control of anything," Zuko said. "She can't talk. She can't eat. She can barely swallow. She has spastic fits every few hours. She's... dying."

Aang felt his heart lurch, in a very different way. "But... Katara should..."

Zuko shook his head. "She's tried," Zuko said, his tones flat. "I could tell, she didn't want to, but she did... and nothing."

"I don't accept that," Aang said, his jaw setting.

"What do you mean? There's nothing left to do but try to keep her comfortable... before..."

"No," Aang said, and he ignored the lance of pain as his heart managed to almost beat itself in half. "There's a way to fix this. There's a way to make this better. I know it."

"And that's probably my cue to enter," a familiar but unexpected voice sounded from outside the door. There was a zapping sound, and a blue-dressed Tribeswoman walked through the closed bulkhead as though it weren't present. Given what Aang now knew about the spirit using Huuni as a Host, it shouldn't be too surprising that she could. The spirit had a smirk on its face for about a half of a second, before she looked at Azula, and that smirk vanished. "Me-damn, what is that smell?"

"You!" Zuko snarled, bounding to his feet and drawing his twin dao in one motion, leveling a slash at her. There was another zap, and Irukandji was now standing on the other side of Zuko, who staggered for not having a target to strike. "You stay away from her! This is all your fault!"

"Indirectly, yes," Irukandji admitted, as she leaned over Azula. Zuko twisted his arms through the lightning kata, and Irukandji turned to him. "This isn't the time for that, Zuko. I'm trying to save your sister's life, here."

"What? _Now_ you try? After all the suffering you caused, _now_ you try to reverse it?" Zuko demanded.

"Don't take that tone with me, would-be-Fire Lord," Irukandji snapped. "Your sister was dying slowly since she was eight. All that happened at the North Pole was that it started happening faster."

"What _is_ actually wrong with her?" Aang interjected before Zuko could steer the conversation into an angry and indicting rant.

Irukandji skinned open Azula's eyes, and clucked her tongue. "The walls are completely gone," she said. She looked up at the two teenagers. "There are walls inside Azula's mind. Walls I put there so that she could have something like sanity, and something like a life. But this time, when I tried to give an old woman a second chance, something went wrong..."

"Imbalance," Aang said. Irukandji nodded sternly.

"I didn't know it then, but yes," Irukandji agreed. "I was doomed before I even arrived in this reality. And so was she."

"What did you do to her in Summavut?" Zuko demanded.

"I talked to the old woman. Tried to convince her to stop pitching a shit-fit and trying to kill the Avatar here on general principle, and Katara because of what she'd eventually do to Azula's yet-unborn daughter. It's a long story, and one I can't really discuss. But I got interrupted before I could reverse it."

"So you broke my sister? That's why she's been acting like this all spring?" Zuko demanded. Irukandji got to her feet and glared down at Zuko.

"I had the choice between restoring the structural integrity of your sister's brain, or preventing reality from ending in a twist of abject hunger and never-ending oblivion. You're welcome, by the way, for the whole 'I'm still existing' thing that you're doing. Masterful performance. But don't for a second think that you've got any moral high-ground on me, human. I'm playing a different game from you entirely, and the stakes are higher than you think."

"Can you fix her?" Aang asked.

Irukandji took a breath, calming herself, and turned toward the Princess, lying on the cot. "No. Not _fix_ her. I can _repair_ her, but it wouldn't be a fix."

"What does that mean?" Zuko asked, sliding his blades home at last.

"I can erase everything in there which is killing her. She's got three minds rattling around inside one skull, and fairly few humans can take that sort of background noise. I tear down the walls, wipe her clean, and rebuild her from scratch," Irukandji said, and she raised a forestalling finger, cutting off Zuko before he even started talking. "And before you ask, no, it's worse than you think. Everything that you knew about her? Gone. Every quirk she had in your company? Gone. She will be a different person, inside your sister's skin, with something like your sister's memories. Are you willing to live with that? Are you willing to make _her_ live with that?"

Zuko just stared at the spirit for a long time, unable to really answer. Aang took up the slack, then. "I don't like those options," Aang said. "Death, or being turned into somebody she isn't? That's a terrible choice, and I don't want either of them!"

"Those are the choices you've got, kiddo," Irukandji said without humor.

Aang scratched at his hair for a long moment, and then he remembered something that Irukandji said. "Wait... what would it take to fix her? Not repair her, but make her _whole_?"

"Impossible," Irukandji said. But she stopped herself from turning away. "Unless you have a direct line to Agni, anyway."

"The sun? What does the sun have to do with this?" Zuko asked.

"Not the sun, the spirit which embodies it," she said dryly. "Agni could do it. And since our favorite antisocial psychopath is a firebender, Agni will be predisposed to."

"Don't call her that," both Avatar and brother managed to say as one.

"Koh would do it better, but you _don't_ want to deal with Koh," then, she rolled her eyes. "Assuming Koh was even awake. You're right, kid. Agni's the key."

Aang frowned. "I'm right?" he asked.

"Yeah. You find Agni, you can fix her. Agni's got the strength needed, strength of _her_ kind. She still won't be quite the same, not completely, but... it'd still be better than the other alternatives."

Aang nodded. "A while ago, when I was on Crescent Island, Sharif told me he saw a 'four soul-mind'. I think that was Azula."

"No, she's only got three in there," Irukandji said. "I'm sure. I _can_ count to three. Speaking of, where is that guy anyway? I could use a bask."

Aang glanced away. "He got... taken, when we lost at Ba Sing Se."

Irukandji sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Okay. New plan, then. See if we can find Imbalance's Host, stuff it back in there, and seal it, and then hunt down Agni before your sister's brain cooks itself."

"We're not sealing Imbalance inside Malu," Aang said.

"It's the best option."

"You've got a bad habit of giving me two options which are both terrible and overlook a third," Aang said.

"Look, do you want my help or not?" Irukandji asked.

"I'm not selling one girl for another," Aang said. Zuko stared at the floor, not speaking. "Can you do anything for Azula now?"

Irukandji nodded, and tapped the Fire Nation Princess on her crown, which was marked by a heady electric zap, and her entire body went rigid, before she slowly sat up. Zuko's eyes went wide. "Azula!" he cried.

"Don't get too excited. I just got her mobile again," Irukandji said. "She'll backslide unless you move fast."

"Where do I look for Agni?" Aang asked.

"Somewhere in the Fire Nation. Agni never could get away from the heat," Irukandji said. "Now if you don't mind, I've got an everything to save."

"Wait, what ar..." Zuko began, but with a jolt of lightning slamming into one of the walls, she was gone, followed by a muted thundercrack outside as she left the vessel entirely. Zuko stewed for a long moment, before turning to Aang. "She does that frequently, doesn't she?"

"I think so," Aang said. Azula turned to Zuko, with lidded eyes, and babbled nonsense in a language that Aang couldn't recognize. Then, she looked down, and gave a horrified expression of utmost disgust. "I think she just realized what she's lying in," Aang offered.

"You don't say," Zuko answered flatly. "Get out," he said, but not harshly. Aang nodded, and heeded Zuko's wishes. After all, this was something for _family_ to do. And much to an airbender's confused relief and dismay, giving Azula a bath wasn't something which would be looked upon kindly by somebody as protective as Zuko.

* * *

><p>"The Gates of Azulon pose a problem," How said, as he sat at the table, trying to keep the bottle he was employing to keep the map spread from rolling off the table. "If they raise the Great Chains, then our naval force will be trapped in the bay. Or worse, split in half and at the mercy of two navies."<p>

"So why are we going through the Bay of Tenko?" Sokka asked.

"It gives us a direct path to Caldera City. You should get some sleep, you're obviously too exhausted right now," How said somewhat patronizingly, which made Katara fume a bit.

"He is not wrong, How," the woman who shot Aang in the back said. "I know Long Feng's canny, but in war, he is a very untested leader. He will think of such a plan. He will doubtless come up with countless strategums to break the Chains."

"If you admire Long Feng so much, why don't you let _him_ lead the invasion," Katara asked snarkily. The woman turned a glare at the waterbender, but Katara didn't back down. She'd stopped shrinking from dirty looks a long time ago.

"Oh, I intend to," Sativa said, which caused the two generals on the other side of the table to lean back in concern. "As your brother has rightly pointed out, there is folly in making a direct attack. Mostly because we know that another force will be acting, in that direction, at that time."

Sokka nodded. "Long Feng knows that the Great Wall isn't going to protect him if the Fire Lord decides to invest in more flying fortresses. So he's got to act pretty fast, and break Ozai while he can. And I'm pretty sure he knows about the Day of Black Sun... since I told him about it..." Sokka trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck.

"It's not your fault you got tricked, Sokka," Katara tried to reassure him.

"I would say it is," Sativa noted, but she kept her attention on the maps, starting to point to the west. Katara didn't let her continue.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over how you tried to murder the Avatar!" Katara snapped.

"That was a single incident, more than a week ago," she said.

"And how do we even know that you're not going to," Katara snapped her fingers, "flip on us when Long Feng wants you to, and put arrows through more of us? You're a hazard to this entire mission!"

"I am aware," Sativa said evenly. "The serpent's fangs sunk in more subtly than I expected. I presume he still has a hold over me. Which makes me expendable. Thus, I will not be leading anything of importance."

Sokka nodded, and pointed to the west coast of the Fire Nation. "That's the real trick of this. While Long Feng is attacking from the Bay, we're going to sneak an army over the mountains, and attack from the west!"

Katara looked at the path his finger plotted out, and something twigged her as implausible, even with her limited understanding of warfare in general. "Wait, how could you possibly move an army through the mountains? Wouldn't that exhaust the soldiers, use up all of their food?"

Sung leaned forward at that. "I believe that with some careful preparation, we can move those soldiers into position with less than a single percent's attrition," he said with some pride. Katara turned to the Mountain King, who was keeping his silence nearby. He gave a shrug.

"Sung knows his logistics, I will give him that," Zha Yu said. Katara then turned to Sativa again, but she was already speaking.

"As Long Feng's attack will be but a diversion for my own, my attack is itself nothing but farce and facade," Sativa continued, which caused Katara to sputter a bit. She glanced over, almost as though she didn't have it in her to descend to be smug, then continued. "The whole and entire purpose of this entire military campaign, is to bring the Avatar, and his most trusted and capable agents, into a position where they can unseat the Fire Lord in his moment of weakness. In the vacuum that creates, Prince Zuko will take his place, and bring an end to this generational war."

"That's got quite a few holes in it, even I can see that," Katara said.

"No plan survives the first contact with the enemy," Sativa said.

"There's a bit of a problem, though," Dad said from the other side of the table, between the two Earth Kingdom generals and the Dragon of the East. "Somebody has to go to Omashu, and have Bumi rally his troops. The Fire Nation hasn't claimed the southern Earth Kingdoms yet, and..."

"And it has to be you?" Katara finished for him.

"No," How said. "Not him. To be frank, young lady, this is an Eastern problem, requiring an Eastern solution. I will go."

"Do I look like some sort of firebender?" Sativa pointed out. "I can easily muster Omashu's levies."

Sokka cleared his throat, and when that didn't seem to work, he picked up a wrench holding open another map and hurled it at a bulkhead. The resounding boom caused all of the adults, who were currently arguing and talking over each other to stop and look at him. He had a confused look on his face. "Why is this even a problem?" Sokka asked. "Anybody who wants to go to Omashu, can. There's nobody stopping you."

"This boat can only reach one direction. Its skiff does not have such capacity," Sativa pointed out.

"No, but my bison does," Aang's voice came from the door. Katara spun to see him, standing there with his staff in hand, battered though it was, and his head still covered in short hairs. He looked years older, even just like that. He looked up at them all, walking with barely a hitch, for all his heart was surely not working entirely properly. "I can take Katara, Zuko, Sokka, Toph, and Azula to the Fire Nation. And while we're there, we can find some way to help prepare for the invasion."

"You'd fly into the dragon's nest of your own free will?" Sung asked incredulously. How, though simply weighed the Avatar with a look.

"Why are you volunteering for this?" he asked.

"Azula needs help, or she's going to die. That help can only be found in the Fire Nation," Aang said.

"And why do you even care? All she ever does is try to kill us!" Katara pointed out.

Aang glanced away.

And right then, Katara finally got it.

"No. Noooo, that can't be," she said.

"Look, this is the only way that she can get..." Aang began.

"You've been _crushing_ on her this entire time?" Katara asked, baffled. "Her? The woman who tried to murder you a dozen times in the last six months alone? _HER_?"

Aang just kind of shrugged at that, like he couldn't answer her charge with words. She threw up her hands into the air in utter bewilderment. "You're... nuts!" Katara offered.

"I know," Aang said. "But it doesn't matter. She needs help, and I'm going to offer it."

"Are you sure about this, Avatar?" Zha Yu asked. "If you go to the West, we won't be able to help you, to assist you in any way. You'll be on your own in enemy territory. And I don't even know how we're going to explain those two," Zha Yu waved his finger between Sokka and Katara, "considering that the Nationals are going to be paranoid for Tribesmen."

"I do not see Tribesmen," Sativa said evenly. "I see Hillmen."

Katara frowned. "What did you call me?"

"It's alright," Aang interrupted Katara's snit, and quite a shame, because it was shaping up to be a good one. "She's right. The Azuli hill-folk do look a lot like Tribesmen. As long as you can speak Azuli Huo Jian, you'll be fine."

Sokka gave a look at Katara, who stared at Aang for a moment. "Yup, we're dead," Sokka offered.

"Give her some credit," Aang said. "She's picked up a lot..."

"And if you mess it up, they'll just blame it on your redneck Gork upbringing," Zha Yu said, rubbing his beard. He nodded. "That might actually work."

The Dragon of the East gave a nod at that. "And for once, the 'common knowledge' that the Avatar has been slain in Ba Sing Se works to our advantage."

"Wait, _what_?" Aang asked.

"Oh yeah," Sokka said brightly. "You're _dead_! Nobody will even think to look for you, since there's no point anymore!"

"That's terrible!" Aang said, his eyes wide. "I've got to tell them that I'm..."

"You will do no such thing!" Sativa cut him off, rising to her feet and casting one hand aside in a slashing motion. Katara moved to Aang's side, giving him at least a spiritual ally against this never-again-trusted associate. "The ruse of the Avatar's demise is the only advantage you have, and the only one which could keep you safe in the West. Do not be foolhardy or proud, boy! Think with your mind and not with your ego."

"But..." Aang said.

"Please, if it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place!" Katara shouted at the Si Wongi woman. "After all, it was _your_ arrow which went through his back!"

"No human in the world would have been able to resist Long Feng's compulsion in that moment," Sativa said darkly.

"And you wouldn't have had to if you hadn't gotten captured by him!" Katara continued. "Yes, I talked to your companions, and I hear, the entire reason they got imprisoned and tortured was because of _your_ ego, and _your_ pride!"

"So not speak on what you know nothing about," Sativa said coldly, her tone drawing out like a knife in the darkness.

"I think I _know_ a bit about traitors and..."

"Katara, please!" Dad interrupted her. He then turned to Sativa. "And shame on you for goading her! This isn't doing anybody any good. It's just dividing us against ourselves, and that's exactly what our enemies want! Our only chance is to stand together, no matter what. It's the only chance we have."

There was a glaring silence between the two women, one teenaged, the other a mother to same. Then, both looked away in almost absolute unison. "Very well," Sativa said. "Your words are true enough. We serve no purpose but our own destruction in this bickering. Whatever the case, I know what I must do. The Lotus has fallen in Ba Sing Se, and with it, any chance of it's armies. But I will make due."

"Good, and Katara..."

"I'm going with Aang," she said. Dad just gave a nod.

"I didn't suspect you'd do anything else," he told her. He let out a weary sigh, and seemed to stare through the bulkheads. "It's been so long since I've been home. And... I know Hikaoh is out there, now. I've... got to do something, but I just don't know what. I don't like this feeling."

"Nobody does," Zha Yu said with a note of empathy. He looked to the Tribesmen and the Avatar. "I've known from the moment you walked into my shack in the woods that you'd be bound for larger and crazier things. Infiltrating the Fire Nation via the most dangerous place on this planet sounds exactly up to par. But if anybody can do it, it's you four."

"Five," Nila piped up from the doorway. She was leaning against it, her firearm repaired and hanging from her shoulder on a strap. Sativa turned to her and said something in Altuundili, thus out of Katara's comprehension, but Nila shook her head sternly. "No, Mother. There is no home. Not anymore. And as it was the likes of this one's sister," a nod toward Katara, "who absconded with Sharif in the Zutara ruins, this is my best chance of recovering him."

"Um, actually, it's going to be seven," Aang pointed out on her heels. All eyes turned to him. "Zuko and Azula, remember?"

"You play a dangerous game indeed, bringing those two. They are almost as dire enemies of that land as are you," Sativa pointed out.

"I'll find a way."

Dad gave a slow nod. "Good hunting, Avatar. Find a path."

"I have to do it," Aang said. He looked... tired, then. Worn thin. "If I can't, then I'm letting down everybody, all those people who put so much faith in me only to have it shattered again and again, and again. I have to do this," he looked up at them all. "The world needs a victory. All of the worlds do."

Only some of those gathered knew what that meant, but also knew just how right he was.

* * *

><p>There was a noise in the blackness, just the slightest shuffle of cloth moving past cloth. Something that would have been overlooked, and not overheard given the thunder and the pounding rain outside the window, but for the listener had very, very keen ears. He waited, though, as the information he'd gotten was quite clear. Vulnerable, yes, but the heir was not unprotected.<p>

The Fire Nation was in a very dire strait, and the common opinion was, as the hostile coast and islands of Azul were still gifted with sunshine in an almost majority of their days, that the current Royal Line had fallen into disfavor. With Agni Himself, with the spirits, or with nothing more than the universe, the Azuli wouldn't say. But they knew that the blood was in the water. They could feel it dripping from Ozai's wounds, far faster than ever it had from the man's father. Azulon was a tyrant of the first order, and his authority, absolute. Ozai? Well, not so much. This was a time of great promise, great opportunity. Who knows? Perhaps the Azuli could even bring the sun back to the Fire Nation?

All, thoughts which slipped through an assassin's mind. The grim nature of his deed was one he didn't bother contemplating. It was for the good of the Fire Nation itself that an infant die. There was nothing personal about it, and no sadism in particular on his part. It was just something that needed doing, and he was skilled enough to do it. But he had to be patient. He'd spent hours moving through the upper levels of the crawl-spaces, finding the perfect place to wait until the nurses were gone, and the infant was alone. He even planned to be somewhat gentle; suffocation, after all, wasn't quite so cruel a death.

But he wasn't alone. That whisk of cloth against cloth informed him of that clearly. Somebody else was entering the room, carefully moving along the floor, the clothing so dark it almost vanished against the stone and the walls. But not quite. The assassin wondered. What was this interloper doing here? He didn't quite know. But he had to make absolutely sure. After all, Ozai's Children were infamously capable of undoing the Coordinator's work. The newcomer seemed to be moving very-slowly toward the cradle. To the edge. Another assassin? This was beyond odd.

The assassin's confusion was put on hold, though, as a feminine figure pulled up through the window, every bit as drab and concealed as the one already next to the cradle. But the sound was unmistakable, and the assassin turned to face her. There was a hiss of metal, as a long knife of indeterminate make announced itself into the otherwise silence of the bastard girl's room. The first assassin answered the Child's charge with his own blade, and they ran forward in silence. The slashing of blades through the air, the tearing of dry cloth and the wet sheering of wet cloth were the sum total of the noise of the fight. But the Child seemed to have been born with the upper hand, and the whole conflict was over in a matter of less than a minute. There was a lightning-strike of steel, and the assassin went rigid, before slumping back and crashing to the floor. The Child stared down at the assassin, not even bothering to raise an alarm. Her mistake.

The assassin dropped from the ceiling, landing with a quiet roll, and when he came up, it was to loop a garotte around her neck, to instantly pull it tight and heave her up onto his back, so that there was no force in her body which would free her from strangulation, and without so much as a sound. He twisted, pulling harder, until the fibrous wire cut into her neck all the more deeply, crushing her airway, and starving her brain of blood. She stopped fighting. He kept the hold for another minute, to be absolutely sure. Then, he released his garotte and she slid off of his back with a wet thud. She was good, he admitted to himself, but he was better.

With that dealt with, he started to move to the cradle, timing the wetter of his steps to the lightning crashes outside. He wasn't about to allow that Child to raise an alarm; who knew when he would get another chance. But he did have to admit, his information had been good. The Child had shown up exactly as he could have anticipated. Truthfully, he'd expected one waiting for him when he snuck in. But they were canny. They knew how to throw his kind. So he put out of his mind the past, and focused on the present. A long bolt of thick cloth, to smother an infant.

The thunder continued to roll, as he moved to the side of the crib, but something was wrong. Namely, the Royal bastard wasn't twitching in the crib as an infant should. It was there, still as death. The assassin's brow furrowed, and he reached down, sliding the backs of his fingers along the child's cheek. And to his growing horror, he felt not flesh, but porcelain.

His horror would have been greater, had he been listening between the thunderclaps, and heard the electricity gathering much closer than the heavens. And more still, if he'd not gotten wet, and thus allowed his hair to stand on end. As it was, he only had the faint glow of electric blue light to warn him, and while he did bound away, the instant he rolled to his feet, knife cocked to hurl, it was to be intercepted by a bolt of _lightning_.

There was a moment of silence, and then a ball of golden flame appeared over the Child, the _true_ Child's hand. Because now the assassin could see that the woman he'd killed, was every bit as Azuli as he. "Impressive work, but not quite good enough," the Child said. The assassin blinked through the pain and the paralysis, trying to get his limbs to obey him. The girl ahead of him... she didn't look right. Her skin looked like some sort of ghastly bone-white mask, but her eyes seemed to glow like azure flames from out it. "Three assassins and _I_ only had to kill one of them. That's a new record for me," she said.

The assassin looked around, trying to understand. Great Agni's fire, this was all a trick. "You set us up..." he wheezed, mostly because one of his lungs was now burnt to a crisp, and the other hurt to breath with.

"Yes," she said. She leaned down. "Inform one assassin that another was hired to protect the child, and a safe place to hide until he showed himself. Inform another assassin that one of the Children would be guarding the heir, and when an assassin showed himself, he would be dealt with, deepening the ruse. Tell the last that there was an ample opportunity to slay the Royal Heir, and a relatively clear path to her. And you did all the rest. Bravo."

"That was..." the assassin gasped. Foolhardy. Risky. Putting a lot in the hands of fate.

"Very good planning," she said. "And this is the end of it."

Yoji cast that flame down at the Azuli assassin, stealing his breath before he could even scream, and then roasting him down into a charred heap. A part of her relished in that. Not killing, she wasn't so crude. But the fact that her plan had worked, perfectly, without a hitch.

It still wouldn't bring back Omo.

She stared at the bodies on the floor for a long time, the thunder crashing outside frequently enough to keep the room lit with the flares of lightning. All of this, and she still felt like a failure. Because she couldn't bring back one of her own. Part of her wanted to say that her sorrow was that the greatest of the Children's earthbenders was now lost to them. But that was a hopelessly clinical and utterly incorrect reason. She wanted to say that her sorrow was because one of the Children's premier infiltrators had been lost, and with it, much of the chance of ever rooting out what resistance would remain in such places as Omashu. But that simply wasn't true.

She just wanted Omo back, because he made her feel human.

She stepped out of the infant's room, and outside, she let her flame snuff. As the halls were lit even in the night, there was more than enough to see by. And in short order, stepping out of a long-cast shadow, Kori was at her side. He kept pace, but also silence. Waiting for her to speak first, no doubt.

"The assassins are dead," she said.

"All of them?" Kori gave a shrug.

"A tragic misunderstanding," she said flatly.

Kori smirked. "That's a new level, even for you," he pointed out. "I thought you'd be a bit more satisfied, though."

"I am thoroughly satisfied," Yoji said. Lied.

"We both know that's not true, Yoj," Kori said quietly.

"You presume much," Yoji said with a quiet edge.

"But do I presume correctly?" he asked. She glared at him. "Look, I know that you're still a bit torn up over Omo, but there was nothing that..."

"I am not torn up over Omo. This is war, and there are always casualties in any conflict," she told him, coldly.

Kori shocked her by grabbing her hands and hauling her to a halt. Her snort of outrage came out aflame. "No! That's enough! I know you're hurting, and all you're doing by stuffing it into your boots is making sure that it'll trip you up when you need to move fast! At least let yourself grieve!"

"The Children died a long time ago. It's just that our bodies haven't stopped moving yet," Yoji said, pulling herself away. Kori stared after her as she stormed away.

"Wait, one more thing, Hikaoh?" he called after her.

"What?" Yoji asked. And then, he realized what named he'd asked. And she glared, so hard. He didn't say another word, though. He just walked away, his dark blue eyes on her own, until he passed into shadow and vanished from her sight completely. A chill ran through Yoji, not like any she'd ever had. Something wasn't right. And she didn't know what it was. It was a wound she didn't see and didn't know how to stitch, one which bled her, even now. Something had to change. She knew it, even now.

She just wasn't sure what.

* * *

><p>The rain had let up to a hot drizzle by the time that Team Avatar had assembled on the deck of the ship. Appa, who had been riding contently in the cargo hold surrounded by all the hay it could eat – also used to cushion the blows of rolling around on the hellish waves – was now standing, soaking wet, on the deck, with a newly if hastily crafted howdah on its back. Aang had taken up his place upon the beast's brow, reins in hand, and lemur on shoulder. The saber-toothed moose-lion cub which had somehow both managed to stay with them and remain unnamed for that vast duration was standing on the front of the howdah, looking out over the water with infantile curiosity and waggling its little stump of a tail. It was strange that Sokka, a long time ago, would have considered this thing food. Well, he still did, but this particular little meat thing was off of the dinner-plate. Especially considering they were entering the land of <em>ten thousand<em> spicy meats.

"I don't know what to say right now," Aang said, looking down at Dad and Zha Yu and all the rest. "I wish we didn't have to do this, but this is our only chance."

"I know, Avatar," Dad told him. "We'll join you with the invasion force when the time is right. You just need to make sure that there's a road through the mountains waiting for us."

Zha Yu leaned forward, a smirk on his face. "And if there isn't, I'll make one."

Aang nodded, and looked back into the howdah. They were all in it, which gave Appa a fairly heavy load, all things considered. Two firebenders, a waterbender, an earthbender, Sokka himself, and an explosivebender, as he called her, along with the airbender himself. Nila looked nearly her old self ever since her repaired eye returned to its natural green, but there was a fatigue about her. One which didn't seem to go away for anything. "I'm going to win this. I swear," Aang said. And the adults below, those placing so much hope and faith on the kid's fairly narrow shoulders, could only nod.

"I know, Avatar," Piandao said up to him. He turned to Sokka, next. "As for my blade..."

"I know, I know," Sokka said, reaching to unbuckle it.

"No, you don't," Piandao said. "Every student of mine takes a weapon of his own, usually forged by his own hand. But I can see that the meteoric sword is as much a part of you as your mind, and every bit as sharp. Use it well."

"Oh... wait, does that make me your student?" Sokka asked.

"Do not become captured again, Mother," Nila pointed out from the rail. "I shall not be able to save you again."

"You should not speak so flippantly."

"What can I say? I rubbed off on her," Sokka pointed out. Sativa's eyes flashed into outrage.

"You did _what_?"

Nila rolled her eyes, and rattled off something in Altuundili, which seemed to mollify the Dragon of the West, but only slightly. She still watched Sokka like an angry mother hawk. Yeesh. He must have _really_ said something wrong. "Hey, Twinkletoes, are you just going to lounge on Appa's head all day, or are you going to get flying? I don't like bein' soaking wet for no reason!"

Aang glanced back at Toph, where she was sitting under the tarpaulin next to the barely mobile and extremely confused seeming Azula. Whatever Irukandji did, it had regressed quickly to reach its current state, but at least she wasn't having disruptive fits anymore. Not that it was much comfort for Avatar or sibling, either. Toph was right. There wasn't anything else to be gained by staying here. He turned, and gave his reins a flap, and said those two fateful words. "Yip yip."

Appa let out a groan, and then hopped off of the deck, rising into the drizzle somewhat lethargically. The cub was still staring out and down at the water excitedly, wagging its tail. Sokka really had to name that thing someday. Something besides 'dinner'. That joke had run its course, he pondered. The drizzle seemed to come harder as they rose through it, slowly scudding toward the level of the clouds. "At least it'll be impossible for the Fire Nation to track us when we're moving," Sokka said.

"However, we shall have to travel by dead-reckoning," Nila pointed out.

"Something wrong?" Sokka asked, catching something in her tone.

"I am fine," she said.

Sokka stared at her for a moment. The argumentative in him wanted to point out that no, she didn't sound fine. The wise man who had been kicked and drubbed into existence over the last half of a year told him it might be a good idea to let it rest. Needless to say, the wise-man didn't have complete say in Sokka's brain, to his dismay. "Well, you could have fooled me," Sokka said.

"She should be here," Nila said simply. Sokka frowned.

"Malu?" she nodded at his query. "You do realize that most of us are still a little terrified of her. Even though she did save our baconchops back in Ba Sing Se."

Nila just shook her head, and sat against the rail. "You fear her. I shot her twice, fatally each time. I think if I can give the airbender a moment's forgiveness, then you are a hypocrite not to."

"Well, point taken," Sokka said. "But it's a bit too late now. Aang said she was going to Omashu, so she's going to..."

"Catch up to us in about five seconds," Zuko interrupted. Sokka frowned at him, and then leaned around the tarp and saw that yes, there was a bright form rapidly gaining distance on Appa's tail even as he watched. There was a twist and a snap as she closed that glider staff of her own a full two yards short of Appa's paddling tail, and managed to land with her toes barely on it before kipping forward and landing at a sit easily, if soaking wet, between Sokka and Nila.

"Did you guys really think you were going to the Fire Nation without me?" Malu asked, grinning through the black hair which was plastered to her face.

"Whoa, where'd that one come from?" Toph asked, instantly glaring through Nila since Malu was on her left.

That question caused Aang to look back, and note that he'd taken on another passenger. His eyes went wide, and he quickly bounded up onto the rail, causing the cub to drop back down and give him room, cuddling amidst the barely-conscious firebender's legs. Zuko didn't pay the beast any attention, and Azula couldn't have said anything about its wet body on her lap if she wanted to. "Malu? What are you doing here? I though that I said..."

"Yeah, well, you might be the Avatar but you're not the boss of me," Malu said. "Besides, I'm technically older than you, now. Years of experience. And I was always the better airbender!"

"But..." Aang said.

"Hey, Aang," Malu said, and made a silencing motion. Aang's jaw set with annoyance, before there was a flit of his eye, and he rubbed at his chest, as he seemed to often do since his awakening on that ship which now slowly disappeared into the distance behind them. Malu then leaned back, once again draping an arm past each of Nila and Sokka. "As I see it, you need me more than the old guys do. _A_ _lot_ more."

Aang frowned. "How?"

Malu's smile curdled a bit at that, and those arms pulled in, so she seemed to be trying to rub out a shiver, despite the heat. "Look, I know for a fact that things are going to get worse. Imbalance was once one thing, stuffed inside one body. Now it's a lot of things, and they're walking the world with impunity. And I can feel them, Aang. Every single one of them. I know where they are, when they're coming, when to run. You can't see them, not the way I do."

"So you want to keep Imbalance away from me?" Aang asked. Malu just nodded. "How?"

"When you see a dark, evil, red-eyed me out there? Run. Run like _hell_."

"Sounds like good advice even were Imbalance not a problem," Toph opined.

"But... I don't know if we can do this. Four would be hard to hide," Aang said, motioning to his oldest traveling companions. "Seven's a lot harder. I don't think we can do eight."

"Hey, eight's a lucky number, remember?" Malu said, that smirk returning. She then leaned to one side. "And you'd better see to Appa. It's getting distracted by your lemur."

"What?" Aang asked, turning behind him. His eyes shot wide. "Momo! Stop picking at that! It's dragging us off course!"

With a bound, he was over the rail once more. Malu then looked to Sokka's sister, who was watching her carefully. "I assume you've got something to say about this?" Malu asked.

"No. No I don't," she said, but Sokka was sure she didn't mean it.

"And as for you?"

"I have no idea who you are, and frankly, I don't care," Zuko said, trying to comfort the bewildered girl who could only speak in gibberish and word salad. Malu nodded at that, and turned to Sokka.

"No problems here," Sokka said.

"You know full well that I will not censure you," Nila pointed out. Toph just threw the girl a gesture of utter-uncaring.

Sokka, though, got a bit of a wonder in his mind, as they rose up into the clouds, the drizzle becoming a drench. "Malu, could you tell me something?"

"I can tell you a lot of somethings," Malu said with a smirk, managing to echo something Aang had said a long time ago.

"She keeps on taunting me," Sokka pointed past Malu to Nila, "about how she never wears underwear. She's just trying to rile me up, isn't she?"

"Who, Nila?" Malu asked, turning to the Si Wongi. "Oh, no. Never wore underwear as long as I've known her. But then again, she _did_ spend a long time in a pirate's pants."

"Yes, and thank you for reminding me of that unpleasantness," Nila said flatly. She then turned to Sokka, and smirked. "And just so you know, as has been in the past, so remains today."

Sokka scowled at Nila for a long moment, and then rose to sit under the tarp with Zuko, Azula, and Toph. Zuko just looked at him. "Girls are crazy," he said direly.

"I'm well aware," Zuko answered him. And then got punched by Toph for the trouble.

* * *

><p>The sound of a thunder-strike, slamming down in the darkness of the South Polar winter, pulled Yue's attention from the fire and those gathered before it. Many of those present knew what that sound meant. An equal number did not. "I suppose I'll have to take a moment. Hahn, could you continue?"<p>

Hahn nodded, and took her seat when she vacated it, and she pressed out into the biting wind, and tucked up her hood over bone-white hair to keep the tiny flecks of wind-borne ice from stinging her ears clean off. Chimney Mountain was a lot bigger than it had been when Yue arrived here, but then again, before she arrived here, there hadn't been a waterbender present in decades. Needless to say, the de facto capital of the Water Tribe – as there was no further need of distinction between North and South Tribes as both had become one people – experienced something of a Renaissance in recent months. And the timing couldn't have been better; walls to break wind made it so that brutal winter storms coming off of the water couldn't bury homes as they once, purportedly, did.

"Excuse me? Did you hear where that thunder-strike landed?" Yue asked one of the locals, a willowy woman who was fairly tall for her gender.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure," the woman said. She looked down at her daughter, who was tucked tight in against her side against the cold. "You were closer. Did you see it?"

The girl didn't look like a Tribesman by a half, but Yue could see a bond between mother and child clear in the way the amber-eyed, pale girl smiled up at her mother. "Of course I did, Mom. It was right over there!"

Yue leaned aside, and could see that Benell was pointing directly to Yue's residence, off to one side of the rejuvenated city. "Thank you," Yue said with a faint bow, before pushing her way through the drifts which nevertheless dropped between the buildings they had built here. It was almost as cold as she remembered in the North. But Summavut was further north than Chimney Mountain was south. That there was still the length of days here attested to that fact. She moved through the 'streets', and every Tribesman who saw her, nodded with respect. Some, because she was Hakoda's chosen 'regent'. Others, because she'd proven herself as wise and fair as that regent. Others still, out of old habit, revering the Princess of Battles. Those ones bowed the deepest, the longest. Those ones still couldn't quite look her in the eye. Those ones broke her heart a little.

She turned a corner, and saw a few people glancing nervously amongst themselves, but they parted when they saw her approaching. "Shaman Yue, I'm not sure if you should go in there right now," Lana said to her. Unlike most from the North, Lana had not simply broken down when they landed here. She was as dedicated to surviving as a people as Yue was.

"What? Why?" Yue asked.

Lana simply pointed up, and Yue's eyes saw what others had. Namely, there was a gaping hole in her roof. "I'll deal with this," Yue said. "And when I do, could you have somebody come and patch that hole so I don't freeze tonight?"

"Of course, but don't say I didn't warn you," Lana said with pursed lips as she moved off into the crowds. Yue wasn't quite sure what to make of that. She pushed through the flaps which led into her main-room, the one open to the elements due to a blasted wound in its overhead. The ice even showed signs of scorching, which Yue was fairly sure wasn't physically possible. But when she struck the flint and steel to light her oil-lamp, and cast a bit of light into her house, she could see what caused it.

There was a woman in a rich blue dress, sitting on a stool in the center of the room. Her head was hanging, hair disheveled, face in her hands. Around her were a truly remarkable amount of vessels of alcohol, every one of them emptied but for a few drops. "Irukandji?" Yue asked. The spirit and the shaman who hosted it both turned to Yue, eyes bloodshot and sunken.

"You know what's really terrible? This body can get drunk, but I can't," Irukandji said, her voice completely clear even if she did look – and smell – like she'd taken a bath in whiskey. She shook her head slowly. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Every plan I had, poof; gone. They won't seal Big I inside the girl. So where does that leave me? Trapped in a spiral of dying existences. Not fun."

"What are you talking about?" Yue asked, moving closer to the woman she'd known since birth, in one form or another. Technically, her _grandfather_ had known Irukandji since birth, so it was little surprise.

"The Avatar decided to get all high and mighty, and in so doing he's doomed reality," Irukandji shook her head. "I mean, what are we supposed to do now? It's not like we can _kill_ Imbalance! It doesn't even exist by the same rules you or I do! That's not something you can just throw fireballs at until it dies!"

"Why not?" Yue asked. Irukandji glared toward her, and then slumped her chin down onto her hands once again.

"Because Imbalance doesn't... _exist_. You can't destroy what doesn't exist. Not without a lot of help. And that help's out of my reach."

"What help would you need?" Yue asked, sitting down on the ice before the spirit who had fought so hard against the Fire Nation, at their side.

"Well, first, I'd need Koh, since he's _definition_ itself. He _says_ something exists, it _exists_. If it exists, it can bleed, and if it can bleed, it can die. But I don't have that kind of umph just kicking around. You'd need Tui and La to get his attention by now."

Yue thought about that for a moment. "And if we had Tui and La?" she asked.

"We don't," Irukandji said.

"If. We. Did," Yue pressed. Irukandji blinked a few times, and then sat up a bit straighter.

"Well, if we had Tui and La, then we could... we could try to wake Koh, and in the event he doesn't steal our faces, we could tell him what's going on, what he needs to do. And then, even if we royally bork it all up, there'll still be _something_ left after reality ends," Yue frowned in confusion at that, and Irukandji just waved her hand. "It's a long story. Kind of Koh's ultimate _raison d'etre_."

"His what?"

"His... oh right, that language doesn't exist in this universe, does it?" Irukandji shook her head. "Right. If we had the Fish, we could wake big-ugly-and-necessary. But we don't have the Twins, so I'm not sure why you're even bothering with this."

"Who says I don't?" Yue asked.

"Reality," Irukandji said. "And besides if you did you'd..." she trailed off, and then she looked into the distance briefly before looking back to Yue. "Alright, I think it might be possible that I _can_ get drunk, because otherwise I'd have seen that before you did."

"So you are thinking what I'm thinking?" Yue asked, an uncharacteristically cunning smile on her face.

"Possibly, but how are we going to get that many penguins tied to an iceberg?" Irukandji asked. Yue leaned back. "No, really, we're going to steal the fish," Irukandji said with a chuckle. As that chuckling ended, she sighed, and then leaned forward again. "So, how are we going to do it?"

* * *

><p>There was thunder as the tiny boat pulled into shore, riding atop waves which had threatened the entire time to swamp it. Doubly so, since neither of the people aboard were exactly skilled in the art of sailing. But the trip was done, and for one of them at least, it was as close to home as she'd been in many, many years. A crack split the sky, and the rain was set alight by a bolt as the first of them, taller, more slender, bounded off of the front of that little skiff and headed immediately for the treeline, ducking under the shelter of the thick canopy which flourished in this hellishly wet weather.<p>

The other wasn't long in following. This one was a bit broader, and his usually wild hair was now plastered to his head for the wet. "Shouldn't we keep the boat?"

"Have you been hiding some coal?" the other asked.

"I see your point," the young man answered. He started to pelt up the saturated sand and under the trees, where the deluge was not so much stopped as strongly reduced. "By the gods, why can't we get a _tenth_ of this?"

"Couldn't tell you," she answered him, and gave a bit of a shiver. He gave her a smirk.

"Seriously, Mai? You're cold, here?"

"I'm soaking wet."

"It's summer in the Fire Nation. You can't be cold," he expounded.

"Jet, just because I got used to the East, doesn't mean I liked it. And that was a _dry_ cold. This isn't."

Jet sighed, and rolled his eyes. "You're kinda nuts, you know that?"

"I must be, otherwise I would have never agreed to that Tribesman's plan," Mai pointed out. She looked down onto the beach, which was quickly reclaiming the skiff which had borne them here, pulling it out into grey waves which otherwise crashed onto black sands. "It's been a long time."

"I can imagine," Jet said. "So... where do we go from here?"

Mai leaned aside, trying to empty out the water which had somehow infiltrated her hood and flooded her ear. Then, after using that moment to ponder, she pointed west. "On that side of the island, there's a military garrison, and a town just past it. Even in weather like this, there'll be ships heading to the rest of Ember. All we have to do is follow the islands."

Jet nodded, and glanced at the money in his pouch. It wasn't much. "Do you think they'll accept it in payment?"

"As long as you change some of it, they won't care," Mai said. "'Silver spends, no matter the mark'."

Jet nodded, and he turned, facing out to the east once more. Mai let out a quiet sigh, into the rattle of raindrops against broad leaves. "You're thinking about Bug, Longshot and Bee, aren't you?"

"I can't help but feel like I'm betraying them, leaving them in Ba Sing Se like that."

"They made their choice," Mai said. "They picked their fight."

"But those guys were our gang!"

Mai shook her head, and guided Jet's eyes to hers. "We don't need the gang. We did once, but that time is passed. We can do this."

Jet puffed out a breath, and nodded. "Yes. I can do this. Long as I've got the deadliest lady in the Western Hemisphere at my side, how can I go wrong?"

Mai smirked at that, as she fell in step with him as they moved forth through the forest. "Charmer," she said, and pulled a bit closer to him. After all, he might be soaking wet, but at least he was warm.

* * *

><p>"Gods, do you think Mai and Jet are having this much trouble?" Bug asked, as she tried to rotate an injury out of her shoulder. Longshot just gave her a look, one which Smellerbee interpereted as 'knowing him, he's having more.' "Good point, Longshot."<p>

"Look, we're still alive. And we've even made it to the Lower Ring," Smellerbee pointed out, ticking the points off of her fingers. She wasn't sure how, but with Jet out in the West, the others started looking at her for leadership. She couldn't have said why. She was just as much a follower as anybody else, Jet excluded. "And we only took a week to do it!"

"A week to travel two miles. Must be a new record," Bug said with a smirk. She then glanced ahead to the ramshackle library where they'd been told to go. It wasn't exactly an inviting sight. The building was the most dilapidated building amongst some admittedly fairly dilapidated buildings. The people lounging outside of it had the look of both the dealers and the addicts of some horrible narcotic substance. And they watched the teens who approached with very unsettling eyes. Even _Smellerbee_ was mentally undressed by those leches, and that was not something which happened often.

Longshot stepped ahead of the two young women, and tipped his hat back so it laid on his back, and glared with those dark, dark eyes at the crowd ahead of him. Smellerbee knew that look. It was his 'I'm looking for a target', look. One which even the soused and the debauched knew without a word being said. First one, then another, until the whole group was splitting away and finding somewhere else to stand, somewhere where a teenager with a lunatic eye was sizing them up for a sudden growth of a foot and a half of wood.

"Thanks, Longshot," Smellerbee said, clapping a hand onto the archer's shoulder. Longshot gave her a shrug, clearly a 'Not a problem'. She glanced back to Bug. "Alright. Let's talk to this guy."

The three of them moved into the building, and found it mostly devoid of books, and utterly devoid of patrons. Smellerbee might not have been in many libraries in her childhood, but she knew that they tended to be at least a bit more busy than this. Sporting, spirited debates over the meaning of a scripture. Sometimes fist-fights when those debates got a bit too _spirited_. But this? This was like walking through the ribs of some long dead and decayed beast, something dissolved of its purpose, until only a shadow of itself remained. True to her instructions, Smellerbee moved to the back of the library, and pounded hard on the frame of a shelf a few times.

"Do you think this was the right building?"

"I don't forget directions, Bug," Smellerbee said. Longshot's dubious look was clear enough. "What? I don't!"

It was only a moment later when the back of one of those benuded shelves slid aside, and she could see a brown eye staring back at her. "Who dares stand at the garden gates?" the bearer of that eye asked, tones quiet and hesitant.

"..." Smellerbee drew a blank, and then she turned back to Longshot. "There was some sort of password, wasn't there?"

Longshot answered that by palming his face with a crisp crack of hand to forehead.

"Let them in, woman, don't be so obstinate," a man's voice came from behind the closer, and there was a flinch in the bearer of that hidden passage, before the panel slid back into place, and there was a clunk, before the shelf slid aside whole. Smellerbee could see the woman who was letting them in – a mousy middle aged woman who had 'meek' written all over her – and a path leading down, paved entirely in scrap metal. The woman nodded that they follow, and she began to descend. But after only one circuit, she stopped, and tapped a few times on one of those panels. There was a click, and it hinged aside, rather than descending any further. She motioned they enter.

"Yeah, this seems like a _great_ idea," Bug muttered as she stooped through the door into the darkness. The path was slowly sloping down, but also turning steadily to the right. Smellerbee knew that such a path would make it agony for any right-handed fighter to invade. She had to wonder what exactly was going on down here. Her answer came as they stepped into a pool of guttering light, and into a room at the end of that path.

And more specifically, the answer was in the almost comically large stockpile of weapons in that room. Turning to face them was a fat man, his head obviously newly shaved, but his eyes were far more shrewd than any who'd have known him before. His attire was that of a man of waves and bloody decks, and the firearms which lay lashed to his back and descending a strap across his chest made him seem the very image of a pirate lord.

"I was told you'd be arriving soon," he said, pointing to the waterbender who had left them behind days ago.

"You bastard! You left us to die back there!" Bug shouted at Qujeck.

"You survived," Qujeck answered. "Alright, Bai, you've got us all here. What's the plan?"

Hua Jin Bai, once entrepreneur and trader extraordinaire, and obviously long forgotten pirate, cracked a grin at that. "It's remarkably simple. We kill the Grand Secretariat."

"Easier said," Qujeck pointed out. Bai, though, turned to face a standard which was stretched across one wall. It was a white lotus flower, but the standard was the bright scarlet and came to the tapering point of a flag of the sea, one which promised violence in the future.

"Of course, it will take some time," Bai said. "But first things first. We need to get a Grand Lotus out of prison."

* * *

><p>"Rise, children of the Fire Nation," Ozai declared, and the two children – teenagers at the oldest – both got to their feet, but their eyes remained downcast. Respect. So seldom he seemed to get it. "I am told that you have performed a deed of great heroism, despite great trial and danger to yourselves. You have manifested the greatest that the Fire Nation has to offer in its citizens. You have shown a hidden danger which was hiding in our midst, and in the critical moment, you made the proper choice and brought her to her end."<p>

"...but... she got struck by lightning, Fire Lord," the boy said.

"The circumstances are irrelevant. You have performed a great deed, and shall receive a great reward for it. A terrorist is dead by your actions, and her victims restored to a productive life," Ozai said. In honesty, he was bored about the whole thing, but there was a certain rumbling in the lower classes which he had to address. Without Akemi around, he was finding it harder and harder to manage those little day-to-day problems which kept popping up. He wondered where she'd gone? It'd been more than a week. He knew she'd come back to the Palace, though; she wouldn't abandon her child.

"Thank you, Fire Lord," the girl said, her eyes still down.

"That's not respect in their voices. It's fear," Azula's voice taunted him, but while his lips did pull into an angry sneer, he didn't allow himself to lash out at her. Despite desperately wanting to. He turned golden eyes to the two before him.

"Approach," he declared. The two of them hesitated.

"You see? The only control you hold over your 'great and glorious empire of Fire' is one of terror. The moment they no longer fear your hand on their leash, they will slip from your grasp, and have their jaws upon your throat," Azula said with sinister delight. He flicked a glance toward her, watching how she leaned against a pillar, inspecting her nails as this whole farce continued.

"I said, 'approach'," Ozai said again, and this time more harshly. The two started, but began to move forward. Slowly. But they did reach the bottom of the dais of the Burning Throne. Ozai rose, and walked through the flames. "Your duty deserves great reward. So you shall have it," he said. He snapped a finger, annoyed that he had to do so; ordinarily, the official would have already been in place and prepared. Instead, he had to stand, waiting like some sort of rough-merchant while a maroon robed Fire Sage approached from the side, and laid a ceremonial amulet over the heads of each.

"Look at them. This is what you do to your nation, Father. You turn it into a laughingstock, where its people are terrified of their leader. Terror isn't infinite. It just slowly turns to anger," Azula was somehow much closer to him now. She leaned in, whispering into his ear. "How much longer, do you think, until that anger reaches a boil?"

"That will be all," Ozai said with a snap, causing both of the 'heroes of Grand Ember' to flinch and retreat a step, before bowing low once again, and hurrying out of the room. Ozai's eyes glared around the room, trying to pick out where she was standing. Not near him. But as he turned, he did notice something else which conspicuously wasn't near him. His brow furrowed with outrage, and he snapped a command loudly, causing one of the Royal Clerks to hastily rise from the stool off to the walls and run through the corridors. Ozai continued to stare, until he found her; she was leaning against the Burning Throne itself. "You have no right to be there."

"Of course I don't," Azula said. "_You_ didn't, after all."

"I was saving this nation from my brother's folly!" Ozai shouted.

"And that meant killing a sick, eight year old girl?" Azula asked. Ozai seethed, but in confusion.

"I did not kill any children..." Ozai said.

"That's a lie and you know it," Azula pushed off of the pillar and stared down at him, her eyes blazing like the very sun. "You murdered all of House Loyo Lah, down to the last babe. Man, woman, child. Every. Last. One."

"That was necessary!"

"That was gratuitous slaughter, on the level which would have made Sozin proud," Azula mocked. Ozai set his jaw.

"They were..."

"A lot of them? Innocent of whatever you hated them for," Azula cut him off. She stomped down the steps to the dais until she could lean forward and look him squarely in the eye. "All you've done for this nation is destablize it, demoralize it, and despoil it. You've sold your morals, you've sold your family, and you've sold your soul. For what?"

"You're wrong..."

"Am I?" Azula asked. Ozai thrust a finger toward her, but he was interrupted by the doors banging open, and a solid platoon of Royal Imperial Firebenders moving in with tight formation. He turned, tucking his hands into his sleeves as they assumed positions, and their captain bowed down before their Fire Lord.

"I came as soon as you summoned me, my lord," the man said.

"And how long was the Fire Lord unprotected in these chambers?" Ozai asked.

"Unprotected, my Lord?"

"Look around you; do you see others you are replacing or bolstering?" Ozai flicked his wounded hand around, heedless of the fact that he wasn't wearing his usual white gloves. He thrust that discolored finger forward, jabbing an indictment at this so-called 'loyal' soldier. "Any assassin with a desire could have walked in, slain me, and vanished while you dithered about out in your barracks!"

"But, Fire Lord, you ordered..." he began, rising from his deep bow to a confused squat.

"I do not wish to hear it!" Ozai cut him off, his pique, fanned by the mockery of his phantom daughter, sending a redness around his vision. "You have proven yourself incapable of serving as my bodyguards, and by extension, so have every one of the men under you."

"I was only following your..." the captain said, leaning back with a baffled, fearful visage.

"Not one more word, or you'll forfeit your tongue," Ozai snapped. He breathed deeply, the anger burning in his lungs like a marathon sprint. Sweat dribbled from his brow, despite his easy morning and the relative cool this early-summer day. And his fists, wounded or not, clenched. "For your treasonous neglect, you will have a treasonous reward. You are all hereby banished from the Fire Nation. Any citizen who sees you on black shores by this time tomorrow will be defended by law against raising any hand against you. You are banned from this continent, this nation, and any colonies thereof. You return, upon pain of death."

"But..."

"Go. Before I rescind exile, and make it execution," Ozai ordered, his voice growing quite grim toward the end. The captain swallowed nervously, and rose to his feet, clapping a fist to his heart in nervousness, before backing up a few steps, and whistling for the others, who had overheard the whole discourse, to follow him. No few of them shot hateful glances at Ozai as they left.

"See what you do? Now you tear apart families, for what?"

"If they can't do their duty, then they should be punished," Ozai told the girl. One soldier, who was passing somewhat close by, gave Ozai an outright confused look, and leaned toward another and whispered something. Ozai didn't care. He turned to Azula, who was now lounging across the dais like it was some recumbent couch. "I can trust nobody but myself. Until Sozin's Comet returns, I will have to do everything personally."

"And we all know how well that will go," Azula mocked, filing her nails. "But by all means, fall all the farther. You keep forging forward, but you don't know where you're going. Honestly, it's a little pathetic. I would have expected better of you. Wasn't it you who demanded I be perfect? Well, maybe my failures, and Zuko's failures, and Ursa's failures... can all be traced back to a common source," She tapped a finger against her lips for a moment, in mocking consideration. "Now I wonder, what – or rather, _who_ – do all of these people have in common?"

Ozai's jaw clenched, and he could stand it no longer. Even as he spun, he twisted his arms around, and the lightning gathered around them with stupendous speed, faster than any other alive, before he lashed out with paired, thrust fingers, and the bolt of lightning seared into Azula and into the pillar beyond her. Azula vanished into a waft of smoke, but the pillar cracked and crumbled, spilling dark stone into the trough which ought only carry flame. He ground his teeth for a moment, and then turned to leave once more. But this time, as he walked, he was followed with mocking laughter.

* * *

><p>"This is not wise, mistress," the old woman said. She didn't care. "Your father will be furious."<p>

"If I cared what my father thought about what I'm doing, then I wouldn't have to do this," she answered.

"Mistress... Maya... please," the old nurse begged. "There must be another way. There is enough sedition in these lands without your father thinking you have gone to his enemies."

"Let him think what he wants," Maya said. There was a space on her shoulders, which for so many years had been saddled with an interminable weight, an inescapable burden. A father's legacy, passed whole to her. But it wasn't something she could live with. It wasn't who she was. When she decided to run, everything became... lighter. Much lighter. Lighter than air.

"Where will you go? There is no place in the Far West that he cannot find you," the nurse warned.

"Then I won't stay in the Far West," she said.

"And he can find you anywhere on this continent," she continued.

"You aren't going to dissuade me," she said, blinking slowly. "I need to do this."

"Running away won't solve any of the problems you face. It'll only make them worse, mark my words."

Maya smirked. "Only if I come back to them," she said.

The nurse sighed, hanging her head, and then reached into her robes to pull out a small pouch of coin. "Any you got from your father's boxes will be tracked by its strike. This will take you farther."

Maya smiled, and pulled the nurse into an embrace. After all, Maya had been practically raised by this old woman since her mother died giving birth to a brother who didn't live to see his second birthday. 'Father' wasn't exactly that. "Thank you," she said, tenderly.

"You're going to get yourself killed," the nurse said back, also tenderly.

"We all get ourselves killed. I just intend to go down in style," she said with a smirk. She kissed the old woman on the cheek. "Now when Father asks where I am..."

"I have no idea. I haven't seen you all day," the nurse said. Smiling dully. Because Maya knew as well as she did what would come if Father found out she was lying. And he had a tendency to find out things. The only reason Maya hadn't been cowed into obedience was because she knew her nurse's family was out of Father's reach. "Goodbye, mistress."

"Not goodbye. Farewell and good hunting," Maya corrected.

The nurse gave a chortle. "Better to pray for bad hunting, for it will be pursuing you."

"Oh, I think Father's far too busy to chase down his daughter in a time like this," Maya said bitterly.

Maya then turned, and walked out the door. Of course, that door was to a hallway, which ended in a window. A window she clambered through quick as a flash, and she dangled out of the portal to the world beyond, to the sooty, industry-stained metropolis of the city of Azul. She glanced over her shoulder, to the hay-stock used to feed the Ostrich Horses that they used for their feasts. She closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly. Then, with faith in gravity and trajectory, she released, and plummeted toward the earth.

The crash of her body falling into the deep pile of cushioning straw was a slim comfort, but she was only part of the way out. The hardest part would have been getting past Father's guards. This way, she bypassed that obstacle completely. Now, she just needed to go west, through the deadly plains, to the canyons of hanging mist. She didn't know what she'd find there, but she had a feeling that of anywhere, the Western Air Temple was a good place to start. Pulling the hood down over her face, she pulled herself out of the straw, struck off what bits clung to her, and vanished into the workers, before the workers reached the great mass of humanity that filled the industrial center of the world, at which point she disappeared utterly.

* * *

><p>The wind blew the rain into their faces as they dipped lower, and lower, and lower, the terrain approaching with somewhat alarming speed. "I'd like to get out of this rain. Azula's not doing so well," Zuko said from where he leaned on the howdah, looking down on the Avatar who frankly looked exhausted where he sat. "Avatar? Aang!"<p>

"Huh what? I wasn't sleeping, honest!" Aang blurted, jerking to an at least somewhat more alert posture. Zuko raised a brow, but didn't say any more than that.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Toph asked from Zuko's back. "I mean, there's not exactly a lot of places that we can hide in the Fire Nation."

"There's a few," Zuko said, and not happily. "A lot of them are suicide, for other reasons."

"I can think of one that the Fire Nation would have trouble getting to," the other airbender pointed out, a finger raised. "And I'm pretty sure it's where our buddy the Avatar is heading to."

"I'm heading somewhere?" Aang asked. The other airbender flicked her bangs out of her eyes and leaned over the edge of the saddle.

"Of course you are. Don't you see it?"

"See what?" Aang asked, his tone one of somebody about to pass out where he stood. That other impossible airbender cast an arm forward, and pointed at a cleft in the land, one playing host to a thin waterfall where a stream had utterly overflowed and now poured over the edge into the canyon below it. While not nearly so impressive as, say, the Great Divide, this was a gully not to be taken lightly. And more, Zuko knew exactly what this particular canyon played host to.

"This was the first place I looked when I hunted for the Avatar. What's keeping others from coming to the same conclusion?"

"That we would have to be such idiots to do so that any sane hunter would think us wiser than that?" the Si Wongi girl offered. Zuko let out a chuckle, but only one. After all, his mind was currently pointed at another issue at this moment. The bison continued to descend, passing the lip of that canyon and plunging further, out of the meager sunlight that could penetrate the clouds. The din of falling water, and the wash of the rapids below was rather loud, but after they reached a certain point, the sound... changed. Toph perked up immediately, as the only other one besides himself he knew would be capable of discerning that difference of tones.

"Oh, right," Aang said, and he pulled the beast sideways, right into that falling screen of water. And then through it, into a place vast and dark, a cave hewn by methods Zuko knew not, nor cared, and at a time he didn't bother learning. He only knew that the Western Air Temple, which they now approached, was the most intact Air Temple left in the world. The bison found a nice open space, landed on it, and then flopped straight down to lay on its belly, six legs splaying in all directions. "Appa? Are you alright, buddy?"

"Where are we?" Katara asked, as she climbed off of the bison's back. Since Aang seemed content to fuss over his pet, it was Malu who answered that question.

"The home of the Sisters of the Forty Winds. Once our second-greatest library. And, historically, the seat of the Storm Kings' empire. Welcome to history," she said, and she motioned to Zuko with a bursting gesture. Zuko gave her a wan look, but ignited a bright yellow flame above his hand, and that light spread throughout the darkness, pushing it back and showing the others what Zuko had seen long before.

The clear spot that they'd landed was indeed a landing, looked over by partially crumbling statues of airbender women. But it was the rest which was far less mundane, and far more impressive. Rather than towering spires and impossible vistas, the Western Air Temple hung from the roof of the cave like a flock of bats, its towers pointing downward, hewn stalactites all. There wasn't much grandeur here, not anymore. But scale? That tended to be its own sort of grandeur.

"Wow. This place is amazing," Sokka said. "So... where do we sleep?"

"There's lots of places to sleep," Malu said, motioning for whomever cared to follow her. "After you pick a spot, I can show you the giant Pai Sho board and the never-ending echo chamber."

"You're enjoying this a lot more than you should, fly-girl," Toph muttered, following after. Zuko, though, took the time to pull Azula out of the saddle, and gently guide her litter to the ground. She was... not so much alert, as more awake than she had been for much of the flight. She looked vaguely at him and uttered some sort of nonsense in no language that Zuko could understand – not even in her usual cipher, which he'd cracked.

"Avatar," Zuko said.

"You can call me Aang," he said.

"...right. That thing said that Azula could be helped by Agni. Do you know where we could find Him?"

Aang turned to him, suspicion on his face. "Why do you think _I_ do?"

"Because you're the Avatar."

"That doesn't mean I'm omniscient!"

"Then because you're a shaman," Zuko said.

"Once again, I'm not omniscient," Aang answered. He put on a weary smile. "You shouldn't worry too much. I'll think of something. Or Sokka will, or you will. I'm not letting Azula die. Not after all of this."

Zuko scowled at the airbender. "All of _what_?"

"Oh, nothing," Aang turned away quickly, leaving a certain firebender to mutter under his breath several dark things that he would do to a certain airbender, Avatar or no. But only if it came to that. He turned back to Azula.

"Just you and me, now," he said, and helped her to her feet. Her steps were awkward, stiff, but she was walking. Even if it was only with him holding her hand. "I'm not going to lose any more family."

Azula said something, but it was noise and sound without purpose. He finally had what he'd wanted for the last two years, though; a way to help his sister get better. Become _well_. And if Agni wouldn't give it willingly, then Zuko would _make Him_.

* * *

><p>The last Fire Sage slowly shuffled his way up and out of the Dragon Bone Catacombs, leaving the dusty, dreary place quiet as the tomb that it was. But while leaving it quiet, they did not leave it empty. Slipping out of the shadows, a young man in dull red robes stole quietly through the darkened recesses, through the literal and figurative bones of the past. Looking for something in particular.<p>

There. He saw it quickly enough, and homed in on it. A shelf of books, a table near it clear of dust and obviously used for reading relatively recently. So he turned his attention to the shelf. There was something out of place, but he couldn't quite pick it out. Not yet. He would, though.

"Now where are you, you elusive devil?" he asked, running a finger across old, bound spines. He tipped them out, trying to see their titles. Not it. Not it. One, though, he tilted out and saw that there was a smear of old, dry blood on its back cover. Hm. He'd seen that before somewhere, but he couldn't say... Oh. Right.

He pulled the book from the shelf, and began to flip through it. His eyes narrowed as he looked over the entries within, penned first from the hand of a so-called oracle, and then annotated by Lord Zhao of the North. "Thanks for doing all the work for me," he said, as he read the ambitious navy-man's work. But some of it had him frowning in confusion. "That didn't happen."

He flipped the page a few more times, reading the entry thereupon. "That didn't happen either," he said.

A few more flips. "Now I know that didn't happen, because we haven't conquered Ba Sing Se."

He glanced up for a moment, and came to a realization that others probably had before him, but was still somewhat off of the wall. "So... she's remembering another lifetime. That would explain it. But where is..." he trailed off, as his finger ran down words. Until it found something which positively leapt out at him.

He smiled. "The Western Air Temple," he said, with a smirk. "I think I'll have to have a visit."


	42. The Fourth Soul

The water continued to rain down before the Western Air Temple in the vast sheet, stretching easily as far as the temple and beyond, even though the rain had surely let up for the moment; after all, Azul got a lot less rain than the Midlands or Ember. Still, it was a din which crashed over the long abandoned monastery, and those hiding themselves within it. One in particular, the only one who could currently boast that he was a firebender with a straight face, felt weaker than he had for quite a while. It wasn't distance from sun, but rather, being so inundated, surrounded by water on all sides. It was distracting. But not as distracting as the dark girl who kept using that infernally loud contraption every minute or so.

"Can you stop firing that thing for ten minutes? I'm trying to think!" Zuko snapped at her.

"No," she answered him crisply across the courtyard, before rechecking her firearm and then reloading it.

"I don't know why you waste all that time with a weapon like that," Zuko grumbled, more out of frayed nerves than any real spite toward her chosen implement. Nila seemed to understand that without a word being said, and left him to his mulling. He certainly had a lot to mull. He stared out at the sheets of water, and tried to think of some way to narrow down their search. If the answer was in Ember, then it would take a week to get there with any sort of discretion, and then however much time it took to actually find Agni...

Why hello, Agni, it's Zuko here, he thought with a roll of his eyes. Even as the thought, he scratched at his left ear, curled and burnt ruin that it was. It seemed a ridiculous notion, to try to physically find what the Fire Nation universally accepted as their one driving divinity. The idea that their god was a spirit didn't sit well with Zuko, but not out of any theological dogma. It just meant that for thousands of years, the Fire Nation has been striving towards the ideals of a being which, in human terms, is utterly insane.

Thinking of Agni got Zuko thinking about Uncle. About the things that Uncle used to tell him, about his travels in his youth. "You," Zuko said, glancing toward the riflewoman. She turned to him with an unimpressed expression.

"I do have a name," she pointed out.

"And what was it again?" Zuko asked. She glared, and Zuko didn't feel like pressing the joke. "Your mother, how did she get her name?"

"I imagine it was given to her by _her_ mother," Nila said sarcastically. Zuko stared flatly at her. "If you mean her appellation, it seemed appropriate even by Fire Nation standards. Your kind slay a dragon, and name its vanquishers 'the dragon' of whatever place they deign to call home. My mother 'slew' your uncle, metaphorically speaking, doing what no other could. Thus, she 'conquered a dragon'. I am surprised you had not heard the story," she said with a shake of her head, before turning, raising that gun to her shoulder, and firing again. The crack echoed throughout the Temple, but was lost into the water so it couldn't even reach into the canyon. A split second later, an old and hopelessly cracked pot she'd set on a spot two towers away burst into chips and dust. Nila looked at it with a nod, then slowly started to disassemble her rifle again, no less than the third time this morning.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"I am trying to design the perfect firearm. That takes experimentation," she said. Without looking up, she continued. "Why do you find yourself so curious as to your uncle's humiliation?"

"It's not his humiliation," Zuko said. "I just kept thinking that... there was a group of people. Some called them the Sun Warriors. They were the oldest firebenders on the planet. The very first. It's said that they were Agni's chosen people."

"I see," Nila said.

"You do?"

"No, I just hoped you would cease your prattle," Nila said, pulling a new tube from a cloth-covered array of them that she'd spent the last week and a half working on, since their rapid flight from Ba Sing Se.

"I can see why only airbenders can put up with you," Zuko muttered.

He leaned forward onto his knees, trying to think. Agni's chosen people. There was something he was missing there. He thought back, to all of the lessons that Uncle had taught him. The ways, the methods. The forms. There was something fundamentally different from Uncle's method than Zuko had ever been taught before. It seemed to flow better. But at the same time, Zuko seldom found himself using it, because it seemed the more angry he got, the less he could get out of them. There was something there that he wasn't thinking of, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Your brother, the shaman," Zuko said. Nila flinched just a little, before turning to him with a dark expression in her eyes. "He was able to talk to anything with a spirit. Including dragons, right?"

"I can well imagine. He was certainly an attractor of every creature in the desert, it often seemed," Nila said, her tones far less scathing than they would have been a month ago. Of course, a month ago, Nila knew where her brother was, and if he was even still alive.

"And he could talk to the spirits of dead beasts?"

"How would I know?" she asked.

"Did he..." Zuko gesticulated for a moment, "seem to talk to something which you knew was already dead?"

"Patriarch," Nila said, something dawning in her eyes. "As we fled north through the desert, he often spoke of his Ostrich Horse companion as though it were both still alive and present."

"I was hoping you'd say that," Zuko said. "You're a genius."

"Of course I am. Why?"

"Because you might have just saved my sister's life," he said, even as he got to his feet and started walking briskly toward the tower toward the back of the complex, near its walls and without any scenic views, where they all slept in darkness and relative cold. He saw the two Tribesmen first, and only one of them favored him with a glare as he passed, but even that was a far lesser thing than it had been in the past. Katara knew that Zuko was in every bit as much danger being here as she was. Toph, though, lounged. She was obviously of a mind that the road ahead would be hazardous, and to take what rest she could as she could take it. Zuko paused at her foot, though. "Toph, where'd the other airbender go?"

"Oh, she flew toward town," Toph gestured vaguely. "She figured that as the only one who a) had the mobility, b) had no arrows tattooed on her, and c) wasn't obviously a Tribesman or a Far Easterner, she'd get a lot less hassles buying what we can't get on our own."

"I see you've already got your clothing picked out," Zuko said with a raised brow. It was all red, and frankly, it all suited her. It was the kind of clothing that a girl could get into fights in. The kind of clothing which Azula had favored in her youth, albeit scaled and cut differently to suit a young woman in her teens rather than a child roughly half that. The Si Wongi was also dressed for the West, having bought properly hued clothing months ago, for some reason. Probably because she had a firebender picking her clothes for her. The others, though?

"I know! Can you believe that they tried to put me in shoes?" Toph asked, proudly displaying the defunct footwear, bereft of soles so that she could 'see' in them. Zuko shook his head, and headed past her. To where Aang was sitting with his sister. She was sleeping, but covered in sweat, as though she was in the height of a fever. Which, given the circumstances, would have been a godsend. Aang perked up and turned toward him.

"This isn't... I was just worried that..." Aang began.

"Can you talk to dead dragons?" Zuko asked point blank.

"Um... Yes?" Aang seemed skeptical. "I mean, I talked to Roku's dragon back during the Winter Solstice. I honestly thought I'd see more of them around. The Fire Nation was teeming with them when I was a kid..."

"Not the point," Zuko said. "The dragons were said to be Agni's first creations on this planet. We learned our firebending from them. So if anything's going to know where Agni is, it would be the dragons."

"...why did you say 'were'?" Aang asked.

Zuko didn't turn away. There was no denying something like this. "The dragons aren't around anymore. That's why you're going to have to talk to their dead."

"Okay... but you do realize that they still might not know?" Aang said.

"I thought you were supposed to be the one of us with a positive attitude?" Zuko asked wryly. Aang slumped at that, since Zuko was nothing but right. "I've thought about that. The oldest of the dragons would have been the ones around during the days of the Sun Warriors," Zuko said.

"...and if their spirits are still around, they would probably be able to point us at Agni," Aang said, slowly gaining enthusiasm.

"Going on an archeological expedition? Well, you'd better load up on Toph," the aforementioned earthbender said through the wall, before cracking it with a fist and sending it crumbling down so that she was now plainly visible, lounging in the next room which wasn't so next anymore.

"Toph, this might not be anything..."

"Where's this Sun Warrior place supposed to be, Sparky?" Toph asked.

"Right in the middle of the Hui Jungle. The deadliest part of Azul," Zuko said. "The reason that nobody's stepped there since the Storm Kings is because nobody's been able to _reach_ them, and return to tell the tale."

"Wait, a site untouched by nosy hands for centuries? Oh, I'm so there," Toph said eagerly, rising to her feet and rudely cuffing the dust off of her short-pants as she did so. Zuko nodded.

"There's a good chance that we'll be able to find the spirits of the truly ancient dragons near that place," Zuko said. "It won't be easy, and it's not a sure thing, but it's the best chance we've got."

"Alright! So we have a plan!" Aang said. And then he paused, turning to Azula. She mumbled something, and stirred slightly in her sleep. "But... what are we going to do with Azula?"

"Bring her with us," Zuko said. Eyes turned to him. Not Toph's, but certainly Aang's. "As long as we're out there, we need to make this in one trip. That thing said Azula doesn't have much time. I'm not going to waste a single minute of it. Aang looked at Azula, then to Zuko.

"Let's do it," he said. "Appa's probably up to carrying four. I mean, me and Sokka and Katara and Toph pretty much flew all over the world, and he didn't have a problem..."

"ROAD TRIP! WHOO!" Toph shouted, fists in the sky. Zuko could only shake his head mildly, at the absurdity of it. But there was a kernel, the tiniest part of his being, which dared to hope. That this would be the first step toward helping Azula to a brighter future. To finally prove to Mom and Uncle and Azula that he could take care of his family. To honor a promise, made long ago.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2:<strong>

**The Fourth Soul**

* * *

><p>They were dreams of fire.<p>

Ordinarily, these kinds of dreams didn't disturb Yoji, but for some reason, there was a dread to those flames, a horror which transcended mere burning and pain and death. There was evil in those flames. She walked, but it felt as though her every step was weighed down by leaden chains, her every movement awkward.

"Where is she!" a voice in the fire, red erasing the white under her. The voice was familiar, but she couldn't say why. "Where is my daughter!"

"Kya, get back inside!"

"No, I've got to find my daughter!"

Yoji pushed herself up... out of snow. Why snow? And why didn't it feel cold? She tried to move, but she was an insect on the battlefield of gods. Every one of them towered so high above her that she couldn't even see their faces. She only saw two colors. Red, and blue. Fire leapt out, and the blue retreated. Then, with shouts of anger and pain, the blue surged forward once more. Yoji could see red, a familiar color to her, moving toward her. She finally got to her feet, and turned to face it. Red meant Fire Nation, and firebenders. In her dreaming mind, she was already taking a step toward them, to get to the safe side of the line.

Only she didn't walk. No, she slunk backwards, a dread welling up in her, and she glanced over her shoulder, to the blue which managed to reach just behind her. "Who is that?"

"Ogan, you have to save her!"

"Ked? KED!"

"Kya, don't! I'll get her!"

Yoji's dread only increased, as the red came closer. And then, there was a massive arm, scooping her up and holding her against a great and blue chest. And in that instant, despite Yoji definitively knowing better, the fear began to ebb.

"Are you alright, Hikaoh?" a voice asked her, deep and secure.

"I'm..." not Hikaoh, "...okay Bato..."

Yoji scowled, even as she felt herself being dashed away from that place of flames. "Kya? Where are you?"

"Right here," the Tribeswoman answered. Yoji found herself being handed to a middle-aged Tribeswoman who instantly crushed her against her chest. Yoji squirmed, trying to get free of these mammoth barbarians. And she could see that the woman was weeping.

"It's okay, Hikaoh. I'm _not_ going to let them take you..."

With a gasp, the fire, the smoke, the snow and the savage all disappeared, and Yoji was sitting bolt upright in her bed. A glance outside showed that, while the rain had for the moment stopped, the clouds still hung oppressively close, promising more soon. Yoji sat there, sweat coming off of her in sheets, as she tried to get her heart back under control. What the hell was that? She'd had nightmares before, certainly, but she didn't remember them. And the ones she had, they were always the standard fears; death, dishonor, humiliation, reporting to the Fire Lord for an important task only to find herself bereft of pants. This... was worse.

She swung her legs over the side of the cot, and looked around the room. Her cot was in the corner, surrounded by diaphanous curtains, a luxury which most of her brothers and sisters lacked. Then again, she had, over the years, earned a certain degree of luxury. She breathed in, and finally got her breathing normalized. Blinking away the lingering sensation of dread, she got to her feet. She certainly wasn't going to be going back to sleep right now, with that still on her mind. She pushed the curtain aside, and started to pace up the rows of the other Children. While this wasn't the only barracks, it held enough of them. But one cot remained empty that shouldn't have been. Kori's was empty, of course, but that was because he never seemed to sleep. No, the one which should not have been vacant was Omo's. She stared at it for a moment, before letting out a sigh which she really didn't want to.

"I heard about Omo," Juryo said from nearby, and quite quietly for all of the others who were sleeping. Yoji turned a glare to the earthbender and made her annoyance be known. Juryo was a fairly heavy young woman, but what she lacked in svelte physique she made up for in brute earthbending strength. Had Omo not been more useful for his talents, Juryo was Yoji's distant second in that area. "Just saying, it's never easy losing one of yours."

"And you would know?" she asked. Juryo shrugged, and got up, following Yoji as she took her wander out into the halls.

"My squad lost Hiraki about a month back," Juryo said, nodding grimly. "He got stuck by an Azuli on his way out. We didn't have a chance to get him staunched before the pale-eyes were on us. So... he blew himself up to hide our involvement. Maryah doesn't like talking about it."

"I thought Maryah knew better than to lose a man," Yoji said. Juryo just shook her head.

"Sometimes, you lose people. And there's nothing you can do about it," she said. She looked at Yoji, and raised a brow. "Starting to lay off on the makeup, eh?"

"What?" Yoji asked, and then she flashed a hand to her face. As the fat girl said, she was bereft of her usual mask from those around her. That was odd. She usually put it back on before even considering to leave her cot. "Sleeping with makeup on rots your skin. I'd like to not look like a leper."

"Eh, you've got something to lose in that regard," Juryo said. Yoji just rolled her eyes, and the two continued to walk.

"I have a question," Yoji said, her words somewhat faltering. Mostly because she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer. "Do you remember your life before you came here?"

"A bit," Juryo said with a shrug. "My parents were poor and desperate, and I was... I _think_ the seventh mouth to feed. So they sold me to a pirate, telling them I'd be a good 'cabin boy', neglecting to mention the," she gave a point at her crotch, before shrugging. "Long story short, pirate gets dead, and I get saved by the Fire Nation. Why do you ask?"

"I just find myself wondering," Yoji said.

"About what?" Juryo asked. "Face it, Yoji. We've got it a lot better than we'd have ever had it where we came from. Me? I'd probably be starved to death by now. I hear yours abandoned you on an ice drift, so you probably wouldn't have even lasted as long as I did."

"Of course not, it'd take a _while_ for you to starve to death," Yoji said flatly. Juryo just gave a chuckle at that. If there was one thing that the earthbender had a good humor about, it was her weight. After that chuckle ended, though, she glanced to each side, before leaning in. Yoji frowned, but mimicked.

"Although, I hear that there's a couple of the Children who didn't arrive in the city willingly. Just a rumor, but..." she shrugged.

"You're being absurd. _All_ of the Children want to be here."

"_Now_, they do," Juryo pointed out. "But back then? I can't say."

"You'd do well to ignore these kinds of whispers, Juryo. They don't bode well for your health."

"I'm just repeating what I've heard. You can't blame a girl for doing that," she said.

"Somebody else might."

"So what brought this on? I haven't exactly known you to be the introspective type," Juryo asked, pausing with fists on wide hips.

"What does it matter?" Yoji asked. Juryo didn't alter a hair. "I know where my loyalties lie. I just... wonder about things."

"You? Wonder? Never," Juryo said. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head falling out of bed or something? You don't sound like the Yoji I know."

Yoji rolled her eyes and turned away from the earthbender, moving back whence she came. And under her breath, without the firebender even realizing it, she muttered, in Yqanuac, "_I'm not even sure __I am__ the Yoji you know_..."

* * *

><p>"Boy am I glad I don't have to walk," Toph said as soon as the bison landed in the midst of the vegetation choked ruins that climbed up toward a mountain with a cleft peak. Aang's face tightened into worry, though, since the pods on the vines started tracking her as she walked past them. "This place would have chewed you up and eaten you alive, Twinkletoes."<p>

"Um, Toph, could you step away from that wall?" Aang asked.

"What? Because of this?" she asked, and then flicked her hand toward those pods. An instant after she did, though, she stomped a foot. Thus, when those pods erupted with a stream of glistening darts, they slammed into stone, not Toph. She turned somewhere near him and shook her head. "You worry waaaay too much."

Azula, who'd gone from sweating out pints to shivering as though she were back on the South Polar glacier where Aang had found her, was now walking slowly beside Zuko, with he providing much of the support for her. He looked around with all of the wariness of a small and delicious animal in the presence of a... well, in the presence of Sokka. "These buildings are clearly ancient, but there's something... oddly familiar about them," Zuko said, and Azula let out a babble of nonsense, before growling and falling silent.

"Did you catch any of that?" Aang asked. Zuko just shook his head slowly.

"There was nothing to get," he said quietly.

"So what? This is a look into your super-deep past or what?" Toph asked. She paused, and tapped a hand to a wall not choked with predatory vines. "Hm."

"What is 'hm', Toph?" Aang asked.

"This wall isn't solid. And neither's the floor. And the ground feels... bubbly. Like back at Makapu, but not as bad."

"Ugh, Makapu," Zuko muttered. Azula likewise let out a string of anger, ending in her kicking a rock into a flower, which snapped around it and dragged it inside. "But still... I can tell that the Fire Sages' temples are descended from this type of building."

"Great, so now we're learning about architecture," Toph muttered.

"Don't worry, Toph, we'll find something we need," Aang said.

"I'm not worried about she-of-lightning-and-crazy. She'll survive this," Toph dismissed. "I'm just worried that this place might all be eroded stone and bad memories."

"Don't tell me you're giving up on this place already?" Zuko said sardonically.

"Do I ever give up when I want something?" Toph asked, thrusting a finger at him without turning even as he walked slightly behind her. "Who, between the two of us, broke a fundamental rule of bending?"

"You did," Zuko said with resignation.

"And _who's_ the greatest earthbender in the world?"

"You are," he continued, obviously having done this sort of thing while Aang was unconscious. He scratched at the hair which was growing in more rapidly than he remembered. He desperately wanted to cut it, but he knew that Sokka was right. If he didn't hide his arrows, then this whole plan was doomed before it started.

"Dang straight," Toph said with a nod. "The past will tell us something of use, if I have to punch it into submission to get it."

Aang only shook his head, but as he walked, he felt something tug at his ankle. He looked down just as a grinding of stone sounded, and the floor before him dropped down almost a yard, and long shards of sharp black stone stood there, ready to let gravity impale him upon them. Aang let out a shout and blew down hard, bending the air enough that he threw himself straight back into Azula and Zuko. Zuko caught him. Azula muttered something annoyed and pushed him forward so that he stumbled to a stop right in front of that abrupt pit. "Guys... I think the past is trying to _kill me_," Aang said, his voice shaking a bit.

"No way," Toph said, bending down to run her fingers along the floor and the wall next to it. "I was wondering what those were. Guys, this whole place is laced with stone mechanisms. Gears and weights, I can feel. There might be others we can't."

"I can't believe that these booby traps are still working after thousands of years," Zuko said.

"They aren't _that_ old," Toph said. "Even stone doesn't last that long, not unless somebody's tending it."

"Wait... the Sun Warriors could be alive?" Aang asked.

"I didn't say that," Toph said. "Only that somebody's setting traps in their ruins."

"Well, who else could survive this deep into the jungle?" Aang asked, as he pointed down a street, to where a wild eel-hound scuttled from one shadow to another, only to have something small and furry bound after it. There was a squeal of something dying in that shadow, and then, something small, _red_, and furry walked out into the open, glanced a few directions, and then went back to eat what it'd just killed.

"Gorks," Toph said.

"I was about to say Hillmen, but that works," Zuko agreed. Azula muttered something, and then swatted Toph in the shoulder and pointed at the pit.

"Alright, alright, I hear you... more or less," Toph said, and then bent the stone back up, creating a bridge over the trap. "But don't get too comfortable with this. I've got no idea what I'm messing with here. And if I break something, I can't unbreak it. That's history lost forever."

"Noted," Aang said. He pointed ahead of him, as he crossed that bridge. "If there's one bit of good news, though, it's that I think we're on the right track."

"...and why?" Zuko asked.

"Because you don't build traps unless you have something worth protecting," Aang said confidently.

Zuko leaned toward Toph, where he and his sister were following after her. "He has heard of graverobbers, hasn't he?" Zuko asked at a stage-whisper.

"I don't take anything for granted at this point," Toph said, her expression wan. Aang ignored them and moved further into the city. "Um, Twinkletoes, how much vines do you see?"

"Well, there's less ahead of us," Aang said.

"I get it," Zuko said. Aang paused, turning back to them.

"You get what, Zuko?" he asked.

"Think about how much these vines grow. Think about how old this city is," Toph said, weighing each metaphorically in a hand. She balanced them out for a second, then dropped the 'city' hand practically to her knee. "Thousands of years is more than enough time for a _desert_ to creep over a city like this, let alone a jungle. Somebody or some_thing_ is keeping the vegetation in check."

Aang turned, and saw what she meant. "Maybe there's herbivores?" he asked.

"The only thing which would eat those vines would be Quill-Buffalo," Zuko said, tensely. Aang raised a brow. "You _don't_ want to run into a Quill-Buffalo."

"But they're herbivores, right?"

"Nothing's a herbivore in Azul. Even the plants eat meat," Zuko cast a thumb aside to another low-lying plant which was surrounded by tiny, undigested bones.

Aang took that under advisement, and turned once more. This time, there was a click as the stone under his foot sunk in. Instantly, he was twirling his staff, as he could hear the wip-wip-wip of darts zipping toward him, only to be blocked by his glider. Not by the airbending, though. When he stopped his twirl, he found almost a dozen black stone blades lightly dug into the wood. He gave a flinch at that, and reached to pull them out.

"Not with your bare hands, you don't," Zuko said, walking past him. "Toph, I'm starting to think you're right. That trap should have been sprung centuries ago. Unless somebody reset it, and recently."

"So the Sun Warriors could be alive?" Aang asked, as he tried to rub the obsidian shards off of his staff onto a shattered pillar. It was more or less effective.

"It doesn't have to be them, Twinkletoes."

"We can still have a positive attitude!" Aang offered, and then he bounced ahead of them to a wall, which stood intact at the top of a brief stairway. There was something carved into it, but time and weather had made it too subtle for his eyes to really detect. "Guys? Can any of you see what this means?"

Toph walked right up to it, and ran a hand across it. "It's pretty eroded, but I can feel the impact fractures from when they first carved it in the stone. My guess is that it would have looked... like... this."

Toph twisted her hand, and there was a rain of grit, and an image appeared, spreading out from her fingertips, until it was a mural carved shallowly into the drab stone. The central figure was a man, his hands open and at his sides, as a great conflagration raged around him. But as the image spread out, Aang saw that it wasn't a conflagration, per se. It was the breath of a pair of dragons, who curled around him and spewed forth directly at him. "Oh, man," Aang said. "I thought the Sun Warriors were friendly with the dragons."

"So did I," Zuko said, staring agape at the mural which Toph had dragged back out of the uncounted centuries. "I don't understand. Everything I ever knew about them, everything Uncle ever said about them... It made them sound like they were in harmony with the dragons. Maybe that harmony wasn't as peaceful as Uncle made it sound."

Aang looked at it, and the rest of the mural which depicted a procession of firebending figures, their hands and the fires within them directed up and at the dragons which dominated the mural. "Zuko... something happened to the dragons, didn't it?"

Zuko glanced to him, but didn't speak. Toph gave a quiet nod.

"There were so many of them around when I was a kid. But now, there's none left. What happened?"

"Sozin happened," Zuko finally answered. He glanced to the side of the wall, and pointed. "That looks a bit more promising."

"What does?" Toph asked.

"It's... still shiny?" Aang asked. He tried to figure out how something so old could still be shiny, but he then refocused his mind onto the real issue at hand; today's utter dearth of dragons. "Zuko, you're going to have to explain that last part."

Zuko nodded, pausing only to blast a gout of flame at a tigorilla who looked like it was about to pounce. The brutish, muscular and striped beast let out a hooting roar, even as it fled down the streets and vanished around a corner. Azula muttered something, and shook her head, but stayed close to Zuko. "My great-grandfather was the one who invented the idea of hunting dragons for glory," Zuko said, a bit bitterly. "They were the ultimate firebenders. If you could best one, then it proved that you were a man or woman straight out of legend, and you earned the honorary title 'Dragon'."

"Wait, does that mean that the cool old guy...?" Toph asked. Zuko nodded, slowly, as he continued toward that taller ziggurat in the distance.

"The last dragon in the world was slain by Uncle, when he was only a bit older than I am," Zuko said quietly.

"I thought Iroh was... you know... good," Aang said.

"He had a complicated past," Zuko muttered, and then offered a dry smirk. "...must be a family tradition."

"But the dragons, they can't be extinct," Aang said.

"If they aren't, they're hiding a lot better than the people who go after them," Zuko said snippily, as they started to ascend that plateaued pyramid. Aang pondered for a moment, and in that moment, he didn't notice the vines starting to contract around his ankle. It wasn't until he took his second step that he found he was bound. He let out another scream of alarm, which grew louder when a ripple of red spines began to pop out of the vine, running down its length in a wave. He threw down his fist and ignited with fire, only barely managing to burn it off of him before those spines slammed into his foot and delivered whatever unpleasant dose they were carrying. Aang staggered back a step, and then tripped over the stairs and landed on his back. He stared straight up, which was directly at Toph and the firebenders.

"Wow! You weren't kidding about _everything_ trying to kill me!" Aang said, still breathing deeply.

"That's Azul for you," Toph said with a shrug, and then she stomped her step which caused the one under Aang's back to pop up, dropping him rudely on his feet. "Now keep up, Twinkletoes. You're kinda the linchpin in this whole thing."

Azula was staring ahead, her head shaking as though she were trying to dismiss a concussion, but there was something in her gaze as it locked onto the structure ahead of them that even Aang could tell was much more... aware... than she had been for the last day. Like she recognized what they were moving toward. Aang kipped up to Zuko's side, and pointed at his sister. He turned a confused glare to the airbender, then to Azula, and back again.

"I think she knows this place," Aang finally outright said.

"How is that possible? She's never been h– oh, right," Zuko cut himself off. "The other Azula."

Aang zipped around into Azula's face. "Do you know this place?" he asked her. And for his trouble, he got a straight-arm into the center of his chest.

"Ow. Okay, don't invade her personal space," he said, as Azula lowered her arm, with a comment which was intended to be snarky but didn't arrive due to her word salad. "Azula, do you know this place?"

Azula glanced ahead, and said something haughty and a little condescending, before nodding and continuing up the stairs. "I don't think I'm going to get used to this," Zuko said, his voice small.

"If what we're looking for is up there, you might not have to," Aang promised. Zuko watched after his sister for a moment, then held his hand down to the airbender. Aang took it, and was hoist up.

"Alright. Touching man-moment come and gone. Can we get moving?"

"Do you feel anything here, Toph?" Aang asked.

"Like you wouldn't believe," she said. "This place is layered in mechanisms. I wouldn't know where to go in without breaking something."

"In?" Zuko asked.

"There's space in there. But like I said, I don't want to break anything; this crap's probably older than Omashu!"

"Fitting, that the only thing which melts her heart are things tough enough to last several millennia," Zuko said deadpan.

"Not the only things, just the main ones," Toph said daintily, and continued up. Aang, though, being both an airbender and an eager person, beat her to the top, and found Azula standing in the center of the penultimate plateau. Only there was no stairway to the last level. Only a great and gleaming door, set with a red stone at its apex. "Now this? This looks like something I can handle."

"A golden door," Aang said, describing the scene. Azula looked mildly baffled at that. "Azula? Was that open when you remembered it?"

Azula shrugged, and said something, but nothing of note. She looked around, and started to fixate on a minaret raising up to the east. Toph, on the other hand, confidently walked up to the doors, cracking her knuckles as she did so. "Um, Toph? Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"It's a metal door! It'll take more than that to keep Toph Beifong away from history," she said, and then she waggled her fingers, set her feet, and thrust both fists forward into the metal, which resounded with a loud bang.

Followed by Toph stepping back and flapping her hands in pain. "Ow! Damn it! What the hell's in that thing?"

"Gold," Zuko said. "Have you ever bent gold before?"

"Why should that be any harder than iron?" Toph kept rubbing her knuckles.

"It's about four times as dense," Zuko pointed out. Toph set her jaw, and returned to the door. With a set of her feet, she thrust her fist forward once again. And again, to a bwong of impacted metal, and not a whisper of deflection. Only the sound of a blind earthbender cursing in confusion and pain, echoing across an ancient, dead city.

* * *

><p>"You know, we never had a chance to catch up," Malu said, plunking herself down beside Nila as she continued to work in extreme focus and concentration on the weapon that she was obsessed with. "I mean, I notice that Tzu Zi isn't around anymore. What happened there?"<p>

"Do you really want to 'catch up', or are you simply beside yourself with boredom?" Nila asked, not looking up from her work.

"...yes?" Malu admitted.

Nila gave a glance to the airbender. She didn't look any different, in terms of the gross physicalities, to the woman who Nila had last seen rising into the heavens above Sentinel Rock, before she destroyed it utterly. But there _was_ a difference, one even somebody as insensitive to the ephemeral as Nila could discern. There was a zen to Malu, now. Even as she admitted boredom and stir-craziness, there was a calm. A purpose. Nila sighed, and moved to Malu's side, dangling her legs and bare feet over the edge of the tower, staring out into the now dribbling 'cascade'.

"Tzu Zi has returned home," Nila said. "She joined me to Ba Sing Se, and then an emergency with her family called her to return. And if the truth is not as I described it, I have sworn to kill a particular criminal."

"What?" Malu asked.

"There is much more to that story," Nila admitted.

"Maybe we should start a bit further back," Malu said. "After I... you know... what'd you do?"

"Ah. Ashan joined us to the north," Nila said. She shook her head, in mild amazement at her own travels. "He... was a willing if mildly helpless traveling companion. He did not deserve what came of him."

And so, Nila told her everything. The walk north. The Great Divide and Full Moon Bay. Ba Sing Se... that took more time than anything else. And was the hardest to talk about. Still, Malu didn't press or tease. She just listened. Nila intended to keep the descriptions clinical, clear, concise. But... once she got to Lake Laogai... she just couldn't. It was infuriating, even as it hurt; She wasn't this kind of weak and stupid girl, this temperamental sap beholden to _feelings_ instead of good sense. But Malu didn't mock, and she didn't jibe. She just laid a comforting hand onto Nila's shoulder, while she got through the hardest parts. Past Ashan, in particular. Gods, existent or not, it hurt to think about him.

"You've been busy," Malu finally said, upon Nila's offering of 'and that's when you dropped out of the sky and saved the Avatar', neatly wrapping up Nila's long and rambling story. "And it doesn't sound like you've been letting yourself enjoy it."

"What do you mean?"

"Nila, you were on your own. You had nobody ordering you around, and what's the first thing you did? You hunted down somebody to order you around," Malu pointed out. Nila just scowled at that, accurate though it might have been in some oblique fashion. "You're younger than I am. You're supposed to spend these years having fun, being an idiot and making bad choices. Learning from your mistakes..."

"I can learn from the mistakes of others well enough," Nila said grumpily, which was a damn sight better than being on the edge of sobbing once again. "After all, I assure you that Mother's fate will not be my own."

"See? That's a... fatalistic kind of optimism, but bully on you to get it," she said, pumping a fist as she did. Nila just gave her a wan look, and Malu leaned in a little closer. "So... did anything ever happen between you and Tzu Zi after that whole cuffuffle? Or did you find some other nice young lady to latch on to?"

"I am not attracted to women," Nila said flatly.

"Your tongue down Tzu Zi's throat tells a different story," Malu pointed out.

"...die in a hole, airbender," Nila muttered. Malu laughed at that, open and outright. "That was a momentary lapse in... preference. While I find the male gender on the whole staffed with insufferable and witless specimens, it still appeals more to my sensibilities."

"On the whole?" Malu asked. "So you've found somebody who _isn't_ insufferable and witless?"

"Of course," Nila admitted. "Zha Yu is an intelligent man, and grounded for his experiences. The Avatar is roughly half of that, as he is understandably insufferable. The Prince, though something of a comparable fool, does not grate on my senses," she shrugged.

"What about that Tribesman Tzu Zi said you were flirting with in Senlin?" Malu asked.

"I was not flirting with Sokka," Nila said, her throat hosting a growl as she did.

"He didn't seem witless, and you seemed to get along well with him," Malu teased. "Heck, even just the time on that boat, you and he were about as close as the waterbender over there," she pointed at Katara, who was trying to bathe the small brown creature they had insisted on bringing with them, "was with her boyfriend."

"Sokka is not my boyfriend," Nila pointed out.

"Why not?" Malu asked.

Nila raised a finger, to start in a tirade of reasons why he was unsuitable, but even as she reached them in her mind, she was discarding them. Patient enough to put up with her. Smart enough to keep up with her. Strange enough to interest her. Familiar enough to empathize with her. Humble enough to not belittle her, and in fact praise her own faculties where they outshined his own – that was a trait that Nila had learned was a very infrequent one to find amongst the male gender. That finger drooped, and she started to go even further. Attractive, not clashing of personality, decent taste in food, knew what it was like to have a dim-witted sibling, had a similar breadth of experience of life, starting from an almost identical starting point and reaching to today.

By Archeopthese! Sokka was essentially the male _her_.

"I find I am without worthwhile reasons not," Nila admitted.

"Well, have you talked to him about it?"

"And what would I say?" Nila asked scathingly. "'Remember how we once spent four hours brainstorming a bomb which could flash-freeze magma within a dozen yards? Good, now you are a suitable mate."

"I wouldn't be that blunt," Malu pointed out.

"I am not renowned for my tact, airbender. That has not changed since I shot you in the neck and chest."

"Well, if you just sit there, you're going to miss out."

"Miss out, on what?"

Malu grinned. "You know."

Nila stared back at her. "Apparently I do not."

Malu's grin curdled a little, before she laughed and nudged Nila in the ribs. "Oh come on. You totally know."

Nila shrugged in confusion.

"If a man and a woman like each other, they..."

"Sex? Seriously?" Nila interrupted. "You have a filthy mind."

"Hey, I wasn't going to say..." Malu sputtered.

"You are absurd and your advice is going to get me killed one day, mark my words," Nila said. And then she leaned aside, and shouted across the gap to the next hanging tower. "Tribesman!"

"What?" Katara answered also at a yell.

"The other Tribesman!"

"You called?" he answered at a shout.

"I am making dinner tonight!"

"I'm there!"

"Hey, I was making dinner, Sokka!" Katara complained.

"If it's vegetarian, I'll eat it with you!" Malu shouted to her.

"Why are we all yelling at each other?" Sokka shouted.

"Because we are all lazy and spread out!" Nila answered. Then, a smirk came to her face. "Tribesman!"

"What?" Sokka shouted again.

"I'm not wearing any underwear!" There was the sound of a crash and something breaking in that other tower, and Nila chuckled lightly. Malu, though gaped at Nila. Nila turned to her, confusion clear at Malu's expression. "What?"

"...You said you didn't know how to flirt?"

"I have _better_ things to do than flirt," Nila said, and she got back to work, leaving a baffled airbender to get up and leave her to her task. After all, there was only so much crazy that even an airbender who was host to the doom of the world could withstand in one sitting.

* * *

><p>"You know, you probably should have stopped punching after the first twelve times didn't make it move," Aang offered, as the water under his hands glowed brightly, slowly mending the flesh and the crushed knuckles of an overly persistent earthbender.<p>

"I don't get it. Metal is _of_ earth. An earthbender should be able to bend it," Toph said. Zuko shrugged and pulled out a small, ovoid, dark grey blob from a pocket. It was pierced with a hole on both ends, and Aang recognized it pretty quickly as a fishing sink. Which meant, it was probably made of lead. Zuko tossed it to Toph.

"Try metalbending that," Zuko said. Toph rolled her eyes, and then flexed her fingers, with the blob sitting in her palm. It didn't so much as twitch. She scowled, and tried again. When that failed, she switched hands. When _that_ failed, she put it on the ground, rooted her feet, and trust upward with _both_ hands. Then, she stopped, flopping down onto the step which overlooked the overgrown city as noon approached evening, and let Aang continue healing her.

"Okay. Learned something about metalbending. It's hard as heck to bend dense metals."

"It didn't look like you could do it at all," Aang pointed out.

"It's a difference of degrees, Twinkletoes."

Zuko, though, turned away from Aang and looked at the promenade which stretched from the minaret to the great golden doors. "I feel like there's something I'm not seeing, here."

"What do you mean, Sparky?"

Zuko looked at his sister, and how she was walking, her eyes cast downward. Not in any confusion or shyness – as though she even could be – no... she was looking for something. "Toph," he asked. "Do you feel anything on the stone of the floor?"

Aang had to step back as she rose to her feet and started to stride across that expanse, her eyes forward but her feet questing. Then, there was a pause, and she stooped down, patting her fingertips along the dull rock. "Well, I'll be."

"What is it, Toph?" Aang asked, his excitement building.

"There's another mural, carved down here. Just give me a second to... get it back into focus..." Toph said, and then, she reached up and slammed her fingers down, before twisting, and there came a shudder which threw dirt up into the air, and back down, spreading outward in a shallow wave. Toph blinked a few times. "Huh. Well, that's something. I have no idea what it is, but it's something."

"I don't see anything," Zuko said. Aang, though, moved to a spot he'd seen the dirt jump, and blew sternly there. The grit wafted up and out of a chiseled crack which had appeared there. A grin came to his face, and he took in a massive lung-full, and blasted it down sending everybody's clothes a-flapping and sending the grit searing over the edges of the plateau, finally revealing the nature of this roof to the heavens for the first time in untold centuries.

It was a sundial. Azula said something confidently, and then pointed to the minaret, but Zuko was already a step ahead of her. "Aang, that lens isn't just there for show. It's projecting a beam of light onto the dial," he said. He then pointed up to the red orb at the apex of the door. "My guess is, when it hits that day-stone, the door opens automatically."

"Well, how long's that going to take?" Aang asked, a little apprehensive as to the answer.

"If they're anything like the Fire Nation is now, my guess would be the Summer Solstice," Zuko said.

"But that's weeks from now! If we wait that long, we won't have nearly enough time to do all the other stuff! And... I don't think that..."

"I know," Zuko cut him off. Neither was sure that Azula would _last_ for several weeks. He then glanced up, ignoring Azula where she said something insensible and looking at the spot of light where it fell. "But I've got a feeling we won't need to wait that long."

"You think they'll come back and open it for us?" Aang asked.

Zuko answered him by drawing his blades. Aang flinched at that, and immediately went to the alert. Azula and Zuko, though, didn't seem perturbed by it. He calmly walked to the side of that spot of brighter light on the ground, and intercepted it with his blade, slowly angling it up and into the redness at the top of the protal. "Come on... I know this is what you want..."

Toph's eyes went a bit wide. "You got it!" she said with a degree of glee, before reigning herself in. It wasn't until a second later that Aang started to hear what Toph sensed first. There was a clunk, and grinding of metal being swung open. The doors started to part, and light began to spill into the chamber beyond it.

"You know what, you're a lot smarter than people say you are," Aang said, giving Zuko a nudge as he passed. Zuko smiled for a moment at the compliment, until he caught the back-hand of it.

"Hey!"

Aang bounded through the gates ahead of everybody else, even though Toph had a head start, and Azula started far closer. He only landed, though, before he saw a rictus staring back at him. He gave a start, before opening his gaze, and seeing that the rictus was only one of a ring of statues, each rendered in greater-than-life size, showing men in various positions, each side mirrored with the other. Aang looked around, as Azula shoved her way past him, muttering under her breath.

"That's... not what I expected," Zuko said.

"What did you expect?" Aang asked.

"The bones of dragons," Zuko answered. He cast a thumb over his shoulder. "The text on the floor said 'the resting place of the chosen'."

"You could read that?" Aang asked.

"Ty Lee's not the only one who had an interest in dead languages," Zuko said with a shrug. He scratched at his left ear, looking around in bafflement. The scenes on the wall, rendered so only certain shades remained after the thousands of years, showed what Aang took to be a culture that revered the dragons, but not in a warm and fuzzy-way. No, they seemed to pick out sacrifices, giving them an offering of fire, and sending them to the dragons to be consumed in their fire. It all made Aang wonder if everybody was as barbaric back then? They might have been; there wasn't an Avatar back then to rein them in. "I don't get it. This doesn't make any sense. The name said..."

"Zuko, what does this say?" Aang asked, where he dusted off a bronze plaque, with writing in iconographs similar to Huo Jian, but clearly much more crude and simplistic. The firebender walked over, and leaned down.

"The dancing dragon," he said, and trailed off.

"The dancing dragon what?" he asked.

"That's all it says," Zuko told him. Azula, though, barged in, shoving him aside, and grabbing Aang's arm. Aang let out all of the usual utterances of confusion as she dragged him to the other side of the ring, and crudely set him into place. She then pointed at the statue he was behind, and babbled for a long moment. Then, she walked away. Aang started to follow her, but she turned, glared at him, and shoved him back into the exact place he'd been before. Okay... so she wanted him to stand here.

She then ushered Toph and Zuko away from where Aang had been standing before. Azula then rose up on one foot, mimicking the pose of the statue before her. She looked over her shoulder, and shouted something at Aang, which sounded impatient. She then pointed at the statue again, and resumed her balance. At that, Aang's eyes widened. She wanted him to do what the statue's did?

He rose up onto one foot, and when he did, there was a grating click as a panel sunk into the ground under his weight. Toph tensed for a moment. "Guys, something's moving down there."

"The dance is the key!" Aang said. Azula rolled her eyes and muttered something which spoke of sarcastic relief. Then, after a moment, they started to move, miming the forms of the statues they shadowed. Aang could tell, even as he was doing the motions, that they were all part of a firebending form. The way he moved, he could tell, this would be powerful if he could keep his mind clear and steady. His footing secure. This wasn't an act of rage and hatred. This was fire as the dragons themselves would have embodied it. Every time they matched a statue, a form, there was another click, and they continued their way around the circuit. Until they met in the center, and Azula thrust her fists forward, almost bent sideways to do so. Aang matched her motion for motion, and their combined weight depressed a final panel.

"Something big's about to happen," Toph warned them. Aang's knuckles tightened around the staff, but there was another ominous creak, this time in the glider itself. Aang didn't have time to really notice it though, as his eyes were trying to see in every direction at the same time. Then, there was another grinding, stone against stone, and the floor began to iris out in a circle. Finally, a plinth began to rise up from under the floor, coming to a rest level with roughly Aang's chest. Atop the plinth, its metaphorical shining jewel, was a big egg, solid gold from the look of it, that almost seemed to give off a faint, mellow yellow light.

"That was... less than what I expected," Toph said, as she walked up to the plinth.

"Maybe this thing is connected to the dragons some way," Zuko said. "You might be able to contact them with this."

Zuko reached out a hand, letting his fingers trace along the egg.

"Zuko, that's a seriously bad idea!" Aang blurted out. "Hasn't anybody ever told you that you can't trust a golden egg on top of a suspicious altar?"

Eyes turned toward him. "And how exactly would he get that needlessly specific lesson taught?" Toph asked. Aang wilted a bit, and Zuko reached for the egg, this time clearly with an intention to scoop it up. Aang let out a puff of breath in relief as Azula slapped his hands away, blabbering something annoyed and a bit condescending, before making ushering motions. Zuko stood his ground until she physically shoved him, and she began to gather Aang and Toph along with him, yammering and shoving until all three of them were standing just outside the golden doors. Then, she pointed sternly at the ground, and gave a command which was gibberish, before sighing, turning, and heading back inside.

"What's she doing?" Toph asked.

"I'm... not sure," Zuko said.

"It's like she's been here before," Aang said. And then he paused. "And honestly, she just _might_ have been."

"Well, it's a shame she can't tell me what the heck's going on here, 'cause I'm starting to get annoyed."

Aang turned from Toph, to Azula, and immediately flinched as she slapped herself very hard in the face. "Azula, what are you doing?" Zuko asked at Aang's side, but Aang warded him, tentatively, from moving toward her. She seemed pretty adamant that they stay here, after all. Then, after a breath, Azula picked up the egg, and immediately set it down, at the foot of the plinth. The instant the clunk of the gold hitting stone sounded, she was sprinting like a shot, and there was good reason for it. Because the instant the egg moved, the doors started to swing shut. She raced toward them, racing against the doors which Aang tried to slow down by raising up blocks in their path; the mechanism obviously was built strong, because it broke the meager obstacles that he created without so much as a shudder.

The whole thing proved slightly moot, as Azula managed to get through the closing doors while they were still more than two feet apart, even if she had to skirt sideways to do it. Then, she slowly stumbled to a stop, hands on knees. Not breathing deeply, but swaying slightly as though she wasn't quite sure of her balance. Zuko took this opportunity to move to her side. She shoved him away, and then toppled sideways onto the stone, before growling something which was obviously intended to be foul and profane, but was lost in a muddle. When Zuko scooped her up again, she didn't resist him.

"So... what just happened?" Aang asked, as the final clunk sounded of a door being locked closed.

Toph, though, started to grin.

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"I'm glad I'm not standing in there," she said with crossed arms and that smirk growing broader.

"Why is that T–" and then, Aang was interrupted by a massive 'Blort' sound, and the doors shuddered slightly as though something massive and blorty had hit it from the other side. A few seconds later, Aang turned away from that door, to the blind earthbender next to him. "..oph?"

She just grinned.

"That doesn't help us very much," Zuko said, moving the now slightly-green looking Azula to a seat where she could rest. "We still don't know how to contact the dragons. Unless their spirits are just floating around this city, and I know from experience that even _I'm_ not that lucky."

And as he finished talking, there was one more grinding of stone, and one of the steps beside Azula dropped down, showing a lever set into it. Zuko glanced to Toph, then Aang, and then to the lever.

"What's the worst that could happen if I pull this?" he asked, looking up as though demanding an answer of the universe. The universe answered him with a distant thunder roll. There was a storm blowing past to the south; from the way the winds went, it probably wouldn't hit them, but it promised that the guys back at the Air Temple were in for a wet night. Well, wetter. Zuko let out a groan, taking that noise for a bad omen, and then pulled the lever anyway.

A metallic ping, and then a grinding of metal against stone, this time muted. The doors slowly forced their way open, but this time, it was resisting a liberal coating of some thick, greenish goop which surely had the properties of a particularly nasty form of glue Aang had run afoul of in his childhood. And sitting near a goop-covered plinth, there was just the slightest hint of gold showing through the muck.

"So..." Toph said. "Who's going to get it?"

"Not a chance," Zuko said. Azula just shook her head, still looking nauseous. Aang hung his head.

"Fine, but if I get stuck, you're coming in to help me!" Aang said, pointing his finger at Toph.

"Yeah, maybe eventually," she said, sitting down on Azula's other side. Aang's face couldn't have gotten any more dire. So he rolled up his sleeves, tucked his pants into his boots, and prepared for a mess.

* * *

><p>"So... we're wanted, basically?" Sokka asked, as he sat in the warmly lit room, its door pointing straight out to the cascade which had redoubled since the arrival of the thunderstorm. It was just the two of them there, since each of Katara and Malu had decided to take their own meals independent of each other. Not surprising considering how Tribesmen, man, woman, or child, all basically consisted upon meat and meat-like products. It didn't surprise Nila that Malu tried to stay away from that.<p>

Nila nodded, as she jabbed her food with a fork. "Indeed. I am told there are even wanted posters. There are even rumors that the Avatar has died amongst the people."

"Malu really dived deep in there, didn't she?" Sokka asked.

"She has wandered farther than any of us, I believe," Nila said with a shrug. Oh, and where was her nerve now? She continued to eat, both because it was more than palatable with the spices Malu had returned with and because it gave her time to either think or summon will. "Your sister's poster and description are purportedly uncanny. Uncanny, for a style she no-longer maintains," she clarified at Sokka's mildly alarmed look. "Fine clothes, a new style of hair, and distracting company makes for easy infiltration."

"Do you really think that we'll pull this off?" Sokka asked.

"I must hope that we do," Nila said. "The alternative is a far worse thing than death, after all."

Sokka, though, leaned forward, fist under chin and elbow on knee, as he chewed. "I just have to wonder, though, what started all of this? I mean, fighting the Fire Lord and ending a century long war, that'd be an accomplishment in and of itself, but we've got to ensure that reality continues running on top of that? That's a lot to juggle."

"I have seen how you juggle, Tribesman," Nila said, but regretted it as her tone was mildly mocking, and his expression told her that he took it as such.

"I'm plenty good with my hands," he said. He then leaned back, prodding his meat with a deliberation which honestly made Nila pause. Mostly because up until now he had been making a remarkable amount of the meat vanish, almost bereft even of chewing. He shook his head. "I'm just thinking about how much this is costing. The people who didn't make it," he said.

Nila could only nod at that. She had lost as many or more, seeing as her entire birth-place had been scoured to its lowest. "There are costs which have to be paid, no matter how lofty."

"Still," Sokka said. "First Zhao seems to target literally everybody who can help us. We lose the firebending master, we lose Pakku, we lose Summavut, and then Ba Sing Se happens..." he trailed off. "And you know what? I've been thinking about Ashan, too."

It was Nila's turn to lean back at that. "Really?"

"Yeah. How he shouldn't have had to pay the price for a fight he wasn't a part of. He died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that just isn't fair," Sokka pointed out.

"Life is not. After all, your minx in the south is married to another man," she said, and then inwardly kicked herself with an iron-toed boot. Good job, Nila, bringing up the other woman at a time like this!

Sokka frowned for a moment, and then clued in. "Yue?" he asked. Nila looked up at him, that self-kickery slowing. "I haven't thought about her in months... I wonder how she's doing back home."

Hopeful signs abound. "You seemed quite smitten by her before. Perhaps passions do dim with time," she said, once again defeating her purpose with an off-hand remark. More and more, it seemed like that witch in Makapu was as accurate as a prediction of the coming sunrise; Nila was indeed the source of much of her own hardship and anguish.

Sokka gave a bit of a nervous chuckle. "I guess... Part of me just really wanted it to be true. I mean, there was this crazy fortune-teller, back in a town at the foot of a volcano, and she said..."

"Makapu? You have withstood the superstitious madness of that place? I can only sympathize," Nila said with a laugh.

"Yeah, well, she said that I'd 'find my equal in the lady of blue', and guess what Yue was wearing when I first saw her?" Sokka said. Nila's stomach lurched a bit.

"Blue?" she asked.

"Yeah, why?"

Nila seriously considered how this path was going to go if she walked it. Honestly, this was a realm beyond the horizon of her knowledge. And even as it left her apprehensive... she wanted to see. She wanted to learn. She wanted to be... in some small way... normal.

"You have heard countless times how Nila is not truly my name," she pointed out. Sokka shrugged. "It is a sobriquet, one earned long ago," he started eating again, which let Nila know that his attention was back on the present rather than the unpleasant past. "I was perhaps of four years, and had just seen a man accidentally decapitate himself with his own weapon. Needless to say, my fascination with explosives had been freshly kindled. So I flouted Mother's desires, and took some of her money to an alchemist living on the far side of Sentinel Rock. I asked for the ingredients for explosives, as I had read the night before. The alchemist, though, was wise to my intentions, so what he gave me was not quite what was needed."

"How did he know?"

"I was four. Also, Sentinel Rock was not a large place. The far side of it seemed an epic journey when I was small. Not so much, now," Nila muttered. She shook her head. "So I returned and hid the supplies in my room, until I had worked up the nerve to attempt it. I..."

"You tried to make_ a bomb_ when you were four years old?" Sokka asked.

"Yes. Were you not paying attention?" the Si Wongi asked, a little annoyed.

"Yeah, paying attention, just a little surprised. Most four-year-olds are pretending they're heros of ancient myth, playing with dolls, or sledding on peng– right you don't have penguins."

"My interests were _quite_ different," Nila summed up. "So I finally began to craft, and at first, things seemed to be progressing apace. But as I worked, I ought have noticed that the substance I was working with was not green, but rather a more azure hue; in a word, it was _not_ blasting jelly. Or at least, not blasting jelly _enough_."

"So when you lit the fuse, nothing happened?"

"Worse," Nila said, her lips pursing. "When I completed it, I smuggled it out to a corner of the walls where nobody lived, and sought to see how large a hole my 'masterpiece' would make. And detonate it did... although, not with either force, nor speed, nor fire. No... it detonated with a wave of blue slime, just hard enough to knock a stupid four-year-old onto her back and coat everything nearby. I ran home, desperate to try to clean off the mess before Mother found out," Nila shook her head mildly, even as a somewhat nostalgic smirk came to her lips. "In case you do not care to wager where Mother was... it was directly in front of the front door. Waiting for me."

"She knew," he said with a laugh.

"The alchemist had told her. She had been waiting, patiently as a spider-fly, until I finally traipsed off to play bomber. Still, I can remember yet the look on her face as I came back, stunned and covered in that foul substance. Mother was not often given to laughter, but she laughed then. So much, in fact, that Sharif was roused from his slumber, and he looked down from his window, and declared 'Look at my sister! She's all covered in _nila_!' Of course, he always mispronounced it. Long 'E', not long 'I', but the word spells the same, and means the same."

"So your nickname is 'slime'?" he asked.

"No, that is not the meaning of _nila_," Nila said. "It rather means blue."

"Oh," he said, somewhat mollified. Then, he got a puzzled look on his face. "What _is_ your name, anyway?"

Nila told him. He nodded briefly.

"I can see why you go by Nila," he said.

* * *

><p>Aang didn't like the look of Azula. Ever since her little run from the goop, she slowly looked worse and worse. Not that she was in danger of dying; Aang's mind wouldn't allow that possibility. Rather, he was simply unwilling to let anybody suffer around him, not when he had the capacity to help. So even though his clothes were now so mired in gunk that he'd essentially abandoned them – he'd have to borrow somebody's when he got back to the Air Temple – he rested the golden egg on his lap, and closed his eyes, pressing his fists together.<p>

"So... what happens now?" Zuko asked.

"I guess he goes all 'glowing badass' and talks to the dragons," Toph offered.

"I didn't think that he had to go into the Avatar State to do that," Zuko said.

"Why are you asking _me_ about spirity-stuff? Do I _look_ like an authority?"

"Guys, I'm trying to concentrate here," Aang said flatly, not even opening his eyes.

"Please, you've concentrated through worse," Toph dismissed his plight. He would have given her a dirty look, if he knew exactly where she was, and was willing to open his eyes. He knew that the egg was something important, something powerful. Even Zuko had agreed in the brief time that he handled it that it didn't feel like gold. There was a life to this egg, something vibrant and vital which was clear to Aang's senses. He couldn't see it with the World Eyes, so he decided to go deeper.

He could feel the smooth edge of the egg near his folded fingertips, and feel the tiny heartbeat present inside of it. In a lot of ways, this egg felt like a spirit-artifact. They had a way of beating like hearts as well. And since he'd learned about Form, he learned quite a bit about artifacts. Like the one Toph continued to hide, and how it pulled perception itself away from those near it, and fed that perception to its host. How the Dirak was an ocean outside of the bounds of existence, beyond the reaches of time and space, where one could pass infinite distance in an instant, or a single inch in a lifetime, and both were essentially the same. How the Jade Toe sought freedom, in an abstract sense but useful in its way, and would bend destiny itself to grant it. Only one tug per destiny, though.

The rules didn't often make sense, but they were knowable. So he pressed deeper, and tried to find the Form of this egg, and what it meant. As the layers parted, and a perception beyond his eyes and his hands began to drift into his mind, the goldness of the egg vanished. The roundness of it disappeared. Even the warmth slipped away. Now, he was looking beyond it. Into what made it. Into what it meant.

And he still heard the heartbeat.

He delved deeper, and tried to see its nature. But that heartbeat seemed to be its whole nature. With a hand and a belief not of body, but rather of undiluted spirit, he prodded that heartbeat, trying to know it better, to get it to unfold. But it remained, solid as ever, a heartbeat, insistent and patient. No, that was something he figured out. The egg, it was _waiting_.

Distantly, there was a rumble, one which Aang didn't register more than a mild tremble. He didn't notice how the others flinched and worried, looking toward a mountain that Aang couldn't see. He was focused on the egg, that waiting force, vibrant and alive, and enigmatic. He felt... it had a connection to the dragons. Wasn't sure how. So he reached _through_ it. He let his voice reverberate through the beating, and carry beyond.

"Are any of you listening? I need your help. Please," Aang said. His voice, for all its pleading, was gentle, and calm. The rumbling continued, and finally, his World Eyes began to see something. It was the Outer Sphere, barely in his perception, but close enough that he could see it. A fog began to rise up, out of the streets which now prowled with deadly creatures. It blanketed them, smothering them from sight. But that floor of fog rippled and undulated with unseen passage, even as it swelled up all the higher, starting to hide whole buildings under it. And the movements became stronger. Bits of fog snapping up and off of the crest like the spray of a wave. It rose. And then, at the base of that plateau, it came to a halt, hiding the whole of this lost city.

**The child.**

Barely a whisper, but Aang could hear it. "Who is the child? Are you the lost dragons? Can you help us?"

**He has taken the child!**

** A mortal has taken the child!**

Aang's eyes opened, but couldn't see the mortal world, couldn't see the Inner Sphere and how smoke began to billow up black and foreboding from the cleft-peaked mountain. "I did not mean to harm your child. I only needed to talk to the dragons."

**Destroy him!**

** He is like the others! He hunts, for folly and glory!**

** Destroy him! Destroy him!**

** ENOUGH.**

The last caused the undulations of the fog to fall still, for just a moment. Then, with a burst, easily a hundred of the long and sinuous bodies of dragons long dead seared straight up out of that impenetrable barrier, shooting perfectly perpendicular to the ground, rising toward the sky, their blue bodies wriggling with haste. Aang blinked. Whatever had done that, was obviously far meaner than a dragon was. And that had Aang more than a little concerned. He swallowed nervously, unwilling to let his focus falter long enough to even wipe the fearful sweat from his brow.

"Twinkletoes, 'you mind telling me what you just did?" Toph asked, her eyes on her toes.

"That didn't feel right," Zuko said, and Aang could hear the fwoosh of flames entering his hands. Aang was more than a little concerned that even somebody as good at firebending as Zuko would be hard pressed to deal with a dragon, or worse, something that made dragons afraid. Then, he felt stomping. Or rather, they all felt stomping, but only one could see why. The fog mounted up, as something old, something powerful, and something _beyond_ pressed up against it.

**AVATAR?**

"_I am_," Aang said to it. "_Are you the spirit of the dragons of old?_"

**NO.**

Aang's heart dropped a little at that. "_Well, do you know where I could find..._"

He was interrupted by a draconic roar, and then the fog split apart and was blasted away by the sweeping of massive wings, the great, whiskered face rising even as it stared down at Aang, borne into the sky. Zuko shouted something in surprise, as Aang finally saw that there was now a scarlet fire coming from the top of the cleft-mountain. Aang watched the blue, spectral one before him, though. That one had his full attention.

"_Wait, you said you weren't a dragon spirit!_" Aang said in bafflement.

**I AM NOT.**

The Dragon rose higher, its body coiling as it rose into the sky, circling around the ziggurat as it did. Aang rose, and turned, cradling the egg as he did so. Just in time, indeed, to see that fire in the distance _shatter like glass_. Streaming out of it, corkscrewing toward them with wings every bit as broad as the blue dragon from the fog, was a scarlet dragon which roared even as it approached them. Zuko instantly put himself between Azula and the Dragon, but the effort was somewhat moot, because the blue one clawed at the air, and when it did, Aang felt a tearing in more than just wind. It had ripped open a hole in the veil, and pushed itself through. Aang didn't keep the World Eyes open, as it was somewhat pointless at this juncture; one wouldn't need it, to see that the ziggurat was now flanked on both sides by a pair of nearly identical dragons, larger than he'd ever seen. One red. One blue.

"_You're the dragon itself, aren't you?_" Aang asked. The blue one leaned in closer.

**SHAO.**

Aang turned to the other, which gave a slightly more muted, more gentle gesture than the other. **RAN.**

"_Ran, Shao, I need your wisdom_," Aang said.

**RELEASE THE CHILD.**

Aang looked at the egg in his arms, and then very gently put it down. The dragons both watched him with eyes like razors the entire time. When it was carefully nestled in place, stopped from rolling by the incisions Toph had renewed in the sundial, and Aang finally stepped back, the blue one leaned down toward him.

**WHAT?**

Aang nodded for a moment. Then realized that he was just nodding dumbly at a dragon who looked like he – no, she. He knew that instinctively, somehow – could eat Aang in one bite, so he stopped. "_Shao, I need the wisdom of the dragons. Agni has hidden itself in the mortal world. If I can't find it, a friend is going to die!_"

The other leaned forward, the male of the two, and in a blink, had coiled around all four of them, staring down at those contained in its long body. Shao joined Ran a moment later, coiling atop the lower, then amidst him, until they were a blue and red wall of scales, and two heads glaring down even as their foreheads almost touched.

**YOU LEFT.**

"_I didn't mean to_," Aang said honestly, earnestly.

**THE OUTER HOME IS GONE. BECAUSE YOU LEFT.**

"_I know,_" Aang said, his head starting to hang. "_I just want things to be alright again. For spirits and people both._"

Ran leaned in closer, and Shao retracted slightly. Not a withdrawal of her looming threat. Just giving her mate more room. **WHY SHOULD WE HEED?**

"_Because I need help, and you're my only hope,_" Ran's eyes narrowed at that weak explanation. "_Because I owe her better than what she's gotten,_" Aang tried again. Ran leaned even closer, so that his whiskers were practically touching him. Aang knew he only had one more chance. "_Because I want her to be alright_."

Ran retracted completely, and the two broke apart, moving to their starting positions on the edge of the ziggurat. "Twinkletoes, what exactly did you tell these guys? 'Cause honestly, I'm not sure I could kill these things if I wanted to!"

"Trust me, you don't want to," Zuko said, still trying to protect his sister, who was now slowly pushing herself back to a sit, if a groggy and green-faced one.

Aang looked between the two great dragons, hopefully and pleadingly. The two dragons shared a look, a communication so far beyond the Uou they deigned to dummy themselves into using to speak to him that it beggared his imagination. Then, they looked back down upon them. "Will you help us?" Aang asked, plainly and in Huo Jian.

The two dragons answered by blasting forward with breath of searing azure flames. Aang only had time to gasp in shock, not even to yelp in terror, before that conflagration swept over him. But it didn't burn him. Because even as it came, it was clipped by the scarlet fire of its mate, spiraling it down and around them, cutting – by fate perhaps – into the outer lines of the sun-dial they had all bunkered in the center off. As the flame collided, slid past, slid around, it erupted into colors. Ten thousand and more of them, a spectacle so vivid that even Zuko had to lower his fists and stare in awe. Even in this raw state, Aang could see its meaning. Fire, to create and destroy, united in one purpose, united in one form. Everything that Aang had been saying about the Fire Nation since he got out of that iceberg, in fact! It even told Aang something, something he didn't believe until now. That this war, this World War of a century, it couldn't end until the world screamed for it. Not the East, or the Tribesmen, but all of the world. It would be the _Fire Nation_ that stopped the Fire Navy, the Fire Armies; no other way would work.

"_Where_..." Aang asked, so quietly against the crashing of flames.

And in the colors, there came an understanding. One all present could gather, Toph excluded. That Agni was at the beginning. Agni was at the fires which burned eternally. The dragon-fire finally called to a close, revealing the sights of the ruined city once again, even though it did take a few blinks to clear the after image. And when Aang did finally clear his vision, he could see something he hadn't really noticed before, both because they arrived with noon and it was now approaching sunset, and because it was yet further beyond where they'd come. Specifically, he noticed that one of the towers was still alight, blazing with a fire just out of sight. The dragons pulled back.

"Uncle didn't kill you, did he?" Zuko finally asked. "He let you live, and hid your secret by telling the world you were extinct."

Shao nodded. Zuko let out a sigh of relief. Obviously, this was something which had long rested upon Zuko's soul, such that its release was unexpected but a relief he clearly couldn't describe. Aang nodded. "I think he learned the lesson that Ran and Shao just showed us. That's why he's the way he is."

"The way he _was_," Zuko said.

He was immediately cuffed upside the head by an earthbender. "Hey! Until you see the body, he ain't dead! That clear?"

"Stop hitting me!" Zuko complained.

"Only when you stop being whiny!" Toph answered.

The dragons glanced at each other, so clearly a look of elders witnessing the squabblings of the very young. Aang pressed a fist into his palm, a Fire Nation greeting, acknowledgment and farewell, and bowed to each in turn. "Thank you. Your aid means more than I can ever express."

**SAVE US.**

Not a plea. An order. Aang nodded. And with that, the two dragons took to the sky with twinned roars, searing upward, the fire they breathed searing through the clouds and carving a column for the sun to shine down, even if it was at an angle, and vanishing into the cover above. Zuko turned to Aang. "Well?"

"I know where Agni is," Aang said.

"How far?" Zuko asked, even as he helped Azula to her feet. She still looked quite ill. Aang pointed. "Yeah, that's great, but _how far_?"

It was Aang's turn to grin, now. "Right over there," he said. Zuko turned, as did Toph, although she blindly.

"...you've got to be kidding me," the firebender said. Then, with a sigh, he started walking. Toph leaned toward Aang.

"You knew about that before the dragons, didn't you?" she asked.

"Um..."

"You know what, doesn't matter," she said, and started walking after Zuko. Aang just shook his head at what had transpired. But then, he remembered the importance of his purpose here, and hurried after them. If Azula was to be well, she would be well _today_.

* * *

><p>"So then, I have nowhere else to go but to jump up onto the balcony-rail, and he's got me in a corner. Nowhere left to run, and he starts doing that thing where he throws lightning at you," Sokka continued, somewhat humbly considering the subject matter. She had to admit, it was somewhat more than she'd have expected. If she'd bothered actually listening to his tales in Ba Sing Se instead of obsessing over first her mother, and then the loss of Ashan, she probably would have known the whole thing by now. "All I've got in hand is that book, the one Irukandji wrote about us. So I..."<p>

"Throw it at his head?" Nila asked.

"No, I hid behind it like a terrified child," Sokka said with a laugh. Nila leaned back. Now that certainly wasn't something she'd expect from a tale of derring-do; did not men tell such tales to _aggrandize_ themselves? "I can honestly say that I don't fear pain or death anymore, since I've both been burned nearly to death, and struck by lightning in a two month period. Well, not so much _not fear_, as don't worry so much about. It's all relative, you know?"

"I doubt any pain shall better that of having my eye gouged out," Nila said, and even as she did, she subconsciously rubbed at it, almost as though she were reminding herself that it had been restored. But of course not. Because she wasn't that foolish.

"You haven't had a kid, yet, so I'd be careful about that claim," Sokka said.

"Please. Of all of you, besides myself, only Malu has the functions of womanhood upon her," Nila pointed out. A vitriolic way of telling him that she was mature, and ready. Which upon immediate inspection, didn't land as intended in the slightest. Blast! She needed a lot more help on this sort of thing.

"Ew. You know, I'm glad I'm not a girl. I wouldn't want to have to put up with... that."

"It is hardly a problem," she said. "I devised something when the bleeding first came to me, to prevent befouling my underclothes..."

"When you still wore them," Sokka needled. Nila smirked slightly.

"...which functions well to bypass mess on those days. Tidy, clever, and not hampering my mobility in the slightest."

"...Nila, why are we talking about this?" Sokka asked.

"I am not sure. The topic seems to have swung," she said. She also kicked herself for not using a discussion of her nethers to launch into something more convivial before it lapsed into disgusting territory. "So you had been struck by lightning?"

"Yeah," Sokka said. "Yue's husband? He was the one who fished me out of the drink so I didn't freeze and drown. It's hard to stay mad at somebody'll who do that for you. Especially considering what else he's gone through," he started to lean forward, staring through the door and leaving what remained of his meal forgotten; since it was already cold, he was missing little. Nila had already cleared her platter away. "Some days, I wonder if we're actually going to win this."

"You have said so," Nila answered him.

"No, _you_ said so. I just asked," Sokka said. He sighed, slumping slightly. "Sometimes, I just feel like this is all too big. I mean, what am I? I'm not a bender! I'm not a shaman! I'm just some guy with a boomerang from Chimney Mountain! I mean, it wasn't even a real town when I got exiled from it..."

"Tribesman," Nila said, trying to interrupt his tirade.

"...and to think that all of this got dumped onto our laps? I've learned a long time ago that cursing the universe is just a good way to make your life miserable, but I honestly have to wonder what the universe was _thinking_ when it decided to put the future of any possible futures onto the backs of guys like Aang and me!"

"Tribesman!" Nila tried to break in. Mostly because she only had one idea left to try to turn this to a direction she would want, and his attention was notably off of her.

"And don't get me started on the losing streak we're on," Sokka continued, waving a hand broadly. "First we land in the North Pole just in time for Zhao to knock down the Spikerim and bring down Summavut. Then, we tried to get a massive army for the Black Sun Invasion, only to have Aang almost brainwashed, your friend killed, and all of us having to flee to a place where the buildings are upside down! I've heard of losing battles to win a war, but this is just getting ridiculous! And the only..."

"Sokka!" Nila shouted.

But Sokka seemed on a solid ramble, "...that we have to really work with is as crazy as a – wait a second, you just said my n–"

She interrupted him, the instant he turned toward him, by tackling him, pressing lips to lips, and letting gravity to much of the work for her. He was locked rigid under her weight, but after a moment, loosened a little bit. And frankly – odd as it might have seemed to be able to think about it while in the midst of an embrace of passion – she did notice that it was a very odd sensation having somebody else's tongue in one's mouth. Not unpleasant. Just odd.

She pulled back, straddling his stomach where he was now pinned to the floor. He blinked a few times, in utter bafflement. "Wh... what was that?" he asked, a bit befuddled. Nila sighed, and wilted a bit.

"Of course, I try to make myself clear, and once again have levied upon a target uninterested," she muttered.

"I didn't say I was uninterested. I just... what was that?" he asked.

"You have never been kissed before, Tribesman?" she asked.

"So it's back to _Tribesman_, now?" he asked with a nervous laugh. "And yeah, I've been kissed. Lots of times!"

"Obviously not. You panicked," she chided lightly. "I know panic when I see it."

"I wasn't panicking! I was just surprised!"

"Panic is a terminal form of surprise," she said. She leaned back a bit, so that she was still atop him, but no longer leaning down toward his face. "So. Have I misplaced my expectations, or are you welcome to a proper wooing?"

"'A proper wooing?' You haven't done this part before, have you?" Sokka asked, a laugh in his voice even though he still looked a bit paralyzed in place. Nila scowled.

"You know perfectly well that I have not!" she impugned.

"Look... could you get off of my chest?"

"No."

"Right," Sokka continued, and got a considering expression. Nila, though she would never admit it, really really hoped that this wasn't going to go the way that she feared and expected it to. "I don't see any reason why we can't try."

"Oh, very well. I suppose it was too much to expect," Nila said, before even registering what he'd said. "...wait."

"And here I thought _I_ was a pessimist!" Sokka laughed. Nila shifted aside, and let Sokka get back to his seat, if only so she wouldn't have to contort so she could cuff him upside the head. "Okay, no more taunting."

"We both know that is outside of your ability to control," Nila said. She looked down at the space next to him, and carefully slid in. It was also odd having somebody so close to her. In her 'personal space', as it were. Sokka, too, didn't seem entirely sure what to do with himself, so he awkwardly draped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. Which made the thing seem all the odder. Nila remained silent for a long moment. "I honestly have no idea what we are expected to do next."

"Oh, great," Sokka said. "And I was expecting you to know that."

"Hah," Nila said flatly.

"Seriously," Sokka said.

Nila turned to him, close as his face was, and raised a brow. "You would seriously accept the mandate of your woman above your own desires?"

"I think it's pretty clear that in Team Avatar, we have a tendency to defer to the pushy women," Sokka said with a shrug. "Besides, it just means that it's one less thing I have to think about."

"I see," Nila said. She squirmed a bit, until she finally found a position which was comfortable. "This will progress badly."

"Probably," Sokka said. "Smart as we are, we're both _kinda_ idiots."

Nila pondered for a moment, letting the thunder outside the room fill the silence. Then, a notion occurred to her. "I have a plan," she said, pulling away and facing him more squarely. "We are fools to our respective culture's mores and timetables, yes?"

"Tribesmen _have_ a schedule?" Sokka asked with a grin.

"I see," Nila shook her head, and got back onto her point. "_Therefore_, it is in our best interests to find where best we stand. Even a matter of simply judging at which point we are no longer comfortable. From that point we can begin to press on in this endeavor."

"It's a relationship, not a small business," Sokka pointed out.

"Many concepts work between them," Nila waved the objection away.

Sokka nodded, and his mouth pulled into a thoughtful frown. "So how do we start?"

"I have found a comfortable position against your side. Now, we shall have to determine what else strikes my fancy that you can reciprocate, and visa versa, until we each know where we stand."

Sokka nodded. "Yeah, that'll work. We each find the other's comfort zones. It's idiotproof!"

"Of course it is," Nila said, proud of herself at the notion. "First, let's see about this."

And this time, when she shoved her tongue down his throat, while still odd, it was quite a bit more pleasant than she expected.

She also resolved to stop calling it, even within her own mind 'shoving her tongue down his throat'. That madly rational part of herself, hovering above the madness, railed that romance was the most inefficient mangler of words that ever existed. The rest of Nila told that rational part to, for the moment, shut the hell up.

* * *

><p>The tower they'd mounted was much more narrow than the ziggurat they had left before. The dragons had vanished back into wherever it was they were sleeping, but the humans still felt that they were under intense scrutiny. Zuko didn't like the feeling. What he liked less was the way that Azula swayed even as he tried to help her stand. If they'd just taken the bison to this place, it'd have at least been a lot faster.<p>

"This stuff never stops itching, does it?" Toph muttered, scratching at her shins and then at her hand which did the scratching. Their trek through that part of the city ran them afoul of some nasty Azuli brambles, and Toph blundered straight into them.

"You know how to kill the itch," Zuko pointed out.

"No, because that's _disgusting_," Toph said with a scowl. Zuko rolled his eyes.

"It's also the only thing that'll work," he said. Toph growled, but didn't say anything else. Zuko then turned to the Avatar, who was looking around the great, etched bronze wall which formed an arc around a blazing scarlet flame. "I'm not seeing any spirits or gods here, Avatar. Just a bonfire."

"A bonfire which has no source," Aang pointed out. Zuko glanced at him, then scrutinized the base of the conflagration. True to the Avatar's perception, the base of the flame was sitting in an unremarkable bowl of stone; no wood for burning, no holes for natural gas to seep up and keep a present flame eternally alight. For all Zuko could see, that fire should have burnt out within seconds; still, it burned, furious and bright and hot.

Zuko blinked at the fire a moment longer. "Do you think that the flame is Agni?"

"No... no it's a bit more complicated than that," he said. He moved to the edge of the fire, such that the flames seemed to be trying to lick the hair from his head, and squatted down, finally curling his legs under him, taking in a deep breath which obviously had to sear his lungs as he took it. Then, he pressed his fists together, and whispered.

The litany the Avatar uttered caused the fire to pull back on itself, burning no less bright, but far less chaotically. Like it was recognizing his presence. Like it was giving him room. Zuko continued to try to peer the flames, to see what it was that Aang was communicating with. Just fire. Just heat. "This part always creeps the crap out of me," Toph muttered.

"Because you don't know what he's saying?"

"Nah; because everything he talks to is invisible to me," she said. With a stomp, she caused a chunk of the tower to split and start rolling down the slope toward the hostile ground. "Would it kill a spirit to not float or slink or... Damn it it's so itchy!"

She then launched back into a fury of scratching, trying to relieve the sensation. Zuko knew that she wouldn't though. Scratching would make it worse. He turned to his sister, who was staring at the fire as a chicken-snake hypnotized by a straight line. "Are you alright, Azula?" he asked. She didn't answer him. She just stared into the flames. Zuko was getting tired of being the only one capable of conversation.

"What are you saying?" Zuko asked, as Aang's litany slowed, and came to a halt. Aang turned toward him.

"Do you remember how your sister found me?" Aang asked, his tone very distant.

"By blowing open an iceberg. Why?" Zuko asked.

"I've just poked Agni's iceberg," he said.

"What do you mean by that?" Zuko asked. His answer was cut short by the ball of flame instantly leaping into a pillar, one which seared up through the 'chimney' hole and in to the sky, tearing through the clouds and blasting them away for miles. The mellow, red light of the sunset now poured in wholesale, bathing the city as though the whole place were set ablaze. Probably what the builders intended. Zuko, for all his comfort around flames, recoiled from that blast, and the unearthly howl that it created as it did. After a half-minute which felt like a year, the column stopped shooting skyward, and slammed back down, cracking the stone as it landed, creating a bed of broken, half-molten rock which ended just short of the Avatar's knees.

And kneeling upon that burning mat, back and thighs ram-rod straight, was a woman. Or rather, something that looked like a woman. Zuko blinked a few times. It was obvious she was naked, but at the same time, she revealed nothing, as fire and smoke clothed her. Her hair, too, was an unnatural shade, a bright red which was tied into a complicated braid which seemed to noose her neck before descending down her back. Her eyes were an even brighter, more reflective gold than Zuko's, or even Ozai's. And she never, ever, blinked.

"What is..." Zuko began.

"Agni," Aang said. Zuko sputtered a moment at that.

"What? That's not Agni! Agni's a man!" Zuko said.

"Says who?" Toph pointed out.

"Says... right. The Fire Sages, who were founded when we were a bunch of sexist idiots," Zuko said, his tone drifting into begrudging sarcasm as he finished. Agni, if it truly was Agni, didn't turn toward him, but was staring at him, and Zuko felt as though he was being surrounded by a burning house. The heat was so great. It's head tilted slightly, deliberately. And while the mouth didn't move, words were clear.

**WHO CALLS ME?**

Aang rose to his feet, and bowed toward the spirit. "I have. I need..." Aang began. And then, was halted as Agni was now standing at the edge of the incandescent pit, offering no motion between, staring down at Aang with those wide, burning eyes.

**YOU PRESUME MUCH, SMALL THING. THE AVATAR IS A MOTE ON THE WIND BEFORE ME.**

Aang recoiled at that. And Zuko stepped forward. "Well, if he's a mote, then I'm probably less, but I don't care because you're going to listen to me!" Zuko shouted. Instantly, while Agni still loomed over Aang, her head was twisted to face Zuko. He could feel indignation coming from the being before him. And he didn't care. Zuko reached down, and pulled off his boots, chucking them over his shoulder, took a deep breath, and then readied himself. Agni watched, as he stepped unto the half-molten rock. That head tilted once more.

**YOU ARE A CHILD OF FLAMES. I SHALL ACCEPT YOUR TRIBUTE.**

"Your tribute will be your continued existence," Zuko said, ignoring the pain which was starting to work up through his feet, even despite his iron-willed firebending to blast the heat away from him. As it pressed in from every direction, not simply down, it was a losing battle. Agni leaned back, her brow shifted for the first time since she appeared before him. And then she did another first. She laughed.

Her laughter was harsh and brutal, like a hammer beating upon an anvil, driven by compulsions beyond human ken or logic. And then, in an instant, the laughter was gone, and she was staring once more.

**GREATER THAN YOU HAVE THREATENED. FAR GREATER THAN YOU HAVE FAILED. EMBRACE FIRE, IMPUDENT ONE.**

"Zuko isn't threatening you, he's warning you!" Aang shouted. Even as he did, Agni was now standing before Zuko, a hand extended, and Zuko knew that if that hand touched him, no amount of firebending in the world would protect him from it. "Imbalance walks the living world. If I can't find a way to stop it, everything ends. Even you," Aang said.

Agni was now facing away, toward the Avatar, while her hand hovered a hair'sbreadth from touching, and thus destroying, Zuko.

**YOU SPEAK NONSENSE. IMBALANCE WILL BE SMOTE. IT IS POWERLESS BEFORE ME.**

"No, it isn't, and you know it," Aang said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have hidden yourself away."

Agni stared, and then that fist slowly closed, recoiling from his brow. But with a flash of movement beyond any human capacity to notice, she shoved hard on Zuko's chest, sending him flying out of the circle of cinders. Zuko landed hard on his back, rolling before he could slow his momentum and come to a halt, just before a long and unpleasant tumble down more than a few stairs. He felt himself being hauled to his feet, and even in his slightly concussed state, noted Toph at his side.

"What the hell is that thing?" Toph demanded.

"God," Zuko said, of the spirit before him which looked down at Aang with something like shame. "More or less."

**YES. YOU SPEAK TRUE. IMBALANCE IS... TOO POWERFUL. IT'S DARKNESS ECLIPSES MY LIGHT. SO I HIDE. THE LONG DARK APPROACHES. I CANNOT SEE THE DAWN.**

"I can help you," Aang said. "But to do that, I'll need some help of my own."

Agni tilted her head slowly, a question unvoiced. Aang waited, and then glanced to Zuko. His clothes were still smoking from that brutal heat, and he was pretty sure his feet were going to blister in the next few minutes. Aang then faced Agni once more. "You have the power to restore a mind, the mind of somebody dying," he said. Agni then was staring upon Azula, who was on the floor, her eyes wide and locked on the spirit god. Not in worship or fear. Just that she wasn't even entirely aware of what was in front of her. That made Zuko... more than a little worried.

**SHE IS OF FIRE. HER MIND BURNS. HER HEART BURNS. HER PART IN THIS WAR MUST BE GREAT, TO RISK MY WRATH.**

"She's the most important thing on the Earth," Zuko said, his eyes locked on the luminescent being before him. Agni continued to stare at Azula, still unblinking and focused beyond anything possible of humanity. Then, she slowly, gradually nodded.

"So what are you going to do? Have..." Aang began. Agni interrupted him by exploding into a blast of white, glaring shards, which streaked out in every direction, before slowing and coming to a halt outside the edges of the tower. Zuko looked back, as the shards began to slip back in, toward the center, gathering near Azula in a great and sweeping current, leaving Zuko more than a little alarmed, baffled, what-have-you. He felt... out of his depth. But that sensation fled into terror, when that stream twisted up, out, and then back in, slamming into Azula's eyes and dragging itself into her body.

Azula tipped straight back as though her vital cords had been cut. And she obviously wasn't breathing. Zuko pulled free of Toph and ran to Azula's side. "Azula! AZULA!"

"I..." Aang began. Zuko let Azula slide down, and grabbed the Avatar, hoisting him by his shirt.

"YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO HELP HER!" the prince raged, his vision going red.

"She _is_ being helped!" Aang shouted back, and blasted him back with a bolt of air into the chest. Zuko snarled, but didn't press any further. "I can see it, inside her mind. She's not dead. She's just... waiting."

Zuko looked back to Azula, who now stared unblinking as Agni had been toward the sky, blasted clear of clouds for the first time in who-knows how long. With a scream of futile rage, he lashed a whip of flame with smashed a decorative pillar into chunks and sent it crashing down the side of the ziggurat. "You'd better be right," he said to the Avatar, his voice raw.

* * *

><p>Between the crash of the water falling over the edge of the cliff, and the discontented chattering of a testy lemur, Katara wasn't getting much sleep. That meant she had a lot of time to sit, to listen. She'd had a talk with the airbender, Malu, while they ate. Honestly, for all she once tried to eat Aang, it was hard to stay angry at her. There was something so genuine, so desperate to do right, that Katara couldn't help but believe that Malu was on their side, for the long haul. But a part of Katara kept asking, how long <em>was<em> the long haul?

As for Malu, she was all questions. With Nila not around to be a conversational partner, she latched onto the next person around – Katara obviously – and then began to run through her entire life's story. And the longer that Katara let her go one, the less like language some of the things she talked about were. For example, Malu's description of one of her daring escapes from thirty second century Fire Nation continued into describing a dodge which sent her flying over a cliff as a 'zoop-argh!-blort', most likely describing the sounds that came from her as she plummeted into mud. Enthusiastic, yes. And at the same time, it was easy to see how she and Aang could have come from the same culture. The same way that Aang sometimes had moments of pristine clarity and wisdom, something far beyond his age and innocence, sometimes Malu showed a sort of calm, a zen that belied her fast-talking way. That she'd seen the worst day of her life, and that she could only go up from there.

It was unpleasant to think about, and something that the airbender never described in detail, but Katara was courteous enough not to press. What Katara wasn't courteous enough to do was to remain silent as Momo continued to chatter and tug at her hair-loopies. "Momo, go to sleep," Katara said through exhaustion. Momo, as lemurs were wont to do, ignored her completely, and continued to play with her hair. "Momo! Go. To. Sleep!"

Momo looked at her, those big eyes showing just a bit of the light which managed to peek through the window. Then he crawled onto Katara's face. With a sputter of annoyance, Katara lifted the lemur off of her and set it onto the floor. "Go away. Let me sleep, Momo," she muttered, and tried rolling over so that the little creature would get bored and wander off. Instead, it just provided a challenge to the Avatar's pet. It crawled up onto her shoulder, and reached across her face to pick her nose with one of its little fingers. Katara grunted, and elbowed the lemur off of her. "Go away, Momo!"

It let out an annoyed screech at her. So she flapped her hand once more at the thing, a part of her reaching out with her bending trying to hurl a cup of water at the lemur to get it running away at least for a few minutes. Instead... she felt something different. Like she was grabbing hold of something far squishier than water. And when she finished her motion, it was Momo who went flying directly out the door. Katara sat up at once, thoughts of sleep fleeing her, as Momo scrabbled to its feet, let out a terrified shriek at her, and then flew away. Katara stared at her hands.

"...did I just... _bend_... Momo?" she asked. Needless to say, she didn't sleep well that night.

* * *

><p>There was a darkness. But in that darkness, she was not alone. There were two. Three, technically, but only two of note. Even as the darkness gained definition, it would not become anything like a real place. That wasn't how these things worked. They stood on nothing, but it supported them as the very earth would. And they were staring at each other.<p>

The first was a girl, eight years old at the most. Her hair was black and shining, precisely styled. Eyes, golden and large, making her almost seem cherubic, were she not so frequently prone to random acts of cruelty. Wide, innocent eyes had gotten her out of quite a few problems she couldn't blame on somebody else. Her clothing was appropriate to her appearance, the nearly formless robes of a pre-pubescent.

The second, a very old woman, who had lived hard and that hardship was plain on her face. Her hair was uniformly gray, hanging down limp and lusterless and without care of attention, parts of it uneven where it had been torn out by the roots and left to regrow at its own pace. While her eyes were golden, they were rheumy, old spheres with mottled edges, and her whites closer to pallid grey. Her lips were cracked and pulled tight over more than a few missing teeth. She was somebody who had given up on appearance long ago, and given over every scrap of energy she'd dedicated in _that_ pursuit, as well as just about every other pursuit, to the insatiable maw of hatred.

"You look like hell," the girl snarked.

"And you look weak," the crone answered.

Because both of them were Azula. They began to circle each other, eyes locked on each other, as flames began to flicker from the fingertips of the younger. With those flames, sparked others, slowly turning the void into the belly of an unending, eternal, and omnipresent flame. One which burned bright, pure, and did not sear. The older, her bending having been stripped from her years ago, pulled out a jagged, ill-maintained knife. "You know what's the worst thing?" the younger asked, her glare hard and angry. "I've figured out how to _kill_ you. Tear your grasping hands from _my_ body. And if I'd figured it out months ago, _none of this would have happened_!"

"You're right. It'd have been far, far worse," the old one answered. The younger, unable to bear that thought, hurled herself at the elder, fists guttering with weak red flames. The older slapped the girl aside contemptuously, causing the girl to land flat on her face. She rolled to her feet swiftly, but the elder wasn't quite to the point of ruthlessness, not yet. "Everything that I've done, has been done to prevent the supremacy of a weak, foolish ruler, as a lapdog to an enemy of the Fire Nation as a whole."

"Since I've gotten to know how you think – twisted and insane as it tends to be – I know you're talking about Zuzu and the Avatar. And what, I ask you, was so bad about it? That you didn't get to sit on the Burning Throne? Or was it because you couldn't accept that the lowest common denominator of your misery was _you_?"

"You don't know anything!"

"I know more than you think," the girl snapped back. "I know that my mother _cared_ about me. I know that my brother would have _died_ for me."

"She never even bothered to visit after she killed Grandfather," the crone pointed out.

"Did she?" the girl asked. The void changed, and the two/three of them were now standing somehow both within and divorced from Azula's old room in the Royal Palace. It was dark outside the windows, which were damp at their edges, and the buckets left under their sills, nearly full. There wasn't thunder, that night. But more than enough rain. Both could see the bed, occupied by a girl who was tightly curled, lying on her side. Bandages brightly red marked her neck and her nose. Not even once replaced. She wasn't alone, though. Another was pacing the room with her.

He didn't look like much, the Zuko of that age. For all Azula was years younger than him, she didn't seem it then. Or rather, he hadn't grown to fill the distance yet. He kept glancing toward Azula, and toward the door, unable to come to a decision, unable to move on. One of her knew that it was a divide that had been instilled in him from a very young age. Half of him wanted to envy her. Half of him wanted to despise her. But between those halves, as was in any practical situation, there was something else, a sliver of filial love that hadn't quite been crushed out of him by a father who wanted the strongest to succeed him, or a mother who couldn't help but chose one over the other.

The door opened.

"...Zuko?" a woman's voice asked. Both of Azula turned, leaving one in the bed and one yet other to not pay attention. "What are you doing here?"

"Mom?" Zuko asked. He glanced to Azula, then back to her. "I... I wasn't..."

Ursa, though, didn't demand explanations, nor offer condemnations. She just moved to Zuko and pulled him into an embrace. One he flinched from at first; Ursa, while free with physical affection, was seldom so forceful with it. After a second, he relaxed, taking the embrace as he should. "I'm sorry, Zuko. I came as soon as I could. Something's happened."

"Mother, what are you saying?" Zuko asked, instantly more alert than he had been before. Ursa turned from him, looking out onto Azula, where she lied in bed.

"How... is she?" she asked, her words halting. Uncertain. Of course they were. Azula had screamed and flailed at her when she tried to rush to the girl's side. Zuko just shook his head. "Listen to me. Listen, Zuko! Everything I've done – Everything! – was to protect you. You and your sister. No matter what anybody ever tells you, I did this to protect you. Don't ever forget that. Don't forget who you are."

"I don't understand," Zuko said.

"Protect your sister," Ursa said. Zuko leaned back. "Please, Zuko. This is the most important thing I've ever asked of you. I know you can do this. Please, promise me you will."

"But, she doesn't..." Zuko said.

"Please."

Zuko's eyes welled up, and he nodded, unable to trust his words. Ursa whispered something to Zuko alone, something which Azula couldn't have heard from her place in the bed. And then, she flipped up her hood, turned, and left the room, the palace, the city. Forever.

"See? She wanted to say goodbye to _Zuzu_, not _you_," the crone snapped.

"Then why did she seem surprised to see Zuko in _my_ room?" the girl shouted. "She was saying goodbye to me! And what did your mother say to you? Oh, wait, I have a fairly good idea. She said 'there's something _wrong_ with you'. That 'you're a _monster_'."

The crone shrieked and slashed forward with that blade, and the girl had to duck and weave away to stay out of its jagged arc. With one dodge, she didn't quite make it away, and it slashed across the bridge of her nose. A gash less than a fingernail's-depth deep, but enough to get blood flowing. And the instant it did, the girl grew slightly taller, and the hair on the crone's head started to darken. "See? You're making my point!"

"You have no idea how I've suffered! I deserve this chance!"

"Why?" the girl asked, the flames which pooled in her hands now far stronger than they had been a moment earlier. "You wasted your chance. And you've done your very best to waste _mine_!"

"I could have saved us!" the crone screamed, and slashed again. This time, the girl was ready, and when the knife came close, the girl bent out of the way, almost as limber as an acrobat she was once the closest-of-friends with, driving her foot up behind her head in a swift arc and circle-kicking the crone in the chin. The crunch of teeth against boot was met with, rather than teeth being expelled, teeth returning. And the girl grew a bit taller still.

"All you've ever done is make things worse!" the girl shouted, and lashed forward with a blast of fire. One that the old woman caught, and smashed apart, flames sputtering to being in her own grasp. First, a smokey, oily red. The girl pressed again, and this time sent a blast which the crone couldn't quite withstand, and the force sent her staggering back, her hair returning to a more lustrous black, her back raising from a geriatric stoop.

The crone – now a middle-aged woman – stood staring down the girl who now seemed for all appearances twelve rather than the eight-year-old that had been before. "I tried to keep the same mistakes from happening again. My daughter..."

"Is never going to be born," the girl snapped at her. "You can't just justify everything you've ever done by saying 'it's for my daughter'. That runs out of worth. And it runs out of sanity. You're doing this because you're too stupid to find a better path than slow suicide."

"You do realize you've just insulted yourself," the woman told the teenager.

"If I grow into being you, then I deserve the insult," the teenager snapped. She thrust forward again, and this time, while the flames started golden, after an instant, they blossomed into the searing azure that one of her had been so proud of in her later life. The girl was shocked by the heat, the intensity of the blaze. Because of that, when the woman slammed through those blue flames with blue fire of her own, it caught the younger completely unawares, and slammed her in the chest, knocking her flying back. The room shattered into void as she passed through its bounding wall, and she rolled to a stop, her clothes smoking.

The girl who pushed herself up, ignoring the pain, now looked roughly fifteen, but not the same sort of fifteen-year-old that they all inhabited. This was a more lithe, more weak version of herself. A version that the younger thought of as her future. The blaze which settled between them parted, and an Azula of perhaps twenty five years strode out, her body everything which Azula now had, only matured and ripened. It was insensible to envy oneself. Doubly so when that oneself was trying to kill... oneself...

Another her, off to one side, laughed lightly, distantly, at the confusion.

Azula got to her feet, as the woman slowed. Blue fire blazed around her fists, and her eyes seemed every bit as alight. "I need to finish this," the woman said.

"You don't even know what you're finishing," the girl answered her. "You're out of your depth. You're fighting enemies which don't exist. Stand down."

"Make me,"

The teenaged Azula smirked at that, scarletted lips pulling up at that. "Challenge accepted."

She twisted her arms through a form she knew well – though from where she could not say – and when she did, she felt energy being torn apart inside of her. It stoked ever higher, begging for her command. So when she released it, to do as it would, it was simply opening the sluice of a dam, and letting the flood rush forth. The bolt of lighting crossed the distance with a terrible boom of igniting air, despite the fact that, in this place, technically there was none. Still, lightning made noise. Some things had to be preserved. The girl Azula smiled, even as that bolt launched. She thought it would be the end of things.

Not so much, then, as the older seemed to catch it with her hand, and pull it into her. The lightning arced along her shoulders, into her hair, and between the buttons of her blouse, as the glow of the bolt seemed to bend lower, running through her stomach and then up into her other arm. The girl's smirk started to die, and the woman's was borne of its ashes, as the elder began to thrust a hand forward, two fingers leading.

The girl barely managed to leap clear of the bolt which she herself had launched. It scoured across the nothingscape, causing it to... harden and ossify where the lightning touched. But there were no scorches. No burns. Azula turned from the passage of the bolt, back to the woman who had reversed it. "Not possible," the girl said.

"You would be surprised," she said. She took an aggressive step forward. "Stand down, girl. I am going to save us."

"No," Azula got to her feet. "I am. This is _my_ body. This is _my_ mind. You don't belong in either."

"Then stop me."

Azula answered that by hurling herself at Azula. The woman swept the younger's arm aside, and elbowed her in the teeth as she did. The girl then pulled hard on the hair running down the woman's back, getting a grip, and then kicking the woman's knee sideways. The woman shouted, and hooked her arms so that when the woman fell, it was to drive the girl face-first into the ground. That caused stars to flit through the girl's vision, but when she rose, she was stronger.

Azula rose, and when she did, it was to a body the younger never truly had, nor expected, but appreciated. A body layered in carefully built muscle. Power and mobility and speed. Fists as hard as rocks. Lungs of an airbender. Legs of a waterbender. And another her was standing directly in front of her. There were no words at this point. Just blows. They didn't even bother firebending. Two of them, identical in every physical respect, exchanging perfectly mirrored blows. A woman fighting her shadow, fighting to a draw.

The differences between the two had become academic. One caught a knee in the ribs, which was grabbed and thrust back, to deliver an identical rib-creaking impact a moment later. A right hook sent one to a back spin which caught the other in its arc. Front kicks, launched in the same instant, connecting in the same instant, crossing themselves and driving both women back as they impacted in equally muscled abdomens.

One had been a child, naïve and foolish. The other had been a crone, bitter and hateful. Now, they were mirrored. Mirrored in body. Mirrored in stance. Mirrored even in injury. In perfect unison, each reached up to wipe blood away from a split lip with the back of a hand. In perfect unison, they breathed deeply, shoulders rising and falling. And with perfect unison, they launched forward with identical screams, into a haymaker punch which would have split a mountain in two. The two punches, identical in every way, landed on two jaws.

Azula stumbled back, stars in her eyes and a sharp pain running through her. After a few steps back, to regain her balance, she opened her eyes, shaking away the sensation of closing vision... to find that she was no longer squared against herself. There was a moment of confusion. Azula stopped, turned, golden eyes flicking, trying to see where her brutal doppelganger had gone. She took a step... and then hesitated. She looked down. She felt her lip.

No blood.

She blinked a few times. "Who am I?" she asked. And after a moment, she had an answer. "I am... Azula."

The answer was simple. She was Azula. Both of her. It wasn't painful, just odd. Feeling how memories now interlocked with each-other, how two lives now sprang to mind with equal proficiency and ease. How two people were two people no longer. She opened her hand. Nothing. She focused her will into that hand. Yet, nothing. No fire. No flame. She blinked at that. All of this, a union within herself, only to be made lesser for it? "This is unacceptable."

"...never good enough," Azula's voice came from somewhere outside her throat. Azula turned to it, and began walking that void, until she found a slightly darker place in it. A corner of her mind that had been cordoned off. She reached up, feeling the gossamer that hung there, a wall of nothingness. She gave a rip, and tore down the last vestige of the wall inside her mind. She looked upon the last of her.

"So this is what could have been," Azula said.

The room was literally full of crazy. And not the dangerous kind of crazy, which was all the more depressing. Unlike the featureless void behind her, this had a definite structure. The pristine white, well lit environs of a Fire Nation sanitarium. Every square inch of the floor, walls, and even the ceiling was scribed with phrases, oft repeating, and never kind. Now that she saw with the right set of eyes, she finally knew what those mad scribbles were. Epithets, condemnations. Hatred, bile, and recriminations, hurled at the inhabitant, by the inhabitant. Azula stepped over the vile diatribes, the insults, the slander, and stood before the woman who dangled in the room. Her arms were bound 'round her, to keep her from harming herself, to keep her from firebending, in a secure jacket. Her hair fell before her face, and there were great chains which held her gently swinging off of the floor.

"I'm... not good enough," the ragged voice said. Azula lifted the head, and looked into her own eyes. Only bloodshot, underset by dark circles as one who had seen little sleep nor comfort in recent weeks. This was everything Azula had sworn not to become. A her who despised herself more than any other. A her who, by the look of the ragged edge of the wound in her neck, chose death the first opportunity it came. Even just holding this Azula's head up told her what had happened. How the waterbender, trying to save Zuko's life from a desperation-maddened Azula, struck out with everything she had. That Azula had driven her back. Made her desperate enough. And that Azula's madness, her lack of focus, gave the waterbender the instant of opportunity.

Azula could see, through the memory of the hanging one, the look of shock, the dismay in the waterbender's face when the spike of ice hit the throat rather than the armor. She tried to heal that Azula. Azula drove her back with her dying breath, lashing with fire, even as her blood pounded out. Because she was...

"Tired..." the hanging Azula said. "I couldn't fight her. She was... my friend, once. I don't want to be here anymore..."

"You don't have to be," Azula answered her. Ty Lee, that was who this one fought. And Azula even knew why, as absurd as it seemed to the two who comprised her.

"I don't fit," she said.

"Perhaps not. But you're me. And I'm nothing, if not self-centered," Azula said snarkily. The hanging her offered a chuckle at that, something so long awaited that it seemed to be painful to her.

"Will it stop? Will it all stop?"

"I have no idea," Azula told herself. "But nothing will be the same."

The hanging her, now left to dangle, nodded, her unevenly-slashed hair bobbing as she did. "Anything... _anything_... is better than this."

Azula reached out a hand, cupping what was essentially her own cheek. She had suffered. She had struggled. She bowed her forehead down, touching her hanging self's brow in a silent recognition that she deserved better.

All of her did.

When she leaned back, the room remained. The markings were gone, though. Bile and hatred, vanished. There was a contentment in her. Something more, though. She tried to feel the edges, where one her ended and another her began. But even as she walked away from the now empty room, and back into that empyrean chaos, she found that there were no edges to find. As her memories now seamlessly flowed into one another, three of her all joined into one story, so too did her being. There was not an old Azula, and a young Azula, and a mad Azula.

There was only Azula. An Azula who was different than the sum of her parts.

She stopped, and turned. There was a woman standing next to her, scarlet of hair and clothed in fire. Golden eyes, staring. "Who are you supp–" Azula began.

**THE FOURTH SOUL HAS COME.**

Azula leaned back, but without any motion, the strange nude woman was holding Azula's chin in a beyond-iron grip. She was lifted from her feet, those eyes still staring at her, not so much as a blink marring their sight. The grip tightened, not out of threat, but... Azula could almost sense a desperation there. Something peeking through the layers of pride and conceit. That was a sensation she knew fairly well, by this point.

**DO WHAT IS NECESSARY. MAKE HIM SAVE US.**

And with that, the void was gone. With it, any sign that there had been more than one Azula, and in fact, Azula herself.

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><p>The luminescence winked out in a heartbeat, turning the body of the firebender from the light-bulb which had held back the night, into a blanket of utter darkness in faster than a blink. Both of those who had the eyes to see the fire leaking out of Azula's eyes and mouth knew that whatever was going to happen, happened.<p>

"Azula, are you..." Zuko began, but trailed off as the flame oozed longer, mounding into a burning pyre many time's Azula's size. Then, with a spark, true flames began to pour off of it once more, and it returned to its place in the center of a mound of cinders. Zuko didn't even pay it very close attention. Like Aang, his attention was on the girl on the floor.

"Are you alright, Azula?" Aang asked. And then he paused, and realized something mildly horrifying. She wasn't breathing.

"Well... Do something about it!" Zuko shouted at him when he was informed of that fact. Aang pressed a hand to her brow, and another onto the top of her ribcage, trying to think of what he could do to get her heart beating once again. There was so much about healing that he just didn't know! The seconds dragged out into hours, his fingers playing idiot dances, his mind turning in circles without form nor purpose.

"I..." Aang began, and then was cut off, as Azula's chest heaved, and then she let out a cough, pulling into a fetal position. The relief on Zuko's face was palpable. The relief in Aang's heart, probably more so. She trailed off her coughing with a mild groan, before opening her eyes and taking in those around her. There was a moment of confusion, mostly when her gaze switched from Zuko to Toph, but when it moved to Aang, the expression became one of annoyance. "Azula? Do you know where you are? Can you speak?"

"I would if you weren't staring at me like an invalid. Let me get up!" Azula snapped.

Her voice was clear, legible, and utterly without accent. Zuko seemed taken aback by that, but offered her a hand up even as he rose. Toph just took it in with mild bemusement, tapping her toe-tips to the stone. "Azula, thank Agni that you're alright," Zuko said; even Aang could tell that he was holding himself back.

"Literally, in this case," Toph said.

"I know why you're here," she said to her brother, "and I have a fairly good idea why you are. But as for you...?"

"Great. You don't remember me," Toph said. But the smirk on her face promised mischief rather than annoyance.

"Oh, I know exactly who you are. It's your presence _here_ which has me confused. And secondly, what _has_ become of this place?" she asked, looking around.

"You've been here before," Zuko said.

"Indeed. Several decades ago," she said. She shook her head. "And this place wasn't uninhabited."

"It seems pretty uninhabited to me," Toph offered. Zuko, though, tried to bring Azula's attention back to him.

"Azula, are you alright. I mean _really_?" he asked.

"If you persist in asking me that, I'll have to set you on fire," she said flatly. Zuko leaned back, a stricken look on her face. But her lips pulled into a smirk. "You always were too easy a mark. No wonder you and Uncle got along so well."

"So you're the old woman?" Aang asked.

"I'm Azula," she said, peevishly. "Everything that the old crone was, everything that the child was, everything that the broken girl was, they're a part of me now. So yes, Zuzu. I'm alright. Stop asking."

Aang gaped for a moment. "This is the fourth soul," he said.

"That was mentioned to me," Azula said, as she took a step toward the edge of the ziggurat.

"You're the fourth soul!" Aang pressed.

"And here I thought it would be blatantly obvious from the erudition of my speech. Whoever taught you simple deduction is probably spinning in his grave from shame," Azula said. Toph laughed.

"I like the new Azula. She doesn't let you get away with anything," Toph declared.

Zuko, though, was just standing there, staring at his sister. "Azula, I tried for so long to help. I really did."

Azula turned back to him. Then at the others. With a mild sigh, she walked up to Zuko, her hands limbering at her sides as though she were about to slap him. But to everybody's shock, she pulled her brother into a hug. "I know, Zuzu. And trust me, I appreciated it."

"Aaaaw..." Toph mocked.

"Don't start something you can't finish, earthbender," Azula snapped around Zuko's shoulder.

"What, you think you can take me?" she asked. "I'm the greatest earthbender in the world!"

Azula just rolled her eyes.

"Did... did Agni say anything to you while she was inside your mind?" Aang asked.

"A few things," Azula said. "There's... a lot to go over. I'll need a bit of time to get it sorted out. But there was one order it had for me. One that, frankly, I feel a great desire to discharge as quickly as possible."

"Which was?" Toph asked.

"Make him, save them," Azula said, pointing first to Aang, then to the flame. "Because if you don't, then I've been born with less than three months to live. And that's just terrible."

"Really?" Aang asked. Azula now looked at him – really looked – and her brow rose sharply.

"Why are you not wearing _pants_?" she asked.

"That's a bit of a long story," Aang admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

"My feelings on the new Azula are now somewhat fuzzy," Toph said grumpily.

"If it matters, you're one of the very few people I didn't kill last time," Azula said, moving toward the stairs.

"What?" Aang asked.

"You were last," she sing-songed. "Only Zuzu and the blind one had enough common sense to stay out of my way."

"Could you explain at least why you kept trying to kill us all?" Aang asked.

"Later. Right now, I am positively starving," Azula said. Then, before descending, she hesitated. "Although, I recall that we are in Azul, and Azul is ridiculously dangerous. Call your beast so we can leave."

"It's not a beast. It's name is Appa!" Aang said with a defensive note. Azula gave a mild shrug.

"It won't matter if his name is Hiroshi Sato; if you don't call him _soon_, then we aren't leaving the jungle. As I am given to recall, the _really_ dangerous creatures come out at night."

"She ain't wrong, Aang. I can feel a lot of things coming at us," Toph pointed out.

"Azula... are you still angry at Katara?" Aang asked.

Azula turned back to him, and let out a sigh. "No," she said. "The only thing this waterbending peasant has ever done was humiliate me. And that was after she _saved my life_ from pneumonia, so I find myself somewhat torn between righteous indignation and begrudging praise. As I said, there are things I'm going to have to work out within my own mind."

Aang nodded, then pulled the bison whistle up from the thong around his neck, giving it a stiff blow. A quiet bellow sounded in the distance, from where Appa was munching on the canopy of the jungle. A glance around this comparatively needle-like tower told Aang that Appa wouldn't try landing here. But there was a plaza below which seemed more suitable. Aang led the way. Before he'd taken five steps down, though, there was a powerful hand on his arm, arresting him. Aang had half a thought that it was Zuko. Instead, it was once again Azula. She was as strong as she looked, and she looked damned strong.

"One more thing," she said. "The spirit had another message for you. 'When the time has come, I will be ready'."

"Oh. Thanks, I guess,"

"Don't thank me. I'm just the one stuck between you two," she rolled her eyes. Aang gave a glance up to Toph and Zuko, receiving either a shrug or a baffled shake of the head as his answer. Aang rolled his eyes, and turned forward once more. But when he did, it was to catch the barest, faintest glimpse of movement ahead of them. His eyes widened. He knew what he'd seen. That wasn't an animal. That was a man.

"Wait here, I have to check something," Aang said, bounding down the steps ten at a time. He rounded the corner, and saw movement ahead of him, a bobbing light racing toward where the city dropped off into an abrupt crevasse, one almost invisible from the air. Aang raced after him, his speed making it so that even when he tripped traps, he wasn't present in the kill-zone when they activated. Blades slashed, arrows flew, and pits opened with wild abandon, but always a pace behind the airbender in question. He was gaining ground, though.

The man who was running glanced back, and Aang got his first good look at him. He looked middle aged, but far darker than a National usually was. Aang couldn't see the eyes, for the distance and the poor lighting, but from the general complexion, the Avatar would have sworn that this man was a Tribesman, were there not a ball of fire hovering above his hand. His clothes, too, didn't fit in with National style. They didn't fit with any single style Aang knew of.

Aang's listing of qualities was obviously taking longer than he'd given credit, because the man bounded, setting his feet even with a back-slide, and thrust forward both fists, bereft of any grunt of angry effort. From each fist came a twisting rope of brilliant golden fire, which filed the whole of the street between the abrupt levels of the surrounding ziggurats. Aang let out a clipped scream of surprise and fear, before remembering that he was both an airbender and an earthbender. The former kept the flames back from him long enough for the latter to create a sheltered lee which the flames could not scour. The burning blast continued for almost a second, before winking out. Aang, now suddenly back in darkness with his dark-vision fouled by the bright, was practically blind. But still, he ran in the direction he'd seen the man going before, trusting that the direction would bear fruit.

He'd just started getting his sight back when he saw the man hurl himself off of that precipice, and vanish into the distance below. Aang rushed to the edge, trying to see where the man was falling. But it was too dark, and the man, too far. Aang was pulling back in defeat when he felt the slightest of impacts against his head, like somebody'd clipped him with a pebble, and he backed off. He tapped a hand to his head, rubbing the spot and finding it more painful as he did so. And then, his hands seemed to grow wet. Aang lit a flame in his own palm. He saw that his fingers were slightly bloody. He gaped at that for a moment, then heard a click as something landed near him. A glance, to a dart made of supple wood, sinew, and knapped obsidian. Aang looked down once more, to the creek turned river turned gorge. Of the man, there was no sign.

Aang reached into his pocket and pulled out the headband that Sokka had foist upon him. He stared at it a moment, then tied it over his brow, mostly to staunch the bleeding. What had just happened?

"So he got away?" Azula asked from directly behind him. Aang let out another yelp of alarm, not expecting in the slightest for her to have crossed that distance at all, let alone so quickly. She sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Typical. You never could finish what you started."

"Hey, he tried to kill me!" Aang said.

"You're in the Fire Nation, Avatar. Nine people out of ten want to kill you," she said humorlessly.

"I think you need to lighten up a bit," Aang murmured. Azula just shrugged and nodded after.

"Your beast is waiting. I have had enough of this place for two lifetimes. Fitting, since that's true," she paused, looking at him. "I suppose you want to know what I mean when I talk about 'the future', and..."

"Oh, Toph figured that out," Aang said. "You've been 'transposed from a later _narrative_ reality, folded back and shoehorned into a new timeline and spent your time borking it up'. Her words, not mine."

Azula blinked at him.

"That was... remarkably close," Azula admitted. A faint scowl. "And here I thought I would have the delight of seeing you all baffled and senseless."

"You really need to get new sources of amusement," Aang said.

"Oh, I intend to," she said with a smirk, and a brief glance at his barely-clothed self which ended in an eye-roll. For some reason, that pronouncement made Aang more than a little worried.

* * *

><p>The rain had slowed to a drizzle, which was... <em>nice<em>. Well, not so much nice, as less unpleasant than it had been when it was pelting down hard enough to almost knock the two of them off of their feet. "How much farther?" Jet asked.

"We need to cross the Jang Hui river," she said. "The major port is on the far side of the island. I'd rather take a proper ship in this weather."

"And here I thought we'd have the easy trip," Jet griped.

Mai was about to offer a sarcastic comment, but the wind suddenly shifted, and the drizzle that fell like blood suddenly became very, very cold. The kind of cold, in both the wet and the wind, which cut through clothing like she was standing naked. The kind of cold they got down in Chin, when the weather was at its worst. The kind of cold that, had she been to either Pole, she'd know as an arctic breeze.

She shivered, in that unexpected and unexplainable chill, before the wind shifted once again, and the drizzle returned to its heat and pressure, slapping against her cheeks and her hood like slow, methodical fingers. She glanced to Jet. "Did you feel that?"

"Like it suddenly decided to be Summavut for about five seconds? Yeah," he said. "Is Fire Nation weather always this unpredictable?"

"No. It's completely predictable; always cloudy, usually raining," Mai said. But never, ever cold. She dismissed the notion for the time being. They had a job to do. One that she and Jet were quite suited to undertake. "We should keep moving."

Jet just nodded, and followed with her. After about a minute, he started sniffing. She turned a glance to him, an eyebrow raised.

"I just smell something," Jet said. "Something _stinks_!"

* * *

><p><strong>I decided that there'd been enough crazy-zula. Thus, Nu-Zula enters the fray. One of the things which bugged me about this chapter's analogue was a complete inability to understand what a thousand years was. A thousand years is enough time for the English language to happen. A thousand years saw the inception, rise, pinnacle, and fall of the British Empire. Hell, seven hundred was enough to zip past the birth height and death of the Roman Empire! And years, once they hit the quadruple digits, tended to be most unkind to the works of the people who made them. The pyramids were once smooth and capped in gold; now they're something straight out of Minecraft. Chichen Itza one spread through the Yucatan for miles. Now only about twelve buildings remain, and most of them are complete reconstructions based on what was reckoned to be there. And that's only been abandoned for <em>half<em> a milennia!**

**What I'm saying here, is that if you leave a building for two thousand years, and nobody takes care of it, it disappears under vegetation, or is worn down to dust. So the city of the Sun Warriors had to be either obviously inhabited, secretly maintained, or utterly annihilated. I chose the more interesting of the three options.**

**Before you ask, yes, I did steal Agni's appearance from The Void. Yes, Katara discovered how to bloodbend utterly independantly of Hama. Yakone did it in Canon without a teacher, and Katara knows more about healing by far than she did in the original time line. So blundering upon bloodbending seemed appropriate. No, you're never going to learn Nila's _actual_ first name. ****And yes, these chapters do seem to be getting longer. Weird about that.**

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><p><em>Leave a review.<em>


	43. The Shards

The dead of night had passed, but still she stayed awake, moving through the forms in the rain as anybody could have expected of somebody of her skill and import. Years of conditioning meant that simple exhaustion didn't even do much to slow her down. She was a Child. The Children were supposed to be the best. She spearheaded that.

An axe kick, lighting with fire, seared down and flash-evaporated the water which pooled in the courtyard. There was an irony in this building's creation; it had canals on its outskirts, constantly perterbated to throw a spray into the air so that it could steal the heat of wayward flames before an onlooker could get caught by an errant blast. Nowadays, that was dealt with more by the incessant rains than anything else. She landed easily, and twisted forward into a pair of blasts which she announced to the morning with grunts of angry effort.

There was part of her which was angry. More than angry. Furious. She didn't know why, but it flowed through her veins with her blood. It chased her in her dreams, denying her sleep. She could stay fast for a while, but there was exhaustion, and then there was staying awake for a week. She was on day three. And it was starting to show. Yoji breathed deeply, her mouth pressed shut, and felt the water dripping off of her face. It was telling as well, that even her waterproof makeup couldn't contend with the weather in the Fire Nation these days; it peeled down in rivulets, making her face seem partially flayed in the dim of dawn. Something about that last set didn't set well with her.

So she did it again.

Twist. Flame. Curl. Flame. Bound, and two flames searing out with bicycle kicks. She landed easily, but her eyes narrowed. Something didn't feel right. So she did it again. Twist. Curl. Bound. The flames were as they were the previous attempt, as they were for the attempt before that, and the attempt before that. To most eyes, her efforts were close enough to perfection as to make no practical difference. Yoji could _feel_ a difference.

"What is going wrong?" she asked. So she took another, deep breath, and tried something different. Instead of trying to move through precise movements, she twisted her arms around, a motion she'd seen in the enemy, in the Prince. The movement was simple. It was the sensation which startled her. That tearing apart of the things inside of her, like her stomach was being set alight and burned, a great void opening as it did so; then, when she could stand no more, and her control slipped, her body practically moved beyond her control, casting forward a hand with fingers clawed. A crack of thunder in the rain, and a bolt of lightning seared away, smashing into and shattering a portion of the badly-eroded tiles upon the roof. She stared at it. _That_ didn't feel wrong.

"It's the fire," she said. And then, she stood wide, her legs taking a horse stance. The burn on her hamstrings was intense, and her glare was fixated straight forward. Her hands swept down, as she tried to pull her breathing in. Then, a scowl turned into a rictus, and she cast a hand straight up with a scream, a blast of naked flame shooting into the heavens and boiling the rain before it could even come close to her. She'd done this before; it was good practice for sustained blasts. The longer you stayed dry, the better.

It started petering out almost immediately. The scream curdled in Yoji's throat. So she thrust up her other hand, intending to disprove herself. The blast started as strongly as the other had, but as with the other, it wasn't for long. It started receding almost immediately. Yoji cut it off with a flick of her arms. She didn't notice how, when she did that, the flame of every lantern nearby flickered slightly. She wiped a hand across her face, heedlessly scrubbing more of the white concealer aside, revealing more totally a heritage she never wanted to claim. "_I'm tired_," She told herself. "_I just need to get some sleep_."

Her breathing hadn't settled; her mind hadn't ceased in its racing. Why? Why did her mind betray her so? She didn't know. And honestly, she didn't want to. Let Kori yammer on as he would, ask whatever questions he would. They were his problem. She knew where her loyalties lay. She breathed hard, sucking in droplets of water which burned in her nose. So she ignited them, blowing them out as steam. She wasn't going to drown while standing today. "_I'll just rest. Everything will sort itself out_," she told herself. A lie. And more pressingly, a lie in a language she shouldn't know how to speak, said without even conscious awareness. She turned, heading back to the buildings of the Royal Palace. But she did not return unremarked.

Red eyes, burning and pulsing with black striations, watched from the shadows of the lanterns. A step, and a body formed around those eyes. It swung Its head around, looking without plan, but not without purpose. There was a shaman nearby. A powerful one. And important one. And the Shard was hungry. But if there was one saving grace for that unfortunate soul, it was that at the moment, he was as much as invisible to It.

There was a hiss, words beyond language. Not here. The Shaman is not here. The Avatar is not here. Search elsewhere.

The Shard stepped back into the shadows, the body dissolving away, leaving only the eyes staring out of the darkness. Then, the eyes collapsed down into a pair of red lines, before those red lines erased themselves from the courtyard of the Royal Palace, and in a way, from reality itself.

* * *

><p>"Hey! New guy! Food!" the words washed over him, but he couldn't hear them. Not really. His eyes were glazed, his focus a thousand miles away. He didn't even react as the bowl was kicked over, and it spilled rice onto the floor. Sharif stared out. But he was without smell. He was without music. It was distressing in a way he couldn't explain. And he couldn't think. Not even with the false brain. There was no false brain, here. The guard, abuser he fashioned himself to be, turned and left the Si Wongi to his fate, either of food or famine. As the locks bolted into place, Sharif slowly turned his gaze down. He picked up the rice in a single hand full, and placed it into his mouth, chewing mechanically. He neither noticed nor cared that he'd eaten hen-roaches in that befouled handful.<p>

There was a purpose. He could remember that, at least. He was here for a reason. He was here until the time was right. He didn't know when that time was. His eyes slid from the bowl and to the cell itself. There was a portion near the door which was outside of an internal cage. Unlike the ones used to contain most prisoners, though, the bars weren't made of steel as most were. Instead, they were thick logs of black ironwood, the cell actually built within them rather than cell built first and the bars installed later. The wood was lacquered, and painstakingly carved with thousands of pictograms and icons for each log, each a prayer and a ward against spirits, each icon barring the approach of a specific kind. Sharif could see, from those present, that there was one notably missing. But who of all people would know about Void?

To the consideration of most, it was a perfect prison. There was no way that Sharif could batter down the pillars of wood; they were too hard by a solid measure. He couldn't deface the symbols to let a spirit slip through, because he'd need to do the same thing for every single one of the same symbol on every log within the structure of the cell, including the ones hidden under the stone of the floor. The door was sturdily locked, the key well outside any reach of the prisoner. The food was slid into his durance vile by a stern kick from a yard away.

No way out. Obviously.

Sharif's head turned to the door, as it opened again. When it did, two entered. Sharif blinked at them, and got slowly to his feet. He rubbed uncomfortably at his neck, his fingers sliding across the choker which made his attempts at swallowing his meager meal somewhat more difficult, and watched with blank expression as the siblings filed in, their backs against the wall. Almost as though they were afraid he might lash out at them. The brother said something to Sharif, in a language he could no longer speak. What language he had remaining was restricted to Altuundili and the Tianxia polyglot, the only tongue which survived the destruction of over half of his brain.

"I find I cannot sleep," Sharif said when the young man stopped.

"He can't speak Huo Jian," the sister said, in Tianxia. The brother threw up his hands and muttered something angry. Sharif looked to him, and then back to the sister. "He says that it's annoying that he'll have to speak through me. I told you to pay attention in class! This was useful!"

The brother rolled his eyes. "When can I go? I am not supposed to be here," Sharif asked.

"The Fire Lord himself put a bounty on you. You're not going anywhere," the sister pointed out with a shake of her head. She pulled a stool from a darkened corner, and sat on it, leaning forward. "The fact that Ozai wanted you captured, and for a lot of money..." the brother broke in with something which was punctuated by a laugh. "...That's not the point, Hai. What are we supposed to _do_ with it, anyway?" she turned her attention from annoyance at her brother to focus on the imprisoned shaman. "You're an associate of the Avatar's. That means that you're going to tell us what you know about him. If you do, we can get some leniency for you. Some comforts that'll make life a bit more bearable. If you don't... well... I understand that the rice harvest wasn't so great this year. So people... chafe... at the notion of giving it to prisoners."

"You do not know the Avatar?" Sharif asked.

"Personally, I don't want to go anywhere near him," the girl said, her arms spread in a defensive posture. A sense not of spirit, more of instinct and once-well-built social-talent told that the very notion of the Avatar was terrifying to her. But he didn't know enough to capitalize on that.

"He was not well. They would not tell him how to enter the Avatar State. That troubled him deeply, I believe," he said, his gaze moving down.

"The Avatar can't enter the Avatar State?" the girl tried to confirm.

"He knows very little. He barely grasped Form," Sharif pointed out. The twins shared a confused glance. "I fear that the other Avatar will not be enough for him."

"..._other_ Avatar?" she asked, alarm clear.

"Yes. The he that is a she. The she that is after he. That will be after he, and is," Sharif said with a nod. Then he turned, and craned his neck up to watch a spider-fly as it darted to a bug caught in its web, and started to bind it right up.

"You're not making any sense. Are you saying there's _two_ Avatars?" she pressed, now standing with her hands pressed against the warded logs.

"There should not be. There can not be. And yet is," Sharif said slowly, watching the arachnid. "She is... brash. Heedless of her damage. I fear what will come of her. I fear what it means that she is."

The girl turned to her brother and said something swiftly in that other language which Sharif couldn't speak, and just as she did, he slowly grew more and more alarmed. He shouted something at Sharif, a note of panic in his voice. The sister turned. "You are lying. There cannot be more than one Avatar. That's the way the cycle works!"

"The cycle is... flawed," Sharif said, slowly turning back to her. Her amber eyes were very, very wide, and her hands clutching those logs were practically claws. "It reaches withershins. I have great fear for what is to come."

The girl backed away, and said something to her brother. The brother shot a glare at Sharif, before looping an arm around his sister's shoulders and guiding her out of the room. Before he shut the door, he turned to Sharif, though, and mustered what little Tianxia he knew. "I don't know what you're doing, but it won't work."

"Hope that it does. For your sake," Sharif said, and then he turned back, staring at and through a wall, as he tried to form a plan with a mind barely capable of remembering one.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

**The Shards**

* * *

><p>Everybody in the Western Air Temple was walking on eggshells. Well, no, now that Aang thought about it, there were only a few who were walking on eggshells; Nila and Malu had no contact with Azula before Ba Sing Se, and Toph had her usual brusque dismissal of problems making her stable if ambivalent. It was the Water Tribesmen, the royal siblings, and the Avatar who seemed most on edge. And even then, only one of the siblings.<p>

Something about the dynamic of the group had changed, either _because_ of Azula's recovery, or _coinciding with_ it. Aang had gone immediately to Sokka when he first started to notice it, and asked if something had changed while he was in the jungle. Sokka dodged the question. Nobody else seemed to know. At first, Aang was content to let it be. Now, it was starting to itch like his hair.

Time and time again, though, he found himself wandering past the tower which Azula and her brother had claimed as their own dwelling chambers. Aang knew it had been a mistake to have everybody all spread out across the temple complex; they didn't feel like a team, this way. Just a bunch of people who ate at around the same time. He was going to have to do something about that. And his most recent pass of the inverse tower was all the impetus that Aang needed to turn his wander into a mission. He crossed the bridge with a steady stride, ignoring the quiet hiss which resulted in the occasional droplets of water dripping from the edge of the precipice. It wouldn't have been audible at all, were there not so many droplets. The door ahead of him was wedged open, more by the fact that one of the hinges had rusted right off, and the other served more as a pivot than a hinge. Aang slipped past that door, and into the tower itself.

In his mind's eye, he went back to that time of innocence, a year or a century ago, when he came to the Western Air Temple. The time he spent with the Nuns, or rather, the time they spent desperately trying to teach him while he goofed off with Kuzon and their friends. There was some irony that the royals had taken up in this tower; Aang passed by his old room, so he slowed, turning to look inside. A distraction of a few minutes couldn't get in his way. He backed up, and entered the place that, once upon a time, was home.

Gods and spirits, things had changed. It seemed like only yesterday that he'd packed up a bare essential of his things and flew his bison back to the south. He wagered that he'd left behind dozens of books, a hundred scrolls, and a fist-full of who-knows-what else that the nuns wanted him to have and consider. He stooped down, running fingers through the sooty stain on the ground where his bed used to sit. Nothing but dust and ashes, now. A glance took in grey, weather-stripped walls. Once, they had been bright and vibrant, yellows and oranges almost blinding to the eye. He turned around, and saw the minute scraps of wood that poked up from a damp humus which collected there. The bookshelf in the room had taken up most of the wall. Now, just dirt. So much was lost.

With a sigh, he turned, opening the closet. He blinked a few times, as he saw the faded kavi which hung there; it was a size and a half too small for him, he wagered, but it still amazed that it had lasted this long. He reached out, running his fingers along it. When they did, there was a wet tearing sound, and the cloth of the kavi parted under his fingers like spider-webs, even emulating them to the point of sticking, so when Aang pulled his hand back in shock, it was only to tear the kavi in half from the strands still clinging to his fingertips. He gave a grimace of worry, and wiped off those rotted threads on the wall, before slamming the door shut.

It wasn't until a second later, as he was trying to get his heart to stop hammering, that he remembered. There was nobody to chastise him for ruining his clothes. Not anymore. His head hung low at that memory.

"Remembering the old days?" Azula's voice came from the doorway. Aang glanced up, and saw how she leaned against the frame, her toes bent up where they packed into a corner, with her legs spanning the threshold . "I know what that's like, believe me."

"Azula, I..."

"You what?" she asked with a mild frown. When Aang didn't answer, she just shook her head for a moment, and sighed. "You know... there's a small chance that I might have been somewhat unreasonable for the last few months."

"...is that an apology?" Aang asked.

"No."

"It sounded like an apology."

"I do not apologize!" Azula snapped.

"Fine, it wasn't an apology," Aang said, hands warding. She rose from the frame, walking to the window and leaning now against its edge, her brow pressed against her forearm as she watched the falling of the last droplets of last-night's rain. "Have you been alright? I mean, with your brain being put back together and a new soul getting shoved in there? Wait, that didn't sound right..."

"I'm fine," Azula said. And then her head shifted against her forearm. "...I'm not fine."

"You are, or you aren't?"

"Weren't you listening?" Azula asked sharply, turning to cast a golden-eyed glare at him.

"I was, but you're not making a whole lot of sense," Aang said.

She moved from the window to squat onto the floor, her back straight against the wall behind it. "I find myself thinking about the old days. A lot, about the old days," she said.

"The old days?"

"The last time I did this... Ty Lee was paralyzed, and Mai had betrayed me and had to be thrown in prison. Both of those were my fault. In the other, Ty Lee was the arch-enemy of the Fire Nation, and Mai... I had to _kill_ her. If I hadn't put them in those circumstances, if I'd been more careful, more perceptive... I wouldn't have lost my friends."

"Mai's fine, though," Aang tried to console her. "And I'm sure that whoever Ty Lee is, she's alright as well."

"She was a good person," Azula said. "Ty Lee. Not smart, but the kindest girl I've ever known. Do you know what she did after she tracked me down? She crawled up to my door, heaved herself in, and forgave me. Forgave me for destroying her career, her very identity," she gave a quiet, sad laugh. "I didn't deserve friends like her."

"You must have. Otherwise, she wouldn't have tried so hard," Aang said.

"And I hated you," Azula said, shaking her head. "I wanted you to die so much that it kept me awake at nights. But... after I got out of that accursed hospital, I had other things to worry about. Like Chiyo."

"Chiyo?" Aang asked.

"My daughter," she said. "I dedicated the first six years of my freedom to doing anything in my power to punish you, to usurp Zuzu's place on the Burning Throne. My daughter bore the brunt of that neglect. She didn't deserve that. At least... At least I got to fix that mistake. But I didn't fix it enough, I think."

"You do know that all of this is in the past," Aang said.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Azula asked dryly.

"What? No, I was just..."

"Of course, I know it's the past. But the past gives perspective. The mistakes I'd made then, they shaped me. And I know their lessons. I haven't had to suffer them. Those around me hadn't had to suffer them. But do you know what comes to mind the most, out of everything I remember of that other lifetime?"

"What?" Aang asked.

Azula let out a quiet sigh, and her lips pulled up, just slightly, into a tiny smile. "I was happy."

"Really?" Aang asked.

"I hated it at first. Powerless, penniless, trying to raise a child I had no business raising. Burning every bridge I or my family had ever made, until I was all alone. But there was one. A man who never knew my name, who I really was. He was just a... a pleasant distraction... as I passed through town tracking down one of my schemes. By then, he was about six years younger than me..."

"...and how old _were_ you?" Aang asked, cautiously.

"...and he never asked why. When that, my last option failed, I had to go crawling back. He was the only place I could think of that might – _might_ – let me in, even for one night to get out of the dark," that smirk returned. "You'd have laughed had you seen me. Destitute, nothing but the clothes on my back to my name, with a seven year old girl at my side, sired by another man he'd never met. He had a thousand reasons, most valid, for turning me away. He didn't."

"He sounds like a good guy," Aang said.

"I expected him to... take advantage... of my vulnerability. But he never did. He never demanded anything. He just... wanted to help me," she paused, and glanced to Aang. "It's no surprise that you'd like him. He was a lot like you, in retrospect. In time, my resentment faded. I started to enjoy just... seeing him when I woke up in the morning. I might have even loved him."

"Might have?" Aang asked.

She let out a sarcastic chuckle. "I don't know if you've noticed, Avatar, but I am not exactly the most sociable of people. I tend to frighten, rather than fascinate. The _one time_ I tried flirting in my adolescence, it ended with me burning a boy's house down. I am a warrior, have been a warrior since I was four years old. I was never a _girl_. Not the way that Uncle would have wanted; warriors, unlike _girls_, don't have the time to waste with _feelings_ and..." she threw her hands up, lacking the words to stress her concept.

"So he was your husband, back then?" Aang asked, more out of rote than anything else. He didn't like the idea of having to compete with a seven year old, after all.

"No," she shook her head. "I never did marry him. He was a commoner, and I had my pride," another sigh. "My pride hasn't done a lot for me, over the years. But he was a good man. One I couldn't keep, because of my own... I don't know. Insecurities?" she shook her head. "I was hard to get along with at the best of times. Daichi didn't help things," she cut him off as he opened his mouth to ask the question, "– my son – but even so, we had more than a few good years. Happy years. I didn't even realize it had happened until I was in the middle of it. I stopped resenting Zuzu and the shack that I was living in, and I just... lived it."

"That's the way life works, sometimes," Aang said. She nodded at that. Finally, she turned back toward him.

"What did you want? Or were you just rummaging through dead memories? You won't find much there, that I'm sure of."

Aang's wheels spun for a moment before he could get words to come out of his mouth. "I think you should sleep with me..." he began. Azula's face began to twitch down into a scowl, so Aang quickly continued, even though it didn't seem much better, "and Sokka and Katara and Toph up in the central tower."

"Why?" she asked, her outrage vanishing into indifference.

"This place is too big, too empty, with all of us spread all around," he said. "I don't like it when I walk the halls like this. I remember this place when it was filled with nuns and the old masters, girls in training and schooling. It doesn't seem right like this. The monks were the life-blood of the Western Air Temple. Without them... it's just _dead_."

"So you'd rather have people around you, because you can't stand the quiet," Azula summed up. Aang gave a mild shrug. She let out a put-upon sigh and rolled her eyes. "Very well, but if the Tribesman tries to 'accidentally' spy me when I'm bathing, he'll get a new burn to compliment his old one."

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to be a problem," Aang said.

Azula turned to Aang, with an expression... somewhat like insult. "And why not?"

"Well, he's kinda got a thing for this girl on the far side of the planet," Aang pointed out.

She nodded. "Ah. Yes. That."

"What?" Aang asked.

"Where I come from, if we're talking about the white-haired Tribal girl, she's been dead since winter. Why did she survive?"

"Why did she die... last time?" Aang asked.

Azula gave her head a shake at that question. "Because she had to replace the moon, and... and that didn't happen," she blinked a few times, staring into the distance. "So much has changed."

"Well, in that case, it changed for the better," Aang offered.

"Hardly. _Zhao_ owns the North Pole," Azula said. "Zhao! That smug snake that I repeatedly set on fire because he's such an ass! He's supposed to be _dead_ right now!"

"Well, that's the way it is," Aang said. "There's not much point arguing against reality. It tends to have a way of knocking you over no matter what you want to believe."

She sighed, then stood. "I... feel a need to talk about this. Gather the others; I don't feel like repeating myself."

"You don't have to order me around," Aang said.

"Apparently I do, because it seems the only way that you get anything done," Azula pointed out, then pulled him to his feet with one hand and no apparent effort.

"Azula?"

"What."

"Were you always this strong? I mean, pick-up-people-with-one-hand strong?"

"No. I was actually once quite frail and waif-like," Azula said with a roll of her eyes. Then, a shove through the door. "Well, don't just stand there, go 'gather your friends'."

* * *

><p>Ozai looked up, his eyes darting more furtively than he would have liked to admit, to the door creaking as it opened. Ordinarily, such a sound would have been lost under the din of the day-to-day goings-on of the Royal Palace. Not surprising that the din had died down in recent days and weeks; after the various malcontents and traitors were weeded out and cast off of black sands, there honestly weren't many left working in the palace. He knew that he had to replace them at some point. But that would be a safer time. Perhaps after Sozin's Comet returned. After he'd won the war.<p>

He would have liked to have not sighed with relief when he saw who had entered the throne-room via that side entrance. She ascended behind the curtain, taking her place two spaces to Ozai's left, kneeling down without a word said. "So. You have returned?" Ozai said quietly, and the flames that cut off they from the rest of the completely vacant chamber mounted a little higher.

"As I said I would," Akemi said smoothly. She turned a gaze toward him. "The palace seems quieter than when I left. Is all well?"

"Of course," Ozai said, perhaps a bit too quickly.

"Everything's just _fine_," Azula whispered into his ear. Ozai quickly turned his head, trying to spot her, but there wasn't anything but malicious laughter coming from the flames in that direction. With another purging breath, he mounted those flames a little higher, as though they could somehow ward off a figment of his own mind.

"...there has been some trouble with the Coordinator, but I have a feeling that he will be well in hand soon enough," Ozai continued, forcing the words out past a tongue which felt like a boot-heel.

Akemi, though, raised a brow, a drastic expression for her. "Are _you_ well, my lord?" she asked.

"I am fine," Ozai said. Lied.

"You can't hide from what you've done. The decisions you've made. The lives you've sacrificed for your own vanity and power. It doesn't matter how strong your armies get; I will always know how to find you," Azula whispered through the flames. Ozai wanted to growl at her, to scream at her, but he just felt exhausted. Like a leaden cloak had settled over him and was dragging him to the bottom of an infinitely deep ocean. Some mornings, he woke up hoarse of throat and cold of sweat, his hands shaking. He didn't remember his dreams, though. Small mercy.

"Need I consult the physician?" Akemi asked.

"I am _fine!_" Ozai snapped. Akemi leaned back, and turned to face forward once more.

"As you say, Fire Lord," she said. Then, after a pause he was certain had been practiced to its utmost, she half-turned to him again. "I thought it prudent to mention that Lord Zhao of New Bhatti was making a journey to the motherland. I am given to understand that he has performed his position at that frozen waste admirably."

Ozai nodded. "He has," he admitted. "Why do you ask?"

"I have asked nothing. Simply related something I had heard I thought of note," she said. "May I ask as to the wellbeing of my child?"

"She is well," Ozai said, facing the flames once more. "The Children know to protect the life of the Fire Lord's daughter to their last breaths, if need be."

"But not just _any_ daughter," Azula pointed out. Ozai's eye twitched, and he glanced more fully to Akemi where she knelt.

"I was surprised when you left her behind. I thought it was a mother's place to coddle such infants."

"I trust my nurses to their duties," Akemi dismissed. That struck a bit of a worried note in Ozai's mind. Had he exiled them, as well? And if he had, how long ago had it been since he'd done so? "Is there something else you required, or are you waiting on solicitation?"

"No... I..." Ozai shook his head. "I grow fatigued."

"...it is barely after noon," Akemi pointed out.

"I am aware what time it is!" Ozai snapped. And then, he coached himself, pulling both his snapping wrath and the flames which welled up in response to it back into something more manageable. "I simply have had a trying day, keeping Azul's dissidents crushed under my heel. It is a trying process. I will be relieved when we are utterly rid of them."

"Another slaughter to your name. How typical," Azula said, appearing from the fire, seeming to be clothed in it. "Your only solution to any problem is to drown it in blood. Like father, like son."

"...I am _greater_ than my father..." Ozai muttered in anger.

"What was that, Fire Lord?" Akemi asked.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," Ozai said. He rose to his feet, feeling a bit light headed as he did so. Sleep didn't come easily for him, these days, and less so with that shrill harpy of a girl screaming at him any time the shadows grew long. "I will be in my chambers. Join me when you are relieved of the rigors of travel."

"As you wish, Fire Lord," she said with a bow. Ozai dismissed the flames before him and started to walk down the dais, onto the black, reflective obsidian. There were so few he could trust. Himself, obviously. The Children were likewise beyond impeachment. And after they... the only name left was hers. She had served him tirelessly and faithfully for many years – in a number of capacities of which mistress was only the most recent. If he couldn't depend on her to hold her weight, then who could he?

"You can't send everybody away," Azula's voice followed him as he walked. "Because no matter what, _you're never alone_."

Ozai held his composure with an iron grip until he passed through the curtains which lead toward the royal bed-chambers. As soon as he was out of sight of his mistress – out of sight of everybody. He cast out his hands to either side, and blasted flame at the walls to either side, golden fire streaming out with hateful non-purpose, until they grew weary, and he pulled his hands back in. He was still angry, still _furious_. But he was so, so tired.

* * *

><p>"Alright. We're all here. Did you want something?" Zuko asked of the group which had gathered around the fire, and his sister in particular. The airbender and the Si Wongi were cooking tonight's dinner, so they had the most obvious reason to be here. The other airbender, the girl, she wasn't anywhere to be found, but nobody was worried for her safety. She had purportedly survived the Purge with the entire might of the Fire Nation trying to murder her, for years. She'd be fine. As for the others? Azula's word alone brought them in.<p>

"I've been giving a great deal of thought to what I've learned over my lifetime. I know for a fact that it doesn't accord with what has happened in this lifetime. So I need to know what great differences have occurred. For example, you," she pointed at the Si Wongi girl. "I have discovered why I have no recollection of you or anybody like you in my memories."

"Oh?" she asked, almost pointedly not looking at the Tribesman. He, in turn, was trying mightily to not look at her. The whole thing had Zuko a little baffled. Had those two gotten into a fight or something?

"It relates to your mother. In my time, Si Wong was hardly the nation it is today. Your mother, certainly, died in the assassination of the fifty-first Earth King. So you were never born."

"Fantastic. Who is this insane woman again?" she asked.

"Hey! My sister isn't crazy!" Zuko snapped.

"Really? You. Firebender. Were you or were you not mad as a sun-baked lizard until this very week?" the Si Wongi asked of Azula. Azula smirked.

"I _like_ her," she said, casting a thumb to Nila. Zuko just glared at her, as she went back to cooking. "Great Whales wasn't a nation, either. Just an independent spread of barely-inhabited islands. Azul was a province, not a nation in all-but-name. And the North Water Tribe still existed."

"Really?" Katara asked, but her tone wasn't wondrous or appreciative. She sounded like she was insulted, by the tone she gave.

"If I were to lie, it would be to devastate you further," Azula pointed out. Katara seethed, and looked like she was about to say something sharp and angry, but both her brother and the Avatar restrained her. The former regretted it though.

"Ow! Katara, you bit me!" Sokka said, flapping his hand in pain.

"Well, don't get your hand in my face!" she answered him at a shout. Azula simply chuckled at the carnage and gave a glance to Zuko, who was, to be perfectly honest, happy to see somebody ruffling the waterbender's feathers. Their smirks were almost identical.

"Zhao died at the city you call Summavut, after killing the moon," Azula clarified. "I watched it happen. His hubris caused the Avatar," she indicated him with a vague gesture, "to summon a manifestation of the ocean which laid waste to the entire northern fleet. I am taken to understand that it was the white-haired one's sacrifice which undid that damage."

"You're taken to?" Sokka asked.

"Indeed. Your mother hit me in the face with a frying pan, so I was suffering a concussion at the time," Azula related, and not happily. There was stony silence from those two, at that.

"You met Mom?" Katara asked.

"Not to my benefit," Azula said.

"Mom died a long time ago," Sokka told her.

Azula let out a chortle. "Well, that's a pity for you; she hounded the Fire Nation for months. Even in _prison_ she kept causing us problems," Azula pointed out.

"What... was she like?" Katara asked.

"This isn't the time," Azula dismissed. "So. I failed to take Ba Sing Se from Long Feng. So it remains in his hands and not the Fire Nation's. Our Uncle isn't in Ashfall, but rather a guest of the Grand Secretariat. And now, we're at a point which honestly, I am not sure how to advance from."

"I thought you knew everything about this part of your past," the other airbender asked.

"Were it not for Zuzu's clumsy lying, I wouldn't have even suspected the Avatar was alive. I did strike him with lightning, after all. Few indeed can survive that kind of punishment. I never knew exactly where you were until you 'magically' appeared to try to strike down my father with your Black Sun invasion. I was thorough, but I was not omniscient," she pointed out.

"See? What do I keep telling you guys?" Aang asked, which caused all of them to look at him wanly. He let out a gack which brought a smirk to Zuko's lips.

"Do you think Ozai knows that we're planning an invasion on that day?" Zuko asked her.

She took a breath, considering. "I'd have to guess yes. And it won't be easy to surprise him, since he'll bring Zhao into the battle, and he knows everything I knew about the invasion plan, which I learned from _you_," she pointed at Sokka, "because you weren't able to tell that I wasn't your girlfriend."

The way that Nila turned slowly toward Sokka could best be described as a death threat. But still, the words which came from her mouth were oddly calm. "...girlfriend?"

"Yes, I would have thought him slightly more perceptive than that. Although, in his defense, I _was_ disguised as Suki."

Sokka leaned back, then glanced to his sister. "Who's Suki?"

"I don't know. Did we meet a Suki?" Katara asked, playing with her hair loopies. Zuko sighed and palmed his face.

"Yes, _you_ did," he told them. "And _I_ threw her in prison for attacking us near the start of winter."

"The Kyoshi Warrior? Her?" Sokka asked. "_Really_? Man, you come from a wacky alternate reality, I've got to tell you."

"So that was her trick? Funny, she had everybody convinced she was some sort of oracle," a new voice said. Zuko turned to his immediate left, and saw that there was a Tribesman squatting there, having arrived silently and without anybody else noticing. He was vaguely familiar, but Zuko couldn't place him; his hair hung loose, and thus draped over his ears; his eyes were a very dark blue; his clothing was all of Fire Nation style, but not of ordinary cut. Zuko quickly kipped to his feet and backed off, as most of the others around the fire-pit did as well. Some, like Aang, Katara and Azula, did so with short shrieks of alarm.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Listening," the Tribesman said. Azula started to pull her arms through a lightning kata, and he raised a hand gently. "Oh, please. If I wanted to hurt you, I'd have picked you off one by one as you were coming to this little chin-wag. The fact is, I'm not here for a fight. I'm even unarmed."

"You're a waterbender," Azula pointed out.

"Well, as unarmed as a waterbender in the Fire Nation can ever be," he said.

"Where are the rest of them?" Zuko shouted, as he finally recalled exactly where this person had been seen before. "You were with the firebender and the earthbender; are they waiting in the shadows?"

He shook his head with a calm quite unbefitting the situation. Toph, for example, looked like she wanted to tear his spine out and beat him to death with it. "Yoji's in Caldera City. And as for Omo, if he's not dead, then I'm an airbender. Although, if you were wondering; no, _I_ don't hold a grudge," he said to Nila in particular. She still looked like she was ready to chew lead and spit bullets. "Yoji wants you dead, though, so try to stay away from her. And you don't need to worry about Fire Nation troops storming in here, fire flying. I'm alone. It was the only way I could get here as quickly as I did."

"What do you want?" Katara snapped at him.

He motioned to the edge of the fire once again. "I want you to sit."

"We should just kill him before he has a chance to betray m... us." Azula said, her tones harsh but even.

"If you're certain that my presence is that damning, then you're welcome to try," he said with a shrug, and then turned away from Azula, which caused her to wilt a bit, and the lightning to drain out of her hands. It was the Tribesmen that he addressed directly, to the confusion of all. "So. You're from the South Water Tribe, right? Tell me something."

"What?" Sokka asked.

"Who am I?" he asked, earnestly and succinctly.

* * *

><p>"Well, I guess we know what that smell was," Jet said, as he looked over the river which ran with scum and stench.<p>

"I don't like the looks of this," Mai said, from her place on the embankment.

"Well, I don't like the _smell_ of it," Jet added. Mai flicked a glare at him that silenced him from any more stupid jokes. That was Bug's thing; he just didn't have the timing. "Fine. Are you sure that we need to go this way? That water doesn't look healthy."

"I know my Fire Nation cartography. We cross the river to the port, we take the port to sea, and from there, inward," Mai said. "So much work just to talk to an old friend who likely doesn't even remember me. Zuko's plan better have been worth it."

"He had a plan?" Jet asked. Once again, Mai told him to stop joking with but a glance.

"We've got to find some way across the river," she told him, which should have been clear from the fact that they were standing on one side of the flow, while the other side vanished into fog and drizzle. "And I am _not_ swimming in that river gunk."

"Didn't think you would for a second," Jet said with a shrug. He grabbed a limb of a willow, and started to lean out on it, only to have it tear loose with a wet plop, and only by Mai's panicked grab did he prevent himself from plunging into that horrid funk. She heaved herself bodily back to get him back onto solid ground, and ended up sitting on saturated humus at the end of it. Jet just stood there, baffled, holding a rotted-off tree-limb for his experience. "That was unexpected."

Mai, though, pushed herself up, and grabbed another limb on a different, nearby tree. With almost no effort, she snapped the limb which was as big around as one of her legs out of its origin and let it crash to the ground. "The plants here are diseased," she said. "Likely the animals, too."

"So, double 'don't touch the guck'?" Jet asked.

"I'd say quintuple, to be absolutely certain," Mai nodded. "Did you see anything before you almost took a bath in it?"

"Yes," he motioned vaguely to the southeast. "There was a scummy wharf a quarter mile that way. It seemed to have a barge in. Beats having to walk around a river."

"It does that," Mai said. The two of them walked through the forests, following the warp of the 'river', if this flood of toxic sludge could be called that. Even as she walked, she started involuntarily shivering. Jet, needless to say, noticed and pulled her a bit closer, draping his cloak over hers and letting the almost fiery heat of his body start to seep through her own soaking wet clothing. "I was fine," she said. Lied, a little.

"Yeah, well, maybe I just wanted to give my girl a hug," Jet said.

"Flatterer."

"I didn't hear 'stop'," Jet said. She didn't need to look back to know he had that smirk on his face. While it was a bit trickier going, trying to walk through the rotting woods like some four-legged post, they somehow managed it, erupting upon a cleared out section of the forest which had been built up into a jetty. That jetty had seen better days, though, as its black-sealed wood was starting to turn a crusty green. And the bargeman's hut had likewise seen better, as the door had been obviously kicked aside where it'd fallen off its rail. Thus, Mai could see inside, and the inhabitant reclining on a chair, his bare feet kicked up on the sill of a window.

"Our savior," Mai said flatly. Jet let her move free of him, and she walked up to the bargeman. He wasn't just reclining; he was tipping his chair back, even as he slept with his head on his hands. She cleared her throat, but that didn't cause anything but a snort of unconscious annoyance. Thus, she did as she often did these days, and sighed. Then, she did as Jet often did these days, and yelled at an idiot. "WAKE UP!"

The old man let out a yelp of alarm, and unbalanced his chair backwards, causing it to crash down, and shatter, under his weight applied in the wrong way on something not entirely structurally sound to begin with. He let out another snort, then pushed his little hat back into place, and bounded to his feet with surprising alacrity for somebody of his age. "Oh-ho, we've got visitors! Welcome to Jang Hui!"

"...Yes, we've noticed the river," Mai said.

"An Azuli? You're pretty far from home, little girl," he said, giving her a good-natured, elbow prod in her side. "And you must be her bodyguard! Where are you from? Ember? The Midlands?"

"I'm from..."

"The colonies," Mai cut him off, since Jet was getting that look in his eyes. "And he's not my bodyguard. Finally, what are you talking about? This doesn't look like much of a village."

"Oh, this is just the way to _get_ to Jang Hui," he said. "I'm the village bargeman; folks call me Dock."

"You don't say," Jet answered flatly.

"Wait. The village is on the far side of the river?" she asked. Because the maps she'd studied in her childhood didn't indicate that.

"Not exactly," Dock said, as he ushered them onto the flat-sided barge and began to pull them along the rope which wound around a sort of capstan that he had to continually crank; it came up slimy, and the barge quickly started to stink. "Jang Hui's a fishing town. And what better place to get your fishing done than right on the river!"

Almost as though he'd timed it out perfectly, the first of many structures began to appear out of the fog and rain. They were all practically black for the creosote which proofed them against wet-rot, but unlike the buildings which were scattered all throughout Ember and the Midlands these days, they had a settled, elder look to them. These buildings, the way they were built, predated the Deluge.

"Well, that's nice. Is there a barge to the far side?" Mai asked.

"Oh, there is, but Bushi let it get all run down and ruined. Lazy old fart, that Bushi is," Dock complained.

"So... we'll be stuck on the floating village in the middle of a river of crap," Jet summarized. "We should have just gone down river."

"Oh, you'll not find a bridge across the Jang Hui. This is the only crossing 'less you like to swim."

"In that? No thank you," Mai said.

"You should try it. It does wonders for the constitution," Dock offered. Mai raised a brow, and turned to Jet. He likewise looked skeptical, if not a little alarmed. The old man continued to crank, and the village loomed closer, until the barge reached the rope's far end, and bumped into another jetty that sloshed against the river. "I recommend trying some of the local seafood. It's the likes of which you'll not find anywhere else in the Fire Nation!"

"I don't doubt that," Mai said. She tugged on Jet's sleeve, and the two of them got off of the barge, and headed up the jetty. It didn't take long to see that the village had empty huts. That wasn't something which happened often; there was always somebody wanting more space. Those that remained, watched the newcomers without any of the curiosity and joy that strangers usually caused when they passed through. Only drab, lethargic glances, before quietly turning away, or moving back to sit down somewhere.

"Mai..."

"What?" she asked, not liking the tone of Jet's voice. He glanced into a hut, and ducked inside it.

"These people are getting poisoned by the river," he said.

"It is polluted," she admitted.

"And you're just going to let that go?" he asked.

She shrugged. "What am I supposed to do? Troll their river for them? Or maybe you expect me to blow up the factory causing all the pollution?"

At that, Jet got a very thoughtful look on his face.

"No," she intercepted him.

"Mai, these people are suffering," he leaned a little closer, and switched over to Tianxia. "_Fire Nation or not, they don't deserve this kind of treatment_."

"Look, all of this is kind of moot. We've got a job to do."

"The Baihu's can wait," Jet said. Mai raised an eyebrow at that. "You know I'm right. Would you rather put this place behind you, knowing that you left somebody to suffer?"

"I didn't know you cared about the Fire Nation so much," Mai said, crossing her arms before her. Jet took the inverse of her intended meaning, and moved closer to pull her to his chest.

"Oh, I care _very deeply_ about the Fire Nation," Jet said with sarcasm and a smirk. That smirk dimmed though. "And I don't turn my back on people who need me."

"Since when?" she asked.

"Since Ba Sing Se," he said quietly, and turned toward the door, leaning against the threshold and staring into the rain.

Mai sighed in resolution. "Fine. But at least sleep on it. We're both exhausted, wet, and hungry. Any plan we come up with now is going to be moronic."

"That, I can live with," Jet said with a nod over his shoulder. He walked out into the drizzle, glancing around at the signage. He blinked a few times, then turned to Mai with a shrug. She shook her head. He'd learned to speak it, but read it? Not so much.

"The public house is over there," she pointed, and escorted him across the 'plaza' which was built at the center of the floating village. They pushed the door aside, and walked into the lower floor of what was one of about three two-story buildings in Jang Hui. Mai started to shake the water off of her hooded cloak when she turned to look for the proprietor. And her shaking came to an abrupt halt. "Dock? What are you doing here?"

The old man tipped his floppy, high peaked hat a little further to one side so that the wild white hair poked out under its rim. "Dock? You must be talking 'bout my brother, the bargeman. I run the house and keep the fishery stall in the market. Folks call me Xu!"

Jet glanced back at her. "Twins?"

"I hope," Mai said. "We need some place to sleep. Do you have space?"

"Oh, we've got plenty of space. Not as many people visiting Jang Hui these days. Don't know exactly why, though," Xu scratched at his head as he pondered a few seconds longer than he probably should have. He then glanced up back at them, with a look of confusion, until it seemed to dawn on him who he was speaking to. "Oh, yes. Lots of room. Right there at the back! You'll have to share a bed, though, so no hanky-panky!"

"That ship has _sailed_," Jet muttered. Mai silenced him with a look. It had, but he didn't need to sound so happy about it. Xu only chuckled, though, and loped back to unlock the room. Oh, right. Embiar tended to be more open, even as they were more prudish, whereas Azuli tended to be more closed and... open to experience. "Alright. I'll sleep on this. But I'm telling you, we've got to do _something_."

Mai gave a grudging nod. "The true question is; what?"

* * *

><p>"Well?" the voice came as she lazily washed the sudsy water off of her body. Akemi gave a glance to where another had joined her in the chamber. His hood was pulled up, but his frame and what little of his face told her exactly who this 'stranger' was. After all, even the Fire Lord's mistress might have a hazardous time in her bath, given the current state.<p>

"He is as I recall, only somehow worse," Akemi related to the other with her. She glanced up at him, as he moved closer, a cunning smirk on her lips. "His sanity slips farther with each passing day. His politics are a mangle and he is dreadfully distracted. Displacing him will be a simple affair. Almost contemptuously so."

"You are a dangerous woman to have as an enemy," he told her, reaching down to stroke his fingers down the skin of her cheek. She smiled up at that face, the smug grin on it, even though the burn over his left eye pulled it into a permanent glower.

"You have _no idea_," she told him.

* * *

><p>"...who are you?" Zuko repeated.<p>

"Did you not hear me? Need I repeat the question?" he pressed.

"You hound me for months, try to kill me or cast me in chains at every opportunity, and then expect that I – or in any likelihood any of the rest of them – are going to help you? Are you _insane_?" Azula asked.

The waterbending assassin shrugged. "Like I said, I have no further business with you. I was just supposed to 'keep your poisonous influences from Prince Zuko's mind'. However, since Zuko seems to have come to his own notion to turn his back on the Fire Nation, I'd say 'damage done' and not to bother any further. There might be others who would have personal grievance with you, but I can't name them off the top of my head. You weren't exactly a very active participant in Fire Nation politics in the years before your exile," he said with an easy smirk.

Aang could see where this was headed, so bounded between Zuko and the intruder, supposedly named Kori. He held out a hand toward each of them, warding the Prince from charging the waterbender. Zuko held his ground, but only just. He still looked like he wanted to punch a face in. "Everybody, stay calm. He..."

"Is right," Azula finished for him. They all looked to her, Zuko with an expression of dumbfoundedness. "What? I was almost unintelligible, having spastic fits every other week, and bedridden for almost a year. Invalids don't make enemies as a rule."

"Indeed they don't. And may I say that it's nice to hear you without that stupid accent," the assassin said. Azula's patient expression ratcheted down a few notches, and Aang could tell she was grinding her teeth. Kori leaned back, changing the subject with a gesture rather than a segue. "It's come to my attention that there are certain aspects of my upbringing that may not be true. There's a bit of a conspiracy of silence around the 'appearance' of several of the Children, myself included. The vast majority are earthbenders 'rescued' in their early childhoods from the East. The pattern always seems to be the same."

"What pattern?" Aang asked, finally moving back to his seat when Zuko took a position on Azula's other side, his eyes still burning even if his fists no longer were.

"Youngest inductee? Three years. Oldest? Five years. No parents. Lost to 'natural disasters', or so they claim. Plagues, famines. The usual," he said. "That's what they said for their earthbenders..."

"Wait, hold up," Toph said, rubbing her brow. "Earthbenders? As in you've got more than one of 'em tucked away up there?"

"More than two dozen, I'm afraid," Kori said, and then grinned. "Oh wait, I'm not afraid at all. Yes. The vast majority are firebenders, but earthbenders make up the rest. I'm the only waterbender. Guess I'm just special like that," another grin flashed.

"And you think that you might have been one of the stolen children?" Aang asked.

"Wait... That means that you were probably taken when the raiders hit our village!" Katara piped up. She turned to Aang. "I never understood why they came to Chimney Mountain; somebody must have called out for a waterbending teacher, and the Fire Nation learned about it!"

"For you?" he asked.

"For my sister, and for another boy in the village who wasn't as gifted," Katara answered. She fell silent for a moment. "You know that... the girl you call Yoji..."

"Is _your_ sister. Yes, that's becoming very obvious," he said. He frowned. "I don't remember that time very well. Do you know what that boy was called?"

"Yeah," Sokka said. "Ogan talked about him a lot. Less after Benell was born, but Dad always said that when Ogan got drunk, he'd start talking about Ked."

Kori nodded, as though something had just been confirmed. "I see. So waterbenders were taken from the South Pole as soon as they reasserted themselves. An effort to limit themselves to one war-front, I have to assume. And..."

"You're not going to ask about your sister?" Katara asked.

Kori sighed. "Until last winter, _Yoji_ was my sister. This 'Benell' is a stranger to me. Why should I want to know her?"

"Because that's part of what you are," Katara stressed. "That's your family."

"Then they've done a damn poor job of raising me," Kori snapped, raising to his feet. "Your kind just let them run away with me tucked under their arm like a pony-keg? You didn't once try to find out what happened?"

Now, Aang was in between Kori and his Tribal bretheren, and the waterbender seemed to have truly lost his calm. At long last, Aang figured, but still not pleasant to behold. "Kori, please, calm down! You said you weren't here to hurt us, and I think that you like to keep your word."

"Please, I lie like a rug," Kori snapped. "The Tribesmen failed me. They couldn't defend what was theirs so..." he suddenly broke off, and looked up into the distance. "...wow. That really just came out of my mouth, didn't it?"

Aang gave a glance to the siblings, then to the firebending siblings, and all seemed mildly baffled. All the more so, when Kori started chuckling.

"What a mess of a man I am," he said, he shook his head, while staring at his boots, before looking at Katara and Sokka with a wan expression. "For a second there, I was actually going to _defend_ my kidnappers. Shows how deep that they cram that crap into you."

"...where are the other children?" Katara asked. "The ones who weren't waterbenders? Did the Fire Nation... kill them?"

Kori shrugged. "Maybe they would have done that in Sozin's time, but I figure they like to think themselves a bit more civilized than that, now. My guess? The 'bastards of Boiling Rock' might be who you're looking for. But if you think you can get them out of there, you might want to reconsider. That place is a prison built in a fortress built on a death trap."

"So... are you on our side, now?" Aang asked.

"Please," he said patronizingly, and moved Aang aside. "A lot of what you've said could simply be adults telling their children what they want to believe..."

"And yet you admit Yoji is Hikaoh, _our sister_," Katara said.

Kori fell silent at that, and sighed. "To say that the resemblance is uncanny would be putting it lightly. It's the kind of thing which is hard to notice when everybody's trying to kill everybody else. Especially since I've seen your – _her_ – father; I can see where she gets it from. But this is all circumstantial. And I'm not going to throw my life into a bonfire for circumstance and hearsay."

"Should we call you Ked?" Aang asked.

"Kori will do fine," he said. Another grin flashed. "After all, it's done me well the last few years."

"Is Hikaoh alright?" Katara asked. Kori shook his head.

"She's taking Omo's death very badly. They were a couple, after all. Frowned upon in our association, but it happens. She's... a bit brittle right now. I wouldn't want to try to run your little spiel by her any time soon."

"Question?" Toph said, hand raised.

"Hmm?"

"Your sister was a waterbender, right?" Toph pointed at the Tribesmen while still staring to Aang's left. The two of them nodded. "So why exactly is she now a _fire_bender?"

"I couldn't tell you," Kori said with a shrug. He pondered for a moment. "Right. I've got to go check something."

"Whoa, where do you think you're going?" Zuko said, getting in his way as he tried to walk for the exit.

"Caldera City. There's some paperwork I need to preruse," he said.

"Caldera City, where our father lives?" Azula asked. "Caldera city, where one of the most deadly armies in the world is stationed? That Caldera City?"

"I wasn't aware that somebody'd commissioned another one," he said. He then waved dismissively. "I'm not going to tell them about you. Keep your underwear on. I don't need that much money anyway; everything I want I can get for myself."

At the underwear comment, Sokka turned a glance toward Nila, trying to keep himself from laughing at something, while she on the other hand got a sour and humorless look to her. Aang moved to Zuko's side, further hemming Kori. "Kori, you've got to listen to us. We're not trying to usurp your Fire Lord. We just need to end the World War. If we don't, then... well, reality ends."

"Bold claim. Not interested in that, though," Kori waved it away. "If I find something that backs your story up in the archives, then I'll consider treason a little more seriously. As it is, talking to you without trying to murder you is already enough of a betrayal. Yes, Tribesmen, I'm aware how jingoistic that makes me sound. Some things just can't be helped," he shrugged back at the other two. "Step aside, please."

"We can't let him leave, Aang," Zuko said.

"You can't stop me from leaving," Kori answered. Zuko's brow drew down, and fire started to sear at his fists, while water from the pools on the floor began to quiver at the twitching of Kori's fingers. The whole thing was cut off by Toph, in the background clearing her throat very loudly, and then spitting into the fire.

"You do realize that I can tell when people are lying?" Toph said. News to Aang, but sure. "You, Runaway; are you going to run directly to Ozai and tell me where we are?"

"What? No."

"Are you doing to do anything close to the intent of that which isn't covered by my initial choice of words?" Toph continued.

"No... although, prudent of you to ask that as well," Kori said.

"Are you going to tell anybody about us at all?"

"Not if I can help it," he said. Toph frowned. "Fine, no. Not even Yoji. Frankly, that'd be doing her a massive favor. If she knew where she," pointing at Nila, "was, she'd be after you all without so much as a break to eat or sleep. That's not healthy, believe me."

"He ain't lying," Toph related. "Hey. Tell me a lie."

"...I whole-heartedly consider myself a Water Tribesman," Ked said with gusto. Toph broke out into a grin. "Picked that up, didn't you?"

"He's a good liar; I'm better," Azula said. "I'm a four hundred foot tall purple people-eating platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings."

Toph turned her glance toward Azula's whereabouts. "Damn. You _are_ good at lying."

"Decades of practice," Azula said evenly. She then turned to Kori. "And just so you know, if I so much as suspect that you're going to work against us, I will crush you like an ant. Are we clear?"

Kori swallowed at that, seemingly involuntarily. "Sure. Why not?" He then turned to Zuko and Aang himself. "Would you mind? I've got a long way to go, and my eelhound is probably about three minutes from starting to wallow in the mud."

Zuko and Aang exchanged a glance, both of them obviously uncomfortable with the assassin leaving, even without a drop of blood spilled on either side. But they did part, and let him walk past them and up the path before it rounded a tower and he vanished from sight. Zuko looked back at them. "We can't stay here," he said succinctly.

"What?" Aang asked. "We were just getting settled in!"

"Zuzu is right," Azula gave a nod. "Even _if_ he doesn't betray us, the fact that he found us so quickly after we arrived here means that this place is far less hidden than we'd thought. We will have to move on."

Aang let out a sigh, knowing that the two of them were right. "I guess. We can leave in the morning," he said.

"We should leave now," Azula said.

"No, we shouldn't," Zuko said. Azula shot him a confused glare.

"Try to wander Azul at night? You must be daft," Nila said. "If I wanted so terribly to die, then I would throw myself, naked and bound, before their revenge-maddened sister!" she said, pointing at Sokka and Katara. Katara looked mildly aghast. Sokka, though, just nodded.

"She's got a point. Azul's called the 'deadliest place on Earth' for a reason," he said.

Azula growled. "It seems there's still much I don't recall about this lifetime," she muttered. "Fine. The morning. Perhaps we will even have better weather to fly in by then?"

Her sarcastic tone made it much less optimistic than it should have been. "We'll see when the sun comes up." Aang said. He glanced around. "Has anybody seen Malu?"

"I can't say I've _ever_ seen Malu!" Toph offered from the back.

"Very funny," Aang said flatly. And it was a strange thing, as now Azula was chuckling richly. "What?"

"Oh, I just remembered how much amusing Toph used to be. Before Republic City anyway."

"Republic what?" Aang asked.

"That, Avatar, is an _immensely_ long story," Azula said flatly.

* * *

><p>"Careful, careful now," Zhao reprimanded, as the bearers carefully maneuvered the crates through the halls of the Royal Palace in the dark of night. The city was sleeping as the rain pounded down on it, unwilling to brave the weather for what had, in the old days, been unending nights and sometimes spontaneous celebration. Sozin might be remembered by history as a bloody-minded tyrant, but the Fire Nation was certainly prosperous under his rule. Not like today. Ozai was ruining everything.<p>

"It's just a box. Probably won't..." the coolie said, and Zhao immediately cut him off by punching a bolt of fire into his shoulder, causing him to cry out and wheel back, before the King of the North stormed up and grabbed that burn and slammed it against a wall. The coolie stopped shouting, as the pain had gotten worse.

"That box is worth more than your entire ancestry," Zhao told him. "You will give it the respect it's due."

"Alright! I will! I will!" he sobbed. Zhao shoved the peasant aside, letting him stumble onto his face, before quickly pulling himself up and running away. There would be other coolies, and they'd probably be more diligent than that one had been. Zhao, though, gave a moment to glance around the storage room, confirming he was alone. Then, with a smirk that didn't quite pull his branded eye out of its glower, he pulled up the top of that box, and peered down inside.

The two koi-fish, black and white and white and black, still circling each other even in the tiny tank, stared up at him.

"And they doubted that I'd be Zhao the Invincible. I'll be _more_," he said. He slid the panel back down, and locked it in place with its clasps. His smile turned absolutely malevolent. "I will become Zhao, the _Fire Lord_."

* * *

><p>Well away from all of the drama and rancor of the central fountain and it's fireside meeting of those who knew or cared about Princess Azula's supposed other life, Malu meditated, her breathing steady and calm. A breath in. Life in. Everything that she was supposed to end, a few weeks ago. She would have been a hollow shell, an almost-girl lurching to the tugging of vile threads. Now... not.<p>

It was a new day. A new life. One free of hubris and terror and denial. That was a thought which kept returning to her mind, and every time it did, she smiled a little. She had faced down the end of the world, and she had said it nay. No matter what came today, or tomorrow, or any tomorrow after that, she would always have the unshakable, unalienable understanding that she had _earned_ the right to be here. The right to breathe free air, the right to eat until her stomach swelled and then _stop_. The right to fight back against what had tortured her.

A part of her wanted to know exactly what Aang had planned for stopping the Fire Lord. And she still had to get used to the fact that the Fire Lord was now called Ozai, not Sozin; that only two generations had passed seemed a bit suspect, but then again, some people just tended to live for a ridiculously long time. That the Fire Lord's children were fighting against him told Malu what she needed to know of his parenting style. She continued to sit, her legs folded under her, and opened her eyes to the cliff face beyond her. The rains had stopped, so there was no more of the stream overflowing, and cascading down before the Western Air Temple. So much had changed. In all her days before the Day of Fire, she'd never seen it rain more than two days in a row in the Fire Nation. Now, particularly in the Midlands, it was almost unheard of for _sun_ to be out two days in a row. And Malu understood why.

The world was dying. Just as the Spirit World died before it, the world was slowly bleeding to death, and everything that occurred on its face was a manifestation of that, a desperate attempt to staunch a wound too long open. The rains due to fall on the East Continent instead flooded the West. The heat and dry of the West fell upon the East. And the seas shouldered the difference, trying to hold things in balance and failing utterly. It was a skin over an apple, only the apple had rotted away inside so that only the skin remained; it looked like an apple, but the slightest touch could send it to collapse. And Imbalance wasn't content with a slightest touch. This she knew, because she had felt it inside Imbalance in that last and fateful moment, before it was torn out of her.

It was telling, that she now saw with the eyes of a shaman decades older and more experienced, but only because of the torments she'd suffered. That was the way of things, perhaps; she'd struggled, and she'd suffered, and she'd learned. So she knew more. What the Blowouts were. Why Imbalance took the Great Divide. But as for its next move? That evaded her estimation entirely. Not for lack of trying, though. Malu shifted slightly, scratching her bottom as she did. Zen could only take a body so far, after all.

Malu glanced down and to the side, where the Aang Gang were talking heatedly amongst themselves. Nila, though, gathered her things and walked away without a word being said. The Tribesman made as though he wanted to move after her, but he faltered and halted. Malu shook her head lightly. It was also strange to think of him as young, naïve, foolish. She didn't want to, but she knew how crucial time was, right now. She knew how little of it might be left. And she knew she didn't want anything left undone. She would have to warn the Tribesman about that. If only to get him to talk to her. Nila was obviously uncomfortable with something, or angry about something. Knowing Nila, probably the latter.

She let out a sigh. She had a full belly, a comfortable pillow under her, clean clothes, and purpose. Honestly, she was feeling better than she had in half a decade.

Then, there was a shudder that ran through her. It scoured at her skin, raking across her like a polar gale. She let out a racking breath, and she could have sworn it misted in front of her. When she opened her eyes, she sensed without senses a dread, a proximity. A danger. Her eyes widened, as she bent a bolt under her to pop her up and to the corner of the building. She flattened her back against it, peeked around. And she saw a ripple in the shadows, somehow seeing it even though it was black against black. A hole from reality into something that wasn't. A hole, from which emerged two burning red eyes.

The cold was replaced by hot, a blast of heat and wet that punched her in the gut, and in her mind's-nose, she could detect a scent of the rot of something which hadn't been exactly savory in its life. It was the smell of something wrong. And this wasn't the only direction it was coming from.

The eyes turned, and spotted Malu, hidden though she was. Of course it would. It could sense her, just as much as she could sense it. At this range, it was clear as daylight in the Fir... okay, not in the Fire Nation these days, but the metaphor was already crumbling under an amassing panic which reached into her boots and pulled a scream out of them, sending it up through her entire body, before it erupted from her mouth in an explosion of terror and warning.

"THEY'RE HERE!" Malu shrieked, and was instantly running. The thing beside her faded back into the shadows, and she bounded from the tower, letting her airbending bear her via a punt from behind across the vast gulf with its long drop beneath it. She landed at a roll, only to dodge under a sweeping blow by something she didn't yet see, because it didn't yet fully exist. She glanced to a side as she picked up her momentum, seeing how the Shard pulled itself out of the edge of that shadow, a maw somehow darker than black opening under those eyes. When it did, a silence, greater than any scream, blanketed the Temple.

She made another bound, this time having to run up the wall and flip herself onto an upper level, before hurling herself forward to a rolling halt on the edge of the fountain plaza. "What's going on, Malu? What's here?" Aang asked, his battered staff in hand. Malu just pointed at the platform ahead of her. Aang's eyes grew quite wide indeed when he saw the thing, standing at the edge of the precipice, watching them with those evil eyes. It twisted at Malu's guts just to be near it. It ran greasy fingers along her soul to see it. "What is..."

"Just run away from it!" Malu shrieked. The Shard took a step forward, off that edge. But instead of falling, it seemed to teleport to the edge of the fountain plaza. Burning eyes swept along the plaza, before they settled on the Avatar. Then, the maw opened once again.

**AVATAR. HUNGRY.**

The words rattled the Temple as they erupted, sending dust raining down from on high. It then screamed its own horrid scream, and hurled itself at Aang. Malu tackled the Avatar to the ground, and then hurled him beyond, blasting a bolt of solidified air to carry him the whole way, even if it didn't guarantee a gentle landing. She then turned to the Shard, which was standing like some sort of brutish beast, the maw which defied easy classification closed, and those burning eyes, narrowed. She had to keep it tied up. The eyes flared, and a sweeping blow hurled at Malu. She kipped back. She then had to hinge aside, as the Shard was instantly behind her somehow. She twisted up and around, blasting herself back with airbending. Even as an experiment, she tried to level the thing with a bolt of wind, but it seemed to break like a wave against the solid stone which was its unnatural existence.

It stepped out of the shadows into the light proper, which still burned from the lanterns and the fire-pit they hadn't yet extinguished. It lashed out again, and she knew in her mind that she would not survive its touch. How, she could not say. So she flowed around it, a leaf on the wind. She dodged through its fast if brutish strikes, trying to take its back, to get out of its arcs. To stall it.

She finally had her place, her hand hovering away from its shoulder-blades because she knew the price of contact. The Shard tried to spin, to get her in front of it again. She didn't let it. Or at least, she thought she didn't. There was a pause, where it stopped trying to turn and catch her. A shift, the body seeming to evert on itself, those burning eyes opening on the side of the head facing her, the arms bending back, their elbows and knees not subject to the restrictions of sinew and bone. And Malu hurled herself back. Lucky, she did before it launched itself toward her. She then cast her hands up, and swept the wind down, flattening her to the floor, even as the Shard flew over her head, trying to claw at her, but fortunately finding itself subject to the laws of momentum. Until it reached the edge of the shadow, the edge of the light. Then, it was standing at the point nearest to her, having not crossed the intervening distance.

"Oh, that's just not fair," Malu muttered, even as she spun her way to her feet.

A crack of gunfire, familiar from the time it blasted Malu's heart out, sounded, and the Shard hesitated in its advance into the light. It stared down at itself, then past Malu. Malu could only give the slightest of glances, to see that Nila had taken the field, as it were, and had her firearm at her disposal. Her expression shifted from triumph to dawning dread, as it became apparent that her pin-point shot into the heart of that thing hadn't done anything at all.

"Get onto Appa! Fly away while you can!" Malu shouted. The shard opened its maw again, but not to words or a shriek. No, that was more like... a bloody toothed smile. A smile of certain victory. Nila was rushing forward, rather than the sensible away, and Malu couldn't turn her attention away from the Shard which was now advancing toward her. "Nila! _Away_, not toward! Fly _away_!"

"Not today," she said, coming to a halt before the Shard. The Shard gave Nila only a passing glance, before it's attention turned back to Malu. While it's hunger was reserved for the Avatar, Malu was something it couldn't ignore.

"I'm serious! If it touches you, you're worse than dead!" Malu said, trying to force Nila behind her, as the thing advanced. They passed out of the light, and started back over the bridge. Malu started looking in all directions even as they reached its far side, and the Shard finally stepped to the edge of the light. Less than a blink later, it was right in front of the two of them, standing at the point where the bridge met the inverted tower. Malu let out a squawk of alarm, and hurled Nila through a window in what may have been the first _in_fenistration. "Keep focus on me. I am what you want, not her."

The Shard did exactly that, stalking her movements with ground-eating strides even as Malu backed away from it, trying to grow distance. It wasn't giving her that luxury. And she didn't know how to hurt this thing. She heard footsteps from in that room, even over the sound of Altuundili swearing, and it was punctuated by the stomp of somebody hurling themselves through the air. Malu's eyes bugged right out when Sokka came flying through the window at Shard level, feet first. The boots slammed into the Shard, and cast the thing stumbling sideways, until it teetered at the edge of the tower. The instant it fell, it was standing securely on the edge, facing in. Burning eyes blinked, dumb and not understanding. Not that Malu understood any better. Sokka was getting to his feet, looking none the worse for wear.

"Aang's got Appa pretty much ready. We just got to get Jerk and Jerk-ette," Sokka said, his eyes forward and black blade in his hand. He brandished it, but the Shard turned its attention back to Malu. Better her than Aang. "What is this thing?"

"It's a Shard of Imbalance. If it touches you, you d..." Malu began, but was cut off when the Shard let out another moaning scream, and raced forward at Malu. Sokka, though, put himself in the way, slashing with his black blade. It passed right through the inky body without so much as a ripple. When that failed, Sokka just tackled the thing, and swept its legs. The burning red eyes went wide as it found itself flopping onto the floor with a Tribesman on its back. Malu didn't know why it wasn't consuming his soul.

"I think I've got it!" Sokka declared.

And when Malu looked up, there was another one, standing at the edge of the bridge. This one looked almost identical to the first. The only difference was the eyes. While the first was primarily red, with black striations through it, this one seemed primarily black, with red working to highlight them. It looked at Malu, and took two long strides toward her before coming short, and glancing down. It tilted its head at the sight of Sokka atop the Shard. A blink of non-comprehension. Then, comprehension began. The eyes narrowed, and a black hand reached down, grasping Sokka by the neck, and holding him up, looking at him. Trying to get his measure. Sokka favored it with a kick in the face, which didn't do much but make its eyes close for an instant or two.

"I DON'T GOT IT!" Sokka shouted, before the arm visibly began to squeeze at his neck. He very quickly turned almost purple from the pressure. Malu tried to blast air at the far Shard, but the near one was rising, and its attention was on Malu herself.

She wasn't prepared for the hissing of electricity, or the crack of thunder which lanced out of the building and smashed into the side of that distant Shard. The thing let out a squeal, and it's arm 'round Sokka's neck released as it recoiled aside. Sokka almost collapsed, but retook his footing. Malu only had to back up another step, before she turned her head and saw that Azula was standing on the outside of the tower with her, her arms spinning through a lightning kata. The Shard before Malu opened its maw, its arms reaching out. Then, the Fire Nation Princess thrust forth her hand, two fingers leading, and a blast of electrical force slammed into the Shard and carried it right over the edge.

"Nila! Are you alright?" Malu shouted through the door. She was sitting up amidst broken pottery. Pottery which had broken her fall, appropriately enough. But she looked stunned, and clutched her head where it had obviously bounced off of something. She pulled her rifle with her, staggering to her feet, and lurching out the door, even as the Fire Nation Prince once again spun his arms through the lightning kata; he, though, released a branching, brutal bolt from the knuckles of his fist.

"I will survive. These things are bulletproof!" Nila sounded more annoyed at the problem than terrified for her life. Typical Nila, really. Malu didn't waste any time. She darted into the room and hurled both she and Nila out of the door leading toward the back of the cave. The firebending siblings were fairly quick to follow, backing away from those unnatural things. Sokka was next around the corner, spinning on his heel, his stance low and his arms wide. A moment or so after he, the remaining Shard rounded that corner as well, advancing at a very steady, if unkind pace. Malu breathed deeply, trying to get her wind from the maniac dodging she'd had to do, and she released her grip on Nila when the nature of the beast was clear and obvious. The blackness was all the more pronounced when contrasted against the bright blue light that Azula was holding in her palms.

"Well, she managed to kill one of 'em," Sokka said, his voice a bit ragged from how it'd almost been squeezed out. The instant he said that, though, the second Shard walked onto the balcony, appearing at its very edge. It swung its burning eyes toward Malu in particular, and opened it's mouth wide once more, a silence blanketing them where a scream ought have been. Sokka got the most defeated look on his face, but only for a moment. Then, it transformed into a rage. He shook his fist at the heavens, and screamed "Can't you even let me have _one_?"

"They can't die, Sokka. They're not alive," Malu told him. "Keep backing up. Stay away from boundaries. Between light and shadow, doorways, anything like that."

Sokka glanced at the other, which was now advancing abreast of its nearly identical twin, and then to the edge where it'd appeared from. "They can teleport between edges? That's just not fair!"

"Imbalance seldom is!" Malu pointed out.

"How do we beat them?" Zuko demanded, spinning lighting into his hands once more.

"We don't. We run, or we die!"

"Lightning hurts them," Azula said.

"But it doesn't harm them. They eat its energy, but it stings a little," Malu shook her head. This wasn't the time to be a teacher. "Look, there's nothing we can do that will even skin their knees. Run, or die. Those are our options!"

The bass groan and the swoop of wind told Malu that her options were swung sternly in one direction in particular. Aang was atop the brow of the beast, and Toph was already clinging to the saddle. She was soon the first of many, as Nila made that bound, followed by Sokka, and then all others who hadn't yet boarded, leaping for their very lives away from the Shards which continued to advance. They stopped at the edge, though, staring at the gang which was scrabbling into the bison's howdah from only a few yards away. It was hard to assign a creature with no real discernible facial characteristics emotionality, but she had a real feeling that they were staring at them with confusion. As though they'd just violated the rules of reality.

"We've got to go!" Malu called as she leaned precariously down over the front of the howdah. "Appa! Yip Yip!"

The bison let out another bellow, then started to rise forward, moving away from those Shards and the temple that they'd captured. The two remained, staring up after the bison as it cleared the edge of the precipice, and rose up out of sight. There was a blink, and the two were now standing at the top of that precipice, but could only watch as the bison rose yet higher, grumbling with strain and annoyance as it did so. They flew, and the Shards watched them. Until with no word spoken, the Shards turned, went their separate ways, and walked until they reached a different edge; one an arch of fallen trees, the other the boundary of a hippo-wolf's territory. As they reached it, there was a flicker, and they were gone as though they'd never been.

* * *

><p>Mai grumbled as Jet continued to prod and nudge her as she was sleeping. The grumbles turned to blasphemies, and from there, to promises of a horrible and righteous retribution. The cockerels were not even crying as yet, and Jet wanted her up? Was he insane? "Go away," Mai muttered at the end of one such spiel.<p>

"Nope," Jet said. "You've got to wake up."

"I will kill everything you care for," Mai promised grumpily, trying to pull a pillow over her head.

"I didn't know you were suicidal," Jet teased. Mai shot him a glare, and tried to go back to sleep.

"I could say the same about you. Let me sleep."

"You've been asleep long enough. The sun's almost up, and..."

"How could you even notice?" Mai asked. A glance through the tiny window showed that it was raining in an insistent, if not heavy, rate. Jet waved the technicality aside. There was another groan, this one of utmost frustration at having to be romantically connected to somebody as... energetic... as Jet. There was much to say for it, but frustrations as well. "Fine. What's so important?"

"Get up," Jet prompted.

"You can tell me here," she muttered, lying on her back. Jet, though, hooked a toe under the end of her blanket, kicked up to his grasp. "No, don't you dare..." Mai warned. With a smirk, Jet heaved the blanket off of her, letting the cold smash into her as she was wearing only her smallclothes. She sat bolt upright, instantly at a shiver; it hadn't taken her long to reacclimatize to living in the Fire Nation. And for the Fire Nation, this was _frigid_ weather. She glared long and hard at Jet, who simply smirked with a sprig of barley rolling 'twixt his teeth. "There will be a reckoning for this," she promised.

"I don't doubt," Jet said.

"I'm up," she said, slowly getting to her feet, even as the lethargy continued to drag her back toward the bed. She as not an early riser. Not for any reason, nor for any price. Mai only beat the sun to rise when she hadn't slept the night before. So it was not with glee and enthusiasm that she pulled her still-damp clothes back on. That was the great annoyance of the Fire Nation; if you didn't have a firebender in the family, it was dreadfully hard to _ever_ get dry clothing. She felt dirty, and a bit slimy. She was just thankful that she hadn't tried to clean anything in the river. It'd have made it all worse.

"So what's so important that..."

"Come on," he said, and motioned out into the plaza. She sighed, threw on her dark, hooded cloak, and followed him. The 'square' which had been uninhabited the day before was now crowded with people, all of them staring with an uncanny and unsettling intensity. Most of them were wearing the filthy, stained clothes of those living in the town. She immediately picked out Xu under his ridiculous hat. No sign of Dock, though. The newcomers were a small squad of men and women in black and red armor, and they didn't look happy.

"This isn't acceptable. Your produce is getting worse an worse, so you can't honestly expect to get the same value for it," the leader, who was remarkable mostly in his badly scarred face, said. The village leader glanced back at the racks of fish which had been packaged for offer. Honestly, they looked disgusting.

"Please, reconsider; if we don't get that medicine, the children will get sick again. We can't have another outbreak; it'll decimate us!"

"If you want the medicine, then you'll have to earn it. The Fire Nation rewards ambition and innovation. You're digging through the muck with sticks," the scarred man said. "If we wanted those kinds of people, we'd let the Gorks across the border."

"But this is the best we have..."

"Then find a way to get better," the National snapped. He snapped his fingers next, and the crew he had with him started to reload the few boxes which had been brought out. A murmuring started throughout the crowd, one which was obviously presaging anger, and beyond that, violence. The scarred man knew it. He grabbed somebody from the crowd, a frail looking woman probably only twice Mai's age, but her haggardness made her seem much older. He opened fire into his other hand, and the murmurings died down. "Don't make this more difficult than it already is. You've already forfeited a shipment of medications by your own laziness. If you add rebellion, you're going to find yourself without any for the rest of your lives. And by the looks of this place, that won't take long."

There was a silence which was broken only by the drum-beat of rain against the wood. The scarred man looked over the crowd, as the last box was lowered into the steel skiff. With a nod, the scarred man shoved the woman back into the crowd, and turned.

"If you can do better than that," a point to the fish that they'd produced, "by next week, then your shipments continue. Otherwise, I can promise nothing."

He hopped down into the skiff, and it began to steam up the river, cutting a trail through the floating scum. Jet looked about ready to spontaneous light on fire. "What are we going to do?" Jet asked, obviously at the ragged edge of control.

"What _can_ we do?" she asked. Jet fumed for a long moment, and then closed his eyes. The stem of barley rolled in his teeth, as those lips pulled into a smirk.

"You know what? I think I've got an idea."

"Agni preserve me," Mai said, almost on impulse. Jet only laughed at that.

* * *

><p>Aang fussed over the bison, as he was wont to do, while the others huddled and shivered in the howdah, with the ubiquitous gloom slowly parting as they traveled further inland; they'd be naked to the sun, soon, but as the day was yet barely dawning, they were for the moment safe from being spotted, being recognized, and being shortly thereafter killed. Sokka was just glad that they were away from those black things. He turned to the other airbender amongst them, who kept glancing behind them, as though afraid that the 'Shards' would somehow find a way to catch up in an instant. Then again, Sokka'd seen what they could do, and wouldn't put it past them.<p>

"Now that it's obvious we aren't going to die... what was that thing?"

"Imbalance in manifested form," she said. "If It touches me or Aang, probably you as well, Nila, then you die. You worse than die; it'll be as though your soul had never been."

"Well, what about the rest of us?" Sokka asked.

"You're inedible to It. It doesn't know _what_ to do with you," Malu said. Sokka got an urge to pump his fists into the air – one he obliged – at that proclamation.

"Who's just a guy with a boomerang now, huh?" he shouted up at the universe.

"If those things come back, it'll be up to you and Zuko," Malu hesitated as the earthbender's expression got darker, "...and Azula," darker still. "to keep them away from the ones that can't take their touch."

"So we're a wall?" Azula asked.

"Hey! What about me?" Toph complained.

"Too small a wall," Malu pointed out. Toph fumed. Nila, who was pretty much on the opposite side of the saddle from him, muttered something and turned her attention to lamenting all of the things that she'd had to leave behind at the Air Temple. Not that anybody sane would go back for them. He felt a bit odd, at the distance between them. Of course, there seemed to have been a lot left unsaid, and neither was willing to talk about it the next day. Or the day after that. Then the Shards came, and there was running and screaming...

Sokka straightened his back, and purposefully kipped across the howdah to Nila's side. She turned a hot glare at him, before continuing to dig through a sack, muttering under her breath. "Are we going to talk about wh..." Sokka began, his voice pitched low enough that it wouldn't carry over the wind even to where Azula sat two yards away.

"I thought it clear that you didn't want it spoken of," Nila snapped. Eyes turned toward the two of them for a moment, but each had their own concern, so their attention soon faded. "You have been avoiding me."

"You looked mad. I wanted to give you time to calm down," Sokka said.

"I was angry because you were avoiding – good gods. I can see the circularity already," her tone changed abruptly as the words, and the understanding with them, tumbled from her head. She shook her head, a wry look on her face. She then turned a much less rancorous look to the Tribesman. "We are truly idiots. Never would _any_ fall to such a trap of poor logic."

"I don't know. I've heard stories," Sokka said. He raised an arm, and Nila moved under it, obviously grateful to have something warm to lean against; for all they were in the Fire Nation in the beginning of summer, it was oddly chilly up here. Like there was a trade wind blowing down from Henhiavut. "So... are you still angry?"

"Yes," she said. "At myself. For being an idiot. Also at you, for also being an idiot."

"D'aaaaaw," Toph said.

"How would you like to be deaf as well as blind, earthbender?" Nila snapped.

"You know you love me," Toph said with her feet kicked out ahead of her, the small girl trying to take up as much space as possible. Not a good idea, given the cold fog that the clouds provided. Sokka turned back to Nila.

"So... are we going to talk abou–"

"Yes, but not here," Nila cut him off. "This is not a conversation to be had in public."

Sokka frowned. "Really?"

"You are uncouth, barbarian," Nila pointed out.

"And that's one of my more endearing features," he said. So what if Imbalance was going to destroy the world and eat everything. In this moment, Sokka had his girl at his side, a meal in his stomach, and a plan in his brain. What more could anybody ask for?

* * *

><p><strong>I love the interplay between Nila and Sokka. The two of them are so oblivious, and she's so anti-romantic, that it makes any scene where they're trying to deal with each other hilarious. And as for Azula... Also fun, because no matter who's side she's on, she's still kinda a bitch. But she's a very amusing one.<strong>

_Leave a review._


	44. The Plan

"So we're in agreement?" Zhao asked. There were a chorus of affirmations, but not all of them were exuberant. Not surprising, given that he was asking them to commit High Treason. He turned to one of them in particular. "Admiral Yan Rha, how long until the Southern Fleet returns from its tour?"

"Several days at the most," the old admiral said. Yan Rha was not the physical specimen that many of the other admiralty were; he was thin and reedy, but his dark eyes were still sharp, his wits sharper, and his cunning, sharper still. "There are a number of... sympathizers which are currently on furlough in Azul. They won't be a problem."

"Ozai is doing much of our work for us," Zhao pointed out. "It almost seems to easy. What do you think the chances are that he's trying to lure us into a trap, to try to get rid of us?"

Yan Rha gave Zhao a look. "That's a caution I wouldn't have expected from you. I was told that you were a bit more brash and impetuous."

"Given that I'm not Fire Lord _yet_, I'll forgive that insult," Zhao said. He then turned so that he faced Yan Rha flush, with that glaring left eye and the brand which surrounded it. "I've learned a few harsh lessons, and what those lessons taught me... well. I'm standing here today, am I not?"

Yan Rha rolled his eyes, and then shook his head. "It's a poorly kept secret in the city that Ozai is losing his mind. The servants relate how he rails at the walls, destroying furniture and even whole rooms in his rages. He screams at Princess Azula, even though she hasn't been in the same nation as he is for more than three years."

"Ah, yes. Princess Azula," he nodded. "Fitting she would be the vehicle for his madness. When the dust settles over this affair, I will be bringing her back."

"That is not wise, Zhao," Admiral Chan pointed out.

"Indeed," Lord Kurita cut off his social inferior. "The people would rally behind a member of the royal family, even if it was defunct. There has to be a clean break, from old to new."

"You misunderstand. Princess Azula has a vital part in my plan to..."

"You shall simply have to find another lackey," Kurita said sternly. "Azula simply engenders too much sympathy amongst the mob. If you could contain her, they would see it as a usurpation and imprisonment. And if she ever did decide to attempt to seize the Burning Throne, she would be in exactly the position to do so, with exactly the support she would require. This is folly, Zhao. Set it aside."

Zhao scowled, even as every fiber of his being told him to argue further, to get them to see his point if he had to beat it into them with a sledge-hammer. Her divinations would be absolutely vital to the future of the Fire Nation. But they wouldn't believe that. No, they had set their minds to the notion that Azula was just a crippled moron with a speech impediment. The truth was she was about as far opposite as could be.

He gave a casual shrug, one that took a massive amount of willpower and practice to seem casual. "So be it, but this may be something to revisit in the future," Zhao said. "After all, Ozai started his reign with a brutal slaughter of his political opponents, as his father did before him; what would set me apart from that better than a smoother transition?" that such an arrangement would also allow him access to Azula's unique mystical abilities was a boon he left unsaid, for it would fall unbelieved.

"Take care not to make it _too_ smooth," Yan Rha said, as he adjusted the cuffs of his uniform. "Any man who doesn't give his hull a _good scraping_ from time to time will find it fouled with barnacles."

"Cease with your nautical prattle," Zhao said.

"Prattle? This time last year, you weren't even the rank I now hold," Yan Rha said, his back growing straight, his jaw tensing, and those cruel brows rising in outrage. "Your rise was meteoric, but so can be your downfall. You've put forth a plan to steal the Burning Throne from Ozai, true; why should we give it to _you_?"

"Because I am the best of your options," Zhao said. Not pleasantly, though. He had too little patience at the moment for that. "You managed to salvage a catastrophe in the south pole, because you were too gutless to kill the children you found there. I have the will to follow through on what I desire."

"My... gutlessness," Yan Rha said, "resulted in me crippling the South's capacity to gain new waterbenders; one teacher from Great Whales, and we'd have been back to a three-front war!"

"You can say whatever it is that assuages your ego, Yan Rha, but the facts are clear. You lack the spine for rule. You lack the fire, and you lack the ambition. How long, Yan Rha, have you stagnated in your current post? How many years? And _not once_ did you demand a new post, a fleet to launch against your enemies. That is why I will be having the Throne, and not... say... you."

Yan Rha's eyebrow twitched, but he didn't lash out as Zhao secretly hoped he would. After all, he'd been dying to have a proper fight for months; the rule of New Bhatti was profitable, but unbelievably dull. Zhao's streak would have to continue. Yan Rha backed down. Zhao turned with a widening smirk to the other of his ilk. "Ladies, gentlemen, Admirals and nobles, the Fire Nation has suffered under the ill-rule of this family long enough."

Zhao walked to the window, which overlooked the deluge outside. Well, less a deluge today and more a steady rain, but still present. He cast an arm out toward that aperture. "By days, it seems that the very land rebels against this befouled line. The storms have come and plagued our nation, robbing us of the sun just as Ozai robs us of victory or a meaningful future, for the last sixty years! Here, and nowhere else in the world; trust me, I have checked. If there is a surer sign that the Fire Nation needs a new direction, it is that! Had we been more perceptive, perhaps we could have nipped this deluge in the bud, and ended Azulon before he had even the first of his idiot offspring!"

"Don't speak ill of the dead, Zhao," Kurita said.

"I speak ill of fools. Azulon was certainly that," Zhao answered his contemporary. "This will require a great deal of organization and precision. I have no doubt that you are capable of both. This will require hard work, and dedication. If the Fire Nation lacks that, then we deserve this hell. This will require _fire_, in the gut and in the hand. So who has this fire?"

There was a silence in the room for a long moment. Then, with a cleared throat, one of the other Admirals stepped forward. Zhao was honestly surprised by who it was. Admiral Tetsugawa was as hard a woman as Zhao had ever met in his life, and the two had knocked heads frequently, and recently. It was despite _her_ orders that he annexed Kad Deid and crushed the meager forces of those orange-haired heretics to the south. She looked him in the eye, and nodded. "Zhao, you might be a blowhard and in love with the sound of your own voice, but you're not wrong," she said, as couth as ever she was. She extended a hand, and in it, ignited fire. "A clean house. Long live the Fire Lord."

With Tetsugawa at his side, the others began to come forward in increasing number, adding their fire to her own. Those who were not firebenders held a lantern toward that communal blaze. Yan Rha was the last of the admirals to join into the cabal, something that Zhao noted and remembered. That left only Kurita, who stood back from his inferiors, and those nobles which had pledged allegiance to a new leader.

"Are you going to join us, in a new and burning dawn, or are you going to plummet to earth, with the dead weight of Ozai on your back?" Zhao asked. Kurita blinked a few times. He was no doubt doing the maths in his head, what influence he could pull, what strings he could tug which would see him clear of the entire mess. Kurita, for all the House's respectable strength, made a habit of staying out of the fights of the other Houses; this often left Kurita in a prime position to scoop up the prize that the two foes had fought themselves to a stalemate over. But Zhao had made sure to not leave Kurita the luxury of neutrality. "Here and now, Kurita. Make your choice."

A deadline, the arch nemesis of a deep thinker like Kurita. Zhao could see the annoyance, the anger, the outrage, in Kurita's eyes as he stepped to the fire. He had been outmaneuvered, and now had his personal army at the disposal of somebody whom he knew fully well wasn't going to use it for the benefit of Kurita, his House, or his wealth. Half of the joy that Zhao got out of this entire situation was watching that over-cautious man squirm. The other half... was a thought he would entertain later.

"Very well," Kurita said, raising up a lantern and adding it's light to the flame in the center, and the combined lanterns of those few admirals who weren't firebenders, and the relatively many more nobles who were likewise afflicted. He lowered his lantern first, probably a show of defiance that Zhao honestly didn't care about at this point. "When will this happen?"

"Soon. Very soon," Zhao said. "My source tells me that it will only be a short while until the crazy bastard is in a perfect position. Alone, unprotected, and insane."

"I should hope you are right," Yan Rha said, plucking at his sleeves as he did. Agni's blood, did that man _ever_ stop fidgeting?

"You should trust me more. After all, if you cannot trust your Fire Lord, who can you?" he asked. Azula's words would carry Zhao forward, her prophecies would show him a way to defeat the Black Sun Invasion she had foretold, and when the dust settled, his rule over this continent would be complete and unquestioned. And with that, came every perk due it. Like, for example, Akemi. He could see her, waiting outside the room patiently as ever, ears always taking in every word. He didn't doubt that she'd spied on them the entire time. In fact, he'd have been disappointed if she didn't. But she didn't say a word. That smirk came back to Zhao's face, pulling the stiff skin of his burn.

This was going to be ridiculously easy.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

**The Plan**

* * *

><p>The sun was a welcome change. The clouds had parted at long last as they moved up the hills which overlooked a different stretch of ocean. If one had continued far enough north from there, they'd only miss Allavut by a short distance. Short of the jungle that they'd found Agni herself – and that the spirit identified as female was a shock to every monotheist present – this place was a strip of Azul most notable for a few palace-farms, owned by Embiar who fancied themselves men-of-the-people, and thus graciously allowed farmers to live within eyeshot of them. But only if they grew something pretty.<p>

It was all a terrible waste, but then again, Azula didn't have a lot of say in the matter. The beast she was atop let out another groan, and lurched down a bit more. "If this thing does that again, I am taking my chances jumping over the side," Azula pointed out.

"You're right. We need to land. Appa? Where are we going to land?" the Avatar asked. Ridiculous, but the beast did grumble back at him. "You're right. That place over there looks great."

"You didn't actually converse with that creature, did you?" Azula asked.

"It's not a 'creature', it's Appa," Aang said. He looked back at her. "It's not like you haven't made a fuzzy friend back there."

"That was..." Azula began, but broke off when she realized that she was, at that very moment, petting the sabertoothed moose-lion cub which had curled up in her lap. "Shut up."

Aang only grinned. Azula wanted to punch him. Not hard enough to harm him, but enough to wipe that look off his face. She knew what would come if the Avatar died right now. It wasn't pretty. It was a strange state that Azula occupied. She simultaneously loathed, admired, and was ambivalent to the airbender before her. Different life-times, different reactions. Although, one of her hadn't even met him, so there was understandably little opinion formed of a long dead airbender. The beast dipped lower, distinct from another flight of bison that lazily scudded peacefully out of the way above both in its direction and that it was carrying passengers. The latter would not be easily seen from the ground. "Your pet is exhausted. Unless you want his heart to explode, you'll land quickly," Azula said.

Aang nodded, and heeded her direction without a second word. While it was certainly a useful state of affairs, she had to wonder what had happened so dramatically differently to have him cave to her so quickly. She had a number of possibilities as to why. Some were unpleasant. The beast landed with a thud as it none-too-gently returned to the black soil of Azul. The trees, which were further ahead cut into orchards neat, tidy, and comparatively safe, stood before them in a thin veil. Even with the sun beating down, it seemed darker than it should have been under that canopy. Then again, only fools entered the woods in Azul; that was a good way to end up dead, quickly.

"We're going to need to find a place for Appa to rest," Katara said as she nimbly kipped over the side of the beast and moved to the Avatar's side. "Are there any caves in this part of the Fire Nation?"

"Caves? Auuuuugh," Sokka bemoaned. Nila cuffed him for that.

"Be thankful to even have that. You could drown in your sleep on flat land upon this continent," the Si Wongi girl said sharply.

"Toph?" Zuko asked, turning to the earthbender who was still lazing in the howdah next to Azula.

"Hrm?" she asked. Then, she grumbled. "Yeah, fine. I'll check."

The earthbender heaved herself over the howdah's rail, and promptedly misjudged her distance from the ground, thus face-planting on it. But she didn't mutter or groan over it. She just picked herself up, knocked some of the tacky mud that wedged into her buttons off of her, and made a few experimental taps of the dirt. Azula took this time to reach the ground herself; in all of her many years, she had never spent so much time aboard a bison as she had in the last week or so. Toph began to grumble, and Azula just crossed her arms before her chest and waited. "Yeah, this ground's going to cave in unless I spend every second of every day holding it up. There's no stability here at all. Must be the rain and the volcano," she cast her thumb over her shoulder toward where the sea vanished into the distance.

"...there's no volcano there," Aang said.

"Actually, that's the way to Boiling Rock," Zuko corrected him. Azula let out a laugh which wasn't exactly mirthful. Boiling Rock. The site of Mai's betrayal. And in another lifetime, the death of a different 'friend' who was, frankly, a poor replacement for Ty Lee. Zuko seemed to catch Azula's wistful look. "Is there anything we should know about?"

"We're early," Azula said. She pointed a finger at the two Tribesmen. "Their mother hasn't been imprisoned yet. Nor will she be, since she's apparently dead right now."

"Wait, you sent _our mother_ to Boiling Rock?" Katara asked.

"She had tried on three occasions to kill me. I was not in a forgiving mood," Azula said plainly. She had no need to defend her actions in another life, after all. Which was lucky, because, frankly, she'd made more than a few bad decisions. "But the point that it is a dumping ground for the Fire Lord's enemies will no doubt play into your plan in some degree or another."

"...actually, the plan we've got right now is kinda touch and go," Aang admitted. Azula blinked, and turned to the Tribesman, who was, then and now, the brains of the operation.

"We've got some broad-strokes objectives. We're just not exactly sure about how we're going to meet them," Sokka explained.

"A broad-stroke objective is not a plan. A broad-stroke objective isn't even a goal. How can you expect your little infiltration to take place without popular support? Without the spies blinded and the messenger's muted? You can't," she answered as Katara was about to offer something. She shook her head at the absurdity of this all.

"Gotta say, I never thought you'd turn on your old man so quick," Toph said, before finally shaking her head one final time and throwing up her hands. "Damn it, there's nowhere within miles we can dig in."

"The relationship I have with my father is..." Azula trailed off, trying to find a good word for it. She settled with, "complicated. He is still my father. As he has always been. But I understand what will happen if he enacts his attack during the return of Sozin's Comet. Since there is no way immediately apparent that I can turn this to my favor and leave you in a prison cell, I might as well work with you."

"...that doesn't fill us with confidence," Sokka said flatly.

Azula smirked at that. She then turned and took a few steps toward the path, trying to see through it. The path bent quickly though, so line-of-sight was short. "We should find some place more defensible than this. At any moment some farmer or woodsman could stumble onto us and..."

There was a loud grunt behind her which cut her off. It was notable because Appa, she was taken to believe, was not one to interrupt, especially with loud grunts. Azula glanced to it, and noted that it's head was up, and its ears flicking. It was obviously hearing something that nobody else was. Azula swallowed, dryly, as she retraced in her mind exactly how many steps she'd taken toward an Azuli forest. At least one of her past lives would have kicked herself right now. Azula had to take up the slack in that regard.

"What's going on? Do you hear something, buddy?" Aang asked.

"Shut up a minute, Twinkletoes," Toph said, thrusting a hand up in his face even as she stared roughly in Azula's direction. "I can _just_ hear something... there it is again."

The bison let out another grunt a moment before Toph's pronouncement, so that was lent credence certainly. Azula started to step back from the path, but mostly from the woods which surrounded it. My, how it now seemed to encroach around them, where moments ago it was just a backdrop for a landing. Azula flexed her fists, and blue flames erupted into them, at the ready as they had always been. But those fires flickered slightly, when she heard the words coming from the trees.

"Heeeeere bison bison bison bison bison... Heeeere bison bison bison..."

That voice was unmistakable. Azula simply stared, not truly understanding the how or the why, as the faintest glimpse of pink appeared up in the trees, navigating the limbs as easily as any sugar glider or lemur. The girl wearing bright pink in the trees, she with what looked like an iron-forged bison-whistle dangling 'round her neck, finally rounded a tree-trunk and stood on a limb no wider than perhaps her big-toe, balanced without so much as a waver, as she looked at the whole group of them from on high, with a succulent melon in each hand. Azula blinked. The girl in the trees blinked likewise, looking over the lot of them. But her eyes settled on Azula herself.

"This... can't be," Azula said. "Can it really be you, Ty L– umf."

Azula's question was answered by Ty Lee – and it could only be Ty Lee – bounding down out of those trees with an acrobatic roll and hurling herself into a full-body embrace with the firebender such that even the solidly built princess had to take a step back or be knocked flat by the momentum of it.

"AZULA! You're really alive! And you're really here! And you're really _buff_!" Ty Lee declared. "Is your brother there oh hi Zuko what about Mai have you seen her I don't see her with you is that your bison?"

Azula could only blink a few times at that tirade.

Aang stepped up. "Yes, there; yes, but she left these guys while I was unconscious; no, that's _my_ bison."

"Ty Lee..." Azula said, amazed that Ty Lee would even recognize her. Then again, it was Ty Lee. Say what you would about the girl, she was a loyal and gentle soul. Azula didn't doubt that the girl, be she crippled woman or Avatar either, wept hard at Azula's death. "...why are you in Azul?"

"Oh! Right! You're not supposed to be here," Ty Lee said, still good-naturedly as she swung back, swaying side to side with Azula's hands in hers. As Azula realized what she was doing, she pulled those hands back, and Ty Lee gave out a mildly put-out look, but it vanished quickly, as such negativity always did with Ty Lee. "The Fire Lord, your dad? He still has you banished, and if he finds you here he's going to be _really_ mad."

"I'm aware," Azula said. She finally turned to the others, who were staring in confusion and alarm with Zuko's sole exception. "This is Ty Lee. She was my oldest friend three times in a row."

"What does that mean?" Ty Lee asked.

"It's complicated," much of the group, Azula included, said as one.

Ty Lee leaned back. "That was creepy. Do it again!"

"Please, focus. Why are you in Azul? You don't live anywhere near here," Zuko broke in. Ty Lee flashed a grin from brother to sister, and pointed up the path and ostensibly to the hill on the far side of this tiny patch of wilderness.

"Mom's got property over there, and she said she wanted to come back to Azul, where she met Daddy, before he died," Ty Lee said. She glanced to her feet, the melons tucked behind her back. "...Mom got really sick. We were really scared for her."

"Your mother is dying?" Azula asked, real concern in her voice and her heart. After all, there were few who struck Azula as deeply as Ty Lee, either for good, or for ill. Ty Lee looked up with a cheerful grin.

"Nope! And nobody knows why at all! It's awesome!" Ty Lee said. "You should meet her! She'd love to have company!"

"Fugitives," Zuko reminded her. Ty Lee gave an off hand dismissal.

"Please. You're friends of the Baihu family! We'd take you in if you were here to _usurp the Fire Lord_! So that means we'd take you in any-time!"

Firebenders, brother and sister, shared a glance. Azula could only shrug uneasily. How she'd managed to hit that nail on the head with her first swing, Azula wasn't sure. But then again, she had heard stories how being nearby the Avatar made destiny do increasingly insane and uncanny things. "What about Appa?" Aang asked, patting the bison's nose.

"His name's Appa?" Ty Lee asked. She picked up her melons and bounded over to the front of the beast, standing nearly in the center of their number, and displacing the Si Wongi and the other airbender in the process. Both looked at the situation like the world had gone mad. Azula wasn't sure that it hadn't. She held out both melons toward its nostrils. "Hello, Appa! Are you a friendly bison?"

Appa answered Ty Lee as it answered all food-bearers, groomers, and unfortunately nearby objects and people; with a massive tongue slurp which scooped up the melons but also lifted Ty Lee from her feet and dropped her to the ground covered in clear, gooey saliva. Ty Lee let out a mild squeeing sound, even as she got up, wiping the guck from her. "That's the best thing ever!" the acrobat declared.

"You like bison?" Aang asked.

"It shouldn't come as a surprise," Azula said flatly. "In one lifetime, she was a crippled airbender, and in the other, she was the _Avatar_."

All eyes turned to her, then to Ty Lee. "_This_ feather-headed girl was the Avatar in one of your previous lives?" the Si Wongi girl asked flatly. Azula nodded.

"What? I'm an airbender! Hurray!" she said, and took a massive bound upward, only to land on her face in the dirt. She still picked herself up from that quickly enough.

"...you didn't learn until you were almost twenty, or else were bending _fire_ by now," Azula informed her.

"...she's not very bright is she?" Nila asked. Azula somberly shook her head. Nila blinked a few times, and palmed her face with tattooed hands. "And she was in this one's place," she pointed at Aang. Azula could only nod. "You truly survived a lifetime of horrors, then."

"Hey! I could make a great Avatar!" Ty Lee complained. And then what had been said off hand finally struck her. "Wait a minute. Are _you_ the Avatar?"

Aang was clearly uncomfortable with how Ty Lee was now invading his personal space. One had to get used to that when Ty Lee was around. When she wasn't tying herself into knots, she was hugging somebody. That was her way. He nevertheless nodded.

"THAT'S GREAT!" Ty Lee declared, before bounding back up into the trees in two jumps. "Come on, guys! My place is big and even my sisters can't fill up all the rooms!"

With that, she vanished back into the foliage. Nila turned to Azula. "Is your friend always so annoying?"

"She isn't annoying. She's just energetic," Azula instantly defended her. Oh, how the years had changed her.

"And things like this happen around you all the time, do they not?" Nila asked Sokka. Sokka nodded. "...I am going to die before the end of Summer, am I not?"

"Probably. But we'll all be dead with you, so you'll be in good company," Zuko answered her.

"...Much as I'd like to see Tzu Zi again, am I the only one who isn't _extremely_ suspicious about this?" Malu asked.

"Trust me. If all of them are there, they won't turn us in. One of them likes me," Zuko said smugly. And got punched in the kidney by a blind earthbender for his smugness.

* * *

><p>"Alright, this plan doesn't seem so good in retrospect," Jet said, as the two of them reconnoitered the iron-foundry. Drinking up the entire supply from a spring northeast of Jang Hui, it used that water to bathe and refine the iron which was dug up from the nearby mines, and dumped the slag-laden slime into the stream beyond it. That stream joined up with the Jang Hui river, and from that point on, the entire flow was contaminated and poisonous. The issue at hand was that the foundry was guarded every hour of the day, and by a force such as Mai and Jet couldn't take down together.<p>

"The plan is still sound. The implementation needs a bit of work," Mai countered him. She nodded briskly toward the lower end of the forest, and the two of the began to ghost back toward the village, which lay almost four miles down that slimy tributary. It was easy to see why the fishermen didn't simply fish past the funk; that branch of the Jang Hui river rose up in a great cataract not far short of where the slime-stream joined with it. "Destroying the factory would only half-solve the problem anyway."

"I think I know what you mean," Jet said. He glanced the length and breadth of the river, and spotted nobody as he expected he wouldn't. With a quick sprint and a spring over a befouled bank, he landed, rocking, atop an outrigger canoe which an old man was now sleeping in. The motion stirred the floppy-hatted man to a snorting alertness. Jet turned just in time to help stabilize Mai as she landed next to him, preventing her from overbalancing and falling into the river. Had she, Jet's life would not have been pleasant for quite a while. "_Dock? We can go back now_."

"_Oh, yes_," Dock said distractedly as he began to paddle them out of their nook and into the current once more. A part of Mai wished she'd just chartered this canoe long ago. While there was a steep descent into the river along most of the far bank, she would have taken that chance to get away from here. "_Always going back to Jang Hui. Great place. Wouldn't live anywhere else if they payed me_."

"_Then you're insane_," Mai said. She turned to Jet and switched languages, secure in the knowledge that the crazy old fart wouldn't be able to keep up. "If we wanted to 'liberate' this village, we'd need to start a revolution. I don't think that's a realistic expectation."

"You might be surprised," Jet said. He leaned a little closer. "I did a bit of talking with the village elders. A lot of them are chafing under Ozai's rule just as badly as they had under Azulon. Instead of demanding fish in exchange for not burning their houses down, Ozai only has to offer them _nothing_, for them to come crawling back to the fold. That's got a lot of them angry."

Mai raised her eyebrow. "Why Jet, that almost sounded like proper espionage."

Jet grinned. "I learned from the best."

"Charmer."

"Guilty as charged," Jet said, pulling Mai a bit closer to him.

"_Oh, young love. As strong a force as gravity, and as inevitable as rain_," Dock commented.

"_Just keep paddling_," Mai said to him dryly. She rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh. "The other issue is that of training. These people haven't ever fought another human being in their lives, let alone trained soldiers. It'd be a slaughter."

"But..."

"Jet, untrained masses _do not_ defeat organized resistance. Maybe in _stories_ the oppressed populace can rise up and cast out their oppressors, but that doesn't happen in real life. They just end up being rounded up and slaughtered."

"We have to try something," Jet said.

"The cost is too high. Maybe once the... friend of ours..." she caught herself before letting something slip. Either his name or his title might give the airbender away; Avatar was the same word in every language. Well, except for Whalesh, but they didn't count, "starts what he's going to do, since they'll be distracted by that. But until then, there's nothing we can do."

"I don't accept that," Jet said, his eyes hard and locked onto the growing form of Jang Hui as it appeared around the gentle bend in the river. "There's some way to win this. I just need to find it."

"_Well, we're back again_," Dock said enthusiastically. "_I hope you two enjoyed your little romantic interlude; the soldiers don't tend to like it when people get too close to that smelter of theirs. They're a touch paranoid, I think_."

"_You don't say,_" Mai muttered.

The canoe reached the jetty and they all scrabbled up quickly enough. After all, while the stink of the river had more or less died to Mai's nose, it returned in full force as one got close to it. They moved back under their abandoned roof, grateful at least that it wasn't raining right now. It might have been dark as a thunderstorm, but no rain yet fell.

"There's a path we haven't walked yet," Jet said. "We put down the soldiers, steal the medicine, and..."

"And they send their men to steal it back from Jang Hui. If they don't find it, they'll assume that the villagers stole it, and burn them alive. I know how these thugs work, Jet," Mai said, trying to break it to him easily.

"Mercenaries, then," Jet said.

"Paid for in what? Two headed fish?" she asked, lifting up a specimen to make her point.

"If you think about it, you're getting twice as much head per fish," Jet offered. Mai just stared at him. "Fine. What about the other villages?"

"The same problem as before, only with more dead villagers," Mai said.

Jet growled. "This isn't right! I mean, the Dog Rebellion unseated two Earth Kings in a row, and that was fought entirely poor-against-rich!"

"A war started and financed by one rich-woman who didn't want her daughters to get foot-bound," Mai clarified.

"A revolution doesn't care who pays, so long as somebody does," Jet said. He thrust a finger at her. "You said we had to come and make the city ready, well, what else are we doing here? These are _your_ people. They're suffering because of _our_ enemies. That's got to mean something!"

"You think it doesn't?" Mai snapped, heat entering her voice. "You think I don't want to quiver those soldiers with iron, blow that factory, steal that medicine? I'd do it in a heartbeat! But the problem is that it'll just cause more harm than good!"

"Mai, sometimes it's a lot better to do the wrong thing, than to do nothing at all," Jet said, his voice much calmer than hers, which was an odd inversion. He gave a vacant shrug. "_Maybe_ this'll end badly if we get involved. But it will _definitely_ end badly if we do nothing. I had a dozen plans. You needled every one. So tell me. What would you do? If you _had to do something_, what would _you_ do?"

Mai wasn't happy about having that onus hefted squarely upon her shoulders. Jet's plans were, fundamentally, good ones. But they all had a fatal flaw. They depended on ordinary people doing something extraordinary. That wasn't exactly a dependable state. People tended to fragment and flee when a leader was struck down. They disappeared as soon as the rode became rough. Father had always said 'It's easy to fight when you're winning'. She now understood the full meaning of that.

"These people can't fight for themselves. They're too beaten down. Too demoralized, too sick, to afraid," Mai said.

"Mai..."

"But..." Mai cut him off. She reached into her meager bag of possessions, and extracted the blue parka which the waterbender had granted her before the two of them left for this suicide mission. She'd claimed that it was waterproof and warm enough to help, even in weather this disgusting. It'd been true to her word. She flicked out a knife, and cut all around the hem, turning the bottom of the parka into a long, blue strip of cloth. That cloth, she held up to Jet. "People will fight for a symbol even if it kills them. They'll fight for a symbol, when they're heels are against the precipice. They'll fight for a symbol, because symbols have power. You can kill a leader. You can't kill an idea."

Jet nodded, and took that strip, before binding it above his brow, folding it back and tucking it in. It formed something like a blue turban. Mai quickly created a second, for herself. "So now we've got to give them something worth fighting for. Willing to follow me to almost certain death, Mai?"

"I don't hate almost. It implies no," she answered him. She took his hand, giving it a squeeze, and then leaned in to his warmth, to his embrace.

Somewhere across the village, an angry young man flopped another poor catch onto the jetty. The clams belched out foul mud, and the fish were often two-headed, missing scales, or possessed of three eyes. "I can't believe this," he muttered to himself in his native tongue of Huo Jian. "We're never going to make that quota."

"Maybe we won't have to," Xu said, even as he stooped down to pick up the brace of foul fish.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because the winds are changing, my boy," he said. "You remember those two newcomers? The ones Dock brought over."

"Dock. Sure," the young man said wanly.

"I'm thinkin' one of them's got a plan. A plan that'll shake the Fire Lord right off his throne," he said.

The young man stared at the crazy old one, and then down at the catch by his feet. He had no wife, nor any real chance of finding one here; the women tended to go to other towns or villages to learn trades as soon as their parents would let them. They'd all seen what happened to children of mothers who ate the river's produce. It was not kindly, nor pleasant, and those children as a rule did not last long. Simply put, like most of the people here, that young man had nothing to lose.

"Well, it's about Agni-damned time," he said, taking up his gaff and heading into the center of town.

Xu waved a hand after him. "Oh, and if you see that worthless lout Bushi, tell him to fix the danged barge! That thing's just shameful!"

* * *

><p>The Fire Sage twitched slightly where he lay on the ground. Honestly, he shouldn't have gotten in Kori's way, and should be thankful that he'd gotten only as much as he did. Sure, it was a strapping youth against a wizened old man, but still. Kori was in no mood to waste time sneaking about. Not with what he needed to learn.<p>

The eel-hound he rode died under him on the way through the city. It made a small commotion, but he continued despite it. He hadn't slept in two days, and it showed on his face. Most notably, it showed in the fervent glow that seemed to ignite inside his dark blue eyes as they zipped along the lines of words in the parchment.

_The most recent foray into the lands most southerly have borne fruit; while our holds did indeed burst at the seams with these mewling grubs, two in particular seemed to have some trifling talent as waterbenders. They have been sequestered from the others, with the indoctrination specialists. Your son's notion will doubtless prove a fruitful one, and I have little doubt that he is correct in that starting soon and young will reap great benefits._

It was correspondence between Admiral – then Commander – Yan Rha, and then-Fire Lord Azulon. He'd seen almost a dozen other messages, or rather half of a dozen other messages, outlining Yan Rha's advancing attempts to crush the Water Tribesmen under his heel. It started with cutting down stragglers, near the northern fringes of their land. Hunting them down throughout Great Whales where they came to trade skins and oils for copper and iron. He was a man possessed, and Azulon apparently found great use in that possession. From the sound of Yan Rha's messages, every one was more confident, more sure. More debauched, and more cruel.

_The boy cried out for his parents today. He was broken of that habit. His only parents are the Fire Nation now; within a month, that will be as certain as the sunrise. The girl remains quiet. She at least is an easy 'guest', for the time being. I look forward to showcasing your project in person, my Prince._

That one to Ozai himself. There was only one more. Doubtless penned as they were sailing into the Bay of Tenko. For a long moment, Kori considered whether he should even read it. But honestly, that decision had been made weeks ago, when a big, bald man looked him square in the eye and declared that he was Kori's father.

_Our tests are complete, my Prince. The only two which were of any use are the girl and the boy. Both appear to be waterbenders, she of more power than he. She lashed out today, screaming and attacking one of the seamen. While she was beaten for that, I cannot help but feel pride; she was showing a rage quite becoming a firebender, even despite her young age and lackluster element. However, if what you claim is true, then the last of those problems will be corrected soon enough. The other objects can be disposed of at your leisure. I recommend taking them half-way into Boiling Rock._

The rest of the message was lost as Kori's fist formed a ball, crushing it in its midst. So, he was not only stolen from his parents, but manipulated into loyalty to a man who would as soon mercilessly slaughter Kori's captured kin as bother to bring them back with him. He wished he could have said he was filled with righteous outrage. That would have been an inspiring thing, something vaulting and grand. A glorious purpose in the face of mindless servitude. But he wasn't. He wasn't even angry. Not really.

"Well," he said to himself. "Now that that's cleared up, I've got something I need to do."

* * *

><p>"Sooooo this is my home. Well, winter home. We-e-e-ell, 'home that's almost as dry as home if not as cloudy' home," Ty Lee enthusiastically declared. Nila blinked at the whirlwind that spoke, both in her energy and her exuberance. She was obviously Tzu Zi's sister, even had the two of then not shared a face and everything else. There were a number of others who turned away from talking to a maid of some description. Three of them seemed to latch onto Nila with their eyes. From one of them, rose an enthusiastic cry.<p>

"NILA!" Tzu Zi declared as she broke free of her identical siblings and tackled Nila back a step with a hug, putting her out of line with the Tribesman who escorted her in. "It's been so long! Did you find your Mom?"

"To everybody's great dismay," Nila said dryly. Tzu Zi pulled back, but still had Nila held at arm's length.

"You don't ever change, do you?" Tzu Zi asked. "Wait a second. Is that...?"

"It is. I prefer a lack of names, given circumstances," Nila cut in. Tzu Zi glanced back to the gaggle of other girls.

"You are dismissed," a version of Tzu Zi's voice came from the back of the room, which had the maid bow and depart. When she moved, Nila could see yet another Tzu Zi beyond, sitting at a desk barely visible through a doorway. "There. We have privacy."

"Don't mind her. She's just mean," Ty Lee declared.

"Aang? What are you doing here?" Tzu Zi asked, and she stepped away from Nila. The Si Wongi didn't have a chance to give a response to that before another Tzu Zi slammed into her with a hug. Nila gave a glance to Sokka. Sokka just watched everything with a very, very neutral expression. Oh, but if she could see inside his brain. She amended that notion, since she, upon further reflection, didn't really want to know what it was men thought about; they obviously got so little done in a day. Their thoughts had to play some part in it.

"Nila? How have you b-b-b-been?" Rai Lee asked, her smile much more subdued and nervous than those of the acrobat or the firebender.

"Well and terribly, by times," Nila said.

"Um... We had to find some place to go that wasn't going to try to kill us," Aang answered Tzu Zi's earlier questions. Nila was having a hard time keeping track of all the conversations going on around her, but damn it all, she was _going to_! She had a hard enough time keeping up with conversation even when she knew what was said; when she didn't, it was a hopeless endeavor.

"Then you shouldn't have come to Azul," another Baihu sister told the Avatar.

"What are you doing in Azul anyway?" the actress inquired after giving Nila no more than a passing nod. In a way, Nila was glad that was all she had to contend with.

"D-d-did you come here b-because of the revolts?" Rai Lee asked.

"Revolts? What revolts?" Nila asked.

"Increasing tensions between Azul and Ozai. Some of it's coming to violence. And violence long-overdue," the yet unnamed Baihu sister in the next room answered, even as she continued to scribe something before her with her full attention.

"Hold on a second," Sokka finally cut in. "Why are we even talking to these girls – no offense intended, ladies – considering who we are? I mean, they could..."

"We're safe here," Zuko said. He moved past them all and toward the back room. "Gwen? A word?"

"Of course," the strangely named Baihu said with a nod. Zuko moved in and closed the door behind him, cutting the two of them off. Nila raised a brow at that. She had assumed that the blind earthbender and he were romantically involved. She just shrugged and carried on with her trying to follow conversations.

"So what happened to Ashan? Why isn't he here?" Tzu Zi asked, turning back to Nila.

Nila's eyes drifted to the floor. "He has been slain."

"Oh... Nila, that's terrible," Tzu Zi said with honest grief.

"You're wondering why we're not ratting you out? Well, snitches get stitches around here," the obvious criminal about the sisters informed.

"There is snitching, and then there is treason," the one Baihu who didn't look like Tzu Zi pointed out. She was shorter, a bit plumper, and wore spectacles to see. A cynical person – like Nila – would say that this one was a defective copy of a far finer prototype.

"Hey, if you've got the Avatar under your roof, then you're in for every penny you've got. Treason's just a slap on the wrist at that point," the criminal pointed out. Many eyes turned toward her. "What? Did you honestly think that we wouldn't guess with just a headband? You've got a lot to learn about effective disguise, kid."

"Kid? I'm almost a hundred years older than you!" Aang complained.

"How did Ashan... you know..." Tzu Zi asked Nila. Nila sighed, trying not to dredge up the sensations of the memories. She was deprived her chance to answer, though, as Tzu Zi looked past Nila to the doorway, and went deathly pale.

"Alright, I've managed to fit Appa into the barn, but I don't think those eel-horses are happy about it," Malu said as she struck dust from her kavi.

Tzu Zi launched into a shriek which brought every whit of attention squarely onto her. Her hands twisted down and she pulled back into a fighting form, fire flowing along her hands as she did. "Get back! We can hold it off if..."

"Calm down," Aang said, getting between Tzu Zi and his airbending counterpart. The act caused Tzu Zi to hesitate, which was lucky for all involved. "Malu's not the Host to Imbalance anymore. She's on our side."

"...really?"

"Yes. Strange things happen when that boy is near," Nila said with annoyance, mostly at how often she'd had to repeat that very thing in recent weeks. "Mother was captured by a monster in fine clothing. We rescued her, but too late to prevent his corruption of her mind. Somewhat, anyway."

"She shot Aang in the back," Sokka said, thankfully in his case without judgement. Tzu Zi's eyes went wide at that.

"Really? Why would she do that?"

"Because she was ordered to," Nila said.

"Wow, there's a lot of talking going on, ain't there?" Toph asked the waterbender beside her.

"Everybody seems to know one-another."

"Yeah, I hate it too," Toph answered a question never asked.

"But... why would your Mom hurt the Avatar. I thought she was on his side?"

"As I said, Long Feng corrupted her, bent her to his will. It is not something I can explain more deeply than that."

"Hey! Is it true that you and the cute one are going out?" Ty Lee physically barged into the conversation with Nila. Behind her, Aang and Malu both gave each other a look, shrugged, and moved out of the way of the press of nearly identical girls.

"I am fairly certain that the Avatar has his eye on the princess," Nila said.

"No, not that one," she said with a playful bat to the arm which had Nila raising her eyebrow in warning; sadly, it was a warning which was neither delivered nor understood. "The other one! The Hillman..."

"Tribesman, thank you," Sokka said. Nila gave him a glance.

"Perhaps," Nila answered. Ty Lee instantly looked puzzled.

"I thought it was yes or no," Ty Lee said.

"The yes or the no will depend entirely upon the contents of a long-overdue conversation," Nila said flatly. Ty Lee's eyes widened.

"Oooooh. I get it. You two had a fight, didn't you!"

"No," Nila said.

"Yeah, kinda," Sokka countered at the same time. Nila turned to him. "What? We did!"

"Nevertheless," Nila stressed. "This place will not be safe for any of us, nor for any amount of time."

"We're not going to sell you out," Tzu Zi stressed. "You're our friends. And honestly, you're probably the best chance we've got to keep the Fire Nation from breaking to pieces."

"What?" Azula asked, her attention pulled away from the knot of Baihu sisters which was clamoring for her attention.

"It's a depressingly common rumor that the Fire Lord is going mad," Kah Ri answered Azula's question. "If Montoya decides that the rumor is more fact than fiction, he'll plunge the Fire Nation into outright civil war."

"We have to stop him," Azula declared to Aang.

"What? Why? I thought that stopping the Fire Lord was the second most important thing to stopping Imbalance!"

Azula gesticulated, and then shook her head. "I have my reasons. Even if I'm having trouble articulating them."

"Princess Azula? Inarticulate? Who would have thought," Kah Ri said dismissively.

"Hey! It's not her fault that a spirit almost killed her a long time ago," Aang spoke up.

"I can handle myself in this," Azula cut the Avatar off. Aang looked... hurt, but didn't complain. "Tell me something. If I am so inarticulate, then why is it that of the two of us, I'm the one _without_ the country-rube accent?"

Kah Ri gasped with shock. "How dare you!"

"You might want to pull in that drawl. Your erudition teacher would be ashamed if he heard it," Azula said. Kah Ri pulled her dress in and stormed off in a great huff. Azula just smirked as she left. Nila had to admit, she liked seeing the arrogant Baihu from this angle; her walking away in rage. "I've wanted to do that for years, apparently."

"Won't your Mom be angry if she finds out... who we've got here?" Katara asked. Ty Lee broke off and turned to her.

"Oh, she probably won't mind. She's too happy to be alive right now to care about something like that," Ty Lee said with a wave of her hand. Nila rubbed her head. There was trying to keep track of conversations, then there was trying to herd stimulant infused cats through a burning boat as it sank in a monsoon.

"Good," Azula said. She stared at Ty Lee for a moment. "...it's good to see you again."

Ty Lee beamed, and then hugged Azula again with what was probably a rib-creaking embrace. "I know! It's been _forever_ since we were all together!"

"You have no idea," Azula said, her eyes pressed shut. Nila was sure, for all her limited experience, that Azula couldn't have been happier there.

"Come on, Nila. I'll find you a room. There's plenty to go around, these days," Tzu Zi said, giving Nila's hand a comforting squeeze. Even after that long absence, the firebender could still read Nila like a book, and knew when she was getting overwhelmed.

"It will surely be better then sleeping on rocks and rubble," Nila said. Tzu Zi raised a brow at that odd assertion.

"It's a long story," Sokka said, keeping up with the two of them as they moved off into the house, the gaggle of Baihu girls dispersing throughout as they did. They left only two standing near the door in bemusement.

"...so are we invited in or what?" Toph asked.

"I'm... not really sure," Katara said.

* * *

><p>Zuko slid the door closed behind him, eliminating the worst of the din of excited Baihus behind him, and turned his attention to the one before him. She sat, turned half way out of the table she was writing on. "You look well," Zuko said.<p>

"And you look like you haven't had a haircut in a year," Gwen said dryly. "Drop the small-talk. We're both terrible at it."

Zuko sighed. As much as Ty Lee's vibrant energy infused everybody around her, it was always this one whom Zuko got along with best. They both shared the same temperament. "You've probably guessed why I came back."

"The Exiled Prince and the Banished Princess, back on Fire Nation soil, without some grand declaration by our ruler on the Burning Throne saying it was permitted? I can only assume it isn't for his best interests," Gwen said dryly.

Zuko smirked. "Oh, you haven't the faintest idea. Do you remember that plan we talked about, back before the Agni Kai, before the banishment?"

"And the two years after it," Gwen prodded. "Of course. Your most recent letter told that you were heading toward the south-pole. I have to assume that's where this insanity with the Avatar began. Since then, you've kept me out of the loop. I don't appreciate that."

"I got busy. Azula needed my help."

"And she doesn't any longer?" Gwen asked with a chuckle. At that, there was a sigh of relief from Zuko, a small smile on his face.

"No... she really doesn't," he said. Gwen's expression was surprise at that, but she didn't press. "I think it's time that we start what we talked about."

"There's a problem," Gwen said.

"Oh, what now?" Zuko asked.

"Opinions of you have... slipped of late. You were permitted back. The mob think that meant you toadied up to your father for the opportunity. That you set it on fire and kicked it back at him is neither well known nor appreciated. You're not a strong symbol these days."

"But Azula would be," Zuko pointed out. "And now, she's capable of doing what's needed."

Gwen stared at him for a long moment, then gave a shrug. "If you say so. But if you're wrong, then this will end in disaster."

"How about we focus on the first part first, and let the other things happen later?" Zuko said.

"Very well. So, Prince Zuko... you want to usurp the Burning Throne," Gwen started to smile, then. It was neither warm nor kind. "Well, you've come to the right Baihu."

* * *

><p>"You're late for dinner," Bumi's cracking voice sounded across the hall, causing everybody gathered to pause, look at the super-centenarian liege like he'd gone mad – which he had long ago – before turning toward the door, to the newest arrivals. Hakoda glanced around the room, taking in all of the different Earth Kingdom nations which were present in some form or another in this hall.<p>

"I wasn't even aware I was invited," Kuei obliviously answered. Bosco, ever the quiet companion despite his massive size and strange proportions – who had ever heard of a _bear_ before, anyway? – sat down on the stone, placidly gazing around the room.

"Oh, well. There's probably somebody willing to scrape something off his plate for you," Bumi waived his hand toward the foot of the table. "I always try to keep a full table, but you know how these things go."

"King Bumi, we..." Hakoda said.

"Oh, and you brought your friends? Well, that's going to make it difficult to feed everybody..."

"Um... my liege, the chefs haven't brought out the third course yet," a pristine smocked individual at the King of Omashu's side said at a whisper which nevertheless carried across the room.

"Oh, right! And here I was concerned that we were going to go hungry," Bumi said, before launching into cackling, snorting laughter. The others, not used to his... well, _madness_... glanced amongst themselves, and offered nervous laughter of their own to his braying.

"...as I was saying," Hakoda said. "We hope that you're willing to give a warm fire and a stout roof to weary travelers. We've come a long way to be here."

"Grand-uncle, it's been a long time since we met face to face," Zha Yu said, a smirk on his face as he moved to the fore. Bumi stood up, and gave his considerably younger relative a scrutinous eye.

"You stopped shaving," Bumi declared.

"So have you," Zha Yu answered. Bumi patted his chin as though in shock, and discovered the twisting sprig of beard there.

"My! So I have!" Bumi laughed once more, though far shorter this time.

"Is he always like this?" Piandao asked, leaning in toward the Dragon of the East.

"Short answer? Yes," she said.

"Long answer?" Hakoda asked.

"Yes, and may the gods have mercy on us."

"Earth King Kuei? It is an honor to meet your Eminence in person," Sultan Wahid, who was supposedly Sativa's ruler, offered, standing and bowing toward the much younger liege. He looked every inch of him the resplendent ruler, decked in colorful linens and a headdress which was spun, it was certain, of silver threads. "I have not had the time in my rule to make the journey north; things have been so taxing. I am sure you are aware."

"Of course. I understand completely... king...?" Kuei said.

"He is _Sultan_, not king," Sativa said flatly at the Earth King's back.

"A discrepancy not to be dwelt upon," Wahid waved the notion away. Hakoda glanced to the Mountain King.

"Who are these people?" he asked the older, strange-eyed man.

"Every King, Chief, Grand Prince, Grand Duke, Primarch and Prelate that lives south of the Great Divide," Badesh answered in his stead. "There is more power, population, and land in this room than you will find anywhere else, even counting all of the Fire Nation under Ozai."

"And what's more, they've all been so long out of useful contact with Ba Sing Se, that the chances of Long Feng's corrupting them are essentially nil," Zha Yu said. "Excuse me. I have something I need to attend to with the King."

"Yes?" Kuei asked.

"Not you. _That_ king," Zha Yu pointed forward. At least a half-dozen other 'kings' all turned toward him querulously before noticing that he was indicating the lord of the manor, as it were.

"May I have your attention?" Kuei asked, raising his meager voice to try to quash the din around him. "Please, can you... Listen to me?"

"QUIET!" Sativa shouted. The royalty in the room fell silent, turning toward her with incredulity, which in some of them, dawned into either alarm or realization. Sativa turned to the Earth King at her side. "As you were?"

"Um... yes. Ah, we are gathered here..." Kuei trailed off. He flicked a glance toward Hakoda. "It's gone right out of my head."

"Long Feng, and the Comet," Hakoda prompted. Kuei swallowed, no-doubt dryly, and turned to face the assembled rulers.

"Ahem. I am standing as a ruler in exile," Kuei began. "My royal palace has been usurped, and many of my leaders have been subverted. A pretender sits on the Earth King's throne," he said. He took a breath, no doubt calming himself as his momentum started to carry him forward. "But I'm not here because of that. There's something much more important than my throne or my city. It's the fate of the entire world which lies in the balance."

There was a murmur which sprung up through the crowd. At the far side of the room, Zha Yu and Bumi were kneeling at far sides of a Pai Sho board, and were oblivious to the goings on around them. "The Earth King is speaking true," Hakoda said. "I have lost a brace of my kinsmen to that monster, but I can not seek revenge. Not today. Not until the World War is ended; if we fail to unseat the Fire Lord, to end the World War by the end of summer, then there will be no point to revenge at all; there won't be much of anything left."

"I don't ask you to fight for me. I ask you to fight for yourselves, and what you will have when the summer turns to autumn," Kuei said with a vigorous nod.

"_Not to interrupt_," a familiar if extremely surprising voice said at Hakoda's side, quietly enough that Kuei could project further even with his untrained voice. Hakoda turned, and his eyes widened as he beheld the entire corps of his friends, his countrymen who had joined him on this fool's errand. Ogan, in particular spoke for them, "_but we're not exactly lost._"

"_Ogan? How did you get out of Ba Sing Se? And how did you get __here__?_"

"_Wasn't easy_," Ogan said with a shrug. "_Long story_."

Hakoda felt a grin pulling his face, as he clasped forearms with the solidly built hunter, his third-in-command, and apparently, the most resourceful member of the Water Tribes since Hakoda himself. "_You'll have to tell me how you did it later. I'm sure it's a thrilling story_."

"_Not really_," Ogan shrugged. The Tribesmen behind him gave out a loud laugh at that. "_Alright, maybe a little_," he glanced to and fro, before leaning in. After a moment, he beckoned Bato to join them as well. After all, this was a meeting of Tribesmen. "_Did you find your girl?_"

"_No_," Hakoda said. "_I mean, yes, but..._"

"_Yes or no; can't be both_," Ogan didn't sound amused. Then again, he seldom did.

Hakoda sighed, and gave a look to Bato. Bato nodded. "_He found Hikaoh, but it's like you said. She's working for the Fire Nation_," he said.

"_She won't even answer to her own name_," Hakoda said sadly. Ogan reached out a broad mitt and clapped it onto Hakoda's shoulder.

"_We'll get 'em back. I've got faith_," Ogan said.

"_I wish I shared it_," Hakoda admitted.

"...that the Avatar will be our figure-head; I've heard that the boy died months ago!" one of the Prelates countered some unheard statement of Kuei's, her dark eyes pulled down in disbelief.

"The Avatar is very much alive. Well, he looked somewhat sickly when we left him, but..." Kuei said.

"This would be the time to stop talking," Sativa said flatly. Kuei nodded and shut up. She took a step forward, into the spot he abdicated. "Hello. You know who I am."

"King Bumi, you should remove this demon from your hall! She is an enemy of my country!" the First Citizen of Three Hills demanded.

"Nope!" Bumi said happily, as he and his relative exchanged Pai Sho moves so rapidly it seemed that they weren't even letting the other make his own; not exactly true, since every move they each made was legal.

The First Citizen fumed. Sativa just stared the pompously dressed man down. She then looked up and down the table. "There are some I do not see. Where is the Matriarch of Kyoshi? Where is the Lord Mayor of Chin?"

"Both annexed by the Fire Nation," Wahid answered, nodding grimly. "Along with Merchant's Pier. We've gotten word that they've occupied Senlin as well."

"So you see the dire importance of swift action," Sativa stressed. "We can fight together, or we can die apart. Even bereft of the spiritual calamity that the Earth King speaks of, you must at least see that simple truth."

"And what? We should pledge _our_ armies to _your_ mastery?" the King of Chul asked, suspicious.

"We fight together, or we die apart," Sativa said once again. "Are you so willing to fall into that second category?"

"I am not," a new voice came from behind them all. All turned, and noted a dusty, scarred and armored woman who was moving through the doorway and into the hall. She looked in her middle age, but the harshness of the elements had leathered her somewhat. There was a snarl which Hakoda turned to see came from the aged Sultan, who tore the scimitar from the belt of one of the white-robed Darvesh attending him, and strained toward this newcomer, only to be held back by Piandao. The woman smirked at that, letting herself come to a halt. "I see that the Nemesis still holds me in high regard."

"I should kill you and feed you to the beetles for what you have done to my subjects!" Wahid shouted, straining but not gaining ground past the stalward swordsman. But the barb, which Hakoda could tell was intended to enrage the woman, simply rolled off of her back. Hakoda glanced around her, confused. Sativa in particular looked shocked to see this person here.

"Enough of them already have been," she said. She looked the Dragon of the East in the eye. "And only now do I face the thinking mind of Si Wong in person. Such a pity that you had to be born under such louts. You would have been a splendid Noyan."

"I had heard you crushed by the beast inside a girl's skin," Sativa said. "Khagan Khatun. Or should I simply call you _Borte_, as you have doubtless lost so much of your clout."

"Less than you would hope," Borte taunted. She glanced to the Sultan. "And as much as I would like to exact a fine retribution for the deaths of near two hundred _thousand_ of my Tunghaut and Darga, I know that this is not the day for revenge. There will be more than enough time for that after the fate of the world is not in such dire jeopardy."

"You cannot believe this madness," one of the other royals, a Grand Duchess from the swordsmen flanking her, said. Borte's dark eyes flashed at the royal.

"Believe it? I have SEEN IT!" she shouted. "I have tasted the ashes of it! I have felt the sting of it! I looked into the heavens and beheld the end of all things there! So if I must align myself with the likes of _them_," she pointed unkindly to each of Sultan Wahid and Sativa Badesh, "to ensure that my people are not destroyed as thoroughly as my army was, then I will do so, without a moment's compunction. And so should you."

"Oh, gods damn it, where did that come from?" Zha Yu complained at the Pai Sho table. "...I'm going to lose in ten moves."

"Don't start a fight you can't finish, my boy," Bumi chastised with good humor.

Wahid stopped straining against Piandao, and faced down his age-old enemy. "So you would put up your bows from our backs? What benefit is there to Dakong, beyond the obvious, to joining us? Why not simply wait out, and allow others to pay that high price?"

"Because I know that if _nobody_ pays it, then _everybody will_."

Bumi rose from the Pai Sho board, confident in his imminent victory and addressing the group. He cleared his throat, rubbing a hand down his beard, and waited for silence to fall, which it only did when it became abundantly clear that the mad old king's patience was starting to wear thin. Finally, he raised a ring-bedecked hand into the air, and said, "Dessert will be served in half an hour! Make sure to keep a fork."

"And the army?" Zha Yu asked at the ancient monarch's back, as he still focused on the board before him.

"That? Oh, right. The Dragon of the East can have Omashu's armies. Since she's also got the Dakongese already, that makes a force that can't be sniffed at," Bumi said in a dismissive tone, as though it were of little consequence. Then again, to Bumi, it very well may not have been. Ogan stepped forward.

"We can fight 'em," he said. Hakoda caught his arm, and the stocky man turned back. "Hrm?"

"You _can_, but you _won't_," Hakoda said. "We've been away from home too long, and we've lost too much already. The men should return to Chimney Mountain."

"All due respect, Chief," Ogan said, shrugging Hakoda's hand away, "...no."

Bato nodded at Ogan's intractability. "_His son is out there, Chief. He's not going to stop now, even to see Sedna and Benell. Would you stop, knowing that it meant you wouldn't see your children? Or find Hikaoh?_"

He had to admit, Bato had a point. Hakoda nodded slowly. "_Any who wishes to be part of this task-force, volunteer; I won't order you away from your homes after all you've done for so long_."

Ogan turned to one, then another of the men under his de facto command. He pointed out two. "_You. You. No children to carry out the line if you die_," he said to the two youngest of their war-party. The older was only twenty winters old. "_Go home. We can carry this_."

"_But_..."

"_He won't order you. I will_," Ogan stressed. The youngest, those without wives, or if possessing wives, without children began to filter out of the mass, forming a knot independent of the older hands, those who had lost the most of everybody left. Hakoda knew for a fact that every person who wasn't selected for a return to the South Water Tribe had lost somebody the day the Fire Nation stole their children. Some, like pale-eyed Sajuuk, had lost more than most; he lost two sons and a newborn daughter all in one fell swoop. Ogan turned to Hakoda. "There's your men. We'll fight."

"Alright. Chimney Mountain, Alulbitavut, and Rough Lee-Havavut will be part of the Black Sun Invasion," Hakoda declared.

"An army lead by Tribesmen? That's absurd!"

"No, your face is absurd!" Bumi said, before bursting into laughter. The grown men all shared a confused look at the immaturity of Bumi's comment, before that snorting bray died instantly, and his mismatched eyes glared at him. "You're not laughing at my joke. You don't agree with anything that's being said. You're just being difficult. I don't like difficult people in my kingdom."

"Is that a threat?" the pompous princeling demanded. Bumi stared, unblinking, until the arrogant ass fell silent, and then sat back down. Bumi turned to the others, a cheerful smile back on his face.

"Alright! You've heard the plan! It's not like any of the rest of you have anything important planned for the Day of Black Sun. You might as well join with us."

One of the Grand Dukes sighed, shrugged, and stood. "This is madness," he said simply.

"I've done better with madder," Sativa pointed out.

"A lot of people are going to die," the Princess of some land that Hakoda had never visited, notable mostly for the almost South-Si Wongi tattoos which ran up her hands and arms if not the coloration of her skin.

"A lot more will die if you don't," Zha Yu said, before letting out an 'aha', and making to move a Pai Sho piece, before pausing, groaning, and sliding it back.

The Grand Duke glanced to one of the rulers opposite the table from him, then to the Earth King who was standing silently at the foot of the table. Hakoda was just happy that the naïve young man had managed to do so for so long without fidgiting. "I have often heard if you're going to do something crazy, it should at least be bold. You'll have my cavalry."

"If Hu Rudong bids its cavalry, the City of Katapesh offers its marksmen; you shall not find better," the Princess offered. After that, begrudging but sincere offers of support for this crazy, bold plan. Hakoda started doing the numbers in his head. And when he realized the force that they were gathering, it made him smile, just a bit.

There was a pretty good chance that they could pull this off.

* * *

><p>Azula glanced toward the Avatar as he sidled up closer. Ty Lee had gone off, happily nattering on with the waterbender and the female airbender whom Azula had no recollection of. "You look pretty happy to be here," Aang said.<p>

"I am," Azula said, watching her oldest friend, and feeling as a tension which had been felt for far, far too long bled away from her. "It's good to see she's alright."

Aang nodded. "What happened in that world you lived in?"

"Which one?" Azula asked with something of a dry chuckle. "In one, you're waterbending paramour bested me on the day of Sozin's Comet, while you tore the soul out of my father. In the other, well, _Ty Lee_ was the Avatar, and I don't know what became of my father."

"Where was I in that one?" Aang asked.

"Probably a century dead," Azula shrugged. "Every morning, I wake up and the sun fills me with power, and I know that if I wanted to, I could probably burn you down to soot. But... I don't want to. Because I know that I have to let that go," she said. She leaned back against a wall, and he leaned opposite her. "I've spent a lot of years angry. I'm tired of being angry."

Aang nodded, slowly. "Tell me about your children," he said quietly. Azula glanced up, not expecting that line of conversation from him. But then again, it was probably on his mind the same as she was on Azula's.

"Chiyo was... Everything I wanted in a daughter," Azula said. "I didn't realize it until it was almost too late, but I did. Daichi on the other hand... I made mistakes with him I shouldn't have. Should have known better than to. At least his father was there for him; he grew to be a good man, even if he did have a strange fetish for Eastern women. Maybe it was because he wasn't a firebender, that I couldn't connect with him. Chiyo was almost as strong as _I_ am with her fire. I wager she was even smarter. But... She was stubborn. And when she got it into her head that her mother deserved a degree of vengeance, there was no force in the world which would dissuade her," Azula said. Her eyes drifted toward the floor. "Katara killed her, to keep her away from you. She didn't want to; I know that about her, and I knew it about her then. I was just too full of grief and rage to care. Chiyo didn't give her an option."

"But your daughter..."

"Was thirty years old when she died," Azula finished. Aang gaped at her for a long time. Azula nodded. "And to this day, I still see her as the golden eyed little girl who just wanted her mama to carry her. Motherhood. It's a strange disease. You wanted to know if I blamed Katara for Chiyo's death? Not anymore. Chiyo was her own woman. She made her own decision. It just took me a long time to realize that."

Azula glanced aside as the waterbender in question appeared around a corner. She shot a look somewhere between annoyance and concern toward the Avatar, before showing one which was mostly wariness toward Azula. As well she would. "The sisters are getting a meal ready for us. But we shouldn't stay here too long. We don't know what their mother would say to having you under her roof," Katara said, most likely to Aang. Possibly to Azula as well.

"She always was kind-hearted," Azula noted.

"Which makes me confused as to why she'd ever be friends with you," Katara said bitingly. Azula didn't rise to the challenge, though.

"Nobility have few friends. Royalty, less. I just happened upon Ty Lee one day when Mother and Father weren't paying attention. She was... bright. Happy. She lit up the room by being in it. How could I not be friends with that?" Azula gave a motion toward where Ty Lee was dragging a confounded looking Si Wongi up a hallway, even as she talked at around a thousand words a minute. "But you're not wrong. I've never had what I deserved until I was cast down, and even then, I found ways to mess it up."

Katara tilted her head aside. "Why are you even here, anyway?" Katara asked. "I didn't think you'd fight your father."

"My feelings regarding my father don't factor into this. If I don't side with the Avatar, the world dies. Since I want to live, it's in my best interests to help him."

"That's a poor reason. What would keep you from stabbing him in the back the moment that the world isn't under immediate danger?" Katara asked. Azula sighed, and shook her head lightly.

"You wouldn't believe the answer if I said it," Azula said. The waterbender's look, though, clearly said 'try me'. "Very well. I'm tired of failing. Two times in two lives I've fought against you. Two times in two, I've been crushed like an insect. I don't want to fight for the losing side anymore; I'm _tired of failing_."

"We're not exactly the winning side, here," Katara said. "We've got no real plan, not many people helping us, and the best ally we have in the Fire Nation is probably you. Which is really sad."

"Give it a month or three. I know how this ends," Azula said. She glanced up at Katara. "For what it's worth, I will not hold a grudge for your humiliating me. Beaten by a waterbender, that often, when I was that _powerful_?" she shook her head.

"I don't trust your reasons," Katara said plainly.

"You don't have to," Azula said. "Only he does."

Katara turned to Aang, whom Azula was pointing at. "I don't like this."

"You don't have to," Azula repeated, continuing to point at Aang. "Only he does."

Katara fumed for a long moment, then turned to Azula once again. "Did... I really kill your daughter?"

"Yes, you did," Azula said. "But by the time it happened, your reasons were fairly valid."

"If she was thirty when she died, when did you have her?" Aang asked.

"A few months after getting out of imprisonment," Azula said. She shrugged. "It was a simple matter of seducing the guard. A perfect seduction is one where one promises everything, delivers nothing, and receives anything. A failed one is the opposite. I'd call mine a 'qualified success'."

"Hey, Katara. Hey, Aang. Hey Az... Yup, still not used to this dynamic," Sokka said as he appeared 'round the corner that Ty Lee had come from. "Talking strategy? Mind if I butt in?"

"No, she was talking about how she got out of prison," Katara said. "By being a tramp."

"A tramp is a woman who is a slave to her lusts and will entertain them to her own detriment. I used mine like a scalpel," Azula countered. "Besides, I got Chiyo out of it. It was... worth it."

"Do you know who her father was?" Aang asked.

"Oh, yes," Azula said, remembering the memory. It was still fairly vivid, even after all of the intervening years.

"Who was it?" Katara asked, sounding begrudgingly if genuinely curious. Azula shrugged.

"Well, she had my eyes, my fire, my general appearance. She was closer to her father's complexion, though. She had his intellect, his rock-headedness, and his laugh."

"Anybody we know?" Sokka asked.

Azula gave him the most loaded look that she had available of her many, many looks. Katara caught on to it pretty quickly.

"Oh, Sokka! How could you!" the waterbender asked.

"What? How could I what?" Sokka asked.

"With Azula? Really?" Katara demanded.

"I didn't do anything!" Sokka pleaded. There was a clearing of the throat from the corner, and Azula spared a glance to an annoyed Si Wongi standing there. Sokka's expression drooped. "There's no good way out of this, is there?"

"To his defense, he was in his twenties when it happened, and on a rough patch with his paramour. I simply turned it to my advantage. He never knew that he had another daughter, and I was in no hurry to inform him," Azula said casually, while everybody stared either gobsmacked at her, or annoyed at Sokka. "Have fun with your current mistress," Azula said.

"Slim chance of that," Sokka said. The Si Wongi moved closer, giving a dry look to Azula as she grabbed Sokka's arm and pulled him away from he group, while holding her own ground. Azula was fairly certain that the Si Wongi was measuring her up; either for a fight, or for a coffin.

"You," Nila said, "are not his type."

The Tribesman looked positively relieved as the woman started to haul him down the hallway. Azula turned to Katara. "If you want a strategy, talk to my brother. He's speaking with the mistress of the house; from what I recall of Gwen, she always was a shrewd and pragmatic type."

"I think I will," Katara said, backing away from the Avatar and the Fire Princess. She paused, though, before turning, and pointed a finger at them. "Don't you corrupt him, though!"

"Don't _corrupt_ me?" Aang asked, and Katara, likely realizing how idiotic that sounded when put to the air, blanched and darted out of sight. Azula laughed in that quiet, superior way that she preferred to. Aang shook his head, and turned back to her. "So... Are you...

"You're attracted to me, aren't you?" Azula asked.

"What? No! I mean, you're pretty and I'd kiss you if my life was on the line and... Oh monkey-feathers this isn't what I'm trying to say at all! I'd..." Aang stammered and sputtered. Azula smirked.

"Avatar, I am effectively ninety eight years old. Any relationship I had with somebody 'my own age' would be robbing a cradle, and not worth my time."

"...Well, I'm technically a hundred and fifteen, so I'm still older," Aang countered, obviously not going to bend his path.

"I've done this before. Have you?"

"...well..." Aang said.

"I've had children. A husband. A life. _Three_ lives," Azula said. "And honestly, I don't know if this is even the right time for any fledgling romance to begin with. The world might well end in two months. What would be the point?"

"That time is so precious is the point," Aang said, neither desperate nor anxious. Now that the words were out, it seemed, they weren't shackling him. "It's better to have a good thing, even if you aren't sure that you're going to have it tomorrow, than to have nothing forever."

Azula had to admit; the Avatar was not wrong on that. But she didn't answer it. She just let the two of them lapse into silence, punctuated only by a gust of wind that rattled the window-shutters nearby. There were voices in the house, but they were all muffled by walls and more. They might as well have been alone. But for each other.

* * *

><p>"Alright. Can we talk about what happened back there at the Air Temple?" Sokka asked.<p>

"I have discussed it at length with Malu. Those were Shards of the Imbalance which inhabited her. You have an uncommon resistance to them, which will be invaluable when..." Nila began, but Sokka cut her off the only way he knew how, by clapping a hand over her mouth. She glared at the interruption, but didn't, say, shoot him. He considered it a win.

"I was talking about before that. You know. What we _did_?" Sokka asked. Nila blinked a few times.

"Oh. That," she said, flatly.

"THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!" Sokka declared, more out of a long-standing need to vent his utter confusion of the meaning of it; he might not have been the most empathetic or insightful, but everything about what he'd learned growing up said that there were ways of doing things. Ways which were... not honored. "I mean, we're barely even going out! I didn't even know you were _interested_ until earlier that evening!"

"So you do not wish to repeat it?" Nila asked, somewhat confused.

"Whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Sokka reined his tone in.

"I should think you wouldn't," Nila said. "It was less unpleasant than I had been lead to believe."

"Less unpleasant? That's about the cruelest compliment I've ever gotten, and I've gotten a lot," Sokka said dejectedly. Nila sighed, and sat down beside him on the bed, shaking her head.

"And you often wonder why so many people throw bricks at my head," Nila said. "I have misspoken. It was... good?"

"Nope, ego's still deflated," Sokka said. He leaned back, laying on the remarkably comfortable mattress and staring at the ceiling. Nila lounged beside him. "I'm just... Why didn't you _stop_?"

"I did not wish to. I believed that you would be limiting our progress to your favored pace," Nila said. Sokka turned to stare at her. She seemed to... was she blushing? No. _Nila_ didn't blush. "I was progressing at the rate of innovation."

"...so both of us thought the other was going to blink first," Sokka said. "Well, that explains a few things. Like that thing you did with your..."

"I had heard it described by Gashuin's friends. I wanted to see if it was possible," Nila shrugged. And now Sokka was growing increasingly sure that she was blushing. She seemed a bit darker of complexion, after all, even if her expression didn't match it.

"We're a pair of idiots, aren't we?" Sokka asked.

"So it would seem," Nila said, a very subdued smile on her face. "I assume from your annoyance that you still wish to attempt a relationship?" Sokka gave a look of surprise, as he was about to assume that she'd assume the opposite. She rolled her eyes. "If there is one lesson that I have learned from being around you and your Avatar, it is to presume that my first assumption in social situations is wrong. Does my initial assumption ring true?"

"Yeah, but we should probably take thing a little slower from now on," Sokka said, scooting up and pulling her close. It probably wasn't obvious to see her, but just having contact made her... unwind. The clockspring-tightness of her muscles started to loosen, and she _relaxed_. "You know. If you don't mind."

"Not in the slightest," Nila said, her voice somewhat distant. She turned up, glancing to him with one bright green eye. "And I do apologize for the bite. I have _no idea_ why I did that."

"I think _I've_ got an idea," Sokka said happily. Well, that was a pleasant development after a lot of unnecessary tension. He even told her that very thing. Nila chuckled.

"Do you think that other 'couples' have to deal with this nonsense?" she asked.

"Probably. And they don't even get to be smart about it," Sokka said. She snorted. "...soooo. Want to do it again?"

"...did you not just say?" Nila began.

"I'm joking, I'm joking," Sokka said. She shook her head, and nestled close. Sokka stared out the window, into the rare blue sky that peeked through the clouds beyond. "Although, I've got to say, you _were_ telling the truth," Sokka said.

"Hrm?"

He glanced down at her, a wide grin on his face. "You really _weren't_ wearing any underwear."

* * *

><p>As much as the Fire Palace was an architectural marvel – it was built by hand, log by log, lacquered panel by lacquered panel, rather than in a great afternoon of earthbending – there was one thing which could be said about it and those buildings which mimicked it. It was both drafty, and filled with places for somebody to hide. The roofs were a particular nightmare given the weather of the Fire Nation over the last half-century and more. When the Deluge began, they leaked furiously. Once the leaking stopped, they were gusty. Once the gustiness was fixed, the tiles were torn off by wind in an embarrassing fashion. And when that was fixed, there was a lot of room under their peaks.<p>

Enough room for, say, an assassin to skulk.

Yan Rha didn't think himself the kind of person in that kind of threat. Any enemies, he reckoned, would be Tribesmen or those who bore Tribal sympathies. What dug at him, though, was the waiting. As much as he didn't like the idea of rebelling against a sitting Fire Lord, he'd still preferred to have done so immediately. This waiting around was bad for his heart, he was certain. But Zhao had been adamant that they await the perfect moment, when Ozai was at his weakest, his most depressingly demented. Not that it would probably take long. Yan Rha had heard a few rumors in his time in the Capital City.

He poured out a measure of ginseng tea, taking a whiff of its biting aroma, before starting to sip at it. They would probably act tomorrow, likely at mid day when Zhao and his confederates were at their strongest. Yan Rha flared a bolt of flame into his free hand as he paced around. It wasn't as strong as it would have been in his youth; time was seldom kind to firebenders. But he would persevere.

He picked up the instructions, all writ in an encrypted code that Zhao had provided a key for. A key which existed only in Yan Rha's memory. His set of preparations were already complete and in motion. It would fall to the others to do their parts. He continued to sip, and he felt himself fatigued. Soon, he'd have to sleep, unless the ginseng perked him up again. He sat down, wondering what he'd do with a Fire Lord owing him the very throne; at the very least, he could finally be rid of his harpy of a mother who found ways to intrude on his life every moment he wasn't aboard a ship. Zhao would probably smile when he gave the order for her execution. Yan Rha would probably be smiling, too.

He stifled a yawn, drinking the tea faster. When he still felt tired, he sat in the chair, faced away from the desk with the documents on it. Not suspicious in the least; most would simply believe it naval orders. Those had to be encrypted to prevent falling into enemy hands all the time, for most of the orders which came from the Joint Chiefs of War at least. His eyes felt somewhat leaden. Well, what was a moment's sleep?

A flicker of movement caused his eyes to stir, to snap back open. A man had dropped from the ceiling onto the floorboards near where Yan Rha was sitting. His eyes went wide as he recognized the Tribesman. They almost relaxed when he then realized it was likely Ozai's pet waterbender, but the look on that pet waterbender's face didn't allow such relaxation.

"What do you want here, Child?" Yan Rha asked. Or tried to. His words, surprising even to he, came out as a mush.

"You shouldn't have taken children from their parents," the waterbender said darkly. "And more importantly, you shouldn't have lied about it," he said, producing a blade, long, straight, and shining in the light. "I don't appreciate when I'm lied to."

Yan Rha could neither move nor shout for help. His eyes flicked down to the cup, still cradled in his paralyzed hand. Poison! That fiend! The Tribesman pulled his arm back, cocking for a thrust which would end an old firebender's life. As he did, he said something which Yan Rha couldn't understand. Then, the blade flashed forward, and a life ended.

What Kori – or Ked, perhaps – had said? "_And this is for my 'mother', you son of a bitch_."

* * *

><p>The smell was getting to General Mung, that was clear. It drove a spike into his brain and tapped on that spike with a ball-peen hammer with the ever rising rhythm of his heartbeat. It wasn't just the river; the diesely stink of the river punt was adding to a melange which would have made him sick to his stomach had he not become used to it. But it didn't prevent the headaches. There was a reason why he came down here as infrequently as he did.<p>

"Jang Hui in sight, General," the pilot said, as he steered the punt through the slime. The lines they cut in the scum closed back on themselves quickly enough, but left a long, black trail heading back up the river to where their river-craft were maintained. That trail would slowly move past the village, in time. "Pulling us in."

"Of course, of course. Let's make this quick," Mung muttered, rubbing at his chin as he often found himself doing. The scar that the Tribesmen gave him was clear, there; they'd almost cut his face off with those cruel, sharp knives, and the stitches which held it together from the field hospital prevented it from healing properly. Thus, Mung had a road-map of twisting scars all over his face. As there was little he could do about it at this juncture, Mung just accepted that it gave him something of a menacing air.

The punt bumped into the floating jetty, and Mung was the first one off of it. The other punt and the soldiers atop both followed soon after, stomping up the ramp toward the center of this so-called fishing village. Mung was aware, though, that the eyes that followed him were more intent than once they had been. As Mung rounded a corner, a young man wearing some sort of blue turban was standing in his way. He turned toward Mung, thunking the butt of his fishing gaff against the floorboards with seeming deliberation and threat. But while the act spoke of malevolence, the youth didn't follow it up with anything of note. He just stared at Mung as the general and his guard fell still. "What are you staring at, boy? Get out of my way," Mung demanded.

The youth did back up, letting the general past him. But the way his gaze lingered on the military men just didn't sit right with Mung. As he tried to keep an eye on the youth with the gaff, going so far as to turn his head after him, he found himself bumped into – hard – by somebody passing in his path. "Watch where you're going!" Mung demanded. The grey-haired man glared at him from under a blue turban, but didn't say a word. He simply waved a hand, a grandiose permission to pass him by. Mung's jaw set. Something wasn't right with Jang Hui.

He continued through the 'streets', such as they were, and the obvious became apparent to him. Every adult he saw, was wearing one of those blue turbans. The women backed away, not out of fear but simply giving the soldiers a wide berth. The men formed a wall with them. And most concerning, the number of them seemed to swell. Last time Mung had been here, less than a tenth of the population had come to their jetty. Now, it seemed like all of them were in attendance. And eerily silent, all.

Mung finally emerged from a bubble of those blue-turbaned, ghoulishly silent hillbillies, to reach the center of the village, where once great stalls had sold some of the finest fish available to the Fire Nation. "I'm here for our promised share," Mung said. Xu, the crazy old bastard in charge of the store, was the only person that Mung had seen who wasn't wearing one of those silly turbans. There must have been a sale on them, or something. Xu gestured to the rack of fish that sat alone on a table. Mung scowled at the old man, then moved to the offering.

"This is... adequate of quality," Mung said. Down-playing, of course; the fish of Jang Hui was, obvious here, the finest one would find in the Fire Nation. This was a shining example of such. But better to keep one's bargaining position clear and wide open. "But we'll need more if you want as much of the medicine as you claim."

Xu nodded, rubbing pensively at his patchy mustache and beard, while another young woman stepped forward. Mung moved back to his quartermaster. "See to it that an appropriate amount of medicine is delivered. A hard week's work is to be commended, after all," Mung said sarcastically. He turned back, just in time to see the woman in the blue turban lash forward with a fist, and hurl a bolt of fire into the crate of fish. Mung's eyes widened as the seafood immediately caught ablaze, and the light that it cast against the grey, dim afternoon was all the more shocking for how quickly it burned. "...what are you doing?" Mung demanded. The girl just stood there, a hard look on her face, under her Agni-damned blue turban. "You realize you've just damned your people to even more hardship? Well? Answer me you idiot bitch!"

Mung made to back-hand her – distasteful as striking a woman was, there was an empire to maintain – but his back-swing was caught by the man who was likely the girl's father. Mung turned his glare to the villager and his odd headwear. "Release me at once, peasant."

"Not today," the man said. Mung glanced to his side, and noted that the crowd had taken one step forward, creating a claustrophobic shell around Mung and his men. As much as Mung's guard were eight of his finest firebending soldiers, the Jang Hui villagers outnumbered them at least a dozen to one. So that was their intention?

"If you value your lives, you'll stop this at once," Mung warned. They didn't heed him. They took another step inward. "This is your last chance! If you don't release me this instant, your treason will be punished, and punished _fiercely_."

There was a brief silence, while several of those near Mung parted, pulled back, to where a different young man from the first was leaning against the post of a long-vacant stall. Despite his casual posture, his nearly-black eyes were as incisive as daggers, and his wild hair stuck out from around his blue turban. He rolled the sprig of barley in his teeth, before shaking his head. "Maybe?" he said. "But not by you."

Mung almost got a scream off, but the crowd crashed in on the Fire Nation soldiers like a dam breaking, and they were swallowed by the tumult. His soldiers didn't even get a chance to blast more than a single bolt of fire apiece before they were mobbed and dragged down. One, who had struck a young woman in the shoulder, got gutted by a fishing-gaff for his trouble. Mung could feel hands pulling on his face, hands digging over his eyes. Hands pulling him down. Hands beating him to a pulp.

"This is just the beginning," Jet said, over the angry backs of the mob, which was now simply and mercilessly beating their oppressors. "We've got to make sure they never come back again! Let's destroy that factory!"

"For the Blue Turban!" a cry raised from the crowd. It was taken up by most of the others, but not by the youth who, ironically enough, was party to the symbol's invention. Jet turned to Mai, who had vanished into the crowd, yet now reappeared at his side. She gave him a glance, even under her own invented headware.

"Didn't think it'd catch on so quickly," Mai pointed out.

"Don't underestimate the power of a symbol," Jet said with a shrug. He looked out over them, as they ran down for their canoes and their boats. "How far do you think this is going to spread?"

"If we're lucky, all the way to the Burning Throne," Mai answered him.

* * *

><p>The morning came, and most of the group was up with the sunrise – which due to the thunderstorm howling outside wasn't exactly a nice one – refreshed for having actual beds to sleep on for a change. Aang looked around those who had yet gathered around. Two of the Baihu sisters were in attendance, the acrobat and the one that creeped Aang out a little. She looked exactly like her siblings, but her eyes were as cold as Summavut ice. And that was the one that Zuko had spent much of last night plotting with.<p>

"We've got a plan," Zuko said.

"That's usually my brother's line," Katara joked. And when she looked around, she spotted the obvious. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Heck if I know," Toph said, lounging on her back with her feet up a wall.

"Soka's plan forms the basis," Gwen began, but Katara cut her off.

"Sokka."

"...right. _Sokka's_ plan forms the basis of this; you need allies and a straight path through Azul. We've got a couple of ideas of how to cross the mountains, but that'll come later, assuming you even survive the first few steps," Gwen pressed onward. She unfurled a maritime map and pointed at one of the islands. "This should be your first destination."

"What is it?" Malu asked, leaning over it.

"Boiling Rock," Zuko said flatly. Aang frowned at the solemnity of that. "It's a supremely secure prison, built in the crater of a semi-active volcano. The water which pools in it is heated to a scalding temperature. You wouldn't last ten seconds in it before being boiled to death."

"So why are we going there?" Aang asked. "That sounds like a terrible place to go."

"_We_ aren't going anywhere," Zuko said. "It comes down to those who can infiltrate that prison. Frankly, you'd get picked out in less than a minute."

"So who's going?" Katara asked.

"You are," Zuko said. "Besides you, probably me, Malu here, Sokka and Nila... where are they, anyway?"

Aang could only shrug his ignorance at that.

"The objective is to release the prisoners, and create a full-scale prison break," Gwen said. Everybody, Zuko excluded, shared a look which spoke to how they didn't think that seemed like a good idea. Gwen seemed to have anticipated that. "Everybody in Burning Rock is a political prisoner or a prisoner of war with Summavut. Which is to say, a prison for the one shmuck they captured six years ago, some people who said something stupid, or didn't want to get killed by Tribesmen. Or so I thought," she opened a new scroll, and rolled it out. Aang skimmed down the names, and noticed that quite a few of them sounded Tribal, if a very immature form of it.

"Wait a second. I know that name," Katara said, pointing one out in particular. "Aalo? That's what Bato called his first daughter. The one which was taken!"

"As I'm to understand, that was the dumping ground for them. Shoved into a distant corner of the empire and left to rot," Gwen said with a note of distant distaste. Aang continued to read, but Gwen continued. "While I doubt that a hundred or so terrified teenagers will be of much use to you, I thought you should be prepared for that when you got there. The ones I'm more interested in are these two," she pointed to two that Aang had just reached.

"Whoa! That's the Matriarch of Kyoshi Island," Aang said. "And her daughter, Suki!"

Zuko sighed, hanging his head. "This one is my fault, so it's mine to fix. Although I distinctly recall _not_ sending her to the Boiling Rock..."

"You can thank Zhao for her transfer request," Gwen said idly. Zuko growled something under his breath, then continued.

"...and having another two hundred angry, disenfranchised political enemies wandering the countryside will probably give Ozai a few sleepless nights, if nothing else."

"I should come, too," Aang pressed.

Zuko stared at him for a moment, then gave a nod to Malu. She cuffed him upside the head. "Hey! What was that for?" Aang demanded.

"Look down," Malu said. Aang did as commanded, and saw that his headband had been dislodged smartly by the blow, and sat in a coil at his feet. He clapped a hand over his arrow, which prominently displayed the arrow on his hand. His other hand flew over that first, to much the same issue.

"...I see your point," Aang said quietly.

"You can't fight every battle," Malu said, her tone comforting, even if her subject wasn't. "And you shouldn't have to. We can take this one. You and the others, you can find a way past the mountains."

Aang nodded at that, and looked out the window. "When are we going to leave?" he asked.

"When the storm breaks," Zuko said. "We could use a bit of sunshine, and it'll be cloudy where we're going, we might as well enjoy what we can get."

* * *

><p>Gwen closed the door behind her, and gave a squawk of alarm when she saw her mother sitting on the edge of the bed. Much like her daughters, the matriarch of the Baihu family was dark haired and chocolate eyed, and her clothes spoke to a buxom physique, but she was... for lack of a better word, a little bit shriveled. While the color had returned to her face, and she was starting to gain back what weight she lost, it was obvious that it'd still be a long time before she was truly mended.<p>

"Mother? Were you up? You know you shouldn't be moving around in your condition."

"I am sick, not dead. Calm yourself, sweetheart," Mother said, the same tone of distracted warmth in her voice that she often had. The woman ran her fingers along a white leaf, which was tucked into a belt. The thing seemed to dim just a tiny little bit when she did. That, or Gwen was imagining things. "You didn't tell me we had guests."

"You needed your rest," Gwen said.

"I know that the Avatar is in this house, Gwen," Mother said, swinging her legs back into the bed, and scooting back so that she could sit up, and start to write a ledger against her knee. Gwen's eyes couldn't have gotten much wider. "And you didn't even call the Ghurkas on him. Not behavior becoming a Fire Nation noble."

"How did you..." Gwen asked. Mother just flicked a look in her direction. Gwen was once again reminded that while she was very good at the tasks of being the heiress to a House run out of sons, her mother was _the master_. "We..."

"Will give him all the help he needs," Mother interrupted, those dark eyes growing slightly hard. "If nothing else, a measure of _revenge_ is granted through loftier pursuits. And do replace my flowers. They are wilting."

Gwen nodded. Daddy died during the brutal purge of House Loyo Lah, not because he was of it, but because he happened to be in the wrong place at the worst time. Mother had taken it... poorly. Gwen picked up the vase of pale, drooping lotuses and paused at the door. "Is there anything else you need?"

"A sunny day would be nice," Mother said with a small smile tossed to her daughter. Gwen couldn't help but chuckle at that. Agni's blood, but it was good to have her mother back.

* * *

><p>"The reports from the nurses have just come in," somebody – Zhao didn't much care who – said over his shoulder, handing him another sheaf of hastily writ papers. He buzzed through them quickly.<p>

"Good," Zhao said. "We will probably be in an idea place to strike in less than a week."

The door to the room slammed open on the heels of that statement, and Admiral Chan was standing at the threshold, his chest heaving for breath, and he dribbling a river of rain-water onto the floor. Zhao got to his feet; as much as Chan was a hide-bound traditionalist, he was also a practical one. If _he_ decided something needed running about, it really needed running about.

"What is it?" Zhao asked.

"It's Admiral Yan Rha. He was found dead!" Chan said. Zhao's eye twitched, all the more evident as one was locked of expression. "He was found, stabbed, in his bedroom."

"Ozai is onto us," Zhao summarized. He pointed out the window which was at the moment shuttered. "Are your fleets inside the Gates of Azulon, yet?"

"Yes," Chan answered.

"Good. It's hardly ideal, but we can proceed now," Zhao said. He straightened his back, and stared into the future. "The Fire Lord falls tonight, or we do."

Chan clapped a fist to his heart, and turned away to give the orders that required giving. Zhao turned to the only one he cared to learn the name of currently in the room. She raised a delicate brow toward him. "There is bold, then there is impetuous. See that it is the first, and not the second," Akemi told him, before continuing her calligraphy.

"And are _you_ ready?" Zhao asked. Akemi smiled, a small, practiced smile.

"I was born ready."

* * *

><p>Sokka stared at the ceiling, almost heedless of the thunder outside. Mostly because of the other sensations which were dominating his attention. First and foremost amongst them was the feel of flesh, which was draped along his chest. He could see with the barest glance down the tattooed hand and arm of his Si Wongi girlfriend.<p>

"...we've _got_ to stop doing this," Sokka said simply. Nila turned toward him, her expression for once no shade of angry or annoyed.

"It is proceeding perhaps too swiftly," she agreed.

"I mean, seriously. We've got to stop doing this, or..."

"I'm not a fool. There are safeguards in place," she said. And then she tucked in close once again. "Do you think we'll be leaving soon?"

"Probably," Sokka answered. "...should we, maybe, separate, take different rooms?"

"Probably," Nila answered him. For obvious reasons, he didn't really want to go through with his own idea. And she probably sensed that. "But not tonight."


	45. Boiling Rock

"So how are we going to get in?" one figure, draped in saturated cloaks, asked.

"Through the front door is an unpleasant but simple means," a woman at his side pointed out.

"That sounds like a terrible idea," the one alone of them who wasn't completely soaking wet pointed out. "If we charge in there, people are going to get hurt, or maybe even die. We've got to have a better way in."

"Well, I can fly," one pointed out.

"We're aware," the first woman said flatly. "That doesn't negate the difficulties we shall face once we are in. One alone amidst that horde will be an asking of a death-wish. Doubly so if any view you literally dropping out of the sky.

Another barged into the cave, throwing back the hood of a cloak and staring around the sheltered cave, and those that hid within it. "Have we come up with a plan yet?" Zuko asked.

"We've got three ways in, but only one of them doesn't involve flying," Katara pointed out.

"And one which doesn't involve fighting our way _in_, as well as _out_," Sokka added.

"I was referring to being 'captured', you hulking dolt," Nila muttered. Sokka feigned shock and hurt. "But that will have it's own difficulties. I will only be able to bring in one explosive, for example..."

"Always thinking about your bombs, aren't you?" Malu asked.

"Of course," Nila said as though it were elementary. Then again, for her, it probably was. Zuko waved a hand at her, one he hoped was dissuading without being dismissive.

"What we're doing isn't going to need explosives," Zuko said.

"That is not a promise you can make so easily," she pointed out. "There are few situations which cannot be resolved with sufficient amounts of high explosives."

Sokka laughed at that, then got a very concerned look on his face, which honestly brought a chuckle to Zuko. But only one. "Still, I'd like to avoid that if I can manage it," Zuko stressed. He turned to the waterbender. "What was your plan?"

"The prison's surrounded by boiling water, right?" she said, pointing out the obvious.

"Water we can't drain without killing everybody in the prison," Malu repeated what Toph had told her. Zuko knew why: the water was the only think keeping the brutal heat of the volcano at a somewhat manageable level. Between the boiling and the recondensation, a massive amount of heat was dumped harmlessly away. Remove the water, and that place would bake in minutes. And it would take more than minutes to get everybody they wanted out, out.

"So we just walk along the surface," Katara said simply.

"The surface which is almost boiling hot, and threatens to steal the breath even as it burns you to the bone? That surface?" Nila asked, a hand cast toward the exit Zuko had just come through.

"I can keep the water solid even at the boiling point. I've practiced," Katara said. She pointed at Zuko. "As long as you keep the heat from broiling us, I can get us to the prison walls."

"Then I get you over them," Malu said, seeing her part in this.

"Exactly," Zuko said. The problem is there isn't much plan after that..."

"We'll improvise," Sokka said with a shrug. "We're going into this the same way we came to the Fire Nation. And on the whole, that's turned out better than we thought," the Tribesman said. Zuko had to agree, if begrudgingly. Since returning to the Fire Nation, he'd gotten his sister back. Maybe not in the way he'd have liked, entirely, but an Azula which could and did thank him, for all that he'd done to try to help her, an Azula who was strong enough to take care of herself, was worth all of the gold on the Earth. "We get inside, we find out what we can do to stir the pot, and then we get everybody we can out of there."

"Including the Matriarch and Suki," Katara said with a nod, and a look toward Zuko. He could only sigh in annoyance. His problem, and now, he had to undo it. Pity it wasn't nearly so easy as creating it had been. Though, that seemed to be the way of things."

"Alright, we've got... something like a plan," Zuko said. He turned to the airbender. "Can you fly through that steam?"

"I once flew through a firestorm. A bit of steam won't even touch me," she said, before striding toward the door. Zuko looked at those who'd agreed to join him on what might have been as suicide mission. Only the Avatar, Toph, and Azula had declined to come. The first because he was too obvious, the second because her handicap might get her noticed or killed, and the third... Azula just said that this place brought back too many bad memories. It probably helped that she was almost as recognizable as Aang was.

"If we pull this off, we'll essentially be kicking off guerrilla warfare against the Fire Nation. Are you prepared for all that that means?" Zuko asked. The Tribesmen gave stern nods, with cold eyes. Both of them had been at Summavut, and knew what that meant. The Si Wongi shrugged, not really caring about how serious he found it. "Alright. Let's start a war," he said, and not happily.

It was not with eagerness, but with grim resolve, that the teenagers walked out of the cave and turned to face the great pillar of steam which wafted away to the northwest, reaching down and rooting in the crater before them. The prison might as well have been invisible, for all the steam that obscured it. Boiling Rock. The most secure prison in the Fire Nation. And they were going to waltz in, steal all of its prisoners, and bust out again.

"...This is going to end _terribly_, isn't it?" Zuko asked.

"Welcome to Team Avatar," Sokka said, clapping him on the shoulder as he started his descent.

* * *

><p>Zhao walked with strident step through the halls of the Royal Palace. Officially, he was a guest here. Well, as of this moment, he didn't consider himself a guest, so much as... well... it's owner. So to put it in a colloquialism, he walked like he owned the place, and people noticed. There were few left to notice, as Ozai'd had a field day sacking if not outright banishing most of the guard, the staff, and the bureaucracy. Akemi's warnings of his madness were evident in the hollow feeling of the halls, if nothing else.<p>

"Are they ready?" Zhao asked idly to Kwan, who walked a pace behind him. The man's droopy, resigned face didn't seem either eager nor outraged that he was a part of this deed. He bore it with the same sort of weariness that he woke up with, and went to sleep with.

"The Children's barracks has been surrounded. Any attempt to break through will be dealt with."

"And what about their castle garrison?" Zhao asked.

"Not contained like the barracks," Kwon admitted. "They'll be trouble."

He shrugged. "Better a little trouble than a lot of it. I have no doubt that an army could defeat a few dozen barely-trained teenagers."

"You were almost beaten by a 'barely trained teenager'," Kwon pointed out, without glee or malice. Just stating a fact. Zhao's smirk faltered somewhat at that. The man was right. He turned his burnt eye toward the man.

"_Make sure_ they're contained. I can't have them undoing what I intend to do today."

"As you command," Kwon said.

"He is slipping into madness further with every passing day," Akemi, who kept stride on his right side, pointed out. "In the past night, he has railed against his daughter when he did not know I was overhearing. He believes that she haunts and judges him."

"As well she should," Zhao said. "Azula is nothing but a boon to the Fire Nation; even in his madness he's aware of what he has cast away."

"If we confront him now..." Akemi said, before pausing. She turned toward him, as though she were trying to gauge him. In fact, she probably was. "He will probably be defensive. He will call for the Children. Unless I can distract him from doing so."

"What do you propose?" Zhao asked, his one remaining eyebrow raising.

"That I do as I said I would," Akemi said. She moved before him, and held a hand out. He came to a halt with his chest at the palm of her hand. "Give me but five minutes. I will have him... ready... for you."

"Of course you will," Zhao said. Akemi bowed her head to him, and then turned, walking to the end of the hall, and through those great doors into the chamber of the Burning Throne. Everything that he had ever done was leading to this moment. He knew that as well as he knew fire, or as well as he knew the face he now wore. The scar had been a warning, one delivered from an invaluable source, never to underestimate one's enemy, nor act with heedless rashness. He'd gotten the brand over his eye by failing both at the same time.

Everything was, nevertheless, falling into place. Those admirals of less-than-sure loyalty to Zhao's cause were being corralled, surrounded, and outgunned by those more trustworthy. Generals were finding their lines of communication cut off. Messengers birds vanished into the clouds never to be seen again – at least, not without a Yu Yan arrow through them. Even as much as Ozai claimed to be the Fire Lord, as of this morning, _Zhao_ was the one running Caldera City.

The minutes ticked by with interminable slowness, but he persevered. Patience was a virtue which had been demanded of him by a firebending master of his – one he had fairly recently killed. How ironic that after his death the truth of his lessons had become clear. Jeong Jeong had warned Zhao that his recklessness and his avarice would be the death of him. Since Zhao had put a leash onto both, he had not only survived past what Azula had prophesied for him, but he now stood poised to protect the Fire Nation from an even greater threat. He knew that the Black Sun Invasion was coming. And with him at the reins of power, instead of this insane idiot, they would not fall; the Avatar wasn't going to bring him low, not on the day of Sozin's Comet, or any time else.

Finally, Zhao began to walk once more. His cadre, those of the firebenders most clear in their vision of what was wrong, and what must be done, came with him. Zhao had no illusions that Ozai was going to step down without a fight. And he needed a symbol that he wasn't an upstart, that he wasn't just another power-maddened noble making a grab. That he had legitimacy. He strode past the threshold, into the chamber of the Burning Throne. Akemi was the faintest outline of a woman, two places to Ozai's left; the blaze which separated he from they licked at the very ceiling.

"What is this?" Ozai demanded, his voice carrying the distance to where Zhao came to a halt, easily two paces ahead of what common courtesy and respect would have dictated. And more shocking to their delicate sensibilities, he did not bow.

"This is the end," Zhao said. "As representative of the Joint Chiefs of War, you have been decided unfit for your post. You will be removed."

There was a long pause, then a burst of uproarious laughter. Ozai rose and strode through the flames which parted as he came. "You cannot be serious. I am ruler of this nation by the provenance of Agni Himself! You are just some commoner who knew how to fight orange haired heretics and waterbenders."

"I did what you couldn't. The people respect that," Zhao said calmly, a smirk growing on his lips. "What they _don't_ respect, is the growing madness manifested in your actions. You are a threat to the security of the Fire Nation. And you will stand down and abdicate your position, or else face the unpleasant consequences."

Ozai's eye twitched, and then he tore forward with both arms, lightning searing into being in the one cycle it took him to do so. The firebenders by Zhao's side parted, darting behind pillars, as Zhao took a quick gauge of where Ozai's bolt would land. Even for entering middle age, Zhao was still quick on his feet. He'd had to be, after so long and so many harsh fights. He bounded forward, and slid under that bolt that streaked over his head close enough to cause those hairs not tied into a phoenix-tail to stand on end, and the crack of it to deafen one ear. Still, Zhao avoided it, and when he came up, it was to his own hands twisting through a motion.

When he stood, it was to lightning at his fingertips.

When he cast out a hand, that lightning had direction.

It streaked out and slammed just past Ozai, not best aimed; Zhao hadn't had much opportunity to train with the skill, since he'd wanted as few as possible to even know he was capable of it. Still, the blast of the bolt hurled Ozai forward, landing him at the base of the dais. He let out a snarl, and tore the ceremonial robes from his back, revealing the muscular form of a warrior above warriors. His hair, dislodged by the rough launch and landing, now dangled down past his shoulders. His eyes glared with untold fury.

"You will _die_ for this treason," Ozai screamed. And then, he started to blast fire forward.

And when it hit, Zhao was ready for it.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

**Boiling Rock**

* * *

><p>"Where is she?" Katara asked, as she swiped away the sweat which pounded out of her pores with every passing moment, trying to combat the hot, wet air, and obviously not coming close to succeeding. "She's supposed to be up there by now."<p>

"Are you sure you're going to be alright here?" Sokka instead asked Nila, who was starting to mix chemicals together where she sat in a nook of the rock. Nila spared him a glance, and pointed to her eyes.

"Both of these make me an obvious fraud. You might pass for a Hillman, Tribesman, but I could only be Si Wongi."

"So you'll be ready when we need you?"

"Oh, I intend to be," Nila said with a smirk. The smirk went flat and she nodded up toward the walls which rose up into the steam. "There is a need for haste, though. These bombs will surely become less useful as the wet enters them. I would prefer as large a blast as possible, if the need comes."

"You and your explosives," Katara said, shaking her head in a way which clearly said 'typical', but not in words.

"May well be your salvation," Nila continued for her, now refocusing on her chemistry.

"If Malu doesn't show up soon, the beach guard's going to find us," Katara muttered. "One girl can hide. Two and two boys, can't."

"Just have some faith in the airbender. She has shown a reliability in the past," Nila said with an off-hand gesture. Zuko leaned back, and brought the vast expanse of the wall back into view. There was a clattering sound that came down its face, one rattle at a time. Then, Zuko could see it's source. A rope-ladder had been fed down between what seemed to be rows of sarcophogi jutting out of the wall. It tapped to it's full length about four feet short of the ground. Close enough, he figured.

"There's our way in," Zuko said quietly, and beckoned after him. Sokka hesitated to whisper something to Nila, but her answer to him was a sort of amused glare, which got him to shrug as though in falsified innocence. He wasn't long after Zuko and Katara.

"Katara, you go up first," Sokka said.

"What? Why?"

"Because you're the slowest climber and I'd rather all of us be on the roof as short a time as possible," her brother explained. Katara gave a grunt that she understood his reasoning, but didn't appreciate how he'd spelled it out. She nevertheless awkwardly scrambled up the ladder, making about a third of the pace that Zuko knew he could make.

"So... How much of a chance do you figure we have?" Sokka asked.

"Next to zero," Zuko said flatly.

"Really?"

Zuko nodded. "Vanishingly close. So close it's essentially the same thing," he continued.

"...you're never optimistic, are you?" Sokka asked.

"How did you guess?" Zuko answered his question with a question. Agni's blood – and having met her he knew exactly how damaging that could be – but Zuko was slowly turning into his uncle, it seemed like. Sokka had the same wan, unimpressed look on his face by the time Zuko started to ascend after the Tribesman's sister. He started when she was about three quarters up, and mounted the lip only a few seconds after she did. Zuko didn't wonder that Sokka was probably right on his heels. When the two did mount the lip, though, there was a peep of alarm from Katara, which was followed by a yelp of it from Zuko when they both beheld that there was a red armored and bucket-helmeted guard standing in front of them, arms crossed before her chest, glaring.

"...This _really_ isn't what it looks like," Zuko tried.

"Huh. Good to know that these disguises are bulletproof," the guard said with a grin, and tipped up her visor to show the dull grey eyes of the physically older of the two airbenders alive in the current day.

"_What_ proof?" Katara asked.

"Ask Nila," Malu said. She reached down and tossed something to Zuko. "Put that on fast. They won't question guards walking around the way that they would people sneaking."

Zuko could see the point in that, but he sensed that Sokka had a hand in deciding this part of the infiltration. Sure, he let her think she was coming up with it herself, but the Tribesman had a smug look on his face when she did. He pulled the armored pauldrons over his shoulder, and hid his face behind that bucket helm in a matter of less than a minute. In that time, Sokka had likewise joined him on the rooftop.

"Alright. As soon as you're both ready, we can–" Malu began, only to be cut off by an alarm sounding from one of the towers.

"One of the Tribal girls is trying to mount the wall! There's a ladder down the wall!" the cry came out, distant and quiet against the klaxon. That alarm spread to the other towers, excepting the one they were atop, a din against the steam which had Zuko palm his helm.

"It's always something, isn't it?" Zuko said. Sokka froze for a moment, then plunked his helmet on, and tackled his sister.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Katara shouted, struggling against him.

"You're going to have to trust me!" Sokka whispered urgently. "Come on! She's trying to escape!"

Zuko saw his ploy, and joined him, grabbing one of the flailing legs of the waterbender, while Malu caught the other. They were still trying to navigate her flailing self toward the stairwell which lead down into the building when a swarm of guards, all dressed identically to the outfits which Sokka, Malu, Zuko, and unfortunately _not_ Katara wore. They formed a half-circle around the waterbender, and the supposed guards who'd caught her, some with fists forward, others with truncheons in hand.

"Stop resisting or you'll spend a _month_ in the cooler," one of the real guards shouted at them all.

Katara flicked a glance to Sokka, one which Zuko only barely saw. As he pressed in, making it seem like she'd bucked one of her legs in on her chest, he whispered urgently to her, "Don't waterbend, whatever you do. We'll find some way to make this work," Zuko promised. Katara glared at him. And then bit her brother's hand.

"OW! She bit me!" Sokka said, dropping her torso to the floor, and prompting the guards gathered around them to swarm in, grabbing her arms and dumping a bag over her head, before bearing her to the ground. It wasn't as easy as six people subduing one teenage girl should have been. Then again, Katara _was_ a Tribesman. There were other people swearing, some of them nursing bites or bruises from elbows or kicks by the time she was finally to the floor.

"These vermin just don't know when to give up, do they?" one of the guards said. Zuko instantly reached aside for Sokka, pressing him back and reminding him not to do something stupid. The guard turned down to Katara. "Alright. You're going into the cooler for this one."

Katara belted out a stream of Yqanuac profanities which probably would have gotten her killed on the spot had the prison guards known what they meant. As Zuko did, and they didn't, it was all the more embarrassing. Finally, now only requiring four to bring her along, the guards bore her down the stairs. Zuko had almost gotten down, but he and Malu were called short by a squat, broad built man with a trimmed beard which was apparent below the visor of his helm. "That was a good run-down. She didn't even make it down to the shore," the guard-captain – Zuko had to assume, anyway – told them. "I don't know why they keep trying. It's not like the water outside isn't _boiling_, after all."

"Technically, it's scalding," Malu pointed out.

"I can cook robster in it. The distinction doesn't make much point after that," the guard-captain waved her comment away. Zuko, though leveled a glare at her. She might be blasé about her own life, but damn it all, there was a lot more at stake than that now! She followed Zuko with the wave of guards which descended into the bleak grey iron of the prison facility, and they two parted company of most of them to follow Sokka, Katara, and the guard-captain as he brought them into the part of the facility that Zuko had noted as the hanging sarcophagi. They had a lot of piping associated with them.

"_Where are you taking me, you swine?_" Katara screamed in her own language. The captain pulled the bag off of her head, and motioned for Sokka to press her to the wall. Sokka hesitated.

"Well? Are you new here or what? Follow my orders," the man said. Sokka swallowed, then slammed his sister cheek-first into the bulkhead. "Good," the man said, and started to play with valves, before sliding open a pair of doors. As the second one opened, a wave of cold fog drifted out of the chamber within. The condensation from the breaths of an unknowable number of prisoners clung to the wall as ice, some dripping down into tendrils which tried to reach for the floor. "Did you know that the Tribesmen here hate the cold almost as much as we do?" he asked Malu.

"I didn't know that," she said. He flicked an eye to her, and she added a belated, "sir."

"Well, it doesn't matter how hot your blood gets. In a place like this, it cools off in a hell of a hurry," he said, and grabbed Katara by the back of her shirt. With his other hand, he undid her arm restraints, then her legs, before pulling her out of Sokka's grip and chucking her like refuse into that refrigerator. "I'll leave you to your shivering, barbarian."

Katara glared at the man as he slammed the inner door shut. Zuko glanced at his retreating back, and whispered into the refrigerator. "Are you going to be alright?"

"This isn't even cold," Katara said, at a quiet mutter, despite pulling her limbs in against the 'not cold'. She gave a look to he and Sokka who looked in. "I'll be fine. Find Suki and the others."

"We'll get you out of there... somehow," Sokka said. He then slid the outer door closed slowly, before he started toward the guard captain. The man turned, as though he knew he was being followed, and pointed a finger at them.

"You, guard that cooler until the Warden arrives," the captain ordered, pointing at Sokka and Malu. He then turned his finger toward Zuko. "You... prepare to let one out."

"Which one?" Zuko asked, hoping that he wasn't expected to know the procedure.

"Everybody's favorite," he said with a smirk, before backing up a few steps and pounding his fist against the outer door of the last door in the hallway. "Wake up, Kanshow. Time to face your... adoring public."

"Go to hell, Kozo," a remarkably familiar voice said from inside. But Zuko couldn't quite place it. All he knew, was that it was from a long time ago.

"You might want to watch your tone with me, Kanshao. You're not the boss of me," he said, before turning and striding toward the door in a huff.

"...not anymore," Kanshao's words came out quietly. Zuko moved to that door, and slid the outer hatch open before peering inside. The man inside was gaunt, his cheeks high and his mouth wide. His eyes were the same sort of pale grey that were common amongst Azuli nobility, and his hair, though long and ratty, had much the same luster that he'd seen on another, fairly recently.

"Well? Are you going to let your former Warden out, or aren't you?" Kanshao Loyo Lah asked dryly, past blued lips, glaring up at Zuko.

* * *

><p>Smashing through the fire was easy enough, but the troublesome part of it was how when Zhao was on the other side of the fire, Ozai was not. The fire in the trough before the Burning Throne had died completely, so Akemi was clear to be seen. And she gestured simply in one direction. Taking that cue for what it was, Zhao started to race after the fleeing Fire Lord.<p>

"I never knew you were such a coward, Ozai!" Zhao shouted ahead of him.

"I am not a coward, you useless child!" the response came back, which would have confused Zhao had Akemi not briefed him on the content of the man's delusions. The shouted retort was enough to tell Zhao to slide to a stop just before crossing a corner. Because he did, the blast of fire which corkscrewed and twisted down that way didn't do more than warm up his toes. Zhao bounded into the gap that the fire left in it's exodus, and swept his hands around again, before releasing a fresh bolt of stunning, unbelievably powerful lightning. Again, Ozai had to dodge aside, but the blasts were knocking him off of his balance, and knocking the wind from his lungs.

Zhao's smile turned into a dark rictus of brutal glee as he pressed forward, slamming out blasts of fire directly at Ozai's face; few indeed were the people who wouldn't put even more effort into protecting their face than they would their life. The only problem was, Ozai was capable of it. But still, keeping the Fire Lord on the defensive was just as sensible strategy to hold. If Ozai couldn't counterattack, then Zhao had very little need for defense in his strategy. The current-and-soon-to-be-deposed Fire Lord smashed away those bolts of fire, before sweeping 'round a corner and for the moment, out of sight.

Zhao thrust an arm toward a servant's path, and those who were trying to keep up with him took his meaning. "Cut him off before he can reach the Children," Zhao ordered. There were a few scattered affirmatives, but the true testament to his leadership was the barrage of footfalls which immediately pelted for that corridor. Zhao, though, pursued his quarry more directly. He raced round that corner, prepared for an assault to intercept him. Instead, he could see Ozai rounding yet another corner, and not nearly as far ahead as a man of Ozai's physique should have been capable of. Zhao wasn't about to look a gift hound in its teeth, though. He took good fortune when it fell to him.

Zhao's feet beat a hasty trail, skidding to a stop even as they tore the lightning into being, and launched it forward, his plane-flat hand describing a perfect line from one firebender to another. An easy shot, and an inevitable hit. Only when the lightning launched, it struck into a swiftly upthrust block of stone from the floor. The lightning bolt shattered it, as well it should have, but the interference was both annoying and troubling; that meant the Children were already responding.

Zhao was already running when he saw that his bolt was going to be caught, and was bounding the remnants of that rubble by the time the smoke cleared. He launched forward with a firebending empowered knee, which caught the fat earthbender girl in the chest with his armor plated leg. The clang of metal into metal was resounding, but his impact was more than she could take so easily. She was hurled back against the wall of the 'T' intersection, and when Zhao followed up that first smash with a blast of fire directed straight into the center of her chest, he didn't have to look back to know that the earthbender wasn't going to be getting up any time soon. If ever, at all.

"You can't hide behind these little boys and girls forever, Ozai," Zhao shouted. "And you're a coward to even try!"

There was no answer to him, but for the sounds of distant combat. Zhao's conspirators entering the fray against the force of the Children, no doubt. It was a shame that they'd decided to fight him. Zhao was certain, from what he'd seen of the Children, that they'd be useful in his rulership just as they had in Ozai's. If not more so, since Zhao wasn't a _complete incompetent_. Zhao took that moment of silence to think about where Ozai would be going. The answer fell on him like a roofing shingle after a storm.

"The bunker," Zhao muttered. He swept his arms 'round, and thrust them straight forward, blasting away part of the wall which the fat earthbender was slumped against. A much faster path then having to go around. And his legs started to pump once more, bringing him across the guts of the Royal Palace. Even if he couldn't intercept the coward Fire Lord before he reached them, Zhao was certain that, once cornered, Ozai would crumble quickly. There was only so far a man could run, after all.

* * *

><p>On the other side of that palace, and drowned under a torrential rain, a firebender was working her forms. She might as well have been on another continent, if not another planet, for all she paid attention of the goings on of the palace, though. Her entire focus, her entire being, was in the movement of flickering flames, in the thrust, the shouts of angry effort. In the firebending.<p>

Every day, it got harder. Some of the more difficult things she'd mastered were now completely beyond her, and she didn't know why. Even some of the simplest of katas, of attacks, were now becoming cripplingly difficult. She let out one last blast, which petered out as her scream did, a dying flame that couldn't have frightened a juvenile wolf-bat, let alone a determined fighter. She growled, and turned away. "There's something wrong. Is it the rain?"

She stared up at the water which fell down into her face, the intensity of it having long ago stripped away most of the paint she tried to hide her racial identity with. Only long white streaks, directly under her eyes, remained. She thought about that notion. The rain did seem especially cold today, much as it had during her thankfully brief stay near Henhiavut. That didn't make a lot of sense to her. Was the cold of the rain interfering with the heat she needed to bend? Or was it the simple thickness of the clouds which was cutting her off from the sun?

She let out another grumble, and cast her hand wide in annoyance. "What is wrong with me! This is supposed to be easy!" she snapped. Then, she looked up, and saw how the light in the contained lanterns danced. Yoji blinked at that sight, then down to her hand. A scowl of confusion turned into suspicion, and she drew that hand toward herself, beckoning from the nearest of the lanterns. The flame, obedient like a trained serpent, cut its way free of the waterproofed paper and drifted toward her, until it rested in a burning globe above her hands.

"This is... odd," she said. She started to experiment, though; if nothing else, Yoji was not lazy nor uninventive when it came to her martial arts. She tried to expand the flame, pump more of her chi into it. That didn't seem to work, though, not the way it should have. The fire simply became more unstable, tearing like some sort of Azuli cutting torch. She abandoned that attempt, and the globe reasserted itself, although this time slightly larger.

"...what if I do this...?" Yoji asked, and she extended her control not simply to pushing power out, but to... tug at it. To pull it like toffee. She grabbed some metaphysical seam in the edge of the flame, and she pulled. She grabbed its equal and its opposite, and pulled on that as well. And as she did, the glob got larger. She could feel the fire flowing out of her, but it wasn't the way she was used to. She wasn't pressing it out. She was giving it somewhere to go, and it was doing the work on its own. "Strange."

She tried to hurl the thing away in a blast, but rather than becoming a column of flame which would sear along the rain soaked stones, it hurled away like she was throwing some sort of burning rock. It slammed into the ground a short distance away, and then promptly exploded, causing some of that rock to fly at random, a chip biting into her ear and causing her to recoil, a hand clapped over it. The dark fingers came back slightly slick, before the rain washed that blood away. It didn't matter. This was something new.

She looked at another candle, and beckoned the flame toward her again. Once again, it obeyed. She placed it into her palm, and then tried to ignite a similar fire over the other. It was more arduous than it should have been. But once it was made... it quickly took on the appearance of the first.

"What does it mean?" Yoji asked. And she turned her back on her Fire Lord, his palace, and her duty to both. Because this needed to be explored, more than _anything_.

* * *

><p>Mai stared, her mouth open slightly, at the sight that lay before them. Jet couldn't resist the urge to reach over, and press up on her chin until her mouth closed. Of course, not the smartest action, as she now turned a bit of a glare at him. He let it roll off him like the rain.<p>

"Are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking?" Jet asked with a cheer that he hadn't felt in a very long time. Mai just shook her head, and looked forward once again. The two of them, side by side, looked over the force of peasants, farmers, fishermen, the salt of the earth, as they rampaged through the port city of Hachiman. And oddly enough, rather than being diminished by the town guard cutting them to shreds with impunity, their numbers only swelled when they hit a populated center. Hardly what Mai would have expected. Just about what Jet did.

"...I think we might have gone a bit overboard," Mai offered, blinking lightly, as a mob of Blue Turbans descended onto one hapless Imperial Firebender, beat the hell out of him, tied him up, and threw him into a gutter for later retrieval.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" Jet asked. "The people finally rising up against the Fire Lord?"

"Yes, but..." Mai threw up her hands in confusion. "Everything I know says that this is going to end terribly, for us."

"You should have a bit of faith," Jet said.

"Oh, and you'd be the authority on that?" Mai asked flatly. Jet just shrugged with an easy smile. "This might be a bit out of our control," Mai said further.

"Who said we were controlling it?" Jet asked.

She thumped him in the head. "Because if we don't, they might end up being more a hassle for us than the Fire Lord is, duh," she said.

Jet's smile faded a bit at that. "Yeah, you might be right about that."

Mai just watched the peasant army subverting and overwhelming the garrison, and shook her head. "I'm probably going to have to warn the Avatar about this. I hope you're happy."

"I'm always happy," Jet said with a grin. Mai gave him a look that, were it on Longshot, would have been interpreted as 'if you weren't so pretty, I would smack you'. That just made Jet laugh all the louder.

* * *

><p>Zuko snapped to attention as a man of obvious rank appeared, walking down the stairs to the coolers with a squad of his lackeys arrayed behind him. He was greying of hair, balding as well, and what hair he did have left was pulled up into a phoenix tail and set with the headress of his position. The well-trimmed beard and mustache twitched with annoyance as he stomped down the stairs, and gave a glance toward Zuko's cooler, before moving past it to the one Katara was now huddled in.<p>

The... warden, most likely... stopped before Katara's cooler, and leaned forward, to view her huddled form on the base of the refrigerator, before he turned a glare to Malu, who was now right beside him. "Where did that savage get those clothes?" he asked, his voice deep and his words drawing out.

"We're not sure... sir," Malu said. "She had them on when we found her."

"_I hope you fall into the lake_," Katara muttered angrily from the floor in her own native tongue. The Warden turned to her, and glared down.

"If you're going to talk in my presence, you will do so in a civilized language, or else not at all!" he demanded. "Stand up. Look me in the eye, child."

Katara did neither.

"Very well. An escape attempt is a day in the cooler. Insubordination, another day. If you survive both, you can go back to your miscegenated kind," he waved at her vaguely. He pointed at Sokka. "Return in two days. If she lives, let her out. If she doesn't, throw her into the lake."

"Um... yes... sir?"

The warden stopped, and turned, and stalked up to Sokka. Zuko's heart missed a beat, the way the older man glared into Sokka's eyes. He looked him up and down. And then, he reached out to tip up Sokka's visor. Even from across the room, Zuko had to restrain himself from flinching, from doing something that would blow_ his_ _own_ cover. The worry proved needless, though, as even as the Warden did so, Sokka pulled his eyes into a nearly-closed squint. "Show me your eyes."

"I am, sir," Sokka said. The Warden stared at him further. "This is as far as they open."

"...you're new here, aren't you?" the Warden asked.

"I haven't been here more than a day. It's been... eventful, sir," Sokka claimed, his almost comedically exaggerated Azuli accent doing everything needed to make him sound like some descendant of a Hillman. The Warden let the visor drop, and Sokka relaxed just a little as the Warden turned away.

"Most days are much more tedious than this one has been," he explained, as though giving grand and dispiriting speeches was a personal hobby of his. "The prison of the Boiling Rock has stood here for twenty years, and _never once_ in that time, has a prisoner walked out of its doors. You stand in what is surely the only impenetrable prison that rests upon this waking Earth," his arms spread wide, as though before a terrified mass. He turned toward Zuko. "We house the most dangerous criminals and fiends that the planet has ever produced; Tribesmen and traitors. One might as well be the other. That one is one of the latter."

"This one?" Zuko asked, pointing at the cell he was beside with feigned confusion. "Who is he supposed to be?"

"Why, he was the warden, once," the current warden said, as he walked closer, and leaned to look in at the shivering man in his dark red rags. Zuko glanced past the Warden's back, and saw that Sokka was reaching under his shirt, probably for the boomerang he kept hidden there. It wasn't like he could wander into a prison with a famed Piandao blade, after all. Zuko shook his head sternly and urgently. Sokka pointed at the Warden, and made a few almost impossible to interpret gestures which Zuko vaguely believed amounted to knocking him unconscious, and hiding under him like a pantomime dragon on their way out the door. Zuko just gave Sokka the flattest look he had in his repertoire for suggesting something so idiotic, even if he did so without speaking. The current Warden turned toward Zuko, and the firebender barely managed to turn away from Sokka in time to waive suspicion. "But he was one of the traitorous family, the Loyo Lah's of Azul. They sought to incite chaos and misery, to depose the Fire Lord and place their Coordinator on the Burning Throne."

"That's a lie," the former Warden answered the first's charge.

"Lie or not, it seemed... more poetic, to simply throw him into the prison that he'd spent all of these years building up. Nobody even knows that he's here. Can you think of anything more ironic than that?"

"Yes," Zuko said. The current Warden turned a look at him. "...because that technically wasn't a proper usage of irony."

"What?" the Warden demanded.

"Irony is using wordplay to say one thing but mean its opposite," Zuko pointed out.

"Or, as I was using it, to indicate a reversal of fortunes both diametric and complete," the Warden answered, and Zuko was a bit surprised that his attempt to tweak the man's nose both fell flat, and that he didn't explode into anger as he did. Sokka, standing by Katara's door, palmed his face. "Open the door. It is time for his true punishment to begin."

Zuko looked at the door, then over to the pipes and levers. He closed his eyes, trying to recall what they'd done before throwing Katara into her cooler. And as the steps came back to him, he executed them, one after the other. He had only gotten half way through, when he heard a grunt from behind him. "What?" Zuko asked.

"As usual, they overtrain their recruits for unnecessary tasks. You don't need to turn it off to open its door."

"Oh," Zuko said, and halted, before simply pushing the inner door aside. Kanshao got to his feet silently, glaring at his replacement, who was also the sole reason why he was still alive. Had this new Warden not had such an appreciation of literary tropes, it was obvious, he'd probably have been thrown into the lake rather than into the prison. Despite Kanshao being taller than the man who replaced him, the latter got into Kanshao's face, his fists tight.

"And if I hear any more about you trying to get the Tribesmen in on your little scheme, you'll spend twice as long in there. Are we clear?" the Warden demanded. Kanshao stared at him, not saying a word. The Warden scowled at him, then thrust a finger toward Zuko that he had to dodge aside from so it didn't poke him in the eye. "Guard, bring this worm back outside."

"Yes, sir," Zuko said, taking the back of the tunic's shoulder and pulling one of the only two Loyo Lah's left alive toward the stairwell that he'd descended. The steam and the overcast skies, together, made it almost as dark as night in that open courtyard, which was rounded by cells, and those cells surrounded by walls and a tower. The far tower, only visible by the lanterns which hung from it even now, was the one which caught Zuko's attention for a moment. That one played host to the trolley which bore guards, prisoners, and Tribesmen to and from the site. Well, the latter two didn't have the 'away' part quite as much.

Zuko made a point to not look like he was looking, as he guided Kanshao down the open balconies which ringed the internal walls of the prison. He could see where the guards frequented, spots of good visibility and difficulty of reaching from all but one direction. He could see Tribesmen, almost innumerable below; they all looked to be around his age, some slightly younger, a few slightly older, but one and all in that age bracket. There were a lot of them.

Zuko's distraction was enough that he didn't notice one of the other prisoners leaning against a wall. With a lightning-blow, he drove his fist into Kanshao's gut, causing the man to flinch back with a grunt of pain and escaping wind. Zuko pulled him back, and thrust a finger into the prisoner's face. "Hey! Watch it!"

"Fair game on the Warden," the prisoner said, turning away and sauntering back into his cell. Zuko just glared at him. There were prisons for the very most dangerous of the Fire Nation's population. _They_ were full of murderers, rapists, and all sorts of evil men. But this place? _This_ wasn't a prison. _This_ was a torture chamber. Zuko grabbed Kanshao's shoulder and started to bear him forward again, down the stairs to the level of the courtyard which stood broad and open in the dim light of this false twilight. He finally gave the former Warden a mild shove, to get him moving. His presence here wasn't exactly expected. And because of that, Zuko wasn't sure what his place in the final plan could be, if any.

Kanshao, though, just turned back at him, his eyes focused and scrutinous upon him. "I know who you are," he said, quite quietly. Zuko swallowed, but it didn't reach his face. Despite the near-whiteness of his skin and the mild hypothermia he had to be facing, the former Warden nevertheless broke into a small, almost smug, smirk.

Zuko turned to the Tribesmen, next, and tried to figure out how he was going to approach them, to get them to believe him that he could help them. He backed slowly toward the stairs, his eyes taking in everything before him. But, as it would happen, nothing behind him.

Before Zuko even had a chance to grunt in shock, he felt a loop of cloth zip down past his eyes, and tighten over his throat, even as he was levered off of his footing. The cloth dug in, and his fingers couldn't pull it out to give him the breath to keep conscious, but he knew he had a few seconds before the pressure on his veins was enough to make him black out. Even as he was dragged into a cell, he managed to twist his arms before him, separating the power into its constituent halves. But instead of giving it direction, slamming it out and away from him, he simply let the charge build up in him, focusing it only away from his heart and his brain. When the bolt could stand no longer, it erupted out of his whole body in a shockwave of lightning.

The cloth dropped free of his throat, and he landed on his back, somebody's foot next to his head. He blinked a few times against the blackness which had encroached upon his vision, before pulling in a breath that was long overdue. He pushed, slowly, against the floor until he was half at a sit. That was called to a close when a foot whipped out from the side to catch him right at the bridge of the nose with a sandaled foot. Had he not been wearing the helmet, it would have broken his nose, and probably put him right to sleep. As it was, it merely rung his metaphorical bell, and sent his helmet rolling into a corner.

Zuko rolled aside, and unsteadily rolled to his feet, his fists before him, but with only a fraction of the balance he'd need to deal with any sort of dedicated attacker. Which made it all the more confusing when he found himself faced not with brutes or wrath-crazed Water Tribesmen. No, he was standing opposite an auburn haired girl who was only around his age. A flick of his eyes showed that the woman on the ground looked very much like the girl, if older and greyer. She was only now starting to stir, groaning for the pain of that electrocution. As if she even got the worst half of it; it felt like Zuko's entire skin was on fire. Half way true, even. But the girl, she looked like she was going to put a fist through Zuko's head. Then, her eyes widened, and her stance changed slightly.

"Wait a second," the girl said. "I know you don't I?"

Zuko blinked a few times. And then, a dawning dread filled him. "...you're Suki, aren't you?" he asked.

Suki's blue-grey eyes pulling down into hateful blades was all the answer to that question he needed.

"So, I know this is going to sound a bit crazy, but we could really use..."

Which is when she kicked him in the head. Sort of a good thing; Zuko wasn't sure how he was going to end that sentence. And unconsciousness, for all its obvious penalties, meant that he probably wouldn't have to finish that awkward thought at a later time.

* * *

><p>Ozai had slowed from a sprint to a forceful stride, his eyes burning even as fire dribbled from his hands, landing with almost oily splats when they hit the ground. Chi wasn't supposed to burn in that fashion, but at the moment, Ozai wasn't exactly the portrait of mental health or proper bending style. He just needed to reach the place where the Children would be waiting for him. And then, he would wipe out Zhao and his upstart rebellion in a twinkling.<p>

"Oh, really?" Azula taunted him, where she leaned with her back against one side of the threshold to his subterranean throne room, his bunker against calamity or worse. "And running away is such a mark of a confident strategist."

"You!" Ozai railed, storming up to her and thrusting the fingers of his burned hand around her throat as though to choke her out. But the instant that they would have caught her or slid through her, Azula was now leaning on the opposite side of the threshold, stifling a yawn poorly behind her hand.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be some kind of firebending phenom," Azula mocked. "Instead, I see only a tiny, terrified man lashing out at the shadows."

"This is your fault," Ozai shouted at her. And even as he did, he could feel the lie of it. His resolve quaked, as he stood there. "If you had just been what I needed, if I only had a strong heir, a powerful firebender, somebody to control the Azuli and the... and the mob... None of this would have happened, if you had just been strong!"

"That's a rationalization and a poor one at that," Azula pointed out. "We're not here because of me. I know that, because you know that. The only one who brought us here, today, is you."

"If you..."

"If I what?" Azula asked. "I was strong enough, if you only had faith. You could have been the beloved Fire Lord, trying to defeat a barbarian horde at the black sands while trying to juggle the poor, pitiful child. It certainly would have made you more sympathetic than you are now," Azula rose, staring him in the eye with the cold, cruel eyes that he had never seen on Azula's face. Childhood malice was nothing compared to the hatred, the scorn, the anger in that look, in those golden eyes, so much like his own. "Instead, you are a thug. Your people see you as a thug, and a crazy one. A leader snaps trying to protect his family and his nation? The people sympathize. A thug snaps? They put him down like a turtle-duck. And everything which has fallen today, has come because of _you_."

Ozai roared, lashing out with fire at Azula, and only managing to slightly warm up the iron she had been lounging against. A flick of his eyes now saw that she was standing to his side, between where he stood, the door at his back, and the path he had walked to get here. "You are the author of your own fate, Ozai. And you wrote this, from start to finish. You've sewn cruelty, both abroad and under your own roof. You reap, what you see before you," she waved her hands out grandiosely.

"You were..."

"Your daughter," Azula answered for him. "And I didn't deserve to be treated like a broken doll. I didn't deserve to be murdered."

Ozai stared at her. "You're still alive."

"Which doesn't negate the fact that you ordered my death. You did that. You failed the 'sweeping victory over the North'. You banished your children. You exiled your wife, the only woman whom you could call your intellectual equal, out of naked ambition. This wasn't about what was best for the Nation. This was about what was best for _you_."

Ozai backed away, until his back collided with the black iron doors. She advanced. "You don't know what you're talking about," Ozai spat.

"I know, because you know," Azula said, and she walked him backward through the doors, he retreating and pushing them open as he did. She stayed always a pace away, just outside of a punch, yet too close for his comfort. "Everything which has happened today was because of you. Including this."

Ozai's eye twitched for a second, but Azula began to grandiosely gesture behind him. Ozai slowly turned toward his throne, only to find that, at the moment, it wasn't his. Zhao, that traitorous bastard, sat in _his_ place. A rank of soldiers, red armored and bearing the scarlet flame helms of the Royal Internal Guard – a group which Ozai had in fact banished to the man – flared out behind the upstart general-turned-noble, a wall of solidarity which focused all eyes to a single point, to a single man, with a single burnt eye.

Zhao smirked.

"So you finally grace us with your presence?" Zhao asked both rhetorically and sarcastically. Ozai flicked a glance behind him, but Azula was only shaking her head, disappointment plain on her features.

"What is this?" Ozai asked.

"What you want," Azula said, trailing fingers delicately as spider-webs across his shoulder, before moving past him. "You want this."

"This is a coup d'etat, if that wasn't obvious by now," Zhao answered the question which Ozai had actually voiced. He rose to his feet, and his smirk became a maniac grin, of a man who knew that he held life or death in his hands. It was a look that had come to Ozai's face... often enough... since that night.

"I don't want this," Ozai whispered.

"Oh, but you do," Azula said, coming to a halt between he and Zhao. "You've wanted this for months. Ever since you made that choice. To put your ambition above your family. You wanted this? Well, now you're going to get it."

"What you want doesn't matter very much at this point, _Fire Lord_," Zhao said, twisting the last into an insult with his tone. He cast a hand toward Ozai. "Take that man into custody, on grounds of inability to rule by way of insanity."

"You can't do this to me," Ozai shouted at Azula, who now took a place sitting on the dais, her legs tucked beneath her, out of the way of the soldiers and the traitor himself. She smirked, then. A smirk so much like her mother's. The smirk of a devious mind, with a devious plan, and no chance for failure.

"And I haven't," Azula said. "You did."

"Take him now," Zhao said with finality. Then, there was fire and explosions, there were screams and roars and howls.

And in the end, there was a silence, but for the ragged breathing of a man completely overwhelmed by the number, the combined power of his former minions. Ozai, knees on his back, face pressed against the stone, could do nothing as he was locked in manacles.

He could do nothing against Azula's disgust, and her look of disappointment.

* * *

><p>Zuko opened his eyes, and found himself rubbing his throat uncomfortably even as the light slowly turned from indistinct blurs into something a bit more useful. After a moment, and the feeling of none-too-gentle cloth sliding over first degree burns, he remembered why. He'd almost gotten garotted. With a cough, he sat up, only to have himself be pushed back down by something squared into the center of his chest. The blur finally coalesced into the form of a teenaged girl, who sat on a stool, her blue-grey eyes hard as tempered steel. And she was holding him down with what amounted to a rogue chair-leg. Zuko groaned, and let himself fall back down. Of course, things were never easy for him. Zuko was a creature of luck, it seemed. Sometimes spectacularly good, usually unbelievably bad. It seemed to be swinging toward the latter, today.<p>

"Why shouldn't I kill you?" Suki asked him.

"Suki," her mother chastised, from her place leaning against the back wall. The Kyoshi Warrior fell silent, and her mother and Matriarch shook her head. "A better question would be, 'why is the banished Prince here'?"

"That's a bit hard to believe, actually," Zuko said. He tried to sit, only to be jabbed sternly with that chair-leg, which hurt a lot more than it ordinarily would have. She probably knew just where to poke to hit a tender burn. "Stop that!"

"I think I'll keep going, thank you very much. The least you should suffer for taking our sovereignty away should be a bit of torment," Suki said.

"I'm here because the Avatar wants me to be," Zuko said.

"That, I don't believe," Suki said.

"I'm here to break out the political prisoners," Zuko said flatly up at the two women. "I was told to bring you out as well, if I could."

"That has to be the most absurd thing that I've ever heard," the Matriarch said with a shrug.

"You'd never turn against your own Nation. You'd use it against anybody, but turn against it?" Suki shook her head.

"Look, I..." Zuko made to get up, so she clipped him in the ear with her billy-club. It hurt about as much as a blow to the ear should have. If it'd hit the other side, he might not have felt a thing. "Ow! Damn it! You..."

"I what?" Suki asked. She leaned forward. "Just do yourself a favor and admit the truth. We're going to get it out of you anyway. But I guarantee, you're not walking out of that door," with a thumb cast behind them. Zuko could see the perfection of Suki's habitation. He was tucked into the oddball cell which was built to accommodate an awkward corner in the five-sided structure. Thus, there was almost no visibility within it unless one were standing right outside it's door. Now how was he going to get out of this one. He racked his brain for a moment, and that moment was all it took. She'd taken a fire-blast for Sokka half a year ago. So there was probably some lingering feelings there. And even if there weren't, it was a known associate of the Avatar, so...

"Just ask Sokka when he gets here. He'll tell you the same thing," Zuko pointed out, resting his head on his hands cockily. "Of course, he might be annoyed that you slowed down his plan."

"Sokka isn't here," Suki said.

"Yes, he is," Zuko said, before giving a shrug. "There was a bit of a snag with Katara, though. She got found out on our way in. And yet, somehow, they didn't notice that she doesn't look like anybody else in here."

"You'd be surprised," Suki's mother said.

"If you want to talk to him, just go to the coolers."

"You're out of your damned mind," Suki pointed out.

"Probably at this point. Why else would I be working for the Avatar, planning to lead a strike force against my own father after sending it across the Azuli mountains? I mean, that's just _crazy_!" Zuko agreed.

The Matriarch gave a shrug. "Only lies and fiction have to make sense. Reality is seldom so restricted. But don't think that makes spouting absurdities offers you one iota more trust than that we haven't knocked your teeth in. You still took me away from my people, from her friends, and from our homeland. I'm not inclined to forgive that."

Zuko just nodded. "I can understand that," plainly enough. He looked up at her. "I made a lot of decisions I've come to regret over the last few months."

Zuko was cut off when there was a banging against the door to the cell, and a teenaged Tribesman wearing the same red rag clothing that all of the prisoners did leaned 'round the corner. "_Boss of once comes. Maybe he bring the cooler send squad_."

Zuko blinked at the Tribesman, since that kid was speaking _far worse _Yqanuac than even Zuko could. While he wasn't expert, at least he wasn't completely syntactically wrong. "_Thank you. Try to keep him busy_," Suki replied in that same language, and likewise, better than the Tribesman. That other prisoner nodded, and vanished from the door. Zuko considered the absurdity of a Fire National speaking better Yqanuac than a Tribesman, but the answer fell into his lap pretty quickly.

"Those are the kids that got stolen from the South, aren't they?" Zuko asked.

"Hey, don't change the subject," Suki snapped, but her mother waved a hand.

"They are," she said. Zuko nodded. That explained things. Without somebody to teach them their own language, it would have stayed 'stuck' at around a four-year-old's level, forming the current pidgin-mush that he'd just been witness to.

"If you extend a bit of trust, I can show you," Zuko offered. Suki raised a brow. "You've probably got a knife, since you're in prison and that's a practical given. Keep it to my back as we go. Just give me a few minutes of trust. It will be worth it."

The Matriarch seemed a bit skeptical, but Suki just stared at her cot, then to Zuko. "Alright. You've got five minutes. If I'm not convinced by then, you'll learn how fast a human being can bleed to death."

Zuko took his feet, and while the Matriarch obviously had something to say, she kept mum. Zuko could feel the knife pricking into his side, right between his ribs, just over his liver. Not the most ideal place to be stabbed. Zuko took a fistful of Suki's shirt, and started to pull her out of the cell. The gloom had lightened slightly, as the steam was eternal and sun never completely out. He kept feeling that knife, a reminder of past mistakes and breaches of trust. Not that Suki had extended very much trust toward Zuko. Not that he'd earned it.

The path he took brought the two of them up the administrative building, onto which was built the passenger trolley. At the moment, one of its carts was at the base and still, so there must not have been anybody coming. The path would bring her to where the others had agreed to rendezvous if things got rough; just under the roof-access that they'd entered the prison at. He moved up, releasing his grip on her shirt as the two of them vanished from public view. She didn't move her knife.

Zuko almost let out a sigh of relief when he turned the corner, and there was another guard there. The relief was because she had her helmet tucked under her arm, and her black hair was distinctive in its waviness, against the straight-haired backdrop of most Nationals. Malu turned, and the grey-eyes were the next give away of her mixed, airbender heritage. Luckily, few remembered that. Luckier still, they could be mistaken for Azuli. "Zuko? Thank the spirits. I was starting to wonder if you were ever getting back... Who's this?"

"Malu, this is Suki, leader of the Kyoshi warriors," Zuko said flatly. Suki gave a nod at that, not moving her blade. "Suki, this is Malu, airbender nun from the South Air Temple."

"Airbender? That's impossible. The Avatar is the last airbender," she said.

"Apparently not," Zuko said with a shrug.

"Kyoshi... Didn't you say that you – oh," Malu caught herself with a glance toward Suki. She tugged at her collar. "Man, wouldn't want to be you right now."

"She kicked me in the face," Zuko said, still flatly.

"He deserved it. Why should I believe you when you say she's an a–" Suki began, and Malu answered that question by sweeping the air into a ball, doing a complete circuit of wall, ceiling, wall, and floor before bounding off of it, kicking off of the wall and landing triumphant. The dispursed wind ruffled the clothes of those who were notably not airbenders. "...Okay, that I can believe."

"Sokka's still with his sister," Malu said. "I thought that you were taking a while, so I tried to get an aerial look, but with all this steam..."

"You flew? Are you crazy?" Zuko whispered harshly. "Anybody could have seen you!"

"Nobody saw me. And I wasn't flying. I was... well, walking. I don't know how you guys do it, all that walking around when you don't absolutely positively have to. It must drive you _nuts_."

Finally, Zuko couldn't feel that blade against his ribs. Suki was still as distrustful as ever, from the look on her face, but she had tucked that shiv away, no longer imminent of use. "Alright. Sokka might be here. But that doesn't mean that we're friends. You still did something unforgivable to my home and my people."

"Yes, I did," Zuko nodded. "And later, if we're not all worse than dead, I'll do something about that."

"Worse than what?" Suki asked.

"Oh," Malu raised a hand, waving it side to side in a vague gesture, "there's this big nasty thing that used to live inside my skin, only now it's out and actually making things worse than they were when they were inside me, and if we don't stop it before the end of summer, he goes like 'blargh!' and then he'll 'om nom nom', and then we're all non-existent."

Zuko blinked a few times in confusion. He leaned toward Suki. "...did you get all of that?"

"Was that a _language_ she was speaking?" Suki asked.

"I'm not sure," Zuko said. Malu rolled her eyes.

"Badness will happen. We try to stop badness. That starts with bringing down his Pop," she pointed at Zuko. Suki nodded. Malu pointed down. "I'll go get Sokka and watch Katara for him. He's the man with the plan, after all."

"Yes. Do that," Suki said, as the airbender kipped past them, put her helmet back on, and descended into the building. Suki turned to him. "Is she always like that?"

"Only when she's anxious, apparently," Zuko said. Suki gave something like a knowing nod. She took a step away. "Two minutes."

"What?" Suki asked.

"You wanted to know how quickly a human can bleed to death. Two minutes," Zuko reiterated. Then, he moved to take a gather of her shirt once more, for when they reentered the public eye. "And don't ask how I know that."

"Fair enough," Suki said, but he could tell, she wasn't quite ready to drop that topic completely. He just hoped that she forgot before he had to get more specific, mostly because it wasn't something he was particularly proud of.

* * *

><p>Sokka glanced up and down the hallway, confirming that he was in fact alone, before opening both doors to the freezer in which his sister had been thrown. She was kneeling on the floor on a pile of snow – notable since there was no snow when they'd put her in there – and the frozen condensation was nowhere to be seen. "<em>Katara<em>?" Sokka asked. Katara opened her eyes, looking supremely annoyed.

"_You just __left me__ in here!_" Katara whispered harshly in her native Yqanuac.

"_I had to find out of somebody else was supposed to get you out. Turns out, nobody signed for __this section tomorrow. Guess who's in charge of the 'cooler'?_" he asked. Katara just stared at him. He cocked both thumbs inward. "_This guy._"

"_Yeah, I got that_," Katara said, before rising from her place on the floor. With a flick of her hand, she whipped all of the snow that had cushioned her from a frigid base-plate, smearing it against the walls and ceiling before freezing it into place. It didn't look like there had been any appreciable loss of it, but Sokka was certain he could see the bulge of an icicle in the pocket of the clothes she'd been thrown into the cell in.

"_More good news_," Sokka said, and he held a slim hip-flask toward her. "_I found one of these in the confiscation room. Unless they get too friendly, they'll never find it_," Sokka said. Katara offered him an honest smile as she stepped out of that freezer, and quickly heaved out her pants so that she could stuff it into her underwear for the time being. She let out a yelp as she did. "_Oh, yeah. The confiscation room is right next to the freezers. Kinda chilly_."

"_You could have warned me!_" Katara griped, as she grabbed the outer handle of her former cell and slammed it shut. She glanced at for a moment, though. "_Funny thing is, that place kinda reminded me of home_."

"_...I know what you mean_," Sokka answered her, and started to 'escort' her rudely out of the freezer-block. "_You know, the way I see it, if we save reality, do you figure Gran Gran will be able to accept that as a proper penance?_"

"_Are you kidding? Even Uquais would accept that, and he's a __jackass_!" Katara said.

"_Your time in prison is already hardening you to the world, I see_," Sokka said. "_Less than a day in prison, and you're already talking like a prisoner._"

"_I am not_," Katara complained.

"_I'd say you are_," Sokka contended.

"Hey? You've gotta bin her shit," a guard said at them as they passed an open door. Sokka sighed, and turned Katara into a side room, which was guarded by that single, bored-looking guard. He'd hoped he wouldn't need to come in here. So much for that. Sokka blocked the line of sight to him for a moment, and made a silent gesture, before turning to the guard.

"We're due to turn loose the runner," Sokka lied.

"Fine. Just make sure you get her clothes," he said, not even looking up from the book he was reading. "Can't have her making another attempt that easily."

Katara offered him a glare – not for the necessity of nudity in public, as that was hardly a problem for a South Water Tribesman, but for not warning her what was coming. Sokka could only shrug. He grabbed a bundle of clothes more suited to a prisoner in this place, and showed her the open-sided booth where strip searches were to take place. In a way, it was good that the guard was so bored and uninterested at the prospect of seeing a woman naked, of any age or ethnicity. It kinda proved Aang's theory about them; they were just people, and they had standards just as anybody else would.

"_Malu said that she had a word with Zuko, and she was sending him to meet us_," Sokka told her quietly, standing in an impressive pose that his face didn't bare out. Katara just shucked one set of clothing and exchanged it for the other without incident or embarrassment. "_She sounded like she had some good news. Also, she checked on Nila. She'll have a bomb big enough to blow down the wall by tonight, and I don't think she's going to stop at just that unless we stop her_."

"Um... I was told to talk to somebody here about a prisoner being released today?" Zuko's voice came from Sokka's back. The one in charge just pointed idly, not even looking up from his reading. Zuko gave a nod and a quiet thank you, before turning, and having the golden eyes bug almost out of the helmet they were hiding behind. He turned, stammering and stuttering, apparently unsure even what to do at the moment. Sokka couldn't understand the reaction, until he glanced to his sister and noted that she was not currently wearing pants.

"I should come back some other time," Zuko said.

"Just a strip search. Don't get too excited. And _do not_ get grabby; Tribesmen look to their own pretty strongly," the only real guard in the room said with boredom, before casually turning the page. Katara just rolled her eyes and pulled on the baggy prisoner's pants, which was enough to get Zuko looking back in her direction, even if it was with something of a red face.

"You have no shame," Zuko whispered as he got closer.

"Tribesman," Sokka shrugged with his explanation. Zuko just shook his head, probably at his conception of the insanity of it all. "What's the news from the yard?"

"Malu didn't tell you?" Zuko said. "We found the Matriarch of Kyoshi and her daughter. But there's somebody else we need to consider."

"Who?" Sokka asked.

"The former warden," Zuko said. "If I know my bloodlines right, he'd be Mai's mother's brother. He's one of two of that family that's left. He could be useful."

"How?" Katara asked, as she pulled off her last layer of undershirt. Zuko made a strangled noise and glanced away once more.

"Could you... stop doing that?"

"Would you look at that? Tough, stoic old Zuko's completely undone by a bit of nudity," Katara chided.

"It's not proper!" he hissed.

"Eh, proper's overrated," Sokka said with a shrug. Katara couldn't help but chuckle at Zuko's utter flummoxedness, but she kept it quiet so that the real guard wouldn't suspect. After all, prisoners were _not_ supposed to laugh during an invasive and demeaning search of their person. She strapped the flask to her inner thigh and melted the icicle into it, giving her both ammunition and something to work with for her bending, and turned once again. A glance between siblings, rolling eyes of both.

"_You can turn around now_," Katara said in Yqanuac, so that the guard wouldn't be privy.

"I'm not sure I want to," Zuko muttered. "Ever, again."

"So the former warden?" Sokka rubbed his chin. "That could be really handy to have in this situation. If we could convince him to go along with our plan, he might know some way out that we haven't figured out. If nothing else, it'll make Nila's minimum bomb-size a lot smaller."

"Like _anything_ would stop her from making a bigger bomb," Katara shook her head.

"Hey, you can do a lot with a bomb," Sokka jumped to her defense. "Like dig up tree stumps. And get rid of squirrel-pidgeons!"

"Get rid of... You're as crazy as your girlfriend," Zuko shook his head.

"Alright. Her things are in the bin," Sokka said loudly enough to be heard, hefting the bin helpfully marked 'confiscated items'.

"Yeah, yeah. Just put it with the others," he waved behind him. Sokka couldn't see where exactly he was supposed to put it all, so he just set the bin amidst a few empty ones, and pocketed his sister's clothing. She'd probably want it back, after all the gruesome time and effort she went through to pick _this particular shade of red_.

The three moved out onto the balconies, and found that the weather had moved in again. The rain falling down was very, _very_ cold, though. Cold enough that the courtyard was almost empty but for the overhung areas. Sokka blinked a few times in confusion at just how frigid it was. This was the Fire Nation, right? Wasn't everything supposed to be hotter than the fires of Hell? But not the rain, it seemed. There was a cold wind which swirled a twist of fog into the prison, and made everything murky but warmer. Then, the rain seemed to change its character, from thick freezing droplets to a much warmer drizzle by the time they reached the courtyard.

"So what's the new plan?" Katara asked.

"You've got the right uniform and you can speak the language. You should get the Tribesmen together. I'm pretty sure that they'll be big onto escape, if how they treated your escapade is any indicator," Sokka said.

"That's a pretty good plan," Suki's voice was suddenly right beside him, and both he and Katara both let out a startled yelp and flinched away from her. Suki looked mildly damp, like she'd just barely gotten out of that freezing rain, "but if you're looking to bring in the _all_ the Tribesmen, there's one in particular you need to talk to."

"How did you get there?" Sokka asked.

"Kyoshi Warrior secret. No boys allowed," Suki said with a smirk. She looked at Zuko, and that smirk faded. Sokka could see it was because he was smirking, too.

"Who do I need to talk to?" Katara asked.

"Aalo. She's one of the long-timers. Been here most of her life. And when you do, don't talk in Tribal-tongue. They can barely speak it."

"Because nobody taught it to them," Zuko explained to Katara's confused look. "They speak perfect Huo Jian, apparently."

Sokka heard a meaty thwap, the sound of a fist hitting a face, and turned to look across the yard, where one of the guards was shaking a painful hand, and the former Warden stumbled away, clutching his jaw. He said something which was lost to distance, and the two guards walked up to him, leaning in on him even as he kept his back straight. One of them said something, which the former Warden offered what was in Sokka's mind a perfectly timed and cutting rebuke. Pity, that only resulted in him getting smashed in the gut with the end of a truncheon. The former Warden doubled over in pain, finally landing on his hands and knees in the drizzle.

"You don't get to talk to us that way anymore..." the words of the guard came, before his tone shifted enough that Sokka could no longer hear them. He turned to the others, and put a thumb over his shoulder.

"Well, if we're going to bring him in, we'd better do it fast," Sokka said. "Because..."

"You might want to watch the next part," Suki said flatly with a nod past Sokka. He turned, and saw that a couple of the teenaged Tribesmen were moving around the down-struck Warden. One of them leaned down, saying something quietly to him. So he had some of the Tribesmen on his side, too? Sokka was about to give an optimistic shrug when one of them kicked him right in the kidney, and then the others joined, raining down a short flurry of blows at the man, before breaking apart and heading to the various clumps of Tribesmen which were gathered under the overhang, leaving the beaten, bruised former Warden in the courtyard, the rain diluting the blood which very slowly pooled from where he'd probably split his lips open.

"What did they do that for?" Katara asked.

"He's their former warden," Zuko said. "They grew up hating him. Now, he's locked in here with them. They probably couldn't resist the chance for some payback."

"But... that's not right," Katara said.

"Right doesn't have much to do with prisons. There is no 'ought', there only 'is'."

"Who said _that_?" Suki asked.

"...Uncle," Zuko said quietly. Bitterly.

"Alright. So we've got a couple of people to bring in. We can get the Tribesmen. How do we get the other prisoners? The political ones?"

"Chit Sang," Suki said, motioning to one of the particularly intimidating pieces of humanity which was arrayed in this prison. "Not the longest server, not the strongest. But he's got a way with the prisoners."

"Sway him, sway the prison," Zuko said. He made as though to clap a hand onto Katara's shoulder, but he instantly thought better of it, and cleared his throat. "Alright. Katara, it's up to you to convince the Tribesmen. They wouldn't believe me anyway. I'll deal with Kanshao – since he'd probably know the best and easiest way out of here with all of them. Sokka, you find a way to convince Chit Sang."

"Aw... why do I get the huge scary guy?" Sokka asked.

"Because you didn't call dibs on the warden," Suki said. She pushed off of her lean and turned toward the end of the wall. "Let Mom or me know when you're ready to go."

"Mom or _I_," Zuko corrected, but under his breath. He gave a nod to Sokka, and then moved toward the once-Warden. That left Sokka to swallow his nerves, considerable as they were, and start to consider how he could bring a massive, angry, canned-firebender onto his way of seeing things.

* * *

><p>The queen of the Tribesmen of Boiling Rock was fairly obvious to anybody with eyes and a brain. Even with the ground still wet, and oddly cold for the time of year, they were already gathering in rings that all faced outward, radiating in toward one who sat slightly higher than the others. Aalo was obviously her father's daughter, and it showed through on her face. Her cheeks were quite high, her cheeks angular, and her jaw coming to something of a point. She also had her father's eyes, and her father's way of using them. Katara was sure that they rested on her for a moment longer than they ought before she let her gaze slide past.<p>

The ranks of Tribesmen shifted subtly so that Katara could move deeper through them without bumping or jostling them, too busy watching the other prisoners to really care about anything other than that Katara had dark skin and blue eyes. This was a community born in blood and fire, and as the Tribes always did, in the bad times they stood together. She made it through the first two ranks, but the third cast her a glance as she moved past it, and the boy gave a somewhat confused look. She noted how he cleared his throat, and the fourth rank closed into a wall, separating Katara from Aalo and her trusted confidantes who sat atop a short section of barely-raised bench.

"Do you...?"

"I don't. Do you think...?"

"She can't be..."

The whispers started to assault Katara from all sides, as the third rank turned as one to face inward, and left Katara trapped in a four-foot strip of no-man's land between the mass of displaced Tribesmen. She glanced fore and back. She'd been spotted, obviously. But what would that mean? Aalo turned to look at her more directly.

"I don't know who you are," Aalo said, her voice half-way between her mother's smokey, oddly deep tones and her father's more nasal sound.

"_My name is Katara. I'm here with my brother and..._" Katara began in her own language.

"What the shit is she saying?" Aalo cut her off, in Huo Jian. Wow. Suki wasn't joking about them not knowing their own mother tongue. She stood atop her seat, making her tower over Katara handily. The waterbender was sure that she spotted the dull gleam of a blade, made no doubt of stone-scraped metal, palmed in her hand. They were quite the frequent weapon amongst the Tribesmen, and prisoners in general, it seemed.

"Um... My name is Katara, and I..." Katara tried again.

"Do us a favor and shut the hell up," Aalo said. Katara fell silent, her mouth slightly agape as the girl descended down to Katara's level with a hop, and her inner circle moving with her. She stood quite a bit taller than Katara as well. It made sense, as both her mother and father weren't exactly squat, but it was nevertheless inconvenient to have to stare up to talk to somebody. "Djep? You figure they're trying to sneak in a Hillman?"

"I don't know, Aalo. Doesn't look much like an Azuli to me," the wiry-framed Djep said.

"I'm not a Hillman. I'm from the South Water Tribe, just like you are," Katara pressed through to the finish, overriding another order of silence from Aalo. At the end of her words, Katara was openly scoffed at.

"I _know_ every Tribesman in this prison. Unless the North rebels, everybody here, is every Tribesman who I know," she tapped a hard finger into the center of Katara's chest, shoving her back a step and into the grasp of the rank behind her. They just pushed her back up to her feet rudely and ungently. "I _don't_ know you. So you see my problem."

"...not really?" Katara asked. Aalo chuckled lightly, and looked back up to her. There was a flash of movement, and Aalo lashed out, grabbing Katara's shirt and dragging her close. She could feel the prick of that blade against the carotid which pulsed in her neck. She didn't even let out an eep.

"The Warden's trying to break us. That's not going to happen. We're family, now. You can't break my family. So send a message to your boss; we're not going to get pushed around. He might have the walls and the tram, but," Aalo made a descending whistle sound, and tracked that knife-point gently down from where it had first sat, just tickling along Katara's skin, until it sat right at where her neck met her shoulers, "_I_ own the ground."

"That Warden is not my b–" Katara tried, but Aalo just sighed and pushed Katara back once more. Once again, she was dropped rudely onto her feet.

"You know what? I'm going at this from the wrong direction. I don't need to send a messenger; just need to send a message. And you? Your... pretty little cut up face? That's a pretty good message, I think."

"I wouldn't do that," Katara said, her patience and empathy starting to drain away now that she could sense her life in very real danger. Aalo wheeled toward her, her eyes cold and hard. She pointed with her blade.

"And what are you gonna do? Firebend at me? You won't get past the first bolt," Aalo promised.

"Firebend? No. I'm no firebender," Katara said. There was a smile on her face. With her bending she started to reach for the water in her flask. Then, another idea occurred. "I'm the last waterbender of the South Water Tribe."

"You lying bitch," Aalo muttered. Katara only shrugged, and Aalo's expression grew darker as he disbelief was replaced with wrath. "So _you're_ the one they stole us for? I should skin you alive! You did this to us you..."

She was thrusting forward, that blade searing directly toward Katara's eye. She didn't try to get out of its way, though. She just moved her hands.

It was something she didn't understand the first time she did it. The power to move water gave her the power to bend anything with a significant amount of water to her will. Blood, as she had learned from Toph's impalement, was mostly water, and entirely under her control, once she accepted it, understood it, and could feel it. Weeks, even months of contemplation went into that technique, to grasp 'hold of the blood in somebody's body, to use it how you wanted to. And for weeks and even months, she couldn't see what was right in front of her. It took a drowsy accident to realize what it was, and Azula of all damned people to give the two words which put everything into perspective. Two words, a simplistic description of what she was trying to describe. A title.

Blood bending.

Even as that knife drew closer, Katara was twisting her hands, and reaching out with her bending, all that she had learned in her attempt to both heal and harm. She knew that there was a delicacy which was required, as where most of the body was water, that body was also quite fragile, and tearing might occur. But at the same time, there was a sort of grim expectation about her when she did this. She'd never gotten very much _practice_, but in her heart and her mind, she knew she could do this.

Her hands crooked, and that arm stopped, about a thumb's-width from impaling her eyeball. Aalo's angry hiss died out, as she tried to shrug her way forward, to get just a touch more distance. Katara pressed forward with both hands, and the arm twisted up and back, her hand popping into an open splay and causing the knife to fall to the ground. Every instant Katara held the grasp, though, it was draining. Painfully. Waves of exhaustion pulled at her, but she had to see this through. That meant she had to work fast. The ranks around her backed off and away from their leader and the interloper both, superstition and understandable terror overwhelming their sense of family in the short term. There was only so far one could go for family, she figured. And what Katara now did, forcing Aalo back one more step before causing her to drop to her knees, was enough to do so. Most notably, Aalo was dangling, but her knees didn't quite hit the ground, like she was being dragged by something taller than she was. In a way, it was true.

"What... are you doing to me?" Aalo asked.

"Waterbending," Katara said. "Call off your goons."

"Why? You won't..."

"Because I'm about to let you go and I don't want to get hit by a chair or something," Katara spelled it out plainly. It wasn't because bloodbending was hard or exhausting – though it felt like her stamina was falling out of a bucket without a bottom, trying to do this under the sun; it was actually still easier than some of the high-level healing that she'd done by a fair margin – but rather, just because... well... bloodbending felt _creepy_.

"What? You're not going to demand something from me before lettin' me walk?" Aalo asked.

"No! Because that'd make me a horrible person," Katara said. She released her grip, her fingers turning from the foul and angry crooks of a malevolent puppet-maker into the smooth lines of a waterbending adept. The last grunt of Aalo sounded as her knees hit the ground, and the men started to murmur again. Katara could feel them deciding to press in once more. Before they did, Aalo held up a hand, forestalling them.

"Alright. Alright," she said, slowly getting to her feet, a cold look in her eyes. "Don't know what that was, but I didn't like it," she said. "Could you do that again?"

"It's not easy in the day. I think it'd be easier at night. And simple under a full moon," Katara said.

"So you can just hijack anybody you want? Why are you in prison, then?" Aalo asked, her arms crossed and her visage suspicious.

"To get you out," Katara said. Aalo blinked a few times. The crowd began to murmur once more at Katara's back, and the ring surrounding the two women. "If you're willing to help us and help yourselves, we can get you off of Boiling Rock."

"And where exactly would we go?" Aalo asked. "I'm not letting my guys become shock-troopers in some war of Northern Aggression."

"I wasn't lying when I said I was from the South. You could go home. Where your families wait a second. War of Northern Aggression?" Katara asked.

"Yeah, the war that the North kicked off against the Fire Nation. Dumbest decision they ever made. At least it's finally over, though."

"Wow... you really don't know what's going on out there, do you?" Katara asked.

"How would we?" Aalo asked, her voice very dry.

"...Will you help us?" Katara asked again.

Aalo looked to Djep, who gave a mild shrug. She looked to another young man, who made an equivocating gesture. "You two are useless," Aalo muttered. She faced Katara. "Fine. My Tribesmen will join the Tribesmen that buggered off to Kyoshi-woman over there," with a vague and dismissive gesture toward Suki's room. She prodded Katara's chest twice more, though. "But if this is a trap, I can promise you, we won't die quietly, and we won't die alone."

"That's about the best news I heard all day," Katara said. "Which shows how my day is going."

"I hear that," Aalo said with a mild nod, having finally found something on which both she and Katara had common ground.

* * *

><p>On the other side of the prison, in a secluded corner well away from all others, a man was idly prodding what looked to be a spectacular bruise in the making. There was no group which accepted him into its fold, and that stood to reason: He was once the person in charge of the prison, and thus directly responsible for any real or imagined hardship that the prisoners faced under his tenure. Kanshao Loyo Lah was a man of no family and no friends, and every whit of his body language spoke to that. He was on edge, he was coiled tight, and he was ready to explode. Into violence or flight, Zuko couldn't say. It could have been either. It could have been both.<p>

Zuko had only met the man once before. Before the exile, obviously, and before Azula's illness – which presupposed before Ozai's ascent to the Burning Throne. He was but one among many of Mai's distant relatives, ones that Mother had told him he'd better get to know. Looking back, Zuko figured out that it was because there was a political marriage in the works between the Azuli house and the Royal Family; they would soon be part of the Royal Household as much as Zuko or Azula would have been. Funny, how none of that turned out. Funny, how far destiny took them away from what, at that time, must have seemed a foregone conclusion.

"Kanshao," Zuko began.

"You know, with one word, I could have you torn to shreds?" Kanshao said, still prodding his hurts, and finding which ones pained him most. His tone was utterly conversational. "All I'd have to do is say your name to these people, and the Tribesmen in particular would be _baying_ for your blood. You can't even imagine how much these people hate your father, and by extension, you."

"Well, they're in for a bit of a surprise, then," Zuko muttered. "How did you survive? They didn't let any of your family survive, except for one."

Kanshao turned to her. "You're lying. I'm the last of my House."

"Mai survived," Zuko said. Kanshao stared at him, a hard-to-gauge look in his eyes. "I thought you'd be happier to hear that."

"...I don't know what I feel for that news," Kanshao turned to stare across the yard. "How did she get away? How did she survive?"

"Luck," Zuko said, taking a place next to the former warden with his arms behind his back, looking for all viewers as a bored guard looking for trouble. "And a lot of strength."

"I meant how was she not murdered," Kanshao asked flatly.

"She cried, and they couldn't bring themselves to kill a terrified child," Zuko said. He shrugged. "She's almost as good a liar as I am, it turns out. After that, well, she spent the next six years fighting the Fire Nation with some Earth Kingdom terrorists. Not that I blame her."

Kanshao's face slowly turned into something like a warm, if distant smile. "Mai. She always was a bright one. Pity my sister was always a dream-crushing bitch, Agni rest her soul, so she didn't ever get to show it."

"Well, her mother would probably be horrified if she saw her daughter today," Zuko said with a smirk on his lips. Kanshao offered a dry laugh at that as well. There was a silence, as the ranks of Tribesmen rippled across the yard. So Katara was opting away from the subtle? Well, whatever worked. "I think we can help each other."

"With what?" Kanshao asked, his brow furrowing in suspicion as his wide mouth twisted into a scowl.

"What's the fastest way to get out of the Boiling Rock?" Zuko asked.

"Whatever way _you_ got _in_," he answered.

"Presume that isn't an option," Zuko said.

He shook his head. "You don't get it, child; the Boiling Rock was built from the ground up to be inescapable. Get past the walls, the lake is waiting for you. Try to hijack the trolley, and they cut the lines, which drops you into the lake. Unless you've got a Storm King ship hidden in your back pocket, those are the only ways out. Trust me. In the fourteen years I spent as Warden, there wasn't a single escapee. And the same in the six years I was inside."

"A Storm King ship wouldn't work," Zuko said. The Azuli turned to him in confusion. Zuko gave an equivocating gesture. "The air in its balloon wouldn't be hotter than the air around it, and... well, the Tribesman knows the science better."

"I was joking," Kanshao said.

"I wasn't."

The Azuli stared at him for a moment. "What _has_ happened out there?"

"A lot," Zuko said simply. He frowned across the yard, trying to figure out how they could possibly get this many disparate people to work together long enough to get out. Without killing each other. Or Zuko. Or Katara. Sokka would probably survive; much as he might cry to the opposite, he had to be the most consistently lucky man Zuko'd ever met. Zuko... didn't make a habit of depending on his own. He pulled his attention away from the gruesome prospect of his own horrible murder, and gave a shrug toward the tallest of the buildings, upon which the entrants arrived and those off duty exited. "What if we take the tower and keep them from cutting the cables?"

"Again, not a possibility," Kanshao said. "The cables could be cut from either side, and if the alarm goes off, and a tram starts toward them, their orders are, as they always were, to cut without reprisal. Unless you can take both sides at once, we're dead the moment we reach the prison's wall."

"You're a very up person, you know that?" Zuko muttered sarcastically. And then his face twisted into a fresh scowl. He was spending entirely too much time around Sokka. He sighed and shook his head. "The upper line won't be a problem. We've got somebody who can take care of that."

"And how would you message her? You can't send hawks through the fog."

"He could just _talk_ to me. Hey buddy. Hey former-warden," Malu said as she sauntered up. Kanshao's face took on a very guarded look.

"She's with us," Zuko said simply. He turned to her. "And since when am I 'buddy'?"

"Well, I can't refer to you by your full name, now can I? And now that I think of it, what is your surname, anyway? I mean, you can't just have one name, can you?"

"Why not? You're just Malu," Zuko pointed out.

"...Tuying Fei," she finished. She gave a dramatic bow toward both Zuko and the Warden. "Pleased to be introduced."

"Right. She's our Plum up the sleeve. She'll shut down the cutters on the far side," Zuko said.

"I'm doing what now?"

"Keeping the guys on the other side of the trolley from cutting the cables and turning the cars into cans of flash-boiled prisoner," Zuko said without any real inflection.

"Oh, I can do that. I'll just talk to Nila, and take a couple of her lemons," Malu said, before turning to saunter away.

"You do realize the timing would have to be perfect? And you'd never know when to start?" Kanshao asked.

Zuko shrugged. "She'd be operating on a one minute order lag."

"You'd have to _fly_ to cross the lake that quickly," Kanshao said with annoyance clear in his tone, before he noted how Malu had started grinning in her bucket-like helm. The oldest of the three blinked a few times, then turned to Zuko. "...Did you manage to find a _Storm King_, as well as their airships, in the last six years?"

"_Air Nomad_, thank you," Malu said peevishly. And quietly, which was the important part. Kanshao just sat there, stunned. "So, are you going to help?"

"...Since the universe seems to be bending over backward to prove every point I make wrong, I don't see why not," Kanshao said after a long time of thought and staring. A smirk came to his mouth. "And come to think of it, I don't much like the idea of the new Warden inheriting _my_ perfect record. Let him work for his own."

"Good to hear it," Malu said, clapping him on the back, which made him wince in pain. She flinched back quickly. "Oh... right. Sorry."

Zuko nodded, and as Malu walked past him, his eyes narrowed, as a question occurred to him. "Malu?"

"Yeeeup?"

"Does Aang have a surname?"

"Of course he does. Heck, Aang is _technically_ an abbreviation," Malu said.

"And what's his full name?" Zuko asked. Malu glanced left and right, before whispering it to him. Zuko's brow rose at that. "That's dignified enough; why doesn't he use it?"

Malu could only shrug her ignorance.

* * *

><p>The gust of wind reaching into the sweltering cranny was the warning that Malu was approaching. For that reason alone, Nila didn't hurl a white-phosphorus lemon at the intruder the instant that the footfalls crunched against the crushed glass she scattered near the entrance. No matter how delicate one's footfall, it was never gentle enough to not disturb glass. "I am getting bored, and perhaps a bit concerned at your lack of progress," Nila said, continuing to fill up a melon with a mixture of explosive and extremely irritating compounds. It would join at least four of its brethren on a shelf-like projection of rock which was currently piled high with both fruit-based and more conventional explosives. She'd even worked up a few special surprises, if the need called for it.<p>

"Hey, Nila. Just had a talk with Zuko up top. He's got the Warden in, but I'm going to need some of your bombs."

"To what _exact_ purpose?" Nila asked, casting a glance at her red armored friend.

"Make some people stop cutting a steel wire, by whatever means necessary. You know, without killing them."

Nila nodded, and then pulled out two metal-encased toruses, each lined with a squish, barely-solid form of blasting jelly she was pretty sure she invented. "Chain cutters," she said, setting them before Malu. She pulled another great block, this one a satchel with a clear 'danger' sign printed onto its base. "Door breaching charge. Point the bottom toward the door," she ordered. She then pulled a bag of lemons and dumped them gently out, before scooping some back in, chasing them with two melons. "...and for disabling manpower? Pepper grease, gleese-oil for stench, and just a hint of Layman's Lye to make it that much harder to get off. Don't breath it in. And _do not_ get it on your face."

Malu looked up past the devices granted her, and spotted the big one. "Oh my gods! What is that thing?"

"If I am needed to destroy the prison wall, this is what shall do it," Nila said, patting the ceramic jug that contained the massive charge. "It can be detonated right where it sits and provide that effect."

"Really?" Malu asked, obviously nervous around that much bomb.

Nila shrugged. "There is a small chance that it could set off a catastrophic eruption in the volcano."

"Small?" Malu asked.

"Almost incalculably so," Nila reassured her, or tried to and failed, to be more precise. She turned back toward her work, delicately pouring the explosive into the neutralizing goop which made the highly volatile substance able to be thrown about with wild abandon. When the last drop fell into the greenish slime, she turned back. "And tell me, has the Tribesman made an ass of himself and gotten captured?"

"Sokka? No. His sister did, though."

She shook her head mildly. "Oh, the trials and travails of having a fool for a sibling; that is one thing he and I share."

"I wouldn't call her a fool. I'd say she's as smart as anybody would need to be," Malu turned to her, her brow drawn down.

"...that sounded somewhat like an insult," Nila pointed out. Malu simply shrugged. She hefted the bag full of bombs. "One thing?"

"What is it?"

"...don't let him know I worried about him," Nila said quietly. Malu obviously delighted in her misery, as that was obviously a subject of great merriment to the airbender. It just brought a fresh scowl to the bomb-smith's face. She grumbled. "I'd tell you to die in a hole, but at the moment, that's not a good option."

"I love you too, Nila," Malu said, crunching over the glass on her way out, a hand waved over her head in fare-well. Nila just shook her head, and got back to work. There were too many variables in this plan. And she intended to solve them in the most permanent of fashions; explosively.

* * *

><p>Sokka, unlike the others, had a hell of a challenge ahead of him. Prisoners were one thing, massive potentially firebending prisoners who'd believe his story about as well as if he'd declared himself an airbender due to his disguise, they were quite the other. Of course, if he called himself an airbender, they'd probably force him to prove it by throwing him off of the roof.<p>

The prisoners were milling with greater numbers as the rain gave out completely, to be replaced with the hot-wet of the Boiling Rock's steam being blown at random – and sometimes back into the crater from which it spawned – which was apparently a much more usual condition for the prison. Then again, the only ones who'd apparently ever faced the kind of cold that Sokka briefly felt on his way in were those who tried to desert during the fighting against Summavut.

The cold stayed on Sokka's mind. It wasn't the first time he'd felt a cold wind in the Fire Nation. Of course, it'd been explained to him that the Fire Nation was hardly the place it had been at the start of the World War. Instead of a place of rife agriculture growing up toward a merciless sun, churning smoke to try to cut the glare as they dug deep into the mountains for their iron and gold, it was a place of perpetual near-darkness, dampness, and noise. Whatever happened to whomever counted him/herself as the patron of the Fire Nation, was obviously something of a doozy.

He took a calming breath, and sidled up to the side of the man who had to be easily as tall as Bato, which meant he was in the running for the tallest person that Sokka'd ever seen. But unlike Bato, this man was built wide in the shoulders, wide in the jaw, and short in the hair. Sokka forced himself to a stop beside this massive and intimidating piece of humanity, and tried to summon the courage to say the words, to offer the plan.

"You're not really a guard, are you?" Chit Sang asked immediately, after giving Sokka no more than a cursory glance.

"What? No! I mean yes! Of course I'm a guard. I'm all kinds of guard!" Sokka tried to say, thrown in an instant by his question.

"You're with the new Tribeswoman and the one who stands like a nobleman, aren't you?" Chit Sang further asked.

"Um, well, that's one way of..." Sokka said.

"And you've got a plan that you need the assistance of the old-timers, don't you?" Chit Sang completed.

"Uhhhhh... Yes?" Sokka said meekly.

"Prison break?" Chit Sang asked.

"...yeah..." Sokka said.

"Good. We're in," Chit Sang answered. Sokka leaned back.

"What? Just like that?"

Chit sang didn't answer him. He just finished picking his teeth with that toothpick, and flicked it away, before walking back toward his crowd. "Hey! We're gonna start a riot!"

"Not yet!" Sokka blurted urgently. Chit Sang paused, glanced back at him, and then thrust a finger at Sokka.

"...when he says so," Chit Sang finished. Well, Sokka thought, that was a lot easier than it could have been.

* * *

><p>Two guards met on the balcony which overlooked the prison-yard. While the group below didn't look any different than it had a few hours ago, there was a different sense to those in the know to them. Like they had as one decided to stop staring at each other, and then started looking very, very hard at the people who were containing them. It made most of the guards nervous.<p>

"Hey, new guy," a woman in the armor said. "You notice something down there with the inmates?"

"What should I notice?" Zuko asked, playing the naivety expected of him to the hilt.

"Just... keep an eye out on them. They seem more restless than usual," she said, before walking on. Zuko sighed, and looked out over the masses. It was about a minute later when a new guard approached him. This was the one Zuko was rather hoping he'd be able to find. Sokka came to a sauntering stop near him.

"We've got the scariest of them with us," Sokka said.

"Good. That's all of them," Zuko said. He gave a nod down toward Suki's den in the corner. "They're talking right now. Coming up with a plan."

"What? I had a plan! It was a good plan!" Sokka sounded mildly insulted.

"Gotta say, buddy, it had a few holes in it," Malu added, somehow managing to appear behind the two of them and loop an arm 'round each of their necks. "And for the record, your girlfriend has some scary hobbies, Sokka."

Sokka sighed, and rubbed his eyes through the helmet. "How big of a bomb?" he asked in the sort of dull, grudging interest of somebody who'd had to ask that question enough times to become numb to it.

"_Make a volcano erupt_ big," Malu said. "So... yeah, we better get this done quickly before she invents a bomb that can set the air on fire."

"Wouldn't put it past her," Zuko said with a shrug, pulling himself out of Malu's grasp. "She's got a lot more firebender in her than most firebenders I know."

"Aw, you're just jealous that I got a girlfriend before you did," Sokka chided.

"Hey! I had _plenty_ of girlfriends," Zuko snapped, before realizing how immature that sounded. He growled and turned toward the prison once again. "Maybe you should be paying more attention to the plan and less on your relationship? It might make this work a bit better."

"I can multitask, don't you worry," Sokka said. He glanced back to Malu, and gently pushed her back. Zuko caught a glimpse of Katara approaching, and gave her a spot to lean against the back wall, out of sight from those below. "Hey, sis. Heard you got into a knife-fight with Bato's daughter. How'd that go for you?"

"You know, there's some really _scary_ things that waterbending can do," Katara said simply, the look on her face somewhere between bemused and quietly concerned. She shook her head. "That doesn't matter. They're all talking. So what's the next step?"

Asked to her brother, of course. Zuko scowled. "Why do you always depend upon _him_ for plans?"

"Because Sokka's our 'Idea Guy'," Katara answered.

"Yeah, and thanks a lot for putting all the pressure on _me_," Sokka said with eyes rolling in his helmet.

"He's also our 'Sarcasm Guy'," Katara offered.

"That part, I don't mind," Sokka said, rubbing his chin. He turned to the airbender. "Is everything in place?"

"Pretty much. Do you want me to bring Nila in?"

"No, take her with you," Sokka said. "She'll probably be a lot more help on the outside fighting in, than on the inside fighting out."

"Gonna have to disagree with you there," Zuko said. "You said no deaths, and she's the best way to get that... even if she does use bombs as her favorite weapon."

"Yup, my girlfriend creates bombs that don't kill people."

Zuko sighed. Sokka seemed entirely too happy with that statement.

"When can we start?" Zuko pressed.

"Soon," Sokka said. Suki slipped out of the room and began to navigate the prisoners heading toward them. "Alright, sooner than soon."

"I'll go bring in Nila," Malu said. Zuko gave her a nod, and she started to bound up the stairs to the rooftop where she made her 'trips' to the shore. With that much steam, it was like a bank of pea-soup fog all the time. Painful, but very good at hiding what one didn't want seen.

The infiltrators waited as the Kyoshi native came up to meet them. She didn't look very happy, but then again, Zuko was here, so she had a pretty good reason to not be happy. "We've got a plan."

"What is it?" Zuko asked after she stayed silent a bit too long.

"We walk out the front door," she said. All stared at her.

"That's a _terrible_ plan!" Katara said.

"That's a _brilliant_ plan!" Sokka said over her, almost at the same time. "Think about it: Every iota of engineering is devoted to keeping people from devising a sneaky way out of the prison. While the security at the gate is disgustingly high, it's only one layer deep! Instead of having to try to outplan whoever built this place and all of the contingencies that they put into place, we only need to deal with what they considered both the easiest and the worst possible avenue for escape!"

"Whoa, calm down," Suki said, a smirk on her face. She turned a glance toward his sister. "Does he always get this excited over plans?"

"You should see how excited he gets over _sarcasm_," Zuko offered. Suki chuckled for half a second before she remembered that she hated Zuko. Still, worth it. Sokka waved the jibes away.

"There are only forty five guards, and almost two hundred inmates. They'll have firebenders in raised positions, but we have bombs to blow them out of their pillboxes! It's foolproof!"

A cold wind blue in, ruffling those edges of their uniforms – guard and prisoner both – as it passed. They all shuddered, Zuko included, at that sudden chill that departed as soon as it arrived. "You just _had_ to say that, didn't you?" Zuko asked.

Sokka hung his head. "I really make it too easy, don't I?" he asked quietly.

"You really do," Suki offered, elbowing him lightly as she moved toward the stairs. They all took that as their cue to get into their positions. Sokka, though, only made it half way down the hall, before his shoulders hitched, he fell still, and silent.

"Oh god _no_!" Sokka said in utter horror.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Katara asked, instantly in caring team-mother mode.

"That crazy fortune-teller from Makapu! I just realized she was _right_!" Sokka said, utter disgust on his face. Zuko could see why, if not how. Katara, though, was confounded, and shot a glance toward Zuko, before sighing with relief. Zuko felt very out of place in this conversation. And uncomfortable with what that same mystic had said to him.

His choice would decide who lived and who died; which family was made whole, and which one _torn apart_. At the time, it was just showmanship. Now... now he was concerned.

* * *

><p>The pieces were in place. Everybody knew their parts. While fully half of the plan depended on the actions of an airbender, who was herself a half-mile away, they were as ready as they'd ever be for the escape of the century. Thus it was that Sokka found himself hauling Nila up onto the roof, and quickly pressing a helm and pair of gloves into her hands. She gave him a raised brow, and handed off her own armament for her disguise. "You were taking far longer than necessary," Nila said.<p>

"Hey, _you_ try galvanizing a prison population into an army. See how well you do," Sokka said defensively.

"That was a joke," Nila said. Sokka wasn't laughing. And he almost jumped out of his skin when he heard a cough behind him. While it turned out to be Zuko, Sokka still clutched at his heart.

"Tui La, Zuko! You almost gave me a heart attack!" Sokka said.

"Suki's downstairs. Are those the bombs?" Nila nodded to Zuk's question, and pointed out which one was to be handed out. Zuko nevertheless paused, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Does this seem like the best idea to you, Sokka? I mean using bombs to release prisoners is hardly..."

"Honorable?" Sokka guessed.

"Sensible," Zuko said flatly.

"It is easy to fight when you are winning. So stop complaining of the difficulties and strive to make the fight easy," Nila said, pressing a bag of bombs into Zuko's hand, before sliding on her gloves and helmet. Still, any who actually looked through the visor would know her for a counterfeit in a heartbeat. "Tribesman, a word?"

"Sokka," Sokka said.

"Only in private," Nila muttered. Sokka did as he was told, though, and moved to keep up with Nila as she descended several yards ahead of Zuko. "I have lit the long fuse for the bomb under the trolley tower; we shall only have one half of an hour to make this escape, before it detonates and brings the building down. Needless to say, we only have one attempt; if we are captured, our deaths are almost certain."

"You're in a good mood today, I notice," Sokka chuckled.

"I slept on the dirt," she answered him.

"Well, you woke up on the wrong side of the dirt this morning," Sokka jibed. Nila only gave a tiny snort, but it was less derision and more heavily subdued mirth. "Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"...perhaps," Nila said. She gestured off of their path, and he followed her into the currently vacant cell which was just beside the stairwell. When Sokka entered the room, he shrugged toward her.

"So, what was it that you w–" Sokka began to ask, and was cut off when speech became impossible by way of intervening foreign lips. His eyes shot wide, and while he didn't fight the embrace and the kiss that went with it, he was nevertheless startled and confused by it. When Nila pulled away after what he felt was a far-too-short time, he stood dumbly against the wall. Sokka raised a finger. "...what was that?"

"To remind you not to die," Nila said with a little smile on her face, something awkward and uncomfortable but entirely genuine. However it did not last; Nila, Sokka had learned, would only allow herself to be a normal young woman for so long at a time. Then, she went back into a mode which could only be described as Nila. Sokka followed his girlfriend out of the prison cell, feeling quite a bit better, not about his chances, but life in general. They reached the bottom of the stairs _behind_ Zuko, who turned in surprise to see them both on his tail instead of waiting for him.

"Where did you two go?" Zuko asked.

"Unimportant," Nila waved his question away utterly. Suki, who was the fourth of those present, seemed somewhat confused by Nila's appearance. And Nila noticed that. "What do you want?"

"That accent is Si Wongi. What's one of your kind doing here?"

"Your accent pins you as a native of Kyoshi Island," Nila said dryly. "And I could ask you the exact same question."

"Ladies, let's keep on track here," Sokka tried to intervene, but both of them shot him a look which made him swallow his words, and damned near swallow his tongue. Yeesh. So that was the girl he ended up with in some other reality? Honestly, not too bad, but a part of him was a bit alarmed that he apparently had some sort of multiverse-spanning predilection towards forming romantic relationships with dangerous women.

Life had been so much simpler _last year_.

"So you are she who would have been his paramour?" Nila asked. Suki raised a brow.

"Who? Sokka?"

"Indeed. I suggest against it," Nila said.

"Ooookay," Suki said. Nila nodded, and then tossed the Kyoshi Warrior a couple of discolored lemons. "Wait a second. They said you were making weapons! These are fruit!"

"Throw them hard enough, and you'll see how much of a weapon they really are," Sokka said. Nila, though, shook her head and indicated a ring of metal which had been jammed into the end of it.

"It is not a matter of throwing strongly, but of a timed explosive. Pull this out, and throw it immediately; you will have between two and five seconds before it explodes."

"That's a lot of margin for error," Suki said.

"You wanted a bomb in a lemon. I work with the difficulties that the universe bestows," Nila said. She glanced over to the former Warden, who was talking to all of Suki's mother, Aalo and Chit Sang near the center of the yard. "I will give these to those who need them; mostly the Tribesmen, I would think."

Sokka nodded, and waved Nila to her task. Suki watched her leave. "So... that's your girlfriend?" she asked.

"Yup," Sokka said.

"And she's like that all of the time?" Suki asked.

"Yup," Sokka said.

"Actually, she's on her best behavior right now. She's usually worse," Zuko pointed out.

"Really?" Suki asked.

"...yup," Sokka admitted, begrudgingly.

"That's rough, buddy," Suki said, giving Sokka a light shove. He gifted her with a wry glare, and she laughed at it.

"Let's just break out of prison already? I'm sick of getting picked at," Sokka muttered.

"But you make it so easy!" Suki said after him as he stormed away toward where his sister was talking to who was obviously their distant cousins at best, an countrymen at worst. If nothing else, he'd stop getting mocked for choices he didn't even make! Behind his back, Suki leaned toward Zuko, who was simply shaking his head. "Is there more to this plan that you haven't told me because Sokka might mess it up?"

"Sokka _came up_ with the plan. And his plans tend to work," Zuko pointed out, if not enthusiastically. Suki gaped at him.

"Really?" she asked. Zuko shrugged. "...We're all doomed, aren't we?"

"So I keep saying."

* * *

><p>Malu landed and spun her staff into it's pole form, before hiding it behind a couple of rocks. It was a hard enough thing to get around on airbending alone – not in terms of distance but rather in terms of stamina – but making it so much more needlessly complicated was that she was currently in a land which would recognize her kind, if as a Storm King, upon sight if she showed that thing. That meant she had to walk around like an earthbender. Not like she hadn't done that before, though; most of her trip with Nila was like that.<p>

The bag of bombs she kept over her shoulder. A guard carrying a bag was not suspicious, whereas a guard hefting a cultural artifact like the airbender glider staff most certainly would. The far side of the trolley from the Boiling Rock was a much smaller affair than the prison it lead to. There was just the single tower in which the mechanism to run the cables was housed, with an Aerie above it for messenger hawks, and a small, squat barracks beside for those prison guards which preferred not to cross the boiling lake every day to get to work. The steam was blowing south, which wasn't to Malu's best advantage, but she would take what she could get. That Aerie was Malu's first target.

After a glance to make sure she wasn't being watched, she swept herself up to the higher floor with a gust, and dived down through the hawk's escape hatch in the roof, barely making it through past the shutter they doubtless used to keep the rain out when it deluged. She twisted as she zipped down through the cacophony of caged hawks, which all noted her entrance with a chorus of alarmed cries. She landed easily enough, even springing to stride away from her landing, but froze with a 'gack' sound when that was to face a man who was dressed as she was, sans helmet, in the process of turning toward her.

"Augh! You scared the hell out of me. You could have been a Storm King or something," the falconer said, patting his chest. Malu mentally wiped the sweat from her figurative brow. But she had to unwipe it, as the man's face drew down into confusion. "Wait a second. How'd you get in here?"

Malu looked past him, to the direction he was standing before; the sole and only door out of the Aerie stood there, locked and barred. "...would you believe that I'm _unbelievably_ sneaky?" she tried.

"...Storm King," he said, his eyes going to the only other place she could have entered from, and making exactly the right assumption although with the wrong terminology. "STORM KING!"

"Sorry about this," Malu said, even as she rushed toward him, kipping over him as he tried to swing his chair at her. Taking his back, she lined up her shot, and almost of it's own volition, her fist which was on the guard's spine opened, and jabbed hard up with two fingers straight into the spot behind the man's jaw. He made a descending moaning sound, and dropped to the floor, his eyes rolled up and his mouth drooling. "Ooh... I thought I'd forgotten how to do that," she said. She shrugged. Maybe her run-in with Pathik had done more than just cleanse her soul; it had also refreshed her on the airbender martial art of Dim Mak. She wasn't going to gripe, though; now, she knew that somebody would eventually open the door and send the message that needed sending. Small increases in chaos, that was what Sokka called them. Ten thousand and ten thousand grains of rice on an Ostrich Horse's back, until the last one was enough to break it's back.

Malu moved to the door and rotated the lock, making sure it was still in the shut position, before snapping off the key, and wedging a spike into the door-bar to hold it in place. The guard inside would probably wake up in a half-hour or so, but it'd be tricky for him to get out, and he wouldn't get in the way. She glanced up, and gauged her jump, before bounding from toe-hold to toe-hold, up the stack of ascending falcon cages, until she caught the lip of the hatch and pulled herself through it. A quick slide to the ground, and she was sauntering toward the barracks. She glanced inside, but couldn't see anybody at first glance. She shrugged, and headed toward the tower.

The door to the tower was likewise shut. Malu sighed, shifting the bag of bombs on her shoulder so it didn't dig in quite as aggravatingly. She pondered. What should she do to sneak in? There were no hatches for easy entry, here. And all of the windows were only about a hand'sbreadth wide, and reinforced with that black iron that they used so often. Well, why not try the obvious?

Malu knocked on the door. There was a moment of wait, and then with a metal shunk, a slider opened at just above Malu's eye-level, and dark brown stared down at her. "We're not due a shift change for three hours. What's wrong?"

"Something's got to get down to the prison. Warden's orders," Malu said, stabbing wildly in the dark as it were. Those eyes narrowed, which gave her the impression that her stab hadn't exactly hit.

"The Warden sends all orders for incoming through me. All of them."

"Well, maybe he missed one," Malu said, trying to sound impatient and annoyed. Hoping she didn't come off as afraid, which she was. And as she did, she set down the bag, and lifted up one of Nila's bombs that was made of hard metal, hiding it behind her back.

"That uniform doesn't fit you very well," the guard said. Then, another metal shunk, and she groaned, as the man continued. "We've got an infiltrator outside! Call for a lockdown!"

"Why is it never easy?" Malu asked, splatting the sticky side of the 'shaped charge' that Nila was so proud about onto the door right where the lock would be. She pulled the tab, and it started to hiss, which was Malu's indication to take a long step back, and bring her bombs with her. She looped the bag over one shoulder, and leaned forward on her toes 'round the corner, as the hissing grew quiet.

Then, a blast which was more in keeping with that first stick of explosive that Malu had seen from Nila than her usual diversions, which sent a streak of displaced metal flying away from the door, but as Malu rounded that bound, she could see that it had torn the door off of one hinge and embedded it open into the wall it stood beside. Malu dove through the door, managing to duck under a sword-slash and above a fiery kick from a firebender in the same motion. She twisted in the air, hurling a grapefruit into that room. As it flew, there was an insistent tug, as the 'pin' was yanked out. She continued to flip through the air, before landing on a twisting ball of air, the scooter that Aang had invented a century ago.

She shot through the halls, banking through the machinery room to avoid a firebender who'd leapt in front of the door to block her way. She tossed a lemon behind her as she did, and then took her scooter up a wall, then back down across the super-heated metal of the piping from the furnaces. The firebender, who'd followed after her, was caught with a blast of noxious pepper grease, and the impact of it drove him from his feet to writhe in pain on the ground. If she hadn't known that the damage was never permanent – though in Nila's words, the shame might be – she'd never have even though to using this thing. It seemed like a really _mean_ way of taking somebody down.

She'd actually reached the door when the grapefruit she'd hurled before went off. Nila wasn't kidding about the unreliable fuses. The vast cloud of foul and stinging erupted out, engulfing the two men who'd gotten out of the room only to not quite move far enough. Nila shot through that door she'd been aiming for in the first place, and her scooter brought her at break-neck speed up the stairs, banked off a wall, and deposited her into the center of a room full of controls, and about a half-dozen armored guards.

Malu hurled her second grapefruit at the man who was trying to activate the alarm; the impact of being brained with a melon was enough to make him fail in his attempt. But the others, not so focused on spreading word but rather defending themselves, turned to attack. One hurled a spear at Malu's face, which she bent out of the way of. It was the fire of the others which was a greater problem.

Malu ducked and weaved through the fire, placing herself always between two of the people arrayed against her so that one couldn't dare attack without hitting another; that still left her open to more attack than she liked to think about. Fortunately, she didn't have to think about it, because she was too focused on grabbing hold of every pin of the lemons she had left. She twisted another ball of air under a toe, but this time, instead of using it to zip around the room, she locked it into place, and used it to spin wildly, and allowed centrifugal force to send lemons careening to all points, some even bounding off of firebender heads in the process. Then, the last one hurled, she dropped, and hurled her arms wide. The firebenders took one step in, to launch a coordinated strike on her.

Then the grapefruit exploded, causing half of the people to be engulfed in horrible burning smoke. Like the crackling of fireworks, the others went off, filling the room right from floor to ceiling with that noxious gas. Malu twisted the air into a tight ball, the one spot which wouldn't be choking and wheezing, and locked herself to the ground. The room, outside of her protective shell, went utterly dark.

* * *

><p>Hotaro was, in terms of being able to stop a fight, not much of a prison guard. It was fortunate, then, that he wasn't ever used to that effect. Unlike Katsuke, the broad and bearded bully that he was, Hotaro had an education, and a notable lack of sadism. He had a mind for numbers, logistics, and more important than that, he had a head for money. So when he found something off in the numbers, it raised his hackles, and dare say his alarms, rather quickly.<p>

He rose from his table, and began to briskly walk toward the Warden's office, the evidence of his discovery in hand. The other guards didn't get in his way. They had their jobs, he had his. And since his job was making sure that they got paid for their jobs, he was afforded a bit of courtesy not usually afforded to a rail-thin, greasy haired man needing thick spectacles to see at all could usually expect. He halted at the Warden's door, and then flipped up his paperwork, as though to make sure that he was absolutely sure. As though there were a doubt: Hotaro _never_ forgot numbers. They remained as they always did, and the proof of them was troubling.

He knocked timidly on the door. One of the other guards, a woman who Hotaro had never gotten the courage to ask out in all of the five years she'd worked here, sighed and rolled her eyes. "You'll never get his attention like that. You got to put some shoulder into it," she said, giving the door a side-armed bang-bang which echoed down the hallways. Then, with a chuckle, she continued walking.

"Who is banging at my door like some kind of lunatic?" the Warden demanded from within, and Hotaro wilted. While he was shown unusual courtesy, there were still... pranks. Hotaro opened the door and slipped inside, finding the Warden sitting as he usually did, behind a mountain of reports. "Oh, you. What is it now, has somebody misplaced a spoon?"

"Far worse than that, I'm afraid," Hotaro said. He was aware that his obsessive counting and recounting of the stocks, provisions, and pennies could be frustrating, but it made for more money in everybody's pocket at the end of the year. And it prevented a lot of trouble. "The laundry stocks came back from yesterday; we are short three uniforms, and one was found in an odd place."

"Uniforms?" the Warden asked, his deep voice querulous.

"Armor and helmets as well. One set was recovered near the coolers, but still. Three," Hotaro pressed his point. The Warden blinked. "Somebody stole those uniforms!"

"Is that so?" the Warden asked, annoyance in his tone, but not at the accountant, fortunately. "There must be more, or you would have simply sent me a memo."

"There is," Hotaro said, and he held forward the headcount manifest from the previous night. The Warden's brow rose, but he didn't seem to see what Hotaro did. "Look at the number of prisoners!"

"Don't tell me that one has escaped," the Warden warned, in the same tone he'd used before tossing Ketsuke's predecessor over a railing in a fit of pique.

"Worse. There's one more than there should be," Hotaro said. Now, the Warden simply looked baffled, for a long moment. Hotaro rubbed his eyes, displacing his glasses as he did so. "We have infiltrators inside the prison!"

"_What_? Alert the guards! I will find these intruders at once!" the Warden declared. There was another knock on the door, though. "What is it! I am busy!"

"There was a delivery, Warden," an Azuli accented voice said outside the door.

"It will have to wait!" the Warden shouted.

"I'm afraid it's rather urgent," a woman added, but with an odd tone to her words.

"Well, out with it? What is it?" the Warden asked as he pulled the armored pauldrons into place, as Hotaro stepped aside and out of the way. The door creaked open again, and a young woman stepped into the doorway. Hotaro's eyes shot wide, when they beheld the daughter of the Kyoshi Matriarch standing in the threshold, grinning. She had fruit in her hands. Citrus. Not from the local stockpiles, that was certain.

"You look like you could use a snack," Suki of Kyoshi said brightly in strongly accented Huo Jian, before hurling both into the room, and slamming the door shut. Hotaro and the Warden both turned to face the discolored lemons on the floor, confused as to what the hell had just happened. As it was, Hotaro's near-blindness finally ended as a benefit to him; while the burning, stinking gas that was erupted through the room by the explosion still seared at his skin,_ at least_ it didn't get into his eyes.

* * *

><p>The prison was oddly quiet, for all that there was essentially a riot going on. Chit Sang had a way of controlling his long-serving ilk which Sokka wasn't sure whether he should be impressed by or afraid of. He once again found himself idly wondering what exactly the hulking firebender had been before he'd come to the Boiling Rock, but this was hardly the time to ask those sorts of questions. Suki sauntered back into Sokka's path, grinning broadly. Zuko followed shortly after her, and they fell in behind the massing wall of prisoners, Tribesmen, and the Si Wongi who'd provided bombs to both.<p>

"I've wanted to do that for six months," Suki said, quite happy with herself.

"I feel bad for his accountant," Zuko said.

"Really?"

"How many people go to work counting coin and get a bomb exploded in their face? Must have been a shock to him," Zuko offered with a shrug. Sokka, though, had to kip ahead slightly, so that he was ahead of the main tumult of angry soon-to-be-emancipated people. Mostly because he still had his armor on, and he was one of three whom he could count on under that function.

Zuko and Nila moved to join him, and Sokka waved the crowd to a halt before turning a corner. Aalo snapped an order which went back through her people. Chit Sang just stood in front of his, put his hands on his fists, and glared at them as though daring them to push past. Needless to say, they didn't. "This is the main choke-point. They have two pillboxes flanking the stairs up, and a third built into the trolley-tower," Kanshao pointed out. "The two over the stairs absolutely have to go down, or they'll bathe us in fire before we can even get a glance on them. The third can afford to be left up. Better if it were taken out, but not as critical."

"Alright," Sokka said. He nodded from his girlfriend to the firebender in the red armor of the Boiling Rock prison's guards. "When I say so, you sprint like somebody's trying to kill you. You two take the one on the left. I'll get the one on the right."

"Why would we..." Nila asked.

"Because we're running from the riot," Zuko grasped Sokka's meaning, which gave Nila a very annoyed look, but fortunately, not directed at Sokka. He pointed from Nila to Sokka. "You should go with him. I can take the bunker on my own. You two... well, I know how your luck tends to go."

Nila was silent a moment, then turned to Sokka. "He is not wrong."

"Alright. Ready?"

"Bombs prepared," Nila said. Zuko simply nodded. Sokka gave one last look behind them, and called out to Chit Sang and Aalo. "Give us one minute, then you storm up those stairs behind the firebenders. There's no reason not to brute force this, if Malu's done her part."

"It's about time that somebody taught that fool not to consider himself infallible because of somebody else's work," Kanshao said, but of what, Sokka wasn't immediately sure. Sokka tapped Nila, and she took off. Sokka waited exactly one second, before tearing off after her. He probably should have ran first, because Nila outstripped him so completely that by the time he reached the bottom of that stairwell, she was already vanishing up into the 'plaza' at the top of the trolley-tower out of his line of sight. She was quick, in a great many things, Sokka noted. He powered up the stairs, Zuko following a moment later, and he broke toward the red armored girl who was just ducking through the door which had been opened for her.

"They're behind us!"

"Who are?" the guard at that door asked, as Sokka ran full-tilt at him. Sokka hurled himself through the door, crashing to the ground on his side. Notably, the side which didn't have a noxious lemon hidden under his armor. "Agni's Blood, what's going on down there? I can't see _any_ of the prisoners..."

"It's a riot," Sokka said. Nila simply stood, her hands on her knees, as though she were hopelessly out of breath. It was more that doing so made people think not to talk to her, and so she wouldn't have to look anybody in the eye; both would have been dead give-aways. "They're coming up the stairs. They got the Warden and... that other guy. The little fella," Sokka waved, as though trying to call forth his name that was lost on the tip of his tongue.

"Hotaro? Damn!" he said, he pulled Sokka up to his feet. "That little guy padded my purse for years. How far behind you are they?"

"Not far," Sokka said. He nodded, and turned to shout into a brass horn built into the wall. "All guards! We've got a riot! Prepare for a firebath!"

Sokka nodded, and waved the 'able-bodied' firebender ahead of him. Then, Sokka gave Nila a smirk. "I can't believe he bought it," Sokka whispered in Tianxia.

"His money is not yet in our purse," Nila reminded him, and then started to follow, keeping her eyes hooded. Sokka had a bit more leeway in that department. Sokka followed the sound of several people running through the short hallway, to a sort of overlook which had murder-holes built into the floor. Sokka and Nila both surreptitiously pulled out their explosives, and started to move closer.

"I don't hear them," that guard from the door said. "Where are they?"

"I don't know! They were right behind me... unless they got distrac–" Sokka said, running through what he'd prepared to say, but was cut off by a blast of flame from the other bunker, just visible from this one so that both overlapped the run-up and the stairwell. Oh, damn it, Zuko. Couldn't you have lied a little bit better? "Oh, that can't be good."

"What's going on over there?" the guard said, as even Sokka could see Zuko launching firebending attacks inside the bunker across from them. The guards on this side, though, were looking increasingly disturbed. But undeniably distracted. "I think they've got an infiltrator over there! You there, make sure he..."

He turned, just as Sokka and Nila both casually lobbed their citrus bombs to the edge of that bunker, right in front of everybody's toes, before the two of them ducked back through the door. Nila had the gall to give a condescending farewell-wave before she slammed the door shut, and slapped a different kind of device onto the hinge. After pulling something, the metal started to turn bright red, then to white, and then melted down the edge, locking the door shut with its own former mass. "What was _that_?"

"Distillation of volatile alum," Nila said, pushing Sokka back, as the tiny amount she'd used was now causing an appreciable amount of heat even at that range. "And white-phosphorus to ignite. Don't look directly at it next time."

"There's going to be a next time?" Sokka asked, a little perturbed by that. "Is there anything you can't destroy?"

"My mother's sense of smug hubris," Nila answered him without missing a beat. Sokka had to give a nod at that, for if there was anything that needed destroying, it was probably that.

The two regressed through the bunker, and had just opened the door when the roar of the firebenders coming up the stairs sounded, and the bunker on the far side started to blast flame toward them. But Chit Sang and his fellow prisoners all bent furiously, creating a brilliant shield which deflected that conflagration away from them, as they pressed forward against it. Without the cross-fire to roast them, they only had to focus on one direction, and because of that, made steady if slow progress.

There was a swelling in the ranks, as every time a prisoner got exhausted, a fresh one would take his place. Firebenders, it was obvious, didn't train for stamina. But this wasn't that. This was a great mass moving forward within that human ram of fire, pressing forward. Sokka could see that the mass moving now was all of dark complexion and bearing the lighter build of adolescents. The fire deflecting in every direction continued to pour out, but now, Sokka could see the origin points of each fan of flame. And so could Chit Sang's firebenders. With a might heave, clumping themselves together into five knots, they hurled the fire which was directed at them off and to the side, clearing the sky directly above them.

And that sky was filled with Tribesmen. In a great and surprisingly synchronized assault, the young Tribesmen, bearing what were likely the last of the bombs doled out, were boosted up onto the shoulders of the firebenders, whence they launched themselves into the air with remarkable simultaneity. As one, four arms cocked back, one of them Aalo herself, and then all four launched their cargo, before landing into the gaps in the firebending directed at them, flattening their backs against the wall right under the slit. There were two seconds of further firebending, before the first one went off. A second later, two more, and the third one a few seconds after that, and the great grey-green cloud of greasy pepper and stench began to roll out of the bunker. The hostile firebending stopped completely.

"Alright! Everybody into the trolley! This'll take two trips!" Chit Sang shouted. "First come, first out!"

"But..." one of the firebenders said.

"First come. First out," Chit Sang reminded him, sternly. The smaller man swallowed nervously, and nodded, as a mixture of National and Tribesman piled onto the tram together. Zuko staggered out of the bunker, a rictus of pain on his face and the left half of his face covered in grease, no doubt burning the hell out of his eye. Katara broke away from her kin to reach his side.

"What happened to you?"

"The bomb went off on my belt," Zuko muttered. He pointed to his extremely tender-looking eye. "Would you mind?"

"Not with that attitude," Katara said. Zuko glared at her. "I was joking."

"My eye feels like it's on fire," Zuko said through grit teeth. Katara just shrugged, and reached up. An arm of the steam flying over head broke away from its path and drifted to her hand, before condensing into water which she used to scrape away the goop and sooth the eye under it.

"Is that a load? Good," Sokka said. He tapped Nila on the shoulder. "Now."

Nila pulled another device from under her armor, and held it up and toward where the tower would be on the far side. Then, with a pull, there came an ear-splitting shriek as the fire-work blasted up and out of the tube in her hand, dropping black ashes behind it as it went. A groan of machinery, and the trolley started to move, slightly more than half of the prison's population aboard it. Needless to say, it moved much slower than it usually would.

Sokka was about to offer a sarcastic comment to Zuko, when he beheld one of the firebenders approaching the two of them, looking somewhat singed and extremely angry. "Zuko! Behind you!"

Zuko turned, and was able to shield himself from the fireblast which had almost blindsided him. It did send him crashing to the floor, though. Katara missed not an instant, though, and with a massive swing of her arms, a great gout of the steam congealed into water, spinning around her in a ring. The firebender turned a fresh assault on her, but she lashed her water through it, deadening the fire easily, before slamming that surge into his chest and driving him back against the wall of the bunker. A twist of her hands, and the water which had been crushing him turned to ice, leaving him pinned and locked in place. Katara dusted off her hands. "Anybody else?"

"I'd hope not. For their sake," Zuko said. And at that, Sokka couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

><p>Aang was getting restless. That would be obvious to anybody who knew him, and oddly enough, Azula could now count herself amongst that number. How strange, that twice in two lifetimes, he was the same way to the slightest. Meanwhile, three times in three lives, Azula couldn't have been more different. "They'll be there, right?" he asked.<p>

"Oh, stop your belly-aching, Twinkletoes," Toph said, her legs kicked up onto the rim of the bison's howdah. Azula, flying aboard the Avatar's bison. Oh, how the wonders never ceased. "As long as Brain and Sparky are in charge, they'll be fine."

"And if the airbender girl has taken control? Or the one obsessed with bombs?" Azula asked.

"Hope that it isn't the latter," Toph said, as she picked at her teeth. "I don't know if the world could with stand the explosion she'd use to get them out."

"Guys, can we stop talking about explosions?" Aang asked, as they moved closer to the steaming volcano. The beast let out a low grumble, which the Avatar responded to with the kind of cooing that Azula would have reserved for her infants if she was any kind of mother worthy of having them. "I mean, I know how dangerous those things can be. Can you imagine what would happen if one..."

The Avatar was cut off when there was a horrid blast, followed by the crashing of stone. Azula leaned out of the saddle, and beheld that the back half of the Boiling Rock prison was collapsing in the aftermath of an explosion, rendering the prison useless for the foreseeable future. A part of Azula had to wonder if the bomb was intended to be _that_ potent, though. Aang's gaping shock was enough to cause Azula to laugh.

"What the hell was that? What just happened?" Toph asked, now curled in close and clutching the rail, her useless eyes wide.

"The Tribesman is doomed," Azula summarized. Toph shot a glare somewhere to Azula's left. "Take us down."

"You heard her, Appa. Down we go," Aang said, but he was still stunned in his voice. The rumbling of the collapsing building honestly reminded Azula of her ill-begun civil war; the sound of explosions was a frequent source of nightmares while she was a new mother. Not because of any threat to her children, but because every explosion meant that her dreams were moving a little bit further from any possible reality. The last bombing attack, which ended her dreams of seizing the Burning Throne for herself came when Chiyo was three years old. The answer Azula gave to her daughter's question made her a bit sick to remember. The bison moved away from the hottest, core part of the steam funnel, and then descended toward it's far side.

Unlike the now obliterated prison behind, the towers before them still stood tall and proud, and notably had an airbender squatting easily atop an Aerie roof. Aang brought the bison lower, and Malu kipped over, standing next to Aang and holding to the beast's horn.

"Worked like a charm," she said.

"One of _Sokka's_ plans worked like a charm? The universe _really_ must be ending," Azula said dryly. Toph laughed outright at that.

"I didn't see you doing a whole lot to help out," Malu fired back. She vaulted to the far side of the beast and pointed down the slope. "Anyway, the prisoners are all down there. They'll need another ship to get them all out of here, though. That one's not big enough for a quarter of them if you stack 'em like logs."

"Then the first thing we do is assign Suki and her... mother," Azula remembered her 'favorite prisoner's mother having died a decade before the two of them met. The little differences were what hurt her brain the most; the vast ones were easily teased out into this life or that life, but the little ones? They blended together, "to getting a freighter to get them to the mainland. But until then, we should have them relocated to that island," she pointed into the grey distance, mounted by fog.

"What island?" Malu asked.

"There is an island there," Azula said, as even she realized that she couldn't see what she was pointing at. "It's of decent size, and even slightly less treacherous than your usual Azuli landmass."

"That sounds good," Aang said. The beast began to surge down and forward again, until they passed a cropping of stones. The moment they broached that barrier, the veritable community of prisoners below came into sight. Aang directed his beast to land near the Tribesman and his explosive obsessed paramour, who were talking to the woman of the hour, as it were.

"You're here! We've got a bit of a problem," Sokka said, motioning to the sheer number of them.

"I've got it covered. Suki? Got a second?" Malu asked, and bounded down to talk to the girl.

The first hand which was held toward the rail was her brother's, and she hauled him into the howdah easily. Almost too easily. Roughly two thirds of who she once had been were far, _far_ weaker than she was right now. After all, what need of muscle when fire does it's own work? As he ascended the rail, though, Azula had just a twinge of confusion, as there was a distinct redness covering his left eye, growing more stark and terrible the closer it got to his eye. Then, she saw that the eye was bloodshot, and gave a glance toward Nila. Just a coincidence, brought about by careless explosive use. "I suppose you've learned your lesson not to play with bombs?" Azula asked.

"I don't even get the benefit of the doubt with you, do I?" Zuko asked.

"I know you too well," Azula pointed out. When she turned, she let out a grunt of surprise when she noted that Aang was now sitting in the saddle directly beside her. She was going to have to attach a bell to that airbender; he moved around too quickly and too silently otherwise.

"Well, that's the first step," Aang said. "How do we do the next one?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Zuko said, obviously trying very hard not to rub his pepper-burned eye. "But I know that we're going to have to go to the mainland to do it."

"Oh, great. So we're going to have to wander the most lethal place on Earth on foot, with almost no idea where exactly we're going? And I thought _my_ plans were bad," Sokka interjected as he entered the howdah. A moment later, he hauled Nila up behind him.

"It's not that we don't know where we're going, it's that we're not exactly sure where to find who we're looking for," Zuko pointed out. "He's a friend of Gwen's, older, and he's got a lot of interesting toys he can turn against Ozai that he can muster very, very fast. A bit... squirrely, though."

"Oh. So the city instead of the wildlife," Sokka said.

"I would account it of roughly equivalent danger," Nila said with apparent perfect seriousness. There was one thing that Azula had no preparation for; never had she any memories of this one's being alive. Thus, it was hard for Azula to get a read on her. Hard, but not impossible. She'd just actually have to try.

"I guess I'm sitting this one out, too?" Aang asked, fidgitting with the headband which kept the blue arrow upon his brow covered. His hair, quickly growing in blackly, was doing a fine job of obscuring the rest of it.

"No, you can pass as a local better than some of us," Sokka said, rubbing an imaginary beard. He started to grin. "I think I have an idea that might make this a bit easier."

"Does it concern anybody else that this might have been perhaps too easy?" Azula finally gave word to her worry, cutting off Sokka before he could launch into whatever oddball idea he had in mind.

"We've had a rough run. I figure the universe decided we deserved to have a win in there at some point," Malu said with a shrug as she and Suki bounded and clambered into the saddle, respectively. Malu, too, had no place in Azula's memories of the times before. Probably because, without that monstrous being's interference, she'd have died of old-age by now.

"...and it was all just a dream?" Toph offered.

"It's not funny twice, Toph," Sokka said flatly.

* * *

><p>Kori shook off the rain which had saturated his supposedly 'waterproof' cloak with a grunt. The waterfall had begun once again, as the stream couldn't hold the water in its banks and spilled it down into the canyon in the most dramatic way possible. Well, that was one more job done: even if he wasn't throwing in with the Avatar – which was a probability in his mind – there were still things which one did not do. Taking children from their parents was one of them.<p>

In retrospect, it made Kori wonder if Yoji might just remember more about her own early-childhood than she wanted anybody else to believe.

He gave a quick look around the quiet, damp and cold of the Western Air Temple. Obviously, they'd taken to some distant and more well-hidden place to make camp, since Kori had located them so effortlessly last time. Prudent. His head swung a little further, and then his opinion ratcheted down about twelve notches as he saw light flickering in one of the upper tower rooms. So much for that notion.

With a sigh, and his cloak now draped over his arm so it wouldn't soak his entire body, he made his way up toward the highest level. He'd thought they were smarter than that. There were a lot of things that he had to do, but at the moment, he was somewhat spoiled for choice. Paralyzed for choice, more like. The options, if simplified to the point of stupidity, were to either remain by Yoji's side, try to bring her away from those who abused her, make a fairly long-shot assassination attempt on Ozai, or aid the Avatar's group directly. Realistically, the most optimum was probably a combination of those four, but at the moment, he couldn't quite figure out how to not get killed doing all of them.

He entered the tower and began the ascent to the higher levels. Yoji... that was the biggest problem. He'd come to peace with the notion that she wasn't his blood sister, but years of family didn't evaporate so quickly. It was one of the things which made him wish that they hadn't left Omo in Ba Sing Se. Honestly, he deserved a proper funeral if nothing else. It would have given Yoji some closure; she'd been closer to him than anybody outside of Kori himself. And losing him... threw her.

He turned off of the stairwell and toward the room which flickered with the faint red of a fire out of sight. "Well, I dealt with something which honestly should have been taken care of a damned long time ago," Kori said. "So now, I need a bit of..."

Kori trailed off as he entered the room, and noted that there was a bedroll and backpack in the corner; both were notably not belonging to anything that the Avatar's retinue brought with them. He'd checked before talking to them, as was prudent. He blinked in confusion, but the confusion turned to a mildly disappointed sigh as he felt a blade slide under his chin.

"Don't move," the young woman's voice said. Kori glanced down at the fore-canted knife under his neck. "You don't belong here, Hillman."

"You're half right," Kori said with his usual shit-eating grin. "But then again, I'm pretty sure neither do you."

"What do you want?"

"To talk to some people. Obviously they've left," Kori said. That was annoying as hell; Azula's prophecy didn't tell where they went next. He honestly regretted not asking her more about those while he had a chance. Doubly so when they started proving inaccurate. "Which makes me wonder what you're doing here."

"Is that any business of yours?" she asked him, and the blade pulled a bit tighter, starting to bite into the skin of his neck.

"Might be..." he turned his head slightly, looking into bright grey eyes. "It would certainly explain why _Maya Azul_ was so far from home."

From the look on her face, that _might_ have been the wrong thing to say.

* * *

><p><em>Leave a review<em>


	46. The Dragon

"...I did _not_ see this coming," Hai said, his hands tied before him and rubbing at a black-eye which was quickly swelling up to cover almost a quarter of his face.

"I don't think anybody saw it coming," Maryah offered from Hai's immediate right.

"Hell, _Azula_ didn't, so why should we?" Hisui asked from Hai's immediate left. The Children, as elite a bending force existed in the Fire Nation, were limited in one very specific regard; there were only so many of them. Under the sheer weight of manpower that Zhao could and had levied against them, they crumbled within minutes. But they were very interesting and painful minutes. Hisui ran an eye along the ranks of kneeling Children. "Does anybody see Yoji or Kori?"

"They must have gotten away before the noose tightened," Maryah said with a shrug. Unlike most around her, Maryah hadn't been brought down by a smack in the head or by being blown out a window or some such; they'd captured her straight out of the bath. Which was one of two times when an Azuli woman isn't armed. Needless to say, Hai was enjoying the view of a barely clothed Maryah perhaps a bit too much for their working relationship.

Of course, tomorrow there might not be a life-expectancy, let alone a working relationship. If today isn't ripe for a peek, when possibly would be?

"Eyes up, shaman," Maryah said calmly, her own gaze locked straight forward, or at least until she sent a sly glance in his direction. "I assume you have a way out?"

"Not a good one," Hai said.

"We could go into the Spirit World, but we're overdue a blowout. Long overdue," Hisui clarified, which was to say, didn't explain a thing to Maryah. Hai sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with bound hands.

"If we go there, there's a pretty good chance we'll get killed," Hai did a better job of explaining their problem.

"Pretty good is better than absolute certainty in this case," Maryah said. "At at least that'll mean we don't _all_ get executed."

"Kinda moot, as there's no rifts anywhere near here," Hisui said, darkly. That, at least, Maryah seemed to grasp well enough.

"If they were going to execute us, they'd probably have done it two days ago," Hai also pointed out.

"True enough," Maryah agreed. Then, fell silent as a man in simple but serviceable red and black armor stepped out of a hallway, making his way to the fore of the assembly of teenaged benders from 'round the world. Hai's teeth ground slightly when he noticed the livid scar over the man's eye, and knew exactly in that moment who'd orchestrated all of this carnage.

Zhao, captain-cum-admiral-cum-Lord, and now, apparently, usurper of the Fire Lord. He came to a halt, standing before the assembled mass of the Children, struck low and bound before him. A professional part of Hai was outraged, as he'd never thought that he's die on his knees. A more pragmatic one wondered why he was still alive. The usurper looked across the crowd, hearing the quiet murmuring which despite the orders to silence still came from the hundred and more benders and other impressively skilled teens. He cast out a hand, and like obedient pupils, the Children fell silent. Hai had half a mind to say something very, very crude right then to prove a point. But then again, he could see a skull-masked Royal Home Guard standing right over there. And he didn't feel like getting hit in the face again.

"Children," he said. "Your service to your Fire Lord was admirable. You had a doomed cause, that honor dictated you fight to the end. And you did honor to yourselves in pursuing it to its conclusion. The Fire Lord you served is no longer the master of the palace, nor Caldera City, nor the Midlands, nor the Fire Nation. So your fealty to him, as of this moment, is broken."

Hai gave a glance toward Maryah, who rolled her eyes. Obviously she knew what was going on, and neglected to fill him in. Not like she could right now.

"As I see it, that leaves you with two options. You can remain foolishly loyal to a man who no longer deserves nor commands your loyalty, or you can remain loyal to what you served from the day that you were saved from the filth that lies outside our borders; the Burning Throne itself," Zhao strode forward, standing right before the front rank, which was some four ranks ahead of where the three of them were on their knees uncomfortably on the cold, rain-drenched stone. "If you swear to the latter, then you can face no punishment. You did your duty, as it was expected of you. And as long as you continue to do that duty, to the Burning Throne above all else, you will reap the rewards and honor that is deserved of it," he announced, before turning to walk around the perimeter of them. "If you swear to the _former_, however... You will find that my mercy is distinctly less absolute. You will be a traitor to the Fire Nation, and depending on the immensity of your crimes subject to immediate exile, or execution."

"Not much of a choice," Hai muttered under his breath. But somehow, that scar-faced bastard managed to hear him. And he grinned, unkindly.

"We all have choices. That doesn't mean we get to enjoy them," Zhao said. "You have two minutes to make up your minds. Did you serve Ozai, or did you serve the Burning Throne? You will want to choose wisely."

Zhao continued to circle around them, as silence turned into light rattling, as the rain which had been falling frigid cold started to sting against Hai's face. When he reached the front of the crowd once more, he turned. "Your time to ponder is up. Make your decision."

From the front row, there came a quiet, but resolute voice. "We serve the Burning Throne."

Zhao looked from Junyo, who'd made that pronouncement, to the others arrayed behind her and to her sides. "Anybody else."

"I figure I speak for everybody here," Juryo said. She turned back to face those behind her. "Tell me if I'm wrong?"

Silence.

She turned back toward Zhao. "We are the Children. Our lives are owed to the Fire Nation. That has not changed."

Hai's teeth were still grinding though. "You don't like this, do you?" Hisui asked him. He looked to his sister.

"No, I don't," he said.

"Well, if he lets us in, it'll be all the easier to stab him if the need arises," Maryah said with an almost inaudibly quiet whisper. Hai had to stifle a chuckle at that. The stinging got worse though, and when Hai glanced to the puddles that many were kneeling in, he could see... tiny chips of ice floating in them. Hail was falling in the capital of the Fire Nation, and thunder rumbled with it.

* * *

><p>"This place looks like it might be a bit more helpful," Malu said, still trying to get the dark red blouse she'd had to knick from a laundry-line to rest on her properly. It was too baggy in the chest, and too constricting in the waist. Whoever originally owned this must have been a <em>very<em> popular woman. Still, it was the proper color, and wasn't as ridiculous an outfit as had originally been offered her. Much as she was proud of her airbender physique, she would rather _not_ go around with her belly out all the time. Sokka, the Tribesman and Nila's paramour gave a bit of a shrug, where he walked at her side.

"I warned you that this'd be a chore in itself. We can't navigate by dead-reckoning, and the way the weather's holding, we're going to have to until we hit the mountains," Sokka said, rotating a map slightly, no doubt doing math in his head.

"You've got to have a bit more faith. I've been navigating storms since I was ten."

"So's Aang," Sokka gestured vaguely toward the trees, where the rest of them and the obviously easily spotted bison they flew in on were currently concealing themselves. Of the lot of them, Malu was the best infiltrator for all she was more Whalesh than Azuli – grey eyes were grey eyes, by most people's understanding – and Sokka drew the proverbial short straw to go with her. Malu didn't mind who went with her. Zuko, she wanted to have a few words alone with. Likewise, Sokka. The Tribesman in question turned to her. "Just let me do the talking. I've got the accent down pat."

"And I don't?"

"You sound like a Midlander," Sokka shrugged.

"So. You and Nila, huh?" Malu asked, a grin coming to her face.

"Yup. Didn't see that one coming. She's got a way of blindsiding people, hasn't she?" Sokka asked without the sort of love-struck tone that she'd honestly kind of expected.

"I've always believed that Nila was an intensely passionate girl, with absolutely no idea that she was so passionate. Good to see that she's finally managed to be honest with herself."

"Oh, trust me, it wasn't an issue of _honesty_," Sokka said, rolling his eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Malu asked.

"Huh? Oh, nothing. Not a thing. Funny weather we're having, isn't it?" Sokka changed the subject.

"Oh no, you're not getting away that easily. What do you know that I don't?"

"I'm not sure she'd be happy with me talking behind her back. Particularly when I'm pretty sure I'm currently right to her face," he gave a glance back toward the tree-line.

"She can't hear us. Trust me," Malu said. "So. Nila. What's her..."

"We had a... a thing," Sokka said. Malu blinked a few times, pausing next to the thick, spiked iron fence which surrounded the innermost plot of land. It was a cruel piece of architecture, but given what Malu knew about the wildlife of Azul, it was the bare minimum. As it was, she could see tufts of hair and a crusting of orange ichor caught on the points of more than a few of the spikes. After that mildly unpleasant sight, her brain clicked to what Sokka meant by that.

"Really? When'd you start going out?"

"...remember when Aang and jerkface were off getting Azula un-crazied?" Sokka asked.

"That was two weeks ago!" Malu said. She then gave a grunt of surprise. "Man. Didn't expect my little Nila to move that quick. She's growing up so fast," she said with a feigned tone of motherly nostalgia.

"...not the only thing she does fast," Sokka said. He waved to her. "We're slowing things down, though. Neither of us was really happy with things... Well, we're both fifteen! I mean, what would happen if..."

"Oh, she wouldn't let herself get pregnant. I know her better than that," Malu said, opening the gate and proceeding up the stone-flagged walkway.

"Given your own _recent_ un-crazying, I'd say I know her at least as well as you do," Sokka pointed out. Malu had to admit, he had a point. The two of them passed the garden plots and paused before the nearly-black door of the stone-wrought house. "Alright. I'll do the talking. You try to look helpless and keep an eye out for deadly critters."

"If it moves, I'll warn you about it," Malu affirmed.

Sokka nodded, then turned to give a knock on the door. In a flash, he both rechecked that his sword was tied concealed behind his back, and his boomerang secure in its holster, before holding the map out before him again. The door opened, and Sokka looked straight down at his map, as though confused and a little ashamed to have to ask.

"Excuse me? I'm a bit lost right now. I was told that Azul is to the south, but I think I might have overshot it," Sokka said, pointing vaguely at his map. The man in the doorway, though, took one look at the Tribesman and went deathly pale. Sokka noticed the silence, and glanced up. "I'm sorry. Did I go to fast for you? I'm a bit lost, and..."

"AAAAUGH!" the man screamed, pointing a finger at Sokka. Sokka, likewise shocked, responded in kind.

"AAAUGH!" Sokka screamed back, his fists crumpling into the map, and it was clear he wasn't sure why he was screaming, only that he wasn't alone in it. Honestly, Malu felt a little bit of an impetus to do likewise.

"What is it? Who's out there?" a woman's voice came from the back room.

"YOU! WHAT ARE _YOU_ DOING HERE?" the man screamed.

"I DON'T KNOW! WHO AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?" Sokka screamed back.

The man screamed over his shoulder. "RIKU! THEY'RE HERE!"

"What! Are we being pressganged?" that woman shouted again, and there came a pounding toward the door, before it was pulled open, and a somewhat tougher looking woman took her place beside the man. The two shared the same height and rough build, but there was no doubt in Malu's confused mind that if there were only one set of pants to be worn in that household, _she_ would be the one wearing them. Riku, as she was very likely called, took a look at Malu first, concern but not alarm in her eyes, before spotting Sokka. Then, she let out a scream as her companion did, and fire burst into being on her fists. "The Tribesman!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Sokka said.

"Go away, and I won't try to kill you," Riku offered, and from the look on her face, she meant it. "Taka, get inside."

Taka, as he was likely called, took only one step back, so that she dominated the doorway. Sokka's alarm turned into dawning realization. "Tui La, you're those guys from the North Air Temple!"

"Come to finish the job, eh Tribesman?" Riku asked.

"What job? What are you two talking about?" Malu asked.

"These guys kidnapped the Mountain King's daughter!" Sokka said.

"No, Qin kidnapped her. We just made sure she wasn't terrified out of her wits," Takeshi offered over Riku's shoulder. She shot a glance back at him. "Right. Shutting up, dear."

"We're not here to cause any problems. I'll just go," Sokka said.

"You'd better. I'm not letting anybody ruin my honeymoon. Again," she said, direly.

"You're a newlywed?" Malu asked. "Congratulations!"

"...thank you?" Riku asked, her posture softening. Exactly Malu's intention.

"Um, I've got a question," Malu said. "Which way is it to Azul? I only ask because this one doesn't have any head for maps at all!"

"Do you have any idea who you're traveling with?" Riku asked.

"...A cute Tribesman?" she asked, reaching over and grabbing Sokka's ass to corroborate her falsehood. Sokka looked positively shocked by the goosing. Riku, who'd now passed from martial alarm to confusion, and from confusion into annoyance, let her fists drop and her fires extinguish. "It's not a crime to have a thing for tall, dark and handsome, is it?"

"No, but it's a crime to have _things_ for Tribesmen," Taka said.

"Taka, honey? Shut up," Riku said.

"Shutting up, dear," Taka said, and it was obvious he wouldn't keep that up long.

"Your Avatar is dead, isn't he?" Riku asked. Sokka just dropped his eyes to the ground. "That's the rumor I'd heard. So now you're just trying to survive? Well you could have picked a better place to do it."

"...I don't really have any other options," Sokka lied impressively. Riku shook her head, kneading her brow.

"Look. I've just got off of my tour. I'm mustered out. For that reason, and that reason only, I don't give a damned who you are or what you're doing, as long as you don't bring trouble to my door."

"Well, do you know what'd get us _away_ from your door all the faster?" Malu asked. She pointed at the map still in Sokka's hands. "Which way is it to Azul City?"

Nila would probably have words with the way Malu got out of the sticky situation. But at the moment, Malu wasn't much to care. Mostly because they were that much closer to where they needed to go.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**The Dragon**

* * *

><p>"It makes you a bit sick to your stomach to watch, doesn't it?" Maryah asked quietly, from the ranks of the Children who were flanking the slowly concluding coronation.<p>

"Didn't know you were such a patriot," Hai said with a smirk. "What with your heritage and all."

"Azuli or not, this is a little bit disgusting," she answered him. "This flies in the face of all tradition and sense. It's a coup, and everybody's treating it like a succession. It's... crazy."

"The Fire Nation hasn't exactly been a bastion of sanity in recent years," Hai gave a shrug. The two of them continued to stand at attention, side by side, as the Fire Sages declared Zhao, born of no house at all, the Fire Lord, ruler of the Fire Nations of Ember, Shinzo, and Azul. "Well, there goes thirteen generations of one family on the throne. Wasn't that some sort of record?"

"For the Fire Nation," Maryah gave a nod. "The Earth King's still got us beat by about forty generations."

"As much as I enjoy standing here, listening to you two yammer on about history and rules of succession, we still have to wonder what this is going to mean for us," Juryo said from before them, facing the same direction as they. "Ozai wanted us because we were his crowning achievement. Proof of a single order, heedless of element. Zhao... he probably sees us as a bludgeoning tool."

"I'm still a little surprised you stood up for him," Hai mentioned to the fat earthbender. "Didn't he crack your ribs a bit during the coup?"

"My family needed help. I can swallow my pride for that," Juryo said with a shrug.

"How long do you give 'im?" Maryah asked.

"Two months. Three, tops," Juryo nevertheless answered. "The only question is, who'll be taking his place? Ozai, or one of his kids?"

"That would depend on whether Ozai is still alive or not," Hai said. He then let out a sigh as Zhao launched into a long-winded speech about the 'new course for the Fire Nation', which he promptly tuned out. "He'd be back on the Burning Throne in a heartbeat. And he'd spin on his pyre if his son or elder daughter took his place. But... The rules are the rules. It'll be one or the other of them."

There was something of a ripple in reality, and Hai casually leaned over with the World Eye open, to see his sister leaning on the fabric of the Outer Sphere, peering into the mortal world without showing herself to those unable to see as they did. "Much as I'd love to stay here and listen to you ninnies talk about Fire Nation rules of succession, I think I've got a bigger problem that needs to be sorted out," She said sarcastically, her voice carrying to her brother alone.

"Do you think they'll notice if I leave?" Hai asked.

"Zhao? His head's too far up his ass to see anything but his own sphincter," Juryo said, with her usual masterful command of the Huo Jian language.

"Hisui is here, isn't she?" Maryah asked. She smirked. "Got room for one more?"

"I'll ask her," Hai said. He half turned toward where Hisui was camped on the other edge of a layer of reality. He only opened his mouth when she cut him off.

"I _can_ hear them, you dolt," Hisui said. "Be thankful I'm so good at this, or she'd be standing in the rain with the rest of 'em. Aaaand... there's a rift right there. Ready?"

"If you would?" Hai asked, offering Maryah his hand. She rolled her eyes, but took it. And with a sense of suction and displacement, Hai felt himself being pulled through a rent in what was, which puckered closed behind them. Instantly, they were standing in roughly the same place, but the sounds were tinny and distant, the light suffusive and desaturated. And the rain, which had been drizzling directly into their faces, now passed through them effortlessly. Maryah took a brief look around.

"So, this is your Spirit World, huh? Not really impressed," Maryah said.

"This isn't the spirit world," Hisui said. "Come on, brother. I'll show it to you."

The shaman and the assassin followed Hisui as she walked effortlessly through the crowds, not skirting around anybody as there was no need to. They stood as thin as air. Their path led out of the Royal Fire Court, and then out of the palace grounds, and from there, toward the outer edge of the Noble District. "Alright, are we going to walk all the way to Ashfall? Because if we are, I'm going to want to get my better shoes," Maryah said.

"Not much further. Keep your underwear on," Hisui said, and began to descend the slopes of the volcano. Since she seemed entirely willing to just hurl herself down a cliff, and Hai did so a moment after her, Maryah gave a shake of her head and a sigh, and followed after, leaping off of a cliff in a manner which ought have killed her immediately. All of them landed at a slide with the tenderest of jolts, and slid down on their feet of the sharp descent. Hisui moved from sliding to walking easily enough. Hai, on the other hand, managed to catch his toe on something and face-plant onto the spiritual dust, sending up greenish motes of tiny spirits into the air, before they settled like dust back to their home.

"Good thing we don't use you for assassinations. You'd be dead before you got half way into your first job," Maryah said with a chuckle, pulling Hai up. He dusted himself, mostly because that was what one did after face-planting, not because there was any dust on him. And there wouldn't have been on the ground, either, since it was constantly raining. Still, habits. Hisui beckoned for the two of them to follow, and they started to move through the warren of alleys of the Trade Quarter. Also called the Lower Quarter, for obvious reasons, this was the portion of Caldera City where the least wealthy lived, and still in less abject poverty than he witnessed in Ba Sing Se. Hai almost walked into his sister's back, but when he did, he saw why she'd stopped. He held out an arm to block Maryah walking past him.

"What the hell is that?" Maryah asked, looking past the two shamans.

That, as it were, was a crack. It ran up from the ground along the edge of a building, until it peaked several feet above its roof, before taking an abrupt turn through the air, and terminated in an almost perfectly round hole. The hypotenuse described... didn't look right. Hai opened his World Eyes again, and when he did, he gaped slightly.

"That's... not in the World," Hai said.

"You see the problem then," Hisui said.

"I can see it here, but not in the mortal world. How is that possible?" Hai asked.

"Excuse me, what?" Maryah asked, playing with her knives as she did when she got annoyed.

"Alright, the twenty-second version," Hai said. "There's three layers of reality. The inner sphere, or mortal world, the Outer Sphere, which we're standing in right now, and the Spirit World, which is more dangerous than Azul..."

"I find that hard to believe," she chuckled.

"...anyway, is there a rift here, sis?" he asked. Hisui pointed at the crack in reality. Hai gaped at it. He knew his sister was better at finding rifts than he was, but still. "You must be joking."

"Nope," she said. "That's a rift. And it just swallowed somebody's house."

"It shouldn't be able to do that," Hai said.

"I'm well aware," Hisui told him.

"...Where did the family go?" Hai then asked.

"Therein lies the problem. I'm not sure," Hisui told him. "This leads somewhere, but I'm not sure where, and I'm reluctant to find out. And this thing has been sitting here unnoticed for almost a week, apparently, and nobody mentioned to us because the husband is purportedly a five-bottle man and not the most reliable. They're almost certainly dead by now. But I can't express strongly enough how dangerous these things are. And..."

"It's getting bigger," Maryah said. Both turned to her, then looked back. There was a tiny shudder, and that spherical hole twitched a little bit to the side, widening the rift inside it a little bit more. "That's not good news."

"No, it really isn't."

"So what do we do about it?" she asked. "Go through and find out what's punching holes into the Fire Nation?"

Hisui shared a glance with her brother. "Nope. Not going to happen," he said. "We already walked through an unending oblivion once. I'm not in any hurry to do it again. The Fire Sages will be able to zip this thing up. And if they aren't... well..." he could only shrug.

"You don't fill me with confidence," Maryah said.

"Welcome to being a shaman. The worst paid, least appreciated job in the world," Hisui chimed in dryly.

The three of them watched the rift where it stood for a moment longer. Maryah was the one to break the silence. "...still better than listening to Zhao spout off."

"Yeah, you've got that right," Hai agreed, a smirk coming to his face.

* * *

><p>The fat pirate managed to move with surprising nimbleness, given his frame and his age. Qujeck was honestly a bit surprised by him, how he managed to make fools of Dai Li agents half of his age and corpulence, before putting bullets in them. Kill them, sure, but <em>playing<em> with them was a pointless excess. Bai twisted back, slapping the final one across the face with the back of his hand, causing the earthbender to twist back under the force of it, and be unable to bound away when Bai's other hand produced that 'pistol' and let another crack of explosives going off sound, and another Dai Li tumbled back with a hole in him.

"How long do you think it'll be until somebody finds them?" the rather wild looking, dubiously female teenager asked.

"Long enough for us to get past the barricade," Qujeck said. "They'll probably come running toward all the _noise_ you made."

"Exactly my point, my boy," Hua Jin Bai said with a slightly gap-toothed grin. "They leave their posts, and we shoot through the void they leave."

"That's hopelessly simplistic," Qujeck pointed out.

"Might work, though," the other teenager pointed out as she recoiled her meteor hammer. "What do you think, Longshot?"

The archer, standing on the rooftop, gave a glance down at them. In the weeks that they'd had to fight together, Qujeck accounted himself a fairly decent reader of that young man's complex, heavily loaded glances. This one seemed to be saying, 'It won't matter much if we're still standing around here when they arrive.' Or it was just an impatient grumble. One of the two.

Nevertheless, they had a job to do, one which Qujeck found incredibly distasteful, but needed doing. "How long until their plain-clothes get here?" he asked.

"A moot point if we hurry," Bai said, before hustling such that it belied his corpulent frame. How a man that fat could be so quick defied explanation. Then again... Qujeck shook his head and the idea out of it. This wasn't the time to contemplate the unusual physiology of an old pirate. This was time to vault the wall to the Upper Ring. The alleyways that they walked in now were quite reminiscent of the open streets in the Lower Ring. That was how things seemed to scale. What was once open to the world was then tucked out of sight, and something brighter offered in its place. From what Qujeck had seen of the Upper Ring in his brief time there, the same applied there; the neat but crowded alleys were the equivalent of Middle Ring streets. At least if they kept between buildings, they wouldn't run afoul of the constables and the Dai Li.

At the moment, the two were effectively interchangeable.

Qujeck managed to keep ground with Bai, while the younger of them made their way by vaulting along the back-edges of rooftops. Out of sight from the street, yet still giving them the high ground. Useful for a sniper. There was only one street to go, and Bai motioned everybody to a stop before the alley opened into the last road before the High Ring Wall. "What is it?" Qujeck asked.

Bai made a silencing gesture, and all fell quiet as the sound of footfalls sounded outside of their hiding spot. Qujeck tucked himself into a nook, the shadows obscuring him, as voices rose above the din. "Which way did that noise come from?"

"Two blocks that way. I think," the answer came.

"If this is another wild goose-hare chase..."

"Would you rather tell _Long Feng_ that you think it's a waste of time?" the second pointed out.

"What do you think I am? Insane?"

"That's what I thought. We should cut through here. It'll be faster."

Qujeck groaned quietly. Of course they would cut through the passage which he and the others were using. Qujeck glanced over to Bai, and noted that the thin-haired fat man was grinning. Of _course_ he was.

The sound of boot-leather clacking against cobbled road faded instantly when they crossed off of the street and into the well packed dirt of the alleyway. Still, Qujeck had cut his teeth in the Deadman Plains, hunting tiger-seals while they hunted him. This was nothing. A glance to the rooftop. The three teenagers all readied their weapons, either nocking and drawing a bow, loosing the strand of a meteor hammer, or carefully setting a knife into the teeth and pulling two more to each hand, respectively.

"I don't know what's going to kill us first at this rate, our boss or the guys our boss hates," the first voice muttered.

"You really need to see the bright side for a change."

"Pessimism is a _survival trait_, Quei. I don't intend to be stupid."

Yeah, pity about that. They passed where Bai somehow managed to hide himself and into the cross fire of three armed teenagers, a waterbender, and a bomb-obsessed madman. Qujeck struck first, flicking out a lash of water aimed sternly at the head of the nearer to him. The man managed to flinch low enough that it cracked the helmet off of his head instead of leveling him to the ground as the waterbender had intended. He then turned and snapped forth with a small crossbow, launching a bolt into the air. Qujeck had to flinch and recall that tendril, freezing it around the bolt about a hand away from lancing his own neck.

The speedy one was then shot in the back of his shoulder with a much larger arrow, causing him to spin down and scream in pain. The second looked up, and dodged aside the lash of the meteor hammer which was intended to knock him out in one flick. He noted Bai appearing from the darkness, and hurled himself backward to the ground, just barely dodging the boarding axe that the fat man threw at him. He then hurled something straight up. The knife-wielding girl was at exactly the wrong place at exactly the right time for what looked like an explosive lemon to go off in her face and blind her with pepper grease.

The stink and sting of it drifted downward, and even managed to sear at the archer who hissed in pain and tried to focus through it enough, even with one eye burning and raw, to get another shot. Bug, as she was so frequently known, managed to be saved by Smellerbee's face-full of pain. They were evolving, the Dai Li were. That was a problem.

Qujeck hurled himself forward, underneath the descending cloud of green-grey, painful fog, and heaved the water he controlled over his head, then smashed it straight up into vapor. A second later, he pulled it back to him, recondensing it into water, before hurling that torrent at the man he'd almost put unconscious with his first blow. The water, impregnated with stinging chemicals, slammed him into the wall where the alley switch-backed, and Qujeck took the opportunity to freeze him into place, mouth held shut with stinging water.

Longshot managed to find his aim through the pain, and launched an arrow which slammed into the crossbow the Dai Li agent in his rough, nondescript clothes produced. It tore the bolt in half and lodged into the firing mechanism. Hell, even half blind, Longshot was a miracle worker. Bai took the opportunity to shoulder past where Smellerbee was writhing on the floor to deliver a stomp to the face of that one, putting him down. Bai turned to the most stricken of them. "You should probably get her up and fighting again. I don't figure this for a four-man job."

"Bee? Are you alright?" Bug asked as she kipped down from the rooftops to Smellerbee's side. Qujeck simply knelt beside her.

"Everything tastes like burning!" came the obviously agonized answer.

"Get her hands away from her face," he ordered. Bug shot him a mildly indignant look, but he didn't suffer it. She pulled Smellerbee's hands away, obviously not with any ease, so that Qujeck could work his waterbending. He hadn't been a healer when he left the North Tribe for his 'grand adventure'; this had been before Arnook and Pakku's mandate that _all_ waterbenders be both healers and warriors. Any training he'd gained in healing was purely by necessity, and often, not until after he most desperately needed it. Thus, it wasn't pretty, when he did his work. It probably hurt just as much as the grease did. But after just shy of a minute, Smellerbee was able to stop groaning, and even open her eyes – bloodshot though they were – on her own. "There. How many fingers?"

"As many as I have," she answered, smacking the waterbender's hand away as the other pulled her up. Bai was looking up and down the road. He gave them all a stern nod, then bolted across the street into the alley at the far side. Qujeck was second across, as Longshot had asked no aid. He just grimaced and bore with it, with a level of stoicism which the Tribesman found honestly admirable. The others followed shortly after they two. With the last breach crossed, Qujeck took the last turn for buildings unevenly situated, and then craned his neck upward to the High Ring Wall which stretched up before him.

"I assume you have some way of getting through the wall?" Qujeck asked sardonically.

"It'd be a poor plan if I didn't. Weren't you paying attention?" Bai asked somewhat peevishly.

"Honestly? No."

"And I thought _I_ had anger issues," Bai responded blithely, before breaking into a grin and producing a much larger crossbow than the ones used by the Dai Li from under his over-jacket. "I guess it's lucky I had a profession which allowed me a lot of outlets for it!"

In truth, Qujeck had been listening, although spottily. They'd picked this part of the High Ring Wall because it was one of two places in the Middle Ring where the wall couldn't be overlooked by at least one guard tower. The other of the two positions opened into a broad, wide open area that anybody who cared to look could see they cross. This one opened into somebody's small, neatly tended backyard. Bai raised the weapon, fitted with a quarrel not intended for penetrating flesh but rather bearing wide, back-canted tines to catch in edges of stone. A grappling hook on a launcher. How the marvels never ceased with this mad pirate.

There was a meaty snap as the hook was launched upward, arcing out of sight over the edge of the wall. Bai immediately grabbed the rope dangling from it and pulled hard, before setting his boot to the wall and taking a step up, preparing to make that climb. He immediately fell onto his back as the hook pulled free and started to fall. But it did not fall alone.

With a shout of pain and terror, a Dai Li agent whom the hook had snagged fell the near-hundred and fifty feet to land with a thud which inspired a note of empathy even from cold-hearted Qujeck. Bai turned, forcing himself up to his knees, before pushing himself up. He nudged the Dai Li with his toe. "...what are the chances of that?"

"I couldn't tell you," Qujeck said. Bai shrugged, and pulled the rope back to him, before loading the hook back onto it's launcher. "Wait, you just..."

"As slim as the chances of that happening were, I should say that the same thing happening twice would be almost astronomical," Bai informed him, and started to haul his corpulent form up the wall to prove his point. Qujeck just shook his head. Oh, for the day when he wouldn't have to pray for the hundred-to-one shot, since all other odds were worse. That'd be a very nice day, he figured. He just wondered if he'd ever live to see it. Bai made the distance upward with surprising speed, and Qujeck followed him up.

Well, if _Bai's_ fat ass could make it up, then Qujeck had no excuse not to ascend.

* * *

><p>Green eyes scrutinized the scene before him, rubbing at neatly trimmed mustache on his face. That was something that he'd not had the chance to really cultivate, with all of the flurry of heedless activity in the last month; personal hygiene had taken a significant downturn. However, with the Avatar gone, possibly dead, and his plans for bringing down the Fire Nation from its highest levels already apace, he could take time for the little things. And the not-so-little things as well; exactly why Long Feng was here, under the Royal Palace of Ba Sing Se, in the dark, with two others.<p>

One was dressed much as Long Feng was, in green robes. But outside of a shared uniform, the two were quite different. He wasn't much older than Long Feng, but he certainly looked like he had at least a decade on the Grand Secretariat, in grey hair, weathered skin, and the fact that one of his eyes was missing. Han was a capable underling, though. He knew his business, and that business at the moment was the other in the room, who sat still and locked into place with stone binds to a chair, as the torch ran circuits around Han, his bright eyes not so much defiant, as content.

"The Fire Lord is an enemy," Han said calmly, gently, "and it is your duty to resist him. If you cannot defeat the Fire Lord, then your life will be in eternal peril."

"Has there been any progress?" Long Feng asked. Han glanced twice, first with his blind side and then having to turn the whole way 'round the other to spot his master.

"It is very hard to tell," Han said quietly, letting the earthbending grind to a halt and the lamp halt with it. He lifted the rail away and stepped out of the ring it described. "I believe he's using some sort of method to barricade his mind from my influence."

"Much like the Dragon of the East did," Long Feng said.

"Exactly my thoughts," Han gave a nod. He gave a glance back to Ozai's brother, who was technically being exposed to a form of torture that would be classified by most as a very sound foundation for war. So useful, that armistice that Ozai had offered; it gave Long Feng time to get all of the pieces into position. "And if she is any indication, then we need simply wait him out. Nobody's willpower is endless."

"'Waiting him out' does not fill me with confidence," Long Feng noted.

"It is the best that I can offer," Han said, stepping out of the door with his master. He gave Long Feng a mildly concerned look. "If I may ask, what are your intentions with Badesh? Her programming might be spotty, but she could still be of use."

"I have her well in hand," Long Feng said. A partial truth. "When I require her, I will have her."

"Forgive my confusion, but you put a lot of faith into the procedure. It isn't foolproof. Your shoulder is a testament to that," Han pointed out, but wisely didn't prod the Grand Secretariat to prove his point. That would have been unwise.

"She can be nudged. That is all that I require for my longest goals. A nudge, in the proper direction. After that, she will be obsolete."

Han nodded. "Would you do the same of the Dragon of the West?" he asked.

"Far swifter," Long Feng confirmed. "As valuable as he is as a commander of soldiers, she proved herself by besting him. As we always have, I will use every tool available to us," Long Feng paused, and leveled a glare upon his subordinate. "You are not often taken to asking these sorts of questions. Are you certain that you are capable of the task of leashing the Dragon?"

"I am capable and willing," Han said. But his frown was troubled. "I simply wonder if..."

"If what, secretariat?"

"...if we're not focusing on the wrong issues," Han answered. Long Feng's eyebrow rose. "Two more wells in the Lower Ring went dry. And _three_ in the Upper. At this rate, before the end of summer, we'll have to pipe in Lake Laogai to keep the city from dying of thirst."

"Then I suggest you delegate somebody to constructing an aqueduct," Long Feng said. "Your attention is better served here, rather than on issues which are not your concern."

"...one of those wells was mine," Han said quietly. Long Feng stared at him. "The drought is getting worse. I can't tell you to mobilize against the dry as you would against the Fire Lord, but... if we crush a tyrant to return to an empty city, what will we have achieved?"

Long Feng nodded, slowly. "You are not wrong," he said. This was why Long Feng valued the council of men like Han and women like Joo Dee. They so often _were not wrong_. He pondered briefly, but the answer always came up the same. He faced the one eyed secretariat. "Choose one you trust. He will have every resource required to bring water to the city. And for _that_ purpose only."

"At once, Grand Secretariat," Han said with a nod, before moving through the halls, to make his selection. He probably had one picked out already. Long Feng, though, simply added this to the veritable mountain of other things that he needed to lose sleep over. If it wasn't the Fire Lord, it was the world itself trying to unseat him. But if the universe wanted him crushed, then he would defy the universe itself. He had before, and he would until his dying day if needs be.

Even as Long Feng took his own path, to one of the hundred other things he needed to do, strapped to a chair, the Dragon of the West spat out a blast of fire which tore the gag from his mouth, giving him, if not freedom, a bit of comfort. He blinked, and then gave a contemptuous look to the lantern on the railing.

"Trying to brainwash a _firebender_ using light-conditioning? Amateur," Iroh said with a scoff of annoyance, wishing that he could shake his head at their idiocy. But then again, as long as they tried this, Iroh was in no risk. Just _bored_. By Agni's Flame, Iroh was soooo bored.

* * *

><p>"These clothes suck," Smellerbee complained. Longshot just gave her a look which said 'if you didn't want them, you can trade with Bug.' Smellerbee, catching his silent meaning, glanced to the outfit that Bug was wearing. Mostly because unlike Smellerbee's form concealing robes, Bug's left her midriff bare in an almost scandalous fashion. Well, scandalous if you were as uptight as some of the people that Longshot had grown up around. Long, as he had been called back then, couldn't have been more religiously coddled outside a nunnery than how he was born. In a way, it was a stroke of fortune that the Fire Nation had burned that commune of fundamentalist nuts to ashes in his youth. He'd have hated to have to grow up into somebody like his father.<p>

Dad just _would not_ shut up.

"Eh, you're just jealous 'cause I can pull it off and you can't," Bug said with a smirk, tugging her clothing into final place. Longshot had honestly expected some sort of pecking-order to establish between the two women, as Bug and Smellerbee were, in the past, often at loggerheads. Now, though, they simply deferred to where the other was stronger. It was strange, but a good kind of strange. She turned to Longshot, and grinned. "How do I look?" Longshot shrugged and gave her a thumbs-up. His own clothes were... much like Smellerbee's in a way, that they were loose and shapeless. Maybe that was the source of Smellerbee's ire. She hated when she was mistaken for a boy, and in these clothes, she was _sure_ to be.

"Can we hurry this up?" Qujeck broke in, reefing upon his collar trying to make the servant's livery anything but terribly uncomfortable. Longshot knew that it would take a far more drastic act than some tugging and stretching to achieve that ends. "Where is Bai, anyway? Not that I'm not glad I didn't have to see him undress, but he's holding everything up!"

"Hasn't anybody ever told you? If you speak of a demon, it's sure to appear," Bai said, rounding the corner of the yard in his finery. His functional if pirate-y garb had been supplanted by clothes much like those that he'd favored before throwing in with the lower crust. In essence, he looked normal for his social strata and body-type. Everybody else, Bug excluded... were valets. Bai gave a smile toward Bug. "Ah, the very portrait of a precocious noble scion. You'll draw eyes everywhere but where they need to be."

"So can we get moving, now?"

"Only one more thing," Bai said, producing a pamphlet from his pocket. It bore a gilded ring on it, which caused Longshot's brow to rise. An Upper Ring Passport. Those things weren't easy to get. He knew. He'd tried for a month to get one. Not for any price. "I believe this belongs to you."

Bug smirked and took the passport, and gave it a glance before shoving it into her pocket. But when she did, she stopped, and looked at it again. She looked at Longshot, then back down to her papers, which had Longshot giving a 'there's obviously something wrong; what is it?' look. "The name," she said, pointing it out. Smellerbee likewise leaned around Bug's shoulder to look at it.

"Yeah, Kori Morishita. What's the big deal?" she asked. Longshot sighed, and did as he very, _very_ seldom did.

"_That's_ her name," he said aloud.

Qujeck glared in their direction. "That's a Fire Nation name."

"It's a long story," Bug said with jaw set, before putting the paper away. Longshot gave Smellerbee a shrug which declared 'I told you that Shadow wasn't the only one'.

"You didn't say a damned thing!" Smellerbee shot back at him. Which technically was true.

"This is all great," Qujeck said, with his tone obviously stipulating that he thought it anything but, "but we're kind of in the deepest, most dangerous part of enemy territory. Can we get a move on?"

"Of course. As long as you understand that we are only here at our lady's patience and pleasure," Bai said with obsequious tones. Bug didn't look too impressed. Longshot knew why. She didn't like to talk about her mother, how she'd 'turned her back on her own people' by marrying a Fire Nation viceroy. It was petty, but they all had their reasons for being here. Petty didn't mean much in the long-haul.

"So how exactly is she supposed to get us to that certain man?" Qujeck asked. Longshot wholeheartedly agreed with the proviso that they should never say either the name or the title of their target. The walls had too many ears up here.

"She's a diplomatic presence. More, she's unknown to Long Feng."

"You aren't," Bug pointed out.

"Of course. I can find my own way into the Palace," Bai said dismissively. "It's just that I can't do this rescue alone."

"So we walk in the front door. That's suicide," Qujeck said, flatly. "It's insane. And it might work."

"That's the spirit! I knew you'd start to see things the way we do one day," Bai said.

"Your flower-arranging friends are all as mad as you are," Qujeck snarked. White Lotus Society. Longshot didn't know much more than that there was such a thing, and that all of Bai, the Mountain King, Sativa Badesh, and the Dragon of the West were amongst its members. Having great hearing and an excellent memory made for a well informed archer. What all of this meant... that was for time to tell. Longshot gave an ear to the alley, then leaned out of the nook they were all concealed in within the back yard of some bureaucrat, to get a look at the street. He gave a quick nod outward. 'The way is clear', that nod said.

"Well, I guess I'm leading the way," Bug said, obviously not happy with her part in the charade. Bai just gave a look to Longshot before the archer moved after his 'mistress'.

"How _do_ you do that, boy?" Bai asked him.

Longshot shrugged easily. 'It's a talent', that shrug said, and then he followed amongst the other servants and valets of their noble lady. Yup. This day was going to get either weirder, worse... or possibly both.

* * *

><p>The chains were a bit much. While Kori had to admit that rope probably wouldn't have held him for very long, the fact that she locked him to his squalid, cold, and mildly damp local was problem enough; she'd even boarded the windows so Kori couldn't see outside. In so doing, she'd cut off his ability to call in outside water to cut his shackles. And then, she left. Two days ago.<p>

"Yup. This was a _great_ decision," Kori muttered to himself. His stomach reminded him, as it had for the last little while, that even Tribesmen – which Kori wasn't sure he had the right to call himself, given the circumstances – had to eat sometime. Of course, he would probably die of dehydration, first. And wasn't that a laugh? Dying of dehydration in the _Fire Nation_ of all places. "I should have just grabbed Yoji and ran. Better for everybody involved."

He didn't know what Maya Azul was doing here, but he had his theories. His speculation fell to the wayside, though, as the second day of his lonely durance dawned. Lacking food and water could do that to a person. But now that there was a not insubstantial chance that she'd abandoned him to this death, and he had nothing better to do than contemplate the pain of his stomach eating his spine, he turned his thoughts back to why the Coordinator's daughter was so far away from his palace, so far away from the Ghurkas, and most notably, so far away from civilization.

It was a question he turned over a few times as the sun reached its zenith, such as it would. If there was one mercy, it was that this summer was turning out to be remarkably mild. If he'd been sweating at all, he'd be dead by now. And still, he wondered. Maya had to consider this the only reasonable choice if she was going to default to this, which meant that all other alternatives were grim indeed. Given what he knew about the Coordinator, he could believe many of them. There was very little that Montoya would do to keep his stranglehold on Azuli politics intact. There were rumors about how his son died. And why his second wife committed suicide. She was running away from home, that much was obvious. That she lasted as long as she had, royalty that she effectively was, was probably down to that even the highest and most coddled Azuli was _still an Azuli_, and as likely to stab something trying to kill her as a Embiar would run to her mother.

So why was she running? Unknown. Why did she run here? Isolation, most likely. What were her plans? Well, that stood to be seen. If possibly not by him. Kori let out another yawn, pretty sure he could hear his stomach rumbling out of his throat when he did, and leaned into a slightly more comfortable position. As she'd chained him in a spot with no chairs, beds, or blankets, he just had to make due with his own backside. And he'd almost settled himself for another nap, when he started to hear clacking.

Kori perked up, and looked toward the door. "If that's you, my dear, if you'd only let me explain, you'd see that the girl had fallen on a land-urchin. _That's_ why my lips were there!"

"Do you always try to deflect life-or-death situations with poor jokes?" Maya's voice came from outside the room.

"Is it working?" Kori asked with a smirk on his face even for the separation between them.

"That remains to be seen," she said.

"So, my dear, would you mind telling me what took you two days – which you left me without food or water I might add – to do?"

"I had to find a rock-tiger. It proved a lot harder than I thought it would have. The cold must be making them skittish," she said, leaning around the corner into sight, probably checking to see that his chains were still in place. The clicking continued in that room she was in. And when she leaned, there was a waft of a very pungent, none-too-sweet aroma that followed her. It made Kori cough a bit, and be glad that he had no dinner to upchuck.

"You might want to tone down your perfume. It does not suit," Kori said, waving chained hands before his face.

"For this? It most certainly does," she said. She vanished from the doorframe, and continued to speak, as the clattering became swifter. "Can you surmise _why_ I had to find a rock-tiger, Child?"

"Well, their meat isn't very tasty, they're utterly feral," Kori rhymed off. "They're ugly, untrainable, and don't produce anything of worth economically other than hardship and occasional maulings. What else, what else..."

"Why a rock-tiger, specifically," she asked, teasing.

"Hmm," Kori frowned. What did rock-tigers have that other species of deadly flora and fauna lacked. "Well, if you wanted to farm some anomolokia for some reason, you'd need," and he trailed off. He listened, and heard the ticking of something hard against stone once more. "...you didn't."

The ticking picked up its pace, until something pink and gangly, its body more a collection of spiky bits and claws than anything sensible, lurched into the room. It locked its wide-set, forward-focused and practically glowing yellow eyes on Kori, and then with a high-pitched squeal, tore the ground between the door and the chained up Tribesman, who, not for lack of pride, screamed like a terrified girl at it's approach. When it was about two feet away, its neck snapped back, and it was pulled off of its chitinous, spiky footing by a strap of leather around its neck. It snarled and mashed its dark purple mandibles at him, swiping at him with the fore-claws, only the tips of which were that same dark violet hue. Maya, standing with its leash in her hand, smiled. "Yes. I did."

"Get that thing away from me!" Kori shouted, trying to haul himself away from the most heinous of the wildlife Azul had to offer, and failing for the chains holding it in place.

"In a way, I'm doing you a favor. This thing is a newborn. It can't lay its eggs in you. It can just eat you and kill you. And it'd probably do it in that order. So I suggest you not lie to me," she said smoothly.

"Wh... How..." Kori asked. The anomolokia surged against her restraint, and she yanked it back.

"It finds the smell of heppel-oil so repulsive that it's the only stuff that'll curb its appetite. And they do have a ravenous appetite," she said with a dark smile. She then looked up to Kori. "How much does my father know?"

"He doesn't know anything," Kori said. She scowled, and let an inch of leather leash slip. Kori screamed and ducked back from the slashing claws of the anomolokia. "I'm telling the truth!"

"Since you know what this thing is, I don't have to inform you of their eating habits. The young aren't like the mature specimens, though," Maya said, with all of the professionalism of an academy tutor. "Their carapace is still soft, to allow for moulting and growth. Once they're mature, they're practically unkillable. So too are their eggs. Only three things in Azul can host their parasitic offspring..."

"Yeah," Kori said, still watching the thing which strained toward him. "Bison, rock-tigers, and people."

"So you did pay attention," she said with a mirthless smile. "Once they get their eggs in you, you're pretty much dead. They go in spherical, but as soon as they sense that they're in a good environment, they grow calcified shards, spearing your guts and locking them into place. There they sit, poisoning your brain for the week it takes to hatch. Then, they eat their way out of you. And to some degree, you're still alive when they do it."

"Get that thing away from me!" Kori shouted.

"You see, I really don't think that a Child would have come this far if not for a chance to ransom me against my father. Call me cynical," she said. She let another inch slip, to another scream from a Tribesman and another wailing snarl from the anomolokia. "How many others?"

"There is no plot! I'm not here for Ozai!" Kori shouted. Agni, or whatever gods technically looked out for Tribesmen abroad, please don't let that thing eat him, he prayed.

"That strikes me as a bit hard to believe," Maya said.

"Ozai had his men kidnap me when I was a child! He's been lying to me my entire life! Why would I hold any loyalty to that?" Kori beseeched. Another inch, another string of terrified swearing as the dark purple claws slashed within inches of him.

"So if you're so angry at Ozai, why not kill him?" she asked.

"That'd be suicide. He might be going insane, but he's still eight times the firebender that I am a w..."

"A waterbender. I'm aware," she said. She pulled back on the leash, giving Kori a bit of room to breathe. "I'm going to ask you a simple question, and you're going to answer it."

"You bet I am," Kori said, still shaking as that ungodly _thing_ stared at him, its mandibles clicking in hunger as it tried to find some way that a leash wouldn't hold it back.

"Do you, or do you not, want Shinzo dominion over Azul?" she asked.

"This is the most honest I've been in my life: I _seriously_ don't give a shit."

She stared at him a moment longer. "Alright, new question..."

"You said one!"

"Who's got the anomolokia on a leash?" she asked. Kori swallowed. "That's what I thought. Who did you _think_ you were talking to when you barged in on me?"

Kori swallowed hard. This answer could get him killed, if true. And if she knew he was lying, which at the moment was an almost certainty since he could barely think straight let alone lie, she'd just let go of that leash, and about half a second later, the most evil creature in Azul would be eating its way into his intestines. "A Tribeswoman..."

"Booring," she said.

"And her brother, and an earthbender and..."

"You're not giving me the entire truth. And my arm is getting awfully tired," she said.

"Alright! I expected Azula and Zuko! Is that what you wanted to hear?" Kori asked. She stared at him.

"You're serious aren't you?" she asked.

"I'VE GOT AN ANOMOLOKIA STARING AT ME! OF COURSE I'M SERIOUS!"

"Huh," she said. And then she started walking toward Kori, winding that leash as she came so the monster gained no slack. Until she reached it, whereupon she pulled the long knife from her belt and buried it into the back of the anomolokia's skull. The creature let out a hiss, and orange ichor poured out of the wound, as it slumped to the ground. She pulled the blade, and wiped it off on Kori's pant leg. "Be glad it was a newborn. If it were a couple weeks old, I'd not have been able to stab it."

"So you believe me when I said that I wasn't here for you," Kori said, relief strong enough that he almost felt dizzy for it. Then again, he was pretty sure he wet himself, so... yeah, there was no dignity in this situation.

"Yes, and now you've got my interest. So the children he banished have returned to the Fire Nation, and into Azul of all places. I don't like the smell of this," she said.

"Well, you're not exactly fragrant right now," Kori found himself saying around a terrified laugh, despite himself. She shot him a very flat look. "I have this thing I do when I _should_ shut up, but don't..."

"Obviously," she said. "What did they want?"

"They want to unseat Ozai, to end the World War. They claim something a lot worse is going on. Don't know if I believe them but... could you unchain me? Or at least give me something to drink?"

"Fine," she rolled her eyes, and flicked a key to her fingers which unlocked the pad on the floor, and let his chains slide free. "So what's got the Prince and Princess in such a snit?"

"...You probably won't believe this, so I'm glad that thing's dead," Kori said. She scowled at him. "How much do you know about spirits?"

* * *

><p>Qujeck's jaw was positively grinding as the man in the green, concealing robes slowly looked over the dubiously identified 'Bug', who seemed to be doing her best to seem both bored out of her mind and impatient as well. It took every whit of Qujeck's willpower not to simply open an important artery in that Dai Li bastard. A rational part of him knew that not all Dai Li were responsible for the deaths of those he cared about, but that rational part wasn't very loud when there was green in his sight. A sane part of him reminded him that going into all-out and unmitigated warfare with them would result in exactly the same that he'd gotten for the last few years; as close to nothing as to be vanishingly small.<p>

"Yu Dao. I thought that place was taken over by the Fire Nation years ago," the Dai Li said, reading 'Bug's identification. She rolled her eyes like a petulant brat.

"Well, _duh_," she said, caustically. "I swear, sometimes, I think my mother's just out to make me miserable. 'Go to Ba Sing Se', she said, 'get an education', she said. 'Learn something useful for a change', she said. Does your mother ever get on your case?"

"From time to time," the Dai Li said.

"I bet it must drive you up the wall," she said, doing a remarkable impression of an airhead.

"Not so much. She died when the Rannoh Flu came through four years ago," Bug swallowed at that statement. The Dai Li didn't glare at her though. "Of course, that just meant that I exchanged a hellion of a mother for a demon of a mother-in-law. 'Way she'd say it, I was an utter failure just because I'm not the Grand Secretariat by now."

"Oh, I _know_! Parents can be such a pain!" She tapped a finger to her cheek. "Say, do you think we'll be able to visit the Earth King while we're here?"

"Doubtful," was all the Dai Li said. He then looked up at the 'valets', Qujeck in particular. "This checks out, but they don't. What are you doing with a Tribesman in your entourage?"

"Oh, he's a mercenary. Daddy thinks that I'll be dragged into an alley and murdered the moment that his precious little girl doesn't have a big, burly man to protect her, and who better than a big, scary Tribesman?"

"Still. _Tribesman_," he said, looking Qujeck up and down. Qujeck's jaw set, and he slowly started to uncap the flask that was hidden behind his back, under his robes.

"Her father... makes odd choices," Longshot said, his words obviously begrudging and weighted for their infrequence, before offering a shrug which clearly said 'hell if I know what was going through his head'.

The Dai Li gave one last glance toward Qujeck, before handing the passport back to Bug. "I suppose he just might," he muttered. "There are some mandarins in the administrative wing that can see to your accommodations for your stay. They'll also arrange for access to the university, and for a chaperone and guide to join you for the duration. Welcome to Ba Sing Se, mistress Morishita."

Bug gave the man an indulgent smile, and then walked past him. The moment that her back was too him, though, she got a look of outright disgust on her face, and shook her head ever so subtly. Perhaps there was only so far that a Fire National was willing to lie as well. A glance back showed that the Dai Li was still watching them go past the ornamental out-walls and into the exterior buildings of the Royal Palace. That glance only ended when they took a turn, and broke the line of sight. "You're a hell of an actor," Smellerbee praised, though thankfully quietly.

"I left home when I was twelve. You can get a lot of up-tight-asshole stuffed into you by then. Trust me," she rolled her eyes. "I swear, I could feel part of my brain dying just talking like that."

Longshot chuckled at that, and gave the impostor a glance which said 'really? You sounded pretty natural to me', to which she shot a glare back. "Laugh it up, Longshot. See how well you do when you wake up with no bow-string," to which Longshot just rolled his eyes.

"Can we get back onto task?" Qujeck asked, as they took a turn into the botanical gardens which flourished in direct opposition to the drought which choked the entire continent, and the water-rationing which had stood for the last month. We've got to find the entrance to their new fortress. Tell me if you spot anything suspicious."

"We're in the Royal Palace. _Everything's_ suspicious," Bug said.

"And we still have an enormous amount of ground to cover," Smellerbee pointed out. "This palace is bigger than the town I was born in, and that was _not_ a small town. They could be anywhere!"

"Not quite anywhere," Hua Jin Bai's voice cut in, causing all, Qujeck shamefully included, to emit yelps of alarm. They all looked around, trying to see where the fat old pirate had appeared from, but all were at a loss. Bai gave a smirk at their confusion. "If I told you all of my secrets, I wouldn't have much of an advantage, now would I?" he said, further confounding them. Qujeck leaned closer.

"How'd you get past the guards?"

"I've got my ways," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Longshot pointed idly toward one of the long-unused storm drains which ran along the edges of the botanical displays. It'd probably been sixty years since they saw any desperate use, and probably ten since they saw any at all. And that water had to go somewhere. Bai, noting Longshot's observation, gave something of a petulant expression.

"You delight in ruining these things, don't you?" he asked. Longshot shrugged. Bai then waved the whole affair away. "Regardless, we have a task to perform and very little time in which to do it. Follow me, closely."

"Where?" Qujeck demanded, grabbing the pirate's arm and hauling him to a stop. Bai shot a scandalized look back. "If we have to split up, we need to know where we're going. And if you get captured, we've got to be able to pull this out of the fire. This is no time for theatricality and games, Bai. Where. Are. We. Going?"

Bai sighed, and nodded. "You're right, you know. So used to the old days, when villains had a certain margin-for-error attached to them. But what am I saying? The entrance is, by process of elimination, attached to the sub-basement of the Pantheon. It makes a sort of sense," Bai shrugged. "They see themselves as untouchable by the hand of man, so where else to hide but under the view of the gods?"

"If you're wrong about this..." Qujeck said.

"You have to trust somebody sometime, or you'll never get anything done," Bai chastised. He pointed to the wing of the building that sat to the east, itself fairly smaller than the others which comprised the Royal Palace. Qujeck knew from... a lost friend... that it had been built the largest structure in the Palace when the Palace was first conceived and created. However, over the years, every other building but it was constantly redesigned, expanded, and inflated, until it looked comparatively puny. It showed how much real deference that these Continentals had for their gods. Even Qujeck probably showed better lip-service to Tenger Etseg and Yer Tonri than these did to their chthonic deities.

The odd procession made their way through those frankly insulting botanical gardens, toward the squat dome which comprised the Pantheon. Sure, it was obvious that this was once a place of importance and grandeur – as there was still gilt on its unweathered edges and its proportions were properly awe-inspiring – but the centuries and millennia since it's creation had seen a lot of neglect, benign though its intention. Corners, obviously once crisp and clean, were now rounded by untold years of rain... although none of it in the last half century. A mosaic plaza, once depicting the hooded stone which had been simplified to its current iteration as symbol of elemental earth, worn to barely distinct nubs by countless feet. A younger Qujeck, a kinder and gentler and more poetic Qujeck, would have said that this building was much like looking into the face of a very old woman who had been so beautiful in her youth as to break your heart. There were still glimmers, echoes of it, but...

"Why do I get the feeling like I'm not supposed to be here?" Smellerbee asked.

"Because you're a godless heathen," Bug answered quietly and sarcastically.

"Says the _mono_theist," she cut back.

"Do you mind? We're trying to not get killed here. Shut the hell up," Qujeck hissed at them. Bad enough that this place dragged up parts of himself better left behind, but it made them snippy and detectable as well.

"Do you think we're going to have trouble getting in?" Bug asked.

"You? No. Him?" Bai pointed at Qujeck, "possibly. Me? Most certainly... if I was using the front door."

"Not a fan of front doors, are you?" Qujeck asked.

"Not as a rule. They tend to be too well defended," Bai answered. Smellerbee started to chuckle at that, even as Bai took a turn behind a hedge far narrower than his frame, and then seemed to vanish completely.

"What's so funny?" Qujeck asked.

"I'll tell you when you're older," she said condescendingly. It was lucky that Qujeck had some self control, otherwise he'd not be grinding teeth, so much as his lower jaw against his upper. The temple eunuchs – a ridiculous title considering they were all intact – let the entire group in without so much as a second glance, through the darkness of the entrance hall, and then into the central chamber which had been subdivided into eleven sections. One for each of the Earth Kingdom's foremost gods.

"Irony, thy name is Earth Kingdom sculptor," Qujeck muttered, as they began to circle the chamber, their eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Of whom he spoke was Muut, rendered as a platypus bear with the head of a man. The fool-king, god of purpose and failure. The others gave him an askance glance as he walked past, but that was his to consider, not theirs. The next... that was Bo-a-chi, the slender, legless maiden with her eyes turned to the sky, chains dangling from her fingers. Goddess of loyalty and betrayal. Funny, how those two would be the first he passed.

"Makes you really think, doesn't it?" Bai's voice came from around Yu Di, the golden Ostrich Horse – god of bravery and reckless abandon. "Once we all believed in these gods above all others. Funny how times change."

"You might want to keep it down. Eunuch or no, they might smite you for blasphemy if they find you here," Qujeck said.

"Quiet conversation would not go amiss. I don't know how _you_ pray, but _our_ gods like to hear our voices," Bai said chastising. He then lent his eyes to the others, trying to find that thing out of place, that sign of an entrance to somewhere out of sight. Next in the circuit of the Pantheon was Naut, the Painted Bull. Not a creature that Qujeck had ever seen, something all muscle, horns, and bad attitude. Quite possibly, something that had never had a mortal equivalent. Not surprising, considering it was god of both control and chaos.

"I'm not seeing anything," Smellerbee muttered. She gave a glance to the others. "I'm going to check the other way..."

"Just stay with us. No point getting separated. That's a good way to get captured or something," Bug said with a wave of her hand as she made a strong scrutiny of the corners, where shadows fell.

Qujeck didn't spare too much attention to Hoenir, the blob-of-a-man who sat, staring upward and weeping. Why would the Easterners think they had any right to worship a god of surfeit and dearth, compared to... say... the Water Tribes? Fitting that such a hedonist would be depicted suffering for his excesses. The juxtaposition of Ka-Loh – the gambler – next to him, nubile and seeming ready to leap from the stone he was carved from, only made him all the more pathetic. A lot of these gods were old; that Qujeck knew. Older than Ba Sing Se itself. So who could even say what cultures these figures had been taken from, in the long-lost mists of time.

"Is that..." Bug asked, leaning to peek behind Ever-Staring Jeva, with his two faces young and old. Longshot shook his head. Just a shield, and nothing more. "I'm not even sure what we're supposed to look for," she muttered.

"You'll know it when you see it," Bai said cryptically. Qujeck ignored him, turning his attention to Hlin, the Queen In Rags. Smiling sublimely with her skin cut to ribbons. Qujeck never really understood what she was supposed to represent. And the mere sight of her brought back some very, _very_ unpleasant memories. Needless to say, the Tribesman's attention turned to Hlin's sister, Qia-mi very quickly. After all, the goddess of loss merely looked wistfully, longingly, toward the distance. A far kinder sight than the ruined woman beside her.

"We're running out of spots to search," Qujeck pointed out, as they'd almost done a complete circuit. They passed by Li Ming, the Mason, supposedly he who brought earthbending to the world by creating the badgermole out of clay. He was depicted as always trying to built a wall of bricks that always toppled behind him. And that was them, back to the start.

"I think I see it," Longshot said, quietly as was his way, and he pointed past a railing, to the statue of the man who dominated the center of the dome. A tall, broad and bearded man, but with one eye put out and carrying a scales in one hand and a spear in the other. Wodur, father of the gods. God of Destiny, fair and foul. And there was one eunuch who was... lazing about next to the indistinct dead creature that Wodur had his sculpted foot atop.

"Think they'll mind if we take an up-close look at the annals of history?" Bai asked.

"That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it?" Qujeck answered his question with a question. The old pirate grinned, and hopped over the railing onto the finely raked pebbles which spread out toward the statue of the God-Father at its heart. The crunching brought the eunuch's attention quickly enough, despite any attempts at stealth that could have been made.

"What are you doing here? These grounds are off limits to the lay," the shaven-headed man said, scandal in his tone.

"We thought we might have a closer look at your god," Qujeck said.

"Please, this is most uncouth. Please, leave," he said, ushering them toward the rail that they'd vaulted, back along the footprints that they'd left. When they continued toward him, Qujeck noted that he didn't look afraid or intimidated. In fact, he looked angry. "If you don't stop this at once, I will have to inform the guard."

"We both know that's not going to happen," Bai said, and the 'eunuch' turned his full attention to the fat pirate. He blanched. As though he recognized somebody who was a dire and immediate threat. "You have the choice of shutting up and staying out of our way, or being removed."

The eunuch punctuated Bai's last word by thrusting forward his hands, and having the grey pebbles which formed a veritable sea around the feet of Wodur launch as a geyser of abrasive stone toward the pirate and those with him. Qujeck only had time to sweep his water up and vault himself up and over the assault, if even to send himself so high that he lost control and landed harshly on his face off to one side. It still beats getting rock-tumbled, he figured.

Even as Qujeck was pushing himself to his feet, and Bai was being blasted off of his feet, it was the noble who reacted fastest. Not having to paw for a knife or unlimber a bow, she simply whipped out a hand, and a long line with a weight at its end shot out at her behest. It swept around the false-eunuch's neck and when she dug in her feet and hauled, there was just enough power in her that she caused the man who was already overbalanced to tip forward, and fall onto the gravel. Then, another flick of her hand, twisting it around what looked almost like a dancing kick, and the weighted end spun at great speed through the air, before smashing down onto the top of the attacker's head. The earthbending assault ended abruptly as the man lost consciousness from the blow.

Bai slowly pushed himself up from the mound of small stones that he'd essentially been buried under. He blinked a few times, and even leaned his head and tapped on one ear, causing dust to fall out of the other. "Much as I appreciate you saving the integrity of my hide, I fear that might have been... premature," he said. Qujeck dusted the grit off of him, and shot the pirate a confused glare. Longshot, who moved past where the eunuch – Dai Li agent, most likely – had been standing, and shook his head with a small sigh. Qujeck joined the archer, and saw what the lad meant. There was a scuff in the ground leading into the back of the 'beast', out of sight between Wodur's back leg and the walls which soared up to his flanks, that looked like it was to be moved. Probably by earthbending.

"Oh, great. Now they're going to hear us when we blow our way in," Qujeck muttered. Smellerbee, though, shook her head. "What?"

"Bug? If you would?"

"Do I really have to?" the girl who was recoiling her meteor hammer asked. Longshot turned a glance which said 'do you see anybody else here who can?' to her. Can do _what_, Qujeck wasn't sure. Bug nevertheless sighed, and shrugged. "Fine. I'll do it. But if I pull something, I'll kick your butt!"

"You are such a girl," Smellerbee said with a roll of her eyes. Qujeck glanced to Bai, the question clearly on his face, but Bai just coached the Tribesman to silence, and pointed. Bug faced the slab which was clearly supposed to be earthbent aside, and held out two fists in its direction. She closed her eyes, and her legs dropped wide into a low stance as her breath was pulled in harshly. Then, with a grunt which almost sounded painful, she heaved her arms back and to one side. With a great lurch, and a rumbling of stone, the slab slid about four feet from its initial place, followed immediately by Bug hissing in pain.

"She's an earthbender?" Qujeck asked. "But she's a National!"

"Yeah, she's an earthbender. She just sucks at it," Smellerbee chided. Bug shot her a death glare. As she flapped her hands as though she pulled something in them with even that small a show of bending.

"All rather moot, to the fact that we have a way down," Bai said, pointing down the ladder which descended into the sub-palace. It was a long way down, at the bottom of that shaft glowed with green light.

"...that takes me back," Qujeck said unhappily.

"You and I both," Bai agreed. Qujeck was the first to break his reverie, though, and the first to begin the long descent.

* * *

><p>"Yoji?" Hai asked in no small degree of confusion, as he came to a halt in the cold rain that pounded down through the streets. "What are you doing here?" he asked.<p>

She turned toward him, blue eyes glaring. The weather was terrible enough that the streets were all but empty, but also struck down hard enough that it chilled Hai to the bone the likes of which he'd not felt since the Avatar dropped them in that arctic hell, albeit not one any of this Earth. Yoji didn't even seem to notice. "What are _you_ doing here?" she countered.

Hai's thick brow drew down, as the former Fire Lord's favorite amongst the Children stared at him... or in a way, through him. "I'm doing _my job. You_, on the other hand, vanished for five Agni-damned days!"

"It's been five days?" she asked, her eyes turning down. Whatever she'd been doing for all that time, it certainly hadn't been taking care of her personal appearance. While she did have some remnants of her customary makeup remaining, they stood as pointed strips which grew as they approached her neck, almost seeming that she'd suffered some sort of bizarre scar or burn that bleached her flesh to a sallow shade all the more stark for the dark complexion around it. And the fact that there was so little of the makeup remaining served to reveal that she didn't look to have slept. Probably in five days, now that Hai thought about it. "It doesn't matter. I had something that needed to be dealt with."

"You should probably leave the city," Hai said quietly, leaning in toward her. Her distant look turned into one of annoyance as she faced him.

"And why in Agni's name would I want to do that?" she asked.

"Are you daft? There's been a coup!" Hai hissed, guiding her under the edge of a rooftop if only so that they wouldn't both have to stand in the frigid rain. "Zhao's turned the nobles against Ozai and usurped the Burning Throne from him. All of the Children have had to swear fealty to him, since he let it not be said _but strongly implied_ that if we didn't, he'd just execute us. The only ones who haven't are you and your brother."

"Kori isn't my brother," she muttered.

"Yes, I know how annoying he is at times, but that's not the point!" Hai said. He gave her shoulders a shake. "As long as you're in Caldera City, you're a target. Even if you walk right up to Zhao and offer him allegiance _on your knees_, there's no sure way to know if he'd even accept it!"

"I. Am. Not. Leaving,' she told him.

"Yoji, please, be reasonable!" Hai said, intercepting her as she moved out into the rain. She glared at him and muttered something with some volume... but no sense. She was talking some other language, one that Hai didn't know how to speak. "Your brother knew what was coming. That's the only way I can rationalize why he left when he did. You still have all of the resources you've socked away. Don't look at me like that, I know you did," Hai said.

"I don't know what..." she began.

"We need somebody to figure out what happened to Ozai. He might have had his demons, but given the choice between him and an anti-rationalist who believes in prophecy and oracles... I'll take a madman, any day of the week," Hai said.

"I never knew you were so secular," Yoji said flatly.

"I've had a very informative couple of months," Hai said. He gave her a shrug, then focused his attention more squarely. "You've got a lot more autonomy than most of us do right now. Me and Sis have an out since we aren't restricted to the Inner Sphere, but the rest of us... we're under a microscope, and Zhao's the one with his eyes to the lenses and the scalpel in his hand. Ozai had pride in us. Zhao doesn't. He'll use us up, if we don't do something to stop him. And right now, you're the best chance that we've got of getting a better Fire Lord back on the Burning Throne.

Yoji stared into the distance for a moment, then nodded. "You have a point," she acceded, but not happily. "I don't like it, but you have a point. Where would he have been taken?"

"My first guess would be Ashfall, but they've built that place down to the bedrock to make sure rifts _don't happen there_, and we're restricted from mundane access until he starts to trust us again, which by my reckoning would be never," Hai said, starting to walk with her as she picked a new path which headed north, away from the switchback road which lead to the Noble Quarter. "You, on the other hand, have a way with getting into places you don't belong. If he's there, find him. Then... Well... we'll have to come up with a plan," he said.

"Not a problem," Yoji's unpainted yet still dark lips pulled into a smirk. "I'm good with plans."

"So goes your reputation," Hai said. He paused, and turned. Yoji halted almost immediately as well. "Did you feel that?"

"Did I feel what?" she asked.

"It felt like somebody was standing right behind me," Hai said. He stared, and even opened the World Eyes to be sure, but there was nothing in either of the Inner nor Outer Spheres. A chill nevertheless ran through him, one not borne of cold rain and unseasonably chilly winds. "I don't like this. I've just got a... a bad feeling."

"You're a shaman. It's your job to have bad feelings," she said flatly, and continued walking. Hai looked into the empty street behind him again, but nothing jumped to his attention. With a final shake of his head, he turned, and followed after the wayward firebender.

It wasn't a case, though, that there was nothing to be seen. Rather a case that Hai didn't have the wherewithal to see it. A shadow, flickering from a guttering street-light cast an edge for a split second, before a creature born of something darker than shadow was standing where that boundary had been. Red, pulsating eyes burned toward the shaman, and an unearthly hunger tore at it. But this Shard was not to simply sow chaos. It had a purpose writ into every fiber of its being.

Find the scarred shaman. Eat the scarred shaman. The eyes swept the street, peering into every window, every crack of the door, even as the body which held them managed to stay still. The rain which fell around that grim shadow crackled as it hit the ground, boiling hot even as it flashed into a steam of ice. Cobbles cracked and weathered, assaulted by the laws of physics and matter collapsing in the presence of the Shard of Imbalance.

The scarred shaman was not here.

So with a last crack, the wind surged in all directions and none, wailing and snapping without purpose but great fury, before a final clatter. Every raindrop within a half mile had been frozen solid, and fell as tiny flecks of hale. But the Shard? The Shard was gone.

* * *

><p>"Alright, so how do we find him in here?" Bug asked, as she looked throughout the complex they now found themselves standing in the shadows of. Unlike the much vaunted Lake Laogai internment camp, this one was much more open; a great promenade, replete with fountains and a pale but sufficient green light from luminescent crystals standing between stands of buildings. The buildings had been cut into the very stone. From the look of them – and Bug had taken a look while the others were catching up to her and the waterbender – they had been dug out by hand and tool, rather than earthbent. Why? Who could say?<p>

"It should be easier than finding the Avatar in the other fortress," Qujeck said. "If nothing else, there's a lot less places to look."

"Less? Look at the size of this place? You could search for days down here and not even find your own feet!" Smellerbee said.

Everybody shushed her harshly. Stealth, at this moment, was their greatest friend and the only chance that they realistically had. "Qujeck is correct. I've been into this place before," Bai said. He gave a shrug. "It's a long story. Suffice to say, there was a time when the Dai Li and I were not on so unpleasant terms," he sighed, and shook his head. "Strange, how there was a time two decades ago when I would have called Long Feng_ a friend_. I must have been blind."

"Stupid, more like," Qujeck muttered. Longshot, though, shot him a look which clearly said, 'Not appropriate, not now'. Qujeck swallowed a growl. "Fine. If you know this place so well, where is Iroh?"

"Before Lake Laogai, they only had one place in the guts of Zutara City – the ruins in which we now stand – that they considered secure enough to interrogate their subversives," he said. He then pointed across the promenade, to a large building which dominated much of that wall. But not at its main doors. No, he was pointing at what seemed more the entrance to a privy than anything of note. "Down those stairs and through a lock-wall," he briefly turned to Bug, "and how fortunate it is that we have you with us, given your talents..."

"Can we not talk about my earthbending right now?" she asked, a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing. It was a significant bugbear in her parents' marriage that one of them had been a firebender, the other, an earthbender. The fights had been legendary. When they stopped shouting, even more so. More than half the reason she left Yu Dao to join the vagrants under Jet and Mai was so that she'd actually have something like a family life which didn't involve nightly screaming matches, weekly brawls, and sickeningly frequent 'make-up' liaisons. Mom should have just used her wiles to seduce some trader or aristocrat. It'd have been simpler that way.

Longshot gave her a shrug, clearly offering, 'wasn't my intention to bring it up at all,' but then again, Longshot was always a polite one. He didn't barge where he wasn't supposed to. Bai, who had taken her interrupting with no more than a mild shrug, continued, "...is the descent toward a series of cisterns. They're clad in lead, which in retrospect might explain why the Wiqing were so pissed off and crazy all the time..." Bai tapped a finger to his chin.

"The cisterns?" Smellerbee refocused him.

"Ah, yes. They can't be bent out of, and their doors can only be opened from the outside. Perfect place to lock anybody, really. And all they'd need to do to punish you was lock the doors for a few hours, until you start to suffocate. That'll take the fight out of almost anybody," Bai finished. "So... how do we get over there?"

"Run?" Smellerbee asked.

"Do you think you can make that distance before one of them," Qujeck pointed out the men in green robes milling about on the far side of the promenade, "spots us? If you can, then I'm an airbender."

"Run discretely?" she asked.

"And discreetly," Bug added.

"...Very funny," Qujeck said, after the mental moment it took him to translate the homonym. "And if we get spotted?"

"Oh, if they find us, they'll probably just kill us," Bai said. And then, he flashed a grin. "But first, _they have to find us_."

* * *

><p>"Is it just me, or do we get side-tracked... like, <em>really<em> easily?" Sokka asked, as he faintly limped back into the trees that they'd left behind hours ago.

"Huh? I wasn't aware that this was a common thing," Malu said.

"More than you'd think," Sokka muttered. He tilted his back in that painful direction, just long enough for it to emit a somewhat grotesque crick, before turning a glance back toward 'civilization', such as it was. Nobody seemed to be watching. And honestly, standing next to the woods was a worse idea than standing directly in them when one was in Azul. Inside, at least your eyes could adapt enough to see the horrors that were constantly trying to kill you. "Of course, we wouldn't have had to bother if you hadn't been all... helpful!"

"What's wrong with being helpful?" Malu asked.

"We've got a schedule to keep!" Sokka complained. "A very meticulously drawn-up, in depth and absolutely vital schedule that can't afford to have us wasting time in it! Hell, I had to slot in our dinner time around when Toph needs to go to the bathroom!"

"...why Toph?"

"Tiniest bladder," Sokka said with an off-hand wave. He paused, and then gave a bright orange flower a very wide berth. Probably a good idea, given that those creatures which enjoyed the company of the flower – and indeed the flower itself – were very territorial and tended to lash out at anything unwelcome that moved too closely.

"Wait. The reason we've only gotten two meals a day was..."

"You probably shouldn't think about it too hard," Sokka said. "It's just that we don't have the time to keep bouncing around. I mean... what if Aang got attacked by a rock tiger while we were out traipsing with the locals?"

"It wouldn't be the rock-tiger I'd be worried about. It'd be the anomolokia that were trying to pod it," Malu said.

"You see? That just proves my point!" Sokka said.

"I assume from your irate tone that we're still flying blind and by dead reckoning?" Toph's voice came from through the forest. The flashes of light against the canopy gave Sokka a bit of relief. As ludicrously dangerous as the wildlife here was, even they gave fire a healthy respect. And the angry-jerk teaching Aang how to firebend gave them a lot of reasons not to come close. Of course, when Sokka pushed through the last layer of greenery – and dragged his forearm through some tearing nettles in the process – it was not the melancholy Prince who was moving with Aang, but rather, his crazy-ass sister. Not that he'd say so to her face.

"Nope. We've got a heading!" Sokka held up the map case in triumph.

"Fi-nally," Toph muttered, and stomped a bowl from the ground nearby into her hand before she tipped it back and drank whatever was inside in one great gulp.

"No, no no!" Azula snapped, as she came to a halt, fists on her hips. "It was bad enough when Zuzu was making a hash of it. If you do it like that in a real fight any self respecting firebender will do this," she said, snapping into a motion that took a fraction of a second and terminated with a blast of blue fire which fell just short of melting the Avatar's face, "and that'll be the end of your precious 'quest for balance'. So do it _right_! Like _this_!"

"I'm guessing she's been like that for a while?" Sokka asked, from the look on Aang's face which clearly illustrated how out of his depth he was. Then again, compared to Zuko, Azula technically had _forty_ more years of firebending mastery to call upon, if her ramblings had any basis in reality. A year ago, Sokka would have dismissed that out of hand. Now... Well, he'd seen some strange stuff. Like a soot-encrusted Si Wongi who was sitting looking mildly stunned near the campfire in the center of the burnt-out clearing that Zuko had made yesterday.

"Since you left, just about. She said 'Zuzu's training was what almost got you killed last time. You should learn from somebody better'," Toph said, raising air-quotes above her recumbent form.

"I'm not _that_ bad a teacher," Zuko muttered in quiet annoyance from near the blind earthbender.

"Still, better to learn from the best firebender present. At the moment, that's your sister," Toph gave a shrug from her place on the ground. Katara, though, had taken Sokka's side and pulled the map-case from the strap on his neck.

"So which way are we supposed to be going?" she asked.

"That's the thing. We've been heading in the wrong direction. We need to head pretty much directly west from here," Sokka said. Katara scowled, but it wasn't at him, he figured. Probably the universe in general for making it so hard to navigate the Fire Nation. What Sokka wouldn't give for a map of this continent which had been penned by somebody _who'd actually set foot on it_...

"Hah! I did it!" Aang proclaimed from where he stood in the last motions of a kata. Azula grumbled, palming her face.

"No. You didn't. Try doing it to me."

"B...but I might hurt you."

"Trust me, you won't," she said flatly. Aang looked a bit annoyed, but took his place, fists forward. With a shout, he bounded forward, surging forward burning kicks at her. Azula, though, simply sidestepped the assault, hooked one arm under his flailing knee, and then chopped him in the chest with the other, sending him flat onto his back in the mud. An instant later, she had a burning fist levied down toward him. "You're fighting like an airbender. You jump too high. You keep forgetting that fire burns up, not down. Let it do the work for you, and you won't end up buried."

"...I never thought of it that way," Aang said, mildly in wonder.

"I'll start preparing Appa," Katara said, as she tucked the map back into its waterproof case. Even a terrible map was better than no map, Sokka figured. He turned to Malu, but found her up a tree-limb for some reason, looking at something almost out of sight. "What is she doing?"

"I don't bother asking, these days," Sokka said.

"There's something dead up here," Malu said.

"Of course there is. This is Azul, red in tooth, claw, and ovipositor," Zuko said sardonically. Malu pulled the dead thing from its perch, though, and showed the mangled and mostly eaten body of a... of a messenger hawk. Sokka's brow rose at that. It was tied with a rough strip of blue cloth, the same shade as the clothes which Katara'd had to abandon on the ship. The message case was somewhat mangled as well, but whatever ate the messenger obviously didn't see any nutritive value in oiled leather. Who knew how long that thing had been there. Or who it had been addressed to.

Malu, though, popped it open without a second thought. "Hey! Aang! This is for us!" she declared.

"Really?" Aang said, as Azula picked him up from the mud again with an ease that was a bit unsettling to see in a girl. "What does it say?"

"...The first part's mangled, but I can see what... Oh! This is from that mopey girl who sighed a lot."

"Mai," Zuko said.

"Yeah. The first part I can actually make out says, 'You won't _believe_ what we just did in Ember...'"

* * *

><p>"What the hell?" a voice came from above, as Bai stumbled to a halt. "Who is that?"<p>

"So much for quick on his feet..." Qujeck muttered. The pirate didn't face them, just gave a glance toward where the other teens and the one waterbender with them had gathered in the shadows of the entrance to the cisterns. "We need to go," he said.

"But..." Smellerbee cast a hand back toward Bai, who gave a minute nod, then turned to face the Dai Li who were out of sight.

"As I understand it, you've been looking for me!" he shouted up at them. "Well, I decided to be a bit sporting about it, since you were doing such a _terrible_ job on your end."

"We need to..." Smellerbee began, but Longshot shook his head. Bug nodded and pulled the girl deeper down the path.

"He's made his choice, and given us a chance," Bug said. "Let's not waste it."

"Your 'mistress' speaks with uncommon sense. Let's get the Dragon out of here," Qujeck said with sarcastic tone. He was already counting the corners down. Bai's instructions had better be good, or this would be a very, very short rescue attempt, and all the sadder for it. Finally, at the third descending right turn, Qujeck held them up short, and pointed at the wall. "Kori, do your magic."

"Don't call me that," Bug muttered, but did obey and shooed him out of her path. She held both fists toward the stone of that back wall, and her eyes pressed closed. She muttered something, quietly so that the waterbender couldn't quite hear it, before she thrust her hands forward. Nothing. So with a growl, she pulled them back. This time, she was rewarded with the noise of grinding rock, before the block of it slid out about a foot. That left it several inches embedded. "Oh, great. You might not want to stand behind me, Quj."

"...Quj?" Qujeck asked.

"Just move," Smellerbee instructed him. He saw no reason not to. Doubly so when Bug's next attempt to move the stone was significantly more successful, and saw the block lurch free of its hole and go crashing down the stairs beyond them, with quite a bit of noise. Qujeck flinched at that, until he heard something of an explosion reach down from the melee above.

Had Bai planned this? Had he gone in from the outset knowing that he'd be a sacrificial lion-turtle, a distraction so they could do their work?

Qujeck doubted it. If nothing else, it was a lucky coincidence, and nothing more.

The path beyond shone with green light, showing that it wasn't nearly as abandoned as the cistern they currently stood in, though not for long. Sconces burned every few yards, sending out flickering but smokeless green light. Panels of dark, lusterless lead started to appear, but they were plain for only a short time. Soon, lines of rough, crisp-lined symbols began to run down in a band that followed their descent. "What are these, anyway?" Smellerbee asked.

"Ask a historian," Qujeck said.

Bug, on the other hand, felt like actually answering. "Wiqing runic script. Couldn't tell you what it meant. Or why they used lead, since I thought Wiqing predated earthbending."

"Kinda moot at this point..." Smellerbee muttered. Longshot made a hissing sound, very short, sharp, and to the point, then pointed ahead of him. There was a split, with the green light flickering across a 't' junction. Qujeck leaned from the corner to get a look down both paths.

"Damn it. He could be down either of these," Qujeck muttered, his last word punctuated by a blast from above them all.

"Quiet," Longshot whispered. The waterbender gave the archer a confused look, but heeded the request. Longshot turned big ears down both directions, panning slowly and with suspicion in his eyes. After a few moments, the only sounds that Qujeck could hear being the muffled sounds of explosions above – Bai's handiwork all – he stopped, and pointed straight ahead of them.

"What is it?" Bug asked. He gave a crisp nod toward a lead plate. Qujeck and Bug both moved to the panel which formed the back wall of the intersection. And after a moment, he tried pressing his ear to the lead. And when he did, he heard humming. The sort of dry, quiet humming from an old man with nothing better to do. "I hear it... But where's the door?"

"You're looking at it," Longshot said with a roll of his eyes, and he ran his fingers around the panel, showing how the lines of runes were hiding a seam that ended higher than anybody in their group stood by about a foot. Whomever built this door, built it for a very tall denizen. Qujeck gave a confused grunt, then shoved the panel. Surprisingly, it slid back, before emitting a click. A section of the runes which had simply looked a 'complete sentence' slid out, forming something like a handle that he could grab. It still took all four of them to open the door. It was also not meant for easy access.

"I hadn't expected you back so quickly," a man in green robes said, his back to the door that they were entering from. All could see the grey-bearded and portly Dragon of the West beyond him. "I have continued the procedure as Long Feng directed, and..." he turned. At that point, his eyes widened upon seeing that those approaching were not his master. But even as he lashed forward with a stone glove – one which Qujeck cut apart with his flask of water, Smellerbee was already bounding a step into the room. She flicked from her waist and forward, and a shine of metal spun through the air before catching the man in the center of the chest. He staggered back, shocked, from the knife which now stood directly beyond his heart. He staggered back, and Longshot drew an arrow. It was Smellerbee, though, who finished what she started, taking the lantern that was coasting to a stop next to her and hurling it at the Dai Li agent. It slammed into the handle of her knife, driving it a half inch further. Just far enough, Qujeck figured.

"That... Really... hurt." he said. He spun with his other fist launching away, a stone glove forming a bullet which only missed Smellerbee because Bug pushed her aside and took the brutal blow to the chest in her place. The Dai Li was ignoring the knife in his heart. In its twisted way, that was rather impressive. Less so that he was now spinning his shoes toward the archer, who had to break off his attack to burst one of them as it flew toward him. The other caught him flush in the neck, and then wrapped 'round to choke him to death. He very quickly went red in the head. Qujeck knew that from the amount of water he had in his flask, he wouldn't be able to do anything crazy right now. So he needed to do the most harm with the least amount of force in the fraction of a second that he had.

He lashed out with a whip of water, and the Dai Li dodged it with contemptuous ease. But he did so in a way that put the knife right where Qujeck wanted it. He recalled that water, snap-freezing it 'round the handle, and then pulled it from the wound. The Dai Li let out a fresh hiss, and thrust his hand into a pocket, his hand now coming out covered in beyond-razor-sharp shards of obsidian glass. He stared them down, his fingers dancing inside their deadly glove. But then, as he took a step forward, his balance departed him, and he stumbled. Then, slowly, he looked down.

And he saw the jets of blood that pumped straight out of his heart, and spread around him in a pool. He went pale, and dropped the glass from his hand. It still cut into his skin, but there wasn't very much blood there at the moment. He fell to his knees, his hand pressed over the wound, but that only served to have it spray down his side instead of straight away from the front of him. Qujeck watched him, without the horror, the revulsion of the others. Both Smellerbee and Kori both stayed to the edges of the room, as though terrified that touching his blood would befoul them in some way, or burn them to ashes. Longshot just shook his head mildly, rubbing at his throat from where the collar which had been choking him fell away.

"The Dragon of the West, I presume?" Qujeck said, ducking under the rail then stepping over the fallen earthbender. He lashed out with a flick of waterbending or five, cutting through the stone which held his head in place and his mouth closed. When it did, the Dragon worked his jaw for a long moment.

"You took your time in coming," Iroh said.

"There were complications. You should be happy I came at all," Qujeck countered.

"Where is Hua Jin Bai?" he asked, next.

"...Upstairs," Bug said.

"Dying," Qujeck finished. He turned to her. "Would you mind? This'd be a hell of a lot faster if you helped."

Bug gave a glance toward the dead Dai Li nearby, shuddered, and then turned to the Dragon instead. "Do I know you from somewhere?" Iroh asked of her.

"I don't see how," she answered, as she pulled the granite manacles away from his arms, and then did attempted to do likewise to his feet, until she found that they were actually chains. Chains that Qujeck was already working on.

"Is your father Hiroshi Morishita?" Iroh asked. Bug took a step back from him, shock on his face.

"How..."

"You have much of the look of him in you," Iroh gave a nod. She scowled.

"Of course you'd know Fire Nation despots. Considering you were one of them," she spat.

"That is not your anger speaking. Or rather, it is not an anger speaking wisely," Iroh said, with the last clang as his foot finally came free of the chair binding him. He gave a wide yawn, and stretched his arms and legs like a rousing cat, before taking his feet and rubbing his backside. "Your father might not be amongst The Society, but he was always generous to it. He understood that the world is a better place unified than split apart."

"Can we stop talking about this intellectual prattle and get away before Long Feng's cronies kill us?" Qujeck interjected, physically turning the Dragon's attention to him.

"If an old man can't engage in intellectual prattle from time to time, then _what's the point_ of getting old?" Iroh said peevishly. He waved his hand. "Very well. If the young wants so badly to be moving, we can move. I grow tired of Dai Li hospitality. They never give me the kind of tea I like."

"Wait," Longshot said, causing all to turn to him. He motioned toward the rail, and the shattered lantern. His nod and shrug was a clear question of 'how do we know that he hasn't been twisted up like the Dragon of the East was?' or something like that.

"They used fire to try to dazzle my eyes. Obviously they've never had to try this on a master firebender," Iroh said with a degree of contempt. Easy to see why.

"What did they want from you?" Bug asked, as they began to follow him up out of the room.

"To lead an army against my brother," Iroh said. "It seems that they agreed to an armistice with Ozai, with the intention of betraying it upon the Day of Black Sun, and they wanted a capable military leader. How little faith he shows in his own men," the fat man scoffed. Well, not so fat, now. Obviously, they hadn't been feeding him nearly as much. "I think that Long Feng is slightly more desperate that he would like others to believe."

"Good. Anything which has him desperate is good news for us," Qujeck said. Iroh turned a golden eye back to him. "What?"

"One day, if you do not quench the wildfire of that hatred inside you, it will consume all that you are and leave a shell of a man in its wake, a delicate and brittle thing that will crumble at the slightest hardship. You are better than that. Start acting like it," he said humorlessly.

"You don't know what you're talking about, old man," Qujeck muttered.

"Maybe I don't," Iroh shrugged, as they reached the 'beginning' of the runes in lead, "...but of the two of us, who is the happier in this moment? The man who was just tortured for several weeks, or the man who came to rescue him? And _why_?"

It wasn't that Qujeck didn't feel like answering. It was more that he didn't have an answer worth giving to that question. So he did as he often did when people threw profundity at him. He scoffed, rolled his eyes, and readied himself to dole out some appropriate and well-apportioned violence.

* * *

><p>He couldn't keep the grin off of his face. It wasn't exactly the most jolly of grins; as it'd come with the blood of fools and sycophants, it was hardly a kindly day. It didn't help that the blazing fire throughout the hall of the Burning Throne only served to keep the temperatures tepid, rather than their expected blazing heat. No, he was smiling, because he had not only defeated an ignominious destiny, and in so doing, proved that a foul future could be fought, but had ascended higher in doing so than all of his victories to date. He could feel the five-point flame wrought in electrum and gold that rested in his phoenix tail, held in place by a pin of alumin bought from the frigid mines centuries ago when they weren't at war with the Water Tribesmen. Now that they controlled those mines directly, the lustrous, light and strong metal could now flow all the more freely. No more would barbarians choke progress. It all seemed to come back to that, Zhao figured. Because he'd defeated his destiny, he could chart a new path for the Fire Nation, one bereft of the weakness and failures that Azula had pointed out in her grim prophecy.<p>

"I have gathered you here because you are exceptional at what you do," Zhao said, looking down on the unsorted gathering of intimidating faces that the Fire Nation had access to. There were even some Easterners who'd accepted the call, their loyalty to cash much stronger than any allegiance to blood. And in the future that Zhao envisioned, those would be the only allegiances that would keep their kind alive. "Trackers. Thieftakers. Pirates. Bounty-Hunters. Mercenaries. And I have no doubt a few criminals of dire repute," he said, as he swept his eyes past individuals who instantiated each. Those at the end of the line gave a hard glance to the others, but Zhao magnanimously raised a hand, "but whatever you've done in the past is of no concern of mine. With the emptying of the Burning Throne, a new day has dawned in the Fire Nation. So old wounds... let's just say that they can be left to heal."

"So did I seriously get dragged out of my favorite bar in this town to listen to the new boss go on, and on, and on?" the pale huntress from the underworld of Azul asked, her arms crossed before her chest and her face etched in annoyance.

"Patience, Jun," Zhao said patronizingly. "You'll want to hear what I have to say..."

"Then why not simply say it?" she asked. Zhao's grin curdled a little bit. He glanced to his left, to the woman who knelt two spaces down from him. Akemi shook her head minutely. A reminder not to be goaded, not to be drawn. Restraint was a hard lesson that Zhao'd had to learn to last this long. And the fact that he had, in fact, lasted this long was proof of its worth. So he shored up his grin, and rose to his feet. He stepped down toward the forces from in the darkness who, whether they knew it or not, were already under his payroll. He parted the flames, and slowly descended from the dais toward them.

"You are going to have a task, monumental in scope, vital in importance, and life-altering if successful," he said. "The reward is the same for all who complete the task. It will not be shared, nor divided amongst the successful. You will get the reward I mandate, neither more nor less. So..."

"And why would that interest us?" the short, somewhat pudgy Easterner woman asked from where she stood beside a pair of Si Wongi of all things. At least she had the civility to ask the question in a civilized tongue.

"Because the reward is substantial," he said. The mountain of a man with a tattoo of a flaming eye on his brow turned a suspicious eye toward him, a question unasked by voice but not by context. "Two hundred thousand, in silver. Enough to live lives of luxury in the Fire Nation, or, if you are of lesser taste, anywhere in the world," he said, with a pointed glance toward the Easterners.

"That's a lot of money," the one-eyed pirate said, as he shoved the lizard-parrot back into a less obtrusive spot. "You want us to go after the Coordinator, don't you?"

Zhao shook his head. "The Coordinator is a trifling concern compared to the figure that you are being mobilized against. Ladies and gentlemen, your target... is the Avatar himself."

"I heard he was dead," the short Easterner woman said, confusion plain on her face.

"Oh, he is far from dead," Zhao said. "The other reason I chose you for your task was because you have shown discretion in your pasts. The Avatar is hiding in the Fire Nation at this very moment. I know not where. That is your job to find out. Find the Avatar, and destroy him. Is that clear?"

"Not very," Jun said. "The Fire Nation is kinda piddly compared to the East Continent, but that's still _a lot_ of land that they could be hiding in."

Zhao snapped his fingers, and three pages ran into the room. One of them plunked a table between their master and his prospective employees. The other two began to lay out printed posters with artists renditions. "The Avatar is not traveling alone. These people are his known associates. A waterbender, named Katara. Her brother, a bendingless peasant called Sokka. The blind girl is not to be underestimated; she is an earthbending master despite her young age."

"Wait a second. Is that who I think it is?" a man who wore the headress of the Yu Yan, but notably not the facial paint, asked as he pointed out the poster which had just opened.

"Indeed. Prince Zuko, son of Ozai, is in the company of the Avatar even now. He turned his back on the Fire Nation and his father both. The latter is easily forgiven, but the former? Unforgivable. He is a more canny opponent than he once was. He has not spent the last year idle.

"Hold on. Who's that?" Jun asked, leaning forward. The last poster was a much rougher impression, as it was not one that Zhao had heard of in Azula's visions and script. One whom never appeared in that text, but rumor had her placed directly in the Avatar's inner circle.

"A relative unknown," he said, tapping a finger to the dark-skinned, very angry looking girl with fairly short hair. "The name which is most often associated with this face is Nila. And I..."

"_Nila Badesh? The Dragon's Daughter? Hell with this nonsense! I value my eyes far too much for __any__ amount of silver!_" the Si Wongi in the middle of the Eastern group spouted, before turning.

"_Udu? Where are you going?_" the woman with them asked in the same language.

"_If it's all the same, Bi-yu, I'm with Udu on this one. The only thing that'll come of us going after the Dragon's Daughter is a face full of pepper-grease_," the other said, and began walking out after the first grumbling Si Wongi. The Eastern woman gave Zhao a confused shrug, and then practically jogged to catch up with the two of them as they now all three made their exit. The whole scene was honestly somewhat baffling to him.

"Well. No matter," Zhao picked up where he left off. "Her capabilities are unknown, but we have to assume from her lineage that she's..."

"With all due respect, Fire Lord, I'm going to have to let this one sail past as well," the Pirate said. He rubbed at the patch which covered his eye. "Let's just say that she's left a... bad impression on me. One I don't feel like revisiting."

The massive mute turned to watch the pirate stride out the door. Jun let out a sigh, and pushed off of the pillar she'd been leaning against. "You're going to have to count me out as well. Nila and I? We got a little agreement going on. And since I don't want to force her to take over a continent to build a machine she'll kill me with, I figure it might be for the best if our paths didn't cross."

"...build a machine..." Zhao asked, baffled beyond even his new-found capacity for self-control to quell it.

"Honestly, from what I've seen of her, she's just like her mother. And that means, if she _really_ wanted to, she could _probably_ do it. And she'd probably pick your continent to conquer," she gave an off-hand gesture toward Zhao. His grin was now not only dead but rotting in an unmarked, shallow grave at the bottom of a gully. From its ashes like the mythical phoenix, a scowl had taken its place. But its effect was lost on her, as she was already walking away. Zhao forced himself to take a breath which ended with a snort of smoke. Then, he turned to the others.

"Is there anybody else who has been terrified to the point of cowardice by this unknown girl?" Zhao asked. Those that remained all gave each other looks, but shook their heads. "Good. So you will have the courage to face the great enemy of the Fire Nation, and reap the rewards that such bravery deserves."

The mute firebending assassin gave a nod. The others actually voiced their agreements. The Yu Yan, though, cleared his throat. "Is there some way you want it done? Quiet? Slow? Painful?"

"Lethal. Other than that, your devices are limited only by your imagination and your capability," Zhao said. He snapped his fingers again, and the pages hustled forth from the room at the side of the chamber of the Burning Throne once more, this time two of them with a strong-box held aloft between them. They did not move quickly. Probably because the strong-box was quite heavy. They set it atop the table, smashing flat the renditions of the Avatar's minions. He opened it with a flourish, showing the pouches of silver, each stamped with the symbol of the Royal House, that rested within. "And to show that this is not a fool's errand warranting a fool's reward, an offering in good faith. To those with the courage to accept it," he said, letting the sneer that he'd wanted to express since the first of them approached enter his voice. They took it to mean those who'd left early. Honestly, he thought they were all scum. But even scum could be of use, from time to time.

Every gem was a rough-stone once. So too, with criminals. It only took one trusty and useful tool to forge a future. He had Azula already, in word and spirit if not in body. But for the more mundane, the more practical, the more immediate tasks? Well, that would remain to be seen.

* * *

><p>Honestly, there was a time and a place for old men to play young-men's games. Often, they were either a prelude to or an escape from the introduction into a fetching maiden's bed. Hua Jin Bai'd had many stories about both, sometimes both ends upon the same tale, but those were from when he was thirty years younger and about a hundred pounds lighter. What was not a time for old men, was in a fight-to-the-death. Mad King Bumi might say otherwise, but then again, there was a reason why his most common nickname was 'Mad King Bumi'.<p>

The crack of a fist across his jaw called all of that into focus as he stumbled back, pulling the butt of a rifle out in front of him to smash into the side of a Dai Li agent's neck. It wouldn't stop him, but it'd hurt, and it'd slow him down. His entire body burned. Both from the activity – it was hard to run with your gut getting in the way – and the impacts of stone fists and bricks. In its way, there was one small benefit to being so fat; getting hit didn't hurt _quite_ as much as it used to. The flip side of that was that, compared to when he was young and svelte, he got hit far, far more often. But Bai was nothing if not adaptable. It'd kept him alive on the lunatic seas. It might do the same here.

He took the blow across the chin and spun with it, letting a hand fly out with a handful of dust into the eyes of the Dai Li who'd done it. Dust against an earthbender was, as one could expect, only a temporary inconvenience, but Bai was living on temporary inconveniences at the moment. Another blow, this one straight into the center of his chest. That one he had to pull back from, as he hurled the spent rifle at the Dai Li he'd momentarily blinded; the crack of wood and metal against face heralded an unconscious thug.

"You think this is a fight? I could tell you about the time when..." Bai nevertheless declared, loudly and with a voice which oozed heedless cockiness.

"Why won't you just shut up and die!" the one-eyed one shouted, as he continued to circle with the others. His guns were all spent, and lay discarded at random where they'd been used as hurled bludgeons. If there was one man present that Bai desperately needed to kill, good or bad, it was him. Han Hua was Long Feng's right-hand-man, and the most skilled brain-crusher in Ba Sing Se. But at the moment, the only thing which kept them from advancing was the fact that Bai didn't let them surround him. Not after the first time.

"Where would be the fun in that?" Bai asked. "Although, probably safer that you don't want to get inside my head. My ex-wife tells me it's a bit spooky in there."

"I don't know what you were trying to accomplish with this. It won't succeed," Han said, still keeping to the outside of the fan of Dai Li who pressed him ever backwards through the higher structures at this side of the promenade. It'd been a mobile fight from the beginning. Like all of his best were. Bai, though, spared a glance toward the lower level. Not focusing on anything. He couldn't afford to give them the notion that he was paying something attention. That glance was enough to see the last of them, the old man with the long gray beard finally reaching the far side. He turned, and seemed to stare at Bai. Perhaps pointedly. Bai couldn't tell, because he had to let his glance sweep onward.

"Sooner or later, you're going to have to take something I do on faith, my friendly secretariat," Bai said, with a retreating bow. "Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I just wanted to see the looks on your faces when I put bullets into you?"

"No. You're not so stupid."

"But I _am_ that crazy," Bai said with a bloody grin. A couple of the Dai Li gave looks back to Han, and even mildly agreeing shrugs and noises, but Han silenced them with a glare. "So are you going to fight me, or are we going to continue dancing all day?"

"I don't have to," Han said. He glanced above Bai. Bai just let out a slightly disappointed sigh. Of course, they'd send somebody above him, crawling around like a spider. He put one of his hands into his pocket, then through it's false bottom, and braced himself for the impact.

The Dai Li landing on him hurt, since he threw himself down with quite a bit of force. Still, Bai was fairly adept at redirecting force, so the slam which should have shattered both of his shoulders instead merely bruised his back-ribs. And since they were already bruised from before, it didn't amount to much more than already had come from the Dai Li before him. Bai even managed to maneuver the man to a point where he tucked the fellow's head under his armpit, and fell straight backward introducing his face to the floor. The crack was probably not lethal, but quite satisfying.

It also gave the other Dai Li all the opportunity they needed to pounce. They all bounded forward, their arms twisting as bands of stone locked his legs to the floor, then his chest, then his head. The Dai Li swarmed upon him as ants on a picnic, layering more stone onto him, to lock him into place. Pity for them, he had all the mobility he needed. The only part of his body he could move was his jaw. Han stepped closer, leaning down toward him. "I may yet get inside your skull, Hua Jin Bai. If only to find out how you managed to evade us since the coup."

"Pity, I will have to decline," Bai said.

"You don't have that option," Han said with a frown. Not smug. He was many things, but never smug.

"I think that I might," he said, with a flick of his fingers, a scrape of metal against flint. "You might want to open my coat. It's getting awfully warm in here, and I do get sweaty. It's the extra weight, you know?" he said, still smiling. Strictly speaking this was his second choice. If given his first, it would have been a heart-attack after a three day 'marathon' with the Li-Dah twins. Fetching lasses, they. Han's frown grew more intense, and he shifted aside some of the stone, and flopped open the outermost of Bai's coats.

And saw all of the fuses, leading into all of the bombs.

"White Lotus claims Bastion," Bai whispered.

While it wasn't his _preferred_ choice of death, an explosive finale which took a bunch of his enemies down with him was a remarkably close second.

* * *

><p>"Wait, aren't we going back for Bai?" miss Morishita asked, pointing back toward the cavern which they had all barely escaped. Iroh, at the back of the pack, shook his head slowly.<p>

"He doubtless had his own intention for being here, beyond saving me. And we will hear it, soon," he said.

"What are you talking about?" the Water Tribesman demanded. Iroh tilted his head toward the path back. A second or so later, the great blast echoed to them, a faint waft of breeze coming with it.

"So it is with the Lotus. So many sacrifices," he said. At its outset, the White Lotus Society had been formed by the poor and the desperate to dismantle the Monolith in ages far and long past. Their duty as assassins vanished when the Monolith did, but they were forced to take up a new mantle, to try to hold onto what fragments of wisdom the Monolith did hold, to try to hold out against a dark-age which would last a hundred lifetimes. So had the White Lotus gone full circle, it seemed, if on a smaller scale. "We should leave now, while they are in disarray. I doubt we'll get another opportunity like this one."

"He's... he's dead, isn't he?" the girl with the knives and the wild hair asked.

"Yes. But he did not die quietly, nor alone. As was, I think, his wish."

And with that, Iroh began to shepherd them forward, out of the darkness and the terror. Not into the sunlight, but... There would be time for that, later. Eventually.

Hopefully.

* * *

><p>"Thirty dead. Another ten injured, one maimed beyond recovery. The Dragon of the West stolen from right under our noses!" Long Feng said, glaring at the report. "And the most damning of all, we've lost Secretariat Han. How. Did. This. Happen?"<p>

The secretariats of the Lower and Middle rings could only shrug nervously, in their ignorance. Joo Dee, the definitive article, shook her head, kneading her brow with all of the stress and aggravation that Long Feng was feeling, no doubt in her efforts to try to find some way to mitigate this. But Han Hua was not something which could be salvaged, nor mitigated.

She gave a sigh, then turned her eyes on him. "We'll find some way to recover from this."

"Not quickly," Long Feng muttered, hurling the report into the fire in a rare self-allowance of pique. He leaned against the mantel, sighing. "And not completely."

"We will endure. That's what the Earth Kingdoms do. That's what Ba Sing Se is," Joo Dee said. She shook her head. "Han's loss is regrettable, but at the moment, we have to focus on the tasks at hand. Water, and war."

"Yes. You are right," he admitted, and he turned to the table once more. So much needed doing. If he was going to save Ba Sing Se from the depredations of the Fire Lord, he would have to do much to see it through. Anything could be sacrificed to that end.

Well... _almost_ anything.

* * *

><p><em>Leave a review.<em>


	47. The City of Smoke and Fog

**You wanted more scenes between Aang and Azula? You're going to get 'em.**

* * *

><p>"Why was it they called this place the 'Fire' Nation again?" Katara asked.<p>

"Very funny, Katara," Sokka said, as he walked afoot, soaked utterly. Then again, everybody was, as any bending which would have sheltered them from the rain would peg them immediately as interlopers. The weather had taken a turn for the better, in a way. The rain fell, but always in sheets, with periods of relative dryness in between them. Sure sign, according to Zuko, that they were reaching the coast. "I'm pretty sure we're going the right way. I mean, the rails lead right in here."

"We're heading the right way," Azula said, nonplussed for all she looked like a drowned rat. Well, a muscular, fetching drowned rat that Sokka in some alternate timeline had sex with, but still, drowned rat. "We haven't been attacked by anything larger than ankle-gators for two miles. The City drives out anything wild. It's why it's safer there than in the country. From the animals, at least."

"Is there any part of Azul which isn't trying to kill me?" Aang muttered in a moaning tone, tugging the knot of his headband so it wouldn't slip.

"No," everybody but the Tribesmen answered.

"I don't know why were all going in there. It's just another city, and trust me, I've had enough of big cities for a _lifetime_," Toph followed up with a roll of useless eyes. Likely bravado. "I mean, somebody's gotta stay back with Appa, Momo, and... what did you call that thing?"

"_Kuchiku-Can_," Azula said easily.

"What does that mean, anyway?" Katara asked.

"Destroyer," Zuko said, with a smirk. Sokka's sister scowled for all she was worth, but Sokka got a great laugh out of it.

"Yeah, somebody should stay with Kuchi and the rest of 'em. I mean, the little guy can't even fly! How'll he get away from the blood-beetles, the brain-boilers, or the rock-tigers?"

"Or the anomolokia for that matter," Malu pointed out.

"Could we stop giving the blind one more ammunition?" Nila asked, obviously the most miserable one of the walk, for all she was an avowed desert dweller and this should have been heaven for her. "All are required if we are going to find the mad inventor in a decent time. Given the setbacks..."

"Yeah, we're going to have to find him pretty quick if we're going to keep up with the schedule," Sokka said, tapping the case which held it away from the rain. He took in a breath. It smelled mildly sooty, but then again, much of the Fire Nation did. "How could you possibly hide a city down here, anyway? I know it's no Ba Sing Se, but_ come on_!"

"A trick of light and fog," Nila said.

"Yeah, it really is this way," Malu pointed ahead of them. "But honestly, I get a bit of a bad feeling about this place."

"Oh, that's just being surrounded twelve deep in people who've been trying to kill you for a century," Sokka dismissed. Malu gave a glance to Nila. Nila glanced at her, then took a double take.

"What?" she asked.

"_What_?" Malu asked.

"You were staring at me."

"I was... Wow. You're the least girly-girl I know," Malu shook her head. Nila, though, cracked a smirk of her own.

"That is a profound compliment," she said quietly and a little bit smugly. Sokka could only smile at the oddity – and to Sokka's perception the _awesomeness_ – of his girlfriend, so bereft of the usual pitfalls of the female gender at his age. When he looked forward, though, there was a blast of flame that leapt up from the fog in the distance, a point of light that seemed to emit from the sky. "Ah. We overlook it even now."

"I don't see anything," Aang said, trying to look into the distance, but the thick, deep bank of fog which pooled starting only a few feet below the outcropping they stood upon – when it didn't deign to simply mount over and wash around their knees.

"Oh, I get it," Toph said. "The outlying buildings start a quarter mile from here," she said, pointing directly into the heart of that grey-brown massing.

"That's the city of Azul?" Katara asked, looking at the smudge in the world. "...did Imbalance eat it or something?"

"No, it always looks like that in the morning," Zuko said, but his voice was muffled. When Sokka turned back, he saw why. The firebender had tied a bandana over his nose and mouth, cinched it tight behind his ears. Azula was in the process of doing likewise. "You're going to want one. Otherwise, you'll probably choke."

"What is that fog? It doesn't look right," Malu said.

"Not fog. Smog. Smoke and fog together in a suffocating mixture," Azula said. "It would be best if we get out of the streets quickly. We can start looking by mid-day when it burns off."

"What could possibly put out that much smoke?" Aang asked.

"You'll see, soon enough," Zuko promised. Then, with a motion toward Toph, she gave the shelf of stone a stomp, and steps began to descend it, down into the grey, and from the grey, beyond it, into the smog.

* * *

><p>"...so, when are you going to untie me?" Kori asked.<p>

"When I feel that you aren't going to immediately betray me every night," Maya answered him easily enough.

"You do realize that this puts us both in statistically greater danger of being eaten by something if I'm in ropes and chains every night," Kori said.

"Don't act like you don't enjoy it," Maya said with a smirk.

"That's beside the point," Kori replied smoothly. "I'm not so blind as to not notice that we're heading south. That means we're heading back into mainland Azul. And why would that be?"

"You ask too many questions, Child," she muttered, as she pulled away the tarp and let the downpour drench the fire out for her.

"I'm simply looking to my own long-term best interests."

"The Prince and his sister are in Azul. No doubt, they're going to try to recruit my father against the Fire Lord. That would be a bad decision."

Kori raised a brow at her vehemence. "I wouldn't have thought you'd see Montoya Azul on the Burning Throne as a bad thing."

"They don't call him The Spider without reason," Maya said coldly. Then, she reached down and pulled the knot open enough that Kori could work his wrists out of their bondage on his own. "Father will eat the Prince whole, and I doubt Azula would ever again see the light of day. Father is _not_ a kind man. And besides, I would rather have the future Fire Lord owe me a favor. Call it enlightened self-interest."

"I think you're selling Azula short on this one," Kori said, as he followed her into the rain.

"So you keep saying. I'm sure you're infatuated with the poor girl, but that's your little head thinking, not your big one," she said condescendingly.

"I spoke to her at some length. Whatever afflicted her isn't an issue any more."

Maya looked back at him. "Odd."

"If Ozai hadn't been such a tyrant with her, she'd probably be at his side right now," Kori offered.

"So she'd be imprisoned with him," Maya said, continuing forward. Kori missed a step, but didn't let one become two, as there was nothing more dangerous than being alone in a forest in Azul.

"Hold on a second. What do you mean by..."

"Oh, that's old news," Maya waved it away as she plowed forward through the tall, waving ferns which grew up between the trees and bamboo to remarkable heights. "Some admiral he brought into his inner circle betrayed him and usurped the Burning Throne. I thought you'd know that already, seeing as you're his servant."

"I've been kind of busy the last week or so," Kori said direly. His mind immediately jumped to Yoji. If one'd asked Kori what Zhao would do with the Children – and Kori did assume she was talking about Zhao – a year ago, he'd immediately guess 'execute them on sight'. While Zhao had developed some trifle of restraint and a fleeting grasp of long-term repercussion, he would not be nearly so indulgent as Ozai would be; if Yoji pressed her luck with him, he'd come down hard. With a hammer. Made of fire. Made all the worse, because Zhao was exactly the kind of person that Yoji tended to press her luck with. The rest of the Children...

Come to think of it, the rest of the Children would chafe pretty quickly under Zhao as well. He'd be surprised if they weren't one-and-all preparing for some sort of counter-coup. Then he remembered that there were members of the Children who enjoyed the perks of their status more then loyalty to a figure. It'd be the organizational equivalent of a civil war. That did not sit well with him.

His distraction wasn't much, but it amounted enough that a bullet-vine, as it swung in the tumbling of the rain, ever-so-slightly tapped his shoulder. And the instant it did, one of the spiked pods on its length exploded, tearing into his flesh and hooking, before the vine started to 'reel itself in' toward its mother plant. With no more than a grunt of pain, he pulled himself off of the vine, leaving it with no more than a coin-sized chunk of his skin for its trouble which was pulled toward the hulking – and carnivorous – kaiju tree.

"You're in Azul. Pay attention," Maya said, not even bothering to look back. His glance up to her showed that she was in the process of chopping through another bullet-vine ahead of her with her machete. "Unless you'd rather get eaten by a tree."

"I hate Azul," Kori muttered.

"The only people who don't are Azuli. And that's because we're insane," Maya said with a shrug, and then continued on. There was a lot to think about, and not a lot of time in which Kori could think. Agni – or whatever Tribal gods he was _supposed_ to believe in – damn it all, this was about the worst thing that could have happened.

* * *

><p>Aang pounded on the door again. "Are you sure this is the right place?" he asked, his eyes stinging and his throat burning. He could barely see Sokka – and Sokka was only standing about two paces away from him – through the acrid smog that blanketed the city.<p>

"I know that symbol. It's a public house. I just don't know if they're..." Zuko began, but was cut off when the door swung out and knocked Aang completely off of the step and landed him in a pile at its base.

"_Well, that's a fine mess_," a distorted voice came. When Aang turned, he gave a start at the visage which stood to him. It seemed long snouted, bug-eyed, and of a charcoal complexion and texture, all sitting atop a human woman's shoulders. It took Aang a moment to recognize the facial mask for what it was. And after that moment, he was still mildly baffled at what he was looking at. "_An entire group of homeless children on the streets during Smog Hours. Senseless, senseless_."

"The Smog was worse than we thought it'd be when..." Zuko began.

"_Shut your gobs and get inside before you choke out and brown up your lungs_," she said, beckoning inward, into a tiny room which would hold all of them and no more than that. Aang found himself being hauled to his feet by Azula and pushed forward into the room first, with the rest of them piling in after. Toph, who'd been guiding them through the streets as her 'sight' was scarcely hampered by the fog at all, was the last in, closing the door behind her. The woman in the strange mask gave a stern pound on the door at her back, and a panel slid open. "_Got s'more street-rats out in the smog_."

The bright eyes on the other side of the slit sighed, then turned away. "We've got some room, but don't make a habit of this. You're not in your caravans anymore, so start acting like it."

After that, there was a loud thunk, and the door opened inward, giving the whole group a chance to move and spread out slightly. As stated, there were other seeming unfortunates who were gathered before the fireplace, or soaking old bread in water to later eat. The keeper of the house was a somewhat jowly Azuli man, black of hair and bright of eye, who picked out Zuko as their supposed leader. "It'll be ten sparks for the privilege. You can pay it or you can take your chances in the smog."

Zuko scowled, but did pull several silver coins from the purse that they'd been gifted with before their flight to the Far West. The master of the house gave a slightly surprised grunt, then nodded sternly toward the woman in the odd mask. "Get 'em some bread and some cheese. And keep 'em out of the way of our real customers."

"_As you say_," the woman said. He turned away, and the woman pulled at the mask, until it finally came loose, spilling forth great mounds of wavy, dark brown-hair, which met skin scarcely paler than Sokka's. Aang looked between the two, and couldn't quite make sense of it. "You should know better. On-dawn to near-noon is Smog hours. Must be new the the city, ain't ye?"

"Um..." Aang began

"Yes," Zuko cut in. "Trying to find somebody we lost. We heard he'd came here."

"All kinds of people come to Azul. Not all 'ah 'em leave, if you catch my meaning," she said, and waved toward the benches. "Must say, 'been a while since you were in these parts, m'love. How's that ole Uncle 'yours doing?"

"Not well," Zuko said, and she shook her cloud of hair sadly in response.

"Well, you'll get the best I've to offer. Friends of the house and all that. I'll have something to nibble on while you wait for the sun or the rain to clear the air. And don't wander; there's a rope leadin' to the privvy, but don't go anywhere else, 'less you feel like dying. You know the drill," she finished, giving Zuko a bat across the arm.

And with that, and a spin of fluffy brown hair, she was gone. Aang blinked. "What was that?"

"She's one of the Yubokamin. Most call them 'Gorks'," Zuko said. "And we're lucky she was the one who opened the door."

"You knew her, didn't you?" Katara asked. "She called you her love."

"That's just the way she talks," Zuko said, pointedly not looking back at Toph. "This place will be safe as long as the money is good. The owner's greedy, but trustworthy. He'll keep his silence as long as we pay for it."

"Well, that's... good, I guess," Malu said with a shrug.

"It is. That means we have a place to start looking for Sato," Azula said, swiping a chunk of bread from a cup, and eating it to the dismay of the man who'd been patient enough to wait for it.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**The City of Smoke and Fog**

* * *

><p>"Well, you've just come up like fresh bamboo, in't ya?" Dara asked, instantly as invasive of Zuko's personal space as a human being could be while they still had clothes on.<p>

"Three years will do that to a man. Would you mind taking a step back?" Zuko asked, carefully pushing the woman who was probably eight to ten years his senior back slightly. Dara scoffed and shook her head to an avalanche of brown hair.

"Y'r ne'r going to get a lady if you're so stodgy all the time. You've got to loosen that sphincter a' yours; let some fun in," she joked.

"And I see you haven't changed in the slightest since the last time we came through here," Zuko muttered, not allowing himself to be baited, as he watched the street from the window at the end of the highest floor hallway. The dim had been brightening for a while, but it still had a ways to go before the sun would be strong enough to cut the smog.

"What's t'change? I'm pretty much perfect the way I am," she offered with a grin.

"So you keep saying," Zuko muttered.

"So, what'cha lookin' for in this fine city?" she asked.

"A man," she said. She gave a mockingly shocked look, hand to chest.

"Oh, a man, he says. For business or pleasure? The latter'd explain a lot 'bout ya'," Dara joked. Zuko just turned a look onto her, and she returned to her usual broad and toothy grin. "Some day, I'm gonna get a laugh out of you. Just you wait."

"Sure you will," Zuko said, rolling his eyes. He turned toward the room that they'd managed to barter out of the innkeeper after several hours of haggling; he'd had it open, but wanted the most he could get out of it for the day. Typical Azuli, really. Dara was right on his heels until he stopped, and turned, and stared her in the eye. "Are you going to bear witness to my bathing, too?" he asked.

"Is that an invitation, m'love?" she asked.

Zuko just shook his head. There was no getting around how Dara acted; you either bore with it or you snapped and screamed at her – as Zuko had last time – which she would consider no more than a passing hilarity. He slipped through the door and locked it immediately behind him, continuing to shake his head. "Is there any stranger beast than an Azuli?"

Zuko then looked up, and saw each of Malu and Aang trying to balance standing atop a chair which rested on only one leg, with expressions of extreme concentration on their faces. "Well, that answers that question," he said to himself.

"So is your girlfriend still stalking you?" Toph asked dryly.

"She's _not_ my girlfriend. She's just being... weird," Zuko said. There was a thunk, as Malu's chair descended to two legs, still balancing on those, but now her attention was on Zuko. "As weird as she always is," Zuko amended. Malu gave a nod, and then tipped the chair so that she was balancing it on a single leg once more.

"I vaguely remember her. She was all over you when we left for the West Air Temple three years ago," Azula said, sitting demurely in the only other chair in the room, a news-reel open before her. "I always felt a need to check my pockets and purse after talking to her."

"That's just 'cause you're racist," Sokka said smoothly.

"Says the barbarian."

"Proving my point," Sokka continued.

"I have a concern. I will not be of much aid in the search in this place," Nila said. She rose her hand, then pointed to her eyes. "Both of these mark me as quite the outsider."

"Not as big a problem in Azul City," Zuko said. He walked up to Aang's chair, and considered doing something slightly evil. He looked up at the Avatar, then across to his opponent. Then, with a shrug, he kicked the standing leg so that the chair slid into Zuko's waiting hand, and dumped the Avatar painfully but harmlessly to the floor. Katara perked up with a look of outrage immediately, but was cut off by everybody but she and Zuko laughing at the Avatar's pratfall. He took his chair and spun it so he sat with his back to the wall. "There's a lot of different kinds of people in this city, from all over the world. It's probably the only place in the Fire Nation where you could openly get away with being an Easterner. I wouldn't push my luck with earthbending, though. And while people might toss any Tribesmen they find into the bay – which would be fairly awful but not immediately lethal – the only ones who'd be killed upon discovery would be those two," he pointed at Aang and Malu, "because of Azul's old and very deep enmity against the Storm Kings. As long as he keeps his arrows hidden, you'll pass for locals, though."

"So what should we do? Take aliases?" Toph asked.

Zuko rubbed his crisped left ear for a moment, then pointed at the Tribesmen. "Sokka works. Katara, you'll have to pronounce a bit different. I'm already Li, here. Malu, you should take a local name," he pointed at Aang. "You too."

"What about your sister?" Aang asked, concerned. Zuko leaned back, and played the odds. He took a deep breath.

"AZULA!" he shouted.

Everybody in the room flinched as one, Azula excepted.

"WHAT?" two womens' voices from two different rooms answered.

"NOT YOU!" Zuko shouted in response. Everybody now looked a bit baffled. "Azula's about the most common name for a woman in this part of the country. She'll be fine."

"STOP YELLING OR I'LL THROW YOU TO THE SMOG!" the innkeeper's voice joined the madness, before all went silent from beyond the door.

"Okay, so names," Aang said. He shrugged dismissively after a moment. "Eh, I'll come up with something."

"God help us," Zuko rolled his eyes.

"So how are we supposed to find Sato in this place? Azul is pretty big from what I can feel of it," Toph asked.

"We use what we know about him. He's probably the smartest man alive, invents world-altering devices as a pass-time, and has all of the streetwise of a particularly simple child," Zuko rhymed off, ticking points off of his fingers. He then added one more, "And he _always_ stays where he can find work, because if he didn't, he'd be broke and on the street inside two weeks."

"Strange. One would assume so canny a man would have a veritable stockpile of wealth, for all he creates," Nila mumbled.

"One would also assume he didn't manage to lose money in every way humanly possible, short of women and wine," Azula added to answer Nila's point. "Brilliant, yes, but useless with money. Exactly why Father managed to get so many innovative designs out of him 'last time'."

"You had a Nomura Sato too, huh?" Toph asked.

"Indeed. His son was an _ass_," Azula said with a note of spite. Zuko raised a brow. "Very long story."

"So we need some place with workshops. Not so big that they'd make, say, ships, but not so small that somebody prototyping wouldn't have room," Sokka summarized. "How hard could that be to find?" he asked. And on the tails of his question, a beam of light cut through the window, laying against the floor. To those who'd not come into the presence of Agni, it was the first direct sunlight they'd seen in almost _a month_. One and all, they crowded around the small window, looking down and into the street, up through the breach in the clouds that extended not so very far out to sea, at the rapidly dwindling top of the off-brown fog. And as it parted, the scale of Azul became obvious.

"You're looking for one master engineer in a city of master engineers," Zuko said. "And almost anywhere could house him."

And as they saw the almost innumerable factories that belched their smoke into the sky from their stacks even at this relatively early hour, they finally understood what kind of task this would be.

* * *

><p>While Yoji could be called loyal and dependable, a coward she was not. So when she was ordered to flee for her life from Caldera City, she of course took the unstated option and remained within its boundaries. Half of the reason she offered herself was because out in the country, she'd have a lot less of a network to draw upon. The rest of her... well, she just felt stubborn. No one man, even the so-called new Fire Lord, would displace her from her home. She'd already lost one...<p>

No, she hadn't. The Fire Nation saved her. Her people left her to die. She shook her head at the notion of thinking anything different, and then looked at the letter that was open in her lap. More false starts and dead ends. What she wouldn't give to have Maryah's ear for just a few minutes. For all her prancing about and worship of the knife, she was as skilled with raw information as one could be. So she flexed her fingers, intending to ignite a blast of flame from her palm and burn the correspondence to ashes so nobody would be able to read it. And as so often she did, these days, she didn't create so much as a wisp of smoke.

She let out a snarl, and hurled the paper away, and then hurled herself out of the bed, casting a fist forward, intending to slam down the damned wall with her fire. Nothing came. But every lantern and candle in the room flared, drifting sideways from her punch. She stood, her chest heaving, as she tried to understand. Why couldn't she firebend? Well, that wasn't strictly accurate. She twisted her hand, and the flame from the candle on the desk extended and pooled into her hand before it twisted up into a golden sphere, just as effectively as if she'd ignited it there. But it didn't feel right.

It didn't feel like firebending.

Yoji scooped up the letter and fed it into her fire, consuming it. Another day wasted, and she was no closer to Ozai or his children. How ironic that she'd been tasked only months ago with killing the Princess, and now, if she even still lived, she was one of the only options for a clear and smooth succession. Of course, Zuko being both first-born and not struck simple would be a more ideal choice. So those were her tasks, as she saw them. Get Ozai back onto the throne, or replace him with Zuko. And failing that, replace them with Azula.

If only her firebending would listen to her.

"I am better than this. I am a firebending _master_," she muttered.

But was she always? Honestly, she had no real memory of her early years. She'd been trained in firebending since she was four or five. As she twisted the flame that still orbed in her hand, she couldn't help but think. And those thoughts were not welcome. But they did give her an idea.

"...so maybe this is just a new technique I haven't mastered yet," she told herself. If only because that was the only way that she'd be able to deal with the consequences, as the alternative was, to her, unthinkable.

* * *

><p>"Do you mind if I ask you something?" Aang asked, as they navigated the soot-stained and nearly-identical walls which made up pretty much all of the factory district of Azul City. Malu, the only one currently with him, gave a shrug. "Why didn't you ever get the arrows? You were always the better... bender."<p>

Malu gave a shrug, as they skirted past some very busy an distracted looking people, some of them pulling carts of metal, coal, or grease behind them in their haste. "Honestly, I never thought I reached the level of 'master'. There was always a new lesson to learn. A new skill to uncover. New history; new anything."

"But you've earned it. You were better than a lot of the elders," Aang admitted. "And you were the only one who could beat me at my own game."

"Yeah, not easy, but that's because you cheat," Malu said with a smirk and a shrug.

"I do _not_ cheat!"

"Yes, you do. And you _know_ how you cheat," she said teasingly. And skirting around the point which would have had the two of them lynched if it'd been voiced aloud. She shook her head. "You know, I was always annoyed that you got yours so early. You were barely twelve!"

"Hey, I was plenty good enough to be a master!" Aang contended. "I just..."

"You got impatient, didn't you?" Malu asked.

"...kinda."

"You can't rush that sort of thing," Malu said, pausing to look down a street, then shaking her head when there wasn't anything worth seeing down there. "The way I saw it, if I took the mark, I'd have been found years ago, probably killed, and the world would be a better place. Wait, that's not what I meant to say..." Malu trailed off when she started to realize she was defeating her own purpose.

"I don't think it's that simple. Somebody would have let Imbalance in. It just happened to be you," Aang said, giving her hand a squeeze as he did. A little smile appeared on her face at that.

"You're probably right. And if I died way back then, assuming that the big I went all super-monster like he did this time, then you'd have been killed by what's-her-tattooes, the Earth King..."

"Mountain King," Aang corrected.

"There's a difference?" she asked.

"A _big_ one," Aang confirmed. She rolled her eyes.

"...would have gotten whooped, probably taken prisoner or killed. Your friends would be right there beside him. Badness in every direction but down, which is even more badness. So yeah. Thank your lucky stars that I showed up when I did."

"That still doesn't explain why you didn't get your..." Aang tapped his brow, where it was hidden this day under both a bolt of off white cloth and a stained wrapping over it. In its way, it looked like Aang had a bandaged head, but given the locals, it wasn't entirely out of place. A lot of the people that the two airbenders were walking past were working wounded.

"Honestly?" she asked. Aang answered. "The only answer I have, is that I wasn't ready for 'em."

"Are you ready now?"

"I'm not sure," she said. She looked around, down the slowly twisting street with its loose cobbles. Aang had half expected a city of this layout and level of pollution to be festooned with refuse and garbage, but the rains probably saw to that enough that they might as well have a Ba Sing Se-esque sewer. At least they weren't going to trip and fall in something stinky. That was a plus.

"Malu?" Aang asked. She held up a warning finger.

"_Mina_," she corrected. Right. Probably not even the fourth time that she'd had to correct him. And sooner or later, he'd have to start actually reacting to his pseudonym of 'Anil'.

"Is it just me, or do there seem to be a lot of very worried looking people around here?" Aang asked.

"It's not just you," Malu said quietly. "I think we might be heading into a bad part of town."

"There's a good part of town?" Aang asked.

"Yeah, probably about as far from here as there is in city limits," she answered with a shrug. "We should go back to the Drunken Dragon. I don't think Sato'd be here."

"That's starting to sound like a good idea," Aang said. There was a harsh whistle, and a billow of steam appeared over a roof, to the sound of metal clacking against metal. And then, rising from a factory not a hundred yards away, a ship from out the visions of Avatar Vajrapata began to ascend, obviously incomplete but possessing all needed to ascend, navigate, and depart toward the hills to the northwest. From the fact that the workers in the streets weren't gaping in awe at the sight, this was obviously not the first time anybody'd seen this spectacle. And from the complete apathy of those going about their work, it meant that there'd probably been quite a few of these things hit the skies. "Oh, that's not a good thing."

"Airships..." Malu said, shaking her head in mild disbelief. "Have you ever seen anything like that?"

"Once," Aang said quietly. "A very _very_ long time ago."

"We've got to stop this. If our guys show up and they've got an entire fleet of these things..." Malu let the end of it go unsaid.

"Yeah, but if we just run in there and break stuff, they'll catch us for sure! And then they'll give us to the Fire Lord!" Aang whispered urgently to her. Malu gave a sigh, and a nod. "Let's think this through. If we don't somebody might get hurt."

"Are you sure you're the 'Anil' that I used to know?" Malu asked with an eyebrow raised. "'Cause you don't sound much like him right now."

"What? I've matured," Aang said, puffing out his chest.

"Says the kid who had to stay in a cave for a day with a sick stomach because he couldn't help but eat all of the sweets that Sokka'd rationed out for the entire trip here, in the second day."

"That wasn't my fault! If I didn't eat them, they'd go bad! And they were delicious!"

"The very portrait of maturity," Malu said with a grin. But that grin faltered as a horn sounded from the airship as it skudded toward other factories out of sight, vanishing from the horizon of the rooftops. "You're not wrong, though. We've gotta warn the others, if nothing else."

"You got that right," Aang said, and he turned to retrace their steps. He'd gotten less than a dozen steps before somebody had an iron-hard grasp of his arm. He turned, expecting Malu holding him, but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. And then, with a hard yank, he was pulled both from his feet and into an alleyway. The thud of his back against a wall knocked the breath from his lungs, and the glint of light on steel kept it out. There was a hand over his mouth that prevented both cries for help and a lot of his airbending. And apparently, Malu'd been taken in just as quickly. She looked more surprised then terrified, really.

"They stand out, don't they?" the one pinning Malu to the wall asked. There was a third, a woman with her hand over Malu's mouth. "Don't belong down here."

"Not from around here, are you?" the one with the knife in Aang's face asked. Aang's eyes tracked the tip of that blade as it worked little circles, before he summoned the nerve to shake his head. "Almost had me fooled with the head-wound, but you're too clean. The clean don't come down here. Ain't a thing clean in the gutters."

Just like that? All of the effort they put into hiding themselves, and the two of them were recognized as airbenders and enemies of the state because they were 'too clean'? How as that fair? The woman looked Malu up and down.

"She doesn't seem like she's the one with the money," she said. She leaned into Malu. "If you scream, my brother 'ere'll stick you. Let you bleed quiet, real slow. You don't want that, do you?" Malu shook her head against the dirty, dull-haired woman's hand. "I know what you are, so I have something I want from you."

A bounty to the Fire Lord, Aang assumed.

"Which chapter sent you in here? Who's money jangles in your pockets? 'Cause this part of town is _our_ Jag's, and nobody else's."

Wait... what the heck were these guys talking about?

"I don't have any money," Malu said.

"Fei hua, you don't," the woman said, pressing her knife up under Malu's jaw. "You're worth somethin' to somebody. _Worthless_ folk don't end up all scrubbed and pretty and pink. Somebody's got money in you, if only _money for soap_."

"You figure she might be one of Skanda's girls?"

"Too clean. Probably his little woman. He likes 'em fresh, I hear," the one holding Aang answered the other man's query.

"I don't know who Skanda is. I just want to go. I'm not going to tell anybody about this," Malu said.

"Shut up," the woman said.

"Why do I always have _sharp things in my face_?" Malu asked with a rising tone.

"I said, shut up!" the man holding Aang said, and his balance shifted. He could say many things about Azula's training style – that it was harsh, brutal, favored crippling blows and outright brutality, seemed to demand a level of paranoia held only by murderous psychotics, and was exhausting to boot – but if there was one thing it taught Aang, it was how to turn almost any leverage into a wide-open gap. So when the thug gave Aang enough leverage to get a foot free, he instantly heeded a lesson drilled into muscle memory by a firebending phenom, and slammed his foot in a firebent arc which landed with a wet pop into the side of the thug's knee. He went down in a heap with a clipped scream of pain.

"I'm really sorry!" Aang said, even as he was dropped to the ground. The woman backed away, holding the knife to Malu's bottom eyelid. "I just want to go! Just give me Ma.. Mina, and I'll go! I won't tell anybody that you tried to stab us!"

"Fat chance, gutter-runner. I've got money in her. You go tell your boss that I have what's his. He wants it? He can pay," the woman said, backing up, the other following her retreat. What was Azula's lesson for this? He knew that she'd given it. Oh, right. If the enemy gives you only a head as a target, you aim for the head, and you _stop being such a wuss you cowardly airbender_.

"Just let her go, and this doesn't get bad," Aang tried to impersonate Azula's most dangerous tone, and failed miserably, by how Malu gave a baffled look which overrode her knife-point terror, and how the woman holding said knife burst into laughter. If Aang had the opportunity, he'd be mildly insulted. Instead, he lashed forward with a knife-edged chop, and flame seared with it. It scoured the edge of the building they were next to, not biting through the heat-retardant bricks, but leaving a long stain as it curled toward Malu's neck. Or rather, just to the left of it. Malu heaved herself away, causing the knife to nick her throat just a little, but put the wave of fire directly bound for the woman standing behind her. That woman let out a shout of alarm and hurled herself down, giving Malu the time to bound forward and out of her grasp.

The man with her let out a roar of angry effort, and cast out a fist and a bolt of flame with it. It was a movement that Azula had pounded into his head to twist, deflect the flame up with his own fire, and strike even in the same motion, a concussive bolt of heat that caught the man in the center of his chest and sent him flying back after the bang. He'd be singed, but probably not meaningfully harmed. The woman was back on her feet by the time he stopped rolling, though, and her knife-arm was cocked back as though ready to hurl.

Aang just stood, staring up under dark brows, his headband keeping the sweat from dripping into his eyes, and stared her down. He let the flame play over his fingers and pool over his knuckles. While he wasn't very good at the 'actually hurting people' part of intimidation, he'd picked up the 'look like you can actually hurt people' well enough. Well, terribly all things considered, but right now, he was on the verge of angry enough that somebody tried to hurt the only other airbender alive that he wasn't in a loving and all-forgiving mood. For a change. "Do you _really_ want to keep going?" Aang asked, and without even realizing it, managed to hit Azula's tone precisely. The woman glanced from Malu, who was now bounding to her feet, clapping a hand to the weal on the side of her neck, to the two toughs who'd accompanied her. One was lying on the ground cradling a hyperextended knee, the other groggily sitting up wondering how he ended up at the other end of the alley-way.

She didn't say a word. She just let out a short, sharp whistle, and started to back away, one hand out before her. The closer of the toughs began to rise, limping away while shooting a muted warning glance over his shoulder. The farther was pulled to his feet by the woman, and all three then vanished into the next street. Aang felt no compunction to follow them.

"A... Anil, that was..." Malu said, obviously almost slipping.

"We should get back," Aang said to her.

"Damn right you should. Mokutan will be steamed if he hears somebody's roughing his guys," one of the workers said, barely pausing to say it.

"Who?"

"He's the Jag of the Coke Streeters. If you value your hide, you'll stay away from 'em," he said. And then, with a glance up the street, he dropped back down to grab his cart of charcoal and started to pull it toward whatever destination he had in mind. Aang didn't have time to wonder, as much as he'd want to. He took Malu's hand and started to pull her now against the crowds. And because they were both trained in circle-walking, made better time than if they were moving with it. But because Aang was leading the two of them, he couldn't see the look on Malu's face.

She was watching him like he was something she didn't entirely trust. And if he'd seen her, he'd not have been able to blame her.

* * *

><p>"That's three times that somebody tried to mug me," Zuko said as he kicked the thug who'd made a grab at his money in the face, sending him down in a pile. "Do I have a sign over my head that says 'victimize me' or something?"<p>

"Hey, they never went after me," Sokka pointed out, sliding his own jet-black sword home. In truth, the weapon was a bit too effective; for all Piandao and Zuko had trained him in how to use the weapon in unorthodox ways, it still slashed through flesh as quickly as it did metal. And one of the pair of toughs who thought that a couple of teenagers were an easy mark was now bleeding into the gutter. And it didn't sit well with Sokka. Yeah, pound a guy if he's being a dink, but... Killing was a bit severe. It wasn't something to be done lightly, or to just anybody.

"That's because you look like a Gork. Anybody who goes against a Gork has about a one in five chance of getting made dead," Zuko pointed out, rotating his shoulder. He'd probably pulled it in the brief but exciting skirmish with the second group a half-hour ago. This recent fight would have just aggravated it.

"Those are pretty good odds," Sokka gave a shrug.

"The other four in five are simply getting a limb cut off. The Yubokamin can be harsh if you try to hurt them," Zuko finished.

"They sound kinda like Tribesmen in that," Sokka said with a smirk.

"They do, don't they?" Zuko said, letting the question linger. Sokka had half a mind to call him on it, but honestly, at this point, discussing the anthropological similarities between a Fire Nation subculture and the Water Tribes was a lot more effort than he had to expend. "Do you think the others found anything?"

"If the universe is any indicator, my sister's probably already found him, been captured, and then got rescued by Toph and Nila, exposing some massive conspiracy in the city," Sokka said. Zuko turned a gawk at him. "What? We tend to find these things."

"You're almost as paranoid as an Azuli," Zuko shook his head. "There's only one conspiracy in Azul, and it's name is Montoya. He won't _allow_ anybody else to have one. He's kind of monopolistic like that."

"That sounded almost like a joke," Sokka elbowed Zuko lightly in the ribs.

"Then you misheard me," Zuko said with a flat tone. While the firebender – jerkbender as Sokka would still frequently call him were it not for how quietly terrified of Azula he was – did in fact have a sense of humor, it was an alien thing compared to the Tribesman's. But some things, such as sarcasm and irony, tended to translate.

The Drunken Dragon, as their new accommodations happened to be called, appeared 'round a bend in the street. Unlike the other cities of the East, and a lot of the cities that Sokka had encountered in his travels elsewhere, Azul City didn't seem to have any sort of order or design in how its streets ran, or where its buildings rose. They just clamored for space against the monoliths that were the factories that belched smoke into the sky and made dim a summer day. Made it oddly cold, too. Sokka actually had the forethought and presence of mind to bring along a thicker coat today; the air cold enough to qualify for _early_ spring in the East made him glad he did. Wasn't this place supposed to be so hot it'd boil you from the inside out? It was actually warmer when they came here in the _dead of winter_! The clouds broke and parted, lines of sunlight beginning to pour down into the streets once more after the long hours of dreariness and grey, and the stinky, oily rain that fell from time to time.

"Figures. Just when we're coming back, it gets nice," Sokka muttered.

"Yeah. Timing," Zuko sounded a bit distracted. They entered the airlock, and found the inner door opening to the broad, toothy grin of Dara within. Zuko sighed.

"Well, there you are at last! Did you find what you' 'er looking for?" she asked brightly.

"No. Could you get us something to drink?"

"Whiskey it is!" she declared.

"Something that won't make us lurch around like idiots," Zuko clarified. Dara seemed genuinely confused.

"...beer?"

"Do you have tea?" Zuko finally asked her.

"Well, of course we do, but why would anybody want..." she seemed flummoxed and baffled.

"Tea will be great," Sokka cut her off.

"Gotta say, it's mildly refreshing being offered liquor for a change. Usually people are all, oh, you're too young and little. It'll stunt your growth," Toph's voice came from a table tucked into the corner. Sokka leaned around a corner, and saw all of the women had beat the two of them back here, with the sun not even really setting for the evening yet. Toph had a bag of ice pressed to her nose, but was otherwise quite content with her feet up on the table. Nila, though, looked more disheveled and one of her arms was pulled from her sleeve and had Katara doing her waterbending healing thing on it. Nila gave Sokka a glance, then returned her attention to her tight grip on the table's edge.

"Are you alright?" Zuko asked of the table.

"Just dandy!" Toph said with a grin. "Nobody cared that I pounded the snot out of three guys! And they didn't even know I earthbent to do it!"

"She is quite the thug, this one," Nila admitted, her voice tense.

"What happened to you all?" Sokka asked.

"We were accosted," Nila said. "To answer your more pressing question which you have vexingly left unasked, no, we were not able to locate Sato. He is an enigma amongst this group," she shook her head.

"Just stay still. And stop gripping the table," Katara said. Nila rolled her eyes, but obeyed. "She got it dislocated stopping herself from falling off a roof."

"...what were you doing _on a roof_?" Zuko asked.

"That is a tale long in the telling," Nila said. "Foolishness, to put it shortly. _Useless_ foolishness, to give some explanation."

"What about Aaanil and Mina?" Sokka asked, managing at the last instant to substitute in aliases.

"We're not sure. They weren't here when we got back," Katara said.

"Oh, there's the young lad with his steely eyes! But, oh my, what happened to y'fair dame?"

"I'm fine, really," Malu's voice came from the airlock in answer to Dara's exuberant question. The door outside opened again, from the sound of it.

"And there's the young mistress! Have you found the weather to your liking?"

"Sun? In the Fire Nation? What an alien concept," Azula's voice came, which caused both Zuko and Sokka turn turn to see Dara stepping aside and letting the two airbenders and the firebender enter the public room.

"Azula, where'd you go? I thought you said you'd stay here!" Zuko said, pointing to the floor.

"No, _you_ said that I'd stay here. I never _agreed_ to that," she said with a dismissive wave. Of _all_ of them, she alone looked like nobody'd so much as touched her.

"Hey guys. We should probably go up to the room," Aang said, pointing toward the stairs.

"Oh, you're afraid for your privacy? Well, we've got a back room right over 'ere for your tea and whiskey."

"Just. Tea," Zuko said, with a tone of strained patience. Dara threw up her hands and shook her head.

"You've got no sense of adventure," she complained idly, before spinning and vanishing into the back. Sokka watched her leave, then turned to Zuko.

"Are all of the Yubokamin like her?" he asked.

"I sincerely hope not."

They began to slowly move toward the back room, before Aang got in front of them, and shook his head. "This is really a bedroom kind of talk," he said. Sokka shrugged, and bade him lead the way. After all, this was right here, and a chair for his bum. Upstairs, he'd either be sitting on the edge of the bed, or on the floor. And it was four stories up, so... Yeah. He'd have preferred to stay down here.

"I assume this has something to do with the gash on Mina's neck?" Zuko gave a nod toward Malu.

"Not really," Malu said, even as Aang went over top of her with;

"Kinda, yeah," and then the two paused, shook their heads, and continued up. "Airships."

"Storm King airships?" Zuko asked.

"Fire Nation airships," Aang clarified. "They're building them in the city."

"That stands to reason," Zuko said, even as they continued up. This was the kind of talk which was free enough in the open, Sokka figured. After all, they were just talking about airships. It's not like the Fire Nation was going out of their way to hide their launch. "Azul City's got almost as much industrial infrastructure as the rest of the Fire Nation combined."

"That's still so weird," Aang said. "I mean, those things haven't flown in a _long_ time. And now, they're just going up and around like it's not anything special!"

"Technology marches on," Azula said with a mild shake of her head. "When I was older, those things were _everywhere_."

"Really?" Sokka asked, a grin on his face.

"Yes. Stop smiling like that."

"So that's going to be Ozai's big weapon," Aang said, looking a bit disturbed at the notion. Then again, having the dark and shameful history of the Air Nomads coming back to bite you in the blubber couldn't exactly be a pleasant sensation.

"No," Zuko said, as they all reached the door. All turned to him, somewhat surprised, but he ushered them inside before continuing. Which was probably smart on the firebender's part. Once Toph had strolled in – by which Sokka meant was escorted in by Zuko since she was truly blind on the wooden floor – he shut the door and leaned his back against it. "Ozai's not going to be the problem. Not anymore."

"What are you talking about?" Aang asked. "I thought..."

"He's not the Fire Lord anymore. He was usurped," Zuko said quietly. Sokka nodded. He'd been surprised as all hell when he heard the news, which to the locals was apparently _old_ news.

"I'd heard that myself. But I didn't press any further," Azula said, her tone distracted.

"There's more, and I'm pretty sure you're not going to like it," Zuko said. She shot him a look, and he rolled his eyes at her. "Take a guess who kicked Father from the Burning Throne?"

"...It wouldn't be Montoya, would it?" Azula asked.

"Not even close. Zhao," Sokka answered her. She glanced between the Tribesman and the firebender, disbelief plain in her face.

"That's not possible," she said.

"Why not?" Toph raised the obvious question. "From what I hear about the guy, he had a lot of friends in the right places to pull it off."

Azula's jaw set. "I knew that man three times, and in all three, he's a smug, sanctimonious jackass. In two of them, I set him on fire _myself_," she added. Zuko chuckled and nodded.

"Good times," he murmured. That sounded like something Sokka was going to want to get the whole story on. "Well, he must have done _something_ different, if he didn't usurp Ozai last time."

"Yes. He survived," Azula said flatly. She moved to the tiny window at the back of the room and looked out it, to the cold but merely cloudy day.

"Whatever the case, our mission hasn't changed," Katara piped up. "I'm pretty sure that Zhao isn't going to let Sozin's Comet pass him by without incident. I mean, does having the big-bad at the head of the Fire Nation be Zhao instead of Ozai change anything? Really?"

"It means that we've got a lot more resistance ahead of us," Azula said direly from the window. She turned to face them. "Zhao has foreknowledge of a certain flow of events. He knows about the Day of Black Sun. But he's not an idiot – unfortunately – so he's probably going to adapt the plans that I made to defeat you," Nila raised a brow. "Last life time. Not this one."

"I see," she said, but otherwise, just crossed her arms. Probably to help support her strained shoulder.

"He'll expect treachery and a surprise attack. We need to be more surprising than he is adaptive," Azula said, striking her palm with a fist. "And for that, we need an advantage he does not have."

"Any idea what that might be?"

"...I'm drawing a blank," Toph said.

"The Avatar?" Katara said.

"We can't base our entire strategy around him," Zuko said, turning to the airbender. "If we had one lynch-pin that could be snapped and caused everything to fall apart, anybody with half a brain would see it, and attack it first."

"Thanks. I guess," Aang said, dubious. He then perked up."If we find Sato, he'll have something that could level the field," Aang pointed out.

"Maybe," Azula said. And then, a devious little smile came to her face. "Or we could take advantage of the rebellion our friends started in Ember."

"Wouldn't the army and the navy just smash that flat?" Malu asked with a shrug.

"...because of the coup, all of Zhao's military might was concentrated here. It's running roughshod," Zuko said, realizing what he should have when they'd first gotten the message from Mai several days ago. "If he'd been able to address it two weeks ago, yes, he could have crushed it. Now... it might just be a bit more useful."

"Fantastic. Now I need to remember an entirely new Fire Nation history. I'm fairly certain there was no 'Blue Turban Rebellion' last time," Azula muttered.

"Anything else?" Aang asked. There was an uncomfortable silence. "Soooo... Dinner?"

"That sounds like a plan!" Sokka instantly agreed. While he might be a Tribesman of unusual education and purpose, he was still a Tribesman, and that meant that he went where his stomach willed. He was first through the door, skirting around the firebender. He paused, though, when he noted Nila joining him. "So, what happened to you?"

"I broke a man's arm and nose," she said, a note of pride in her voice. "It was not without cost."

"So you're telling me 'I should see the other guy'?" Sokka asked. She gave a shrug. They'd only reached the top of the stairs when their duo became a trio, with the other airbender joining them and looping an arm over either of their necks. This pulled a hiss from Nila, and that in turn had Malu withdrawing slightly.

"Right. Sorry. Can I talk to you for a second?" she pointed at Sokka. He gave a shrug.

"Sure. Why not?"

"Aaaaaanil. Great guy, don't get me wrong, but does he ever strike you as... well, needlessly violent?" Malu asked. Both of them turned to her and gave her a look of incredulity the likes of which she'd probably never gotten before in her life.

"_Him_?" Sokka asked. "The airb...kid who huddled in a house in Kyoshi for three days in _fear_ when he first learned he was what he was? The kid who shot down every plan that had a _chance_ of causing serious harm or death to somebody on the other end of it? That guy? Or are we talking about some hypothetical mass-murderer 'Anil'?"

"Not funny," Malu asked.

"It is a little bit, yeah," Sokka said with a laugh. Malu glared at him.

"What about you? What's your gauge on him?" she asked Nila.

"A milquetoast pacifist with unrealistic optimism," Nila answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, when I was out there with him, he beat down three guys like it was _nothing_," she said. "I mean, handed them their own backsides, beat down. Served them their own pride on a silver platter, beat-down. And he looked like he'd have done more. Sounded like it," she shook her head.

"He's had a very rough go of the last few months," Sokka said. "And let's face it, the only one who didn't get attacked by somebody today was Azula."

"I believe she also was, but fared far better than we," Nila pointed out.

"You know, I think that she's a bad influence on him," Malu said. Both looked to her. "When he was learning how to firebend from 'Li', he was coming along nicely, and he didn't break peoples knees and blast people down alleyways. It's not until Azula comes along that he gets all... crush-kill-destroy on people."

"So she managed to teach him something of worth? Surprising, but fantastic," Nila said.

"You're not hearing the dangerous part!" Malu said.

"We're hearing it, but you are misunderstanding what you're seeing," Nila said, as they left the stairwell, and turned into the tea-room that they'd been shepherded toward earlier. If nothing else, it'd be a nice place to eat without a bunch of rough and greedy people leering over them. "There are realities in place that you must be aware of. Ones I thought you had learned in our journeys to Senlin and then to Sentinel Rock. Violence is the illness of the age, and all have contracted it. The only question is who will _succumb_, and who will _overcome_."

"But... he's just a kid," Malu said.

Sokka sat her down and finally gave the airbender a nod. "Yeah. He _was_ when Azula pried him out of that big ball of ice. He was born in a different kind of world. The one that you probably remember pretty well. So it was a shock to his system to have to awaken to a world like this. He had to grow up, to face the way things are."

Malu crossed her arms. "I don't like how things are. The way things are rewards thugs and psychopaths."

"For now. But the pendulum, as it often does, swings back sooner or later," Nila gave a nod. The door was kicked open, and all flinched as Toph leaned in.

"Can I assume that there's room to sit down?" she asked with a shit-eater smile under a nose which showed a reddened edge where somebody'd probably punched it hard enough to break. Sokka pushed a chair aside, and Toph managed to carefully move toward it, her steps short on the wood underfoot. "So. What's the topic of conversation?"

"'Anil's becoming a thug," Malu said.

"About damned time," Toph said, kicking her feet up onto the table. "I said that he had to toughen up sooner or later!"

"She has. For quite a while, now," Sokka nodded.

"Am I the only one who sees this as a bad thing?" Malu asked.

"Probably," Toph answered. She cocked her head aside. "Hey! What's-your-accent! Could we get a pot of tea in here?"

"Tea? Of course! I'll bring it right in," Dara's cheerful voice rounded the corner. Malu didn't look too happy. But then again, everybody had a lot on their minds. And Sato was just the most obvious part of it.

* * *

><p>The sun setting on Azul City meant that everybody with sense who wasn't working the 'doomsday' shift was off of the street, their doors locked, their windows shuttered and plugged up with wax. Of course, in the last twenty years or so in Azul, apparently, only the truly foolish opened their first-story windows at all. The smog would likely come back in the morning, after all, and if it got into the house, it would choke the family within as surely as if one slept outside in it. But there were other kinds of Azuli, he'd been told. Either ones without sense, or ones whose livelihoods depended on the silence and darkness of the night.<p>

Even as Aang dreamed, he knew that he was in no less danger here, in his sleep, than he would be out there in those streets. Because when he opened his eyes, he was staring at an impossible bridge, stretched over a steep-sided chasm. He blinked a few times, and took exactly one step forward, before there was a crack of wood against wood, and he was sent flying back and tumbling to a stop on gray, cracked mud.

"...ow," Aang muttered. He pushed himself up to his knees. "So I'm in the Spirit world? Why would I be..."

"Good, you've _finally_ shown up," Korra's spectral hand clapped onto Aang's shoulder, and then bore him to his feet. "I was starting to think that you'd forgotten about me."

"Honestly, I kinda did," Aang said, rubbing the back of a head which was, in this place, still shaven and bare. "Did something happen since the last time we talked?"

"_Something_?" she asked, mildly incredulous. "You have no idea."

"Was it something ba–"

Aang was cut off when Korra flinched, and slammed her hand across his mouth, before dragging him behind the twisted and cracked trunk of a dead tree which was askew in the mud. She didn't even whisper for him to be silent. But when she leaned out, and looked across the bridge, Aang had no desire whatsoever to make a noise.

It walked out of a shadow, its form lithe and nimble, but crafted of blackness. Only the eyes, of which only one could currently be seen, broke that standard with their pulsating redness. It halted, swinging its head to and fro, sweeping it along the area of the bridge, before its focus settled onto the tree which stood abloom with the white and glowing leaves. Aang's eyebrows rose as it stalked forward, and ran a hand up into the leaves. They gave a hiss as the white touched the black, but the smoke that rose didn't seem to dissuade the Shard from its task. It lashed forward with a fist, and sank its fingertips – like inky construction nails – into the flesh of the tree. The tree... screamed.

It wasn't a sound, as such, but Aang could nevertheless 'hear' it. A cry of anguish and agony, rising as the Shard lent its other claw into the wood. A corruption, foul, and gray, and oily, began to seep up the trunk, and the leaves shuddered, before exploding away, before drifting toward the cracked mud. The Shard turned, and opened a maw into oblivion. The leaves – every one of them a spirit of Void, Aang somehow knew – spun into a great vortex, which the Shard ate in a single gulp. The pale light died, and then, the only way that the Shard could be seen for the distance was because it somehow remained blacker than the darkness beyond it. Smoke, more natural by far than anything else about the Shard, drifted out of the maw, and its body, for a moment, became more... grey. More ossified. But that passed.

Korra's hand over Aang's mouth drew tighter, as those eyes swept past them. They didn't halt, or lock on, though. For that, Aang was very grateful. There was a sound, almost like the gurgling of a dying man trying to gasp for a breath through sticking mud, and the maw pulled closed, leaving only the eyes distinct from the blackness of the Shard. It stepped toward the bridge, and at instant that the land became the bridge, it disappeared. Korra nevertheless remained silent, cautious, for a solid minute after the Shard vanished.

"I've seen something kinda like those before," Korra whispered, finally letting Aang go. "They were bad news too. I'll assume that these are, as well."

"Shards," Aang said. Korra just gave a nod, and beckoned that he follow her through a crack in the stone, following it down toward a river which now burbled and splashed with a significant current, but somehow, still silently. "They're the eyes and teeth of Imbalance. Or so Malu tells me."

"They're made of blackness and have red eyes and skulk about. It doesn't take a skilled shaman – or a genius – to know that they're as evil as something comes," Korra said. "How's the burn?"

"What burn?" Aang asked.

"Where Azula hit you with a lightning bolt," she said, giving a playful tap at the center of Aang's back. He just shrugged. "...so that didn't happen, did it?"

"I got shot by an arrow, if that counts," Aang said.

"An arrow? Please, that's nothing."

"It impaled my heart," Aang said patiently. Korra paused, blinking.

"Okay, I retract my mockery. That'd suck," Korra said. "Well, if you weren't burned, I have to think you'd be in the Fire Nation right now. Am I right on that?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Now all you have to do is find a firebending master. If you want my advice – which is technically _your_ advice, when you think about it – you couldn't do better than Prince Zuko. Good guy. He lives a _long_ damn time," she shook her head. "I actually _met_ him. He's _that_ old."

Aang nodded. "Zuko's good. But Azula's a lot better than he is."

"Yeah. He's going to have to give his A-game to beat her. I'm not sure how he did it in my time. Didn't ask him either, since he was probably bitter, what with her dying around the same time I was born," Korra said.

"Azula's on my side," Aang said. Korra stopped, a step from entering the current, and turned to him. "I know you want to help me by warning me about what's going to happen, but like Toph says, chances are everything that you know to warn me about _isn't_ going to happen this time. What you remember isn't the way it is. Not this time."

"...oh," Korra said. She gave a shrug. "Well, forget I said anything."

Aang gave a shrug, and followed in the wake of the Tribeswoman as she waded through the waters that now pulled at Aang's feet with every step up the river. "So where are we going?"

"A place which surprised the hell out of me when I found it," Korra said. "It's safe, though, so you don't need to worry about the traps and craziness."

"...and why are we going there?"

"Because it's time to start teaching you how to fight like an Avatar," Korra said with a smirk cast over her shoulder.

"Why does that fill me with a distinct sense of dread?" Aang asked quietly. But not so quietly that Korra couldn't hear, and laugh at him.

* * *

><p>Zuko looked out over the streets, light only by the uneven and untrustworthy light of street-lamps not very well tended, from the safety of the window at the top of the stairs. It'd been a long time since he'd come to Azul. There was a time, when he was young, that he'd come this way fairly often. Lu Ten, it had to be said, had a taste for the finer things available in the city, and the family followed where the Royal Heir's heir passed. He'd seen the other half of Azul long before he saw this half.<p>

There was splendor here, but it was behind gates and doors, and didn't tower into the skies as it would in Caldera City or Ba Sing Se or Omashu. This was a jealous and greedy sort of city, and its wealth was shown in jealous and greedy ways. He could remember the room that positively glowed with amber, as it reflected off of gilding and outright amber that had been carved into panels which lined every wall and even the ceiling. He remembered the great hall, lined with sculpture and art, and those tiles of black and white stone imported from Ember. The gates, all wrought iron and standing tall and severe, to establish the boundary between those who _had_, and those who _didn't_.

"Why did I expect that I'd find you still up?" Katara's voice came from behind him. And for a change, it didn't sound scathing or hateful. Just tired. As they all were, already.

"I don't sleep very well. Never said I was a good firebender," Zuko said with a shrug. The streets below had been an education to him when he came through this city, his head covered in sanitary bandages from the blast of flame which ruined his left ear, on his way to his exile. Not to Uncle, though. "I keep remembering the last time I was here. How much of a... a _brat_ I was."

"You don't like this city either, do you?" Katara asked, looking out onto those streets.

"No. This city isn't what the Fire Nation is supposed to be. Everybody's afraid. Everybody's divided. Everybody keeps their eyes down, their ambitions quashed, and their dreams so small that nobody will even care if they _succeed_. Its sickening," Zuko said, shaking his head. "...it reminds me of Ba Sing Se. Only not quite as bad."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. At least here, everything's _honestly_ trying to kill you," Zuko said with a smirk. Katara rolled her eyes. "You've got something on your mind."

"No I don't," she denied. He just stared at her, and she let out a sigh of resignation. "Alright. Alright... I'm worried about Aaaanil. Mina said that he beat down a couple of street-toughs without missing a stride."

"Good for him," Zuko said flatly.

"That's not like him, though! I'm starting to think that Azula might actually be corrupting him!"

"She isn't," Zuko said. "She's a better firebender than me. She has been since she was a kid. The only reason that I got better than her, was because for a while, she could barely feed herself, let alone practice. And now, she's effectively six times my age... So of course she's got skills that eclipse mine."

"You're awfully calm about that," Katara said. Zuko couldn't help but smile a little.

"For the last five years, the _only_ fear I had, really, was that something was going to happen to my sister and that I wouldn't be able to protect her. Now that I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that she can look after herself... it's a relief. I'm relieved," he said, leaning against the other side of that window.

Katara nodded. "Until the winter, I _never_ thought I could feel that way about my brother... Then Zhao burned him, and..." she looked at him. "I understand that kind of fear. I really do. But I'm still worried for Aang..."

"-nil."

"Anil, right," she shook her head. Sooner or later she'd have to get that right or the wrong person would overhear them, and that'd be the end of it. "Not because I think that she's going to hurt him, but because I think she's leading him down a path that he shouldn't go. A... He's not a warrior. And he shouldn't be trained like one."

"But he _does_ have to be trained like one," Zuko pointed out. "Because how else is he going to do what he has to do?"

Katara stared out the window. "Doesn't mean I like it," she said. She glanced in his direction. "Maybe you should take a more active role in teaching him. You took your time with him. Forced him to slow down. Azula just shoots along as fast as he wants to go. And he could make a mistake or..."

"You're sure this isn't because he's got a crush on my sister?" Zuko asked. She fell silent, and glanced at him more flatly. "I've known about it since winter," he said with a shake of his head. "And I think a part of her is returning the crush."

"How could you say that? The only interaction she had with him was _trying to kill him_!"

"I'm a big brother. She talks to me. And sometimes, she doesn't even need words to do it," Zuko gave a shrug.

"...and you're alright with that?"

"I'm her brother, not her owner. Even if I do think that he's a blundering idiot with way too much riding on him, it's not my call," Zuko said. And that he wasn't impressed by that fact was not lost on the waterbender, apparently.

There was a silence in that darkened hall once again. But Katara was the one who broke it. "I'm done, you know."

"Hrm?"

"Ever since we got exiled from Chimney Mountain, I always blamed you. You and Azula," Katara said. "And every time I thought about the Fire Nation, about our enemies, the face that the horde had wasn't the Fire Lord; it was you, and her. I'm just so used to you two being our enemies."

"Yeah. I get that a lot," Zuko said flatly.

"But I'm done. Even I can see that the only thing that you've done for Aan..." he shook his head sternly, "...nil was help him. I should have accepted that you're on our side now, and that you have been for a long time. And for what it's worth, I shouldn't have been so unpleasant back at the Temple."

"Huh," Zuko said.

"What?"

"You just apologized. I must be dreaming," Zuko said with a glance back to the window. That got Katara steamed again, but this time, she packed it down rather than explode as he'd both expected and somewhat wanted to see.

"Truce?" she asked.

Zuko nodded. "Truce. Until this is all over, then you can hate me to your heart's content."

Katara flashed a grin at that. "I'm counting down the days."

* * *

><p>"I fail to see how this is going to teach me how to bend. I mean, I'm not even bending. I'm asleep, aren't I?" Aang asked, as he moved through a form once again.<p>

"The movements lend to certain styles. This one is water and earth," Korra said, flowing low and rooted, her movements an admixture of water and earthbending. Every movement was supple and strong, and she looked in those moments like she was not even out of her teens. "You use this, and you'll _never_ come off your feet, I guarantee it."

Aang, though, stopped with the movements, and leaned against the 'fort' which had been made of several stacked wooden beds, hung over by sheets. The entire section of the Spirit World was the oddest yet, in that it had nothing natural about it at all. Instead, it was straight lines – even if those lines betrayed spacial awareness, peeling wall-paper, pictures hanging on the wall behind glass, each so sun-bleached that only a faint wisp of the blue remained. "I know how important knowing how to fight is, but... there's so much more I need to be able to do. Like go into the Avatar State at will. Could you teach me how to do that?"

"Come on. I'm trying to give you some useful pointers here," Korra complained. She'd tried to give an explanation of this place, how it closely resembled architecture and building-plans from the later years of _her_ life. How there were great cities teeming with buildings that reached toward the sky, festooned with a maze of chambers such as this one. Well, not like this one exactly, because Aang knew that the dimensions didn't quite add up. Aang shook his head, and Korra sighed, her years starting to return to her. "Fine. You're right. I should try to get down to the tacks on this one."

"Really? You're just going to show me how to get into the Avatar State?" Aang asked, a little suspicious.

"Not that easy," Korra said with a finger raised. "Every 'primary' has a different way of entering the State. Airbenders and waterbenders are different," she had Aang sit down, and the airbender crossed his legs under him, his fists coming together. Korra stared at the floor directly in front of him, from where she was in a nearly identical stance. "When I was young, I was a bit of an idiot. I couldn't bend air to save my life, and I couldn't enter the Avatar State to save anybody-else's. I could never surrender to the power of it, give myself to the enormity of it. I thought that I was stronger than the Avatar Bequest itself."

Aang chortled at that.

"Yeah, I know. Young and stupid," Korra said. "You were the one who told me, that in our lowest moments, at the times of greatest _despair_, we are the most open to _change_. For me... that meant admitting defeat. That I was beaten, mind, body, and soul. I'd had my identity stripped away, my pride thrown onto the rocks. He tied my soul into a knot, and then got himself killed so he couldn't be forced to fix it."

"That sounds horrible," Aang said. Korra simply nodded.

"I was on the edge of a cliff. And I thought... if I just take two steps forward, then I could..." she trailed off. Then her eyes closed, and she faced Aang more flatly. "...If I died, then the Avatar Cycle could continue, without a broken, worthless Avatar wasting decades that could be better spent," she shook her head slowly at that. "It was a fight I couldn't surmount. And I knew it. I accepted it. And the moment I did... I knew how to enter the Avatar State. I knew how to let the power fill me, tear through the wall that he'd put into me. I was whole, healed, and strong again. I never forgot that feeling, though. Because without it, I would never have been an Avatar worth having."

"Being defeated taught you how to go into the Avatar State?" Aang asked. "Well, I get beaten all the time, and I can't go in and out when I want to!"

Korra raised a hand. "Like I said, it's not that simple. I don't know what's keeping you from diving in. Mine was my pride. You? You never told me, so I can't help you there. You've got to find what's holding you back. What's crippling you. If you can find that... Well, you might find a way to go 'glowing badass' in time to save the world."

"And if I can't?" Aang asked.

Korra stared at Aang, and with a mildly patronizing look on her face, she reached over and patted his head. "You'll find a way. You've just got to have a bit more faith in yourself."

The airbender gave a sigh, but nevertheless rose and gave a bow to his teacher. "I don't know if it was a help, but understanding is never without value. Thank you, Korra."

"The way I see it, is if I teach you how to knock heads, that means I get to knock heads harder when I come around," Korra said, rising in a smooth motion and noogying her previous incarnation. And try as Aang might, even though she was all of dead, not yet born, spectral, and technically himself, Aang couldn't for the life of him get loose of her grip.

* * *

><p>Nila was awakened to a stretching fist to the face. She let out a dire mutter, and immediately spun so she could kick the Tribesman in the ribs for the interruption of her sleep. His stretching was cut off by a grunt of the air being knocked out of his lungs by her toe, before she pushed herself away from the bed that she and Sokka shared with Toph, of all people. There was no privacy in this place. And precious little room.<p>

"Oh. I guess I woke you, didn't I?" Sokka asked.

"You woke me too, you doofus," Toph said, before kicking him in his other side.

"Come on! Why am I getting kicked by everybody?" Sokka asked.

"Because you punch every woman you're around," Azula said from where she was sitting at the table with the saber-toothed moose-lion cub in her lap, their backs back to Nila. When had that thing gotten into the city, he wondered? And wondered only briefly, because he was still groggy, so his mind couldn't linger on it. "Trust the voice of experience in that they don't appreciate when you do that."

"Wait, did somebody ever do something like that to you?" Katara asked.

"Someone tried once," Azula said casually. Then, Nila could see the dark smirk grow on the firebender woman's face. "_Once_."

"Okay, note to self, don't batter Azula, it won't end well for me," Sokka said. Nila gave him a look. "What? I prepare plans for every eventuality."

"No you don't," she countered. He shrugged.

"Yeah, well... I'm going to start!"

"See how long that lasts," Zuko said dryly from where he read the morning news-reel. The light coming through the window wasn't strong, but certainly more present than it had been for most of their wet and frigid slog through the needlessly deadly lands of the Far West. "The sun's burned the smog, so we can get an early start today."

"Great. An early morning," Sokka said, dropping back down onto the pillow. "How about you guys wake me up in an hour or four and tell me how that turned out for you?"

"Get up," Nila demanded, and he waved her away. So she grabbed that waving hand, braced her feet against the bedframe, and pulled, until she was laying on the next bed, and Sokka had been pulled out onto the floor upside down. "You are going to get up."

"Oh, come on! Let a man have his rest!" Sokka complained, even as he got up and started to begrudgingly dress.

"I know full well that if we were to allow you a 'manful rest' whenever you asked it, we would still be in the Hui Jungle right now," Nila said with her arms crossed before her. Sokka stared at her, somewhere between annoyed and amused.

"She's got you on that one," Toph said with a guffaw, before clapping Sokka on the back hard enough that she sent him forward a step. The blind earthbender took a spot near the door. "So who's going with who today?"

"I will go with Sokka," Nila said. When Sokka started to grin a bit, she then continued, "...and Mina. We will cover the most ground, I believe."

"Alright. I'm with Prince Pouty and Sweetness," Toph said.

"...I am _not_ pouty," Zuko said. Then, he stopped, and did math in his head, before slowly looking to the only two who hadn't been partnered up. Azula, and Aang. "Veto."

"Nobody said you get veto privileges," Toph said, giving him a stern nudge and making her cautious way to the door. Sokka, for all his grumbling and complaining, did dress with a great deal of speed, such that in the five minutes it took her to swap old sweaty clothing for new sweaty clothing, he was likewise prepared and waiting for her in the hallway outside the room. Of course, it helped his expediency that Tribesmen of Sokka's ilk were utterly shameless on the subject of nudity.

"You know, it's days like this where I can't decide whether you're being a great girlfriend or a terrible one," Sokka said with obvious ambivalence. "I mean, why are we bringing Mina?"

"I have my reasons. After all, how else will I protect my virtue?" she asked with dry sarcasm.

"Sorry to say it, Nila, but it wouldn't matter if you put the Walls of Ba Sing Se around your virtue, since I'm pretty sure there's not much left to defend," Sokka grinned.

"You defame me, and spit on my honor!" Nila said. Teasingly. Or at least she hoped it came out teasingly. When Sokka laughed, she had relief in that her attempts at 'banter' had for once not erupted into flames. "Regardless, my intentions are for the better. I cannot pass with male company alone, not with these," she raised her tattooed hands, "in this city. And simultaneously... were we alone, I doubt that we would get much done."

"Alright, that's _too much information_ about my friend's love-life," Malu said as she seemed to appear behind them. "But on the other hand, I could always stand to hear more."

"You are a pervert," Nila said flatly.

"_You_ are a prude," Malu answered that charge. Then she paused, looked to Sokka, and gave a chuckle. "Well, alright, maybe not a prude, but..."

"Can we please stop talking about this? It's embarrassing," Sokka asked. Malu then turned to him with a wide grin.

"Why? Have you done something you're embarrassed about? Did you cry at the end?"

"Mina?"

"Yes, Nila?"

"Go die in a hole," Nila said concisely. That got Malu giggling enough that she couldn't needle the young pair, which was a victory in Nila's eyes. "The issue at hand is as it was; how to find Sato," Nila said, rounding the last bend of the starwell and entering the common room. "It should be easier than it is, as he would not be taking pains to hide himself. But to find one mad genius in Azul City is to find a single pin, in a pile of nearly identical pins which are all coated in deadly poison. We need something more telling than a name, a description, and a proclivity toward inventive madness."

"Well, hello there, m'wee ones. Did the night see you well? No nightmares, I'd hope? Then, staying out of the Smog is a fine dream all its own," Dara broke in happily as soon as she came into view, and didn't desist from it when Nila gave her most warding of glares. "Would y'stay for a breakfast? Perhaps a brunch? I hear the weather's getting nicer out; more sun, less cold. Damned but it seems colder than it ought be, eh?"

"Yeah, it does," Malu said. She glanced toward the breakfast of fried cakes and sausages. She gave the meal a considering eye, before finally shaking herself and sticking out her tongue. The disgust was mostly feigned, Nila was fairly certain; Only the most devout of vegetarians could ever truly go back, once they had feasted upon flesh. And Nila never considered herself a vegetarian to start. "We're going to have to take a pass on that breakfast, though. We've got a busy day!"

"Oh, how lovely! Were only more young'ns like you, so full of fire and verve. Then we wouldn't have quite so many layabouts and wastrels choking the streets and starving the farmers," Dara went off on a rant, shaking her head as she continued back through the swinging door into the kitchen, talking all the while.

"We should probably leave while we don't have dark-of-skin-and-frizzy-of-hair looking over our shoulders," Malu said quietly. Nila felt no desire to disagree with her.

The door opened to an upkick of grey-brown smog, pulled from its mat at knee-level by the suction of the door. While it didn't slow them down, and in fact, formed into rippling eddies in their passage, it was a constant reminder that, no matter how good things got in Azul City, it was always waiting for an opportunity to kill you. In a great many ways, the city was a microcosm for the entire country, from the Hui Jungles all the way Crook End, and all the mountains that shut off Azul from Shinzo, the Midlands. At least, at its current lay, they didn't have to choke through the stink of it.

"Keep your strides small," Malu said quietly, still smiling, "...and don't let go of anything you don't want to lose."

"How cynical of you," Nila said.

"Hey, I was just thinking; If I was a pickpocket about this tall," she held her hand at the level of the top of the smog, "what would I do?"

"Choke to death."

"Well, besides _that_."

"Do you have any idea where we should try for Sato today? I mean, this isn't Ba Sing Se; it's _not that big_!" Sokka stressed. Malu scratched her hair for a moment, then gave a gander to the south west. Notably, toward the piers.

"This Sato guy... he's supposed to be bad with money, right?" Malu asked.

"That's what everybody says about him," Sokka answered.

"What's the cheapest property in town?" Malu asked.

"What is your meaning?" Nila asked, but Sokka brightened.

"Malu, you're a genius," he said.

"What? How is _she_ a genius?" Nila asked, mildly annoyed.

"The cheapest properties are on the docks, every single time," Sokka said. "And if you've got no head for money, and waste it all in weeks, where are you going to end up? Where you can eke out a living for pennies a day. He's probably at the docks right now!"

"Should we tell the others of this inspiration?" Nila asked.

"Eh, they've got their own things to do, I'm pretty sure," Sokka waved them away.

"And we might be jumping the wrong direction off a cliff, right now. It's an idea, it's not a guarantee," Malu hedged her bets.

"It is more than we had a few minutes ago, and for all the threat it puts on us, better to go in awares, than unawares."

Malu gave a mild grimace at that. "Oh, yeah. Docks are a pretty rough part of town, aren't they?"

"Thus the inexpensiveness of the properties," Nila said idly, and they walked forward through the swirling of the fog that pooled 'round them like a slow moving brook.

* * *

><p>"Hey. You two," a voice pulled Mai's attention from the boatman who was otherwise trying to keep his eyes down and his attention minimal. She couldn't blame him. After all that'd come here in the last few days, the locals were going to great lengths to avoid the attention of the Blue Turban forces – such an aggrandizing name for a rabble of peasants, farmers, toughs, bandits, and fishermen that rolled forth in a wave of anger and resentment. The Blue Turban had put to torch quite a few buildings on Lesser Ember; true, most of them had been the holdings and summer homes of the rich, the powerful, the noble, and the hated, but some hadn't. And those were the ones remembered.<p>

"What do you want?" Mai asked, instantly reaching back to wave Jet's attention from immediate offense to something a bit more discretionary. It wouldn't be the first time that one of the Fire Lord's sneaks were sent into the movement to try to gut anybody they could in its 'upper ranks'. Not that the Blue Turban Rebellion had upper ranks. Jet nevertheless rose to join Mai's side, leaving the stooped man in his little boat out of their shared attention.

"I've been watching you," he said. "You're not like the rest of these people."

"I don't know what you mean," Mai said to the strong, sharp eyed man under his dark blue headwear. Even as she did, she slid a knife down into her fingers which were out of his sight behind her back.

"You're not going with the mob," he said, glancing toward where a knot of Blue Turbans were gathered in a roofed gazebo that overlooked the water, drinking stolen wine and telling rough stories. A part of Mai wanted to be over there, to hear them; a noble heritage, once eschewed, was not so easily restored. "Every time the mob turns off, you stay back. When it's going west again, you go with it. I'm not stupid, and my eyes aren't dull. You're not like most of the others. That's pretty clear."

Another thing that Mai had accrued over the last few years, living in the wilds, was a knowledge that uncommon talent could be found in the most unexpected places. Sometimes, dare say, it could even be found amongst _nobility_! That the fisherman had noticed her was, while annoying, not shocking. "And what's your business with me?" she asked.

He gave a glance toward the others, then cast a finger at his chest. "Boto. I was here from the start. So were you. Don't think I didn't notice you."

"And what do you want, Boto?" Jet asked, letting the stalk of barley spin amidst his teeth.

"Answers," Boto said. He gave a stern nod, to a three-sided shack that was built into the pier that they stood on. The wind, and the cold rain with it, were shut off immediately once they got under the roof, and the brazier inside did wonders to hold off the chill. That there was chill, here, now, was itself troubling. He stood with his back to one wall, holding onto the gaff which he'd had bent into a proper – if barbed – spear at some point. "I'm not an idiot. I know that somebody wants this rebellion to happen, otherwise Ozai'd have stomped it. For a while, I thought you might be Zhao's. But _he'd_ have stomped us by now, too. So I've got to wonder... who's pulling these strings. Who's pulling yours?"

"Why do you think I'm the one controlling this?" Jet asked.

"I didn't mean you," Boto said, turning his look to Mai. Jet let out a chuckle at that. Mai, though rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"I have better things to do than organize a rebellion. I just saw safety in numbers, even if those numbers were a bloodthirsty anarchist mob," she said, her tone flat.

Boto's hand tightened a bit on his spear. And at that, Mai's hand on her knife tightened a bit as well. She could tell from Jet's posture that he was getting ready to spin into combat in a heartbeat. And from the look on Boto's eyes, he was just as aware _of_ what they were _as_ they were. "Miss, I don't like being lied to. And if there's one thing I've learned in the last few weeks, it's that the one with the pointy bit of metal in the right spot has a lot more authority than anybody'd bother telling. So tell it to me straight and true. Who started this little fight?"

Mai gave a glance toward Jet. From the look in his dark eyes, he was seriously considering dropping Boto into the sea with a rock attached to his feet. Mai therefore nudged him in the ribs hard enough to get his long-festering hatred of the Fire Nation out of his focus, and to look at the big picture as she was going to have to. He took a deep breath, and returned her look. Once more, Mai regretted that both he and she lacked the singularly expressive ability to communicate whole paragraphs through a look that their sniper, Longshot, gained. After all, this was the kind of thing that required a lot of talking over.

And since they were bereft of that opportunity, they'd have to make due without.

"Fine. You're right. We're here because somebody wants us to be," Mai said.

"...who?" Boto asked.

That was the question which would see one of them dead, if answered incorrectly. So she endeavored to get it right. Who would cause the least damage? Who would be the most believable. Who would piss them all off the least if it got out?

At the point where she considered that point, a new one came to mind; who would do the most good if people rallied behind them?

"The royal heir," Mai said. Jet's eye twitched toward her, but she shook her head at him, and gave him a gentle touch on his hand with the one holding the knife. Asking him to trust her, just a little bit. He snorted out a purged, annoyed breath, and let her speak.

"...Zhao ain't got any heir," Boto said. He stared at them for a moment longer. "You mean Ozai's, don't you?"

"Yes."

Boto chewed his words for a moment longer. Then he glanced toward the others, before turning his attention back onto the two intruders onto a land which once was her playground. "And from the fact that you're not here with real soldiers... I guess that means you're not fighting for Zuko."

"I suppose not," Mai said noncommittally.

"I heard Azula was sick," Boto said, his words softening a bit.

"So had I," Mai let that rest as it would. After all, the message from the others, that the Avatar and the rest'd had to flee the West Air Temple ahead of some apocalyptic threat only reached them a few days ago, and with it, the shocking news that Azula had made a full recovery. If an odd one. "But that's not the case any more."

"So she's fighting back against her father?" he asked. He gave her a shake of the head when she feigned confusion. "Don't try to pull one on me. I can do basic math. This," he motioned around, "started before Zhao put Ozai out the door. Which means she's fighting him. And since it's still going, that means she's fighting Zhao, too."

"You don't sound surprised," Jet said.

"Or angry," Mai also noted.

Boto shook his head, and cupped his chin. "Princess Azula... she's a lot more like us than anybody's been up there in Caldera City for a long time. She's gotten shit on by the Fire Lord more than anybody else in that rats-nest of a family. Shit on as much as some of us little people. And she's... different from them. She's not a soldier or a fighter. She's... softer. She doesn't think in wars."

"I had heard that," Jet said, shooting Mai the most incredulous of looks. But since Boto's attention was currently on his own navel, she didn't rebuke him instantly for it. Everybody slipped sooner or later, but right now, the stakes were just too high.

Boto looked up at them. "Why haven't you told anybody?"

"Would they have believed it?" Mai asked.

"I guess not. Not at first," Boto gave a nod. He looked her square in the eye, amber to silver. "But this ain't the first, anymore."

"No, it isn't," Mai admitted. "Now that you know, what are you going to do?"

"Ruminate on this," Boto said with a frown. "It's a lot to take in."

"It is, that," Jet said with a nod.

Boto turned from the shack, pulling his spear with him. "Better news than I feared though. A lot better," he admitted, then headed back out into the drizzle. Mai turned to Jet, and he chuckled at the look on her face.

"What?" she asked.

"You look like you're about to fall over or something," Jet said, draping a wet arm over her neck. He didn't stop grinning. "That was lucky, wasn't it?"

"I don't believe in luck. But that was _useful_. I just wonder _how_ useful," Mai gave a shake of her head. Maybe they'd stay with the Rebellion a little bit longer; after all, what better way to land unnoticed on Grand Ember than with a rebel force pulling all attention to it, for whatever duration it lasted?

* * *

><p>The crowds around them grew thicker as they sauntered down the gentle slope, toward the sea. Not surprising, given the amount and localization of the work that was done in the harborfront region. Where else could you launch a warship, after all? What did surprise Azula was how little attention they were gathering. Sure, Azula had a much more informal hair-style, with the vast majority of her locks hanging free down her back rather than gathered into a bun, but such small changes did not a specter make. And if she wasn't recognized, why weren't they set upon by thugs and hooligans? Azula considered that question, until the answer came when the airbender monk beside her flinched slightly when her gaze swept over him.<p>

It turned out, without even realizing it, she was glaring murder at everybody they passed.

"I bet it's nice to be back some place familiar," Aang offered. Azula tutted.

"Azul isn't familiar. At least, not this part. I might have been frequently a guest of Azul and Loyo Lah, but my parents would have to have been _unforgivably_ lax to allow a seven-year-old to walk the streets of this city."

"...Well, I guess it must be nice to be back in the Fire Nation, then," Aang said.

"Leading the force that is here to conquer it," Azula answered him.

"...you're not happy to be here, are you?" Aang asked.

"No," Azula admitted. "There are political ramifications of what we're doing that will take _decades_ to echo out, and as they won't follow the template I'm familiar with, whoever has to deal with them will be grasping in the dark. The Fire Nation will be defeated on Fire Nation territory. The last time that happened, we were fighting the Storm Kings."

"Yeah, those guys," Aang scratched the black hair at the back of his head. "You know, with ancestors like those, it kinda puts perspective on why you guys killed the airbender monks. It doesn't excuse it, not even close, but... I can kinda understand it."

"Fear is _the_ great motivator of politics," Azula said, shaking her head, slowly. While she'd lived a long time, that seemed to keep rising back into prominence as a tautological truth. "If you can manipulate fear, you can manipulate people. If you do it well, you become a leader. If you do it well enough, you can spawn an empire that will outlast you for generations, built on a core of distrust, fear, and hatred."

"You can't believe that," Aang said, slightly aghast.

"I've seen it happen," Azula answered him. She gave a glance around, at the dingy and run-down storefronts which were growing fewer and fewer in number, replaced by warehousing that stretched toward the docks, before a great mountain of iron rose up from the rooftops and tried to block out what sun they got. "It happened to the Storm Kings; it happened to the Fire Nation; and I have a fair degree of confidence, it happened in Republic City, too."

"Then I'll have to find a different way. A better one," Aang said. Azula shook her head, but couldn't contain the quiet laugh. "What?"

"You've got an optimism that just won't stop talking, don't you?" she asked.

Aang grinned.

"I'll take that as a yes," Azula shook her head. While he was sweet, he was, to be put simply, naïve. Aang's grin slid away as he heard a distant whistle, and a dark grey shape of an airship appeared above the rooftops, heading toward that great grey hump near the docks.

"Where do they keep going?" Aang asked.

"Probably to The Factory," Azula told him.

"What factory?

"The. Definitive article," Azula clarified. She gave a nod toward the metal mass, which let out a barely audible rattle of metal in the distance, and that airship began to descend into the metal, even while another rose out, looking a bit less benuded. "That place has been building our Fire Navy ships since the World War began. It stands to reason that they could just retool it," Azula said.

"I've got a question for you," Aang said.

"Which would be?"

"How are you so calm all the time?" Aang asked. "I mean, if I had to go through what you did, I'd be biting people's heads off!"

Azula got a smile on her face, a genuinely happy one, if a distant one. "I've got a lot of perspective," she said. While she was a single person, and knew that at an intrinsic level, she had the perceptions, the understandings of the three which 'preceded' her. "One of me was sixty years old, when you killed her."

"I can't believe I'd actually kill somebody," Aang said, sounding disturbed.

"You didn't want to. Not until I gave you no other option," Azula said. She stared ahead, as the memory arose to her. "I'd seen you in many states, but never like that. Never so hopelessly angry."

"Oh, well, I don't get angry," Aang said.

"Of course you do. Everybody does," Azula countered him. Aang just shrugged. "Never?"

"Well..." Aang trailed off. She leveled a look at him. "I don't like getting angry. When I do, I... I want to hurt people. And that's – that's terrible."

"Some people need to be hurt. Some people need to die. Others need to live."

"I didn't take you for a Samsaran," Aang said with a laugh. That was news to Azula, and she indicated so with an 'a what'? "You believe that there's a destiny for everything, immutable and unchanging, to which we only play our parts."

"That's foolishness. I am free to, if I so desired, punch," she caught a worker by his collar and raised her other fist, "this man in the face. What would your Samsara do to stop me?"

"Nothing. Either you hit him or you don't, but Samsara already knows which it will be."

"That's..." she let the man go, and he quickly scrambled away, for all she was probably a third of his age. "What's the point in believing in determinism? You're just trying to assuage your guilt for the things you regret by calling them 'inevitable'. That's a sad, sick way to rationalize your decisions, and I won't stand for it."

"Wow. That's sounds a bit more like you," Aang said with a smirk.

"And how would you know what I'm supposed to sound like?" Azula asked.

"Z...Li would never stop talking about you," Aang said. At that, a silence descended upon the two travelers, as they wove through the human tide that nearly sprinted through their chores of daily living. She could remember a different Azul city, a quieter, cleaner one. The factories were far fewer, but The Factory remained, as implacable a road-post in destiny's purported design as the appearance of the Avatar himself at the South Pole. But that Azul City wasn't part of a country operating with only lip-service to the Burning Throne; that one was owned, mind, body and soul by Ozai, and Zuko after him. So what was different this time? "I've got another question."

"You never seem to run out," Azula muttered.

"If the world wasn't going to end... would you still be here? On our side?" he asked, so quietly. Almost like he didn't want to heave to hear the answer. And that was a question which, honestly, Azula hadn't given a lot of thought to. Thought which she gave now, in full.

"...yes," Azula said, after that long contemplation which brought them into the heart of the factory district, such that they now stood in the cold shadow of The Factory. "I'd be here. For all the wrong reasons, but I'd be here."

"Sometimes doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is a lot better than doing nothing at all," Aang pointed out.

"I'm well aware of that," she answered him, but not harshly. That was a lesson she learned very well in her years. A part of her liked that Aang knew to ask these kinds of questions, that somebody was showing interest in her _despite_ her royal upbringing, instead of _because_ of it. Of course, one of her past lives was crippled beyond the ability to form any but a mutually deficient relationship with those around her, and the other made jaded by decades of difficulty and trial. The last... never got to be old enough to wonder. But still, in a part of Azula that was still young enough to be fit for her body, a part of her that remembered how to be a teenager... she liked the attention. "You know... looking back, I never had a good reason to hate you."

"Thanks... I guess," Aang said.

"You didn't deserve what I did to your friends, or to your wife, or to you," Azula said, aloud. Let it hit the air.

"I can't believe that there's some sort of universe where me and Katara were... ew," he gave a shudder.

"And I can scarcely believe that there was a universe wherein Ty Lee was the Avatar. Existence is a strange and inexplicable thing. You didn't deserve what I did to you, because you tried so often, and so hard, to be kind to me. We met, you know? Before Chiyo died," Aang's attention perked up to her. "I was just a face in the crowd. One of ten thousand. But when you spoke to them... when you talked about 'forgiving old grievances', about 'a fresh start for all peoples'... you were staring right at me. You knew I was there."

"I did?"

Well, technically not, because that never happened, but Azula felt no need to ruin her meager attempt to be something other than the monster she'd, for so long, believed herself to be. "You could have said something. Told your metalbending friend to detain me. Instead... you believed what you said. You lived it. I think, if Chiyo hadn't died..." she just shook her head, letting the lie trail off in, honestly, a convincing manner.

"I... that other me, anyway, must have known that you earned some peace," Aang said. Azula shrugged.

"I do know that every time I attacked Katara, you begged me to calm down, see reason. Grieve Chiyo without causing _more_ grief," Azula admitted, this time not lying at all. "And I, as usual, made a hash of that chance."

"You lost your daughter. Why wouldn't you be angry?" Aang asked. One of the workers who passed by in that moment gave Azula a very odd look, pausing in his transit.

"We're rehearsing a play," Azula said flatly, her tone daring him to disbelieve the obvious fabrication. His start and his swift return to his duties told her that it was a dare beyond his desire to undertake. She gave Aang a prod. "You need to watch what you're talking about."

"I'm still trying to get my name-thing right," Aang said, as he pulled his headband a little tighter. And good that he did. It was the only thing standing between he and a murderous mob. He gave a bit of a twitch, then pointed toward a street off of the boulevard that they were following. "That place looks a bit dingier and more run-down than this one. He might be down there," Azula gave a shrug of ambivalence, while Aang's assertion could indeed be correct.

"Then lead on, Anil," Azula said smoothly. It didn't surprise her that of the group, only Zuko, herself, and Toph were able to use the aliases fluidly. What did surprise her was how the other airbender found it so difficult. "I have to say, it's refreshing to meet a version of you, at this age, where you aren't an absolute flake. In the last one, at this point, you were a slightly more hyperactive Mina, without the zen."

Aang gave a sigh. "There is a time for games and childish things. And then there's a time to put those childish things away. The world needs me the way I am, not the way I was. Maybe when the War is over, the childish things can return. Not just for me, but for everybody," Aang said. He turned a look to her, those grey eyes remarkably old, soulful. Wise. "There's an entire generation that had to grow up too fast, Azula. They deserve better than that."

Which called to mind Azula, who became a warrior at the age of six, in every world that she could recall.

"You might be right about that," Azula admitted. And a fraction of a second later, her hand lashed back and caught somebody by the shoulder, and she hauled him to a stop. One fist rose, bathed in flames that she purposefully kept golden, leveled at the dirty, rail-thin and dark complected man. "Give me back my money or you'll lose the hand that took it," Azula said coldly. The would-be pickpocket tossed the purse onto the ground and outright sprinted away when Azula released him. Even as she stooped to reclaim their precious funds, Azula had a striking thought.

Why had she let him go?

"You know, you can be really scary when you want to be," Aang said with a bemused look.

"Story of my life," Azula answered him. He was already starting to dart in and out of the workshops that lined the street, though. Often, he darted back out without a word said. Mostly because Aang had been told, with no uncertain terms, that Sato would not be working on locomotive engines, naval ships, or anything directly to do with weaponry. The first two were a matter of personal preference for the tinker, she'd come to learn, while the third was a conscientious objection. "We might not be on the right street."

"No harm in looking, though," Aang said. "So... what am I like when I'm older?"

"Bearded," Azula said, her tone distracted as she spotted a knot of people moving at the far end of the tiny street they were on. The only reason they caught her attention at all was because they were moving against the tide. Still, they were far too few to constitute a threat, and far too obvious to be the hands of the Coordinator.

"Really? I never thought I'd have a beard," Aang said with a tight-lipped grin.

"Still bald, though," Azula continued. "I thought it looked a bit ridiculous."

"It's my beard and I'll wear it how I want to!" Aang contended, once again drawing looks from those who were doing their jobs in the outermost areas of the workshops. Mostly painting and lacquering, from the smell of it.

"We're..." Azula began. Then she smirked. "He's touched in the head."

They all gave a nod, and went back to their jobs. Aang didn't look too pleased at that. "I never said anything like that about you."

"You keep blurting things which, without proper context, sound insane. How else am I supposed to deflect suspicion?" she asked, having to skirt an empty cart which came within a hair of bashing her knee.

"You still didn't answer my question," Aang continued.

"What am I supposed to say? That you nearly caused a riot after the trial of that bloodbender? That you almost got into a one-man war against the Earth King?" Azula asked. "Because I wasn't paying very close attention to either of those. There's not much point talking about a future which, from the looks of things, won't come to pass. The Earth King is in exile, Long Feng rules Ba Sing Se, and Yu Dao is sitting squarely on a border which hasn't shifted in fifty years. And this will all be moot if the world ends before next autumn."

"I'm surprised you don't talk more about the things you saw," Aang said, by way of explanation. "I know that some of it doesn't sit easy with you. Like your son, Daichi, and how your relationship with him was so strained. You don't need to keep that bottled up."

"If I were to release everything that wounded or annoyed me in this world, Anil, I would never have any time to get anything done," Azula pointed out, and turned the corner and moving with the traffic of workers, citizens, and ethnic Yubokamin that pulsed through the city's streets. And much like the blood they emulated, they had a way of spattering any time the vessel was punctured. And clotting, when something got in its way. There was such a clot that they had to skirt the edge of – Azula having to physically grab the Avatar and drag him away from it to do so – so that they weren't pulled into whatever mischance and foolishness saw a man knocked senseless and dragged into the archway of a spite-house that was no more than seven feet wide.

"I don't know why you won't let me see," Aang muttered.

"Because you are easily distracted," Azula told him. She nodded forward. "Especially with so hopeful a signal directly in front of you."

The signal, such as it was, was a cart that had two spools of copper cord weighing it down. Aang stared at it for a second, before he understood it as she did. "When I broke my right hand, I had to work nine-hours-a-day in a powerplant. The first one built, if I recall correctly. So I know what electrical cables look like," Azula said flatly.

"Power plant?" Aang asked, but he let the idea fall to the notion of finding Sato and the opportunity to head out into the country. True, in the countryside of Azul, the animals, the plants, the landscape and the weather were actively trying to kill you, but they were a different kind of threat than Azul City provided, one that the Avatar's cohorts had a great deal more experience surviving. While they would doubtless have to head back into Azul City if they were going to find 'the seamstress', whom Sokka mentioned as a woman of interest in their plan, that would be something for later.

"Excuse me?" Aang asked of the man who was tidying up the shop which smelled of hot lead solder and the acrid stink of cooking rubber. "Is there somebody named Nomura Sato living near here?"

"Sato? I had a Sato living upstairs. Worthless bum," the hirsute, vest-clad man said with a spit onto the floor. "Didn't pay his rent but once every other week."

"So he lives above the workshop?" Azula pressed. "We were told that he was a man of some imagination and knowledge. Who better to learn the trade from?"

"The door's around the side," the... foreman, she decided, said, as he pulled out a thick cigar and lit it from his fingertip. "If you steal anything, I'm taking it out of your hides. That property's still mine, no matter what crazy he's put into it."

"Fair enough," Azula said.

"What happened to that man in the street?" Aang asked.

"It doesn't matter. Let's go," Azula cut him off and pulled him out of the shop, then to the alley which ran behind it. "Considering how easy you were to hunt down last time, it's obvious that nobody ever taught you the value of _laying low_."

"I just wanted to know. There's nothing wrong with asking questions," Aang said defensively as they started to carefully pick their footing through what garbage was simply too heavy to be washed away with the frequent storms.

"Yes. There is. If you ask the wrong question, or to the wrong person, you'll see just how dangerous they can be," Azula said.

"Azula?"

"What?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"Why are you still so angry?" Aang asked. She stopped at the door, and turned to him, her eyes heated even if not in rage nor wrath.

"I am not angry."

"You're giving me an angry look," Aang pointed out.

"I am not angry," She reiterated. "I'm just trying to make the best of a terrible circumstance."

"You should have more fun with your life," Aang decided.

"Oh, spare me," she said with a shake of her head. "I am a creature of purpose. I always have been. When deprived of it... I don't like what happens. Fun is something to fill time, time that at the moment we simply do not have."

"You could always make some," Aang said with a shrug.

"...how are you _not_ dead, yet?" Azula asked flatly.

"You know, your brother asked me that exact same question," Aang said.

"And your answer to him?"

Aang shrugged. Which was probably the same answer as to Zuzu. Azula just rolled her eyes and opened the door. That the experimental tug she gave caused the door to swing out caused her a moment's concern. That moment became more than that, as there were a great many wet footprints going up these stares. And some, coming down.

"We might have a problem," Azula said. She chose to be the first up, because of the two of them, she was by far the greater in the only element which was permissible to bend in this part of the world. The stairs lead up in after a right angle turn, opening into a loft. The entire place looked to have been ransacked.

"...We _definitely_ have a problem," Aang agreed, as he reached the head of the narrow staircase behind Azula.

Azula looked through the mess, the dusty feathers from the pillows, the torn paper on the floor. Much looked like it had been scooped up and carried away. Azula found her way to a work-bench, which sat not-too-far from the bed. Its surface was pitted and scarred by molten metal dripping onto it, and the stink of rubber was stronger here. But of the tools, and what they were making, there was no inkling.

"Are we sure that this was Sato's place?" Aang asked.

Azula got a notion, and reached behind the desk, down into the space which was left dark by its presence. She fumbled with questing fingers, until she felt paper digging into a fingertip. She would suffer the paper-cut later. For now, she caught the paper between her fingers, and bore it up, before setting it onto the table. "Does this look familiar to you?" Azula asked, of the concept art which had been torn in half at a diagonal, which looked like some sort of electrical device. Aang blinked a few times, and then held it up before him.

"These are the towers that they tried to use to clear the Great Wall," Aang said. He then looked around the tight space that they stood in. "This was Sato's room... so where's Sato?"

"And most importantly," Azula said, leaning over to blow out a lantern which hung over the desk, "who felt a need to take everything from him, in broad daylight, less than two hours ago?"

* * *

><p>"Tell me that you guys didn't have a bust like we did?" Sokka pleaded. The airbender leaned toward him.<p>

"Ah, you're just sour 'cause I didn't give you any alone time with your girl," Malu teased.

"Die in a hole," Nila said flatly, as was her ritual. Aang and Azula, the last two to return, looked less disheveled, but more exhausted and spent than most of the rest of them did. Which didn't speak well of what they found.

"Tell me _you guys_ found more than _we_ did," Toph said from her spot at the table, which she was now hunched and prodding a black-eye over. That Zuko had a similar shiner was telling about how their foray into the city went. How citizens survived this place was, frankly, beyond Sokka's comprehension. After all, he was born and raised in a place which had never heard the old credo 'the farms breed people for the cities to consume'.

"I wish we didn't," Aang said, his down-spirit casting a gray pall in the room when he said it. Everybody turned to him, even Katara, who returned from the bathroom repairing the various bangs and bruises she'd limped in with. She'd doubtless find time to share that largess with the others, but not in public. Waterbenders were, understandably, verboten here.

"What does _that_ mean?" Toph asked, she alone unaffected by the decline in mood, as she couldn't see its source.

"We found where Sato lived," Azula said flatly. Lived. That was a problem. "And I don't doubt that if we could have been an hour faster, we might have found him..."

"I'm sorry, Azula..." Aang said.

"And at what point was his abduction your fault?" Azula asked with a shake of her head. "But wherever he is now, he didn't go quietly, nor willingly," she pulled a torn schematic from a pocket, and let it unfurl onto the table.

"Wow! How informative!" Toph said with mock surprise.

"That's those arc-towers," Sokka said. And distressingly, the blueprint was ripped in half. "Who would have taken him?"

"I can think of a few names of people who might," Azula admitted. "And a lot of them are outside our ability to recover. The few who we could... it would cost us dearly. Our cover, certainly. Our lives, possibly."

"So what do we do now?" Katara asked.

"The only thing we can do," Zuko said with a sigh. "We try to find the seamstress."

"But what about Sato?" Katara asked.

"He's outside of our hands. And he was never essential in the first place," Zuko told her. Sokka knew that it was true. While extremely useful, Sato wasn't critical. But without the 'seamstress' whomever she was, they were sunk. Katara looked a bit crestfallen. "You know that this is the sensible thing to do."

Katara stared at him. Not glared, which was a change. "I still feel like I'm abandoning him to a fate worse than death, or something."

"Yeah. It does feel like that sometimes," Zuko admitted. He let out a sigh, and dropped into the seat beside Toph and Malu. "But we have to take the options we have. Or else you know what'll happen."

Sokka's witty and mood-raising joke was cut off when the door slammed open. Everybody flinched, some of them moving into bending poses, but all were forestalled when Dara backed into the room, four kettles held amidst her two hands, and pulled a tray of drinking vessels with a toe as she came. "I saw y'all come back in. Thought you might want a mild refresher. Hear it can be a bit rough out in the city for the young. I can say I wouldn't want someone so cute comin' to harm," she said, managing to time her cheerful banter just so that she emptied a hand of kettles just in time to pinch Zuko's cheek. He waved her away, and she laughed her way to the other table, set the kettles down, and moved back to the door. "Now if any 'ya need something, don't be afraid to give a shout. We pride ourselves on customer service, don't y'know?"

"Great," Sokka said. Then a notion occurred to him. "Do you have anything cooking in the kitchen?"

"Duck-bacon-fried-hippo-steak," she answered brightly, before moving out into the main sitting room. Sokka almost had a meatgasm at the prospect of lunch.

* * *

><p>The trilling shriek sounded, and the hot breath sprayed in his face, almost to the point where the beast's spittle landed on his unshod feet. But however it surged, it could not break the heavy, iron binds which held it in place. It was often believed that the symbol of Azul was a spider. It certainly made sense, given its stylized depiction, blazened under the weight of the three-point-flame. Eight legs and spines did call to mind a spider. And of the current master of Azul, where he stood with bare feet against wet stone, it was even more appropriate. While the title he was born to, and worked to preserve was 'Coordinator', he was well aware that, despite a firm opinion to its opposite, that he was more often simply called 'the Spider.'<p>

How little they knew. The eight legs, the spines, they weren't of a spider, but instead, of the purple, golden eyed beast before him now, which snarled and snapped on its chains. The anomolokia.

"Coordinator?" a voice came from his back. He deigned only give a slight glance to the retainer who stayed near the door of this chamber, which was open only through bars at the ceiling. Any such room had to be open; for all the anomolokia's many strengths and virtues, it would smother very quickly if not kept in some place very well aerated. Not surprising that the lower class would fear such beasts. They were dangerous, but only to something less dangerous than they.

"What is it?" he asked, continuing to watch the new beast which had been brought, replacing the old one which he'd broken years ago, and kept as something of a glorified pet... and a threat to any who ever thought of opposing him. The other problem, beside their fatal aversion to thin air – and their utter inability to swim – was that they didn't tend to live very long. Nature, it had to be said, gave few and slim kindnesses in the lands of the Far West. Thus, one had to take what one could find.

"The information that the informant gave was good. Sato was brought in, less than a quarter hour before somebody else came to meet him," the retainer said, visibly uncomfortable in the presence of one of the most feared and evil creatures of the Azuli wildlife. Not that the Coordinator bothered to look back. The man was of low breeding and class. Of course he was afraid.

"Good. You have rewarded the informant?" he asked.

"When the information was proven valid, yes," the retainer said. Well, needlessly explained. He knew how this was supposed to work; he was the one who designed the system himself! "But there is new information."

"Really?" he asked. Finally turning from the raging anomolokia to walk back toward the relative dry and relative warm of his palace. He pulled the red-and-purple robes a little tighter around himself, tucking them tight around where his grey beard began, before locking silver-hued eyes on the brown eyed serf who was given a position at the highest level that one such as he would ever attain. "And what would that be?"

"That Ozai's exiled children, Zuko and Azula, are in the city incognito," the retainer – whom Azul had made no efforts to remember the name of – answered. "And that they're seeking allies against the Burning Throne."

Montoya Azul paused at the door, then looked back at the beast within that so typified both this land and the people who dwelt upon it. Dangerous, vicious, brutal, and effective. Then, back to the man who'd never crossed the threshold. "Interesting," he said. "I will have to bear that out."

"I will inform the steward immediately," he said with a deep bow.

"No, you won't," Azul said. "Do you consider yourself a fearful man?"

"Excuse me, my lord?" he asked.

"Fearful. Are you a slave to your fears, or do you seek to rise above them?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," he said. Azul nodded, and fluffed lightly at his beard. Then, he took a step forward, turned, and kicked the retainer in the stomach hard enough to send him staggering back several steps. Into the anomolokia's chamber. Azul then started to swing the door closed.

"Perhaps this will do you a _world_ of good," he said, before letting the last crack close, and dropped the bolt down into place, just before the muted thudding of a fist against the door started. "Shameful display," he muttered to himself. It wasn't like the serf was in any real danger. After all, it was chained to the wall, half a room away, he considered as he went to take direct control of this unusual and unexpected turn of events. He didn't spare another glance back at the chamber, nor the man within it. Nor even when the muffled shouting started. One conquered one's fears, or the fears conquered you. Even a child knew that. And as for those chains?

Those chains didn't break... very often.

* * *

><p><strong>Remember how I said that there was only one evil character in this story? This guy, right here. And the reason he's beyond help... tragedy, that in almost any other world, wouldn't have happened.<strong>


	48. The Spider

"Hikaoh? Sokka? Come inside. Dinner's ready!"

The girl who once was turned, a big grin on her face, but that grin turned devious, as she took advantage of her younger brother's distraction to blast him in the face with a snowball, sending the three year old stumbling back and falling onto the ground. "Hah! Told ya I'm better at snowballs than you are!" she said with a laugh.

"Girls aren't good at snowballs. You cheated!" The jug-eared child said. It had been something of a curse to Hikaoh that her younger brother learned to talk as early as he did; at the age of two, he was already talking almost as good as Hikaoh was at her third year. People always drew comparisons. Why aren't you growing up as fast as Sokka? Why can't you read yet? Yes, a three year old who could read. If Hikaoh had any real sense of justice, she'd have said that there was none of it.

The large, broad and bald man pulled Sokka out of the snowbank that he'd fallen into, and turned dark blue eyes at her. "Shouldn't pick on your brother. Doesn't set a good example."

"Sokka's stupid! And he deserved it!" Hikaoh shot back, before running into the leather sided tent that she had – to her pride – started helping to set up each evening and take down each morning as the clan went through their travels, following fish, seals, and whales. Gathering food, and more importantly burning blubber, for the winter that was coming. Father had stressed that she know that, for some reason. She didn't understand why. But she did know that Father was trusting her with something. She liked that feeling.

The sound of crying instantly sapped Hikaoh's smile, at having to return to one of her baby-sister's frequent and annoying wailing spells. "Can't you make her quiet? She's being too loud," Hikaoh said, with all the gravitas and solemnity that a four year old would be expected to have – too much and simultaneously not enough.

"She's just being fussy," Mother said, handing a bowl to Father, before sitting Hikaoh before the tiny fire at the center of the tent and putting a warm bowl into her hands as well. "Now eat your sea-prunes. They'll make you grow up big and strong," she said, and then patted the girl on the cheek.

"I don't wanna be big an' strong. Make Sokka eat them!" Hikaoh said, prodding the floating, distasteful vegetables around with a finger, before pulling out the strip of fried brain and munching on that instead.

"Make me eat what?" the post-toddler asked brightly as he barreled into the tent. "Ooh brains!"

"See? Why can't you eat like Sokka does?" Mother asked.

"Sokka's gross," Hikaoh said, and stuck her tongue out at her younger brother.

"Mom! Make her stop pickin' on me!"

"Hikaoh, stop teasing your brother," Mother's voice had the resigned tone of somebody who'd had to weather this exact exchange dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. And Katara continued to cry in that shrieking, colicky way that she did.

"Did you hear from Bato?" Father asked. Mother turned to him. "He said that he saw smoke to the north. Black smoke."

Mother gave Father a glance. "How far north?"

"At the edge of the sheet, on the horizon," Father said. Mother glanced out the door... and she looked nervous. But the four year old girl hadn't a clue why.

…

"What is your name?"

"_My name is Hikaoh_."

"You're wrong! Hikaoh is a bad child. A stupid child! She is a child deserving bad things! Do you _really_ want to be that child?"

"_I don't understand_..."

"And you will speak in a civilized language, or you won't speak at all. Is that clear?"

"_I want my __Mom__._.."

There was a sigh, one of patience sorely strained. "It seems that you don't choose to grasp what we are trying so hard to teach you. We're very disappointed in you–"

"Miss Yoji?" a voice intruded on Yoji's dreams, and caused her to flash awake, tearing fire from the lanterns in a movement that was, in no stretch of the imagination, firebending, but held it in a coiling loop that threatened nonetheless at the intruder that dared awaken her from her slumber. The room-cleaner – a task sorely underperformed in this establishment – let out a peep of alarm and flattened herself against the door which stood open to the hall. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I'll go..."

Yoji, though, let her fire drain away, snuffing out in the air. "What do you want?" she asked the woman before her. Despite the intruder being as much as twice Yoji's age, she was shaking like a leaf. "Well? Out with it!"

"I... Um... There's a message that got sent for you today. W-w-we put it behind the accounting desk," she said, pointing out into the hallway.

"Good," Yoji said, but she still felt groggy. Leaden. And her skin felt like it was seething over her muscles. The nightmares could be bad enough; the terror, the screaming, the fire, that was a fear that she understood. But recently, her dreams had taken a turn for the strange, for the inexplicable. She dreamed of...

Something impossible.

"Is there something else?" Yoji asked, flatly.

"No, ma'am," she said.

"Then why are you staring at me?" Yoji asked.

"You... Forgive my implication, but you look much like one of those Tribesmen that Hideki talked about. I just..."

"Get out," Yoji said.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend y–"

"GET OUT NOW!" Yoji screamed, and the woman did exactly that. She had no idea why that had made her so unbelievably angry. There was no denying that she had a lamentable Tribal heritage. She'd gone to great pains, over a great many years, to erase it. But now... it seemed like she didn't have the effort. She shuddered for a second, and leaned against the desk which she kept empty of the correspondence she gathered for simple purpose of denying others intelligence. "_What is happening to me_?" Yoji asked, of the reflection in the mirror of polished bronze which hung from the wall.

"_You're a Tribesman, Hikaoh_," her reflection seemed to answer her, mocking her. But she turned away from it. The Tribe lost any right to claim her when it left her to die. She would forge her own path, in the Fire Nation. No matter what.

* * *

><p>"Have you ever done something you later <em>really<em> regretted?" Toph asked.

"A few times," Zuko answered, deadpan.

"I'm getting a feeling that this might be one of those things," Toph said with a sigh of defeat from inside the wooden cage that they'd stuffed her in. Zuko, on the other hand, was an obvious firebender, and thus got chains.

"You _were_ the one who wanted to 'plumb the criminal underworld' for the seamstress," Zuko agreed.

"That was an error in judgement," Toph said miserably.

"Not entirely," Zuko admitted. "If we'd been _anywhere_ but Azul, it might have worked. But you keep forgetting rule one about Azul..."

"'Everything's trying to kill you'," Toph quoted. She shook her head. "If I could just... Why couldn't they put me in chains? It'd be easier that way," she shook her head. She then tilted her head. "Or if they let me touch the floor."

"You're asking if anybody's watching us right now, aren't you?" Zuko asked.

"And here I thought I was being subtle," Toph snarked.

"Subtle for you, maybe," Zuko answered. "And no. At the moment, we're all alone."

"Great," Toph said. She flexed the hands which were wedged close to her knees, and felt with her bending for the metal which held Prince Pouty off of the floor himself. She then started to tug on the chains themselves, ratcheting them down, down, down, until there was a creak. Then, a ping, as Zuko dropped to his feet, unsteadily. He wasted no time flicking out a finger which caused heat to swell near her forehead. Probably firebending the cage away. It was enough, though, that Toph could push her legs forward, and cause the front of her cage to fall with a clatter to the floor. The instant her feet hit the stone, she could 'see' again. There were other chains in this room, and other cages apparently, but all were empty. And she could tell where Zuko was still fettered to the wall, so she dealt with that with a shift of her foot and a grasping motion, causing the chains to snap off of the anklets. Freedom of motion, of a type.

"Great. Now we should probably..." Zuko began, but Toph's eyes widened, as she heard somebody else coming this way from above. She hated that the Fire Nation built so much out of wood; only here in the basement did she have worthwhile 'vision'.

"Sh. Incoming," Toph whispered. Zuko heeded her instantly, and flattened himself against the wall that stood at the base of the stairs, itself on the other side of a wooden door that Toph only knew was present from the proximity of its metal hinges. She took the other side, and gauged her response. Getting out was easy; there was a sewer running not six feet away from the edge of the foundation. It wouldn't be big on dignity, but when did that ever matter to one Toph Beifong?

The door swung open with a squeal of rusty metal rubbing against itself, a familiar sound from when they tossed her, box and all, into the room. "Alright, dearie, let's get Skanda a look at ya'. Might be to his t..." the criminal trailed off, when he saw that the cage was smoldering, and the chains were snapped. Whatever other words he felt like forcing out of his word-hole, he didn't get a chance to, since Zuko swung a brutal chop right into his larynx, causing him to wheeze and recoil. Toph took the opening that Zuko made to drop the idiot five feet into the stone, then lock it in a mound that held his mouth shut.

"No thanks. Older men are great and all, but not when they've got grey hair," Toph said with a smirk.

"Skanda didn't have grey hair," Zuko said.

"You saw him?" she asked. It shouldn't have been surprising, since she was captured trying to _save him_.

"Yeah. Too much jewelry," Zuko said with a shrug. "It was like he was trying to impress somebody."

"Well, still my beating heart. I simply _must_ have tea with the man," Toph said with mocking melodrama.

"Creepy, too," Zuko added.

"He's an ephebophile. Of course he's creepy," Toph said. She then thrust her hands out and to the side, tearing open a hole into the sewer system that ran under Azul. When she took one sniff of it, and it stank of what had to be strong acids, she closed the hole. "Alright... need a new plan, because that one'll kill us."

"Out the front door?" Zuko said. Toph smirked.

"I like it when you read my mind."

"What can I say? I'm starting to get your measure," Zuko said, flexing his hands and causing heat – fire – to erupt in them. And since they were a bunch of criminals, nobody'd care what Toph did to them. Say... earthbending...

"Gotta say, I really needed to let out some aggression for a while," Toph admitted, cracking her neck. "This is gonna be _fun_."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

**The Spider**

* * *

><p>"This was a long time coming, but this is it," Zha Yu said, as he looked over the fleet of ships which was docked off of an otherwise unremarkable shore, somewhere northeast of Kyoshi Island. They ranged from stolen Fire Nation cruisers and freighters, to the hearty fishing ships, built by the natives that took their hard living from the sea – boats which were to the standards of seamanship of the Water Tribes, apparently – to the few of those same Water Tribe vessels that remained after a portion of Chief Hakoda's force split, and the veterans and the old stayed with the force. It was rag-tag, certainly. But every ship was capable of sailing on the hellish oceans, no matter the weather. For that reason alone, they had to actually send a portion of their strike-force back; there just weren't enough ships that weren't the fragile, coast-hugging junks to bear them across the waves.<p>

"I can't help but worry about what we'll find there," Hakoda answered the Mountain King. The Earth King was, wisely, remaining in Omashu for this. A symbol like him didn't have any place on the battlefield, less so when that symbol was as martially inept as Kuei was. Needless to say, Bumi was coming with them. "But that's something we're going to have to face when we come to it."

"Papa, can I ask you something?" Yingsue asked, looking somewhat perturbed when she approached. Hakoda gave them a nod and departed, letting surrogate father and surrogate daughter a time in private.

"You look upset. Is something wrong?" he asked. Yingsue took a deep breath, then a small nod.

"You remember how I got a message from my husband, that he was coming south to collect me?" she asked.

"I vaguely recall," Zha Yu said. Well, he recalled calling Lao a dumbass for thinking that Yingsue needed collecting even in the worst of times.

"...he's here," she said, pointing to the road which led into the army camp. Zha Yu let out a sigh of his own, and patted a hand on her shoulder. "What am I supposed to _say_ to him? I don't remember _anything_ about our lives together. I mean..." she shook her head, anxiety etched onto her features. She looked as confounded and terrified as she had been when Zha Yu first took her under his wing, more than twenty years ago. "...how can I even look him in the eye?"

"You'll do it, because the Yingsue I know isn't going to back down just because something scares her," Zha Yu pointed out. She glanced away, and he rotated her shoulders so she was looking at him again. "Ah-ah. If you don't have memories of your life before... consider this an opportunity to make some new memories."

"How can I tell him what happened to me?" she asked. "What I became? What I am...?"

"Do you need to?" Zha Yu asked. He shrugged. "I hear that a blow to the head, delivered with enough swing, can erase decades of your life. Hell of a hit you took, _baobao_. Lucky you even survived it."

"He'll probably know I'm lying to him," Yingsue said. Zha Yu smirked, and shook his head.

"Please. I met the guy. He wouldn't know what his mustache was doing unless he looked in a mirror," Zha Yu said. He gave her a smile. "You'll be fine. If everything else fails, just _don't let him_ ask questions."

Yingsue chortled at that, and nodded. "Thanks, Papa. For... for everything, really."

"Be safe, my iron blossom," he said, placing a kiss onto her brow, then turning her toward the husband who was staring, flabbergasted, at the army that had accrued in this place. Zha Yu also set off in vaguely that same direction, albeit to a different purpose. "How, how long will it take to get them to sea?"

"The tides will be right in the next ten hours," How said. He sighed, shaking his head under the grey, coastal sky. "I don't like having to sail at night, though. Even if it's just to the first way-point."

"We all do what we have to. What about the soldiers?" Zha Yu asked. Sati clucked her tongue from her place not too far away, the one handed swordsman ever at her side.

"A minority of them are aboard already," Sati said, as she knelt on the damp earth, a wind-map open on her knees. "The rest will be aboard when the anchors are hauled, or else never."

"You still feel up to this?" Zha Yu asked. Sati gave Zha Yu a look of derision.

"Please. If there were nothing else in the world that I know, I know war," Sativa said. She then tweezed the bridge of her nose. "What I would not give for a proper source of light. This gray shall be the death of my eyes."

"So we're pretty much ready?" Zha Yu asked. There were a few nods, and one stern shake of the head from Sung. "Ready with everything that we can account for at this moment," he said with a slightly annoyed tone. Sung had been vocal – to the point of being annoying – about how the supply-lines would be stretched to snapping if they spent any more than a week ashore in Azul. At that point, Sung gave a reluctant nod.

"Good," Zha Yu said. "I'm going to go harass my son-in-law."

How and Sung shared a baffled look, but Piandao only offered a mild chuckle at that. After all, if the Mountain King couldn't have some enjoyment at the discomfort of others, then what was the point of it all? He pressed through the line of men who were... holding Lao Beifong at bay. Which was not what Zha Yu expected.

"Is there some kind of problem here?" the Mountain King asked.

"For some reason, this oaf won't let me talk to my wife!" Lao said.

"It's not the whiny one that has me concerned," the plate-armored Sipahi said with a gentle tug upon his saber. "It's the small army he's got behind him."

Zha Yu glanced past the slender, soft man and to the group gathered behind him. He'd assumed that that was an outcrop camp. Huh. "Let him closer," Zha Yu said, nevertheless. Yingsue moved to the side of Zha Yu, probably still seeking some sort of confidence in his presence. She'd been so skittish in those first few months. So it seemed again.

"Thank you. At least somebody here has good se... se..." Lao trailed off when he saw who he was talking to, and remembered the 'excitement' which happened last time they'd crossed paths. Lao cleared his throat, then turned to his wife. "Yingsue, sweetheart... I have to apologize," he said.

"Really?" Yingsue asked, her tones demanding even if Zha Yu knew that she was, inwardly, anything but.

Lao gave a placating gesture. "I know, I know. It was your decision to make, and I ought respect it. But I couldn't understand it. I tried, sweetheart, I really did," Lao said, and he shook his head. Then he sighed. "But I'm not built for this. I'm not some... warrior. But as much as I'd prefer you not be, too, I have to accept that you, that Toph, you're different. You're going to do what you need to do, whether I approve or not," he said. Zha Yu chuckled.

"Your disapproval might be part of the fun," he pointed out. Lao, instead of looking insulted, only nodded, dumbly.

"I know that I'm not much of a help. That I wasn't nearly perceptive enough as a husband, nor as a father. And I can't expect that one gesture will mean much but... I want to help you, what you believe in. So I hired the mercenaries," he said, pointing behind him. "It took a fair bit of my savings, but I did it."

"Which mercenaries?" Zha Yu asked, as he saw at least four different company standards in there.

"All of them."

Zha Yu blinked at the bald faced audacity of the claim. Then he looked out to the coast, and saw the red-sailed ships that scudded out from the horizon of the choking forest. Yup. That was... a lot of mercenaries. And ships to take them.

"So... Will you forgive a blind fool for not seeing his wife for the woman she really was?" Lao asked. Yingsue looked down for a moment, then sighed. She placed a hand on Zha Yu's arm, and gently pushed him aside, so that she could walk up to her husband. Lao had the most hopeful look on his narrow little face.

A look which became utter shock when Yingsue kissed him hard enough to almost bend him backward. Zha Yu couldn't help but laugh at that. Maybe she _wasn't_ so skittish this time, after all. "I _knew_ there was a reason I married you," Yingsue said, when she pulled the bleary-eyed Lao back to his feet.

* * *

><p>"Can I ask you where exactly where we're going, now?" Kori asked as the woman closed the door of the way-house, and cut them off from the rain.<p>

"Do you really believe that you've deserved it at this point?" she countered.

"Are we going to continue answering each others questions with more questions?"

"Would that annoy you?" Maya asked with a smirk.

"Why must I be a prisoner of such a sadist?" Kori asked the universe.

"Was I supposed to entertain you?" Maya asked.

"Alright, seriously, stop," Kori muttered. He was quickly starting to understand why so many people hated him; if he was a quarter as annoying as Maya Azul was, then he deserved it. "Your path so far has been somewhat obvious. South. But now we're heading west, which would tell me that we're heading to Azul City, but I know you better than that, I'd like to think."

"And why would you say you know me?" Maya asked, as she cranked up the oil in a lantern, and used its flame to start the stove. At least that would cut the chill, soon enough.

"Really?" Kori asked. He shook his head. "I'm a Child. It's my job to know everything about everybody who would want to depose the Fire Lord. While admittedly we might have dropped the ball on that one, it doesn't negate the fact that you've got we've got a ledger on you about so thick," he said, holding his finger and thumb an inch and a half apart. "And yes, I did actually read it."

"I feel my privacy violated, retroactively," Maya said with a shake of her head.

"I got you not answering questions with questions. I consider that a victory," Kori said.

"Fine. You want to know where I'm going? Anywhere that Father can't find me. I thought that the Air Temple would be remote enough that nobody would ever go there," Maya shook her head, sitting at the stool near the door and staring into the growing flames of the stove. "That you got in there proved that my estimation wasn't exactly accurate. That you were there because others were there... that was troubling. There's little point staying in a place that had seen so much recent traffic. So I'm going to somewhere else that Father won't look for me."

"Outside Azul City."

"I know some Yubokamin. I'll be fine. You're dead, but I'll be fine," she said with a shrug.

"Really? I hear that the Gorks _love_ Tribesmen," Kori said with a grin. "That's a lot of effort to get away from a man. Which makes sense, given the rumors I've heard about him."

"Whatever you've heard, it's not true, only because the truth is worse," Maya said. She shook her head. "Father is a monster, and I'm not blind to that. Since I don't want to follow in his footsteps, I'm going to just put as much distance between he and I as possible. Safer that way."

"It seems to be something of a trend that the daughters of powerful Fire Nationals are rebelling against their asshole parents," Kori noted. She shot him a look. "Azula. Fun story, turns out she's not _actually_ an oracle."

"I thought she was just insane," Maya said.

"It does speak to the quality of the Fire Nation's ruling class," Kori leaned against the rough-cut wooden table, that wobbled a bit under his weight. "It makes you wonder how this country managed to keep a war going for a century."

"War feeds itself," Maya noted.

"Hiding from your father doesn't sound like it's going to solve many of these problems," Kori pointed out. She just stared at the fire. "And honestly, that doesn't sound like something that you'd do."

"If you know me so well, then why don't _you_ tell me what I should do?" Maya asked, glaring at him.

Kori saw the obvious bait, but opted to 'fall for it' anyway. He rubbed at his chin, pensively. "Well, if I were the heir designate of the most belligerent portion of a coalition that stretched back for just shy of a thousand years, placed with the unenviable position of being stuck between a crazy parent figure and the knowledge that doing something against said crazy parent figure would be a betrayal of both family and state... I'd probably opt for something outside of the choices provided for me," he said with a grin. She stared at him.

"What other choice is there?"

"A few, actually," Kori pulled the chair from the table and sat in it, crossing his ankles before him and twiddling his thumbs. "For example; join the Blue Turban Rebellion," he gave a shrug. "As far as I've heard, Zhao's not had a chance to crush that, and with some real leadership, it might actually amount to something."

"Pass."

"Throw in with Princess Azula and her brother," Kori continued. "They've got no real problem with your messed up family; instead, they're pretty focused on their own messed-up family. Still treason against the state, but your family's out of it."

"Pass," Maya repeated.

"You are simply impossible, you know that?" Kori asked, shaking his head. He puffed out a breath, making it seem like he was reaching for a long-one, but in actuality, it was the first one he'd come up with. "The other alternative is siding with the Avatar."

"The Avatar is dead," Maya said.

"He was only _mostly_ dead. He got better," Kori corrected. She raised a brow at him. "If you're looking for a path which doesn't involve either you or somebody else depopulating the royal family of Azul, nor acting in open opposition to the Fire Nation under the Burning Throne, then your best bet would be the Avatar."

"You're insane."

"So people keep declaring," Kori gave a shrug. "The Avatar is beholden to no nation, and represents all. You could even say that, in resisting the Burning Throne, he's presenting a higher authority even than the Fire Lord. I guess it just depends on who you consider your immediate social superior. Is it your father? _Fire Lord_ Zhao?"

"Don't be insulting," Maya said flatly.

"Then who?" Kori leaned forward. "It's not my fault if you hem yourself in through your decisions, but if you try marching me to my death, you'll swiftly find that you're walking alone, and have been talking to yourself for the last half-hour."

"You really think you can out-sneak an Azuli?" she asked.

"I don't think I can. I _know_ I can," Kori said, grinning. It was not a kind grin. Maya just glared. "I understand if you need some time to ruminate on your options. I've got _plenty_ of time."

Maya leaned back on her stool, shaking her head lightly. "I should have let that anomolokia eat you."

"I bet you say that to all the boys you like," Kori chided. Her snarl of annoyance brought a long-overdue laugh to the waterbender. If nothing else, he lived to needle stuffy people.

* * *

><p>"I'm starting to wonder if this seamstress even exists," Katara muttered into her tea, as the Yubokamin puttered around 'twixt the tables, talking to, if not the patrons around her, very enthusiastically to herself.<p>

"I'm sure that we'll find her soon," Aang answered, rubbing at the binding that concealed his brow. "I mean, we know what she looks like. What she does for a living. There's only about five more places we can look."

"Unless she's sensible and keeps moving, doing jobs piece-meal so that nobody can track her," Azula pointed out as she took an emery stick to her nails. The grinding sound of it rattled the Tribesman's teeth with every draw.

"Do you _really_ need to keep doing that?" Katara asked.

"Dactyl hygiene is not something I intend to give up for anybody on this planet," Azula told her. She continued to whisk away at her nails, irritating the waterbender further. Why did she bother? They didn't look noticeably different from Katara's! "We can sit her, drinking tea and blathering about failure, or we can go back out there and spend the last three hours before sunset doing something that might propel us toward victory," she waggled the emery stick at Katara. "Your choice."

"It was so much easier when I could just _hate_ you," Katara muttered. That got Azula cracking a smirk. Damn her. "But I don't know how safe it is to go out there with night coming in so soon. I mean... The others haven't gotten back, yet."

"Make whatever rationalizations you need to, but don't blame me when this seamstress of yours slips through your fingers because of your lackadaise," Azula said. She got to her feet, tucking that hateful little rasping rod into one of her pockets, and pointed at Aang. "You. Get up. There's one place I know we can look and be back with plenty of time before the sun goes down. Does that mollify your over-prudence?"

"I am not overprudent!" Katara snapped. "I fought at Sum... some battles that you probably never even heard of! Don't you dare call me a coward."

"Prudence and cowardice share a great many features," Azula gave a shrug. "Not all, but many."

"Guys..." Aang began.

"Oh, that's it. I've had enough of your snide little accusations you firebending witch!"

"You know, even with all that I've gone through, it never ceases to amuse me how easily it is to rile you," Azula said, smirk plain on her face.

"Azula, please!" Aang said.

"What?" a woman asked from the table behind him. Katara flinched, and looked back at the dark-eyed girl in her early twenties who looked mildly baffled.

"Not you," Aang said. The other Azula rolled her eyes and returned to talking to the two people who might have been siblings. "Let's just go while we still can."

The last, delivered at an annoyed whisper, sounded like it should have come from the bellicose firebender, not the free-wheeling airbender. Katara had a fairly good idea of who was responsible for that, as well. They all bombed out of the dining area, with a shouted farewell from Dara as they went.

The air which hit them as they stepped out of the door was, shockingly, hot. Hot, and clear, and not raining. Instantly, the Tribesman had sweat beginning to ooze across her; she had a fairly good notion that she was never going to be completely used to the heat. It was just fortunate that the Fire Nation seemed to have this false-starter of a summer, and keep things nice and manageable for her.

"It's been a long time since I saw a day like this," Azula said, nodding with a distant smile on her face. "Smells terrible, but the warmth is nice."

"I feel like I might melt. We should get this done quickly," Katara said. Aang, too, didn't seem too badly effected by the heat. It must have been something he got from learning how to firebend. Katara turned her attention away from Azula, and tried to keep her mind on dodging through the crowds on the street. But when she actually looked around her, the streets seemed almost empty. "...guys? What's going on?" Katara asked.

Azula gave a glance to Katara, then to the streets now that she wasn't also fixated on tormenting a waterbender. "That _is_ strange," she said, her brow furrowing. "We should be fighting to the death for room to put our elbows."

"...This place seems almost abandoned," Aang said, looking around. Yes, there were a few, occasional people hurrying around, but the hurry they had wasn't the stone-faced, focused hurry that she'd seen in their forays for Nomura Sato. This had a great deal more urgency to it. "Do you think that there's something going wrong somewhere?"

Aang was answered by a blast of a steam-whistle from a distant part of the city, only audible for the lack of din between they and it. Had there not been buildings in the way, Katara was fairly certain that she'd have been able to watch an airship float out of its moorings, toward wherever they put its weapons on. "If nothing else, this means we'll be able to get there and back faster," Katara chose to be pragmatic in that moment. Azula nodded, but kept her silence. Katara glanced between the Avatar and the firebender who'd so often tried to kill him. "_How_?" she asked.

"Hrm?" Aang asked.

"_How could you possibly be attracted to her? Even when she's not crazy, she's evil!_" Katara pointed out. "_And when she's trying not to be evil, she's __almost__ just as evil!_"

"_That's not true and you know it_," Aang responded in her own native tongue.

"What are you two yammering about?" Azula asked.

"_Yes, she might be pretty, but that doesn't excuse the things that she's done to you over the last few months. I mean, you can't reject the fact that she worked very hard to kill you in Omashu, or in Ba Sing Se_," Katara pressured.

"I don't appreciate being left out of conversations," Azula's tone grew annoyed, and her scarletted lips pulled into a scowl.

"_That was because she was still angry over her daughter. She's not, anymore. She even apologized to you!_" Aang pointed out.

"_When? At what point did she apologize for getting me exiled and making my life hell for half a year?_" Katara asked, her arms crossed sternly. Aang blinked, and turned to Azula.

"You said you were sorry for what you did to Katara, didn't you?" Aang asked in _Azula's_ native tongue.

"I said that I might have been overreacting when I tried to murder her," she responded.

"_See? She wouldn't admit responsibility for pain nor money_!" Katara continued.

"And for what it's worth, you never deserved my ire," Azula continued, obviously pointedly ignoring that Katara had been speaking. "You weren't the one who killed Chiyo. And you have done little but help me over the last few months. Frustrating as it is to admit, I do have a debt to you. One I wish to see expunged as quickly as possible so I no longer need to think about it," Azula finished with a deeper scowl.

Aang leaned in closer. "_See? Told you she wasn't evil_."

"_She is __soooo__ evil_," Katara retorted.

"If you two don't stop that, I'm going my own way and letting the city eat you," Azula said, her tones gray and humorless.

"Sorry, Azula," Aang said. Azula gave him a nod, then continued walking. She hadn't even expected one from Katara, which was fitting because Katara had no intention of giving one. It was Azula's fault if she couldn't speak Yqanuac. She started looking into the alleys as they passed them, trying to figure out where all of the people had simply disappeared to. But just as the streets, the alleys were empty. And slightly more filthy than usual, as there hadn't been a stern rain in a while to wash them clean.

They'd just reached an intersection when Azula took a step straight back, grabbed both Aang and Katara by the collars of their shirts and hauled them back as well, flattening them both against the wall of the building at the corner. She made a silencing gesture, then leaned cautiously, to see 'round the corner with only the slimmest profile of her eye. Katara shot Aang a querulous look, and Aang could only shrug.

"It seems that the streets aren't completely empty, after all," Azula said. She motioned to Katara to look around, but when Aang tried, Azula pushed him with stiff fingers back to the wall. Katara didn't understand why, but she looked around the corner.

There were soldiers in the street. A knot of them, perhaps a dozen in total. They seemed to watch in every direction, while exactly one of them loomed over a homeless man, saying something which, even for the relative quiet of the city, couldn't reach quite as far as they. At first, Katara didn't have a clue who these people were supposed to be; they weren't wearing the armor and skull-mask of a Fire Nation soldier, after all. Purples beat out reds. But when she caught a glance of one of them, as dark skinned as she and doffing a helmet in exchange for a broad-brimmed hat that sat at a precise angle on his head, she had a pretty good idea.

"That's a Ghurka," Katara whispered.

"Those are the Coordinator's men," Azula confirmed.

"What are they doing here?" Aang asked.

"They live here," Katara said with a shake of her head.

"No, Anil is right. The army only comes into the city during riots or if somebody needs to die... or disappear," Azula said. She leaned to the corner once more. "...from the looks of things, they're looking for somebody. We have to assume that it's us."

"How?" Katara asked. "Nobody knows who we are!"

"If there's two things that Azul creates in droves, it's lethal wildlife and spies," Azula said with a scowl. She glanced behind then, to an alley which was all of three feet wide between two buildings. "We have to go around."

"Are you sure we can't just cross the street really fast?" Aang asked.

Katara shook her head. "It's really easy to spot something that's running. Even I know that."

"We go around, or we don't go at all," Azula said. Aang gave a nod, after what was at least a moment's consideration. At least, for all his insane choice of romantic interest, he wasn't giving up the use of his brain for it. And, story of the last few months, they found themselves squeezing into a dirty crevasse to avoid the attention of people trying to kill them.

Only now, Katara had to do it while sweaty.

There was no justice in the universe.

* * *

><p>"Well... I'm guessing that isn't her," Malu said, staring at the conflagration before her.<p>

"Or at least, I hope it isn't her," Sokka agreed. Nila just watched the factory that burned, its flames reaching up and driving against the heat which was actually much more like the Fire Nation he remembered from his brief and unpleasant stay during the Winter Solstice. Of course, it also meant that the people had to form a bucket brigade instead of just letting the regular downpours do the fire-fighting for them. And this wasn't the only fire today. The dry and the heat weren't wholly blessings, it seemed.

"If it even was the one we seek, she would not be amenable to speaking with strangers now," Nila pointed out quietly, her voice pitched low so that her accent was less apparent. She sighed, and pulled the Tribesman and the airbender away from the blaze, even as those who worked there, and in the buildings surrounding it, fought to contain the blaze with water, or firebending, or whatever they had on hand. A part of Sokka felt for them, he really did. Fires didn't care who they burned, after all.

"Well, we can look on the bright side," Malu said. "We didn't get robbed today. Nobody even held a knife to my neck!"

"You say that like it's some sort of grand achievement," Sokka said.

"For her, it seems to be," Nila murmured with a smirk of her own.

"That's not funny," Malu muttered darkly.

"It kinda is," Sokka said. The airbender girl shot him a look which was a legitimate glare, letting him know how thin the ice he was standing upon was.

"The sun would be setting soon," Nila said, and she was answered by the loud grumbling of Sokka's stomach. "Our portable clock has warned us as much."

"I'm used to days being a lot shorter than this at this time of year," Sokka said.

"And I'm used to 'em being a lot longer," Malu agreed.

"Twelve hours of light is all you get in the Fire Nation or Si Wong. The former, if you're lucky, the latter, if you're not," Nila pointed out. From the way that the sky was turning red, they were running out.

"Well, better to get off the streets before the smog comes up," Sokka said.

"I've got a question," Malu said, her hand raised as though she were in a classroom instead of the most deadly city on Earth, bar _maybe_ the Royal Palace in Caldera City. "Doesn't it seem like somebody constantly knows our moves before we do?"

"You believe that we are being spied upon?" Nila asked. Malu nodded. "Good. Then you are finally learning."

"But... why would they? I mean, wouldn't that Azul guy want whats-his-scar out of the Burning Throne?"

"Only because he would want himself upon it," Nila pointed out. "And barring that, he prefers the status quo, as that status quo favors him with a great many luxuries and freedoms."

"I never knew you were into politics," Sokka said.

"I listen," Nila said defensively. "Even when the subject matter is irrelevant, I listen."

"So the big question is, who's got their ear to our door?"

"I bet it's that innkeeper," Malu said, her jaw set. Sokka gave her a 'continue' gesture. "He's got shifty eyes."

"So you suspect the owner of our accommodations because of a facial feature? Would you suspect... for example, 'Li' of heinous evil were his burn plain upon is face rather than hidden under his hair?" Nila asked.

"I'm just saying," Malu muttered. "There's something about that guy that isn't what he claims. I _know_ he's been paying closer attention to us than most of the others under that roof."

Nila mulled over that. "Perhaps," was all she said to it, though.

"I just can't wait until we get something to eat," Sokka said. "I thought this place was the land of spicy-meats. Instead, it's the land of noodles and shame."

"Meat is expensive, and we live with the poor," Malu pointed out.

"We got lots of money!" Sokka complained.

"And ten thousand thanks for shouting that in a city where even the cobbles want to murder and rob you," Nila said, clouting Sokka in the shoulder as she did.

"Right. Sorry."

"Do you think the others had more luck?"

"We must assume that they didn't," Nila said.

"No we shouldn't. We're supposed to be upbeat and happy, and let the happy bring more happy to us," Malu said. "I mean... yeah, we've had a few setbacks, but that's not going to stand in our way forever, right?"

Sokka and Nila shared a concerned look.

"...right?"

Sokka didn't have the heart to tell her, just how much the universe loved to kick them while they were down. So he let them finish the walk back toward the inn with silence. He'd almost made it back when a rare civilian bumped into him rounding a corner. "Hey, watch where you're going!" the man snapped.

"Hey, I got every right to be here," Sokka said, his arms spread.

The man just shot a baleful look at Sokka, and continued on. Sokka cast a thumb over his shoulder, and shook his head in wonder. "There is a level of ethnic tension in Azul, as you might imagine. You look like a Yubokamin, after all," the airbender pointed out.

"...great," Sokka said. "Even in the place I fit in perfectly in disguise, I still get kicked down."

"Hah. Were we on the other side of this landmass, I would be hung from a rafter as soon as seen," the Si Wongi amongst them said, once again pointing to bright green eyes with tattooed hands. She gave her head one final shake, and raked at the hair which still didn't reach her shoulders, before pushing open the door to the Drunken Dragon.

The inner door opened as they were just closing the outer, and thus Sokka got shoved into the two women from the shock and force of it. On the other side of it, the dark, expressive face of Dara blinked a few times in surprise at them, before her usual toothy grin returned into place. "Well, another day sees you home safe and sound! I take it y'haven't taken to the roofs like so many others?"

"...no. Why would we?" Malu asked.

"Well, it's sunny and warm, for one thing," she said, then shook her head. "But how I ramble on. Shake off y'r boots and come on in. I've got something roasting that might put a bit of meat on the skinny one's bones," Dara said as she turned to head into the kitchen.

"Why would I need more bulk on my frame?" Nila asked.

"I was talking about t' pretty one," Dara said over her shoulder as she pushed through the door. As it swung, though, Sokka could see that the innkeeper was, indeed, looking at them. In that split second he was visible through the swinging of the door, his dark eyes... not weighing or waiting. Just _noting_.

"...you know? Maybe we should take lunch when we're all back safe and sound," Sokka said.

"I have that impression as well," Nila agreed.

The hairs were starting to stand up on the back of Sokka's neck, even as he went up the stairs to where their room was situated. "...I seriously don't like this," Malu whispered.

"Then you are amongst august company," Nila pointed out. The others were going about their business, such as they could in the four-story boarding house, but there was something in the air. Something besides massive amounts of pollution and at least a little vitriolic acid. The Tribesman and the Si Wongi shared a look as her hand fell on the door. Tension, at its highest and utmost. And there wasn't a damned thing they could do about it.

"...Last time I was this nervous there were four hundred firebenders combing a forest for me," Malu noted.

Sokka nodded, and he reached for the spot where Space Sword was concealed under baggy clothing. Truth told, he still felt a little naked without his boomerang at his back, but that would as much as scream 'hey, I'm a Water Tribesman' to anybody who so much as looked at him. For all Zuko claimed that Sokka was advancing remarkably as a swordsman – _utterly_ unbelievably, Zuko had said – the ebon edge didn't give him nearly the same level of comfort that a pound of honed, Tribal Steel could.

Nila opened the door, reaching even then for the explosive lemon she kept perilously close to her groin. And when the three of them barged into their room... they found nothing at all out of the ordinary.

"I think we're starting to get paranoid," Sokka said.

"I wouldn't be so confident of our safety. Not while we are on this side of the continent," Malu said, nevertheless. Nila bee-lined for the wardrobe that secreted her rifle, checking to make sure that it was still intact and untampered with. Honestly, she babied that thing more than most new-fathers babied their daughters.

"Can I give a suggestion, just off the top of my head?" Malu asked.

"Could we stop you?" Sokka asked.

"...short of shooting you?" Nila finished.

"Don't do that again. It's creepy," Malu said. "I'm thinking that we should find a new boarding house. This place has a feeling of dead-wrong now, and it didn't feel that way before. We should pull up stakes and run while the running's good.

"That is elementary," Nila said. "But if we flee with reckless haste, then we abandon the others to whatever fate, real or imagined, that we have skirted."

"So we wait until nightfall, when everybody gets back, and _then_ run like somebody set our backs on fire," Malu clarified. She gave a nod, then a glance to the window. "It's good... I kinda thought that I was the only one getting creeped out."

"Hardly the only," Sokka muttered. He moved to Malu's side, looking out into the reddening light that dropped suddenly right after suppertime here in the Fire Nation. From this perspective, he could just barely see people on a lower rooftop, across the street. And when he did, he raised an eyebrow. "Nila?" he asked.

"What?"

"Why are the people on that roof across the street naked?" he asked. Nila stared at him like he'd grown a new head, and then barged to Malu's side to see what Sokka had seen; that there was a group that amounted to two families, sunning themselves in the day's last rays, with nary a stitch upon them. Nila shook her head and grumbled.

"Of course, it would stand to reason," she said. "The Fire Nationals receive little enough sun; when it does make appearance, they intend to enjoy it to its utmost. And that would, apparently, require nudity."

"I thought all Fire Nationals were prudes," Sokka muttered, taking in the scene nonchalantly until Nila gave him a prod. As though he were _only_ staring at the teenaged daughter.

"I'm getting a feeling that Zuk... Li and Azula are hardly typical specimens of a National," Malu said. She shook her head. "That's just crazy. They could get a sunburn like that! In a place you _really_ don't want to get a sunburn!"

"The ankles?" Nila asked, glancing down toward her own boots.

"...there too, I guess," Malu said. Sokka rolled his eyes and turned.

And saw that there was one more person in the room than there should have been. The intruder, slender but obviously wiry rather than spindly, had some sort of hooked stick, which he immediately thrust toward Sokka, probably intending on tearing flesh from bone, or at least snarling clothing hopelessly. It was an action without thought to kip aside, and tear Space Sword from its hiding place, bringing it up and through that catching-pole, the arc of the swing continuing up and toward the man's face. It got no deeper than an inch, but drew that inch from cheek to cheek, and through the nose that separated them.

The man's scream of surprise – and pain – caused an explosion of movement. The door slammed open, and a man in thick, utilitarian armor was standing in the doorway. He opened his mouth to say something, only to be beaned in the head by a lemon... which detonated an instant later. Sokka clapped his hand over his eyes and nose, and dove blind for the bag which held those few things he couldn't replace – his boomerang chief amongst them. He dove out of the stinging, stinking gas to the window, only to find upon opening his eyes that Nila had drop-kicked the man back into the hallway, and used the fact that she was now on the floor to pull her rifle out of its hiding place, before rolling to her feet and backing toward those who had gone before her.

"This is bad! This is really bad!" Malu said. She then twisted and slammed a hand toward the window. Despite not actually touching it, the glass exploded outward, probably burst by a blast of air shaped to detonate the portal from its moorings. "Drop everything and run!" Malu shouted.

She was the first one to bound across the level of the roofs, to the one which was a story lower next door. She got only half way there when a black streak zipped out of a window across the street, and impaled through her calf, she too surprised by its unexpected existence to ward it. As such, it was unelegantly and painfully that Malu slammed to a rolling stop on the next roof.

"Don't just stand there! Help her!" Nila shouted. Sokka gave a nod, and jumped through the window himself. A second later, behind him, there was another bang, another of Nila's 'grenades' going off and blinding somebody. The impact of jumping down a story hurt his knees more than he'd have thought; of course, it probably didn't help that he had people like Aang and Zuko, who each seemed to have springs for calves, as his references. He nevertheless rolled to a stop somewhat less brutally than Malu did. The airbender was pulling herself slowly to a stunned sit, before she let out a groan of agony and reached toward the arrow which had snapped off part-way, yet was still clean through her leg.

"No, don't touch it! You'll just make it bleed faster," Sokka said as he quickly ducked under the side with the arrow, and pulled her to her feet. They quickly hobbled past the low wall that the downward stairs made, just an instant before the thap-thap-thaprattle of other arrows either snapping against the masonry, or skittering off if struck shallowly enough.

"Take it out take it out take it out take it out," Malu was saying in litany.

"Don't touch it!" Sokka snapped. He heard a fresh bang, followed by Si Wongi cursing. He looked to the window behind and above them, and saw Nila go through it. Backward. She landed flat on her back, and for a second that lasted a thousand years, she was utterly still and silent at the end of it. Only after his initial surge of panic, did her limbs start to pull in, and her face form a rictus of pain and incoherence. There was a metallic clatter nearby, and Sokka could see the tines of a hook pulled tight against the lip of the roof. With a growl, he slashed forward at it, the momentum carrying him straight to the edge. Therefore, he had the mixed pleasure and dread of watching a man fall three stories off of his sundered line. He landed a great deal less gently than Nila had.

He turned, to see another man much like him, raising something toward him. He flinched back, but it wasn't nearly enough to clear the path of the arrow, which slammed into his sword-arm's shoulder, causing him to drop Space Sword from suddenly numb fingers. He still scooped it up as quick as he could with his left hand; one was as good as the other for him. He backed away, an arrow sticking out of his chest – the upper right portion of it, at any rate – and fell back toward Malu, as there were more metallic clanks. And more sounds of approach. There was a last thud, of somebody landing with greater grace than any of the teenagers, and then the hiss of metal being pulled from scabbard. Sokka looked 'round the corner, to where Nila was still on her back, barely conscious. There was a man there, his face painted ghoulish red, his eyes stark and severe.

"If you value your friend's life, you'd best drop the sword," the soldier said, pressing his own edge to Nila's throat to prove his point. The shuffling of people moving continued to mount, until Sokka could see others, as red-painted as the first, surrounding they three. All but that first had a bow drawn, an arrow directed straight into somebody's heart, if they felt a need to release.

Malu's eyes were tearing up for terror, but Sokka... he just let out a sigh, even with the pain of having an impaled clavicle. "What do we do?" Malu asked, her voice tiny.

"...I _hate_ getting captured," Sokka muttered. And then, he let the sword clatter to the rooftop.

* * *

><p>"What? What's taking so long?" Toph asked at Zuko's back. But he remained silent. "Come on, Li, this isn't funny anymore."<p>

"Just stay quiet for a second," Zuko said, as he watched the knot of Yu Yan mercenaries throw the hog-tied Tribesman onto the street in front of the array of the Coordinator's men who'd gathered just outside the Drunken Dragon. The words that each said to the other were lost to distance, but just seeing it was enough to tell Zuko everything that needed saying.

"Don't tell me that we're going to have to get into another scrap," Toph said, sounding somewhat begrudging. "...I think I _pulled_ something beating down all those criminals back there."

"No, we're not," Zuko said.

"You don't sound good. What do you see, Li?" Toph demanded.

"They've got Sokka, his woman, and Mina," Zuko whispered.

"What?" she shouted.

"What part of 'stay quiet' don't you understand?" Zuko whispered harshly in answer to that.

"We've gotta stop 'em," Toph said, trying to surge past Zuko. But for all Toph was stronger than she looked, she was still a thirteen year old girl, and as such, lacked the leverage that Zuko could muster. "Hey! Let me go, you butt-hole!"

"Toph _listen to me_," Zuko said directly into her ear. "You can't see what I see. There are fifty Yu Yan watching this street for somebody to try. The Coordinator has this entire _neighborhood_ cordoned off and set in perimeter. If we try to rescue them, we'll just get captured like they did, and then Azula and the others are in _real_ trouble."

Toph gave a last struggle, but it was probably purely symbolic, before she thrust a hand into her pocket, and pulled out something which looked like a squishy shard of metal. "I can blind 'em, and make off with them in the confusion."

"The Yu Yan are trained to fight blind," Zuko said, turning her to face him. "So are the Ghurkas. We can't win this one."

"We should still try!" Toph snapped at him.

"Sometimes doing the wrong thing is a lot worse than doing nothing at all," Zuko told her, neatly inverting what Aang so often said, because in this circumstance, it was absolutely true. "We can hide now, _survive_, and rescue them later. This isn't surrender, it's just a tactical retreat."

"Retreat. Yeah," Toph said, not sounding very happy with it all. But less than an outright loss. Her blind eyes were locked around her feet, where they were hidden inside partial shoes. "...is anybody watching us?"

Zuko gave a glance around. "No," he said, and braced himself. Because of that, he wasn't taken by surprise when the blind earthbender opened the alleyway under them, and dropped them into a cellar.

* * *

><p>Aang squinted at the sight before him. The sun wouldn't be up much longer, but unless those guys were everywhere on the path from here to the Drunken Dragon, then they'd be fine to get back. And the whistle that sounded, first from one factory in the distance, and then a plethora more, sounded the end of one shift of the work-day, and summoned forth the next. After all, unlike Ba Sing Se, the city of Azul, it seemed, never allowed itself to sleep.<p>

"I don't like the way this smells," Katara said.

"Then you obviously haven't gotten nearly used enough to Azul," Azula pointed out. "Everything stinks in this city."

"I was referring to the fact that what's-his-face's soldiers are in the streets... streets which are otherwise mostly abandoned," Katara corrected.

"I don't think that the Coordinator, for all his pull, could empty his city so quietly," Azula pointed out.

"Then where is everybody?" Aang asked, as the first significant knots of people they'd seen all day began to emerge, blinking, from the factories and bask in the sunlight and warmth.

"Likely sunning themselves for all they're worth," Azula said with a dismissing wave of her hand. "It's probably the reason why Di Huo has eclipsed Ember Island as a vacation spot for the Embiar. For a lot of my people, it's been a _long_ time since we saw the sun."

"This whole thing's got me a little confused, honestly," Katara said. "_Why_ does it always rain in the Fire Nation? _Why_ doesn't it rain in the East?"

"And why's it so cold here in the dead of Fire Nation summer?" Azula added, a frown on her face.

"This isn't cold."

"It is for _summer_," Azula said. The crowds grew larger as they pressed toward the textile factory that had been provided by Zuko and Sokka's reconnaissance from the days before.

"I... might have an answer for that," Aang said.

Both young women turned to him, obviously wanting him to go on but not slow down from their advance.

"Azula, how's the Fire Nation supposed to be? From the other times you remember it?" Aang asked.

"Bright, sunny, hot, and dry," Azula rattled off easily.

"And what do you remember about your time in the East... you went to the East back then, didn't you?"

"Of course I did; I had to chase after you and my brother," Azula shook her head. "Wet, cold, dreary and..." she trailed off.

"...did the world just trade weather from one continent to the other?" Katara asked.

"No, not _just_ that," Aang said, now having to weave through the people who were very quickly making their ways home. There were very few hours of daylight left, but no doubt they wanted to enjoy what had been stolen from them by having to work indoors. "The big problem with the world, with reality itself, is Imbalance, with both big and little 'I'. The world's been trying to correct that any way it could. Rain in the Fire Nation, drought in the Earth Kingdoms. But it's never enough."

"Then why is it so frigid?" Azula asked, her tone still guarded.

"It's _not_ frigid," Katara noted, sweating profusely.

"Because Imbalance is loose," Aang said. "There's no balancing act anymore. Now, it's all sliding down. It's probably cold everywhere," he said, not particularly happy that he had to put to air the thoughts which had plagued him since their run-in with Agni. "...and it's probably going to get worse."

"So it'll be comfortable here? Great," Katara said.

"Don't be ignorant," Azula said unkindly, but there was a concern to her tone and to her face that she probably wouldn't admit to having. After all, Azula was many things but sensitive was not one of them. Or at least, she didn't want anybody to know she was sensitive; to those she cared about, there was nothing more important. That was why Ty Lee, the acrobat who would either later become an airbender or possibly was always the Avatar, meant so much to her. Why one of her could never forgive herself for letting harm come to the girl, and why the other would rather die than keep fighting her.

The streets were already starting to empty somewhat, not completely but thinning greatly. Thus, it was far easier to actually reach the outside of the textile mill which sat beside a channel that ran foul-smelling and oily water toward the bay. Aang had a fairly good notion that if he tried to bend that water, it wouldn't work quite right. Probably because it was only about half actually _water_.

"So you remember who we're looking for?" Katara asked.

"...not really," Aang admitted.

"I do. That's all that matters," Azula said. The waterbender gave her a bit of a stink-eye, but proceeded no further than that. It was for the best; Aang didn't relish the notion of having to keep the peace inside his own little gang, added to the problems of trying to solve the problems of the world, the Spirit World, and existence itself. It was a daunting mess, and he wasn't sure how he was going to balance it all if push came to shove.

Thus, Aang was left somewhat baffled when the two women combed the workers – mostly women – who exited the mill, feeding some sort of stiff paper cards into a pneumatic punch as they went. As much as he wanted to help, lend his eyes to scrutinizing those who streamed past, his own gaze ended up on Azula time and time again.

Gods help him, but this _really_ wasn't a good time to be a hormonal teenager. And he _really_ wasn't helped by the fact that Azula was sculpted like some sort of deity figure.

"Stop staring at me," Azula said, tone distracted, as she continued to keep her gaze sternly away from him. How had she even _known_?

"I wasn't..." Aang began.

"Yeah, stop it. It's weird," Katara added, likewise not even looking in his direction.

Did women have eyes in the back of their heads or something?

Azula broke Aang's baffled ponderance with a quiet grunt, then a nod toward somebody in particular. Katara answered that nod with one of her own, and the two moved forward to intercept the woman as she moved with the crowd down one street, the Avatar trailing behind the three women involved like a lost puppy. It didn't help that, for all intents and purposes, he had about as much agency as one in this instance. There were a lot of problems that he could solve as the Avatar, but right now, any attempt to do that would result in blood, fire, screaming, and scowls of disapproval from Azula.

"Excuse me? 'Did you drop your spool'?" Katara asked the woman as they approached. She locked rigid for a moment, then cast a glance back at those who followed her. She was of a darker complexion, somewhere between that of Azula and Katara, and her eyes were a flat gray much like Aang's.

"No. I keep a close eye on those things. You must have me mistaken with somebody else," the woman said, her tones quiet and clipped. Azula, though, got a suspicious look, and grabbed the woman's shirt. The woman's face pulled into a rictus, one of alarm rather than confusion, and that expression didn't change as Azula leaned in to sniff at the woman's clothing.

"Smoke," she said. "You work at the other factory, the one that burned this morning."

"I work wherever there's a check..." the woman claimed.

"Most people would take their place of employment burning to the ground as a chance to go home," Katara noted.

"Well, things aren't like up in the hills; if you don't work, you don't get to sleep where the smog won't choke you," the woman claimed.

"You went from there, to here," Azula said. She shook her head, then, "and you didn't do it for money."

"I..." she began.

"Stop. Now," Azula said. "We know who you are. And we know what you can offer, so stop this dancing around and admit it."

The woman gave a glance, to the alleys, then to the street. "Would it kill you to be a bit more discrete?" the Seamstress hissed at them.

"Discretion is a luxury that is in _very_ short supply these days," Azula said.

"It's not a luxury, it's a necessity every bit as much as food or shelter," the Seamstress said. She nodded briskly ahead of her. "Follow me. We can at least get in before the smog comes."

"We've got a place you can stay for one night," Katara pointed out.

"No, you don't," she said. She continued to look around, but her strides meant that they either had to keep up, navigating through the exhausted sea of working women, or be left behind and out of the conversation entirely. "The Spider's men have been combing the streets since yesterday. He knows that somebody important is trying to hide in his city. And he doesn't like it when other people intrude on his territory."

"We saw them earlier this afternoon," Azula said. "We won't be staying in the city long."

"Too long already if you've found me."

"Who do you work for, anyway?" Katara asked, as both she and Aang were somewhat in the dark as to what this woman's agenda really was.

"Two textile companies, three trading houses, and a spy network as old as the Monolith. Which would be par for the course for any Azuli worth the name," the Seamstress pointed out, but she didn't crack the smirk that the almost-joke warranted. "The question you should be asking is 'has the Spider been following us?' And I think I know the answer to that."

"Of course he hasn't," Aang said. "Who's the Spider? Is he some sort of criminal?"

"He's the Coordinator," Azula said. "...apparently."

"Why do they call him the spider? That doesn't seem a very noble title," Katara asked.

Whatever answer the Seamstress was going to give was cut off by a knife slamming into her side and digging in about an inch. It was enough to cause her to flinch back and let out a clipped scream of shock and pain. The crowd instantly let out a scream of pandemonium of itself, and tried to flee in every direction.

"Where did that come f–" Azula began. Then, a boot from a man leaping down from a second-story window caught her in the face and knocked her sprawling to the street. Aang twisted into instant firebending, a blast of force which kept the man from landing with any grace and sent him rolling down the street. Azula, thought, struggled to get back up, her eyes slightly bleary. She shook her head, and looked at Aang. No, _passed_ Aang. Her eyes widened, and she slashed forward with a chop of flames that shifted from blue at their origin to ruddy scarlet at their tip, one that Aang had to lean aside from so it didn't cut him in half on its way to send another pair of men in garish, purple-and-red armor scattering before it. Instead of helmets, they had some sort of rubber mask that hid their features entirely, save for glass lenses over their eyes. How somebody managed to stay inconspicuous in those outfits utterly beggared the imagination of the Avatar.

But he didn't stay confounded long.

The firebending forms hammered ruthlessly into his head by Azula were at hand in an instant; after all, he couldn't use any other without instantly drawing attention to the fact that the Avatar was both still alive, and completely surrounded. He twisted low, into a new blast of explosive force at one of the soldiers, but this time, before it landed a telling blow, the soldier twisted fire into a cutting arc, one that deflected the power of the explosion straight up into the sky, before twisting hard, and letting the arc lash out toward the Seamstress and Katara.

If there was one good thing about airbending, it was that sometimes, it could be very subtle; it wasn't easy, but he repositioned himself to snap that lash before it burned the Water Tribesman who was at the arrow-feathered older woman. Because of that, he was in the perfect position to get a sap crack against the back of his head. He twisted with it; it hurt, but it didn't drop him directly into unconsciousness as the bearer had probably hoped. Thus, Aang was able to spin an axe-kick of fire toward him, slamming him into the ground with its force. It wasn't until after he finished that he considered that the axe-kick was a good way to _kill_ somebody. That he still breathed and looked like he was slowly going to retake his footing didn't negate the fact that Aang, the Air Nomad, a pacifist from a peaceful time... _almost killed somebody_.

And he didn't have time to think about it.

Azula pushed herself up to her feet, but before she even rose from a kneel, she had to ward off a man with some sort of catch-pole. She stripped it past her, and sent her fist into the man's relatively armored throat. She turned with the pole, probably to throw it at somebody, but was interrupted when a door exploded outward in shards, followed by a fresh explosion that blasted into Azula's back and propelled her to the other side of the street, bashing her head against a lamp as she did so.

Still, groggy and singed or not, she was trying to get to her feet. Aang got exactly one step toward Azula to try to get her moving again, when there was a sound of shattering glass, and a thick white smoke began to rise up in a billow from where it'd landed. Another crash, and another cloud, cutting Aang off from Azula. A third arced down from the roof of a warehouse opposite the housing, and Aang had to hurl himself at it to keep it from bursting right at Katara's feet. He could already feel himself start to tear up involuntarily from the wisps that reached him from that distance, and those drifting from the top of the bottle. He set it down, but his efforts seemed for naught, because his rise was cut off by somebody searing flame toward Katara.

A bender who couldn't bend was in a rough situation, and Aang could only do so much. He slipped to the other side of them, hoping against hope that Azula would be alright on her own. The crowds had erupted into outright panic, now, and those that had been too close to the glass bottles that fell earlier were now on their hands and knees, crawling away from it, coughing and weeping from badly irritated eyes. Aang warded the blast of fire up; the second one, which was intended to capitalize on a predictable defense, had to be slammed into the wall of the warehouse out of sheer reflex. Azula always said that reflexes were something that were hard to hone, but he had reflexes enough to share.

The next strike was one from the other side of the veil of acrid fog. Azula stumbled backward, rolling to a halt, unsteadily on her feet with her fists out before her even as her eyes leaked profusely for the gas. Those eyes looked almost as glassy as the vials containing the vile substance. She wasn't doing well.

"Azula, we need to..." Aang began, but was clobbered in the face by what felt like a brick. Katara shifted her attention from the bleeding woman to the bleeding Avatar.

"Aang! Are you al- gack!" Katara too found herself cut off, but this was by a strap of leather that looped over her head, and pulled against her open mouth, gagging her, even as she was heaved over a man in armor's shoulder and slammed head-first into the street. Aang pushed himself up.

"Stay away from my friends!" He shouted, as white began to intrude on his vision.

His eyes... no. No! Hold it off! DON'T DO THIS!

The effort to keep from slipping into the unbridled Avatar State in this moment and in this place was monumental, all-consuming, and, sadly, not instantaneous. The distraction that pushing that white, those whispers away probably lasted for all of a second and a half as he stood unsteadily, fire over his fists... but a lot could happen in a second and a half.

Like a hard-soled boot appearing out of the fog, directed at a drop-kick directly at the side of Aang's face. The whiteness fled, but only because Aang was sent sprawling by the blow, too stunned to be angry. He pushed himself up, and when he breathed out, the breath came out wet. He felt, through a sense of tremor in the ground, that somebody was approaching him, even as the fog rolled to him and burned his eyes and throat. If he'd been half-way cogent at least, he would have subtly blown it away.

Aang lashed out explosively as he tried to rise, but his balance wasn't in after that brutal blow which probably left a boot-print on his face. The blast of flame went wide. Azula, who'd been barely warding off the blows of the three firebenders who had chosen to square against her, finally succumbed as the drop-kicker slid past Aang and drove a haymaker over hardened knuckles directly into the back of Azula's head. She dropped like a sack. Aang almost did exactly like her, save the loss of consciousness thing. He tried to see how many there were, but with the horrible sting of that gas in his eyes, it was quickly becoming lost in the water of involuntary tears. Aang could only see shapes. Purple and red shapes. Other shapes curled up on the ground, trying to protect themselves. And the people that Aang cared about were only shapes now as well. His head was spinning, his face hurt like anything, and his body felt leaden. But he got to his feet, slowly as he did. He'd have to... to take them all on.

In his current state of mind – addled – he actually thought he might pull it off.

That thought was quickly dispelled when just one of the three who'd been holding off Azula sent out a blast of flame. Aang tried to ward it, but that was beyond him at the moment. He stumbled back, before his balance, compromised by the repeated head-blows, gave out, and he tipped back to the pavers, with enough force that he was finally given an unconsciousness which was about as big a problem as could exist, albeit one that Aang was in no position to rectify.

Neither was he the fact that his headband had come off after the first face-kick, and now lay in a useless loop on the street.

* * *

><p>"What does it mean?" Hisui asked the dark-skinned Easterner, who sat on the floor of his cell, the only motion he bothered to give the shifting of his chest. "I know you know something I don't. Where did those people go?"<p>

If she didn't think that he might make a break for it when she opened the cage, she would have, just so she could shake him until answers fell out. The Si Wongi blinked, but remained silent.

"Look, you've got to know that _this isn't personal_," she said, imploring him. "People are missing. They might even be dying, and you're just going to sit there and let it happen, when I know you can help them?"

"You can't," the Si Wongi said, his eyes still glassy and distant.

"I've trained my entire life to keep the spirits at bay. I've learned under the Fire Sages since I was _three_! Tell me what's doing this!" Hisui shouted at him.

"...I don't wish to kill you," the Si Wongi prisoner said, before swallowing against the choker that locked his shamanic abilities away.

"Fat chance of that happening," Hisui muttered. "You know, and I'm going to find out, so I can stop it."

"You can't," he repeated, a certainty in his vague and ephemeral voice. "... you don't have the eyes to see. Don't have the hands to strike. They would kill you, and it... it would be _my_ fault," he said with a slow nod. A few more blinks, then he finally turned to the pale shaman. "When you see it, you will know. And when you know, run. Or die. I don't want you to die."

"...what are you talking about?" Hisui asked. "A shaman can face down any spirit that exists. And I'm a pretty good one."

"And if your enemy doesn't... doesn't _exist_?" he asked, his words slurring enough that even he knew he had to repeat himself.

"Then there's no problem," Hisui said, but as she turned toward the door, a notion hit her. Talking to this guy was like trying to play tag with an Azuli assassin. But there were things that you could focus on, like... "This thing you say will kill me? Does it exist, or doesn't it?"

Wait for it.

"Yes," the Si Wongi answered, still watching her, after a fashion.

"Something can't exist and not exist at the same time. That's impossible," Hisui pointed out.

"Yes. It is," the Si Wongi agreed. Then he shook his head. "Even... even when It _isn't_."

Hisui stood, her back to the door. "Is it a spirit?"

"Yes."

"Which stands in some sort of state between existing and not?"

"Yes."

"And why would it want to kill me?" she asked.

"It wants to eat you. It's so hungry. It will eat everything... it's already eaten the heart..." he trailed off, and fell silent, his eyes drifting down to where the bars plunged under the stone, probably at the cracks that the mason's left when they cut the holes. Hisui wished she was annoyed. That she could dismiss all of this as pointless hokum and paranoia. But just as he'd said, she knew what she felt, and it... it didn't feel right at all.

But, fortunately for Hisui, she _also_ didn't feel a heartbeat begin, as a small stone of jade rolled against gravity out of the bag which held it, a mile away in the Dragon Bone Catacombs. The Jade Toe glowed ever so faintly, only noticeable because it was slightly less black than the room around it. The heart at its center, the essence of what it was, it beat, and it waited. Destiny could be a funny thing.

* * *

><p>The door was thrown open, and Malu was pushed roughly forward; as one of her legs still had an arrow through it, she had little recourse but to fall onto her face, as her hands were still tied behind her back. A few seconds later, Sokka and Nila were given much the same treatment, though those two managed to soften the blow by turning sideways as they fell. Malu wormed her way up to a kneel, trying to shake the stun from her head and the stars from her sight. "What's going on?" Malu asked.<p>

"Mawu? Id dad oo?" Katara's voice came from a form whom Malu now noticed, one of four with bags over their heads. One was rail-slender, and had hand-covering manacles on. Aang? That was _not_ good. The next after Katara, a feminine form built for strength. The last was a stranger, with a more mature and world-worn posture.

"Katara?" Malu asked, then looked to the others, who were likewise forcing themselves slowly up, while others passed their possessions to a table that sat in the room. It wasn't a very large room, but it managed to impose nonetheless. Besides the soldiers, there was one other, and he looked nothing the soldier.

He was older, his hair greying from his temples and running like a fall of salt down his fluffy beard. Eyes, lined for age, flicked toward those who were presented to him, as he continued to eat some sort of cooked fowl. "So these are the intruders on my realm?" he asked.

"And their personal effects," the soldier said, setting down Nila's rifle last. He blinked at it a few times, and wiped his mouth with a napkin, rising up to stand on bare feet and rounding his table. "May I ask your orders, my lord?"

"In time," their master, obvious from his demeanor and his carriage, said with a dismissive flick of the hand. He picked up the rifle, and looked it over.

"Put that down, you..." Nila began, and was slapped upside the face for her trouble. Sokka let out a growl, and lunged, only to get kicked in the stomach. The master didn't so much as bat an eyelash at what happened below.

"...wh...who are you?" Malu was the one to ask.

He turned toward her, still holding Nila's weapon. "Really? I had thought my face would be all of the introduction that I needed, especially to one of my race," he said. Even his _voice_ seemed placid and calm, for all its depth and timbre. But it was the eyes that held Malu's attention. Someone said, long ago, that the eyes were the portal to the depths of the soul. If that were the case, then whoever this man was... he was practically _empty_. "But that assumption was probably premature, and you could well come from Whalesh stock," he shook his head. "For all the virtue of their monotheism in this world of mass and indiscriminate worship, they just _had_ to be heretics. But dinner is no time to speak of religion," he said turning back toward the table, and beginning to stare down its sights at a window. "I am the Coordinator, and at this moment, your lives are in my hand."

"...my leg really hurts," Malu murmured despite herself.

"Good," he said, still staring down Nila's weapon. He then tilted it and started to manipulate it's mechanism. "Pain is the sensation of weakness leaving the body. You can either surmount pain, or succumb to it, and it is a very good guide to the nature of a man," he took a step toward them, finally levering open the firing mechanism. "You can talk to a fellow for a decade, on every subject and topic... but _pain_ has a way of cutting to the truths that most matter," he paused, and pulled one of the paper shells from Nila's stolen bag. He idly unwrapped it until he saw its nature, and nicked its top off with a knife which he seemed to produce from thin air, before shoving that bullet into place.

He nodded. "Extraordinary. The mechanism holds the shell in the perfect spot to avoid misfires," he then looked up at the Si Wongi on the floor. "Where did you find this masterpiece?"

"_I_ built it," Nila said direly, spitting out a dribble of blood from her split lip.

"I see," he said. "The sighting is of most interest. How precise a weapon is this?" he asked.

"Very," Nila answered. He raised the gun to his shoulder, looking down it at a pillar in the corner of the room.

Then, he swung the gun toward the last bag-headed person in the room, and let the gun emit a terrible bang, a cloud of gray smoke, and screams from everybody capable of them. Including Sokka, Malu noted. The red splat slammed into the wall behind the woman, and she tipped over forward, the only sound coming from her being fading, pained and anguished moans. "I see you speak truly," he said. "Remove the bags. Not hers. She deserves to die with the anonymity that she lived."

"Zhe'z zdill alaib!" Katara shouted past what had to be a gag.

He nodded. "Possibly, though doubtless not for long," and fell silent until the bags were pulled from Katara, from Azula, and from Aang. And showed the blue arrow there to everybody who cared to look. "And there he is, in his very person. To think that I would play host to the Avatar himself," he said, setting the rifle aside, and pulling up a sort of scarf from a chair which had sat unused for the entire conversation. Ungently, he tied it around the boy's brow, tucking it back so that it formed something of a turban that lay low across Aang's brows. "And that's not something I feel like announcing to the world. Not yet, anyway," he turned away.

"Why ah oo ooin' yiz?" Aang said around his gag.

"Another precaution, child; I know that you think your vaunted 'state' can give you the power to break your bonds at any time you please. If you do that, you will instantly find the lives of your companions forfeit. _I_ might not be able to stop you... but I have a fair notion that _you_ are capable of stopping you."

"What... do you want... from us?" Sokka asked, still recovering from the kick he'd received to stop his shouting of alarm after the wanton murder that happened right before Malu's eyes.

"The complete set," he said with a smirk. He stooped down in front of Azula, and she glared at him. Her gag, unlike those for Aang and Katara, was made of iron and rubber; not something that she could burn. "After all, one royal sibling just doesn't have the same aesthetic. They truly _must_ be paired."

"Shall we take them to their rooms, my lord?" the soldier asked.

"Hrm? On, no, not quite yet," he said with a dismissive wave. He turned to Aang. "I must warn you, if you do anything to reveal..." he tapped the middle of Aang's brow with a fingertip, "...through action, word, or omission, then anybody whom you reveal it to will have to die. Simplest way to keep a secret, after all."

"C...Coordinator, are you saying..." the most verbose of the soldiers asked, and was cut off when a garrote wire looped over his head and pulled taut. Malu let out a squeak of terror, noting that the other six who were in the room had also, somehow without Malu – or _anybody_ – noticing, been dispatched. The young man with the cold grey eyes gave Azul a nod before twisting his garrote one final time, and silently setting the soldier onto the floor.

"There. The circle is closed. And if I cannot trust my spymaster," he motioned to the man who couldn't yet be in his thirties, "then who can I?"

"...I don't know why you're doing this," Malu whispered.

"To prove a point," Azul said with calm and placid tones, rising to his feet. "Everything that has come up to this moment is finished. Whatever your plans, they are over. The only plan in this country, is _my_ plan. And you _will_ serve your places in it. Your only options are obedience, or pain, _followed_ by obedience. You know, and have seen, that I am willing to kill those valuable to me as a simple demonstration. So consider what I would sacrifice to prevent any sort of ill-conceived rebellion against my will. It will be swift, certain, and I can guarantee that you will regret your intransigence."

"I... I..." Malu whispered.

"Calm yourself," Nila muttered under her breath.

"I suggest you listen to your outlander friend," Azul said with a conversational tone, returning to the table, and now hefting up Sokka's 'Space Sword'. "...and a Piandao blade. Remarkable."

He pointed that blade at Malu. Even despite the great gulf of distance between them, she leaned away. It hurt to do so, but she could as soon not as tear off her own skin and dance in her bones. "You," he ordered in particular, "are going to find the Royal Prince and bring him here."

"Wh.. why me?" Malu asked.

"Dnn oo drr..." Azula warned through an iron bit.

"Numerous reasons," Azul said. He leaned forward on the blade, toward her even with the distance great. "Chief amongst them, that if you don't succeed, I will kill everybody you value in this room," he said. Then he paused, and turned to the gagged contingent. "Perhaps not those two. Those two have worth, but the rest?"

"You evil whore-son!" Nila snapped.

"I will forgive insults to my name, but bear in mind that my forgiveness is not infinite," Azul said, his tone still calm and unwavering. He then locked her with a stare that made even stalwart Nila flinch. "...and even if she does complete her objective, you can still make me weapons without the use of your legs."

Nila fell silent, but Malu could tell that there were a thousand things she wanted to call him, and none of them polite.

"The next reason why I send you, you nobody person, is that I have a fair assumption that you won't be able to _get very far_ if you for some reason decide to wash your hands of your friends and compatriots," he moved closer, and leaned down to up her chin, clamping her jaw shut under a remarkably tight hand. "Finally, the last reason I send you," he said, then gave a glance toward Sokka, "instead of, say, him, is because you have until this time tomorrow to fulfill my requirements, and one of your sex will have ample motivation to return to the safety of my bosom quickly."

"But that's..."

"A reasonable enough timeframe, I think," Azul cut her off. "I find that pressure tends to cause people to act quite in excess of themselves. If you do not return with the Crown Prince by my dinner tomorrow, I will send my servants to find you, and they will bear with them an insignia of your failure, in the flesh of those you failed. Each day thereafter, the penalty will grow more severe. But I guarantee you, they will not die unless I want them to," he said.

"Wahg dah heh habban doo oo?" Azula burbled, the look in her eye... almost uncanny. Like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. And the Coordinator's expression, at that question, ceased to be the placid and pleasant mask that it had been, converting to an expressionless but absolute anger.

"That... is none of your concern," he hissed through grit teeth. When he turned back to Malu, his composure was, for the most part, restored. "I suggest that you move quickly, girl. The smog will be rising, soon, and that will no doubt make the search far harder than it otherwise would be. And you can't cover as much ground as you might like."

He pulled Malu to her feet, and gave her an idle shove backward. She went face first into the door. She felt something at her hands, and after a click and a tug, they were released from their bondage. The look on the assassin's eye told her that she had less than no chance of effecting a release of the others. Not now. So she bit down the tears that were welling up in her eye for the shame, the failure of this, and started to limp out of the palace, the shaft of the arrow tearing at her leg with every step.

The only reason she even _could_, was because this hadn't a shade on how much it hurt to cleanse her soul.

* * *

><p>"Come on, come up with a plan! That's what you're supposed to be good at!" Toph lambasted him, as the two of them squatted with about a dozen other poor, stinking and exhausted looking people in the condemned building. The fog had rolled in, and done so with a vengeance. For all that Zuko could see, the world ended one floor below where he now resided. And there was every chance that the fog would rise.<p>

"I'm trying to," Zuko said as he sat, his legs dangling out of the burnt-out window that was split right down to the floor. "I'm... I just don't know what to do."

"Well, we gotta do something! They got our guys! We can't let 'em run off with Brain and Boomgirl and Annoying... well, they can _keep_ Annoying, but the first two I kinda want back."

Zuko looked across the fog, toward where structures rose out of the grey-brown sea below them. The mansions of the rich and the powerful, daring only show a portion of the wealth that lay within. "Well... We're going to have to get them out, that's obvious," Zuko admitted. "But the question is _how_? He's got ways of coming at you from every angle. There's no sneaking in. And there's no barging in, either."

Toph wilted at that last fact, and shook her head with a growl. "Come on! We're s'posed to be kicking ass right now! Why is it that _everybody_ seems to capture us?"

"As I'm given to understand, that's been a frequent problem for the group," Zuko said, scratching at his hair. Between not having the facilities to wash it, and not giving himself the time to since they left the Western Air Temple, it was now a long and hellish tangle. It'd take more work than he was frankly willing to offer to set it right, but for the moment, it made him seem the desperate vagrant that was easier to hide in Azul City. "We've got to do this smart..."

He thought hard. Who could even help with something like this? Who would even try?

"...Or we could do it dumb with a lot of speed and power," Toph said.

"No offense, but I doubt that the Avatar Himself could break out of there without a lot of help," Zuko said. It was second nature to him to broach dangerous topics with hypotheticals and obliques. Thankfully, Toph saw the logic in it too. After all, it had been conclusively proven today that there was no telling if somebody was friend or foe in this city, until it was far too late. He pondered for a moment longer, then snapped his fingers. "I think I have somebody... it's not much, but it's a start."

"Who?" Toph asked, leaning toward him.

"Suki," Zuko said. Toph raised a brow. "She's a Kyoshi Warrior. And from what I've seen, she's very good at what she does. The Tribesmen would help their own, I think. But getting them here... That's the problem."

"Where did they land, anyway?"

"One of the less populous islands out to the west," he motioned his hand toward where the sea began at the far edge of the city. "If we could get a message to them," he paused. "_When_ I get a message to them, that's a task force that might give us an edge."

"We need more than an edge. We need a battle-axe," Toph groused. Then, she perked up. "...what the hell?"

"What is it?" Zuko asked, rising from his spot and moving to where Toph sat on the floor with her back to the naked bricks.

"I feel Annoying out there," she said. "But that's impossible. She got ganked!"

Zuko stared at her, then down into the fog-bank which swirled a little bit more near the heart of the street, but offered no more than that. "Toph, is there anybody else out there watching her?"

"Do I look like a mind-reader or something?" she asked.

"I wouldn't put it past you," Zuko offered with a smirk. He didn't notice the mild blush that the odd compliment leant to her. "This could be a trap."

"Of course it's a trap. The only questions are; who's springing it, how, when, and how do we kick them into next week?"

"Who's obvious; with extreme force; as soon as we reach her, and; I'm not sure that we can," Zuko said. Toph let out a grunting sound.

"What?"

"She's limping. Bad," Toph said. She held out a hand toward Zuko that smacked him in the knee incidentally, giving a frown at her not being sure where he was. "I need your shirt."

"My shirt?" he asked. She made a beckoning gesture at him. For an ill-considered second, he thought that she just wanted to see him shirtless. Then he remembered the obvious. He sighed, and pulled it off of his back. "I can't see why you'd need..."

"'Cause I don't want to die when I do this," she said. She quickly wrapped his shirt around her head and face, got to her feet, and hurled herself out the window, vanishing into the fog. One of the squatters gave an alarmed look at him.

"She won't be able to see. She knows that, doesn't she? She won't be able to find her way back," the grey-bearded man who couldn't be more than thirty one years old said.

"She'll be fine. It's the other one out there that we're worried about," Zuko said. The older man sighed, and shifted, turning over on the hard floorboards. There was nothing to sleep on that wasn't softer than planks up here. Still, it was better than sleeping on bricks, or worse, sleeping in the smog. The eddying in the streat began to mount, before bucking down. Zuko raised a brow, before the eddying began to mount up again. Zuko could swear he heard some muffled words down there. Not what they said, though. Then, the eddies began to beeline for the condemned building.

Zuko took that as his cue, and picked his way through the dozen in this room, then over the next dozen who slept in the hall lining its walls so that there was a place for others to walk. He'd seen poverty before. But to see it in the Fire Nation, to see people this desperate and deprived... it sickened him. In a just and fair world, Montoya Azul would be brought to account for allowing something like this for happening. There was a reason rulership was so delicate a fraternity; the low had to respect the high, yes, but the high had to protect the low. That relationship was obviously not present here.

A thought occurred to Zuko; perhaps that Imbalance that Aang went on about so often and for so long manifested in _this_ way, too. If that was the case, then... well, things were worse than Zuko had realized.

He waited at the bottom of the stairs to the next floor down, his feet buried in the thin fog that pooled 'round his ankles, as the uneven thumps of somebody ascending to his level sounded below. At least they hadn't taken long. There was a rippling of the smoke at his feet, and then it blue away, leaving the floor clear. Zuko leaned around the banister, and saw Malu dismissing a sphere of wind that had held her safe against the poison around her.

"Mina? What happened to your leg?" Zuko asked. Malu let out a moan, and sat on a table built against the wall, heaving up a leg which even now dribbled a bit of blood through her torn pantleg.

"Can I take it out, now?" she asked. Zuko winced slightly, seeing the broken-off shaft that protruded from badly inflamed tissue. Zuko nodded to her.

"This is going to hurt, but it'll help," he said. He grabbed the shaft with one hand, and then wiped the hand off on his shirt before grabbing it again as it proved slick. "You might not want to look at this."

Zuko didn't wait any longer, though. With a yank, he pulled the arrow straight through the wound, and instantly bent a flame into the wound, cauterizing it to a hiss of sizzling flesh and a gasp of pain from Malu. He'd expected that she'd do a lot worse. He lifted her leg, and repeated the process on the other side of the injury, once more eliciting a far lesser response than he predicted. She was breathing deep, and looked a bit pale, but she wasn't screaming, thrashing, or cursing. "Lets get her up where it's safe," Toph said, moving herself under Malu's uninjured side, so that Zuko could do the steadying and the lifting. He didn't really consider how much of Malu's blood was getting onto him, outside of wondering how much she had left inside of her. It didn't take long to get Malu upstairs, and into the room with the others. Upon entering, the bearded man glanced at them, let out a low whistle, and the men in the room all gave groans, before rising and leaving with him; only the one older and hard-bitten looking lady remained with them.

For all they were the destitute and the desperate, there was more virtue in these beggars than Zuko warranted in the entire Azuli House.

"How did you get away?" Zuko asked.

"I didn't," Malu said, as she was laid out on the floor. Zuko's shirt was peeled off of Toph's face, and found itself balled up to support Malu's wounded extremity. "The... _that guy_... he wanted me to find you. I didn't think I could do it."

"What? Why?" Toph asked.

"If I don't bring you," she pointed at Zuko, "to him... he's going to hurt Nila and Sokka and..." she could only shake her head. There was such tension and terror on her face, but it didn't boil over into desperate sobbing. No, she had more grit than that.

"He's going to kill them all, isn't he?" Toph asked.

"E...eventually," Malu nodded. She looked at them. "I... don't know what to do. I'm a vagabond, I'm not... I don't know how to do these political things, these assassin-y things. I can't hand you over to them, but if I don't..."

Zuko leaned in. "They have Katara? Do they have my sister? Anil?"

Malu nodded, her face white as the moon which was currently hidden in the clouds. "He knows... who Anil is. That he was going to use him against Zhao somehow. And then, he killed everybody else who served him that did, so..."

"So that he could keep it a secret," Zuko finished. He shook his head. "Typical of the Spider."

"We should just tell everybody that he's got the... person of interest, and that he's not handing him over to the Fire Lord. That'd weaken him up a bit."

"No, that would just result in him killing everybody we told, after torturing them to figure out who told them; he doesn't care if he burns his city to the ground. As long as he's in control of doing it," Zuko said. "There was a reason I didn't want to come back here. This place is poisonous."

"Then what do we do?" Toph asked.

"I thought it was obvious. I'm going to him," Zuko said, slowly but surely. Toph's blind eyes widened.

"Are you out of your damned _mind_?"

He shook his head resolutely. "I'm not leaving my sister in his hands. Not as long as I draw breath."

Malu tried to pull herself up, but Zuko pressed her back down onto the floor. "But... I've got to..."

"You're in shock and I'm amazed you lasted as long as you did," Zuko said.

"There's no way you're going in there," Toph said.

"There's no way I can't," Zuko countered. He gave his head a shake. "I know what he'd do to the ones who had 'no value'; it's not something I'd wish on enemies, let alone friends."

"You finally said we're your friends..." Malu said with a quirk of smile, even as she looked blearily up.

"No, I didn't. You're hallucinating," Zuko said. Toph raised a brow. "What?"

"You're being an idiot."

"I'm being a brother."

"Sounds the same to me," Toph pointed out. She shook her head sternly. "I ain't walking in there. I've had enough of walking into traps that I feel rather strongly against springing 'em when I know they're there."

"Probably for the best. You've got to stay here," Zuko said. Now the other brow rose, completing the set which reached toward the leaky roof.

"Excuse me?" she asked. Zuko took a few steps away from Malu, and pitched his voice low into Toph's ear.

"Look at her. If we bring her back, she'll be dead in a day. Out here, there are clinics for people like her. We can't move her, not now."

"I don't like this," Toph said grimly.

Zuko leaned back, standing to his full height which well overtopped her own. "You think that I do?"

"Point taken," Toph muttered. "What do you want me to do while I'm out here?"

"What else?" Zuko asked. "Find a way to get me out of the obvious trap I blundered into."

"I seem to be doing that a lot these days," Toph noted. She gave a glance roughly at Malu. "What about her? Won't this 'Spider' of yours be pissed that one of you didn't come back?"

"He doesn't know Mina's talents, otherwise he wouldn't have sent her. She has no value to him, except that she might bring me to him. If that happens, then he has no reason to follow through on his threats. He's a psychotic bastard, but he's an honest one," he paused. "Sometimes."

"This... this sucks," Toph muttered, and she kicked at a floor board.

"Hey," he said, tipping her chin up. "If anybody's gonna be able to get me out of that hell-hole, it'd be you," he said, even managing to catch her cadence.

"Flatterer," Toph whispered. And blushed a little.

* * *

><p>He sat, stooped forward, looking over the pristine and verdant glory of the Red Garden. The name didn't exactly seem to suit it; there was almost nothing that grew within that had a scarlet hue. No, its name was more for what it represented. Every plant here was one of the Hui jungle, every call of bird one that fought for space in the skies over Azul. <em>This<em> was Azul, red in tooth, claw, and spine. And from time to time, he even let the feral anomolokia wander in what was nearly its natural habitat.

He didn't inform the groundskeepers, as a rule, when he did.

The shudder at the doors pulled his attention from the natural beauty before him, and he turned to the servant who opened the gilded portal to this oasis of sanity in the midst of the chaos that so often became Montoya Azul's life in the city which bore his name. "What is it?" he asked, not really annoyed that somebody had interjected on his personal time, as they, by now, knew that doing so without good purpose tended to end poorly. It meant that he very seldom had what time he set aside interrupted.

"He has come," the servant said, before offering a bow, and turning to leave the room.

Azul straightened his back, and beheld the young man in the blood-stained undershirt who was escorted in by a solid dozen of Montoya's personal Ghurkas. Firebenders all, professionals all, veterans, all. Azul took a few strides closer, so that a a scant yard separated the old man from the younger one. "Prince Zuko. You grace me with your presence at last."

"I'm here," Zuko's tones weren't petulant; rather, they sounded to have the hard edge of anger to them. "You don't need to torture the others."

"That's my prerogative, not your mandate," Azul said. He looked past him, to the hallway that stretched back toward the body of the Royal Palace. "Where is the girl whom I tasked to find you?"

"Dead," Zuko said.

"Really?" Azul asked, looking the young man in the eye.

"She lost a lot of blood," Zuko said, staring back; his burnished gold eyes seemed to flare in the early morning sunlight through the glass roof. The sun wouldn't last, though. "I don't even know how she managed to get as far as she did."

"Well, the girl's purpose was served," Azul dismissed her utterly.

"She had _a name_!" Zuko shouted, taking a stride forward, only to have four Ghurkas twist into positions before him, their fists burning with anticipation. An unexpected outburst. Perhaps he and that peasant were closer than their relative stations required?

"Everybody has a name, for a little while," Azul said.

"She didn't deserve that," Zuko's words were hot, and his glare, hotter.

"I believe she did," Azul said, turning to walk to the rail again. There was another surge, this time, he was physically held back by the eight Ghurkas behind him. Azul picked up the book that he was paging through out here as he watched the beauty. The book was half empty, and the rest, flowed with a leisurely script on paper which was starting to yellow for age and wet. There was a part of him, a part that he really didn't know how to name, that wanted in the same moment to burn that book, and to encase it in a cage that could last eternity. But instead, his fingers simply closed on it, and he looked upon it, before turning back toward Prince Zuko. "Any rights you believe that you have are simply the privileges that I have deemed fit to grant you. As the banished children of a deposed Fire Lord, you're doubly outlaws. By law, I can do anything that I see fit to you, and there is no court of justice in these lands, nor figure of authority, that can do anything to gainsay me. But that is simply a possibility that may never come to pass. Sit," he motioned to a bench near the door.

"I'll stand," Zuko said, his fists clenched. "Where's my sister?"

"Safe enough. After all, I have use for both of you, and your friend 'Anil'."

"Why?" Zuko asked. Azul chuckled at his baffled expression and tone.

"If I told you, it would ruin much of your worth. And the surprise of it, as well," Azul said. His face then grew very flat, his tones dangerous. "Sit."

Zuko stared back at him. "No."

That was a startling turn, one that felt... off. Out of balance. Off kilter. Somebody denied him. Nobody denied Montoya Azul. But he didn't let it show on his face. "Very well, if you choose to be obstinate, I can summon you at my leisure when you're more prepared to be civil. Until then, I think I'll keep your influences away from your sister for the time being. She's being much more _pliable_ at the moment."

"I will destroy you," Zuko said quietly, causing Azul to look back at him. "I will find some way to burn into the heart of whatever it is that you still hold dear, and make it crumble to ashes around you. I will _find a way_ to hurt you."

Montoya was, honestly, somewhat surprised by that reaction. He expected Zuko petulant, angry, and obsessive. But cold? The older man smirked, pulling at the grey of his beard. "Good luck," he offered.

And a small part of him meant it.

* * *

><p><strong>Canon had its Day of Black Sun, Part 1 and Part 2. Mine has... something thematically quite similar, but on a much more personal scale. As I said, Montoya Azul is, in this world, an irredeemable bastard, but for reasons that are unique to it. In every other world, he has reason not to be, even though he still <em>wants<em> to be. Imbalance, though? That's a force of nature. Is fire evil, because it burns your house down? Is the ocean evil, for swamping your ship? Is the ground evil, for providing something very hard for you to impact against because you fell off a cliff? As is so frequently said about It throughout the narrative, Imbalance and the Avatar are similar concepts in that they both are, irrespective of any outside interferences. The Avatar can be a force for good - Vajrapata, Kyoshi, and Aang - or a force for unforgivable evil, as evidenced by the now-locked-away incarnation who started the Monolith, the tyrannical facist-state for which a dark-age and a generation of starvation and terror was preferable to their rule.**

**Imbalance is, and it wants not to be. And the only way that it can not be, as its nature demands, to make there be nothing, at all, ever. This isn't Doctor Doom we're talking about here. This is _Galactus_.**


	49. The Cage, Part 1

There was a tick-tock that filled the silence in the room where the two teenaged girls sat. The room itself was nothing to be despised; it reeked of wealth and good taste. While red was its primary color, it wasn't the brutal and garish reds which inflamed the senses and unsettled one's rest. No, these were more subtle and content shades, calming, soothing. Gold also made an appearance, but like the reds of the walls and ceilings, it was a tasteful amount, and not more. Whoever had designed this room had done a superb job of it, in that it was grand without being conceited, impressive without being overbearing, and rich without being gauche.

This didn't alter the fact that Azula wanted to set it all on fire.

"I grow increasingly bored of this place," the Si Wongi girl muttered, as she sat at the edge of a seat, her elbows on her knees and her eyes hard. "Would that they only saw fit to pair non-benders instead of women against men, I have no doubt that I and the Tribesman could have been free by now."

"Kind of the point, I think," Azula said, tapping the jaw which still hurt like hell from where the – now dead – soldier had kicked it. "The Spider is a calculating man. If he put a man and a woman together, the man would be tempted to do something drastic, for he'd feel his honor was impinged upon; that would be unnecessary risk, and an unwanted complication."

"Please. The Tribesman is perfectly aware of his own limitations," Nila told her.

"Yes, but he," she gave a stern nod toward the door which sat locked to the outside world, "isn't aware of that."

"More fool, he," Nila agreed, with a nod.

"Of all those with the Avatar's little group, I have to admit; you are the only one that I don't have several lifetimes worth of experience with," Azula muttered.

"I am a paragon of misfortune and unpleasant opportunity," Nila said with a shrug. "A fortune teller has said as much."

"Bah. Tell me you don't believe in that nonsense," Azula rolled her eyes.

"I wish that I could not," Nila said, shaking her head lightly. "But as I have heard, every other prediction that she has given has played true. Tzu Zi restoring her mother's health, my being the source of the greater part of my own suffering, the issue with Sokka's paramour..."

"You."

"Yes, I," she rolled her eyes as well. "And as I am to understand, she also predicted the arrival of the other Tribesman's future husband."

"Oh, how novel. She managed to succeed on the nine of ten chance that Katara would be interested in men. How astonishing."

"And what has she said of you that makes you so bitter of her?" Nila asked. Azula shot her a look. "I am the first to admit that there is more to the world than I am aware; a charlatan with uncanny accuracy probably has some explanation in facts that I have not seen."

"She..." Azula sighed, and shook her head. "...damn."

"You are realizing she was right, weren't you?"

"...she predicted that I'd fight against a Fire Lord, at the side of the Avatar. She didn't use those words, but the intent was clear," Azula said, _very_ begrudgingly. Azula turned to her once again, after stewing for as long as she could bear at that witch in Makapu. "And what is your part in this? Why have you decided to tag along with this cursed party?"

Nila shrugged. "I seek to liberate my brother," she answered.

"You've said as much."

"He is in a prison within the Fire Nation. Ergo, it suits my needs to travel into the Fire Nation," Nila pressed.

"With the most wanted young man in the world, the second most wanted, and the most wanted woman?" Azula asked, indicating Aang, her brother, and herself with a thumb cast in varying directions down a hall that they weren't allowed to look down. Nila just stared at the ground. Azula shook her head. "Well, if we're going to be trapped in a cage, however gilded, we might as well look for some way to blast our way out of it. As I'm to understand, that's your area of specialty."

Nila gave a chuckle and a smirk. "Would that you only knew," she said. She pointed across the room with a hand that bore a lattice of tattooes which had to have been agonizing to acquire. "Within those cosmetics are three of the five substances I require to make a horrid, aerosol poison. Sadly, the other two are not so easily found in such environs," she glanced toward the tray which had been delivered to them in the morning. "From the leftovers of food, I could create some caustic acids, but without something to bear them in, we would be doing ourselves great harm using them."

Azula found her smirk returning. "If only I'd known you a few lifetimes ago; I probably would have crushed that Aang like a bug."

"I don't doubt," Nila agreed, confident enough, and rubbed at her face for a moment, before leaning back with an almost boyish pose of contemplation. "...I would need citrus to make anything like a bomb, and I fear that when I assaulted Azul's men, he caught wise to my requirements."

"Alright; so if you can't make a weapon, how do you weaponize something we do have?" Azula asked. She opened her hand and lit blue flame into it. "My choice of weapon is obvious, but if we can't act with utmost speed and efficiency, people _will_ die."

Nila shrugged. "Any object with an edge, or sufficient weight, is a weapon. Mother, for all her failings as a parent, did not slack in teaching weapon-handling."

Azula nodded, then leaned forward herself. "What is your mother like, anyway?"

"Aggravating."

Azula raised an eyebrow at the one-word answer, letting the desert-dweller know that she wasn't going to accept that alone.

"She is a hero to the East, one who has begun to believe in her own invulnerability to the point where it caused a humiliating defeat, and the near-death of the Avatar. What else can I say about her? She was certainly no kind parent, no patient teacher, no uplifting role-model. All that I am, I am _despite_ her, not _because_ of her."

Azula felt a churning in her chest, and a sigh escaped her throat. "For what it's worth... I know how that feels..." Azula said.

"As I understand, your mother treated you very well," Nila dismissed.

"...from the other end," Azula finished, her eyes on the floor, as she remembered her own children. A silence descended on the two girls. One that didn't break until the one amongst them responsible for the larger of past explosions cleared her throat.

"We cannot sit idly by. For all we have relative comfort, I for one will not accept bondage, no matter how comfortable," she held up one hand, and showed a bubbling burn in the center of it's palm. "I have some proof to the truth of that."

Azula nodded, then hefted up the remarkably heavy chair and plunked it down far closer to the Si Wongi girl, resting an elbow on the vanity as a common table for the two of them. "Good. I like it when my co-conspirators are motivated. So, here's what I think we can do to get out of here..."

* * *

><p>Toph tapped her heel insistently against the bricks, feeling the ground out to the street through the wall where she couldn't feel through the floor. Damned Nationals didn't know how to properly build; with stone. Everything was wood with them. Didn't they know that wood was good at... say... <em>burning<em>? "Hey?" she asked of the other, besides Malu, who shared the room with her. The old woman had slept well through the night and into the morning. The men and women, all younger than she, had departed at some point early in the morning, following the call of whistles in the various directions. "You're awake, aren't you?" Toph said, a bit louder when the woman didn't respond.

"Yes," she finally answered.

"Is the fog clear yet?"

"I'm never really sure," the woman responded.

"Well, that's singularly the least useful answer I could have gotten," Toph muttered. She faced roughly toward where the voice came from once more. "If I leave Annoying here with you, will you make sure she doesn't... I don't know, get sold into slavery or something... by the time I get back?"

"Whatever you're going to do, young lady, you'd best hop to it. I can look after the wounded. It's how I earn my meals, after all," she said. Well, if that wasn't lucky as hell; Toph managed to flop in a house with a curb-doctor. Toph gave the woman a nod – well, roughly gave her a nod, as Toph wasn't exactly sure where the woman was – and moved through the doors. As she crossed the threshold, though, the woman spoke up once more. "Just be careful out there. As much danger as the gangs pose, the Spider's far worse... and he touches almost everything."

Toph nodded, and continued walking. Get Zuko out of prison. Business as usual, right? But she had very little money, all the rest of Sokka's 'Team Avatar' was bound up, the one guy she had on the outside was drifting in-and-out of consciousness, and she was supposed to send a letter to somebody... despite the notable shortcoming of being illiterate!

"...If I ever find who runs the universe, I'm going to punch him in the testicles," Toph muttered.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

**The Cage, Part 1**

* * *

><p>There was a faint clicking, something that occurred just on the edge of her perception even as she had her ear pressed to the door. She couldn't have said exactly when she learned to pick locks. It was probably one of the many skills that Dad had either taught her, or didn't notice while somebody else did, when she was very young. Either that, or she learned it from her brother. It was hard to say how much that the two of them bounced off each other; until last winter, it was usually with low-grade antagonism and constant sniping. Now, they were a perfected machine... sometimes. Katara let out a low growl and waved a hand, trying to soothe raw and abraded fingers. Working the pin and sliver wasn't exactly easy work at the best of times. It didn't help that in terms of actual practice at this sort of thing, Katara had just about exactly none.<p>

"When I find out who put this lock in here, I'm gonna throw him out of a window," Katara muttered under her breath. "A tenth story one, if I can manage it."

Well, not really, but entertaining the notion did give her a moment to rub some of the pain out of stubbed digits, and get her back to her job of undoing the lock which held her imprisoned. It was strange; she actually thought that Azul was going to throw her in the dungeon. Instead, he sent her here. This was the kind of room that she couldn't have asked better than. It had two beds, each the size of the interior dimensions of their _old home_. The mattresses of those beds were so soft that sitting on them was like being massaged by clouds, the pillows filled with the down of baby turtle-ducks. The sheets were linen, edged in silk; the carpet was lush, and the chairs were overstuffed leather, and built of dark and no-doubt expensive woods.

So why had Azul put Katara, the Water Tribesman, _here_?

There was a clunk of a different timbre that reached Katara's ear, and her lips pulled into an almost unconscious smile. That felt different than the work she'd done before; it felt like progress. Though her prison was well furnished, her food sublime, she didn't feel like spending one second more than she absolutely had to in this place. Every second was, after all, a death threat toward Aang and everybody that he held dear.

If Azul was to be trusted, it'd already cost one of them. Two, if you counted the Seamstress. But for some reason, even though the Spider so calmly and matter-of-factly declared that the airbender had bled to death in the streets of Azul, Katara didn't believe it. He might have, but Katara... she was starting to think she knew the airbender a bit better than that. And more pointedly, she was starting to know _Zuko_ better than that. Another clunk. Well, this was picking up speed, now wasn't it?

The strange thing about all this was that Katara didn't even know really if Azul was aware she was a waterbender; she hadn't exactly done it in public while she was within the city limits. That he left a basin of water next to her bed at first seemed like a definitive 'no'. But then she gave it a bit more thought, and realized how much of a moron Azul would have to be to not look into Aang's friends, who they were, what they could do.

She didn't like all this guessing, this glancing over her shoulder, this living-in-fear. She'd had enough of it in Ba Sing Se, and here she was in the thick again. A clunk, and then a louder clack. Katara's eyes widened a bit, and she pulled the whole rig out a bit; the door swung with it.

"Thank you, Sokka, for being a little delinquent," she said quietly, before idly tossing the lock-pick away. She glanced out through the door, and found that the halls weren't occupied. Considering the hour, that was a bit odd. Then again, it could be that _everybody_ was as creeped out by Azul as she was. She wouldn't put it past them all. She opened the door a little, and glanced the other way. Still, nothing.

The door opened further, and she slipped past it. It was a bit annoying that every room on the other side of this hall had Western style doors; side sliders. Doors that couldn't be locked. Only hers were Eastern style. Then again, she wasn't exactly a guest in this place.

She moved to the other side of the hall and slipped past the door she found there, as well. This room was actually far lesser than the one she'd been in, which was to say it still was _drowned_ in elegance and taste. She moved straight for the closet, and threw it open. "A part of me wants to ask why he'd keep women's clothing in every closet, but..." she shook her head. The dresses that adorned the closet in her room were of completely a wrong size for her. They were intended for somebody more mature of figure, somebody wider of hip, bust and waist. These were little better, but while their measurements were the same, their cut was different enough that their bagginess might be overlooked entirely. With a scant glance back toward the door she'd shot through, she pulled her own dress off of her, and swapped it for the one on the hook.

A little gesture, but considering Azul expected her to wear what she'd been wearing yesterday, a little gesture might take her a lot farther than nothing at all.

Katara paused, looking down at the cloth. Yes, it looked fine and elegant. Too elegant for what she wanted. Too clean. She frowned for a moment. "This could be a problem," she said. Then, she leaned around the dresser she'd extracted it from. Of course, there was at least one spot which wasn't completely cleaned. She reached into the gap, and swept up and down, until her arm was covered in dust and webs. Disgusting. She then carefully wiped it across the dress, dulling the color and making her seem a lot more grubby. That she actually _was_ a lot more grubby probably helped. "And this could be a solution."

Katara slicked the remaining smut off of her arm and glanced through the door again. The gentle tapping of shoes in the hall caused Katara to flinch, to freeze, but the sound was moving away, and not in a hurry. The Tribesman leaned out the aperture, watching the scullery maid continue her way down the hallway, probably right to the corner at its far end. This place wasn't nearly as big as the Royal Palace of Ba Sing Se, but it wasn't exactly tetchy, to be sure.

She slipped into the hallway, closing the door behind her again, and started to move through the halls. She kept her eyes down, her hands behind her as she'd seen in the maids that she'd passed on her way in. Sokka might be a great lateral thinker, but that didn't mean Katara was a dunce; she came up with a plan to free herself and then rescue the others without any input from the 'idea and sarcasm guy' whatsoever.

She kept closer to the side of the hall with the locked rooms, trying to get a notion of what lay inside them as she walked past. She didn't have a lot of time, and had a lot of ground to cover. They could be just about anywhere.

She didn't hear the patter of feet hitting the cut-stone of the floor, just as she rounded the corner and left her old room behind. And she didn't see the two that dropped down from their spot amongst the dark rafters of the hallway's roof. One of them, a woman, gave a glance after her, and a nod. The other, a man, offered a slight nod, and then pulled the straps over his shoulders a little more snug. After all, the device he had there was _heavy_, and it was hard enough to sneak without it jostling all the time.

They didn't say a word. They just followed the Tribesman, and waited for the perfect moment to show her who the true master of this house was.

* * *

><p>Malu blinked, feeling dizzy and headachy and gross. And feeling, above all of that, weak. She thought that she might have gone blind, but from the sensation of something over her face, she was probably just covered up. With a groan and a push, she moved the blanket off of her. She tried to sit up, but only got to about thirty degrees before a wave of dizziness hit, and she almost blacked out. The thud of her head against the floorboards didn't hurt, which was lucky.<p>

"...ooooh, I don't feel good," Malu muttered.

"No great surprise," an unfamiliar voice said from one side. "You had a case of blood-poisoning. Still do, but it'll get better. Damn if those Tribesmen don't hit the nail on the head every now and then with their crusty molds. And speaking of blood, you don't have much, so don't do anything strenuous."

"Who... are you?" Malu asked. The woman was older, now that Malu could see her; her vision was still kinda fuzzy. The woman didn't look back at her. Instead, she just kept prodding at something on a griddle.

"Miss Kankoshi, most call me. Not my name, but who has time for that?" she said.

"Your name?" Malu asked.

"You're asking?" the old woman said.

"Yu...up," Malu said. There was a chuckle, and a half-glance toward Malu. When it happened, Malu was pretty sure her vision was fairly messed up, because her eyes didn't look right.

"...I'm not going to ask how you got an arrow through your leg, or why you walked half the length of the city with it instead of getting it pulled somewhere," Kankoshi said, her tone tired. "We've all got enough trouble without bringing down more on ourselves. My son, he frets," the woman gave a shrug.

"Do you have... something that'll stop the spinning?"

"Time," Kankoshi said.

"...faster?" she asked.

"One thing," she said, then turned with that griddle, and letting the smell hit Malu's nose. Meat. Cooked meat. Malu tried to flinch away, but didn't have the strength to. She looked up at Kankoshi again, shaking her head, but the words fell kind of mute.

"...what happened to your eyes?" Malu asked, light headed enough to not notice that that might be a sore subject. Kankoshi shrugged, and set the griddle aside, to allow the hissing meat to slow.

"They don't work. And haven't for a while, now," she said. She nevertheless flawlessly pulled Malu up by her arm and moved her to a propped-up sit against the corner. "Now your body's run out of heme. It's the stuff that toughens up your blood, makes it come forth fast. But there's ways to get heme back in a hurry."

"I... can't eat meat," Malu said.

"Why not?" Kankoshi asked. "Humans are made to eat meat. Well, we're made to eat whatever can go in our mouths. But meat's definitely part of that."

"I'm a v...egetarian," she paused with a wave of dizziness, and continued when it abated.

Kankoshi gave a frown, and moved from her kneel to an outright sit on the floor, her legs tucked before her in an almost mannish pose. "Whatever your reasons for not wanting to eat animals, this is your option. You can eat the liver, and be back on your feet in a day or two, or you don't, and you're on your back for at least a week. Moral stances don't tend to hold up long in the face of reality, I find. Best to just be pragmatic."

"Did... you lose your eyes in a w...war?" Malu asked. Kankoshi scowled, and then turned, toward the door. A moment later, Malu heard the creaking of the boards out there, and saw a young man with a nevertheless grey beard lean into the room.

"Mother, do you need anything picked up after the late-shift?" he asked.

"More liver," Kankoshi said. "And moonshine; not too much, this time. I don't want the others to get greedy and _drink_ it."

The son gave a nod, then vanished from the doorway. "How did you know he was there? Did you hear him?"

"Yes. Heard him," Kankoshi said. But Malu was pretty sure if she wasn't lying, she wasn't telling the whole truth.

"You didn't... answer m... my question," Malu said.

"Everybody loses something in war," Kankoshi said, distantly. A blink over useless eyes that looked like amber versions of Toph's. "Easterners can be... creative, by times. A lot more creative than we give 'em credit for. Like throwing barrels of glass, crushed down into dust, into the gusts that blew over our camps. I lost my eyes. A lot of other people died, in agony," she took a deep breath, and then thrust a fork into the liver. "Anybody who thinks that war is glorious obviously hasn't been part of it. So be pragmatic, and eat the damned liver."

"But..."

"What are you, some sort of airbender?" she asked, a sarcastic smirk on her face. Malu's eyes quivered, and she was thankful the rest of her didn't. How did she guess that so quickly? Malu knew she had to do something. Trick her, somehow.

"Alright..." Malu said, taking the cooked flesh and moving it toward her mouth. The nurse gave a nod and looked away, giving Malu the excuse to palm it, and hide it behind her. "Mm. Liver-y."

The woman paused, and gave a glance near Malu, before reaching past her and pulling the chunk of meat from the floor unerringly, and with an expression of annoyance. "Don't waste my meat, and don't waste my _time_," she said simply. "Neither one's free."

"How did you know...?" Malu asked. "I thought you were blind!"

The woman blew some grit off of the liver before eating it herself. "And I thought you had a working brain in your head. Strange how that goes."

The answer dawned upon Malu, a feat which would have probably happened earlier had she not been operating on so little blood. "You see with firebending, don't you?" Malu asked.

"More or less," the nurse said. "It's great for navigating crowds, but I still keep bumping into furniture. And it's better than nothing. Now are you going to accept my help, or are you just going to waste time and space?"

"But..." Malu said.

"Much as I like to help the people in need, there's plenty of them in the city, and if you're not going to do as directed, I can help somebody else," she said, getting to her feet and carefully moving toward the doorway. Malu sighed, then shook her head. She didn't want to eat the meat, because that was wrong. But then again, if she didn't help Aang and the others, that'd be worse. Gyatso often said that sometimes, one must sacrifice what one wishes for what the universe wills.

So she plucked another strip of the flesh from the pan, and popped it between her teeth before it seared her fingertips. The juice was hot, but savory. And it didn't taste half bad, even before chewing it. A part of her was telling her that she was supposed to feel sick even entertaining the idea, let alone having the food physically inside her. But the truth was... it was just food. Yeah, food that used to be alive, but that was splitting hairs since plants, too, were once alive. Even monks couldn't live on sunlight, water, and self-satisfaction.

She swallowed it quickly, trying not to enjoy the eating. Kankoshi turned back to her. "Good," she said. "Eat the rest of it. I'll be back with something that'll get you sitting up without passing out."

Malu let out a mild groan, and then pulled a new piece of liver from the pan. It was fortunate that Sokka wasn't here. He would only pause from his haranguing her over her dietary choices to eat the liver himself. And when she recalled where Sokka was, and why, even that mildly amusing thought withered.

* * *

><p>Montoya was looking through that book again. Her diary. She'd started it when his daughter was born, and continued for years. He wasn't really sure why he kept rereading the same observations and musings that she'd had, ten years ago and more. He had every single page memorized. But still, he found himself gravitating to the words on the page. Scanning them once and again.<p>

It was almost like he was trying to find something that Akane hid, something behind her words. Something... he didn't know how to describe it. He glanced up as his spymaster appeared from the shadows. "I assume that the Tribesman has found a means of escaping her room?" Azul asked.

"Yes, Coordinator," he answered.

"Keep her in sight. Wait for the perfect moment. She'll learn where she really stands in this city," Azul gave a nod, then looked back to Akane's diary. After a moment, and the Spymaster not leaving, he glanced up once more. "There is something more?"

"Yes," he said. He motioned for Montoya to follow him. There was a moment of tension, between heeding his agent and wanting to continue reading. A moment that he forced down in the spirit of ruthless pragmatism. He left the book, laying open, on the table, and followed his subordinate. "We believe that Princess Azula has decided to act before we thought she would."

"We cannot assume that our information on her was perfect," Azul said. He rounded the corner, and saw the great double doors which lead into the room that she and the Eastern girl now shared. Notably, he saw that there was acrid black smoke curling up from under the seam of the door, and heard the shouts of fear from within. He sighed, and shook his head. "An obvious escape attempt. You've secured the balcony, I assume?"

"Locked and braced," the answer came. Montoya nodded, rubbing at his beard.

"Good," he said. Then turned away from the door. "Let them burn. They are assuming that I am a fool, and that I'll try to put out a fire they started. I, on the other hand, make a much more reasonable assumption that they're not suicidal. The Princess will put out the fire before it causes her pressing harm. And if she can't... well, that's the price of planning on something you cannot control."

"I will barricade the doors, Coordinator," the spymaster said.

"And 'forget' to feed them for a day... or two. That should make their position clear. Has there been any activity from the other Tribesman? From the Prince? Or our other esteemed guest?"

"No, no, and not even to eat, my lord," he said.

"He'll eat. People only choose to die when they have _no_ hope," Montoya said. "So we give them enough to live, but not enough to live well," that was a lesson he hadn't expected to learn. Hisao was a beautiful young woman. Physically, far more appealing than Akane had been. But things... became tense, and cold, very quickly. She plotted against him, so he rebuked and chastised her. She kept plotting, he kept correcting her. Until that rainy autumn morn, when she stopped trying. Until that wet winter solstice, where she doused herself in oil, and jumped into a fireplace.

"We have another missive from Fire Lord Zhao," the spymaster continued. He held it toward his master, but not with any great effort, for both knew that Montoya was going to wave it away. He shrugged, and set it aflame.

"He is as much a legitimate Fire Lord as I am a Storm King," Montoya said, an edge of anger in his voice. "He has no breeding, no lineage; his virtues are so few as to be vanishing against infinity, and his shortcomings so overwhelming as to block out the sun."

"His messengers still require some answer," the spymaster noted.

Montoya knew a lot of ways to send a message. Sometimes, killing the messenger was the message. But this wasn't the time for such gauche and inelegant gestures. No, this had to be more subtle. Something that would fly right over that low-born idiot's head and strike his toadies where it hurt the most; in their honor. He smirked.

"Send him a gift. In _gold_ coin," he said. The spymaster as well smirked slightly at that, before giving a nod, and slipping away. There was a reason why gold wasn't currency in the West. And he doubted that someone so uncultured as Zhao would appreciate it. But others, like the Shinzoan Lord Kurita... he'd know, and it would _burn_ him. He stopped, staring through the windows into the Red Garden from above. In the midst of the chaos, there was a flag of stone, too regular to be an import from nature. It was unadorned, but it didn't need to be. Azul knew what... _who_... lay there. Why he had no heir.

He still felt hollow, and uncomfortable, as he continued to walk the halls in his robes.

He hadn't been comfortable since Akane died.

* * *

><p>Toph really hoped that her letter made any kind of sense. Considering she had to word it carefully enough that the postmaster couldn't immediately twig that it was being sent from one Easterner to another, with the purpose of rendezvousing and leading a charge into the walls of one of their foremost political leaders. Add to that that she couldn't even be sure that the words that she demanded were actually on the missive being sent, and that made for a stressed, tense earthbender.<p>

The headache that she'd been developing for days was starting to really crash home. Between a lack of sleep, a lack of even the peremptory baths that she took for granted on her way into this hell-hole city, and the constant stink of the smog, her head was ringing. It was lucky she was already blind. Even the meager light might have been enough to set her off worse, had she the capacity to see it.

"You'd better not not be in a dungeon, getting your ass tortured, Prince Pouty," Toph muttered. Partially because she wanted to believe that she'd have gotten him out by now. Partially because... on a level that she wasn't willing to admit to anybody, she really didn't want Zuko being hurt. Not that he couldn't take it, or anything. And it certainly wasn't that she liked him or anything...

She physically stopped, in the middle of the street, staring ahead. "...yup. My life's one big damned cliché," she said to herself. Leave it to those damned Westerners to make human interaction the weirdest thing possible in their stories. It was almost like they didn't know that the way most marriages started was with a night of heavy drinking. Heck, Toph was pretty sure that was how Mom got roped into staying with Dad! There's _no way_ she'd bother with him if she were sober.

And at that, realizing that she was pondering on the nature of her parents' love-life, she gave a full-body shudder, and continued walking. There were some things that teenaged girls, blind earthbending badasses or not, were not meant to know.

It was a strange feeling, being all alone. She'd thought that she was used to the idea, especially considering the long walk she'd pulled off back in winter. But the truth was, when she had to move through a sea of unfamiliar humanity – most of whom didn't even speak her native language – she couldn't help but feel very, very isolated. Not that she was going to give up just 'cause she was the only one left of Team Avatar who was both free and mobile. She was way too 'Earth Kingdom' to do that. It just meant that it was a harder slog.

She had a lot of experience with hard slogs.

Toph paused, and quickly stepped aside the stream of people, as a voice caught her ear. It was a familiar voice, and one she didn't expect to hear in this part of the city. She leaned against an unoccupied portion of corner and cocked her head toward it, trying to cut out the clamor of daily living in what had to be the filthiest place on Earth.

"...my problem. What _is_ my problem is the damage that got caused," came the words of the Drunken Dragon's proprietor.

"And I fail to see how that's any issue of mine," another, unfamiliar tone said with derision.

"Azul knocked down _my_ doors, blew up one of _my_ rooms, and then tells me I have to thank him for the privilege!"

"Well, that's what you get," the other voice said. Toph's jaw set. So they got sold out by that fat bastard after all? Oh, this might not have been something that could fix her situation instantly, but the desire for some violent revenge did a bit to soothe her headache. All she had to do was get him somewhere where nobody was looking. Wasn't like she had something better to do for the next few hours, she rationalized – ignoring the fact that she was leaving Malu in the hands of a total stranger while she did so – and it wasn't like he was going to be able to get away from her.

She slid into the crowd, darting through the seams in the traffic as she let it sweep her toward him. He, older, slower, couldn't make the time that she did. And that, she felt, would be his undoing.

Completely unnoticed by she, as it had neither mass nor step, a black form pulled itself out of the shadows, opening red and pulsing eyes. Where it stood, in the darkness, only the eyes could be seen, but those that did catch a glimpse of it all flinched and hurried all the harder, trying to erase the impossible and terrifying thing from their minds as they did. The Shard turned its gaze slowly to the north of the human city, seeing through walls and terrain, through brick and mortar and dirt. It could feel one, close by. A familiar one. But that was not this one's purpose, if the Shards could be said to have purpose. It was the other. The greater. The Avatar, that would sate its hunger. He had vanished completely from Imbalance's sight. And as much as something such as It could be said to have patience, it was very shortly running out.

* * *

><p>Yue gave a look to those that had the audacity, the bravery to follow her. The Spirit World was a dangerous, treacherous place, and when she requested that somebody from the Shamans of the South Tribe aid her in her task, she'd guessed that she might have gotten one hardy soul at her side. Instead, she got all but one of them, and that one stand-out was left behind despite his protestations, because somebody had to keep the rift from Alulbitavut open, so that their path of retreat wouldn't change. "It won't be long now. Wequais, do you think you'll be able to keep up?" Yue asked of the shaman who leaned against a stone egg, holding his side.<p>

"I'll be fine. I'll keep the door open on this side," he said, waving the others away.

"Are you going to be alright on your own?" Yue asked the older man.

"I took a fall. At least it wasn't into one of those caustic pits. That might have ruined my day," he said, tones as dry as ever.

"That's the old man," a girl who couldn't be more than thirteen said with a shrug. "He always was tougher than the rock they cut their homes from."

"You're not getting a cookie for praising your grandpa, little seal," Wequais pointed out.

"I could still try," she said sweetly. There was a crash of lightning, one that illuminated the dead and rotting tree that stood sentinel in the center of this brutalized garden. From out that thunderstrike, Irukandji stepped. Well, most of her, it seemed. Her skin seemed more alight than usual, her eyes crackling with electricity.

"Good, you made it without getting killed," Irukandji said. She then turned from Yue to the others. "...well, that's a turnout I didn't expect. What, did you all make sure to take your suicidal-pill this morning?"

"We know what's at stake, spirit," Wequais said.

"This is probably going to make things harder, you realize. One Tribesman, sneaking through New Bhatti would be tricky. Getting... two dozen? Really? Don't you people have any sense of self-preservation _at all_?" Irukandji asked.

"Somebody his holding our gods hostage," the only shaman that Yue knew from childhood pointed out. For all he was still powerfully built and not into his elder years, his hair was almost as starkly white as Yue's own. Jantuk looked her in the eye and cast a hand aside. "We're not going to sit idly by when Tui and La are in peril."

"Fine. Be it on your own heads if and when this thing explodes around you all," Irukandji said. She beckoned Yue in particular closer, and manifested what looked like a map out of thin air. It was a map of a place that Yue had once been very familiar with, only now it had been... altered. Perverted, almost. The foundations were the same, but everything else was overtaken by black iron and brutalist architecture. Summavut, no longer. "I didn't manage to get a lot of straight answers from the local wildlife, but this is the best I could do for layout."

"The best you could do?" Yue asked. "This is more than anybody could have asked for!"

"Hardly," Irukandji said. "I couldn't get to the Spirit Oasis, so I don't know what they're using to defend it. I'd imagine quite a lot, since they wouldn't want your kind nosing around."

"We'll find some way through," the girl said. Yue was really going to have to remember her name at some point. There were too many unfamiliar faces, either from her life in Summavut, or the new life she had in Chimney Mountain. It didn't help that Alulbitavut was so _far_ from Chimney Mountain; it was practically on the other side of the continent. Not that that amounted to a terrible distance, over all... really...

Irukandji just rolled her eyes. "Well, have fun storming Summavut. I've got about a thousand other things that need to get done to make sure the world doesn't end tonight. And I'll have to do them tomorrow, all over again," she got a wry smile. "Could somebody remind me why I even bother at this point?"

"Because you're a coward and you don't want to die," Jantuk said, running a whetstone over the head of his spear as he did.

"Nailed it in one. Although points away for insulting your benefactor," Irukandji said. She took in a breath, and with another crack of lightning, she vanished from sight. In her wake, there came a groan in the sky. Not the terrible presage of a blowout, but of something massive settling into position. From that stone egg, Yue was fairly sure she heard a quiet sigh. But that was ridiculous. That was just architecture.

Yue moved to the fore of the group, having to back off and take a new path when she almost stepped into a fire-bomb. Once she took her place, she allowed herself a calming breath of her own, then opened bright blue eyes to the cadre that dared face uncertainty save for horrible and sudden death with her. "We've all come here for our own reasons. Some of you have done this, or things like this before," a nod to Jantuk, "while others have never faced the perils that we stand before now. I can't guarantee that we'll all come home to Chimney Mountain... but I know that in your hearts and in your souls, you will not _allow_ yourselves to fail. And that when we go home, we will do so, with Tui and La safely in our hands."

Jantuk raised a cry, and the others mimicked it a moment later. A call to the spirit world, something beyond language to express, save for the impression it left. Defiance, against the night. And daring the darkness to stand against them. Yue nodded, then turned to the rusted iron gates. One, not far away, rushed with the falling of perpetual rains, while this one whistled for cold and winds. She closed her eyes, and took a step forward, through the rift, and back into the Mortal World.

She opened her eyes.

Yue stood in the corpse of Summavut. And she didn't stand alone.

* * *

><p>The stink of the burned wood lingered in the air, as the two young women sat on their beds. Annoyance painted both sets of features.<p>

"That was utterly unsuccessful," Nila pointed out.

"I'm aware," Azula said.

"This Montoya Azul is a more clever adversary than you had taken into account," Nila continued.

"I'm aware," she repeated.

"...and that he could unravel the entire scheme at the first knot speaks volumes to how little chance we had on the whole..."

"I'm. Aware," Azula said, darkly. The pile of ash and soot near the door was the testament to their failed attempt. Mocking her. They couldn't even open the window to let the smoke clear out, since they had been barricaded from without. Nila, though, hopped from her bed, and picked her way over to the crater in the floorboards that the fire had created. With a glance to Azula, she pulled a charred bit off, and tossed it over her shoulder. "What is it now?"

"This stone. It is limestone, yes?" Nila asked.

"Only the finest," Azula muttered.

"Good. Bring the refreshment over," she said, a hand cast back blindly. Azula's eyebrows rose at the temerity of her.

"Excuse me? And why do you think you're allowed to order me around?" Azula asked.

"Because attempting to follow your plan ended in resolute failure. Thus, it is my turn to make an attempt, and yours to heed it," Nila said. She glanced back, only then. "Now the refreshment, with some distillation, can create a caustic substance which will eat the limestone. Will you aid our escape, or bicker hierarchy?"

"At what point did you decide that you were going to be leading this little escape attempt?" Azula asked. "Because I haven't seen a great deal of leadership from you."

"Then you have not known me nearly long enough," Nila said, rising and turning from the hole and the charred door beyond it. "While you were being carted around on a ship of fools, as one of its passengers, I was walking the length and breadth of the East. I stared down the leader of my people's arch-nemeses. I put a bullet through the heart of the being which even now seeks to unmake all. And I'm realizing that I'm wasting time that I could better spend doing it myself," she rolled her eyes and strode to where the pitcher of slightly sour beverage rested on the vanity; the table that they'd been afforded was, at this point, a pile of soot and nails. "You have obviously not learned the most important rule of captivity, firebender."

"I think I've learned all that there is to know about captivity," Azula contended.

"Then why, in the name of whatever deity you hold dear, do you antagonize in the face of release?" Nila asked, giving Azula a shake of the head. "The sole duty of the imprisoned is to escape imprisonment. All must be spent toward that end."

"A rule I'm aware of."

"So why do you now ignore it?" Nila asked.

To be honest, Azula didn't have an answer for that. No, wait, she did; pride. Nila rankled her, and she was not a woman to suffer being rankled lightly. Azula looked away, thinking back over the many years that she could remember. Pride had, time and time again, been the source of her greatest misfortunes and woes. And when she stopped kowtowing to her own sense of entitlement, when she stopped bothering what her upbringing and her culture and her birthright demanded that she deserved, and would by some manipulation of the universe gain, she started to actually live a life worth living.

"Because I'm too proud for my own good," Azula muttered.

"In that, I feel we are more alike than not," Nila said, her tone distracted, as she tossed the water from a glass and began to flick it, listening to its chime. She shrugged, and put the cup aside. "As I lack a burner for distillation, I will require a more manual flame," she said.

"Great. I am a portable oven," Azula muttered.

"And in due time, with care and attention, you might even someday become a pressure-cooker," Nila said flatly. Azula raised a brow.

"...was that...?"

"That was a joke," Nila answered. She shook her head. "I cannot see how the Tribesman ever believed that it would be funny. He is a strange beast."

"He's a Tribesman. Of course he is," Azula agreed. Partly because she remembered him, quite well. She opened a flame into her hand. "Do you think that Zuzu is having as much trouble as we are?"

"I don't doubt that he is with the Tribesman right now; the two of them, I am somewhat certain, will be able to escape their durance with minimal fuss," Nila answered her, and began to strain the fluid into the cup she'd selected.

* * *

><p>Zuko was getting very tired of hanging from chains. He looked around the chamber that they'd brought him to, and he clucked his tongue. "Of course, Azul has a torture chamber. Why would I ever think that he didn't?"<p>

"Eh, you'll get used to this sooner or later," Sokka said, likewise dangling.

"How can you possibly get used to this?" Zuko asked.

"When you've been captured as frequently as I have, trust me, this becomes old hat," the Tribesman said with what would have been a dismissive wave were he able to move more than just his wrist.

"...how are you all not dead yet?" Zuko asked.

"If you want my guess, it's that the universe wants us to choose between being miserable and being dead, and those are the only options available," Sokka said easily. "It's not all bad. We get to travel the world, miserably. Meet new miserable people. Try to reduce the amount of misery where we go and fail miserably..."

"If you keep saying miserable it's going to lose all meaning," Zuko pointed out.

"Doesn't it make you miserable?" Sokka asked, a baiting grin on his face.

"You're lucky I can't set you on fire from here," Zuko muttered.

There was a bang of a metal rod against the cage within which Zuko was suspended. He glanced down to see the jailer walking past. "Shut up! You; barbarian! We're gonna have a few words with you!"

"Great! I was just starting to despair for the lack of meaningful conversation in here," Sokka said.

"Says the guy who kept saying miserable a few seconds ago," Zuko pointed out.

"Don't run your lip," the jailer said, pointing that rod back toward Zuko even as he opened Sokka's cage. "'Less you want to have words with Azul about etiquette. I hear he's still sore about you being so uncouth."

"Tell him to..." he pondered how Toph would put it? "... kiss my ass, right between the cheeks."

"Ew! Good one!" Sokka said, followed by a meaty thwomp as the jailer lashed out at him. Because of the angle and the bars, Zuko couldn't see Sokka, but the blow landed where the Tribesman's voice came from. And it sounded like a hard one. "Alright... no accou...nting for taste."

* * *

><p>Aang opened his eyes when he heard the door open. The choker that pressed against his throat was uncomfortable on more levels than one. Even as it made it unpleasant to swallow, it left a part of Aang deadened in a way he really didn't like. The Avatar felt a spike of outrage rush through him when he saw the master of this palace enter, with only his spymaster for accompaniment. Aang forced that spike down, hard. Anger was never the answer. Least of all now. "I don't understand what you want from us," Aang said, as Montoya took a seat.<p>

"I want what any master of Azul has ever wanted. Control, authority, and power," Azul said. "You are but one avenue of many that I can use toward that end."

"What happened to you?" Aang asked, as he looked into the older man's eyes. "Azula told me about you, about who you could have been. She told me that she remembers you being... strict, but kind. The kind of man that rewarded loyalty instead of punishing failure. 'Doting' was the word she used. So what happened?" Aang asked.

The disarming look dropped slightly as Aang spoke, and when he finished, Montoya looked as emotionless as a living mask. "You don't know what you're talking about, child. I'm not here to talk about myself."

"But a part of you wants to," Aang said. "You know that there was a time when things were different. When you were a different man. So what changed?"

A delaying action, as Azula would call it, but one that Aang had nothing better to do than use. And to be frank, he was honestly a little interested. As much as the cold dead eyes of Montoya Azul unsettled him, he had to believe that somewhere inside that cold, angry, dangerous old man was somebody who was worth fighting for, and worth saving from oblivion. "We're not here to talk about my past. We're here to talk about the future, and your part in it."

Aang once again reached for the collar that bound him, but for some reason, he couldn't conceive of pulling the band off, of being free. The very idea couldn't congeal in Aang's mind. And that was part of what the Death Ring was. "I think you're wrong," Aang said quietly. "There's not much future to be had if things don't go perfectly right. This isn't about the rulership of the Fire Nation; it's so much bigger than that."

"And the Avatar would of course cite his vaunted 'authority' to try to reclaim some imagined clout," Montoya said. A whisper of a smirk came to his otherwise deadpan face. "You are no different than anybody else. You seek to turn a situation to your best advantage, no matter the cost."

Aang thought for a moment, his hand dropping away from the collar. Something Azula said, when they were waiting for the others to finish with their prison-break on the Boiling Rock. "I think the only reason you believe that is because you can't bear to think of people any other way... not since your wife died."

Montoya rose to his feet, his jaw tight and the sinews of his neck standing sternly against his skin. Even the spymaster seemed surprised at his masters pique. "You have no right nor reason to speak about her," he said, his words dripping with venom. "She has nothing to do with this."

Aang looked at the older man, and couldn't help but feel the heartbreak of him. "She made you want to be a better man, didn't she?" Aang asked quietly. "Because of her, you held all of your worst demons at bay. But you lost her... and you lost hope."

Montoya glared at him, his breathing harsh. But after a long glare, his eyes slid closed. While his expression didn't liven or soften, it became less of a death-threat and more of a death-warning. "I will attempt this again, when you're in a more pliant mood. And when you aren't wasting my time trying to manipulate me."

"I'm not trying to manipulate you," Aang said.

"...said every manipulator since the beginning of time."

"I'm just trying to save everybody from what's coming at the end of summer," Aang finished.

"Save the Easterners and the Water Tribesmen, you mean," he said, turning toward the door.

"No. Everybody. Even you," he said.

"I don't need to be saved," Montoya said, facing the portal to the world beyond. "And if I did, _needing_ it would prove I didn't deserve it."

The spymaster gave Aang an oblique look, and opened the door before Montoya. "Just because she's gone, doesn't mean that every bit of good she did for you is gone with her," Aang offered. Azul turned with a snarl, and even made a lunging step, but the spymaster being in his path caused him to arrest himself. He took a purging breath, and when he looked upon the Avatar once more, his expression was the dead but disarming look that he'd had when Aang first saw him.

"Everything dies, and nothing golden lasts. It's a lesson that everybody learns eventually, when something dear is taken from them. Perhaps _I_ should teach you that lesson, _now_," he said.

Aang didn't answer him. What could he even say?

Montoya shut the door to the spacious and opulent room, and left Aang curled lotus on its floor.

* * *

><p>Maya looked annoyed. Of course, Kori didn't much care at this point, because he was being pampered to within an inch of his life. While he had heard stories how the Yubokamin tended to spoil their guests rotten to placate them for anything from musket-point marriage to human sacrifice, he was well aware that those were simply tall tales spread by people who wanted ethnic tensions between ethnic Ghorkalai and Azuli running at a fever pitch. As such, he took the offerings of spicy wine and warm pastries in the spirit they were offered. And he took them with gusto.<p>

"You're eating like a pig-cow," Maya said.

"You're just envious because everybody's paying attention to me," Kori said.

"Why? You're a damned Tribesman!" she said, not able to parse it in her head. Truth told, Kori didn't know why either, but he wasn't about to turn down a delectable treat delivered by a nubile, dark skinned Fire National now, was he? He'd need to be a special kind of idiot to do that. "These people are crazy."

"You do get that we can speak Huo Jian, don't 'cha?" the girl who was hanging off of Kori's arm asked, as she held up another bite of something slightly sticky and very sweet.

"Don't mind her. She's just an uptight prig," Kori said.

"Ain't she just?" the girl answered.

"You're a hedonist," Maya muttered.

"You're just annoyed because they wouldn't let you keep me in chains. Although, I have to admit, I was rather getting used to them. Call me a deviant if you desire, but there's something about chains and leather..."

"Stop! Please," Maya said, a warding hand out toward him.

"_I_ could stand to hear a bit more," the Gork whispered throatily. But from the smirk on her face, she was doing it purely for Maya's discomfort. It worked for Kori either way. Maya gave a shudder, and looked down from where they were now gathered, at the edge of a fairly severe drop. On the horizon, one could barely make out the city of Azul, and its perpetual smog that clung close to it.

"And I'd love to give it, but right now, I'm simply stuffed. Maybe some other time?" he asked.

"Eagerly waiting," she said. She waved, and the two others – both far closer to Maya's shade than Kori's – departed, back into the mobile town built entirely on the beds of wagons. Kori sucked the sweetness of honey and caramelized sugar from his fingertips, and then moved a bit closer to Maya, stopping to lean against a lightning-struck tree. The two of them both stared down over the shadowed ground that stretched toward the city.

"How about we declare a little truce?" Kori said.

"...what?"

"You stop busting my chops, and I promise I'll keep that," he waved behind him, "out of your line of sight."

"...deal," she said with a shake of her head. "Had I known that the Yubokamin would welcome you like a favorite, long-lost son, I would have just handed you to my father, with all the blowback that goes with the deed."

"Surely you can't despise me so much, having only known me for a week or so," Kori said with a dripping tone.

"Oh, but I can," Maya said. "And don't call me Shr-Li."

"Have you given any thought to your options? Running won't last forever, after all."

"It'll last a long while," Maya pointed out.

Kori just turned a look toward her, and she rolled her eyes with a groan.

"Yes. I get it. But your options aren't very good. Fight my father, fight the Fire Lord, or fight with the Avatar. In terms of loyalties, that's the equivalent to giving the option to cut off a leg, a hand, or cut my own throat."

"Leg," Kori said.

"What?"

"Cut off the leg. I've seen some amazing work they're doing with spring-loaded prostheses these days," Kori said.

"That's not the point!"

"Actually, yes it is," Kori interjected. He turned at his spot, facing her down, as a wave of laughter reached them from the 'town' behind them. "When confronted with a preponderance of evil, and your only choices are between evil men, you select the least of those evils. That way, you've caused the least suffering if you succeed, and inflicted the worst harm on the worst person if you failed."

"And who would ever come up with that kind of garbage?" Maya asked.

"Your father," Kori said with a shrug. "That was his rationalization for claiming the seat of the Coordinator, thirty years ago. And to be honest, at the time, yes, he was the least of all possible evils."

"You didn't know him," Maya said.

"Politically, I did," Kori said. "Anzhu would have gone to open war with the Burning Throne, and scorched the earth all the way to Caldera City. Nobody wins. The Old Man would have opened up a three-front war against the few nations of the East that Azulon hadn't already declared war on. His grandson would have turned the whole aristocracy into a toxic morass of betrayal and murder that would put your father's recent actions to absolute shame. Montoya Azul is, admittedly, a monster. But he's a kinder monster than those he opposed."

"...is it too much to ask that we don't have to knuckle under to beasts like him? That we don't have sociopaths in control?" Maya asked, her eyes locked on the horizon and her tone distant.

"Sociopaths have a strange way of gaining power unless you're very careful to exclude them. And a lot of times, they're fairly benign when they get it, surprisingly," he said with a shrug. "But you're not wrong. The Fire Nation's been dancing to the same tune for far too long, in my opinion."

"You're trying to get me to support your Avatar, aren't you, waterbender?" she asked.

"He's your Avatar too," Kori said with a smirk.

"Don't push your luck."

"Sooner or later you'll stop running away from your responsibilities," Kori said. "Hell, it took me thirteen years, but even _I_ did it."

"You're pursuing treason against the Fire Nation," Maya said.

"No, I'm exacting revenge on the nation which sanctioned my theft and the rape of my biological mother," Kori said.

"Seeing things from 'a certain point of view' doesn't make it true," Maya pointed out.

Kori sighed, and stared into the distance to the city of Azul. "...maybe, but it helps me sleep at night."

* * *

><p>"The first thing which I found attractive was her legs. Definitely her legs; you can write that down. Her legs... and above 'em. Her legs and her hips. And the waist. Basically, the whole region where Tenger Etseg's sword cleaved her, if you catch my meaning," Sokka said with a grin, despite how it hurt his dry, cracked lips. The heat in this room was overbearing, and because it was such a dry heat after so long dealing with wet heat, it was making him crack like a lizard. It didn't help that they kept a lantern shining in his face from about a foot away.<p>

"That wasn't what we asked," the interrogator said.

"And the nose! Big, yeah, but the way it makes her look, it's... _unf_! Sure, she's got a bad attitude, but that makes her about as unfeminine a woman as you'll ever meet. I've learned to really appreciate when a girl has a 'take charge' attitude. Didn't always, but... she changed my mind about _a lot_ of things," he said with a suggestive chuckle.

"Remain on topic, Tribesman, or you will be corrected again," the interrogator said, tweezing his brow, the annoyance plain. He reached aside and turned on something that looked like a much miniaturized version of the capaciters which were probably still rotting away outside the walls of Ba Sing Se. "What is your plan with regards to the Fire Lord?"

"You see, it's the damnedest thing," Sokka continued, twisting slightly in his copper chains. "I used to think that women were only good for sewing pants and raising kids. But then there was this girl, Suki, on Kyoshi Island. It took a while, but she managed to pound a few lessons into my head..."

"Very well," the interrogator sighed, before flipping a second switch.

The world, for a time which Sokka couldn't immediately name, became agony. The searing electricity burned through his body, locking his joints and spasming his muscles simultaneously. He felt his heart stop in his chest under that onslaught, but that was a distant thing. Yeah, it hurt. And it was weird to think that Sokka, son of Hakoda, Water Tribesman, was _starting to get used to being struck by lightning_. After about an hour... or possibly fifteen seconds... the surge ended, and Sokka fell limp in his binds. His wrists were burned raw where the chains sent the charge in there; similar burns adorned his shoulders and knees. He pressed his eyes open, forceably, and uttered a cough. As he did, his heart lurched back to life, hammering at his ribs for a few seconds before very slowly starting to wind back down to a more normal rate... for somebody who was in the process of being tortured.

"The Avatar's plan, barbarian. As long as you keep talking, you won't get shocked," his magnanimous host offered.

Sokka considered it.

For about a second.

"You know what's kinda a weird thing? Despite all of the stuff we're doing, saving the world and all that, there's still a chance that we're still going to be exiled when all this is said and done. Tradition is a weird thing. Now, if it hadn't been Gran-Gran who had exiled us, we'd probably have been allowed back by now. But..." he offered a shrug which hurt like hell. And still managed not to hurt as badly as when Zhao cooked a significant portion of his chest, arm, and hip. He couldn't help but smile, for all it hurt all the same. Because if there was one thing that he'd learned in the half-year or so that they'd wandered this spinning Earth, it was that stubborn stupidity would save your life a lot more often than it'd endanger it. Or was it stupid stubbornness? Eh, from where he was sitting, the two looked almost identical. After all, how else would everybody have held on long enough for Aang to get moving again?

The Azuli man offered a groan, which slowly escalated into a growl, ending when he kicked a bucket and sent it crashing across the room and spraying its awful brine to the floor. And when he did so, he hurt his toe.

Sometimes, you had to take pleasure in the little things.

* * *

><p>Toph moved through the crowds, picking her steps carefully. She knew that it would be child's play for her to keep up with the stooge who'd sold them out, but only if he kept to the street. That meant that the universe <em>of course<em> had to have him cut through buildings instead of the alleys that were more sensible. There was always a moment of tension, as she waited for him to leave the wood and return to the cobbles where she had no idea where he was. He could have been looking straight at her for all she knew.

One of these days, she was going to have to figure out how to see through wood. If earthbending worked on metal, _surely_ there could be some utility to wood as well?

There.

She was moving again, traversing the crowds that pounded through their daily routine of work oneself three-quarters of the way to death, drink something strongly alcoholic in a bid to sleep the six hours that they had if they were extremely lucky, and then repeat ad nauseum. They were predictable. That was damned strange. Well, a lot of things were strange about these Westerners, things that Toph wouldn't have predicted. For one thing, these Azuli were almost as hide-bound as her dad! She heard from that nurse while Malu was conked that for all women were allowed to vote – back when elections were still a thing that happened – it was made needlessly difficult for them. Aristocracy thrived, the 'middle class' was stomped out of existence, leaving only the wealthy and the poor.

It was almost like the thought-processes of the Water Tribesmen and the Fire Nationals had gotten their paths mixed up at some point, and nobody sorted them out.

She'd only gotten about two hundred more feet when he ducked into another building. "You've got to be trying to duck me. Nobody takes that many needless shortcuts."

Toph wouldn't put it past the bugger to be paranoid; after all, he had just handed over the most dangerous people in the Fire Nation, to somebody arguably more evil than the Fire Lord. There was no great certainty that somebody wasn't just going to put a cannon-ball through him and take his money back, bloody or no.

There was a lot on Toph's mind. Zuko was a significant portion of that 'a lot'. Idiot had to go and get himself captured. No, worse; he had to _offer_ himself for capture. There was a lot that Toph would do for the guys, but just head in there with your eyes down and your fists dangling? Not going to happen with Toph Beifong! She wished she'd found some way to convince him to hold off, to come up with some sort of break-out scheme. She wished... but the universe had a way of not giving anybody what they wished for. It was seldom so kind.

She pressed herself in the narrow cleft between two buildings, sliding herself in that narrow gap until it widened out as the buildings were no longer so claustrophobically close. At the far side, she pressed her hand to the building to her left. Then, she groaned. "Wood frame? Are you kidding me?" she muttered. She then squirmed her toes inside her soleless shoes, trying to get a feel that way. The only problem with her vision was that there was a lot of noise, both literally and metaphorically. She focused, though. She'd know him when he appeared out the door again.

Sadly, she didn't think to look up toward, say, a window. And not that it would have helped, because she couldn't see anyway. There was a slight creak behind her, one that vanished before her focus, and then a moment later, a loud thump. That, on the other hand, drew Toph's attention away. She spun, her stance wide and her fists forward. She was half way into pulling some blocks of stone to hurl at the ambusher when she realized that this was the guy she was trying to tail. Great. He'd gotten the drop on her. Not for long, though.

"Why are you following me?" the innkeeper of the Drunken Dragon demanded. His voice sounded slightly different than it had the times that he'd roared at them through the walls.

"You know perfectly why!" Toph answered. "How much did they pay you?"

The innkeeper seemed to wilt a bit, and shook his head. She had gotten a lot of practice, of late, at reading body language. It made fighting _ages_ easier. "...you think I sold Prince Zuko out, don't you?"

"Don't try to deny it," she said.

"Why would I sell the lad? I owe far too much to his uncle for that!" he shouted back at her. He turned, as though glaring in the vague direction of his inn. "But I know who did. Dara, that two-faced bint! Thought she'd have enough pride to stick to the family, but no, greed got to 'er. Greed and _vanity_."

"Dara? Really?" Toph asked, disbelief plain in her tone.

Then she thought about it.

"...oh crap," Toph said. Dara had always been there. One door over, one corner away. Always barging in when something important, or even borderline incriminating was said. And she hadn't seen a damned thing! Damn it Toph! You're supposed to know when people are lying to you!

"So you see your problem," he said. He took a cautious step toward her. "Their uncle did me a fair turn, one that kept me alive when I ought naught 'a been. Fair's only fair that I turn it back to 'im."

"You're going to help get them out of the Spider's web?"

"Are you insane? God with his burnin' sword couldn't cut out of that morass from th' outside," He started to move past her, and she kept pace. "The only thing I can do – we can do, even – is to get 'em the hell out of Azul if they somehow pull a miracle from 'ere asses!"

Toph blinked a few times at that. "Hell, I'll take it," she said with a shrug. After all, it wasn't often that life gave you lemons, when it knew that you knew somebody who could turn lemons into bombs.

* * *

><p>She kept moving through the palace, looking as weary, annoyed, and rushed as humanly possible. In a word, she was emulating every other servant that she saw walking the almost vacant halls of this place. Those who weren't servants didn't give her a second glance. That was lucky, because if any of them asked something of Katara, she was <em>pretty sure<em> that her Tribal accent would give her away almost instantly.

But if there was one perk to being the invisible class, it was that she had the run of the palace. And she'd taken advantage of that. She peeked into no less than two dozen rooms, trying to find some of the others of her party. But so far, her luck wasn't in. Not that she'd stop. She just had to change her focus.

The problem with searching a palace, or this palace in particular, was that Azul had given her palatial accommodations. And she was pretty sure that he'd have afforded the others similar treatment. But that wasn't a guarantee, and with every vacant room, or worse, occupied one that she had to slink away from, her guess was that not all of Team Avatar was afforded luxury. And if there was _anybody_ who'd get himself into enough trouble in the three days they'd been here to get himself thrown in prison, it'd be Katara's brother. Which in turn led to her next problem: where the hell was the dungeon?

In Ba Sing Se, it'd been as easy as heading down until you were under the sewers, then follow the green lamps. Metaphorically speaking, anyway. Here? She had no real indicator which way the 'guest' rooms were. But she had an inkling. Somewhere secure. Somewhere far from the exits and the courtyards. Her path brought her inward, to the ring of rooms which surrounded the Red Garden. She peeked into one of them, when there was nobody to notice her. It looked much the same as many other chambers that she'd seen, of the sort that honored guests would find presentable. Well, there was one glaring difference; the windows which looked down upon the Red Garden were warded by cast-iron bars. Some of the bars seemed a little bit... dented.

She slid the door closed, and continued walking. Finding the others was only the first step. Honestly, if she found _Azula_, that'd be a cause for celebration. Much as everything about that firebender rubbed Katara the wrong way, she knew rationally that there was nobody better to have in a fight. Mostly she'd learned that first hand by being the recipient of Azula's many freak-outs and beat-downs, all barely averted and only by intervention by the Avatar. If she couldn't find him, Katara would settle for her. And in a way, Azula might actually be more useful.

Aang was a sweet kid, but there were lines he would never cross. Azula had crossed them, knew what that felt like, and if needs be, would again.

In that, she had something on Katara. In that, she had something on a lot of people.

Even while trying to hold her disguise, Katara couldn't help but chuckle at the divine irony. After all these months, the only chance that Aang had to save the world was dependent upon Katara, his surrogate sister, freeing Azula, the woman who kept trying to kill him – and in another lifetime actually succeeded at it twice!

Still, her instincts might have been screaming, her nerves frayed to snapping, but Katara had more resolve than that. She had stood beside the dying and the mad at Summavut. She would survive this. She paused, listening to an odd muttering coming through a wall just ahead of her. She cast a glance in every direction, then pressed her ear to the wall. The babbling was in Huo Jian, but probably wouldn't have been understandable even by one of their ilk – it was more a speech to self than a speech to an audience of even one. It was male, and had a smooth tone to it. Zuko, maybe? She rolled her eyes. Maybe he _could_ behave himself enough to not end up in the dungeons. Sokka was still toast, though. Katara reached for the door, and flipped the lock. That it was locked from the outside was a hopeful sign in this instance. She wasn't barging in on somebody who wanted privacy; she was liberating a prisoner.

She stopped and blinked in surprise, though, as the door opening revealed not a petulant and overprotective firebender, but instead a slender, fairly short man with mussed black hair and a narrow mustache upon his lip. He continued to talk to himself as he paced, and occasionally dipped his finger into the oil of his lamp and made an indelible mark on the wall. He was drawing something. Something that seemed needlessly complex, and was marked wholly of lamp-oil. It certainly wasn't a means of escape. To be honest, it looked kinda like the thing that Aang had blown up outside of Ba Sing Se.

"Nomura Sato?" Katara asked.

"Hrm?" Sato asked, his wide and slightly watery eyes turning to her. "Ah! Meal time already? Time does fly when I have my mind on something."

"You're Nomura Sato?" Katara stressed.

"Why yes, my dear, I am," he turned to his wall, rubbing his finger on his chin and thus staining it with oil. He didn't seem even to notice. "To be frank, I would dispense a week's meals for a single ream of paper and a proper mechanical pen! What I'm reduced to is so... inelegant."

"Mister Sato, you're in danger here," Katara said, stepping into the room. He waved idly at her.

"I am in far finer quarters than I could afford a few nights ago. And my meals are blessedly free of weevils!" he raised a blackened finger. Then, he pointed to the window, which he was still ignoring as he bore witness to whatever machine it was he was concocting. "Of course, the monstrosity in the courtyard has cost me some precious sleep, but that is a trifle. Noble patrons are a blessing not to be overlooked!"

Katara silently grimaced and made a strangling motion, but contained herself from making the wish a reality. Were all scientists as _nutty_ as he? Zha Yu certainly had his moments of inventive mania. And, to her detriment, so did Zha Yu's son. "Mister Sato, we were sent here by Zha Yu. The Mountain King says that you won't be safe in Azul. That 'the beast bears many heads, and all of them, however pretty, poisonous'."

Sato straightened a bit. "That does sound like something he'd say..." which was a relief, because Katara wasn't sure she'd memorized it properly. If there was one benefit to this language, as it was atonal, it was harder to screw up. Sato shrugged. "If Zha Yu truly believes my life to be in danger, I will have to respect his perception. He's often seen things that I..." Sato trailed off as he turned to her.

"What?"

"Who is that with you?" Sato asked. Katara flinched, and spun, tearing the water from the sweat which was running down her body and erupting it from her dress in a shiv of ice. But it had only just emerged from its silken durance when a rod of metal tapped her hand, ever so slightly. Then, with a 'zorp' and an agony of all of her muscles rebelling against her, a terrible pain running through her whole body, she seized and collapsed to her knees. There were two Azuli standing directly before her, now. One of them had what looked like a backpack, connected by a rubberized cord to a short rod in one hand. Katara tried to do something other than gasp for breath. The Azuli, cold in his eyes and his manner, reached forward with the prod again, and pressed it into her gut. The pain ramped higher again, and didn't abate until she was given the grand mercy of unconsciousness.

Sato stared agape as the dark complected girl was shocked into unconsciousness, but what he felt was not any great empathy for her in particular, but a wrath that something he had created had been _weaponized_! "You took my creation and made a weapon of it! I must protest! This is absolutely unnacceptable!" Sato raved. The Azuli with the electrical capacitor strapped to his back gave a glance to the woman beside him. She shrugged. "I will not allow this travesty to continue! When I find out who stole my – AAAARGH!"

Sato was cut off when the Azuli jabbed that electrified prod into his gut as he had the girl's. When he collapsed into torpor – after a far shorter time than the girl had held out – the Azuli turned to his counterpart. "I've wanted to do that for _days,_" he said. She gave a chuckle, but no more than that. "Now help me get this thing off; I feel like I'm crushing my spine!"

* * *

><p>Aang gave a glance out the window as he heard a clipped scream, then some angry yelling, followed by another shout of pain. The window didn't allow him a great deal of view, so he knew that he wouldn't be able to see what that had come from. But it couldn't be good.<p>

"I hope that wasn't somebody I know..." Aang hoped, and reached for the Death Ring again. And again, there was no concept of removing it present in his mind.

After all, what use was a device to contain shamans, if the shaman himself could pull it off?

* * *

><p>Sharif breathed deeply, as he walked the short dimensions of his cell within a cell. Even though the Death Ring was 'round his neck, they couldn't deprive him of everything. He was just too intrinsic a shaman at this point; too much of what remained of his mind was devoted to it. It found ways through the sinister hold of the evil device.<p>

He could smell the swirling of void, even if his eyes would not allow him to see them. Even if his ears would not allow him to hear them. He breathed of their corpus, and they spoke to him. Not in words or even ideas. They spoke to him in the logos of reality itself. Something simple, base, but beyond his comprehension. There was only one thing that he, with his wounded mind, could discern.

Fear. They were running out of time.

Sharif stopped, staring up at the spin of the spider fly which took its nest in the corner of the chamber. It was often said by natural philosophers that their webs were each random and unique creations, their spokes and strands aligned according to an imprecise instinct, just effective enough to catch prey, but random nonetheless. Sharif knew it was wrong. The strands spoke the song of the universe. He couldn't hear it. Not with the Death Ring on his throat. But in the strands of the web, he could see the whispers of Void. The message that he'd learned, over so long a time.

Sharif stopped his pacing, and sat down, his legs tucked under him. Distant eyes locked through the door of the cell, and the great iron bulkhead beyond it. The song which could not be heard sung only one thing to him this day.

Be ready, Sharif.

* * *

><p>"Stop. Struggling... you... bastard..." Odalai hissed as he heaved back on his choke, and the Fire National in his thick winter coat finally gave a last twitch, before falling still. Yue only knew his name because another had said it a few minutes ago; he was a shaman from Rough Lee-Havavut, in the prime of his life but not nearly so educated or skilled as some of the others present. He cracked an uneven smirk at her as he grabbed the man's hood and dragged him into the shadows. Just as he vanished from sight, he whispered. "You'd think these people had something to hide, or something."<p>

Yue kept looking around the scene, but the darkness of night honestly wasn't that dark. The sun never set too far below the horizon in the height of summer. With the Summer Solstice mere days away, night was but a few hours of twilight, before true dark returned once more. It wasn't the light of the barely hidden sun which was the most stark and disheartening thing, though; it was the buildings that rose from the bones of her home. The palace had been torn down and melted away entirely, it's grandeur replaced with an ugly, squat office of metal and concrete rooted to the stone. Few indeed were the buildings not removed, simply repurposed. Only those like the forges, made all of stone since the earliest days, remained. But not in their same state; the Fire Nation had expanded them, and not gently.

"Jantuk? What do you see?" Yue asked ahead, through the dispersed group of shamans.

"I see the doors, mistress," the word reached back to her, passed from mouth to ear along a chain of them. Yue knew that no alarm had been raised yet, but that was no reason to be lax or sloppy. With Tui and La as her witness, Yue was going to bring _every one_ of these people home!

Yue gave a loud click of her tongue, and the sound passed forward, with the others moving with her, albeit along different paths. Hunting signals, developed by the South Water Tribes to not spook animals, had much the same effect on Fire Nation soldiers. Despite their already frighteningly long stay in what was once their homeland, they were still invisible. Yue was, understandably, the last to actually reach Jantuk, pulling up beside him under an arch of soapstone that no longer had anything else built atop it. Her eyes narrowed. "Why aren't there any guards?"

"I don't like the looks of this, mistress," Jantuk muttered. Neither did she.

"Please, don't call me mistress. Not now," Yue asked, but her eyes were swinging. The last of the old familiar faces gave a solemn nod, and then, after a moment of concentration, dashed across the open space to flatten himself against the long-shadowed wall. Every shaman present, old or young, armed or not, held their breath.

Then, a wave of the hand, a begging inward. Yue was the first to rush the distance across that harrowingly open terrain, but she was far from the last. "Locks?" Jantuk asked.

"I've got it," Samo-e offered, kneeling before it.

"We don't have time to pick it," Jantuk pointed out.

"Who said I was picking it?" the shaman, who had only in the week approaching this wild adventure returned from fighting with Hakoda's soldiers, said a with a smirk on his face. He lifted the lock, then poured something into it, something that hissed and smoked, and he moved his fingers carefully to avoid dripping the acrid substance onto himself. Yue's eyes widened a bit as the key-hole of the pad-lock for the bar over the door began to widen, then the lock began to melt completely. "Don't get it on your skin. Hurts like a bastard."

"Mind your tongue. Ladies are present," Jantuk said.

"Please; my wife says _far worse_," Samo-e answered the older man. He gave the lock a thwack with the but of the short spear he kept at his back, and the lock fell away with barely a clatter. A few moments later, the bar was shifted and the door, open.

Yue was, needless to say, the first one in. She had been in this room so often in her childhood that she knew its every nuance by heart. How the wind would swirl, seldom but predictably, and bring with it the scent of damp humus. The way that the grasses would bend to no wind at all. The lazy way that the light painted the torii and the greenery beyond it, soft and diffuse, coming from no source at all. The warmth of the air that pulled at her skin and broke a sweat under the layers of clothes until she doffed parka and gloves and hood. And the sense of connection to the place. The wholeness and oneness of it.

She didn't feel any of that right now.

"This..." Jantuk said, as he followed her in, but he trailed off, unable to say a single word more. He could only shake his head in shock at what he saw.

It was all frozen.

The grasses, the bushes and tree, they were all covered over in a skin of ice which reflected only in the red light of the false-twilight that peeked in over the roof of the oasis. But even were it not, it was plain to see that all of that once lush greenery was dead. Ice leaves were all that remained of plants which had withered to grey branches and frozen roots. The great waterfall which had fallen down, and given the quiet din of water to the pond, was now a cascade of ice which reached almost to the central island before it was plugged completely. There was no smell. There was no sound but the wind whistling over the opening in the rocks. And there was no light but that which the shamans brought with them.

Yue walked the bridge to the central island, her eyes staring down at the pool at the little island's center. It, like the flow around it, was now a solid block of ice. Yue dropped to her knees, staring down at that cold wet brick, and shook her head. She could see through this ice, clear to the bottom of the pool. She'd _never_ seen the bottom of the pool before. It was so... mundane.

"I don't understand? Where's Tui and La?" Wequais' granddaughter asked, leaning around Yue.

"They're not here," Jantuk said quietly, mournful disbelief in his voice. He shook his head slowly, as though he could deny what his eyes told him.

"How can they just be gone? They're gods!" Samo-e pointed out at a clipped yell.

"Shut up! Do you want those bastards to find us?" Odalai hissed back at him. Yue, though, just closed her eyes, and leaned down.

The words of the others, as they started to argue amongst themselves, washed over her. She didn't listen. Because she was feeling for something. In a way that she could never truly explain to any of the people around her, even the ones that she'd grown up around, her life was_ a part_ of these creatures. When they brought her back to life, and marked her body with their signet, it was more than just a reminder of a man's debt to the Spirit World. Part of La lived inside Yue now.

And she knew how to find herself.

"I know where they were taken," Yue said, her bright eyes opening. The others, who were forming lines behind each of Samo-e and Jantuk, fell silent as one, and all turned to regard her. "Zhao, the Scarred One, took Tui and La from this place. Without them, it's just a pond fed by a glacier. _They_ are the power, not _this place_."

"How could you know where they were taken?" Odalai asked.

"I am closer to them than most. I can feel where they were taken," Yue said. She stepped onto the pristine, clear ice which was once a pond, and held out her hands. One by one, suspicious or no, the others took her hands into a circle. "You will have to trust me. The gods are calling to me..."

There was a moment of hesitation. She turned to face the little girl. "You should go to your grandfather. Tell him to keep the 'Smoke Orchard' gate open. He'll know what that means."

"I will," the girl said, and she broke away. She only took two steps before she vanished into thin air, stepping through a rift into the Spirit World.

"Why aren't we going to tell him ourselves?" Jantuk asked.

"Because we're not going into the Spirit world," Yue said. She didn't know how, but she knew that it would work.

"How is that even possib–" a remarkably attractive young woman from Alulbitavut asked. She was cut off when the whole circle of them dropped through the surface of the water, descending into instant and frigid wetness. But it wasn't a transit into the Spirit World. No, this was something more direct. This was hanging on to a god trying to reunite its own soul.

They hung in space, drowning, for an instant.

Then, with a grunt, the water flooded away from them, pooling at their ankles as they were bombarded by the much warmer rains of an eternal deluge. Yue opened her eyes to a city she never thought she would behold in her life. Jantuk stared in open disbelief.

"This is..." Odalai began agape.

"Caldera City. Zhao has taken our gods prisoner here," Yue said, and turned toward the great palace, where she felt the other part of her waiting.

* * *

><p>Timing, it was said, was everything. Even in the moment that a brace of Tribesmen transited half-way across the world by means that neither shaman nor bender would have been able to adequately explain, another great impossibility was taking place. This one took the form of a slender girl, every shade of her black save for the scarlet eyes.<p>

It was stalking, but halted at the sensation that there was food nearby. Shaman's souls were a foodstuff that was in very short demand to the Shard, and it was so very hungry. But they weren't Its target, nor its purpose. Still, it was enough to inspire something like rage in It. Its great maw opened, as the beast stepped out of the darkness and into a crowded street. Instantly, there was screaming and panic. Even though mundane humans, benders or not, would have no idea what this thing was, there was an instinct in the backs of their minds that howled at them to run the hell away from It as fast as they could. It was an instinct born in the oldest, most animal times of their species. An instinct of something that knew a dangerous predator had appeared amidst them.

The maw opened and It turned west, and on the other side of the continent, a different shard turned to the east, Its own maw wide in turn. The hunger was great. Unbearable, even, but They had purpose. Find the Avatar. Find the shamans. Feed.

And the frustration was the first human thing that It had felt in a very, very long time. The Shard that stood in Azul City raised Its arms, mirroring Its sister a thousand miles away. From shadows far around each, other Shards began to appear. Dozens. Then hundreds. Thousands, perhaps. They formed a perimeter, each around a city, a band of darkness that swallowed the light and left a sticky black hanging even in the air. Their arms raised, and then clawed down.

And as they did, they ripped through the fabric of reality, and began to give bloody and screaming birth to the Megalopolis.

* * *

><p>Aang turned when the door opened, giving up on the window for the time being. He was only slightly surprised when he saw that Montoya Azul had returned. What surprised him far more was that Katara was being dragged with him by the spymaster. Aang's hands flinched for a moment, and fire appeared at his knuckles for a moment before he reined himself in. For all Katara was limp, she wasn't lifeless. She just looked... Aang couldn't describe it. Like she'd been struck by lightning or something. It didn't help that she seemed to smoke a little.<p>

"What's going on?" Aang asked.

"A lesson," Montoya said. He motioned his subordinate forward, and the spymaster unkindly put Katara to the floor, holding her kneeling with one hand. She seemed only just starting to get movement back into her hands, and her gaze was... not bleary, but trying to see through a haze of some sort. Probably pain. "Tell me, young Avatar; what is better. To have loved, and lost, or to have never loved at all?"

"Joy isn't undone by sadness. And sorrow isn't undone by happiness either. Karma doesn't balance things that way," Aang said, his eyes always flitting between Katara and the man who had brought her here.

"I thought you might prevaricate on your answer. Storm Kings always do," he said. He pointed at Katara. "She was discovered in the halls, trying to besmirch my hospitality. I had planned simply to remind her that as long as she was under _my_ roof, that _I_ was in control. It is the kind of lesson that pain teaches especially well. But... no. No, I don't believe that's the appropriate lesson in this instance. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Go to hell," Katara hissed through grit teeth.

"Do you love this girl?" Azul asked, his eyes hollow.

"Katara? She's like a sister to me," Aang said, swallowing.

"So you love her," Azul nodded. "And she has brought joy into your life, am I right?"

"I couldn't have come as far as I did without her," Aang admitted.

"And if she were to die, after all of that, would that be better – less _painful_ – than having never known her at all? Having never been in her company? Having never had her as part of your life in the smallest detail? Would the pain be _worth it_?"

"I don't know... How could I?" Aang asked.

"Think. Think very hard," Montoya pressured. Aang looked away from the intense nothingness beyond Azul's gaze. What did the man want Aang to say? What point was he trying to prove?

"...I'd still rather have had her in my life. It's not about where we end. It's about the path leading toward it."

"So you would rather lose than never have?" Azul asked. "Prove it."

Aang leaned back. "How could I pro–"

He was interrupted by the spymaster flicking a kukri from his sleeve and sliding it under Katara's chin. With a single pull back, the blade bit through her skin, and opened a great rent from her larynx to a spot behind her ear. A great pulse of red jetted out, and her eyes went wide. Aang's were probably wider.

"Katara!" Aang screamed, as she managed to pull away from the spymaster, even as her life's blood pumped headily out of her. She only made it two steps, but those two steps were all it took for Aang to reach her. She fell straight forward, and Aang caught her before she smashed into the floor. He clamped his hand over the thin-edged wound, trying in vain to hold in the blood. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?"

"To prove a point. You'll remember this for the rest of your life. And you'll know that its better to have nothing, than lose everything. That's the way of the world," Azul said. Then, he turned, departing the room and slamming the door behind him hard enough that it rebounded open slightly. Aang just stared down at Katara, who was steadily growing more grey, her eyes more unfocused and distant. He just couldn't... he didn't have the waterbending skill to hold it all in. Tears pressed out of his eyes, spilling down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Katara. I'm so sorry..." he sobbed, staring down at her. The spymaster slowly turned from the Avatar toward the door, dismissing them entirely. Katara mouthed something, unable to get the breath for words. Aang didn't know what she was trying to say. She reached up, though, with her hand. A dying grasp. The grasp reached his neck, getting her fingertips under the band which belted Aang's throat. No. No, she was going to die and Aang couldn't do anything! He never felt so powerless in his entire life.

And never had the wrath, something he'd kicked and stomped down with every fiber of his being, swelled so high. So strong. So undeniable. Katara's fingers flexed, getting under the band. With a grit of her teeth, already red from what was flowing out of her, she pulled hard, even bending her own body to do it. Strength, just enough, to snap the Death Ring off of Aang's neck.

And the instant that it came off, there were no more tears on Aang's face, because the blazing white that poured out of his eyes evaporated them.

He ignited his fingertip, dragging it along Katara's wound, even as the voices told him how to press blood back into her. It flowed up her clothing, back into her neck, even as the Avatar cauterized the wound. Half of Katara was still painting the room... but there was a chance – even a small one – that she wouldn't die. Not today. The Avatar raised its vision from the one who mattered so much, to the one who had levied the assault upon her. "**You shouldn't have done that.**"

The spymaster turned, just as he was about to close the door behind him. Confusion turned to shock when he beheld the Avatar leaping away from Katara, his fists dragging tendrils of flame that baked the walls of the room as they spun. The shock turned to nothing at all when that pillar of hellish blaze, larger even than the man it had been directed at, blasted through him with such intensity that there was not even an ash left behind. Aang's scream of almost inhuman wrath echoed, a dam being broken after creating a reservoir of unimaginable depth.

If anybody who knew Aang were to look at him now, they wouldn't recognize him. Because never had he ever let himself become so enraged. Never had he ever slipped so far beyond the veils of wrath. And never had he ever given over everything to the Avatar State as the price for vengeance. He slammed a foot down, and the palace began to be torn in half.

* * *

><p>The shudder in the ground threw the man with the electric touch away from Sokka. It was only for an instant, but he was well versed in taking every opportunity given to him. As the jailer pulled Sokka back toward him, trying to steady himself against the shifting of the floor, Sokka put even more of his weight in, and tipped the larger man backward, stumbling ever onward until he smacked into a wall. Knowing full well how much it was going to hurt, Sokka clenched his jaw, and then threw himself straight up, catching the man's chin with his dome. One crack was followed by another as his helmet saved him from bashing himself out against the wall, but that gave Sokka enough leverage to turned and kick him very hard in the groin.<p>

When the jailer went down, Sokka kicked him again, this time in the face. Then he hissed in pain. "Why does everybody have to burn me? This is getting old."

It was awkward as hell digging for the keys on the jailer's belt, mostly because Sokka's arms had been bound behind him. But for somebody who'd taught himself every nuance of the boomerang, using his hands even under such difficult circumstances was a non-problem. He'd almost gotten them in the fifth second of his attempt when another shudder rocked the ground, and a sound of crashing came from somewhere above. Still, he just tried again, and this time managed to unlock his hands from the thick manacles that they'd deemed him worthy of. "Alright, you're not going to be needing these," Sokka said glibly, as he pulled the key loop from the man's belt. "And good luck with the electrocutions, you psycho."

He could see the room that they'd duck-marched him into hours – perhaps days – ago not far away. And as he _really_ shouldn't leave Angry Jerk in the hands of somebody so inherently willing to strike people with lightning, he had his next little task. One key opened the door, into that dreary little hell that they'd called home for a yet-undetermined amount of time. Zuko was, indeed, still hanging from his binds, but his head was down, his hair falling in a great and tangled mass before him. Sokka banged his keyring on the door, causing Zuko to slowly gaze up. That slow rise turned into a fast one when he saw that it was a Tribesman with the keys, and not a demented old bastard. "Rise and shine, 'Zuzu'," Sokka offered, as he started testing keys to the lock.

"Don't call me Zuzu. Only my sister gets to call me that," Zuko pointed out tersely, but still looked a bit surprised. "How did you get out?"

"Quick question; is the Fire Nation notorious for earthquakes?"

"We're a nation of volcanoes. Of course we are," Zuko answered. "Why do you think everything's made of wood?"

Good point, Sokka considered. There was a deep clunk as the lock opened, and a much tinnier one when Sokka managed to undo the winch that held Zuko aloft on only his second try. The firebender landed on his face, and Sokka honestly didn't take even a mote of joy at the fact. After all, it wasn't on purpose. Sokka helped the man who'd tried to kill him six months ago to his feet, wincing at how it pulled at the burns on his shoulders and forearms. "So how do we get out from here?"

Sokka's question was answered with a third, yet louder crack, followed by a cascade of grit, followed by... furniture. A chair and vanity set tumbled through a cleft which had pried open in the ceiling, smashing itself to kindling on the floor. Ask the universe a simple question, and sometimes, it'd give you a simple answer.

"...that wasn't an earthquake," Zuko muttered.

"But you said..."

"Aang," Zuko whispered. Sokka blanched at the implication. And a moment later, both were running.

* * *

><p>The hissing bubble of the acid on the floor was an odd but interesting sight. Azula hadn't been joking, when she said that she and Nila would have made a spectacular duo. Well, trio when Azula necessarily included Ty Lee, and possibly tetrad if she could still claim any sympathy from Mai. She certainly knew her flammables and explosives.<p>

"How much longer is this going to take?" Azula asked, not bored in her tone.

"I cannot say. It depends upon factors which I cannot take into account," Nila said. "The density of the limestone. The purity. Whether flaws exist naturally within its strata. Bear only that when it is ready, we will be able to merely _stomp_ our way to relative freedom."

"And if we stomp too soon, am I right in assuming that we will lose our boots if we're lucky, and our feet if not?"

"No. Simply second-degree burns," Nila said. She held a hand over it. "It is a process producing great heat."

Azula heard something through the window, something loud and desperate. A scream of terror. She rose from her place leaning against the doorframe to move to the iron-barred window. "What...?" Azula asked. She was answered when a pulse of unearthly light blossomed out of a window at the far end of the Red Garden. The white was followed an instant later by blazing red. "...oh, that is not good."

"Has something happened?" Nila asked, rising from the bubbling cleft in the floor. Because she took a step toward Azula, away from that wound in the floor, when the shakes began, tearing at the structure of Azul's palace, they didn't knock her back into her own chemical soup. Instead, there was a deep crack, and a fissure spread out and away from where Nila inflicted her first wound, spreading up and down the walls. Thin grey daylight began to seep in where the ceiling buckled. But the floor cracked far more powerfully than that, opening a cleft easily a yard across. Nila managed to catch her balance. "What has happened?" she demanded, rather than ask, this time.

"The Avatar has become slightly angry," Azula let understatement be her guide, and turned Nila toward the hole. She could see a room directly below theirs, albeit one which stank of lamp-oil and human urine. "Jump!"

Nila didn't argue. She bounded down through the cleft and landed with a degree of grace that, while still awkward, was still far better than Azula's who came crashing down through a writing desk. That hurt as much as one might imagine. Azula pushed herself to a sit, picking a splinter out of her forearm and burning it to ash rather than throw it away. Nila was the one to help her to her feet, this time. "Now where are –" Nila began. Then, she trailed off, looking at a wall. Azula turned to follow the Easterner's gaze, and saw that there were schematics for an electrical capacitor structure scrawled on the wall in oil. And there was a slender and dazed-looking man trying to sit up straight in his chair and not quite succeeding. "...Nomura Sato?" she asked.

"Wh-yes?" the man said, his eyes bleary.

"We don't have time for introductions," Azula told the Easterner. She held a hand toward the eccentric and hapless inventor. "Come with us if you want to live."

* * *

><p>The sea receded and the hills bore up, even as the tremors began to shoot through them. The twin rings of Shards raised a wail, its pitch rising ever higher, inaudible to humanity but devastating to the animals that lived nearby. Birds dropped dead in flight. Pets went feral, and fled from homes, into the streets... and then out of them. Mounts bucked their riders and threw their carts, stampeding as quickly as their legs would carry them away from the cities of Caldera and Azul. Those deprived of such opportunities... simply died, their animal hearts and animal minds not able to cope with the unimaginable horror.<p>

In Azul, the Shards looked inward, as They felt the greatest pulse of power that They had felt in a very long time. They knew it as much as They knew Themselves. The Avatar was here. And his anger broke the earth.

In Caldera City, hundreds of miles away, the ground also began to shift. As the veils between the Worlds were torn asunder and the Megalopolis moved to superposition with each of the two metropolises, the rage of a being so far away was transferred whole into a place that he had never seen with his mortal eyes. The earthquake started in Azul, traveled to Caldera City, and the palaces of the rich started to crack and crumble.

Until an even deeper, more dire rumble sounded, bubbling up from the center of the city which had built itself in the mouth of a becalmed volcano. Namely, a rumbling which spoke that the volcano was _no longer calm_.

In the skies above Azul, grey clouds were replaced by mounting purple and orange and green, lightning bolts of no earthly shade searing at random from out their bodies. And high above it all, a very, very thin line, almost invisible to all, but not simply visible but as apparent as the nose on her face to an airbender girl who stared up and out of the window, slid from horizon to horizon. The Eye of Terror was here. The clouds hid It from most, if not all, but she saw It. It wasn't open, but It was here.

The Veils were torn harder, until a deathly chill fell onto every bender in the two now-linked cities. A chill that spoke of the Spirit World, but not entirely. Those that bent fire in their hands against the darkness and the cold still held their flames, because the Megalopolis was not complete. But time would change that.

And in a cell, in Ashfall Prison, Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar reached out his hand. The ironwood bars had been warded, yes, for every spirit that was commonly known. But there was one that they missed. And it wasn't the only thing that they missed. His other hand reached for his throat, and his fingers hooked around the Death Ring fastened there. If they had checked, been more careful, they might have known that the Death Rings were not indestructible, and were not eternal. For all they were the only objects still in existence older than the fallen Monolith, some were worn, their functions spotty, if not simply absent. Some operated intermittently. Others, lacked certain functionalities entirely.

Sharif's, for example, no longer included the ban against its bearer removing it.

So it was a matter of a sharp tug to rip it from its place. An instant later, Sharif touched the floating mote of silvery light that now appeared before any set of eyes, rather than simply his own; he pulled the Void, which was folded in on itself from a being as large as the city to the spark he saw before him, and pressed it to his head, and he begged a simple request.

"Help me save them," Sharif asked.

The scar over his eye didn't simply glow. It ignited. The same faint iridescence seemed to pulse out of his eyes, not the all-consuming incandescence of an Avatar State, but something smaller, more personal, more private. Sharif, his mind intact, rose from the filthy floor, just as that floor split and the logs were forced apart by the earthquake which rocked the Fire Nation. Miles away, the Jade Toe did not simply go dead. It snapped, and broke.

"It is time," he said, direly.

* * *

><p><em>To Be Continued<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Canonically Aang lost at the Day of Black Sun. That knocked him. Here, Aang loses himself in Azul. That knocks him harder.<strong>


	50. The Cage, Part 2

"By the lord thunderin', what in the Name is that?" The portly man who Toph now found herself tagging along behind uttered as the first shudder rippled out through the streets, and made its way up her soles.

"What? Don't you people get earthquakes here?" Toph asked testily.

"Fair do's," he said, before flinching back and pulling Toph with him. Not strictly necessary because she could feel the baked clay tile dropping toward her head, and it would have cracked to sand long before she so much as broke a bruise. "There'll be a lot of spooked people soon, mark m'words," he uttered, pulling her along. She pulled free of his grasp with a grumble, but didn't slow. After all, he wasn't wrong. More and more people were entering the street with every passing moment, and what buildings had stone foundations were practically dancing to Toph's 'sight'.

"Hey, buddy... what the hell's your name, anyway?"

"Jegong," he answered quickly.

"Right. Since you can actually see, would you mind telling me what's about a mile that way?" Toph said, pointing to one side, which she was well aware was directly into a store-front.

"That? That'd be the Spider's very web, the Coordinator's palace," Jegong said. "I thought you knew that?"

Toph was about to start speaking when she caught an elbow to the back of the head. She stumbled a few steps, prepared to either lambast or level whoever thought they could ambush her, but her assailant turned out to be some guy who was pulling another, unconscious guy, and had lost his balance. After a moment to rub the back of her skull, she let a dire frown light onto her face.

"Remember how you said you were going to get Twinkletoes, Prince Pouty, and the rest out? Well, I'm pretty sure that's going to be a lot trickier now," Toph said.

"And for what possible reason?" Jegong asked.

"Because I'm pretty sure one of 'em is the reason the ground is shaking!" Toph spat. "Now how did you expect to get us out?"

"I've got a wagon," a long pause. "...one I never thought I'd be usin' again. Shows how that goes."

"Well, get it hooked, because we're going to need to run for the hills in a _hell_ of a hurry."

* * *

><p>The crashing of porcelain and crystal was forming something of a symphony as Zhao strode past the dining room, his footing only somewhat more sure than those who otherwise shared the Royal Palace with him. Years of seamanship had honed his balance to a great extent, but even so, it was almost nothing compared to the outright rancor of the ground shifting below.<p>

"Fire Lord, you must get to safety," Qin pleaded, as he essentially fell his way forward, somewhat abreast of Zhao. "We haven't had an earthquake of this magnitude in generations!"

"I am not going to huddle in a cast-iron bunker simply because the ground twists and shakes," Zhao dismissed.

"No! The bunker would be the most dangerous place!" Qin exclaimed. Zhao stopped, and almost tipped aside, before sidestepping a portion of the ceiling which cracked and started to sag. Other cracks, reaching down the red-painted walls, were quite damp with the cold, cold rain that pounded down without mercy or relent. "The last time we had this kind of quake, we hadn't calmed the volcano! It could _erupt_!"

"Could? Or will?" Zhao asked, moving past the still creaking wood above.

"If we act quickly, we can evacuate the areas of the city that would be worst hit," Qin stressed. "And if the fail-safes still work, we might avert complete calamity, but..."

Zhao took a deep breath, and reminded himself of one, very clear fact. As much of a craven coward that Minister Qin was, he didn't fear things which didn't exist. And this was an earthquake on a scale Zhao had never met on this side of the ravenous ocean. When Zhao opened his eye, and turned the burned and blasted one toward Qin, it was with pride – for the moment – wrapped tightly and held aside. "Who will need evacuation?"

"Best case? Ashfall Ward. Worst case, _everybody_," Qin said.

"Then send out the word to evacuate Ashfall Ward. And whatever failsafe your predecessor spent so much of Azulon's money on, ensure that it works. I have spent too much, and fought too long, to give up this city because of the ground shaking."

"...and the volcano exploding," Qin continued. Zhao shot him a baleful glare. Qin let out a mildly terrified 'eep' and scurried away like the lizard-rat that he was. Zhao was left to grind his teeth. This might get in the way of his plans to thwart the Black Sun invasion; any change to his timetable would be problematic, and he wanted to utterly _annihilate_ the Avatar and his rag-tag of troops when they arrived.

If the perks didn't make it so very, _very_ worth it, Zhao would wonder who in their right mind would want to be Fire Lord.

* * *

><p>"They're going to find us," Samo-e whispered, as the Tribesmen ducked through the arches of the city, which even now shook and wavered. Buildings in the distance, illuminated only by the torches and lamps that hung in their windows, bent and swayed under the quake which shifted the ground under their feet. Some of the buildings could accept only so much, and when the dance reached a fevered point for them, they snapped, and collapsed.<p>

"If you keep blathering, of course they are," Jantuk countered. "At least, because of all the rain, they won't be able to _smell_ you coming."

Yue gave a glance back to them, before sprinting the distance toward the next door, which lead into the great palace itself. She had made it only half way when there was a lurch that she felt in her very soul, one that overwhelmed the unsteady ground and sent her to her hands and knees with a mighty splash, dry-heaving as every sense of perception turned against her.

She half expected that somebody – probably Jantuk – would rush to her side, and ask her what was wrong. In that, she was sorely disappointed, because when the sensation not so much dimmed, as became familiar enough to surmount, she glanced aside to see that her entire host had been as crippled as she.

"Jantuk!" Yue called back.

"Yue... What is that?" he asked.

"Stop shouting across a courtyard!" Samo-e snapped, and began to usher the very nauseated shamans ahead of him, a great mass of sickened Tribesmen that followed Yue into the outermost chambers of what seemed to be a servant's entrance to the Palace, and fatefully, one that wasn't bustling with activity.

"What was that?" another shaman, who Yue had not yet learned the name of, asked.

Yue paused only long enough to look out the door, to the clouds which blanketed the sky, pressing their cold rain down onto the city. And a part of her could see, without her eyes; could smell, without her nose... that there was a thin red laceration along the heavens. As she watched, the clouds started to... change color. From leaden gray to sickly orange and green, and an infected red. She felt as though every step she took was two, and in different directions. Yue was a shaman, the likes of which was seldom seen in this day and age. So she knew on an instinctual level what was happening.

Somebody was breaking reality.

* * *

><p>The clouds above the city of Azul pulsed with colors, throwing out lightning that defied logic and common sense, raking along buildings one moment and setting them ablaze – only for the rain which now pounded down to extinguish it a moment later – before surging up across the sky the next. Malu slowly pushed herself up the window where she observed the meteorological insanity, but it was not for the clouds that her gaze lingered. It was in the distance, closer than that red line which demarcated the Eye of Terror.<p>

It ran through her nose like a stench of cold rot.

"The Shards are here... they're _everywhere_!" she whispered, her stomach falling into her boots.

"The what?" Kankoshi, the nurse, asked.

Malu turned to her. "Get your friends, your family, anybody you care about; get them out of the city! If you don't..."

"It's just an earthquake, isn't it?" the woman asked, even as she flinched to a cracking of stone nearby in the building which quivered under Malu's hands and feet.

"No. Not just," Malu said. "Please, do this. Run while you can. They won't follow you."

"I don't abandon my work and I don't turn away from the people who need me. And when the ground stops, they'll need me more than ever!" Kankoshi snapped. Malu looked at the blind firebender, the healer who saw with her martial art, and gave her a slow nod.

"Then be safe. And if you... oh, you wouldn't be able to see them anyway," Malu trailed off.

"See what?"

"That's not easy to explain," Malu said. And then, with deep breath, one that didn't exactly refill her with vitality for the blood that she'd lost and the strength that she'd not yet regained, before bounding out the window and into the streets, even as a glowing grey fog began to slowly mount up 'round her ankles.

And unnoticed, over all the commotion, the rain began to fall colder than ever, until it landed with kinetic force. Colder and colder, until it struck no longer.

Unnoticed by anybody for the calamity, it was _snowing_ in the Fire Nation, in the height of summer, for the first time ever.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

**The Cage, Part 2**

* * *

><p>The ground bucked up and hurled Azula from her feet, splitting the floor in a long rent to the cracking of wood and the shattering of glass as it fell from mirrored walls. The greatest mercy that Azula had was that she was already on the floor when that tide of razors reached her; she wouldn't have to land on it, and cut herself to ribbons. The sound that accompanied that twist in the ground wasn't the deep and rumbling crack of stone against stone, though. It was a roar of unspeakable rage. She shook out the moment of stun that worked its way through her at the sudden introduction to the floor, then swept away some of the mirror shards so that she would have a place to push off of the floor.<p>

"What in the name of all the heavens was that?" Sato asked.

"Get up," Azula ordered, and hauled him to a stand when he didn't do it fast enough.

"He is not wrong. That was no shifting of earth," Nila noted, as she scooped up a shard of mirror, wrapping the blunter end of it in a strip of cloth from her sleeve. Say what you would about the girl, she had a way of exploiting every visible advantage which Azula respected.

"Of course not. Something has angered the Avatar," Azula said matter-of-factly. Nila's brows rose.

"The Avatar? I thought he was dead," Sato asked.

"Just keep moving," Azula said. She had barely turned back from him when she saw a number of soldiers, all of them wearing no armor but bearing the tilted hat of the Ghurka, turn a corner and run the direction that the others were heading. "And not that way."

Azula knew what it was like when the Avatar truly lost his temper, and gave himself over to rage. The sound of the voice of the legion, the fury, the wrath... that was something that she had never forgotten. All that it'd taken for Azula to hear that voice, to see those blazing eyes was to kill the woman he loved. And in exchange, he ripped her soul out; thus, it was something that she could never forget. So to hear it now, here, with the Avatar so young and naïve and hopeful and stupid... that didn't bode well.

"If that is the Avatar, then something has truly sparked him if he would ignore the Spider's threats," Nila noted. Azula nodded, and was about to lean out into a corner when the Si Wongi woman pulled her back. Azula shot her a look, and she shook her head. Azula waited, and a few moments later, a final soldier sprinted the same direction as those who'd passed before. Good ears on that one. Azula ducked around the corner, and the three began to pick their way more circuituously around the Red Garden.

"I'm not sure I understand what's going on, here," Sato professed. "First my hosts electrocute me, then I'm abducted from the room they'd decided to imprison me in... This is a very confusing situation!"

"Was he always so hapless?" Nila asked.

"More," Azula answered. She flinched and turned to a door which opened into their midst, and the scarlet and purple armor of an Azuli Royal Guard nearly barreled into their midst. Azula didn't waste an instant of time hurling herself, feet and firebending first, into that man, blasting him back through the door he'd entered from, before crashing him through the window and out into the outer gardens which separated the palace from the sprawl of Azul City. He was but one of several, though, so Azula had to spin her way up, lashing with flames that they held at bay while trying to surge through that portal and grab her. One of them came damned close, only to have his hand slashed open by a shard of glass in tattooed hands.

She didn't have time for this. With a twist and a sweep, she hurled forth a cone of azure flames which knocked all close to her back, and set the floor, the walls, and the ceiling aflame. Against firebenders, that represented a brief, even momentary delay. Azula would take it.

"What are you doing?" Sato shouted, flinching back.

"Trying not to die!" Azula snapped. She then grabbed him by his collar and started to drag him behind her, until he'd picked up enough pace that he followed at a reasonable speed. She still ducked into a room as soon as possible. Escaping would be rather moot if she left Zuzu and the others to their fates.

Azula paused a moment at that thought.

Mostly at how she never really expected that she'd believe it.

"Why are these people trying to kill us?" Sato asked.

"Because you are their prisoner and are escaping. For such a genius, you truly are an abysmal fool," Nila shook her head.

"But... there must be something that we can do to stop this. There must be some kind of mistake," he offered, raking a hand through his hair.

Nila stared, agape at him. "This is absurd. Firebender, do you have anything that could sway this man?"

Azula offered him a punch in the stomach. Not enough to send him to the floor, but one he'd certainly feel. "That was for two things. One; don't second-guess me again. I'm going to save you from Azul whether you want to believe you're in danger or not. Second; your son is a jackass and I'll never get a chance to do that in person again."

"Well, I'll have to have words with him immediately," Sato said sternly. Then, a look of confusion flit across his gaze. "Wait a moment... I don't _have_ a son..."

"You punch the father for the sins of the son?" Nila asked, even as she took a glance out the doors.

"Hiroshi swindled my husband out of every penny we'd saved, then left us in poverty while he went on to become spectacularly rich. If I had the chance, I'd spank him," Azula noted.

"My son sounds horrible!" Sato noted.

"Raise him better," Azula ordered. Sato swallowed nervously. Then she paused, and looked back at him. "You're not going to ask how I know about your son's future?"

"I have to assume that you have some means of seeing it that I'm not privy to. Is it a device? Does it** run on electricity? If I were to hook it to a thunderstorm would I ****be able to see the path of humanity until **_**the end of time?**_" he asked, growing more and more manic as he went.

Azula cuffed him upside the head.

"Ow... Right. I must apologize. Sometimes I do become... carried away."

"The path is for the moment clear," Nila said. Azula grabbed Sato's shirt and began to haul him out into the hall once more, with Nila keeping stride with her. "You have a greater degree of patience for this man than I would show."

"Try raising two willful children; you'll either learn patience or commit infanticide," Azula noted humorlessly. She leaned around a fresh corner right as the wall at the far end of that hall was smashed down. Dust and debris prevented her from being able to see what caused it, but a moment later, something was hurled out of that cloud, something that landed smashed and broken against a nearby wall. Nila, catching a glimpse of it, pushed back on Azula. Azula didn't let herself be displaced.

It wasn't often that one saw an Anomolokia so mangled.

"Somebody tried to lure the Avatar into the Red Garden," Azula summarized. "It didn't end how they assumed."

"The Avatar did _this_? That milquetoast coward?" Nila asked.

"You haven't seen him angry," Azula said quietly. If there was one thing that Aang, in the state he was currently in, was doing to their favor, it was that in smashing _everything_, he was exposing the path that they needed to take. They had to find Zuzu and the others. And then, _somehow_, they had to get Aang calm enough that he didn't crack the world apart, and run like hell.

* * *

><p>The crash of stone rumbled before Sharif's face, as he stood at the edge of his cell. He didn't implore the spirits to do his bidding, not yet; they wouldn't be able to hear him within these bars. But he knew that with a bit of patience, there was a lot he could do. When the stone shifted the extra inch that he needed, so that he could slide himself out of that vile durance and into a place where the air danced with spirits once more, he breathed... not easier, but more sure. He had a job to do.<p>

Bulwark of mankind, the hammer and the anvil, ferrous and sure;

Gear of the Construct.

What stands before the path of your humble messenger, bear aside.

What blocks the passage through the portals, bear aside.

What holds within, and saps the soul... bear aside.

There came a creaking in the heavy door that was set into the stone before Sharif. The door buckled, as though it were being pulled apart from within... which it was. The spirits of iron and steel, the spirits of industry themselves, working to unmake what they had made. The door crumbled to rust, a russet pile in the threshold. And every threshold. Sharif strode out of his cell, the scar on his brow shining with pale light, as his eyes flicked from the guard post nearby, to the window whose bars were starting to degrade every bit as much as the rest of the nearby iron was. Not all iron of course, only that which had been worked to contain. Every cell door, every bulkhead, and every window-bar, to be clear.

"Escape!" one of the guards declared. He reached for the bell and hammered it. The clangor of it reached through the prison quickly. Sharif didn't care. The alarms that he heard were much more dire, and much more important to deal with. He took a few steps toward that guard post when the other of the two guards, this one much more portly... no, not portly, but rather mesomorphic... tried to tackle Sharif down. With the veils in such a tattered state, Sharif didn't bother ducking the large man. Instead, he let one stride carry him out of the Inner Sphere and into the Outer. There was a shift, a sensation of mass passing through mass, as the guard's tackle caught only naked air, to his perception. He went crashing down to the stone. Sharif didn't look back. Another stride, and he passed from the Outer Sphere back to the Inner. To the other, who was watching, his hand still on that bell, he had seen a young man disappear from the world, only to reappear a moment later.

"Stop that," Sharif said, as he continued to move.

"Don't move, and I won't hurt you!" the guard said, nervousness clear in his tones. Sharif blinked at him, that light still wisping out of his eyes. Now that Sharif had a mind to think with, he could see and understand things. Such as that this 'guard' was not much older than Sharif was. Just an occupation, something to make money. Something to support a family. Sharif knew that there were spirits here, spirits of rage and wrath and violence and pain, of deprivation and madness; any would have been instantly useful to subdue anybody in Sharif's path. But, he knew, they didn't deserve such cruelty.

Sharif reached a hand back, and when he did, the other guard stopped at it. Sharif cast a glance to him.

The leaden eye and the heavy shield, its head bowing and its body in fatigue faltering;

Gear of sloth.

Sharif gave the larger man a tilt of his head.

...sleep.

The eyes of that guard, visible and wide in the eyes of his helm, rolled back, and his mass began to crumple down and to the side, landing in a pile at the edge of the hall. Sharif then turned to the other, who was starting to reach for a spear, a look of outright panic on his face. "What did you do to Wei? Wei! Can you hear me?"

Sharif shifted his hand, from where the larger of the two had fallen, toward the smaller. And he tilted his head once more.

Sleep.

The younger guard's knees came to a wobble, and he listed. He stopped himself from landing in a pile, at first, but he was losing a battle that he never had a faculty to win. As the spirits of lethargy set upon him, he slowly slipped into a dreamless slumber, spread out over a table, his legs locking him in place by the way they were wedged against a wall. Sharif let his hand fall. He turned his eyes to the windows once more. The Shards were nearby. And they would find him here. He had a choice.

Run. Try to evade the Shards, to lose them. Impossible for the way that they traveled and the paths that he had available to him.

Hide. Feasible, but difficult. And it would take only a slightest mistake of positioning, or timing, to spell his doom.

Fight.

Sharif blinked. That was an option which wouldn't have occurred to him. He wasn't sure why it came to him now of all times. Perhaps it was the spirit of Void that made up for the lack of half of his brain, a spirit frustrated at living in terror. At having its kind reaped, over and over. Fighting... impossible... yet intriguing.

Heads began to poke out of the cells. Heads that came with clouds of spirits, all of which had grown and distilled. Every cloud, a portrait of the man – or occasionally, woman – who dwelt within. Some, fear and pain; others, wrath so long bottled and fed upon itself that it turned into a monster. Some, murder. Others, far darker deeds. Sharif whispered into the cold wind, and let his spirits heed him. With a word, the population of the prison, on the very verge of a full-scale prison break, fell asleep.

Sharif then strode through the doors which were only a pile of rust, and across a path which looked down on a courtyard. Sharif blinked in surprise, as he beheld white fluff drifting down from the heavens. While in his early youth, Sharif had heard and even learned the nature of snow, he'd never seen it with his own eyes. Great fat flakes were dropping now, but as it grew colder, the flakes became smaller and crueler. It was not as cold as it would get, not yet.

As the world died, it would get worse.

"Where are the Shards?" Sharif asked. There was a chime in the air, something that rattled glass and vibrated through stone. Fear and pain and annihilation, of which he was on the outer rim. He would have to go inward. "I see. But somebody's got to burn the Megalopolis down."

Pausing only to pull a dark-red cloak off of a peg that he passed, Sharif began to storm his way out of Ashfall Prison, and toward the heart of Caldera City, while impossible snow drifted down around him.

* * *

><p>The latest crash, the ground shifting under them, did a mighty job of trying to hurl Toph from her footing. But she was not so easily thrown. With a stomp of her own, the bucking-up of the ground was canceled with her downforce, allowing her to keep striding where so many others toppled. Fires were burning, even despite the snow that Toph could feel stinging at her face.<p>

"Hey! Jegong!" she snapped. He offered a grunt for acknowledgment. "I'm not crazy in thinking this snow isn't something that Azul's used to, am I?"

"It ain't at that," the innkeeper noted. "This is evil weather. The Haunting Day is close enough that we don't need to add more ghosts to it."

Toph let that lay as it would. A crash of stone crumbling pulled only a portion of Toph's attention, and she raised a hand to send up a shelf of stone to shore the building so it wouldn't fall on her. After all, she had to have priorities, and right now, discretion was right out the window. "You know what? I'm not waiting on Twinkletoes any more. I'm going in there to get 'im," Toph declared.

"You're mad!" Jegong said.

"Probably," Toph agreed, and then she started toward the heart of those quakes, and the sound of explosions and lightning-bolts that managed to reach even above the protestation of the earth and the panic of the people.

Jegong, though, only watched her leave. He had his own problems to deal with. Keeping his mounts from spooking long enough to reach the countryside was going to be a problem all its own. But he had to take one problem at a time. Reaching his animals was the first hurdle.

He more barreled than picked his way through the throngs in the streets, even though a small number of them had already started orginizing into bucket-brigades against the industrial fires, and started to pull those lightly buried from already collapsed buildings. After all, time, at this point, was an enemy.

Jegong had almost run a woman down by accident, before he shifted his weight and made sure to do it deliberately. The woman gave a squawk of surprise and tumbled to the cobbles, only to find a very irate looking Westerner staring down at her. "Dara, y'traitorous little bitch," Jegong swore, allowing the accent he was born to, in his youth in the Azuli Hills, return.

"What are you talking about?" Dara asked, as she likewise seemed to allow her natural tones return. Although, for hers, it was a pointed and obvious emulation of the affectations of the upper class.

"I know what y'did to the Prince and his retinue. An' that ain't going to stand," her employer pointed out darkly.

"I did what I had to do to survive," Dara snapped up at him.

"Fei Hua! You did what you wanted to do to get rich!" Jegong loomed. "How much did Azul give ye' to turn in who done so much for us?"

"What does it matter to you?" Dara asked, slowly pushing herself to her feet. Jegong nevertheless continued to stare her down.

"'Cause you've sold your heritage to get it, and I hope it was worth it," Jegong said. He held up a hand, palm toward her. "Mightn't be that I've been home too often, but I have the pull to call you Oiharau. You have no place among us."

Dara stared at him in shock, unable to believe that she'd just been exiled from the people who'd given her birth. That shock didn't last long, though, before it turned to bristling anger. "Fine!" she shouted with a sneer. "All they've ever done is been backward embarrassments anyway! I don't need them!"

"Say that again in five years, girl. Or ten," Jegong promised, and started to walk past her. He gave his chance of her stabbing him 'twixt the ribs at around fifty-fifty. When he didn't feel her steel dig in, he knew that he'd struck her a lot harder than she was willing to show.

Ghorkalai were not a people who enjoyed being away from their Clan, no matter what they would try to tell you. Jegong had as much as written her death-warrant. Without glancing back, resolute in his decision, and his deed, he moved on. It might not be much, but no treason should fall unpunished. His Clan taught him better than to let that stand.

He never noticed as a girl all made of black walked out of his shadow, and began to prowl the streets.

* * *

><p>Sokka winced as the cloth rubbed against burns that he'd rather not have rubbed at the moment. "Hey, Zuko, would you mind giving this thing your shoulder?"<p>

The firebender looked over the door that Sokka had pointedly failed to open. "A shoulder isn't going to cut it," Zuko said. "Stand back."

"Wow. Somebody warning me before they do something drastic. I could get used to this," Sokka said, as he limped away from the door. Zuko, true to his word, began to sweep his arms through a motion that had lightning following his fingertips. Finally, he cast his fist forward, and the bolt blasted into the door, which collapsed in toward them, surprisingly enough. The dust flew, but the sight through it was little better than the dungeon they found themselves in. "...that isn't good."

The door was almost clogged with rubble. Zuko didn't say a word, he just started to ascend. Sokka didn't feel like spending any more time than strictly necessary down here, either. He followed.

"This isn't an earthquake. Not a natural one," Zuko said as he pulled Sokka past the worst of the collapse and into a place where snow began to drift toward the floor. No kidding.

"Do you think this might be Aang?" Sokka asked.

The roar, beyond words, but sounded from a thousand throats, answered that question pretty definitively. The explosion which followed a moment later, with a tail of screams of fear, drove the point home.

"We've got to do something," Sokka said. "If Aang's out of control..."

"Then Azul will make good on his promise," Zuko nodded, but the fear, controlled as it was, was clear on his face.

"That means we'll have to..." Sokka began, and trailed off, as a cadre of red-and-purple armored soldiers, running toward the Avatar, skidded to a halt at the end of a hallway, facing the two escaped prisoners. "...run?"

Zuko just shoved Sokka to get him started, but only made it about two paces before he had to hurl a wall of flame to prevent the second barbequing of Sokka, son of Hakoda. Contrary to what he would have said months ago, when the guy joined them in Ba Sing Se, having a firebender along could be really handy. It helped that Zuko knew exactly how to cook any kind of meet on legs. That was a talent that his sister didn't share. Sokka skidded to a halt, both in his back-burner contemplations on the relative cooking abilities of Zuko compared to Toph, Sokka, or Nila, and physically, as another soldier, this only a single, spotted him on his path of escape, and hurled a blast of fire toward him. With a heave, Sokka bore both he and Zuko out of its path. Zuko quickly spun and smashed forward a fist of flame toward the man who had them flanked.

"This isn't good," Sokka noted. Well, there was _some_ good news. Notably, only three of the eight which had started the chance from behind were still following. The rest had obviously peeled off to deal with something distinctly more dangerous and glowy.

"I've had worse odds," Zuko said. "I've even _trained_ against worse odds."

"I miss my boomerang," Sokka noted glumly. It was notable that he didn't think himself a coward for dodging a fight. A year ago, he'd have thrown himself to his almost inevitable death screaming like a demon, itself an act of machismo and stupidity. Now, he turned Zuko toward the inner wall. "We need a door!"

"Done," Zuko muttered, then cast a fist forward with a blast of flame which smashed into – and then through – the wall that had them penned. The gap that Zuko created was slender; only wide enough for them to squeeze through. Sokka was through first, as he had no way of protecting himself from magic fire. Pressing in hurt like all hell with his burned limbs, but better burned limbs than burned everythings. The sounds of flame flying behind him, as he stepped backwards into the resplendent – if scarlet – room, sounded with fury and wrath, before a great whoosh, followed by Zuko forcing himself into that gap. He didn't get far before his eyes bugged and his face showed sudden panic. Sokka didn't need to hear the words to know what to do.

The Tribesmen braced a foot against the wall, grabbed onto Zuko's armpits, and heaved. The sound of tearing shirt was the song that announced Zuko getting out of harm's way. Zuko blinked a few times, and glanced down to his now slightly tattered undershirt. "That could have gone worse," he noted.

"Don't jinx it. You'll just give the universe more ideas," Sokka said, slowly pulling the firebender up.

"I know _all_ about that," he answered flatly, his eyes rolling as he did. They'd barely said a word by the time there was a cacophonous blast, one which sent the two young men stumbling away from the cleft. Debris pelted them, and acrid smoke rose up and stained the ceiling. And the hole behind them was now significantly wider.

"_Right_. They have bombs," Sokka noted.

"Run?"

"Yup," Sokka agreed. Then, the two of them fled once more.

* * *

><p>"This is a fools errand, Yue. You're going to get me killed!" Samo-e grumbled, as the group flit from one shaking room to another. She wasn't exactly sure he wasn't right. After all, while Yue had never been personally present at an earthquake today, she'd heard enough about them from traders and travelers in the years before the Siege of the North to know that going into a building was the worst of all possible decisions to make. After all, outside,you had a lot less chance of something falling on you.<p>

"I'm starting to wonder if you truly do have a wife," Jantuk jibed. "...because the way you whine and moan, I'd swear your groin folded in instead of out."

"Hey! That's not funny," Qylli protested, her arms crossed and eyes staring daggers at the older man.

"He's..."

"Shamans! Please!" Yue said over them. "We've come to far to fall to bickering! Now, where are Odalai and..."

"Right here, ma'am," Odalai said, rounding a corner and throwing a soldier into a pantry. "There's a lot more of them the deeper in you go. I hope this won't take too long."

Yue closed her eyes, breathed of the air that swirled through the Fire Lord's house. There was a stink on it, not the note of sulphur which pervaded everything in the dry. Not the acrid tang of lamp oil smoke. This smelled like the death and putrefaction of something inherently wrong and unnatural. And a chill ran through her. "Jantuk? Samo-e? Do you feel that?"

"Yes... I do," Samo-e noted, beginning to look around him. He took another sniff, closed his eyes, then quickly turned. "There!"

"What?" Qylli, at the back of the pack, asked.

"...It's not... I don't get it. I _knew_ there was something there," Samo-e muttered.

"Your paranoia is getting the better of you," Jantuk shook his head. "Mistress Yue, do you know which way Tui and La are?"

Yue had just started to point, when a figure, its body so black that darkness would have paled before it, stepped out of an open doorway, perhaps five paces away from Qylli. Most notably, it didn't exit the room; it appeared, walking through the threshold. It turned to them all, its burning scarlet eyes pulsing with what seemed like black veins. Then, the jaws opened, and a shriek that drove every shaman back a step for its intensity filled the corridor, where it did not peel the paint from the walls and cause the gilding to crumble and fall away from its decorations. "RUN! NOW!" Yue screamed. Qylli was already taking her advice, powering through the group which was for the most part men, and causing a stampede as the black-thing's first step was matched by four from everybody else.

"What is that thing?"

"Bad!" Yue answered Odalai's question. Every iota of that thing sent shards of terror hurtling into Yue's brain, pure and undiluted and brutal. She imagined this was what it must feel like to be something small, weak, and delicious in... say... Azul. The fear was in part her own, but in part, the fear of something far larger, and yet every bit as vulnerable.

Yue turned forward just as it backed into a door, and appeared standing in front of them. Yue skidded to a stop, and looked past it. Tui and La were only a few hundred feet away, but through the maze of the palace, and past this thing, they might as well be on the far side of the planet. The black thing stalked out of that threshold, pushing the shamans back.

"Mistress, I'll slow it down," Jantuk said. "Just find Tui and La and get them out of here!"

"That is suicide and I don't think it would work," Yue pointed out the two obvious shortcomings of Jantuk's offer. She continued to shuffle back with them, as a beyond-black hand raised up, as though to beckon them toward it. Yue blinked and breathed hard, but she couldn't retreat forever. Sooner or later, they'd have to pass through an arch, or a doorway... and then that thing would be in the middle of them. Which meant she had to do something drastic. "Get ready to run past it. I'll hold it down for... maybe a few seconds."

"What? How?" Jantuk said.

"Don't tell me you're going to throw yourself at that thing!" Samo-e shouted.

"If you touch it, it'll..." Odalai began.

"I have no intention of letting it touch me," Yue said. She closed her eyes for a moment, and reached out with a sense far older than bending. Water, which now dribbled down from the ceiling through cracks that ran down into the heart of the palace, began to tremble as she began to invoke the water. She knew that, for most, to invoke required the words. Shamans after all weren't the spirits they dealt with, so they had to bridge the context with their ideas, to implore the spirits to their cause.

Yue didn't need to use the words, to implore. She called to the spirits of flood, deluge, and above all others water, as easily as a man or woman would draw breath. She clenched a fist tight, her World Eye showing the great flood of the spirits beginning to pour down through the nearby crevasse in the room. They didn't manifest as a physical flood, but the air did became almost soupy as it was overtaken by the spirits submersible. "Go now!" Yue shouted, and then she held that hand forward. A great bolus of them recoiled for a moment, before hearing the desperation in Yue's heart, seeing it in her eyes, feeling it in her soul. They were small, numerous, and simple, but they understood sacrifice. So they crashed into the black thing, and bowled it aside. Even as the spirits impacted, they were being unmade to their utmost, but the shamans of the Water Tribe took that opportunity to _its_ utmost, and surged past in a great and rampaging mass. Yue was the last to follow, holding that storm of water spirits toward the thing which unmade them without effort or thought, but could not but check their surge.

Finally, Yue let the water spirits falter, and she started to run. Her nose told her, how the thing kept bouncing closer to her, between doorways and hallway transitions, or even the pools of shadow. But after what felt an eternity, but was only seconds, the smell began to fade. She staggered to a stop, and saw the black thing staring after her, before it swung its head to one side. The northeast, it seemed. The swirling maw of madness opened, but not for a scream. Without a sound being offered, it walked into a room, and vanished completely from the Palace.

"Whatever that was, it's probably a sign that we'd better move _fast_," Qylli said, pulling Yue out of her shock and confusion.

"You're right. It's this way!"

* * *

><p>The crash of a wall falling out behind them gave Sokka and Zuko a moment of hope; after all, they'd been trapped inside this room and under siege for quite long enough; Sokka had run out of things to hurl at the guys trying to burn them to death.<p>

"Great, now we have a way to..." Sokka trailed off, when he beheld what had knocked over said wall. Not a shift of stone or a force of nature. _Well_, kinda a force of nature. Hovering just above the floor, in a sphere of wind so hard that Sokka could see it, Aang held his hands, glowing with brilliant white light, over the ground. Every twitch of his fingers was answered by a shift in the stone. The Avatar turned burning white eyes toward Sokka, just for a moment, and the look of them drove Sokka back a step, into Zuko as luck would have it. Sokka was the last person to think he could ever be afraid of Aang... but looking at him right now...

It was like looking at a demon that lived inside the skin of a brother. Such hate and rage could never exist within the airbender kid. At least, Sokka hoped it couldn't.

"Oh, that isn't good," Zuko said, a glance over his shoulder. Aang turned his gaze forward again, and offered a wordless roar that sounded with thunder, before a bolt of purple lightning slammed into a tree in the courtyard, and turned it into salt. Sokka blinked at that absurdity, but it was followed a moment later when an orange bolt struck that same tree, and set the salt on fire.

"Aang!" Sokka said, finally regaining his senses and rushing toward the exit that the Avatar had made for them. "Calm down! You're going to – gurk!"

Sokka was pulled back, and thankfully so, at the edge between the room and the courtyard, because even as he did, another purple bolt slammed into the greenery, and as it did, the whole plant and area around and under it instantly transformed into ice, even as snow began to fall down over top of it. Then, another bolt, turning the ice into blood. Still frozen, thankfully.

"If we go out there right now, that's going to happen to us!" Zuko pointed out the obvious.

"Well I don't have any other options right now," Sokka said. Then he looked down, and rolled his eyes. A chunk of wall might not be the most aerodynamic of weapons, but it was a damned sight better than nothing.

At the door to this room, the two firebenders who had been pressuring the increasingly exhausted Zuko and the effectively unarmed Sokka back stared in fear, but didn't lower their guards or shift their stances. Which was unfortunate, because Sokka wanted to brain one of 'em. "This is insane..." one said.

"Keep your eyes on the target in front of you, junior. We can deal with the font of insanity that is the Avatar, later," the other answered. The slightly younger looking one – in his late twenties to the others early thirties, perhaps – gave a nod, then thrust forward with shouts of wrath and fiery devastation. Zuko released Sokka, and swept his own fire to smash the assaults aside, but there was only so much that he had left in him. After all, Zuko hadn't been treated kindly since his appearance in this palace. Sokka doubted anybody was.

Zuko was being pressed back. And by that token, so was Sokka. He kept glancing over his shoulder, even as he tried to see between flares of light. He knew that if they backed up another couple of yards, they'd be in prime lightning-bolting territory. That wasn't something that Sokka relished the notion of. Regular lightning was pretty terrible to get struck by. But lightning which turns you into frozen blood? Ew and no in equal measure.

One particularly forceful assault struck Zuko's guard and sent him jolting back into Sokka, such that the Tribesman had to dig in his toes and lean to keep the firebender rooted, and to keep himself from sliding into harms way. Zuko was shaking his head, trying to clear it. Sokka finally let Zuko stand on his own, and he took his defensive stance once more... only to find that the fire had stopped coming in at them.

The fact that Nila was garotting one with a curtain-draw and Azula was delivering a kick to the face of the other where he'd come to rest against the vanity told Sokka exactly why.

"Oh... I'm given to believe that this is usually a situation reversed," Nila said with a smirk, even as she finally let the firebender – who'd stopped struggling – flop to the floor. "Although I for one and content _not_ to be imperiled for another's pleasure, given a choice."

"Nila, thank the gods," Sokka said. "Aang's losing it!"

"I'm aware," Azula said, pulling something off of her back and hurling it at Sokka. He caught it, easily enough, and his eyes widened.

"SPACE SWORD!" he cried.

"You are more excited to see your weapon than your girlfriend," Nila noted with a raised brow.

"That's because I didn't know if I'd ever see this again. You were pretty much a certainty," Sokka said. Zuko gave a wince, as though he expected Nila to take that badly. Fortunately for Sokka, if he'd learned anything, it was that Nila didn't react the way that people thought she should. She just smirked and shrugged at what ought have been a back-handed compliment. "What do we do about Aang?"

"Let him kill Azul?" Azula offered.

"Yeah... that's not the way we roll in Team Avatar," Sokka said with a bit of a shrug.

"It would certainly solve our problem with him," Azula nevertheless pointed out.

Sokka, though, stopped. He turned behind him, and saw that the lightning had stopped falling into the Red Garden with all of its entropic effects. "Why do I not like this?" Sokka asked.

He was answered when the shadows oozed out a female form, one with red and virulent eyes. Instantly, a fairly bleak and terrified profanity began to slip out of the Tribesman's lips, and when the others saw what he did, they couldn't help but join him. The twin dao, tossed to Zuko by his sister, were out in a flash and a ring of steel, but they would do very little good against something which had no blood to spill, nor limbs to sunder. "It's..."

"The Shard," Nila muttered. And for a wonder, she inched closer to Sokka and behind him, her eyes wide. Insanely brave she might be, but when it came to things that could neither be shot nor hit in the eyes with pepper-grease, she found herself at a loss.

"Is it safe to come in, now?" a voice came from the doorway.

"No, but it's more dangerous out there," Azula shouted. The eep that sounded was followed by a man of slender build and withdrawing of nature slipping in with the girls. From the way he was described, it was most likely Nomura Sato. He took one look at the Shard, which swung those hellish eyes along in a great arc that sped past all in the room before it, and froze solid. Whatever the Shard was looking for was not one of their number, luckily. Its gaze hinged, until it locked on something out of sight. There was a terrible wail of fire burning in that direction, and they could see the profile of the Shard's mouth opening. Then, It started to stride, evenly but steadily, toward the source of the sound.

Likely toward Aang.

"What was that thing?" Sato asked.

"A problem," Sokka answered.

"We need to get your Avatar out of here," Azula prompted. Nila took a moment to nervously swallow, before she let her expression turn from fear to her usual annoyed resolve.

"She is correct. I have little doubt that in his current state, he would think himself able to defeat the beast, and would find himself wrong to the world's peril," Nila noted.

"How can we outrun something that can teleport?" Zuko asked.

"...seriously, what was that thing?" Sato pressed.

"Keep up or we let It eat you," Azula summarized. That drew a pallid look from the inventor, and commanded obedience. Lucky that he gave it. But worryingly, there was no plan given to help Aang. Because nobody knew _what_ they could do to help.

* * *

><p>The rumbling in the heart of Caldera City brought every bit of the terror that the insane lightning had in Azul. The ground shifted and cracked, jets of sulfurous gasses leaking up as the very ground began to betray those who lived on and around the cone. Some of the palaces of the rich and noble had already collapsed, the twisting of the earth unmaking their foundations. But a few collapsed buildings would be nothing to what would come if the entire crater collapsed in, or worse, if the eruption to come struck with the explosiveness of the one which unmade the previous Avatar's home. That had been a blast which, purportedly, could have been <em>heard<em> as far away as Senlin or the city of Azul.

"Your 'back-up' plan had better work," Zhao swore.

"It was all hypothetical and experimental! We have no idea what this will do!" Qin tried to absolve himself of the consequences, but Zhao was having none of it. Even as he walked out of the snow, ignoring how it stung against his face, he was trying to rationalize why this was happening. Azula had foretold no eruption. Of course, that might have been because the vision she beheld told of an eruption which was of so small an effect as to not bear mentioning. But still, he was certain that this unnatural, hellish weather would have warranted a passing sentence.

Snow _did not_ belong upon the equator.

"If it doesn't work, you will bear the consequences of its failure," Zhao promised.

"If the plan doesn't work, then _everybody_ is going to bear the consequences of its failure," Qin corrected.

"Just do your work, scientist!"

Qin gave a nod, and hurried forward. Zhao kept pace with him by lengthening his stride, but truth told, he was nervous. This was a situation that he was entering blind, unlike all of what had happened in the last year. He looked to the Child who was following at his heel like a cur. "The garrison is to stay in the port and the switchback roads; I will not have anybody taking military advantage of this disaster."

"Of course, Fire Lord," the Child offered with a nod, before splitting off. Zhao didn't doubt that another would take his place soon enough. Turning the weapon of your enemy against your enemy was a skill not to be overlooked or undersold. Finally, Qin reached a building which was built so that it clung to the side of the rim of the crater, the highest point of Caldera City. The structure was all in iron, but built as though to prevent it from pitching or snapping, many beams of metal plunging into the stone. Even still, the whole structure was canted ever so slightly to the left, and groaned with every cracking of the ground.

"Activate it now!" Qin said without any preamble to the others who were trying to evacuate paperwork out of the building.

"But it might cause even more harm than good!" one of Qin's underlings denied. Zhao took a stride forward.

"Your Fire Lord demands it. So do it."

The underling flicked a nervous eye between his immediate superior, and his superior's superior. Then, he nodded, and began barking orders in some sort of academic lingo that Zhao had neither time nor tolerance to figure out. It had a few of the others blanching, though. Obviously, these high-thinking fools were every bit as cowardly as their director. Thankfully, while they'd inherited his cowardice full-cloth, his hesitancy was something that they didn't bear to fruit.

"Even as we do this... I must express my concern," Qin said. "For all we know, we're going to cause the very disaster this system was put in place to prevent!"

"Does anybody live on that side of the mountain?" Zhao asked, looking out the window to the blasted and volcanic plains. It was telling that this portion of Shinzo was so volcanically active that it wasn't possible to farm here – representing a thing unique in the Fire Nation. Even the rain couldn't cool the blood of the earth. There was another great groan in the ground, and Zhao looked back. As he did, he could see the palace of one of his political allies lean perilously aside, before collapsing entirely. Well, that was his problem.

"No, admittedly, but it could cause a chain reaction which annihilates the volcano itself, and anybody within hundreds of miles of it!"

"This will be _my_ city, intact, or _no city at all_!" Zhao snapped at him. He then took a breath. "How is this supposed to work?"

"Explosives," Qin said. He pulled an old and yellowed looking schematic from a place on the floor where it'd fallen off of a high shelf. He pointed a form that had been inked into the plan. "We use a series of charges set in place years ago to blast a vent into the magma-tube. It might release the pressure, the gasses, and the molten rock in a safe direction. Or it might start a blast which will decapitate this part of the island. I don't know which!"

"How well will the explosives work if they're that old?"

"About as well as the plan in general will – I have no idea!" Qin said, his eyes still wide with alarm. "All of this was started under the rule of _Azulon_!"

It was an audacious, risky, and dangerous plan. But Zhao was not going to lose this city, and would not _do worse_ than the terrible predictions that Azula had foreseen. He had more pride than that. "Why haven't you started yet?"

"We need to..." Qin began.

He was cut off by the first bang. Zhao hurried to the edge, looking over the overhang to the region which was due to be blasted. But the lines of explosives were not in evidence. Only a single charge detonated, and that, only producing a spot for grey-green gasses to jet up and out into the sky. "That was unimpressive."

"They didn't detonate," Qin said with dawning horror.

"Do something about that," Zhao ordered. "This city _is not_ going to burn today, is that clear?"

* * *

><p>Flying while lightheaded was not a good idea in the classic sense. Or in fact, any sense. However, with the ground shifting perilously underfoot and Malu's balance already compromised enough by her relative lack of blood, she was going to have to cover ground as quickly as possible without touching it. It was only lucky that the destruction of the earthquake, which still rumbled and twisted the buildings, to the screaming of metal tearing in the city, kept peoples eyes down instead of up.<p>

She landed hard, flopping onto her chest when her feet didn't catch her properly, and starting to slide forward, down the slope of ceramic shingles toward a long drop into a street. While her blood might have been somewhat lacking, that just meant that what adrenaline pulsed through her was more concentrated, she figured. Thus, as she scrabbled and scrambled, she finally managed to jam her hand into a cleft opened between where the shaking of the terrain had already consigned some tiles to the cobbles well below.

"Alright. _That_ could have hurt," Malu noted. She looked out across the other rooftops of the rich and mighty; she could see Montoya Azul's palace behind its wrought-iron fence. Splendor didn't make it any less of a prison, though. She pulled her feet under her, after that long moment spent just getting her vision to lighten up and her limbs to lose the tingling sensation that began to afflict her when she tried to stay moving for any length of time. It was better than the numbness that came with honest cold, though.

Heh. Honest cold, in the Fire Nation, during summer.

Malu blinked away the pellets of snow that struck the tiles and made them all the more slick, looking toward the Spider's metaphorical web. That there wasn't much left of it that looked intact was probably the surest sign that Malu had to move faster. "Come on, Aang. You're better than this," Malu muttered. She pulled herself up, even blasting away the water from the tiles with a swing of her hand so that she could get a proper footing. As she prepared to launch herself, though, she caught a whiff of something foul, and her heart started to sink.

"You've got to be kidding me," Malu said. Sadly the universe wasn't, because a Shard stepped into existence, standing in defiance of gravity and balance, at the edge of the roof. Malu pulled herself up and away from it, as it walked casually up that slope toward her, red eyes pulsing. There was a shiver that ran not through her skin but her soul, and she flicked her eyes in every direction, trying to find the one which would see her clear and free.

Because of her paranoia, she was able to see the second Shard which walked onto the roof. This one was more brutish of posture, back hunched and hands formed into long-fingered claws. Imbalance was a non-entity of many facets, it seemed, and all of them would be expressed. The more bestial of the shards raised a jagged finger toward Malu, and opened it's hellish maw wide, to a shriek that tore through the city with every bit of the destructive promise as the earthquake below.

"Yuh-bye!" Malu offered, before taking off at a sprint along the spine of the roof, running perpendicular to both. Not the ideal path, but it was what she had available to her. She felt tired – well, exhausted, really – but fear had a way of giving the weary wings. She hurled herself off the end of the roof with a bound that would have caused onlookers to gawk in disbelief, had any bothered to look. She had not even reached her apex, though, when the bestial Shard turned and stepped off of one roof, and reappeared on the one that Malu was bound toward. It turned toward her, its head rotating clear around on what was a mockery of Malu's neck.

Malu tore at the air, forming it into a solid knot a few feet ahead of her, then twisted her body up so that she was tucked into a ball. Then, when her path intercepted that knot, she exploded her legs downward, powering off of the surface she'd provided for herself, and turning a flat trajectory into an acute one. She streaked away from the roof she'd initially aimed for, and now bore down on one mildly closer to Azul. She landed at a roll, and kept running. Out of sheer instinct, she bounded high through the door into the noble estate. For that reason alone, the sweeping claw of the first Shard passed underneath her. Malu's feet found the walls, and she ran along them until gravity finally demanded its due and returned her to the floor. Then, it was the center of the hall.

Mostly because every door that she past had a black claw swiping at her from it.

A footman of the house, truncheon at one hip and sword at the other, could only stare in terrified shock at the maelstrom approaching him. Malu dropped low, sliding practically on her back, her wet clothing giving her just enough slip to pass 'twixt his legs before she scrambled forward like a polarbear-dog, before she eventually got her feet under her again. She then had to haul herself to a stop, just before a window, giving the Shard which was waiting to ambush her traveling through it to overextend Itself, and flop into the room, claws raking along the marble tiles.

Malu gave herself a punt in the back, lifting her above the thing which was already everting itself to grasp her, no speed lost comparable to her initial sprint, and smash through that window, feet first to an explosion of wood and the cracking of glass panes being thrown into the garden beyond them. Malu rolled to a stop in the grasses which did little to hold back the mud, trying to stop the spinning of the world around her. Given the shakiness of her landing place, it was astounding that she made any headway at all. After a few blinks, she unsteadily pushed herself up. Then, looked down.

She was at the center of a flower-bed. And as she panned her gaze out, she could see the bestial and the perceptive Shards, standing on either end of it, right where the path met the soil. Malu breathed deep, trying to get precious air into her lungs. Another downside of anemia; she might as well be missing a lung for how hard it was to breathe. She had to summon her will, her strength, and her resolve. There was a crash from Azul's palace as a tower came crumbling down, before it ceased its downward collapse, dug in, and began to tip outward. The remnants of the tower then slammed through the fence, finally tearing down the wall of a building opposite the street of it. A way in... if she could get out.

The Shards both stared at her, their mouths open and bleak. From both, came a scream, the same scream as before. Anger, hunger, and madness. But as the bestial Shard was about to take Its first first step onto the soil, it paused, the foot hanging. Two heads swiveled, and the scream descended into a gutteral sound. The rasping of a rusty bell with a rusty axe. The eyes turned in again, but Malu somehow knew that they weren't looking at her. Each, by turn, stepped forward, but when they crossed the threshold from one form of being into another, they vanished, and the stink of them receded. It didn't vanish, but it felt simultaneously hundreds of miles away and three streets out of sight. It was probably the best that Malu was going to get, too.

She started to stumble, then walk. Walking turned to jogging, to running at last. She slipped sideways between the bars of this man's garden to the street beyond it, into the crowd of terrified servants and liveried workers trying to avoid the crashing of buildings onto their heads. Malu didn't have time to be discrete. So she pounded a leg down, and bore herself up in a vaulting bound that hurled her up and onto the near-top of Azul's fence. From there, she needed only throw herself a bit higher, and vault it completely, landing with a soft 'paff' in the cold mud that melted the flakes of snow that landed upon it.

"Aang! You have to stop this!" Malu shouted.

The crash of fire and lightning was her answer, as was the rumbling of the angry earth.

* * *

><p>This was bad.<p>

"Tell me you know what this thing is," Hai asked, as the two of them backed away from the creature which stalked them, through the streets of Caldera City. Hisui swallowed, but didn't answer. She knew the look on that things lack-of-face. The eyes, burning hate and fire, the maw into utmost oblivion; they were the stuff of nightmares, and right now had the look of starvation nearing an end. The looked at the two shamans, and beheld food.

"Just keep backing away," Hisui offered. She shook her head, and took a guess. "Earth?"

"Unflinching earth, the unbending backbone, the dragon's scale and the unbreaking chain, heed the call of the voice of the Inner Sphere..." Hai began after the shortest of nods.

"Rise up from the bounds of surly gravity, dance the stone and raise the hand against the abomination, wicked and insane, that stands upon you!" Hisui finished.

The beast continued to follow them, mouth wide, and despite a complete lack of features that would make Koh himself jealous, she could tell that the mouth was filled with something akin to fangs. It didn't pay any attention to the swirls of green-tinged earth-spirits at its feet. "Constrict and constrain! What has no place upon black sands, bind! Under your undeniable and unfathomable weight, crush!" Hai expounded. As he did, the green hurled itself up, mounting over the black, trying to slow it down, to follow his request and crush the thing before them. Even as they did, though, there came a keening, one which only those as trained and sensitive as Hai or Hisui could hear. The sound of spirits crying out in terror and in pain. The beast paused, looking away from them and down to the green upon its ebon form. Then, the mouth opened wider. What had been a coating, a leaden cloak, now began to swirl up and into that maw, sweeping away from its 'flesh' until every spirit which Hai had sent into attack was now vanished utterly, not a single mote of their corpus remaining. That was impossible by any rule that Hisui knew; even destroyed spirits still left 'remnants', bits and pieces of spirit-fluff that would eventually give rise to others, even if not the same variety.

These were utterly gone, as though they never were.

"Thaaaat's not good," Hai noted the obvious.

"Run?"

"Can we even?" Hai asked.

"Not successfully," a third voice entered the fray. Hisui turned, and saw what she truly didn't expect; the prisoner from Ashfall Prison, the Si Wongi with the head-wound and the defective brain, was striding toward them, his face tight with purpose and anger. She could see a glowing in his head, pumping out through the furrowed cleft and even leaking out in wisps from the pupils of his eyes. "Back away, or it will unmake you," he said, clearly and _in their own language_.

"What the hell? How did you get out?"

"Destiny can be a funny thing. Leave or die, make your choice," The Si Wongi declared, green eyes locked on the blazing red of the beast before them.

"I am no coward," Hisui said.

"And I'm not going to be upstaged by my sister," Hai agreed with a smirk. "How do we kill this thing?"

"You don't," He cast out a hand to it. "Shard of Imbalance, bleak and black and beyond all that is or was or ever shall be, this is your end. I am Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar! And in me is the light that shall _unmake_ your darkness!"

The Shard, as Sharif declared it, let out a wail at them, one that made the two shamans – and possibly Sharif as well – feel a sense of physical sickness until it passed them by. When it struck Sharif, though, there was a pulse that seemed to seep out of his eyes. For a fractional, panicked second, Hisui was terrified that he'd somehow made himself into another avatar. That second faded quickly, as did the light. It wasn't an all-powerful and all-consuming blaze of white. This was more mellow and wafting... and it smelled of a spirit-kind the likes of which Hisui had never before sensed. The light seemed to flow around him, parting an unseen wave, and the Si Wongi stood resolute. Hisui pulled her feet under her, her hands out and opened, ready to invoke.

"You do not flee? Then be it at your own peril," Sharif said, as he held a hand skyward, even as the Shard began to mimic him.

"It can't be worse than that place with the cat-bird-men," Hai noted. Hisui had to agree. And as one, three voices rose against the dark, and the spirits shouted with them.

* * *

><p>The shifting of the ground began to birth a stink of rotting eggs, as jets of sulphur began to spring up, disgorging generations' worth of pressure in a noxious stoicheometry, itself a threat of what was to come. The faintly grey substance drifted in wisps throughout the halls of the Palace that Yue was trying to navigate, burning at her lungs and searing at her mouth. If there was an upshot, it was that her sense of smell was quickly disappearing. If there was a downshot, it was that she needed her sense of smell to get a strong sense of the spirits around her.<p>

"We're running out of time, Mistress," Jantuk said, as he tied a ripped bedsheet into a bind around the shallow wound that a Fire Nation spear had caused him. Samo-e had repayed that scratch with something a lot more... well... lethal. "If we don't leave soon, Tui and La aren't going to be the only ones in dire peril."

"As long as they're in this city, I am not leaving," Yue swore. "Please. Help me."

"We weren't saying we were leaving, just pointing out the obvious," Qylli said with an uneven smile. Mostly because she looked to be developing a swollen lip from catching a stray elbow a few minutes ago during a brawl that appeared out of nowhere, seemingly. Yue knew what it was like to take a blow; the Spikerim wasn't the safest place to be, and she'd been out there almost as much as any of the soldiers guarding Summavut. Thus, she was able to bear with her own bruised stomach and bleeding ear, and keep moving.

"Do we even know where we're going?" Odalai asked.

While Yue was not exactly versed in Fire Nation architecture, unlike most of those with her, she knew what splendor looked like. There were different kinds of it. Some splendors were to impress the lower classes. Some splendors were meant to impress the upper classes. And some splendors, like the ones that she'd increasingly seen, were there simply because whoever held the purse-strings wanted something there. This was a living-area, a place where the Fire Lord rested his head, and all of the privileges that came with that. "Tui La... He's keeping them in his rooms," Yue muttered.

She had to duck inside a threshold as the sound of shouting appeared down the hallway; there were a few soldiers, carrying a woman who looked like she'd been struck in the head. There were many that they'd seen in passing. She didn't doubt that somebody, some servant or maid or valet, had noticed their party. But chaos was on their side at the moment. Yue closed her eyes, and reached out with her soul.

Blue eyes snapped open. "They're this way, and they're close," Yue said. She leaned out again, and found the hallway empty of armed men. Her legs were burning with the pace they set. She didn't doubt that the others' were as well, but at the moment, her sympathy was muted by her purpose. Her gods needed her. She flattened herself to a corner, and peeked around it. The doors which stood into the hallway were tall, gilded, and looked to have worth outstripping the entire Water Tribe... in money at least. Another glance. There were people running, but away from the Tribesmen, and away from the room. It would have to do.

Yue motioned for her wounded and beleaguered host of shamans to follow, as she scrabbled around the corner at a spring and made for those doors. She skidded to a stop, though, when she found them closed. She tried to push, pull, or even slide them open, but they were locked and barred. She gave a glance to Samo-e, who reached her side, and he tapped his pack with a shake of his head. No luck in burning away the lock, then. "What now?" Qylli asked, trying to keep her eyes in every direction at once.

"I'm thinking there's a reason so many of us came here at once," Jantuk offered. Odalai the others were silent, then prompted him to continue. Yue, though, took the hands of the two closest shamans.

"Everybody, clear your mind, and focus on the Outer Sphere," Yue began.

"There's no rifts close enough..." a bald-headed and grey eyebrowed shaman pointed out.

"Please, just do it," Yue exhorted. "Focus on the Spirit World. See its vagueries and its solidities, know its rules and its taboos. Feel the veil between this world and that one."

"I... I think I feel it," Samo-e said, his eyes down and his brow knit in concentration. She nodded, and took a deep breath. When she forced it out, the world around them twisted slightly, gravity not working quite right. Everybody stumbled, but held their footing, albeit now in the Outer Sphere. As one, they turned to the door, and found it open.

Yue knew that that trick was going to come in useful, someday.

She released the hands of those with her, and stepped past the threshold that stood as thin as air where once their passage was blocked utterly. Beyond was a sitting room, one whole wall lined with bookshelves, while the opposite held a fireplace – odd a thing to have in the Fire Nation as it was. Between sat a chair, windows beyond it that looked only down onto the streets of a city which was in the process of crumbling apart, if not outright exploding. But what drew and held Yue's gaze was the glass-sided tank which sat before the fire, just close enough that the water would be perpetually uncomfortably warm for those that lived within it.

Two koi-fish, one black with white, the other white with black, were floating still in the water.

"No, please don't be dead," Yue said, rushing across the rugs and pressing her hand against the glass. The fish turned to her, its eyes starting to glow and flicker.

I am not dead, yet should be.

Yue pulled back as she felt the voice of La ripple through her. "I don't understand. We're here to rescue you!"

I should not require rescue. I should be gone. This was not meant to be.

"Please, we need your strength, your guidance. We're afraid," Yue said to the fish. The other affixed its gaze on her.

_The moon was not meant to live, yet does. Much lies in chaos. But we shall adapt._

The world is dying. Will you stand against the darkness in the end?

Yue nodded solemnly. "I will. Absolutely, and without hesitation."

_And will you live with the sacrifices which must be made?_

Yue's eyes dropped. "I will have to."

"Yue, we've got problems," Jantuk said, as the windows shattered even as they remained intact. A great rent was torn in the fabric of reality, here in the Outer Sphere, as something black and fanged and clawed pushed its way from wherever it had come, and burst into being at the other end of the room. "_Major_ problems!"

You always had such courage, Yue. I see my decision to give you breath was, in so many ways, the right one.

She smiled. "Thank you," she whispered. Then, the glass burst, sending the water spilling out, in both of the Spheres. But in the Outer, the water didn't simply fall and wash across the floor. There, amidst the shamans with that beast bearing down on them, it mounted and grew, a creation of glowing water with the face of the koi it had spawned from. Flippered arms opened wide and beckoned in.

_Come to me my children; we have lingered here long enough._

The shamans all hurled themselves toward Tui Manifested, erupting splashes with each that entered its body. Yue was the last to stand outside, as the spirit stared down the abomination, which paused at the far edge of the rug. The abomination stared at the twinned gods, its head twisting as though trapped in a decision. It continued to twist until it had made a full circuit of its neck. Then, Yue stepped backward, into the embrace of her diety.

The water collapsed in on itself with the crash of a great wave against the rocks. White spray blasted outward, soaking the books in a spray of brine. The tumult grew smaller and smaller, crushing down and into itself, until there fell a single droplet of salt water, straight onto the floor. The Shard watched on, but turned away. It had not been given the task to eat the gods. Had It, It would have, and the shamans would not have been able to stop It. Instead, It stepped to the threshold, and disappeared, back into the rumbling city.

* * *

><p>When the Ghurka spotted Azula rounding the corner, the two of them reacted with almost perfect simultaneity. He launched forward with a barrage of discreet if powerful firebolts. Azula smashed the whole assault aside with a wave of azure flame, before twisting closer. She hurled herself toward him with a blast of rocketed fire, before colliding – fist first – into his face, and sending him stumbling back. It was impressive that he kept his footing after the blow, but Azula wasn't willing to let him recover, just as they'd wisely not let <em>her<em> recover after dealing similar injury to her days ago. She rushed forward, driving a knee into his ribs, then heaving down on his overcoat and smashing his face into the wall. Due to the compromised nature of the wall, it didn't land as solidly as she might have hoped, but she wasn't in this to kill her own people. She just wanted to survive the day.

"Nila! Get Sato and..." Azula shouted back.

"Already doing it!" Sokka shouted from well down the hall, at the back of the pack leading Sato toward an exit. Fitting, she guessed. She gave a bounce back when a wall was torn away, and part of the roof crumbled to compensate for it. The Red Garden was now laid bare before her, and most of it was on fire.

It was distantly, but Azula could see the glowing of the Avatar, as he laid waste to the palace, and anything near it. He probably had no idea the sheer scale of damage he'd done. There was a time that she would have relished the chance to show it to him, to rub his nose in his own hypocrisy. Now, she needed him alive. And she wanted him alive, as well; the two were distinct, after all.

She gave a glance toward the lightning. It was falling with devastating effect, yes, but she could feel something to it. It was like the heartbeat of the universe, echoing the substance of her soul. More true than she could realize, it turned out. But still, she could see a room across the garden, and somebody lying on the floor. Somebody she recognized.

With a breath for concentration, for power, she hurled herself forward. A pause, as a bolt of lightning sent sand flying into the air in a spray of literal diamonds. Then, she was moving forward again, ducking aside a bolt which turned a flaming tree into meat. Her feet pumped and her body sprang forward, dodging other bolts which resulted in she knew not what, until a final bound carried her over the detritus and brought her to a roll in the room, amongst the dust.

"Well, well, well, Tribesman," Azula said, dusting herself off even as she looked at the carnage around her – the walls which were not rubbled were _melted_ – before returning her attention to the waterbender. "The universe must be splitting its sides laughing."

It had to be. Because why else would Azula hoist the woman, whom until very recently she would have spent her soul to kill, upon her shoulder and start to run _toward_ the enraged Avatar?

It was both a function of Azula's honed physique and the waterbender's meager mass that Azula was able to outright run with the torpid young woman flopped over her shoulder. There was very little left of what had once been a testament to Azuli arrogance and pride, more so even than the actual seat of power which was half a mile to the north. The outermost walls bowed inward, as their innards had been smashed to pulp. Towers lay in crumpled piles. Gardens lay ablaze. That wasn't even taking into account the damage that was happening throughout the rest of the city. The only great wonder was that Aang hadn't lost all sense and started floating above the ground.

One could almost blame this on a wholly natural disaster. Well, until one reached the inside of the Red Garden, at any rate. At that point, it became a wholly _super_natural disaster, and people would probably be okay with that, considering the _snow_.

The shimmer of white light drew Azula away from a false turn, and she started to move again, but this time, she grit her teeth as she heard the crunching of a wall getting ready to fall in on her. She pounded her legs, trying to get out of its way, but she had little doubt that something was going to land on her, and it was going to hurt. When something did strike, though, it did so horizontally, and with enough force to lift the firebender with her waterbending cargo out of the way of the worst of the devastation. Azula almost face-planted, but got her feet under her at the last instant, and skidded to a halt on the loose scree that lay across the floor.

"What the f..." Azula began.

"Uuuwhao... Yeah, that probably wasn't the best thing to do right now..." Malu said, from where she was lying on the floor. She glanced up, showing that her face was a pallid gray, her eyes slightly sunken. "Hey, Azula. Hey, Katara. Could you help me up? I can't figure out which way is down."

"I suspected that you weren't dead," Azula said, giving the airbender a hand. Agni's blood, there was no end to dramatic irony today, was there? She was carrying the woman who killed her daughter out of a certain death, and helping an airbender to her feet. Madness. "Where is Toph?"

"I have no idea," Malu shook her head a few times, trying to get her bearings. Finally, her eyes snapped onto Azula. "You've got to get Aang out of here! The Shards are everywhere!"

"Oh. Those," Azula said. She started to stride, following the sounds of wrathful screaming, the voice of the legion, and the blazing white light. "If we don't calm the Avatar down, they'll probably be the least of our worries."

"Yikes."

Azula gave the airbender's summation of their prognosis a nod. She peered around a corner to find the one that they had been seeking. He was floating, as she might have expected, but his feet drifted never more than a foot off of the floor. The dust and debris flew around him in a tornado that scoured everything that came close to it. Montoya Azul was lying, breathing, but beaten to within an inch of his life. And Aang looked like he did in that penultimate fight, the one where he'd ripped out her soul. There was no mercy in those glowing eyes. Only vengeance that would brook no other alternative.

And Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, enemy of the Storm Kings and the Air Nomads which followed them, daughter of the Fire Lord himself, was going to have to step up and stop him... without killing him. That was the tricky part, actually. The first part was actually rather simple.

"Aang! _ENOUGH_!" Azula screamed into the whirlwind. He slowly turned his head over his shoulder, glaring at her. "Look at what you're doing. You claim to be an agent of peace, and you lay waste to a city! Out of simple spite! _This_ is what keeps you from being able to have the strength to defeat the enemies that matter. You have no perspective!"

"Umm, Azula? Is it a good idea to go this direction?" Malu asked.

"**HE KILLED HER.**"

Azula shifted the weight which was Katara to show that, while she was no doubt in a terrible state, she still drew breath. "No. But _you_ almost did. _You_ almost brought the roof down on her. And why? Because you wanted revenge? No. Because you got _angry_. So angry that the only thing that mattered was the satiation of your own bloodlus..."

"Azula, please,shut the hell up!" Malu shouted over her. Azula leaned back, honestly a little surprised that Malu had that in her. Then again, she hadn't seen the Malu which tried to eat Aang. "Aang! You have to stop this. I know how much it hurts to lose somebody that you care about, to lose your family! But you can't take it out on him... any more than you already have!" she conceded, seeing the battered form of Montoya Azul with his back to a corner. "Katara wouldn't want to see you like this. You don't need to lose yourself. Not to him. He's not worth it."

The flare that shone out of Aang's eyes began to dim, and his feet slowly settled back to the rubble. He slowly stumbled, and then fell to a knee. Malu limped to him, offering an arm and a steady, even though honestly she looked like she was in desperate need of both herself. "I..." Aang began, but he obviously didn't have words to tell. "Is she alright?"

"For now," Azula answered. She took a step toward Azul, and leaned down toward him. "This is what you get when you make an enemy that you can't control. Fear can't win every battle. Because when it runs out – and it _always_ does – you'll find a flood of hate behind it. Enjoy your castle of ruin, Azul. You've earned it."

"Wow. You are really mean," Malu noted.

"He was a better man when I knew him," Azula said simply. She gave a glance to the beaten old man. "Pity you never got a chance to meet him."

While the universe existed mostly to make Azula suffer, it also didn't lack for dramatic timing. As soon as the last word came from her mouth, a section of the wall nearby exploded outward, raining more detritus around the feet of those standing, and revealed a short, milky-eyed earthbender on its other side. "Told ya they were here," Toph said through the dust.

"Azula?" Zuko asked.

"Malu?" Nila crowded in at the edge of the cleft.

"KATARA!" Sokka shouted.

"We don't have time for this. We have to leave, now," Azula said. "Do you have a way out?"

"Yeah, but it's not big on comfort," Toph said.

"It'll have to do," Azula said. She stepped out of the room, bearing the water and airbenders with her, into the outer rim of the cage which had held them so securely and so unkindly. Behind her, there was a final rumble, as the last aftershocks of Avatar Aang's wrath sounded, and the earth slowly returned to rest.

* * *

><p>The ground continued to shudder and split, the streets of Caldera City slowly giving way entirely to the mounting pressure from below. Geysers of hot gas had the occasion to spray up. Those that sprayed too close to lamps or braziers, had a tendency to ignite. But even as the volcano made it's dismay known, there was another shifting, sliding, creeping of the world, one that could be felt by the three shamans that stood on one of the street deserted by all but the desperate and the dead. The skin of the world was slipping free of its moorings, and there was precious little for it to hold to.<p>

But they all knew their parts, in their souls if not their minds.

"Shine of the bubble, and sheen of the mirror, the skin of the apple and the scale of the beast; heed the call of your chosen voice. Come to our call! Aid in our vengeance!" Hai shouted, one hand up and clawed in the sky, both metaphorically and spiritually grabbing onto the fabric of the Outer Sphere itself.

"Reflection in the still water, bones of the world, and heart of the fire; as stands the bridge, so stands your might – Heed the call of your chosen voice! Come to our call! Aid in our vengeance!" Hisui offered on top of him. But together, they spoke as one. "As cuts the flesh, so shall it mend! As breaks the bone, so shall it heal! The traveler lays down his rest, and drives a _spike into the ground_ to mark his passage! As things are so shall they be! And let no other alter the paths of your chosen messengers!"

There was a fresh lurch, this time with the air bunching and mounding around the hands of Hisui and Hai, while the world itself became locked in a metaphysical way in place. There was a crunching sound that uttered to very few mortal ears, while they slammed the Outer Sphere into the Inner, and held the two together. Sharif, though, focused his gaze on the Shard, which had paused its advance on them, staggering as though it had lost its balance despite having never had such trouble before. And then, the Si Wongi with the glowing scar spoke.

"Penetrating void, the darkness between the stars, the sword that cuts god, the arrow that seeks the heart;

Gear of Paradox.

So stands the impossibility, the fissure in the sphere. The stone in the flow of time.

So stands the abomination, twisted and insane, that lays outside of existence and reality itself.

When it raises up a hateful claw to strike at your warrior messenger, to the depths of pain, and the vortex's edge; _cast_!

While you torture it – _tear_ it from within – be slow!

When it cries out in anguish at the answer to the enigma that is its flesh... be _silent_!"

Even as Hisui held the fabric of all that was in place, and kept the world, and the city around them from falling into entropy and arising as something completely else, she could sense something. It was almost a smell, at first, but as the Si Wongi shaman continued to implore and invoke, it began to appear before her World Eye as well. White light. Shining white light, gathering around his fingers. Now that there were so many, Hisui could see them... and she knew what they were.

It was a spirit the likes of which she and her brother had never seen. A spirit that was somehow all things, and yet none. A diametric opposite of the thing that stood before them. The instant that Hisui knew of its existence, that Void had a spirit all its own, her soul already knew the words to invoke it.

"The light of the soul, burning bright in the unending night, a beacon against the darkness. The void that stands between and bridges, the line that binds and emancipates. Gear of the soul and spirit, heed the call of your mortal messenger!"

Hai gave a nod, and joined her in the instant that her cry ended. "Dawn, burning through the fog, library of forsaken wisdom, key to the arcane and eldritch lock, and gate against the rising tide; reach down from the lands outside of sight or sense, and heed the call of your mortal messengers!" he shouted. But together, they continued. "Come to my call! Aid in my vengeance! What stands as the maw into the infinite and unspeakable, _shut_! What eyes burn through the secrets of life, _blind_! What heart beats, wicked and cruel, _strike through_!"

It was a strange sensation, feeling how the light now began to pool around the siblings' heads and bodies, a nimbus that seemed to press even as it lifted them in their boots. But still, the limning nimbus that surrounded the two Fire National shamans was nothing compared to the outright aura that blazed from the shaman of the eastern desert. The Shard, which had been halted in its advance, now started to back-peddle, its maw closing. It's eyes, red and pulsating even now, narrowing. And Sharif spoke yet.

"Arise! Become a banner of your warrior messenger; become a wrathful blade and strike with all of my destructive might upon the foe which seeks the end of all things!

I **name** you Imbalance, the Unmaking! Arbiter of Scales look down upon the judgment of your warrior messenger and bear it true!

Body false and twisted, anatomy mad, _harden_! Blood and bone and sinews, _manifest_!

A beating heart in a crazed and inhospitable breast, _form_!

As can bleed, so can die! And the Answer to all things demands death against the unliving!"

The great pulse of light that came from Sharif pulled the nimbus from the two siblings, and twisted it 'round his own mandala, forming what could be best described as a wheel, rotating of silvery light. It wafted ever into Sharif's palm, which he held above his head, his eyes wafting light, his scar glowing. The Shard had shrunk back, almost recoiling from what it saw before it. As though, for the first time in its blasphemous existence, it knew fear. Sharif slowly lowered his hand toward the thing, his fingers flexed and quivering. Hisui could feel her control being usurped by him, but at this point, she didn't care. She just wanted to know that this thing could die. At first, she thought that he was threatening the creature. But not so – the truth was, he was barely holding onto the power in his hand. Sharif spoke just once more.

"You don't belong here. You never did."

With those final words, Sharif opened his hand. The light that had formed the mandala around the Eastern shaman snapped forward, passing through his body and into that sphere that sat upon his palm. It hung there, floating, for a second that stretched into eternity. Then, a line burst from it, launching directly into where a heart would have been on a human, in that black and featureless form. The creature's maw opened once more, but this time, it did not open into a mind-shattering abyss, with nothing but despair and hunger past ravening teeth. This time, there was light inside that mouth, pounding outward. A hole started to burn from the pinprick that the Void had sent through the Shard's skin. The hole grew larger, wider, as the Shard let out a wail that made Hisui's ears bleed a little. But the shriek was forced out of place by the light mounting up inside it.

Unnoticed by the three shamans, every other Shard, in Azul or Caldera City, stopped their blasphemous ritual, and turned to face what had never happened before. Red eyes blinked, confusion and something like alarm settling into alien minds, something like fear settling into alien hearts. In the street, the light began to press against the black flesh, until light began to shine through it. Tearing it. Hewing it to pieces. Until there was no blackness left... only the light.

With a thud, the light fell inward, and vanished completely. But so too had the Shard, annihilated completely. The other shards immediately turned away from their task, and walked to the transitions. Open doors, for some. Shadows for others. As one, they fled from the Mortal World, having no thought of opportunity or vengeance. Only the animal fear, that something had found a way to _kill one of them_. Fortunate then, that they didn't understand that killing the single Shard had unmade every spirit of Void within a hundred miles of both Azul and Caldera City.

With the Shards no longer heaving harshly on the fabric of what was, the ground in Caldera City stopped shaking, although the jets continued to flare and burn. Hisui released her grasp on the world, and let it free. It no longer seemed to tear simply by being... but the damage was visible to her on a level she hadn't thought possible. Caldera City and Azul were no longer separate, to her eyes, in the Outer Sphere. In a way, the two now shared the same space, the same time. They were a continent apart, and yet, together.

"That was unexpected," Hai said. He took a step toward the Si Wongi shaman, whose eyes had stopped wafting light, and whose scar was starting to dim. "You did a better job than I'd thought. It probably would have killed us."

"That almost sounds like praise, coming from you," Hisui noted. Hai shot his sister a look, but didn't answer her.

"Maybe... we might have a place for you that's a bit less disgusting than a warded cell, hm?" he asked.

Sharif took that opportunity to pitch forward, stone unconscious, onto the street.

* * *

><p>"What about now?" Qin asked.<p>

One of the men with the lens looked down onto the cliff, where the Gork was already springing and scrabbling up the rock, with a positive gesture. "I think he's done it! The explosives are rigged back up!"

"Detonate them," Zhao ordered.

"But the worker..." Qin noted.

"A lamentable sacrifice for the safety of a _half-million_ of his people," Zhao pointed out. Qin sighed, and nodded, because he probably knew that Zhao had a point. There was a time to be kind – rarely and sporadically – and a time to be decisive. To spend one to save so many? That wasn't even a question.

Qin took a breath, probably to steady his nerve or summon what scraps of courage he had to him, and gave the blaster a nod. The dark eyed, pale-complected man nodded once, then heaved down on a great brass lever, until it locked low. For an instant, there was nothing. And after that moment of pristine anticipation, a blast that made it sound like the world was ending.

Whatever had been set into place was obviously only a key to something larger. The pressure that had built up in the volcano with the shifting of the earth took the opportunity that the weakened section offered, and blasted out with a shockwave that uprooted trees for miles, even as the unspeakable heat of the pyroclastic flow set them aflame. Magma was hurled into the air, landing in great globs in the valley below. And a great section of the cone wall began to break and slide, descending into that molten rock and bearing with it houses and palaces. If they were evacuated, they would survive. If not, they surely wouldn't. But the consequence of not sacrificing them, Zhao figured, was that same loss, levied upon _everybody_.

Qin slowly made a religious gesture, to the rolling of Zhao's eyes. "May Agni have mercy on us."

"Obviously He hasn't, or we wouldn't have to break one of His mountains," Zhao said. As the Fire Lord turned away from the outpost, the ground finally ceased in its shuddering and groaning. The jets of noxious fumes died down, now that there was a far easier place for them to vent. He walked through streets of ruin... but the people of the Fire Nation survived. He looked at them, staring back as he strode the rubble-filled streets. They would survive, and they would rebuild, and they would be great again. And without fools and idiots like the line of Ozai to muck up the works, they would do so quickly.

Maybe in time to put a ruthless stop to the Black Sun Invasion? But that was something to think about later.

If the upper class had anything to say about their Fire Lord brazenly striding through his city, without any of the pomp-and-circumstance usually afforded him, they didn't mention it. In fact, but for the sounds of people putting out fires and the creaking of buildings trying to decide whether to finish collapsing or not, he returned to the cracked and wounded Royal Palace with relative silence.

The snow concerned him, though.

"Fire Lord Zhao," one of the stewards was at his side, meek and servile, within a single hallway of his entrance into the palace. "Something strange has happened."

"Yes, the volcano almost erupted. I would call that strange," Zhao said, favoring the toady with a glare from his burnt eye.

"No, it is far stranger than that," he said. "The aquarium in your sitting room was damaged in the earthquake... but the fish are outright _gone_."

"WHAT?" Zhao roared. The toady looked like he was trying to retract into himself. "Show me."

He followed the servant through the cracked and damaged halls of what was now his home, until he found the room that he had so frequently taken to spending his evenings in. He claimed it was to have a quiet moment to read. Actually, it was because he could never stop gloating to those would-be gods. Those _deities_ that now sweltered in their tank at _his_ leisure.

Gone.

The floor was wet, and glass lay at random, but there wasn't so much as a single scale of the symbol of Zhao's dominance of the North. His lips pulled into a scowl that darkened any positive mood that his victory over the volcano had bestowed. It was with a snarl and a flick of his hand that lit with fire that Zhao turned away. Tui and La were gone. And he had no idea where they had vanished.

* * *

><p><strong>...Aang's not going to be too happy with himself, tomorrow.<strong>


	51. The Haunted

Toph didn't much like not being able to see, but that only really came up when she was in a situation that blinded her. Walking? No problem, the earth did better than her eyes ever could. Flying? Bully on having a very acute sense of hearing. But when riding in a creaky, cracky wagon that now played host to a dispirited and battered Team Avatar? She was floating in a world of discombobulating sounds and disorientating movements. If avoiding what forces hadn't moved immediately into damage control in Azul hadn't been the utmost of their agenda in fleeing, Toph would have rather gotten off and walked beside the damned wagon. Buuut...

"How is she?" Malu asked.

"How should I know?" Toph answered question with question.

"I was asking him," Malu pointed out. Again, damned if Toph could tell.

"Well, she is grey and unable to awaken. I would account that 'being poorly'," Boomstick answered the question.

"And what about him?" Prince Pouty asked from the cramped corner of the wagon that had been claimed on behalf of the Fire Nation, and colonized by its royal family.

There was a silence, then a rustling as thought dirty fabric being prodded, only barely audible over the clacking of the wheels and the talons of the beast pulling them. "Whatever his problem, he's going to have to get over it," Azula said distantly.

"If there's one thing about this kid that I've learned, is that he's not the best at 'getting over' things," Sokka said.

"Except in the most literal sense," Zuko added. Toph turned so that she was facing vaguely his direction.

"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Toph asked.

"It won't happen again," Zuko said in grumbling tones. The clattering came to a halt as the driver of the cramped and uncomfortable wagon brought the team to a halt, and Toph began to be able to pick out people more precisely. Some she could even 'see' now, due to the coating of dust and debris that nobody'd had a chance to clean off since escaping Azul City. From the looks of things, Aang was sitting limp in along one wall, with Sugar Queen beside him, and Malu on his other side.

"Why are we stopping?" Toph nevertheless had to ask.

"They'll let us in at their own pace," Jegong sent back to the riders of his wagon. Toph nevertheless didn't like the idea of being beholden to people they hadn't met for their lives. She was even less happy of the idea that the most hapless of them – more so even than the glum and torpid Avatar – was the one that got to sit up front. She could hear Sato rise from his seat and move to the ground, grumbling of extreme discomfort all the while.

"You know, all things considered, that could have gone a lot worse," Sokka said from his side of the wagon. Azula, who was in the process of climbing out, stopped with the wood creaking under her.

"And how could you _possibly_ classify what we just went through as something other than an unmitigated disaster?" Azula asked flatly.

"We found Sato," Sokka said simply. There was a silence, then a sigh, before the wood creaked once more, and Azula dropped herself to the dirt. Toph could echo that sentiment; she slugged Sokka in the gut as she passed him.

It felt great to get her toes back into the mud, even if she did have to right her balance a bit, and found herself bouncing from foot to foot because of how cold the wet was. "Are you going to get out, stretch your legs a bit, Aang?" Malu asked from Toph's back.

Aang didn't answer her.

"...alright," Malu said with a sigh. She landed onto the mud with barely a paff, as though she weren't entirely connected to the ground. Typical of her, really. "Huh. Don't see that very often."

"You're pointing this out to the wrong person," Toph reminded Malu.

"What? Oh, right. Blind," Malu shook her head, and turned to Zuko, who had joined them only to lean against one of the high-sides of the wagon. "Gotta say, I've been to the Fire Nation before, but I've never heard of it snowing."

"Neither have I," Zuko said, his tones distracted. Then again, if there was snow in the Fire Nation, Toph figured that he'd had the rights to some distraction. "I've got a question."

"What about?" Malu asked.

"Imbalance. That thing which is currently making the weather insane," Zuko said.

"Amongst other things," Azula gave a comment, before wandering after the Tribesman and the Si Wongi pyromaniac.

"Right. Why would it do _this_?" he waved around them vaguely.

"It's not. Not intentionally, anyway," Malu said. "Have you ever spent time on a boat?"

"Are you kidding?" Zuko asked, dry as a desert.

"...oh, right. Yeah. So imagine that the world is the water, and Imbalance is the boat. Wherever it goes, it cuts a wake behind it. If it goes faster – does something drastic like they did with the Megalopolis – then the wake becomes stronger," Malu explained. Then, she paused, and tilted her head, rubbing her neck. "...hmm, that doesn't work when you look big picture though... Wake tends to flatten out if you give it time, but what Imbalance does only ever gets worse. Okay. Imagine that the ocean is made out of _fabric_ and Imbalance is still a ship; wherever it goes, it rips the fabric, and..."

"This metaphor has completely gotten completely out of hand, hasn't it?" Toph asked.

"Yeah, a bit," Malu admitted.

"How do you fix it?" Zuko asked.

"A sewing needle and a lot of patience," Malu said.

"I was talking about the world."

"In a way, so was I," Malu said. "But... first you need to get the ship out of the cotton-water so that it doesn't keep ripping up what you're sewing shut."

"You... should... just come up with a new metaphor," Zuko said, and Malu hung her head. Toph started to pace, moving toward the other side of the wagon once more if only because her feet were starting to sting. Gods help her, she was going to have to wear actual footwear, wasn't she?

The horrors never cease.

"So. Not an unmitigated failure, huh?" Toph asked as she sidled up to the unified front that Sokka and Nila were providing against Azula.

"Bah! Don't sneak up on me!"

"I was sneaking the way you draw," Toph chided. She leaned aside, and could sense that Azula was deeply wrapped frustration, atop... huh. That almost felt like 'love-lorn'. But of who, and – this was the really important one – what the hell had happened to put Azula into that kind of state? Toph held in a yawn, and banished that thought from her head. "Without whats-her-alias and her networks of spies, partisans and hidey-holes, we're not exactly much better than we were when we landed on this rock."

"Sato's more than we had when we entered the city. And the earthquake probably put a stop to them making airships... at least for a little while. You've got to learn to take the victories that you can get," Sokka said.

"I agree with the blind one. We could have done a direct invasion for the effort we're putting into subterfuge, and we wouldn't have left ourselves lost and trapped in _Azul_ of all places, trying to get our forces back in order," Azula said with a scowl clear from her tone of voice.

"We're hardly trapped," Toph said. "We could just call the Big Guy, and be out of here."

"...and how would you do that?" Nila asked. "I found many things amongst Azul's trove, but the bison whistle was not among them."

Toph's confident smirk started to decay at a rapid rate. "That's not good," Toph offered the understatement of the century. She blinked a few times, and swung her head, trying to hear for the big, mellow bellows of the big galoot that had bore them the equivalent of twice around the planet already. Nothing but wind and the hiss of frigid drizzle against leaves. "How are we going to find the Big Guy, you know before something eats' 'im?"

"Not so loud," Sokka hushed. He turned briefly toward the wagon, and then back to Toph. "Do you really want Aang to have that to worry about, along with whatever else is bumming him out?"

"I had no idea that the Avatar State could render one catatonic," Azula mentioned. "It could explain how people manage to kill them from time to time."

"Hey! That isn't funny," Sokka snapped. Azula was still for a moment, then she groaned and rubbed her head.

"Right. Of course it isn't," she said, and muttered to herself for a few moments. "Alright. We're on our back foot. How do we change that?"

All turned to Sokka.

"I don't know," Sokka said. "Not yet, anyway."

"You had best discover a solution quickly," Nila said. "I for one do not wish this frigid summer to be my last."

Toph turned away from the three, as she could feel somebody else approaching, if distantly. She moved to the front of the wagon, beside the beasts that she had no real notion of their appearance, other than large and probably scaly. The three who approached did so almost tentatively, but not fearing those that they moved toward, but rather every direction but. In other words, somebody who knew something about living in Azul. As they drew closer, though, the resolution – itself hampered by the mud – began to fine in, and she could 'see' that one of them was... familiar.

"You!" Toph said, pointing a finger at him, when he was within distant conversational range.

"Yes, me!" the waterbender who'd knocked her on her ass in Omashu answered.

"You're not part of the Clan. Who'n the hell does that make you?" Jegong demanded.

"Somebody bored out of his tree," Kori answered, sounding it. "Although I wish I could say that I _didn't_ expect to see your rag-tag troupe coming out of a city that's just taken an earthquake the likes of which Azul hasn't seen in two hundred years, I unfortunately know you a little bit better than that."

"He's a guest," one of the others said, with a more thick version of Jegong's accent. And one which Sokka managed to echo perfectly every time he spoke Huo Jian. "What are you doing here, Jegong? Thought you said you were better than us."

"Didn't say better, just said needed somethin' different," Jegong answered. "I need to talk to the elders. Dara of Bheri has become Oiharau; she's turned her back on Clan and tribe for the leash of the Spider."

"That's a drastic charge," one of the two said. "The Clan of Bheri might not take kindly to you levying it."

"Take us in. It's been too long since I was amongst my people," Jegong said.

"Huh. You'd think they were Tribesmen the way they banter, eh?" Kori said, suddenly standing a lot closer to Toph than she recalled. How _the hell_ did he do that?

"Oiharau? You've finally stumped me. What does that mean?"

"Talk later. Best get to the wagons before the sun rises full," one of them said.

"Why?"

"Summer Solstice," the other answered. He shook his head. "It can be a... a rough day for us."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

**The Haunted**

* * *

><p>It kept cycling through his mind, over and over. It danced before his vision, taunting him. Spiting him. And he couldn't turn away or shut it out...<p>

The man, his back turned. The world, tinged with white. The blade was red. Katara was dying. He was howling, baying for blood like some sort of monster. He cast out his hands, and the flames unmade him. A man was dead, because of the choice that Aang made. Aang chose to kill somebody.

He was a murderer.

If he had the strength, he would have wept over it, tried to find some way to try to cleanse the image from his mind and the stain from his soul. But there was no repairing what he had done. Yes, he was in the Avatar State at the time that it happened, but in his mind, that made no difference, and offered no excuse. He chose to kill a man.

He was a murderer.

"Get up," the voice finally broke through Aang's cycle of self-recrimination and disgust, and he flinched, moving aside so that Azula could lower Katara to the arms of a man waiting below. He hadn't even noticed as the wagon pulled up to the group of others. He hadn't noticed that his backside hurt. He did now, though.

"Is... is she...?" Aang asked, his voice raw still from the roar that had stripped it while his eyes glowed white.

"And finally he speaks," Azula said. She sat down on the edge of the wagon's bed, opposite him. "She's alive. And she'll recover, I'm told. Not many people survive getting their throats slit. Even I didn't manage to pull that one."

"I... I killed somebody..." Aang said, his eyes watering slightly.

Azula turned to him, her own eyes somewhere between dismissive and... sympathetic. As odd a combination as eyes could hold. The two warred for a while, before sympathetic won out. "It is seldom easy," Azula said. "And you're not the same after you do it."

Not helping. "How could I do that? I'm an Air Nomad! I'm supposed to..." he didn't know how to summarize how much of a blasphemy this was, how completely he'd failed his people, his creed, and himself.

"The first time I killed somebody... I was barely fifteen years old," Azula said. "I had to _kill_ one of the two best friends I ever had. I told myself it was because she was a traitor, because she was serving the Avatar, because she was at war with the Fire Nation, but every excuse rang hollow. I made the choice, and it haunted me for the three weeks between it and my own death."

"It's not going to get better," Aang said.

"It's not supposed to," Azula said. "The second person I killed... I was twenty one. It was one of Father's silent backers who'd turned traitor, and was working for Zuko and you. He died without a second thought, good or ill. The third... I had trouble with. A lot of people died by my word, but not by my hand. So when I was destitute and on the run with my daughter, I turned to what amounted to robbery to survive. I knew I should kill him, to protect my honor and identity. But..."

"But what?" Aang asked.

"He didn't deserve it," Azula said, shaking her head slowly. "He didn't deserve to die. I put him in a position where he would fight me to the death. If I hadn't, he would have walked away. Ever since then, I weighed lives very differently. The only times I ever felt righteous, justified, and right was when I was doing it for Chiyo."

"That doesn't help very much," Aang said, tucking his legs up to his chest.

"Didn't you hear me? I'm not helping. I'm giving perspective," Azula said. "Everybody has events in their lives that change their perspective. Some are good," she gave a glance out of the wagon, to where Nila and Sokka were being greeted warmly by people almost as dark as they. Referring to their romance, likely. "...others, not so much."

"I was raised to cherish all life, no matter what. And when I saw what he did to Katara, I just..." Aang shook his head, running fingers along the impromptu headband which hid his arrow once more.

"You fought for your family. And when one of them was slain – in your eyes if not in reality – you took an exact vengeance."

"I'm supposed to be better than that," Aang said. "The Avatar is supposed to be better than just killing people who try to stand in my way..."

"No it isn't," Azula said testily. "If there's one thing that the Avatar is, _Avatar_, it's an iron fist that can at its discretion don a silken glove. It _is_. It doesn't have a moral leaning or principles, it simply _is_. And thinking you know better is the height of arrogance."

"You don't understand. I just let it happen! I should have stopped, found some other way..."

"Let it happen?" Azula asked. Then a brow rose. "Oh, you finally found something that made you angry enough to stop holding back?"

"What?" Aang asked.

"Much as you and your pacifist ilk would disagree, anger is every bit as much a part of life as love or... _forgiveness_," she made the last word sound like some sort of unspeakable dish that she was being forced to swallow. "When we are wronged, we seek restitution. If we didn't feel that anger, that drive to set things right, _there would be no justice_ in this world. None!"

"But... I killed somebody..." Aang said.

"After he killed somebody who you consider family," Azula said with a nod. She flicked an eye which was not entirely sympathetic toward where Katara had been taken to rest. "When Katara killed Chiyo, I never felt more justified to take a life as long as I've lived. When I killed Katara, I could tell that the same was said of you."

Aang didn't have an answer to that. Mostly because it still hurt, turned his stomach, made him feel like a mindless beast instead of a man. Made him feel like he was the last person to try to stop a war.

Azula sighed, and leaned forward. "Your problem, Avatar, is that you don't know how to learn from your mistake."

"What?"

"The second man I killed as the old woman? That was a lesson. One that haunted me, yes, but it taught me. I moved on from the act itself, but kept the lesson that it taught me. You're failing to see the second part. Yes, a man is dead. Yes, he died because of you. That isn't going to change. It's happened. You can't 'unhappen' it. The only thing you can do now is move on. You were a murderer yesterday. Will you be one tomorrow?" she gave a chuckle. "Well, going by what I know of you, Shinji, I'd have to say 'not a chance'."

"What was that?" Aang asked, a spike of confusion cutting through self-loathing.

"You really need to learn to listen better, _idiot_," she said, but the tone she used was more endearing than scathing. She puffed out a breath. "Move on, or get stuck in the past. And since I'd prefer to see my sixteenth birthday – for a change – you're going to move on if I have to drag you kicking and screaming into it."

It was strange, that somewhere in there, there was actually good advice. "Thanks, Azula..." Aang said. He then paused for a moment. "Who's Shinji?"

Azula gave him a look as she pushed off and started to walk away. "How should I know?"

"You said... never mind," Aang let the question drop. She was right, though. He still felt like a monster, but he had to keep going. The world – and reality itself! – was depending on him. Flawed or not. Killer or not. He couldn't let everybody, everywhere, and everywhen down like that.

It would hurt, but he had to keep going. In a way, it was good that it hurt, Aang decided. That meant that he still knew it was wrong.

* * *

><p>"Gotta say, I expected a much worse greeting than this," Sokka said, as one of the local girls in what looked like a pale and shapeless dress handed him some tea to go with his meat-skewer.<p>

"It is utterly baffling," Nila noted. They weren't to the point of shooting her dirty looks, but it was a close thing. Needless to say, Sokka did them both a favor by keeping his Si Wongi girlfriend close; that way, all of the pampering he'd get would spill over to her, and she wouldn't be left in a position where she'd have both hands free to shoot somebody.

"Not so much. They treat us like distant relatives," Ogan's long estranged son piped up, swooping in to lift the tea right out of Sokka's hand before he could drink it.

"Hey! I was about to..." Sokka began, pointing at the young man who might be either Kori or Ked, depending on personal preference. He was cut off when a fresh cup found its way into his hand, blunting his annoyance fairly abruptly. Still, the principle stung a bit. "Fine. This all has me a little concerned. Are they going to drug us and throw us into a volcano to appease their gods?"

"I don't think they have a volcano god," Kori/Ked mused.

"For how frightfully specific that was, I can only assume it has happened to you in the past," Nila said.

"No, but almost. You see, there was this village at the foot of a volcano back in the East Continent, and..." Sokka began.

"Kori, you slippery little toad; are you trying to get me caught?" a woman snapped as she approached the group which for the moment dwindled down to three. Sokka couldn't but sigh, as the coming of the pale and silver-eyed young woman drove all the others into flight like an upset covey of doves.

"Maya, your dulcet tones liven any occasion," Kori said smoothly, and handed that cup of tea that he'd stolen from Sokka toward her. She slapped it away, which drew a groan of dismay from Sokka, of all people. If somebody was going to steal his tea, they might as well drink it! "For the record, the chances of you being 'caught' by your father right now are slim to nil. As I understand it, the earthquake dropped most of his manor on him."

Maya, whomever she was, stared at Kori for a long moment, then shook her head. "No. Nothing kills Montoya Azul that easily."

"I made no claims to his death. Only that he's got a fractured everything and a city that will take months to get back on its feet in _any_ capacity. So calm down, take a breath, and stop glaring at me like you caught me watching you bathe," Kori said idly, as he took a seat on one of the other stools which sat around the fire that Sokka and Nila were quite close to. Maya – Azul, if Sokka understood properly – went damned near apoplectic, which brought out a dry chuckle from Nila of all people. Sokka gave her a look, but she quickly pulled herself back to the stony-faced annoyance which was her usual expression.

"I was not... It's lucky that you..." Maya sputtered, as though unable to come up with a proper recourse for that. She surrendered with a wordless growl to the sky, which hung grey and cold overhead. Kori just looked _so smug_.

"Azul, stop provoking the guest," one of the older men, his face almost the color and texture of leather said, as he moved into the circle. He, like everybody else, was wearing something pale and shapeless. In fact, the only people who weren't dressing like melting snowballs were Team Avatar, Kori, and this Maya girl. Maya's jaw clenched at being dismissed like that. Then again, if she was the Spider's daughter, even one who hated his guts, she was used to people obeying her. "You've come at a difficult time, my friend... and whomever this particular woman is," he gave an offhand wave toward Nila.

"You would do well to refer to that particular woman by name, Yubokamin," Nila said coldly, and with an edge.

"Yeah, she hasn't done anything to you guys at all. Show at least a bit of courtesy," Kori raised his voice. The man glanced to him, pale eyes staring into very dark blue, before the older man gave a nod.

"Sometimes the young see what the old cannot. It is true that she has done us no ill," he gave a glance to Nila. "But I find myself distracted. If you didn't have somebody so gravely hurt, I'd have urged you to leave camp, to go out into the valley for a few days. At least until the Solstice has come and gone. It's a dark and damnable day to be Ghorkalai, today."

"Why's that?" Sokka asked, leaning forward. Had he heard that right?

"And come to think of it, why's everybody walking around in bags?" Kori added.

"We're watching," the old man said. "And you should watch too. If you see somebody acting out of character, out of sorts. If you see somebody behaving very, very oddly, you _must_ tell us. Our dress can make it hard for them to pick their target, but often enough, they do anyway. As I said, you've picked a bad day to arrive," he rose, striking the non-existent dust from his featureless robe.

"What exactly is going on today? Is somebody going to attack?" Maya asked.

"No... not _attack_," he said, pausing before he rounded a corner out of sight. He looked out into the horizon. "There's a reason we're the _Gohar kalhi_."

"They're Ghorkalai because they live in wagons and can't stay still for more than a few months," Maya said with a shake of her head.

"That isn't what he said," Sokka said, now leaning back and looking after the man.

"You must have misheard. As I'm given to understand, Huo Jian is quite different from your Tribal tongue," Maya said.

"No, you're overlooking the obvious," Sokka said. He pointed at Kori "I half expected you to pick up on it in a heartbeat, but then I remembered that you haven't spoken Yqanuac in at least a decade."

"They use Tribal words?" Nila asked. Sokka nodded. "And what did those ones mean?"

Sokka frowned, rubbing his mouth. "There's not a particularly clean way of translating it. I mean, _Gohar_ is kinda a weird thing. Little frozen Nini, and all that..." Kori gave a confused glance behind Sokka's back to Nila, who could only shrug her own ignorance at his ramblings. "But I think the best way to say it would be... something like 'plagued by the _Gohar_'. He just called his entire people 'the Haunted'."

"Mildly disconcerting," Kori noted. "If they weren't just calling themselves something that sounds like Tribal words."

"_You are certain of this_?" Nila asked him in Altuundili. He didn't know much, but he'd learned some.

"Absolutely," Sokka answered her in the language of the land. It didn't translate cleanly, but in his mind, and his first language, it was clear as day. He'd called them a haunted people.

And that had Sokka, rationalist and realist extraordinaire, worried.

* * *

><p>Zuko found himself sitting in a wagon, in silence, watching over a waterbender. He didn't know how they'd gotten there, but there it was. Katara was breathing, but after that, she didn't look well. Having a grisly scar across one's neck tended to have that sort of effect on people. He found himself leaning out the window that opened out of the door, looking at the grey and bleak landscape of Azul, the only place that was trying so hard to kill you that it frequently killed itself by mistake. The wind that pulled at his hair was bitter and cold, like the winds that assailed him in the South Pole, in that last voyage before the entire world went mad.<p>

"Outta my way! Ow! Gods damn it that's cold!" Toph's voice came from around a corner, barging through the uneven arrangement of high-sided wagons that made what amounted to a mobile village, parked on a relatively flat bit of ground up the hills. Speaking of madness... The earthbender barreled into the Wagon's step-up, before lifting her feet and rubbing them with her hands, directly under Zuko's chin.

"You could just wear boots like a normal person," Zuko offered. Toph let out a gack of surprise and hopped away, before letting out another gack of discomfort and hopping back to the step-up, although this time looking inward rather than outward. She was even blushing a bit, probably because somebody'd managed to catch her off guard for a change. Toph didn't like anybody getting the better of her.

"Yeah, well, if I wear boots, I'm pretty much blind!"

"You _are_ blind," Zuko reminded her.

She groaned, and leaned. Then, her face pulled in. "Hey, open the door. I don't feel like freezing my feet off out here!" Zuko acquiesced and let her into the wagon, which was slightly larger than most that plied the roads, but not by much. She got inside quickly, and almost sat on Katara's head, before Zuko caught her and steered her toward a chair. "Ah; so they got you as the Sugar-Queen's royal guard. I figured you'd pawn that off on the airbender."

Zuko chuckled, dryly. "If I could find her. You know, I'm starting to understand why you hate losing so much."

"Anybody with a working brain hates losing. And it always gets worse 'cause once you have some momentum, you tend to keep rolling that way," Toph said. She then leaned forward. "But back there? That was bad. Really bad. Almost as bad as Ba Sing Se."

"Miss Beifong? Where did you go?" Sato called from outside. Zuko sighed, and opened the door once more, tossing a blanket idly over the blind-girl's feet, so that Sato could see where they'd all gathered. The wiry and hapless looking man brightened a bit when he spotted them all, and walked over proudly displaying a pair of dark brown footwear. "Ah! When you started yelping in pain, I thought that you might need something to help keep your feet off the ground. They were more than willing to part with these, although I did have to sell my watch..."

"He does know I'm blind, doesn't he?" Toph asked Zuko.

"I never claim to know what inventors are aware of," Zuko answered. "You do realize that your watch was probably worth about a hundred and fifty sparks, where these boots are probably the work of about eighty pennies."

Sato blinked in confusion, then looked down at the slippers, then back up. "Are... They wouldn't fleece a customer like that, would they?"

"I would, if I thought I could get away with it," Zuko admitted.

"Hell, I'd do it even if I didn't!" Toph added. Sato sagged with a moan. Once again, Zuko was left in utter astonishment at how somebody capable of such miraculous feats of engineering was so utterly and completely helpless when faced with the real world. "Ugh, fine. Leave the clogs. Don't say that I never did you a favor, though."

"Thank you... Wait. Why... I just paid..." Sato began, trying to work out the logic of it.

"Just accept it," Zuko prompted. "And if you see Malu, tell her to come here. I'm not entirely comfortable in this place." Only Toph could make a man getting bilked and giving away something seem like a favor was owed for it. He turned to her. "I assume that Sokka's working on some sort of plan to make up for the fact that we're operating blind, deaf, and mute in Azul right now?"

"Possibly. Or he's drinking tea and getting fawned over. Which doesn't sound like a bad idea..."

"I wouldn't try. Gorks don't get along well with Easterners as a rule."

"What? Why not?"

"You'd need to ask them. And while your doing it, ask them why they bring in Tribesmen like long-lost family. I'd like to hear the answer to that one as well."

"Oooooh. Cultural study," Toph said, rubbing her hands together in honest anticipation. The glee in her smote eyes was clear even to him. It was strange, though; he never thought that Toph cared about anything other than enjoying life's luxuries, and beating the hell out of people.

"Huh."

"What?" Toph demanded.

"It's just not what I would have expected of you."

"Hey, just 'cause I like to pound the snot out of idiots and save the world doesn't mean I don't have hobbies," Toph noted.

"Your hobbies being unearthing little-known trivia about arcane civilizations?" Zuko asked evenly.

"Damned straight."

"You can't do anything normally, can you?" Zuko asked.

"Psh; if I did, I'd be as boring as my dad," she scoffed. She then fell silent, and tilted an ear toward Katara, which had her eyes pointed directly at Zuko. "I can barely hear her breathing. Are they sure she's going to get better?"

"They seem sure. And if anybody knows about recovery from near-complete exsanguination, it'd be the Yubokamin," Zuko noted.

"Yet another question I'm going to have to ask these guys," Toph said, sitting back. When the silence of Zuko's 'not getting it' settled in, she continued. "Why do they bother living in a place this ludicrously deadly?"

"You could ask that same thing to every Azuli, ever. Or any Si Wongi. Or any Tribesman," Zuko said. He slid his back down the wall, and dangled one leg out of the cart toward the ground. "There are days when it seems that the only sane cultures on this planet are my own, and to a lesser extent yours."

"'To a lesser extent' my freezing muddy foot!" Toph snapped. Zuko couldn't help but smirk at that. The smirk turned to mild surprise when Malu leaned around the corner, and rolled her eyes.

"Fiiiinally. You'd be amazed how hard it is to find somebody when you can't fly."

"No, I wouldn't," Zuko said.

"Eh, it ain't _that_ hard," Toph stressed.

"I'm just worried what'll happen today," Malu noted, as she kipped over Zuko, deftly weaved between the supine Katara and the seated Toph, and utterly filled the cluttered wagon-house to capacity.

"Meaning?" Toph asked.

"It's the Solstice," Malu said. Zuko prompted her forward, as he found himself frequently doing today. "The Solstices are the Haunting Days."

Zuko blinked at that for a moment. "That doesn't sound good."

Malu just nodded at that. Some day, he was going to have to get more history out of that airbender, but at the moment, he was stiff, restless, and needed to move. So he rose, and left the earthbender and the airbender to get on each others' nerves, and leave Katara to the slow process of replenishing her own supply of blood.

* * *

><p>Yoji lowered the lens from her eye, dropping the unpleasant sight before her when she did so. Watching a significant portion of Caldera City wiped out by magma was not a comfortable experience. But better a significant portion, than <em>every<em> portion. The blast had been clear across the overgrown valleys between the peaks, rousing her from her fitful sleep and bringing her attention to the southeast. But her attention was, at this point, fixating on something a lot closer.

It had been months since she saw snow... and the last time she saw it, she was a lot closer to Summavut than she was now. It fell in fat flakes, which melted almost immediately upon touching the ground. But still they fell. Yoji held out a dark hand, and felt one of them settle onto a fingertip. There was a sort of sting of cold, before the fluff and crystal of it degraded. Sometimes, in an instant. Other times, it sat there for several long seconds before it finally collapsed into a droplet.

She'd done this before. This staring at snow as it dropped off of her fingertips.

But it was _long_ before this year.

Yoji dismissed the uncomfortable thoughts that followed her, and twisted the sphere of fire that she had to keep held in her hand. If she released it for more than a few seconds, it would burn out and leave her cold and in a great deal of trouble. If this was a new technique, it was a terrible one; any firebender who had to bring around a source of fire with them was laughably weak, incompetent, and easily defeated. As an experiment, she cast out a fist once more, a grunt of angry effort behind it. The only result was the flame in her other hand drifting the direction that she'd punched.

"_It doesn't matter_," Yoji told herself. "_All that matters is that I got what I needed_."

There was a cold and angry part of her that chewed on that statement. She'd walked away from the crown jewel of the Fire Nation right as it reached outright disaster, and on the task of returning a usurped Fire Lord to his seat of power. By one definition, she was a traitor. By another, incompetent for having let herself get into this position in the first place. And honestly, she wasn't sure which one rankled more.

She moved to the little lean-to tent that she'd set up to sleep under, picking up the encrypted letter that had brought her this far, and would likely send her further. 'The Childless Man waits at the roof of the world.' To most, a meaningless sentence. To Yoji, it gave her target, and destination both. She looked ahead of her. The grey haze of falling snow was turning into the darker grey haze of falling rain, something more familiar to the Fire Nation, and sweeping the direction that she walked. But that meant that she couldn't see what she was already technically starting to mount. The highest mountain in the Fire Nation, itself by a fair margin the second highest peak on the planet.

"_If I'm a traitor, I might as well be a competent one_," Yoji muttered to herself, a grim expression on her dark-brown face. How long had it been since she just stopped caring about her make-up? She didn't even remember. She slung the sleeping mat onto her back, and pulled the tarp with her, starting to bundle it up even as she walked.

She never noticed how she had spoken the Tribesman's Tongue.

Because she never considered that it, despite all this time, was still her first language.

* * *

><p>Aang was starting to get slightly concerned. Even over his desire to mope and hate himself, the spark of Air Nomad curiosity would not let him sit in a corner filled with bile and vitriol. No, he had to go out and walk with the Yubokamin. His heritage demanded it. It was like there were little whispers in the back of his mind, telling him to go out there. Into the public. Aang turned a corner, and walked straight into Nila. Heads clacked, and sent both of them stumbling backward, rubbing an aching brow; Nila's probably hurt a little bit less because she had a headband cushioning the impact of his forehead into hers. She nevertheless shot a baleful eye at him. "You should take greater care in where you walk, airbender," Nila said.<p>

"Oh, cut him a break," Sokka said, before turning to Aang. He spoke with sickly sweet tones "Good to see you up, buddy."

"Yeah..." Aang said distantly. He looked at the others – whom he hadn't walked into – and finally took in what he'd missed before. "Why is everybody dressed the same? I've never heard of these people being so... _bland_."

"Aang, what do you know about ghosts?" Sokka asked. Aang blinked at him a few times.

"...boo?" he asked, making a pantomime gesture of a specter. He really wasn't in the mood for these games, today.

Sokka sighed, and tweezed his brow. "I'm serious, Aang. These people are all bent out of shape because they think that ghosts are going to come back from the dead and mess around with 'em," he said.

"Which is impossible, for if even one of every hundred human beings left a ghost, the world would outright collapse under the weight of their accumulated mass, no matter how insignificantly small that mass were," Nila continued.

"So I figure that there's probably some spirit-world stuff that's got them all spooked," Sokka said. Aang let silence linger. "Soooo, are you going to do something about it?"

"I don't know," Aang said, quietly. "Would they even listen to me right now?"

"You are the Avatar. Of course they would," Nila said.

"I just... I don't feel very 'commanding' right now," Aang said, rubbing the back of his neck, where his collar rubbed against the blue band of his tattoo.

Sokka sighed, and propped an arm on Aang's shoulder. "Look, I don't wanna be the guy to put pressure on you. You've got stuff on your mind! Who doesn't?"

"Idiots, as a rule," Nila answered.

"Not the point. These people are scared of something. And if there's anything that being around you has taught me, there's a _reason_ why people are afraid of the dark. Usually 'cause of what lives in it," Sokka said. He pointed at his own chest. "Now if there's a spirit messin' with people, there's nothing that I can do to stop it. Nila, either."

"She goes into the spirit world all the time," Aang said.

"Since Sharif was taken, I have not returned even a once," she said, her tone flat. Oh.

There was a sort of buzzing in Aang's head, one he attributed to a lack of sleep and feeling generally out of sorts after what he'd done. As such, he batted it aside, in a manner nobody else on the planet could. It still buzzed, but Aang pressed on. "Alright. Alright, I'll try to help," he said. He looked around for a few seconds, his brow knitting. "I can't see anything on the surface that would make spirits angry. You're going to need to talk to people. Maybe something happened here that birthed a spirit a long time ago, and they just hadn't gotten rid of it in all that time."

"See? Team Avatar, back on its feet!" Sokka said with a proud pose. Nila just rolled her eyes and palmed her face.

* * *

><p>Kori gave a moment to pause as he warmed his hands before the fire. He gave a slight chuckle, then opened his eyes. "I can feel you back there glaring at me," he said.<p>

"It's not the only thing I feel like doing to you," the Prince answered, his tones cold but acidic. He tromped around the other side of the fire and took a seat on an upended bucket, glaring with those burnished gold eyes at the Tribesman before him. "I've learned a long time ago that there's no such thing as coincidence. So explain to me why we managed to find you, despite you having the whole Fire Nation to slither under."

"Fate?" Kori tried. Zuko just stared flatly. "Ah, very well. Although I still choose to blame fate, it was because of my effervescent ward," he cast a hand toward where Maya was sulking. Well, not sulking per se; to the world, she was quietly reading where she sat on the end of a wagon's landing. Kori felt he knew her better by now, "decided that the best place to hide from her father was directly under his nose."

"That's suicidal," Zuko noted.

"As I had told her. But even though she's Azuli, she's also frightfully naïve in some areas," Kori said, prodding at the fire with a stick. "I've half-got her to outright join your side of things. Considering what I've seen in the air of late," a motion around to the last flakes of snow, starting to sweep down in near-horizontal stings rather than fluffy flakes, "I've got plenty of support for your 'the world is ending' idea. And since I'd prefer to live, I guess that means treason with a side-order of blasphemy."

"Blasphemy?"

"I heard about Agni," Kori shrugged. "Never would have seen that of 'her'. Ah, well. I never gave much beyond lip-service to your god anyway. Since she's a spirit, that's probably for the best," he cracked a grin. "Best to not piss off the spirits who already think they've got a latch on me from down south, am I right?"

"I don't think that's how spirits work," Zuko noted.

"Heh, and you'd know," Kori said. He took another breath; this time, when he spoke, he didn't look up. "What about the waterbender? She didn't look well."

"She'll recover," Zuko said.

"Is that hope I hear?" Kori asked. Zuko just shot a reproachful look, and shook his head.

"She's too stubborn to die. If nothing else, she'll hang on until our truce ends, nail me once more with something unspeakably horrible, then die so I can't get revenge," Zuko said, lip curling into a smirk.

"Young love," Kori said with saccharine tone. Zuko didn't seem flustered, though neither amused. He just rolled his eyes and let it go, which debunked one of Kori's theories. The other one was slightly more absurd, which paired the firebender with the blind one. After that... he and the Avatar, maybe? It was hard to tell with those flighty buggers which side of the wall they leaned against. He shelved that idle notion for later. It wouldn't help him now.

"I hope you've got a plan for what you're going to do after stopping Zhao," Kori said. Notably not asking what said precursor plan was. "Because I don't think replacing a monarch is going to upend the weather."

"...we're working on that," Zuko said begrudgingly. He trailed off, with a look over Kori's shoulder. The waterbender turned himself, to note Azula wandering the camp, looking somewhat concerned. "Azula? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, why?" a gray-haired woman to Kori's immediate left answered.

"Not you," Zuko said testily.

"I don't understand. Where is he?" Azula asked, her tones just loud enough to reach the two teenagers. Kori shot Zuko a look, and the two rose as one, following in her wake as she made her way through the wagons and the white-robed denizens thereof. While Zuko was taller, he wasn't a trained waterbender, so he tended to get intercepted by people, while Kori flowed right between them. He got a bead on Azula first, but only because she was wearing red and black to everybody elses' pale.

She wasn't walking like Azula.

"Azula!" Zuko shouted ahead of him. At least two other women turned to look in their direction, but when they noted that he wasn't shouting at them, went back to their business. The Azula in question herself? Didn't register so much as a twitch. Kori moved closer, keeping her from slipping out of sight as she wove through the nest of wagons and lean-tos. He had seen the way Azula walked; it was a small part of what made her who she was. It was purposeful, powerful, and unwavering. The way this girl was walking now spoke to none of those things. She was a lost girl, afraid and confused. He reached her long before Zuko did, and caught her arm.

A gamble. If he did that to Azula, there was a fair chance he'd lose his hand.

Instead, Azula let out a slightly mewling noise, and looked back in concern at him. "No! Let me go, I have to find him!" even her tone of voice didn't sound right.

"This isn't good," Kori noted. He looked back and beckoned, pulling in Zuko as he made the last corner and toward where the other pale-robed people were starting to spread away, watching the two intently... and with a bit of fear.

"Azula, what's going on?" Zuko asked as he reached their side.

"Make him let me go! I have to find him..." Azula begged. Kori made a 'are you hearing this?' motion at her, and Zuko grew even more pale. She tried feebly to pull away from Kori's grasp, but failed utterly. That, too, was a sign that something was wrong. He didn't doubt that Azula was about as strong as Omo used to be; if she didn't want to be grasped, she was damned-well capable of undoing it herself.

"Azula, you're talking like a crazy person," Zuko said.

"Who's Azula?" Azula asked, finally turning to face the two of them. There was something about her face that almost made Kori let go of her then and there. The juvenile nervousness, the powerlessness, the biting of the lip and the glancing up under the brows, not a one of those things spoke to the once-Princess of the Fire Nation.

"It's her," one of the Gorks nearby said. Kori turned to him. "She's the one."

"She's the what?" Kori asked.

"Who? What is your name?" he asked, crowding in on Azula. Zuko made him back away with only his glare. He stammered for a moment, before melting back into the crowd.

"Which one do you think it is?" one of the Gorks asked.

"I hope it isn't Oberashi. I don't want to have to kill a guest," another answered.

"Excuse me?" Kori asked.

"Azula, we're getting out of here," Zuko said, and turned.

Kori's hand clenched shut. The two were now staring at each other, and Azula was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh... that's not good," Kori said with a wince.

"You fools! You drove her off before we could figure out which one she was!" an old and bearded man said, thumping the ground with a cane.

"Drove off... That was my sister!" Zuko shouted. The old man shook his head slowly.

"No. Not today, she isn't," he said. He turned to what was probably his granddaughter, in that she was roughly Kori's age. And a looker, besides. "Azula, go tell the others that we've found one. But we don't know which it is."

"Alright, grandpop," the other Azula said, before moving back through the wall of pale robes, and vanishing from sight.

"What just happened?" Zuko asked, anger giving him a rough edge to his voice.

"If you value her life, you'll look for whoever else is going to get taken," the old man said. "If she's lucky, she's not the one who died that day."

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" Zuko roared.

"The ghosts have your sister now," the old man said. The others began to mutter among themselves, watching nervously where the two young men were standing, but finally allowing themselves to drift inward from the wall that they'd created. The threat, such as it was, was over.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder at the logic of Ozai calling his daughter Azula," Kori noted.

"Don't. Not now," Zuko said.

"She's a princess; there's no reason she couldn't have something more distinctive. Or at least something that you wouldn't find all over half of the continent," Kori noted. Oh, hell, he was doing that thing where he _should_ shut up, and _didn't_. Probably because this had him _seriously freaked out_.

"I swear to Agni..." Zuko muttered.

"Something like Kairi... or maybe Rikku? Good names, something that would stay with her when she grew up. And they wouldn't get–"

Kori was cut off when Zuko punched him in the face. Honestly, he kinda welcomed it.

* * *

><p>"Whatcha do~in'?" a perky voice drew Aang's attention as he turned away from the most recent of the people he'd 'interviewed'. Malu was walking along after him, if a bit less spritely than she normally did. Then again, considering the reddish stain that still smutted the bottom of one pant-leg, it was astounding she was walking at all.<p>

"Huh? I thought you were looking after Katara?"

"Yeah, I did that for a while. Then Sokka and Nila came in, and they took over," she said.

"Just that fast?"

"Fast? It's been _hours_," Malu noted. Aang blinked, and looked up into the sky. There wasn't any appreciable difference; it was as gray now as when he started talking to people. Which made it clear why he hadn't noticed the passage of time.

The other reason being he had to distract himself. That niggling little fear, that doubt, that hatred, that tiny voice in the back of his mind would swamp him if he stopped, he was sure of it.

"Seriously, though. What have you been doing since... well, before lunch?"

"I missed lunch?" Aang asked. His stomach grumbled with annoyance at the reminder. He shook his head, and tugged his headband more securely into place. "I'm trying to figure out what could have made the spirits angry here, what's got everybody so afraid. It's like back in Senlin but..."

"But you can't find out anything that would get the spirits all riled up?" Malu chanced. Aang shook his head.

"No, the opposite! There's so many things that happened that I don't know which one's which! And I don't see any real spirits near here!" Aang let out a growl and threw up his hands. "I'm starting to wonder if I'm even doing this right."

"Hey, you're trying to help. That's always worth something," Malu said. "So... Spirits?"

"Yeah."

"Aang, these people talked about _ghosts_, not spirits."

Aang just stared at her, the look on his face making it obvious that he had no idea what she was getting at.

"Ghosts and spirits are different things," Malu continued, annoyance edging into her voice.

"Really?" Aang asked.

"Didn't you pay attention _at all_ in class?" Malu asked, thunking him on the forehead. Then she rolled her eyes. "Oh, wait; I _know_ you didn't!"

Aang scratched at the back of his neck, not quite able to look her in the eye. "So... what do ghosts do?" Aang asked.

"A lot of stuff that spirits can't. And vice-versa," she said. "But their meanest trick is that they can take a Host whether the guy in question is a shaman or not, or whether they accept or not. They call it Possession, and you should know about this!"

"And what do they do? Besides feeling alive again?"

Malu dragged Aang's collar, and bore him toward the alarmed sounds of people in a somewhat different area of the mobile village. "They don't feel alive. They're not like spirits; they don't grow or evolve or change. They're stuck, and the only road they can take leads either down, or out. When they take over, they pretty much _always_ reenact what made them ghosts in the first place."

"Wait, are you saying that they get their Hosts killed?"

"More often than I'd like," Malu said. She pushed through a throng of pale-robed people, only to have the two of them swept along with another, this of older and hard-eyed members of this people. There was a wariness there, Aang knew. A fear that they didn't want to name.

"What's going on?" Aang asked. One of them, an old and bearded man gave him a look, before continuing to guide the others onward.

"We've found one of the ghosts. But we don't know which it is," he said.

"You found it?" Aang turned to Malu. "That's good, isn't it?"

"Can you exorcise it?" Malu asked.

"Maybe, but we hesitate to; that just makes them angry," the youngest, a woman who was conceivably old enough to be Aang's mother, but not more than that, answered.

"If they get their Hosts killed, what worse could they do?" Aang asked. The nervous glance that the elders shared told Aang that it was probably something quite terrible indeed.

The knot of elders and airbenders burst into a circle clear of bonfires or wagons, one which had an angry Zuko pacing to and fro, while Kori rubbed at his face where he squatted with his back to a wheel. "You there. You saw the ghost depart, yes?" a hard faced man with almost black eyes asked.

"Ghost? That was my sister!" Zuko snapped. Aang's eyes went wide.

"It's inside Azula?" he asked. Zuko gave him an angry nod.

"Where is she? Tell me!" Zuko shouted.

"Calm down. You're not helping anything," Kori placated from his place to one side. From the looks of him, somebody punched him in the face. From the look that Zuko shot him, it was probably the firebender.

"The Tribesman is correct. Unless we know which ghost it is, we remain in dire peril," the black-eyed elder noted. He moved to the firebender. "How did you know that something was amiss with your sister?"

"She was acting meek and submissive and afraid," Kori answered for Zuko. That would have been painfully obvious, as the Azula that Aang knew was none of those three things.

"She didn't know who I was," Zuko said.

"Of course she wouldn't. Those Possessed never remember even their spouses or children when the ghost is upon them," another of the knot of grey-haired men and women noted.

"Where did she go?"

"We don't know," the black-eyed one said, shaking his head. "It is a mystery we have never been able to solve, in the thousands of years we have been Ghorkalai. Where the Hosts go while the ghost prepares itself... We cannot say. And because you drove her off, any danger she's in can fall only on your head!"

Zuko surged toward the elder, but found Malu and Aang both interjecting, catching him before he could do something drastic. While he wasn't insanely angry, as he might have been months ago, it was still clear that if they hadn't have intervened, then Kori wouldn't have been the only dark complected fellow who'd gotten punched in the teeth today. "Zuko, calm down. She's going to be alright," Aang said. Zuko puffed out a breath which sent jets of flame from his nostrils, but otherwise held his ground at that. "You said that she would be following a pattern... What if you know what that pattern is going to be?"

"Then we would be able to prepare for the worst," another elder answered.

"That's putting it lightly, Savir," the woman at his side chuckled darkly. "Sometimes, the only thing we can do is flee. If it were the ghost of Oberashi... he killed a lot of our people before we were able to stop him. Some, we can restrain, like Shahid the broken man, or Abhijita the thrice-mourning. Others we can stop, like the suicide of Tanvi. Others... others are too big to handle, and all we can do is hope the ghosts don't take too many."

Savir nodded. "We need to figure out who the ghost was. You said she seemed meek, yes?"

"More feminine than I've seen her by a half," Kori noted. Zuko gave him another dirty look.

"That rules out Abhijita. Fiery woman," Savir shook his head. "Damn the burning sword! We just don't have enough!"

Aang gave a glance aside, as he could almost sense an approaching presence before it came. Probably a figment of his imagination, but he was looking in the proper direction when Toph barged her way in. "Hey! Twinkletoes; something damn strange is going on here!"

"What happened?" Aang asked, once again batting away that odd sensation in the back of his mind, focusing on the present and the now. Toph scratched her head, and winced a bit.

"That's... a long story."

* * *

><p><em>Earlier:<em>

"No, seriously. We'll be fine," Sokka said.

"Suuuure you will," Toph said with a grin, as she leaned away from the wagon which now held Sokka, Nila, and his torpid sister.

"Hey, don't loo... Listen at us like that," Sokka said. "I mean, my little sister is right there!"

"Would that really stop you?" Toph asked. The mildly aghast stammerings told Toph that she'd managed to hit on one of the few motes of embarrassment that the Tribesman seemed to have in him. "Have fun, and try not to wake the dead!" Toph waved behind her as she started to pad away through the mud. With the boots on her feet, she only had the vaguest sense of where things were. A whisper of a notion where people were moving. The rough idea of where the wagons were sitting, and the fires blazing. It was akin to being blindfolded; she could still get around, but she didn't like it.

She sometimes bounced off of people, each time more annoying than the last. With each, there was a snapped rejoinder which was inhaled at the last second. Even people who didn't like Easterners, as the Gorks supposedly didn't, had more civility than to shout at a blind girl. Much as Toph hated the idea of being swaddled by pity, she also didn't feel like getting into a dozen fist-fights today. That was a 'yesterday' thing. Possibly a 'tomorrow' thing, too, but right now, she figured everybody deserved a chance to catch their breath.

She regretted that decision when somebody barged into her at full speed, knocking her onto her back. "Hey!" she snapped, pointing up at the late-teenager who was barely holding her balance. Odd to see through her palms instead of her feet. "Watch where you're going!"

"Maybe _you_ should watch where _you're_ going," the snide answer came, as the girl gave a haughty pose.

"Not exactly my strong suit," Toph waved a hand in front of useless eyes. She pushed herself up to a sit.

"Well, if you're going to be in my way, you might as well make yourself useful. Where is that useless bint Punya?"

"How the hell should I know? I only arrived here this morning," Toph said. She was about to rise completely when, in the midst of the other's face-palm, Toph's eyes went wide. Mostly because she finally realized where she'd 'seen' this girl before. Talking to the other Tribesman, with a truly remarkable array of weapons hidden on her person. Man, what a bitch she turned out to be.

"She doesn't deserve a tenth of what she has. Shinji is mine! She can't have him!" the girl snapped.

"Hey, don't let me stop you," Toph said. She started to walk away, but then stopped entirely. She turned back, and patted a hand to the dirt. In the two seconds since her last proclamation, to when Toph's hand hit the ground, the girl vanished. Not ran off, not jumped into the air; either would have been readily noticeable by the feel or the sound. No, she just up and vanished. Toph blinked useless eyes for a moment or five, trying to figure what had happened in her brain. The answer kept coming up 'crazy spirit crap'. Toph sighed, rubbed her own head with dirty fingers, heedless to how that filthied her up, and started to stomp toward where Twinkletoes was. This was the kind of thing that really required his special kind of attention, whether he was ready to give it or not.

* * *

><p>"Wait, you said that she was looking for Punya, and somebody named Shinji?" Savir pressed when Toph ground to a halt. He gave a glance to the others. Some of them were letting out sighs of relief. Others, shaking their head slowly. Sadly, even.<p>

"Does that mean something to you?" Aang asked.

"Yes. We know who the ghosts are. We just need to find Shinji before they go through with it all."

"Alright, I'm still a bit confused about this whole thing. Who the hell are these melodramatic chowder-heads, and why's everybody scared shitless over them?" Toph asked.

"A ghost is haunting my sister," Zuko said tersely. Aang didn't blame him for terseness. This was apparently a pretty serious problem.

"Ghosts?" Toph asked him. She then turned to the others. "...those things are real?"

"Frightfully so," the grey-bearded elder gave a nod.

"We know who two of the principle players are. Newcomers are both Punya and Trishna," Savir summarized. "We need to find out who Shinji is, and keep him away from anywhere he can get them all killed."

"Look, I can find Azula," Aang offered. "As long as she's not invisible or something..."

"Don't look for your friend. Look for 'Shinji'. When the three are together, that's when everything breaks," Savir prompted. He turned to one of the women who stood close by. "Mridu? Tell the ladies that they're safe for now. Keep an eye on the lads."

"Of course," she gave a nod, then departed through the crowds.

"How will I find Shinji?" Aang asked. "I mean, he could be just about anybody!"

"That's the curse we live under," Savir muttered. He half turned, then stopped, glancing back at him. A wave to the others, saw them heading off without him. "Who are you, outsider lad, who has such an interest in this? A shaman doesn't have any hold over the souls of the dead, any more than I can hold the sky in my hand."

A part of Aang wanted to remove that headband, to finally admit who he was to the world. The rest of him, dug into the dirt and germinated by Zuko, fostered and watered and bore to fruit by Azula, told him not to be such an idiot. Just because these people were polite now, didn't mean they would be if they knew the whole and unvarnished truth. "I just want my friends to be alright."

"So do many. Few claim that they have the power to make it so," Savir told him.

"What could you tell me about those people... Those ghosts, I mean?"

"And for that matter, are you serious? Maya Azul got Possessed by a ghost?" Kori asked.

"What, didn't see that coming?" Toph asked.

Kori was about to say something when he halted, cracked a smirk, and flashed a look to her. "Well, actually, I did note that I once claimed that she would both be the end of me, and haunt me for the rest of my days. So yes, this is actually somewhat in keeping for her."

"Maya Azul?" Zuko asked. "You have a strange way with people, Tribesman."

"And you don't have much of one at all," he answered back.

"I'm surprised that you're not more worried about her... considering," Zuko said.

"Considering what?"

"I thought you two were..."

"Her and I? Do you take me for a masochist? She tried to _feed me to an Anomolokia_!"

"Pity she failed."

"Her words exactly," Kori muttered darkly.

Aang started to ignore the rest, and turned his attention squarely on the one who seemed like he knew what he was talking about. "Elder Savir, can I ask you how you know so much about ghosts?"

"Because we've been plagued by them since the Monolith and... some even say... before," Savir moved away from the throng, past the wagons and to the edge of a defile which looked down over yet more wagons, and beyond them, the fog-filled valleys. "Nobody ever tells why cultures only seem to last so long, before something else takes their place. The Monolith lasted... decades, centuries maybe? No stories tell. The Storm Kings, from inception to destruction, might have lasted two millennia, but only for the last few centuries claimed any rulership beyond of their own kin and kith. The Tribesmen... Hard to say. Perhaps they're oldest of all, but they've always had their gods living among them, sheltering them from the worst that the universe deigns to throw," Savir looked up. "But us... we've been almost the same from the beginning. Sometimes others came or went, but we remain. Our stories are our blood, and that blood pumps even now. One day, there will be a single Ghorkalai, crippled and alone, barren and childless, but as long as she tells our stories, my people can never die. I fear that is our curse. That our stories, good or bad, never die."

"So the ghosts keep coming back, because you remember them?" Aang asked. He pulled at his hair in confused frustration "Then why don't you just stop telling them!"

"You don't understand, outsider. Without our stories, our history, we are nothing. Clan and Tribe are nothing if you don't know what they _mean_," Savir said. And then he gave a shrug. "Besides, for centuries, we never had too much a problem with the ghosts. Sometimes they would come, yes, but that was a thing once in a lifetime. A story untold returning to remind us of it. Oberashi and his genocide. The sad fate of the star of the morning. The bad stories define us every bit as much as the good."

"But you're bringing this on yourselves," Aang said. Then he paused. "Wait, you said..."

"If this is the price for being who we are, I will gladly pay it. If the ghosts take me next year, hurl my fragile form off of a cliff or lay me onto a bonfire, I would accept it even then. It. Is. Who. We. Are."

"Elder Savir, you said that this used to be really infrequent, when these ghosts would show up, right?" Aang asked. Savir nodded. "When did that change? Was it about sixty years ago, when the clouds came?"

"No... not quite," Savir said. "The ghosts returned as they did... perhaps ten years before the rains."

A quiet horror settled into Aang's gut. Was there nothing that Imbalance didn't touch? Was there no catastrophe or malady for which it wasn't, in some way, responsible? It seemed everywhere Aang looked, there was just more sign of its corruption. He could barely look to the horizon, toward the City of Azul, without flinching back; the traces and lingerings of the Megalopolis seared at Aang's senses like an odor so foul that it boiled the skin.

"If you stopped telling these stories completely, the ghosts would leave you alone in time, but you would lose who you are to have that freedom," Aang summarized. Savir nodded. "I don't know if the price is too high. I think it is... but I'm not you."

"Indeed. Wise indeed to consider it, though. Most call us 'backward', 'foolish', because we care what came before us," Savir said. "The Earth Kingdoms... They have their own ghosts, but they are more subtle, I think. Anything old whispers into the future. Other times, they scream. The Ghorkalai are used to screaming."

Aang gave a solemn nod. "And Punya and Trisha? What were they?"

Savir sighed, and looked ahead. "That was a time long ago. Before the Fire Nation and the Storm Kings were at war. A Shinzoan man pulled the attention of one of our... nobility, you might say, and her handmaiden as well. He found the lady morally repulsive, and courted the maiden. The lady didn't take the snub well."

"Not well?" Aang asked. There were a few ideas of how 'not well' it was; extremely specific ideas.

"She put the maiden to death," Savir said. Exactly what Aang expected him to answer. "Punya escaped the attempt on her life, but Trisha took things into her own hands. Shinji and Punya died. Trisha... she lost her mind, and joined them not long after. These are the stories that my people hold close to our heart, these cautionary tales. Against vanity and greed, against lust and pride. And we are again reminded the cost of those lessons."

Aang looked behind him, to the hills that rose yet higher, their face forming a sheer cliff-wall that the mobile village had butted against. A glance back to Savir. "If I stop them from dying... will they be alright?"

"Yes. Possibly. It won't be easy," Savir said. "The Broken Lover haunting has never been stopped before. Its players never appear where we could save them," Savir looked Aang in the eye, and clapped a hand down on his shoulder. "If you really want to help your friends, to stop this tragedy, find Shinji, and keep him safe. Do that, and perhaps this day will be far kinder than we've had in quite a while."

* * *

><p>Hisui turned when her brother gave a grunt of concern, to where the Si Wongi youth had spent the last day or so in a catatonic state. "<em>I think he's waking up<em>," Hai noted. Hisui, though, felt a need to check that more personally. His breathing had become uneven, and his eyes fluttered somewhat. Not to say that having open eyes was any sign of consciousness; he barely seemed conscious with eyes wide open, as she recalled. Hisui felt a hand on her shoulder, carefully edging her back from over the bed she leaned. Like many places in the Crater District, the shifting of the volcano had struck hard; the roof overhead was very slap-dash and leaked... regardless of the fact that they were in one of the outbuildings of the Royal Palace. When nature was roused in anger, it didn't care what blood it spilled so long as blood was, in fact, spilled. "_Might want to be a bit more careful, there. We don't know what he's capable of_."

"_He got out of a Death Ring. That's already one impossibility_," Hisui noted. "Hey. Are you awake?"

"...ow."

That was probably the most expected answer in the history of answers, really. "You did something pretty spectacular back there. I don't know how you did it, but you did. Much as Qin likes to strut around like he owns the place, I'm pretty sure it was you, me, and Hai who saved Caldera City."

"...I had to stop them. They were going to bring the final darkness... if I _didn't_ stop them," Sharif said slurringly, his eyes still not opened, as he rubbed the new Death Ring which held him in place. After all, just because he'd saved her life, didn't mean they could trust him.

"I'm getting the feeling that he's his old, helpless self again," Hai noted.

Hisui ignored her brother for the moment. "Considering the act of service you've done to the Fire Nation... and the fact that you were wanted by the previous administration and not this one, I'm pretty sure that the state can accept something of a 'work release' for you if you're willing to offer your aid."

"I..." Sharif began. Then, his eyes snapped open. While there was a distance to his vision still, one that looked beyond wherever they lingered, there was an edge of focus to it as well. He was looking at Hisui, and through her, at the same time. "You are... more important than I thought."

"Flatterer," Hisui said dryly.

"I thought there was no place at all for you. But you felt the void. The void heeded your call. That was not supposed to... to happen. The void don't listen to anybody. Nobody can see them..."

"I saw them well enough once you started to pull them in," Hisui said.

"_What is he saying_?" Hai asked. Hisui gave him the ten second version, which had him frowning, but nodding. "_Ask him what those spirits were... and why I can't find any more of them?_"

Hisui did exactly that. "He does not know. They are void. They are, and aren't."

"They're like Imbalance, aren't they?" Hisui asked. Sharif vigorously shook his head.

"No! They are nothing like Imbalance. They are... yes, that is it; they are. The Imbalance, it's Shards? They _are not,_" Sharif said.

"So they're opposites. Which would explain why they vanished when you killed that thing. Collide a spirit with its antispirit, both are annihilated," Hisui said. Sharif shook his head, but then halted, stared past her, then turned to her again.

"That is... something like the way of it, yes," a nod this time. "Where am I?"

"Still in the city... for now," Hisui said. Hai continued to pace, until he almost bumped into Maryah, which caused him to let out a hiss of alarm and bound back. How she'd gotten there was beyond anybody's guess.

"_I was wondering where you two went_," Maryah stated, idly walking a knife along the backs of her fingers. "_Bad enough that the Children can't do squat against an exploding volcano, two of 'em are nowhere to be found_."

"_Four, actually_," Hai noted. "_Is something wrong?_"

"_What? Why do you assume that_?" Maryah asked.

"_Because you never contact us when everything's alright_," Hai said.

"_And I can't just visit because we're coworkers?_" Maryah asked. Hai just gave her a flat look. She rolled her eyes and turned, spotting the Easterner. "_Well... What's going on here_?"

"_Long story,_" Hai said.

"_No it isn't. This former prisoner saved the lives of thousands upon thousands of people by killing the thing which was making the volcano explode_," Hisui countered. "I need you to take a look at something. Are you going to come of your own power, or do we have to carry you?"

"Look at what?" Sharif slowly got to his feet, unsteady though he was. He looked at Hai, then at Maryah, and blinked a few times, before offering a quiet 'huh'. But for all the confusion that put on the face of both, he didn't elaborate beyond that. Hisui pulled him toward a window. She puffed out a breath, and opened the World Eyes. She could tell that Sharif was doing likewise. He blinked dully as he looked over the Crater District as Hisui did, but it wasn't the dull of lack of comprehension. Not this time. "That is strange. Strange, but not unexpected. I thought that might be its goal."

"What?" Hisui pressed.

"_What are they looking at_?" Maryah asked.

"_It's a shaman thing_," Hai told her.

"_You're just cutting me off from seeing the interesting parts. Why don't you bring me into the Spirit World like last time_?" Maryah asked, crossing her arms before her chest. Hai sucked air between his teeth with a wince.

"_I don't think so_," he said. She raised a delicate brow at him. "_The Outer Sphere is... a bit hazardous right now_."

That was putting it lightly.

The city existed on two layers. One eye saw things as they stood in the Inner Sphere, the Mortal world. Buildings cracked or leaning. Some burned down. Others resolute despite the destruction around them. But to the other eye, the one which saw beyond the veil into the place which existed just outside the normal, the regular and the everyday, there was much, much more. Great rents tore across the structures, the ground, and the sky. They stood like inflamed and infected wounds, even seeming to pulse ever so slightly to an alien heartbeat. In some places, fires burned still out there, their spirits igniting themselves into conflagration against non-existent gasses or things stranger still. Animals in spirit form, blue and spectral, walked the streets confused. They were, a many of them, like nothing anybody present had ever seen before, or thought able to exist.

"This is strange," Sharif offered the understatement of the century.

"Strange? This is well beyond strange!" Hisui said.

"_Is that some kind of fish-dog_?" Hai asked, as one of the long-tusked, compound eyed things loped along with much more aplomb than most of the other beasts and clouds of spirits that traversed the Outer Sphere. Maryah, at his side, could only offer a baffled shrug.

"The wounds are raw. There are no void here. Is no void. I..." Sharif shook his head, then looked out again. "I cannot think. It is too loud."

"You've got to know how to fix this."

Sharif stared out, and blinked a few times. When he turned to her, his gaze was once again as distant as it ever was. "Time. Time that we do not have."

"So what? We wait until all those cuts go away?"

"No. Yes."

"Oh, don't start with that," Hisui moaned.

"If we wait, the world dies. If we heal the wounds, the world lives. We must wait for the wounds to heal. And cannot wait, for they never will," Sharif said resolutely.

"You've got a hell of a talent for contradiction, Easterner."

Sharif continued to stare out, but Hisui started thinking. The way this guy talked was extremely specific and contextually literal. He could say that the rain would fall tomorrow, and that the rain would not fall tomorrow, and both would be right, as long as tomorrow, at some point, it stopped raining. That made figuring out what he meant a task built for headaches and rage. But there was no other way forward, except through the words of a brain-damaged guy from the desert.

"_Is he doing that 'yes/no' thing again_?" Hai asked.

"_What_?" Maryah asked. Hai summed it up quickly, which had the Azuli Child palming her face. "_I don't see why you don't just stab him until he gives you a straight answer_."

"_It wouldn't help. This is as direct as he can give... annoyingly enough_," Hisui said. She rubbed at her temple for a moment. "Alright. So you're saying that the Outer Sphere will recover in time, but the amount of time that it'll take to recover is more than we can afford to wait, right?"

"Yes," Sharif said.

"Why?"

"The Shards," Sharif said. Hisui looked out onto the pandemonium.

"Will they do this again?" she asked, worry clear in her tone.

"Yes. I don't know."

A growl, until she remembered to run this through extreme-literalism-mode. They _could_, but he didn't know if they _would_. "If they do this again, would it be as destruc... No, better question. Could they cause _more_ destruction than this if we don't stop them?"

"Yes."

"How much?" she asked.

"Everything," Sharif answered. Hisui stared at him. "If Imbalance is not stopped, there will be _nothing_. Not Spirit, not flesh. Not death. Not even oblivion... not really. Nothing at all."

Hisui took in a breath, and spared a glance to her brother. "_This isn't going to be big on pride,_" she said.

"_You're not_..."

"_We kinda have to_," Hisui answered her brother. She turned to Sharif. "Can you help us stop Imbalance?"

"Yes. No."

"You can... you can help, but you don't know if we can beat it?" she hazarded.

"No. I can help, but we _will_ fail. Without the Avatar, there is _no_ hope. With him... there is very little," Sharif said. Hisui's eyes widened. Sharif pointed to the shifty looking cow-thing that plodded down the street. "That is _very_ far from home..."

"_What is it, Sis_?" Hai asked.

She turned and put her back to the wall, letting the World Eyes close. Maryah, who like Hisui's brother was not privy to the conversation, looked on with expectation bordering on impatience. "_We've... got a problem_," she said.

"_What kind of problem_?" Hai asked.

"_The kind of problem where the only way we survive is by committing High Treason_," Hisui said with a wince. Maryah reacted by raising an eyebrow, and nothing more. Hai leaned back.

"_What are you talking about_?"

Hisui puffed out a breath, and thought about how she was going to phrase this. After all, there was a strong chance that, sibling or no, Hai might just haul Hisui away in chains. And as for Maryah? Hisui was just shocked that she'd managed to talk as long as she had without the Azuli Child stabbing her. She looked to the shaman from Si Wong. "Hey. Hey! Tell me something. Did this weather come because of Imbalance?" she demanded.

"Yes," Sharif said. Hisui waited for the 'no' that she was fairly sure was bound to follow. But it didn't.

"Really?" she asked. "No back and forth, just yes, the reason why the Fire Nation's been swamped for decades is because of this spirit of Imbalance?"

"It is not a spirit of imbalance. It is Imbalance Itself. It is something..." he gestured vaguely, as though trying to summon a word that he didn't know. "Different."

Hai gave a mildly annoyed gesture to hurry up, and she was fairly certain that he was losing his patience at a prodigious rate. "_Alright. The weather? The rains? They're here because of something called Imbalance. Yes, I know how mockable that sounds, Maryah_," Hisui cut her off before she could snark. "_But I'm pretty sure that's why it's snowing right now, __here__. There's something big, nasty, and dangerous, and it's not going to rest until it's destroyed pretty much everything. They almost made the volcano explode, and they could do it again at any time, unless we do something to stop it_."

"_Well, that means we do something. I don't see where treason enters into it_," Hai noted.

"_Hai, Sharif here managed to kill __one__ of them, and that was with our help; after he did, he spent the next day in a coma. I saw __dozens__ of those things. There may be hundreds more!_" Hisui said, gesturing toward Sharif. "_We need a shaman with a lot more power than him. And he's eight times the shaman that we are alone, three times the shaman we are when we work together! There's only..._"

"_I don't like where you're going with this_," Hai crossed his arms before his chest, his narrow jaw tensing.

"The Avatar is afraid. He doesn't know enough," Sharif said, with an idle tone, as he stared west out the window. "He... he doesn't have enough to win."

Hisui turned a look from the Easterner to her brother. "_The only way we win this, is with the Avatar's help_."

"_And there's the treason_," Hai said. He sighed. "_You don't make being a brother easy, you know that?_"

Maryah gave a shrug. "_I fail to see how this is a problem. We use the Avatar to save the world, then knock him down when we're done. Besides, throwing him at Zhao can't do anything but help us_."

"_You do have a point_," Hai said. Hisui, though, felt a bit of uncertainty. She'd seen too much in the last few months to think that they could simply toss the Avatar away when they were done with him. He'd sent the two of them to a place beyond all mortal reckoning, a place beyond _imagining_. A place that they barely made it back from in their two respective pieces. And worse, he'd done so with almost no effort and with contemptuous ease.

"_Let's face it; back when Mother was alive, she always said 'don't stare at the horizon only to trip over your own feet'_," Hisui pointed out. "_There's no point planning for next year if we die next week_."

At that as well, Hai could only nod.

"I hope he is ready to fight. The equinox is coming. And it... it the Imbalance... It gets stronger every day. I..." Sharif shook his head, unable to come up with an end to his rambling.

"_And there, we have a time-limit,"_ she said quietly. "_If we can't stop the thing that's doing all thi_s," Hisui gestured around, to the cold rain that fell into the streets of Caldera City, "_by the autumn equinox... that's it. Poof. We're done_."

"_Well? What are you waiting for?_" Maryah asked. "_Oh, right. The Avatar is an enemy of the Fire Lord, past and present, and if he has any sense he'll be staying as far away from us as possible. That's going to make things __supremely__ easy_."

"_Not as far as you'd think_," Hai said. He lifted up a book with a stained cover, one that she herself had copied at the Mad Forges. Azula's notebook of prophecies. "_It says in here that he's going to join an attack on the city during the Day of Black Sun. It also says that he's going to lose. So we have a where, and a when,_" he gave out a scoff, and shook his head. "_I can't believe I'm actually __considering this but... if we really need the Avatar, that's probably the only chance we have to recruit him, barring some sort of miracle._"

"_It'll have to do_," Hisui said. For everybodys' sake, it would have to do.

* * *

><p>When Aang landed from his final bound, up the sheer cliff that overlooked the encampment of Yubokamin, his mind was racing. A lot of it was worry. Azula was in trouble. Danger, even, from something that Aang had almost no control over or means to fight. But a part of it was spinning in a different direction, one of distrust and confusion. That part made little sense to Aang, so he ignored it, again doing what should have been impossible.<p>

"Come on, Azula... where are you?" he asked, as he looked down at the culture below him. The wagons were all drab from a distance, as their bright, colorful touches vanished with distance. The sea of pale robes was quickly being broken up, as women began to don bright scarlet dresses, or in fact clothes of almost any hue whatsoever. He was sure that he could see what looked like Tribesmen's vests and Earth Kingdom hanboks amongst the women, as well as the more expected Fire Nation variety. "Gods... Why is nothing ever easy?"

His mind continued to spin, but as it spun, it distracted him from what he'd have been doing now if his friends weren't in mortal danger; moping. The fact was, Azula's advice was on the money. He didn't have time to sulk and hate himself. Not if he wanted the people he cared about to be safe. Katara _was_ safe, now. That was something to be celebrated, not commiserated. Yes, it came at a terrible price, but whether the price ought be paid or not was irrelevant, to the fact that Aang had paid it. Or rather, forced another to pay it in his stead. There was no time to weep and wail. There never was.

But it hurt, even then. Aang was glad that it did. That meant that he still knew that the price paid could be altogether too high. It let him know that he still knew what evil could feel like. It let him know that, while he was the Avatar, and thus essentially a Demigod – answerable to nobody but himself – he was still human.

"Shinji? Is that you?" Azula's voice came from behind Aang. His eyes widened, and he turned to see her there, standing with him near the top of that upthrust of rock. There was no easy way to this platform; it was something that could only be reached by somebody like Aang... somebody who could fly.

"Azula?" Aang asked. He held up his hands toward her. "Just... just stay right there. Everything's going to be alright."

"Shinji, I was so afraid," Azula said, her eyes welling with tears as she began to move toward him. "They said that you'd betrayed me but I know in my heart they were lying."

She then faltered, coming to a halt near Aang. "...They did lie... didn't they?"

Aang had a confused moment, as something once again tried to grasp ahold of him, to make him play a part that he wasn't aware of or willing to play. Again he brushed it aside, and did what he thought was the right thing to do. "Uh, yes! Yes, of _course_ they were lying... my, uh... _friend_?"

"I _knew_ that you'd never do something like that," Azula said, her tones bright and hopeful, as she finished the distance and pulled Aang close to her in a hug. It wasn't one that he'd expect from her, though. For all he knew she was a physically powerful woman, this wasn't a tenth of her strength. She was hugging like somebody far weaker than she was. And he was fairly certain that Azula would never lay her head on a shoulder like that. Much as he enjoyed it... anyway...

"Listen, we're not safe up here," Aang said, slowly pushing himself out of the embrace. He gave a glance behind him. "I mean, a wrong step and we're all eggs off a... well, a cliff," he scratched at his hair. "Man, I really need to work on that 'making up a metaphor' thing."

"I'm not sure what you mean, my love. I'm safe now, Shinji. Nothing could hurt me with you so close at hand. You're stronger than any man I've ever known," Azula said with a little smile and a distant look in her eyes. _Yeah_, he was going to stop mentally referring to her as Azula, he decided. Mostly because doing that was causing entirely too much mental dissonance.

"Of course," he said, nevertheless, trying to put some suave into a voice which was scarcely prepared for it; puberty might have struck early with the Avatar, but not _that_ early. "I am a big, macho man, right? Oooooh yeeeeah," he even tried to flex his arms. Not-Azula giggled. Yup, not her by a longshot. "So... ah... why were you so afraid again? I'm kinda in the dark about all this background-y stuff."

"I... Oh my... I thought that she'd turned you against me. But she hasn't spoken to you at all?" Not-Azula asked. There was a flinch, as Azula's face tightened into a fearful rictus. Eyes opened once more, but this time, the burnished gold shifted immediately to Aang, and her expression wasn't one of simpering subservience, but terror, leavened by power. "You! I need hel..." and with those few words uttered, her face became placid and love-struck once more.

"Azula! I know you're in there!" Aang shouted.

"Who's Azula?" Not-Azula asked.

"Look, we're just going to go down to the others. I'll keep you safe. Nothing's going to happen to you, I promise," Aang said with a calming motion. Not-Azula pulled Aang close, such that his face mashed quite pleasantly if a little surprisingly into her bosom.

"Of course you won't. You're my hero... my savior..." Not-Azula crooned.

Aang seriously considered whether he should pull away or not.

"I'm going to _hate_ myself later for this," he said, before pushing her away gently, just to arm's length. Hormones would have to wait. "Alright. I'm Shinji, your savior. And your... What, lover?"

"Of course you are, Shinji."

"Right," Aang said. "Now we just need to..."

"YOU!" a shriek came from Aang's back. Where once there was nothing but rock and scree, now stood another young woman, perhaps a year older than Azula. This one had a much more lithe build, a woman developed for agility, flexibility, and speed, rather than the raw and undeniable power of Azula. This would have to be Maya Azul. "Punya, you worthless bitch! How DARE you show your face again!"

Not-Azula slowly back-stepped until Aang was in front of her, shielding her from Maya. Or whoever Maya was supposed to be. The whirring of a ghost in the recesses of Aang's mind made another grab, but was batted aside as easily as ever. "You have to protect me, Shinji! She tried to have me killed!" Not-Azula – Punya, as it happened to be – whispered in fear into his ear.

"Right... Uh... Stop right there!" Aang trailed off, and glanced at 'Punya'. "What was her name again?"

"How can you not know Trishna of Cán?" Punya asked.

"It must have slipped my mind," Aang was practically buzzing. "Just stay right there Trishna. I'm sure there's something we can do to sort this out reasonably..."

"Reasonably? Are you insane? That girl is _beneath_ you!"

"In more ways than one, you sour bitch!" Punya sniped back, such vitriol pouring from her that for a moment Aang thought that they'd gone back to the Azula/Katara hatred that had plagued half of a year.

"Ladies, please! Shouting and – attempted murder, really? – killing each other isn't going to solve anything. What happened in the past is in the past; you can't undo it, you can't change it, but you have the power to make the future something different. Something better!" Aang pleaded. 'Trishna's face screwed up in confusion and disgust... then there was a break. Sallow and bug-eyed panic etched her features, just for a fraction of a second.

"What's going on? I can't–" Maya – and Aang was fairly certain it was indeed Maya – said, before her features turned from fear back into hatred. "I gave you everything you are, Punya, and I have the power to take it away from you."

"Shinji... what do we do?" Punya asked.

"Just stay calm. Everybody, stay calm!" Aang was now trying to keep both of them in his sight, and that focus was a shield that kept something rebounding away from controlling him, and making him play an unthinking part in all of this. "Trishna, you can't hate Punya for what she's done. It wasn't a choice that she made alone."

"She seduced you away from me!" Trishna screamed.

"He was never yours to begin with!" Punya countered, pulling close behind Aang. Stay focused, Avatar, he coached himself.

"And Punya, the more you taunt Trishna about this, the angrier she's going to get. Even if you weren't in the wrong to begin with, you're making yourself into somebody worth hating," Aang continued. The look on Azula's face was one of unmitigated shock.

"I don't understand. I thought you loved... me..." she whispered, eyes brimming now with tears.

"Right now, we can't talk about that. We have to talk about..." Aang turned. "...where's Trishna?"

The answer came in the form of a shriek, one that barreled into the side of Azula and drove her away from Aang. Oh, now that just wasn't fair! She'd outright appeared at a charge from Aang's blindspot! The tackle drove Azula closer and closer to the edge. Aang sprang toward them as well, but even as he reached a point that he might be able to reach 'Trishna', she was already hurling 'Punya' off a cliff. The look on Azula's face, the one that Punya put there...

There was a white fuzz intruding on his vision as he slammed the air away from him; the bow wave of his sudden acceleration slammed Trishna back and away from the cliff's edge, while Aang surged downward. Azula flailed, screaming as she plummeted. No, Punya plummeted. Aang knew full well that Azula could have saved herself. Sadly, Azula wasn't the one in control right now. There was a final crack as he reached her, and scooped all the air that he'd pushed ahead of him into a scoop, one so full of water simply from the humidity that he could twist it into a slide of ice. His catch was pathetically awkward, not the manful relief that he'd imagined he might do. But skating first down, then swiftly leveling off above the level of the wagons.

The water ran out as they were almost racing perpendicular to the ground. Aang's feet went out from under him as well, but he already twisted in the air, one arm sweeping up and back, shifting the clay into a viscous mud, something a lot softer than rocks. The two of them landed hard with Aang taking the effort to cushion the blow with his airbending, and failing that, his body; they skipped off of the muck as they went. The sparse crowd swiftly ducked aside, hurling themselves away if need be, to give the two a path to land. The second landing was rougher, but they didn't leave the earth again, though the two did roll muddy over each other. When Aang came to a stop, he was every bit as covered in brown as Azula was, and she was anything but clean. He breathed deeply, trying to shake off the terror, the anger that had overtaken him when everything he'd done turned out to be pointless. Pointless, no longer.

Punya stared up at him, her eyes shining, even as what he assumed were happy tears cut lines in the grime. "You saved me Shinji. I knew you would," she whispered to him. A tired smile came to Aang's face.

"Of course I did. I always protect the people I care about," he said. She pulled closer to him, her lips sinking into his, even as his eyes went extremely wide. Oh gods. Azula was kissing him. What was he supposed to do? Oh, right. The thing with the lips and the tongue. Wow. If only Jugdesh was alive; Aang owed him both an enormous apology, and a massive amount of thanks.

It came to a stop sooner than Aang would have liked it – as it ended at all, in point of fact – when the beautiful woman in his arms went rock solid. Aang pulled back from her embrace, and saw that Azula was blinking in confusion. The two of them stared at each other from mere inches apart.

Then, she shoved him so hard that he slid five feet, into the side of a wheel. "What the hell are you doing?" Azula shouted, as she pushed herself to a sit, glaring at him.

"Saving your life!"

"With your _mouth_?" Azula snapped. She shook her head with a snarl and rose. Only then did she look down at herself. "Oh, you must be... What did you _do_?"

"She's... alive?" one of the adults around them said. "It's a miracle."

"It's not a miracle. It's waterbending," an older, female voice said matter-of-factly. "I'd stake my life on it."

Aang kipped up to his own feet. "You're okay... that's good," he said. He was still a bit lightheaded from the fact that... Yup, Aang had a make-out session with the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation. A part of Aang knew that he'd set aside this day to be miserable, but right now, he just didn't have it in him. He blinked a few times, then turned his gaze upward, to the cliff that had overlooked them all.

"Um... How did I get up here?" Maya Azul asked from the edge of the cliff. "And how do I get down?"

Azula was stomping away, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. Aang, though, couldn't help but smile, even as he started to manually clamber up to her. Somehow... this turned out to be a pretty good day.

* * *

><p>In most cases, when somebody said that somebody 'had steam coming out of their ears', it was just a euphemism for being angry beyond any lesser description. However, when said about somebody like Princess Azula, it was a literal fact. Wet ground cracked dry as she stormed past, ignoring the Yubokamin who had broken out into celebration around her; the Haunting had come and gone, and for six more months, they were free. She ignored also the Tribesman who had crippled her with contemptuous ease on two separate occasions, as he sat back and was fawned over by happy, brightly dressed Ghorkalai. She even managed to ignore the smart one and his explosion obsessed other half, who were trying to move through the party which had erupted out of relative thin air. As it was, there was only two things on her mind. First, and most annoying, was that she'd lost control of herself again.<p>

At least, Azula found some consolation within, she wasn't beating on the walls of her own consciousness, watching as an simpering twit flounced and did absurdities. She had no recollection of what happened when the ghost was upon her. For all she knew, she was walking away from the Avatar after giving him some well-thought-out and useful advise, and the next thing... was in fact the other thing that was on her mind.

"That... If I didn't need him alive, I'd _kill him_!" Azula hissed. Yes, that was more like it. Azula was angry. That was the way it was supposed to be. "He... That little peasant... How _dare_ he?"

Worst of all, she actually kind of liked it.

"There will be a reckoning for this, Avatar. _I swear it_!" Azula nevertheless declared. If only because, for all her years, she hadn't completely mastered her pride.

And fortunately, despite all her years, there was still a part of her that was a teenager... and she liked the way that this – in all its insanity, confusion, and destruction – felt.

Princess Azula cut through the crowds, her eyes on the ground. Partly because she didn't want anybody to look her in the eye. And partly, because she _would not_ allow anybody to see her blush.

Things were so much easier when she just wanted to kill him.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, I'd have to say that yanking the proverbial chain on the title pairing for fifty chapters is long enough. Hell of a run, though. Pity she has so much denial about it though. That's the downside of having the experiences of a sixty-year old, but at the same time, the perspective, underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, and hormonal-ness of being a teenager.<strong>

**Fun.**

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	52. The Children of the Sun

It started as a crunch of ice. A crack along a dark blue surface, causing all of the Tribesmen around it to step back. Expectant eyes looked on, but none so expectant as the shining blue of the teenaged girl with the stark white hair. The wind, which had been howling mere moments ago, tearing the heat from even the most cunningly girded bodies, fell silent. The hard and vacant skies, showing the great gibbous form of their deity above, offered very little respite besides that. The heart of South Tribal Winter was not a time for the many to be gathered so far from their igloos and tents.

But the many, be they shaman or not, they all came, because they had to _see_.

The ice cracked louder, a rent opening and spreading away from the stone on the southern side of the spire that was Chimney Mountain, the long extinct volcano which gave the city its ancient name – Niira-Qatouravut – but it did not collapse, as ice so often did. Instead, the cracks presaged a mounting up, the snapping and popping of the glacial ice mounting higher, and according to a very clear design. It spread, a great arc, cutting toward the stone of the shore. And the ice crept further still, surrounding and grinding that stone clear of the mountain, pulling it away to a din of crashing rocks. An island of scree, floating amidst the ice.

Then, the island began to sprout and flourish, grasses appearing ex nihilo. A tree mounted, rising from nothing. The Tribesmen watched, unable to speak, as the walls came to a head just at the top of the tree's boughs, a dome that shone with crystal clarity, onto the island that had been pulled out of place.

"Are they there?" Wequais asked of Yue. She walked to the island, pressing a hand to the trunk of the tree. She bowed down her head.

"Please..." she begged. "Don't leave us. Not now."

She turned, to see that the water between the walls and the island starting to melt. The shamans and Tribesmen with her had to scramble, either outside the walls, or into the island with her. When the ice had receded to water completely, and a breeze of warm summer wafted amongst them, she saw who they had so desperately wanted.

Two koi-fish, circling each other, even as they circled the island.

"We're going to be alright," Yue swore. "We will survive."

* * *

><p>The light was penetrating, glaring into her eyes the moment that she had the wherewithal to open them. A ragged groan escaped her throat – one that ached a bit – and she flopped a hand over those eyes to protect them. She felt exhausted, light-headed, and a little bit sick. But then again, she did have a distinct memory of having her throat slit, so if all she felt was a bit tired, then that was a blessing beyond measure. The problem was, she wasn't entirely sure that she had survived. Thus, the first question which escaped her lips was "...am I dead?"<p>

"Were you dead, you would no doubt find yourself in much better company than I," Nila's voice intruded on her self-induced darkness. "Tribesman. Tribesman... Sokka! Wake up!"

"Herm phua what?" Sokka said, as he flailed his way to consciousness.

"Your sister is alive," Nila said idly, while she delicately bent some tiny scrap of metal, for purposes that Katara neither knew nor had any place knowing.

"Really?" Sokka asked. He lifted the hand away from Katara's face, and when she winced against the light – which wasn't very bright as the day was a solid overcast – he burst into a beaming grin. "Tui La, you had me scared there for a while, little sis," he said.

"...repaying the favor," Katara told him. As far as near-death episodes where they were in the hands of the other, they'd just come out even. "Hmmm... what happened?"

"A lot, actually," Sokka said. "First there was..."

"Your Avatar brought down much of the city of Azul and absconded with you from the rubble. Simple," Nila said.

"Come on, there's a lot more to it than that," Sokka said.

"Where am I?" she asked, finally starting to take a look around her, now that she could do so without a searing pain in her eyes. The environs were cramped, all wooden, but they lacked the constant sway of a ship-at-sea, so she hadn't the first clue. Perhaps a country-inn or something? She retracted that thought when she beheld so many trinkets, brooch-paintings, and doodads that hung from the walls and ceiling. This was somebody's living space. Somebody's _very tiny_ living space.

Hell, her igloo back home was bigger.

"So she's actually coming around is she?" Zuko's neutral voice intruded. He opened the door at the far end of the room, letting more pale gray light in, but mercifully blocking it as he did so. "I could have known that she was too stubborn to die."

"Women are tougher than men. Hasn't anybody ever told you that?" Katara asked, her tones raw. Again, considering, that was a small price.

"I grew up with my sister. I'm painfully aware," he answered. He turned to the others. "They're pegging down; I think that means they're going to stay here for a while."

"Well, that can only be good, now that we are far away from that hellish city," Nila said.

"You haven't answered my question," Katara said.

"Hrm? Oh, right; we're traveling with some Gorks," Sokka said. He flashed a grin. "I'm getting treated like a king. And angry-jerk is getting treated like garbage! I love it!"

"Not garbage... just with general distrust that they're entitled to, given our history," Zuko corrected. "And I thought you said that you were done with that 'angry-jerk' business?"

"Yeah, but you've gotta break out the classics for special occasions," Sokka said.

"I have no idea how you put up with him," Zuko said to the Si Wongi. She gave a chortle, and continued to give her undivided attention to that tiny scrap of brass.

"What... about Aang?" Katara asked.

"Oh, he's fine," Sokka said. Katara didn't believe that for a second. While she didn't have a whole lot of memory of what happened – exsanguination was kinda the thing on her mind at the time – she distinctly remembered that look of unforgiving wrath on the airbender monk's face. The specific and unstoppable hatred. The look on Aang was... frankly, the look that Azula had every time she tried to kill Katara.

"Really. What happened?" Katara asked.

"There was a thing with ghosts. Very dramatic. Maya Azul threw Azula off a cliff, Aang caught her. Face-suckage ensued. There was much rejoicing," Sokka said. And promptly got cuffed in the back of the head. "Ow! What was that for?"

"You _do_ realize you're talking about my little sister, right?" Zuko asked, his tones more annoyed than angry. Zuko turned to her next. "I've got a feeling that having to save peoples' lives distracted him from allowing himself to mope. Which is a good thing, because unless we can come up with something to resurrect the plan... or come up with a new one... then we're going to run out of time. It's already getting worse."

"Zhao is the Fire Lord, we've lost everything we came to Azul for. How could it get worse?" Katara asked, as she slowly and with great effort pushed herself to a recline. The others all looked amongst themselves, as though none of them knew how to say what was clear to them, but not to her. "...it found a way to get worse didn't it?" she asked.

Zuko sighed and nodded, then stepped aside from the door. She squinted from the sudden light... and then her eyes went wide despite herself.

It was snowing.

"...I... how long was... Where..." Katara couldn't think of what question to ask first.

Sokka moved to the door, pulling Katara up with him as he went, until the two of them pressed past Zuko and sat on the back step of the... wagon? Really? Katara looked around, to the other wagons that were starting to unfurl canopies over their windows and back steps, poles being driven into the ground to sport awnings. Probably intended to keep rain off of heads, but now... now they held fluffy white. She turned her head slowly, until she saw mountains in the distance, their peaks belching grey smoke through the glaciers atop them. Too many to be any place but one.

"I don't know what to tell you," Sokka said. "...other than it looks like the Fire Nation's finally seeing what a real winter is like."

"How long?" Katara asked.

"About a week. Don't panic," Sokka said.

"It's snowing in the Fire Nation, in the middle of summer," Katara summarized, still trying to make herself believe what she saw. The wind was chill, yes, but she was dressed even now for that kind of weather. A lot of others wouldn't be.

Sokka just nodded, a very solemn look on his usually rubbery and goofy face. He just stared at the sky, the fat flakes of drifting snow. "To be honest, I didn't want to believe it. I mean, I went along with it 'cause, you know, fighting the Fire Nation, whoo... but..." he shook his head. He puffed out a sigh, which swirled before him. "I think we're _really_ watching the start of the end of the world."

Katara was transfixed for quite a while, but she finally shook her head. "No. Aang's going to find a way to stop this. He'll find some way to make this right."

"I really hope you're right, Katara. I really, _really_ do," Sokka said.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

**The Children of the Sun**

* * *

><p>Breathe in through the mouth. Hold the breath, draw it deep into the lungs. Right to the bottom, almost until it puffed out his stomach. Until it ached. Then, let it rise once more. Up the throat and out the nose, carrying with it the strain, the effort of the breathing. It was a hard way to breathe, not something that anybody would do day-to-day, but that wasn't the point. The point was to focus on the breathing itself, until there was nothing left on his mind. And since there was so damned much on his mind, it took quite a bit of breathing to reach that point.<p>

At least he wasn't breathing alone.

"You're still worried," Malu said from Aang's side, where she mimicked him – bettered him, in a lot of ways – leaving the rest of the people below. The terrain here wasn't sheer cliffs and dropoffs, but the jagged, black, volcanic rocks made this a secluded hill, where nobody would trespass 'less they wanted a boot full of natural glass. "We're going to be alright. You don't need to carry us on your back too, you know?"

"That's the thing," Aang said, after the breath left his nose. "I am carrying all of you. I'm carrying the entire world. And I don't know how to win."

"We'll find a way," Malu said, her tone resolute. He opened his eyes, turning to her, seeing that she had her posture perfect, her eyes still shut. "Between the cute Tribesman and the moody firebender, we've got some good schemers on hand. They'll find an inspiration somewhere."

"I hope so," Aang said. He heard a rumbling below, away from where the Ghorkalai had taken for camp. It was mechanical, metal upon metal, a sort of chugging noise that was slowly growing closer. "I... I wonder if Appa's okay."

"He's fine. I just have a feeling," Malu said.

"I wish I had a bit more than your feeling... no offense."

Her lips pulled into a frown. "...I know how much it hurts to be without your bison. Ihah... she died right in front of me, and all I could do was crawl away and hide. But that isn't now, and Appa's not being hunted by an entire enraged Fire Nation. You'll have Appa back again."

Aang really wished that he had his cohort's faith. He really wished he had faith in general, right now. So much of it had been stripped away over the last few months. What he had left was... shaky. But he held to it. There was a way to win this war, and to save this world. They wouldn't be easy, but there was a way.

A breath, in through the mouth, out through the nose. He glanced over his shoulder as a machine gradually rounded a hill in the distance, a great engine propelling it forward, belching steam as it went. Behind it, cars and cars and cars. A great train, all of a single device. The world had changed so much since he was a kid. "Malu?"

"Yeah, Aang?"

"I think I need to go check something," he said.

"Check what?"

"With Avatar Korra," he said.

Malu opened her eyes then, turning toward him. "What, your future you? What's brought this on?"

"Well, I... I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything just sitting here. Out there in the spirit world, there might be something I'm not seeing. A path we haven't taken yet. An ally we haven't made."

Malu nodded slowly. "Yeah, that sounds possible."

"You should go tell the others," Aang said.

"And let you wander the Spirit World alone and helpless? Not a chance," Malu said. She thrust a thumb toward herself. "I've got a keener sense of the anomolies and the traps of the Spirit World than anybody alive... well, Nila's brother excepted. You can't do anybody any good if you step into a... what did Nila call the green thing?"

"Fruit punch?"

"Right. Step into a fruit punch and get your legs melted off," Malu said. She pressed her eyes shut, then opened them slowly and deliberately. She clucked her tongue as she looked around. "Man. It's like they're everywhere I look, nowadays."

Aang, not catching her meaning, opened the World Eyes as well. What he saw was a little concerning. Where once rifts, the portals for the physical to enter into the spiritual, were once mere ripples in the fabric of what was, now they were gaping rents. Some of them extended straight from the Mortal world into the Spirit, with no stop between or warning of transit. They hung suspended in the sky. They lay partially buried in the stone. The mechanical train down in the valley zipped harmlessly through one that reached from the Outer Sphere into a place far beyond it, but didn't touch the Inner at all. It was a lot worse even than when he'd looked during his time in Azul.

They were running out of time.

He got to his feet, picking his way carefully over the long cooled magma, where it ran in curved mounds, avoiding the parts where it had broken and sheered into razor-sharp edges. "Are you sure that you want to do this?" Aang asked, as he pulled off his headband, letting the hair that'd been growing for more than a month start to flop down a bit over the arrow in its stead. He dropped it on the lava flow, even as he dragged his toe through it, carving out a simple message as to where he'd gone, and who'd gone with him. No need to worry them all.

"Are you kidding? I wanna meet this future you you keep talking about," Malu said with a grin.

"I've got a feeling that she's going to like you," Aang said, and then gave a mild moan as the implications of that sank in. "And that's going to be a nightmare."

"Oh, you're too serious by a half and too worried by three-quarters," Malu said, clapping him on the back, before she stepped through a rent, and vanished from the Mortal world completely. Aang only shook his head for a few seconds, before he pulled in one final breath. In through the mouth, out through the nose, before following after her.

He was instantly falling.

His scream of surprise was cut off when he caught the ground sloping up to meet him, and started to roll, cascading down the humus that was dry, grey, and dead. He came to a halt amidst dead roots and petrified wood, mere feet from where Malu was herself slowly shaking off her tumble. "That was..."

"Yeah," Malu nodded. "Gonna have to watch out for that."

"You could have warned me," Aang said, pushing himself to his feet manually, as there was no airbending kip that he could perform here.

"If I'd known," she nodded. She pushed herself from her sit to a lean against the drab, lifeless tree. "So where are we heading?"

"Toward the city," he said. She glanced at him, and he shook his head. "...not _that_ city. I'll explain as we go."

* * *

><p>Breathe in through the nose, and pull it deep. At the bottom of her lungs, set it on fire, and let it come roaring back out. Azula's body moved through motions that had so long been practiced into her that they were as much a part of her as her eyes, her skin, or her hair. Rotes that were once so rigid. Now, though, there was a more organic blending. The rigidity of old Azula had been supplemented by the mental youth of the rest of her. She was learning again.<p>

She also had an audience.

"Why do you insist on watching me?" Azula asked the teenagers who'd been gawking at her since she'd started. Even despite the cold, the snow that dropped in a solid blasphemy against what it meant to be the Fire Nation, Azula wasn't bound up for warmth, or cold despite that lack of adornment. Activity had the way of melting even the most frozen of forms.

"That's amazing," a girl roughly her age said, staring with wide, dark eyes. "How'd you learn to do that?"

"Do what?" Azula asked.

"That isn't the way we do it at all," another, this one a strapping lad probably a year older than Azula, mentioned. "You've got a lot of power, yeah, but control?"

Azula raised a brow, then spun low into a thrust of azure flame, racing off of two fingers, and intercepting his cup as he was lifting it for a drink. It shattered and he tipped back off of his stool with a scream of shock and surprise. The others, watching, either laughed, or gave awed 'oooh's. "I have precision to spare. Don't make claims on my skill that you can't back up," Azula said. The young man shook his head, and got up, though. He had a scrutinous look in his bright grey eyes. "What? Have I offended your honor? Am I going to _have_ to beat you in an Agni Kai to settle this?"

"Nothing so lethal. Just... Try to hit me again," he said.

Her brow rose. "Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. Hit me. Try to," he said.

"I don't miss what I aim at," Azula warned. "This will be painful and embarrassing, in some measure of the two."

"Fairly warned. Now stop talkin' about hitting me, and try to hit me," he said, a smirk coming to his face. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she did so. But she interrupted that look of bewilderment with a sudden assault, a single blast of flame held golden so that it probably wouldn't kill him.

He swept flames from his own hands, a brace against the blast that she'd sent that reached it just before it struck him. The impact spun him in the air like a top, but he kicked out a blast of flame from one bootheel, righting himself and landing a few yards further away, the smuggest look on his face. Her own brow drew down in concentration. She twisted an axe kick of scarlet flames toward him, but he caught and rolled with that blow as well, not even so much as singeing his shirt as he flipped and landed on his feet a yard away from her point of assault. He hopped up, limbering his limbs and cracking his knuckles.

"Alright, missy, le's see how you deal with this," he offered. Then, with a twisting bound, he sent forward a snaking rope of golden fire toward her. This one Azula dug her feet into the near-freezing mud and swept her own flames into a wedge before the tips of her fingers. Her own greater flame split the rope, sending it flailing beyond her, until she thrust a bolt of fire forward from her fingertips and let it run up the bolt, unraveling it further. It was an exchange that took all of two seconds, but ended with the other releasing the blast and hopping back, practically dancing in place. "Got some skill, I'll be th' first to admit."

"Decades of practice," Azula said. She launched a blast of flame at his legs, just to see what he'd do with it. That, he simply levered a foot forward, creating a plane which drove her incoming blast into the clay. The kick of it pushed him back, but he used the upward momentum, plus rocket-fists behind him, to arrest him. He swept into a great sheet of flames that seemed to billow out, obeying no style that Azula knew about, as it rippled toward her. Getting out of the way of that random and flopping assault would be almost impossible, and standing her ground would be tricky as she couldn't predict how it'd land.

So she tried something different. Even in the fraction of a second that sheet of flames seared toward her, she started thinking about how other people dealt with firebending attacks. Waterbending wouldn't help her here. But airbending?

She swept a leg back, twisting as she went so that when she levied a protective shield of flames against that sheet, it served the purpose of sending her into a flying spin, rather than simply rooting her to the ground and having flame bathe her. She landed with remarkable grace, all things considered. As she did, a fresh attack was coming in. Without even thinking, she hinged herself to a side, letting the bolt of fire streak past and die inside a snow-covered bush. "You don't put a lot of power into your attacks," Azula said, as she regained normal footing.

"What we firebend against, don't tend to stand on two legs."

"That could be so much better if you just put your lungs into it," Azula said, as the two began to circle. Even without her realizing, she'd developed a bit of an audience. He, the young local, dancing his way in a circuit, his limbs in constant motion, his eyes on the most dangerous part of her – her hands. She, the daring interloper, the unknown, the dark Ostrich Horse, moving with a much more sedate rhythm, one that spoke of a long knowledge of exactly how to move in a fight. Knowledge, of many, _many_ fights in general. And so it went, with move and riposte, neither landing a strike, neither losing their footing. A dance of violence and flame.

A dance of dragons.

* * *

><p>"This isn't what I remember the Spirit world being like at all," Malu noted, as they passed from the riverbank into what looked like a road cobbled by a single piece of something black and rough, the transition happening over the course of one step.<p>

"A lot of things have changed," Aang said. He almost stepped forward over a metal grill set into the ground when Malu let out a hiss, and tugged him to one side. He trusted her instincts on that matter. She probably knew the Spirit world better than he did... in this way. In others, Aang was actually more expert. It was a pity that neither Nila nor Sharif were handy; they had both of them trounced flat. "Like you. You seem a lot more calm than I remember you being."

"I was thirteen when you knew me. I had a lot of growing up to do," she said primly. "And don't step there."

Aang once again avoided the space under a pole, that was set across with something like a glistening spider-web. Only it couldn't be, because Aang'd never seen a spider in here. "I was talking about... You know..."

Malu nodded, as they passed into a forest of buildings, all of them standing taller than anything that Aang had seen in Ba Sing Se, or Azul, or even Caldera City back when he was still somewhat welcome there. It wasn't just that they were tall, though. It was that they were _boring_ about being tall. An edifice of this height would have been the centerpoint of a city. Instead, they're just everywhere, begrudging their size, their bricks faded and grey, their glass-paned windows weeping stains down which nobody bothered to clean. If this was the future, then the future was boring. And a bit bleak.

"I've learned a lot of hard lessons," Malu said. "And so have you."

"I don't want to talk about that," Aang said, glancing away.

"Aang, I don't want to push you on this, but the fact is, you do have to talk about it," she said, then grabbed Aang's shoulder and made him abruptly stop. She looked around, nervousness on her face. "You have to... to... hide, now."

Aang nodded, and backed off, ducking into the dark gap between two of those hulking buildings, pressing back through it until they passed some sort of barely substantial, metal containers which sat forever empty. The two of them hunkered down there, staring out into the dim light, amidst the dim shadow. They didn't speak. They just watched, and waited. And ahead of them, after almost a minute in silence, a black-skinned, red eyed form strode past, its maw wide. Aang was pretty sure he forgot to breathe, with that thing so close. Probably because he was afraid to. The dread that had come with it started to fade, and finally, Aang silently moved forward, peering around the corner, into the streets that it had passed.

"...well, that was terrifying," Malu said, very quietly. She looked ahead of her. "Huh."

"What?"

"That thing got rid of all the traps and stuff that we were walking into," she said. She turned grey eyes to Aang. "Where's this Korra supposed to be, anyway?"

Aang swung his head about, until he saw that single window which was larger than the otherwise identical ones which plagued this so-called city. Whatever place this was modeled off of, it had no soul, that was certain. Aang pointed. "That one," he said.

Malu dragged him along, across the distances. As they reached the door, Malu flinched again, and looked behind them. "We've got to get inside," she said.

"There's more of them?"

"You wouldn't believe how many," Malu said. Aang pulled the door, and it opened to his hand. It would have accepted none-other than Korra's, actually. It was pretty specific about that. The two of them darted inside, and he pulled the door shut, before returning his attention to the 'apartment' before them. He knew from past experience that he was now on that very-high floor, having not stepped a single step upward. The Spirit World was strange like that. What struck him, though, was that the hallway was _bright_. Motes of silvery light floated, like tiny lanterns, banishing shadows throughout the apartment.

As he passed further in, toward the room with the oversized fengxiang sort of device in it. As he went, he noted the doors. Notably, there weren't any. The frames, too, had been violently removed, hewn out until there was no real threshold to walk through. Man, this place had become _seriously_ Shard-proofed. "What a dump," Malu said.

"This dump is probably the only safe place in the Spirit World right now," Korra's voice came from one room, as she slipped behind Aang and draped an arm over the shoulder of both he and Malu. "Something happened up top that made the Shards go_ friggin' nuts_. I'm guessing that was you?"

"I don't think so," Aang said.

"This is Korra?" Malu asked.

"The one and only. Who are you?" she asked, only mild confusion on her spectral face.

Malu shrugged her way out from under Korra's arm, and backed to the wall. "I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding how your future self can be here without... It doesn't make sense!"

"Yeah, well, that's the way things go when the Avatar is around," Korra said, releasing Aang before the dreaded noogie could take place. She leaned in the threshold opposite Malu. "Seriously. Who are you? You don't look familiar."

"Korra? This is Malu."

"The other airbender? Huh. Thought she'd be either a lot older, or a bit younger," Korra said. "Well, you've picked a dicey time to show up."

"Really? Why?" Aang asked.

"I'm waiting on a spirit that's on our side. Have you heard of Irukandji?" she asked.

"He's the only reason the North Water Tribe survived at all," Aang said. "What happened to her, since the start of summer, I mean?"

"We'll see, soon enough," Korra said. She puffed out a breath, strange as it was for something that didn't need to breathe. "I hope you've got a plan for stopping this whole 'end of the world' business. 'Cause I'm coming up blank."

"...I was hoping that you had something," Aang said. Korra rolled her eyes.

"We'll come up with something. Don't get all mopey. If there's one thing the years have taught me, it's that it's _never_ easy."

"That doesn't fill me with confidence," Aang said.

"Really? She's you?" Malu said, pointing between the two.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Korra said with a dismissing wave. She leaned toward Aang. "You'd think they didn't realize that we get _reincarnated_, not _reborn_."

"Yeah. It's just that... I could use a bit of good news right now," Aang said. Korra looked to Malu.

"He's had a very rough week," she said. Korra just nodded.

"I know how that goes."

* * *

><p>It had gone beyond simple pride, the movements that she sent out, blazing with flame that scorched the snow away. Now, there was a simplicity of joy to it. A curiosity to it. She pulled out her trickiest maneuvers, the ones drilled into her head from the age of eight. He slipped around them like she was a stock-still earthbender. He launched forward with something that looked somewhat based on what she did, and she adapted. Now, kicks were barely missing heads, fists of flames searing past bent-back chins, the two of them inside each other's reach as their practice turned into something somewhat like a dance. If a dance that could kill anybody within ten yards of them, anyway.<p>

The only warning that Azula got from the Ghorkalai firebender was a twinkle in his eye, one of mischief and glee. A kick, which had just shot past her neck, burning with flame, suddenly snapped back toward her, this time aiming far lower than her head, and without so much as a spark trailing. The sweep caught her right behind her calf and pulled, sending her off balance even more than she already was to avoid the kick. She felt herself starting to fall. But she wasn't just learning from this firebender. She learned from everybody. Even the airbender.

She flared out a jet to reset herself, landing with a single hand connecting her to the ground, her body twisting in the air, spinning like that damned Avatar, but rather than having blasts of wind propelling her, she 'made do' with rockets of flame. When she'd set her balance just right, she continued her twist, sending another foot past his head and toward the ground. He had the choice of taking the kick and knocking her flat, or dodging the kick, and missing his opportunity. Azula somewhat thought he'd do the former; it was what all young firebenders did, until they learned how dangerous firebending could be. Those who were schooled in the fight-or-die that their elemental martial art so often became, they knew that an instant's prudence could extend a lifetime, sometimes quite considerably. It seemed that whoever he was, he was of the latter philosophy.

Her movement finished in its great spin, her feet now firmly below her, and on fist blazing with blue flames searing toward the side of his head. And there it stopped, burning, an inch away. She breathed heavy, steaming in the cold air. The boy did too, shocked that she'd bested him. In truth, if this were life and death, she would have ended it ten minutes ago with a lightning bolt, but she wanted to see what he was capable of. It turned out, rather a lot.

"Not bad," Azula said.

"You're not bad y'self," he said, shifting so that his balance was no longer precariously twisted beneath him. "Stunning to see that one of those soft, Shinzo types actually knows how to chuck a flame."

"I'm harder than you can possibly imagine," Azula said, letting the flames die and stepping back. She looked him up and down. In all of her lives, she'd never known this lad. And somebody of his skill _would_ have come to her attention, either as an ally against her brother, or as an ally of her brother against her. "What is your name?"

"Askin' me out?" he said with a smirk. Her flat response drove that smirk away.

"I've never met somebody who could keep up with me in my native element – when I wasn't in the midst of a psychotic breakdown, anyway – until now. I want to know why I've never heard of you," Azula said.

"Psychotic... What?" he asked.

"His name is Koinahim," one of the lookers-on offered.

"I protect my people," Koinahim said with a shrug.

"You do realize that with your abilities, you could be so much more. Achieve so much more," Azula asked.

"Why?" he asked, honestly confused. "I've got everything I want. I've got a roof over my head, food in th'gut. Nice arranged-marriage hooked up with a pretty girl from the next clan over..."

"And you were asking me out despite being for all intents and purposes a married man?" Azula asked, raising a brow. "Why you dreadful lech."

"Hey, don't look at me like that. I ain't married yet," he cracked a smirk. "So where'd you learn to fight like that. Ain't ever seen a firebender w' moves like that."

"I didn't learn them from a firebender. You said you protect the village. In what capacity?"

He blinked at her. "I don't know if you've noticed, me lovely, but you're standin' in _Azul_."

"He keeps the monsters away," a child of no more than five said, still clinging to some sort of stuffed animal which had undergone so many rough repairs that it was no longer obvious what it had originally been.

"Monsters?"

"KOI!" a scream came through the tents. "Koinahim! Ano's!"

Instantly, Koinahim's stance went from cocky and borderline flirtatious to the coiled-spring readiness that she'd seen in any of a thousand Ghurkas. "I've gotta go."

"What?" Azula asked.

"Somebody got hit by the wildlife," he said, even as he turned back and threw open the door to the nearest wagon. Tucked into the corner, next to the door was a wooden handled implement – one that from Azula's experience, could be found in every wagon in the village. He looped a strand over his shoulder, then tucked the mattock into it. "Stay here. The others can hold the wagons," he said to her.

That instantly struck Azula right in the pride. "No," she said, even though the rational part of herself was nevertheless telling her to shut up and stay put. "I'm going to see what could turn you into a decent enough firebender to..."

"Talk or walk, pick one," Koinahim snapped over his shoulder as he started jogging toward the other side of the village, cutting through the middle as the inhabitants pressed aside to give him a clear shot. And Azula, between her boredom and the fact that _he actually told her to stay here where it was safe_, was following after, managing to keep just inside the back end of his wake. She passed the Tribesmen and the bombmaker as she did so, but didn't stop for so much as a glance. She wanted to see where this was going, and she kept pace with him almost effortlessly.

Clear of the village on the other side, Koinahim was joined by four others, of which two were women, one somewhat older than Azula, the other one grey-haired, and the other were middle-aged men. All had a mattock on their backs, and were moving fast.

"Where?" he shouted to the waving Yubokamin who sat half way between the village and the closest break of line of sight. He pointed toward the trees.

"Round the bend! I saw a purple flare go up!" he shouted. The others all nodded, and picked up their pace, until they were all at a dead run. The trees loomed closer, and so too did the rut that they'd cut into the ground as the village moved. This was probably one of the stragglers, she realized. There was only so slow that the village could allow itself to move. They came to a lurching halt as the first scream sounded from before them. That scream was answered by a shriek, that sounded significantly more human than the first.

"Go hot," the bearded of the two older men said. Koinahim nodded, and his fists became wreathed in flame. The man turned back to Azula. "Don't get killed, it won't be our fault."

"Noted," Azula said confidently, as azure fire began to bathe her hands. The older man just tutted his tongue and started running forward again, not even bothering to condescend to her. Time, it seemed, was of the utmost essence.

The six rounded a final turn, one cut off from sight of the wagons by the dense rainforest shrubs that lay to her side. Her eyes went wide as she saw the first of them. It was tall, easily twice as tall as she; its carapace was a sort of runny purple, the spikes that were its feet and forelimbs darkening to veiny black. Two great and gleaming gold eyes glared, but not at they. Azula made it one more step, clearing that much more of the terrain, then she saw the rest of them.

There had to be more than half a dozen of the things. Eight or nine Anomolokia, all fully grown.

The closest turned away from the splintering and ravaged wagon, away from the beasts of burden which had died, gutted, on their yolk. Its eyes saw a chance for more food. Six jumped forward as one, even as it started to explode with movement toward them, its many legs tearing up mud and soil as it launched itself into the air. When six landed, it was to cast forward fire. It bathed the creature in flight, and it dropped straight down, its carapace blackened.

Then, its eyes opened, its mandibles flared, and it continued toward them.

"Focus down!" the older woman shouted. The six of them as one moved back into a semicircle, an arc described before the center which was the Anomolokia. Azula found herself falling into their movements without so much as thought. She tightened her flames, her heat, into something more searing by far than her previous wave of blue fire. The others did likewise. Six streams of fire launched forward, many lashing toward the joints of its limbs, where the carapace would be slightly softer, slightly easier to crack. Azula sent hers straight into the middle of its 'neck'. There was a sick pop, as the thing was disassembled by flames.

"Azula! Your left!" Koinahim shouted. Azula instantly glanced left, but didn't see anything.

"What?" Azula shouted back.

"Not you!" he snapped, as he peeled off with the older of the two women, and the younger – apparently _also_ named Azula – barely managed to hurl herself out from under a pounce from one of the remaining Anomolokia. She landed with a roll, tearing something from her belt and pulling straight down. There was an instant of hiss, then a rocket shot up and away into the sky. Probably a warning that this was a lot bigger than they thought they could handle.

Azula herself, not the Yubokamin version, found herself having to jump backward, as one of the great beasts slammed down into the turf before her, which broke the line in half. Another let out a clack, leaping away from the wagon and the young boy perched atop it, to land on Azula's other side, if several yards further away. There was a shriek that came from the throat of the beast before her, one that called to mind only the sound that those damned Shards made in the hunt for their quarry. It was a cry that seemed custom created to invoke fear in the mind of whoever listened to it.

Pity. Azula wasn't afraid. Concerned, yes, but not afraid. The Anomolokia before her began to surge toward her, its forelimbs slashing in disemboweling arcs, trying to catch her flesh, to rip her apart before it could feast on her warm innards. She darted and dodged, moving so much like the movements that Koinahim had showed her. A single touch would be death. It was dodge or die. Evade and avoid or else. She knew she only had so far back that she could retreat away from this thing before the other turned on her, and hit her in the back. And these things _easily_ had the strength needed to disembowel somebody straight through the spine. Flame wasn't going to do it. She just needed a second. A fraction of a second, even.

She ducked under a claw, only to have to spin aside so that she didn't get her foot stabbed by one of its own. Then, she spun again, under its other leg, and inside its ability to slash her. It hopped, trying to spin to a point where it could rip at her, to bite and gnash, but the hop that it did was high enough that Azula hit the ground and rolled under it, reaching it's back end – which was scarcely less spiked and dangerous as its front – and spinning to her feet. She instantly had to hinge back to avoid getting her head cut off by the slash of the other Anomolokia which had bridged the distance. She used the momentum that the reaction had given her to tumble back, as quickly as anything Ty Lee could do, if nowhere near as elegantly. When she'd gotten her feet back under her, she once again sent a blast of fire out, but this was down and forward, not at either beast. Flame alone wouldn't do it, not fast enough.

Azula was rocketed up and back, away from the two of them. One of them hopped and spun again, reorienting itself toward her, But she was spinning as well, a twirl through the air like a blossom rising in an updraft. And as she rose, lightning cracked into being upon her fingertips. At the apex of her flight, she cast a hand down, to the one which had almost beheaded her, as it was already moving ot intercept her landing. The bolt of lightning landed with a terrible crack, lancing through the carapace and causing the thing to lock solid. When it did, it launched itself into an involuntary leap easily twenty feet into the air, landing on its head in the muck. And it still wasn't dead. Azula landed with a backward roll, managing to keep a few precious feet between her and the slower of the two, even as the lightning struck one started to regain its equilibrium.

She didn't have any focus to give but to the beasts that were directly attacking her. A lapse of concentration now would be worse than death. She kicked back, hurling herself backward even as she spun once more, the energy within her parting without thought let alone effort. She lanced out, not at the one that was closest to her, but at the one trying to recover; no good would be done locking them into a stun if they could simply leap-frog each other in recovery. As the Yubokamin had ordered; focus down. The second lightning strike boiled the ichor under its now brittle carapace, causing it to burst open into a shower of orange and blackened shards.

The pity of bringing down one Anomolokia single handedly, was that it neglected the one far closer to her.

She managed to pull her leg in so that it wouldn't be sliced off at the knee by a swiping claw, but the beast simply shifted its momentum, to bash her aside with a 'shoulder'. Said shoulder terminated with a spike which jammed into Azula's chest, grinding against the bone of her rib but not quite puncturing her lung. The impact sent her flying, smashing her into a tree, and then rolling over it as momentum could only ever be deferred. She rolled to a stop, and pushed a bit further back, to her feet. The Anomolokia was vaulting that log even now, but it was lacking two things that Azula had.

The first, was a rote control of lightning itself. The second, was a quarter of a second to exact that mastery.

Lancing out with a bolt of lightning, which slammed into the air with the same horrendous crack as all before it, caught and spun the beast, as all of its many, spiky limbs became rigid. Its jagged extremities caught on the turf, and spun it so that it landed face-down before Azula, a pace away at most. She already twisted her hand in the snap-bolt maneuver that her father had never deigned to teach her, but she learned despite him. Twin blasts of electric force slammed into the fallen beast, and split it wide open, dumping the orange fluids which sustained it onto the frigid ground.

Azula took a deep breath, and then winced, feeling just under her breast where that spine had lanced her. It could have been far worse. An inch lower, and it likely would have slipped right between her ribs rather than slamming into – and likely breaking – one of them. She looked around, listening as a whoosh of flame punctuated her victory, and the sound of chitin popping. Then, a second later, a meaty thwack from that same direction. She held her lacerated flesh, and walked haltingly toward where she'd left the others behind in her desperate bid to not get killed.

"Next time, when somebody tells me to remain behind... I really should," Azula noted grimly.

She skirted the log, and the others came into view. Koinahim was swinging his mattock over his head and into the face of a charred Anomolokia, perhaps ensuring a death-blow. The others were either tending to the other Azula – who had a spine a foot long jutting out of her upper thigh, or quickly hauling the terrified youngster from the top of the essentially annihilated wagon. All of the other Anomolokia were now charred, hulks, lying amongst the scene of the desolation. The slightly bloodied firebender looked up from his deathstroke to see her, and a smirk hit his lips for a second. "Good. Hoped I wouldn't have to spike as fine a lass as you."

"Koi, now ain't the time," the grey bearded Yubokamin said, as he knelt before the child. "How long?"

"I don't know," the boy said. His elder pointed once more to a girl, perhaps a year younger than Azula, who was lying on the ground next to the ruins of the wagon, clutching a gut-wound and groaning pitiously.

"HOW LONG!"

"A... Two minutes? Maybe three?" he asked, tears in his eyes. The old man nodded.

"Hey! Mihal!" he snapped. The grey haired woman turned to him. "We might save the girl!"

"Save her from what?" Azula asked.

"She got egged," Koinahim summarized. He hustled over, ignoring that his scalp had been split at some point during that insane – if brief – struggle, and dropping his entire weight onto her legs, pinning her to the ground. The other men grabbed her arms, one each, and pulled them away from the wound. That wound was almost the size of a cannon-ball. How she survived that... Azula didn't know. She let out a wail of agony at the treatment, before Mihal picked up her own mattock. She slammed stream of flame over the sharpened spike of it, until the thing was glowing orange. Then, she took her place at the girl's side. She tightened her fingers on the handle, then, with a looping swing, drove that spike down straight into the injury the girl already had. Azula flinched at that, honestly not having any idea what was going on. This seemed like a very good way to kill somebody as slowly and painfully as possible. Mihal extracted the spike as quickly as she drove it in, then motioned toward her.

"Tip her, tip her!" she said. The men all moved to turn her onto her belly. In the instant between when the wound passed out of view and when she was sideways, a sluice of orange fluid gushed out of that wound amidst the blood. She snapped her finger to Azula's sparring partner. "Koi! Take her in. Waterbender might be able to save 'er from a three-minute egg!"

"Aye ma'am," Koinahim said, and he pulled her over his shoulder like a sack, her gut-wound pressing down into him and staining him further. He looked to Azula. "Get the Azula's back sharpish. Might be more of 'em out here."

Azula looked at the scene, now that she had a moment to. There were two people amidst the wagon even yet, though utterly still. "What about their parents?"

"We can serve the dead if we survive to tend the living!" the grey-bearded one snapped. "Now hustle back!"

With that, Azula began to follow in Koinahim's hustling footsteps, even if every one of them did pull at a fresh would and every breath did tear at a cracked ribcage. She drew abreast of the firebender who had fascinated her, and now had outright impressed her. "Coming was a mistake, I'll grant that," Azula said.

"Wouldn't go that far," He said with a twist of the head. "Might be, weren't you there, they might have et us. Got a spirit of a Ghurka in ya, and don't let anybody tell you different."

"Please, _that_ was obvious from a long time ago," Azula said. But, and she would admit this to nobody, it did feel rather good to have that sentiment validated.

* * *

><p>"That's horrible, Aang," Korra said, where the two sat opposite each other, their legs folded under them. "I can't imagine what you're going through right now."<p>

Malu, sitting at the third point of the triangle on the floor, which was cushioned by the seats stolen off of sofas which were piled roughly in the center of the room for no discernible reason. "I can understand it. I've had my own rough times."

"Who hasn't?" Korra asked. Aang, though, puffed out a breath, and turned his eyes to her.

"What about you? Have you ever had to go through this?" he asked. As much as it was uncomfortable, painful even, to talk about this, there was a pressure that was relieved from it. A spring, finally allowing itself to unflex. Korra nodded slowly, staring at the center of that triangle, her lips a hard line.

"I was... about seventeen? Just a kid. I didn't even realize it'd happened at the time. I was fighting these people... There was a raid, that I got suckered into by an asshole politician. They were terrorists... kinda. We tore through 'em like they were nothing. But when I did that, I got distracted; when I froze a guy to the wall, I did it by his face instead of by his chest. He suffocated," she said. She shook her head slowly. "I didn't learn about it until I reread the paper, almost a month later while I was kicking myself for being such an idiot. It wasn't a good feeling, I can tell you that much. It also wasn't the last."

"Really?" Aang said. "I thought being the Avatar was about finding ways to _not_ kill people."

Korra shook her head. "We're not always given that option, Aang. Maybe if you were where I was when I was in my twenties, you could have figured something out. I didn't. She died."

"And you felt like a monster for doing it," Malu said. Korra sighed, and shrugged.

"I don't know really what I felt. It was all too much. I trusted her. She betrayed me. But I didn't want her dead. She was a friend, and..." a shake of her head. "I know that Asami and Bolin and everybody else forgave me instantly, but I couldn't quite forgive myself."

"It doesn't get easier," Aang said.

"Funny enough, it kinda does," Korra said slowly. She puffed out a sigh. "But just because it's easy, doesn't mean it's right. A lot of times, it's as wrong as you can get. But sometimes – just sometimes – there's no option, or every option is worse than the one before it. I managed to stop a war by leaving a man to die. I stopped a persecution by becoming something that the world called evil. I don't know if I'm the right person to tell you about it... you know, considering you were pretty much my go-to mentor for decades... but I've figured out that the Avatar isn't about the perfect solution. It's about the one that lets you see tomorrow. It's a burden, a weight of the world on our shoulders, because ours are the only ones that can hold them."

Aang nodded. "That's how I feel right now."

"You're not doing much to help Aang right now," Malu said.

"I wish I could," Korra shrugged. "But the fact is, the Avatar is the Avatar for a reason. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts more than anything in the _world_. But it has to be done. I won't try to justify some of the darker things I've done by saying 'I did what I had to do'. I won't excuse myself. But I know why I had to do them. And I was willing to pay the price."

"You must have lived in a terrible time," Malu said.

"Turbulent, yes. Terrible? Not even close," Korra said with a smirk. She cracked a chuckle. "And if you want to see turbulent, you'd best keep an eye out for how things are going to be in the next few years. You know, if we don't all die, and everything."

"Have you ever given thought on how to help me enter the Avatar State?" Aang asked.

"A bit. You might not like it, though," Korra said. Aang sat, letting the silence stretch out, and then slowly raised his head to look at her.

"Anger," he said. Korra sighed, and nodded.

"You've spent your entire life trying to smile at everything, ignoring every shadow and evil. But a part of you knows that you can't keep doing that," Korra said. Malu nodded slowly.

"I think I know what she means. I couldn't get Imbalance out of my body until I confronted my greatest weaknesses, and let them go. I was afraid of death, and afraid of pointlessness. When I stopped fearing them, I was free. I was a battered and weary shell of what I thought I was, but I was free, and I could help you."

"So my fear of... of my own anger, is what's keeping me from mastering the Avatar State?" Aang said. He actually laughed a bit at that. "Man. Azula was right."

"Yeah, she... wait, _what_?" Korra said.

"Azula told me that anger, at the right time, was a good thing," Aang said.

"Azula told you that?" Korra said. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I just can't quite picture her in a position to give you _advice_. Since she... you know... _killed you twice_ as far as I recall."

"That was a different Azula," Malu said. "Apparently there's a lot of her out there. And not so many me, which is kinda disappointing."

Korra just offered a shrug. "It took me long enough to wrap my head around this whole 'this isn't my home universe' thing. Makes me wonder if that physics professor my husband got into arguments all the time with was right. Multiverse, quantum mumbo-jumbo... makes you think," she said, nodding slightly.

"If Azula was right about my anger... what would it take to get into the Avatar state? I can't go around angry all the time," Aang said.

"Well," Korra began, but Malu cut her off.

"Aang, you're looking at this the wrong way," she picked up a glass of something that had the consistency of oil, though was as clear as water, and another glass next to it. She evened the two of them out, over the course of a few seconds. "Alright. Imagine that when you're like this, you're perfectly able, ready, and willing to go into the Avatar State. You've got your good parts," she hefted one cup. "All the love, the compassion, the hope. But at the same time, you've got the bad parts," the other glass. "Your fears, your weaknesses, and in your case, your anger. When you're like this, Avatar State is A-Okay, because the balance is _just right_ to let it happen. But you..." Malu dumped one of the oily glasses over her shoulder – the one which she used to represent his 'bad traits', "deny that they're even a part of you. Does this look A-Okay to you?"

Two glasses, one half full, the other utterly empty. Aang just shook his head. "I think I understand. It's not about tipping the balance the other way... it's about admitting that the balance is there for a reason."

"Yeesh, that's a lot better than I'd have explained it, but it does get to the right point," Korra said. She leaned forward. "My pride? It got in my way a lot of times, but it also gave me the resolve to keep going when I was literally a step and a half from killing myself. Your anger is something that you don't want to admit to..."

"But it tells me that there are things that need to change, and gives me the willpower to try to change them," Aang finished for her. He blinked a few times, staring into the distance, past the walls that hemmed them in. Was it really so basic a thing? That his running from those parts of himself that he'd been taught were evil and wrong was what was crippling him? Or was it, instead, that he allowed himself to think that they were evil and wrong in the first place?

Azula had said that the Avatar State was not good or evil, principled nor anarchistic. It simply _was_.

And _so was anger_. Righteously, it could topple tyrants. Ignobly, it could savage the helpless. But it of itself, simply was. And it was every bit a part of him as his breath, his skin, or his blood was.

He closed his eyes, and felt. Hope, despair. Love, apathy, hate. Joy, rage. All a part of him. The parts of himself that he didn't want to admit to, they were still there. He could control them, and even never express them in all of the years of his life, but he couldn't deny that they were fundamentally a part of him. The Avatar might have been a demigod, yes, but part of being a demigod was that the base for that divine and awesome power was that it manifested in a human being. Human beings, as flawed, as weak, as petty, selfish, conceited, contrary, silly, or stupid as they were at their worst, could be something as powerful as the Avatar itself at their best.

Aang opened his eyes.

He didn't even notice that they were blazing white.

* * *

><p>"What in the hell..." the waterbender said as he took in the approach of the village's protectors, some of them wounded, one of them carrying an unconscious girl over his shoulder as one would a sack of meal. The grey bearded one, whom Azula had as yet not heard the name of, snapped his fingers toward this 'Kori' character.<p>

"Waterbender!" he shouted. "This girl needs help. Can you heal her?"

"What kind of help?" Kori instantly asked, the sly smirk he'd been wearing until their appearance gone entirely, his eyes cold, but with a focus to them that Azula knew very well, as it had so often been seen in the mirror throughout her life. Koinahim laid the girl out, and the waterbender gave a bit of a wince. "She got egged?"

"We spiked it. If you close the wound, she might recover," Koinahim said. Kori offered a shrug, and rolled up his sleeves. Pulling a slick of water up from the snow-dusted ground, he moved to her side, his hands glowing brightly. The grey bearded one offered a sigh of relief, and nodded. He turned to Azula.

"You did something brash and stupid, girl," he said. "And your assistance was invaluable."

Azula, on the precipice of being outraged at being so dismissed, found herself off balance when it instantly turned to praise. "I don't take kindly being told what to do," she said simply enough.

"I'd have thought a Shinzoan would value safety over pride. And pride itself can be dangerous. How badly is your wound?" he asked.

"I've had worse," Azula said. He nodded, then jerked his head aside, toward where the lagger of their group was bearing the other Azula, the one with the impaled thigh. Obviously, calling her to follow them. She made her way inward, to where the first wagons of this 'village' had parked in a circle around a central pyre, one which was being built up every time it tried to tumble down and weaken. One of the elders looked to the grey-bearded one, he being the only one who'd come out without so much as a scrape.

"Phu, what was the problem?" the elder asked.

"Anos hit one of the stragglers. Parents dead, beasts butchered. Lost nobody," Phu answered, glancing to the injured – everybody else – and shrugging. "...came close to a few."

"And this would be the ghost-girl," the elder said. He cracked a moment of smirk. "Good to see that Punya didn't have you die on the cliff. Sit, please."

"Why?" Azula asked.

"You've saved our people, and spilled your blood on the field with ours. That makes your blood ours as well. We look to our own blood. Just our way," he shrugged. He looked to the... now that she thought about it, these people, the mattock-bearers, they were more Ghurka than any soldier that had ever fought in her father's armies. She could think of no better term for them. "I don't think we've met properly. I am Savir. You've met Phu Pkroong, Azula, Koinahim, Mihal, and Mandvi."

"She did well. Surprisingly well," Phu said, fluffing at his beard. "Took on two Anomolokia on her own. Killed 'em both."

Savir's brow rose when he said that. "And how I pray tell did you manage that feat of impossibility?"

"It was hardly impossible. It just needed a timely application of lightning," she said idly.

"Timely, she says," Phu chuckled. "Like it wasn't locked up in the minds of the Midlanders."

"Phu, please. She's a guest at this fire," Savir said. He tilted his head, looking at her chest, but without the slightest hint of lechery to him. "You're injured. Didn't feel like telling somebody?"

"I've had worse," she repeated.

"Doesn't matter, in this hellish mire, it can fester. Even the cold doesn't stop that," Savir said. He gave a whistle, and a boy came running up to him. "Run, go find the waterbender girl. She'd ought be free by now."

"Yes, Elder Savir," the boy said, before pelting away, leaving a tiny gap as he darted between legs. Savir looked back to her.

"Lightning is a powerful skill, one I'd heard was restricted to the family of th' Fire Lord himself," he said.

"Not entirely accurate," Azula said, inspecting her fingernails and finding them dreadfully bloody. She sighed, and started to wipe them off on already stained clothing. "It's just something that nobody bothered to teach anybody."

"True enough of many things," he said. He waved a woman toward her, and Azula found herself with a bowl of some thick stew in her hand. It smelled rather good, actually. "I suppose that there's a lot that people don't know. That you don't know about us, that we don't know about you..."

"I can only imagine," Azula said, sing-song. She took a bite, then as she was chewing, she recalled something that'd been bugging her, before her pride almost got her killed. "I do have one thing I'd like to know, though."

"And that'd be?"

She tilted her head toward where Kori was being aided by a number of them, and otherwise fawned over. "Why do you treat the Tribesmen so kindly? I thought you'd be sore about the war at Summavut."

"A new fight doesn't break old bonds so quickly," Savir said. Azula stared at him.

"Old bonds? Between Fire Nationals and Tribesmen?" she asked.

"The very oldest that remain," Savir nodded. "Older than the Monolith itself, some say."

"That requires a bit of explanation," Azula said. Ooh. Good stew.

Savir was about to start, but turned, as Katara made her careful way into the circle. "Ah. Katara Hakodasdottir. I hope that we're not rousing you at a cost t' your health, but we've got injured needing tending to."

"Really?" Katara asked, and glanced from one Azula to the other. Azula brusquely waved the girl's attention to the one who might lose a leg if she wasn't dealt with. "Alright, I'll see what I can do to help her. She might not be completely healed but..."

"If you save th'leg, tha'll be fine enough," the other Azula said, her face fairly gray for her dark complexion.

"Now, as I was," Savir said. "The Ghorkalai... we weren't always Haunted. There was a time, a long, long time ago, when there weren't the ghosts to weigh us down. To keep us moving so that we wouldn't press down too long on old graves. We had a different name, then. Before even the Dek Duung Xathiy. We were the children of the rainforests that stood as old as time. Masters of a land that slew all that dared trespass. We were warriors of the sun."

Azula nodded, as this wasn't a shock to her. In fact, she'd met a splinter-culture of them a lifetime ago. "I thought you might have been. Nobody else would have been crazy enough to stay in this part of the world, unless they had something to tend to."

"What do you mean?"

Azula made a dismissing gesture, "I met Agni in one of your old temple grounds. Since the traps were reset, I knew that somebody had to still be alive from that culture."

"You walked the temple-grounds, stood before the eternal flame, and survived the Storm of Dead Dragons?" Savir asked, his eyebrows raised. That last one was news to her. She'd have to ask her brother about it some time. "Then you're a sterner girl than I'd thought possible. Few of _our own_ make that journey. Fewer still of any other do, and of those, fewer yet survive, let alone reach that hallowed destination."

She didn't see any purpose to informing him that she'd cheated by riding a bison into the heart of their lands, so let him continue.

"We can claim to hold a culture older than any on this Earth," Savir said. "And even that is something of a lie; we keep changing. We aren't who we were when we prayed to the ancestors of Ran and Shao. We aren't even the people who left the lands behind, and took shelter with the Water Tribesmen to avoid the iron fist of the Monolith. We have the old stories, but we aren't the old people. Nobody is."

"Wait. The Yubokamin lived with the Tribesmen?" Katara asked, taking the question straight out of Azula's mouth, but for the waterbender, it was out of honest surprise, rather than incredulity. Savir nodded to her.

"For generations," he said. "They were far kinder hosts than we thought we would ever find. Because of them, we were able to perform our rites, pray to our gods, and not the twisted pantheon of the East. The older stories tell of Uamannaq and his courtesan?" he asked. Katara nodded. "Guess which one was Yubokamin."

"_Really_?" Katara asked. "The lover of Uamannaq was a firebender?"

"No, _Uamannaq_ was a firebender," Savir said with a smirk and a shake of his head. Katara stared at him, agape. "You never did say his name right. Yuam Ngahk, he was," Savir peeled down an eye, showing its pale shade. "Where do you think we got these eyes?"

"That explains... very little, other than the physical similarity," Azula said. "Why the Tribesmen?"

"Well, it wasn't like we could shelter with the Storm Kings; they didn't _exist_ yet," Phu said with a barked laugh. Savir nodded.

"Are you seriously saying that she," a point toward Katara, "and I bare any family connection?"

"Why would you even think that?" Katara asked.

"It's a long story, and it involves the Avatar, so it's mildly ridiculous," Azula said. She couldn't have been more shocked when the truth of she and Zuzu's maternal great-grandfather came to light. That Azula had the blood of an Avatar in her veins, even after so many generations. It had infuriated her, when she first learned it. By the time she actually believed it, she didn't care anymore.

"That's the greatest shame of Azul, and all the families that toady to him," Savir said, before breaking off and accepting a fresh bowl of stew. "That for all their attempts at 'racial purity', they're already more infected by what they seek to exclude than any other."

She shook her head, trying to piece all this together into something that made sense within her worldview. When that attempt failed, she swallowed her pride and tried to accept it at face value. Yeah... that was going to take some time. "The Azuli are Water Tribesmen. The world must be ending, because the strange just keeps on coming..."

Savir shook his head briskly. "They are Water Tribesmen the way that you are a Sun Warrior," he clarified. "It's an old story, it's old blood, but it's there."

"That's why you're treating us so well, isn't it?" Katara reiterated the obvious.

"Of course, my dear. We pay our debts, and this is a debt long owed," Savir said with a somewhat paternal smile.

"It also explains why you try so hard to treat the earthbender and the Si Wongi as pariahs," Azula said. Savir's expression became hard. Obviously, just as they remembered old favors granted them, they also remembered old wounds inflicted. "It all leads to the simple question; why do you stay here? There are easier, safer places to live than in Azul."

"Do you know what Azul means, in the tongue of the Tribesmen?" Savir asked. Azula's brow drew down, and she looked to Katara. She blinked a few times, then looked at them.

"...Crucible," Katara translated, "...if you pronounce it '_ahsul_'."

"This land is part of us. We are a part of it. We can as much leave it as we can leave behind ourselves. It is a bitter pride that holds us here, but it is who we are," Savir said.

"The greatest punishment that we can give to one of ours is to exorcise them," Mihal said. She leaned over the other Azula's leg. "Yes, that's fine enough. Now heal the other," with a gesture toward the Azula that wasn't from a culture of vagabonds. Katara blanched.

"I'm sure she's fine."

"Do it, girl," Mihal said sternly. "She's earned a place here every bit as you have. Now hop to!"

A sharp crack of a hand against another saw the Tribesmen wobble to her feet and move to Azula's side. There was obvious distaste on the Tribesman's face when she approached. It was like she was wondering how to heal Azula without having to touch her. Katara puffed out a breath. "I don't know if I can do this..."

"You'll do as you must," Savir said, sternly but not harshly. He motioned at Azula with his bowl. "So must we all."

Katara wilted. "This would be so much easier if you hadn't tried to kill me so often," she said darkly.

"Actually, it'd be easier if I'd succeeded," Azula noted. Katara frowned at her. "Easier isn't always better."

Katara rolled her eyes, and shifted Azula's hand out of the way, putting glowing hands onto lacerated skin and broken rib. Azula, though, turned her attention back to the elder. "I assume that you're telling me all of this because there's something that you want out of me."

"You're astute," Savir nodded. "It's a matter of I want you to understand who you stand with. The shamans, they all say that the end is coming, and coming soon. That the Four Soul Mind is our only chance, that she holds the key to the army of thunder," Savir said. He pointed with his spoon, "and from what I've heard from idle conversation, you'd be that mistress herself."

"You expect me to perform some sort of miracle, to lead you in some sort of conquest?" she asked.

"No," Savir said, shaking his head briskly. He took a long slurp of stew, chewed for a moment, then shrugged. "We expect you to save the world."

"Really."

"Wouldn't that be the most ironic thing on this planet," Katara said dryly from Azula's side. There was a shard that seemed to prick at her, but Azula stomached it without complaint. After all, it wasn't like Azula had any experience what it was like to be healed by a waterbender, now did she? There was some sort of tumult from one end of the camp, and Savir turned toward it, but no alarm was raised, so his attention returned to Azula.

"Be that as it may, I don't hold any keys and I am not going to lead any army. I know that when this is over, my brother is going to sit on the Burning Throne, and I will fade away from history," Azula said. She spoke quietly, next, to herself but some part of her knew that Katara could hear her, "...just like last time."

"She claims, while throwing bolts of lightning to strike down the beasts of the Occident," Savir said. Azula sighed, and put her bowl down, still having to hold one arm up to give the waterbender access.

"You want me to teach you how to bend lightning, don't you?" she asked.

Savir set his bowl on the ground next to the fire, and leaned toward her. "The shamans are afraid. The spirits tell of a darkness coming; whispers from beyond the darker veils. An ending of all things. Sacrifice and loss. A world not teetering, so much as outright plummeting. Look around you! Do you not see th' queer weather for what it is? It's the world's blood, drifting down on the cold wind. The Ghorkalai have the oldest of the old stories... and I'd like for those stories to not die with me. I'd like there to be a world for my grandchildren and great grandchildren – when they do come about – to live in. We've all got to do our part to – what the hell is that?"

Savir was interjected by something brown bounding through the crowd, black eyes shining and stubby tail wagging at a blur. It slammed into Azula's thankfully uninjured side, and stared up at her, its mouth slightly open, as though it were smiling at her. Azula couldn't have been more surprised. "Kuchi? What are you doing here?"

"What is this thing?" Savir asked. Azula looked up and saw that the elder already had procured a spike mattock in the amount of time it took Azula to regain her balance.

"This is a saber-toothed moose-lion. Specifically, mine," Azula said. She idly scratched the back of its neck, and it let out the most pleased grumbling sound, its eyes pressing shut and its weight leaning into her. She felt a smirk come to her face. "Who's the most dangerous little critter in Azul? You are."

Azula could feel Katara withdrawing from her, a stunned look on her face. "Did you just baby-talk the moose-lion cub?"

"No, you misheard me," Azula snapped.

"That thing is... poisonous?" Savir asked, obviously trying to wrap his head around something small, furry, and adorable could survive in his homeland.

"No. They grow to be fairly large. This one is young," Azula said. She stopped, and looked up. She could have sworn... "Did you hear that?"

"I don't know what you mean," Savir said, letting his mattock slip out of his fingers and rest on the ground. He retook his seat, but he kept a wary eye on the cub. Resourceful as a thief, he was. Anything small and delicious in Azul had to be, otherwise something else would discover how delicious they truly were.

"Appa must be close-by," Katara said. She turned her attention back to Azula. "The bleeding's stopped. You can let it heal the rest of the way naturally if you want, although it might scar."

"It was a risk I should have taken into account before I decided to do the stupid, heroic thing."

"Hey, stupid and heroic are hardly the same thing," Katara noted.

"Then you've obviously not been 'heroic' as long as you'd like to claim," Azula said, as Katara backed off, a dark look on her face. "I decided to aid the rescue of some stragglers, and almost got killed. And half of them were dead by the time I got there."

"And the other half survived because you were there," Savir said. "Don't sell your courage short."

"It's not my courage I'm disparaging, it's my lack of common sense," Azula pointed out.

"If there was no wisdom to it, then why did you do it?" Phu asked.

Koinahim cracked a smirk, which was quite stark under the bandages he'd opted to staunch his own injury rather than take time away from the more critically wounded. "Because I told her not to."

Savir laughed at that. "Youthful pride. May the gods have mercy on us."

"We'll need it," Azula said. Mostly because she knew what was going to have to happen before the end of summer, and it would take a lot of heroism – stupid to its utmost – to succeed. There was a conflicted look on Katara, as she walked away. Like she wanted to be disdainful, but at the same time, had a spark of respect for Azula. The firebender just shook her head, and let the waterbender go join the other, who was trying to save a girl's life. She continued to pet the murmbling cub that was now curled up in her lap – and taking up more room than her lap had to offer, since this thing was starting to get _large_ – and listening to old stories, told by old men, about old worlds.

* * *

><p>Light blazed through the apartment, pressing out against the walls, and driving the two women, one young, the other dead, to back away. At first, it was out of a sense of atavistic alarm. After that initial twinge, it became a more rational notion of giving a wide berth to something that likely had a lot more power than one of them could understand, and as much power as the other one intimately did. Aang began to rise, not borne up by wind, as such a thing was not possible in the Spirit World, but rather, by the fabric of the Spirit World itself shifting itself. He stared, the white limning his vision, the thousand whispers in his mind. He held out a hand, seeing how the tattoo on its back shone with the light of a sun. So much power. So much wisdom.<p>

He shut his eyes, and set it aside. The power ebbed out of him, not leaving him exhausted as it so often had, but simply sliding off like water off of a buttered pan.

Aang blinked a few time, as the world returned to its normal, almost desaturated hues, and the silence return to the apartment that lay in an insane portion of a dying world. Korra was grinning. "See! I told you you'd be able to do it!"

"I... I just went into the Avatar State, didn't I?" Aang asked. Malu was nodding slowly. "And then I left it. And... And I think I could do it again."

"What did I tell you?" Korra said, moving close to deliver the dreaded Avatar-on-Avatar noogie. She was cut off by a flare of silvery light that welled up between the two Avatars, growing and blazing. Aang looked through the World Eyes, and gazed upon its Form, to see the spirit of Void that was pulsing and twitching the way that a terrified animal would, despite having no features in common with any animal that Aang had ever seen. "What is that th..."

**This is not possible.**

Aang got to his feet, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean?" he asked the spirit of Void.

**This is not what we witnessed. You were not supposed to learn this lesson. Not yet.**

"Well, he did. What's wrong with jumping the gun a little?" Korra asked. An Aang that had injured Katara with his firebending would have responded instantly; this time, though, Aang had never had such a cruel lesson, and could only shrug.

**I was supposed to teach you the wholeness of self. To accept the parts that were cast aside. This is not supposed to happen this way.**

"And what's wrong with that?" Korra asked, trying to pressure her point. Aang got the gist of it, though, from the fear that came from that amorphous spirit.

"This isn't the way that they predicted. They don't see time the way we do. They live... outside it, I'd say," Aang said. "They see time from the outside, instead of the way we do, from the inside, living through it. If they see something, it's because it's going to happen, and to them, it's already happened."

**Yes.**

Aang took his feet. "Korra, imagine if... I don't know, you remembered learning how to firebend, but one day, you couldn't anymore. You have all these memories of learning how to firebend, and all the times you've ever firebent, but reality now said that you weren't a firebender. What you remember isn't what is, anymore. That's the way they feel," Aang pointed to the Void.

**Yes**.

"Wait, I thought time just kinda went past-present-future," Korra said. Then, she stopped and had a very flat expression for a moment. "And here I am talking to my previous lifetime while _he's_ still alive. Yeah, time is _weird_."

**Yes**.

"So why did it change?" Aang asked.

"The Shards," Malu said, snapping her fingers. She stepped before the glowing spirit. "When we first came to the Western Air Temple, did you see us being attacked by Shards while we were there?"

**Yes**.

Malu stared for a moment. "Oh, right, that's happened. Okay. Tell me this; do you see us ever – ever! – being attacked by the Shards in the future?"

**No**.

Malu gestured toward it, as though it'd proven her point. Aang motioned that he might need a bit more. Glancing over to Korra showed that she had an equal amount of befuddlement. Malu sighed, and shook her head for a moment. "Do you see a climactic battle between the Avatar and Imbalance?"

**We have seen no battle**.

"But we all know that it's going to happen," Malu said. "They can't see Imbalance, or anything that Imbalance does, until it's already done. Everything they see is just a 'what would have been if Imbalance hadn't stuck its nose in', rather than a certainty. It foresaw you learning – from it – how to enter the Avatar State, probably right before going to fight the Fire Lord, or somewhere around there. Instead, you've done it now. And why is that?"

"Because I..." Aang said, and trailed off. "...because I fled the Western Air Temple, and went to Azul... and then fled Azul, and came here... because the Shards kept chasing us."

Where we are, right now, is a place that they haven't seen before," Malu said. "They might be able to guess what comes tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but if Imbalance so much as sneezes on it, it'll be dead wrong, despite it being as real as Korra's memories."

"Whoa," Korra said. "And I thought the spirits in my day were strange."

"Huh?" Aang asked.

"There was a cat-bird...man-thing. Nevermind," Korra waved the thought away.

**...I don't know what will happen**.

"Welcome to seeing time like the rest of us poor saps," Korra said to the spirit. "Aang's got control of the Avatar State, and he did so nice and early. And it's always nice to see a prophecy be wrong."

"Got something against prophecy?" Malu asked.

"They bug me. I'm thankful they don't make any about the Avatar."

Malu looked to Aang. "Why not?"

"They wouldn't dare," Aang said.

"Alright, since you've got the powers of all your iterations begging for a direction, we should–" Korra said, and was cut off when the door slammed open. Everybody froze, and then turned toward the hall, as the thumps of heavy footsteps came in. There was a squeak, and a thud as the door slammed back shut, and the footsteps grew closer.

"Suddenly, this guy not being able to see the Shards is a big problem," Malu said, her eyes wide.

"Can't you feel them?"

"Too many Void spirits. It's all... fluffy," she said, unable to come up with a better term for the sensation. The thumping continued, until it reached their doorway. But the form which appeared through that non-threshold was not the utter blackness and the virulent red eyes. It was instead dark blue... and shining.

No, not shining. Sparking.

Irukandji turned toward them like a stunned beast. Her eyes seemed to be leaking tiny snaps of lightning, and black ichor oozed from her ears. "Is it time to rule the universe now?" Irukandji asked, the voice distorted. She raised an arm. "Kneel before Irukandji!"

Then, she fell forward onto her face on the floor. Aang stared at her for a moment, then turned to the others. "Did you see this coming?" he asked.

"Nope," Korra said.

**Yes**.

Aang gave an annoyed look at the Void spirit. "Then why didn't you warn... nevermind," he let out a groan of annoyance, and move to turn Irukandji over, and sit her back against the wall. Her lips, upon closer inspection, were cracked, and those eyes were also sunken. Her dress also seemed to be baggy on her, like she'd withered from inside it. "Irukandji? Are you alright?"

There was a blink, and an electric snap, as something jolted Aang's hand. He pulled it back, waving away the tingling numbness. The lightning that fell from Irukandji's eyes abated somewhat, and her eyes became a more normal blue once more. "Buwaaa what's after happening now?" she muttered. Then, a puff of breath and a shake of her head, she took in those around her, probably for the first time since she fell into the room. "Ugh. That sucked. But at least we've got both Avatars in one room for a change. And _that one_..." a dark glare at Malu, before her attention returned to the Avatars.

"So?" Aang asked. "Have you figured out a way to save the world?"

"Save, no. Postpone the annihilation of... more or less," it answered. It winced, rubbing a forehead that shifted and slid like the skin wasn't completely attached to her skull. "The way I see it, you've got another month, at most, before this thing's beyond saving."

Aang sighed. "That's right around Sozin's Comet."

"Funny, how everything tends to come together right around then, eh?" Irukandji asked.

"I thought you said you had a plan," Korra said. Irukandji scoffed.

"I _had_ a plan. _Last year_. Then you had to go get... exorcised," it waved an angry hand toward Malu, who just stood back, her face plain and expressionless. It sighed, leaning forward, wiping the ichor away from its ears with a sleeve. "The way I see it, the next step will be to wake up Koh. If we do that, then at the very least, Imbalance can't eat _everything_. Just every reality that _currently_ exists."

"How is that better?" Korra asked.

"Hrm? Oh, that's one of the things Koh is there for; to make sure that there's never a true oblivion," Irukandji said. It leaned back, the look on its face a bit wan. "Although, I've seen the way ol' Koh designs realities; I wouldn't want to live in it."

"Why not?" Malu asked.

"Too crazy," Irukandji said, ignoring the immense divine irony. "There's drills and shouting and some guy who never wears a shirt; it's just..." it shook its head. Irukandji then shrugged. "Could be worse. Could be the _first_ reality Koh ever made. _That_ one was better off annihilated, _believe me_."

"If Koh can make realities, why haven't we woken him up already?" Aang asked. "That sounds like the kind of power that could beat Imbalance flat out!"

"You're not understanding Koh, kid," Irukandji said. "It's not something he _does_. It's something that he _is_. He can't choose to do it. He just _does_ it. The same way that you don't choose to get reborn, you just do. Both of you," a gesture between incarnations capping the spirit's explanation. Aang frowned. For a moment, that was sounding like an ideal solution. "Koh's an insurance policy. If we can get _anything_ else out of him, that's pure gold, in my books."

Aang sighed, but nodded. "Alright. When do we leave?"

"Leave? Are you _kidding_ me?" Irukandji asked. "Look at me! If I _don't_ take a day off, I'm going to _die_. And I'm in the interesting position that if I _do_ take a day of, _she_ dies," it said, casting a thumb at its own chest.

"Come back with us, then. We can look after Huuni," Aang said. Irukandji looked up at him, somewhat confused. "You can rest, and she will survive; we've got two pretty good waterbenders around where I'm staying, these days."

"Really? And you're not going to object when I come back to the surface and hijack this brainless bitch's... brain?" it asked.

Aang slowly shook his head. "If she understood what was at stake, she'd want to help in any way she could."

"No, she wouldn't. Trust me," Irukandji said. It offered a dark chuckle. "It's a hell of a lifetime that sees me as less evil – _less_! – than the meat-suit I'm inhabiting."

"I don't think you're evil," Aang said. "You're just afraid, desperate."

Irukandji lowered its face into its hands. "...more desperate than you can _imagine_, kiddo."

* * *

><p>There was a sinking feeling in Zuko's heart as he looked out over the countryside. Snow. He just couldn't get used to it. The rains had given out completely, now opting to drop hail at the least, and fat flakes at the most. He could feel the heat of his internal furnace, keeping him from experiencing any kind of chill, but he could tell, a lot of Nationals were in for a very, very rude awakening.<p>

"You're putting on a fairly impressive mope," Toph said, carefully moving to his side, sitting up on the step while he simply leaned against the wagon's wall. No wonder she was moving slowly; she was actually wearing footwear.

"It's things like this that make me wish I didn't have any sight at all. This isn't natural. And it's going to get worse."

"Who cares what's natural? It's just a little snow, it won't kill you," Toph said.

"A lot of snow will. And even a little snow is enough to kill an entire harvest," Zuko said. This was going to be a hard year, even if they won. "It all just seems so big. So overwhelming."

"Yeah, I get that. What I don't get is you giving up. I mean, you chased the Avatar around the whole goddamned planet! If there was ever an avatar of not-giving-up, it'd be you, sparky."

"That almost sounded like a compliment," Zuko said. "There's just a lot on my mind."

"Join the club," she said, sounding quite annoyed. "You think I'm not itching at the walls, looking for something I can hurl a brick at? You think I don't feel as useless as nipples on a bull moose-lion right now? We're just ancillary actors to the people who have the best chance of doing something, right now. It sucks."

Zuko couldn't help but chuckle at that. "You do have a way with words," he said.

Toph nodded. There was a silence between them, which was bathed with the sounds of a village trying to stabilize itself after the traumas of the day, and the fear that came with such unnatural weather. Finally, she cleared her throat, as though she'd been trying to work up the guts to say something. Zuko glanced to her, even though there would be no way for her to tell that he was doing so.

"Hey... remember that little shard?" she said, pulling the object in question out of her pocket.

"The one that makes everybody around you blind," Zuko said. Toph nodded. "What about it."

"I figured something out about it. It's not really making them blind," she said. Zuko raised a brow. "It's... I don't know, stealing their vision, I guess."

"I'm failing to see the distinction," Zuko said.

Toph took a deep breath, and opened useless eyes into the distance. "The sky is grey, today."

Zuko nodded, as though she were simply pointing out the obvious, until he finally realized what she just said. "...you just said..."

"Yup. Grey. Didn't know there was such a thing as grey before this morning. Now I do. And it sucks. Green's better," Toph said.

"It lets you see?" Zuko asked.

"Something like that. Not worth the trouble, though," she said. She was silent, ignoring if not unaware that Zuko had a scrutinous gaze on her. "I was thinking that maybe I–"

Toph was cut off when the airbender suddenly appeared directly before Zuko, appearing out of the naked air. She looked to him, and she instantly shivered; she was covered in sweat, and looked exhausted. "Hey, could you give me a hand with this?" Malu asked.

"G'ish – where'd she come from?" Toph demanded. Zuko had scarcely gotten away from the wall that a second person appeared, at a stand, but that changed swiftly. It was a woman, who had the complexion of a bruise. She immediately tipped forward, her eyes rolling back in her head – those eyes being solid red from the burst vessels in them, and collapsed directly into Zuko's grasp. He did wince, as his attempt to keep her from landing on her face had caught her by the chest, and shifted his grasp to something a bit less... gropey. A second after he had her in a state where she wasn't in threat of cracking her skull open, the Avatar appeared just as Malu and this injured woman did.

"Well, that's a interesting way to come back," Zuko said.

"Who's back?" Toph asked, "besides the Sugar-Queen, I mean?"

"Zuko, we need to get Katara and Kori," Aang said. "She's badly, _badly_ hurt."

Zuko nodded, and shifted his grasp on the woman until he hefted her onto his shoulder. It was awkward, but he could support her. "I'll get right on it," Zuko said, and immediately took off into the village.

Toph, on the other hand, stayed where she was, blind eyes staring ahead. "So. Just appearing out of thin air, now?" she asked.

"Yup!" Aang said brightly. "And I've mastered the Avatar State!"

"You haven't mastered it, Aang; you've just figured out how to get into it without being out-of-your-mind angry," Malu corrected.

"Yeah, well, that's pretty master-y if you ask me," Aang said, his arms crossed before his chest in a fit of snit. Malu had just finished her sigh when Aang felt something land on his shoulder. Remembering where in the world he was, he let out a shriek that was a bit girlish, and blasted it away, only to hear a very familiar screech when he did so. He turned back, and saw the black-and-white, flapping form of Momo, who was righting himself in the air and holding position in the snow. It chattered irately at Aang, then landed on Malu, who was a much more forgiving perch. "Momo! You're alright!"

"What, you thought he wouldn't be?" Malu asked.

Toph cocked her ear to one side, and her eyebrows rose. "Well, if that was good news, you're going to love this," she said. She pointed into the distance, through the swirling white. Aang's eyes became roughly the size of dinner-plates, and he jammed his fingers into his mouth, blowing hard the hopelessly high note that Appa knew so well. At first, there was nothing but snow and clouds. But after a few seconds... a distant, bass groan from the sky. Aang's face was almost split apart by the smile, as it appeared from the swirling white. Appa was filthy, one of its legs hosting a red-brown stain and was held close to the body... but the bison came, nevertheless.

When it landed with a thud, to the people behind in the village remarking of things that Aang paid no attention, there were tears in his eyes. He hurled himself onto the fuzzy, filthy brow of the bison, and pulled himself close. "I missed ya', buddy," he said.

* * *

><p>The sea was oddly tranquil, as the ships slipped through the fog that clung close to the surface, sliding across the Antiprime Meridian and circumnavigating to the West by heading east. While Hakoda had a lot of experience traveling the wild seas, having them so placid put him on alert. Something was wrong. It tingled in the back of his mind like an oncoming storm. It pulled at his attention and wouldn't allow him peace. They were making slow going, but going nonetheless.<p>

"Hakoda," Zha Yu said, as he approached the prow of the ship, where the Tribesman was letting the lode-rock dangle. The magnetic iron subtly tugged itself to hang, its inscribed point showing south, but that was a small amount of help when there were no stars to navigate by. "Are you sure we're on course?"

"Positive," Hakoda said. "Even by dead-reckoning, I know my way east."

"Really," Zha Yu asked. "I don't want to impugn your navigational skill, but _that_ gives me a moment's pause."

Hakoda looked up, to what Zha Yu was pointing at. He nodded, as he looked upon the grey grim ahead of them. He knew the look of that very, very well; that was snow over the water. "We're heading toward the Fire Nation; if we were south, we'd have hit ice by now. There's no ice."

"It's snowing in the Fire Nation, then?" Zha Yu asked. Hakoda could only shrug. The earthbender sighed, and palmed his grey-bearded face. "Never easy, is it?"

"If it was easy, then they wouldn't need us to do it," Hakoda pointed out.

What words followed after that did little to assuage Hakoda's uncertainty. Yes, he was certain that he was traveling due east, without the significant side-trek that would be required to hit this kind of weather but... If they were coming upon snow in the Fire Nation?

Honestly, he kinda hoped he was just hopelessly, hopelessly lost, because that was the far less unsettling option.

* * *

><p><strong>If you haven't figured out the Tribal City naming-gag by now, then I'm a little disappointed.<strong>

**ALLavut. SUMmavut. NUNavut. Et cetera.**

_Anyway, feel free to review._


	53. The Assassins

"You don't have to lie to us. The truth is evident," Savir said, his tones giving the impression that he was being permissive to even bother mentioning it. There was no real way to quantify how nervous Aang felt in that moment, as he blocked the path between the Ghorkalai and Appa, as though he were trying to hide the massive beast in his shadow. Toph and Zuko were close at hand, the latter looking somewhat sullied by whatever Irukandji was oozing when the spirit fell unconscious.

"It's not what it looks like..."

"It looks like an air bison with a saddle loosely tied to its back, that you've referred to by name. I fail to understand what I'm taking out of context," Savir said, his patience obviously beginning to run out. "That is an airbender's beast; they heed only airbenders."

"Yeah, but..." Aang said.

"You're right. Appa is mine," Malu cut in.

"Malu! Don't..."

"A Storm King yet living? Or should I say _two_?" Savir asked, very, very flatly. Aang sputtered, even as Zuko and Toph formed rank behind him, obviously looking ready to launch into attack against their benefactors if needs be. Zuko looked particularly begrudging, but for all that, no less ready.

"The Storm Kings are eight hundred years dead and you know it!" Malu contended.

"One 'Air Nomad', then," Savir said. He turned to Aang. "And I wonder what that makes you."

"I'm just a waterbender, honest!" he claimed.

"A waterbender who consults with firebenders on firebending forms. A waterbender who sneaks off with the lightning-bearer to train in secret. A waterbender who can bound as though the wind itself were carrying him. Yes. _Waterbender_," Savir said. The crowd behind him began to fall silent, even as the confused sound of two Tribesmen – and the annoyed sound of one Si Wongi – came over that silence. The rest of Team Avatar, as Sokka so eloquently put it, had gathered here, standing off against the people who had saved them from Azul's machinations.

"Look, we'll just go..." Aang said.

"Really? And what will you do when you go?" Savir asked. "Fly over the mountains, leave Azul behind? Flee with your tinker, flee to your army of rebels and partisans?"

"Hey! Leave Aang alone! He's done nothing to hurt you in all the time he's been here!" Sokka contended.

"Tribesman, please," Savir said, with a tone granting more respect to the words than he had toward Aang. "This is a matter of Ghorkalai, decided by Ghorkalai."

"Yeah, well... As goes Aang, so go the rest of us," Sokka declared. And there were unanimous nods from all present, save for the stern glare of Nila and the shaking face-palm of Azula to one side of the group.

"You command a great deal of loyalty and respect from your followers, your friends. Your family, kith and kin. You travel atop the beast of the airbenders. You waterbend to save a firebender's life, while the whole time learning her trade from her. You travel with a representative of every martial element, and with you, comes calamity. I know who you truly are, traveler."

Aang swallowed, as Savir stared down at him with very sharp, bright eyes.

"You are the Avatar," he declared. There was a ripple of hubbub from that declaration, that flowed back through the gathered nomads, until the words on all lips were 'Avatar, Avatar this, Avatar that'.

"You've made a mistake," Aang said.

"I've made no error. The signs are quite clear," he said, pointing at Aang's head. His eyes went wide, and he clapped his hands over his brow, only to find that he was, in fact, still wearing his headband.

Only now, he showed the blue arrows on the backs of his hands.

"He's made no trouble. He's even helped you," Zuko said, tones tight. "Extend the privilege of separation, and we'll be on our way."

"You ask properly for privilege, young Prince," Savir said. "And yes, it was obvious who you were, too. There are not so many Zuko's in the Fire Nation that you could vanish amongst them. But while you do ask properly of privilege, and of one which would demand that we allow you leave with the same peace that you've given us in your stay, I'm afraid that the privilege isn't available at this moment. There is more at stake by far. If there is dishonor to our traditions, I will gladly bear it."

"You have to know that what you're about to do is wrong," Katara said.

"What is wrong, but a difference of opinion?" Savir asked. He looked to the old, hard looking woman who for some reason had a mattock still hanging from a loop on her back. The woman gave a brief nod. Then, all turned toward Aang, silence reigning once more. "We cannot allow you to leave. Not now."

"You'll have to stop us," Toph warned, her fists clenching, and the stone beginning to rumble ominously underfoot. It was obvious that she was going to have to attack wildly, because with those boots on, she wouldn't be 'seeing' very well.

"Toph, no! I don't want to hurt anyone!" Aang stressed, trying to placate this situation before it turned into something that nobody would be able to stop, to recover from. Before something irreversible happened.

"Tell me this one thing, Avatar," Savir said. Flames began to kindle above Zuko's fists, in preparation for what was to come. Katara just looked too weak by a half to fight. Sokka's hand was on Space Sword. Nila's was on her gun. Savir took a few steps away from the mob, until he was no more than two yards away. He looked at them, all in turn. His gaze sweeping across the group before him, perhaps finding it lacking. He settled his gaze on Aang only at the end. He took a deep breath.

Then fell straight to his knees.

"Can. You. Save. Us?" he asked, his voice almost breaking.

Aang blinked, so ready for carnage and melee that the sudden end of the threat left him somewhat off balance. Everybody else seemed likewise confused and confounded. And every bit as put off balance. "F... save you from what?" Aang asked.

"You must see it. How could you not?" Savir asked, his arms spreading wide, to the grey in the sky and the white drifting toward the ground. "The eldest of our shamans warned us of such times, that if the world has gone mad, it is only the prelude to the world dying. Can. You. Save. Us?"

"I'm trying," Aang said, his voice wavering. Savir looked so... so desperate. The crowd behind him was as still and silent as a tomb, with only the whispers of the breeze, the snapping of fires trying to push back the cold intruding onto that silence. Appa obviously found that silence objectionable, and let out a plaintive bellow. "I swear. I'm trying everything I can. But... I don't now if I can. Imbalance is just so different from anything anybody's ever faced, ever fought. I don't know if I can destroy it. But I'm going to try, that I swear. This world is not going to die quietly, and it will not die gently."

Savir nodded. "If that is the case, then the Ghorkalai will serve as your spear and your shield. And if needs be, your kukri in the dark," he said. The silence broke then, as the people began to voice affirmations. Hundreds of people, desperate, all, looking to him for a future. And he wasn't sure if he could give them one. But he had to try. "What can we do?"

Aang stared at them for a moment. Then, he looked at them. A glance back to Zuko. His brow rose, like he was getting an idea. "Aang. They know the land better than any network of spies ever could. We won't need the Seamstress..."

Aang nodded, and turned to Savir. "Please, stand up," he said. Savir did so quickly. "We need to stop the World War before the end of summer. If we don't, then the world dies then. And even if we do, that just buys us weeks at most. After that... we have to find a way to fight the unfightable."

"As the Ghurkas always have," Savir said, solemn and stolid. His eyes were as cold as the sky.

And they were probably the best shot that anybody had, at this point.

If only he had more time...

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13<strong>

**The Assassins**

* * *

><p>People were digging in within the city of Grand Ember. The tripoint flame had been torn from the banner rods and lay limp in the streets, and in its place, loose sheets of melancholy blue, waving in the wind that drove either wet rain or snow, depending on what time of day it was, along the rooftops of the thousands living there. It was the greater, the broader, the more cosmopolitan of the twin cities of Greater Ember Island, and by far the older. Fire Fountain City looked across the straight to Shinzo, the mainland. Grand Ember, though, looked out onto the archipelago which shared the name. And at the moment, that name was anything but Fire Nation.<p>

"What was that you said, about popular rebellions?" Jet asked, entirely too sweetly. Mai just glared at him. He scratched at his faintly stubbled chin. "Something about 'doomed to be inevitably stamped out as soon as somebody starts paying attention to it'? Because that's the weirdest thing; I could have sworn that the Blue Turbans just won an honest to the gods fight against Zhao's army."

"Laugh it up," Mai said darkly, which was to say she said it in her usual tone.

"I also remember something about 'any rebellion that succeeded being funded by somebody rich'?"

"Hah. Hah."

Jet let out a guffaw, watching how the horde that moved through the streets, unified only in the blue turban upon their collective heads, split and flowed as water escaping through wet sand. Despite being very clear that people were coming and leaving that swarm as it progressed through the town, hunting down those who would not throw down arms and standards, the size of the swarm remained roughly the same. And some of the people joining that swarm did so by coming straight out of houses or shops. Butchers, shouting in anger, waving their knives. Fishermen thumping gaffs to the streets, punctuating a strange sort of music that they made, moving through the oldest remaining city in the Fire Nation.

"Has there been any word from the Avatar and the others?" Jet asked, his jocularity fading swiftly, so that he gave the question the solemnity it was due.

"No. Azul must have them by now," she said.

"Hey, don't think like that," Jet said, taking her hand and pulling her a bit closer to him. "If you expect the worst, then the universe has a weird way of meeting your expectations."

"I never took you for an optimist," she lied.

"Of course you did," not rising to her bait. He looked out to sea, and strained his eyes at the coming of a ship into the harbor. That they'd gotten in unhassled was strange. There were a great many naval men amongst this ever-swelling rebellion, and fishermen knew exactly how to board a boat, in a way that would have put Embiar marines to shame, if the Embiar hadn't made such a frequent practice of just hiring fishermen for soldiers. "But that's something that requires a bit of attention."

All told, this was something that was beyond Mai's comprehension. Everything she'd ever known about history, about populist rebellion, said that this should have been ground into ashes weeks ago. And yet it was only gaining strength. The Army had mobilized fully against their rabble, but _the rabble_ had won the day. It beggared the imagination. But at the same time, Mai was home, in the Fire Nation, and it was snowing. She'd just about given up on the universe making any kind of logical sense. She followed behind Jet, moving through the mostly abandoned streets, walking on what blue banners weren't caught by the wind and thus pooled on the ground, a cascade frozen in the snow. The path was swift, as Grand Ember had been well planned out.

Pity almost half of the old city was under the water in the port, now.

The two of them reached the great wharf just as lines were being cast out, pulling the black-iron steamer to a point where its gangplank could be laid to the jetty. There were no few Blue Turbans waiting with Mai and Jet, and from the looks of them, they were still ready for trouble. But the mutterings that spoke to concern and readiness almost burst when the first man stood at the top of the gangway, and looked down on those below.

"Chit-Sang? Is that you?" one of the Blue Turbans who was close enough to see with certainty mentioned. The very large, bulky man gave a nod, then waved behind him. Others wearing the rough red jerkins of prisoners of the state began to file out behind him. The first were middle aged, mostly, and looked to have become prematurely grayed by their experiences. The next swarm out were... well, they were Water Tribesmen.

"Of course it is. I heard that you were a bit annoyed at the Fire Lord. Thought I could help," he said.

"You know this guy?" Jet asked the one who recognized him.

"Sure I do! That guy used to give me half of my business!" he said.

"What was he? An arms dealer?"

"Traveling soap salesman," Chit-Sang answered, moving toward Jet and Mai. He looked the two of them up and down, a hard eyed look for a hard faced man. "So you'd be 'the last Loyo Lah'. What does that make you?"

"Interested in her well being," Jet said.

"Chit-Sang, stop bothering the locals," a woman said, coming down between knots of Tribesmen. She looked quite different than the others, in that she was auburn-haired where she wasn't grey, and her eyes were a smoky blue-green. And there was a seeming miniature version of her, teenaged and rough clothed, right behind her. "You would be Mai? Good. I am the Matriach of Kyoshi Island. My daughter, Suki," the girl nodded. The older woman cracked a smirk. "We're here to join your rebellion."

"Well, there's plenty of room, these days," one of the Blue Turbans said with a guffaw of his own.

"Well, your presence is a help, but... who are all the Tribesmen?" Mai asked.

"Oh, I think I know," Jet said, his eyes hard. "They were the kids stolen from the South Water Tribe. Katara mentioned 'em."

"I'd tell them not to join the fight with us, but I think I know them a bit better than that by now," Suki said with a roll of her shoulders.

"But there's somebody that I think you're going to want to meet personally," her mother said. Mai's brow drew down.

"Who could that possibly be?" she asked. The crowd of older prisoners ebbed once more, and at that point, Mai saw him. Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropped. "...Uncle?"

She'd only met him a few times in her childhood, and always thought him a boring, humorless man. The intervening years hadn't done much to improve her own humor, and nostalgia took care of the rest. Neither was he attractive even now, since he looked like a man who... well... spent the last half-decade in prison. He stared at her, though, with eyes so much like her own. There didn't seem to be words. None to say what either was feeling. Mai pushed through the line of Blue Turbans, only to be arrested for a moment by Jet's hand. She looked back at him, and he had a subdued, distant smile on his face. He gave her hand one last squeeze, before letting her go on. She knew what he was feeling right now. Something like an envy he wouldn't want to feel. Because he would never get this chance.

"Mai..." her uncle said, his mouth working as though he were trying to find the words that she couldn't. "...you've gotten so big."

Mai wished she wasn't going to snivel, and if anybody ever asked her about it later, she would outright lie. But she couldn't deny that she was weeping when she crashed into his chest, and the last member of the House of Loyo Lah besides her self held her close. And if anybody asked him, if he cried? He wouldn't lie, because it was clear to any present.

They were family, and after so long and the tides of impossibility itself, they were together again.

* * *

><p><em>A Week Later<em>

"Is... she ever going to wake up?" Katara asked, eyeing the woman who, despite her best efforts, still looked like a woman who fell down a mountain and hit every rock on the way down. Considering that Katara's best efforts were, if she wasn't too proud to say so, very good, it was telling just how degraded the body had become. She was practically unrecognizable. Only because Aang had told her – under the proviso that she not inform Zuko or Azula – who this was that Katara knew that this was Irukandji and its Host.

"I have to believe that she will," Aang said. "At least she's not... _oozing_... anymore."

Katara nodded, looking out toward the edge of the wandering encampment, where lightning was regularly launching out across the snow-covered ground. It was strange, that the day dawned with the clouds far enough apart that the sun could be seen, only to have it reflecting off of snow, here in the Fire Nation. If nothing else, it meant that Katara would never lack for ammunition, but like everybody else, she was more than a bit disturbed by it. "If Azula finds out who she is, she's probably going to try to kill her," Katara said.

"No, she won't," Aang pressured. "She's... well, she's just got a lot on her mind."

"Teaching these people how to throw lightning bolts. You know, if they hadn't gotten on their knees and begged you to help them, I wouldn't think we could trust them."

Aang nodded, his gaze distant – and to Katara's dismay, directed toward that lightning-kissed field – as he pondered. Finally, he turned to her. "This, all of this? This is what I've been saying for the longest time. The only way that we can save the world is if all Nations are working together. I've already got the Air Nomads on my side..."

"All two of them," Katara said with a nod.

"...and if Azula's right, then your father is going to be on his way with the Earth Kingdom's army soon. And now... now we have the Fire Nation working with us. I just wish I knew how to..." he shook his head, letting it fall into his hands. "It just feels like we're trying to swim against the tide. Even if we beat Zhao, stop the war before Sozin's Comet comes back, what then?"

"Then, you'll dust yourself off, pick yourself up, and come up with a way to save the world," Katara said confidently. "I know you have it in you. You always have. You just need to let yourself see it."

Aang smiled a bit, a tired smile, at her. "Thanks. If nothing else, you never let me wallow."

"Of course not," Katara said with a smirk. "What else is a big sister for?"

Aang chuckled at that, and got to his feet. "I've got a feeling that I should probably be out there, trying to figure out how to throw lightning bolts."

"I thought Zuko was teaching you how to do that," Katara said.

"Yeah, but..." he looked away guiltily. Katara sighed and shook her head.

"Just go," she said. It was much like Zuko had told her; Katara was as much as Aang's sister, but she was not his owner. And if he wanted to make a monumentally stupid move like romantically pursuing the firebender who'd invested no small amount of time in his attempted murder, that was his move to make. No matter how obviously terrible it was. Aang grinned and bounded away.

Katara moved back through the camp itself, but she found she kept rubbing at the scar on her neck. If Aang hadn't been the Avatar, she'd have died on the carpet of Azul's palace. Some days, it was hard to think that the boy barely into his teens who bounded with utmost glee toward the source of so many lightning-strikes was also the only power in this world who could prevent its utter annihilation. She was distracted, at least, by the appearance of the other airbender, who seemed to be in the process of teasing her older brother's girlfriend.

"I'm just saying, that if he's a bit too much to handle, there's a lot of things you can do to distract his attention," Malu said.

"Go die in a hole," Nila said, as she tried to rasp out the barrel of her firearm without interruption. "I did not ask for your opinion, and would not have answered your question had not..." she then looked up, and saw Katara. "...never mind."

"_What_ did he do?" Katara asked.

"What didn't he!" Malu said with a licentious grin.

"The airbender is being perverted. It is nothing of the kind," Nila said, annoyed... as usual. With a shake of her head, she rose to her feet. "Perhaps in the insane presence of Sato I will find a relative peace."

"Aw, we were bonding!" Malu said brightly.

"Die. In. A. Hole."

Nila then stalked away with all of the grace and elegance of an enraged cat. Katara could only shake her head. "Why do you do that to her?"

"Because she needs somebody to get her to loosen up," Malu said. "Your brother can't shoulder that entire burden on his own. So what's up?"

"Clouds, usually," Katara answered. "Why?"

"I... Never mind. It's an Air Nomad thing. What's going on in the camp?"

"Aang's infatuated with the girl who wanted to kill him a few months ago. Zuko's brooding. Toph is picking fights with people twice her size and three times her age. Business as usual," she related.

"Gods, I hope not. Business as usual had something big and evil inside me. I like the non-status-quo, thank you very much," Malu said. She did shrug. "But if there's one thing, at least we're a step ahead of where we were when we went into that awful city. Sato and the Ghurkas? What are the chances?"

"They're not Ghurkas, they're Ghorkalai," Katara corrected.

"Where do you think the Ghurkas come from, Katara?" Malu asked, idly thunking her on the head, until Katara swatted the hand away. "They were famous even in my day. There was the old saying 'if a man tells you that he doesn't fear death, he's either lying or a Ghurka', and I figure they were that way since the fall of the Storm Kings."

"It's like all of the furthest bits of history are coming back, all around us," Katara said. "It's a weird feeling."

"Weird bad, or weird good?"

"Just... weird," Katara said. She shook her head. "You know something, I'm kind of impressed by you, Malu."

"Really?" the airbender asked.

"Yeah," Katara admitted. "You were dropped into a world that you didn't know, tried to do the right thing, and when that turned out to be wrong, you did everything in your power to make it right. I can't imagine what I'd do in your position."

"Oh, you'd be fine," Malu said. "Mostly because you're not a shaman so you'd not get Hosted and have Big Evil inside you."

"That's a good point," Katara said. The two of them passed Toph, who was looking sullen and annoyed – once again, business as usual, these days. "Hey, Toph. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Don't mother me! I've already got one!" Toph said, obviously upset about something. Katara gave a glance to Malu, who likewise noticed the obvious, as Toph stomped away in her boots.

"Should we talk to her?" Malu asked.

"Probably... but when she's calmed down a bit," Katara agreed. After all, she'd learned that there was nothing that pushed Toph's buttons more then demanding something that she didn't want to give, even if it was obvious to anybody that she'd be better off if she just... Katara took an internal breath, and cut herself off before she became _truly_ patriarchal. "So. You don't trust Azula either, do you?"

"The firebender? She scares me a bit. I can see why you're glad to have her on your side."

"Glad? Me?" Katara asked. Malu offered a laugh at that, and the two continued through the 'town' that had pegged in for the day, before they shook off yesterday's storm and continued on the path. But they didn't pass unnoticed.

Miles away, on the berm that supported the tracks that even now lay bare and uncovered despite the inches of snow on the ground, a man with a red-painted face stared through a lens, into the heart of that colorful settlement. "Yeah... that's the Avatar," he said quietly. He looked back to those who were waiting for confirmation, and for opportunity. One, a mountain of a man, who was by his own mistakes missing an arm and leg. The impressive firebending technique he'd developed had, in the former Yu Yan's opinion, more than made the sacrifice worth it. Another was a slip of a woman, golden eyed and scarred faced. There were more scars on her than on the Yu Yan's entire squad. And the way she twirled the knives in her fingers told that she'd not gotten those scars by negligence or carelessness. The last was an Easterner, dusky skinned and shaven headed, who bore a firearm upon his back. It had a mouth that widened into a bore thick enough to stick both thumbs into, a weapon to spread carnage far and wide at a single strike of match to blasting-jelly.

The former Yu Yan rubbed at his chin, and the narrow beard that clung to it. This could go very wrong, very fast, if they didn't do this smart. He himself was a firebender, as was the silent giant with the burning eye tattooed upon his brow. The Easterner claimed to be a 'sandbender', for whatever good that would do them all here. At least the firearm was impressive. But they were in the midst of hundreds of damned Yubokamin.

"We've got to time this proper," he said, to the others. "Get them away from the Gorks. Don't let any run. I want the _whole_ bounty, savvy?"

There were silent nods from all the others, but the silence was not a usual state. Usually, the assassin would be muttering darkly on something or other, while the Easterner made frequent and unsubstantiated claims of his greater skill and prowess with his weaponry compared to the once-member of the Yu Yan Archers – utterly ridiculous, it had to be said. He was glad for the silence, at the moment. Because soon, there would be a lot of noise, and a lot of fire. He flicked his head into a nod, and the assassins began to move, hitching up white cloaks that the woman somehow had the forethought to bring, and vanishing against the snow.

* * *

><p>The lighting tore away from Azula's finger. A second later, it tore away from Koinahim's as well, which left Azula standing, somewhat stunned. Mostly, because a second after that, the older woman managed a launch one of her own. Some were still stymied, but that two had learned after only an hour of training – at a technique which had taken Azula <em>months<em> to perfect – was either disquieting, or very very useful. "Well. You seem to be grasping the basics of it more quickly than I had feared," Azula said, still not really up to giving an unqualified compliment. That would come with time, she figured.

It was still so strange being a 'good guy'.

"It's... remarkable," the young Ghurka in all but title said, staring at the smoke that wafted off of his finger, and at the path of melted snow that tracked under where his bolt had flown. "There's so much power there. More than I thought possible."

"You see why I said you were 'keeping up' with me," Azula said. "That is an ability which can turn a conflict in an instant. Unlike flames, which are themselves invaluable for offense in any form, they can be warded. There is only one technique which can protect you from lightning without the power of the Avatar behind it, and trust me, that bastard _Zhao_ doesn't know about it."

"What is this technique?" Phu asked, still waving his hands from how they constantly burst and popped from his failed attempts.

"I'll show it to you later, once you've mastered creating lightning," Azula said. Now this was strange as well. The last person she trained how to firebend was Chiyo. And she'd done so with such a begrudging manner to her that it was like pulling teeth to get her to practice... at first, anyway. These people jumped in with both feet.

"Azula! Are you still teaching the lighting-throwing-thing?" Aang's voice broke her concentration, and turned her away from her pupils.

"If you're going to learn the style, could you _at least_ call it by its proper name?" Azula said, palming her face. Zuko, standing off to one side, looked unforgivably smug about it all. Aang seemed to trip over himself – not literally but figuratively – and came to a halt.

"Oh, right," he said. He then bowed with an old-fashioned Fire Nation salute. "I would be honored if you would teach me the secrets of lightningbending, Sifu Hotman."

"Sifu _what_?" Koinahim asked. Azula had to scoff.

"Just... ignore him," Azula said, eyes firmly at a roll. She turned to the Avatar. "The last time you tried this, you ended up blasting yourself into somebody's wagon. While she was bathing."

"I said I was sorry," Aang said, his eyes to the floor.

"And the time before that, you blasted yourself so frequently that when you limped back into camp, a walking bruise, your waterbender accused me of torturing you," Azula continued.

"I told her what happened! It's not my fault she didn't believe the truth," Aang said, defensive.

"And the time before _that_, when you actually fell off of the Western Air Temple, and would have died if you didn't have that ridiculous glider so often close to hand," Azula continued, to the growing sniggering from the other students.

"But I'm... _better_ now," Aang claimed, blushing furiously. Azula gave a world-weary sigh. He wasn't going to be turned away, that much was obvious. And to be frank, he could use some firepower in his arsenal.

"Very well," she said, singsong of tone. "But if you return to camp looking like a tortured prisoner, it will be on your own head, with these people as my witness," she said, a hand waving to the Yubokamin who had learned the technique with such stunning swiftness.

"We'll leave you to your trouble student," Phu said with a roll of his eyes. She shot a glare at him, because he was making an implication, but she could as much call him on it as freeze the sun in the sky long enough to melt this damned snow. Still, the protectors of the mobile town gave her respectful bows and turned back toward their home.

"It must be nice to be teaching again," Aang offered.

"Again? The only time I ever taught somebody in my life – before _you_ – was my child. I'm not a teacher. I never was," she said, her teeth grit. But in response to that, Aang opened a hand, and floated a globe of golden fire above its palm.

"I wouldn't say that," Aang said. "Because of you, I've learned more about firebending in the last month than I had in the half-year before that."

She gave a shrug. "You're not wrong," she admitted. After all, she had heard how this twerp knocked three adult criminals on their respective asses in a matter of seconds, back in the city. Certainly not what she would have expected from him, last time. "Fine. Let's try it again from the top."

"I'd be a bit more cautious, Zuli," Zuko said from his place to one side, where he'd been silently watching the whole affair. Aang flinched a bit, no doubt wondering if he was always that sneaky. Azula knew for a fact that he was. "Lightning can be tricky, dangerous, and painful."

"If he hasn't learned that by now, he'll need a new brain, as well as another teacher," Azula pointed out. "And don't call me Zuli."

Zuko just chuckled richly at that, before coming up, and taking a place beside her. "Fair enough. Aang, horse stance."

"Aaaaw," Aang muttered, before slowly lowering himself into what was widely held as the least pleasant stance for firebending. Mostly because it was... but Azula didn't feel like informing the Avatar of just how useless the next few decades would prove the training regimen to be. If he wanted to learn her form of firebending, he was going to have to earn it.

* * *

><p>Nila barely kept her balance after the blind one walked into her. She tutted, and looked down to the monumentally annoyed earthbender. "I suppose I ought say 'watch where you are going', however it would be a pointless exercise," she noted with a smirk.<p>

"Say that again! I'll punch your kidneys out!" Toph snapped, pointing to Nila's right. The Si Wongi just chuckled at her outburst.

"You are not faring well with the cold, I suppose," Nila said.

"Boots suck. Snow sucks. EVERYTHING SUCKS!" Toph exclaimed.

"I have some sympathy for you. Snow is indeed a terrible affliction that I would not wish upon anybody, and the way it travels down into footware is a damnation from the most high," she admitted. She looked around. "Where are you going?"

"Around. Somewhere where I don't have to be beset by... old women, _cooing_ over me."

"How terrible," Nila said.

"I know!" Toph agreed. "Just 'cause I'm blind doesn't mean you're allowed to pinch my cheeks and... URGH!"

While Nila had a strongly developed sense of schadenfreude, she had learned over the last few months exactly how far she could afford to push it, especially as it came to the earthbender before her. "Come. We shall depart this gaggle of ninnies and vagabonds. The country shall, if nothing else, be quieter," Nila said.

"Finally. First worthwhile offer I've heard all damned day!" Toph said, trying to trudge after Nila but constantly having to adjust her path. The boots she was wearing truly did seem to hamper her vision. Nila had a thought.

"Earthbender, remain here for a moment. I need to collect something."

"Stay here? What do I look like? A pet?" Toph asked, crossing her arms angrily before her. Nila, though, didn't feel like responding. Instead, she kipped through the crowd, to the wagon that was being offered to her for the time being to live in. Sokka was sitting on the step, taking a whet-stone to a boomerang which had obviously been dulled by time and ill-maintanence.

"Hey! I was wondering where you'd gone... what are you looking for?" Sokka said, having to switch tracks as Nila instantly plunged past him into the interior of the wagon.

"Something... ah!" she said, pulling the barrel that she'd filed into obsolescence in an attempt to perfect its rifling. She held it before her, and Sokka just got a confused look on his face.

"You... want me to sharpen your gun?" he asked.

"No, you sweet fool. I need this for reasons that will take longer to explain than to undertake," Nila said, wrapping the top of the metal tube in thin wool.

"Alright, I guess. But why do I have the sneaking suspicion that this is going to end in bluh..." she decided to cut off Sokka the most enjoyable way she knew how, by pulling him into a breath-stealing kiss that left him waving on his feet when she pulled away primly and began to walk away. "...alright, my fears are assuaged."

Nila had a small smile on her face as she returned to the earthbender who, despite her protestations, had remained where Nila bade. "Earthbender! Take this," she said.

"Take what?" Toph asked. Nila rolled her eyes and pulled one hand from a protective armpit and slapped the metal into her palm. She hissed and dropped it, causing Nila to have to pick it back up. "Damn that's cold! What is it?"

"A metal tube," Nila said.

"And what am I supposed to do with it?" Toph asked, managing to produce the most skeptical of faces despite obviously never having seen one to emulate.

"Prod the ground," Nila said helpfully. Toph gave her a scowl, but took the cold metal to hand and thumped it into the ground next to her boot. She then froze stock still. She thumped it again, and blind eyes widened, mouth slowly sliding agape.

"...Nila, you're a genius."

"Of course I am," Nila said.

"I CAN SEE! KINDA!" Toph exclaimed.

"I only regret the epiphany had not come earlier," Nila said.

"You and me both, lady," Toph said, beginning to pick her way forward with the four foot tube marking her path. Honestly, that was too much barrel to begin with. Three and a half was more than sufficient. "Man, this feels so much better; I can see that rock I was going to trip on."

"To the wild, then," Nila said, moving with her rifle wrapped upon her back, the extra barrels weighing her down a touch more. "I feel you would be better company than the airbender today."

"Why? She getting annoying?"

"Getting?" Nila asked. Toph gave a belly laugh at that. If there was one thing that Nila appreciated about this earthbender, it was that she never misconstrued Nila's humor. "No, simply being unforgivably perverted. Let her get that out of her system with the Tribesman."

"I thought you wouldn't want her around Brain?" Toph asked.

"The other Tribesman," Nila corrected. She paused, as the two were walking into the white hills that struggled to return the grasses to the fore, trying to melt away in the temperatures which remained close to, but above, the freezing point. The smoking from the volcanoes to the north and east vanished into the grey of the cloud-cover. Her gaze grew more critical, though. For just a moment, she thought she saw something. Something... Well, something that sent her instincts into high-gear. But whatever it was, her sweep of eyes didn't reveal it. Just mounds of snow, pressing on to the horizon, or else vanishing up into the mountains.

And so, she walked with the earthbender. If nothing else, Beifong was good company.

* * *

><p>"...which confuses me. It's almost like your brother doesn't have any sense of shame!" Malu said.<p>

"About what? Being naked? Why would he?" Katara asked.

"Because... people tend to?" she asked.

"Not if you're a South Water Tribesman," Katara said. She shrugged. "While Dad always said that people had their own rooms, and didn't all sleep together in one bed to not freeze to death, up in the north, I can't say I believed it until I reached Kyoshi Island."

"You Tribesmen are sure weird," Malu said with a shake of her head.

"You're the ones who are ashamed of their own bodies," Katara said with a patronizing smile, mostly because of the reaction it got from the airbender. She burst into laughter. "You're not wrong, though; Sokka is a goon, who goes half-dressed a lot more often than he should."

Malu just shook her head, possibly at the insanity inherent to Water Tribesmen. Katara couldn't say with certainty. The two of them continued for a moment without words, listening to the Ghorkalai as they packed everything in, and prepared to depart from where they'd hunkered down. She could see some who weren't of the local stripe, standing aloof from the preparations. Mostly because they didn't have anything to prepare. The other waterbender shot her an easy grin, turning to face the two ladies who approached. "Well, if I'd known such beauty approached, I would have fixed myself up a bit."

The Azuli woman just shook her head, face in palm. "Oh, you're too kind," Malu said, blushing a bit. Possibly because she was the kind of girl who had been too focused to be... well, a girl. Back before the whole running for her life thing.

"Kori, you're a pig," Maya said. "Please tell me that he's not representative of your race."

"No. Thank the gods," Katara said. Kori nevertheless laughed at that.

"I fear that we're going to be taking a different path than you, sweetheart," he said, addressing Malu. "I hope you won't miss me too much?"

"Kori, I swear to Agni..." Maya began.

"Oh hush, people will start to think we're an old married couple," Kori said.

"I should certainly think not," Maya said.

"What? Where are you two going?" Malu asked.

Maya looked to her, then glanced down at the slush around her boots. "For the first time in my life, I don't need to keep looking over my shoulder for my father to be there. I'm _free_. And I don't know _what_ I want to do."

"While I would so _desperately_ love to come join you in your suicide mission, I'm sure you've got everything well-at-hand," Kori said smoothly. He then paused, and turned to Katara. "Well, except about your sister. Sorry about that."

"Sorry about what?"

"Oh, she's gone nuts," Kori summarized in the most brutal way possible. "Downright ugly, as I hear it. On the plus side, she didn't get press-ganged into working for Zhao; she would have just thrown a lightning bolt down his throat, which would have gotten her killed, and that would have been terrible."

"Wh... where is she?" Katara asked. Kori only shrugged.

"Sorry. Wherever she went, she didn't tell anybody. Probably for everybody's sake. Can't track a spy if you don't know where that spy is going, if you catch my drift," he said.

Katara breathed deep. "I'm going to have to find her," Katara said. She locked bright blue eyes on to the dark blue of the waterbender turned Fire National. "Where would she go? You know her better than just about anybody else. Or at least I'm pretty sure you would, since you thought she was _your_ sister for a decade."

Kori sighed, and rubbed his face, for the first time no longer looking smug and distanced. He leaned, and stared down through the ground, before turning back to her. "Well... If I know Yoji – yes, Hikaoh, whatever – then she's probably clinging to something that she holds dear. And that counts to three; firebending, the Children, and the Fire Lord. The middle's out of her reach right now. The former is pretty much a part of her... so I'd say she'd be looking for the latter."

"Hikaoh is trying to what? Save the Fire Lord?"

"Sounds kinda crazy, doesn't it?" Kori asked. He nodded, though. "And crazy though it sounds, it's probably what's happening. If you find Ozai, you'll probably find your sister."

"Why don't you help her?" Malu asked. "Y...Hikaoh trusts you."

Kori shook his head. "Yeah but... enough to turn her back on her own identity? I don't think she trusts _anybody_ that much. Not since Omo got dead."

"You can still try," Malu said.

Kori only shrugged. Katara was about to say something, but the hubbub took a turn, the tone turning from one of jovial industry, to one of alarm. The people began to mill closer to their wagons, leaving gaps in between for men and women in their prime to move through, taking mattocks to back and pushing toward the edges. "What's going on?" Katara asked.

"Fire on the eastern horizon. That's Ohu-clan's territory," a strapping, unshaven man said, as he pulled the weapon/tool of choice from the wagon that the teenagers had congregated around. "It's not just the wildlife that can get nasty out here."

"You think somebody attacked your neighbors?" Katara asked.

"Seems like. That's a lot of smoke," he said. Katara looked where he was looking, and could only see a faintly darker grey smudge rising above the level of the wagons and the distance beyond them. They had eyes like fire-falcons, these Yubokamin did.

"Should we help?" Katara asked. He instantly gave a warding motion.

"Stay here; I can't reproach y'skills from your war, but this is Azul, and it breeds a cruel kind to live in a cruel land."

"He's got a point. Anybody who can survive Azul can survive literally anywhere," Kori pointed out. Maya nodded knowingly at that. And neither one looked like they had any intention of heading out.

"Well, I'm not stuck on the ground. If nothing else, I can help you spot the bad-guys!" Malu offered. The man looked concerned for a moment, then sighed and nodded. He thrust a finger toward her, though.

"I don't to see one foot of yours on the ground, though. Danger enough in the skies of Azul that I don't need you fallin' to the ground of it," he declared. Malu grinned, and half-pelted away, before stopping herself.

"Um... Tell everybody not to be worried about me, alright?" she asked.

"Why would they be?" Katara asked. Malu smiled, and gave Katara a brief, if warm, hug, before she bolted off through the gaps in the crowd to where Appa was probably still sitting in its rut of snow. Katara had a feeling that she'd probably be healing people back from the brink again today, instead of sending people there with her element. Strange, when she left the South Pole, she just wanted to _fight_ the Fire Nation, with everything that she had. Since then, she'd... matured, maybe. It had to be that, otherwise she'd never have been able to understand that she was now using her waterbending to heal Fire Nationals, and felt good for doing it.

* * *

><p>"Are they falling for it?" the woman asked, her voice somewhat raspy. Not surprising considering there were two scars across her throat where somebody tried to give her a second – and <em>third<em> – smile. The former Yu Yan put the lens to his eye, sweeping it from where the two Easterners, of whom one had scared away fully half the other bounty hunters, to the Gorks that moved swiftly through the snow toward the bonfire that they'd set well out of sight. They'd piled it high with rope and pitch, giving it the oily, black smoke that one would expect of burning, say, a wagon.

"They aren't going with them," the former Yu Yan noted. The targets were staying with the town on wheels. That complicated things. But all of the warriors worth the name were out. While a Gork non-combatant was a combatant anywhere else, they'd be too busy protecting the important things – kin and livings – to fight back when they struck. And, after all, the targets weren't Gorks. "We'll adapt."

"I should think you would," the woman said, flatly. There was a scowl pulling at the brutal scar that extended the edges of her mouth half-way to her ears in an 'Azuli Grin'. "What about that Wonk's trap?"

The former Yu Yan pondered a moment, then shook his head. "No reason to get the Gorks after us. Cancel, and reset. He can pick off the other Easterners, instead," the former Yu Yan decided. She nodded, and started to send flashes of light via mirror to where the outlander was waiting. This wouldn't fall apart, not on his watch. All he had to do was decide when to strike.

That hulking, one armed and one legged mute would make up much of the difference once he did.

* * *

><p>She was honestly getting tired by the time that Aang picked himself off the ground for what had to be the fiftieth time. With a groan and a shake of her head, she wondered what she'd done in a past life to deserve this sort of punishment. The answer was obvious. "No, no no!" Azula said. "If you keep doing that, you'll blow your own finger off before you get lightning to come out of it."<p>

"I don't get what I'm doing wrong," Aang said, as he began to make the motions again. Azula grabbed his hands and held them still, a stern shake of her head to his face.

"Stop. Just... stop. Whatever it is that's keeping you from casting lightning isn't going to get solved today. I'm exhausted, physically and mentally. We can try this... some other time."

"Oh. Okay," Aang said. He blinked a few times. "You can let go of my hands now."

Azula did as though they were magma, growling under her breath. In the amount of time that it took the Avatar to fail lightningbending, one of the nearby _children_ managed to figure it out. She was seriously beginning to wonder how she ever lost to him. Or worse, got killed by him. Then again... that was a different man, and a different time. She palmed her face, and looked out across the snow. "The only thing I can hope for at this point is that you don't need to throw lightning to save the world. Because if you have to, we're all doomed," Azula said.

"I'm learning. It's just kinda hard," Aang said rubbing fingers which were raw from all the explosions which had buffetted them.

"Hard is learning how to heal with firebending so your daughter doesn't have to suffer with a broken leg. Hard is learning how to see with firebending so you can escape from a collapsed mountain that the Avatar accidentally dropped on you. _This_," she motioned to a finger which she pulled crackling power into, "isn't hard."

Aang stared at it for a moment. "You can heal with _firebending_?"

"Not the point," Azula said. She let out a growl. "If you weren't progressing with your other techniques, I'd just say to hell with it and let Zuzu teach you."

"Where is he, anyway?" Aang asked.

"He left to do something more productive. Planning. Plotting. Possibly scheming," Azula said. Aang hung his head again.

"You're mad that we still haven't come up with a plan, aren't you?"

"I'm not angry, I'm just frustrated," Azula admitted. And wondered why she admitted it. This would have been a perfect opportunity to needle him with a lie. With an internal shake of her internal head, she looked to the mountains. "There is an army that's going to land on these shores very soon, and when they do, they'll be at the mercy of that smug jackass, without any way to reach Caldera City before they run out of food. In a blizzard, apparently, because the universe now seems to be openly mocking us."

"We'll figure something out," Aang said, giving her hand a squeeze, before she pulled it away with a 'what the hell are you doing?' expression that slid right off of him. The two of them then turned, only to find the village a bit further away than they remembered. "Huh. Guess they've started moving."

"Do you always voice the obvious?"

"Somebody has to," Aang said brightly. Azula just shook her head.

She puffed out a breath, and started walking toward the wagons which hadn't started shifting out on the road, perpendicular to the odd smudge of smoke on one horizon. "I do have a thought, though," Azula said. Aang turned to her. "Your spirits. Agni explicitly said that she wanted you to save her. I'm guessing that your moon and sea spirits would fight at your side..."

"If we had them..." Aang said morosely.

"Please. I've met Yue... in another lifetime, but still. If anybody was going to save a manifested god, it would be her," Azula said. Complimenting a Water Tribesman? What the hell was going on with her today? She paused in her stride for a moment, but shook her head and continued on. "So between those two, I believe you'll have the start of an army to deploy against Imbalance just as we deploy one against Zhao."

"I don't think that's going to work," Aang said. He shrugged. "It'd just _eat_ them."

"Eat the sun? I don't think so," Azula said. Aang raised a finger, to make a point, but his eyes went wide. With a thrust, he rushed past her, a hand extended, as the whiz of something approaching reached her ear. There was a meaty thwack, and Aang fell ground beside Azula, an arrow impaling the palm of his hand. Azula instantly turned and sent out a wave of azure flame from the source of that attack, but couldn't see anybody to blame. "What did you do that for?" she shouted.

"You're welcome," Aang said, with sarcasm which was remarkable for him at least, as she pulled him to his feet, her other hand dripping blue flames. "He was going to shoot you!"

"So your first instinct is 'You know what, I'll grab that arrow!'? Are you _insane_ or just moronic?" Azula demanded, trying to find out who'd fired that arrow. Whoever it was, they'd gotten very close to putting it through the joint of Azula's shoulder. She knew from a different lifetime, not personally in this instance, that such a wound would paralyze the limb for life without a very skilled surgeon at hand.

"I didn't have a lot of time to think about it!" Aang snapped back. Oh, showing backbone was he? She'd make a worthwhile man of him after all, it seemed. His eyes darted wide again, and this time, instead of just reaching out to offer his other hand in sacrifice, he pulled the snow and compacted it into a transparent shield, one which caught the arrow after it had traversed half it's length. And from the angle, Azula had an origin. One that was remarkably far away.

The shield dropped into water even as Azula rushed forward, lightning coming to her fingers and launching toward that distant target even as it splashed into the ground. There was a tiny shift of white against white, where that bolt landed and sent black soil flying up to mar its perfect whiteness. She twisted her arms, another lightning bolt sliding into the ready, which she released the instant she felt it was right. However, between the distance and the difficulties of hitting a moving target, the bolt tore up the gravel berm of the train-tracks between she and he, before crackling electrically along the long metal rail.

"Move. Now," Azula said.

"What if there's more of them?" Aang asked. Azula groaned, as she'd not considered the possibility. Today was a bad day, she decided. A distinctly non-Azula day. That was her excuse, and she was sticking to it.

Azula grabbed the shaft and twisted, snapping the head off, before pulling the arrow out in one yank to the pained scream of the Avatar. She waved the bloody shaft in his face. "Then we'd better move fast."

"That really hurt!" Aang said, his fingers clawed of it, and his eyes beading. But he didn't look like he was going to just lay down and cry over it. His posture was that of a man about to attack. It wouldn't have been two months ago. Azula considered that a small, but notable, victory.

"Which is a lesson to not let it happen again," she threw the shaft away, igniting it in mid air so it fell as a waft of ashes. They moved, and for a wonder, they moved together.

* * *

><p>"You can stop skulking about, Sokka, I know you're there," Toph said, a grin still on her face. Nila broke off, mid word, to turn and see her boyfriend approaching, a mildly-put-out expression on his face.<p>

"You've ruined the surprise, Toph," Sokka said.

"Half the fun," Toph clarified. That grin turned from self-satisfied to licentious faster than Nila wanted to think about. "Soooo. I hear you two are the topic of much conversation these days?"

"To who?" Sokka asked. He turned to Nila. "Hey, they told me to warn you guys that they're going to be moving on pretty soon. They're on the edge of Ohu territory, and that means that they can't cross over until they send word, but there's more _weather_ coming and its a _thiiing_..." He shook his head.

"And here I thought Fire Nationals to be the masters of coherent thinking," Nila harangued.

"That's what Tribesmen are for," Sokka said with a scoff.

"Not as I have heard," Nila mentioned. Toph, though, stopped grinning, and her expression became very confused... and alarmed.

"Uhh... guys? You're probably going to think I'm crazy, but do you see a _ship_ coming?" she asked, a darkly expectant rictus on her face. Instantly, Nila turned to the distance. There was so much white that seeing anything worthwhile would require an act of providence. But with a squint, and one hand to cut what glare there was, she caught just a flicker of movement, as Toph turned, the rod firmly in her hand, toward... what looked like, for the white around it and the white almost concealing it, to be a burning eye floating above the snow.

Even in the distance, she could sense his angry intake of breath. Sokka, though, reacted fastest of all of them. With a scoop followed by a dive, he hurled himself and all with him aside and into the snow, an instant before a series of pops sounded in the air, detonating in a line toward where they had stood. It passed beyond them, striking the ground which would have been at their backs. Instead, dirt and snow flew up in a blast, pelting those lying amongst the whiteness. Nila glanced aside, seeing that the nearest wagon to the detonation had its bearer buck and in doing so, caused the vehicle to snap a wheel-spoke.

Toph, though, was the first up. She heaved herself up, plunged that rod into the ground, then stepped past it, her fists clenching in, then thrusting forward in a brutal double punch. When she did, the ground erupted before her. Line of sight was instantly lost, as the snow filled the sky once more. It was even more thoroughly lost when the stone did likewise in an angry, churning morass that sped toward their attempted assassin. Another intake of breath that Nila more felt than heard, and a second detonation, which reached into the center of Toph's tidal-wave of stone, blasting it to bits and causing Top to recoil back, having to regain her footing and grasp on the rod which gave her 'sight', of a kind.

"That isn't good," Toph said.

Nila snarled and pulled her rifle from her back, swinging it up and sighting down it, waiting for the snow to clear. Until she could see the eye that hovered so conspicuously now that she knew to look for it. And the instant she did, her finger pulled tight, and the hammer fell.

Click.

Eyes widened, and she looked at her rifle. Misfire! Damn this infernal snow!

"Run!" Nila snapped, and she felt herself being hauled back by Sokka. She didn't begrudge him manhandling her in the name of self preservation. In fact, she lauded it. Another angry intake of breath, and this time, Toph ground to a halt, digging in her great nail to root herself, before squatting almost to the ground, and thrusting up. With a rumble, a great shelf of surprisingly pale rhyolite shot up, sending even more snow swirling. An instant after it had, there was another popping bang that approached, and blasted that wall into rubble in a single instant, and sent all three rolling from the force of it.

"How do we fight this guy? He throws explosions with his brain!" Sokka screamed, as he pulled Nila to her feet. She scowled at the breach of her firearm. Now it was hopelessly damp.

"I recommend you find one!" Nila shouted. Sokka stared, his jaw tense, before he reached to his back and pulled his boomerang from its case. He pressed a kiss to its flat, before cocking an arm back. And he waited. Toph finally shook some coherence into her head, and pawed her way to where the rod had landed, regaining an ability of perception, just as the muffled clunks of the approaching explosion-bender burst through the snow. Even as it did, Sokka snapped his arm forward, and the boomerang cut its path through the air. Nila was already dragging the others into movement, but Sokka kept his eyes back. That dreadful intake of breath... Then, a thwak as the boomerang pegged him in the head.

Again, the loud pops sounded, but instead of describing a line directly toward Nila and those with her, they seemed to flit around the assassin in the snow, throwing up a cloud of it, before a final detonation sent forth a great white wave.

Sokka readily caught the weapon as it returned, but he was still watching behind him. "Do you think I got him?" he asked.

A metallic clank, and the shaven-headed mountain, who now cast aside a burnt white robe, glared silently at them.

"I'm taking that as a 'no'. RUN!" Sokka shouted. Nila felt no desire to disagree.

* * *

><p>Zuko's head turned instantly when he heard the first explosion. He'd heard a lot of the Si Wongi's gunfire, and knew it well enough that he could tell with some certainty that it wasn't one of hers. He glanced to his wagon, debating whether he should bring his dao with him. Considering the spate of good luck he'd been living with for the last few weeks, he had to assume that it was going to go catastrophically wrong; he took the blades. He'd finished hooking the belt into place, and was preparing to draw the blades when something plopped densely into the slush near his feet. Something that hissed.<p>

There would have been a groan, if Zuko had time for it. Instead, all he had time for was to sweep his flames into a shield, so that when the bomb exploded, it sent him flying rather than tear him apart. It landed rolling, skidding to a halt his hands and knees in the muck, only to look up, and see the most mutilated woman he'd seen in his entire life. Her entire face seemed to be a testament to how badly scar-tissue could form – and he had some first-hand experience with that, considering his defunct left ear.

The woman stared down at him, half way between imperious and dismissing, before a flick of her hand brought a wicked knife into it. She slashed down with it, obviously intending to lance the back of his neck and paralyze, if not instantly kill, him. Zuko took a page from Toph's book and neglected silly dodges and evasion, opting to hurl his weight straight forward into her. The impact of his rocketing tackle dislodged the knife before it could do more than tear his shirt, and slammed her into a wagon's side. He flashed to his blades, intending to draw them out with a sweeping cut, only to have the Azuli woman check the draw with a stinging elbow to the back of his hand, causing his grip to fail. She then headbutted straight forward into his nose with a crack, and then followed with a punch that only by an unconscious twitch aside hit him in the side of the neck rather than flat in the voice-box. He staggered back, and a moment later, felt a jabbing pain reach into his ribs, as a shuriken dug into the gap.

"Assassins!" Zuko managed to shout, defying the woman's intentions. He finally got his blades out, and she was now twirling blades along her fingers as the two began to circle. "Zhao sent you, didn't he?"

"I'm not paid to talk," she said, her voice raspy.

"I figure you aren't," Zuko said. "Did you really think you were going to win alone? Against me and my sister?"

The smile on her face, extended wide by the rifts of scars that tore away from the corners of her mouth, was anything but kind. "Who said I was alone?"

Zuko's heart sank, when he realized that he should have figured that out sooner.

She wasn't carrying bombs.

A glimmer of movement in the corner of Zuko's eye was all it took to send him moving. The dark-skinned man swung out, a veritable cannon in his hands. Zuko managed to dodge aside just before the blast sounded, and sent slivers of wood exploding in every direction from the impact site. The beasts of burden, tethered to the wagon, let out a terrified shriek, and began to charge, only to slam into another wagon a few yards away and cause the whole rig to flip. The people were openly fleeing, which was prudent, but there were still a lot of buildings which wouldn't be able to keep up. Mostly because they weren't fighting in the open.

Zuko got to his feet, and even as he did, he had to swing his blades up to deflect a knife which was streaking toward his face. He backed away, keeping an eye down the 'street' that he was backing into. When he saw the dark-skinned man with the cannon in hand round that corner, this time he did let out the disappointed groan that he'd been holding in. The gunner didn't fire, though. He put a bomb up to his teeth and pulled something loose, causing grey smoke to drift from its stem. Then, a hurl, to send that device straight into the son of the deposed Fire Lord.

He could call it an act of massive fortune that when he twisted his blades out again, that they bisected the bomb in mid flight. Fortune, or poor craftsmanship on the bombers part, but either way, when the fuse burned down, there was only the tiny pop of a fragment of explosive going off rather than the flesh-rending bang of the entire thing.

"_He's quick, this one_," the dark one said in Tianxia, a smirk on his face.

The woman appeared next on high, and sent down a fan of knives at the prince, a fan which he wasn't able to wholly deflect. One bit into a shoulder, shallowly. Another raked along his forehead, shearing the hair as it went past his ruined ear. He staggered back, having to squint to keep the blood from leaking into his eye. He wasn't going to win this alone. Hell, he was pretty sure he wasn't going to survive it alone. There was living lucky, and then there was losing dead.

The woman on high was pulling her arm back, a fresh fan of blades 'twixt her fingers, when a blade raced up and hit the side of her head. While it, too, was only shallow and didn't breach her skull, the woman nevertheless recoiled from sending more blades at Zuko, to have to attack whoever'd attacked her. Zuko looked forward, to the Eastern gunner – had to be Si Wongi, Zuko figured – just as the man finished reloading his gun, and bracing it against his hip. Zuko took off running, barely managing to round a corner, before the hellish blast sounded, and the corner of the wagon was blown off, scattering wood into the paths between the wagons yet to leave. From within, Zuko could hear the terrified screaming of a woman and at least one child. But from a quick glance, they hadn't been hit, only startled. That was good... for the gunner's sake, at least.

The woman jumped down at him, and he barely managed to parry his way out of a gash which would have opened him from neck to navel, rolling to his feet, backing off, until he bumped into somebody. He'd almost slashed that obstruction in half before realizing that he'd ended up back-to-face with Maya Azul.

"Don't just stand there! Get out of my way!" the noble shouted, brandishing her own blades, and a deadly look on her face to match the brutality of the other's. Zuko grabbed her and hauled her one street over, though, against her squawked protestations. "Hey! What are you doing?"

"That woman isn't alone, and the other one will kill you and anyone near you if he finds you while you're distracted!" Zuko snapped. He looked around. "Where is that damned waterbender?"

"_Which_ damned waterbender?" the boy fluent in Zuko's native tongue asked, sarcasm in his words if not his face. He winced a bit at Zuko's already numerous injuries, before leaning out 'round the corner. He withdrew with a clipped yelp, clapping a hand to a wound, pulling a shuriken from his forehead. "Ah, damn it," he muttered, then tossed the implement away. "You've got a problem."

"You don't say," Zuko answered flatly.

"There's somebody attacking from that side as well, and I'm pretty sure I heard lighting getting thrown over there," Kori pointed out, wiping aside the trickle of red that the shuriken had birthed. "We're surrounded."

Well, that explained Zuko's recent good luck. It'd been saving up to backlash today. Maya seemed about to say something, but interrupted herself by flinging a dagger past Zuko's face. He turned, and by his razor-honed reflexes was able to deflect the knife that tore toward him, and was rewarded for his aptitude by watching the knife ram straight into and through that woman's cheek. She pulled it out with a grimace which showed more teeth than such an expression ought, for obvious reasons, before hurling that knife, red with her own blood, back. This one, Zuko couldn't quite block, and slammed into Maya's chest, causing the young woman to stagger back, eyes bulging. Kori twisted his hands, and with a great twist, a coil of snow reached up and rammed, casting the woman from her rooftop perch and hurling her out of sight. Zuko was already scooping the woman, blades held carefully in one hand, so that she wouldn't have to walk and jostle the wound.

Kori pulled the knife as Zuko retreated, and instantly flattened a hand onto the wound... inadvertently giving the Azuli royal a grope. Kori at least had the decency to notice this, and turn a look to Zuko. "Better to beg forgiveness than bury a body. This is going to feel strange," he said. Then, the blood that was welling up around his fingers started to glow. Zuko stopped paying attention at that point, since the intention and effect was clear.

"We've got to lead them away from the people..." Zuko said.

"Is that in any way a sane plan?" Kori asked. "Without cover, they'll blast us to bits!"

"Would you rather take your chances against both of them alone?" Zuko snapped back. The waterbender winced, then sighed. "That's what I thought."

* * *

><p>The whiz of the arrow's approach was barely enough for the Avatar to hinge out of the way, and in so doing, force Azula out of its path as well. It slammed into the wood of the hastily abandoned wagon, sticking up like a nail of death. She could see easily enough that the wagons were breaking from any formation, spreading in all directions as to most swiftly be away from where they were now. That meant that whatever was happening, happened within there as well.<p>

"Have you stopped bleeding yet?" Azula asked, turning her attention back to the white that was constantly needling them, probing their defenses. The archer against the snowy hell. Then again, as a Fire National, snow and hell went together somewhat naturally to Azula.

"What?" Aang's voice was almost shrill, but then again, he was as on edge as she was. Somebody was trying to kill him, and likely cripple her if she understood the source of this assault properly. And she liked to think that she knew Zhao well enough to know his style. Brutish, thuggish even, but frustratingly enough often effective.

"Because I would appreciate some help with this, and having a hand down is a handicap you can't afford," Azula said.

"It really hurts," Aang said.

"I know it does. Now stop babying it," Azula told him. Some part of her still wanted to leave that archer to put arrows into him until he more resembled a land-urchin than a man, but another part of her... well, she wasn't going to think about that utterly insane portion of her psyche right now. Too much depended on not getting killed. Or worse, captured. Another whiz of approach, and this time, Azula took the charge, lashing out a swift bolt of lightning to intercept and explode the missile before it even came close. If she'd had the muscle-memory she'd developed as an old woman, she'd have been able to arc that bolt straight back to the arrow's source. Pity. She would have to make do.

Aang flinched back, rubbing an ear. "Did you have to do that right then?"

"Would you rather have a new hole?"

"There's no need to be so snide!" Aang shot back. And that honestly made Azula smile a little. She'd beat the Avatar into a worthwhile man if it killed him. The last thing that she needed was him to be all... well, what he was last time. Not with a world like this one. Another whiz, and this time she just leaned aside and let it pass her by. Aang, though, let out a whistle that sounded more like blowing air than anything else. And she knew what that meant.

"So we're fleeing?" Azula asked.

"What are we supposed to do?" Aang retorted.

"I don't know, hunt them down so they won't be a threat again at a point of utmost inconvenience?" Azula answered.

"They'll never be able to..." Aang began, and then fell silent as the realization hit him. "...Dang."

"And you're _finally_ starting to develop a mind," Azula said. A bellow sounded from somewhere out of sight, a place marked by detonations and shouts of terror. One entire horizon was obscured with flying white, something having so distorted it through blasts and shocks. She had a fair notion who was doing that; she'd know the sound of that firebending style anywhere. She grabbed his sleeve and pointed. "We're going to need to get them out of there. They won't be able to..."

She was cut off by an arrow hitting her in the hip, dropping her into the snow with a snarl of pain. She feared that the Avatar would just flinch, and then lock them in ice until his beast appeared, heedless of the fact that Yu Yan were trained to kill bison as well as their riders.

She didn't see what she feared. The instant she fell, there was a shift in the Avatar's face, away from fear. Into wrath.

With a thrust, following the dragon style and somehow more than it, he threw out a blast of flames that went so far beyond what Azula was capable of that it left her gaping in awe. He blasted that fiery rope along the line of the Yu Yan's estimated position, scouring the land and blasting snow into steam. When he released his assault, his first action was to stoop down and pull her up to him. She barely had time to be shocked before she found herself hoisted over his shoulders. He didn't have the best of balance, as she was still stronger than he was, and though they probably shared the same weight, his most certainly wasn't muscular. But still, they moved. Another hopelessly high whistle, and a groan to answer it, as Aang began to carry her at an ever increasing pace, toward where the snow was detonating. At first, Azula could only be confounded by this, but she didn't succumb to flabbergastation so easily. Even with the jabs of pain of the arrow scrapping her hip with every movement, she still turned her eyes toward the snows where the Yu Yan had feathered her.

Which was why she saw him, just as he popped up at the edge of the snow, steam rising off of him, and bow in hand. Without a proper footing, or even being able to draw in a worthwhile breath, she had to make do, as well. She cast out a chop, a compact, swift slash of blue flames that pressed out without spreading, and more importantly without slowing. The Yu Yan had to release his shot around it, which meant that it flew high and wide of the Avatar's path, and then dodge the attack himself.

"He's still trying to shoot us, isn't he?" Aang asked, sounding already somewhat out of breath. Either that or just strained. Probably the latter.

"Do you want me to tell... watch it! That really hurts! ...you or would you rather live in blissful ignorance?"

"Do you always talk this much when people are trying to kill you?" Aang asked, puffing between every third word.

"I think I'm picking up a bad habit," Azula muttered grimly, and yelped as Aang stumbled a bit. But they continued _toward_ the mute assassin in the distance. Her life was insane.

* * *

><p>There was a lot of pandemonium, and a lot of explosions, but none of it made a lot of sense to the waterbender who was at the moment giving her time trying to load the fleeing wagons. She would have rushed to battle, such as it was, but there was one deciding problem.<p>

Katara couldn't be three places at once.

"Go on, it's going to be fine," she said to the child she hefted up to his mother in the back of the wagon. There was a crack of a whip, and then the wagon started to take off, the rear door not even closed until it was a dozen yards away.

"We'll remember our word!" the driver shouted, before turning his attention forward, and fleeing with all haste. Katara looked around, but at this point, found herself somewhat at a loss for her next task. There was only so much helping she could do before everybody who was going to get away, had.

"What do I do?" Katara asked.

The question was answered by a bright streak dropping out of the sky and landing in a great plume of slush and snow that splatted over Katara. With a wan expression, she made an off-hand gesture and it all slid off of her in a great mass, just as Malu rose from her energetic landing. "Katara! It was a decoy!"

"I'm pretty sure I've figured that out," Katara said, pointing toward the popping bang in the distance.

"Well come on! They're going to need our help," Malu said, pulling Katara into movement, directly toward said popping bang.

"But what about the others?" Katara asked.

"They're all heading to Toph and your brother, trust me," she said. "Now run!"

* * *

><p>The blast which Sokka flinched away from this time came from behind, instead of ahead of them, which was both surprising and a little bit concerning, to be honest. Toph was bruised and sweating bricks, her thick clothing ripped and shredded from the fellow with the sparky-sparky-boom head constantly making mince of her barriers. And the nest of wagons that they'd been retreating toward had up and left them, which was in one way good – less people getting hurt by a stray brain-explosion – but in a lot of other ways bad.<p>

"Curse this snow, curse this wet, _curse this thrice cursed continent_!" Nila seethed, as she tried to get her rifle to fire, backing away from the Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man who gave them no time to recover or rest. Just a constant, heady advance of iron and explosions.

"That rhymed, you know?" Sokka asked, tension in his voice even if he was defaulting to snark mode.

"Not the time, Tribesman!" Nila shot back, although not literally, as her gun wasn't working.

"I hope you're coming up with a clever plan to save our lives back there, Sokka," Toph said.

"Yeah, but it's a lo—ook out!" Sokka had to tackle Toph to the ground, as a heavy blade almost slammed into the side of her neck. Instead, it barely nicked Sokka's shoulder, and missed Toph completely. There was that snuff, then the popping of incoming explosions, to which Toph slammed her fists down into the dirt. That moment, Sokka felt like the planet punched him in the chest, as faintly green stone burst up, pushing the two of them back and away, only to be detonated by Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man's brain magic. They flailed, both, drifting apart from the upthrust being suddenly aborted. Sokka expected to have a very uncomfortable landing in a moment, but oddly there was only one thought going through his mind as he flew.

Where did that knife come from?

Sokka's landing was... oddly pillowy. He opened his eyes, and found himself hovering an inch before the snow. Then, with a gack, he fell onto his face in the white cold. He turned back, a mask of it on his skin, to see his sister and the other airbender coming. Katara twisted her arms wide, and the whole snow that lay under the five of them pulled away, becoming a great tendril of wintry might. It slammed toward the Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man, only to be intercepted by his namesake. The water burst apart as steam, creating an obstructing wall between them. There was a woman's grunt of pain, and then, as Sokka pulled his boomerang, Angry Jerk, Ked/Kori, and the Angry Jerkette came in through a swirl in the steam.

"Put me down and take your hand off my breast!" Azul shouted, back-handing the waterbender in the mouth, which got him to back off with an 'I'm innocent, I didn't do anything wrong' pose. Nevertheless, there was a hole in the clothes at the noble's high chest, showing that he wasn't doing it purely for entertainment's sake. With a growl, a fan of knives came into each hand of the noble woman, and Sokka instantly dismissed any notions of fragile nobility to her. "I am going to _kill_ that crazy bitch!"

"Which crazy b..." Malu asked, and then hinged back to avoid a spike that had been thrown at her face. Appearing just behind the party of Fire Nationals and Kori, a woman with more scars than remaining flesh appeared, just at the edge, knives rolling around 'twixt her fingers. "Oh great. Could this get any wor..."

"DON'T SAY THAT!" Everybody, Maya Azul included, roared at her.

Sadly, the universe decided that partial efforts were worth full grades, as there came a blast, which caught Sokka in the side and drove him to his chest. He rolled so that the wounded hip was facing up, and could see that something had peppered him, something that burned even in his muscle. Nila's eyes shot wide. "SOKKA!" she screamed. She turned that rifle and pulled the trigger again, to another anemic click. She then let off a stream of profanity in Tianxia that Sokka honestly found quite informative... if anatomically impossible. "Firebender! Heat this!" she roared, eyes on the form that approached.

Sokka could see that it was a Si Wongi, who had a much more inelegant gun in his hands than Nila's. For one thing, even in Sokka's wounded, pained state, he was able to notice that it had a simple back-breach, and also, a bore easily twice and a half what Nila's used. Zuko began to send a stream of flame onto the metal of her gun, to a hiss of rising steam. Another flare of light came from the fog, which had swooped around to surround them, roughly, and Aang came to a stumbling halt in their midst, finally letting Azula off of his shoulders. Aang looked utterly beat, and like he'd been nearly-shot a few times. Azula had an arrow sticking out of the opposite hip from Sokka's own gunshot. And she had to tell Nila that this was a very unpleasant kind of injury. You know, when they weren't about to die, and all.

"Aang!" Katara said.

"Azula!" Zuko's attention wavered, and the flame grew hotter, from a stream into a blast, which caused Nila to reflexively drop her firearm, which went off in mid air. She managed to catch it before it landed in the mud, but only by flopping face first herself.

"I'm fine! The Archer's the real problem!" Azula snarled, her eyes tight. She was probably in as much pain as she was.

"_So much money, for such little worms_," the Si Wongi man said in his native tongue. He gave a disconcerting smile toward Nila. "_Maybe I keep the young one alive? A partial reward is surely reward enough_."

Oh, that wasn't going to stand. _Nobody_ threatened Nila! Mostly because Nila herself put a stop to those threats in a pretty unpleasant manner, but the principle still stood! The Si Wongi kept his eye on them as he reloaded his rifle, almost calmly, while Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man clanked out of the fog.

Sokka pushed himself to a half-stand, boomerang in hand. "You guys can't be this stupid," Sokka said, trying to buy time. "Did you really think thr... four guys was enough to bring down the Avatar?"

"He isn't glowing," the scarred woman pointed out, as the last, who looked a lot like one of the Yu Yan Archers, followed in after Aang and Azula, sidestepping until the four of them had the cardinal directions covered. She gave a gruesome smile. "Which means I think we can."

Sokka gave a look to the others. This was going to get bad. Maya and Zuko faced the scarred woman. Sokka got his boomerang ready for a flight at the archer. Maybe they'd be able to hold off Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man long enough for Toph to regain consciousness – she was face-down and groaning on the ground. But...

"Enough of this bullshit," Azula said. And then, she thrust out a finger, toward the Si Wongi. There came a crack of thunder, and a bolt of lighting connected her finger and the tip of the man's firearm. The pulse traveled up the weapon, and terminated inside what the Si Wongi had just placed at its other end. The charge. And without any opportunity to close the breach, that overpowered block of whatever it was that Nila and other Si Wongi used in their bombs could blow up in any direction it wanted. And there was a Si Wongi man standing very close to that explosion. Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man's eyes flashed, and he pulled in an angry breath, staring down their whole group.

The blast, which sent up a cloud of dark grey smoke that seemed oddly... chunky... gave Nila the split second she needed to flop onto her back, bite a bullet, slam it in place, and pull off a shot. The shot was dead-accurate, slamming into the eye in the middle of the man's forehead. The angry eyes of amber turned stunned, deeply concerned even, as the popping began to sound around him. Bursts of untempered and uncontrolled detonation erupted around Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man, until they found a target, namely, the barely-still-standing source of them. A last explosion, this one greater than any that had sounded thus far. When its smoke cleared, there was an iron leg still upright on the ground, but not much else.

Nila rolled over again, heedless of the mud, and slammed the breach of her own rifle shut again, pointing it at the Yu Yan. But the much more impressive sight was that of Aang throwing his arms wide, and when he did, his eyes blazed with burning white light. He started to rise up, suspended on cold air, and the expression on his face was one asking for blood. The Yu Yan dropped his bow, hands flaring wide.

"No amount of money is worth my life," he said simply. "I'm done."

"What?" the scarred woman to his immediate left shouted. "You can't be serious. You!" she pointed at the group. "You think you've gotten free this time, but I promise you, you haven't see the last of L–"

The Yu Yan cut her off by sending his fist into her jaw, and dropping her like a sack of potatoes. "Nope. You've _totally_ seen the last of us," he corrected. He stared at her for a moment, then sighed, carrying her like the sack she'd become. "I'm going to catch hell for this later..."

"So...?" Maya said, confused. "Did we just win?"

A whoosh that sounded above dispelled the fog, leaving Sokka to wince a bit at what had become of the Si Wongi gunner, followed Aang slowly settling onto his feet, and his eyes returning to their more natural grey. Appa dropped onto the muck, landing close enough to Zuko and the others near him that they got covered in mud. Zuko took it with a sigh. Maya seemed gobsmacked into next week. Sokka himself? He limped over to Nila, and offered her a hand up. She swatted it away and got up herself, before scooting herself under his arm, to get weight off of that hip.

"You are not to be shot again, is that clear?" Nila said sternly, but there was a hint to her tone of very real worry.

"What happens now?" Kori asked, pulling the muck away with a single motion.

"We get onto that bison," Zuko said, wiping his face as that was the best he'd get, "and we run away, unless we'd rather be dead tomorrow."

"I... That..." Maya stammered, her eyes the only non-brown part of her at the moment.

"Kuchi! Come here!" Azula snapped. A few seconds later, the little brown beast bounded out from a pile of shrubs, its stub-tail wagging, and nuzzled up to Azula's recumbent form. She looked at the others. "Alright. _Now_ we may leave."

"Did...she just make us wait for her pet?" Sokka asked Aang, who still looked pretty winded.

"Sh. It's an improvement," he whispered back.

And several yards away, Toph rolled onto her back, her eyes pressed shut. After a groan, she let her opinion of the situation be known.

"...Ow."

* * *

><p><em>Leave a Review.<em>


	54. Journey to the West

The blizzard bit at her face, hateful shards of ice digging around her eyes and causing her lips to crack and bleed. But she just tightened the wrap which she'd made out of an unneeded change of clothing so that it didn't flap and let the cold air in. The 'monastery' as they'd taken to calling it, was arrogantly constructed in the bones of a Storm King fortress, so it looked down on the Fire Nation from the frozen peaks. It was always this cold up here, it was said. Yoji barely noticed.

It should have concerned her that she wasn't noticing the cold.

As it was, she was distracted. The dreams were getting more and more vivid. More and more confusing. She was never that child. No matter what that Water Tribe man, and the Dragon of the West, and even the Agni-damned Avatar all said, she was not a Tribesman! They left her to die, and the Fire Nation rescued her, and that was that. Nothing would change that. Ever.

The bedroll and tent were wrapped at her back, a pack which now wound around nothing, as she'd exhausted her food. If nothing else, though, she didn't lack for water. The walls of the fortress were sheer, but rough. Even if the Storm King's hadn't in their arrogance thought that nobody would scale them, they were a race dead for eight hundred years. Well, dead for a hundred in truth, for the seven in between were mostly a lie held in place by partisans and traitors waiting for an opportunity for revenge. That was the way of it. Everybody said so.

It was what she was taught.

She took a calming breath, then reached to her belt, to the hook that she'd rigged from a few various bits and pieces that she'd come across in an abandoned house. With a twist, the tines snapped out and into place, before she rechecked the knots that dangled from its base. There would be nothing to save her if they came loose half way up the wall. When she was sure of them, she waited for the winds to die down just a bit, so her throw would be half-way true, before sending that hook up the parapets somewhere high, and out of the way.

This would have been so much easier... if Omo was still with her. Not just because he was an earthbender, and could walk straight through the wall. She just... she just wanted him here.

Not the kind of thinking for a Child. It was distracting. A distraction, to be disregarded and put aside. She had a mission. She had to return a rightful Fire Lord to the Burning Throne.

Agni help her, she needed to do this.

She braced her feet against the wall, locking her arms and taking in a cold, bitter breath. Damn it, Hikaoh, you're supposed to be better than this, she chastised herself, not realizing the name she'd latched to. You're a Fire National, you have a duty. This isn't the time to be weeping over a lost team-mate. Ideally, you shouldn't be weeping at all. But more and more, she was feeling less than ideal in her job.

With a snort that turned the ice on her facial-wrap into steam, she began to haul herself up the walls once more. A moment of regret was fine. But not when it would both see her dead and her mission failed. She reached the hook, heaving herself onto the battlement, and looking down the unusual architecture of the ancient ruin turned reconstituted holy-site. As the tallest point this side of the arbitrary divide which said that side was Azul and this side Shinzo, it was home to the High Temple of Agni, the spot closest to His glory. The difference in architecture was stark. The walls of stone and mortared brick bled into the intricately locked stone, and the woodwork and plaster of its occupants. The old, merging with something like the new.

A Fire Nation tumor out of a Storm King gut.

The treasonous metaphor was quickly forgotten when Yoji could see flames moving on some of the lower walls, those which played host to Fire Sages and their acolytes. They wouldn't be of much help. Yoji had to go higher. The whole place had a very antiquated air to it, even ignoring the fact that this place was probably first constructed a thousand years ago. That was probably part and parcel of the lords of House Kurita providing every penny – and every whit of oversight – to its construction. A more conservative bunch, she'd never heard of. She looked up, to the one tower which hadn't over the immeasurable drifts of time come crumbling down. A tower which had withstood earthquakes for centuries. While probably not housing Ozai himself, it would certainly house somebody who knew his whereabouts.

She looked to the patrolling Sages and acolytes. They weren't looking up, because it was cold, the snow was blowing, and who could possibly come upon them from above? They obviously hadn't learned the lesson of their ancestors; death could quite quickly come from above. She didn't trust her grapple hook to this; it would make a noise at an inopportune time, if not slide out of a window. But this architecture was even rougher than before, great cracks running up the side of the buildings which were slap-dash filled with a sort of rubbery caulk that glued the stones back together. Yoji blew on her fingers, warming them just a bit, before stripping away the gloves.

The cold bit into them almost instantly, but it didn't hurt the way that it once had. In a way she didn't want to think about, it was familiar. It was homey.

She ascended that cliff of human device, her fingers and clad toes questing for the cracks and crevasses, the missing bricks and the bricks displaced. Every mote of ascent made her feel like she'd done this before, though...

It came on her like a waking dream. Dark hands, bare to the winds, questing higher onto the rocks. There was so much left ahead of her, it dwarfed her so completely as to boggle the mind. But today, she was going to get up to that plateau that Harloq had bragged about. So what if he was seven and bigger than her? She could totally get up there, too.

"Hikaoh! What're you doing?" the boy's voice came up behind her. She stopped, looking down over her shoulder. It was a vertigo inducing sight, for all they were only twenty feet above the slope of rough scree, and only a hundred feet higher than the village had been in total. She was little. She didn't know any better.

"I'm climin', Sokka. Go away!"

"You'll hurt yourself!" the brat called up. "I'm gonna tell Mom!"

"Don't you dare!" Hikaoh shouted back. "I'm gonna go all the way to the top of Niira-Qatour, and I'm gonna find all the treasure up there, and I'll gonna come down and be a princess!"

"But what if you fall down?" the bright-eyed boy asked, the fear so clear on his young face. "I don't want you getting' hurt..."

"I won't fall down," Hikaoh called down. She then looked up, at the distances which were objectively enormous ahead of her, which themselves seemed even more enormous to a four-year-old girl with more moxie than sense. Her fingers went rigid for a moment, as her brain tried to comprehend the scale of this. Then, she looked back, to where her little brother was wringing his little hands. "Ugh! Fine! I'll come down! But I'm gonna get that treasure some day!"

"Maybe when we're both big an' strong like Mom and Dad, an' we can be the Chief and his sister, an'..."

"No, I'd be Chief, you'd just be a brat," she stuck her tongue out at the kid, then started to descend.

"Hikaoh! Stop pickin' on me!" Sokka shouted up, through the winds.

There was a blink and a sense of loss of balance, as Yoji shook away that delusion, that outright hallucination. God help her if another one came on like that. Whatever foul spell was infecting her, it was now actively trying to kill her. With an angry breath, she pushed ever higher, finishing the climb today that a Water Tribe peasant had abandoned in her youth.

She reached the highest point of the tower, and found it occupied by a single acolyte, possibly as punishment for some infraction to a code of beliefs that she didn't go into any depth to. She now started to wonder why. But that was a teleological question for another day. Right now, she had to get some answers. He might not know many, but he was the first step of many.

She pushed herself up, preparing to to set her balance, and pounce the young man, a knife preparing to press to his throat. Sadly, all the preparation in the world couldn't account for the fact that the brick under her foot shifted and ejected noisily from its loose perch. The bang of her knee into another brick, causing to crack, was not lost in the wind. The acolyte turned, amber eyes squinting against cold, but they went wide when he saw that he was not alone.

"Intruder!" he shouted, but Yoji knew full well that the distance would lose that shout into the winds. He cast forward a fist with a shout of angry effort, a bolt of flames raging toward her. Yoji didn't deflect it, as once she would have. Instead, she waited for the flame to leave his grasp, his active control. Flowing up to her feet with the grace of some kind of dancer to a tune that she had no memory of hearing, she swept a hand along the back of that fireball, and as she did, it twisted in its course, flowing with her as she swept around and forward, and launched the acolyte's own flame back at him. He managed to pull up a shield of flames, but the impact knocked him toward the half-crumbled wall that he had been taking shelter from the wind against. Yoji didn't even allow him that much security, though, as she bounded forward and made beckoning motions with her hands, her feet shifting along the snowy rooftop as sand in a receding tide, and as she did, the flames oozed away from the protective barrier, into a destructive bludgeon.

She rammed that fiery charge up and into his gut; it had a lot of force, but it didn't burn through his clothing; at most, it would have reddened him. That was something she was going to have to work on. Getting the killing power back. Still, it served her purposes today; she had somebody to interrogate. Yoji reached for her belt, and found that the dagger that she'd prepared had been lost, possibly over the edge from her flailing against a lethal drop. So instead, she pulled the grapple hook, it a collection of sharp edges and points, and hooked it under his chin, while she put a knee to his back and hauled back on his hair.

"Do I have your attention?" she asked. He let out a moan of terror. "Good. Now... you're going to tell me where you keep your prisoners."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14<strong>

**Journey to the West**

* * *

><p>The blizzard was worse than Aang could remember, a great drive of snow that probably was of a sort with the one which started his whole adventure in the thirty third century. At least this time, he wasn't flying over naked ocean when it swept up and slammed into them as an angry fist of a dying world.<p>

"We've got to get out of this weather!" Zuko repeated the point that he'd been on about for a while now. "Even Appa won't be able to take it for much longer."

The unhappy groan of the bison was an unexpected agreement, but Appa did know how Appa felt best. And if the bison was feeling the weight of this maelstrom of snow, then it had to be bad. "Maybe we should hide in a cave or something?" Aang shouted over the wind.

"No go!" Toph answered, also at a shout. "There's nothing above-ground, and if we go down, we'll get buried and smother!"

"Just keep going this way for a few more minutes!" Maya's voice was an unexpected one to intercede on the conversation. She seemed somewhat tense about being around Aang, uncomfortable, as though she didn't know where she fitted in. The truth was, she fitted in as well as Sokka or Toph or Azula, in that everybody was welcome, but they for some reason didn't feel that way.

"Why?" Katara asked.

"Just trust me! I know this land!" Maya shouted.

"I hope she does, because parts of me are freezing that I'd rather keep thawed!" Kori offered, his voice appearing out of the gray as he was too far to see in the almost complete white-out.

"Toph, do you see what she's talking about?" Zuko shouted.

"I can't see anything!" har har. "We're walking on snow packed on top of snow! My rod can't reach the ground!"

"Just keep walking," Maya shouted.

"Well, isn't _that_ familiar?" Kori gave a laugh. Even though both were hidden from Aang's sight, he was absolutely sure that she was shooting him a death-glare.

"Guys, I think I see something," Malu shouted back, almost vanished for distance and wind.

"What do you – ow! Why did you not warn me?" Nila snapped, her outrage beating the weather.

"I thought you saw it!"

"That way!" Maya said.

"What way?" Aang asked, as he could see only Azula, Zuko, and Toph, so that was patently unhelpful.

"Toward the Si Wongi!"

"Toward the Si Wongi she says, as thought I lack even a name! The unmitigated gall of that woman! Come and I shall show you how the weight of a commoners blood against a nobles!"

"That's the idea! Keep shouting," Sokka's voice came from somewhere ahead.

"Exactly my intention!" Nila said. "Airing grievances is a pleasant side-effect!"

"You snotty little peasant!" Maya shouted back.

"This _peasant_ saved your life! Those who show no respect shall have none!"

"Ow! Oh, there it is," Katara said.

Aang almost walked into her, before taking a few steps aside, and entering the lee of a dark, wooden wall, which had great banks of snow whistling around it and mounting up. The noise was terrible, but the presence of this little grotto was a godsend. Appa plowed through those banks, and those who had been lagging, with Aang, followed in its cut-wake. Maya slid down the sheer face of the bank, coming to an unsteady stop at its base. "That's what I thought," Maya said. "She pointed to one side. "On this wall is the way in. Trust me, it'll be better than huddling in this hellish snow."

"Hey, this snow is nice. A bit unexpected, but nice," Katara said, now wearing the same thick winter coat she had in their last leg toward Summavut.

"This snow means the world's dying, Katara. That's not a good thing," Malu said, puffing out steaming breath, as she pinched away the crystals of ice that formed on her eyelashes. "Wow, those are annoying."

"What is this place?" Toph asked, thumping the wood with her metal rod.

"Switch house," Maya said. She took a few deep breaths, as though steeling herself, then grabbed Toph's hand. "Form a chain and don't let go. We'll be going blind until we find the doorway."

They did as the noble Azul asked, with Katara's hand taking his, before he reached back, and saw that the one at the end of the chain was either Azula or Kori. Azula looked between the two of them, and then rolled her eyes. "_Fine_," she muttered, and took Aang's hand, with Kori trailing last.

"What about Appa?" Aang asked.

"Have him follow, there's lots of room," Maya said, around that whistling corner. The whole chain of them slogged on, the snow, once past the protective corner, up to their waists. Toph must have been having it a lot worse, though. Aang couldn't see them, through the blinding snow that flew straight into his face. His eyes were squinted down until they were essentially closed, so he cut out the middle man and pressed them shut, trusting his connection to those before him to lead him onward.

"I hate the cold. I _hate_ the cold. _I hate the cold,_" Azula muttered with increasing intensity as they went. There was a cracking sound, and the line fell still for a few seconds. Then, with a tug, they were moving again.

"Appa! Come on, buddy!" Aang shouted back, and the grumble from the far rear let him know that the great bison was still following. He walked. Then, he almost tripped as his toe caught on something, but Katara's hand was pulling him up, dragging him left and into something. In a heartbeat, the tearing of snow on face ended, and the air, while still cold, wasn't frigid and brutal. Aang blinked a few times, looking at the broad, workshop looking area that they'd entered. A great door sat on the same side of the building as they had entered, but a bit further back. Aang continued, pulling Azula in, before breaking the chain, and rushing to the door. He tugged on the great wooden beam that was holding the doors shut. It wouldn't budge. Even when Zuko tried to help, they could only get it to wiggle. Azula looked at them, before shaking her head lightly.

"Stand aside," she said, indulgently, before squatting down under the bar and letting it rest on her shoulders. Then, with a rictus of effort and a slow push up, the beam slowly shifted out of its resting place. He knees started to quake, though, and it was obvious this was her limit, and maybe a little bit more than that. Zuko grabbed the beam putting his shoulder under it, and motioned Aang to do likewise, behind him, giving Azula the permission she needed to collapse onto her behind. She breathed heavily for a moment, then pushed herself away from the door. A glance between Avatar and firebender, and they pulled the beam out, letting it drop onto concrete, where Toph's earthbending easily shifted it out of the way entirely, now that she could tell where it was.

Opening the doors was easy, as they swung in. Closing them might be a problem, because they let in a vomit of snow, and only the horns of the bison were visible under all that snow. "Come in, Appa!" Aang begged, oddly repeating so closely that voyage, that ship, a century ago. The bison plodded in, moved to the center of the great concrete room, then flopped itself onto its belly, not even shaking off the snow. A few seconds later, as Zuko was firebending to melt the snow which had blocked the door from closing, a white blob jumped in, and happily walked over to where Azula was sitting, before shaking vigorously and throwing a great deal of that snow away. The moose-lion cub then muzzled wetly against Azula, who could only groan at the treatment. It was a hard push, helped by Toph in this instance, to close the door, and bar it with stone rather than wood.

Aang turned to the others, who were all huddling around a pyre which Zuko lit with a flick of a finger. When it lit, they could all see the scale of the building. Not vast, but impressive nonetheless. "What is this place?" Aang said, sitting down between Nila and Azula, in front of the fire.

"A train switchyard," Maly said. She tapped her temple. "I've memorized the railways, in case I ever had to run from a blast-urchin, or wanted to get out of Azul, or something. Never figured that I'd be huddling away from a snowstorm, though."

"I don't think anybody did," Aang said. He shuddered a moment, as the warmth of the fire slowly began to work its way to those around. "What do we do now? We can't cross the mountains like this."

"We won't have to," Maya said. They all looked to her. She seemed confused. "_Traaaains_?"

"Yeah?" Sokka asked.

Maya sighed and rubbed her face. "The trains can take you just about anywhere in the Fire Nation. And I can board any train I want to, legal, without paying. Yay being the daughter of a despot. Now the next question is, where are you going to go next?"

"You're not coming with us?" Aang asked.

"She's coming with us," Kori said.

"You don't know me en..."

"Do you want to stay here, in Azul, where it's blizzarding, or go over the mountains to where it's merely snowing?" Kori asked. Maya looked miserable. "I figured as much."

"We can decide that later," Aang said. "Right now... Now we just need to... Sleep, I guess..." he said, laying down, his body finally giving out after all that struggle to get this far. Within moments later, despite being on hard concrete without so much as a blanket, the Avatar was asleep.

* * *

><p>Thunder sounded outside the window, which was not only closed but barred and sealed with some sort of adhesive canvas to keep the cold out. Many things had the seat of the long-diminished-into-nothingness House Yuchiban, but an eye for insulation was certainly not one of them. Although, those long dead and vanished nobles had a fairly good excuse; nobody in their right mind would have considered <em>cold<em> to be a Fire Nation problem on their own soil.

Another crack of thunder, followed by more kinetic taps against the canvas as another sheet of half-frozen rain pounded into the window. Suki knew that this was unnatural weather. After all, it might be winter on Kyoshi Island, but even their winters never got so severe, and... well, this was the Fire Nation.

No matter how many times she turned that around in her head, it never made any more sense.

"I would almost say that the universe is conspiring to keep this rebellion alive," Suki said, as she looked over the 'battle map' which had been stretched out and tacked to a long-unused table scrounged from the storage rooms. Markers of blue were massed all throughout the Ember Archipelago, though most on the last island in the chain, Grand Ember itself. Peasant levies, a real general might call them. Guerillas, Suki would. But the fact was, a quarter of the total population of the Fire Nation was in open revolt against the Fire Lord. And backing a woman who Suki had no real desire to see in power. "What's the situation with the blockade fleet?"

"They've gone back to port," the once-fisherman Boto said, pointing across the Horimota Strait, and the city of Yokaizo that nestled there. "Icing."

"Icing," Suki shook her head.

"I'm taking any advantage I can get right now," Boto said. He rubbed at a long-unshaven face for a moment, then took a moment to adjust the blue turban upon his brow before looking her in the eye. "They say you fought against Azula, last winter. Why the change of heart?"

"There was no change of heart," Suki said. "I still think that Azula's psychotic. It's just that if I don't work with her and the Avatar and... well, anybody else we can get," she gestured to the grab-bag collection of disenchanted mercenaries, struggling to find a fight they could believe in, to the farmers and tradesmen turned soldiers, to the soldiers who'd thrown down the Three Point Flame as soon as the front of the Rebellion reached them, "then this is going to get a lot worse."

"If you don't believe in the leader, why back the cause?" Boto asked.

"Why back the cause if it's defined by the leader?" Suki asked. Boto leaned back.

"Might have a point there, young lady," he admitted. The doors opened, and the sharp eyed Tribesman barged in, her arms draped over a musket that framed her back. Aalo had been quite pleased with herself when she looted that from one of the ships which now flew a blue flag, back when it stull flew red. She'd actually gotten fairly good with it, too.

"Another patrol," Aalo said, in her pidgin-accented Huo Jian. "Didn't do so well on the waves, so I helped 'em to the bottom."

"You sank a patrol?" Suki asked.

"You should see these Tribesmen fight," Boto said with a gruff smile. "Easy to see why they held the North so long."

They'd made quite a name for themselves in the brief time that they'd been here, but it was clear to everybody that they were running out of time. Worse, they were losing momentum. If they stalled, here... they might never move again.

"So you're still here?" the Azuli girl asked, her voice bored and flat as it pretty much always was. She turned bright eyes from Suki to the map, and notably, the great mass of blue flags that stared down a great mass of red ones. The red flags continued, every bit as thick as they were at the front, all the way into Caldera City, split along the border with Azul – in purple – had tiny numbers, but warranted an nonreciprocal response from Shinzo. Mai reached across the map and flicked away every flag that rested on the city of Azul, causing all to turn to her. "Just got news from the birds; Azul has collapsed into all-out civil war."

"What, did the Spider die?" Boto asked with a grim chuckle.

"If only. He's one of the sides," Mai answered him. She shook her head. "That rules out Azul as a possible ally. Or even a pinch."

"Pinch?" Boto asked.

Suki leaned across the map with both arms, indicating the two non-red forces, and where they sat. "We had the Fire Lord in a position where he'd have to fight on two fronts. Now, that option's pretty much gone. He can turn his full attention here. So we're going to have to jump the strait before he does."

"Good. Too much sittin' around anyway," Aalo said.

"That's a pretty bold thing," Boto said. "Jumping out of the frying pan and into the inferno. If we dig in here..."

"Then we'll be here till the world freezes over completely," Suki said. She rubbed her brow. It was days like this that she wished her mother wasn't so busy with the... well, the important parts of keeping an army alive. If there was one thing that the Kyoshi Warriors were masters of, historically, it was fighting guerrilla wars; they knew how to keep themselves fed, no matter what. And considering this army had no centralized leadership and nobody counting coin, the supply lines were pretty much non-existent. She had to shake her head. "...how did you people even get _this_ far?"

"The Grace of Agni and a lot of hard work," Boto said. He sighed, and rubbed an unshaven chin. "Well, if we're jumping the strait, we'd best do it when their pants are still down. Aalo, figure you can sneak an army across freezing-over oceans in the dead of night?"

"I'll have to find out," Aalo said. She then turned to Suki. "Why is it that the twenty seven year old fisherman is the oldest 'un in this room?"

"Because everybody else is busy," Suki said. Considering all the actual soldiers who'd defected and joined them were all low ranking, there was an anarchy of military leadership that made the movement at once impossible to decapitate, and extremely disorganized and inefficient. "Boto, talk to anybody you need to talk to. We're getting across that strait, or we're going to die trying."

"Won't be popular, that's for damned sure, but I'll put out the word. Anybody who says no?"

"Tell them that they'll get left behind without weapons or food. Or heat," Mai offered. Boto gave a dry chuckle, and nodded to them, before silently making for the door. "Hold on, there's more."

"Ain't there always?" the fisherman turned revolutionary muttered. Mai reached to the very edge of the map, the tiny twist at its far eastern edge of the Ember Archipelago, to the obviously named Crescent Island. "Got a bird from a farmer on the terraces. He saw ships coming from the East. A lot of them."

"Allies?" Boto asked. Mai shook her head, grimly.

"No. The only allies that are joining you will be sailing the other direction. This would have to be..."

"Be who?" Suki asked.

"Long Feng," Mai said, arms crossing before her chest, as a fresh crash of lighting presaged a new wave of rain, this one hitting with enough impact to unstuck the canvas and make it flutter, wet falling into the room, but not very far. Flames fluttered in that wind, and those with turbans grabbed to make sure theirs didn't come off. Mai, short of hair and head unclad, didn't bother, waiting until Aalo reached over and splatted the canvas back. "It looks like the Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se is making his move. And from the rate that he's taken to get here, he'll be at Caldera City by the end of summer."

"An _invasion_?" Boto asked. His mouth pulled into a sneer. "Fantastic," he shook his head and spat on the floor. Then, he pointed a thick finger toward the map. "If nothing else, that'll put fires under asses, though. This is our nation, our Fire Nation, and damned if we're gonna let any inbred Easterners take it away from us."

With that jibe against Suki's ancestry and parentage, Boto turned and left for good, slamming the door behind him as he went. "Something I'm not aware of. What's the problem with this Long Feng?" Aalo asked. Suki shrugged.

"Imagine Fire Lord Azulon, the man who kidnapped you. Have that in your head? Hide it behind a smile and an honest if idiotic belief that he's doing it for your own good, and then make it about five times worse. That's Long Feng," Mai said. There was a cold anger there, one that Suki didn't quite know the reasons behind.

Suki still sighed, though. No matter what, no matter how grey today, how blue the banners, how white the snow that tried to stay on the ground... tomorrow would be _red_.

* * *

><p>The building had warmed up considerably in the hours since they'd first barged into it. The great beast Appa was now contentedly dozing in an enormous pool of water, and the lemur remained tucked in the slumbering Avatar's lap. Kuchi, on the other hand, was wide awake and eager, but at least, at this point, Kuchi wasn't a ball of freezing wetness anymore. Azula found herself scratching behind its ears as it looked at her with those big, dark eyes, mouth agape and tongue hanging out. She'd never had a pet as a child. Strange that she'd appreciate one now.<p>

"I'm still a bit in the dark as to what we do next," Sokka muttered.

"You get the hell out of Azul, if you know what's good for you," Maya said, leafing through some newsreel that had been left in an office. "I can't believe this. This thing hasn't been updated in a week. There's supposed to be _daily_ runs through this part..."

"Well, obviously, but..." he trailed off regarding her first assertion, and sighed, shaking his head. Nila, sleeping, had her head in his lap, and he kept gliding his fingertips along her hair, so that she kept making uncharacteristically happy noises as she slumbered atop the piled cushions. "I don't even know what happened to us back in that city. What was Azul even trying to do with us?"

"I thought it was obvious," Azula said. "Announce to the Fire Nation that the Princess and Crown Prince of the former Fire Lord had returned, and were under his protection. Doing that, he would instantly garner the loyalty of the Blue Turban rebellion. He would then send them in as cannon-fodder so that he could surreptitiously assassinate Zhao and the leadership that could oppose Azul, before installing himself as Fire Lord. Then, he would have Zuko and the others executed, the leaders of the rebellion made examples of, and would keep me alive – barely – as leverage over the Avatar, who would also be kept in a state of nearly-dead," she summarized.

"You've put a lot of thought into this," Zuko noted quietly.

"It's what I would have done in his position," Azula noted. "A lifetime ago, anyway. I even know what somebody like him would do to keep the Avatar contained. It would not have been... pleasant."

"Yeah, can't imagine what you could do to chain an Avatar forever."

"An Avatar without eyes is still blind. Without hands and feet? Crippled," Azula said. "As I said. Not pleasant."

"You wanted to do that to Twinkletoes?" Toph asked.

"Not anymore," Azula muttered. And she didn't exactly know why. Or worse, she had an inkling of why and was vehemently denying it to herself. She turned to her brother and the earthbender, who were as usual keeping each other's company. "But the point is moot. Montoya Azul's plan is defunct, and we're out of his reach."

"Not just out of his reach..." Maya said, as she chucked away one paper to reveal another. This one had a headline which was visible even from the distance. House Azul Fractured. City, Country in Chaos. Maya had a haunted look on her face as she began to run eyes down the page, to pick out those things that, by dint of distance and small font, were beyond Azula's notice. "Agni's_ blood_... My city's on _fire_!"

"_Your_ city?" Sokka asked, mostly because the other tribesman who could jibe her about that was also sleeping, and thus couldn't. If there was one constant across all possible universes, it was that Sokka simply would not let a sarcastic comment go unvoiced. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with it."

"I wanted nothing to do with _my father_," Maya said guardedly. "And nobody even knows if my father is even alive at this point."

"...I'm sorry," Azula said.

"You're _sorry_? I thought you'd be glad that somebody else's relationship with their father was as terrible as yours," Maya said bitterly.

"My relationship with my father is..." she tried to come up with a better word, but couldn't, "...complicated."

"Complicated? He wanted to kill you. He burned off my ear," Zuko said, pointing to the left side of his head, where the bubbling of his flesh vanished up into his shaggy hair, ruining a perfectly good ear in the process.

"But he's_ still my father_," Azula said, quietly, petting Kuchi as though it could offer her some comfort. In a way it did, but it wasn't nearly enough.

"Well, that's just about all of us, then. Welcome to the club. We all hate our parents. Well, not my mom, because my mom's awesome," Toph hedged. She then scratched at her hair. "I wonder if Twinkletoes over there hates his parents too?"

"Unlikely. He's an Air Nomad. He never knew his parents," Sokka said.

"Why?" Azula asked.

Sokka just shrugged. "It was a thing they did. We could ask... oh," he said, looking over to a workbench which had a blanket thrown onto it, and was now playing host to a snoring airbender all its own. "Okay, guess we'll ask whoever wakes up first," Sokka said.

"You have something on your mind?" Maya asked.

"The big problem," Sokka said. "We're going to try taking down the Fire Lord, but the army can't get across the mountains without, you know, freezing and starving to death. There's gotta be something we're overlooking."

"There isn't always a solution," Azula said. "Sometimes you have to accept that there will be defeats and losses, that even your victories can be bitter."

Sokka puffed out a grunt. "Yeah but... it feels like there's something staring me right in the face and I'm not seeing it. Maybe it's the weeks of terror, followed by the weeks of happy complacency, followed by the week of freezing perpetual blizzard, but..." he shook his head, and shrugged.

"mmrph want a pineapple..." Nila sleepily muttered, shifting a bit and returning to a more restful sleep.

Azula, though, had a different problem fixed in her mind. One that she'd desperately not wanted to think about. Father. What was she supposed to do about Father? She knew, in her heart and in her mind, that Father couldn't retake the throne. There was too much bad blood, most of it spilled onto the ground, for that. And when Zuko became Fire Lord, what would that leave for her? Would she be a forgotten relic of a lamentable war? The last shrapnel of the familial bomb that Azulon had lit the fuse of from beyond the grave? She knew that it seemed a disconnected thing, her own fate versus her father's, but the two were, in many ways, one and the same.

Despite everything he'd done to her, all the things he'd made her do, all the times he failed her, betrayed her, cast her in doubt, Ozai was still her father. He was still family.

What was she without her family?

"Azula?" Zuko asked. "You look like you've got something on your mind."

"...Father," she admitted. There was an angry glance aside, what she quite expected of him. Certain parts of Zuko's character were also immutable. Much like Sokka's penchant for sarcasm, so too did Zuko bear always a twisted and convoluted relationship with Father. In that, they had perfect sympathy. "I don't know what's happened to him. And that... that bothers me more than I thought possible."

"I thought you'd be the first to celebrate when your father was thrown down," Maya said, distracted and her face very concerned as she continued to read her out-of-date words.

"It's not that simple," Zuko said.

"It never is," Azula agreed. "You're feeling the same thing I am. You know that he's done... all of these terrible, idiotic things, but you still want him to be alright."

"No, I don't," Zuko lied. "I don't care what happens to him."

"Zuzu, you can't lie to me," Azula said. He shot her a glance, burnished gold eyes flaring against the firelight that filled the switchhouse with precious heat. He looked annoyed at being so easily caught out. The fact was, that would have passed bald-faced to just about anybody else. But Azula knew her brother. "A part of you wants him to be safe... and safely out of the way."

"I... Guess I just don't think the way you do," Zuko said, managing to switch tracks to something which was truthful, if utterly unrelated to her assertion. With a few years, this older brother of hers, he would be a political _monster_.

"When this is over, I'm going to find him," Azula promised quietly. "When you're in control, I'll have all the time in the world. If the world doesn't end, anyway," with a glance toward the slumbering Avatar.

"The train!" Sokka exclaimed, causing Nila to snort in his lap and her eyes to shoot wide. She lurched up.

"What day is it? What has happened about me?" she asked, groggily. Her hair was either mashed to her face or standing up on end, and her green eyes were bleary.

"I just realized it," Sokka said, bounding to his feet, filled with an excited energy. "The problem that we've all had was that our guys don't have the food or equipment to make a weeks-long march; what if they didn't have to?"

"What are you going on about?" Nila asked, annoyance clearly returned in force to her expression.

"Instead of having to march through the mountains, they can step off of a train and be exactly where they're needed – the last place that Zhao would expect!" Sokka went on. He cast a hand toward Azula. "I mean, did you have a railway factored into your plans to stop us?"

"No. Mostly because it wasn't until two years after Father's downfall that the TransContinental Railway was completed, by my reckoning," Azula said.

"Which means it'll be a blindspot in his plan!"

"Yeah, there's one little problem with this plan," Zuko said. "I doubt that a railway would just let a multinational army, bent on the overthrow of their government, board at a station."

"Oh, that's the easy part," Sokka said.

"How could that possibly be the easy part?" Toph asked.

"We need to steal a train," Sokka said.

There was a silence, broken only by Nila coughing the phlegm out of her tired lungs.

"You are mad," she said to him. "I shall sleep away from this insanity."

"No, just follow me on this," Sokka pleaded. "Azul's pretty much in chaos right now, am I right?" he asked Maya. She nodded, looking positively distraught. "Well, that means that if a train goes missing, they might just pass it off as highwaymen or... train-robbers, I guess. That's a thing that happens, isn't it?"

"Focus!" Azula snapped.

"Well, when we steal the train, we bring it to the south coast, have our forces board it, and then, quick as Yer Tonri's tongue, we're on our way to fight the Battle of the Black Sun!" Sokka said, clapping his hands together. The two airbenders, sleeping, muttered drowsily, but didn't awaken. "What could go wrong?"

"Did you seriously just ask that?" Toph asked.

"Yes, and in a serious capacity. What _could_ go wrong?" he said, simmering down and returning to a sit. Nila, who came back and found him non-bombastic, returned to her pile of cushions, but this time, covered herself entirely in a blanket like a cocooned caterpillar.

"Well, at least one of you thinks things through," Azula noted. She raised a finger. "Here's the _first_ thing that could go wrong..."

* * *

><p>The weather outside was beyond dreadful, buffeting against window shutters which hadn't been open in decades. It lent the prelate's room a very sombre air, especially for a place which was supposedly closer to the glory of Agni than any other place in the Fire Nation. Perhaps it was the Storm King architecture, spiting them from beyond the grave and the wages of time. Perhaps it was just that there was a time when this prelate in particular had stood in this room, and the sun had been shining. Fourty years ago, before the mounting clouds over Shinzo and Ember reached into the mountains.<p>

It might have been those things, but the prelate didn't care. For all a man of sixty years, he still moved with a vigor of somebody twenty years younger. He lifted the ceremonial cap off of his head, setting it onto the table next to his diary, which hadn't seen an entry in several days. Dull days made for dull entries. His musings hadn't even been profound enough to put to ink. Telling, when boredom hit such a critical mass that even an imaginative mind couldn't outdo it.

But today, he had something to add. Something that struck him even as he entered the room. He cleared his head, sweeping back a lock of grey hair that had leaked out of the phoenix tail he could still proudly wear, with a hand missing three fingers from long, long ago. He took up the brush in 'twixt his index and thumb, those that had been left to him, and began to dip at the ink. "Today..." he spoke to himself, quietly, as he wrote, "an intruder entered our facility. Murdered one of the acolytes. And now seeks to torture information from me. We shall see."

The creak of wood behind him, prompted him to tilt a glance over his shoulder, to the dark-skinned assassin who now shared the room with him. She looked every inch of her one of Montoya's trained killers. The girl, probably not even to her twentieth year, yet, stared back at him. What a pity, that the politics of the day had turned children into soldiers. "The acolyte is alive," the assassin said quietly, and every bit as darkly as the shadows she stood in.

The prelate gave a nod, setting down his brush, and turning on his knees to face the intruder more directly. "Then, depending on how this plays out, I may have to correct my error," he said. "I assume that you are here to either end a life, or steal one. If to end it, you'll find it more difficult than you expected. If to steal it, more difficult still."

"Give me what I want, and I leave you alone. Deny me what I want, and I burn this monastery to the ground," she said.

"A bold claim," he said. "The Fire Sages are skilled in the arts of fire as well as the arts of the faith. You are alone. Which means you are either desperate, or hiding something from a common eye."

The assassin took a step forward, and the prelate restrained himself from raising a brow, as what he saw wasn't what he expected. Those eyes were, without a doubt, blue. Not grey or silver, or amber or brown. A Tribesman? Strange. And a tribesman who looked quite the worse for wear. Her lips were cracked, and her eyes sunken as though she hadn't slept in days. In such weather, it would have been dangerous to. "Tell me where the Fire Lord is."

"Caldera City, I would imagine," the prelate said, a smirk coming to his face. As much as he was a leader of the faith, he could still send his old masters spinning upon their pyres by dint of being a smartass. The twist of the Tribeswoman's lips told him easily that she'd not enjoyed the joke.

"Ozai."

"Ah. Our guest, briefly," he said. He struck some stray flecks of chipped paint from his knees as he rose to his feet, and put his hands into opposing sleeves. "But I can then assume that you intend to steal him away. To put him back on the throne?"

"Just tell me where he is, Sage," the Tribesman demanded. How unabashedly strange. Her accent was one of pure Shinzo, crisp and clear and upper-crust. It betrayed her face, her eyes. What was this girl?

"I warn you that it will do you little good, dear girl. Ozai is quite outside your reach at this point."

"...where?"

"On the way to New Bhatti, I should imagine," he said.

"You're lying," she spotted instantly. Drat. That meant he was out of practice. Either that, or she was very good at picking such things out.

"Perhaps I am," he said, motioning vaguely aside. "But if I were, how would you know? Do you have keen enough a mind to see lies from truth?"

"I'm not here to discuss teleology with you. I'm here for a location. And if I don't get it from you willingly, I'll _cut_ it out of you," she said, tapping a hooked blade that rode her hip.

The prelate sighed. "And I had so hoped this would go another way," he said. Then, with a movement as swift as a scorpion-viper's strike, lashed out with a cut of flames that seared toward the hapless perhaps-waterbender. His assumption regarding her element proved to be quite mistaken, however, which managed to flit through his mind in the time it took her to, moving as the most graceful of dancers, ducked under that blast, letting it slide into a spot right at her fingertip, before tearing it down and hurling it straight back at him. He spun up a wall of flames, but the impact of his own strike hitting him was stunning. He staggered back, shaking a two-fingered hand that smoked slightly. "Well, that was surprising. Do you have any more?"

"You have a death wish, don't you, priest?" she demanded, as she slid up into another movement that was like no firebending kata the prelate had ever seen in his long life.

"No. Simply a dreadful boredom," he answered, smiling. He turned with her as she circled him, waiting for her opening gambit. A gambit which didn't come. "Well, aren't you a patient one?"

"I don't tend to let the people I'm fighting get this snippy," the assassin muttered, as though chastising herself. Well, a woman divided against herself? "Age before beauty," she then said, a dark smile on her own face.

"Ladies first," he offered. There was a twitch of a smirk that pulled at that smile, then her hand flicked forward. But while the prelate twisted into being a shield of flames to deflect an incoming blast, he didn't anticipate that she would instead launch her blade at him. He barely leaned aside of it, a confused glance toward her, before she pulled back at a strand which was tied to the end of it. There was a tug, and the old man was sent off balance as the knife... no, as the _hook_ came surging back, jabbing into him and turning him lest he have a chunk torn from his hide. He staggered, and she bent, tearing his flames from out his hands, bending them into a great band and twisting them 'round her, before she sent them out as a great lash. The prelate warded the strand away, flame smashing against flame and searing the tapestries off of the walls. A shame, but not a great one. While beautiful, they weren't worth much. The prelate pushed forward, living proof that an overwhelming offense was the only worthwhile defense. He kicked out a wave of low fire from his toes, searing the floor, and causing the Tribesman to have to leap over or lose her feet. But he kept the burn going, giving her nowhere to land.

She subverted that expectation as she had so many of his others, though. Even as she bounded, she somersaulted forward, ripping the flame up with her as though it were a rug, and casting it before her as she landed. The flame rolled back on itself, leaving her a clear landing place, and sending that whole great mass toward the prelate. With a ki-knife, he split the wave, annoyed that it destroyed his bed. He'd just gotten it the way that he liked it. "You can't keep this up, old man. Tell me where Ozai is!"

"Prove you're _worthy_ of it, dear girl," he chided. Fists clenched, and the flame that ringed each of them burned hotter. She swung them around and back, the blot of liquid fire growing and distending as she did, as though it a rubber bladder overfilled with water, until it swung down and ruptured outward, the bladder breaking and sending an explosion at the old Fire Sage.

He bounded aside, letting the inferno rush past him. Sacrificing his diary for his life. Sad, but so it went. He rose with a blast of fire, simple but compact. It seared toward the Tribesman who couldn't offer defense from it. The blast sent her flying and back, smashing against a wall, and landing in a pile upon the floor. The prelate paused, looking at her, her snowy, wet clothes steaming from the impact.

"Hmm," he offered, as he moved closer. He stared down over his own fist at her, muscles roping below thinning skin. Something was amiss. In fact, he was almost certain that she was intending to ambush him. But how, he wondered? "You can call off this charade. I know you feign injury."

The head turned toward him, and the girl pushed herself to her feet, a sour look on her face. She struck singed cloth away from her chest and side, before raising hands up toward him again. Not a closed fist. Hands open, ready to grasp. Ready to pull his flames away from him.

He wouldn't be that fool again.

"Do you know why you seek this former Fire Lord, dear girl?" the prelate asked, letting the flames around his hands die. "Or do you simply follow the word of another. A mindless soldier to a mindless war?"

"Zhao should not be Fire Lord."

"In that, legally, I agree," the prelate said off handed. "However, there are also laws which allow provisional governance by a chosen representative in times of emergency. With all that has befallen the Fire Nation, surely you can see that we are in a state of emergency."

"I will not grant any justification to Zhao. And don't call me Shr-Li. My name is Hik – _YOJI_!" she snapped.

"Yoji. Or another name. Hmm. I see," he said, letting his fists drop completely, as he began to pensively pace around her. "I begin to see your nature, oh possible assassin. Azulon's 'stolen children', ripped from the arms of their parents in the South. Raised by his son to be the soldiers of the Fire Nation. So _many_ failures. Only _two_ successes. Only one he would admit to."

"Shut up."

"But this must cause some difficulty in your mind. Having to hold these conflicting thoughts," the prelate continued. "Are you Tribesman, or are you National?"

"I am..."

"Think hard on that question, don't be _hasty_," the prelate interrupted. The Tribeswoman seethed at that.

"You're not going to get inside my head, old man," she hissed at him. He gave her an honest smile.

"My dear, your head is wide open, to any who can see it. And that terrifies you, doesn't it?" he asked. If this would be a battle, then it would be one he was sure to win. No matter her training, there was nothing like simple age to sharpen the mind into a razor-edge for a battle of wits.

* * *

><p>The day had dawned, such as it was, to overcast skies and a lot of wind. It was almost as grey as it had been through the blizzard the day before, but now, the snow was simply being blasted around by the gales, making the blinding effect only really applicable to the ground. Still, Aang shut the window with a sigh. This was just so <em>weird<em>. Every day that he woke up and there was snow on the ground in the Fire Nation, it was another nail in the coffin for the entire world. Aang took a moment to pause. Since when did coffins use nails? Shake of his head, and a notion dispelled. Sooner or later, he'd get this metaphor thing properly.

"Hey! Aang's awake!" Sokka said brightly from where they'd all gathered around a fire which blazed still – at the cost of several benches smashed into kindling. "We came up with a cunning plan to win the war when you were sleeping."

"Control your volume, Tribesman," Nila said, swatting his arm. "The firebenders have only just found sleep."

"I'm awake," came the grumbling voice of Azula from where she was curled up on the scavenged cushions – most likely from the smashed up benches. Nila's brow rose, and she looked to the princess on the floor.

"Then you got precious little sleep indeed."

"I'm aware," Azula said, and threw what she was using as a pillow at her. With that, she pulled the blanket over her head and let out a groan. Zuko, on the other hand, was asleep, sitting up in a corner, his chin down on his chest.

"Right," Sokka said, and beckoned the Avatar closer to him. "So the plan is, we steal a train."

Aang rubbed at his eye for a moment. "I'm sorry, I must be still dreaming. Because you said we had to steal a train."

"It was his plan," Nila agreed. "And shockingly, it may well work."

"A train," Aang asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Aren't those things... really really big?" Aang asked.

"Well, it's not like we're going to hide it under Appa's belly. We're just going to... well, boot its conductors out and use it to transport an army to Zhao's front door."

"Do you really think this is going to work?" Aang asked Katara, who was starting to fry some sort of meat on a slab of metal that she'd scavenged. That couldn't be a good idea. There was probably still grease on it. Well, several kinds of grease, now. Strange, how his question actually applied to both things.

"Maya talked me through it," Katara said, nodding. "There's a spot where the rails go right up to the shore. We can load the strike-force there, and head up the line to Caldera City."

"Why am I the only one who sees the glaring flaw in this plan?" Aang said. "How are we supposed to _steal a train_?"

"We'll find a way," Sokka waved the thought away. Aang's jaw was set in a look of disappointed disbelief.

"...we're all doomed," Aang said.

"Man, you're a _downer_ in the morning," Kori said, walking into the room and striking snow off of his shoulders. "I thought you were supposed to be their shining ray of light? Shows what I know."

"What were you doing outside?" Sokka asked.

"Hm?" Kori asked, then dug at his ears, pulling great wooly muffs off of them. "Oh, outside? I was just watching the train come closer."

Azula sat up bolt-upright on her cushions. "A train is coming?" she demanded, looking somewhat haggard and lacking of sleep... which she was. "And you only warn us _now_?"

"Hey, I didn't see it at all until about five minutes ago," Kori said.

"AND YOU DIDN'T WARN US FIVE MINUTES AGO?" Azula shouted.

"Quiet! Trying to sleep!" Toph's voice came from the floor elsewhere.

"The thing's moving half the speed of a man-walking, and it's miles away."

"At half the speed of a man... walking," Maya said, as she slowly came awake, her hair falling in brown lines randomly about her, "that still makes the train the fastest thing moving in this weather. Is it morning?"

"Yeah," Aang said. "What do we do?"

Maya blinked a few times, then scratched at the corners of her eyes. "We get on board," she said. Everybody stared at her. "Is there something on my face?"

"Get on the train?" Aang said. He cast an arm toward Appa. "What about him! I'm not leaving him here!"

"I wouldn't abandon my pet in this weather, either," Maya said, rolling her shoulders and stretching her back.

"Appa's not a pet, he's a friend," Aang said sharply.

"Yes. But he's _my_ pet," she said. Katara gave an 'ooooh', but Aang still didn't get it. Maya sighed. "You're right, we are doomed. They'll let it on, because it's my pet. Otherwise, they'd kill it, butcher it, and eat it. And as for you, you're all my valets and bodyguards."

"See? Easy solution," Sokka said.

"Although why a train would be crossing the lines here is a bit... worrisome," Maya said, but didn't elaborate on why that was.

"So we're going to walk up to this train and ask them to let us aboard," Sokka said. Then, he paused. "Fine, you'll demand that they let us aboard. Then what?"

"Then we steal the train," Nila provided for him.

"Doesn't that seem a bit... heartless? After them helping us get out of this weather?" Aang asked.

"Do what you _must_," Azula pointed out. "How many world-shaking entities have told you that in the last year?"

More than Aang wanted to admit, really.

"Alright. Wait! What about Sato!"

"Call in the Yubokamin," Maya said. "It's not like they're going to boot him out of their wagons. Their hospitality runs a bit better than that."

"And suddenly you're an authority on the Gorks," Kori jibed. He cast a thumb over his shoulder. "Well, be that as it may – and it probably _is_, in fact – if we're going to do something, we should probably do it quickly. They're going to be here soon."

"I thought you said it was miles away."

"I might have exaggerated the scale," Kori said with an apologetic nod. "What? It's a white-out, out there!"

Maya sighed, and nodded. "Wake everybody up, and pile everything onto your bison's back; I don't want them thinking that thing is a saddle."

The morning accelerated to a fevered pace. Or, rather, as close to a fevered pace as a bunch of groggy, cold, hungry teenagers could get. It wasn't long before their sum possessions, other than the thick winter clothing that girded them, was piling up the howdah on Appa's back, and a great sheet of canvas was bound over the whole thing, making it look like a beast of burden. Aang scratched behind Appa's ears, whispering, "I'm sorry to do this, Buddy. But it'll only be for a little bit. Then, we can get out of this cold. You'll like that, I promise."

Appa gave a low grumble as answer to that. Probably, Appa was ornery because there was so damned little to eat. The teenagers weren't the only hungry things in here.

"Alright, is that everything?" Maya asked. She looked over, then sighed and threw a wrench at Zuko, who'd remained sleeping the whole time. It hit him in the boot, which drew a snuff from him, and his eyes slid open. His golden eyes did a quick sweep of the room, taking it all in, then he stood.

"So we're getting on the train, then?"

"You were listening?"

"No, it was _obvious_," Zuko said flatly. Azula and he shared a smirk at that. He palmed a yawn, and then moved to the doors. "We'd best do this when we can hear it, since it'll be right outside the doors when..." Zuko trailed off, then pressed his right ear to the wood. "Huh. Closer than I thought. If you would do the honors?" he motioned toward the closed door to Maya, as he hooked his hand on the latch. Toph, also yawning, stomped her foot down, and the block of stone that was holding the doors shut dropped back out of the way. With a gust, Zuko was knocked back a step by the door swinging inward, and all beyond them were hit by a blast of wintery fury.

Aang, following right on Maya's heels, could barely see through the fog of white flakes that whistled on the skin-tearing wind. Even as cold as he was before, the difference was both stark and outright painful. "Where is it?" he had to shout to clear the noise, both of the wind, and of something great and mechanical trying to drown it out.

"Move toward the fire!" Maya shouted.

"What fire?" he shouted back to her, following her voice. Then, he was answered as a portion of the white ahead of him turned orange. A pause, then, another surge of orange. He moved toward those pulses, and staggered into Maya just as the woman reached a sharp decline, a wall of snow giving way suddenly and abruptly to naked gravel, and steel track. Entirely to the efforts of four men, firebenders, obviously, who were bathing the snow and melting it so that the dark form of the engine behind them would have some purchase to roll.

"Whoa! Stand back, m'dear. Wouldn't want y'gettin' roasted," the ethnic Yubokamin so bundled that it wasn't physically obvious said to her.

"I need to get aboard! My name is Maya Azul!"

"Ah, and I'm the Fire Lord," the Ghorkalai laughed. Maya produced something from her pocket, and the laughter stopped. "Oh me lord the Thunderin'... Oishi, keep 'er movin', will ye?"

"Lazy bastard!" Oishi shouted back, but without any venom or bile. The Gork motioned that they follow, and within a few steps, the wind and the white-out ended completely, as they passed into the lee of the great machine.

"Oh, t' good to hear me thoughts again," the Gork said. "Din't know we'd have y' this far from the city. Well, we're bringin' the city to ye!"

"What do you mean?" Maya asked.

"Bunch o' refugees. Gettin' out while the gettin's possible," he said. He pulled himself up the ladder, to the door of the engine. Maya gave Aang a stern glare, as though warning him not to say anything. Well, at this point, if he hadn't learned that, then they really _were_ all doomed. The firebender gave the door a repeated bang, even as the engine continued to creep forward.

"What is it, Ersai?" the voice came through the crack of the door.

"We got a big passenger, out 'ere."

"Unless he's Montoya Azul, we don't stop."

"Maya Azul, actually, and I don't require you to stop!" Maya shouted up. The door swung open, and the man within was of an almost dusky complexion, half way between Azul and the Gork on the ladder above her. His eyes were clearly amber, though. He looked her up and down.

"Montoya had a bounty on you," the conductor – was that what they were called? Conductors? – said. He then shrugged. "But since he's not paying any bounties right now..."

"I'm looking for passage, for myself and my servants, and... and my pet," she said, as Appa trudged into view, after a warning only of several firebenders letting out confused swears. The conductor leaned out of the door, and shook his head.

"Agni-damned nobles. Can't have a regular pet to save their lives..." he muttered. He turned to her. "Fine, your beast can sleep in the stowage cart. But for you, you'll have to settle for peasant quarters. It's all we've got."

Maya grumbled, but shook her head. "Fine. I guess I'll take it."

"We're not stopping, so if you want to get on, you'd better have good grip and good balance," the Conductor said, before pulling his door shut with a heavy clang. The Gork pointed back, toward the carts which weren't obviously just carrying a huge load of coal.

"The carts start about five back. Good luck, Ma'am."

He went back to the front of the ship, which was creeping past the group even as they spoke. "See, that wasn't so hard," Maya said. She nodded a head toward the cart, which approached them even as they approached it, the great wind break which had a blast of snow arcing over its roof. Aang managed to get to the threshold of that cart a bit before Maya – airbending made for light steps, and light steps for speed, on snow – and began to pull people up and into the covered section that lead inside. Most got in easily enough. Azula looked a bit uncomfortable taking his hand, for some reason. Toph, though, was clinging to Zuko's back in a piggy-back, as he got the two of them up off of the snow. When she was back on the ground, and her rod thunked against the floor, she breathed a sigh of relief and her eyes rolled up a bit.

"You know, if you'd have told me I'd be wearing winter boots in the Fire Nation, I'd have been very skeptical," Toph muttered, before moving on. Zuko, though, took one look into the cart, then leaned back to Aang.

"I don't know if we can steal this train," he said quietly. Aang leaned in, the last one in, technically, as Appa was being 'loaded' into an empty coal-truck just ahead of this one, squatting down so that the wind and snow raced right over its massive, fuzzy head. Gods, he'd be as black as a boot-heel when he came out of there. And a _beast_ to clean. Aang leaned through the doorway that Zuko motioned through, and saw why.

He'd never seen so many desperate people.

* * *

><p>The prelate flinched aside, ducking a seal-breaker that was hurled at his face by the circling assassin, and he didn't let his smirk fade. "I don't see why Ozai commands so much loyalty from you. Were I in your position, I imagine I'd be more irate, having learned the truth about them. Angry at the man who took my mind, turned it into his weapon."<p>

"Shut up."

"Nothing more eloquent? I'm disappointed, dear girl," the prelate said. "That seems to lie in the heart of the matter. Who _are_ you, and what do _you_ want? Because all I've heard from you thus far is, 'I don't know', and 'what somebody else wants'. But nothing from yourself. Sad. Pathetic, perhaps."

"I am not pathetic."

"A girl who denies her own heritage because of a long indoctrination process which worked on she and so few others, who is now well aware of said indoctrination process," the prelate continued. He just had to keep chipping at her. She was unsteady, now. Off balance. If he pushed her hard enough, in just the right ways, he could break her without a finger raised. "So what do you want? Who are you, who does not know your own history? They're simple enough questions, ones that shouldn't cause too much cognitive dissonance in you."

"I want you to tell me where Ozai is," she demanded, her teeth grit.

The prelate sighed, continuing the circle that they had begun, a dance of battle more elegant than that of blade or flame. "Perhaps I've spoken too simply. Not what do you want _now_. What do you _want_? If you could have any one thing – anything at all! – what would it be?"

"You're not making any sense, and more notably, you're not telling me where Ozai is," she said.

"Then tell me what you want," he said simply. "An answer for an answer, perhaps?"

She glared at him, blue eyes sharp, before she called a stop to grinding teeth, and even ended her circling. "Fine. I want to have a home."

"And do you lack one now?" he asked.

"You said you'd tell me what I wanted to know. Honor your deal, Sage."

"Oh, it'll be answered. In due time," he said. "Why do you so fear homelessness?"

She answered him by launching forward with a swipe of that wicked blade, slashing at him wildly, pulling it back to hand when it slipped out by the strand from its base. He managed to duck the first slash, and caught the second, twisting hard and shoulder-tossing the girl to the floor. Or trying to, because she landed on her feet rather than her back, and despite her terrible leverage, managed to twist the prelate's hand until it emitted a painful crunch, spun up, and kicked him right in the side. He backed away, waving the hand that she'd popped. Not broken, but the arthritis was going to be a terror, tomorrow. He also sucked in a breath, at how she'd managed to get a boot straight into where she'd nicked him, before.

"Disappointing," the prelate said. "So you want a home, because you either feel you don't have one, or fear that you'll lose one. I'm guessing... the latter. Which I'm also guessing stems from long buried, perhaps even denied memories of your childhood," he continued, putting the pain aside. He could only win one fight at a time, and he stood the best chance at winning this one. They began to circle once more.

"You don't have one goddamned clue," she said, but her tone belied her words. He gave a chuckle.

"And that, I believe, dovetails cleanly into the first question. And the one which I feel is much more the enlightening one. Who _are_ you?"

"I am Yoji," she hissed.

"But _who_ is Yoji?" he continued. "Is she the Tribesman, or the assassin? Or is she something else. You almost said a name, before. Hik-something. Are you her, perhaps? Is there even some part of her that is struggling to peek out from behind the mask that you have worn, perhaps freely, for all the years since your theft from the South?"

"Hikaoh was nobody! She was worthless!"

"Until somebody _gave_ her worth," the prelate said. He puffed out a sigh. "Oh, you poor, dear girl. Clinging so long to so thin a veneer. Desperate for the approval that you only got by sacrificing _everything_ that you were. So that is who you are, to which I can only ask a single more question."

"I think I've had enough of your questions," she snarled, and the lanterns began to swell, redden, without the prelate's noticing.

"This shouldn't take long," he said. He leaned forward a bit. "Tell me... was it _worth it_?"

There came a whoosh of flame that finally drew the prelate's attention, as the lanterns exploded, and the flame surged toward his back. He had to bend for his life, barely deflecting the flames away, before they circuited the woman, and slammed forward with all their speed conserved. This time, the shields that the prelate could pull to bear weren't enough to deflect the coming harm. Thus, he was lifted from his feet and hurled straight back – through his door, it turned out. It shattered with the sound of bursting wood and crashing splinters. The prelate somehow managed to roll onto his feet, but he took a step back and almost slumped against the wall, too dizzy, too drained to offer much in the way of useful defense. However odd a firebender she was, she had power.

"Prelate Hanihbau!" one of his guards shouted, as he recovered from his shock at the pandemonium. Given the screaming of the winds, it made sense that no noise had reached them, till now. He spun with flames toward the girl who was either Yoji or Hikaoh, intending to send her into ashes with a fan of them projected into her chest. But she ducked under, kicking up the flames so that the bent back and toward his own face, causing him to snuff them or else blind himself. Then, a lightning strike, as she punched him in the crotch, then pulled what remained of the fire into a serpentine line, ending with driving it as a pile straight into the guard's chest. He flew back, dashing against a wall and rolled to the ground, smoking, but groaning.

"Enough!" the prelate said, a hand raised. Spheres of flame which dripped as oil toward the floor hung from the stolen Tribesman's hands, as she turned almost wild, feral eyes toward him. "I concede. As long as you bring no further harm to my brethren, you may have what you seek."

"Where!"

"All is in the ledgers," he pointed back into the room. "Take them and go. We will not pursue you."

"I should kill you, old man," she hissed.

"And if you should, consider the other crimes against you. What do they deserve?" he asked. She glared at him, then backed through Hanihbau's door, and entered his rooms. He sat there, on the floor, picking at singed red robes, wondering if he'd done the right thing. On one hand, he certainly didn't enjoy the notion of someone of Zhao's caliber upon the Burning Throne. On the other, he was tormenting the girl with things that she didn't want to think about. And, back to the first hand, those things which one never wanted to think about were always the most important, the most vital, to think on. He'd done the girl a favor that she would likely never appreciate.

He looked to his guard. "Brother Honma, are you alright?"

"I'm sorry, Prelate Hanihbau. I couldn't stop her," he said, still staring up and barely able to move.

"Don't be sorry. No harm that will last," he said. He then looked toward the girl, who shot one baleful glare back at him, before climbing out his window and vanishing into the darkness of the storm. He remembered what the old prelate, the shaman, had said to him when he was but an acolyte himself. Of the stolen girl. She of two faces, two names, and two families. Of how she would be part of who lived, and who died. He puffed out a breath, one he'd been holding his entire life. "He was _right_. Destiny can be a funny thing."

* * *

><p>Gasping one's way back to consciousness was not the kind of sensation that Irukandji was used to. Much less, one that it enjoyed to any great capacity. As the grey-filtered light reached eyes that seemed dry as month-old-bread, it took stock of the condition of its body. A glance down showed a network of bruises that seemed more or less complete. How much of this chick's blood was in its vessels, at this point, it wondered? Well, that was something easily fixed.<p>

With a drawn in breath, Irukandji pulled the body back together again, something it hadn't had the strength to do for quite a while. With an internal noise that sounded somewhat like chunky suction, the bruises vanished in a great sheet from her skin, leaving her looking as brown and healthy as ever. And for the first time in a long time, it _felt_ healthy as ever. A few more blinks, sending forth desperately long-overdue tears to soothe things along, then it pushed up to a sit. There were three others in the wagon along side of it. Two of them were somewhat young, a man and a woman of Sun Warrior descent. The last was a reedy Shinzoan, hunched over a pad of paper, with a very intense look in his eyes. The couple – probably married, now that it thought about it – gave a clipped yelp of alarm as they saw it sitting upright.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm back. Celebrations all around," Irukandji said.

"Hrm?" the other said, glancing toward her. Irukandji blinked at the face which beheld it. And she was a bit surprised. "Oh! I hadn't noticed you there. Do you live here?"

Irukandji turned to the other two. "How long has this guy been in this wagon?"

"Most of a day," came the woman's response.

"And he didn't notice me. I'm mildly annoyed," Irukandji said. It rose, to every vertibrae in her back popping, until it followed with crunching of knuckles, toes, and neck. Finally, a clap of the hands, and she pointed at Sato. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Why not?" he asked, mildly put out.

"Because you're supposed to be reverse engineering Sokka's airships," it said. Sato just blinked at her. "...right. Somebody else did that, didn't they? Fine. Just don't get yourself killed before you knock somebody up, would you? The time-line's messed up enough as it is."

"I thought I was going to have a dastardly beast for a son," Nomura said.

"Yeah, but don't tell anybody," Irukandji chuckled. It then puffed out a sigh. "Alright. Back to business. Where's the Avatar?"

"They left," the Sun Warrior man answered. "With the daughter of Azul, the Prince and Princess, and the Tribesmen."

"They left? Why would they... No, not the time. Where did they go?"

"Probably on the rails," the woman said. The man turned to her. "What? I hear things."

"Fantastic. I'll be able to check the whole system in about an hour," Irukandji said, rubbing her hands together. She moved toward the door, opening it slightly, before turning back in. "Word of advice? Tell your kids to invest in Future Industries. You'll make a killing. But sell when you start hearing about some guy called Amon. Savvy?"

"Not really," the man said, confused.

"Eh, suit yourself," Irukandji said. It closed the eyes of its body, and opened the door. And the instant that the threshold was open, there was a crack of thunder, and a bolt of lightning leapt out of the back of the wagon. Because Irukandji had rested enough. Now, came the work of saving reality.

* * *

><p><strong>To answer a question that I saw while digging through old reviews: There is no setting I <em>loathe<em> more than the Warhammer 40k setting. It is the _antithesis_ of a moving setting. Koh would have come up with that setting in one of his nightmares, and then erase it because it was beneath even _his_ standards. Any coincidence of name or trope with that setting is both accidental and a little bit unwanted. This is not disparaging the writers who actually pan some gold out of the shit that the entire 40k universe consists of, and certainly not insulting those who enjoy said pieces of literary gold. I simply wish that somebody had put a bit more thought into making a sustainable universe out of it, instead of 'you lose if you fight, you lose if you don't fight, and you die screaming in either case' that the setting boils down to at its heart. Any setting which preaches the 'glories' of anti-intellectualism just... _urgh_.**

**But, as usual, take this as it is; a single person's opinion, and therefore having no bearing on anything that exists in the world outside my own dislike of grimderp. My real inspirations were the games Turgor (Also called The Void), STALKER, the magic system of Legend of the Five Rings (Another setting that has its moments of irksomeness), and the spiritual system of Werewolf: the Forsaken. I don't mind the darkness, but there's got to be a light at the end of the tunnel which _isn't_ an oncoming train.**

**Alright, now onto something that is _a lot_ less likely to piss off readers: Some have noticed that in a story tagged Aang/Azula, it was fifty chapters before anything started to become of it. For good reason; if it had started with the two of them goo-goo-eyed, then it would have just been bad writing. Azula is a certain kind of person. Aang is, as well. In order to slowly bring the two together, bridging the admittedly fairly vast gulf between them in a fashion which was both believable and meaningful is a process that takes time. In my case, more than a year of writing, and more than a million words. But now that it's actually starting to go somewhere (Slowly, as things of this nature ought) you can see everything which led them to this place, and believe it. Character arcs are tricky things. Making an Aangzula that made sense given their personalities was a challenge that I'm pretty sure I nailed. We'll see when we reach the Day of Black Sun part, I guess.**


	55. The Face Stealer

Green eyes opened, staring over slush and cold rain, and over a grey and listless sky that covered over Caldera City. Those eyes saw many worlds. They saw the physical, with an entire people having to learn in weeks what cultures more encultured to the cold had developed over generations, how to make houses built to vent heat instead trap it. How to spread warmth, as the price for not, was freezing to death. And he saw the spectral. A physical world torn to shreds, holding together only by the collective will of those who didn't even know what they were wishing for. A world that ached and groaned. A world on the edge.

Beyond that, he saw the spiritual. He saw the blackness, with its rushing water and twisting terrain. He saw a place devoid of color or life, a place without hope or mercy or a champion to save it. And he knew in his heart, that it was time.

"No," he whispered, though nobody nearby could have seen what he was talking to. "This is not the way. What you see is not all that is."

The National youth beside him said something in annoyance, something which Sharif, were he still able, would have heard as 'Is he talking to us?'. Now, not so much.

"I doubt it," Hisui answered in a tongue which Sharif could follow. She turned his shoulder, a concerned look on her face. "What's going on out there?"

Sharif turned, seeing Form of the void spirit which floated beside him in the Outer Sphere. It pulsed and shone, its voice the voices of time and space, the mysteries and the answers. A voice of ignorance and revelation. "You do not see as we do. Not in this. We must do what we can."

"Do what, Sharif?" Hisui asked. It was mildly annoying to the mind-stricken boy that they'd put a fresh death-ring on him. This one barely worked at all, only preventing his transition between worlds, and disallowing him to remove it.

"We must go. The spirit world is waiting, and a deed must be done. Oblivion..." he shook his head, unable to come up with the words to explain what he was trying to say. The void offered some, but with the material world as it was, they slid off of Sharif as water off of a turtle-duck's back. "_Nothing_ will happen if we don't."

Hisui leaned back. "Nothing or... 'nothing'?" she asked.

"Y...yes," he said.

"I'm guessing the bad one," Hisui said. "If we pull this thing off, are you going to bugger off on us?"

"I don't understand," Sharif said.

The brother asked something to the tune of 'are you sure this is a good idea?'.

"No, but I for one don't want to become one with oblivion," Hisui answered snippily. Her brother rolled his eyes, and made remarks about difficult sisters. She reached to his neck. "You promise that you won't... run away."

"Much must be done. There is nowhere that any could run," Sharif said, his anxiety clear in his tone, in the way his brow furrowed. A mind smote tried to grapple with the intensity of the fear he felt, but there wasn't enough mind left to fully understand it, so it manifested in him only as a distant alarm.

"Well, I'll take it," Hisui said, and tugged the ring from Sharif's neck. Sharif took in a breath, and the voice of void became louder.

**This is an act without purpose. He cannot change what is to come.**

"You are wrong. You do not see," Sharif said. "You cannot see."

**We see all that is, all that was. All that will be.**

"Do you see Imbalance?" Sharif asked.

Stony silence.

"We must go," Sharif said, striding toward the doors which led out into the rain-drenched courtyards. Hisui and Hai found themselves in hot pursuit after the Si Wongi shaman who ignored the freezing rain as it slammed into him as the fist of a dying world.

"Where are you going?" Hisui asked.

"There is a rift. It will take us where we need to go," Sharif said simplistically. The brother and the sister gave a confused glance to each other, and she to he, a shrug.

**What do you intend? We cannot see an effect of this action. It is outside our sight.**

"I intend to awaken one who can help us. Who _must_ help us," Sharif said.

"Who would that be?" Hisui asked. For all the girl could, in the face of every understanding that the mind of Sharif had about Void, which was itself one of the most intensive knowledges that existed.

"All will be clear very soon. We must meet another. We cannot do this alone. We have not... not the strength," he said, after waving his hand and trying to find the word to best explain himself.

The wind was driving the rain and stinging near-ice into Sharif's face as he descended a short, broad set of stairs, into a frigid pool of rapidly icing water. It crunched under every footfall, searing at bare feet with a pain that would have crippled any other man. Sharif, though, had a deadened sense of pain. He knew only the intensity of the cold, and ignored the rest. He trudged through that half-solid mess, until he reached a spot somewhat near the middle, and stopped, turning to the southwest. "I wish..." Sharif began, and the words failed him.

"Wait a second. I know this place," Hisui said, turning around, splashing slush as she spun to take in the plaza they stood in.

'Yeah,' came Hai's response yet unknown to Sharif, '...this is where we got back from that silver world, with the cat-bird-men...'

"Sharif, where are we..." Hisui asked, but was cut off by Sharif grabbing each of them by the shoulder, right where it met the neck, and pulling them together until their shoulders touched.

"Into the naked shadow," he said. And with a blast of vanilla light flaring from his scar and from the pupils of his eyes, they all vanished from the world of man.

* * *

><p>"Can't sleep, huh?" Sokka asked, as he plunked himself down at Nila's side in the train which housed so many sleeping people that it boggled her mind. Both that so many could fit, hanging from hammocks cut and sewn from potato-bags, and that they could sleep with the din of the train moving.<p>

"I feel as though I have not slept in months," Nila admitted, leaning against him in one of the few comforts that she could really allow herself. "I am not given to easy despair but... I cannot help but to wonder. Are we acting in a folly? Do we pursue a hope that does not exist?" she asked, pitched quietly as though it were a sweet-nothing for a lover's ear.

"I've gotta think that it does exist," Sokka said, somewhat louder because he wasn't saying something that would sap the spirits of those around him. "You've got to have a bit more faith in Aang. He's going to find a way to make this work."

"I am not a creature of faith," she said with a testy note. "Faith is for the blind, for those who trust feeling over fact."

"Well, if we were operating based on facts," Sokka said gently, "then we'd all be corpses fed to Azul's pets right now. Or," he said, ticking off a finger, "we'd be the brainwashed puppets of Long Feng," he ticked off another finger, "or, I would have died of terminal barbeque-itis on the winter-solstice and you'd have never fallen for me."

"I have fallen for noone, you Tribal fool," she said, giving him a shove that he had to lower his fingers and catch himself from.

Sokka gave a smirk. "You won't want to hear this, but everything's got some faith in it. Even science comes from faith at its heart."

"You lie."

"What's the big thing about science?" Sokka asked. "That the future resembles the past. Why must it? Because that's how science works."

"That's... You are misrepres... there is more..." Nila stammered, trying to point out how Sokka was wrong.

But in checking his thought-processes, in scrutinizing the foundations of accepted causality, she saw the flaw. And she had a brief existential crisis. And she let out a few swear words to punctuate that uncomfortable admission. "That's what I thought. You've got to stop worrying about trying to make the world make sense. I know that we're going to succeed, because if we don't, we won't be in a position where anybody can say 'I told you so'."

"Shaky logic," Nila said.

"Who said anything we do is logical?" Sokka asked.

"...point," Nila said. She raised a tattooed finger to pursue her own line of thinking, but with something like the crack of the whip that reverberated through her soul, she was cut short. Her eyes bulged, and she rose away from the Tribesman, staring into the distance through the wall of the train. The direction, as it turned out, was northeast. "...Sharif..."

"You know where he is?" Sokka said, grasping her shock well enough that she could only laud him. "Is he alright?"

"He lives but..." then, the sensation faded. "...but he has gone into the spirit world."

"Not good, I'm guessing?" Sokka asked, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. She tipped her head against his shoulder.

"You've seen the world," she whispered. "The Spirit... is far worse."

* * *

><p>"Waaaakey wakey."<p>

Aang mumbled to himself, too comfortable after all the running around, all the panic, to relinquish his hammock so easily. He waved out a hand, trying to let whoever thought it'd be a good idea to wake him to leave him alone.

"Waaaakey wakey."

"Sleeping," Aang burbled, feeling the cobwebs in his head very acutely.

There was a scoff, and then, with a grunt, Aang felt himself being dumped straight out of the hammock and onto the floor, offering only a clipped yelp for warning before landing on Azula, and rolling off onto the floor.

"What in the _HELL_?" Azula snapped, rolling out of her own bedding, only to find Aang on his back at the feet of a statuesque Tribal woman who had a condescending smirk on her face. Azula's gaze locked on her, and her outrage became something a lot more sour. "..._you_!"

"Ta-dah!" Irukandji said, flaring her hands dramatically. A lot of other people were rousing from their sleep from the yelling and the cursing. Zuko's was clearly amongst them because with a thud, he put his feet to the floor and moved to interpose himself between Irukandji and his sister. "Oh, don't be like that."

"Stay back," Zuko said.

"If I wanted to get past you, human, you wouldn't be able to stop me," Irukandji said. "Now... where is the other airbender?"

"Why?" Aang asked.

"Because, you idiot Avatar, there's still a chance that the original plan could... Ah! There you are. Waaaakey wakey..." she now prodded at Malu's hammock, where she was still asleep despite the growing concern that bubbled from those around her.

"Irukandji, what are you doing?" Aang asked.

"Waking an airbender, what does it look like?" she asked. Then, she looked up, and sighed. "_Right_. Just told a train-car full of Fire Nationals that the Avatar's here. Just a second," Irukandji turned to her audience which surrounded her on all sides. "May I have your attention, please?" Then, with a twinned snapping of both fingers, there came an electric zorp which seemed to travel through the whole of the traincar. Most of the people rousing toward wakefulness now dropped straight back into their hammocks, utterly unconscious. "Won't even remember it. Easy as pie. Now where was I? Oh, right. Waaaakey wakey!"

"Go 'way. Don' wan' bre'fast..." she muttered. Irukandji sighed, then did as she'd done with Aang, dumping her out of her hammock and onto the floor. While she landed on somebody, that person didn't do more than grumble and roll over back into sleep. Malu sat up, bewildered for a moment, directly beside where Aang hadn't yet taken his feet. "Wh...whut?"

"Alright. So, good news, the universe hasn't ended," Irukandji said brightly. "Bad news is, it'll probably still do that soon. So, Malu," she said, clapping her hands together and rubbing them together. "Let's just get Imbalance back inside you, and we can get this all sorted out, right?"

"What?" Malu asked, horror dawning on her face.

"No!" Aang said, kipping to his feet and standing between Malu and Irukandji. "We agreed this wasn't going to happen!"

"It's the only way that'll work," Irukandji said. She leaned around Aang. "Come on, airbender; take one for the team."

"I'm not going to allow this," Aang said. Irukandji's face twisted into a rictus of contempt.

"Stop being so me-damned selfish! This will _work_. This will save _everybody_. Two people for every person who ever existed and ever will; I'd call that a damned fair price."

"I'm not sacrificing anybody. There is another way," Aang said.

"I've looked. There isn't," Irukandji said. Malu rose a finger.

"...two?" she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Of course," Irukandji said with a dismissive wave. "Stuff Imbalance into you, then use that one," a finger pointed toward Azula, "to form a bridge back to where she came from. Then, pitch Imbalance over the side into the oblivion between existences. And to make sure It never comes back, pitch the princess as well."

"Excuse me?" Azula asked, her tones as dark as her hair.

"Well we wouldn't want It coming back a couple of realities from now, would you?" Irukandji asked.

"How would we even notice?" Aang asked. Irukandji raised a finger, then fell silent. "This is all pointless. I am _not_ sacrificing people."

Irukandji growled. "You have no perspective, kid! You don't understand the realities of the world you live in!"

"And you don't understand that the Avatar isn't about simply taking the easy way!" Aang shouted back, causing Irukandji to lean back, a mildly surprised look on her face. "Everything is hard, as it always is, because the easy roads all lead down! And I'm not going to give away people I care about simply because I'm too afraid to do the right thing, no matter what it takes!"

"That's... a lot more fire than I'm used to getting out of you," Irukandji said. She straightened herself, striking dust from her sleeves. "Good. You'll need it. I still think you're an idiot child who can't see the world for what it is, but... there's no positive way to end that sentence so I'm just going to abandon it."

"Why are you here?"

"You were going to throw me _outside of existence_?" Azula asked, now on her feet between Aang and Zuko.

"Of course I was. Not like one of you didn't deserve it," Irukandji said with a dismissive wave, which started to make Azula's face slowly turn red. "Look, we can stand here and debate how you're wrong all day, or we could do what the Big Fish told me about a little bit ago."

"The big... fish?" Zuko said, torn between outrage and confusion.

"Koi-zilla? Big Stompy and the Moon? Come on, you've got to know this one," Irukandji said, then sighed. "Fine. Whatever. There's a powwow in the Orchard Asunder, and you're supposed to be there," she said, thunking Aang right at the point of his arrow. He adjusted his headband back into place when she was done.

"Why?" Aang asked.

"Because this is the kind of thing which really kinda needs the Avatar. And Korra, gotta say, I like her grit, but the big bug won't answer to her any more than I answer my hate-mail."

"Your what?" Malu asked, rubbing an eye.

"It's... nevermind," Irukandji shook her head. She looked at the others. "Seriously? It'd just take me _ten_ minutes. Ten minutes to save the world."

Aang didn't _try_ to look dangerously angry. He simply did. "Not. Going. To. Happen."

"Very well; it'll be your fault when everything, everywhere, everywhen stops existing, then," Irukandji said, pulling Aang close and dropping him onto the floor, one of her arms looped around his shoulders like she was one random act of childish impulse from headlocking and noogie-ing him. She swept her gaze across those gathered, one of them almost apoplectic with rage, the other angry, but not as much as his sister, and the third alarmed but still half-asleep. "Alright, I'll try to bring him back with his face intact. Try not to die."

"Wait, what was that about my f–" Aang managed, before there was a voooyp, and the two vanished from the traincar.

"I... Will... _Destroy_ her," Azula promised.

"Get in line," Zuko muttered.

"Guys... what if she was right?" Malu asked, her voice still quiet. The wrath was starting to bleed away from Azula, as was obvious by her complexion, but her jaw still had an angry set. "What if this really is the only way that we can save everybody? I can't just... just let everybody else suffer because of me."

"It's not because of you," Azula muttered. "There's no point in feeling guilty for something which isn't going to happen. Instead, plot revenge. It's a lot more productive."

"No it isn't," Malu said, mildly mortified. Azula rolled her eyes.

"You have no sense of justice, airbender," she muttered under her breath. She gave her brother a nudge aside. "I'm going back to sleep."

And she wouldn't say anything to anybody, but a part of her still had a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling that the Avatar had stood up for her to what was as so frighteningly powerful. Azula had a confused moment, where she actually examined that sensation, only to find that under scrutiny, it quickly vanished. It still took her a long time to go back to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15<strong>

**The Face Stealer**

* * *

><p>Aang opened his eyes to a spirit world gone mad.<p>

He looked around, to a place which resembled the Great Divide, but was so alien that the comparison was essentially worthless. Waters raged up hill, jumping between chunks of terrain that hung in defiance of gravity over a black and everlasting oblivion. In the distance – for there was no real horizon for things to vanish into, it seemed – Aang watched as a great, crumbling blackness drifted lazily through the nothing, until it crashed into a spire of stone that twisted upward. He knew that spire; it was the place that he'd first met Korra, at the beginning of spring. The blackness struck against it, and the tip of the spire cracked and drifted a short distance away. But the blackness crumbled, like gravel falling off of an inflated bladder, growing smaller and smaller, until it vanished completely. Aang swallowed nervously, not sure what he'd seen, but knowing it was bad.

"What happened?" Aang asked.

"The Megalopolis," Irukandji turned Aang, toward the nest of buildings which floated, insubstantial, without streets or foundations, above the ocean of black. "Imbalance wanted to eat two cities for the price of one. Because of the other Shaman, it didn't get either. Instead, it got a slap. Didn't know you could slap something that didn't exist. Color me shocked."

Aang shrugged his way out of Irukandji's grasp. "That _doesn't_ explain this."

"The Spirit World only has so much... stuff... to go around, these days," Irukandji said with an uncomfortable shrug.

"No, I mean, I was in the spirit world not too long ago. When I found _you_! What happened since then?" he asked.

Irukandji winced a bit. "...this might kinda be my fault," the spirit said. "A bit. Not entirely. Just a sliver."

"...why?"

"Well, who do you think was making the Spirit World make all that _sense_ that you so enjoy causating?" Irukandji asked snippily. "I'm just amazed that it hasn't defaulted to colors-out-of-space, kings in funky pyjamas, and huge squid-gods living in undersea cities by now."

Aang blinked in confusion at the spirit.

"...long story. Funny story. Well, funny from a certain point of view," Irukandji said. She looked around, and pointed to a chunk of rock that was floating significantly above them. "Now if you don't mind, it's rather imperative that we wake up the Face Stealer. He's got a big part to play in this, whether he realizes it or not. Where is... Ah! There's the path. Follow me."

"How? I can't fly in the Spirit World," Aang pointed out.

"Come on, it's as easy as..." Irukandji said, pointing to a chunk of iron that floated in the void, then paused, and looked back at Aang. "...right. You can't turn into a lightning bolt at will."

"The last time I checked, no," Aang confirmed. Irukandji shook her head.

"Why do you humans have to be so damned squishy! You can never get anything _done_ in those meat bodies," she said, giving Aang's belly a pinch to prove her point.

"Hey! I like my meat-body," Aang said.

"You would, wouldn't you?" Irukandji said. She sighed, and palmed her face. "Right. Give me a couple of minutes, if a Blowout hits, try not to die. I'm pretty sure there's a safe-place in the Spirit world. Don't know where it is, but it's probably still there."

"Wait!" Aang shouted, as Irukandji turned away.

"What?"

"What about Korra?"

"What about her?"

"I think... that's her apartment," Aang said, pointing toward a room which drifted in the darkness, drawing slowly closer to him. The two of them simply watched as the window-bearing box slid toward their outcropping of rock, dust, and dead roots, before bumping into it. Aang gave a look to Irukandji, who's expression was easily as querulous as Aang's own. The apartment shifted, grinding against the stone, as though slowly sliding past, until it caught on the roots of a now absent tree, and spun itself. Doing so, Aang could see into the hallway that ran through the structure. "Would it matter if I waited in there?"

"Couldn't hurt, I think," Irukandji said. Aang nodded, and when the timing was right, took a running start and jumped across the darkness, landing – barely – inside the hallway of the apartment that no longer had a city around it. He turned, looking back at the spirit. "Now just stay out of trouble until I can build a path for your stupid meat-feet to follow me. Shouldn't take long."

With a crack of lightning, she was gone. Aang turned, and looked into the hall. The lighting was uneven now, but there were no shadows to be seen. He walked, his fingers dragging along peeling 'wallpaper', as he moved to the corner. He frowned, as he saw the sights that awaited him. He looked back, and could see the grey land slowly drifting past, but ahead, he could see the next corner of the apartment, one he knew for a fact didn't exist on the outside. "Bigger on the inside. Weird," Aang said.

Then again, he had been in Zha Yu's shack. This was pretty much the same thing.

Aang moved to the doorway into the 'piano room', and knocked on it. When there was no immediate answer, Aang pushed the door open, and when he did, he was damned near blinded. There was so much silver light inside that room that the black-form of the 'piano' was last amongst them. So, too, was the spectral blue of a to-be-Avatar. "Korra? Are you in there?"

"Aang?" her voice came from within the center of that blinding mess. "Calm down. It's not Imbalance. You can stop."

The lights began to dim down, one upon the other, until the forms of near a thousand silver sparks stood distinct and floating in the air of the room. Korra was pushing herself to her feet from her spot near the center of the side-wall. "Korra? What's going on?"

"Wish I could tell you," his future self said. "All I knew was that one minute, I'm talking with shiny-pants here," a motion toward one of the near-countless Void spirits in the room with them, "and the next, I can't see out of my window anymore. Which I'm guessing is a bad thing?" she chanced.

"Very bad," Aang said. "Korra... do you know anything about something called 'the Face Stealer'?"

It was a strange thing watching something spectral blue turning slightly grey. "More than I wish I did," she said. "You're... not going after Koh, are you?"

"Who's... Koh is the Face Stealer, right," Aang put two and two together. He rubbed the back of his head, and the hair which was increasingly becoming... _familiar_. "I kinda, sorta... think we are."

"..._why_?" Korra asked, the confusion clear in her body-language, let alone her face.

"I don't know, and Irukandji never bothers to tell me!" Aang complained. Korra nodded.

"I've had plenty of that in my time. Gods, but it's annoying," she said.

"I hear that," Aang said. "So... Koh, huh?"

"Listen here, kiddo," Korra said, plunking him onto the stool before the piano, barely noticing how the Void spirits were flowing around them like an ideal gas. "Koh is one of the most dangerous things in the Spirit world. Or was, when I had to talk to him. And when you talked to him. He's nasty, he's smart, he's malevolent, and he's... _creepy_."

"Then why hasn't somebody gotten rid of him?" Aang asked.

"Because nobody's nearly strong enough to try, let alone succeed," Korra said. "Your words, not mine."

"I'd really like to have a _talk_ with myself some time," Aang said, arms crossed in annoyance, oblivious to the bizarre thing he'd just said.

"Koh's crazy old, crazy powerful. He can – and will – steal your face if you show any expression at all. Damned near got mine," she rubbed at her face as though confirming to herself that she did, in fact, still have it. "I can't imagine what Irukandji wants him for."

"She said it was less what he can do, and more what he is," Aang said.

"...what is Koh, anyway?" Korra said. "Besides a massive bug with ten thousand faces?"

"I'm not sure," Aang admitted. And that had him worried.

* * *

><p>Yue knelt in the grasses of the new Spirit Oasis, and she was anything but alone. The entire village had pulled up roots, and settled within the broad chamber that Tui and La had claimed for themselves; they'd had to. The temperatures outside had gone from simply winter-frigid, to hellishly lethal. Flesh, no matter how covered, would freeze in the matter of minutes. Flames couldn't hold out cold, no matter how high they were stacked. Only here, with the unnatural warmth of the nearby Spirit World could the people live, tolerably.<p>

The de-facto Chief of the South desperately hoped that her patrons would tolerate the humans around them, because without them...

"Yue? Are you awake?" Hahn asked, moving to sit beside her, looking over the people who now slept, all huddled in masses, trying to give enough room for everybody. Food had been left in easy reach, and the frigid temperatures ensured that it never spoiled. They were using far more than Yue had hoped.

"Yes," she said.

"You should sleep more," he said, a hand resting on her shoulder. "There's nothing more that can be done."

"There must be. Alulbitavut hasn't sent a message in days, and everybody has pulled into the deepest caves of Rough Lee, but..." Yue shook her head. He cupped her cheek.

"Yue... you've done all you could," he stressed. He looked out over the hundreds who packed this tiny place. "And to be honest, you've done more than I thought possible."

"Then why do I still feel like I'm failing?" Yue asked.

Hahn kept his eyes on the pool, which was now, despite not having strictly shrunk, only large enough for Tui and La to circle each other, and then a hand's-breadth of water beyond that. "When we were fighting at Summavut, I was sure we were all going to die there, before the winter was out. Instead, we survived. If you'd have told me that we'd be living, in relative peace, after all that, a year ago? I'd have called you a liar."

He was right, she knew that. In her mind, it was clear as the waters that the gods swam in. But her heart was a different matter, and it wasn't nearly so amenable to reason.

"How long do you think they'll be able to keep doing this?" she asked, so quietly, looking at all the people trying to sleep under storm-clouded skies. Hahn leaned back.

"The Northerners? As long as they have to," he said with a bleak confidence. "The Southerners? I couldn't say." He turned to her, and even though he wasn't even twenty, he looked decades older. Aged prematurely. Then again, so many of those who survived Summavut and the Spikerim were. "You should rest. They need you as much as ever, and they need you bright."

She nodded, but she couldn't shake the sensation that they were sliding off of a cliff, and had nothing to grab 'hold of to stop themselves. A sinking sensation, that wasn't entirely – or rather, that wasn't _simply_ – her own. Hahn patted her cheek, and moved back to his particular spot in this pile of humanity, before curling up on the grass. Yue, though, puffed out a sigh, and looked down.

La was staring at her.

"_Now_?" she asked, in its own tongue. The answer the fish gave was less words, and more an idea that began in Yue's soul and radiated out through the rest of her. "_Will this place be safe?_" she asked, looking around. If the cost was too high... But Tui continued to circle, even without its partner. "_Oh. Oh, I see. Thank you,_" she said. She looked around, then crawled over to Hahn's side. She leaned close. "Shhh. You have to trust me.. I'll be back... soon," she said. Hahn turned a confused eye to her, but didn't question her. Whether because he trusted her, or for whatever other reason, she couldn't say. She rose, taking a breath of crisp air, the smell of grass overpowering sweat and fear, and the grease of cooked food. She stepped onto the pond; despite its fluid state, it held her aloft. She looked straight up, through the canopy of this new Spirit Oasis, toward where the moon would hang were it visible. And then, she held her breath.

And dropped down through the surface of the pond, bearing the whole soul of her god into the Spirit World. For better, or for worse.

* * *

><p>The sound of a thunderstrike called the attention of both Avatars in the room to the door. Irukandji appeared in a puff of smoke with a dramatic hand-wave. When both Avatars simply stared at her – Korra coughing lightly – Irukandji rolled her eyes. "You people have no flair for the dramatic. Come on. I've called in the Long Road. Should work wonders for us, but the folks in 'the crest' might be a little pissed if they find out."<p>

"Find out wh... what did you do, exactly?" Aang asked, Irukandji turned the corner, then gestured broadly. Aang turned, and his eyebrows rose. Leading away from the hallway was a path of sun-baked clay, grey as all other clay in this place, and just as desolate. It turned and rose, without any mooring to any surface, twisting out of sight. Aang tentatively prodded at its beginning with a toe. Korra, on the other hand, scoffed, and shoved him aside – albeit gently – and started walking up that path. "...what? This is all very confusing to me."

Irukandji pointed up to the chunk of rock that hung above them. "As I said, they're up there. I've got to go grab Yue. La is an impatient bastard, and didn't wait until she was somewhere convenient to enter the Spirit Asunder," Irukandji said. The flurry of terms had Aang blinking dumbly. "Just go and talk to the guys waiting for you," the spirit said, annoyance clear.

Aang could only shake his head, and walk the clay path. Korra had slowed down, so that he could catch up to her. "Does any of this make sense to you?" Aang asked.

"Hey, I tend to defer to _you_ when it comes to this spirit mumbo-jumbo," she said with a shrug. She paused, though, rubbing her foot against the clay. "I _do_ remember you telling me to _never_ walk on this road. Don't remember why, though."

"...greeeeat," Aang drawled.

Korra obviously found his discomfort hilarious, as she started walking again, making headway over him on the clay. He picked up his own pace, but didn't catch up to her without running – which didn't seem like a productive exercise in this place – until she was already on that chunk of rock in the 'sky'. When he reached it, though, he didn't have time to reproach Korra, because his eyes widened at the sight of who was with them.

There were two who were only vaguely familiar at the best of times, and not at all from behind as they currently were. The third was Sharif. His scar was glowing, and light wafted out of his pupils, as he knelt before a fallen tree, and spread out a faintly glowing scroll upon its petrified bark. His face was one of intense focus, until the crunching of the ground reached him, and he glanced up.

"Ah. I wondered when you would arrive," Sharif said, slowly furling the scroll back up. The pair with him turned, and looked Aang up and down. One was a girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. The other, a plain-looking young man likely a year older. Both looked enough alike each other that it was obvious they were siblings. The two of them got a very uneasy look on their faces after that summary glance.

"Why do I think I've seen this guy before?" the girl asked. Aang scratched at his temple where the band was rubbing it. One of these days, he'd have to clean this thing. So many other things just kept coming up, though.

"Disregard them," Sharif said with a dismissive wave. "I assume that you've turned down Irukandji's sensible plan?"

"What? Even _you_ think it's sensible to kill two innocent women?" Aang asked, mildly aghast.

"It is the smallest sacrifice to the greatest gain," Sharif said with a shrug. "But as it is obviously not one you would pursue, we must adapt."

"Nila's worried about you," Aang said to the lad. He sighed, and shook his head.

"Would that I had the time to be as worried of her," Sharif said. "As it is, my mind is often struck and shattered, and when not, too busy dedicated toward the business of averting apocalypse. She would understand. She's a sensible young woman," he said, waving that topic away as though it were an errant fly.

"What exactly are we doing here?" Aang asked.

"Awakening a great spirit, obviously," Sharif said. With a shrug, he continued. "While the difference between absolute oblivion and relative oblivion is one which is for the most part academic, if nothing else, I should like to ensure even if we are defeated, that Imbalance be foiled."

"Wait, what?" Aang asked. Sharif turned to him.

"You do not know of the Face Stealer's purpose?" he asked. He waggled a scroll. "Ah, but you haven't read the same words I have."

"What is that, anyway?" Aang asked.

"Seriously, this guy is really familiar," the other brother said toward his sister, his amber eyes locked on Aang.

"This?" Sharif asked. "Scroll from the Library of Wan Shi Tong. Which is currently right over there," he pointed to a crumbling doorway that hung in the ether, a short hop away from a bend in the cracked clay road. Sharif cracked a smirk. "Say what you will of the end of the world, it certainly makes for convenient study."

Aang took the scroll, and unfurled it. Instantly, he had a sensation as though the pages were infested with centipedes, crawling under his fingertips even as he simply held it. He gave a 'geh' and dropped the scroll. It was utterly still when it settled onto the mud. Sharif palmed his face. Aang picked the scroll back up, and the crawling feeling returned instantly. "What the..."

"As I said, there are certain barriers to readership," Sharif explained. "This one has an aspect of its subject within it."

"You never said anything," Aang said. Sharif's brow rose, then furrowed.

"Damn. I simply cannot trust myself to be a useful dispenser of knowledge," he said, kicking the dirt for good measure. Aang's attention turned back to the scroll, now that he could at least tolerate the crawling feeling, the unsettling sensation of something almost, but not quite touching the back of his neck. The choice of centipedes as his metaphor was immediately apparent; wrapping behind the words was something like a watermark, a creature of many segments, and many legs. Something that curled and coiled, showing no beginning and no end. And the words... the words had Form.

When Aang opened his World Eye to them, he saw them with more clarity than any non-shaman ever could. He saw the form that the scroll ascribed to 'Koh', but even still, it was like reading a description of a person you'd never met. It was never perfect, and sometimes, it just didn't make sense. The ideas clashed. Ancient and powerful. Silent and deadly. The apple and the worm within it. Quietly hating those that had purpose, or at least, a purpose more immediate than his. A hatred which festered long and festered cold, one passing just over the line into cruelty.

"I don't understand what this means," Aang said.

"You'd better," Sharif said with a chuckle. "You will be the one to speak to that beast."

"Speak to this?" Aang asked. He thought back, to the time when he was in the presence of the one Irukandji called Koh, the one that Roku had sent him toward, before vanishing from Aang's life completely. He remembered a creeping dread. "What is Koh?" he asked directly.

"The answer," Sharif said.

"The answer to what?" Aang asked. Sharif raised a finger.

"That is the greatest question of all. And one I have only recently deduced. He is the answer to _nothing_."

Aang blinked at him.

"Don't feel bad; he does this to us all the time," the girl said to Aang over Sharif's shoulder.

"You're the shamans that captured him?" Aang asked. "Why? Why'd you do that?"

"Trying to do what we thought was right," the girl said defensively. She gave a shrug, "and when that turned out to be a big stinking lie, we tried to fix it. Why? What's this kid to you?"

"A friend," Aang said. The brother scoffed and shook his head.

"Please. This brat only had his sister and the Av..." he trailed off. He turned to Aang. And he went gray. "No. No, that isn't possible."

"What isn't?" Aang asked. The sister's eyes started to widen, and her posture hunch like a hissing cat.

"Hisui... that..."

"You're the Avatar," the girl called Hisui said. Aang gave a shrug.

"Yeah," he said.

He was answered by two shrieks of terror, and the two of them sprinting over the 'hill' in the center of the rock, vanishing from sight. Aang blinked at them, and Sharif glanced between the Avatar and his now absent jailers.

"So you have met them, I presume?" Sharif asked. He waved a hand toward them. "Don't be too concerned. There is no great distance they can run; this island is only so large."

"I..." Aang began, and suddenly, he remembered them. "They're the guys who summoned that spirit at the wall of Ba Sing Se!"

"Hence their terrified response, I presume," Sharif said, taking the scroll and furling it once more. He pointed the thing at Aang. "Now heed; Koh is a creature which can be held to its word, but only just. It will take any opportunity to betray the spirit of its dealings to uphold the letter. If you show emotion, no matter how counterproductive it would be for him, he _will_ take your face. And believe me, not even the Avatar can get it back."

"...is that why they call him the Face Stealer?" Aang asked.

"He has a sizable collection," Sharif said dryly.

"Why is this all so difficult?" Aang asked. "I could have woken him up back in winter, the last time I was here."

"All respect due the powers of the Avatar, no you couldn't," Sharif said. "Koh is dreaming, and when one such as he dreams, it is a thing beyond any mortal ken to reach him. It will require a greater power than you alone are capable of producing, let alone directing. You will have to plunge into the nightmare of Koh, and drag him out of it."

Aang felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. "Okay. That should be easy," he said, trying to lie to himself. He only got that sentence out, when a glaring point of light burned into his eye, before expanding in blazing glory at the crest of the hill. Agni, clothed in flame, glaring of golden eye, stared down.

**THERE WILL BE NOTHING EASY ABOUT IT. KOH IS THE ELDEST OF THE FUNDAMENTS. HIS DREAMS RUN DEEP. HIS NIGHTMARES, DEEPER AND DARKER STILL.**

The powerful, grand and above-all-else _loud_ voice of Agni billowed back Aang's clothes as the words reached him. "I was being sarcast...ic..." Aang said. Agni glared down at him. "...it's a thing humans do."

**PITY, THAT THE AVATAR CHOOSES TO BE HUMAN.**

Aang blinked at that for a moment, and looked to Sharif. "Chooses?"

"You'd need to ask her," Sharif pointed to Korra, who was fiddling with a weird looking branch nearby.

"Korra?"

"You'd need to ask somebody else," Korra said, warding his question instantly.

"Um... Agni?"

**THE BEQUEST OF THE AVATAR IS A SPIRIT AND A SOUL, BOTH AND NEITHER AND GREATER. IT DEIGNS TO FACE LIFE IN A SMALL, MORTAL SHELL, TO UNDERSTAND SMALL, MORTAL LIVES. **

Aang winced at the blast of heat and noise that came off of what amounted to a god, before turning to Sharif. "Does she know how to talk normally?"

"She's the sun. Of course she doesn't," Korra pointed out. Aang gave her a look. "Hey, if I was the sun, I'd be shouting all the time, too."

"I shudder to think of that one as the sun," Sharif said. He leaned aside. "Are you two quite finished? The Avatar has better things afoot than to further terrorize you."

"You don't know that!" the girl called Hisui shouted, peeking around a dead tree on the side of the hill.

"Hai, stop trying to creep up on the Avatar," Sharif said, impatience clear in his tone. Aang looked around, not understanding, until Sharif reached aside him and made a swat, which ended with 'Hai', staggering forward as he was cuffed upside the head. "Now, can we all be civil?"

"How did you..." Hai began.

"I am five times the shaman you are, Hai, do not think your meager tricks could fool me," he said brashly. "Agni, who else comes to this mad quest into the vortex's heart?"

**YOU NEED NO OTHER THAN I. THERE IS NO STRONGER IN THE COSMOS.**

Sharif clucked his tongue. "Be that as it may, who else is coming?"

Aang was answered by his shadow starting to distort, twisting and warping like a flag in the breeze. Then, he looked down and realized that his shadow was supposed to be directly _away_ from Agni, not off to the side of him. He froze solid, eyes wide, as his shadow broke free of his feet, slithering to one side near Korra, before massing up. Darkness welled, and then split. But not with crimson, as Aang had been fearing. Instead, it sliced open with panes of silvery light, mirrors floating in an ebon fog. After a few moments, the mirrors rotated within themselves, and lowered to the ground, assuming the form of a gargantuan panda. "Heibai!" Aang said brightly. The panda gave a low grunt, and sat down, staring intently at Agni, who glared down at him.

"Wait, did you just say that _that's_ _Agni_?" Hisui asked, pointing to the nude woman, clothed in flames and smoke.

"Please, try to keep up," Sharif said, kneading his brow.

"I can't believe that I'm the one to have to do this, but can you all please shut up and take a number?" Korra asked, obviously her patience completely spent. "I get that we're all stressed out, some of us terrified, and most of us a little confused. But we're trying to save the world, and we can't do that if we're running around like a lizard-chicken with its head cut off!"

"Korra is, for a wonder, right," Sharif said. "Hisui, Hai, stop flinching and plotting. Agni, stop insulting the Avatar. Heibai, mind your manners; if Sohma heard that, he'd eat you, and you would ill enjoy that, I think."

**YOU DARE!**

The insult of a god was cut off by a thunderclap, as Irukandji returned with all the bombasm that she typically employed. "Alright, who's dead?" Irukandji asked, and looked around. "Nobody? Booooring," Irukandji said with rolling eyes. Then, she clapped and rubbed her hands together. "Alright, Yue and La should be here any second now. And after that, it's just a short walk to the Nightmare Hallow."

Sharif scowled. "No it isn't."

"It is if I want it to be. Who's holding the Spirit world together? You, or me?" she asked. Silence. "That's what I thought. Five, four, three..."

On an unspoken one, there was a sudden brightness, as Aang looked down, and noted that he did indeed have a shadow once more, pooled around his feet. His hands seemed to shine slightly, with a white light that was all the more muted on his tattooes. They seemed positively black. When he looked up, he could see why. Where once the heavens hung empty, now the pristine white orb of a moon unmarred by what craters and whatnot had come, shone down with light not technically reflected off of anything. A beam of that light, mellow and soft contrasting the harsh incandescence of Agni, came flowing down, touching the baked soil. For a moment, the cracked clay shone like pearl. Then, standing when the beam retracted, was Yue. "Yue!" Aang cried. "It's been so long; what's happened!"

"This isn't the time," Sharif cut off.

"Things are well," Yue said, then there was a twitch in her face, and she looked down. "No, things are not well. We're freezing. The world is dying, and..."

"And we're all where we need to be to do something about that," Irukandji interrupted. "Ladies, gentlemen, and miscellaneous supernatural other, please follow in the path that I lead, follow my footsteps exactly, keep your arms and legs inside the path at all times, and thank you for fl... no, wait, that's a century too early. Nevermind," She waved a hand. "Just keep up."

And with that, followed by a confused look and a grunted 'I dunno' to Yue, they all set off, walking a path that leapt up before Irukandji, crossing an ocean of blackness.

* * *

><p>"That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Fire Nation," Zha Yu said, pointing ahead of them, as they crushed through inch-thick ice in their boats. "...more or less."<p>

"Are you certain?" Sativa asked, and her suspicion wasn't exactly unwarranted. Zha Yu had heard of a lot of things in his fairly long life, but snow in this part of the world? Never. The clouds which hung perpetually over the edge of the continent were no great surprise; instead, the surprise came in the form of the white that covered black sands.

"I'd stake my reputation on it," the earthbender said. He then gave a glance to the Water Tribesman next to him.

"By that, he means he'd stake _my_ reputation on it," Bato said dryly.

"This is not how we planned things," Sativa said. "Attrition will be cruel."

"Not if we can contact the Avatar's group soon enough," Zha Yu hastened. "You don't put a lot of faith in your girl, Sati."

"I put as much faith as the girl deserves; it is an impossible situation, and had she not barged out the door in her foolish quest, I would have forbidden it! And even then, she would have done it anyway, to spite me!" Sativa snapped.

"Her mother's daughter," Zha Yu said, leaning toward Piandao. The swordsman didn't crack so much as a smirk, though. And the Mountain King had a fair notion why. It was the first time that Piandao had come home in years. And to see his home like this?

"I see a signal; that must be them," Bato said, moving along the ice-limned rail and toward the prow, leaning as though the few inches would make the difference. He leaned aside. "Helm! A-starboard comes a flare! Turn to!"

"Aye! Turning to!" came the call from the far end of the ship, and with a creak of wood taxed beyond what its creators had ever intended, it turned its path, breaking a new furrow through the skin of ice. There was no one ship of Water Tribesmen in this rag-tag fleet; instead, every single one had a Tribesman at the helm, and as many as they could spread. They'd needed them to get across the oceans as the summer began.

But ever since the solstice, the oceans became frighteningly calm. Like they'd given up fighting.

"Think that ice'll support my weight?" Zha Yu asked, as they turned once more, putting the port to the shore.

"Probably not," Hakoda said. "It's not nearly thick enough."

Zha Yu shrugged. "I'll improvise," he said. "Sati?"

"Of course," she said, gesturing him forward. She paused and turned to Hakoda. "You should come as well. You have as large a stake as most in this."

Hakoda nodded, and then cracked a smirk. "And it'll be interesting to see what mischief my children have gotten to in the 'belly of the beast'," he offered a chuckle.

"Knowing them, they probably started a revolution," Bato said.

"Hah, hah," Sati said flatly. While news was very, very scant during their slow crossing of the hellish seas, the news that they did get told them of the Blue Turban Rebellion in the Ember Archipelago. Which surprised the hell out of Zha Yu, because he didn't expect that out of people like Jet and Mai. They seemed so much more... subtle.

The other ships were beginning to turn and slow, coming into view through the falling snowflakes even at very short distances. The Mountain King looked down, off the port side, toward where the signal of red light cast out to sea, muffled by so much snow, looked out to them. He looked down at the ice, and pulled a hand up. With a crunch, the earth erupted out of the water, pushing the ice aside. He squeezed his fists, forcing the water out of the sand, and turning it into something of a jetty. With a satisfied nod, he hopped over the side and slid to a halt on newly formed sandstone. He turned back just in time to catch Piandao from falling off the side, and he in turn caught Sati.

He struck the snow from his shoulders as he started toward the proper shore, raising up the sandstone before him as he went. Once he'd gotten closer, he could see that the beacon was a permanent structure, much to Zha Yu's surprise. He gave a glance back, wondering if this might be some kind of trap, but he had faith that he, at least, would be able to get out if push came to shove. Say what you would about him, he could shove pretty hard. Past the beacon there was a path, set with interlocking stones, leading up the hill. He could see a building that overlooked the water, but no sign of whose it would be.

He continued to walk, and noted the stand beside the path. Unlike this place, where his boots cut furrows into essentially virgin snow, there were recent, dainty looking footprints heading up and toward that house, and a small fire cast flickering light while the wind gusted against Zha Yu's back and blew snow ashore from the sea. He leaned to one side, trying to get a better view; the stand was empty, its seat vacant. After sucking air through his teeth for a moment, spent in mildly paranoid contemplation, he turned, and saw somebody carefully descending toward him. It looked to be a girl, from the shape of her, one well bundled and head down. Her mittened hands were cupped around a bowl of something that cast up steam. She was walking straight at the Mountain King, but with the snow in her face, she didn't look up to see him.

"_Excuse me?_" Zha Yu asked in the language of the land. The girl froze instantly, big brown eyes turning up toward him, before they winced and flitted half-closed once more to keep the fluff from banging into them. "_You wouldn't happen to be in the market for some fine textiles, would you?_"

It was something of a gamble to ask a stranger – a teenager at best – the code phrase to contact the Seamstress, but given all of the other problems that he'd faced, this would be a drop in the bucket. "_You're th-th-th-the Mountain K-k-king_," she said, obviously shivering so much that her teeth were chattering. Not the answer that Zha Yu was expecting.

"_What? That's preposterous. He died __years__ ago_," Zha Yu scoffed. The girl rolled her eyes, though.

"_Ab-b-bout time_," she chattered. "_N-n-none of my sisters w-w-would come out in the c-c-cold. M-m-mother is waiting for you_."

Zha yu blinked in confusion at the girl, who turned around and moved up toward that house once more. He then glanced back, and noted that from here, you could barely see the water. Well, no great surprise that somebody needed to keep a watch. Sati was only now stepping onto the shore, Piandao close at hand – pardon the pun – as he always was. He gave a nod upward to the house. "I suppose we've been expected. But not by who we think."

"What do you mean?" Sativa asked as she came to a range where she wouldn't have to shout to converse, as the Mountain King had.

"I might be mistaken, but that looked like one of Nami's interchangeable brood," he pointed out.

"Do you suspect treachery?" she asked him.

"From Nami? No. She's sensible. She would have had a lot more reason to oppose the government if Ozai was still in power, but I think she'll be amenable anyway," Zha Yu said. He cracked a smirk. "I'm amazed that you're asking my opinion on these things. Wasn't it your idea to go full-steam-ahead, and damn the torpedoes the last time you tried something like this?"

"And you will clearly recall how abject a failure that attempt was," she said. "Secondary objectives to not a success make."

"True enough," he said. A wave toward Bato told the Tribesman all he needed to know. Hakoda, though, had taken ashore and was now catching up to them. He looked around, somewhat confused when he reached their place, at the foot of a stairwell that went up and toward the side of the manor-house they had reached.

"This doesn't look like our doing," Hakoda mentioned.

"It might be, peripherally," Piandao mused. The Tribesman had to accept Zha Yu's shrug and keep step with them, else be left behind with a swordsman's musings. They reached the door to find it open. Another of the identical sextuplets – with their single obviously fraternal 'twin' sister rounding out the seven – held the door open, and gave those entering a wide berth as they did. The girl with the snow-covered mantel shook it off, and began to sip at her bowl of soup, sitting down out of the way.

"_Mother is expecting you,_" the girl at the door said as she pulled it shut behind them. Zha Yu pushed the door open before their doorwoman could reach it, to her chagrin, and found the next room well appointed, and housing the rest of their confusing litter. One, though, was obviously older, more weathered even as she was curvaciously mature. She looked up from a cup of tea, breaking off mid-sentence whatever the glamorously dressed of her daughters was saying. She took a sip, then set the cup down, and gestured to one of the couches nearby.

"_Well, you must be the invading army, here to topple the Burning Throne_," she said lazily.

"_And you must be the traitor who sheltered the Avatar and foments discord everywhere you go_," Sativa answered just as easily.

The woman paused, though, and turned to Hakoda. "_Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that your usual companion wasn't here. We haven't been introduced_," she trailed off, and looked to Zha Yu. "_Does he speak Huo Jian?_"

"_Hakoda, High Chief of the Water Tribe,_" he said.

"_So you do. Apologies, I can't be too sure,_" she said. She rose, and gestured once more, and more elegantly aside. "_Hakoda, I am Nami Baihu, of House Baihu, inheritor of Di Huo and the Hotomaya Factory City. And, as was said, I'm going to help you bring down the Fire Lord_."

* * *

><p>The Spirit world was getting more solid, which was in its way both comforting and concerning. Aang knew full well that every part ought be as blasted and disconnected as the floating rocks had been back where Sharif had waited for him. That the cracked earth was passing through more and more 'islands', all of which having almost the same level... he wasn't sure what that meant.<p>

"Yue?" Aang asked.

"Yes?" she answered.

"How... how bad is it, really?" he asked, his voice pitched low so that it wouldn't carry far.

"Very bad," she said, and left it at that.

"Is it this bad everywhere?" Aang asked, concern clear.

"Doubtless, it is as bad in the East," Sharif said. "Although they have much more experience with cold, either in winters or through frigid nights upon plains or sands."

"Their wells are starting to freeze," Irukandji said, and not more. "You need to focus; all this is just going to distract you, and," she snapped her fingers, "like that, you've got no face, and we're all deader than dead."

"I'll be alright," Aang said, breathing deep. He was going to be alright. He could do this. He could stare down what all described as an eldritch horror beyond the mortal ken, plunge into its nightmares, and poke it with a stick until it woke up. _How_ was this a good idea, again? "Why is this place more... together?"

Sharif shrugged, but the National shaman trailing at the back of the pack raised a finger. "Um... I actually know this one."

"Do tell," Sharif said with a dubious expression.

"We're entering Koh's genius loci," she said. "Really powerful spirits have places which are as much a part of them as their own flesh. I'm guessing this Koh and the tree he lives in are part of the same... legend, I guess?" Sharif gave a begrudging nod. "As long as Koh still exists, then so will the place where he lives."

"Which begs a question," Aang said. "Why hasn't Imbalance eaten Koh? I mean, it's eaten just about every other spirit in the Spirit world..."

"That is a question for which the only answer would come from Koh himself," Sharif said, as the tree came into view, the darkness not so much parting as sliding away like some sort of oily curtain from its surface. A glance up, showed the ring of light hanging above; Agni, framing the much softer light of La who stood before it. Astronomically impossible, as every eclipse was necessarily a new-moon, despite the full-moon glow coming down, but... it was comforting, to have both so readily at hand. He looked forward, to that great tree, and his feet bore him ever forward. He'd walked a path like this before. Half a year ago, maybe a bit less. Once he left the cracked mud, and stood on old and cracked roots, he could feel the difference. It ran like a chill up his spine, a whisper he couldn't quite hear. A touch on the hairs of the back of his neck. This was not a place for those such as he. He leaned down, touching the roots underfoot. They were different from the trees that Aang had found before. This one... it wasn't dead, mocking a tree in petrified death. This one was stubbornly, hatefully alive.

He bounded along the roots, taking the shorter path while the others simply circled around the harder terrain, and reached the cleft that headed into the heart of this tree long before the others. There was a darkness so great that it formed something like a wall. The combined light of Agni and La couldn't push the shadows loose of that aperture. Aang glanced to the others, who were slowly ascending to the point that he'd already reached. He reached forward, touching that point where light seemed to die.

It felt cold, but otherwise, there was no sensation at all. Even though he couldn't see the tips of his own fingers, his hand, his wrist as he grew more confident that nothing was going to eat him, there was nothing but an otherworldly cold.

"I wouldn't get too grabby," Irukandji shouted up to him. "Koh might not be awake yet, but there's no saying that a horrible beast of darkness couldn't be hiding in there, waiting for a morsel of human-flesh."

"Stop frightening him," Yue rebuked. The Spirit rolled blue eyes, not looking contrite, but not exactly arguing, either. She turned to the other shamans, and called them closer to her. "I believe I know what must be done."

"Really, and upon what authority?" Sharif asked.

Yue pointed straight up, to the great, mellow disc of La. Even Sharif couldn't dispute that one.

Aang took the spot of the circle farthest from the two Fire Nationals – because they'd actively sought that position, while each of Sharif and Yue took his hands. "Aang, you need to picture in your mind, a dream."

"...um, how do I do that?"

"Think back to every dream you've ever had. Think back to the absurdity. The randomness. The strange thoughts and strange logic. Think to the things you've done, impossible in the real world. The ecstasies of your wishes fulfilled, the agonies of your worst nightmares," Yue said. "Imagine it. Bring it into you. Hold it close."

Aang blinked at the white-haired girl, and tried. Dreams, huh? Well, there was that dream that he, Sokka, and Katara were sword-fighting over the rights to a pie. Or... or the one where Toph's head was a melon, and Momo kept eating her. He tried to hold those thoughts, but they sifted through his hands as the finest sand. So he tried something else, something more vivid. Something he would never forget, no matter how much he wanted to.

The path of failures.

In his mind, he was already reliving the dream, the nightmare that he'd had, over and over, each time growing longer and darker, more and more adding up and grinding down on him. Jeong Jeong, shaking his head in disgust, as Aang left him to die. Pakku, spitting on the ground before his feet, for failing to save him, and worse, for failing to save Summavut. 'Some Avatar you are', they'd hiss at him. 'You're going to let everybody down'.

Azula, slapping his face, telling him that she would never care for him, that he wasn't worth loving.

Katara and Sokka, leaving him behind, because he was slowing them down.

Malu, screaming and gnashing teeth at him, her eyes twisted scarlet, shot through with black veins, roaring at him with the same question 'why did it have to be _you_? Why did _you_ get to be Avatar?'

He never had an answer for her. He never had answers for everybody.

Aang looked up, and he didn't see anybody else around him. There was no tree. There were no other shamans. He could feel something like a tether, something that trailed up from the crown of his head, but he couldn't see it. And he didn't know where he was. He looked around. Dirt, cracked and dry. A smell... of copper. No, it was the smell of blood. There was a rush of a river running nearby. He walked toward it, his steps crossing the distance far faster than they should have. He looked down in the water, and he could hear not a babbling of a river, but the distant, quiet sobbing of people in terrible need.

"Where am I?" Aang asked.

* * *

><p>"<em>The Unholy Highest awaits...<em>"

* * *

><p>Aang looked at himself. He seemed to still be wearing his clothes, but there was a fragility to them, an impermanence. They were something foreign here. Much like he was. "I'm in Koh's nightmare," Aang said, understanding. He looked up into the sky, to the moon which hung, cracked in two as though cleft with a chisel. Then, he walked away from the waters. A few steps, each miles long, brought him to sands. Si Wong? No, he realized. This was no place such as Man had ever stood. A place which didn't yet exist. A place which might never exist.<p>

The Avatar walked, his strides eating ground, moving him along the river. But there was something that slowed him. He stopped, running his hands along wild-grain, that grew aside the river. There was something about it. He looked down, and saw how the roots spread atop the ground as well as under it. Rodents and frogs were trapped in the ever twisting grasp of those roots, and ever-so-slowly dragged out of sight. In the scant few seconds that Aang looked upon the wheat, he felt it clinging to his feet. He let out a yelp, and bounded back. It continued to writhe, those bits which clung to his footwear, for almost a minute after he kicked them off.

"I don't understand. What am I supposed to look for?"

There was a notion which came to him, the only answer he would get. Find a way to go deeper. Into the darkest recesses. Find Koh. Wake him.

He walked again, but his steps grew shorter, and not by his desire. He saw a city in the distance, a hulk which pressed darkly against the night sky. Some of the buildings seemed impossibly high, great pyres burning on their cloud-scraping roofs. The whole city stood, unabashed and brutal, on one side of the river. The other... the other lay monuments. He walked closer; and the closer he came to the city, the shorter his steps, until they were almost a normal, human stride. He could see a pad of stone, but upon that stone, a glass cat, staring at the city. He walked up to it, and put his hand to it. No, not glass. A ghost of a cat. A _memory_ of a cat. Why? He then looked beyond, to mighty, enormous ziggurats, which dwarfed any that had existed in the abandoned home of the Sun Warriors. They were old, and weathered.

"What am I supposed to look for?" Aang asked.

A buzzing hit his ear, and he looked up, just in time to let out a yelp of terror, as a swarm of locusts bore down on him, raining out of the sky and slamming into the water, into the buildings, into the monuments. When they struck, forms, twisted and mutated, raced out of the tall buildings on the far side of the river. They scooped up great handfuls of those vermin and shoved them into their mouths. Even from the distance of Aang standing on one side of the river, and they on the other, he could see that... that they were once human, and turned into something else. Something profane and wrong.

A scream pulled Aang's attention away from the horrible spectacle before him. The scream came from within one of those ziggurats. He gave a final glance toward those once-people, wishing that he could help them somehow. Undo the horrors which had been done to them. But this was somebody else's dream. It was beyond Aang's power.

He moved across the sands, and paused; at the foot of the ziggurat, there were profane offerings. Burnt people. Statues of horrid design, depicting centipedes writhing up out of the ground. Of tiny, twisted men offering each other to them. It was obvious that this Koh guy had some really _serious_ problems.

He moved past the statues, and the people prostrating themselves before them, begging for a release, for an end to their suffering. An end to their pain and their hunger. Aang passed into the structure, through a passage cut into the stone of the pyramidal temple, and straight into its heart. Another scream, this one a woman, where the other was a man. He kept moving, and finally entered a new room. A throneroom.

Upon the throne sat a man, but a man as twisted as his deeds. He had cut the skin from his own face and head, and pulled it back into a sort of hood, so that his red-meat face stared out through his own gaping lips. A hand with black fingers reached toward a man with yellow hair, and twisted, and the yellow-haired man screamed. Aang's eyes widened, as he crossed the line of others who were spread-eagled in the air before the throne. One of them was a woman, wearing clothes much more like Korra's than anything Aang had seen before. The other... looked like an older, greyer, more weathered Zha Yu.

"What's going on?" Aang asked. Black, soulless eyes glared not at the Avatar, but at the three in the air.

"I am Unholy Highest!" The foul king spat, sand running out of his mouth instead of spittle. "I was to bear the world into darkness! But you... you insolent animals..." he turned his attention to the woman, rising from the throne and pressing his hand to the back of her neck. She let out another scream. This time, though, Aang noticed something about that scream. It was loud, yes, and horrible... but it was empty and hollow. There was no pain there. Nothing was hurting. It was an echo, a wish never granted. "You with your stupid tricks and your evil technology... I had the killers of _gods_ on my side! And what did you have? _WHAT_?"

Aang side-stepped around the edge of the room. "I'm not here. Don't look this way. I'm not here," he said, trying to avoid the insanity. He saw a pit, filled with a blackness such that even the shadows of the rooms were pale against it. The mutilated madman didn't heed Aang's wishes though. His head turned, and bleak eyes looked on him.

"And who are you? Another worshiper of the great Paradox? Or are you one of _theirs_!" the Unholy Highest demanded, casting a crushing fist toward the yellow-haired man, who let out another loud, but hollow scream. "Answer me, boy! Do you feast on the Maggot Bread? Have you heard the whispers of the Monarch of a Thousand Voices?"

"I'm just passing through," Aang said, weakly, a terror nesting in his belly. Here, he was not the Avatar, the demigod in human flesh that could rewrite the very landscape if he needed to. Here, he was just a scared teenager, in the presence of horror. "I just need to..."

"No. No, you're not going anywhere," the Unholy Highest said, a hand reaching up, and shadows weeping away from their natural place to pool in that fist. "I may have been denied my birthright, but I _WILL_ BE WORSHIPED!"

Grey eyes flit aside, then legs followed eyes. He sprinted, toward that pit beyond the grisly throne. Bleak eyes turned, following him. He heard profanities screamed at the back of his head. Promises of agony and anguish eternal. He heard threats. He felt something coming closer, reaching toward him. The pit was of unreadable depth, and the blackness was absolute. He swallowed, but shot a glance over his shoulder. That once-human thing was moving toward him, a hand outstretched. Aang didn't want to know what would happen if that black hand touched him. He bounded over the wall of that 'well', and plunged into oblivion.

* * *

><p><em>No, not <span>oblivion<span>. The court of the King of Glass..._

* * *

><p>Aang landed hard on his chest, and his eyes instantly burned. He pressed them shut, but they still glowed pinkly through his lids; it wasn't until he held his hands over his eyes that he had something like darkness. He scooted, blind, across the floor until his back hit something. Then, he sat.<p>

The burning of his eyes didn't last forever. Slowly, minute by minute, the glare pulled back. Not completely by any stretch; it was harder to see than if Si Wong had been coated in scintillating glass, rather than sand, and that the sun glared full, searing, and far closer than it ought. He opened squinting eyes, pupils pin-pricks and still almost blinded for glare, as he slowly pushed his way to his feet. The wall he was leaning against was hot as stone in the desert. A careful look around showed that the terrain was much as his metaphor had predicted. Sand that glittered as diamonds stretched in every direction, save one. The air was stifling, stripping the sweat out of his pores and evaporating it in an instant. It did little to cool him.

He looked up at the structure he had pressed against. It was a beacon, of sorts; the lamp atop it burned brighter even than the sun, such that he could never look directly at it. Under his feet was a thoroughfare, built entirely of shining mirror-glass, that lead to a great structure; he'd landed beside the nearest beacon to the rotating pillar of shining glass and confusion. But he was not alone. Standing in proud rows were thousands of people. Their bodies were made of light, and they all stared reverently into the sky; circling above, something like human beings circled, flapping ivory wings and singing a song that continued eternally. There wasn't anything that resembled a shadow here at all. Everything was too bright.

"I've got to get out of here before I bake," Aang muttered, shielding his eyes from both directions, boxing in his vision so that he could only see the pillar-temple. If he got out of the sun – a sun which seemed like it hung a mere league above the ground – maybe he'd find better luck.

His feet were starting to sting and blister by the time he mounted the last of those glass-cut stairs, and entered the halls. If anything, it was getting ever brighter. Doors, leading ever inward and upward, were flanked by nude, winged people, androgynous of feature, and neuter of sex. The only reason that Aang knew they were 'people' and not statues, was because they breathed, and as they breathed, they prayed to something that they guarded. Their eyes... their eyes were missing, absent as though they never were.

"_Praise the sun; Praise Him. Praise the sun; Praise Him_" the litany continued, growing ever more clear. This didn't make any sense. Why would Koh be worshiping Agni, even in a nightmare? But... but that didn't seem like Agni. Agni was about heat, burning, not blinding. She was interested in flame, not radiance. And most notably... Agni was not a 'he', even by spirit standards.

Music began to vault higher, as the rings of rooms, flanked by winged near-humans gave way to a procession of daises, each one mounting higher. The highest was a room unto itself, its walls swelling up, toward the sun which beamed down from the heavens. By now, Aang was only able to see by peering between his fingers; even _that_ was now painful. But in all the structure, it was all glass and mirrors. There wasn't a shadow to be found.

"I must have jumped into the wrong hole," Aang murmured dryly, with mounting horror. The only place to go was up. Androgynous near-humans gave way to beasts with eight or ten or sixteen wings, the heads of vipers or wolfbats or... or '_lions_', every one bearing with them a burning sword and a flaming flail, crossed over their chests. They didn't move so much as an inch to prevent the rapidly dehydrating Avatar from moving beyond them, though. In its way, this place was almost as bad as the last one. Only the horror here was that... well... the songs were starting to worm their way into Aang's head.

He wondered if he stayed here much longer, he might start singing their song, and whispering their praises just like they did.

A long, hard shove on almost searing-hot metal bore the door open, and revealed a room every bit as bright as the ones behind. There were no winged beasts here, though. The only inhabitants of this room, were a fair-skinned, white haired and bearded man, laying on his knees, and the massive mirror set on the floor before him. Aang blinked, looking at the man. He had to be thirty or forty feet tall, and his lips moved as Aang moved closer to him.

"Hello? Who are you?"

"_I am great. I am one. I am all. I am great. I am one. I am all_," the man whispered to himself, staring at that mirror. Aang shook his head. The more that giant whispered, the more Aang started to believe it. That he, the Avatar, was just a figment of this person's imagination. A distraction from the city of glass and mirrors.

Aang cut himself off by slapping himself very hard across the face. Focus! Find the shadow!

He looked to the throne, which sat unoccupied at the end of the room. The instant he looked at it, he saw the shadow. For all the brightness of this room, the shadow was all the more absolute. A hard line of black against the relentless light. He first stumbled, then jogged, before racing toward that shadow with all he had in him.

He hurled himself into the darkness, hoping beyond hope that the light would end. That the chanting would end.

That the lies he was starting to tell himself would end.

* * *

><p><em>...or perhaps the God Emperor?<em>

* * *

><p>This time, when Aang hit the ground, it was in blackness. But that was a blackness that came from his eyes being essentially shut. Slowly, the world resolved itself around him, and he found himself in... in a marketplace. He looked around, wary of abominations, of mutants and beast-men and madness. He saw fruit and jugs of water, left alone. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he looked up.<p>

He shouldn't have looked up.

The sky was no sky. Instead, it was a sort of liquid chaos, churning and roiling. Things unseen pressed against the surface of that alien heaven, things that couldn't be understood by the minds of Man. They pressed, almost coming into view, before their strangeness proved too much, and the rules of What Was demanded they leave. It didn't help. Aang still knew that there were things in the heavens. Terrible, mad, insane things. He limped on blistered feet to a table, and tipped a basin a bit. The water which came out looked, smelled, and felt absolutely normal. His mouth felt like he'd been gargling sand. "I'm probably going to regret this," Aang said, his voice croaking. Then, he tipped back the jug, and drank in great and desperate gulps.

Water, and nothing more.

He finished one jug, and moved on to the one beside it. It went down just as sweetly. When he could drink no more, he let the water rain down over him, then just lay on the table, waiting until the heat of his flesh finally cooled. It must have been a while, because he was long dry by the time he even tried to get to his feet. He puffed out a breath, one that he'd been holding for a while. It came out hot, and the breath which replaced it was cool.

Better.

He slipped down off the table, and looked at the rest of what was offered. This was but one stall, one that offered refreshments and exotic looking fruits. Another, nearby, offered cloth by the bolt; a third, cobbled footware that bore a style somewhere between Fire Nation and Whalesh. Beyond that? More food, some sort of hanging, plucked fowl. Beyond that, a man, standing, staring at him.

Aang jumped back with a yelp of alarm.

"You... aren't part of this, are you?" the man asked, his tones regal, but quiet. Aang almost redefined him away from 'man', because now that Aang had a moment to look at him, he seemed like somebody had stitched together parts of a dragon onto human form, his eyes vertical slits, his nostrils flat and tall. He took a step toward Aang, who in turn took a step away. "You are no Primator of Dawn or Dusk, no Herald, no assassin of gods," the man said. He took another step, and Aang retreated again. This time, he held up a clawed hand. "Calm; if I wished you harm, it would have landed on you by the thousand-weight already."

"W...who are you?" Aang asked.

"An incorrect question," the man said. "A more apt one would be 'who _was_ I?'"

Aang glanced to an alley, but had a fair notion that this strange man was speaking simple truth with that veiled threat. "Then who were you?" Aang asked.

"Now? Dead, and what I was passed on to another in my place. My power, usurped by my enemy and those who fought beside him. But before?" he nodded slowly, his gaze sliding around the market, then up into the sky where Aang's eyes dared not linger. "Before... I was the God Emperor."

* * *

><p>"You have to forgive a certain level of suspicion, Lady Baihu," Piandao said, carefully pouring tea with his single remaining hand. "We were given to understand that we'd be meeting with the Avatar and the Seamstress, not with a member of the Embiar elite in good standing."<p>

"Understandable, if misguided," Baihu said. "From what I have heard? The Seamstress is dead. Of course, I've also heard the same of the Spider, but that simply goes to show how far you can trust the rumor mill in times like these. I don't doubt that the Spider is still alive, trying to retake his throne, even if not with a fraction of what he once commanded."

"Where is the Avatar?" Sativa pressed. Baihu only shrugged.

"I could only tell you his whereabouts at the time he was under my roof. Since then, he went to Boiling Rock, and from there, I couldn't say," she said. She raised her tea to her mouth, but paused there. "I do believe that he had no small part in the recent 'earthquake' that so destabilized Azul's rule, however."

"Why?" Sati asked.

"Because at the exact same time, Caldera City almost erupted. I haven't survived as long as I have by cleaving to coincidence," she said. She looked out into the hallway. "Gwen?"

"The ships are dropping anchor in the bay, Mother. We need to find some way to conceal them."

"Sweetheart, you overthink. Has there been so much as a _day_ since we came here that hasn't had torrential downpours or snow?" she asked. The teenaged girl, who had much of the expression of her mother if not quite her features, tensed her jaw, but didn't respond. Baihu sighed. "You should deal with the messengers. There's trouble with them. I can smell it."

"Yes, Mother," she said, before departing. Baihu turned to her guests.

"Gwen... she's got a good start, but she still has a long way to go if she wishes to be the next matriarch of this House," Baihu gave a shrug.

"So no reconnaissance, no allies, and no Sato," Zha Yu muttered under his breath, his usually jovial expression very dark and brooding. It was often said that the man ran hot or cold, with nothing in between. Seeing it in action was another thing. He turned to Sati. "I'm starting to think the universe is trying to make us fail."

"You're missing the obvious," Gwen's voice came from the next room. Baihu turned toward it. "Message from a friend of Tzu Zi; Sato is with the Gorks, and the Gorks are following the Avatar."

"Why did you not mention this before?" Baihu asked.

"I didn't feel it was relevant," the girl said, leaning around the door. "What was that about having a long way to go?"

"Sweetheart, not now," she said. Gwen rolled her eyes and went back into the other room.

"She's a fiery one," Piandao said. "I wouldn't dismiss her lightly."

"Says the man with no daughters. I've learned my lessons," Baihu said.

Not exactly true. He was pretty sure he had a daughter and a son. And he had no legitimate claim to them.

"What is that?" the Mountain King asked, pointing to something at Baihu's belt. It looked like a leaf made out of soft white light. "That's a Battery. Where did you get that?"

"My daughter gave it to me. What's a Battery?" she asked.

"Long story, complicated answer, probably not relevant," Zha Yu said, his expression still distant. That man thought on three levels at once, and only one of them had any semblance to sanity.

"If this Blue Turban Rebellion is as strong as you claim it is," Piandao said, pulling the conversation back to topics that mattered, "then we might be able to find allies there as well. Having a significant portion of the Embiar will be a massive boon."

"Doubly so, if members of the Fire Lord's army are unwilling to attack those who come from their towns, or even families," Sati agreed.

"I'm still surprised that _Zhao_ is the Fire Lord," Piandao muttered. Almost a decade of exile, ended by the passing of one man to another on the Burning Throne. And still, he was going to have to slit the hand that served him, because he knew that morally, there was no way that the man would be a _good_ Fire Lord, and practically, there was no chance that he would end the War before Sozin's Comet returned.

"Many more surprising things have happened," Baihu said.

"These Rebels," Zha Yu interjected. "Their leadership?"

"Essentially nonexistent, as I'm given to understand," Baihu said. "How such a force managed to march a mile, let alone besiege, storm, and capture Grand Ember City, I couldn't tell you."

"Somebody's going to have to do something about that," Zha Yu said. "So far, they've been dealing with token forces. As soon as they cross the strait, they'll be ground into paste by seasoned units. Without somebody lead them, and lead them well... they'll be wiped out in detail."

"That's a pessimistic way of looking at things," Piandao said.

"Realistic," Zha Yu said. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out that orb that he so often carried. Piandao leaned away from it.

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?" Piandao asked.

They looked at him, trying to untangle the net of negatives and implications he'd said. Huh. He usually found himself more clear than that. It must be the weather.

"If you're thinking that some military leadership has to go to the Turbans before they do something stupid, then yes," Zha Yu answered. "I'll go. Sati, you can..."

"Go with you," Sativa cut him off. He frowned at her. "You have some small talent in mustering irregular forces. My own is far greater."

"What about the rest of the army?" Baihu asked.

"How can deal with them readily enough," Sativa said. Piandao rose from his seat and moved next to her. "Yes?"

"Well, as you go, so goes my nation," Piandao said easily, his remaining hand on the shining blade which had served him so many years. Sati gave him a look, one that laid heavy with things unsaid, before giving a silent nod.

"How are you going to get there?" Baihu asked. "They're a thousand miles away."

"Easily crossed," Zha Yu said. He moved to stand before Piandao, and raised the globe. The swordsman caught his arm before it could raise too far.

"No, not here," he said. Zha Yu frowned at him.

"Why not?"

"I might be somewhat behind in Fire Nation etiquette, but I'm fairly sure it's in poor form to tear out a chunk of your host's floor," Piandao pointed out.

"Tear my _what_?" Baihu asked, incredulous.

The Mountain King sighed, and rubbed his face with broad fingers. "Right. Wasn't thinking," he cast a thumb toward the hallway they'd entered. "Well do this outside. Thank you for your hospitality, but the War waits on no man or woman either."

"I... see," Baihu said, obviously not doing so.

Piandao followed as the three of them left. And when they did so, Hakoda raised the cup from where he had sat, ignored, for the last fifteen minutes. "This is good tea, Ma'am," he said.

"...thank you?" Baihu said.

Outside, though, in the blowing snow, Piandao hitched his cloak tighter to his neck. It was fortunate he had such experience outside the Fire Nation, otherwise, he'd be absolutely paralyzed from the cold. "We could be walking into a massive trap," Piandao noted.

"If we are, then we do so as we always have," Sati said with a shake of her head.

"With open eyes," Zha Yu finished. He picked his spot, on the ground outside the stone-bricked path. He then raised the Dirak orb above his head. He paused, though, and turned a look to Sati. "You're not afraid of bees, are you?"

"Why would you ask that?" Sati snapped, but the nervous swallow told the story her words didn't.

"No reason," Zha Yu said. And he whispered in the language of spirits, choosing their destination. The orb reached out, pulling them all into a place outside of reality itself.

The Si Wongi woman's terrified shriek when they came out the other side with a few more guests than anticipated could practically be heard all the way in Ba Sing Se.

* * *

><p>"...God Emperor?" Aang asked.<p>

"Indeed," the hybrid man said, moving closer. Aang backed away. "Stop that. Unlike many of the other shades in this place, I understand that my time was at an end. Skaros, God Emperor of Adahlis is dead, his purpose fulfilled. I am an echo. A shadow. A ghost. No, that's not quite it. I am a _dream_."

"You know you're a dream?" Aang asked.

"I have been here for a very long time, outsider. I've had a lot of time to think," he said. He motioned for Aang to follow. Aang gave a glance to the sky, and its absolute wrongness, before moving with the older man. Still, he kept a fair distance from him. "You, for example. You don't seem as any of those I had known in life. You seek neither Dawn nor Dusk. You are not a god. And you don't have the twisted, vile taint of the Things Unknown... and yet you are every bit as powerful as the Fundamentals that underlie this reality. What does that make you, little Fundamental?"

"I'm... the Avatar," Aang said.

"A meaningless name to me, but obviously one of great importance to you," Skaros said.

"Can you tell me where the darkest shadow in this place is? I need to go deeper," Aang said.

"You can go no deeper than this," Skaros said. Aang pulled back, and the hybrid man sighed. "Not by my doing. Simply that there is no deeper layer. You have passed through some of the more recently unmade, humiliated, and conquered, I imagine. From your sunburn, I guess that you've stood before the King of Glass. The fool never believed he could be outthought. See what's become of him."

"It looked like he was lost in solipsism," Aang said.

"He is," Skaros said. "The Primators of Dawn have won. They need only fight the Things Unknown. My time is ended, and the dreamer can awaken."

"You sound like you know that this is all a dream," Aang said.

"It is. And at the same time, it is a reality every bit as true as whichever one you come from," Skaros said with a equivocating gesture. "Such is the power of the Dreamer. What _is_, is what he demands. He demanded I be, thus I was. He demanded that the Man Outside Time, that She Whose Name Is Knowledge, that the Lawgiver, be, and thus they were. He demanded the gods be, and they were. He demanded that they fight a foe every bit as powerful as they... and so were the Things Unknown."

"Wait..." Aang said. "These 'Things Unknown'. What are they?"

Skaros turned a lizard-eye toward him. "Those things which exist in contradiction to reality. The things which can never be, the things which unmake those that are. Those things which demand oblivion."

"Imbalance," Aang said.

"A new name, then?" the once-God-Emperor said.

"That's what I'm fighting. Something that sounds like these 'Things Unknown'. Did... did Koh create them?"

"I could not say," Skaros said, running a clawed hand up and down a pillar, which ran straight and true with a scroll-like cap at its summit. "It is certainly within the Dreamer's power. He can create anything he wishes. Even things he cannot control."

"But did he?" Aang asked.

"I don't know," the man said. "Why do you want the Dreamer's attention?"

"Because it's the only way that I'll be able to fight Imbalance in my reality."

"Then your timing is immaculate," Skaros said with a sharp-toothed smirk. "Even now, the great battle swirls within this dream. A battle which I cannot view. That I'm only aware of because the Dreamer wants me to be."

"What were you?" Aang asked, still confused. At least he wasn't trying to brainwash or attack him. That was a plus.

"The villain," he said. "I sought a night for the gods, to overthrow them, to consume them, to take their power and use it for my ends. My opposite sought a daybreak, with much the same goals, but different means. I almost succeeded. And then, not."

"Everybody I've seen has been... well, kinda evil," Aang admitted.

"The Dreamer does _love_ his villains," Skaros gave another smirk, but this one full of schadenfreude. "He doesn't _want_ the Dawn Primators to win, but he will _allow_ it. That is his way, you understand? He will give you _nothing_; nothing but a chance. And it falls to you to use it. I failed in this. The Saoshyant did not."

"But... if reality ends, he'll die too. He's got to help me," Aang said.

"The Dreamer can simply Dream another world into existence," Skaros said. "All he needs is to know it must be done. He has no stakes in your world, any more than he has in mine. He just wants to know how things end. Where they go. What becomes of the things he's made."

"But..."

"There is as much arguing with the Dreamer as there is punching down a tornado, or killing your own grandfather before he sires your father. Impossible, and pointless besides," Skaros said. "You will need to do ask a very specific thing of him. And only you could know what that is."

"How?" Aang asked.

"Because of what you are," Skaros said, looking Aang up and down. "You are the opposite of the Things Unknown. Had I had you in my grasp, I would have destroyed them ten thousand years ago. I feel it is so with your world," the once-God-Emperor gave a nod, then turned away. He cast a clawed hand down a street which was laid over with darkness, but not the pristine black that had lead him layer upon layer deeper. "The one you seek is there. The Dreamer upon his bed. Beware him."

"Okay..." Aang said. The dragon-man continued to walk, and the heavens reached down to him, that fluid chaos slowly enveloping him. He offered words over his shoulder, not even turning back.

"Farewell. And good luck. You will need it."

With that, the heavens pulled up, and he was gone. Aang turned down the street, and took a deep breath. No expression. No fear. No surprise. No expression at all.

He was sweating by the time he started walking. And he didn't like how creeped out he felt as he went.

The street continued, growing blacker, until the lines of a crumbled civilization gave way to something that seemed to be blindly emulating it, not understanding what it was meant to be, and not understanding what went where. Trees grew in the shapes of buildings, their roofs the canopy of leaves. Conversely, shrubs were rendered in marble, their leaves locked in place forever. The darkness continued, and Aang wished he could light a flame for himself. He held out a hand, and gave it the distant shot.

He was honestly shocked when the flame came into being. And when he looked ahead, he saw legs tapping on the half-natural pathway before him. There were hundreds of them. He forced his face to neutrality, and looked up, staring up the bark of a great tree which had overtaken a palace, and saw, clinging to its side, a creature out of horrors. The body was much like a centipede, rendered in unspeakable scale. But at its end, which now swung toward him, there was an aperture like an eye. Its edge was an angry red, and when it opened, for an instant, Aang took a step back in alarm, thinking that the Eye of Terror had opened before him. Instead, a mask appeared, staring down at the Avatar below him.

"_Avatar. We meet again at last_."

It was not the face which spoke, but rather, everything. The stone under Aang's feet. The air around him. Every part of this reality spoke as one. "I have tried to contact you. You were asleep," Aang said, keeping his tones very flat, and his face even flatter. That mask drew closer, as the great bulk of Koh skittered down that great palace-tree, and began to coil around Aang, that head watching him with unbreakable scrutiny.

"_And I've been sleeping for quite a while. How rude of you, to intrude on my dreams_."

"We need your help," Aang said. The eye blinked, and when it opened once more, it showed a different face. This one, of an old man, wizened and lank-haired. "There is a force which is unmaking reality, trying to consume everything. But we don't know how to fight it."

"_And why would you fight it?_"

Aang almost frowned, but managed to school his expression before he did. He watched Koh out of the corner of his eye, as the behemoth continued to mount up and down, to slither around him. "Because if we don't everybody will die. It will be as though nothing ever was."

"_So why fight at all? You yourself have said that you don't know how. Why waste effort?_"

"Someone _has to_ fight it," Aang said.

"_And that must be you? The Avatar, rising to defend that which is, once again. The stakes, so hopelessly high, the enemies so hopelessly great..." _

"Yes," Aang said simply. The eye blinked again, and a face like a demon, miscolored and four eyed, glaring at him.

"_Why__ must it be you?_"

"Because there is nobody else," Aang said. The demon face lunged toward him, stopping a hair from touching its flat nose to Aang's own.

"_**Your sin has always been hubris!**_"

Aang leaned back from the scream that came from all directions. The face then blinked once more, and became a brown eyed, dark haired Tribal woman. "I don't know anybody else who can fight this. I just want to protect what I love."

"_And you deny that to your enemy?_"

The Avatar almost rose his eyebrows at that. But he didn't. Barely, but didn't. "Imbalance has loved ones?" he asked. He never knew.

"_Does that matter? Do only the things which you bother to understand matter? Are you so arrogant as to think yourself the arbiter of what deserves to exist?_"

There was a question that he needed to ask. One that only he could say. What was it? It was at the tip of his tongue, like the words he used to call forth the spirits.

"Does Imbalance exist?" he asked.

"_It does now_."

"What?" Aang asked. That'd been a delaying tactic, but the answer...

"_Before, it didn't exist. Now it does._"

"What do you... Wait. That dragon-man was right about you. It exists because you say it exists!" Aang said, his face slipping somewhat. He tried to pull it back, but only then noticed that the Face Stealer wasn't looking at him. The scuttling continued as the body uncoiled, only to ascend the wall and then dangle the face of a young, white-haired man with a braided beard before him.

"_I simply recognize the obvious. But in its way, that is a power in the Spirit World beyond compare, now isn't it?_"

"Koh," Aang said. "Can Imbalance be undone?"

"_No_."

"So there's no way to defeat him..." Aang said, trying very hard not to let the dread slip onto his features.

"_What's done, cannot be undone. You're asking the wrong questions_."

"Then why can't you just tell me what I need to know?" Aang asked, an edge of annoyed anger in his words, and only they.

"_I have as many answers as wise Wan Shi Tong. But not the way he does. He is knowledge. I am the riddle. Ask me the question, and I can answer it. Ask me nothing, and know nothing_."

In a weird way, that made sense. He only knew the answer if somebody asked the question. He couldn't volunteer it, because he didn't know it _until_ the question was out there. "So if Imbalance can't be unmade, can it be defeated?"

"_Yes_."

"How?"

"_Sacrifice_."

Aang almost raised a brow. "Sacrifice of what?"

"_Everything, of course_."

"How is that better than Imbalance winning?" he asked. The creature's eye closed, and opened to that mask once more.

"_That is something you'll discover for yourself. Unless you decide that the price is too high. Then, well... I can always find a new dream to distract me_."

The mask pulled back, and he let out a tension-filled sigh. "Is there any help _at all_ you can give me? Any advice? Anything?"

"_Only that the future is bleak in victory. The only thing sadder than a battle won is a battle lost. Although not in this case, ironically enough. Because were the battle lost, there'd be no sadness at all. There cannot be, if there is __nothing_."

"So we're on our own," Aang said, tones deflated. The head swung back toward him, looming close enough that the painted nose almost brushed against Aang's own.

"_You are never on your own. That is your greatest strength, your only weapon, and your only hope_."

Aang's eyes widened just a little. Hopefully not enough to constitute an emotion. Since he could still sense his face being there, he figured it didn't. "Together we can win?"

"_With sacrifice. Great... terrible sacrifice_."

Aang puffed out a breath. "Thank you. I don't know how much it helps, but it's better than nothing," he gave the horror a bow. "I must be going."

"_Indeed you must. One way or another, though... we __shall__ meet again_."

The Avatar turned, his feet moving mechanically before him, bearing him out of that place. The scuttling noise of Koh faded into the background, and then, into a white-noise that suffused the realm. He stepped forward, and with a start, he found himself standing on ossified roots, with the sun and moon hanging in a bleak-black sky. The other shamans all started, as though surprised, when he appeared before them. "I talked to Koh," Aang said.

"What? So soon?" Yue asked.

"You were there a matter of a few minutes at most," Sharif said. Then, he paused, staring into the distance with those wispy glowing eyes. "Which could be an eternity within the dream. Answer, obvious. What did he say?"

"That Imbalance can be beaten... but only with great sacrifice," he said.

The Tribeswoman in the bright blue dress rolled her eyes. "Well that was about the least helpful advice ever," Irukandji muttered. "That's like saying 'oh, guess what, the planet will still be spinning tomorrow'."

"Given the circumstances, that might not be a good prediction to make," the Fire Nation shaman said. Her brother gave an agreeing nod.

"Who asked you? You two don't figure into this at all," Irukandji snapped.

"They do now," Sharif said, bleakly. Aang wasn't sure why.

"Whatever," Irukandji said, tones of patience wearing out completely. "Go give away whatever it is you're supposed to. I'm going to go look for some way to kill the unkillable, since glowing-baby here can't do the smart thing."

"That's not sacrifice. That's murder," he said.

"Enough!" Yue shouted. "We're not helping anything by arguing with each other. Irukandji, you look through the Spirit world for something that can help us. Sharif, Hisui, Hai? Look in the Mortal world."

"That's for the best," Hai said, giving a glance toward a non-existent horizon. "It's not safe for a shaman in the Spirit world. We're long overdue for a blowout."

"Huh?" Aang asked.

"They're supposed to happen daily," Hai said, turning amber eyes to Aang. "We haven't had one in two months. That's got me nervous."

"And that has me confused," Irukandji said. "Right. Everybody wake up, back to your spots. Gotta do this right or there'll be hell to p–"

In the space of a blink, Aang wasn't standing on petrified roots. Instead, he was _freezing_. Snow bounded in on him from all directions, chill air cutting to the bone. Where was he? He saw snow in all directions, but couldn't see very far at all.

"Did you just drop me at random back into the Mortal world?" Aang asked the blizzard. It answered him by throwing snow down his gullet, and setting off a coughing fit. Take stock, Aang. Pajamas in a blizzard, no staff. No Appa. That wasn't good. "No, they wouldn't leave me where I'd die. So I must have to..."

Aang was answered by a flare of fire nearby. He recoiled from the brightening of the snow, and then, through the wind, heard the great mechanism moving. The train? He trudged through the snow, which was thicker and wetter here than it had been before, until he outright fell into the cut that they were in the process of creating, showing the tracks to the sky for so brief a time. A firebender gave a start and stopped his snow-boiling.

"Are you alright, kid? You look like you're half frozen!"

"I need to get back aboard!" Aang said, seriously hoping this was the same train.

"Back? You just wandered out of the storm!" the firebender shouted back.

"It's a long story!" Aang shouted. If there was one thing working for him, it was that he still had his headband, so they couldn't see his arrows. Then again, with visibility this poor, it would be doubtful they could anyway. The firebender shouted something, lost to the wind, to the others, and then trudged Aang to the conductor's train. Please be the same guy. Please be the same guy...

The door opened. It was the same guy. He looked down at his worker, then to Aang. "What? What are you doing out in the snow, boy?"

"I... Don't know!" Aang said, honest as a bell.

"Well get back on before you freeze to death! The last thing I need is a pissed off noble on my ass!"

"Yes sir!" Aang shouted. Then, with all the vibrancy and glee of a man walking to his own execution, he returned into the relative safety of the train.

* * *

><p>To say that Zuko slept restlessly was an understatement. He'd never been a very good sleeper at the best of times. When he was stressed, it got to the point of insomnia. But the thing was, there was only so long that a human body could go before it simply declared 'no more', and dropped wherever it was standing. Thus it was, even after that arrogant bitch of a spirit more or less said that it wanted to throw his sister out of reality, he still ended up curled up in a corner, dreaming of quietly frightening things. Dreams as usual, really.<p>

Until he shifted, and he bumped into something. It wasn't much, but just enough to get his attention.

"Mrphwhat?" Zuko said, with all the dignity that royal blood could bestow. He tilted his head, and saw...

"I was cold," Toph, who'd scooted up next to him, said quietly. And a bit defensively. "...shut up."

"Didn't say a thing," Zuko murmured. He really should do something about this. Because he was hardly in any sort of frame of mind to... nah, too tired.

He just flopped his arm over her, and went back to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>To answer some feedback I'd gotten:<strong>

**Combustion Man died exactly as I'd always planned him to. I remember not a few years ago when I read a story where they follow a man who survived hardship and trials, surmounted impossible odds. How he became something of a minor living legend to those who knew about him. How he lived with a Zen forged in hardship, and had a fire burning in his eyes.  
>And in the first paragraph that he meets the protagonist, said protagonist shoots him dead.<br>It's not about 'spectacle' or 'awe'. Sure, the looming spectre of a sparky-boom man didn't fall upon them very often. Sure, he died like a chump. That's because it's not always about what would be the most dramatic fight, or who deserves victory more. Sometimes, it's just about who can reload their gun first. And in his case, that was unfortunately him, Nila. I live to subvert expectations. That's pretty much what Avatar loves to do as well, so... yeah.**

**I'll be the first to admit that I might've bitten off a lot more than I could chew with the narrative the way it is. But the thing about that is, the only thing I can do at this point is chew harder. As I am not a man to abandon a story just because it becomes mired or complex, it's going to reach its end, even if a few threads need to be abandoned until the Epilogue. Sad, but it's the way it has to be for the sake of cohesion. After all, the very heart of this story, if you pare it down to its very essence, is how Azula and Aang finally end up together, and everything else just kinda... swirls around that.**

**Bah. I should just let my story speak for itself. But then again, I'm also desperate for attention. It'll work out. Somehow.**


	56. The Great Train Robbery

The train had picked up speed as it finally broke free of the worst of the snow, and finally made decent headway against mere flurries rather than blinding snowstorms. The tracks, now hugging steep-sided cliffs as they approached the border between the ludicrously deadly Azul and the much more pacific Shinzo, shed their mass, and now only played host to slush. Thus, they picked up speed. At the worst possible time, too. Because they needed time to think.

Sokka was rubbing at an imaginary beard, as he was so often wont to do. It was obvious, to him at least, that this train would have been more than adequate to bring the army to the Fire Lord's door, in time for the Day of Black Sun. However, and he agreed with Aang on this, leaving a bunch of refugees and desperate people in the lurch was just the other side of evil. Much as he liked to call himself pragmatic... even pragmatism had its boundaries.

Luckily, in deciding not to steal this train, he found himself on his sister's – and perhaps more importantly the Avatar's – side. "So how are we going to find a new train before the big day?" he asked. "We're kinda running out of time."

"Please, we have weeks," Azula dismissed. "The issue isn't going to be getting a new train, if we can just offload these people somewhere moderately safe and..."

"That's not good enough," Katara interrupted her. "These people have suffered enough. I'm not going to be party to making their lives any harder than they already are."

"If you doom them because your hopeless idealism blinded you to facts of reality, you're doing them more harm than you think," Azula snapped back.

"Zuli, calm down," her brother said.

"I am calm!" Azula shouted, anything but. "And don't call me Zuli!"

"Well, what if..." Aang began.

"This is all academic," the long-lost Tribesman said, leaning in on their conversation. "Especially if you can't get these people off the train. From what I've heard, they're clinging to it like a lifeline. You cut that lifeline, they will cut you back."

"See? We can't do that to these people," Katara said.

"Um. We could..." Aang tried again.

It was remarkable that they'd all gotten a relatively quiet car in the train. Probably because they numbered enough that others didn't feel slighted when social pressures had them move. Not that Sokka had any in-depth knowledge of Fire Nation social etiquette, by the by. He turned to his girlfriend.

"Well, you've been silent this whole time; what's your opinion."

"Moot," Nila answered, carefully adjusting what looked like a spyglass atop her favorite firearm. "I am no master of military matters. Leave that to more appropriate heads than I."

"Guys, why do you keep cutting...?" Aang asked.

"The fact is, if we remain on this train, then your armies are going to be left behind. That's not acceptable," Azula said, chopping her palm with her other hand. "Sacrifices have to be made, in order to achieve victory!"

"GUYS!" Aang finally shouted. All stopped, and turned to him.

"...what?" Zuko asked.

"What if we're looking at this wrong?" he asked. "What if all this effort we're putting into planning to unseat the Fire Lord is just effort wasted from what we should really be paying attention to?"

"Imbalance?" Malu asked from Sokka's side of the 'conflict line'. Toph, ruthless pragmatist that she was, was at the moment on Azula's. "But what can we even do to help that?"

"I don't know, but armies and fighting, and the Day of Black Sun won't matter much if we throw everything against Zhao, only to have the world die right after," Aang said.

"The problem with you airbenders," Azula said, her tones patient but unimpressed, "is that you are constantly staring at the horizon, so you never notice the rock under your feet. Yes, this Imbalance of yours is your greater threat. However, this is the problem we have now. We can't cross a bridge if we don't know which river it spans."

Aang sighed, rubbing at his forehead and the headband over it. It was easy to tell even to somebody regarded as comically oblivious as Sokka that the thing was really starting to get under Aang's proverbial skin. That he wished he could take it off once and for all. Pity, things just didn't tend to go his way on that front. Sokka rubbed his chin for a moment. Then, his eyes shifted over to his estranged clansman. He was staring into the distance, far beyond the boxy walls of the train cart they were riding in. "You've got something on your mind."

"Yes..." Kori said. "If I know the way that Zhao thinks... and I'd like to think that I do... He's going to take advantage of this civil war in Azul."

"Which would mean bringing forces away from the Azuli border, because they're no longer needed against internal conflict..." Zuko continued Kori's thought.

"Exactly," the Tribesman said. "They're coming back to deal with the Blue Turbans. And guess which way they have to come?"

"They're behind us?" Aang asked.

"They'd have to be. A few days behind at most, in this weather," Kori said. He shrugged. "You'll get your train, and you won't have to steal it from refugees."

"Good for everybody!" Sokka exclaimed.

"Not exactly," Zuko said, leaning back, his arms crossed before him. "Has anybody given any thought to how they're going to steal a train that's full to the brim with eager, wild-eyed soldiers, as opposed to terrified civilians?"

"Can't be that hard," Toph said.

"Can't be that hard?" Malu asked. "That sounds almost impossible!"

"You've got the Avatar on your side. Impossible is nothing," Sokka said brightly. Zuko clapped a hand onto his forehead. "What?"

"You do realize you've just begged the universe to make this eight times harder, don't you?" the firebender asked past his palm.

"I don't think the universe is listening to requests right now," Sokka said. He turned away from the others, who launched into their own squads, pro against con, plot against scheme, and turned to Nila.

"You've got something else on your mind, don't you?" he asked, far more quietly. She gave a glance to the others, and nodded.

"My brother," she said. She then pointed through the walls of the train, and beyond. Northeast. "Somehow he has freed himself, and is working for traitors of your enemy."

"...you're afraid for him," Sokka hazarded. Nila didn't shoot him a glare; she simply nodded, very slowly. Whew. Good to get it right from time to time.

"I don't want to lose my brother again," she admitted. He snaked an arm over her shoulders, and held her close. She leaned into him like he was the only thing keeping her from falling off a cliff. Her rifle was still in hand, but... Sokka looked up, to everybody. Not just the few civilians at the far end of the train, but the whole of the rapidly expanding Team Avatar. They were all afraid.

Nobody know if victory was possible, let alone if they could achieve it.

Sokka just wished that he wasn't as scared as the rest of them.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 16<strong>

**The Great Train Robbery**

* * *

><p>Kori stood out in the snow, stretching his legs as it were, while the conductors of the train worked in firebending shifts to melt the boiler water in its track-side tower so that it could get into the engine. The greatest irony of it all was that Kori could do in a second what had already taken them an hour – and counting – but if he did, he'd probably get strung up and lynched.<p>

"I suppose you're here to stop me?" Maya's voice came from behind him, which caught him somewhat by surprise. Not that he showed it. Instead, he slid his easy-grin onto his face and turned to her.

"And why, pray tell, would I do that?" he asked. His tones were oily, with an implication that he knew the answer she was about to give. The truth was, he was a bit in the dark why she even talked to him.

"I'm going back to Azul," she said, her expression resolute and stern.

Kori raised a brow.

"My country is tearing itself apart. The only chance they have is if I put a stop to this."

Kori gave a mild chuckle, and patted a hand on her shoulder. "With all due respect, Ma'am, that's absolutely idiotic."

Maya's face went from resolute to insulted in a heartbeat. She was really going to have to work on that; even the Avatar was better at hiding what he was thinking than she. "Wha...how..."

"Maya, Maya, Maya," Kori said, continuing to pace in the little circle that he'd cut with his boots. "As much as it'd give me a heady dose of schadenfreude to cast you naked and helpless into a meat-grinder of epic proportions, I have to be at least a little bit practical. If you go back to Azul, right now? You die. You'll die before you even reach the city. And definitely before you reach anybody you can trust."

"You're selling me short," Maya said.

"No, I'm being extremely liberal with your chances," Kori shook his head. "If your father's alive, then you're then his tool, which is worse than dead as I understand it. If he's not alive, then all of his enemies – and trust me, that man did have enemies – will rip you apart like an anomolokia on a baby bison."

"So come with me. You think so highly of yourself..." she began. Kori barked a laugh, which brought her to a halt.

"Oh, I've got no intention on going back to that place. I do value my own life, after all," he said. He turned to her. "Wait, did you think that I would instantly jump to your defense out of affection?"

"...a bit."

"Maya, let me be frank," he said, turning to her and setting his hands on her shoulders. "I find you psychologically repugnant. You're shrill and unpleasant, tyrannical in all your dealings, and about a quarter as sadistic as your sire. Which makes you only a bit meaner than your average murderer, but I digress."

"How dare you!" she said, trying to slap his face. Since his arms were where they were, he caught the slap easily.

"You're not my type," he finished with a grin. He then released her hand and took a step back. "However, as I'd like to think of myself as a halfway decent human being, I don't want you to end up dead. Call me soft hearted."

"You think I'm just going to stand here and let you insult me?" she asked.

"No, I expect that you'll give some serious thought to what you're doing," Kori said. "Me? I'm going to Caldera City, and I'm going to start a little civil war inside the organization that raised me from the day I was stolen from my parents. Half because they, you know, stole me from my parents; the other half, because there's a few people in there who really _don't deserve to get killed_ in what's coming."

"Oh. Well... Then what do I do, if I'm not going to Azul?" she asked.

"What would you do?" he asked.

Maya blinked a few times, pale eyes staring into his own very dark blue, before turning away. She took a breath. "I don't know. I'm supposed to be a master of politics and strategy, and Agni help me, I don't know."

"Well, think about your options," he said.

She looked toward the Avatar, then, down the rails which ended in Caldera City after skirting the mountains which turned one country into another. "I see two," she said. "First; join the Blue Turbans as the 'wronged daughter' of a tyrannical madman. That garners me support amongst the Azuli Nobility, because armed resistance to the master of the Burning Throne is about as noble a pasttime as anybody can hold, in their eyes."

"And second?" Kori asked. Now she was showing some brains.

"Join the Blue Turbans... and back the Avatar," she said.

Not what Kori would have expected for option two, but intriguing nevertheless.

"That'll make me a traitor in the eyes of the rich and powerful, but as we've all seen, there's a lot more poor than rich. Sensible minded people, not hidebound and locked in the past, will see the incredible value in having the tacit support of a demigod. Popular support amongst the ethnic Yubokamin, the poor, and the middle-class, would spur a movement to 'sweep the dross' from Azul's court."

"Well thought out," Kori admitted. "You'd return to Azul as its savior, rather than an opportunist trying to wrest it away from your father, and your betters."

"Options," Maya said, shaking her head. "Why does it seem like every one makes me feel like I'm whoring myself to somebody?"

"Everybody's a whore, Princess," Kori said, his arms spreading wide. "It's all a matter of price."

She glared at him. "You're disgusting."

"But I'm still alive, so I must be doing something right," he said with a grin. "So I presume that we'll be sharing each others' company for a little while longer, at least."

"How horrible," Maya said, deadpan. She looked to the Avatar and his group, who were now huddled amongst themselves in the lee of the coal portage building. For once, there was no snow stinging down, but the wind was nevertheless bitter. "This is such a strange age we live in. That the hopes and future of the Fire Nation depend on a Storm King."

"Air Nomad," Kori corrected. "But you're not wrong. We live in an age of madness, and stand amongst powerful people; their attention is deadlier than any axe or mortar. And the man – boy, really – we depend on is a... well, you've met him," he said with a nudge. She shrugged.

"Not what I expected," she said.

"The words stolen straight from the minds of everybody else who's met him, no doubt," Kori said.

"Do you think he can win?"

"Of course he can!" Kori expounded. She leaned back.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because if he doesn't, I'm worse than a dead-man," he said. "Have to keep optimistic about these things."

"Child, you are a madman."

"So are all of my brethren, apparently. In both senses of the word," with one final glance toward the craziest of the three Tribesmen – Sokka – and he began to tromp toward them, leaving the younger Azul behind him. It was the Prince's eye that caught him first, and burnished gold burned up at him. Oh, so he still wasn't welcome? Well, tough. "I suppose that your little scheme is already afoot?"

"It's just a matter of timing," Sokka said primly.

"I should let you know I'm heading in my own direction, now," he said. He looked to the northeast, in his minds eye, picturing that great span between Land's-End and the capitol. Not a short distance. But then, what ever was? "There are things I need to do."

"Kori..." Katara cut in, as he half turned away. "What about our sister?"

"She who is Yoji and Hikaoh?" Kori asked. She nodded. "If I know her... and sadly, I do... she's probably denying herself as hard as she possibly can. She won't give up what was given to her until she's broken free of it. And that won't be pretty, I assure you."

"There's got to be some way we can get her back."

"Probably," Kori said. "And it won't be easy," he patted her shoulder, hopefully in a reassuring manner. "But if anybody can do it, it'd be you."

"Because you have faith?"

"Only in your stubbornness," Kori said. He cracked a smirk. "You could stubborn some sanity into a drooling idiot. You'll find a way."

"Thank you," she said, patting his hand. He gave a nod.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I've expended my daily allotment of 'not being an ass', so I'd best leave before I say something that makes you hate me all over again," Kori said, with a flourishing bow, and backed toward the train.

"Child!" Zuko snapped before he could get away. Kori looked up at him. "We aren't done."

"After the shellacking I gave your sister, on two different occasions, I didn't presume we would be. But there'll be plenty of time to hate me if we all survive this. Who knows? You might even get a rematch."

"Good. Whatever," Azula said, her attention locked somewhere elsewhere, and her tones distracted. That got Kori confused once more. Her, not pursuing a means of revenge? How unlike her.

"Truce," Zuko said. "For now."

"And so it goes," Kori said, and turned toward the train. "Maya! Come! We've got some reputations to destroy!"

"Yes. Mine," she said.

"And won't that be half the fun?"

"...I should have let that anomolokia eat you," she muttered once more, and Kori could naught but laugh.

* * *

><p>She wished that she could glare her hatred straight into the Mountain King's skull, and have its raw heat bore a hole clean through so she could see daylight whistling threw. However, that might have just been because of the bee-stings.<p>

"If you do that, you're all going to die," she declared, looking over the map that they had arranged. Grand Ember was much as Sativa remembered it, from the lone time she'd come to it so long ago. She was barely older than Nila was now, when she boarded that boat as a stowaway. And everything that came after it, it all started there. Such a hodge-podge had gathered in the metropolitan heart of the Ember Archipelago. To one side, there was Boto Toturi, the former fisherman. As uneducated as a man could be, he was rude, crude, and hadn't an ounce of culture to him, but he had the distinction of being one of the first to the fight, and to the Blue Turbans, that made him a default leader. And in its way, having him so rough was a godsend; it meant that he never planned with his pride. The other side of the spectrum were the Loyo Lahs, uncle and niece. Azuli nobility, and as such, clearly resisting the master of the Burning Throne with all that they had. Or so the common opinion went. That the two of them had very personal reasons for disliking either of Ozai or Zhao didn't matter to the mob. Why would it?

"Excuse me?" the Matriarch of Kyoshi Island asked. "I'd like to think I know my way around a maritime invasion, Badesh."

"Perhaps, for you are more nautical than almost any Easterner I could name," Sativa admitted. Well, the words sometimes flubbed, from her swollen and bee-stung lips. She persevered. "But this is more than an action in the dark; it is to be a clash of armies. Your plot assumes that the army... _materializes_ to the rear of the Fire Nation force. You neglect that this will be a storming of a cliff-walled beach."

"I'm not neglecting it. It'll only take a small force to secure a route," the Matriarch said, pointing to a cataract that ran near the city where so much military buildup had transpired.

"Were this a standard army, staffed whole with regulars, I would agree," she said. "But this is a most irregular force, I'm sure you will agree," she turned a look to Boto, who nodded.

"Pains me to admit, but that won't be sneaky," the fisherman-general said. "We're going to call down a lot of shells and a lot of fire before we get everybody in a spot where we can fight back."

"So what would you do?"

"Coordinate," she said. "Zha Yu?"

"The coalition forces out of Omashu will be coming soon. When the come, they'll be in a position to pressure the city from the north," the Mountain King said, setting down some markers on the other side of the sea of red that blanketed the other shore upon this map. "Which will distract them long enough for yours to pressure them from the south. When they break, they break west."

"Simplistic," the Matriarch said.

"The way I like it," Zha Yu answered her.

Sati, though, took the opportunity to rise, backing away from the table. It was a cruel progenitor who instilled humankind with an urge to prod at their own wounds, and she cursed he or she mentally, because she couldn't help but do exactly that. Piandao noted her egress, and was quickly falling in beside her as she left the ad hoc war-room, which lay under the dome of Yuchiban Palace. "You look exhausted," Piandao said.

"I am, however, I shall have time to sleep upon my death," she admitted.

"Sati, you'll die if you don't sleep," he mirrored.

"There is too much to be done," she said continuing to stride. Even so, with her ground-eating pace, he kept up with her. It was mostly to do with the fact that he was almost a foot and a half taller than her.

"And you're the only one who can do it?" the swordsman asked.

"Yes."

"Sati..."

The Si Wongi stopped, and palmed her face with a tattooed hand. "What do you want to hear from me? That there is no better head for soldiery than I or the Mountain King?"

"I'd like to hear that 'or' a bit more often," Piandao said. "You don't need to support the weight of this entire war on your shoulders."

"Mine are the only I can trust," she said bitterly.

Piandao sighed. "I'm sorry that you feel that way."

She wanted to tell him that she would be fine, but knew she wouldn't. She wanted to tell him that she could direct this war with distinction, without aid, but knew she couldn't. Her pride was in the way from asking for help. Pride. How much good had that ever done her?

She could as much cut away her pride as she could restore Piandao's lost hand.

"You are free to do as you would," Sati said. "I will be safe enough in the heart of the rebel camp."

"That's not why I stay close," Piandao said.

She looked at him, then. Dark grey eyes met with green. "Piandao... No. It is too late."

"It's never too late," the swordsman said. "And with the world the way it is, what is the harm?"

"We had our chance. And tragedy befell us; an old flame, burned out, cannot be reset."

"You've never even tried," he answered her, his voice so soft.

"How could I?" she asked, her mask cracking a bit. "How could I demand of a man, after all that I'd done on my own? Not even of my reputation, but of my sense of self! And what man would happily harbor children of unknown paternity?"

"I would have," he said.

"You cannot say that," she said. "You never knew the stresses I faced. You never knew the trials."

"Because you didn't let me know," he told her. "Sati, you didn't have to live like you did for all these years. I know how unhappy you were. And you didn't have to be."

"How can you know of me better than I?" she asked, jabbing an ink-imbued finger into his chest. "What hubris says you know me so well?"

"There was a time where I knew you better than my own name. And you could say the same of me," he answered. And then, he sighed. "I don't know why that had to change."

"All things change, all order breaks down, and entropy always wins," she said grimly.

"Of course it does, if you don't bother to fight it."

And of course, Sativa was torn. There was a section of her that wanted to grab ahold of him, to weep decades of misery and strain into his shirt. That was, however, a small and well compacted section. So instead, she simply took a step back. "And how can we fight the landslide that has already begun? It. Is. Too. Late."

Piandao answered that, with all of the swiftness and certainty that his martial arts were renowned for. In one instant, he was standing apart from her, his maimed hand tucked behind his back, his eyes sad, his posture proud. The next, he was before her. Enveloping her. A wounded arm pulled her close to him, while the other cradled her head, tilting it back. Lips met lips. And for a brief, and glorious time, there was no war, there were no decades of separation, and there was no death.

Just the two of them. Sati and Piandao.

It ended, as so often it did, because she couldn't bear it. "No. No this must stop," she said.

"Sati..."

"I cannot do this. I simply cannot!" she said. She would never admit to the tears in her eyes. Or to anybody, that she wanted to make a liar of herself. But she knew that doing this would be catastrophic. That it would be a repetition of the agonies after Ba Sing Se, be it the first time or the second. She didn't want to do that to him again.

She didn't know if she could do that to herself again. If she could ever dare to let him close again.

"I never stopped l..."

"Do not even say the words," she cut him off. "Not here. Not now."

"Sati, please..."

She shook her head, and walked away, leaving him standing in the hall, alone. It was a hard thing, to be smart enough to know when you were being monumentally stupid. Because Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar definitely had that sensation, right now.

* * *

><p>Boredom and cold were not good friends, so when they met, misery came with them. In all the years that Hyuuga had been an engineer in the army, he'd never seen weather like this. It was unnatural. Ungodly, even; he didn't feel afraid of blasphemy, when Agni hadn't shown himself to his chosen people in decades. But in all that time, and in all the time he built and fixed the vessels, the Salamander Tanks, and so many other devices that gave an edge to the Fire Nation Military's blade, it might have been wet, but it was a <em>hot<em> wet. In fact, this very thing was the reason he never got himself installed as a field mechanic; he liked his problems discrete, fixable, and more over than that, safe. Safe, meant upon Fire Nation soil. Fire Nation soil, meant that it was never cold. Until this 'summer'.

"Come on, stoke it a bit," Aoba muttered, shivering in his armor. Just an infantryman, but they were thick as thieves from the day they stepped out of basic.

"Can't stoke it. You'd smoke out the entire car," Hyuuga pointed out.

"At this point, I don't really care," Aoba answered. "If it gets any colder, parts of me are going to start to fall off! Important parts! _Popular_ parts!"

"Only in your own head, corporal," Hyuuga laughed.

"Hey, if anybody's getting attention due to 'popular parts', it's going to be me," Rei said from near the doors. Unlike most in the train, he wasn't shivering and miserable. He simply looked bored and miserable. Probably because he'd spent the better part of the decade since they'd split away locked in an ass-backwards part of the Earth Kingdoms; they had 'winters' there. With snow. Snow rather like what was taking every opportunity to come down from the heavens, these days.

"How is Shinu's daughter doing, anyway?" Hyuuga asked.

"Her rugrat's about six, now," he said.

"Think it's yours?"

"Almost definitely," he said with a grin. He then shrugged. "What? If they want to shut me out from the kid, then fine, she can raise him/her on her own."

"Can we stop talking about the Private's privates and get this thing hotter?" Aoba demanded. There were grumblings from the soldiers throughout the train.

"It's not a matter of stoking; any more fuel, and..." Hyuuga tried to rationalize with the soldier, but the glare that the amber eyed fellow had was brooking no explanations which didn't end with more heat. "Look, just settle down next to the firebenders."

"Them? They're worse than me!" he said, with a head thrust toward the firebenders who looked just this side of dead. Huh. This weather was hitting everybody pretty terribly. "Come on. Just a little more coal."

"It wouldn't help!" the engineer finally shouted at the whining soldier. "We've just got to hold on until we – ack!"

The 'ack', was brought on by the entire train decelerating rapidly, and throwing him from his feet. Aoba crashed across the brazier which was keeping him warm, and casting the hot coals onto the floor, where they started to burn and smoke at the floor boards. He rolled off, striking the cinders off of his chest before they could infiltrate his armor, and looked like he was about to piss himself. Hyuuga, on the other hand, had landed face first on a soldier's behind, who had, in turn, landed in a pile with so many others toward the front of the train car.

The shrieking of metal, and the lurching sensation which kept anybody from regaining their feet was a story to one such as Hyuuga. Somebody'd thrown on the emergency brakes of the train; that meant they saw something about a half-mile head of them that they could not simply plow through. Or, if they underestimated the momentum of the train, they saw something far closer, and everybody aboard was going to die.

The lurching, the forward pressure, and the screaming of metal started to die down, as the machine slowed first to a snail's pace, then, with a loud hiss, to a complete stop. Hyuuga pulled back. "Sorry about that," he said.

"Ah, I've had worse," the short-haired woman laughed it off. The engineer gave her a confused blink, and a mental note to figure out her name; she seemed like a fun drinking buddy. "Hey, idjit, stop staring at me. It's creepy."

"Something's wrong with the train," Hyuuga said, by way of escaping a potentially uncomfortable conversation. He moved to the doors, throwing them open and jumping out of the car. As the train had given up the wide expanses of Outer Azul for the narrow, cliff-clinging switchbacks of Lands-End, there was mercifully little wind, wedged as he was between the train on one side, and the cliff on the other. He stomped up through the dirty, grey-brown slush, pounding on the next cart as he went. The door slid open, and he gave a shout. "Engineer corps! Front of the train!"

"Aye sir!" came the cry from within. While Hyuuga didn't outrank pretty much anybody in traditional military hierarchy, when it came to fixing things, his word was doctrine. He didn't look back, as the others began to pour out of the car; he was too busy repeating himself on the next car, and the one after that. He darkly muttered to why they didn't just put all the engies onto one car. He didn't consider that there was a good reason, being if _any_ one car was lost, there'd still be something of an engineering corps left. His solutions tended to be much more material than hypothetical. Finally he reached the portage cars, so he could continue without interruption, and after a few empty, once-coal-filled cars, he pounded on the doors of the rear of the two engines pulling the train.

"What have we got?"

"Rail's washed out," the conductor said. "Talk to Sungawa, he made the call."

With a nod, the mechanic moved ever forward up. But he didn't need to talk to the man at the front of the train, because as he rounded the last bend, he could see what they'd stopped short of. There was a stretch of open plummet, which the tracks they were based upon circumvented by clinging to the cliffs, which ended near the next corner that went out of sight. It ended, because a landslide had come down, and smashed the rails away. Hyuuga rubbed at a face several days unshaven. He'd so been looking forward to getting to Caldera City, and taking a long deserved break. Staring at uppety Azuli was not his idea of a good time. Stressful, is what it was. But this? This posed a problem.

"...this could take a while to fix," he muttered.

Exactly as a blind earthbender that he had no knowledge of had intended.

* * *

><p>"Don't you think this is a little cruel?" Aang asked, looking to Appa, who was still mostly grey from his time in the coal-car.<p>

"Would you rather let the train escape us?" Azula asked.

"For a wonder, I have to agree with the Avatar," Nila said. "It seems a needless risk."

Azula was, honestly, surprised that Nila would oppose her plan. If there was one thing that Azula knew and respected about the Si Wongi girl, it was that she was entirely willing to be ruthless when ruthlessness was called for. "Do you have a better idea of how to keep the soldiers afraid and distracted?"

"Having a clutch of anomolokia follow this beast into the back of their train will either result in his forfeiture, or several dead anomolokia in short order," Nila pointed out. "Soldiers, I have noticed, are very good at _fighting_."

"Yeah. It's too risky, and it might not work," the Avatar said diplomatically.

"_Might_ not? It almost certainly won't!" Nila corrected.

"Nila, please. Azula's right about one thing; we need to keep them away from Toph while she works."

"She is through a wall of stone; they could not find her lest they blasted for her," Nila said with eyes rolling.

"And what do you think they'll do to clear the scree?" Zuko asked flatly. Nila stared into the distance, then, with annoyance, kicked a stone over the precipice. She didn't like being proven wrong, either. A girl after Azula's own heart.

The place that they'd set in to steal the train had the benefit of being high enough that nobody would sensibly come looking for them, counteracted by the incredible cold and the fact that the air was becoming rarified at this altitude. Of all of them, the firebenders suffered most. When one couldn't breathe, it was hard to firebend.

It would have been the height of arrogance to put their 'basecamp' somewhere with a view of the train they sought to pilfer; a break in the weather would have revealed them. So instead, they were a turn of the mountain away. It was a bleak, cold, wet place, and the fire that'd been set, burning hard woods that gave little smoke, did very little to either raise the temperature or raise anybody's spirits.

There was a rush of wind that came from an unexpected direction, as yellow and orange dropped into sight nearby. She looked the airbender up and down, her mouth slightly agape in incredulity. "Why are you wearing that?" she demanded.

"What, this?" Malu asked, tugging at her kavi. "It's comfortable."

"You stand out against the sky like..." Azula couldn't come up with something to describe contrasting orange against grey. "Change! Change back into something else!"

"Yeesh. So speaks the fashion-plate," she muttered. Azula's jaw set. There were days when she dearly believed that Great Grandfather had something approaching the right idea, getting rid of airbenders. They were _just so annoying_! "They're stopped solid," Malu reported to the Avatar. He breathed a sigh of relief. "But they've got guys already working to bridge the big hole Toph made."

"Awww," Aang muttered. "It's never easy, is it?"

"No. Have you not been paying attention?" Nila asked caustically.

"You're just crabby 'cause Toph ran off with your boyfriend," Malu teased.

"She did not 'run off' with him. He is aiding her in preventing a perceived landslide from turning into a real one," Nila shot back.

"Which still begs a question; how do we keep them from finishing their work?"

There was a moment of silence, punctuated only by the grumbling of the bison, and the chittering of the lemur that was poking its head out of the front of the waterbender's parka. Aang brightened for a moment, a finger raising in triumph, before his eyes got a stricken look, and the finger wilted. "Okay, that won't work."

"What won't?" Katara asked.

"I was thinking, if we attack people, those soldiers could get hurt or killed..."

"Enemy soldiers," Nila said.

"My countrymen," Azula and Zuko said as one.

"So we can't send rocks or beasts after them. So I thought, what if I take Momo, and put a sheet over him, and send him down there to scare them like a ghost, or..."

"That might work," Nila said. All turned to her, as she scratched at the back of her neck.

"...Really?" Even Aang seemed disbelieving.

"Not the lemur in a sheet, that is preposterous," Nila said with a flick of tattooed hands. "But you are a shaman, yes? What can a shaman do in such situations?"

"Call on spirits of earth or air or the mountain," Malu ticked off quickly. "...Oooh, or even Industry Spirits! I wonder what those look like!"

"Wait..." Azula said. She looked across the distances. "Can you look... insubstantial?"

"Ordinarily, no," Malu said. "But here in the Fire Nation, right now... Probably?"

"Why 'right now'?" Zuko asked.

"The Outer Sphere is pretty ripped to shreds right now," Malu said, which made no sense whatsoever to Azula.

"What do we need to look ghostly for?" Aang asked.

"You're a Storm King," she said simply, with a smirk. He leaned back.

"No... I'm an Air Nomad."

"They are Fire Nationals. To them, you're a Storm King. Soldiers, in my experience, tend to be a superstitious lot. And if they see themselves as 'beset by the wraiths of the Storm Kings... their attention _will not_ be on fixing a bridge, I can assure you," Azula said. And more importantly, none of her people would get pointlessly killed.

"Yes!" Malu said brightly. "And I can even talk in Anno to confuse them more!"

"What's Anno?"

"What they used to... Aang, seriously. Learn your history," Malu said, thumping him on his arrow. "This is just embarrassing."

"Anno, the language of the Airbender Empire," Zuko said, chuckling darkly and shaking his head. "Never thought I'd be glad to hear that."

"You didn't believe in the Storm Kings too, did you?" Aang asked.

"When I was a kid, yeah," he said. Azula nodded as well "Everybody did."

"And who'd've thought that knowledge of a dead-language was going to help steal a train?" Katara asked.

Azula gave the waterbender a glance, then rounded on Aang. "Alright. Change."

"Excuse me?"

"If you're going to be a Storm King, then you're going to have to look the part. Change into something more Storm King appropriate!"

"But the only thing I have would be my old... kavi," he said, and then remembered that it still probably had those bloodstains on it from when he'd gotten shot through the heart.

"Exactly," Azula said. "What is more terrifying than somebody who bears the obvious marks of death, and yet walks?"

"You've got a creepy mind, Azula," Malu pointed out.

"You're ready for your part. But the rest of us... That will take a bit of lateral thought," Azula admitted.

"Which would be all the easier were Sokka here," Nila pointed out.

"We've come up with working plans tonnes of times without Sokka's help," Katara said.

"And how many times, comparable to the alternative, were they successful?"

"...Shut up," Katara said unhappily. Azula gave a laugh at that.

"You'll have a part to play in this as well," Azula said, running her thumb along her fingernails in a habit she'd picked up 'decades before' when she had no way to care for them, but still wanted that sense of manipulation. "We are, after all, surrounded by snow."

"See? Everybody's working together!" Aang said brightly.

"Out of necessity," Azula and _Katara_ said as one. Then, both glared at each other. It didn't matter how Azula knew that this waterbender was probably a deciding factor in saving the world, she still didn't like her.

"And us?" Zuko asked.

"What's a good haunting without some," she flexed her hands, and brought blue flames into them, "...pyrotechnics?"

* * *

><p>The weather had gone from bad – blowing snow down the cliffs in a stinging haze – to worse, with the arrival of lightning. Thunder started first, tearing from unseen heights. Then, lightning began to fork down the mountain. Sometimes, it came within feet of striking the train, or somebody working near it. Other times, it raked along the cliffs, sending light scree tumbling down. Needless to say, Hyuuga wasn't having an easy go of fixing the rails.<p>

"No, no!" he shouted. "That one goes there, _that one_ goes _there_," he pointed out the trusses that were being inexpertly handled. As much as they were trained engineers, they didn't have his expertise in working rails. How could they? They were hired to keep mortars up and running, not steam locomotives. He sighed, and rubbed at a face which was very close to numb. It also didn't help that his head was starting to pound, either from the stress or the unabashed cold, he couldn't say. All he could say, was that it was a half hour since his ears stopped hurting. And he took that as a bad sign.

"Junko, take over. I need to warm up," he shouted to the woman on the other side of the rail. The beefy woman gave a nod, and then started shouting orders at the workers in a far less kind way than Hyuuga did. But then, she was pretty good at this as well. It was only her _stunning_ personality which kept her away from places warmer, drier, and a little less deadly.

He stomped back, trying to get feeling into any part of himself. It was a lot easier to move, now that the slush had been pounded out of the path of walking by so many other sets of boots, but still, he felt awkward and stiff. Like he'd aged thirty years in the course of an hour. Must be the cold. He hurled himself into the car, which had given over all other considerations to pile about seven braziers in a tight circle, and stoked them until they were staining the roof. It was a lot warmer, granted, but they'd be out of burning coal in half a day at this rate. He squatted down, holding his hands toward the heat, grateful to even have as much as he did.

He looked over to some of the firebenders he'd met on his tour, before shooting a look over to Aoba and Rei, who were sitting with back to back, each eating some dried rations with cups of melted snow for drink. "What's up with the firebenders?" Hyuuga asked.

"Beats me," Rei said, and left it at that.

"They don't look so great," the engineer noted. One of the ladies – who were five of twelve of them in this car – looked positively deathly. Her skin was a close thing to grey, and her eyes stared almost lifelessly into the distance. Another firebender, who was little better off, rubbed a warm blanket over her shoulders, but her own face showed much the same hollowness, fatigue, and trial. The non-benders were bitching and whining, yes, but they did so with bright – if annoyed – eyes, and clear – if annoyed – voices. The firebenders though, they didn't complain. Like they didn't have the energy to.

"They're getting worse," Aoba said quietly, possibly quietly enough that they wouldn't even hear him. His feet, which were raised atop his unworn helm, rolled side to side for a moment, as he chewed on salt heef. "It's like the longer they stay in the cold, the worse they get."

While Aoba had nailed it exactly on the head, as the old saying went, Hyuuga didn't know how or why. He looked to the firebenders, tending to their own, then to the braziers. A moment, rubbing his face, then he rose from his squat. His gloves protected him from the heat as he pushed the tight circle outward, leaving a gap in their midst. "Bring her into the center," he said to the firebender. They all looked at him. "Come on, she needs to warm up."

The soldiers, once so fiery and cocky, now listlessly obeyed his orders. They shuffled between the braziers so they would be struck by heat from all angles. It wasn't until a minute after they started, that the stricken woman let out a relieved sigh, and her eyes slid shut. She leaned against a man nearby, and seemed to go to sleep. It was an improvement.

"Good catch," Rei said.

"Lucky catch," Hyuuga said to himself. He still didn't understand why, but then, he wasn't a scientist. He was an engineer. If it worked, then you did it, even if you don't know _why_ it worked. He held his hands before the flames once more, and started to regain feeling in his fingers. Of course, the downside of thawing out was that his ears started to sting like utter _bastards_.

He was just starting to feel like a human being again – and the firebenders in the midst of the fire started looking like them as well – when there was a terrified bellow coming from one of the cars down the train. Rei and Aoba tried to look at each other, but each picked the wrong shoulder. And when they tried again, the did the same thing in reverse. It wasn't until the third that they found each other's glance. "That doesn't sound good."

"Well? Get up!" Hyuuga said. The firebenders just mumbled, but his admonishment was for those who didn't look half dead. With a groan of dismay, Rei took his feet and plunked his helmet back on, before seeing Hyuuga out the door.

"Watch, somebody had a bad dream," Rei said ascerbically.

"Cold makes for hard sleeping," Hyuuga said. And he was cut off when a spear was cast out of the traincar, and clattered against the cliff wall. The two men stared for a moment, then gave each other a measured glance, before both took off at a run toward that car. They skidded to a stop – Rei sliding a bit – to see that everybody in this car was either flattened against the back walls, or clumped in a back-to-back circle, with spears and swords pointed out.

"Where did she go?" one of them shouted.

"She was right there! You had her!"

"She's gone. How can she be gone?"

"What's going on here?" Hyuuga asked. Not barking orders, because he definitely didn't outrank people in this car, but still, the question needed asking.

"There was... It was impossible. I must have been seeing things," the very panicked junior officer said, sweat pounding out despite the cold, sword trembling in his hand.

"Bullshit, seeing things. That was a Storm King!" another soldier shouted.

"Shut up! The Storm Kings have been extinct for a century!" the officer berated his inferior.

"The Avatar's a Storm King!"

"What. Is. Going. On?" Hyuuga asked.

"Nothing, we just..."

"There was a girl. She was... not all the way there. She shouted at us. She had a machine, a Storm King Machine, and she was going to use it on us!"

"And then she was gone! In a blink of an eye!" another continued.

"That's... not good," Hyuuga said. He turned to Rei. "Hear about anything like this in the East?"

"The only things I heard were my idiot partner's inanities and the wind whistling past my outlook. Or between his ears," Rei said.

"It was nothing. Just seeing things," the junior officer stressed. He shakily put his blade away, as another thunderstrike slammed into the metal frame of the car. The thunderclap, starting less than two dozen yards away, was momentarily deafening, and Hyuuga blinked and clicked at his ears, stunned from the onslaught of it.

He turned to Rei.

There was somebody else in the way.

He wasn't tall, but there was a wildness in his grey eyes. He was borne upward by an updraft, yellow-orange robes fluttering, hair blasted back, showing that hateful arrow upon his brow. His lips pulled into a rictus, and his finger began to point.

Then, he was gone.

Hyuuga stared at the spot that spectre had been for a few seconds, his lips working, his jaw opening and shutting, but nothing coming out. He then slowly turned to Rei, who was making signs to the Sun and Comet, probably out of sheer nerves. Hyuuga then turned to that junior officer.

"That?" he said, pointing to the spot between he and Rei, "that _wasn't_ nothing."

"It was... I..." the officer seemed baffled. And terrified. A bad combination. Hyuuga knew a secularist when he saw one, but there was a certain amount of oddity that one simply had to accept if one wanted to live a happy life upon this spinning Earth. And this poor young man, probably no older than Hyuuga himself, didn't have a proper tolerance for weird, yet.

Another thunderclap, this one striking the engine, hundreds of yards away. The clap wasn't nearly so deafening, but in its wake came fresh screams, and men started to sprint into sight, heedless in their escape from a force or phenomenon they couldn't understand. They buffetted past Hyuuga and Rei, who made no attempt to stop them. After all, he felt no great need to be trampled.

"What in the hell is going on?" Rei asked, as the soldiers ran away.

He was answered by a blast of wind, almost as hard as a punch in the face, blasting from the front of the train and sending the two of them sideways off their feet, and landing them among the slush. Both pushed up, one striking the gritty slurry from his beard, before retaking their feet. They did so, pressing back to back. Rei had a sword to hand, while Hyuuga's was wrapped tight 'round a heavy spanner wrench.

"I think we're under attack," Hyuuga said.

"From what? Bad weather and ghosts?" Rei asked, a fearful edge to his words.

The two of them were answered when there was a thud on the roof of the train directly beside them. Two sets of eyes flashed upward, wide as saucers, as they saw a black-haired girl atop the wagons. Her toes jutted over the edge of the traincar, and her back was hunched in almost feral fury. She slowly craned her shoulder's back, and let out a roar into the sky.

"_HATYAROM KO HATYA!_"

Then, punctuated by a shriek which tore away from her in a solid wave, such that it smashed rocks loose of the wall, causing them to bounce off and dent the flank of the train. If either had been paying attention to her, instead of recoiling in sheer terror, they might have noticed how she let out a minor flinch at the rocks hitting the train. As it was, they didn't notice anything, save her sudden disappearance. The two were driven back, their backs pressed against the wall, heedless of the pebbles and stones which rained down in a loose rain around them. The impact had been stark, but the far more worrying thing, was the sensation of shifting that Hyuuga now felt in the stones behind him. He turned to Rei, then to the wall.

"Do you feel that?" he asked.

"Feel what? The piss running down my leg? Because that's the warmest I've been all day!"

"The rocks!" he shouted to the hopeless lech. Rei slammed a hand to the rocks, and his eyes widened as well.

"Earthquake? Impossible. Not here..."

"There are Storm King ghosts openly attacking us! Who knows _what_ makes sense these days?"

The cracking of the earth sounded, and with it, a shelf of stone broke and slid away. It might have weighed as much as the engine of the train, and it skipped off of the cliff above them, smashing down onto the far side of the track, missing the train by inches.

Again, had he been paying attention, he'd have known that such a bound would be impossible for freefalling rock. However, Hyuuga and Rei both, were distracted.

"Run," Rei said.

"No!" Hyuuga said. "Something's not right here..."

"Of course it's not! We're being haunted and the cliff's about to land on us!" Rei stressed.

"That's not it..." Hyuuga said. Much as he didn't notice the big things, he'd still learned long ago to trust his gut, no matter where it took him. "Back of the train. Go!"

"What?" Rei asked.

"Trust me on this one," he said.

"Yeah, _that_ sentence has never ended terribly for me," Rei rolled his eyes.

* * *

><p>The perpetual night wasn't doing anybody in the new Spirit Oasis any favors. While the fish yet swum in their new pool, and even the great black and white beast of Heibai gave the ill and heat-desperate something to snuggle against, it all came with the lingering dread of a world freezing solid. Ominous creaks sounded from outside the Oasis, as water froze, welled, snapped, and refroze. Yue had only had a few moments outside, in the brief time between when she left the protective warmth of the Oasis to grab the frozen foodstuffs left very nearby, and when her skin would have frozen solid. The landscape she saw out there was foreign almost to the point of unrecognizability. Had she not seen the spire of Chimney Mountain in the distance, a black finger blotting out stars, she would have thought they'd been pulled to a world already dead, slowly freezing solid as it spun 'round a snuffed-out sun.<p>

The warmth didn't sink in as quickly as it used to. While the edges of the Spirit Oasis were still overrun by grasses, they were starting to be trampled down. Even spiritually manifested grass could only take so much punishment, and a thousand Tribesman and more gave quite a bit of punishment. She set the rock-solid fish down beside a fire, where they would slowly thaw to the point where they could be cooked.

It was desperate, but at the same time, hopeless. She'd lived in Summavut for most of her life. She knew how it felt, in the heart of winter, to a week or more without seeing the sun. It was unpleasant to most, but she'd always associated more with the moon than with his fiery opposite. Now, though, she was bereft that pleasure. The moon hung out of sight, and the sun?

It felt like the sun should have peeked over the horizon long ago, but had forgotten how.

"Yue, come here," Hahn said. He beckoned her over, to the spot that the two of them had 'reserved', at the head of the smaller, internal pond. Almost listless, she sunk down onto the flattened grass beside him, and he pulled her close. His warmth wasn't much, but frankly, even after that briefest of sojourns outside, it was desperately needed. "It's going to be alright."

"I wish I believed you," she said.

"You should believe in yourself more," Hahn said quietly. Where was the brash, rude, and chauvanistic brat that she'd been betrothed to? Oh, right; reality had weathered that away from him. Now, he had the same hungry, frightened look to him that every other man over the age of twenty had. And that every child under the age of thirteen shared, but for other reasons. "I know you're going to see us through this."

She accepted his brief kiss, before he curled back up on the grass. His eyes were sunken, as though he weren't sleeping. Then again, right now, who was?

Yue, though, had no other recourse. Through all her life, she'd been one thing or another at the behest of another. She'd been the warrior by her father's word. She'd been the acting Chief by her step-father's. And now, she was supposed to be a savior, by the word of the Tribe. And her faith was quaking. Shaking. Cracking.

So she settled herself on her knees, her hands tight before her, her head bowed down.

"_I need help_," she whispered to the moon, its fish circling lazily before her.

"What help is there that you do not already have?"

"_We're losing hope. We can't survive like this_," she said. The other, the sea, broke the circuit, and swum closer to her.

"_The faithful of Sea and Moon have survived much. An age of death. The Righteous Wrath of an Avatar. You will survive._"

"_How could you know that?_" she asked. "_The Tribes may survive, but the Tribesmen? We're just human. We're hungry, we're cold, and we're afraid. And nothing ever seems to change but for the worse._" The Moon ceased it's circuit and joined its partner, it's other half, staring up at her.

"Hope is a currency much sought after in hard times."

"_But what do we do?_" Yue implored.

Silence was her answer. The two retreated from her sight, first away from the water's edge, then into the heart of their pond. Her eyes went wide when they seemed to vanish from view entirely. And when they didn't surface, her breath hitched in her throat, a desperate sob lodged there.

Then, a spark.

It started above the surface of the water, something small, almost vanishingly so, but unimaginably bright. It rose drifting upward as a mote in an updraft, until it reached the 'ceiling' of the new Spirit Oasis. And then, the spark began to unfold.

**YOU BEHOLD THE GLORY OF THE SUN!**

The last words, booming through the crowd, caused infants to cry, children to pull close to their parents. The old to shudder, the wild to quake. It caused Heibai, so placid, to shift and shudder, his manifested corpus degrading slightly as it came close to the presence of something so much more powerful than itself, before restoring itself. The flame rose, out into the heavens, and then, with a blast of honest to the gods _heat_, reached out and erased the night. It rose higher, into the sky, into the atmosphere above. The heat declined from a hellish oven, beyond even Fire Nation cruelties of temperature, to something more akin to summer in the East. Then, autumn in the east. When Agni ceased her ascent, hanging high above the nadir of the dying Earth, it was a new spring, bathed under comparatively weak, but comparatively warm, sunshine.

The Tribesmen, so used to terror and despair, looked up, at the second sun that shone just for them.

And they wept. They wept, hugging their loved ones close, under this miracle.

Yue wept with them.

* * *

><p>The movement had stopped, leaving Hyuuga standing with only Rei and Aoba at the front of the train. All had progressed backward. As though it were strafing the train from stem to stern. But nothing here.<p>

"You see what I mean, don't you?" Hyuuga asked.

"This is where it started. Why isn't it here now?" Aoba asked.

"Something's not right," Rei agreed. "...it feels like we're being herded."

"Ghosts don't herd," Aoba said.

"What do you know about ghosts?"

"I grew up in the wagons, dumbass; I know more about ghosts than you'd believe," the fair-complected man said. Then again, there were plenty enough of the daughters of Shinzo that were seduced into joining the Yubokamin. Which defied all good sense, when one thought about it. "This isn't ghosts."

"But what is it, then?" Rei asked, as the three of them began to move slowly toward where the lightning now struck, where the screams now originated. Where the spectres yet preyed.

"Not spirits. They look too human. And shamans can't just flit in and out of existence," Aoba said.

"Why'd you never tell me you were Azuli?"

"My mother left when I was eight. What am I supposed to do, tell my captains my entire life story?" Aoba snarked at Hyuuga's question. And he had a fair enough point.

"You certainly know your stuff."

"I'd have to," he said. There was a grinding sound, which halted all three in their stride. Slowly, they turned, as they looked up, and saw the stone begin to shudder. The earthquake which had threatened was mounting. Rocks fell harshly and heedlessly around them.

"Well, spirits or not, that's going to kill us!" Hyuuga shouted.

There were no more words said, as the cracking and popping of stone slipping free of it's mooring began to drown out even the sound of thunder. Three men sprinted for their lives, racing perhaps yards ahead of the devastation, the rock dropping and crashing against the side of the train. None looked back, though. None saw that the stone always formed a wall, just a hair from knocking the train off of its rail. Just a hair from ruining what unknown forces wanted to steal. They were too busy running.

They sprinted, and they ran toward screaming.

Hyuuga was the one to slam into something, when his eyes told him there was nothing there to hit. The blow sent him rolling to the ground. The other two raced past him, and then stopped, turning back. Hyuuga found himself on his belly, with an unnoticed teenager under him. His eyes went wide, as stars seemed to get shaken free of the youth's gaze. There was a blast upward, and he found himself flying.

He landed harshly on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs, as the boy bounded to his feet. Aoba, the least superstitious of those yet remaining, grabbed the 'Storm King's shoulder with one hand, and sent the other, armored fist toward the back of his head. The Storm King, or whomever he was, bent his head out of the way, so that the blow turned his other shoulder rather than cold-cocking him. He cast a hand out, and a great wave of air blew the feet out from under the once-Azuli soldier, but his grip remained tight on the shoulder. The next blast was sent forward, hurling the womanizer so long sequestered in the East rolling away. Then, with a flash, both soldier and spectre were gone.

* * *

><p>He'd made a miscalculation, somewhere.<p>

It'd started when he stepped back into the Physical just in time to get plowed into by some guy, and continued until he found himself dragging another guy into the Outer Sphere. The soldier didn't so much as look askance at the strangeness of the world around him, didn't react to the clamoring unreality that had befallen him. If he'd been a bender, he'd have felt his birthright deadened here. But instead, he lashed out with a kick. A kick which Aang, unable to dodge effectively, had to take and roll with. He caught the foot in the instant before it sent him flying though. He couldn't let the illusion fall.

A fresh shift, and the two were dumped even further, past the ripped and shredded Outer Sphere, and into the naked Spirit World. He rolled away on the ground, resisting the urge to rub tender, impacted ribs. He had to look the part. He had to convince this guy that he was something other than some kid with tattooed arrows and a knack for showmanship. So he spun up to his feet, and he held his arms wide.

"ARISE!" he screamed, and in his soul, the words were spoken. It was a strange sensation, not imploring. Simply _demanding_. Spirits spiraled up – or rather, _down_ – from the Outer Sphere, into what was once their home, and now the most hostile of all places for them. They bathed around him, a festival of multicolored lights, spirits with barely any more than a wisp of corpus. Not more than a twinge of concept. But the effect was swift, and effective.

There was no obvious human amongst that shifting mass of lesser spirits.

"...oh, hell," the soldier muttered.

UNBREACHED DIVIDE, THE PATH WALKED BY THE VAGABOND KING, WARDEN OF THE PLAINS, BEAST AT THE GATE;

GEAR OF EGRESS

HE STANDS A THING OUTSIDE HIMSELF

AN UNSOUGHT PART OF AN UNTHINKING WHOLE

A GHOST TRAPPED IN THE HELLISH MIRE OF THE REAL.

CAST

HIM

OUT.

The fabric of reality began to bend, bubbling around the man, and scooping him, whole and unwilling, back into itself. It was a bubble of subjective reality, one that he could control with his words. If he wanted, he could cast the man outside of existence, to a fate as grim as anything eaten by the Shards of Imbalance. He could unmake a soul. But Aang was not that kind of man. Never that kind of man.

So he simply pushed him back. Across the veils and the divides, and back into the physical world.

There was a sense of bubble popping, and the soldier who'd tracked him into this place was sent back. A fresh sound, also rather bubble-popping-ish presaged the appearance of another shaman onto this bleak and tiny island that floated in an invisible and unending sea of nothingness, here in the Spirit World. Aang released the demand, and his 'armor' of spirits began to break and waft away to safer places.

"Aang?" Malu asked as she appeared. "I saw some guy follow you in; are you alright?"

"He didn't get a good look at me, not from the front," Aang said. "I sent him back."

"That was too close," she said.

"I know. Do you think they're scared enough?"

"Toph's already doing her thing," Malu said. "We should get back."

"I hope nobody gets hurt," Aang said. Malu gave a smile.

"Of course they won't. The plan was a brilliant one."

"I can't believe you'd say that about something that Azula put forward," Aang said, as they walked to the rift that Malu had used to enter bodily the naked Spirit.

"I've got no problem with her, 'sides the fact that she's actively trying to turn you evil," Malu said.

"She's not trying to turn me evil. She just wants to win, and this is the only way she knows how to," he corrected.

"Winning isn't everything," Malu said.

"When the stakes are this high... it kinda is," Aang said, rubbing at his hair. Weird, how he'd gotten so used to it, after these past few months. "She's a good person who's had a hard life."

"If you say so," his airbending counterpart said, her eyes rolling. Then, with a sucking sensation, the two passed out of the Spirit, and back into the Mortal World. Behind them, in the instant they left, there was a metal thud, a great bell of solid iron struck with an equal weight, across impossible distance. Not a blowout. But an awakening.

They appeared beside Toph, who was rolling a tumult of stone before her. She had stripped down to an undershirt, and sweat poured off her despite the cold. Her face was one of relentless concentration, twisting that stone before her, casting the detritus over the trains and down the cliff. "Toph? Are you alright?"

"Just peachy, Twinkletoes," Toph snarled through gritted teeth. "Why'd they need to make these damned trains so long?"

"You're doing great," Aang coached. He turned to Malu. "How much more?"

She bounded straight up, running up the cliff to get a perspective, before she turned in the air and slid back down easily as a cat. The thunderstrikes still sounded ahead of them, but it wasn't close. "There's still a quarter mile more train to go," she said.

"I can't _do_ another quarter mile," Toph said, which sounded more painful to her than the strain she was putting herself through to simulate a landslide, and at the same time, prevent a real one.

"How fare are the soldiers from the stone-front?" Aang asked.

"Pretty far," Malu said.

Aang looked for a moment, and thought. If Toph faltered, the whole thing was undone. If she faltered in a bad way, she might get hurt or killed as well. They needed the train...

But they didn't need _all_ of it.

"Sokka!" Aang shouted, turning back to where the Tribesman was following. Toph's tremor-sense lessons were paying off; he'd 'seen' the young man without having to turn. "Do you think this is enough train for everybody?"

"Probably, but it'd be cramped," he said.

"Toph," Aang ordered. And was a bit surprised with himself that he was ordering. "Cut the train here. Send the rest over the cliff."

"That's my kind of plan," Toph said. She stomped a foot, and a great shelf of stone raced up between two cars, cutting them apart. Then, with a last great heave, she tore the stone from its lofty perch, and let it slam down as it would. It vanished beyond a wall of her device, but the sounds were calamitous, and didn't end at the rails. The twisting of metal, the shrieking of machinery undone continued, as the cars behind the one she'd picked for the last were sent flying over the cliff, crashing down to unforgiving rocks.

Aang quietly hoped that their distractions, their 'terror campaign' had been enough, and that those cars were empty. And if they weren't, then he quietly prayed for those within them, and asked them for forgiveness for what he'd done.

"Alright, we need to get going," Sokka said, turning on his heel, and starting to sprint toward the front of the train. "I really hope this thing's as easy to use as Zha Yu made me believe!"

"They'd better be," Toph said, slumping to the ground. Aang caught her before she landed on her back. "Hey there, you fuzzy thing. Where'd Twinkletoes go?"

"Toph, you done good," Malu said.

"Great. Done good. I'm going to just sleep for a while now," the exhausted earthbender said. There was no groaning, but a sense of wind diverting told Aang that Appa had returned from his lightning-bearing strafing run.

"We've got to go. Malu, get her onto one of the forward cars," Aang said. The other airbender nodded, scooped up the smaller girl, and bound backwards with great, ground-eating leaps. Aang, though, pulled himself onto the top of the second-to-last car. He couldn't see over the rocks which had washed away a great length of the rear of the train. That wasn't his purpose here. He simply waited, and breathed heavily. Deeply. Focus. Do what needs to be done.

There was a slight lurch, several minutes later. Inch by crawling inch, the rear car began to pull free of the rubble, causing it to rain down slightly onto steel rails behind it. Inches became feet. Feet became yards. And when they were moving honestly and at speed, Aang reached up. His hands grasped, his stance widened and dropped. And with a great heave, he pulled down ever more rock behind them. Turning an illusion into a fact.

Erasing the evidence that the Avatar had just stolen a train.

* * *

><p>The halls of the library weren't silent. Silence was a simple absence of relative noise. In its way, there was no true-zero of noise in the waking world; no matter how quiet, there was always something to hear. Perhaps it was the barest whisper of breeze. Perhaps the shifting of the grass on the ground. Or even just the sound of one's own heart beating. But here, it was a thing beyond silence. This was a realm for which sound had no meaning. The halls between the stacks of books seemed to stretch on infinitely.<p>

Fitting. Right now, they were.

Irukandji could feel the bleeding of worlds here, stronger than most other places that she'd ever encountered. Sometimes, there were places that the spirit inside this woman would go that there were already existing, preformed conduits from other worlds already in place. Somebody finding another way to tunnel into a reality not their own. Usually one or two people. Often shamans. Sometimes Aang, surprisingly enough. But this was a different smell, a different sensation. It'd only ever felt something of this magnitude once before, during that inverse world. The world where seasons ran backward, and an entire reality came crashing in where it didn't belong.

A reality that almost hooked up the kid with the crazy pyromaniac princess, ironically enough.

That'd been a disaster that it'd been roped into fixing, even though it honestly had nothing at all to do with creating. But it was a valuable experience, in retrospect; it taught the spirit how much a world was worth, and how much it could cost to protect it. How dangerous that things outside their natural order could be. How dangerous Irukandji could be, in the right circumstances.

The hallways of knowledge stretched infinitely, as they were no longer simply the libraries of Wan Shi Tong. No, this was the Akeshic Record, bleeding into reality. A thing which couldn't be held with in the bounds of a universe, peeking in regardless. A bellweather of how degraded _what was_ had become. Irukandji read, theories and stories of lives never lived, of times never seen. The first Avatar who drew breath among the human race. And the _last_, as well. But that woman's trials and tribulations offered no comfort or succor to Irukandji now. Instead, it tried to understand how it could do what the Avatar was so often tasked to do.

Save everybody.

Irukandji was hopelessly out of its depth.

"He should have let me kill those girls," Irukandji said, words exploding into that soundless expanse, a profanity against the quiet. Her head shook, though, and Irukandji tweezed her brow. This was an usual thing in and of itself. Irukandji had sometimes held a Host for a decade or three, but never for a _century_. Sooner or later, it'd start thinking of itself as a 'she' at this rate. And Koh help it if it did. Mostly because it'd never live it down.

There was a new silence. A different silence than the one that had dominated the great vacant expanse of Wan Shi Tong's library. It had a different timbre, a different tenor. It was a silence of things hiding in terror. A silence of a predator about to pounce.

Irukandji spun away from the book on its lecturn, lightning sparking and riding along her hands; its life-blood, turned into a weapon. A weapon against a thing which could not die. The Shard was blacker than the blackness beyond it, the eyes pulsing red, like old wounds. This one, unique amongst a unique kin, almost looked like its eyes were oozing. Like it had been forced into a role that its nature rebelled against.

"Oh, this ain't good," Irukandji said, backing away from the Shard.

Her feet kept their footing, Irukandji was happy to note, but no amount of retreat was enough to outstrip the Shard. Even were it to turn this mortal shell into the lightning, and send it streaking up and away, the Shard would be waiting for it wherever it landed. As it was, every time Irukandji's retreat passed another line of shelves, the Shard was there before it again. Staring, with oozing eyes. Its mouth agape and toothless, a horrible void at its heart.

"Well? Are you going to eat me? Or are you just going to admire this woman's breasts?" Irukandji taunted.

Oddly enough, she seemed to nod. Well, not nod, as the head didn't move, but the body... transformed a bit. The lanky girl made of abject blackness mounted up, growing taller. The shoulders pulled out slightly, the hips, dramatically. Blue, lightning-filled eyes widened, as the beast's eyes diminished in size. No longer were they grapefruits of profane red and black puss, glowing against nothing. Now... they looked almost like _eyes_. Red, black, and puss-y eyes, but still.

"What... in... the... hell..." Irukandji asked. The Shard tilted its head, and the mouth slowly transformed as well. The horrid maw which would have stretched from the nose to the collar-bone of a human shrank, flaps of blackness rising up, overtaking it. Hiding it away. Behind a real mouth, invisible against the rest of her, but obvious for what it concealed. "...this ain't good."

Irukandji retreated, and a Shard that now mocked Irukandji's Host to the inch and ounce followed after her. It rose a hand, first clawed and jagged, but slowly cracking and popping until it was a human hand, if one wrought in blackness, toward it.

"Hell with this. I'm out!" Irukandji declared.

There came a thunder-clap, and a blast of lightning seared away from Wan Shi Tong's Library, and any answers that the spirit sought to find in it. The Shard simply stood, watching the lightning disappear. Then, the oozing eyes impassive, it turned to a line of shelves, stepped into the shade that somehow leaked between them despite the suffusive light of this barely-existent place. When it did, it vanished from the Spirit World entirely, going to the place where only Shards, like it, could go.

Irukandji might have lost the answers it sought... but she got answers it desperately didn't want to know.


	57. Loose Ends

Seeing the train come trundling down the line, slowing to a stop despite relatively clear rails and being half-way between stops, was something of a mixed relief for Hakoda. On one hand, it meant that somebody out there had done the unlikely, and gave them some way to cross the worst of Shinzoan territory without raising an eyebrow, let alone an alarm. On the other, he had no idea who this benefactor was. The Seamstress, as indicated by his lovely host? Or somebody else?

Or was it a trap?

It was for that latter reason that Hakoda went out on his own. In the grand scheme of things, to his eyes, he was a small part of something very much larger than himself. The war could continue without the aid of the Chief of the Water Tribe. Tribe. Even in his head, he still tried to add the plural to it. It'd probably take years for that to sink in, that there was no North Water Tribe anymore. That the hundred thousand Tribesmen in the South, and however many else lived in the southerly isles of Great Whales, were all that were left of his ethnicity. But it didn't matter. He had a successor – Yue could perform admirably, as she'd already done in holding together the shards of broken glass that were her people at Summavut – and he had his duties dismissed. He could vanish into this conflict, and it would continue. It was an odd, cold sort of comfort that that brought.

It was a strange thing to think of a dead woman, as that machine came to a halt ahead of him. It just seemed the kind of story that Kya always liked to hear when he came home. The impossible, bizarre things that he'd see on his journeys. The wonders and the horrors. A machine built to ferry men and women and all other things across a continent, cutting through snow that fell at the height of summer. A war of all the world's peoples, converging against a single force. An anemic hammer against a stalwart anvil. And there was more that his children wouldn't tell him, a layer of this fight that they were privy to, but never shared. Perhaps they thought it was kinder for him to push forward in ignorance?

"What age is this, when _children_ have to make that choice?" he asked the cold. The wind answered him, blowing what snow was already on the ground around his ankles, which had sunk into the white expanse. There came a great clunk and hiss, as the machines finally settled, coming to a complete halt. A blort of steam came rushing out of the engines, which seemed to tinkle as it rose away, before descending in a great grey wave along the sides of the machine; ice formed where that steam had lost all of its heat so swiftly.

So unnatural, this weather. And it was the clearest thing that Hakoda could see.

The doors to the engine let out a clunk, as though something tried to open them, but couldn't. Hakoda gave a raised brow to it, then began to slog through the snow toward it. He could see why, even as he approached; the top of the doorway had iced over completely. He'd reached the foot of the door when came a great shriek of metal being ripped apart. The door to the engineering compartment bent sharply and unnaturally, its rigidity reduced to putty in the hands of a blind teenaged girl.

"See? That wasn't so hard!" Toph Beifong said happily, turning back to the other two in the compartment with her. The first put on a look of mild surprise when she gazed past the metalbender. Sativa's daughter reached aside, and began to tug at Sokka's arm, green eyes locked on his father. "What? Did I open us off a cliff or something?" Toph asked, peevishly.

"You should..." Nila said.

"Just a minute. I have to make sure this thing doesn't explode," Sokka said, as he scanned along what had to be a hundred little controls for the machine. "Why they couldn't make this thing any simpler, I couldn't tell you. Complexity for complexity's sake; it's gotta be!"

"Or you're driving a thousand-tonne bomb that's being coaxed into not exploding," Hakoda said idly. Sokka froze, then turned as did the Si Wongi girl had. He stared down at the man who was a level lower.

"Wait a minute. I know that voice!" Toph said, pointing roughly to Hakoda's left. "Ha! I told you he'd be waiting for us!"

"Dad?" Sokka asked, moving past first the Si Wongi, then even edging out the earthbender. The earthbender, unlike Nila, seemed very annoyed at that treatment. "You're here!"

"Of course I am," he said. "Did you think it'd just be Bato waiting for you?"

The answer he got was about what he expected; Sokka, though, had gotten a bit bigger, and a bit heavier since the last time Hakoda suddenly returned to the lad's life, so the tackling hug from on high sent Hakoda sliding down the embankment of the rails. For once, it was a good thing that there was snow in the Fire Nation; it hurt a lot less than sliding down a pile of gravel.

"Okay, that's probably enough," Hakoda said, extracting himself from his son's eager grasp. He pushed himself up, striking snow off of his coat, as Sokka offered him a hand for the last distance. At the mangled door of the engine, the Si Wongi had an amused look on her face, and was slowly shaking her head.

"You greet your father as you greet your sword. A woman might become jealous of such displays," she noted. It took Hakoda about a fraction of a second to make the connection.

"Aw, that's just Brain. He's always been a jump and grab kinda guy when he's excited," Toph said. She reached into the chamber, pulling out a metal rod, and clanging it against the frame of the machine, before jumping down into the snow. It was somewhat surprising, actually, to see the blind girl wearing actual boots. How grim things must have become for her.

"Well. Aware." Nila said.

"Where is everybody?" Sokka asked. "Did the entire fleet make it here? And how many came? Was it just Omashu or did you bring in everybody like you were hoping to?"

"It's days like this that made me wish I had more carrier hawks," Hakoda said. "You'll see soon enough. But tell me about yourself for a change!" he hooked an arm over Sokka's shoulder, and turned the two of them toward the compartment. Toph, having said her piece, started to wade through the snow past the portage cars. One of them – which lay covered over in a snow-coated tarp – let out a bass bellow. "So; you and miss Badesh?"

"What? How did you..."

"I'm your father," Hakoda said. Nila crossed her arms before her chest, hands tucked into her armpits against the cold. She no longer looked very amused. "And most notably, I remember what it was like to be a teenager."

"You are going to try to impress some barbaric form of counting-coup upon me, I suppose?" she asked.

"What?" Hakoda asked.

"My maiden-head is not a currency to be spent or transferred – doubly so as I was without blood in our meeting!" Nila snapped.

"What is she talking about?" Hakoda asked.

"She's afraid that you're going to try to marry us off," Sokka said easily.

"...why?" he asked.

"...sad and pathetic patriarchal practice, and I shall not _what_?" Nila broke off.

"You'll do whatever it is that you think is best," Hakoda said, clapping Sokka on the back. "Although, I have to say, I didn't expect you to pick one so..."

"Loud?" Sokka asked.

"I was going to say fiery, but I'll leave you to suffer the consequences of that one on your own," he said with a pat on the shoulder. He gave a nod toward his son's girlfriend. "We can catch up more later, miss Badesh."

The two of them, son and paramour, watched Hakoda leave, she by leaning out the door, he by walking up to the ladder at its foot. "Sokka?" she asked.

"Yes, Nila?" he asked, instantly recognizing the importance of it, as she'd called him by name and not 'Tribesman'.

"Is your father typical of your race, or a madman?"

"...Yes?" he answered.

Nila sighed, and palmed her face.

Hakoda, though, continued onward, following in the ruts left by the earthbender, who pulled herself up into the car just past the stowage which held a bison – from the sound of it – and little else. He pulled himself up as well, just a few seconds on Toph's tail. "Hey; remember how y'all said I should tell you when we arrived?" Toph asked. "Well... we've arrived."

"Really?" The excited words of the Avatar were the first to reach him. He shot up and out of the cot that he'd been sleeping in, clad in wrinkly, obviously-slept-in clothes, but looking a great deal more bright-eyed than many others. Probably because they'd let him have his sleep. The surprising faces in this car were the once Crown-Prince and Princess, who both leaned out of their own cots. Azula in particular pushed herself to a stand, and looked Hakoda up and down as though taking a very thorough gauge of his measure.

"...Kya was more impressive," she said flatly. The Avatar shot her a mildly baffled look, then turned to Hakoda again. In the time since Hakoda had last laid eyes on the boy, he'd gotten a fair head of hair on him. Were it not for the arrow that pointed down to the bridge of his nose, he could have been just about anybody, from anywhere.

"It's a relief to see you well," Hakoda said. "The men really need something to pick them up as it is."

The smile that Aang gave him was... oddly haunted. There was something that shifted in the boy, something so different from the last time he'd seen him. It wasn't the hair, or the clothes. His shoulders had a different set, his stance a different posture. He looked weighed upon. No, that wasn't it; he looked weighed down when he left their ship months ago. He looked _angry_. Not presently angry, angry at anything around him, but as though he'd discovered a wellspring of it in him, and it filled a void that he probably didn't know was there.

What kind of world was it, when a thirteen year old boy held the fate of the world in the balance?

What kind of world was it, when anger was something to be cherished?

"I'm just glad that something worked out right," Aang said. He had a chipper tone, at least. One more than a little exhausted, but given they infiltrated the Fire Nation by passing through Azul, it was a shining miracle that he made it through with all of his limbs. Grey eyes widened a bit. "Katara! She's in the next cart cooking something!"

"Her brother is right," Azula said darkly, inspecting her nails. "That girl is a horrific cook."

"Hey, I taught her everything she knows," Hakoda said.

"You horrible person," Azula said flatly. He knew when he was being jibed, though, so didn't rise to the bait.

"Where is everybody?" Aang asked, peeking through the slats which had been nailed in place to keep the worst of the snow from blowing into the car. The fragile smile on his face started to wilt a bit. "...you're not _alone_, are you?"

"Mistress Baihu thought this might be a trap. I thought it wasn't. This was our compromise," Hakoda said easily. "Come on. You might as well get a hot meal in you before we go and invade the Fire Nation."

"So you're abandoning your daughter?" the Prince asked, sounding confused.

"Just her cooking," Hakoda said with a smirk. He began forward, and rapped on the door to the next car.

"Just a minute, Sokka! You can't eat it when it's still raw!" Katara's muffled voice came through the door.

"That wouldn't stop him from trying," Hakoda teased. He knew his children well, after all.

All but one of them, it seemed.

The door was hurled open, almost clattering off of its rails from Katara's heave. She stared up at him for a long time, in his mind. She looked... older. Just like Aang did. Like she'd had to weather some terrible storms of her own. "Dad?" she asked.

"Of course, sweetheart," he said.

"DAD!" she screamed, and crashed into his chest, her arms pulling his ribs into a creaking hug. And for this one moment, there was no war, there was no terror, no end of the world. There was just a man and his daughter, reunited.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 17<strong>

**Loose Ends**

* * *

><p>The encampment on the Baihu Estate's grounds was remarkably substantial. It was obvious from the way it was laid out that the various factions in this amalgamated fighting force had tried to separate themselves from ancient rivals, but were forced closer and closer together by the realities of the space they had, and the weather they were fighting against. Si Wongi and Dakongese rubbed elbows when they didn't exchange fists. Omashuans knocked heads with Ru Nani. Dividesmen, now at their most fundamental scale homeless, drifted as a sort of buffer between all of them. In a way, it was a fascinating subject, watching how the various forces all repelled each other, but not quite enough to spiral out in a dervish of destruction. They were held together just enough that they simmered, without boiling.<p>

"Are you gonna eat that?" one of Tzu Zi's identical sisters asked. Then, without so much as waiting for Nila's answer, she stole the bun off of Nila's setting. The Si Wongi gave... Aan Jee, it had to be... a death glare, and took it back, straight out of the thief's teeth. She then bit into the bite, reclaiming it for her own, heedless of the unsanitary nature of the deed. If nothing else, she would not be one-upped.

"So tell me. Is it true what Rai Li said about you and Sokka?" Tzu Zi leaned in from the other direction, however not with any designs on Nila's meal.

"It would depend on what she said," Nila said, she then turned to the others. "All well and good, but how do you intend to win a battle dependent on us, without letting this Fire Lord know we are there?"

"That's the difficult part," another guest of honor at this table, General How, said. He ran a hand down his beard, teasing at the narrow streaks of gray which were beginning to spread down from the corners of his mouth. "If the Blue Turbans don't win at Yokaizo, then they will be of no use during the Day of Black Sun. If we help them, then we can use them, but we lose the element of surprise. They'd probably tear up the rails a hundred miles from the city. And in this weather, that's a death-march."

"Well... What if we help them in some way that doesn't need an army?" Aang asked.

"I don't see how anybody could," How said, shaking his head slowly.

"You're overthinking," Azula pointed out. "Zhao already knows that Aang is in the Fire Nation. He also already knows that he's going to attack on the Day of Black Sun. What he doesn't know, is from _where_."

The general turned a glance to her. "_Really_? That could be either catastrophic or useful."

"She said she heard you two... doin' some stuff," Tzu Zi broke into Nila's attention.

"Many people do many things. Be specific or stop interrupting," Nila chastised. Even though she had a fairly sure grasp of what Tzu Zi was trying to imply, she also had a fair notion that she'd never say it in public, which spared Nila an uncomfortable topic of conversation.

"Useful, I'd say," Sokka agreed with Azula, where he sat between the Avatar and Katara. "He's going to be staring east. And which direction is the Blue Turban Rebellion coming from?"

"So you intend to use them as screening troops. Somewhat ruthless, but very practical," How nodded.

"No! That's not it at all!" the Avatar shook his head and waved his hands in a grand gesticulation of his defiance. "I'm not going to sacrifice _anybody_ to win this war. I swear it!"

"Some sacrifices need to be made," Zuko said quietly, from Azula's side. "Even if we don't want to. Even if we wish we didn't have to. Sacrifices that cut to the bone."

"The Prince is right, Avatar," How said. "Anything without cost is without worth, and we're trying to achieve something of monumental worth. There will be losses. Even in the happiest of days, some will not come out alive."

"If you keep thinking that way, then you'll make sure that happens," Aang said quietly. Almost sagely. "You should try, at least, to bring everybody through. You have to try."

How sighed, and ran a hand down his beard as was his nervous habit, before turning back to Azula, whom he obviously found more agreeable conversation. "As Zhao will be using your old plan, have you considered any other weak-points in your old strategy?"

"I've given it some thought," Azula said, but she sounded... Conflicted, maybe? It was hard to say. Nila wasn't the best of judges on these sorts of things.

"I was talking about how that morning... you two didn't come out until long after everybody else... if you get my meaning?" Tzu Zi kept pressuring.

"This is neither the time nor the place," Nila said.

"Come on! I've got to know if my best friend has fallen in love!" she pleaded.

"Love? _Love_?" Nila asked, rolling the foreign word in her mouth, and finding it alien and mildly distasteful. "He and I are intimate, and share common interests and aptitudes. That is the long and short of it!"

"So that was you that night!" Tzu Zi said. Nila growled and shook her head.

"N-n-nila? Where d-d-did M-m-malu go, anyway?" Rai Lee asked, leaning past Aan Jee's back, where she sat at a distant corner of the table. Somewhere as far from all others as social convention would allow her.

"I haven't the foggiest. Wherever she is, it is upon her head alone," Nila dismissed. "And you! You will cease this line here and now!"

"Now, if what you're saying is true, then that means we could leverage the Avatar... so long as it's not apparent that he's coming from somewhere else," How said.

"Exactly. A double bluff. Make Zhao think that he is a part of the Blue Turban Rebellion, so that he'll watch it with his entire focus," Azula said, her enthusiasm starting to mount.

"And when he tries to rearrange his defense to make up for what he sees as a hole in his defenses, the other force hits from the direction he'd almost prepared," Zuko continued. "We can't discount Long Feng... much as I'd like to..."

"We've _all_ learned how dangerous it is to discount Long Feng," How said grimly.

"Long Feng will play his part in this war, mostly because he doesn't know who the other players are. As long as you don't feel any particular kinship with the soldiers of Ba Sing Se bearing the brunt of Zhao's counterattack, they could allow for a three-pronged attack on Caldera City," she said, punching a fist into her palm.

How chuckled. "Had I known this meal was going to turn into a strategy session, I would have had somebody lay out a map."

"Any time is a good time for strategy," Sokka's father noted lightly, where he sat out of easy eye. If that was what Sokka was going to look like when he grew older, then Nila would account herself very fortunate indeed.

Assuming things didn't explode into flames and recriminations, as so often they did with her.

"You never talked about it! That's what best-friends are for, am I right?" Tzu Zi continued to press. Her other sister, the acrobat, was making doe-eyes at Zuko, who in turn didn't seem to notice she was there. Fitting. He and the earthbender were a far finer match, in that she had backbone. Unlike the acrobat, in a seemingly literal fashion. "So what was it like? Was it fun? Did he do that thing you did when we..."

"You swore you would not talk of that," Nila said, thrusting a finger under Tzu Zi's nose. She batted it away easily.

"Oh, you were just flustered and confused. Now, what about that Sokka fella?"

"I swear to whatever god you believe in..." Nila muttered darkly, her temper at the fraying edge.

"But won't that mean that Zhao... throws everything he has at me?" Aang asked. "I don't know if I can stop an army all on my own."

"You don't have to," How said. "You just have to be there, at the right place at the right time. If things work out less than terribly, you won't be involved in a fight at all."

"I don't like those odds," Aang said, fiddling with his sleeves in a nascent nervous habit. "Something always tends to go a little wrong."

"You're not being asked to win a war in a single stroke," How said patiently. "Fong made that mistake, and nearly died because of it," the Avatar turned away, shame on his face. "I'm not going to make that same mistake. And you're not going to have to lead an army, because both the Mountain King and Badesh are there."

"I wish there were some way that this wouldn't have to happen," Aang said. "There are so many more important things that have to be solved, and I don't know how I'm going to solve them, either!"

How sighed, and turned his eyes to the Avatar after a moment contemplating his navel. "If there is one thing that I've learned in my years, young Avatar, it's that you have to deal with the stone in front of you, rather than the mountain down the road. I know that this damned unnatural weather will be the death of the entire world if it isn't stopped. I have no idea how that's going to happen. I know that the Fire Nation is going to burn Ba Sing Se to a crater filled with cinders if we allow them the aerial advantage when the Comet returns. That's something I can solve. Let us deal with the problems before us. After that, we leave to you."

Aang just nodded, obviously not feeling the best even after having so much responsibility removed from his shoulders. He would perennially be the sort to blame himself for the failures of others, Nila figured. That was going to break his little mind one day. Say what you would about Nila's hubris, at least she didn't assume that the entire world was rotating in the palm of her hand, to save or crush by her decision.

Of course, with the Avatar, that may very well be the case.

"Maybe I'll go talk to Sokka, then," Tzu Zi noted.

"You shall do no such thing," Nila said.

"Agni's Flame, Nila! Are you blushing?"

"NO!" she snapped.

"You're embarrassed! I didn't even know you could be embarrassed!" she said.

"Stop this," Nila said.

"Come on. If you just filled me in on everything, I wouldn't have to keep pulling at you."

"You ought not feel a need to pull at all!" Nila answered her.

"But you're... you've been somewhere none of us have _been_... if you get my drift."

"Speak for yourself," Aan Jee chuckled from Nila's other side.

"Tzu Zi, end this, now."

"Come oooooon."

"I AM NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT MY SEX LIFE!" Nila shouted at her.

Silence suddenly overtook all conversation, as Tzu Zi leaned back, embarrassment now clear on her face. Nila slowly turned, to see that all others were now watching her. Sokka's sister had her face in her palm, and was muttering something that, were she more proficient in Yqanuac, would know meant 'gods help us, she really is a female _him_.' The father of those two seemed to be holding in a chuckle. The others... just looked baffled and aghast.

"...fine. I'm leaving," she said, grabbing her platter and turning from the table. "Do you see what you made me do?"

"I'm sorry..." Tzu Zi said, even though she did look at least a little amused by it. That amusement was at least buried in contrition, so she made a point of not hating her for it. She nevertheless shook her head, exited the room, and slammed the door shut behind her.

In the room, How blinked without words for a few moments, then turned to Hakoda, who was likely the oldest man in the room other than he himself. "You know, for a while there, I forgot that much of our plans and preparations are in the hands of the young," he noted.

"Speak for yourself," Azula unknowingly echoed the criminal Baihu. "Now, how do we get the Avatar into position before they move on Yokaizo?"

* * *

><p>In the end, he had to get out of the room. It wasn't Nila's massively-out-of-context bellowing that knocked him out of it, but rather, the weight of what everybody was saying. This was pretty much it. The Day of Black Sun was a week and a half away. If they didn't beat Zhao there, then he'd have a straight run to the return of Sozin's Comet. And if he used it...<p>

No, that wasn't the worst part, Aang decided. The worst part was that even if they stopped Zhao dead in his tracks, then the world still had a couple weeks to live regardless. He leaned against a pillar that held up the awning, which had so often before now held off rain, but now, had talons of ice reaching down almost to his eye level where he stood. They grew longer every hour, as the water melted off the roof, then fell to some place cold enough to refreeze. Everything went down. The path of least resistance. Never reaching the ground, but forever divorced from the sky. Stuck in limbo.

Kinda like him.

"Hey," a friendly voice came from Aang's back. He turned, and gave a weary smile – the best he had to offer – to Katara. "I noticed you move out. Something on your mind?"

"Too much," he said. He rubbed his face with his hands, catching his fingertips on his headband. With a groan, he pulled it past his hair and dropped it onto the floor. So long inside that thing, and air against his forehead felt a foreign thing. "So much is dependent on me doing things that I'm not even sure I'm capable of. And no matter how well we do... people are going to die."

"I know," Katara said. She moved to Aang's side, and bent the icicles out of her way so she could lean on the railing without the water sliding down her back. "I wish I had something I could tell you. Some way I could make you feel better, but you're right. I'm looking at the people around that table, and I can't help but think... am I going to see them at the end? Or is this going to be another Summavut?"

"No. No I won't let it be," Aang said.

"I know you won't," Katara said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She turned to face as he did, out into the obscured bay, hidden by fat flakes of snow that blew on ceaseless winds. "I... I'm worried about my sister."

"Hikaoh?" Aang asked.

Katara nodded. "I talked to Kori for a while, and if half of what he says about my sister is true, then she could be out there, all on her own, and in danger. For all the wrong reasons, too!"

"Well, we can only hope that she'll be alright."

"No. Hoping isn't enough for me anymore," Katara said. "The Fire Nation tore my family apart more than a decade ago. I don't care if the world ends next month; if it does, then I'm going to face it with _my family_."

"Are you sure you'll be able to save her?" Aang asked.

"I have to," Katara whispered.

"She's not wrong," Azula's voice instantly pulled Aang's attention away from the grey haze before him. The look on Katara's face went from distant to hard and edged like a tomahawk in the blink of an eye. But that glare faltered, when Azula approached. Because the look on her face was much as Katara's had been. "You have to stand by your family. Even in the hard times," she said. Then, a sigh, as her eyes slid closed, and she leaned against the rail herself, heedless of the water that dripped into her phoenix-tail. "_Especially_ the hard times. If you don't, then you never deserved to have them for the good. It took me a long time to figure that out. And honestly... it's been on my mind."

"What do you mean?" Aang asked.

"...my father," she said.

"_Ozai_?" Katara asked, more confused than angry, but the anger was certainly there. Azula simply nodded, eyes still closed. "Why would you be thinking about _him_?"

She took a step away from the rail, and planted her back against the wall, instead. She turned slightly, as though half-glancing through the window there, into the 'banquet', such as it was, that continued on without either the focus or the schemer. "Because he's my father," Azula said simply. She turned those eyes on Katara, then. "You of all people would understand that your family can't be turned away, no matter what they do. Your sister tried to kill you, and yet you not only forgive her, but you try to save her. How can I call myself a daughter if I don't do the same?"

"You want to save _Ozai_?" Katara asked. "The guy who turned my sister into a _weapon_? The guy who killed thousands at Summavut? _That guy_?"

She shook her head, slowly. "No. I want to save the man who taught me how to temper the flame inside my soul. I want to save the man who taught me how to read. I want to save the man who gave me the best of teachers, the best of opportunities. I want to save _Prince_ Ozai... not _Fire Lord_ Ozai."

"They're the same person," Katara said.

"No. They aren't," Azula said. "It's obvious to me. Father... he once believed that he was the best thing for the nation. That he would be able to steer the Fire Nation down a glorious path. One that didn't live under the pall of Azulon's atrocities. Somewhere along the way, he got... sidetracked. Power lured him. Seduced him," she ran a thumb under one eye... as though to crush out a tear before it formed. "...turned him into something cruel and vain."

"Azula..."

"And I know what it was. Me," Azula continued. "If I hadn't 'become ill', he wouldn't be who he is now. Your slaughter at Summavut would never have happened. Your sister wouldn't have been brainwashed and turned against you. Everything that went wrong in this world, went wrong because of me. I am responsible for the man that my father has become."

"You aren't," Aang cut in. "Even if you changed the way things went, that doesn't mean that it's your fault."

"I never said fault. I said responsibility," Azula said. Katara had settled into a glare, but one not as lethal or deathly as Aang would have anticipated.

"What are you going to do?" Katara asked.

"The same thing you are, only with a different target," Azula said. "I need to know that my father is alright."

"Even after all he's done?" Katara asked. Azula nodded slowly, bangs hanging aside her face.

"He's still my father."

"But... what will you do when you find him?" Aang asked.

"Honestly? I have no idea," Azula said. She gave a mirthless laugh. "How very unlike me. Traipsing off into peril and disaster without so much as a plan."

"That's not what I heard from your brother..." Aang said.

"Zuzu has... a version of me in his mind," she said. She turned to Katara. "If you want to know what I want to save in Ozai, look at Zuko. All of what Zuko is... he came by honestly."

Katara's glare became a gape. "Really?" she asked. "Ozai used to be _him_?"

"The unfavored son of a spiteful father? Absolutely," Azula said. "There was one time... in another life... when I had to fight him. 'The Phoenix King', he called himself. He'd lost himself into a megalomania that even I couldn't foresee. Threw me aside. Left me to rot. I didn't take it well," she puffed out a breath. "It was ironic... that _you_ would come to save the Avatar then. That you'd find me there, in that dungeon."

"Ozai captured me?"

"Ty Lee," Azula clarified to Aang's query. "As I said, another life. The way he twisted up, I saw in him a shadow of his father. A shadow of his _grandfather_. A man desperate to make a difference. Sozin started a war he couldn't win. Azulon fought a war he couldn't escape. Ozai... was desperate enough to do _anything_. And in another life... Zuko was a lot like that."

"Really."

Azula nodded. "You don't know how bad things got after Ozai was cast down. Zuko was a divisive Fire Lord. He had a lot of enemies. A lot of people wanted him dead, on both sides of the national line. It didn't help that I was actively opposing him, but... There were times, when he struck down my plans, I could _see_ Ozai in him. And honestly? That concerned me deeply, even then."

"How could Zuko turn into Ozai?" Katara asked. "Yeah, your brother's infuriating, but he's not _evil_."

"Neither is my father," Azula said quietly. "He's done evil things. Lost his mind to megalomania. But evil?" she shook her head. She took in a stern breath, and raised her gaze to meet the waterbender. "I know you're not going to want to hear it, but all it takes to make a good man into an evil one, is bad circumstances, bad luck, and bad decisions. I'm a product of a man who wanted a _weapon_, not an heir. Or of a man who was so disappointed in a broken tool, that he cast it away. He favored me out of necessity, and despised me out of necessity. And he abandoned me, out of necessity. Cruel? Yes. Terrible father? Absolutely. But..."

She just shook her head.

"You're not used to talking about this kinda stuff, are you?" Aang asked.

"Oh, what was your first clue?" she asked, her tones returning to the more cutting and witty tones that he was familiar and comfortable with. "The fact is, what we're doing... what they're doing? It's not going to matter much. And I know that the best good I could do is to stop existing."

"I'm not going to let that happen," Aang asked.

"And somehow, I knew he was going to say that," Azula sing-songed to Katara. Then she shook her head. "Have you come up with anything? A way to stop the end of the world?"

"...no," Aang said.

"Not yet," Katara clarified.

"Then search harder," Azula said, with a whisper of... it was a vulnerability, that Aang detected there. A splinter of undiluted fear. "Because I have some certainty that you're the only one who can. Much as I'd like to be able to claim credit for mankind's continued existence, I don't think that's in my power."

A brave showing, hiding deeply held concern. Fear. Fear inside somebody who hated being afraid.

"We'll come up with something," Aang said. He turned, looking out into the snows once more. "There's no puzzle that has no solution. We've just got to find one that doesn't cost us our souls."

* * *

><p>"Nila?" Sokka asked, as he leaned out of the doorway, to the upper floor balcony. It, like the lower, had an awning that stretched over it. That one had been put in place to keep rain from ruining a pleasant sitting-area. Now, it was a catacomb, walled in ice that froze as it fell from above. It pooled and mounded inside, before spilling further, onto the floor below. Nila, dark and brightly-attired as she was, stood out starkly against that grim grey background. "There you are," he said.<p>

"Tribesman," she said. She was sitting in one of the chairs, her feet up, as though staring through the ice.

"...something on your mind?" Sokka asked. She was staring into the distance in an oddly disconcerting way. In a way which, honestly, reminded Sokka a little bit of her brother.

"Yes," she answered simply.

"...mind sharing?" he asked.

There was a snap of silence, before she shook her head, and glanced in his direction. "I see little use. It is a topic which has little sense or sensibility about it."

"Hey, those are some of the best things to talk about," Sokka offered, trying to pull a chair to sit next to her. He was stymied, when he found on of its legs encased in ice. He tugged for a long moment, before scratching his hair. Then, he pulled Space Sword and cut it free with a couple of pokes. "So?"

"You are going to speak to a lady with blade in hand? How brutish," Nila teased, even with her voice very flat and emotionless.

"I thought ladies liked it when men were armed and at the ready," Sokka answered.

"Ugh," Nila muttered. "Can we not go this direction right now?"

"You started it," the tribesman said, as he slid the blade home. He certainly was no master of the sword, no matter what Piandao had promised when the two had parted, but the blade was now as at-home on his back or hip as his boomerang was. He sat, and kicked his feet up as she had. "You're thinking about your brother, aren't you?"

"I had no idea I was so transparent," Nila muttered.

"You don't try to hide things. I like that," Sokka said. "It's refreshing."

"Ice down your back in the morning is 'refreshing'. I am annoying. There stands a great difference."

"You're not so bad," Sokka said. "I'm guessing... that means your brother is still free, but you're worried about how you're going to find him?"

"I will find him as surely as the rains find the Fire Nation," Nila said.

"I haven't seen much _rain_ recently," Sokka noted grimly.

"As have I," she said. A silence stretched, punctuated only by the murmur of voices behind and below. "How do you deal with this deathsome waiting? To know that you are an ant in the presence of gods, powerless to change what you find yourself within?"

"I'm not powerless," Sokka said. "Sure, my surrogate little brother is the Avatar, my buddy's the Prince of the Fire Nation, my other buddy decided to break the rules of the universe because she thought that not-metalbending was too annoying to deal with, and everybody over the age of forty seems to be in some globe-spanning conspiracy, but that doesn't mean I'm useless. If we didn't have a train, there'd be no Black-Sun invasion, _period_. And whose idea was it to steal a train?"

Silence once more.

"This is the part where you're supposed to say 'you did'," Sokka said.

"I was not aware that this was pantomime," Nila answered him.

"_Well_, I did," he said. "You're selling yourself short. You've done a lot of good, just like everybody has. We're all fighting together, in the ways that we can."

"The only good I do is in the purview of explosives," she noted.

"And you helped bring hundreds of Tribal children out of captivity," he said, reaching out and taking her hand. He gave it a reassuring squeeze. "There are hundreds of families, right now, that are going to be whole again for the first time in more than a decade, and that's because of you."

"Me? No. Because of you, your sister, Malu and the Prince. I merely provided tools."

"If you didn't have those pepper-gas bombs, we would have never made it out. And then you made it so that prison was uninhabitable, so nobody would use it again," Sokka pointed out. "And that's not even counting saving Sato from the Spider, or..."

"I get it, I get it. I understand," Nila said distractedly. "I am valuable. Whoo."

"There you go! Engage that sarcasm!" Sokka said enthusiastically.

"It's fortunate that you enjoy sarcasm. Many are simply angered by it," she said. But she didn't pull free of his hand. Not until she sat forward, pulling him forward as well so that the connection didn't break. "Wait... He is free, which means..."

"Which means what?"

"I must go to sleep," Nila said.

"...why?"

"There is a fair to good chance that I will enter the spirit world in my dreams. There is something I need to know from my brother."

"Oh. That sounds like a good idea. Shouldn't we just ask Aang to do it, though?" He asked, casting a thumb over his shoulder.

"And potentially waste eight hours he could better spend in preparation? No. Let him do as he does, and let me do as I may do."

"Alright," he said. He pulled his hand from hers, and turned to the door. "So, should I get you some soothing tea or something?"

"Tea keeps me awake," Nila said, staring earnestly into the distance. "I need something which shall make me exhausted, body and mind, enough to slumber deeply and quickly."

"...Well, Katara might know of something," Sokka offered.

"Or perhaps," she began, turning a glint of green eye toward him. "...perhaps there is some small part in this _you_ can play."

He clapped his hands together. "Alright. What do you need me to do?" he asked.

She started to smile, in a way that she very seldom did.

"..._oh_," he said. Well, that was certainly going to make his evening. "Wait, I thought we agreed..."

"Shut up, Sokka."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

><p>He rapped on the door of that had been offered to General How. Aang didn't really know what he was supposed to say, or do, right now. 'Yes, I'll play decoy for your army'? There was a certain degree of leeway that he now knew that he had to afford himself – as he was not simply an airbender monk anymore. He was the Avatar. Like Azula said, the Avatar only had the principles that who lived with it placed upon it. He wanted to have principles... but at the came time, he didn't want to let everybody down, <em>again<em>.

"Yes?" How asked from within.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Avatar? Of course," he said. Aang slid the door open, to find the man hunched over a table too small for him, reading reports by candle-light. "What is on your mind at this late hour?"

"Your battles. And the Day of Black Sun. And... and everything, really," he said.

How nodded slowly, and set the reports aside. "I'm a military man, Avatar. I fought at the wall against the Dragon of the West. My father helped put down the Daughter of Blades in Ru Nan. And _his_ father crushed the Eunuch's Rebellion. It's in my blood. But, I gather, it's not in yours," he said.

"How do you do it? Choose so quickly between who lives and who dies?" Aang asked, leaning his back against the wall next to the door.

"Quickly doesn't mean easily, young Avatar," How said. "Speed is something that you gain with experience, whether you'd like it or not. Sometimes, the fast choices are the wrong ones," he nodded slowly. "There are times I wish I could take back decisions made in the snap of the moment. That I could have had more time to understand. But that's folly, because time and destiny wait for no man, generals and Avatars included."

"...I want to help, but I don't want to hurt anybody," he said.

"Mutually exclusive in your mind," How said. He rose to his feet, and beckoned Aang to follow him as he moved to the doors which lead out onto a balcony. He had to shoulder into the door to snap it loose of its icy mooring, and his first steps were unsteady until he cleared their slick purchase. He went to the rail, and grasped it, ice or no, as he looked out onto the field of tents below. Some of them seemed in desperate peril of simply having a bank of snow blow over and crush them. "Do you see those men, down there?"

"The soldiers?" Aang asked, taking a place beside him.

"No. Not them," he said. He pointed further, to where there were campfires burning, pots bubbling even in the night. Where weary looking men and even women were gathered around those places of warmth and light in the night. "Them. They are the followers of an army. They never touch a blade except to sharpen or repair it. They never don armor except to mend it. They never fight, unless everybody else has already died, and even then, they seldom do. But without them, this army dies in the gutter, starved to death, coughing with disease, and their weapons and garb crumbling away with rust."

"...you're saying that not everybody in war has to fight to make a difference," Aang clarified.

"Exactly that," How said with a nod. "If Chief Hakoda were awake, he'd probably say it in some... meaningful way of his. He's got a bit of poet in him, that man," he shook his head. "But enough of that. Yes; in a war, everybody fights in their own way. Soldiers put steel to their fellow man. Smiths build them armor to prevent that steel from returning. Cooks and surgeons keep them on their feet, or get them back on their feet, as the case may be. Wives and children give them something to want to return to... if they aren't already growing the food, tanning the leather, smelting the iron, or ten thousand other things which make either war or peace possible."

"It's all connected," Aang said, the revelation dawning even against his own fatigue. "I've... always seen soldiers as something to be feared or reviled... but they're just like everybody else. A part of a greater whole, one that, without them, is made simply lesser."

How nodded. "A soldier's greatest wish – if he's _sane_ – is a life without war. A man-at-arms' greatest wish is – _if_ he's sane – to have peace," he said. "You might not understand, young Avatar, but life as a soldier teaches you one very important lesson."

"What's that?" Aang asked.

"That there's no such thing as an evil people," How said. "Some men can be cruel, ruthless, sadistic, but there will always be a thousand men-at-arms who just want to go home, to be with their families, for every one who fights for the joy of fighting," the long-bearded man gave a scoff. "...joy of fighting, as though it were even a thing."

"I have to admit... you're a lot different than I imagined a general would be," Aang said.

He took a breath, his eyes closed as he stood resolute against the blowing snow. "I've had to be," he said. Then, the turned a glance to Aang. "I'm not asking you to fight, young Avatar. I'm only asking that you do your part. The same way that I will. As Hakoda will. As the Tribesmen, as the forces down there – as even the Ghurkas if your words are true – will."

"Everybody is fighting together," Aang said. "The world's going to be very different when this war is over," he said. If it survived, anyway.

"I hope it is," How said. "Because anything has to be better than this."

The older man turned, and moved back toward his room, out of the cold and the snow. Aang, understandably, followed him. For some reason, it seemed there was just a little bit of Monk Gyatso in the old, broad-chested general. Then again, Gyatso had been the one to tell him, so long ago both relatively and chronologically, that the most profound of wisdom could come from the most unexpected sources, and that _nobody_ is below notice. "So what will I do?"

"Frighten them," How said. "Just show yourself to them, and they'll fill in the blanks themselves."

"But what about secrecy? The Day of Black Sun... right. He knows its coming. That _I'm_ coming," he wiped a hand down his face, causing a black lock to tumble before one eye. He flicked it away as he turned to How. "I don't know how, though. I'm not this... military _guy_."

"Then have faith in those around you who are," How said.

* * *

><p>Nila yawned, stretching her arms over her head, as she slowly sat up, and dusted the dead earth off of her back. As plans went, this one had a very promising start. She blinked a few times, looking around the domain that she had once known front and back. Not so, now.<p>

"Now this isn't even fair," Nila muttered to herself, as she looked upon a Spirit World torn asunder. Still, it wasn't with a tenth of the vitriol that she ordinarily would have brought to this kind of situation. While she was most definitely not a happy person in general, right now... she was feeling pretty good about herself. So much so, that there was a curl to her lips and an idle humming of a tuneless song, such that people who didn't know Nila would say 'she's happy'. People who _did_ know Nila would be hopelessly confused, and a little _afraid_.

She didn't notice, as she turned about, that she had the same hum in her throat, the same tuneless song, that her brother so often had uttered.

When she took a step, she felt rough, dry dirt on bare feet. She looked down, and saw a notable problem. "This simply will not do," Nila said. She closed her eyes, and thought of something besides nudity. There was a slight shift in her perceived weight, and behold, she was now clothed much as she was when she was awake; a roughly-tailored men's shirt made to fit her, and a pair of pants for maximum mobility. "Now... where are you, Sharif?"

Islands hung in the void, separated by great expanses of empty space. But at the same time, she felt that she still knew this place. That there was still direction that she'd instilled down into instinct. She closed her eyes, her fingers tweezing at her brow as her lips fell into a far more Nila-like scowl. It started to congeal in her head, her map of this place. But at the same time, though the map was still there in her proprioception as much as she knew where her own arms and legs were, it now took a different shape. It was as though she'd awakened to suddenly have legs sprouting from her shoulders, arms hanging out of her back, and eyes in her groin.

Still... she had a direction.

She started walking, before opening her eyes, and her crunching turned from the rasp of bootleather on gravel, to the paff of that same bootleather on dry clay. Even as she opened her eyes, she knew that there would be a path, leading her where she needed to go. She didn't know why. Not really. Her brother probably did, but not she. She might learn, but not today. All that mattered, was that if she walked this path, she would reach her brother.

How odd, that so much of her life in the last year had been centered around that every concept?

While she walked, she passed familiar sights in unfamiliar places. The ship of the Moorage, drifting now on the tide of oblivion. The metal frames of the Cage. The statue of the head and shoulders of an oddly featured man, balding and large-nosed, inscribed with letters in a language she could not read.

Then, at the end of her journey, there was a door. It hung there, no walls surrounding it, but the path of sun-baked clay leading to its precipice. She slowed as she approached, looking the aperture over. It was a golden brown, much like the houses in her once-home of Sentinel Rock. It didn't look a Si Wongi creation, but it had a Si Wongi material to it. Inked fingers drifted toward it, running gently down the frame. The door's structure crumbled away like badly made bricks, or pressured sand. A groan sounded from within the black passage, one that spoke of something great and massive, suffering. Something wounded, even as it dreamed.

New rule to the list; don't touch the dying doorway.

Oddly, not the strangest rule she'd ever had to make.

It was a strange sensation, to pass forward. It slid along her like walking through a pane of freezing water, before a fresh step found her on mosaic tiled floors. Ahead of her, she heard an electric zap, as lighting bounded amidst some unseen barrier ahead of her. All that it touched had already been rendered into ashes, but the lightning continued to bounce. She turned, and looked. Stacks of books. Thousands of them. Millions perhaps. But that wasn't what held her attention.

What held her attention were the traps.

She'd learned so early on what traps did, the damage they could do, and how hard they were to detect. Not so, now. It was like a secretive layer of reality had been stripped away, and the hazards of the Spirit World, where one thing gathered to a critical mass without intellect giving it purpose or path, into a deadly whirlwind. Flames roiled in the air, burning without casting appreciable amounts of light. Seemingly begging to burn. Dust on the floor turned in lazy circles, describing the outline of a Springboard. The floor outright bubbled when she circumvented that, and saw a Fruit Punch ahead and beyond it.

"Well," Nila said into that silence, her quiet words almost sounding like a gunshot to the dead library. "I will have only myself to blame for falling into them now," she said. She could at least rationalize her failures with the traps before as having been tricked into thinking what was not safe, was. Repeated lessons instilled the first rule, that everything was trying to kill her. Important rule.

She closed her eyes once more. She could feel him. He was in this place, this broad and dead library of a forgotten time, and a forgotten place. Staffed by forgotten servants. Built by a forgotten hand. Well, wing, actually.

"Sharif! Where are you you foolish boy?" Nila shouted. Beyond a gunshot, to shout in this place.

She walked the library, and gave only half a look to the feathers that lay at the foot of bookshelves. "Sharif!"

An echo.

She scowled, her earlier good humor now finally being replaced by her usual sour scowl. She knew he was somewhere nearby. Perhaps amidst the rows? But if then, why hadn't he answered her?

She glanced to the feathers for a moment, then strode to one of the shelves, picking up a particularly thick, metalled-leather bound tome. '_From Stone_: _The Complete Histories of the Earthbender Empire_'. She shrugged, not being one who cared much about ancient civilizations, and stepped out of the stacks. Then, she turned, and heaved the book onto the floor near where she'd gotten it.

It landed silently, throwing up dust which settled entirely too quickly. That would explain it. But it didn't make anything easier.

"Stop rewriting the rules," Nila demanded. She could practically hear the universe laughing at her.

So she went back to the rule she knew. She could feel the way, but couldn't see it. So if she walked without seeing it... Her eyes slid closed once more, and she started walking. Every step she took was tentative, because every part of her kept screaming 'you're going to step into a Meat Grinder', one that she would easily have seen coming. But she continued.

She found her way.

The direction shifted, and she walked with it. Her eyes pressed shut, her feet barely whispering against the floor, crunching lightly against mosaic tiles which were slipping out of place. As far as her body could tell, she was adrift in a sea of non-perception, with only the sensation of her weight in her boots tethering her.

Until she opened her eyes, and saw a young man in black robes turning a corner ahead of her. She blinked a few times, then picked up her pace to an outright sprint. Which was a mistake, because she only noticed the Springboard at the last possible second, and to avoid it, she had to bound inelegantly over it. Thus, when she landed, she did so on feathers, which had less grip than the ground. She clawed at the stack of books beside her, but only succeeded in dragging them down with her as she fell into the path between bookshelves.

The clatter of books falling on her sounded in a muted way, through the gray and featureless 'darkness'. It wasn't really dark. Nor light. It was just... _nothing_. She pushed a book off of her head, and looked up.

"Hello, Sharif," Nila said direly.

"Sister? What are you doing here?" he asked. There was a faint glow in the scar on his brow. Obviously he was 'thinking with a false brain', as he'd described it.

"Trying to find you, as it would turn out," she said. She pushed herself to her feet quickly, and struck the dust off of her clothing. Quite pointless, because she was here only as an astral projection, but still, some habits were hard to shirk. "We must speak."

"About?" her brother asked, snapping a tome shut in his hand.

"There are things you discussed with the Avatar when he was stolen from a train. He has not taken them to heart, so I feel one ought in his stead."

"You would learn his lessons for him?" Sharif asked. He shook his head. "My dear sister, however clever you may be, you aren't clever enough for that."

"You mock my intellect?" Nila asked. "There was something that the Avatar did not want to hear. I don't care what he wants to hear. What is it?"

Sharif sighed, and gave a nod aside. She fell in behind him, as there was a sort of twisting to her perception. A straight section of stacks instantly became a corner, and nestled at its point was a desk that hung with a lamp that burned no earthly flame. "There are many things I believe the Avatar did not learn properly. He holds a belief that he can save everybody. In that, he is a foolish optimist."

"He wishes not to slay a woman he loves," Nila said.

"Love? Really?" Sharif said. He raised his brows in surprise, then turned to sit in the chair that creaked ominously at his arrival. "It would explain much. I have had words with Irukandji, and his intransigence made little sense before. Of course he would not slay a beloved."

"Which means that there must be another way."

"...well..." Sharif said, his eyes growing distant again, but not in the mind-impoverished way that they so often did in the mortal world.

"Speak, brother," Nila demanded.

"There is nothing that speaks of Imbalance in this library. For how could there be?" he asked. She shrugged. "Instead, I have researched the underpinnings, the fundamental science of the spirit."

"You? Employing a scientific method?" Nila asked, honestly impressed.

"You were not unique in the brilliant mind passed to you from our parents," Sharif said with a humble shrug. "I simply had ways of using it that did not reek of abject hubris."

"You were lazy," Nila contended.

"Ah, but did anybody expect highly of me?" he asked. She glared at him. "There is an art to sloth that is not to be undersold. Of it, I have learned more of the spirit kin in the first ten years of my life than most gather in their sixty."

"And then forgot more than most living know upon a fateful day in your twelfth," Nila said quietly.

He sighed, and nodded. "I cannot apologize enough, for leaving you as you were in that place. Surrounded by _stupid_ people."

"Ironic indeed that only an idiot would survive our home town's destruction," Nila said. Sharif turned a look of confusion to her. "Gashuin lives."

"That pompous ass!" Sharif muttered. "I have not forgotten the insults he has levied upon me! I would strike him in the mouth if my mind would allow me to remember why I ought. Ashan ibn-Ali was a far better man to survive," he said. Then, he looked to her. "I am sorry, for losing him. I know that he cared deeply for you."

"He did at that," Nila said.

"But... you've moved on," Sharif said. Nila leaned back. His eyes were sharp to know that at a glance. "Don't look so surprised. Much as you deny, you are your mother's daughter. You grieve hard, you grieve swift, and then you press on. I only hope that whomever has caught your eye is worthy of you. Even a crippled shaman can levy an iron-threat on a worthless lout."

"He is not a lout," Nila said. "In fact, he's the closest thing to an intellectual equal that I have ever met."

"High praise."

"Isn't it, though?" she asked. "You are dissembling. What have you _found_?"

Sharif turned a look that was half way between annoyance and embarrassment. "Little. Little of use, at least."

"You might be surprised the use of things," Nila said.

"Oh, I am very much aware," Sharif told her. He laid a tome out on the desk, and pushed it open with a fingertip. "This, you see? The Well of Oblivion. It is the _only_ thing which operates as Imbalance does, in its rapacious hunger and obliteration of spirits."

"I thought it a place of punishment in the Eastern Pantheon."

"It is," Sharif admitted. "Not its initial purpose, but it functions. No, the bottom of the Well is an oblivion worthy the name. What falls into it, is unmade to its very least. Which ought sound familiar."

"As does this 'Imbalance' eat," Nila said. "Supposedly."

"Ah, but you might have the eyes of a shaman yet," Sharif said, tapping her in the center of the forehead. She swatted his hand away. He flipped the page with his other hand. "There was a point during some war of Spirit-kind, when the defeated were denied consumption and absorption, but instead consigned to _annihilation_. They were cast into the Well. And their destruction was not instantaneous."

"Which means?" Nila asked.

"If Imbalance operates as the Well does – and I have some strong evidence that it must – then its appetites might well be infinite, but its capacity to sate it, is not."

"How could this possibly help us?" Nila asked.

"I honestly don't know," Sharif said. "But it is something. A rule that Imbalance _must_ follow."

"A rule that offers no tactic towards killing it."

Sharif sighed. "What was Archeophthese's answer to the 'paradox of existence'?" he asked calmly.

"That until there is a _constant_ established, nothing can be truly known," Nila repeated. "I'm surprised you were paying attention."

"I am a man of many surprises," Sharif said, but not smugly. More distracted. "Even if this offers no advantage of itself, it is something. From there, I can expand my search – as I had been doing when you arrived."

"You are trying to find ways that this Well can be used to fight Imbalance and the Shards?" she asked.

"No. It would be as a bath of water to us, for it," Sharif said. "But Void undoes It. Imbalance operates as the Well. With two points of knowledge, much can be discerned. A third would... be most valuable."

Nila scratched at the hair which was passing between 'boyishly' short and 'femininely' short, trying to think. Then, her brow rose. "The thresholds. It passed between thresholds of one thing to another. Ledge and naked air. Doorways. Edges of shadows. What does that say of it?"

Sharif stared into the distance. "I don't know. But it is something. And a something I will have to note for myself when next I come here."

She sighed. "I can only imagine how aggravating this must be for you."

"I have a simpleton's mind in the waking world. While there, my worries are few, my needs, easily met," Sharif said. "Some would beg for so 'pure' an existence. I know better."

"There is _no_ bliss in ignorance."

"And knowing what lay in the dark, allows the fear of it to be overcome," Sharif completed. He then turned to the book for a moment, before turning to her once again. "How did you know to come here? And in fact, how did you _manage_ to? It was difficult enough for me to find the paths, let alone a non-shaman."

She looked into the infinite distance of scrolls and books. "I don't know. Not yet. I had an... intuition."

"You sound so bitter to say the word," Sharif joked.

"I shall find the mechanism in time," Nila said. "But... it felt like trying to find... the _rest_ of me."

Sharif nodded, and sighed quietly. "How it is amongst twins," Sharif said, and patted her on the shoulder.

"Is there noone you can speak to on this?"

"Koh... but I fear what answers I would get from him," Sharif said. "If he allowed answers at all. He is notorious for being... unkind. Other than he? Irukandji. Agni, perhaps, though she has vanished from my sight, I know not where."

"Tell this Irukandji then," Nila said. "Troublesome though that craven thing might be, it at least fights within our force. That is more than can be said of many."

Sharif nodded, then started slightly. "Oh my. I seem to be awakening," he said. He turned to her, and turned her to face him squarely. "Whatever you have done to do this? Remember it. If nothing else, it will allow us communication, a precious resource in terrible times. And tell the Avatar what I have spoken of. There is a chance – however small, admittedly – that it might mean more to he than to us."

"Of course," Nila said. "I have no desire to see the world end, after all."

"Good," Sharif said. He looked around. "So. Regarding this new 'gentlemen friend' of yours? Have you told him your _real_ name, yet?"

"Yes."

Sharif leaned back. "Really?"

"He prefers 'Nila'," she said. "Easier to pronounce to a Tribesman's tongue."

"He should gain a more dexterous tongue, if only to do us proper respect," Sharif noted.

"His tongue is quite dexterous enough, I have found," Nila said with a chuckle that was, admittedly, quite unlike her usual manner. Sharif turned to her.

"What is that supposed to mea–"

And in the middle of his word, he was gone.

"That could have been awkward," Nila noted to the silence and the abandoned library. Perhaps the universe wasn't strictly out to ruin her life after all.

* * *

><p>"Hey. Prince Pouty," Toph said. Zuko turned from where he was about a minute away from settling down and going to sleep. The night was hardly young at this point, and just about everybody else was asleep. Probably Brain and Boomstick as well. Although, more power to them for what they'd done before they went.<p>

While it could be occasionally horrifying, having a sense of hearing as acute as Toph's made for excellent blackmail and teasing.

"Toph," he said. "Do you need something?"

"Kinda," she said.

From the complete lack of movement on his part, she knew he was staring dully at her. "...and it would be?"

"Remember... that sliver?" she asked.

"The one that makes people blind," he clarified.

"Yeah. That one," she said. There was a bundle of nerves in her that honestly she'd rather not have admitted was there. Well, she'd rather it was not a part of her at all. Nervousness and Toph Beifong went about as well together as Twinkletoes and cold-blooded mass-murder. And yet, she found herself in this scenario. "About that..."

"Something happen to you while you were using it?" Zuko asked. He approached a bit, stopping about half way across the room. She was glad to have her toes on stone rather than wood, and the next step, however cold, was a comforting one.

"...kinda."

"Toph, something's obviously wrong, because you're not acting like yourself," the Prince said plainly.

"Let me preface this before I get to the important bit," Toph said, a hand raised toward him, her useless eyes on the floor. "The end is right around the corner, and we're still fighting blinder than I am. I ain't exactly got a heaping helping of hope that we're all gonna get out of this alive. So I figure, there's not much point in beating around the bush and letting a bunch of nervous shull-shit stand in the open."

"I have an idea where this is going," Zuko said.

"Shut up and let me get there then, Pouty Pants," Toph cut him off. "Remember how I said that the sliver lets me steal other peoples' perception?"

"I do recall."

"...I want to steal yours."

"Excuse me?"

She pulled it out of her pocket, and rolled it in her fingers. "I've never seen anything in my life, before I saw the clouds over Azul from some bored guy. Which is a pretty shitty thing to be the first thing my eyes behold, if you get my drift. So I figure... Let my second one at least let me know _what I godsdamned look like_."

"I didn't know you had such vanity in you," the prince joked. She shot a cloudy-eyed glare at him. Then, slipped the sliver behind her ear. "Aren't you concerned the others are going to freak out when they find themselves blind?"

"Everybody but you, me, and Sugar Queen's dad is asleep. And he's at the other side of the building. Out of range," she said.

"If you say so," Zuko said. There was a moment of silence between the two. "Is it working?"

"You'd be the judge of that," Toph said. She took a few quiet steps forward, and prodded him hard in the ribs. He recoiled with a movement of involuntary shock. "I guess it is."

"Yeah. I'm blind," Zuko said, a tone of boredom in his voice. "How long is this going to take?"

"I'm not really sure," Toph admitted.

"Then do you mind if I sit down?" Zuko asked.

"Be my guest," she said. He tilted a look in her vague direction, one of 'are you kidding me?'. "Just back up 'till you hit the bed, dummy."

"You're enjoying this too much," Zuko said.

"I've gotta get my kicks somehow," Toph said with a shrug.

She saw the shrug.

"Your eyes are open, right?" Toph asked, leaning forward. That strange form in her sensorum leaned forward as well.

"Much good as it's doing me," he said. Bit by bit, features began to form up, clarify, gain resolution. At first, it looked like simply overlaying 'color' onto the body-shape sensation she got with her earthbending.

Then, it turned into something... else.

The girl in Zuko's eyes stood tall. Taller than Toph knew she was. Her arms and legs, far from spindly and tiny, were strong. Her body, far from underdeveloped, was shapely. And her face... Toph never had a standard of beauty instilled in her, mostly because she had about as much idea what a face looked like as she could discern by picking her own nose. But it was obvious, the girl in Zuko's eyes, was beautiful.

It took Toph a minute to put all the pieces together. When she leaned back, and the girl in Zuko's vision did too, she finally grasped it.

He thought she was pretty.

"Huh," Toph said.

"Huh what?" Zuko asked, his voice betraying none of the surprise she felt in this. Probably because he was so damned used to it by now. The girl in his eyes smiled, her eyes sliding shut and her head shaking slowly. Lustrous black hair waved before her face as she did so. She reached up to her ear, and pulled the shard away.

In that instant, the green eyed girl in the bright red dress vanished. All that could be 'seen', was the impression of Zuko where his feet hit the floor.

"You think I'm pretty," Toph said. Zuko hemmed and hawed a little. She leaned forward just a little, and pecked her lips to his. Then, she launched her fist into his gut, driving the wind from his lungs. "That's for being such a hopeless damned romantic."

"Ow, what the hell?" Zuko muttered, rubbing his gut. Toph, though, breezed out of the room like she was some kind of giddy airbender. And if anybody saw her do that, she would beat the hell out of them until they were sworn to silence.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure about this?" he asked her.<p>

In truth, it was entirely too late to turn back already. Black locks were already laying in a loose pile to one side, the razor's job done in full. The ground was cold, but if nothing else, the skins that had been provided kept it from freezing her body – her chest in particular – into an icicle. She was pretty sure only one airbender in this generation would be able to pull that trick. You know, and _live_.

"Do it," she said.

"It's going to hurt," the Tribesman warned her.

"I know," she said. "But it won't be the worst I've endured. Not by a long shot."

"If you say so, girl," he said. There was a tap, and a sting, at the base of her spine. Many would have felt insanely vulnerable, laying utterly naked in a tent of a South Water Tribesman, and in particular, a Tribal warrior. For Malu, though, it was something that she needed to do.

Something she'd put off for too long as it was.

The tapping started again, and the stinging came with it. She looked back at the man, as he dipped the tattooing needle into the ink of his trade. It wasn't a proper Air Nomad blue, but in the spirit of nations fighting together, Tribal Blue was more than sufficient. After all, what would she be, if it weren't for the Water Tribes right now?

Likely, dead, because without Sokka putting a machete into her brain, she would have eaten the Avatar in the spring.

The tapping, the stinging, became something of a rhythm, as a line began to slowly etch up her back; a straight line from the rear of the Water Chakra, which would proceed all the way to the crown, and then, finish into the arrows of airbending mastery.

She'd already shaved her head. There was no going back now.

* * *

><p><strong>And thus begins the end of the story, after two years writing it.<strong>


	58. The Day of Black Sun, Part 1

"What now?" Boto shouted over the diminishing hiss of fire onto snow, and the dull clattering of weapons falling out of sight. The Dragon of the East stood, sharp eyes surveying the field. Yokaizo burned behind them; the costs to taking the city would have unmade the Blue Turbans in victory. So they did the prudent thing. The sensible thing.

They burned the city down.

"We can crush them, right here and now," Boto said.

"You will not," Sativa snapped. "If you corner them, they will fight to the last man, as a wild beast beset. Give them a direction to flee, and they will run until their hearts explode in their chests."

"They'll regroup and hit our asses!" Boto pointed out.

"Not in time," Sativa said, finally relaxing the draw of her bow, and sliding it into the hard leather case which her daughter had dutifully brought all the way from their once-home and delivered to her hands in a time of trial. Whatever else could be said of the girl – arrogant, rude, abrasive, unpleasant, unsophisticated, untempered, inexperienced, overspecialized in trifling matters and underdeveloped in more broad concerns – she could always be counted on to fulfill a promise. Four days. Four days, and this war would be over, in one direction or the other. The retreating forces of Zhao didn't offer a backward glance, they simply fled. They'd obviously thought that she would hold Yokaizo sacrosanct, that she wouldn't dare attack without discrimination. They used human shields to blunt the Blue Turban's arrows, and material worth to dull their blades.

Not blunt enough. Not dull enough.

"They're not going to be happy about this," Piandao said as he came to her side.

"The Old Men?" she asked. "They like little."

"I wasn't talking about the Order," Piandao said. "I was talking about history."

"There is an important prerequisite to how one is remembered by history," she said. "That being, who survives."

"Fair enough," he noted. He looked back. "Do you think that they're still on schedule?"

"Of course they are," she said.

"So sure?" he asked.

"My daughter is with them," she clarified. She moved through the battlefield, which was already falling silent. The snow had slowed somewhat, but still fell in the Fire Nation. The Blue Turbans weren't celebrating as they did when they took Grand Ember and Fire Fountain City. There wasn't much to celebrate. There was one group, though, who didn't look so hopelessly morose. They were moving opposite the retreating army, and from the same direction. Too spread out to constitute a bottling force, so Zhao's men just passed them by. She gave a glance to the maimed swordman, who simply gave a puzzled look as that irregular force approached. The closest of them stopped about a stone's-throw away, turning to watch the backs of Zhao's men, retreating to the west, into the heart of their country. Caldera City, though, was north of here. And there she needed to go.

"So," the dark-complected and pale eyed man said, his fist on his hip as he adjusted his hat's angle slightly. "I hear you've been in a bit of a scrap."

"A small one," Sativa said. "You would be... Savir. I have heard of you."

"And I, you," Savir said. "Dragon of the East. Time was, that title was a mite harder to gain."

"And in that time, there were a great many more dragons," she said. "You represent the Ghorkalai?"

"Some of 'em," Savir said with a nod. "Made a promise to the Avatar. Figure that might extend to getting this little easternish 'temper tantrum' sorted out while doing it."

"I thought it might. Have you seen the Avatar recently?"

"Recently? Hell, woman, I spoke to him last night," he said. "They're only 'bout fifteen miles that way, on those rails."

"So close?" she asked. "What about..."

"You'd best be asking them yourself," Savir said. He let out a high whistle, and the other dark-skinned firebenders and warriors of the Far West gave brief nods, before slipping past the leaders and entering the unhappy mass which was the Blue Turban Rebellion. "Meanwhile, let's get your boys and girls ready for a _real_ fight."

"Indeed we shall," she said. What had been said of Savir obviously didn't do him justice. She gave a look to Piandao. "We should..."

"Talk to your daughter," Piandao said.

Sativa sighed, as Savir walked past, ignoring their argument. "This is not the time."

"Sati, the world is ending, the Day of Black Sun is almost here, and you haven't said ten words to her since the start of summer, and even those were sent by bird because _I made you do it_. Talk to her."

"What am I to say to her? 'Good work, pity we're not done yet'?" she asked.

"Why don't you tell her how proud of her you are?" he asked, starting to walk her toward the 'rails' that Savir had nodded toward. She wanted to stand her ground, but she knew that sooner or later, she'd end up there anyway, and with the long strain of running around the battle to keep the irregular Blue Turbans from crumbling under the disciplined boot of their opponents, she didn't have a lot of energy left to resist.

"She should know that by now," Sativa said.

"How could she?" Piandao asked. "You never say it."

"She should..." Sativa shook her head. Too much effort to disagree. "Fine."

"Come on. Let's see your girl."

She could hear him physically resisting the urge to say the word 'our'.

* * *

><p>If it hadn't been for the volcanoes, the black dirt, and the slow and methodical pace that brought the fleet along the Ember Archipelago and beyond it, to the Bay of Tenko, one could well be forgiven for thinking that they'd gone dramatically off course and ended up somewhere just south of Summavut. Or whatever the Westerners were calling it these days. Long Feng felt a distinct and cutting chill; his Grand Secretariat robes, however modest and adequate in the winters of Ba Sing Se, was dreadfully underwhelming in the snows of the Fire Nation.<p>

Life had gone mad. He was certain of it.

He moved to the front of the ship, the spy-glass burning his fingers as he held it; the cold transmitted along metal especially well. If the digits weren't already three-quarters numb, they might have ached. He raised it to an eye, and barely, a blackish blob against a sea of gray, could see something rising up out of the waters. Something like a pillar of heaven, or a statue of a titan.

"The Gates of Azulon," Long Feng said. He turned to the agent near him. "Have you seen them?"

"No," the younger man said, staring into the distance as did his master. He, unlike Long Feng, only wore the conical hat to show his allegiance. The rest of his clothing was fur-lined and thick layered. "I've never laid eyes upon it. But I've heard a lot about it. How it works, its weaknesses, which ever."

"Great chains to block the bay. Preventing invasion by sea," Long Feng said. It was somewhat surprising that firebenders, a nation of people who had no inherent advantage given to them by their element as earthbenders had, could come up with such feats of purely mechanical engineering. The lightning-towers at the walls of Ba Sing Se were a stunning surprise. This... Nearly a nightmare. "Are they vulnerable, Agent Zhong?"

"Vulnerable? Incredibly," he said. "The base is secured into the bedrock with long spikes. Without them, the central tower would topple with any reasonable pressure against the chains. You might lose a ship. Maybe two if the agent doesn't soften the ground enough. But the rest would get through without so much as a pause."

"I see," Long Feng said. He was no military man, he knew that by heart. But at the same time, there was nobody else on this Earth that he could trust to oversee the army which had gathered to put down the tyrant atop the Burning Throne. Even if the rumors he heard were true, and that one Fire Lord had been displaced by another, he had no doubt that until he personally installed somebody a bit more... biddable... into the position, there would be no end to this World War, and his city of Ba Sing Se would never be safe. "Send out the order."

Zhong gave a curtailed bow, before moving back into the ship. It was fortunate that Agent Zhong hadn't died when that assassin in the Avatar's employ had shot him. This invasion would have been a thousand times more troublesome than it already was had he died, and his spy network and knowledge died with him.

He followed Zhong after a short while in contemplation. There were already so many troubles that beset him. His plan to hire mercenary ships and manpower to bolster his force? Impossible, as there wasn't a single sell-sword to be bought, not for any amount of gold! His plans to stabilize Ba Sing Se before his exodus, undone by the death of Secretariat Han. Even his army was a considerable degree smaller than he'd have liked. Between the unrest in the city, and the lack of available ships...

It was like there was some sort of conspiracy against him.

He descended into the ship, moving past the cold, impatient, miserable and angry soldiers and sailors both. Four days. Four days, and then, when the sun began its descent, just after noon – not that the sun would be visible, of course – the darkness would fall, and the landslide would snuff the flame. A simple plan. Few points of failure, few things that could go wrong.

So why did he feel such a sense of dread?

* * *

><p>"Everything is in position?" Zhao asked, staring down from the Burning Throne to the map that was laid out at the dais' feet. Akemi was, as her usual, at his right hand, if a space over. A Fire Lady-Consort had a great deal of clout, but not enough to pointlessly flout certain conventions. Zhao had enough to worry about without having 'violations of etiquette' put him in a position to get a knife in the back.<p>

"It is, Fire Lord," Lord Kurita said, as he waved a hand over the forces which had gathered in a number of places, by Zhao's command, that no invading force of the Avatar and his cronies would ever be able to predict or outmatch. They would 'sneak' their way ashore, only to find themselves pressed down by the full weight of the defenders of Caldera City. "But this leaves us hopelessly defenseless from the south..."

"You forget, there is no road to the south. Not anymore," Zhao pointed out. If there was one benefit to the volcano exploding, it made the city easier to defend. "But you do make a point. Giving an enemy a point of obvious weakness is asking them to attack a different, _actual_ weakness out of sheer contrariness."

"We can move the forty-second here, to the southwestern road; Ashfall ward might be a loss, but there's no telling what could come from the south."

"The Blue Turbans," Zhao said distastefully. There had been no mention of them in Azula's notes. It was either something outside of her ability to foresee – almost as impossible as this weather – or they came about more secretly in her visions, but more blatantly here. "They won't reach the walls; they'll break their teeth on Yokaizo before they even reach the land."

"Assuming they seek to take Yokaizo," a nobody under the employ of Lord Horaki said, rubbing a thumb along his own mutton-chop beard. Even if he was a nobody, Zhao had to commend his choice of facial hair. "If they bypass it..."

"They can't," Kurita said. "They'd leave themselves entirely at the defenders' mercy..."

A runner came into the room, whispering something to Horaki, who began to grow pale. He turned to Zhao. "Your Excellency... Word from Yokaizo."

Zhao puffed out a breath which ended with smoke from his nostrils. He had a fairly good idea how this would end. "Yes?" he asked, keeping his tones neutral.

"They've burned Yokaizo, and scattered the defenders."

A part of Zhao wanted to ignore this. The Blue Turbans weren't the Avatar. It was the Avatar's attack that mattered, and that could be crushed in a heartbeat, instead of goading them into a patient trap that would later backfire. He wanted to ignore this... but as he himself rubbed a thumb along his beard, he let the thumb drift a little higher, and stroke along the scarred, bumpy skin surrounding his eye. It remained even now a lesson. Never for a moment assume that things will go to plan. A lesson against arrogance. The lesson which kept him alive at Summavut.

"Bring the Bridge-burners and all of their ancillaries to fortify the forty-second," Zhao said. It was leaving the ocean-gate weaker than he'd have liked, but he wasn't going to leave his back to an open room full of assassins. He'd learned better than that. He offered a glance to Akemi, who simply gave a tiny nod. Did she believe in his plan, or simply his prudence? It was hard to tell with her. He took a fresh breath, then looked upon his map once more. "The surprises are in place?"

"Yes, Your Excellency," Qin said with a bow that was slightly hitched from an old wound. "But I fear for what will happen if they... misfire."

"Then you'd better be as good as you say you are," Zhao said. He leaned forward slightly, feeling the five-point flame shifting slightly in his hair. "We have a war to win, and an Avatar to cast down. There is no room for error."

He was going to succeed where Ozai had failed, by Azula's word. He'd already outlasted his own death. This, compared to that? A pittance.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 18<strong>

**The Day of Black Sun, Part 1**

**Into the Inferno**

* * *

><p>Aang looked over the army that had gathered in the snows, thousands of people from every place on this Earth. Fighting together to stop a war. The way that it was supposed to be. He could see the Tribesmen from Ogan's force, moving away from the others, while a knot of others wearing the distinctive blue turbans of the eponymous rebellion approached with them. The tallest of them, Bato from the look of him, moved out first. A girl approached from the horde. Whatever words were shared were beyond Aang's ability to hear, both because of the wind and the distance, but when they ended, Bato was moving toward her, and slowly pulling her into an embrace that she didn't seem exactly enthusiastic about.<p>

Reunited with his daughter, and she didn't know him as her father. Even with the absolute miracle that it happened at all, it still managed to be a little sad.

There was a windy thwump that sounded next to him, and he didn't look aside to take in Malu. He knew it was her, anyway. "Hey, Aang," she said.

"Hey, Malu," he said, his eyes still over the army. "This is pretty much it, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said, wistfully. "I mean, I always imagined that the Fire Nation would be getting its ass whupped by somebody at some point. I just didn't think that I'd be there to watch it happen."

"It's not the Fire Nation that's getting beaten. It's its leadership," Aang said. "The Fire Nation's fighting just as hard against him as we are."

"You're right," she said. "Aang... I'm glad that you're the Avatar."

"Why's that?" he asked, turning to her. And when he did, he had to lean back. "What the h..."

"What?" Malu asked. As though it weren't strange enough that she was not only shaved bald, but had a slightly livid blue arrow that pointed down at the bridge of her nose. A glance showed that she had the same on the backs of her hands, vanishing up into her sleeves. "Oh, right. That," she said, pointing to her arrow. "I figured that, well, whatever comes, I want to face it as an airbending master, instead of a student with no teachers."

"I thought you said you weren't ready," Aang said.

"Wasn't then. Am now," she said with a shrug, and then let out a hiss. "Oooh, that still stings on the back a bit..."

"When did you..."

"Yesterday. Took for-freakin'-ever to do. How did _you_ sit still for the whole thing?"

"I didn't get it all done in one go," Aang said, his tone making it clear that such was the way it was supposed to be. Malu blinked at him for a moment.

"Oh."

"But... You're welcome. And I'm glad that I'm not the last airbender. That there was somebody else," Aang said.

"Somebody who's better at it than you," Malu pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah," Aang said, brushing up his hair from where it fell before his eyes. He held it there for a moment. "...I should really shave my head, too..."

"Naw," Malu said. "Trust me on this one. Put it off 'till after the whole invasion thing."

"Why?" he asked. Much as she wanted to face the last battles with her arrows, he wanted his displayed proudly.

"Sokka went on about... something. And Nila's scary mother agreed with him. You'd need to ask them," Malu said with an off-hand wave.

"I think I will," Aang said, and hopped off of his seat on the rocks. The reunion between estranged children and long-mourning parents went about as awkwardly as Bato and Aalo's had. In its way, not surprising; they'd survived for so many years without parents, where did they fit into their lives at this point?

The descent was far faster than most would find it. As both were airbenders, there was a lot of terrain which was simply ignored by bounding over it. Where most would be slogging, thighs deep in the drifts, or splashing through the grey slush that always sought to find its way into their boots, they simply kipped from drift to drift. While there was no snow in the air today, the thunderheads that were parked over the horizon – the capital – told that the weather would not be kind for long.

It was places like this where it became very easy to get lost. The one factor that Aang had in his favor was that he was pretty sure that Sokka and the others were meeting in the train. But he never reached it. Because he found Azula wading through that wet snow, and when she saw him, she altered course directly for him in a heartbeat. There was pretty much nobody else who could have nailed his feet to the ground in this weather.

"Avatar," she said. Malu gave a glance to the former Princess – or perhaps current Princess, as Aang didn't have a lot of knowledge on how lines of succession worked – but Azula ignored it entirely. "I need a word."

"Yes?" Aang asked.

"Alone."

"Nope," Malu said with a shake of her head and her arms folded before her. Azula glared at her for a moment, then sighed and shook her own head.

"Fine. I need your bison."

"What!" Aang and Malu asked at the same time.

The look on Azula's face wasn't one of annoyance or anger, as so frequently it was. There was a distant quality, like she was seeing something very far away from them all. "Does it concern you why I need it? I simply do."

"He can't just give you Appa. First of all, I'm pretty sure that Appa isn't going to let you drive... if you even knew how," Malu pointed out.

"Malu's right," Aang said, regretfully. "Unless I know why, I can't just..."

"I need to find my father," Azula said quietly, her eyes lowering to the snow between the two airbenders.

"...what?" Malu asked.

"Why now?" Aang chose instead.

"Because I might not have another chance," Azula said. "I know where he would be held. But I can't reach it by rails, and no other means will get me there in time."

"Can't you wait until... you know... after the war?" Malu asked.

"No."

"Why not?" Malu asked.

"For the same reason you shaved your head and inked your skin," Azula said, cutting to the heart of it in a way that made Aang wonder if Malu talked to Azula first. Of course, rationally, he knew that she hadn't. "I can understand your reluctance. But... I can't think of any other way. And you have no idea how _infuriating_ that is."

"Azula!" Katara's voice cut in on the conversation, and the waterbender was striding toward them. Striding, because with every step, the snow moved out of the way to give her a path. She was luckier than most. "I know what you're asking him for," she said.

"Don't get in my way," Azula said. "You don't know what's at stake."

"You're wrong, Azula. I do," Katara said. "Aang... I need to borrow Appa."

"...what?" Aang asked.

"Why now?" Malu chose instead.

"Because I need to find my sister, and I might not have another chance to," she said. She gave a nod to Azula. "And if what Azula says is true, then reaching her father quickly is the only way I'll be able to find her."

Azula's brow rose slightly. "I presume this means you no longer wish to kill me."

"No, I'm just extending Zuko's truce to you," Katara said evenly. Azula gave that a chuckle and a smirk.

"I suppose that will have to do," Azula sing-songed, shaking her head. She then turned to Aang. "So I reiterate. _We_ need to take your bison."

"This is so weird," Katara said.

"You have no idea," Azula agreed flatly.

"I..." Aang said, but then he shook his head. "I need to think about this."

"Think quickly," Azula said. "For all I know, that assassin might have already made off with my father."

"If he isn't already dead," Katara said. Azula glared at her. "What? Doesn't that sound like something Zhao _would_ do?"

"No. He would rather have a broken Ozai as a trophy to his vanity than as a safe corpse. No amount of change in all of existence would alter that," Azula said.

"I hope you're right, for your sake," Aang said.

"So do I..." Azula said, her tones quiet. Tense. Maybe even a little afraid.

"Look, once we get everything ready for the Invasion, I'll be..." Aang began.

"You're seriously giving away your bison?" Malu asked. "To her?"

"It's his decision, not yours," Azula answered, not amused that she was being pointed at.

"Later!" Aang demanded. Katara sighed, and nodded, before moving back toward the train that was all's eventual destination. Azula, though, gave him another moment of stare.

"Hopefully not too much later," she said simply, then turned, and plowed through the slush of the snow she melted out of her way, not even trying to follow in Katara's rut.

"Some girl," Malu said.

"Yeah," Aang said wistfully.

"Seriously?" Malu asked.

"What? She's pretty, she's smart, she's strong, she's an awesome bender, she's almost as old as I am..."

"She's fourteen. Or ninety. You're twelve."

"I'll be fourteen in two months. Or a hundred and thirteen. Whichever," Aang countered.

"Still."

"You just don't get it. You've never _had_ a boyfriend," Aang said.

"How did you know that?" Malu asked, leaning away from him.

"Stab in the dark," Aang said brightly, before moving forward in Katara's wake. Malu stared at his back as he went.

"She's _soooo_ turning you evil," she muttered.

* * *

><p>The group that had gathered at the side of the train was pretty sizable. Most of the army had taken the opportunity to stretch their legs, to put a kettle of tea on, to eat something besides jerky boiled in melt-water. When that reedy old general, Sung, said that their logistics was pushed to the very breaking point, he wasn't lying. If they hadn't taken the train, they'd be starving by now.<p>

Zuko stood away from the others, his back to the train. There was something like a dais formed by the gravel-mound upon which the tracks were laid; it made it so that the Mountain King, the Dragon of the East, and the High Chief stood above those who were pacing below. Strange, how a few teenagers stood shoulder to shoulder with the most politically and militarily important people in the free world. As Uncle always said; destiny could be a funny thing.

"Alright. Everybody!" Sokka said, raising his hands. The people continued to mill below. "Come on, guys! Attention, up here! We've got stuff to say. Important stuff. Guys?"

Nila, standing next to him, rolled her eyes, slid the rifle off of her back, pointed it into the sky, and fired off a shot which cracked across the cold, causing all to turn toward her. She then turned to Sokka. "Better?"

"...I guess," Sokka said. He then froze solid for a moment, as though utterly unsure of what to say. Thus, he turned to his father. "As you were saying?"

"You don't want to explain the plan?" Hakoda asked.

"Sokka is many things, but in explaining plans, I am a greater _airbender_ than he at that," Nila pointed out.

"I suppose he is," Hakoda chuckled. He took a step forward, which was matched by each of Nila's Mother and Zha Yu. Hakoda stood taller than both. "Gentlemen and ladies, mercenaries and soldiers of the Earth Kingdoms. Tribesmen and Ghurkas... this is it. In four days, we take part in the final battle. We will fall upon Zhao's forces, as they are distracted by Long Feng's army, from the west. Our objective is this, and if only this we will still find victory; we are to bring the Avatar into the Fire Lord's palace, where he will end a line of tyrant Fire Lords that has gone on too long as it has."

Nila's mother gave a scrutinous glance toward the crowd, then reached behind Hakoda's back, prodding Zha Yu. She whispered something, and the grey-haired Easterner nodded.

"We will be one prong of three that attacks the city. The south will be struck by our allies from Ember, the Blue Turbans," Hakoda began. "This is a force the likes of which the world has never seen. All of the four nations – my Water Tribesmen, the men of the East, the Azuli and the Embiar, and even both the Avatar and Malu Tuying Fei of the Air Nomads – bound toward a single goal. Peace. There is no room for failure in this battle. But I know that failure is _outside_ of your grasp. I am not a religious man, but I can still say that the heavens themselves open the path for our victory... a victory that has already come far too late for many that we've loved. This battle is not for our glory. It is not for territory, or nation, or prize. This battle is for _them_. For those who do not stand here today. For those we wish were here."

"He's got a way with words," Toph said from Zuko's side.

"He does that," Zuko admitted.

"The eclipse itself will only last eight minutes, but that's more than enough. We don't need to end a battle in it, only to press the defenders until they can resist no more. If it passes us by, then we can still find victory," Hakoda said. He raised a hand toward the slightly brighter grey spot in the sky which was probably the sun. "There is_ no one thing_ that will break us. And there are so many things that will bear us on. We will fight, and we will win!"

A cry came up from the crowd, a pumping of fists into the sky.

"We fight for the lost!" Hakoda shouted.

A fresh cheer.

"We fight for our future!" He continued.

Another, louder cheer.

One of those cheers came from Toph. Zuko turned to her, and she blushed a little. "Shut up. I got kinda swept away."

"You don't have to apologize. He's charismatic. Charismatic people tend to do that to people."

"Hey, I'm plenty charismatic myself! I ain't some _follower_!"

"Charisma isn't yes or no, Toph. It's varying degrees," Zuko said. He was watching Zha Yu, though, as he leaned aside, and said something to Hakoda's aide, Bato. The staggeringly tall Tribesman gave a nod, then descended into the crowd, somehow disappearing into a mob of people he was taller than. Zuko looked to the edge of the mob, guessing Bato's course, and saw one man walking away from the press. Stopping spies. Messy business.

"See? That's why I let you do it," Sokka said to his father.

"You would have just made an ass of yourself," Nila said comfortingly. Sokka, understandably enough, shot a mildly insulted look at his girlfriend. She didn't seem to understand why. Hakoda gave a chuckle, then turned, noting that Bato was missing.

"Where is..."

"Plugging holes," Zha Yu said. He took a few steps to one side, and leaned to the Avatar, whispering something into his ear. Aang looked deeply concerned by whatever it was the Mountain King had to tell him, but Zuko figured that Aang would probably tell him pretty much immediately once there weren't thousands of people staring at them. What surprised Zuko, though, was that Zha Yu immediately turned around, and headed toward Zuko. Zuko straightened slightly, looking down on the man who was probably nearly fifty years older than him.

It still felt a little odd to be taller than a living legend. Other than Aang, but that was just obvious.

"Prince Zuko, I think the time has come," Zha Yu said, his usual jocularity entirely absent. Zuko leaned back from him.

"The time for what?" Zha Yu caught him by the back of the shoulder and started to walk him away from where the others were gathered at the side of the train-engine. Toph gave a muttering of defiance, but even blind, she 'saw' Zha Yu's warning look for what it was, and fell silent.

"You remember this?" Zha Yu asked, pulling an orb from the pocket of his coat. Zuko leaned away from it. He certainly remembered how odd it felt, getting transposed across space by that thing. "In three days, it'll be ready to use again. And when that happens, you're going to use it."

"...why?" the Prince asked.

"Because there's no other way that you'll be able to get to Ba Sing Se in time."

Zuko stopped, despite the Mountain King's insistence, and stared at him. "What."

The older man shook his head and grumbled for a moment. "Long Feng is at best leading the army against the Fire Lord and at worst left the Dai Li severely understaffed. Right now is the best opportunity you will ever have to infiltrate the Earth King's Royal Palace and release the hostages kept there."

"Hostages?" Zuko asked.

"Emperor Zeruel of Great Whales, for one," Zha Yu said. Then, a shrug. "And your mother for another."

"...I'd heard," Zuko said. Zha Yu seemed honestly surprised that Zuko hadn't exploded with an indignant 'what!', but Zuko wasn't that kind of person... anymore. Ever since Azula finally became well... nothing bothered him quite as much. He'd had one job for his entire young-adult life, and he succeeded. His sister was alright. He had a measure of peace, of fulfillment. Sure, he'd probably start to get twitchy and angry again sometime in the future, but for now, life – even if it ended next week – was good. "Who else is coming?"

"Probably just you and I," Zha Yu said. He looked into the orb as though it were a gateway to another world. Which it was, sort of. "This thing's been overused the last few months. I wouldn't risk it on more than two. And there's a chance that we might not come out the other side."

"But you expect me to go anyway, because it's my mother," Zuko said. Zha Yu nodded. And damn him, he was right. As much as having Azula finally safe and on an even keel made him feel lighter than air... Ursa was his mother. And there was still a part of him, the part which wasn't prematurely aged by responsibility, by worry, by terror and confusion and doubt, which still wanted to have his mother back. "...Fine."

"Good. Get some rest. I don't think for a second that this'll be easy, even with everything off-balance," Zha Yu said, pocketing the orb. Zuko stood, staring at the horizon, to the grey clouds which met grey ground. Almost like the world ended in a featureless void, a place without definition or boundaries. He felt a tingling in his body, too. He thought it simple anxiety. It was something else. Anxiety started in his stomach, a fact he was well aware of.

This... it felt like his bending itself was getting goosebumps.

"Busy moping?" Toph interrupted his moping. Not that he would admit to moping.

"I'm not moping," Zuko said distantly.

"You sound like you're moping," Toph teased.

"And you sound like you're being annoying," Zuko answered, confident in the knowledge of Toph that she wouldn't take that anything like what a girl her age would have.

"I take it that mister crazy-house had some bad news for you?" Toph asked. He turned a confused look to her, but gave his head a shake. Whatever the reason she called him that, it was something he could find out when the world wasn't ending.

"Not bad... just surprising."

"Don't leave me wondering, Prince Pouty."

"Zha Yu wants me to rescue Mom," Zuko said.

"...That's good, right?" Toph asked. "Wait. Ain't she in Ba Sing Se?"

"Yes."

"...You can't get to Ba Sing Se from here in a week. Not even if you rode Appa to death _twice_."

"I'll be cheating," Zuko said. Toph got a look of concern, which bordered on mildly heartbroken.

"You're not going to be here when we kick Zhao's ass, are you?"

"No."

"That ain't right," Toph said. "That turd needs you to give his ass a kickin'! I know for a fact that Twinkletoes won't do it properly! Twinkly-toes are not the best for kicking with, believe me!"

"I guess you'll have to be my surrogate ass-kicker," Zuko said.

"But..."

"Toph, something else is bothering you."

"Not it isn't," she said, defensively.

The silence that Zuko used was enough to break her.

"I'm worried, alright. I got this feeling like... like people I care about are going to start dying."

"Why?" Zuko asked.

"...You ever read Eastern literature?" she asked. Zuko shook his head deliberately enough that she would be able to 'see' it. "They've got this bad habit of telling you when something major happens, somebody's got to die to let you know how critical everything is. How dangerous it is. And come on; _we're going to invade the Fire Nation's capital_! If this ain't the end, then nothing is! I just..."

Zuko wanted to comfort her, but even as she spoke, he couldn't help but remember the look on that old woman's face, in that house in the village of Makapu. His choice would bring death and discord; his hand would rip a family apart, such that it could never truly heal.

Only he didn't know what choice.

And he didn't know if the family he broke was going to be his own.

But if there was one thing Zuko could do, it was put on a brave face. He'd had years of training in that, at least. He put his hands on Toph's shoulders, and she slowly turned up toward him. She was probably staring in line with his neck, but being blind, there were certain allowances. "It's going to be alright, Toph. Life isn't a book, it doesn't follow narrative tropes, and nobody's going to die just for the sake of it. We're going to see the other side of this battle. And I know you're going to be there gloating when I get back."

When. He didn't even know if the death he caused was going to be his own.

"Liar," Toph said quietly, but not rancorously. And then, she hugged herself against his chest. "If you get yourself killed in Ba Sing Se, I'll kill you."

"How does that even work?" Zuko asked, looking down to her.

"It... shut up."

* * *

><p>"<em>So. This is your suitor<em>," Mother said critically, looking Sokka up and down. Easy, because he was as taller than she was already, and he likely still had quite a bit of growing left to do. "_I must say, I cannot speak for your standards. He seems an odd one._"

"_He is intelligent and respectful, which is far more than I've found in most any other man I've met_," Nila pointed out.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Sokka asked, leaning toward Piandao, who was drinking some steaming drink from a cup.

"Such things are not for mens' minds to know," Piandao answered calmly.

"_He is a young man of decent breeding, at least_," Mother said, continuing to pace before him. "_And if he meets a proper standard of intelligence, then it is a not unpleasant match. However... I have heard a very unpleasant rumor_."

"_Which rumor would that be?_" Nila asked.

"_That you have given of yourself to him_," she said. Nila rolled her eyes. Almost as fast as a flash, Mother had her jaw held in vice-like fingers. "_Do not__ roll your eyes at me, daughter! This is a __foolish__ and __dangerous__ thing you have done!_"

Nila pulled back from her mother's grasp, noting out of the corner of her eye that Sokka was now leaning forward, his hand already reaching for his boomerang. While she certainly would berate him later for threatening to beat her mother with his weaponry, it was somewhat pleasing to know that he'd defend her even against somebody like Mother. "_He is no old and diseased lech, a frequenter of whores and widows, nor any striker or assaulter of women. There is as much danger to me as there is for the Avatar and the Princess!_"

"_He may be wise enough to not do you violence, but think with your mind, girl; what life could he give the child that he would inevitably saddle you with?_" Mother asked, casting a hand toward Sokka.

"_Child_?" Nila asked with a scoff. "_Our chosen method is hardly renowned for its ability to produce offspring. In fact, I would be rather shocked if it __could_."

"That can't be good," Piandao said patiently, eyes on Mother.

"Yeah, I have to say, I've never seen her turn that color before," Sokka agreed.

"_That is..._"

"Mother, enough!" Nila snapped, switching tongues away from Altuundili and into simple Huo Jian. "What happens with my relationship with the Tribesman is my business and not yours. And if you were to meddle in somebody's romantic affairs, I suggest that you try meddling first in your own!"

"You're right. This isn't going to be good," Sokka said to Piandao.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Mother said.

"I may be young, and my methods unorthodox at best, but I am no idiot. The swordsman looks upon you with eyes almost exactly as the Avatar does for Azula. Before you cast a stone at me, ensure first that you have no patent upon stoning yourself."

"You're doomed," Sokka said to Piandao.

"That is immaterial!" Mother snapped. "It is too late. There is no going back to what might have been..."

"Have you tried?" Sokka asked. Inwardly, Nila hissed with alarm. Until now, he'd been doing the wise thing, and staying away from the deadly maelstrom that existed between mother and daughter. Mother looked like she was about to spit fire at him for daring to interrupt. Nila was half way to agreeing with her.

It was never wise to interfere with the affairs of another's family.

"No. She hasn't," Piandao said, likewise throwing himself to hostile tides. "I know that things won't be the way they were, and that they couldn't ever be. We were young, then. Now, we know more. Older, and I hesitate to say wiser. But if I'm wiser now, then I'd like to think that even if things can't be as they were, that they could still be worth _something_."

Nila retracted her inner censure. This might be worth hearing.

She migrated to Sokka's side as Piandao rose, towering over Mother where they had gathered on the far side of the train. There was a lot more privacy here, at least. His single hand took one of hers, holding it up and running a finger over dusky knuckles. "You might not want to hear it, but I can't just walk away from you. I thought I could fifteen years ago, and I've regretted it ever since."

Nila then carefully laced her fingers into the back of Sokka's collar and began to pull him away. At first, he stumbled a bit and gave her a confused look. When she shook her head, though, he was wise enough to stay silent.

"I... I don't know if I can..."

"Just try. I'm not going to see the end of the world with this one regret in my heart. And I think you don't want to, either," Piandao said. At about that point, she hauled Sokka out of line-of-sight, thus depriving her of know what answer Mother had to give him. Since it didn't end with the crack of a slap, it probably wasn't what Nila had expected.

"So. That went well," Sokka said brightly.

"Well? That was horrifying!" Nila contended.

"Hey, when Gramp-Gramp learned that Dad was courting Mom, he ran him out of the village. Twice."

"I still hold my opinion," Nila said. "Are you finally content?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sokka said.

"_**WHAT?**_"

Both turned, to look through the doors of the train-car, to where Zuko was standing, hunched forward like an almost feral beast. Golden flames formed a halo around his head and neck, while his fists dripped fire into the snow.

"Oh, this's got to be good," Sokka said with a braying laugh.

"You are insane," Nila said. Sokka just shrugged at her, and hopped through the cart, sitting at the door staring down at the scene of Zuko, Katara, Azula, and the bison.

"Are you out of your... You've got to be in... **WHY**?" Zuko ranted, unable to finish a sentence in a way that didn't call to question his sister's sanity.

"This is why I didn't bother asking your opinion or permission," Azula said with annoyance in her tones. "You always overreact when it comes to these things."

"You're going to try to rescue Dad! _DAD_!" Zuko stressed. "Why? Why would you do that? He hasn't done one single thing that..."

"I can't expect you to understand my reasons, Zuzu," Azula said. "You've never had anything but an antagonistic relationship with Father. I didn't. You might not believe there's anything worth saving in him, but I do."

"He tried to have you killed!" Zuko pointed out.

"I'm well aware."

"And you want to 'rescue' him anyway?" he asked.

"Yes."

"No. I am not going to let this happen," Zuko was stalking back and forth, the snow melting in an ever increasing diameter around him. "That man has brought nothing but suffering to me, to Mother, and to you, and to this whole planet! There's nothing worth saving!"

Azula was silent for a moment, letting Zuko pant in his near-snarl, the water from his melted snow draining away toward the ocean in the distance, after miles of trickling downward. She then looked to the ground, and in a voice that Nila could only barely hear, answered "I have to believe there's something worth saving in him. Because if there isn't, then what point is there in _me_?"

"...Azula, you aren't..." Zuko began, unable to find the words.

"I am my father's daughter. You are your father's son. There is nothing in the world that will change that. His sins pass to us, whether we want to believe it or not. If there's nothing worth redeeming in _him_... then there's nothing worth redeeming in either of us."

"You're... You're not thinking straight, Zuli," Zuko said.

"Don't question my thinking, Zuzu. And don't call me Zuli."

"I've gotta say, I'm torn," Katara said. "I _want_ to agree with Zuko that this is insane, but I've _got_ to agree with Azula, because this is the only way I get my sister back."

"So you're just going to leave?" Zuko asked.

"Yes," Azula said. "You have your own task, every bit as important to me as mine. I never really had a chance to have a mother. I'd very much like one. And I know you wish you had an actual father."

"I _had_ one, and you had him too," Zuko said quietly. Nila gave a confused glance to Sokka, who shrugged, not offering an answer to that charge. It did cause Azula to flinch a bit. Whatever it was, it was a direct hit, only Nila didn't know the shape of the target.

"We should prepare for the invasion," Nila said to Sokka, who turned his attention to her.

"Right now?"

"No. When we're at their gates with hordes of wrathful firebenders bearing down upon us. Yes, right now!"

Sokka rolled his eyes, but followed where she dragged him. "Has anybody ever told you you're kinda pushy?"

"More than you would believe."

* * *

><p>"Azula?" the Avatar's voice came from her back, as she worked up her nerve to climb the beast once more. No matter how many times she was passenger to this thing, she always had a difficult-to-shake delusion that the thing was going to realize who her great-grandfather was, and impale her on its horns. So any reprieve from climbing its fur – as vulnerable a position as she could imagine – was a welcome one.<p>

"I'm not going to let anything kill your bison," Azula said, cutting to the heart of things.

"That isn't why I'm here," he said. He reached down, grabbing the bundle of blankets that were going to be the only thing keeping them from freezing – in the Fire Nation, in summer – on their three day journey. With an easy toss, he got it square into the howdah, which only simplified her task by an inch rather than a mile. "I want you to know that even if Zuko doesn't believe in what you're doing... I think it's very noble."

"The Avatar thinks saving the former Fire Lord is noble," Azula said quietly, shaking her head. "There's nothing noble about what I'm doing. Not really. I just don't want my family any more torn-apart than it already is."

"See? That's noble," Aang said.

"You keep using that word, but I don't think you know what it means," Azula said. Aang's face turned to something quite like sarcastic consternation. It was an expression that he'd never worn before she met him in this new, season-long life. "...although honestly, sometimes I wonder if I'm even doing it for the reasons I say I am."

"How is that?" Aang asked.

"My father... tried to kill me in this life. He abandoned me in another. He slapped me down when I righteously rebelled against him in a third. Every rational thought in my brain is telling me to let him rot wherever he is, and never think about him again... but I can't. He just keeps coming back into my mind."

"That's because you care about him. And you know what? It's _alright_ to care about him."

She turned a look on him. He'd gone from sarcastic consternation to earnestness. "Do you assume I thought otherwise?"

"Kinda, yeah."

And he was right about that.

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's more to life than what makes rational sense," Aang said. "I mean, if I did the rational thing, we'd probably both have starved to death under Mount Oma, since the rational thing to do would be to run away from you. Well, limp."

"You have an excuse. Air Nomads were bred to be soft-hearted. Me? What's my excuse?" Azula asked.

"You don't need an excuse to feel," Aang said.

"You do if you're the Princess," she said. "Politics is crueler than any war. The more you care, the more vulnerable you are..."

"Azula, stop," he said, turning her toward him. Which was a little surprising, both in that he had the strength to when she decided otherwise, and that he had the inclination to. "There's a reason why people have to follow their hearts sometimes. It's because the brain might be good at the cold mathematic... but it's not good at seeing what gets left out by numbers and figures. And following your heart leads to _a lot_ less regrets, believe me."

"I wouldn't know."

"I would," Aang said. He let go of her shoulders, but stayed there, standing before her. "You have to save your father, because you'd never forgive yourself if you didn't. The worst things to regret aren't the things you've done, Azula... it's the things you _didn't_ do. Those are the worst regrets."

He was right.

And she hated that.

"I... Just wanted you to know that I believe in you, in what you're doing," Aang said, taking a step back. "That you're not alone."

"...I see," Azula said.

The greatest regrets are the things that she didn't do. She could think of about a dozen things she'd done that she later regretted. That laughably horrible 'party' on Ember Island. Trying to kill her own brother – that a sin across several lifetimes. But when she actually thought about it, what she regretted more than anything else, was that she never got a chance to say goodbye to her daughter.

No. She regretted that she didn't raise her daughter better.

And there was one thing more that she was sure she was going to regret later, if she didn't do it – even if her brain absolutely rejected the idea as being anywhere near sensible.

Thus, before Aang took his second step backward, she grab him by the shoulders, and pulled him right to her, her lips closing on his in a somewhat desperate kiss that the part of her which was still a teenage girl, who liked that somebody was endlessly, honestly, and guilelessly kind to her, demanded.

She broke it on her own terms, which was likely before he would have, but frankly, there was only so much rationality-kicking that she could do in any one sitting. She was fairly sure that the part of her mind that told her to hate the airbender would probably have a lot of unkind words to say about what she'd just done, but at the moment, she didn't care. But there were still appearances to uphold, so she thrust a finger under his nose.

"Don't you dare get yourself killed," she demanded. "And look after Kuchi."

"I wouldn't dream of it... wai-I mean..." Aang said distantly, with a somewhat lightheaded look on his face. She then turned, her willpower screwed to the sticking place, and clambered up the beast's back. She pointedly didn't look down at Aang as she waited for the waterbender to come and fly the beast. Mostly because she didn't want to think about what she was thinking right now.

He was the Avatar, and she was the Fire Nation's Crown Princess.

They were at war with each other. They had every reason to hate each other.

And still, the girl in her... couldn't help but like him.

* * *

><p>"Again!" came the order that was screamed past Long Feng's ears. He stood aloof of the soldiers, upon the prow of the ship and staring toward the great statue to Azulon's megalomania. The chains that dangled from its hands had been slowly pulled taut when the bombardment began, so now the entire bay was bridged by unyielding metal. But the statue wasn't standing tall and proud. Not after the second barrage of stones to strike it. Now, it stood at a very awkward angle. And the groaning of metal trying very hard not to crumple managed to compete against the wind.<p>

A fresh flight of boulders, launched from the decks. Every ship bobbed upward as some displacement was lost, but the boulders flew true. They peppered the entire statue, which began to twist. A rent opened in a curve, flowing up Azulon's metal robes, until the entire top of the structure – chains and all, came crashing down into the sea. The chains which had barred the way now had a great and gaping hole in their protection, as the chains vanished into the water hundreds of feet from the shore.

"Move forward," Long Feng said. The leader, a lesser man promoted in lieu of the three of the Five Generals that refused to be part of this, gave a nod, and blew the shrill whistle which was signal to advance. At first, the ship was still. The general looked around, then moved to the prow, glancing down. "What is the meaning of this delay?" the Grand Secretariat asked.

"Ice," he said, incredulous. Long Feng looked at the man as though he'd gone mad. Then, he looked down, to the surf. Indeed, there was a floe of ice trapping the hulls of the ships, one that grew thicker the further from the embankments one went. He hadn't seen it before, because the flying snow on the winds had cut his visibility down to a pittance. He jogged to one of the men on the deck near the flags. "Send a signal to all ships with stones; Drop one ahead of the prow to break ice."

"Aye, general," the man said.

"Ice in the Bay of Tenko," Long Feng said.

"Technically, we are not in the Bay of Tenko, _yet_," Agent Zhong said. "But this is beyond strange. If the ice is as thick as it is here, if it grows in as fast as it has... We might be _walking_ to the shore rather than landing."

"Do they have anything that would take advantage of this poor mobility?"

"No," Zhong seemed annoyed, still. "The fleets would be caught as surely as we would, and with visibility this poor, we'd slip past them without them even noticing. And the battlements won't be able to hit us, if they can't see us."

"Press forward, then. Every advantage we have is to be used to its utmost."

"I will tell the men," Zhong gave a nod. Long Feng turned his attention to the waters off the prow. A great stone from the deck crashed into the water, sending a great splash of it up. The frigid spray washed his face, a mild and temporary pain until he wiped it away. Then, with a shudder and a crunch, the ship began moving again.

And every yard of that journey was sung by the cracking of ice.

* * *

><p>"Are you ready, young Prince?" Zha Yu asked the very distracted firebender at his side.<p>

"As ready as I'm going to get," Zuko said.

"Head clear? Focused on the mission?" he continued.

"No."

"Well, it'll have to do," Zha Yu said. The two of them had been left behind by the advancing Blue Turbans, and the taskforce aboard its train. He raised his globe, black and white-lined, above his head. "_Take us to his mother_."

The growing sense of unreality reached out of the orb, which seemed to grow even as it remained the same size in Zha Yu's hand. Ordinarily, the sensation was one of weightlessness, a lightless and featureless oblivion which bore no sensation at all. Just a slip across the icy surface of what was, until being dropped back into the real world.

Not this time.

When the orb expanded to its utmost, there was a ripping sensation. A tearing in the fabric of what was, something greater than either could comprehend, greater then either could believe. It was something which was frankly wholly out of magnitude to the act which originated it. Using the Dirak was as slipping a sewing needle into the fabric of the real, and riding the thread that it bore. Ordinarily, the fabric bore the intrusion without so much as a notice, let alone a complaint. But this time... the fabric was rotted, and there was very little integrity left to it.

Even as Zha Yu and Zuko teleported across the face of the Earth, the very nature of the Earth changed. The ripping reached from the point where the two had left, and began to break other fragile places. The rip first tore north to the ruins of the Megalopolis, where its tiny influence caused incredible harm, fissures reaching out in all directions. The fissures reached east, next, until they reached the gaping hole in the world which was the former Great Divide. There, too, a festering wound in the world, and as the fabric of reality ripped, it ripped open there all the faster. North and south were words without meaning to these rifts that tore and sundered, flying in every direction, away from places that the Shards had set their feet. Away from the places that Imbalance had torn down. The Observatory, once home to Zha Yu and his family, mounted higher, as the spirit world pressed through into the mortal entirely. In the smoke-choked city of New Bhatti, the former capital of the Northern Water Tribe, there was a crash from inside a cave, one that exploded into steam as the ghost of its connection to its gods was unmade, and the blast ripped the doors away, sent them racing through the streets.

Behind it, came the tearing.

The only place which didn't bear such horrible tearing was the South Water Tribe. Huddled as they were around the Spirit Oasis, living under an eternal sunshine of Agni Herself above, there was enough integrity here, as nowhere else, that nothing would slip away. Because Imbalance, and its Shards, had never set foot here. Their blood had never rotted the heart of that place.

In a hollowed out tree, shadowed and alone, surrounded by shadows which leaned away out of fear, Koh blinked his eye, and took on a new face, one that stretched lips into a smirk. Not of victory or even achievement, but instead out of curiosity. This... of all things it had seen, this was _new_.

Every bender on the planet suffered a moment of pristine agony, like a migraine compressed into a single second.

Every shaman on the planet fell to their knees, feeling so sick to their stomach that only the halest and hardiest didn't lose their last meal.

Every human being which was neither of the two felt a chill, an emptiness appearing in them that they could neither explain nor qualify.

Every spirit, screamed...

As the mortal world and the spirit world crashed into each other, and the two of them became, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. If Zuko and Zha Yu hadn't taken that journey, _something else_ would have done it, as surely as death itself. Because they took that journey, it happened right then. Because they took that journey, Zuko's decision had, with a complete inevitability and without his knowledge in the slightest, ended an innocent life.

Zuko's weight returned to him, and he settled into his boots. Falling dead around the two men were ten thousand honey-bees, all of them frozen solid, landing with a rattle and spreading out like sand. Zuko gave a confused glance downward, then over to Zha Yu. "...Why are there so many dead bees around us?" Zuko asked.

"A better question, one that has me concerned, is asking why all the bees are dead," Zha Yu said. He then looked around. "We're in the Upper Ring."

That much was obvious to Zuko. Indeed, the place looked exactly the same as it had when he'd last been there. While it was frigid and the wind was cutting like knives, there wasn't a drop of water to fall as snow in all the continent. "Then we'd better get to the palace before somebody finds this," Zuko pointed at the bees which he then stepped out of.

"Truer words never spoken, but we do have one little side-trek," he said, tucking the orb into his coat once more. In the fraction of a second that Zuko could see it, he noted that it was not black and white, lines flowing past each other. It was a solid and dull grey.

"Why?" Zuko asked. He tugged at the belt holding his twinned dao to his back. "We should get in and out as quickly as possible!"

"We won't get in, even in these conditions, unless we have a bit of help," Zha Yu said.

"And who would that help be?" Zuko asked.

"You'll see, soon enough," he said. The two of them walked through the streets which stood unused and quiet as a tomb.

His metaphor was a bit more apt than he realized; the cold preserved bodies, and held down stink, from those who had perished of simple thirst, when the water from Lake Laogai stopped flowing. Mostly, because it had frozen solid. The Mountain King and the Prince entered the shadows, and from there, vanished into the obscure recesses of Ba Sing Se. It was a sad thing that only the darkness in this city was safe.

* * *

><p>"What was that?" Malu asked, trying to hold her stomach and her head at the same time.<p>

"I don't know," Aang said, sitting and looking singularly miserable on the floor of the train. "It felt... bad."

"I felt it too," Toph said, rubbing at her forehead. "It felt like somebody rammed a white-hot rod of iron in my brain."

Aang swallowed, trying to keep his gorget down, as he leaned back against the wall. On a hunch, he opened the World Eye, to see if there was some sort of spiritual rift they'd slipped through.

He blinked. Then, he stood, went to the doors of the train. To the cries of dismay from Sokka and Nila, he threw it open, letting the cold air rush in, but what he beheld was more than a little terrifying. He shut his World Eye. And the sight beyond, out in the countryside, didn't change in the slightest.

Rifts were open in the air, with green and purple clouds boiling through to mix with the slate-gray. Flames burst up from the snows, melting them away in a circle around where they began. Hundreds or thousands of spirits, from the developed and manifested, down to the abstract and the wispy, drifted around as though utterly confounded, lost and confused. Because they were.

"Something bad happened," Aang said.

"Does... this mean we're going to have to fight Imbalance sooner, rather than later?" Malu asked, hiking up the hood on her robes. If there was one perk to still having hair, it was that Aang didn't get quite as cold as poor Malu would, right now. Although, on the down side, he didn't nearly have enough hair to protect his flaring ears.

"Wow. That's some strange crap out there, isn't it?" Sokka said, horning in.

"What is... Oh, my," she said. She pulled the Avatar's arm until he faced her. "I have seen this before."

"What? How?"

"Do you presume that nothing of import happens when you are not present?" Nila demanded. She turned a glance toward Malu, for a moment. "You too were there, in a fashion, though I expect you would not remember it. Sentinel Rock. When Imbalance took complete control of your mortal frame, it did such as this," with a gesture toward the land beyond. Sokka leaned back.

"You were there when all that stuff happened?" he asked. "How did you survive?"

"Mother might have taught me things unsuited for my gender or station, but they do well in keeping me alive," Nila said. "Also, I shot _her_ with my gun."

"I was wondering about that hole," Malu said distantly. "Imbalance did this?"

"I must assume so," Nila said. "Sharif would be able to tell you more, as he is more versed in the abstract and the metaphysical of his end of things. All I can say, is that of the spirit and mortal worlds, there is now only one, with the rules of each held forth in full, and the hazards of either in complete measure."

"This is bad," Aang said.

"You are only now discovering this? We're doomed," Nila said, the last comment turned toward Malu and Sokka.

"No, I mean it's bad, and I don't know what can be done to fix it," Aang said. He ran his fingers through his hair, giving it a stout tug, then puffing out a breath. "Alright. Calm down. One thing at a time. Black Sun is tomorrow. Then, we'll have time to... deal with this."

"Which means I'd probably better go," Malu said.

"What?" Aang asked.

She pulled back her hood, displaying the bald and very recently tattooed head beneath it. "Who is Zhao going to believe is the Avatar, of the two of us, right now?"

"You're right. I should shave before..."

"You will do no such thing," Nila said. "Any attention not paid to you is an advantage you must not squander."

"What... You want to be my decoy?" Aang asked.

"Who else could be?"

"But you're a girl!"

"_Woman_, thank you," Malu said testily.

"It's doubtful one would notice without a really close look," Sokka said, walking a circle 'round Aang even as the train continued its rumbling way. "I mean, you're both wiry framed. Same complection. From the distance, you won't be able to tell that she's a bit taller than you. Hips aren't too womanly..."

"Hey!" Malu said.

"I was talking about Aang."

"Oh," she said, blushing silghtly.

Aang gave Sokka a look. "Hey! Stop describing me!"

"I'm just pointing out that this is a perfect situation for a girl to take your place!"

"I am not a girl, and I don't look like a girl!" Aang stressed

"But the Fire Lord doesn't need to know that the deception has taken place," Nila pressed. She clapped her hands on Malu's shoulder. "I shall not wish you good luck, because we all know there is no such thing – only terrible luck, or no luck at all – but instead, I shall wish you godspeed, and a warm bed when this is over."

"Thanks, Nila," Malu said, pulling the Si Wongi in for a hug which left the darker of the two bug-eyed and trying to extricate herself. Sadly, she had no chance to do that until Malu let her go. She kipped over to where she'd left her things, and pulled out the old and simply-elegant glider staff that she had kept hidden away for so long. She spun it open, its wings opening broad and proud. Then, she paused, and looked around. "I'm missing something. Hmmmm. AH! Momo! Come here!"

The lemur, which had been huddled into Toph's lap for warmth, let out a chirp and flapped its way over to Malu. When it dove into her robes, she let out a gack of shock at having a simian in such personal proximity to her. When it settled, its head and long ears popping up out of the back of her collar, she stood proud once more.

"The very image of Avatar Aang," Malu proudly proclaimed.

"With boobs," Sokka pointed out blithely. He got elbowed in the stomach by Nila for his temerity.

"You shouldn't have to do this," Aang said.

"Aang, I've already done a lot to make the world a monumentally worse place. Please, just shut up and let me try to fix it a little? 'Kay?" she said, ruffling his hair, before striding to the door. "Kick Zhao's ass for me, alright?"

And with that, she held her glider out the door, and let the wind of passage pull her out and into flight, streaking to the east, to where the Blue Turbans would be arriving at the south edge of Caldera City soon enough. Aang turned to the others. "I guess... this is it."

"It is," Nila said.

"Yeah. Got my armor ready and everything," Sokka said, pointing to the wrapped bundle in the corner.

"We're going to beat the Fire Lord, stop the destruction of Sozin's Comet. That's what we're doing tomorrow. What happens after that, I have no clue, but that's something I'll deal with then," Aang said, repeating what had been said to him as a mantra, a litany towards his own sanity. Every instinct told him to rip out his hair by the roots and worry himself catatonic over what was happening the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. The big problem he had no solution for. But no. He had a problem right here, right now, that he could fix. And as long as he focused on that... he was okay.

To the East, the Blue Turbans finished a hard march, at the behest of the leadership of the Dragon of the East, and the Matriarch of Kyoshi, and launched straight into an assault on the southernmost fringes of Caldera City. North of that, a great fleet of Easterners, fresh from Ba Sing Se, cracked the ice and pressured into a harbor that couldn't see them for the brutal – and now verifiably _insane_ – weather. And soon, this train full of soldiers, from all over the world, would be rampaging, unpredicted and unchecked, through the streets of the city.

If all went according to plan.

Which even Aang knew it wouldn't.

* * *

><p>The ships ground to a halt at the shore, hulls sliding up synthetic rock – that cemented concrete that the Westerners used instead of honest granite. The soldiers emerged from deck, wrenching up with their fists to pull that concrete to them, forming ramps that they could hustle down, to set Earth Kingdom boots to Fire Nation soil. For most of the soldiers, they believed – quite honestly – that they were fighting against an existential threat to the continued existence of Ba Sing Se. A naïve perspective, but many soldiers who stood here had never been beyond the wall of Ba Sing Se before this campaign; now, they had traveled half-way around the world.<p>

The others, though, they saw this for what it was. An opportunistic assault to cripple a would-be enemy. Not enough to eradicate them completely, because that wouldn't be in their best interests. Having the West as a boogeyman kept people stomping forward, even if every reasonable instinct told them that their lives were worse than those they 'feared'. A few knew that fear, properly manipulated, could hold an empire together for generations.

One, though, was just coming home.

The soldiers formed rings at the edge of eyeshot – which was to say, they spanned a semicircle of about ten yards for each group. The driving snow, which was already mounding up in this 'slipway' that lead toward the heart of the Lower City, was two-fold making sight difficult. There were no landmarks. If they didn't know the difference in feeling between concrete and rock, they might have been forgiven for thinking they'd missed the city completely.

Zhong slid down the ramps easily, coming to a striding stop in the heart of one of the circles. He tugged the knot holding the conical hat onto his head, and pulled it off. The wind and snow pulled at hair not cut since the start of the season, but green eyes surveyed the land around them. "We're clear. They haven't noticed us!"

"Release the Millipedes!" came the call from the deck, a shout which was swallowed by the wind not far from where it came. The soldiers fell back, bending to crack through the ice, shelves of stone to reach up to beside each ship. From those shelves, they almost delicately pulled the armored vehicles off of the decks, and set them onto the ground. Only six of them. But six Millipede Mobile Redoubts were better than none by a grand margin.

Zhong gave a glance up to the deck of the ship he'd departed. Long Feng stared down to him, and gave him a single nod. Zhong returned it, then turned to the men, who were settling the Millipede onto the synthetic rock. "Earthbenders up front, soldiers in back. If you can't fit, take the back quarters and advanced with the armor."

"Yes, Xiashr," the soldier near him said. While men like Zhong – those directly under the orders of Long Feng and the Secretariats – didn't have any official rank, they were still referred to as though they had. Zhong didn't care. He doubly didn't care that the rank that had been 'given' to him was so low in the scheme of things. All that mattered was the land before him, and how to progress with the least loss of life possible. The soldiers began to fan back behind the Millipede as it started to trundle forward, but it had barely made it twenty yards when a blast sounded, and the snow was launched up from a detonation nearby.

"Fire from the battlements!" the call went out. Zhong looked up and around. He could only see grey and white.

"How?" he shouted to the soldiers who had moved from a steady walk into a brisk jog, trying to keep their numbers between the armored plating, in one way or another. "They can't possibly see us in this weather!"

"They're probably shooting at random!" one of the soldiers nearest Zhong answered.

"...they knew when we were coming, and decided to carpet-bomb. Clever," Zhong said.

"What do we do?"

"We can't fight back against the battlements if we can't see them," Zhong pointed out. "We have to push through; they can't see us either, so they won't be aiming!"

"They could still hit us by accident," another soldier pointed out, as a hiss in the air followed by a bang caused all outside the Millipede to stagger slightly; that one was close.

"A lot less likely than hitting us on purpose," the first agreed, somewhat begrudgingly.

"I don't like those odds."

"Never tell me the odds," Zhong snapped. "Push forward!

He'd no sooner said that, then heard the clattering of metal against rock. It was very muted, of course; between the detonations, the wind, and the grinding of the armor beside him – coupled with the muffling effects of the snow – the Salamanders practically snuck up on them. The closest turned, and a great bellow of flame shot out of the turret, directed straight up, before rounding on the Millipede, and beginning to launch bolts of flame toward the armor, and those within it.

Zhong thrust up a fist, and the stone under his feet answered by kicking the great 'tank' aside. It landed on its roof in the murk, before its entire body rotated to right itself. That was one thing about Salamanders; as long as their water-gyros were thawed, they couldn't be upended. The answer to that assault, though, was a redoubled bombardment from above. Where once the detonations all seemed comfortably distant, now, they were flashing against the snow in almost every direction, the din and the heat of them pressing through this hellish false-winter.

A grim smile came to Zhong's face. The Battle of Black Sun was only just beginning.

* * *

><p>"The men are tired, yes," Sativa said, pacing back and forth before the front-rank of the Blue Turbans. Her own head was conspicuously absent one, but as she was an Easterner, and one who had respect of the West by humbling one of their own strategic geniuses, she had exactly that much leeway. Piandao, a once-Embiar, went with the proverbial tide. "They are hungry, yes. But they also know... <em>you<em> also know... that this battle is to be won, today or never. You are the Voice of the People, those maligned and waylaid by those who call themselves your betters for generations! They look down on you. They ignore you. They don't believe in you. Azulon has caused untold hardship to you. Ozai followed in his father's footsteps, bringing pain and suffering not only to your people, and to his own family, but to the whole wide world. And now this pretender, this _Zhao_, Ozai's chosen champion, has bettered his once-master. He is simply a knife-edged shadow of the beast which created him, yet another man, who calls himself your better. A man born as you were. Who was raised as you were. And in the end, shall die as you shall... although in great likelihood, a fair degree sooner."

There was something half way between a cheer and a round of laughter from the heavily-clothed partisan-army. From peasant levies to irregular army, and now, on the verge of toppling a Fire Lord. History would forever look upon this day, with a face screwed up in utter confusion, and a declaration of 'that's not supposed to be possible'. In other words, it was something fairly typical when Badesh got involved.

"You are tired. You are angry, and cold, but the end is there," she thrust a hand behind her, pointing toward the city. She felt a gust of wind, and turned to see... for a moment, she almost thought it was the Avatar, but her face was a bit too feminine for that. Sativa's brow drew down, until the airbender Malu mouthed the words 'play along'. "And unlike so many revolutions that have stumbled and failed against such a foe, we have the blessings of the Avatar himself. When we go into battle against your oppressors, he shall fight beside us. This is the will of the universe, and by that will, you are made mighty," she clenched her fist before her face. "It falls on _you_ to show Zhao _how mighty you are_!"

This time, the cheer which went up didn't have any laughter in it. Sativa turned to Malu, and motioned her into a scrum with Piandao. "What is the meaning of this?" Sativa asked.

"I'm being a decoy," Malu said simply.

"You certainly have gone the extra mile in that," Piandao said with a chuckle.

"Hey. I'm honoring my heritage," Malu said testily.

"...that's a real tattoo," Piandao leaned in.

"The Avatar is still with the ambush force, then?" Sativa said, pulling Malu's attention back to her.

"Yeah. They're going to be attacking from the station thing over on that side of the city," she motioned into air which was rapidly filling with fat, wet snow. The older woman simply gave her a flat look. "Right. The west, I mean."

"We must assume they face a harsh entrance," Sativa said.

"Why? Do you think Zhao knows about it?"

"No, because presuming the worst shall come to pass in planning makes all surprises pleasant ones," Badesh answered.

"That makes... a weird kind 'a sense," Malu said. "I can see where Nila gets it."

"So my daughter has a keen mind as well as a sharp tongue? I should certainly hope so."

"You shouldn't talk about her like that," Malu said.

"I can talk of her how I please. As can anybody," Sativa said.

"Ladies, stop this before people get suspicious. And before _you_ start yelling," Piandao pointed his stump toward Malu.

Sativa took a calming breath, and regathered herself – she was a fair bit shorter than this airbender, even though she probably wasn't done growing yet. "As usual Piandao, you have an eye toward the practical. They will attack as they arrive, yes?"

"That was the plan," Malu nodded.

"Good. Then we had best pull all of Zhao's attention away from them. Take to the sky, and make yourself as visible as possible," Sativa said.

"Might be a bit tough... weather being what it is," Malu said, but she nodded. "Still, I know how to tweak Fire Nation noses. I've been doing it for years."

"Then fly, young fool," Sativa said with a shooing motion. Malu scowled at her for a moment, then did exactly that. The Dragon of the East breathed deeply of cold air, then turned a look to Piandao.

"I'll be right beside you," he said, as his remaining hand drew his shining white blade.

"As you always have been," Sativa said. She turned to the Blue Turbans. "Well? Are you going to stand there, or are you going to kick down Zhao's doors? In the name of the Blue Turban! In the name of Princess Azula!"

The cry went up again, and this time, it was followed by the thunder of feet.

* * *

><p>The scene had changed in the chamber of the Burning Throne. No longer did the Fire Lord sit imperious, staring down at his war-ministers. Now, he paced back and forth, as though a simple different angle of view upon the maps of the city would reveal some aspect of the battle he hadn't noticed before. As a politician, Zhao was mediocre, that he knew – he had Akemi and her keen wit to make up for any shortcomings there. The two benefited each other, perhaps not in the healthiest of ways, but Zhao was a creature of practicality.<p>

No, while Zhao was a middling politician, he was a long-seasoned soldier. "They are in the 'mouth' at this moment," he said. "Reports?"

"Visibility is making directing the battle difficult," Kwon said, his tones as dreary and despondent as they always were. "But we have reports of several hundred soldiers seen. That makes estimated numbers seen and unseen in the two thousand range."

"And their waterbenders?"

"If they have them, they're keeping them in reserve," Kwon said. Zhao scratched at the chops that framed his face, looking on as Kwon manipulated the map slightly. More tokens representing Earth Kingdom troops. The Avatar's troops. He was probably in the sky at this moment, trying to goad him away from his plan.

"Keep pressure," he said. He then thrust his finger to the younger of the three women in the room – Akemi keeping her presence back from the soldiery. "Kurita, what about these damned Blue Turbans?"

"As you said... they forced a march," she said. While she was still in her prime, any beauty she had was marred by the smashed-in nature of one side of her face, and the eye missing there. A wound from the Siege of Ba Sing Se, that had taken her long to recover from. "They don't have the numbers of the Earth Kingdom troops, but they're still engaging along the wards and the Obsidian Way.

Inwardly, Zhao was growling. Azula had made no prediction of the Blue Turbans. However, she had predicted the appearance of the Avatar's army to within the hour. "Are the forces there holding?"

"Not well. If they hold, they'll lose in the long run," Kowareta Kurita said, the uneven frown pulling at an uneven mouth. "The reserves to bolster their numbers..."

"The reserves are going to remain so until there is no other option," Zhao said sharply. Yes, he wanted to crush his enemies... but he also had a great deal of caution. If this Avatar had proven one thing in his time, it was that he was cunning as a mad fox.

The 'fallen' daughter of House Kurita looked away for a moment; it was a pity, as the side of her face he could see then was fairly comely. She turned back to him, after that deliberation, and locked amber eyes to his. "If I may propose a strategy?"

"You may propose," Zhao said carefully.

"Pull them in. They'll get mired in the city streets. The Salamanders are on the wrong side of the city, and we can fight them, street to street. We have the terrain, they have the numbers. I know for a fact terrain trumps numbers."

She knew that to her peril; catching a chunk of the Ba Sing Se wall to the head was a harsh, but clear, teacher.

Zhao considered it. While he was loath to allow those rebels one footstep into his city, he was a man of practical solutions. As much as his pride demanded that they hold their ground, and that they force them to bleed out in the land outside... he rubbed his fingers along the raw flesh surrounding his burned eye. Pride burned. Hubris failed. Azula taught him that, just as the Wall taught Kowareta.

"Do so," he said with a wave of his hand.

"How long until the eclipse?" Kwon asked.

"Forty minutes," Zhao said. "You've made the arrangements?"

"Yes. No _purely_ firebending units," Kwon said. "Anybody trying to press the lines will get a rude surprise."

"Excellent," Zhao said, continuing to circle the map. Azula had shown him that victory was inevitable; he just had to fulfill his place in prophecy, and claim it!

* * *

><p>There was a tension in the train-cars, behind the Avatar. Sokka now wore the armor of a South Water Tribal warrior, much as his father did. Toph wore what seemed a miniaturized version of the armor of the forces from Omashu and the lands around. Bow-wielding Dakongese tested their draw, even as plate-armored Si Wongi tested edges of scimitars. And for a wonder, they weren't doing so in preparation for killing <em>each other<em>.

The only ones who didn't seem tense were the Ghorkalai, who sat on the floor, joking amongst themselves, laughing about somebody's pratfalls and misfortunes, somebody that Aang had never met, and likely never would. They alone were calm. This was normal for them. Not for anybody else.

He didn't give much of a glance to the machines that hung from the backs of the strongest, the designs of Sato. He was loath to create weapons... but these weren't _strictly_ weapons. He took a breath, and looked out of the door of the car, as the train started to slow in its approach of Caldera City.

The mountain was broken, and great rivers of red, molten rock slid down its side. It seemed an old wound even now, as the snow was mounted high where the heat of the lava couldn't melt it. At the same time, Aang could see the spirits cavorting there, fire and stone melding together in the one place that they could, oblivious to the strange times around them. The wind was hesitant. The snow fell, but it wasn't blown, not in the lee of the mountain.

"As soon as the train stops," Hakoda said, his voice clear. They would be the last spoken for minutes to come. The Ghorkalai, the Ghurkas, they rose, letting their joking fall away; in a moment, they were as stern as the soldiers around them. Aang took a deep breath, and pressed his eyes shut. He would do what he must. This was a problem he could solve. One thing at a time.

Only a few miles away, the eyes of a shaman were glowing softly. The guards who had been defending the Dragon Bone Catacombs lay unconscious, the spirits of lethargy and sloth continuing to drape over them as they had been invoked by their master. Furiously, he flipped through pages, trying to find the answers to questions he was fairly sure he'd already asked, and had forgotten the answers to. At least now, with the world on the cusp of death, he could face it with a whole mind. Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar threw the scroll away, rubbing at the glowing scar above his brow.

"Must everything be so needlessly difficult?" he muttered to himself. Since the answer didn't deign to appear – in itself, that was an answer – he turned, and tore fresh scrolls down. The soldiers guarding this place had been spectacular; had he been any but a shaman, and had the world been any but broken to its current state, he would never have breached them. Well, not without being one of the Children. But the answers?

He almost threw a scroll away, before stopping, and looking at it. The Well of Oblivion.

A memory came to him. Drifting into him in a way that he could never explain. Drifting, because the same spirit listened to the same thing twice.

"...of course," he said, grimly.

On the other side of the planet, a door was opened. Ordinarily, the Mountain King would have demanded a great deal more privacy, a great deal more prudence, from the people he dealt with. But these were not normal times. He stomped through the library, with Zuko on his heels, and pounded on the wall at the back, near the stacks of books. "Open up! You know who this is!"

There was a long silence, as Zuko raised his brow in confusion. "Maybe they don't," he offered.

Both were answered when the wall slid back, and an unfamiliar, wide-eared youth stared out at them. "The Mountain King..." the laconic archer said. He then turned to "And you."

"And me," Zuko said dryly. The look that the archer – Longshot by his friends – gave him clearly said 'I don't like the timing of this one bit'. "Neither do I."

Zha Yu turned a look between both young men, then nodded inward. Down the archer bore them, into tin-plated stairways and halls, until turning off and heading into a different chamber. Zuko slipped past Zha Yu's broad form as they reached that corner, and strode in first, his hand upon the pommel of his dao blades. He had a good idea what he could expect. It still caught him off guard.

"...Uncle," he said. Iroh turned to him, taking a bite from a piece of bread, and rose to his feet. He was fairly shorter than Zuko at this point, but somehow, he filled the room with his presence in a way that few others did. Iroh looked Zuko up and down. He even leaned one side and to another. "I'm... I wanted to do the right thing."

"You did, Prince Zuko," he said. Agni's blood, but it felt good to hear that gravely voice again. "I was never so proud of you, as I was when I learned of your decision in the Wastelands outside Ba Sing Se. To have everything you ever wanted, and set it aside, takes a character that few men ever gain."

"Azula's finally alright."

"So she is," Iroh said. "I could see a change in you. You walk as a man freed from his own gallows. There is hope in your eyes. And there is peace in your soul."

Zuko could only nod. There was a tension in his gut. One he didn't know how to adequately explain. Not, until he released his hold of the blades, and pulled the shorter man into a hug that he really, really needed.

"I just... I wanted..." Zuko said, his voice shuddering.

"You were always true to who you were, and what you wanted. Nobody could ever expect more from you," Iroh said. He then backed to arm's length. "But I must ask: What are you doing in Ba Sing Se? Now, of all times?"

Zuko took a breath, to regain his composure, and looked his uncle in the eye. "I'm here to rescue Mom."

Across the world once more, a remote prison stood amongst the mountains, it the only dormant volcano in a sea of its black-smoking brethren. A place only visited when absolutely necessary, a place for the most dangerous of prisoners. A prison, for people that certain parties would rather quietly disappear. A showcase for a trophy, to a petty man's vanity.

The guard walking the wall, his helm's visor down against the blowing snow, didn't allow him the peripheral vision to see that he wasn't alone on his path. He turned just in time to get a fist into the front of his throat, dropping him to his knees, and letting the halberd in his hand fall into the snowbanks of the courtyard below. Thankfully, he didn't suffer shortness of breath for long; the intruder introduced a knee to his jaw, and consciousness fled quickly.

Bright blue eyes looked down at the guard, then inward. A tower stood, surrounded by two layers of walls and baileys. It was a prototype for the prisons like Puhai Stronghold in the East, a place designed to be as difficult to leave as possible. But not so difficult to enter. The girl who could be Yoji took a deep breath of cold air, and vehemently denied to herself that it was familiar. The Fire Lord was somewhere inside that tower. It was her duty as a Child to rectify that.

Invisible to her, on the other side of the prison, a great white form landed with an utterly muffled thud in the snow. It shook vigorously, the fluff that stuck to it whipping around when it wasn't dislodged. Upon the back of that beast were two girls, one from the West, and one from the South. The former looked to the barely visible specter of the tower, and nodded.

"Betla," she said. "Of course, it had to be Betla."

"Something I should know?" Katara asked, her guard up even now. After all, she'd just flown in the same saddle as _Azula_ of all people for all this time.

"You? No... But this place has a lot of ghosts for _me_."

The two offered no more words. Each had a task. And each would stop at nothing to achieve it, even if each girl thought the other's plan utter folly. Such it was, when family was involved.

And in a traincar which pulled into a station at the fringe of Caldera City, the edge which was once the Ashfall Ward, but now only a flow of lava and the ruins of abandoned houses, a cry went up. Grey eyes opened, and the Avatar threw himself out, an army at his back. Now, the end, a coldly logical part of Aang's mind said to him. Now, the invasion.

* * *

><p><strong>To Be Continued...<strong>


	59. The Day of Black Sun, Part 2

"Another force," Zhao said darkly.

"Yes, my lord," the maimed Kurita said. "They've come straight out of the train-station to the west."

"That's inside our defensive lines," Kwon said, as he placed new markers, indicating forces of unknown size or measure inside the outer rim of Caldera City.

"The snow is parting, though?" Zhao said.

"The wind is still up, so it's blowing. Visibility on the ground is terrible," Kurita said.

"As long as visibility in the sky isn't," Zhao said. His good eye pulled into the glower that his burned one had perpetually. "Get the airships into the sky, this minute. The Eclipse is coming, and when it hits, I want every one of those peons on the ground to be diving for cover, not killing my soldiers."

"As you command, Fire Lord," Kawareta Kurita said, bowing in salute, before turning and departing back out of the war-room. He was not going to lose today. He knew that for a fact. But how he didn't lose today, that fell upon him. Azula's visions were from her perspective. She hadn't seen all of what went into the Avatar's defeat. That was the only way Zhao could reconcile the omissions in Azula's record. But what she had seen, that would be enough. Enough warning. Enough advantage.

It had to be.

* * *

><p>The crack of wood striking wood was the only warning that Kori got, before he was cast hard into the wall beside him. The impact sent stars through his vision, and he was pretty sure that he dislocated his shoulder, but nothing seemed broken. So it would be a fix of seconds instead of hours. After he shook off the worst of the blow, he tried to see what had waylaid him. What he saw was a chaotic whorl of air and shimmering light, one that he in his haste hadn't noticed. "Noted," he said to himself, pulling water from his clothing to lay, glowing, to his shoulder. When the pain had dulled to numbness, he picked an opportune door-frame, slammed his shoulder into it, and popped his arm right.<p>

It still hurt like hell.

After hissing and rotating the worst of the pain out to water which still glowed, he pressed the water into ice and kept going. The Royal Palace was about as dangerous as the shores of hell, it seemed. There were certainly enough people running through the halls as he passed them. Some of them looked as injured as he. Not all of them military. Part of him wanted to be impressed that Zhao hadn't immediately turned tail and fled into the bunker in the mountain, but it occurred to Kori that if the volcano had indeed erupted, then it was entirely possible that the bunker was currently full-to-the-ceiling with molten rock. Of course Zhao would stay. Leaving meant giving up. He was nothing if not persistent.

This was the second time that something blocked his way from the direction he'd wanted to go. The first had been a free-floating blaze that allowed no smoke, but couldn't be quenched by any amount of water that Kori threw into it. If he'd been a more suspicious person, he might have presumed that somebody was trying to delay him. He just knew that he was damned unlucky.

He'd taken his third preferred path toward the Children's barracks when he finally saw one of his kind. "Stop! Hideo!" Kori shouted. The Child with the shaven head and pale brown eyes stopped in his race, and turned back. Unlike Kori, he was wearing the full armor of his station, red and gold, segmented like a serpent.

"Kori?" Hideo asked.

"Yes, long time, no see, couldn't live without me," Kori said, waving away questions which weren't coming. "Where's Junyo?"

"Junyo?" Hideo asked. "Why do you need her?"

"Matter of life or death. About the Fire Lord," Kori said, a lovely lie of omission.

"Didn't know you were still one of us. Thought you'd run away when Zhao took over."

"Me?" Kori asked, with insulted tone. "Run away? Do you take me for some faithless harlot, who jumps into whatever warm bed will have me? I have _some_ loyalties."

Hideo scoffed, and nodded. "Fair enough. She's not at the barracks. She's at the Periphery."

"The Periphery? The Children are already fighting at the Periphery?" Kori asked.

"Will be soon," Hideo said, motioning Kori to follow. When he did, Kori noted that they were following a line of grease-paint on the floor which snaked from time to time around hazards both obvious and not. "Bastards brought a new force from right off the trains. Zhao hadn't kept a reserve, they would have had a clear walk to the Upper City."

Pity. "I need to talk to Junyo as soon as possible. Take me to her."

"Didn't know you could pull rank," Hideo said, casting a glance over his shoulder.

"We both know the only rank within the Children is the ones we choose to follow, and above that, the Fire Lord. I haven't forgotten how the Children operate," Kori said testily. Hideo nodded at that. But he was mercifully silent. Hideo was a firebender, true, but more concerning was that Kori put him squarely on Zhao's side of the in-unit civil war that Kori was about to spark. He hoped he wouldn't need to kill Hideo. It was a bad war, when brother fought brother, even if they were brothers only through lies, deceit, and kidnapping.

Then again, this was _definitely_ a bad war.

* * *

><p>"What are you going to do when you find him?" Katara asked. Azula puffed out a breath, which steamed before her even inside the bottom room of the tower.<p>

"I don't know," she said, finally releasing the sleeper-hold she'd clamped onto the only guard not currently frozen to a wall or unconscious from being battered about. "But that's not your problem. The guards aren't going to be able to stop your sister. You know that. So keep her away from me. If you can save her..." Azula trailed off. Then she took a fresh breath, letting it burn in her lungs, so the words would come out. "...good luck."

Katara seemed stunned by the words of encouragement. She ought, because they were hard enough for Azula to give. She turned away from the waterbender, her once bane, her once killer, and headed inward. They'd been sensible, and put their entire force at the choke point, to ward off whoever was invading. Sadly, choke-points only work when the force attempting to press through was larger than the choke could allow. Two master benders, of whom one was Azula, could stomp flat just about anything that the so-called Fire Lord would have spared for this place. It was a prison, and in any other day, a very secure one. Not today.

The stairs passed under Azula's feet in a sort of blur, the naked and uninteresting ascent disappearing into the focus toward what she would find before her. There was a chance, even a small one, that she might be able to rescue Father, and be away before Katara found her relative. There was equal possibility that the Tribesman could have come and gone and took Azula's father with her... but the continued presence of guards – until she and Katara had bludgeoned them into unconsciousness – made that highly unlikely. That alone gave Azula hope.

She knew she should be being more cautious, however, it was hard to be cautious when time was so short, and the stakes so high. Even to herself, she couldn't really rationalize why she needed to do this, with this man who was-and-was-not her father. Every right thought told her that she ought not even be here. That this was a fool's errand to its very core. Every right thought, instilled from birth and long life after it told her that it was safer, better, to cut that cord and move on without him. To aid the Avatar – bizarre as the whole situation was – in his bringing down the Fire Lord, instead of larking off here. But while her brain said one thing, her heart... it wasn't so easily persuaded.

Ozai was her father. And despite everything, she still loved him.

She reached the highest floor, the most secure one in this place. The air was freezing even without this unnatural weather – for this was the tallest volcano amidst its brethren by far – so most firebenders had very little heat, other than that inside their own bodies, to sustain them. Without heat, the trinity of flame guttered and failed. The only place safer would be... well, the North Pole, perhaps.

Here, there was only one door. Great, iron bound. Thick and heavy. There had to be a half dozen locks, all visibly different from one another, each requiring a different key. She clenched her fist, forcing the heat of her breath, the air from her lungs, and the power from her very soul into it. She pressed it tight, against the thinness of the air, against the hellish chill. When her hand opened, fingers crooked and begging for wroth, the flame was a blue so pale it seemed almost white. An extension of her will, that hellfire lashed out, a whip only a finger wide, hotter than lightning, perhaps. It slashed up the bars and beams, the deadbolts and latches of all of the locks in one great swipe, flashing the metal away in a flash of sublimated bronze and a hot dribble of molten iron. She stormed to the great handle that pulled the beast, and braced her feet against the wall, heaving with all of her considerable might. The door groaned, and shifted, grating open to a ping of a final lock, which had been superheated but not quite destroyed, giving way.

Which made the door swing wider, and Azula land on her side on the floor. She pushed up off of the frigid flagstones quickly, before striking off the hole forming at her pantleg where it'd landed in the molten iron. She'd have to be more careful about that in the future. Firebenders might be able to resist heat better than most, but molten metal was still _molten metal_.

"Father?" Azula asked, as she stepped forward into the room beyond. It was cavernous, with grates near the ceiling to let cold air circulate. It was fresh, true, but her breath puffed before her with each exhale. She flicked a blue flame into her palm, letting it swell a pool of light away from her. They left him in the dark. That bastard Zhao left her father alone, cold, and _in the dark_. If she hadn't felt justified in setting him on fire before, she certainly did now. "Father, are you here?"

Her answer was a groan, one that stopped her step for a moment. This was what she'd come here for, but... even now, she hesitated. She shouldn't hesitate. It was not like her to hesitate.

Then again, it also wasn't like Azula to be sentimental, and to want to save somebody who'd betrayed her. Today was an odd day. She swelled the flare in her hand, and when she did, she saw him, his face turning away as though she'd almost blinded him.

His arms were chained as spread as they could be, his legs locked in fetters. His face had a gaunt look, and he was long unshaven; the beard from his cheeks now warred with the strand from his chin which had been more or less his trademark. No, he didn't simply look gaunt, Azula realized. He was emaciated. Wasting away.

"Father, I'm here. It's over."

"Of course it is," Ozai rasped. "And every time you say that... it never comes."

Azula paused in her approach. She wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that. Perhaps the dangling had simply left him exhausted to the point of delirium. "Just stay there. You'll be free soon."

"Freedom. Hah!" Ozai laughed bitterly. "That's a new one. I'll grant you that."

"What are..." Azula shook her head. The important things came first. She forced her blue flame tighter again, and blazed it along the iron chains holding Ozai's arm away. After a second or so, after the iron swiftly went from black to white, it popped, the metal unable to withstand the change so rapidly. His arm dropped straight to his side, before he slowly turned to look at it. He clenched and unclenched his fist, as though in disbelief, even as Azula repeated the procedure on the other side. "I'm... I'm glad you're alive. That Zhao didn't kill you."

"Of course you are," Ozai said, now rubbing at his shoulder. Golden eyes turned up to her, glinting in the light that she gave him. "Because you weren't done with me, were you?"

"I don't... know what you mean," Azula said, backing away from cutting the fetters. There was wrath in Father's face, one that was boiling to the surface as surely as a volcano from out the bottom of the sea. "You're my father. I couldn't ever abandon you. Not to this."

"Of course not. Azula would never do that," Ozai said, sarcasm dripping from his tones. "What do you want from me? Or was this enough? Does _this_ placate your sadism?"

Azula took a step back. There was something severely, severely wrong here. "Father... are you alright?"

He started laughing. No, there was laughter, exemplified by the likes of Aang or Toph... this was cackling. He held his sides with bony hands – one of them marked with a jagged red line, and missing fingers from Zuko's lightning bolt all those years ago, his chest heaving as it blasted forth. When he opened his eyes again, the cackling coming to a slow halt, those eyes were bloodshot, and there was a nihilistic look to them that Azula had only ever seen once before; on the face of Avatar Aang, before they killed each other in Republic City.

Her instincts told her to back away, and this time, she listened to them.

Because of that, when he slashed down with both hands, cutting away his own fetters to a rattling of chains and a popping of metal, it was fast enough to hurl herself out of the way when he tore his arms forward in a snapping arc, and sent forth a pair of lightning bolts at her heart. It took everything Azula had to twist herself of the way, and the arcs still tore a burnt tear across the cloth over her stomach, its edges smoldering and stinging against miraculously only slightly (and therefore painfully) burnt flesh.

"Oh, everything's alright, _phantom_. You can't lie to me anymore... I _know what you are..._"

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 19<strong>

**Day of Black Sun, part 2**

**The Eclipse**

* * *

><p>The snow was making advancement difficult, a lot harder than it needed to be. The Ghurkas that fought with them often cut paths through the snow with their firebending, something to make those behind them a bit swifter to reinforce, but it was – literally – buying inches after spending a mile. Aang had the easy part; between his natural airbender grace and the waterbending that Katara had worked so hard to teach him, he could move pretty much however he pleased.<p>

Well, if there wasn't an army in his way. The two had the advance dragged down to a crawl. He knew that there was only so much time until the Eclipse hit. And if he wasn't in place when it happened, then its best use would be utterly wasted. He had to get past them all. He could fly, yes, but with the snow clearing for the moment, that would make him a hopelessly obvious target. And if Azula was right, Aang _did not_ own the sky. And besides... maybe there was some good he could do here, with the soldiers. How was right in that. They were all connected. Even if he wasn't willing to take lives... he could still help.

"Hail, Avatar," a Ghurka that Aang had never met before said, as he fell in beside the teenager. "We're moving, but not quickly. Those buggers have locked the streets up. We can't move past them without giving them our ass to bite."

"There must be something we can do," Aang said.

"Burn the Ward," the Ghurka said with a shrug.

"No!" Aang said, horrified.

"Just a suggestion, lad, one that would work, but just a suggestion."

"Well... come up with a better suggestion," Aang counciled. The Far Westerner uttered a laugh, and moved forward, joining the Dividesmen and Omashuans that were following in the wake of their 'scouts'. The deeper they went into the city, the closer those hellish vortexes of chaos became. In a lot of ways, it was a lot like navigating the heart of Sentinel Rock, only worse, because there were more things trying to kill him.

The advance stopped not far ahead, at a din of lightning cracking that spanned from building to building. From the smoke and cut-through wood at its edges, it entered those buildings as well, with no care for structure or inhabitants. The Ghurka gave a look around, but could only shrug, and turn back, retreating down the path he'd cut.

"Wait," Aang said. The Westerner paused as Aang approached the lightning wall. He had pretty much no clue if this would work, but he had to try. He pressed his eyes closed, letting wind rip at his hair as it blew snow past him and into the lightning. He calmed his breath, his hands cupping before him. Slowly, almost gingerly, he reached a finger toward that wall, and thought to the lessons that Azula had taught him.

Lightning could be redirected. The bolt from the heavens could be cast aside, as long as you pull it down, before letting it go away. He'd never practiced, as even Azula wasn't willing to throw lightning at him to give him a practical test. He just had to open the path. Just as Malu had taught him in their meditations, the paths of power that she was so intimately familiar with; the paths which had led to her freedom. His past and – hopefully – his future, teaching him what he needed to know, for this very moment.

His finger touched the field.

In an instant, the unspeakable power of the rip in the fabric of reality raced into him, intent on blasting him to a cinder in the beat of a hummingbird's heart. But he didn't resist that power, didn't give it any jags to hook and claw at. He just let it flow. A push of force, his very life-essence, directing the force into his gut. It swelled him, in a metaphysical sense; he felt over-full, like he'd eaten eight times as much as he should have (Roughly twice as much as Sokka would be content with, in other words). It was a pressure that pushed outward at his skin, trying to detonate him like one of Nila's bombs. But then, he opened the path upward. The energy, unable to find its ground so easily, surged up, tracing a line to his fingertip.

Then, with a mighty crack, the bolt that seemed almost as thick as Aang snapped into the sky, as for a split-second, the entire city was illuminated as though by half a dozen suns. Unconscious airbending was all that saved he and those behind him from being utterly deafened by the thunderclap it produced. Windows shattered for a mile. When he stopped, he felt... hollowed, somewhat. But the wall of lightning was gone, and their path forward was secured.

"...by the lord of thunder..." the Ghurka said, his usual humorous dismissal nowhere in attendance.

"I had good teachers," Aang said, before shaking his head. "Come on! We have to go!"

"On the Avatar, lads!" he snapped, not loud enough to carry far, but enough to reach those who'd almost turned. They began to surge past Aang, who took a moment to catch his breath. The firebender clapped a hand on Aang's shoulder for a moment, his head shaking in something between humor and awe. Then, he headed forward with his men. After final purging breath – and a crackle of hair standing on end, he began forward as well. They started at a march, but the lightning wall had prevented snow-drifts, so they soon began to jog. Then run.

"Take the Mouth! We need that road!" one of the Earthbenders called.

Aand nodded, and prepared to bound forward. As he'd just cleared the ground, though, something impacted him from aside, and the two were carried into a snow-coated garden beside a tenement housing. Aang almost elbowed his assailant in the head with a flaming smack, but he stopped himself when the words reached him.

"Stop you fool!" Nila shouted at him.

"What?" Aang asked.

"LOOK!" Nila shouted, thrusting a tattooed hand down the street. The fastest, those who'd run hardest, were starting to collapse to the cobbles. Those behind, they stopped running, looking around for whatever had slain their fellows. Then, one by one, they too collapsed to the ground. Aang blinked at that. What was going on? Archers? He didn't see any arrows...

"What am I looking at?" Aang asked her. She pointed very nearby. The street-corner they'd almost reached.

Hanging across, corner to corner, was a shimmering silver spider-web, suspended just at neck-height. "Everybody stop!" Nila screamed. One soldier didn't stop soon enough, passing through that web as though it were immaterial. Those that stopped, looked to them in confusion and alarm. A few seconds later, the man in the center of the road, just past the web, got a stunned expression, then fell straight forward onto his face. "It is a Symbiont," she said. "Touch it, and your heart bursts in your chest."

"What... what do we do about it?" Aang asked, getting up as she rose from atop him.

"Avoid it at all costs," she said. "This is as much my battleground as yours, Avatar."

"You're right," Aang said. He looked around. "Where do we go from here?"

"That street is a death-trap," Nila declared. "If it were not, the Fire Nation would be there already. We must find another way."

All eyes turned to Aang. "I'd listen to what she says," there was silence in the street, but for the din of nearby battle, the wind, and the nervous shuffling of those who hadn't suddenly and to them inexplicably died. The silence stretched. "She's the Dragon's Daughter."

At that, there were a chorus of affirmatives, and they began to split, looking down each path not spanned by the web which was likely the first of many dangers. Nila looked mildly annoyed. "And of course only my mother's name forces them to see sense," she muttered.

"...where's Sokka?" Aang asked the obvious question, as the Tribesman was nowhere to be seen.

"As far as I know, he is back that way, somewhere," Nila said, waving roughly the way they came.

"I hope he's having better luck than we are," Aang said, as he picked a road at random, and began to scout a new way forward.

* * *

><p>The Salamander lurched as he fumbled with the controls, but nevertheless, it clattered up the street, scattering the confused Fire Nation soldiers who found their technology suddenly turned against them.<p>

"Son, why didn't you tell me you knew how to drive this thing?" Hakoda asked. Sokka flinched as he steered a little wide, and the spiked wheels cut through the corner of a building.

"Because I didn't know I could until two minutes ago?" he offered. Hakoda stared at him a moment, face impassive.

Then, he laughed. "That's my boy."

* * *

><p>Katara flinched as a blast of flame erupted from the windows high above. The blast was bright and scarlet, the kind of flame that Azula only did when she was trying to hide herself. Katara was well aware that Azula would see no need to conceal her identity here. Which meant that somebody really powerful, really desperate, or really stupid was attacking her. She turned, to run from the heart of the inner bailey and into the tower, ignoring the little voice in her head telling her that she was running into mortal peril to save Azula, the girl who kept trying to kill her.<p>

That little voice was little for a reason. The much bigger one demanded that she never turn her back on people who needed her.

She skidded to a stop before the doors, and heaved at them. The metal of the doors, a brass that was polished to a mirror shine, didn't hold any snow, but was heavy as a guilty conscience, and about as easy to shift. She'd got it barely open enough to squeeze through – and how did Azula both open _and close it_ so easily, she wondered – but before she did, she caught a glimpse of something, just out of the corner of her eye. A reflection on shining bronze.

A whip of flame searing out toward her.

Katara whipped her hands out, tearing the snow from the steps into a flowing shield, one that coalesced just before the fiery impact struck her. It still knocked her back a yard, slamming her back into the other, closed door. A twist, and it was now a pair of fluid hammers, compressed and ready to blast outward as water compressed was wont to do. She almost lost control of them when she saw who'd tried to sucker-flame her.

The assailant pulled the flame back to herself, wrapping it 'round her like a fiery ribbon, one she kept shifting and twisting between her hands and around her body as though manipulating some sort of recalcitrant serpent. The clothing she wore was rag-tag, obviously put together from a number of outfits. Thick, and wrapping her from neck to ragged feet. But the face above that ragged, self-made parka was as dark as Katara's own. And looked a lot like it, as well.

"You," Hikaoh said at a hiss. "How could I have known you'd be here?"

"Hikaoh, you don't know what you're doing," Katara said, stepping away from the door, if only so she wouldn't be blasted through it. "You don't need to go through with this."

"I think I do, Tribesman," she answered, her words starting to slip into an accent. One that Katara, a novice in the language of Huo Jian, shared. "After all, I can see your assassins are trying to kill the Fire Lord."

"Azula is not going to hurt her father," Katara said. And wasn't that an odd thing to say, and mean?

"Azula?" Hikaoh's face twitched. "I should have known. The Avatar too, I would guess. It doesn't matter. I know my duty."

"It isn't your duty!" Katara said.

Hikaoh answered her by lashing forth a great wave of flame, rippling out from her control as would any water-whip of Katara's. She skirted aside, and then had to twist the water under her thrall to catch the back-slash that Hikaoh instantly transitioned to. The impact of flare and flowing snow erupted into a blast of steam, one that sent Katara rolling back. She caught her footing though, in a move that had been drilled into her head in Summavut. Never lose your feet on the ice. Always reach your feet. And never let the firebenders see your back. Hikaoh hurled a blast of fire, as though snapping it off and flicking it at Katara, before shifting toward the doorway that Katara had vacated. That, though, was easy enough to duck.

She reached up, grabbed the snow, and surged it forward. With a wave, she slammed up a barrier before the entrance to the tower. Hikaoh skidded to a halt, staring at the wall where once an entrance stood, before throwing angry blue eyes over her shoulder. She puffed out a snort that came with smoke. The fire which singed and seared at her sleeves continued to roil, as she put her back to the wall, and gave Katara her full attention. "I should have killed you in Omashu. It would have saved the Nation a lot of trouble."

"You didn't, though," Katara said. "A part of you has to know why you didn't. It has to remember who you used to be!"

"It doesn't matter who I used to be!" Hikaoh screamed, and spun into a great flash of flame, the ribbon expanding and lashing out as a knife the size of Appa. Katara didn't even bother trying to ward it. She just hurled herself out of the way, landing at a skate, twisting and sliding backward to a safer halt; the spot she'd been standing was now not only devoid of snow and filled with steam, but baked black as well. "Everything I am, I am because of the Fire Nation!" she continued. "They gave me everything! Food, shelter, a _home_. Your people _threw me away_!"

"You were stolen!" Katara shouted at her. "You were taken from Dad and Sokka and me, the same day Mom died. They killed her _because she wouldn't stop fighting for you_!"

"A likely story," Hikaoh snapped. Her arm spun around behind her, but this time, it didn't bear the ribbon of flame that still rippled along her, a dragon that followed her every command. No, when this spun, it spun with lightning. "And an obvious lie."

Hikaoh cast out her hand, and with it, came the thunder. Katara pulled all of the snow around her into a great shell, one that the lightning in its disparate strands struck, but didn't breach... though the force did cast Katara off her feet. She slid backward, before grabbing the shards of ice that flew past her with the blast, and ramping them behind her so that she was forced to her feet. Never lose your footing. Never show your back. "Why would I lie to you, Hikaoh?" Katara asked.

"You want to distract me while Azula kills the Fire Lord," Hikaoh said. Lightning in one hand, fire in the other.

"Why would she do that? She loves her father, for reasons I can't possibly understand," Katara snapped back.

"Stay out of may way, or I _will_ kill you," Hikaoh promised.

"I don't think you will."

Hikaoh's eye twitched, and she answered Katara's fairly optimistic prediction with a blast of flames.

* * *

><p>"How long?" Zhao asked.<p>

"Eight minutes to the eclipse," Kwon said, as he read through short-hand reports at a fevered pace, despite looking as bored as a man waiting for his wife to finish shopping. "The airships are in position.

"Fire Lord!" A call came from the door to the side of the room. Zhao turned, his burned eye locking on the military runner. "We have a report from the forces in Teisehri Ward; the Avatar has been definitively seen with the forces of the Blue Turbans."

"Blue Turbans?" Zhao asked. He steepled his fingers, staring at the maps as though they would divulge new secrets to him with naught more than an angry staring. "Of _course_. He doubtless built that movement from start to finish. How else would it have taken Grand Ember City without his meddling?"

"Our reserve forces are engaging the forces to the West," Kwon continued. Fortunate that he'd had the presence of mind to keep a force held back; if he hadn't, then that sneak-attack would have had a clear run up Ashfall and into the Upper City. As it was, they had a hell of a fight on their hands.

"Have them pull back to the Periphery," Zhao ordered. "Let them fight their way _to_ us, rather than make us fight to them."

"As you command, Fire Lord," the runner said, before dashing away once more. The forces would hold. He knew that. While they would lose a significant amount of their martial capacity for the eight minutes of the eclipse, they would not buckle. He knew that, because he had learned a lesson in fighting the Whalesh, those years ago; never overspecialize. Never fight in a single-unit force. Never leave a gap in your battle line, even one that doesn't look like a gap.

And when firebenders find themselves unable to firebend, don't leave the unit exclusively of firebenders. When the Avatar's forces tried to press the army back, in what they assumed would be a time of abject and one-sided slaughter, they would find the finest halberdiers, mortarmen, and pyroclasts awaiting them, and ready to push back even harder.

Kwon cleared his throat, and Zhao looked up once more. A new runner, on the other side of the room. "Fire Lord," the young woman in the thick coat and minimal armor said, bowing swiftly. "The force to the East has breached the Seawall."

Zhao nodded, and stared at the maps. He had every advantage, he could see that. He just needed to leverage them all, in the way most effective, for everything he's got. If there'd been one thing that Azula's prophecies had taught him, it was that nothing ever came easily. Even with complete foreknowledge, it was still an honest fight. At least, this time, when it was over, there would be no doubt as to who the true master of this land was.

* * *

><p>Zhong slammed his fists into the stone, and ripped down and away, his bending rippling up the face and tearing it apart, sending it sliding down in a wave. The battlement crumbled at its head, but he didn't spare much time or thought for those poor souls up there. He had a task that needed doing. The air above was clearing, which had the unfortunate effect of giving those battlements a clearer shot on those who were pressing forward through the snow. Long Feng's forces were being hammered. It wasn't until they all moved to one side of the through-way, and brought down all the battlements able to fire on them, that they made an advance with a degree of peace.<p>

The number of crippled Salamanders left in their wake was honestly somewhat staggering.

"We need through the gates!" the call came over the wind. Dai Li were moving forward, trudging through the snow with none of their usual, skating grace. This was a place which suited none of the people involved in this fight. Too cold for the firebenders. To snowy for the earthbenders. A waterbender here would be in hog-heaven, but alas, they had none of the sort.

Zhong looked up the mount, which was slowly becoming visible as the drifts died down, as the storm moved from snowing and wind, to simply wind. When he did, a great shape appeared briefly, almost invisible against the clouds above. If he hadn't been looking for it, he might have missed it. But he saw it. And he had a pretty good idea what that meant.

He ran, letting his feet dig into the wall and race along that, rather than try to go up the middle as so many other Dai Li were doing. His pace was easily four times theirs; he bounded off the corner and continued onward, until he reached the ramp where the Millipedes had halted. The gate before them was a great, iron portcullis, a mass of metal and concrete that would have stopped any Western threat in its tracks. Sadly, that wasn't what faced them today. Another Dai Li, snow caked up to his hips, reached a spot aside him, and the two shared a look. The agent still under his conical hat gave Zhong a nod, then began to run, straight up the face of the wall.

Zhong followed suit. After all, he didn't want to be seen being upstaged. His earthbending created jumping points, and he bounded up with much the same speed of the other, although not as much of the grace. When they reached the top the two perched, only for a moment, on the edge of that great blockage. Then, with a single breath to calm his nerves and harden his heart, Zhong took a step forward, spinning to face the wall as he did. He dragged his hand down, slowing him slightly, but cutting a great and deep furrow through the stone; the stone, shifted such, ripped the metal that was there to hold it in place apart. Two earthbenders carved gaping wounds in the gate, and when both reached the base, the other earthbenders that awaited them moved as one, a great and bodily shove. There was a groan, and then a cracking as the entire gate, and the walls surrounding it, tipped and fell back. The crash of it rumbled back to all who would listen. Then, the Millipedes continued their advance. Zhong put his hand above his eyes, and looked to the Periphery, the last line of defense before entering the Upper City. There would be Long Feng's greatest resistance. And as with so many others, pushing in against retreating firebenders, they moved toward the switchback road, through the streets, and into the Lower City.

* * *

><p>Waves of scarlet flames lashed out at Azula as she hurled herself through the doorway. A part of her brain that was strictly calculating chided the rest of her, citing that there was no realistic reason for her to believe that her father would hold any love for her. Of course, that part was promptly backhanded by the rest of her, the part of her which had been long suppressed. The part of her which, in the Avatar's company, had developed into a full-fledged aspect of her personality.<p>

Even as she skidded to a halt, some smoke still wafting away from the singed parts of her clothing, she was torn between not wanting to die, and not wanting to hurt her father.

"You don't know anything about me!" Ozai roared from inside that room. "You are the one who stole everything from me! I could have lead the Fire Nation into glory! An eternal age of advancement and culture!"

He rounded the corner, fires burning the very sleeves from his arms. It was then that she noted that, despite his gaunt face, he still had a great deal of ropey muscle still about him. He lashed out, both fists casting a pillar of flames toward her. She twisted a shield of azure fire, one that forced the flames down, and by reaction, forced her upward. She used the momentum to spin to her feet, before twisting that barricade so that the assault slid past her, blowing a hole through one of the walls. Father had always been a spectacular firebender. She'd only faced him once before, and that had been less of a fight and more a father spanking a disobedient four-year-old.

Maybe because, even then, she didn't want to hurt her father. That even then, she wouldn't fight to her utmost against him.

"I didn't choose this!" Ozai screamed as his flames snapped away, flowing out the wound in the tower that he'd made.

"Father, stop!"

"No, I can't stop," he roared, and lashed out with a kick that sent a blade of flames toward her. She rooted her footing, her stance as wide and low as an earthbenders. Her hands, crossed before her chest, held forth 'blades' of blue flame, jets that curved down with her arms. When one blade struck the others, there were no sparks, as were in the passion-plays where warriors clashed with shining steel. Instead, a blast of black-smoke, a thud of force, and Azula knocked back a step. "Everything I've done, I did for the Fire Nation! You are _lying_!"

"You think I don't know that?" Azula shouted back. "You think I don't know that you – _oh hell_!"

She was cut off by bolts racing toward her, lightning pulled from nothing in a fraction of a second. It was a form that had taken Azula a lifetime to master; admittedly, one seldom spent on learning firebending forms. The lightning crackled and boomed, her hair trying to stand on end even as she landed at a roll. Fresh stones crumbled down where the lightning had made a fresh wound in the walls.

There was something going on that she didn't quite understand. The obvious sign was that he was referring to conversations that she and he had never had. But what was the nature of those words that had so incensed him? If she could figure that out, then there might be some way to end this... without bloodshed.

She had less than a second's respite before the whoosh of flames sounded once more. Racing directly toward her, his feet and back-cast hands spewing rockets of flame, came the once-Fire Lord, skating into a tackle upon a cushion of propulsive force. She had no time to move, from her awkward, recovering stance, when the man caught her with iron-like arms across the midriff and the burn thereupon, and cast her and he both out the hole in the wall, to a great and terrible plummet. She slammed her hand against his head, pushing away just enough that she could hook her feet up and into his now descending chest. A blast of blue fire, directly into him, sent him rocketing away from her, and back into the tower, if two levels lower then they'd left. Her aim wasn't precise – understandable given the circumstances – so he deflected slightly off of the window as he landed. That _had_ to hurt.

It was a much more graceful twist that she managed next, bringing her own fists and feet downward. She paid no attention to the fight below her, the water and the flame clashing, ice and snapping lightning attempting their respective non-lethal and lethal coups de grace. Her own task demanded enough of her already. A blast of flames, of force, and she was rocketing toward that same tower. She had a touch more control, though. She ripped the pin holding her hair in place, and slammed it into the rock when she impacted. It was a rough grab, but her impromptu piton held her long enough that she could swing into the next window.

She looked around. The room was vacant, seemingly long disused. The fact that there was a small drift of snow on the floor next to the window told that story well. For the moment, she could catch her breath. Considering the force that Father had struck her diaphragm, she needed it. "Your intention was never in doubt, Father, least of all by me," she attempted. She had an intuition, one she could nary explain nor disregard, that she could talk him down from this lunacy. "But..."

She let the word trail off. Please, she thought, let this work.

"But everything went wrong," Father's voice came, a whisper through the wall. "The Water Tribe was a disaster. So much... blood on my hands. I can't ever be clean of it. I thought..." a long pause. "No. No, I know what you're doing. You can't kill me with your tongue, you little witch!"

Azula had barely enough time to think 'well, damn' before a fresh blast sent the wall blossoming toward her. Being struck about the chest and face with stones wasn't her idea of a useful conversation, but it wasn't like she had much choice in the matter. She spent a moment on the ground, under the debris, trying to shake the stars from her vision.

"And you weren't even there. Of course not," Father continued. "I did what needed to be done! If _he'd_ taken the throne, I can't even imagine the destruction! We would have collapsed into a _civil war_!"

Azula slowly pushed the bricks and wood off of her, attempting to be as silent as she could. She could hear him, walking past the wall next to her, the one to the hall beyond. This one, that he hadn't yet destroyed. She spat a bloody gobbet to the floor, then moved to the door that he'd walked past, or else through. "And how does that differ from what you face now?" Azula asked, trying to keep the pain from making flubs of her words. Ozai spun to her, his beard waving, his eyes burning as surely as his fists.

"It... I... You don't have _any concept_ of what I've had to do!" he shouted, casting a hand aside, and baking the wall with a wave of flames. "The sacrifices that I've made! _Personal_ sacrifices! Things I will never have again!"

"And why not?" Azula asked. "Why sacrifice _me_?"

"I had to!" he shouted. Almost begged. "It was the only way! I needed a strong heir, and without you... I had so much invested in you. I knew that you would be the stronger but... but you just had to..." his face bunched up into a rictus, and he lashed out again, a pair of fiery blasts, twining together like rope and burning what wood stood anywhere nearby. Azula had to flinch back, and carve that rope back into its blazing twine, allowing it to flow past her, to wash over rocks and plaster.

"What? Become ill? It was _my_ fault?" Azula shouted back, heat rising in her voice.

"Yes!" he screamed, as the flames died down. Then, he paused. "N...no..."

"Father, you didn't have to..."

"No. You're trying to confuse me again," he snapped, his head shaking briskly.

"Why? What have I to gain?" Azula asked. Ozai just stared at her.

"You're bleeding," he said. His head tipped down, his posture less a regal firebending master, and more a rabid beast surveying a potential meal. "That means I _can_ kill you."

If Azula'd had the time, she would have sighed. But Ozai, he wasn't one for letting his enemies have a chance to breathe.

* * *

><p>"Alright, so you've got something to tell me, do you?" the de-facto leader of the Children demanded, as Kori rubbed his shoulder from where he'd been given a rude shove. "Out with it. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in the middle of being invaded right now!"<p>

"I'm not an idiot, Junyo, despite what you'd like to believe," Kori said. "I said a word in private."

"We don't have time for privacy," she said, turning once more to her earthbending ilk amongst those who fought for the Fire Nation. Directing them in their work. Preparing for the next step. Kori had a fair notion what it was.

"Junyo, please," Kori said.

"Here, or nowhere," the rotund young woman demanded.

"Fine," Kori bit out. "If you continue to abet Fire Lord Zhao, the Avatar is going to kill you all."

A number of heads turned toward him, the work in the stone falling still. "...what did you just say?" Junyo asked.

"You've got to see the folly of this," he said, waving his hand toward the Periphery, where so many Fire Nation soldiers were readying to fight to the death against the invaders. "He's outnumbered, surrounded, and his enemy is an Agni-damned _demigod_. A demigod who'd not afraid to kill who will get in his way," Kori lied. He was pretty sure that Aang would go to ridiculous lengths to not kill somebody. But still, once the death of one was on one's hands, the death of another fell far easier, airbender or not.

"This is treason, Kori. High Treason," Junyo said.

"No. It isn't," Kori said. "This isn't an invasion, it's a succession crisis. It's one that's been going on ever since Zhao's unlawful coup. Don't pretend that you approve of what he's done to hundreds of years of tradition. That man _should not be Fire Lord_."

"And the Avatar is better?" Ishi, another of the earthbenders, asked.

"Not the Avatar. Princess Azula," Kori said. "_Daughter_ of the deposed Fire Lord. And, from the looks of them," Kori motioned to the south, where the Blue Turbans were now mired in a street-to-street battle, "she's got _a lot_ more support than Zhao does. I'm not asking you to spit on the people who raised us, gave us a home and a name and a purpose. I'm asking you to _save_ it from _him_!"

There was a look in Junyo's dark eye, one that Kori couldn't place. He thought it was a woman deciding to kill him. She'd seen that look plenty of times in his life. Surprisingly few of them were from Maya Azul, if he looked at it as a ratio. She looked to the other Children, who now all looked down on the pair of them. Zhao, or Azula. Invasion, or rightful heir. There was indecision on a few faces, those close enough for Kori to make them out. On others... outrage.

Outrage for who, though?

"Restrain him," Junyo said, turning away.

"Wait, I..." Kori began, but was smashed in the gut by a brick. The words came out as a wheeze, and his hands, on the ground to keep him from landing flat on his belly, were quickly mounded by stones, which shifted together and clacked into stone manacles. His feet were given fetters. With a motion, the pair pulled Kori toward her, halting him with his arms stretched uncomfortably over his head. She leaned in close, her nearly-black eyes locked on his.

Then, she whispered to him. "Right idea. Wrong time."

"You don't need to..." Kori started, but with a back-hand, she slammed a gag of stone over his mouth. Had to keep up appearances, apparently. Kori took that opportunity – however involuntarily – to take some much needed sleep, as Junyo had not been gentle, and the backhand was delivered at a full swing with a powerful arm.

* * *

><p>The world grew dark, as the Avatar followed in the wake of the Si Wongi guide. He looked to the clouds overhead, and the grey monsters contained within it. They quickly vanished against the clouds as they grew ever darker, and he turned to Nila. "We've got to go faster," Aang said. "The Eclipse is starting!"<p>

He'd no sooner gotten the words out of his mouth, then what seemed red grains of rice began to rain down from those airships, a bombardment of explosives that rained down onto the switchbacking road that lead to the Lower City. Aang couldn't see the detonations, not even close, from where he stood. Still, he gave them a wince, and a prayer that the forces toiling unwittingly under Long Feng suffered little at worst, or escaped the destruction at best. Nila let out a scoff at the sight.

"Clever bastard. He knows his weakness, so drives us back so we can't exploit it," she muttered. Bombs fell too on the road ahead, the one leading straight up to the Periphery. Wasted munitions in that case; all of the sneak-attack force was currently filtering in trickles toward the edge of the western fringes. The ascent would be cruel, and under that bombardment, impossible in the time given.

"We've got to find some way to..."

"Need a way into a mountain without getting blown up?" Toph chimed in, shoving Aang aside with her metal baton; Nila had fashioned a more substantial aid for the metalbender when she'd had an opportunity to, apparently. "Step back, Twinkletoes. Let the boys of the East deal with this one."

"What about the volcano? All that magma?" Aang prompted, the flame that illuminated those close by fluttering in his hand as an errant gust took it.

"What do you think I am? An idiot? I'm not going _that_ deep," Toph said. She turned to the others. "Hey! You guys, following the Avatar! Everybody follow _me_!"

"Really?" a Ghorkalai asked Aang. Toph looked outright insulted.

"Just for that, _you're_ not allowed to come," she said, thrusting that rod toward him.

"Do what she says. We can't get trapped in this part of the city. Not with so little time," Aang said. Toph nodded agreement, then thrust her hands down and forward. The stone rumbled and cracked, a shallow decline to the point where the stone above them would hide them, and then, an ascent as swift as they dared. When that first tunnel was formed, she turned to the others, toward the back. "Keep this thing clear, and point anybody who isn't trying to kill us into it. Got it?" she ordered. The two men, with their strange contraptions lashed to their backs, gave solemn nods. Toph turned, her baton striking with a crack into the stones once more, a downright dramatic pose to her, and raised a brow in Aang's general direction. "Well? Are we just going to stand around here waiting, or are we going to knock an idiot on his head?"

"Have I ever mentioned how pleased I was to find her a part of this motley crew?" Nila opined as she turned to follow Toph into the pitch-black tunnel that she'd created. "At least somebody has a working mind."

"Why thank you, Nila!" Toph said back. Aang just shook his head, and with the flame in his palm stoked a bit brighter, descended under the earth, to dodge the bombers.

* * *

><p>"The Eclipse has begun!" came the call from Zhong's rear. The Switchback was still mostly ahead of them, but the forces of the Fire Lord had retreated ahead of the advancing soldiers of Ba Sing Se in good order, lashing them with flames as they went. There was no glorious rout, as the generals in charge of this action had estimated. Instead, calm, controlled withdrawal. One which was put to the test, when a rank of Ostrich Horses, clad in barding and carried with such care and secrecy all the way from the Orient whence they came, broke ahead of the Millipedes which had survived the bombardment. They charged in the darkness, heedless of the terrain which might well break their legs, and readied to slam into the ranks of the firebenders who were bereft of their craft, and their only defense.<p>

In theory, it would have cracked the line completely, and brought the firebenders down one and all.

In practice, the firebenders took a step back, and the rank behind them, who'd never so much as lit a spark, lowered and braced their halberds. While there was a crash of armored bird into line, it was immediately set to the song of dying animal and panicking man. Zhong gave a slow nod. "Combined unit tactics. Zhao's trademark," he said to those near him. He turned to those soldiers. "This will be a tougher nut to crack than I thought. Press, and don't waste any more birds; they'll just get themselves–"

Zhong went into a full body flinch as a blast of fire and force erupted about ten yards away. It staggered him, and leveled the soldiers near it. For the first time, honest panic set into the earthbender, who looked in all directions for that assault. The mortars wouldn't be able to launch something that massive, something that punched the air from his lungs even from so far away. Then, as earthbenders so seldom did, he looked up.

Airships. Almost a dozen of them. And they were raining bombs.

"Keep advancing!" Zhong ordered those whom he had no legitimate rank over, however was given something of an honorary title given his 'experience' with fighting the Fire Nation. "The only way to live is to reach the top!"

"Aye, commander!" one of the soldiers nearby said. He couldn't have been more than a corporal. And he was likely the highest ranked soldier within easy eyeshot.

"I'll deal with the mortars," Zhong offered, and began to turn directly to the wall before him. He twisted, bearing the stones under him, creating something of a wave of roiling rock that bore him straight up the face of the Switchback. He vaulted over the road which faced bombing from above. His neck was craned back constantly, and his course had to juke and dive to avoid the falling explosives, which landed with neither care nor descrimination. They only pounded down the center of the Switchback, leaving the corners, the edges, as safe havens for the Fire Lord's soldiers to regroup and dig in. Wise precaution. Millipedes, properly manned, could move up just as Zhong did up this comparatively shallow middle.

The darkness became almost blinding, as he raced toward the Periphery, the great lip of the volcano which separated the nobility from the common man. Also, one of the more well defended points of this city-stronghold.

Upward he raced, through the darkness and the explosions, the thunder of bombs and the screams of soldier and beast and tortured machine. He raced upward, past other earthbenders, oddly enough, who were just below the edge of the Periphery. Those earthbenders, Children all, noted his ascent for a stunned moment, before they broke off of their kneading of the stone and earth, and raced up after him. They hadn't his speed.

He burst up over the edge of the Periphery with such force as to fly into the air, landing at a roll on the platform of concrete which nearly ringed the entire fortification. When he did, he landed amongst dozens of young men and women, clad in armor red and gold, all of whom took in his green and brown hanbok with a moment of stunned surprise. Then, the earthbenders from below mounted that precipice themselves, and as one, sent a flight of bricks directly toward the back of his head. With a stomp, Zhong brought up a protective wall behind him, and the bricks burst against it. The others, the closest two, firebenders both, moved in unison, leaping forward with shouts of angry effort and blasting streams of flame into his left and right. A thrusting upward of his hands brought up even more stone walls, these ones rising at angles, forming a 'hut' over him, and deflecting the flames away and above him. He stepped out of that hut just in time for another firebender to try to send a flaming fist into his face. With a look of disappointment at the incapabability of this lad, Zhong leaned aside, and kicked the knee out from under him.

"Yoji? Where the hell are you?" Zhong shouted, unbuttoning his hanbok, as the Children began to swarm around him. "Yoji? Hell, Junyo? What about you?"

"Stand down or die where you stand," one of the firebenders, Oshi by name, shouted at him. Zhong, as he'd been calling himself, looked contemptuously toward him.

"You really _are_ half-blind, aren't you, Oshi?" he asked, taking off the clothes of the men of the east, leaving him bare chested to the cold. In his side, there was an uneven star of scar-tissue, the bullet that had almost taken his life a season before. "Junyo? Come on, I know you're here."

"Well... I'll be damned," Junyo said, pushing aside the Children in her way. She looked him up and down. "They said you were dead."

"Reports of my demise were vastly premature," Zhong – or rather, Omo – answered her with a smirk. "Would you mind getting me some real clothing to wear? I don't feel like getting killed by my own troops."

"You were fighting with Long Feng's troops, Omo. You can't deny that," Hori, another firebender and about the most handsome of young men available in the West. Fortunate indeed that Yoji favored aptitude over appearance.

"Of _course_. I had to get out of there somehow," he said, motioning vaguely behind him. "By all means, kill them."

Junyo gave a nod. "Well? Are you just going to stand there like lumps, or are you going to keep these invaders from conquering our home?"

The Children, who'd been distracted by Omo, gave nods or bows toward Junyo, before dispersing once more. Junyo pulled a heavy coat from the body of a dead man, dragged here for triage and then abandoned, and tossed it to Omo, who slid it on without complaint. "Is what I've heard true? Ozai is deposed?"

"We're fighting for the glory of _Fire Lord_ Zhao," Junyo said sarcastically, walking toward the edge of the periphery. The bombing continued, however it started to slow. There were lines of earthbenders below, though. Earthbenders in the gold and scarlet armor of the Children. And they were calling up a very particular kind of rock. "You're not the first one to point out the irony. Kori's over there, somewhere. I think I knocked him senseless."

"He probably deserves it," Omo said with a shrug. "And what of Yoji? I thought she'd be the one directing this?"

"Yoji... that's a long, and unpleasant story," Junyo said darkly. She leaned forward. And then, with a deep breath, bellowed down to those who waited below. "Alright! Wake the dragon!"

Landslides were common defensive features on raised fortresses. Gravity was a harsh mistress, and a little bit of weight released from a high place could kill a lot of people before it stopped rolling. This principle fell utterly flat when it came to earthbenders, though; they could simply shove the incoming attack aside. But earthbenders were all very used to one kind of stone. Very concrete. Very solid. Hard, brittle, sharp, even grainy, but there was _one_ form that (almost) no bender in the East practiced with.

With a great heave, and a shout of battle from the earthbenders below, they began to bear up bright red magma from the mountain upon which they stood, and hurled it forth, still as hot as the heart of the earth, toward the Switchback. Omo didn't bother watching its effect on the earthbenders. They invaded his homeland. They were getting what they deserved. He looked Junyo in the eye. "So, what do we do about Zhao?"

She looked at him, and sighed, speaking quietly enough that her words were almost lost in the wind. "I haven't decided yet."

* * *

><p>"Get out of my way, barbarian," Hikaoh shouted at Katara, who even now kept herself between the icy backdrop of the clogged door and the firebender Tribesman who tried to press past her. "I know my duty."<p>

"Hikaoh, you don't need to go through with this," Katara pleaded. "Some part of you knows that this is the wrong thing to do. Some part of you knows that you're still a Tribesman!"

"The Tribes are nothing to me!" she screamed, whipping forward that strand of fire, that illuminated the land even as the Eclipse blackened the sky overhead. Everything Katara knew about firebending said that this should be impossible; if it wasn't, then Aang's invasion was _doomed_. And if it wasn't normal firebending... then it was something that lived at the ragged edge of the real. Something that could only be, in an age such as this. It was strange, the way she fought now compared to the way that the two had clashed last they'd met. It was easier to dodge, but harder to ward. As though she'd developed a style specifically to stymie Katara herself. The flames that licked in a savage rope around Hikaoh seared and singed at her clothing as they drew too close, as though she'd forgotten about their proximity, and only ever let them snuff by the cold and the wind. But unlike the undisciplined blasts, the cones and waves of flame, this struck with the lightning speed and surety of a viper, and Katara's only defense was to not be there when it struck, because when it landed, it did so with authority.

"That's a lie! You have a family, Hikaoh! We still want you back," Katara said.

Hikaoh stared at her, blue eyes locked onto blue. Then, with a twist that was more waterbender than firebender, she lashed out with that streak of flame, sending it straight into where Katara's chest would be, if she were so much of an idiot as to not get out of the way. Instead, the bolt slammed through the barricade that she'd created, and when it pulled back through, it shattered away a great chunk of it. She then pressed forward, intent on simply sidestepping Katara and doing what the madness pressed into her mind demanded. Katara tried to trap her sister's feet in the ice that she yet commanded, but Hikaoh simply leapt above it as it slid from liquid to solid, and rolled through the aperture that she'd created.

"Hikaoh, stop!" Katara shouted, shoving the entire mass aside as she bombed through after her. She immediately had to drag that water down in front of her, where a great deal of it flashed into steam as the flick of flames tried to take her head off. She ducked low, and slashed out with her ice, softening it only slightly, away from jagged shards, and into a slushy mess. That, with only so much flame, was not so easy to ward. The instant that some of it lapped at Hikaoh's ankles, she started freezing it. Hikaoh answered by slashing that foot with the flame, no doubt burning her own limb painfully, but it was enough to bound out, stumbling backward, with that whip of bright flames, liquidly flailing around her, before she sent it streaking at Katara once more. This time, Katara didn't bother warding. She just rolled aside, and sent her own slush forward again. This time, as there was no second flame to stop Hikaoh's assault, the slush flattened her to a wall. Even as Katara froze it there, she twisted the closer of the slush up and into the bolt of flame. With a twist, she sent that water down the entire length of it, snuffing it to its utmost. The fire was gone. And Hikaoh was going to be alright.

Katara pushed herself to her feet, and took a careful step toward her sister. "Hikaoh, I don't want to hurt you."

"Stop... calling... me... Hikaoh," she spat, the water starting to run in rivulets away from her skin.

"No. I am not going to let my sister – you! – die. Even if you don't believe it, I do. If I have to, I'll believe it enough for the both of us," Katara swore. "Please... stop this. Come home with us. Let us be a family again..."

"I _had_ a family. Your assassin killed him," Hikaoh snapped.

Katara blinked for a moment, then understood. The man Nila shot in Ba Sing Se... he must have been Hikaoh's lover, or something. Maybe even husband. "That..." she didn't really have a good answer for that.

"You claim that you want me to 'come home', but I already had one. All you ever did was try to destroy it. I see no reason to believe a word you say," Hikaoh spat.

"Well, there is definitely something in you that wants to come back to us, to return to the Water Tribes," Katara said, fist on hip and confidence in tone.

"You're deluded if you think that."

"I know it for a fact," Katara answered.

"Then what would that fact be?" Hikaoh asked, obviously not going to believe a word of it when said.

"What language are you speaking right now?" Katara asked.

Hikaoh's mouth opened, then became almost rock-still. Slowly, her eyes widened, and her face went a little gray. She hadn't even noticed, Katara figured, that she'd spoken not a single word but Yqanuac since she appeared in that courtyard. But now? Now she noticed.

"This is a trick," she said. Still in Yqanuac.

"Hikaoh, I never wanted to hurt you. I just want my family to be whole again. And you're a part of that, whether you want to believe it or not," Katara said. "Ozai _used_ you. He used _all_ of you! He doesn't _deserve_ your loyalty!"

"And what have _you_ ever done to deserve mine?"

Katara sighed, and nodded. And with a hand, she waved downward. The ice which pinned Hikaoh to the wall dropped away, pooling on the floor. "I'm trusting that you're my sister," she said.

Hikaoh stared at Katara, barely three feet from each other. Her fires were gone, her singed, soaked clothes the only signal that they'd ever been. The firebender, Katara's sister, looked to the water around her, to her own hands, as dark as Katara's own. Then, she looked up. There was a look in those eyes that Katara couldn't begin to describe, because there was so much in it. Confusion, anger, doubt, fear... Hikaoh took a step forward. Katara opened her arms.

"You can always come home with us," Katara promised.

"I can?" Hikaoh asked.

She nodded. Hikaoh stepped closer.

"I know who you are," Katara said. At that, the look in Hikaoh's eye shifted a bit. And at about that point, Katara felt a sharp pain between her ribs. She looked down, and saw a shard of ice there, embedded in her chest, her sister's hand on its makeshift handle. Katara looked up at Hikaoh, and Hikaoh looked back at her. It wasn't hatred. There was too much else there. Katara staggered back, and as she did, the blade in Hikaoh's hand slid free, and slid crimson. Katara's hand clapped over the wound, her eyes as wide as they could be... "W...why?" she asked.

"...how did I do that?" Hikaoh asked. "I'm... I'm a firebender."

At that point, Katara fell to one knee, as nausea began to spread through her, and the pain of the cut began to spread. Her eyes pressed shut, after the last thing they saw, was Hikaoh staring at the blade in her hand as though she were terrified of it.

* * *

><p>Aang darted back, as the wash of flames bellowing out at him. He gave a glance to the sky, and confirmed that yes, the Eclipse was still in effect. And somehow, they still belched fire at the invaders who had barely reached the inside of the Upper City.<p>

"Watch yourself! Those are chemical flames!" came the call of one of the soldiers near him, as he had to move out of the way of the sticky, long-burning fires. He could see what had created them; they stood clear of others, tanks on their backs and hoses in their hands. For a moment, they looked like Sato's device, given to Aang's army, but they obviously differed greatly. For one thing, Sato's device couldn't kill you.

The pyroclast, as Aang would eventually learn their name, advanced on them, and let out another belch of fire. Aang twisted water up into a barrier between he and the soldiers directly behind him. The flames that struck the barrier didn't wash away into smoke and steam. Instead, they stuck to the ice, and continued to burn. Even when Aang toppled the wall, the fires burned under it, trapped between stone and ice, with no air to sustain them.

"Angle on!" came a call from behind Aang. He glanced back, and saw Sato's device being pointed toward the pyroclast. There was a wet thud, and a blob of something white and gluey was launched from the far-wider mouth of the non-lethal weapon. The blob landed near the mouth of the pyroclast's hose, causing it to drop to the ground. He tried to pull it back up, to fire a fresh burst, but the gun was already stuck fast. The substance Sato created – and built a device to fire – hardened very, very quickly when exposed to the air. "Press!"

He gave a glance to the sky, to the ships that floated even now overhead. Would they bomb their own city, to stop this invasion? Aang really hoped not. There was a bright flash in the sky, as lightning blossomed out of the bow of one of the airships. At first, Aang thought it some devastating weapon of the Fire Nation... until it began to rip the ship at its source apart. Nila, who had been preparing bombs to hurl, took a look up beside him, and nodded grimly.

"The anomolies? They are not exclusively on the ground," she said.

"Yeah. I know that," Aang said, watching as the airship, now hopelessly in flames, began to crash down into the volcanic landscape nearby.

"Go," Nila said. "You can bypass this obstacle, and the Fire Lord is at this moment helpless against you."

"But he'll be surrounded by guards..." Aang began.

"Then sneak up behind him! You," she said, giving his shaggy hair a yank, "don't look very much like an airbender right now! Leverage that!"

"But... are you sure you'll be alright on your own?"

Aang was cut off by the rattle of a Salamander tank rumbling up behind them. The soldiers immediately turned, and began to hurl rocks at its armored plating, until the top hatch popped open, and Sokka waved down at them from it.

"I'll be fine," Nila said with a smirk.

Sokka's eyes went wide, and he ducked back into the tank, as it started to veer off and then drove itself straight into somebody's house. Aang had to wince at that, as well.

He looked at the Royal Palace, which stood taller than any other building in the Upper City. It was the heart and center of this city, the house of the Fire Lord. It was right there. There was just an army in the way.

And he was the Avatar.

He took a breath, and opened himself to the balance, the center of all things. The point between anger and peace. The point between fear and joy. The point between love and apathy. He held that sensation, not quite opening the doors which would spill forth the entire soul of the Avatar State into him; if he did so, there was every possibility that Zhao would have a countermeasure in place, some trick to knock him out of it. After all, Aang had almost died from a simple, wooden, iron-tipped arrow while in the maelstrom at the end of this very spring. Or rather, did die, and came back. He held onto the Avatar State, he held it at arm's length. Not out of fear of entering it, not out of fear of what he might do with it... but instead, with the confidence that he would do what was needed, when the need became clear.

His eyes weren't glowing that blazing light, when he opened them once more, but the eddies of spirit corpus shuddered as he began to move, flying away as they felt the weight of all that was behind him when he moved. Stone shifted out of his path as he ran, not by earthbending, but simply the spirits not wishing to impede the Avatar. Because they were desperate. He could feel their pleas, even as he dove through somebody's yard, to round the formations that clogged the streets. Save us, they implored. Save us.

And he would.

* * *

><p>The blast of flames ended abruptly, as the world grew darker yet, leaving Azula tipping forward from her attempt to hold Father's blaze at bay, suddenly 'succeeding', but only because the Eclipse ended things absolutely and abruptly for all involved. Azula took a moment to pat out the edges of her clothes, those that were starting to catch aflame from the wash that Ozai had sent forth. It was an act of a few seconds to strike herself out.<p>

Moments that Father spent thrusting his fists toward her, his eyes growing ever wider, ever more panicked. He twisted his arms into a familiar kata, his split-second lightning bolt. Nothing happened. He looked up at her, his face gone gray. "What... what did you _do_ to me?" he asked.

"Nothing. I..." Azula began.

She was cut off when he charged her. She backpeddled, a dozen fighting moves flashing into her head as she did. Some of them would have killed him. Others, broken bones, or given him a potentially fatal concussion. She knew dozens of ways to put him down... but she didn't know one way to stop him without hurting him.

He slammed into her middle, bearing her across the hallway and slamming her into the wall there. He slammed his fist into her face in the second he had before she regathered her wits. The next punch was warded away, so that he punched the wall instead, but she still had a sensation that he'd loosened a tooth or two.

"You can't take this from me!" Ozai shouted. "You can't take my fire! It's_ all I have left!_"

"I didn't take y–" Azula began, but was cut off when he pressured his hands through her attempts to push him off, and got first one hand... then both... into a strangle-hold 'round her neck. She grabbed his wrists, pulling them, trying to keep him from crushing her windpipe completely. As it was, he seemed to have a lunatic strength, as even she, with all of her might, couldn't loosen his grip.

"You have to give it back! I won't lose that, too!" he shouted. There was a desperation in his eyes. Something chilling to Azula's heart. "_Please_!"

"Egh..." Azula managed, in the seconds between her strongest tear, and his resuming the choke. A breath, a precious breath, that she would have to make due on for a while.

"This... this is all punishment, isn't it? ISN'T IT?" Ozai screamed in her face. "For what I've done!"

"A..ahg..." Azula tried to get a word out, even one, but his fingers pulled tighter, and her breath grew harder and harder to pull. They crushed, a fraction as fast as they would have if she offered no resistance at all, but still, with a terrible inevitability.

"Is that what you want, Specter? Do you want me to beg for forgiveness?" he asked.

"I..." Azula gasped, before the hands clenched all the tighter. Her vision was growing dark, and her hands, weak. Soon, she wouldn't be able to resist him at all. But until then... she had to keep trying. A dozen ways to kill her father. No way to save him.

Why was she even worth saving, herself?

"I'm sorry!" he screamed, his eyes beginning to moisten. Then, with a racking sob, he started to outright weep. "I'm sorry, Azula... _I_ killed you... My own daughter... I killed _my_ _own daughter_!"

His weeping grew, as his grasp slowly became less. Finally, as he dipped his brow against hers, his hands slid loose enough that she could pull a desperate gasp of breath. "F...father..." she croaked.

"I... I don't deserve to be called that," Ozai said, his voice barely able to cut through the sobs. "I've never been a father... Never to you. Azula... I should have had... faith in you. I should have seen your strength... you survived. You recovered... and I threw you away..."

"Father, it's..."

"What is wrong with me?" Father asked, as he turned away from her, his hands pooling in his lap as he fell to the floor at an awkward sit, his unkempt hair hiding his face. He stared at his palms, which twitched and spasmed, as though he were trying even now to pull flame into them. But for the next four minutes, they were as empty as the rest of this tower. "Zuko... Azula... Ursa... _please_... forgive me."

What could anybody say to that? What could a daughter, condemned to death, and within this same very hour almost _strangled_, say to that?

"I forgive you," Azula said. It was the only thing she could.

"The real Azula never would," Ozai whispered, his shoulders still quaking. "She would hate me... as I deserve..."

She took a moment to breathe, getting the tingling numbness out of her fingers and toes, before she moved to the face of her father, and knelt down before him. "Father... I forgive you," she said, pulling his hair away from his eyes. But those eyes remained locked on his hands. Azula felt her own eyes beginning to dampen as well. "Father?" she asked. "Father, can you hear me?"

He remained silent and still, barely breathing, staring at his hands.

"Father..." she whispered to him, as she tried to pull him into an embrace, that he was too oblivious to even notice at this point. "...I forgive you."

* * *

><p>The Royal Palace was much as Aang had expected it would be. It was a layer-upon-layer defensive holding that bristled with firebenders – now hanging back and looking absolutely miserable between the snow on the ground and their bodily inability to do anything about it – and the various soldiers with them. Even now, enemy Gurkhas were sending out remarkably precise mortar-fire, making the streets of the Upper City a place of extreme hazard for anybody trying to move in formation through them. The 'Pyroclasts' moved up and down the lines, trying to be in many places at once. It was obvious that there weren't as many as the soldiers would have liked of those horrific weapons. And those that wore them, didn't do so comfortably.<p>

So many things, so many layers of defense that corralled and hampered the armies attacking. Honestly, Aang pondered, if they hadn't done _so much_ to tip the scales in their favor, Zhao would be _winning_.

He didn't let that shake him, though. He knew what was needed of him. He knew how much time he had to cross that battle line, and reach the heart of it all. And if he needed to, he would do what he must to make sure that he, even alone, brought this war to a close, _today_. There was white limning his vision even as he broke out into a sprint, bearing toward one of the thinner portions of the Palace's battle line. That portion coincided with the proximity of a Pyroclast. She turned, eyes widening at the sight of a black-haired young man racing toward her, eyes almost sparking and pulsing with light. Not enough for his identity to be obvious, but enough to be very, very concerning. She turned that nozzle toward him, and with the howl of a juvenile dragon's anger, the blast of sticking flames raced toward him. He slammed his feet into the ground, dragging him to a halt, and then thrust forward. A great wave of stone ruptured forward, before a huge chunk of the courtyard rose up in a slab, catching that flame and splattering it along its surface, before continuing to tip forward, toward the source of that flame.

The Pyroclast broke off her attack, even hurling herself away from the collapsing stone – which he'd directed so that it would fall at worst just short of her, and landing on her belly amongst the other soldiers. The weight of the tanks of flammable fluids on her back pinned her there, without the leverage to right herself. Aang continued running. If he summoned a scooter, he'd cross the line in a heartbeat. If he did that, then the entire army would land on him. He needed to be an annoyance, not an existential threat.

He tipped his feet forward, then thrust upward with his arms, causing a pillar of stone to hurl him into the air, over the heads of the soldiers who had gathered below. Even as he lazily flipped over them, he could see a lot of stunned, surprised, or angry faces tracking him, preparing to rush him where he landed. So when he landed, he did so, fist first. The slam of his body into the ground sent out a ripple of rock that bounded away as would the waves crashing away from a stone dropped into a still pond. Snow, which hadn't been completely cleared away, or else blew in during the interim, was thrown into the air, creating a grey and opaque wall around him, even as dozens or hundreds of soldiers were thrown from their feet.

"Stop him!"

"Ang-Rama squad! Chase that runner down! Don't break rank!"

Even as his eyes tried to pulse with brilliant light, a smirk came to his face. They were doing exactly as he wanted. Just enough attention to make him seem a pest, not so much as to utterly inundate him when the time came. That smirk, the one on his face? It would have done just as well on the visage of either of the children who'd been born and raised in this very place. He gave a fresh stomp to the ground, after traversing another three dozen strides, and with it, he bade the earth thrust him upward, casting him up and through one of the windows at the second story of the massive palace. The snow once again rippled out below him, but he was passing through the aperture as easily as a seamstress threading a needle.

He rolled to a halt in the room that overlooked the courtyard below. He could still hear shouts from the soldiers behind him, but he had faith that they'd be a bit delayed in following him. After all, he could, even without obvious airbending, move about with utter immunity, where they were slaves to gravity. "...heh, _gravity_," he chuckled to himself.

He quickly peeked out of the door, into the hallway that passed beyond this chamber. There were people moving about, but they all had the rushing look of people in desperate action. A sad part of Aang knew it was because they honestly believed that if they failed in what they were doing, that a fate no better than death would await them. If only they knew the truth; if only they knew that they were even now, completely safe from reprisal or harm? A year ago, he would have tried to sooth them, even despite his task. Now? Now he understood the importance of priority.

He raised a hand to his headband, trying to adjust it, but meeting only sweaty flesh. His eyes widened, causing a faint pool of light against the adjacent doorframe. He'd lost his headband! If anybody saw him, they'd know who he was in a heartbeat!

But he had a job to do.

He ducked out of the hall, and moved, his eyes down and head bowed, as though trying to keep pace despite being dreadfully distracted. Azula had told him where the Burning Throne lay, and besides that, the three or four other places that Zhao might be found. He saw no reason to avoid the most obvious first, but... He stepped out into a stairwell chamber, and immediately ducked back, as the landings, up and down, were lined with soldiers who looked around with the dreadful suspicion of a man desperate to not die. There was no way Aang was getting past all of them. What was he supposed to do? The walls were made of wood, not stone, so he couldn't just bypass them as he could in, say, Ba Sing Se.

He was rubbing his brow with his black-gloved fingers when he suddenly heard footsteps immediately beside him. Then, an indignant clearing of the throat. Slowly, Aang looked up, hand still on his brow.

"What do you think you're doing, just standing around, boy?" the stoop-shouldered Sage asked, leaning forward with his hood almost hiding his eyes from view. Aang looked him up and down. The old man wasn't much bigger than Aang himself. And the hood... "I should drag you into the brig for being so lazy at a time like this. Don't you realize there's a war for our very lives going on?"

"Yes, I do, sir, but..." Aang said. Then, he got an idea.

"But me no buts!" he said, grabbing Aang's wrist. "Get back to work, unless you want those invaders to..."

He trailed off, when he finally tore Aang's hand away from the blue arrow of his brow. Old skin grew ever greyer, as Aang's other hand flexed and pulled. And with a great wash, a surge of snow-turned-to-water raced out of the room behind him, caught the old man, and then surged him into the room immediately at Aang's left.

Aang continued to surge the water, until he pressed the old man up on the wall, freezing it around his hands and feet.

"Look, I'm really sorry about this, but..."

"He's here! The Av-agh..." the Sage began, but was cut off when Aang put a gag of ice in his mouth.

"Like I said, I'm _really_ sorry, but I kind of need _this_."

And thus, about three minutes later, a stooped figure in the red, hooded robes of a Fire Sage exited the rooms, grumbling darkly to himself as he turned toward the landings and the soldiers thereupon. The soldiers, who'd been briefed to prevent aerial invasion by a shaven-headed boy in an orange kavi robe, gave no more than a passing glance to the angry old Sage that passed them by, grumbling about 'unreliable children' the whole way he went.

Aang gave a look down the hallway, stepping aside and snapping a creaky-voiced rejoinder at the soldiers who charged past him, racing up the stairs toward where the earthbender infiltrator had last been seen. He knew that his disguise would be discovered in a matter of minutes. And like Azula said, minutes could mean the difference between victory, and death. Minutes, he could use.

He continued to shuffle, perhaps a bit faster than a man of his apparent age should have been able to, but on a bee-line toward the chamber with the largest doors. The soldiers, proceeding out in a veritable staircase of ranks toward the main entrance, told him that the main door was out of the question. But he rubbed at his chin for a moment, continuing his grumbling, and thought back to Zuko's advice. That there were ways through the Royal Palace that no soldier ever thought to defend. Places that existed purely for the expediency of day-to-day living in the Palace. The Servants' Ways.

And Zuko told him of one in particular that he was pretty sure he was close to.

Aang was already shuffling through the arch at the far side of the hallway, giving not a glance toward the great doors to the chamber of the Burning Throne, when a call sounded behind him. "There's an infiltrator in the Palace! Find the earthbender!"

A rank of soldiers peeled away, moving to secure the hallway from other directions, including the one that Aang had just passed. There was preparation, and then there was blind luck. Aang offered them a geriatric 'bah!' and a dismissive wave of his hand, at the soldiers who were now forming a checkpoint behind him, as he shuffled onward. He turned the next corner, heading into the much-less ornamented rooms of the pages, the staff, and gave a glance around him. No soldiers, here. Considering how close he was to the spine of the Palace, it was understandable how there wouldn't be.

His shuffling abandoned, he continued forward at a more break-neck pace, to the linen-closet across from a junction in the halls. The door was clear enough, and even unlocked. He was about to test the door when it swung open, hitting him in the face and knocking him back a step. "Agni's blood! I'm sorry, I was..." the runner began, after finishing his understandable flinch. Aang turned to him, and noted how he trailed off, his eyes widening, as he beheld Aang. Notably, how Aang's hood had flopped back when he took his stunned backstep.

"Our little secret?"

"The Avata–" the young soldier began to scream, but Aang cut him off with a blast of air that sent him back into the room. He raced in, slamming the door behind him, on the toes of the soldier who'd almost 'made' him, even as the lad cracked his head on a shelf, and stumbled, slightly dazed. No water, the floors were blade-like obsidian, so they weren't useful, and air wouldn't stop him long...

But there were also a lot of blankets... and Sokka had taught him a few things about tying up pests.

Mostly Momo, Sokka had claimed.

But the lessons crossed species very easily. It was almost a game, how Aang stripped blankets and ripped them, slipping around the rapidly turning soldier, catching first one arm, then the others, and catching them with rapid-fire knots. He was about to scream again when Aang hip-checked him face-first into a shelf-full of pillows, drowning his call. Then, he continued his odd circle-walk, with a fresh blanket, fettering the kid's feet. The last one hooked the soldier's mouth, gagging him with a knot behind the head, in emulation of what had happened to Katara about a half-dozen times in Aang's estimation.

With a thud, the soldier tipped and fell, hog-tied, to the floor.

Sokka would have been proud.

"You just stay quiet for a bit, alright?" Aang said, as he dropped a bunch of lose linens over him. "Everything's going to be alright, I swear."

The soldier didn't seem to particularly believe that. Well, unpleasant as it was, that was just too bad. Aang had to finish what he started. For everybody's sake.

The path through the guts of the building immediately exposed Aang to flowing water, dribbling down from upper floors. Aang didn't know of the earthquake that he'd made, or how it had warped the frame of the palace enough to make it leak furiously. Instead, he just took the opportunity to arm himself with a blob of ice up his sleeves. He did pause, though, and look up, listening to the distant whistle of wind past a ruptured roof, reaching all the way down to the heart of the palace. He might not have understood the why, but he definitely heard it as he should, as a sign of a mistake that he was going to have to fix, sooner or later.

The door on the far side of the path was less a door and more a small alcove that appeared behind a tapestry, woven in the likeness of Fire Lord Kalroh, the sunken-eyed, world weary lord and master who had succeeded a fallen father in a time of existential war. Much like today. Fire Nation versus airbenders, only this time, the Fire Nation were the aggressors rather than the defenders. Aang stared up at the face that he knew from his vision of Avatar Vajrapata; he knew, from the whispers he heard when he slipped through the Avatar State, of how much history had been deleted. How he and his past incarnation had been husband and wife, how stopping one war started so many others...

"I've got to do this right," Aang whispered to the exhausted looking, so-long-ago friend (and, despite Aang's fairly solid heterosexuality, lover). "The Fire Nation will still stand tomorrow. I promise."

He slipped around the edge of the tapestry, and beheld the chamber of the Burning Throne. Exactly as the siblings had described it, a dais that was set with a trough of flame, a cushioned throne that left who sat upon it a specter of the flames that would block easy view from those at his feet to the man in command. Only that seat wasn't occupied at the moment. Instead, there were about a dozen military looking men and women huddled around a set of tables, each one spread with a map, near the center of the chamber. The only person who didn't wear armor in the room who wasn't obviously a servant was a woman in resplendent robes, who stayed off to the side of the group, her own gaze taking in all things around her. Aang's own gaze swept the inhabitants, before he saw what he needed to see.

The golden, five-point flame. Aang took a step toward him.

"...minutes. That's a long time in a battle," one of the military men said to Zhao, who turned to give him a look with that red, raw eye.

"Four minutes is a trifle. As long as we deny the Avatar any landing within the Periphery, then we can run out this Eclipse and render his advantage, fleeting though it is, useless," Zhao pointed out. They still thought he was outside! He took another, careful step forward. He had to come up with a plan on how to handle this. After all, Zhao was right. In a few minutes, the Eclipse would be over...

And then, before any useful plan had come to his mind, Aang had to hinge himself to one side to avoid a knife that was flying at his face. He twisted into a sweeping motion that ended with him releasing a blast of air which sent the woman, who was now preparing to cast a second wicked looking blade at him even now, bowling across the floor to the edge of the tables. Aang winced slightly. "Oooh. Sorry," he said.

"What is the meaning of..." Zhao began, flicking a hand which noticeably didn't light with flames, given the astronomical event transpiring at this instant. "How dare you assault the Consort's person, Sage?"

"Yeah... the thing about that..." Aang said, then he pulled back his hood. There was a gasp from the soldiers, and a ringing of blades being drawn from scabbards.

"GUARDS! KILL HIM!" Zhao roared.

"That's not going to be very easy," Aang pointed out, sloughing the robes, letting them pool a step behind him. Even though he still had hair that hung down, obscuring so many of the signets of his ancestry, his people, his purpose, it was obviously clear enough who he was. "Zhao, this doesn't have to end in bloodshed. There's still a chance that you can end this day without any more death."

"You sneak into my home. You kill my servants, bring an army of aggression to my borders, and you speak to me of peace? Of ending bloodshed? Hypocrite!" Zhao shouted.

"I don't want to hurt anybody. I never did," Aang said, with a remarkable calm in him. Now that there weren't knives flying at him – the woman had retaken her feet, but her grace was now the slow, sinuous danger of a viper that'd crawled onto the edge of one's bed – the white limning of the Avatar State had returned, and with it, the calm. There were a thousand generations of man and woman giving weight to his words. He didn't need to convince them. They would either believe him or they wouldn't. Yes, it'd be so much better if they did, but that was for they, and they alone, to decide. "All I ever wanted was to live in peace. I didn't ask to be Avatar, but I am. I didn't ask to stop this war, but I must. And I will."

The rattle of men in armor approaching reached Aang's ear, and he put it aside. He noted, but didn't concern himself with the soldiers filing in, surrounding him, raising halberds toward his neck in ranks and rows. It was only a matter of seconds, before Aang could have shaven himself with a sneeze, had he any need of shaving. And calmly, he looked in the eye of the Fire Lord. The burned eye, and the regular eye, of Zhao. "I think you're bluffing, Avatar," Zhao said, limbering his shoulders, and pulling the robes off of them. Under them, lay a suit of armor much like so many of the other soldiers around him. Most of them were solidly behind their master, awaiting his word. Most of them, nevertheless, looked very nervous. "I think you're only here because you think you can trick them into surrendering out of fear, when they feel the most vulnerable. I think you still don't have the first whit of the power you claim to," a dire smirk came to Zhao's face. "I think you don't have the first clue how to get into your 'Avatar State'."

"End this war, Zhao," Aang said. "This is the last chance that I can offer you. I'm sorry, but this is the final offer _anybody_ is _ever_ going to give you. Please; for your own sake, stop this madness now."

Zhao took a step toward him, toward that rank of soldiers who had ringed him in. He looked at Aang, his eyes cruel, yes, cold, yes, but still human. There was more behind that amber gaze than there had been in the black pit of Montoya Azul. And far, far more than in the red, virulent eye of the Shards. He might have been a bad man, Zhao... but he was still a man.

"No," he said, simply. "Bring him down."

Aang closed his eyes.

When he opened them, they blasted white.

He cast his hands out, and the first rank of soldiers was blasted into the second, propelled by a torus of air, projected out with a single motion, not even a spin. The second rank fell, and the net of blades holding Aang in place collapsed completely.

"**I'm sorry**," Avatar Aang said, his voice the legion. "**I didn't want this.**"

He held out his hand, and he felt for the heavens above. He felt the moon, moving. Sliding past. And when his wave completed, there was the slightest whisper of sun, slipping past the edge of that celestial barrier.

His gesture, lit with flames, and those flames blasted outward to those who defied him, before the Burning Throne.

* * *

><p>Katara pushed herself away, leaking red as she did, while her sister stared at the blade in her hand, one formed by waterbending will. "This doesn't make sense," her sister said. "Why would you give me a knife?"<p>

"I didn't... ahhh," Katara hissed in pain. Hikaoh looked up at her, blue eyes wide. Afraid.

"No. You had to. It was you. You made the knife. You... you tried to stab me and failed, and... I took it, and I... But you didn't have a knife..." she said, staring at her. "_How did you do this_?"

Katara tried to pull snow into a glove, glowing it whitely, to seal the wound in her side that made every breath an agony.

"No! No more of that!" Hikaoh shrieked, and clawed toward Katara. With a tug, Katara felt the glove of glowing light being stripped off of her grasp, being cast to the ground. "Why! What are you trying to prove? I...!"

"I... didn't make th... the knife..." Katara said. Hikaoh stormed up to her, eyes growing damp. Desperate.

"You had to! I'm not a waterbender! I'm a firebender! I couldn't make the knife! WHY DID YOU MAKE THE KNIFE?" she shrieked, holding that blade now to Katara's throat, its point at the base of another hard, white scar that extended all the way to her ear.

"Hikaoh... I didn't make the knife," she wheezed. "And I didn't drop the water..."

"No. You're lying. You're tricking me, somehow!" Hikaoh said. Screamed. "I'm not a waterbender!"

"You... _you_... made the knife..." Katara said, her teeth grit even as she felt the prick of that tip against the scarred skin of her neck.

"I should... Why won't you stop lying to me? Tell me the truth! Why did you make the knife?" she asked.

"Hikaoh, it was you," Katara whispered, into the wind, and the ragged breathing of the sister who was nevertheless the much less injured of the two. "I'm a waterbender. You're my sister. So you're a w..."

"Stop saying that!" she shrieked in Katara's face. "All my life, the only good I've ever been was... The only people who've ever cared for me were the Fire Nation! I'm a firebender! I've always been a firebender!"

"Were you?" Katara asked. Two words. Two words, whispered in pained desperation. And two words, which loosened the grasp of Hikaoh's fist in Katara's hair, which pulled the red slicked ice away from her neck. Hikaoh's jaw worked, as though there were too many words for it to form, and not enough time to say them all.

Hikaoh stopped, and looked down, at the knife in her hand. With the handle, formed perfectly for her palm. Its dimensions, exactly what she would have specified. She dropped it, and it broke in half as it hit the stone of the courtyard. She stared at it, as though afraid. As though she didn't want to try what she was about to try.

She held her hand over the blade.

Then, with a tug, she lifted it.

The ice turned to water, and drifted upward, toward her grasp.

"No... NO!" Hikaoh screamed. "I can't be! I'm not a waterbender! I'M NOT A WATERBE–"

Katara's elder sister was cut off when a fist slammed into her jaw, and dropped her as a bag of oats to the stones. Azula, looking battered, exhausted, and a little bit strangled, shook her hand from the haymaker she'd delivered, and looked down at where Hikaoh lay, unconscious.

"Yes, you _are_ a waterbender. Shut up," Azula said darkly. She then turned to Katara. To the line of red that was even now starting to catch snow, and vanish under it. She opened her hand, and a pale flame opened into it. "The universe is a great lover of irony," she muttered. Then, the flame vanished, leaving a strange sort of suffusive glow hovering just past Azula's palm. She pulled Katara to a sit, and pressed that palm into the bloody wound. Katara let out a long groan of pain, as it felt like she was being set on fire from the inside out.

It could have been hours. More likely, it was a matter of seconds.

Then, Azula was pulling her yet higher, to an awkward, uneven stand, one that left Katara unsteady on her feet, lightheaded for the blood that she'd lost. She held fingers to her side... but she found that, but for the remnants clinging to her clothes, her wound wasn't simply dry, but almost impossible to find. "What...did you do?" Katara asked.

"When my daughter was young, she broke her leg. I didn't want her to suffer. You're welcome," she said darkly.

"...Your father?" Katara asked. The look on Azula's face was... bleak.

"...dead. And he'd been like that for a... a long time," she said, her voice wavering a little.

"Azula... I'm sorry," Katara managed, with a surprising amount of honesty. Not for the man, but for what the gaping hole his absence was in the woman before her.

"No, you're not," Azula said sharply. Tui La, it was hard to be civil to her. "You hated him. And... You had rights to, but..."

She took a shuddering breath, and looked up at the tower.

"Get your sister," Azula said quietly. Hopelessly. "I've had enough of this place."

* * *

><p>"Don't just stand there! Kill him!" Zhao shouted. And with the moon sliding away from the sun, the flames returned to all who sought them. More than a dozen firebenders moved as an almost unified machine, giving nearly identical grunts of angry effort as they cast forward their fires. The Avatar didn't even move a muscle, but those flames parted and swirled around him, creating a sphere of blazing glory. As hot and as bright as those flames ever got, they never drowned out the brilliant white of the light blazing from his eyes.<p>

He raised a hand, and the flame gathered from the orbit 'round him into the palm of his hand, compressing down into something that at first seemed liquid, then a _solidified_ flame. With that, he took a step forward, causing all who had launched that unified attack at him to step back. He casually held that nugget of pure and undiluted fire out and to the side, then dropped it. It melted its way through the obsidian of the floor, and continued down through the earth until it joined the magma, burning down even hotter than that, continuing down until it fell into the mantel of the earth, where it finally found something hotter than itself.

He stepped past the grey jet of superheated gasses that now leapt into the chamber of the Burning Throne, and the soldiers began to hurl flames at him once more. The Avatar all but ignored them; they licked close to his clothes, to his flesh, but were pulled away by the block of swirling winds that obeyed no more than a thought as he advanced. Burning white eyes were locked on Zhao, ignoring the lesser, the unimportant beings that supported him. Aang tried to rein in such thinking, but in the grasp of the Avatar State, even policing one's own thoughts was a difficult task.

He raised a hand, and the floor bucked upward, casting aside all of the notes and maps of the invasion, the Burning Throne's floor rising in a mound of snapping, sharp obsidian. The instincts that whispered into his ear told him to give them a little pressure, then cast them out in a fan. It would be a wave that would cut down all who dared stand before him.

Aang rejected that idea, hard. Too many had died today already.

Instead, he pulsed it out, and created a wave, one that bucked its sharp edges down as it hit them, knocking them through the door, and out into the hallway beyond it. He drifted forward, his feet lifting off of the ground, giving only a gesture to ward another wicked, poisoned knife from striking him in the back of the neck. The Avatar's chorus demanded that he strike the woman down, for daring to attempt on his life. Aang rejected it. The bolt of wind that embedded the knife to its handle in the stone pillar holding up the roof twisted down and out, bowling the woman away. She would be a problem again, he believed. And he was alright with that.

Aang drifted out of the hall, and when he did, it was to the snapping of lightning tearing toward him. He knew that all he had to do was extend his hand, pull it in, then cast it back, and Zhao, the source of it, would be no more. That, too, Aang rejected.

And more to the point, the rejection was rendered moot, because with a flash of spectral blue light, a different hand caught that bolt of lightning, and cast it into the ceiling, which cracked and fractured, decorative stone drizzling down from the room that stood above this oppressively tall chamber. Aang tilted his head slightly, mild bafflement cutting through the oncoming storm which was the Avatar State, as he beheld...

Avatar Korra, her own eyes blazing white.

"**And Korra with the save!**" she shouted, the legion in her own voice as well. Aang could hear himself in there, with every bit the bombasm and pugilistic joy that Korra was an embodiment of. She glanced back to Aang. "**Hey, Aang. Remember how what's-his-scar said that I'm not supposed to be able to bend here in the real world?**"

"There's two of them!" one of the firebenders who were arrayed in an army before the two of them shouted in panic.

"It's a trick! Stand your ground or be cut down where you run!" Zhao roared at the man who was, obviously, wetting himself a little.

"**Well, apparently, everything going to hell in a handbasket means that – whoa that's a problem,**" Korra cut herself off, and worked with Aang to carve through the wave of flames, from three dozen sources, mixing and mounting on itself into a blaze that would melt granite. The two Avatars, each full and in the Avatar State, itself a clear violation of What Must Be, made such an easy job of not simply holding back those flames, but instead snuffing them out before they even approached, that there was no way that even a threat of inevitable death would hold the morale of the firebenders in the hall. Almost a third sprinted away in desperate haste, not listening to the Fire Lord screaming dark promises after them. He himself? He started to retreat, in good order, with the rest of his firebenders.

"**We must stop this**," Aang said to his next incarnation, as the two of them advanced, their toes drifting an inch above the floor, held aloft by airbending as they came, the very vision of an unstoppable god. Korra nodded, grinned. Aang didn't smile. The chorus of the Avatar spoke of a dozen ways to blast Zhao to oblivion right as he stood. And he rejected them all. He would find another way.

So, with a synchronized thrust of two right hands by two different Avatars, the air of the entire chamber was blown out, dragging all those before it, into the blowing snow in the Palace courtyard.

* * *

><p>"What is that?" Omo demanded, looking through a spyglass, not down the mountain, but toward the palace. He could feel his blood running cold, as the crash of the doors being blasted off of their hinges died down, and the ethereal glow began to mount in that unseen aperture. He turned to Junyo. "We're being tricked."<p>

The rotund earthbender turned a suspicious look to him. "Tricked in what?"

"The Avatar isn't over there," he said, pointing to the south, where a streak of orange was indeed approaching, high above where the Periphery could hold him/her/it back. "He's over there!"

"In the Palace?" Junyo asked, shock overcoming suspicion for a moment. Then, she clapped her hand to her forehead. She was struck with shock only a moment, before taking a stride toward the rest of the Children. "CHILDREN! The Avatar is at the Royal Palace! Bring him down!"

* * *

><p>Toph landed fists first, driving the stone up and at an angle, a slant of stone smashing two of the Fire Lord's troops away and sending them crashing into the snow, if not unconscious, then damned close to it. She could feel the others, recoiling away from her, as the rumble of the Salamander tank followed her. She continued forward, pulling her baton from where she'd tucked it, and tapped the ground as she walked, with Sokka and Boomstick driving a tank into their lines. The smirk on Toph's face was a clear invitation for them to try firebending at her. They didn't.<p>

"Bunch of pansies," she said. She slammed that baton down, and used the strike to pop the ground up under a mortar, sending the artillery piece flipping through the air. It landed, and then detonated the round inside of it, causing those around it to either scatter or be blasted to bits. Due to her 'unique' vision, she didn't need to glance aside to notice halbardiers lashing out at men who were armed with blunt wooden rods, only to immediately scream in pain and drop to the floor, electrified by another of Sato's 'less lethal' weapons. She was about to take a step forward, to continue pummeling these fools, when she felt something hit her like a punch in the gut. Earthbending of such undiluted force that it stole her breath. She'd only ever felt that kind of earthbending a few times before. Like, say, when a certain twinkletoed airbender punched a volcano in half.

Toph's smirk grew into a grin. "Well, this is going to get awesome," she declared. She reached back, tapping on the hull of the Salamander which ghosted her every step. "Hey! Captain Boomerang! You're going to want to find something nice and fragile to run over in that direction!"

"Why?" Sokka's very muffled voice came through the plates of metal.

"Because Twinkletoes is a bit pissed off," she said brightly.

She cracked her knuckles, and rolled her shoulders, as the doors to the palace were blasted off of their hinges, and not by earthbending. This was gonna be _good_.

* * *

><p>The Avatars drifted into the heart of the Fire Lord's army, even as the man himself kipped to his feet, long before his soldiers could do likewise. That burned, raw eye glared up at him, as he twisted a fresh lightning bolt, one to either hand, before casting both forth, intent on blasting Korra and Aang both. Not a good idea, as both of them had the secret of redirection. And even less a good idea, because Korra wasn't exactly 'able to be killed'. Two hands caught two lightning bolts. Two bodies dragged the power through them, and then cast it aside. Aang's bolt struck a pocket of lightning that hovered in the air, bathing the area around it with brilliant light as it exploded, dropping a glowing white leaf in its wake.<p>

"Don't just stand there! Shoot him with the mortars! Hit him with the pyroclasts! KILL THEM!" Zhao roared.

Aang drifted forward, and lifted the snow from the ground, and with a single motion, swept a quarter of the soldiers before him aside. Korra mimicked him a moment later, and a second quarter were likewise being hurled away by a hydrolic ram, in the hands of an unstoppable juggernaut. They'd rise, but the alternative was not acceptable to Aang, and at the moment, the Avatar heeded him, not the other way around. He rose his hands, preparing a fresh wave of stone, but the stone was already in the grasp of another when he grasped it. Blazing white eyes looked with only a note of surprise when a blind earthbender hurled herself into the center of the conflagration, ripping up a whole ribbon of stone, then striking one end of it with her baton, causing the whole thing to explode in a percussive blast of rocks, one that knocked dozens of men from their feet in a heartbeat. She continued running, slamming her fist into a mortar and pulling; the bronze of the artillery piece streamed out behind her, and she slapped it around a trio of soldiers, locking them down with their own weapon, knotting them in an unbreakable bronze manacle.

The flames leapt up at Aang once more. He warded the fire, but somehow, it went through, slathering his arms, his chest, and reigniting when it got there. Korra spun into action, flowing into its way, offering her own back to the Pyroclast's unholy fires, even as her hands glowed white as the Avatar State itself, and she pressed a hand onto burning tissue. It healed faster than it burned, until the sticking flames dropped away, leaving Aang shirtless, but as intact as he had been before. Korra turned to thrust her fist forward, and a burst of rocks struck the Pyroclasts and sent them reeling. At least one of them had their rig burst, and fell into a pool of their own fire.

Aang felt sorrow, for a life lost in the most horrible of ways.

But he had to stop this war, and saving one... sometimes wasn't enough.

Korra's back was brutally burned, but her corpus healed on its own, unlike Aang's still-mortal flesh. It was a lesson, that; there were always tricks, always things that bypassed his understanding of the Elements and what they were capable of. He drifted forward, and spoke to them. "**Surrender, **_**please**_**. This does not have to end in death. **_**There has been enough death**_**!**"

A lot of the people on the ground looked like they were giving serious consideration to the Avatar's offer. He truly wished that they'd take it.

That spell of hope was crushed when the shelling began.

The Avatars, present and future simply looked on, as the wind that whipped 'round them grasped those shells that tore in from those that still tried to fight with their mortars, cast by the wind to land at random. Some even burst in the facade of the Royal Palace itself. Korra spared Aang half a glance, before her spectral blue hands began to thrust outward, in discrete, but overwhelming bursts of flame that glowed as azure as her spirit-flesh. Each bolt struck a mortar. Each strike _melted_ a mortar.

Avatar Aang, though, drifted forward, ignoring their newest ineffective tactic. Whenever a Pyroclast tried to make a meaningful assault on him, a backhand, a blast of wind sent them flying, rolling away, often times bowling over many. Sometimes rupturing tanks. Those ones, unlike that unfortunate first, had the luck to not land in the sticky flames. He drifted toward Zhao, who retreated, lashing out with fire as he went. It was strange. Even though they knew what they faced, the whole and unstoppered might of the Avatar, they didn't break or flee.

Yet.

"**You cannot win, Zhao**," Avatar Aang declared, with a thousand generations agreeing with him. "**End this.**"

He was interrupted from his drive into their lines, slow but inexorable, by a rock, half the size of his own fist, slamming into his ribs. He deflected, but only slightly. The crashing waves of the untold generations inured Aang from the pain. But he still looked to what had struck the blow. Gold and scarlet armor. There were more than a few of them. It was with a half-thought that Avatar Aang warded aside another bolt of lightning from Zhao. The Avatar was more concerned at how one of them had breached the wind-wall. He then looked past that first and foremost of the Fire Nation's earthbenders, and saw others. Dozens.

They swept forward, perhaps three dozen in total. The earthbenders driving their collective might behind tiny projectiles, instead of trying with massive weight. Instead, unstoppable momentum. A fresh brick streaked toward the Avatar. Avatar Aang, taking a page from the blind earthbender who was now retreating somewhat, as the forces of the sneak-attack force converged on the courtyard, and lashed forward with his head as it breached the wind. The blazing white arrow in the center of the Avatar's forehead connected with that stone.

The stone gave way.

The Avatars paused, in that moment. Blazing eyes turned south, to the Periphery in the distance. Saw, how a blue banner rose above that barricade, flailing in the wind. He looked up, to the airships, now neutered with their bays empty of bombs. An empty menace. A hollow threat. He could bring them all down with a wave of his hand. He could erase the last sins of the Storm Kings with a _thought_.

And Aang refused.

Instead, Avatar Aang pulled his fists upward, and the stone began to stream upward, forming in a great band before him, one that cast aside the flames that were being pelted at him even more than had his sphere of winds. At his back, Korra tore her arms inward, and every flake of snow in the entire courtyard, from every rooftop in sight, began to speed toward them. In a great and dark mass, it pressed into a fresh band, one that shone with a strange and off-blue light. Together, the held out a hand, and let a flame complete the ring that circled both.

Theirs was a fortress of the elements, unbreachable, impossible, but unyielding. With this, they could level mountains. With this, they could challenge the gods. Avatars had before. They might again in times yet unseen. But today? Today, the enemy was a man.

And Avatar Aang was tired of fighting.

He seared down, that great tetrad of elements breaching itself in half, with the other circling Korra still, as she continued to bring down all who tried to strike at him. Zhao, that one burned eye in a glower even as the other grew wide, could only take a single step back, before Aang was upon him. Driving him down, into the ground with the wall of wind that supported him. He blasted flames from both fists, a great sear that would have in most cases boiled flesh from bone. But not on the Avatar. Avatar Aang pressed harder, moving closer, as those around the two were thrown away. Closer, as those flames became hotter, more desperate.

Then, Avatar Aang reached out his hand, and laid it upon Zhao's face. His thumb pressed into the voice-box, his fingers muting his mouth. Blazing white eyes closed.

Ambition.

Glory.

Impulsiveness.

Harsh lessons.

The parts that made Zhao began to waft into the Avatar's crashing tide, slipping past him. He knew that they were not his to play with. They were only his to see. To see, and _understand_. It was like seeing Form, but in a different way; Form was to spirits, what Aang was doing to man.

Caution, hard learned.

Ambition, rekindled.

Fighting destiny.

Glowing eyes opened, and looked upon the man, who was now pinned flat to the ground, a dome of roiling stone, boiling flame, and lashing water separating the two of them from the army around him. Aang continued to float, only a little bit, just above Zhao. A nod, and stone enveloped the Fire Lord's hands and feet. A glance aside, and a final lock landed across his chest. "**It is over, Zhao. It is finally over**."

"No. NO!" Zhao roared from where the Avatar had him trapped. Aang lifted the stone, and dropped himself to his feet. The forces still loyal to Zhao, for reasons that Aang only now understood, were battered and beset on all sides. They saw what was coming.

"**Stand down,**" the Avatar ordered those surrounding.

"We can still win this! Fight him!" Zhao screamed from his prison upon the freezing ground of the courtyard.

There was a young woman, in the gold and scarlet armor, her fists toward the Avatar in an earthbending pose. Portly. Not attractive, but powerful. She looked, between the other Children, as Aang now recognized them, and to her once more.

Blazing white eyes looked to the edge of the soldiers, huddling and afraid. A familiar dark face, looking bruised and a bit bleary-eyed. The Avatar had no notion that the Tribesman who was both Ked and Kori should have been imprisoned now, that his presence shouldn't have been possible. He just accepted it. He looked to Sokka, who now popped his head out of the stolen tank that he drove. With a wiffle of air nearby, he felt Malu land, her head glistening with sweat even in the cold, her kavi singed from almost-hits by the soldiers below her. Momo poked his long-eared head out of her robes when her feet met solid ground. Malu? Her grey eyes looked into his blazing white, and they asked a single question.

What are you going to do?

"**Please**," Avatar Aang said.

"...do as he says," the earthbender Child said, her tones loud, but exhausted. "We're finished."

"What?" Zhao shrieked from the ground.

"**You heard the much-more-forgiving Avatar,**" Korra roared over the assembled soldiers, a hand casting out with a flash of flames. "**Stand down, now, or face ****my**** wrath!**"

And with that, with their forces completely encircled, with their airships spent, with the Children withdrawn, with the forces of Long Feng broken and the Blue Turbans advancing into their backs... the soldiers of the Fire Nation – no, the soldiers of the _Fire Lord_ – began to lay down their arms. Avatar Aang turned, and pushed aside a 'Fruit Punch' that he would have otherwise stepped in, even as the glow absconded from his eyes. The crash of so many generations drifted away, and left him not exhausted, but almost hyper-aware. He could feel the chill of the wind against his skin. The flakes of blowing snow, now freed from his grasp and floating in Korras – she who remained still in her Avatar State. His feet felt the tremble of a thousand spears falling, dozens of mortars falling silent. Dozens of fire-throwing apparatus slipping off of vulnerable backs. He walked away, as Zhao railed and screamed behind him. He walked away, as Zhao's roars lit with flames.

A few hundred yards away, another once more took the surface, ignoring cold that ripped at him even as he walked. The scar upon his brow was blazing now, almost as bright as the Avatar's Bequest. "I understand," Sharif whispered, to the flock of spirits that circled him. "I now know what must be done."

* * *

><p>The thunk of a pommel into the side of a man's head was the last real sound to echo through the halls, which stood almost empty. No great surprise why; every twenty steps or so, some part of reality tried to kill them. Zuko let the Dai Li agent drop to the floor where he'd stood, joining the five... no, <em>six<em> others who'd tried this final ambush. But between the fact that they fought the Dragon of the West, and the young man he'd personally trained in firebending, they didn't have a chance even before one factored in the other faces that tagged along for this adventure. The laconic archer, pulling arrows out of the knees of the unconscious. The sullen waterbender who looked like he very much wanted to kill Zuko while he was here. He might well have a chance, if this kept up. To the Mountain King, who looked the least tired of all of them.

"We're not far, now," Zuko said, as he moved toward the intersection ahead of him. He turned the corner, and ahead of him, in the distance... he saw his Uncle, and Qujeck, and Longshot. He looked back, and saw them there, too. Then, he blinked and looked the way he was going. Yup. He could still see them there. He picked up one of the fallen Dai Li's hats, and threw it down that hallway. It landed behind him."You've got to be kidding me," he muttered.

"What do you see?" Uncle asked, before reaching the point where he could look 'round the corner as well. His mobile face flashed from one of martial concentration into one of absent-minded befuddlement for a moment, as he tugged at his beard. He, too, did the looking forward and back. Then, he made a noise of discovery.

"What is it, Uncle?" Zuko asked. The shorter, older man turned around, and began to walk backward down the hall. Zuko watched him, confused, then turned to give a confused shrug to the others, behind him. When he looked forward again, Uncle was gone.

"It is an illusion, Prince Zuko," Iroh's voice came from directly ahead of him.

"How did you..."

"Must an old man reveal all of his secrets? Simply walk backwards into the path!" Iroh said testily. Zuko puffed out a breath, as he slid his blades home to their scabbard, and did as Uncle instructed. Zha Yu chuckled at that.

"One of these days, old man, I'm going to put one over on you..." he said, and followed suit. The other two had the choice of doing likewise, or being left behind. The path that Zuko walked didn't look any different. He kept walking backward, seeing the others, only now starting to follow, recede, until he bumped into something behind him. He turned, only to find Iroh there once more. He looked beyond him, to find a dividing wall two intersections away, where once there was unending halls. Zha Yu turned right at the point where he reached Iroh and Zuko, and then clapped his hand on the wall. "This ought to be the spot."

He made a gesture, and the stone slid apart...

And he saw her.

Mother was sitting at a table, looking quite worried, which wasn't unexpected, given that the far wall of her room was made entirely out of fire. Only, the fire didn't burn properly. It was like it was burning in slow motion, lazily flicking its glowing tongues. Never advancing, but spookily unnatural. She turned, at the sound of grating stone, and saw them there. The Mountain King. Iroh. Zuko. Zha Yu only gave a nod, them kept walking. The others...

"...Mom?" Zuko asked.

"Zuko?" she likewise asked. She took a step forward, then paused, moving around a featureless spot on the floor, before advancing closer. "Is that really you?"

"I was about to ask the same thing about you," Zuko said.

"...That... doesn't sound like you..." Ursa said.

"I've changed a lot in the last few years," Zuko said. "I've had to."

He reached out a hand. She seemed hesitant to take it. But take it, she did. It was strange, to feel that soft skin once again, to see that face, those eyes looking at him. "You're _real_?"

"Nope," Zuko said blithely, in half a sing-song, before rolling his eyes. Man, he really was picking up bad habits from his sister. "Yes, Mother. I'm here. And I'm here to get you out of this..."

"What happened to you? What happened to Azula?" Ursa asked.

"That's a long story," Zuko said, as Zha Yu exited a second room, with a coppery-haired, middle-aged man a pace behind him. "And it's one I'd rather not have to tell here."

"You're really here," she said.

Zuko nodded. "You're really safe," he answered her.

Then, the tension, the worry broken, mother and son finally pulled into the embrace that was coming for too many years as it was.

* * *

><p>"So you reign victorious, and all the world lays at your feet," Sharif's voice came to Aang, as he turned away from the disarming soldiers. "Look upon his works, you who call yourself mighty, and despair!"<p>

"Sharif!" Aang said.

"Brother!" Nila cut in, bounding out of Sokka's tank – and wasn't that a weird thing to ascribe possession to – to approach. "Sharif! You had me terrified for..."

"Sister, please, this is a matter of grave importance and time is most certainly of the essence," he cut off his sister. "I've read what I've needed to. Wan Shi Tong's library is actually missing some very vital facts. Which is a testament to how degraded his genius loci has become, truly..."

"Sharif, what have you found?" Nila narrowed him.

"Ah, thank you. My mind? Even in the best of times, it sometimes wanders," he said, with a dismissive gesture. "I have discovered what it will take to defeat Imbalance. Or rather, by virtue of elimination, cast aside all of the methods which can not defeat It."

"We have a plan?" Aang said, hope reaching into his voice. But the way that Sharif nodded... it made that hope curdle. "What's wrong?"

"Your words with Koh, when he said that the price of victory would be sacrifice... I have only now learned the _scale_ of the required sacrifice," the Si Wongi shaman said, his eyes bleak and cold, even with that wafting white light oozing out of them.

"...what needs to be given?" Aang asked, thinking he had a pretty good idea of the answer.

The Avatar. That was what needed to be sacrificed.

But Sharif's words, which came next, they didn't heed Aang's expectation.

"Almost everything," he said.

"...what do you mean, Sharif?" Nila asked.

His jaw set, and he turned to each of them in turn, before glancing beyond, to where the Blue Turban army was now advancing toward the defeated Fire Lord Loyalists. He closed his eyes, and told them.

"In order for there to be even a chance to end this madness, we must spend what I reckon to be ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine percent, of everything that exists, in all of reality," he said with a stunning gravitas.

"...but..."

"And even then," Sharif continued, gravely, "I would rate our odds as poor at best."

"...There must be some other..." Aang attempted.

"And!" he raised his finger, warding all other words, "if even this paltry chance is to come... it must be struck very, very soon."

Aang stared at the shaman, mouth agape.

Had he just won a war for _nothing_? He fell back onto his seat on the ground, cradling his face in his hands, too tired, too spent to even weep.


	60. The Sacrifice

"What's going on?" Sokka asked, when he joined the scene. Aang was sitting on the ground, his head in his hands, looking about as miserable as he'd been when he first reached the Ghorkalai. The Tribesman stooped. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"No, he is not alright," Nila's brother answered, sounding a lot more coherent, a lot less stammery, and a fair bit more arrogant than usual. When Sokka looked at him, and offered a grunt of alarm at seeing somebody who was doing a fair emulation of the Avatar State, before getting himself pulled together. "He is overwhelmed by the prospect of defeating Imbalance."

"Which I presume isn't a happy thing?" Sokka asked Nila, who was standing next to her brother. She shook her head slowly.

"There's got to be another way to do this," Aang said, slowly at first, but increasing with force as he slowly got to his feet. "If there's nothing left, then beating It's pretty much the same as losing to It. What if..."

"What if what?" Sharif asked. He then paused, and looked past Sokka. "Ah. Mother, we meet again at last."

Sokka turned, to note that Sativa had missed a step, her face one of open surprise. "Sharif? What has happened? Why do you sound so..."

"One of the few upsides of the end of the world, Mother," Sharif said with a shrug. He tapped his scar. "The capacity to think with an artificial brain is not to be overlooked," he then turned right back to Aang. "There is no alternative to this. Sacrifice is required, and a mighty sacrifice it must be. All of us have seen what Imbalance is capable of. Even what Its Shards are capable of! Now factor them working together!"

"But..." Aang began, and trailed off.

"This is for the best, Avatar. A fragment of reality is far greater than no reality at all," Sharif said.

"This is ludicrous," Sativa said. She turned to Aang. "You are right, boy... Avatar... That a sacrifice made foolishly is worse than treason. What are you not asking?"

"You're on his side?" Sokka asked, pointing at Aang.

"I know a bad idea when I hear one," Sativa said.

"Usually," Piandao seemed to appear in her shadow. She shot him a flat look, then returned her attention to her family members, and those that they'd gathered.

"I was thinking that maybe the sacrifice doesn't need to be the world. Not the world itself," Aang said. He took a deep breath, and raised tired, unhappy eyes to hers. "But... instead... the spirit of the world."

"Are you mad?" Sharif asked.

"What do you mean?" Sativa asked.

"The Avatar is the spirit of the world. I am the embodiment of Balance," Aang said, his words a little uneven, as though he were afraid of them even as they exited his throat. "If I sacrifice myself... It's like Nila says. Collide anything with its opposite, and both are blown up."

"Annihilated," Nila corrected.

"That isn't her name," Sharif muttered testily.

"Aang, you can't be serious," Sokka said. "If you die... No. There's got to be another way."

"The death of the Avatar Spirit would cause unspeakable harm to What Is," Sharif said, stabbing at his palm with a finger. "It would be worse than loss!"

"What would be worse than losing?" Korra interjected, as she leaned into the conversation. Sokka wasn't too proud to admit that he flinched a bit at her sudden proximity. Having dead-but-not-yet-born people floating around was both spooky, and defied his view of the cosmos.

"Who are you?" Sativa asked. Korra's face pulled into a smirk.

"Avatar Korra. Aang's next incarnation. Good to meet ya," she said. Then, she turned to Aang. "Who is this lady, anyway?"

"My mother," Nila said.

"Oh!"

"WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?" Sativa demanded, her voice filling the courtyard enough that the disarming army behind her halted completely, and her own force of Blue Turbans flinched slightly.

"She's from a different future, one where Azula murdered me," Aang said off-handedly. And Sokka was a little impressed that the little-guy could manage to say something like that off-handed. Sativa nodded at that, as though it made perfect sense.

"Sacrificing yourself to end Imbalance might not be required," Sativa said.

"Why not?" Aang asked.

Sativa turned to Korra.

"What, me?" Korra asked, pointing at her spectral self.

"You are the Avatar as well, are you not? From a world where you have already passed into your next incarnation? Then what harm is there in this?"

"Oblivion?" Korra asked. "Hey, I like the guys that come after me. You should see this military-chick I get reborn as two hundred years from now..."

"Would it work?" Sativa asked, cutting her off.

"...Perhaps," Sharif admitted. "But it will be an incomplete solution. She is a dead Avatar. There are shades of difference that will be very meaningful."

"Then what about... oh, right. Aang, take a step to your left," Korra said, cutting _herself_ off. Aang looked a bit confused, but did as she asked. And not three seconds later, there was a bolt of lightning that seared down from the grey clouds overhead, causing all to flinch and shake away the ringing of several sets of ears, only to turn back to see a beautiful Tribeswoman in a blue dress, albeit one who looked absolutely gassed out. She breathed heavy, sweated profusely, and was closer to grey than a healthy brown.

"Little Avatar? Big Avatar? Good. Didn't have... to find both... of you," Irukandji said. She took a deep breath, and regained a somewhat more dignified stature "If you've got a way, I've got the place."

"What?" Aang asked.

"The Black City," she said. "I've made a road there. Whatever you're going to do, you're going to have to do it there; it's the only place that the Shards are 'tied' to."

"But that still doesn't help us very much," Sokka said. "We're still not sure what we have to do... and who's going to have to do it."

Sharif took a step inward, and nodded. "I do," he said.

"What?" Aang asked.

Sharif slammed his fist into the Avatar's jaw so hard that the airbender flopped down into the drifting snow, instantly unconscious. All around him gave clipped yelps of shock, Sokka even going so far to have his Space Sword half out of its scabbard by the time Aang hit the ground.

"What the hell was that!" Sokka demanded.

"I am doing what I must," Sharif said. He turned eyes that glowed with mellow light first to his mother, then to his sister. "Sister? Sleep."

"What are you ta..." she began, then slumped. Sokka grabbed her before she hit the stone as well.

"Sharif, what are you doing?" the boy's mother demanded.

"Mother, please don't try to stop me. You know that you can't," Sharif said. He took a deep breath of his own. "I have no life, after this. Only brain-stricken stupidity, to be a burden on my family. But this? This is _purpose_."

Sativa's eyes started to dampen. "No. _No_ you cannot. I _forbid_ it!" she said.

"I'm sorry, Mother. I was born for this," he said. She reached forward, trying to grasp him, but he pointed at her, still half turned away. "STILL!" She was locked in place, the tears beginning to leak down her cheeks. Sharif turned one look back to her. "Tell my sister..." he began. Then, he looked at her, where she was sleeping in Sokka's arms. "...tell her _something_. Something better than I can give."

"Sharif, you _can't_..." Korra began, but with a wave of his hand, she crumpled to the ground and drifted away as a waft of smoke. He took two steps, and then, disappeared from sight entirely. When he did, Sativa was freed from her paralysis, and she took that lurching step forward, staring after where her son had gone. Her face pulled into a rictus, and she fell to her knees, weeping, with the swordsman unable to anything but hold her close. Irukandji looked at the whole thing, her head shaking faintly, before she vanished as well, to a much quieter electric snap.

It was the last time that Sokka ever saw Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 20<strong>

**The Sacrifice**

* * *

><p>"You've thought this through, kiddo?" Irukandji asked, as she walked almost uncomfortably close at Sharif's side.<p>

"Thoroughly," Sharif said, walking along the road only for a handful of steps, before turning, to where the baked mud ended in a black abyss. "And I was right in assuming that the Avatar would leap to the wrong conclusion."

"What'd'ya mean?" Irukandji asked.

"Killing the Avatar State in this manner kills all that is. Reality will no longer be real. All that will be left is what Koh wills there be. But this...?"

Irukandji leaned closer, such that he could feel stolen breath on his ear. He turned a faintly glowing eye toward her.

"This will work. Now please, step aside; as euphoric as I may be, if you remain close, then you will be a part of this. I think you too intelligent and too craven to volunteer for it."

Irukandji's eyes widened. "No way," she said. Sharif nodded. "Really?" he nodded again. "What about the big guys?"

"Keep them out of this," Sharif said. "We shall need desperately the sun when this is over, and far more forgiving seas."

"I'll keep them on the sidelines. Birdbrain, too," Irukandji said with a gesture toward where the threshold to Wan Shi Tong's spirit library listlessly drifted. "How long will this take?"

"The Avatar will know when all is ready," Sharif said. He took a deep breath. "It is a small part of what he is _for_."

The world vanished around him, as he took a step forward. There was a dropping sensation, but it didn't last long. After less than a second, he landed – unsteadily – on cracked stone, the darkness pushing in like a living and unsavory beast. His eyes opened, and he beheld all that was.

A chain shackled this place, this lower den, this place of death, to the Black City that lay above it. Below, it looked much as the neurons of a brain, viewed under intense magnification. Cells of reality, adrift in a sea of nothingness. It was apt that he called the dark hungry and vicious. It was.

The darkness was the hunger of Imbalance.

He stepped forward again, and his foot sloshed into water. Another step, and this time, there was a crunch of shattered clay bricks. The walls around him stretched on into infinity, a great factory, its mad machinery finally silent. Another step... and he stood in a garden. Something like music, the sense that he'd had all of his life, was strong here. The warp and weave of the spirit danced, made a proud noise, desperate and afraid. A gentle breeze tugged at red silk drapes, that ran over untended and overgrown bushes. At the center, an island in a shallow pond. Upon that island, a house. He walked, and when his toes set into the pond once more, they dragged spirits with them.

"This is why I am here," he said, to the spirits which made up the entirety of this place. Every droplet of water was Water Spirit. Every gust of breeze was Wind Spirit. Every speck of mud, every inch of cloth, every whisper of sound. And as he walked, the whole of this garden began to warp, pulled behind him. Following him. To a man observing him walk, it would look _evil_, that he was consuming it as he came. The truth was far more complicated. But the house? The house was what he'd come here first, for. The water of the pond began to drain, circling him in a storm of spirits, following him. Bathing in him. He moved to the door, that was set of something not spiritual. It was hard. It didn't beg for his presence. It simply was. A twist of a knob, a push.

"As I would have expected," Sharif said sadly.

"What's going on?" Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa asked, a hand raised before his face in confusion, in surprise at the light which reached into an otherwise featureless and dark room. Ashan leaned forward, peering through the glare, trying to get shade under his palm. "Wait... Sharif? Sharif is that you?"

"It is," Sharif said. He stepped forward, holding his hand toward his oldest friend. Ashan reached for it... and his fingers passed through Sharif's palm. Ashan stopped, staring at his own extremity, horror dawning on his face. "And, so it is with this as well."

Ashan looked to him. "Am I dead?" he asked.

"Yes," Sharif said. "You have been for some time."

"But... you still look the same! Is this some sort of punishment, or purgatory? Where is my family? Grandfather? _Mother_?"

"She is not here," Sharif said. "But she is... nearby, I believe."

Ashan took his feet, looking down at himself. "Why... don't I feel dead?"

"Would you know the sensation if it came upon you?" Sharif asked, motioning for the Si Wongi ghost to follow him. As Ashan passed the threshold of his prison, said prison broke apart into shadows and dust. "Also, why you do not remember your demise. It is a physical impossibility for a ghost to know his murderer in the moment of murder. For you, I hope, that is a kindness."

Ashan looked beside himself. "Wait!" he said, reaching for and grabbing through Sharif's arm. Sharif did stop for him, though, mostly out of respect for the dead man. "What about Nila? Did she get away?"

"That is not her name. And yes, she did," Sharif said.

"I know full well what her name is!" Ashan snapped. "I do her respect by calling her as she wishes to be, rather than the embarrassing, uncommon, and unusual name her mother saddled her with!"

Sharif looked at Ashan, how the dead youth, clad in the last clothes that he remembered wearing, almost quivered with anger. Anger was a bad thing to have in a ghost. But Sharif knew that Ashan's anger was a thing short lived. "So be it," Sharif said. "She has survived. Grown strong. And, while it might hurt you to hear it, she has moved on."

"She moved on," Ashan repeated. "How long?"

"Months of grieving. Then... well, she was unspecific about the method or madness that she and her paramour connected by."

Ashan nodded, his eyes to the water, which had once been half way to Sharif's knees, but now pooled listlessly at the level of his toes. "Is she happy?" Ashan asked.

"My sister is never happy," Sharif said with a roll of his eyes.

"Aha! Only _now_ to I believe this thing to be true," Ashan said with a chuckle.

"Please, come with me," Sharif said, holding out his hand, this time, with a focusing of his will so that when he caught Ashan's wrist, there was something physical – or as close to it as a man to a ghost could be – in the connection. "The time is short, and I will have no time or ability to make a second attempt. Even spending such time in this kindness is a luxury that comes with a high price."

Ashan took a breath, and gently pulled Sharif's fingers from his wrist. "You are fighting the Eye of Terror, yes?"

Sharif gave a surprised look to Ashan. "How could you deduce that so truly?"

"I know the things that I see, and I see much. Even in death, apparently," Ashan said. His eyes locked onto Sharif's own. "You expect you will die."

Sharif looked at his old friend. The nodded. "I hope only that I die with purpose, that I die with meaning."

"How did _I_ die?" Ashan asked.

"With the greatest meaning of all," Sharif said. "You died keeping my sister safe."

Ashan nodded, and began to walk, at Sharif's side. "Then I die content."

Sharif walked, towards the edge of the garden, pulling all of the matter, all of the spirits which built it, behind him. When he and Ashan together stepped out the boundary into the black non-space beyond it, the great swirl had narrowed to a point, a singularity of spirit, one that dug under Sharif's skin with that terminal step.

When the two young men left the garden, there was no more garden to leave.

* * *

><p>"Are you going to talk about it?" the waterbender asked, as Azula sat in the howdah with the crazy firewaterbender, who remained both unconscious and tied up to within an inch of her life.

"Would _you_ want to talk about _that_?" she asked, tilting her head slightly toward the Tribesman's sister.

"Probably," Katara said anyway. "I know it doesn't seem much... but I know what that feels like. Losing a parent..."

"Just... stop," Azula said, her tones very tight, coiled tighter than a spring that was on the verge of snapping.

A complete lie; Azula was upset, yes, but one couldn't mourn a living man.

Katara accepted Azula's act at face value, turning toward the fore once more. When she did, though, she let out a noise in the back of her throat. "What?" Azula asked of her.

"I feel... water in the air," she said. "Do you feel fire up here?"

Azula stared at the waterbender, baffled at such an idiotic thing to say. Of course there was water. The clouds never parted above the Fire Nation. But when she did turn her senses, rarefied from so long amidst the flames that were part of her soul... yes, she did feel fire out there. Globs of it. Ribbons of it. Like lightning-bolts frozen in place, invisible amongst the grey murk.

"We should get under these clouds," Katara said, and there was that sinking feeling that Azula always got when they dropped. Her hands tightened around the wood of the howdah to the point that it creaked, before the grey parted... and the ground looked completely wrong.

"What is this?" Katara asked.

Directly under them was Kyoshi Island.

About a hundred yards past its shores was the collapsed statue of Azulon which ought stand in the eponymous bay.

To the south she could see the unmistakable shape of the Northern Air Temple. Azula turned, to look behind her.

Caldera City, directly behind them.

"Turn around," Azula said. "Something is very wrong."

To her credit, the waterbender did heed instructions, turning, and letting out a gasp when she saw her destination before her, two and a half days ahead of when they should have been able to reach it. The beast descended, moving lower and lower, toward the city of Azula's birth and youth. She was about to speak, the air just ready to leave her lungs, when a sensation hit her like a brick to the face, and her eloquence was undone completely, and a ragged grunt came out, as she recoiled, her entire body convulsing slightly.

She didn't see, but Katara did exactly the same.

"What was that?" the waterbender asked.

"I don't know," Azula said. She looked behind her... and saw the base of the Ashfall Ward, where a few seconds ago, the ocean stretched. "I'm starting to think I know what's wrong with the world."

"How?" Katara asked.

"Call it an educated guess," she said, as the beast zipped over the Periphery, past the ruins of one side of the Upper City, which was now a slope that terminated in a flow of lava. Into the courtyard, where even yet, soldiers were being disarmed and quartered away. The beast landed with a grunt, the snow wafting away from its six feet, and Azula was very quick to leave it's back. She would never become used to flying on that thing. Ever. The worst part about this, was that there was a road that led off into the distance, beginning not far from the edge of the courtyard. It was made of baked mud, and Azula knew from personal experience that it did not belong there.

"Hey, Azula. Hey, Katara," Toph's voice came through the din of metal and voices. She was striding toward them without her usual swagger. In fact, the blind earthbender had a furtive quality about her, as though she found herself out of her element – pun not intended – and didn't know how to react to it. "How'd you get back so soon? Did you call it off?"

"No. The world is broken," Azula answered. "I see you managed to win the war."

"Yeah," Toph said, a smug smirk coming to her face for a minute. "Sure, having two Avatars made a difference... but it was mostly me."

"Where are the Avatars. Wait, Avatar_**s**_?" Azula asked.

"Yeah, Korra's here, too. And Aang, well," she shrugged. "They had to carry him inside, after he got laid out."

"Somebody hurt Aang?" Katara asked.

"Yeah, Sharif, if you could believe that," Toph said.

"I can't," Katara said.

"I can," Azula said. Blue eyes turned to her. "What? I can."

"Come on. I want to get out of these boots, and it's warm in there. Well, warmer," Toph said, casting a thumb toward the Royal Palace. She had to agree. The weather hadn't gotten worse only because there was no worse it could have gotten.

Azula found herself watched, as she moved past the soldiers of so many different armies, gathered together. The ones who watched her the hardest were the ones which bore no uniform at all, save a sash or turban of dark blue. She wasn't above admitting that her eyes had a suspicious turn to them, having herself being so noticed simply for walking into a building. Yes, she would have said it was her just due, but that was back when she was eight, or a psychopath, or a spoiled brat. And as she'd had experience being all three...

"What are they all staring at me for?" she asked, as Toph kicked her boots off and let them sail into a corner of the antechamber. Her toes flexed and worked, even as she continued inward. Doors opened with a wave of her hand, instead of the unsung work of a pair of servants. Passing from one room into another payed well for heat; she found herself starting to shrug off her jacket even then. And the path they were walking... it ran near the Burning Throne. "And where are we going?"

"Aang's sitting in one of the rooms over thatta-way," Toph pointed straight through a wall. "And for these guys? Well, that's a doozy."

The three young women were brought to a halt by a small group of soldiers, in the Blue Turban, stepping before them. One was rough and unshaven, with the look of an Embiar fisherman. Another was a greying-auburn woman... whom Azula had sent to prison at the beginning of winter. Oh, so this was how it was going to go, was it? The other the swordsman Piandao, who'd taught her brother those years ago. Or didn't. It was hard to remember which. She raised an eyebrow when she noted how he was now missing a hand. That didn't seem right. Then again, it was snowing in the Fire Nation.

"What is this?" Azula asked evenly.

"We were wondering when you'd get back," the fisherman said. "The soldiers... They were going to get restless, if they had to wait as long as they said."

"And this means what to me?" Azula asked.

"They're here to find the person that they've done all of this work for," the Matriarch of Kyoshi Island said.

"Well, Zuzu's got to be around here somewhere," Azula said with a shrug, and made to move past Toph and the adults both. Piandao skirted aside, and barred her path once more, with a ragged stumped arm.

"We didn't come here for the Prince," the fisherman said. "We were fighting for you."

"...me?" Azula asked. "You must be joking."

"Nope," A new voice came from beyond them. It was flat and emotionless, and had an undercurrent of unshakable boredom. In other words, it was absolutely familiar and absolutely Mai Loyo Lah. The Azuli girl herself appeared from a door-frame that she'd evidently been leaning on, and in her wake came the wild-haired boy that she'd taken up with. "As we see it, you've suffered as much at the hands of the Fire Lord, Ozai or Zhao, as anybody else. One of them banished you. The other imprisoned you, obsessed in a fairly creepy way over you. You are a Blue Turban, even if you haven't worn one."

"You're... what?" Azula asked. "Going to put me on the Burning Throne."

Silence, as all stared at her.

"_Me_?" Azula stressed, flattening a hand against her breast. "The woman who tried time and time again to _kill_ the Avatar, the woman who lost her mind at the age of _eight_, the woman who..."

"Suffered, and struggled," Piandao cut her off. "And grew."

"You've seen things I reckon most wouldn't believe," the fisherman said. "But at the same time... we know who you are."

"I've heard it said," the Matriarch of Kyoshi added, "that you can get a very good measure of somebody by taking a long hard look at her enemies. And everybody's gotten a good look at Ozai and Azulon and Zhao. Anybody that they hated, victimized, and marginalized so powerfully has to be somebody worthy of their attention."

"That's insane," Azula said. "_This_ is insane."

"How is this _news_ to you?" Mai asked. "I sent you the plan _months_ ago."

"I was living in Azul," Azula pointed out.

"...oh," the wild-haired youth – Jet – muttered. "Guess would should'a sent _three_ birds, huh."

Blindsided by the predators of Azul. How very Fire Nation. Even in politics, it all came back to that. "Like I said, the people are getting antsy. Even something spur-of-the-moment will help," the fisherman said, running a thumb along his jaw.

"You're going to crown me today?" Azula asked. "There are..."

"A lot of formalities which in times of emergency have been overlooked," Piandao said. "And I would certainly say that this is an emergency. I'm sorry if this has come out of nowhere, but this is going to have to happen. And besides... I've got a fairly good idea of what kind of Fire Lord you'd be," he said, with a shrug. "If only because you had a good teacher."

"You're not afraid that I'd be a tyrant?" Azula asked. Valid question, given that in two lifetimes, given the opportunity, she absolutely would have been.

"If you are, we'll just overthrow you," the fisherman said with an easy shrug. She turned a heated look at him. "What? We've gotten pretty good at it."

Azula stared at them. Insanity. Offering her everything that she wanted, once upon that time. What she had clawed and scraped for when it was wrested from her hands. And now, she didn't want it, but they were giving it to her. She took a breath, and forced herself to look at this logically. Zuzu was welcomed back to the Fire Nation, however briefly. That made him a political liability. Azula was a sympathetic figure, now. Somehow. Against all common sense. She knew what was going to come, more or less. She knew the conflicts that came. Hell, she even knew the solutions which had changed the world into a very different place from her youth.

She had decent knowledge of the future on the macro scale, and they were giving her the authority to do something with that knowledge.

And she was balking.

"I'll do it," Azula said. "As long as it's done quickly."

"I figured you'd be up for it," Mai said with a very uncharacteristic smirk. She leaned forward. "Did somebody try to strangle you?"

"Tried," Azula answered. She turned to the doors which lead into the Burning Throne. They were lined with Blue Turbans. Another breath. "Whatever this is, it'd best be quick. I have words with the Avatar."

"Won't be more than five, ten minutes," the fisherman said. Azula rolled her eyes. Only when the world ended would she be the Fire Lord.

So the universe did have a sense of humor after all.

* * *

><p>"Are you alright?" Ashan asked, as he pulled Sharif up after his stumble. He recoiled a bit, when the skin slid in his grasp. He stared at his hand for a moment, as Sharif pulled himself upright, standing at the edge of the moorage, its great and rusting ship disappearing into the oblivion of Imbalance's hunger. "...I just touched you."<p>

"That will become more easy as this continues," Sharif said, breathing at a wheeze, as more and more of the spirits which made up this place began to break free of their own respective moorings, and floated toward him. They caught and spun, but intead of forming an orbit around him, they slipped into his pores, drifted up his nose and into his ears. Streamed under his fingernails.

"You're harming yourself," Ashan said.

"I am doing... what needs to be done," Sharif said, even as he slowly took his feet. He coughed, and blood drifted out of his lips for a moment, before it lifted up, and began to flow back into him. Not as the blood of his body, though; this was _blood itself_.

"You are going to..." Ashan caught himself, and stopped. He turned his friend toward him. "This is how you plan to die, isn't it? To be cored out by these things?"

"It. Must. Be. Done," Sharif said. Ashan looked him in the eye, and gave a slow, very uncomfortable nod.

"Then it must be done. But I will still grieve for you."

"No, you won't," Sharif said, his gait slowing to a limp, one that Ashan had to help him with, as they stepped off of the cliffs which unmade themselves with the pair's passage. They walked along the metal, shining void rising up to pound through his eyes, to join their ilk inside his skull. The void had only been here, because they sensed that at some point the Avatar had walked these rusting panels. For all their wisdom, today, they were as terrified babes. A final hiss of discomfort, as Sharif's brain now moved a little bit faster, thought a bit deeper, spun a bit faster. The two walked, and the ship unmade itself into metal and decay spirits, which slipped under his skin, and waited for when they were needed. Two stepped into oblivion, and passed out of a realm which no longer existed.

* * *

><p>"So... what do we do now?" Malu asked.<p>

"More ice," Aang mumbled. Despite their uncooperative geographic location, ice was something that there was no short supply of. He held the bag of it to his jaw, which still rightly smarted. At least his head didn't spin anymore, and he didn't have the nausea that any real concussion found itself paired with. And most of that, was because of the waterbenders in front of him.

"I could deal with the jaw, too," Kori said, looking fairly out of it himself.

"No," Aang said, and honestly, he couldn't have said why he said no. "I just don't know what happened. Why did Sharif do that?"

"Because he didn't want you to follow him, obviously," Kori said. All turned to him. "What? I'm pointing out the obvious that you're overlooking."

"He's right," Malu said. "Aang, if you knew what he was about to do, I know you wouldn't let him do it."

"There has to be..."

"He found another way," Malu said, quietly. "And he took it."

"But... but he's going to..."

Katara, who was silent at the side of the room, gave a slow nod.

"Nobody forced him into this. Nobody told him 'this is what you have to do'. He saw a need, and he fulfilled it," Malu said. A sad smile came to her face. "If I was half that brave, who knows what would have happened to us all?"

"Don't put yourself down," Aang said. "There's probably still a way to save him."

**No. There is not.**

"G'eh!" Kori full body flinched from the knot of silver light which descended through the ceiling to join them in the room.

"Void?" Malu asked.

**Yes.**

"What are you doing here?" Aang asked.

**I was chosen to remain. To be the last of us.**

"The last... Void spirit?" Malu asked.

**Yes.**

"Why does that sound so ominous?" Aang muttered. Then, he shook his head. "Wrong question. _Why_ were you chosen to be the last?"

**I was to teach you the secret of the Avatar State. Then, you learned on your own. You defied what was. I was to show you Connection. You have discovered it on your own. I was to teach you the meaning of Balance. You have brought it into yourself... on your own.**

"So what are you doing here now?"

"What are they saying?" Katara asked Kori, who gave a baffled shrug.

"It all sounds like fog-horns and gibberish to me," the other Tribesman answered. The shifting silver spirit 'half turned' toward those in the room with it, before returning its attention – an impressive feat considering it had no physical features to speak of – to Aang and Malu.

**We are not alone. The smooth-souled are here. They see me.**

"Yes, they do," Aang said with a nod.

There was a long moment of silence. **Then the heart has gone cold. The world has dimmed. Families reunited and sundered. The time... has come.**

Malu leaned back. "But... you said that you didn't have anything left to teach him," Malu said.

**No.**

All flinched back a bit, when the thing snapped outward, exploding like a spring bursting from containing too much pressure for too long. And then, it did have Form, a body, limbs and features. No face, but hands. The hands only had three fingers, as though they barely knew how to be hands, only knew the basest requirements for it. It reached those hands onto the chest of both Aang and Malu, fingertips pressing ever-so-lightly against their sternums, right above their beating hearts.

**There is still one lesson. That the true heart can touch the poison of hatred, without being harmed. Can feel the fires of wrath, without being consumed.** The almost-hands drifted higher, touching both at the front of their throats. **That the true voice can speak the purest truth, without betraying to the cunning and the cruel. That the true word can shed light where once there was only darkness.** The hand then reached higher, touching both airbenders right at the points of the arrows which pointed down at two respective noses.** That the true mind can weather all of the lies and illusions, without becoming lost.**

The two airbenders, children of the same age and time, separated from it by circumstances entirely outside of their control, stood stock still and not even daring to breathe.

**The void, which has become Imbalance, has no true beginning... but like shadows burned away by a candle in the dark, it will have an end; what cannot be, **_**will not be**_**, and all else will fall to the purifying power of the Real.**

All stared, even if they didn't understand the words. They understood _power_.

"This is..." Aang began, but he didn't have words for the... the pure _comprehension_ that he felt at that moment. The oneness, of himself, of his body and his mind and his soul, of his _purpose_. He didn't know it, but Malu shook with that same awe and awareness. Two airbenders, one host to destruction, the other hope, now, fighting together for the future itself.

**You will know when the time to follow the path of the fallen has come. And when it comes... you will not be alone. The time of **_**endings**_**... is at hand.**

The fleck of silver folded up on itself, its features fading away, its hands vanishing into the mass of light and Form, twisting until it was no longer visible. It gave a single word...

**Farewell.**

And then, like a candle burning out, it was gone from sight. Not vanished... just nowhere nearby, somewhere far away. Waiting.

* * *

><p>Irukandji was damned uncomfortable standing here. No big surprise. The chittering of legs tapping against old, dead wood was a horror-show in and of itself. Having Koh the Face Stealer asleep through the end of the world was frightening. Having him awake? Just as frightening, for different reasons. "Koh!" Irukandji shouted, keeping its face completely featureless, and only then, by electrically paralyzing it. "Come on, I know you're in there."<p>

"_So why does the little fly walk into this dark web?_"

Irukandji watched, impassive, as the face-bearing eye of the Face Stealer appeared out of the darkness. "I'm delivering a message. That you must stay away from what the Avatar is about to do."

"_I know fully well the perils that he will face. The sacrifices that they will have to make. That __you__ will have to make_."

It took everything Irukandji had to not scowl at the demon-masked face that hovered before it. "You've obviously got your eye on the wrong spirit. _I_ don't sacrifice."

"_In a time of desperation, the small and weak are capable of great things. The coward is capable of bravery... and the hero is capable of evil. What, then, is the __villain__ capable of?_"

"You can stop talking in riddles, Koh. I'm not human, and I don't have time to learn the way that they do," the spirit demanded. The eye before Irukandji blinked, and showed the glowing visage of a spirit ancient and powerful, yet every bit as trapped as the mortals and others in Koh's 'Collection'.

"_All have parts to play. Some will be heroes. Others, made into villains. And all must sacrifice. Even I. Even you_."

The head pulled away, and chattered back into the darkness, leaving Irukandji standing in the heart of the dead tree, with sweat beginning to roll down a borrowed face. It couldn't mean... No. No, that'd just be crazy. There was a snap of lightning, and Irukandji disappeared from the realm of the Face Stealer.

* * *

><p>She threw the doors open as she reached the room, finding most of the whole gang clustered up together. She could feel the five-point flame nestled in her hair, but the whole thing just felt... unbalanced. Uneven. Unready. The very brief 'coronation' had been a few old men admittedly and begrudgingly truncated words and ceremony. No rousing applause, no words of deeds and bloodline, and honestly, Azula was a little relieved for that.<p>

It still hadn't sunk in that today, Azula was the Fire Lord.

Golden eyes swung through the room, and took in the Tribesmen and the earthbender, and the airbender, and the Avatar. "You? Out," she said, her voice clipped and cold.

"Azula, it's..." Katara said, with genuine sympathy in her voice. Sympathy in exchange for a lie. How very typical of Azula's life.

"Go," she said. Aang gave her a confused look, and rose. "Not you. You, I need to speak to."

"...okay," Aang said, squatting down once more. The others filed out, one after another. The waterbender gave Azula's hand a squeeze as she went, one that Azula didn't return. She just looked tired and depressed. The looking wasn't too far from the feeling. When the last had left, and pulled the door closed behind him, Azula took a breath, and walked to the brazier, hovering her hands over it for a bit of added warmth. "So... what did you need to talk about?"

"What happens now?" she said. She slowly shook her head. "I know how to fix the biggest mistakes of the next twenty to thirty years of history, but I don't know how to survive until next week," she puffed out a breath. "...that scares me a bit."

"Azula... are you alright? You look hurt," Aang said, as he moved closer. He looked like he wanted to touch the bruises on her neck, but she shook her head.

"I'll be fine," she said, "I've had worse."

"That doesn't mean that you don't have a right to complain," Aang said. There was a long silence. "...do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?"

"...shockingly, yes," Azula said. She stared into the flames, if simply because she didn't know if she had it left in her to stare him in the eye right now. "I'd been putting thought into why I did that. And there's only one answer that makes sense. You're a good person. And... I need that."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"My husband, in the longest of my lives?" she said. "A bottomless font of enthusiasm and optimism. He made my life better, by forcing me to stop only seeing shadows getting cast by every lamp. And you do the same thing. So yes. I am attracted to you. I know I shouldn't be. Hell, politically, if anything comes of this, it'll be an absolute nightmare... but there it is."

"I see," Aang said. He was quiet for a moment. "I... I heard about your dad."

"You did," Azula said.

"I'm sorry. Even if he did what he'd done the last few years..."

"Aang," she cut him off, without even referring to him as 'avatar', as was her custom. "If you swear to absolute secrecy, I can tell you something."

"Secrecy?"

"You must reveal what I'm about to tell you to nobody. Not your Tribesmen, not your fellow Airbender. _Not_ my brother," she said. Aang leaned over the fire, looking at her. Then, his grey eyes widened a bit.

"Your father's still alive, isn't he?" Aang asked. She looked him in the eye, then.

"Yes," she said.

Aang stared at her, then nodded. "I won't tell anybody, if that's what you want. But why?"

"Because I want him to be safe," Azula said quietly. "He's... a broken man. He was so guilty over what he did to my family, to me... it just tore his mind to shreds. I don't want anybody to hurt him, and the only way I can think of doing that, is for them to believe he's already gone."

"What if somebody else finds out?" Aang said. "I'm not the most perceptive, after all."

"You had all the clues," Azula said. That he put them together on his own was mildly impressive. It showed that he did in fact have a working brain. "Other than that... I'll have to deal with it, case by case. If I have to."

"I'm honored you trusted me with this," Aang said.

"You're the only one who wouldn't judge," she answered. She turned back to the fire. "I imagine that you're going to go save the world, soon."

"...yeah," Aang said, sadly. "But I couldn't save Sharif."

"He made his choice," Azula said. "But now, I'm..."

She gave a shiver, honestly and terribly uncertain. This was so outside of her knowledge, so beyond the horizon of her understanding. She might as well be blinded trying to walk through a mine-field. She felt a hand on her shoulder, as he'd moved to her side. "Hey. Don't worry. We're going to figure this out."

"I hate feeling this... _useless,_" Azula said. She shook her head. "I wish there were something I could do to kill this thing. Or even just to fight it, but I can't do _anything! Damn it_!"

She kicked the brazier over, spilling it's coals onto the ground. The catharsis was poor substitute for warmth. With the outburst out of her, she just felt tired. She slumped into a chair, and cradled her head in her hands.

"It'll be fine," Aang reassured her. And she also didn't like that she found herself in a position that she _needed_ reassurance. "When I–"

A thundercrack sounded, and two became three.

"Aang?" the spirit which made her life so hellish said. "If it ain't time, it'll be time soon."

"I'll go," Aang said. He gave Azula one more look, then moved to the door. Malu was waiting just outside it, sweating despite the cold. The door blew shut with a bang, and Irukandji turned to her.

"What do you want now?" she demanded.

"Still a bitch, huh?" Irukandji asked. "Well, I guess being civil was too much of an ask."

"I'll show you what a bitch is like," she said, pulling a curl of lightning into her hand.

"How delightfully tautological," Irukandji said flatly. Then, she leaned forward, toward Azula, heedless of the lightning. "Now, you're sitting here like a baby in a soiled diaper 'cause you don't know what you can do? Well, think about it real hard. Think about what you know about this thing. It'll come to you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go save the universe, somehow."

A fresh electric zap, and Irukandji was gone. Azula did sit there, and she did think. She thought about everything that had happened since she regained the use of her mind. She thought about the things which she'd seen. The things that had happened. She thought about the Shards. About Imbalance. She thought... about the fight in the Western Air Temple.

They could be restrained physically, but only by people who weren't shamans. If they touched a shaman, that shaman was toast, in a pseudo-literal fashion. They couldn't be physically hurt, of course. Bullets hit them to no effect. They had no skin to flay, no muscle or bone to pierce, no blood to spill – that she was aware of.

But they did recoil, they did retract when struck by lightning. It didn't harm them... but it did _hurt_ them.

She ignited a blue flame above her palm, rolling it around as though a marble as she thought. How could she use that to her advantage? It wasn't like she could enter the Spirit World and throw lightning bolts at the world-eating monster.

Or could she?

She got to her feet, as it all became clear.

She threw open the door, looking at the surprised faces of Toph, Sokka, Katara, and Kori. Then, she looked down the hall, to where one of the Blue Turbans was waiting for her return. "You!" she pointed to him. "Gather the Ghurkas! We are marching to war!"

* * *

><p>There was a new stumble, as Sharif entered the last bubble of the Living Spirit, the bottom of the chain, below which hung oblivion. He fell to his hands and knees, coughing hard, painfully. When he slowly raised a hand off of that baked mud and dead earth, he saw that the skin on his hand had torn apart completely. Beneath it was not muscle and bone and sinew, though. Instead, a storm of spirits, mimicking the color of his flesh even as they overtook it.<p>

"Sharif! Are you alright?" Ashan asked him.

"No. But I am content," Sharif answered. Ashan hesitated to help him up, but did so anyway. There was a faint tearing sound even still, as the movement of his robes against his back tore the dry and dead skin away. Sharif looked more than alarmed. Sharif shook his head, and pointed. "There is your destination. The final destination."

"What is it?" Ashan asked. He stepped forward with his old friend, and the two left the blackness, and entered a place where there was a faint golden cast to the sky. Waves washed gently against the shore, but the waves were not of water. A fog hung, indistinct, above the surface. Behind them lay a tree, which collapsed onto a greenhouse, and before them...

"The Sea of Souls," Sharif said. He turned away from it. "When you touch that surf, you shall become one with it. You shall pass completely into the hereafter. But I ask that you not do so... not quite yet."

"Why?" Ashan asked, inching back from the lapping of grey waters.

"Because..." Sharif trailed off with a low moan, as he felt his innards burning. It was a twisting pain on par with a rotting of the guts, but with little more than a rictus of pain, he continued walking forward. After all, having his intestines replaced by spirits was neither a clean nor gentle process. "... because there is somebody who must go with you."

"What do you mean?" Ashan asked. His spectral form grew paler. "You said that Nila lives!"

"She does," Sharif said. So he walked to the crushed greenhouse, and reached in a hand. He looked in, and hummed the song which was mounting ever higher in his ears. It was the song of a spirit world in quiet mourning. A song of a man who knew that his death awaited him, but chose to face it standing with dignity. It was a song of endings, that had been playing his entire life. He heard it now, and he understood it now.

He heard the song of Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar.

He felt a hand fall into his, one that ignored the sliding skin and the spirits under it. Gently, he drew that hand toward him, out of the ruins of the greenhouse. Finding her was not easy, but... he had.

"...Mother?" Ashan asked, as she finally came into view.

Latifah looked as Sharif had never known her in life. She looked perhaps a year or two older than Sharif himself, a teenaged girl just past the cusp of adulthood. A girl of smiles and dancing, long, shining black hair. Before the twisted master of Ababa saw her. Before he broke her. "What is... I know that voice," Latifah said.

"Mother!" Ashan said, moving closer, as though unsure what to do.

"Is... is that my son?" Latifah asked of Sharif. She looked at Ashan, as though she almost recognized him.

"You know his voice, do you not?" Sharif asked.

"I do," she nodded.

"Mother, how is this possible?" Ashan asked. Only with that, did Latifah let go of Sharif's hand, and pull her son into an embrace that the lad had never gotten in life.

"She only had sanity in death, what had been stripped of her in life," Sharif said, his voice wheezy and thin. He tried to cough, but air-spirits bubbled past his lips when he did, before pulling themselves back through his lips and into what were once his lungs. "But she deserved to meet her son, and her son deserved to meet his mother. The spirit world is many things... but with effort, it can be made not cruel."

"I wanted this... for so long," Ashan whispered.

"I know. So did I," Latifah said. Sharif gently gathered the two, and guided them away from the ruins, and toward the beaches. The stood, hand in hand, at the end of existence.

"I could do you this one final favor," Sharif said.

"And I could not thank you more for it," Ashan said. "I... have my family."

Sharif simply watched, as the two stepped forward, together, into the sea. They waded out deeper, into the faintly golden darkness, vanishing into the fog which rolled forward to gather them. In a matter of moments, it was over, and they were gone completely. No ghosts. Nothing but memories above the Sea.

Sharif nodded, as he listened to the flow of the song. "Farewell," he said to Ashan and his mother. And then, he started to walk. "And now... an ending. Once and for all."

Sharif walked, and the beach flowed with him, eating his bones and shoring them with their own spirit flesh. Only the sand of the beach remained when he left. It would remain, eternal as the seas it overlooked, until the end of time. Which, if all went poorly... would be this afternoon.

* * *

><p>"You don't need to keep staring at me like that," Aang said, at the pair of shamans in the partial uniform of the Children.<p>

"You almost got us killed!"

"You launched us... I don't even know what to call that place!" brother and sister answered at a shout, respectively.

"That was... sorry," Aang said, rubbing the back of his neck. He gave a look to Malu, who shrugged bemusedly. It was strange, seeing her with no hair. And it was probably strange for her to see him _with_ hair. All told, strange days. "But if you can help, we can use everything we can get."

"I..."

"We'll do it," sister and brother said, respectively. Only this time, it ended with her shooting a surprised look at him. He shrugged. "I want there to be a world tomorrow."

"Then we need to be ready, because when... when..." Aang said, trailing off, as a sensation swept through him. He turned, facing through the wall and across a distance both infinite and finite, a place nowhere and yet the only place that really existed anymore. It was like a chime, ringing across the cosmos.

"Now," Malu said.

"Yeah," Aang answered. "Did you hear that?"

Both nodded, looking deeply unsettled.

"Then it's time to go," Aang said.

He took a step, and walked through the ripple in space and time. The Spirit World, as he knew it, didn't exist. There was only a chain, one that ran down into the infinite blackness below, and up into an equal blackness above. He stood on baked clay, a path leading inward... toward the Black City.

"What is this place?" Hisui asked Aang.

"The Black City," Aang answered.

"Sentinel Rock," Malu added.

"...it's both," both finished.

Aang didn't say another word, as he walked along baked clay. There was nothing. Only destination. He could barely even feel the other Shamans behind him. Only Malu even registered in his sight, and only then, because she was so much a part of this. He almost walked in a fugue, his feet finding the paths between the tears in reality that would have killed him in a myriad of ways. He walked, and the Black City grew closer. The twisted streets of a place which was once a home to thousands mounted up, an abscess in the world, like so much else that Imbalance created.

"Agni's blood, is that...?" Hai asked. Aang looked. Yes, it was. Floating above the black, red eyes staring inward, toward the heart of that place, was a Shard. It didn't even note them in the slightest, so focused was it on that spot beyond. And as they moved further in, they saw more and more Shards. At first, they merely stared, pulsing red eyes wide and unflinching. Then, when Aang set his first foot onto the broken bricks of Sentinel Rock, they began to walk. They walked upon nothing itself, advancing inward, pressing in from all directions, save directly up, moving toward the center, where all things lay.

"Stay in my footsteps," Malu said, her voice distant and booming in the empty city. Then, came a metal crash. A boom, that both shamans behind flinched from. "Do not be afraid."

"That's... a blowout!"

"No," Aang said. "Not a blowout. Something else."

Their path took them higher, mounting up the broken outpost, until they passed that great lip, and saw the insane morass of the Black City at its very heart. And that heart was beating.

It stood as a temple, one Aang had overlooked every time before now. It looked like it was made out of age-stained lead, dull and lusterless, but nevertheless metal, physical, and _heavy_. Every minute there came a new crash of metal against metal, as the form of that building buckled in and out slightly. Every time it buckled, a waft of sparking smoke, of mad colors drifted up from it. Inward he walked, down the banks of that place. Past buildings that had no doors. Past palaces without windows. Past libraries without books. Towers without bases, bridges without purpose, waterwheels standing in still, dead ponds. Towering structures, like the ones Aang had seen in Koh's nightmare, almost leaning over, imposing on those that stood below them.

And at the heart of all that, standing in the wide, empty clearing before the beating heart of the dying Spirit World... was Sharif.

The two shamans stared, bug eyed, at what they beheld. "He didn't," she said.

"He obviously did," her brother answered.

Sharif turned, slowly, and when he did, it was obvious to Aang why he moved so slowly. His skin was worn through, sloughing away where it wasn't outright _burning_. Below that mortal flesh was a roiling mound of spirits, so many pressed so tight that any normal man would simply think Sharif sunburned, that a new layer was healthy below. But Aang, Malu, and the rest? They saw the truth. There was almost nothing left of Sharif. His skin? Spirit flesh. His bones? Spirit flesh. His _brain_?

"_You heard me,_" Sharif whispered. Or rather, the spirits which made up his body whispered for him.

"You didn't have to do this," Aang said. Sharif smiled then, a distant and numbed smile.

"_Yes. I did. It had to be me_," he said. He slowly raised his arms, his robes burning away as he stood, unable to withstand the pressure of being in contact with so many spirits. Aang could see the Form of them. And their number? Almost incalculable. Billions. Aang flinched aside, as a Shard walked past him, eyes locked squarely on Sharif. "_I am the distraction. It can eat only of me. And while it chews... you will be able to hurt it_."

"Sharif..." Aang said.

Other Shards gathered, pressing closer, sometimes slipping into each other as they came. Soon, there were only nine that had walked past the shamans or simply walked through the thresholds of the city around them. They pressed tighter, walking up to Sharif. One of them reached a hand forward, its maw opening. The eyes grew, pulsed, the body became indistinct... and when it touched Sharif, it burst into flames, eaten from within. All of the Shards backed away, eyes turning to one another.

Then, the Shards began to change.

One became a lanky young man, hair unruly, eyes wedged as though an arrow lay through them. Another became older, more statuesque, taking the silhouette of Irukandji. Others took other forms. The Mountain King. Azula. Ozai. Zhao. There was even one with the beyond-black 'hair-loopies' of Katara.

"What are they doing?"

"_Opening the Maw_," Sharif said. "_Malu? Aang? Minions? You will know what to do_."

There was a grim nod from the first two. The second pair, though, glanced between themselves. "Who said we were minions?" he asked.

There was a fresh bang of metal against metal, and the sky turned a bruised color. Aang took a deep breath, and looked into his soul, to find the answers that he would need there. The true voice. The true mind. The true heart.

And at the same time, Aang felt something was missing. The Shards pulled together, fusing, becoming something less human, more grotesque, more indescribable. A beast of red eyes and darkness. Of infinite maws leading into infinite darkness. Then, with a crack of buildings crumbling, being ripped apart, a red line ran across the side of a concrete dam – one greater than any Aang had ever heard of.

And the Eye of Terror looked upon them once more.

* * *

><p>"Am I being clear?" Azula asked.<p>

"Perfectly, ma'am," Savir said with a nod. "Just tell us when to follow."

"We found her, Fire Lord," a new voice intruded on Azula's briefing with the Ghorkalai. She turned a hot glare at him, one that grew positively glacial when she saw who exactly the comment was intended toward. The guards came in, flanking and holding the arms of Akemi Fujitsuna. Ozai's mistress, then Zhao's. A faithless whore, in Azula's opinion.

"And there you are," Azula said. "I was wondering where you'd holed up."

"I am shocked at the treatment I face here," the courtesan said with only mildly ruffled feathers, as though this were a social faux-pas rather than... well, what it was. "I should think that the mother of the Fire Lord's heir would be treated with a bit more decorum."

"And she will be. When she is returned from Ba Sing Se," Azula said. "You, on the other hand? You aren't mother to anything. I found your daughter – _my half-sister_ – in the care of a nurse in a dingy corner of the palace. You discarded her the instant you switched your allegiance to Zhao. That is not the act of a mother."

"It was a matter of political reality," Akemi said smoothly. "I had to protect my child, and the only way I knew how was to keep her out of Zhao's sight, while I kept him distracted from her existence and fate."

"You're a decent liar," Azula said. "But I'm a better one. And a liar always knows when another liar is lying. I know what that girl is to you. She was a means to political power while you worked at my father's side," she leaned back, inspecting her nails with a bitter look on her face. "And if you had truly been faithful to Father... then you would have been there with him, in his imprisonment. You would have been there when he _died_. And if you'd done that, if you'd been there, like you claim you wished to be... then I would have had pity for you. Even sympathy. I would have found a place for somebody... close to Father's heart."

Fujitsuna began to shrug, a difficult gesture given that both guards still had her by the elbows.

"But," she raised a single finger, with a glare, "you left him to his demise without a second glance. You betrayed my blood, both in my father, and in my sister. And for that, you will not be prized. No, you will only find punishment for being so faithless."

"Please, have mercy, I simply..." Akemi said, her tones groveling, and absolutely insincere to one as versed at insincerity as Azula.

"The only mercy I grant you is that I think enough people have died today that I don't wish there to be another one," Azula said, her voice the edge of a headsman's blade. "You are banished."

"What?" Akemi asked.

"You are no longer welcome in this city, or this nation, or any holding which is affiliated with it," Azula said, ticking off fingers. "You have until the end of the day to exit the city, which will be made all the easier for you, as all of your possessions in the city which would 'slow your exodus' have been seized in the name of Father's second daughter. You will then be taken off of these shores, and any return to them will be met with the immediate pain of death."

"Mistress, please..." Akemi said.

"This is the price of your conspiracy, woman," Azula said, leaning in toward her. "You will have to live with the knowledge that the child you bore will be given splendor and education and opportunity, will be given all of the power and prestige of a member of the royal family... and that everything that you sought through her _will never happen_. She will live the life you tried to leverage her for. She will not bear the stain of your presence, your name, or your schemes. If I can manage it, she will likely not even learn that she and I don't share the same mother. You will be _erased_ from this place, Fujitsuna. _That_ is the price of your faithlessness. Take her away."

"You can't do this," Akemi said, her tones slipping out of their usual honeyed beg, into indignant and afraid.

Azula reached up to the five-point flame in her hair, as she turned away. She tapped it, once. "I believe I just have."

She probably glared at Azula, as the men began to bear her back. "You will regret this decision, _girl_."

"Not as much as _you_ will," Azula said, her voice a cheery sing-song. "And that gives me great joy."

"Harsh," Savir said from where he leaned in a doorframe. "But the right thing. You can't trust those vipers as far as you can spit at them."

"Have the Ghurkas assembled?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am, they have," he said. "Mine and the ones under Zhao."

"Will they learn fast enough?" she asked.

"Some of them. The rest are getting left," Savir said. "I wish I'd be going with you."

"Your people need you, and a non-firebender isn't going to be much use, sad to say."

"Still," Savir shrugged. She continued to walk, and he calved off, before turning to walk backward. "One more thing. Good that you brought in your sister," he said. She gave him a glance. "Enough families got torn apart in this war. Nice to see when one gets put together. More or less."

She continued, until she burst through the doors, out into the wind and snow, where almost a hundred Ghorkalai firebenders had assembled. She looked at them. They stared back. They swore to fight the unfightable... and she was going to give them a chance. Not a word said, but no words needed to be. They drew in behind her, as she walked toward the baked mud road to nowhere.

* * *

><p>"Argent Void, word of the long forgotten tome, bearer of the open secret, threshold into oblivion, come to my call!"<p>

"Aid in my vengeance! The great and misbegotten beast, black as death, false as doom, strike!"

The two shamans with Aang were already blasting out their litanies, and pulses of light lashed out of Sharif, where he stood, his arms raised, his body glowing. The darkness had moved in, surrounding them, reaching out with hateful claws, trying to reap them, to swallow them. To give it time to eat Sharif in peace.

"What do I do?" Aang asked Sharif.

"_I don't know_," Sharif said, his voice reflecting as though down a supremely long hallway. "_Find the words_."

Aang stared, his eyes drifting shut. And when they opened, they did so blazing white.

**I BID YOU BACK_._**

The words were thunder, punctuated by a crash of the beating heart of the Spirit World. Again it pulsed, and Aang looked up, into the sky above it. He could see the Form, here in the heart of the Avatar State, he could see what it was. There was a tearing, a layer of spirits torn from Sharif as a claw rended through him, but his body, flinching, remained. His face was one of agony, but he stood his ground.

**BEATING HEART OF THE SPIRIT REALM. THE HUB OF THE WHEEL. THE BEGINNING AND THE ENDING. WHAT WAS AND IS AND WILL BE, MANIFEST.**

**GEAR OF REALITY.**

The two shamans had to move closer, pressed in by the darkness, which now gave them only a few yards of room. Only the great Eye broke that darkness, because it and the darkness were one and the same. When the darkness was whole, then all of them would vanish into oblivion.

**SO BEATS THE HEART WITHIN YOUR BREAST, DESPERATE AND WEAK. LET SHINE ITS LIGHT INTO THE HEAVENS, LET SAIL ITS FORCE THROUGHOUT THE LAND.**

The Heart answered Aang's call, beating once more. A pulse of light shot up, parting the darkness for an instant, showing a golden sky above, before the darkness closed in once more. He understood, now, what this place was. What everything was. He knew that the 'Blowouts' that had ripped through the Spirit World for the last half-century were the desperate spurts of a world in pain and fear, trying to kick-start itself back into life. But every time it tried, Imbalance was there, eating the power, eating it. Undoing it.

A Spirit world without Imbalance would have restored itself decades ago. Of course, without Imbalance, it wouldn't need to restore itself at all.

**FULL OF THUNDER, FULL OF JOY, AN ENDLESS PLANE THAT HOLDS ALL THAT IS, WAS, OR EVER SHALL BE.**

**WHEN BEATS YOUR HEART, OUR HEART BEATS WITH IT.**

**WHEN STRUCK IN PAIN, OUR FLESH PAINS WITH IT.**

**WHEN BLEEDING DRY, WE BLEED WITH IT.**

There was a shriek of pain, and a reaving claw of blackness raked through Hisui. Aang slammed a hand onto her shoulder, though. A part of him knew the price, but was willing to pay it. Even as Imbalance unmade her, Aang gave her something. Enough to live. Enough to survive. She faded away, her body grey as a man sick to death, disappearing from their battle.

Her soul was gone, destroyed beyond reclamation, but, with what he'd given her, she'd live.

"HISUI!" Hai shrieked.

"_She will live_," Sharif whispered, his back still to them, even as the layer of flesh was stripped away, so that he now stood as but spiritual meat, upon spiritual bones. Aang wished he could feel the sympathy for a brother terrified, for a woman who's life would never be the same. But the crush of the Avatar State forsook that. It had purpose. A purpose, one for which the Avatar State existed in the first place.

**THERE STANDS THE DARKNESS, STIFLING, UNREAL. BEAT, YOU GLORIOUS HEART, AND LET YOUR MUSIC RISE.**

**THE DAWN SHALL COME, AND WITH IT, REBIRTH AND RENEWAL.**

**A NEW BEGINNING, AFTER SO MANY ENDINGS.**

**AND WITH IT...**

WITH THE COMING OF THE SUN, ALL TWILIGHT CAST AWAY

That line surprised Avatar Aang. He stood, and saw that Malu was with them, grasping a rope of that blackness, that claw of evil and annihilation. She held it, and it didn't destroy her. She looked back at him, and where Aang's eyes were blazing white, hers, somehow, a blazing black. "I finally understand," she said, as she heaved that darkness into her again. "It can't hurt me. I'm immune to it."

"**Then we shall fight it together**," Avatar Aang promised. A fresh claw raked through Sharif, and he screamed in agony at it, as his body was being unmade, the glut of spirits filling a maw to capacity, keeping it from pressing that darkness those final yards and undoing all.

"Won't matter much if..." Malu began.

Then, a thunderclap reached Aang's ears. He turned, to the path that had lead him here. There was a blue flash, and Imbalance recoiled. Again, with a new 'grunt' of pain from the Eye that stared with cthonic hate at them. Then, another thunderclap, another pulse of blue, barely visible through the black. Azula. No...

Then, another. And another atop it. A third.

Aang's eyes widened all the wider.

The thunderstrikes began to mound and crash, an unending stream of them, ripping at the darkness. Tearing at it. Stinging it with a hundred needles, and forcing it to recoil from what was causing it pain, while it was too busy to benefit from their assaults. Azula was here. And she came with an army.

"Did you really think I was going to sit back and let _you_ save the world?" She asked with a smirk on painted lips. Then, she thrust fingers, crackling with electricity forward. And as she did, so did a dozen others, mimicking her attack, some in her form, and others, in something new but just as effective. Until that moment, what Aang had felt for Azula was infatuation. Very strong infatuation, to be sure, but it was still something that, were the circumstances just the right sort of impossible, he could have set aside.

In that instant, in the depths of the Avatar State, Aang fell hopelessly in love with Azula.

"_I... I can't..._" Sharif whispered. A swipe, one that Malu caught. A second, behind her back, that she couldn't. It smashed through Sharif completely, striking all color from him, all spirits completely consumed, all things spent. Sharif was still there, though. He was pale and transparent, looking like a figure made of the clearest of glass, but left in place long enough to gain the slightest covering of dust. He wheezed, in pain, staring at his hands. "_I'm... I'm still..._"

And then, without any attack from Imbalance, or anyone at all, he drifted apart.

Avatar Aang knew that his time was now, or never. With Azula's army pounding the thing out from around them, into a single direction, it had definition. Instead of being an un-thing, which couldn't be attacked because there was no one way to do it, it had form. And with that, it had Form as well. So Aang raised his hands, which blazed with white tattoos and the power of all of the lives of mankind.

And more.

**UNBREAKING EARTH. UNTOUCHABLE AIR. DEPTHLESS WATER. UNQUENCHABLE FIRE. BRIDGE BETWEEN WORLDS, HOLDER OF ALL KEYS. MARK OF DESTINY. SOUL OF POWER.**

_**GEAR OF THE AVATAR**_

With Aang's words, he was no longer even close to alone. Korra appeared at his side, drifting together like coalescing smoke. She stood at Aang's side, her body dark of skin and full of flesh, younger than he remembered. Then, another version of her appeared at Aang's other side. Still dark fleshed, intact, as though alive, but it was this was the middle-aged woman who was Aang's fairly-well-known companion. Roku stood, beard blowing in the wind. Kyoshi glared down the Eye. Aang knew every Avatar, from the very beginning, who appeared in the space between Azula's army and Aang. And not simply the past. Men and women from possible futures. Daredevils and street rats. Spindly scholars and copper-haired soldiers. Azula pushed back the darkness. Malu pulled the darkness into her and away from those behind her. The National shaman held a blazing pyre above his hands, one made of every Void spirit in existence, just enough to keep those present inside its light.

_**INNUMERABLE**_** ARE MY FLESH****.**

Despite every Avatar now standing in ranks that began to circle Imbalance, giving the thing a boundary – A _body_ – more began to appear. Other Aangs. Other Korras. Other Rokus and Kyoshis and Vajrapatas.

_**INFINITE**_**, MY INCARNATIONS****.**

The Avatars grew ever more numerous, first thousands, then millions. Then billions. Then _more_.

**_UNFLINCHING_, MY POWER.**

All Avatars, including the one invoking them, raised hands high. The infinite Avatars now hemmed Imbalance from all sides. No longer was it boundless and unceasingly protean. It had a shape. It had a size. In a way that was only understandable in abstract, Imbalance had been 'out-infinited'. The red eye had been pressed down, from a thing which stretched the whole horizon, to something only as big as Appa.

**_ABSOLUTE_, MY PURPOSE.**

All stepped in, and Imbalance wailed as it was reduced. As the force of all Avatars that lived, every version of them, every _possibility_ of them, began to press in. It was a wall of absolute Reality, forcing the Unreal to follow its rules, and giving no other option.

**WITHIN MY SOUL SITS THE HEART OF ALL THINGS;**

**BEACON OF THEIR NOW DESPERATE HOPES,**

**STEWARD OF THEIR NOW BOUNDLESS RAGE.**

A fresh crash, as the heart beat once more, and with it, a blast of light raced up through the veil that Imbalance tried to put over it. It tore through the Beast, and reached into the heavens, where it burst with a crash, and a great wind began to blast out, away from the ruins of Sentinel Rock, and the Black City itself. It gained strength, speed, becoming a shockwave which would reach around the earth in two blows. The first, light and madness, tingling of ghosts on the hairs of the back of one's neck. Then, the second, when the uninhibited power of the Spirit World raced out, and seeded all that was. Power, once mad and frenzied, in the Blowouts of yore, now turned to its original and hopeful purpose.

**AND WHERE THE ENEMY, TWISTED AND INSANE, HAS WROUGHT THE GREATEST OF ITS DAMAGE,**

**I SHALL _RENEW_.**

The Avatars lowered their hands slowly, and took another step inward, pressing Imbalance down, even as the Black City around them began to shift and change. The despoiled almost-buildings changed, becoming whole. Becoming something real. Becoming something _alive_.

**YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE.**

**YOU ARE NOT REAL.**

**AND...**

Avatar Aang paused, the words stopping coming out. It was then that he knew the final truth. His pause was noted by those around. He couldn't _kill_ it, even now. There was nothing to kill. And if they didn't destroy Imbalance in its manifest state, it would return, as strong as ever.

"I can't hold it much longer," Malu screamed at the Avatar who now stood only a pace behind and around her. The National had been pared off, standing now at the fore of Azula's army, which had relented from their lightning bolts only because they'd be striking Avatars if they tried. Avatar Aang looked to her, who would sacrifice anything to make right mistakes forced upon her. And he spoke.

**AND YOU SHALL HAVE NO SANCTUARY.**

**I CAST YOU _OUT_.**

_**I CAST YOU DOWN.**_

Aang took that final step, as the darkness was crammed, whole and complete, into Malu. She let out a low moan of agony, feeling what she had worked so hard to excise falling back into place. But it would not have any chance to dig in its claws. Not this time.

A blazing hand slammed against her sternum, right above her heart. The other slamming a thumb upon the point of her arrow, his fingers reaching to her crown.

With his mind, he slid into her. His soul fell into the great spaces of nowhere, that could extend to infinity. The difference between soul and flesh, so great it couldn't be reckoned, yet so small that the two were intricately linked. He saw Malu's soul, there. In his mind, he saw images, of other Aangs, of other times. With a twist of effort, he could seal Malu's airbending away forever, or restore a broken soul to strength and life. Destruction and creation. That was the Avatar. The shadow of Imbalance was a scum to the brilliance of her soul, something petty and base, something far below. It tried to hide, seek shelter in what had been so safe for it. When Aang spoke the Words, there was nowhere left.

And when the Spirit world crashed into Avatar Aang's perception once more, he was forcing Malu to the ground, where she slipped out of the veils of reality. He knew that she would appear in safety – the Spirit Oasis in the South – but something was left behind. It stood as Malu had, black beyond black, Its eyes the only color in them. But there was a change. It wasn't a Shard. It was All of Imbalance, standing perfectly still, tilted back as Malu had been when Aang cast It out. Its eyes were not pulsating fissures into madness, but burning red and anatomically correct. Its maw was not infinite and cruel, but hidden behind black lips.

He had it.

It was here.

One by one, the Avatars winked out, returning to wherever, whenever, however they had come. Korra was the last, giving Aang a proud nod, before she drifted away as smoke in a breeze, quite unlike those vanishing before her. At last, there was only one. One, whose hands fell. One, whose eyes turned from blazing white... to exhausted grey.

"Aang?" Azula said, catching him the instant that he started to unbalance. "What was... that?"

"That's Imbalance, right there," he said. "I can't _destroy_ it. It just _can't be killed_."

"Can not, or _will_ not?" she asked.

"_Can_ not," Aang answered, shaking his head slowly. "I don't know what to do, now."

"You stopped it! Yes!" Irukandji's voice came from Aang's back, as the spirit slipped through the lines of Fire Nation soldiers. They all looked at her with confusion, but their wariness was focused more on the black clone of Malu that was still, even yet, to the Avatar's back. Irukandji's grin fell away, though, when she saw Imbalance. She started to turn grey. "You didn't kill it!"

"I don't know how to!" Aang said.

Irukandji's eyes snapped with lightning, and she let out a roar, one that raked the buildings around her with bolts, before she stood, panting hard enough that one could be forgiven for thinking she might pop out of her dress.

"You? Leave," Irukandji snapped at Azula.

"No," Azula said.

"Did I give you a choice?" Irukandji demanded, as she came closer. "The _important people_ need to talk now. Go away."

"You don't have..." Azula began, but Irukandji back-handed her. Aang's fist instantly lashed out with a punch – not firebending, not earthbending, just an honest to gods punch, that caused Irukandji to flinch a bit. But Azula was already gone. And with her gone, her army began to wink away as well, as the clay road fell away beneath them.

"You..." Aang began.

"I deserved that," Irukandji said quietly. Aang's outrage was cut short, by the haunted look on Irukandji's face. "Things won't be the same, I hope you realize."

"What do you mean?"

"The shape that the new Spirit world takes, it won't be anything like what came before it. The spirits will be different. Different places. Only the Sea of Souls will remain... because it _has_ to," the spirit said, walking up to the petrified form of Imbalance. "And it won't be sunshine and roses in the physical, either," she began to circle, as Aang gave a bewildered shrug. "Every spirit is gone, Avatar. _All of them_. Sure, big ones like Agni, me, the fishes, Koh, they all stayed out of this, but everything else is dead and eaten. That's going to echo into your world in ways..."

"What kinds of ways?" Aang asked.

"Everything will be a bid more drab," Irukandji said. "Not darker, just... _dimmer_. Bonfires won't blaze so bright or so hot. Laughter will be quieter. Losses, less heartbreaking. It'll be... numbed. Diluted. And I wouldn't count on any humans being _conceived_ for the next few years; the machinery of incarnation is... pretty destroyed. It'll grow back... everything will, in enough time, but still."

"Will the weather go back to normal?"

"Pretty much immediately," the spirit answered with a nod. "The last rains will fall in the Fire Nation, and the sun will come out. Storms will drop buckets onto the East. The seas will calm the hell down. This false winter? I give it a week before you see the grass again. But there's one thing... left to do."

"I'm ready," Aang said, straightening his back.

Irukandji stared at him for a long time, then shook her head, just once. "Not you," she said. "Me."

"...what?" Aang asked.

"Koh said, a long time ago, that I couldn't run from my fate forever. And he was right," Irukandji said. "I am one of the only spirits... no, strike that at this point, I'm the _only_ spirit which can eat human souls. And that's... pretty much what it'll take."

"What are you saying?" Aang asked. He didn't like having so many questions, but this was all so strange.

"Do you know what happens when one kind of spirit eats a _completely different_ one?" Irukandji asked. "It ain't pretty. You can't _kill_ it... but I can _eat_ it."

"You're going to _eat_ Imbalance," Aang repeated. Irukandji nodded, slowly.

"It'll have the worst of both of us. Its hunger, my ability to eat your kind... but it'll be so crippled, so _reduced_, that it'll _never_ be able to do something like this again. I won't be _me_, after I do this, Aang."

"If there was any way I could –" Aang began. Irukandji shook her head, patting him on the shoulder when she finished her circuit of Imbalance's still form.

"I know you would, kid," she said. She then reached toward the blackness, before pausing. "...right, I should probably get rid of the meat, first."

"Huuni," Aang nodded. Irukandji reached fingers to her temples, and there was a heady electric zap, one that stank of burnt flesh, before that flesh slowly pulled itself back together. "What was that!"

"Doing her a favor, and making her less of a brain-dead narcissistic bitch," Irukandji said. Gave a shrug. "I'm a giver."

Then, with a zap, like one of the capacitors outside Ba Sing Se blowing, Huuni was blown away, rolling to the ground and vanishing where those unable to keep themselves went – the South Pole, with Azula's force's exception. What stood before Aang was a spark in the vague shape of a man. "Funny," it said, with a much more androgynous voice. "I've spent what amounts to billions of years, staying away from things like this. Always running."

"Are... are you afraid?" Aang asked. Eyes which were merely darker points in its electric body pressed shut.

"Terrified," Irukandji admitted.

"You don't have to do this. There might be a–" Aang began, but Irukandji reached over and tapped him on the brow. Aang stood, stunned, for a moment. And when the stars left his vision, he looked upon Irukandji as he had before, but with one miniscule difference, one that Irukandji had put there. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you," he said, now perfectly accepting, if regretful, that this was going to happen.

"Just... remember who I used to be. You're the last one who ever will," Irukandji said. It turned toward Imbalance... and stepped into it.

A crash of thunder.

Then both were gone.

* * *

><p>The next day, the clouds parted.<p>

Sun streamed down, onto the snow-covered isles of the Fire Nation, blazing with heat that had for the last few months been denied to not simply this place, but everywhere in the whole, wide world. Snow melted, fast. Rivers became torrents. Floods were common. But still... it was sunny in the Fire Nation, bright and warm, for the first time in a generation.

The day after that, the sky burned red, as Sozin's Comet streaked close, dragging itself through the heavens and burning hard 'round the world, before being shot back off into space. Beyond the unusual sight, seen once a century, nobody even cared. But there was no celebration. There were no angry, spiteful losers in the Avatar's war against the Fire Lord, nor were there exultant victors. Everybody was just... tired. Nobody had it in them to be festive. There just wasn't the will to go around.

So found Aang, sitting on the roof of the palace of the Fire Lord. Fire _Lady_? What was the proper term for her, at this point? He just stared up at blue skies, at blazing sun that melted snow and showed a city transformed from his youth. Gone, the colorful roofs, painted scarlet, instead coated with dull tar to keep the rain out. Gone, nearly a quarter of the Upper City, destroyed in the near-eruption of the volcano. Gone, the milling crowds, so full of vibrancy and life that the then barely-thirteen-year-old Aang could never imagine them aggressors in a century-long war. The streets were quiet. There weren't many guards about, and those that were, looked half asleep in their posts. Not that they had anything to worry about. The same global lethargy afflicted would-be criminals just as badly. Too much effort to do... just about anything.

"I thought I'd find you up here," Azula's voice came from behind Aang. Her words had a very neutral tone to them. None of the sarcastic tweaking, the sing-song sardonism that she usually employed when talking to him.

"I was just... Watching."

"It's hard to believe," Azula said, as she sat down beside him, staring down just as he did, down that long drop and the wide open space beyond it. The great courtyard, and the villas of the rich and powerful. "It's over. And we won," she said. She then reached up, fiddling with the five-point flame still set in her hair. "And somehow, I ended up Fire Lord. The universe has a strange sense of humor."

"Yeah," Aang said.

"You're thinking about the scarred one, aren't you?" she asked.

"If he hadn't done what he did, that wouldn't have worked," Aang said. "And he's not even just dead, he's... _gone_. I never thought I'd see _Nila_ cry, but..."

"Her mother as well," Azula nodded, so quietly. "She tries to hide it."

"What a weird family," Aang said. Again, Azula could only nod, but this time, there was a smirk that told she recognized the irony of that. "Your brother should be... about half way back by now."

"With Mother," Azula said, to a shake of her head. "_There's_ a conversation I'm not looking forward to."

"It'll be alright," Aang said. "There's no way she's not proud of you."

"I know," Azula said.

"Have you checked in on Malu?" Aang asked, turning to her. "I couldn't..."

"Injured. Doubtful she'll flying around the world any time soon, but she'll survive," Azula said. "You airbenders always do."

"I'm not really an airbender anymore," Aang said.

"Not this again..." Azula said. "Just because you –"

"I can't afford to be. I'm the Avatar. That's bigger than just being an airbender. And I'm going to have to be..._ that guy_. Somehow."

"You'll find a way," Azula said.

There was a long silence, as Aang felt Azula's hand cup his.

"Azula?"

"Hm?"

"What do we do from here?" Aang asked, grey eyes locking with gold for just a moment. It was a good moment. Then, she looked to the horizon.

"I couldn't begin to describe..." she said, staring into the distance.

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>

**of Book 3: Order**

* * *

><p><span>Coming Soon<span>

Epilogue: Thirteen Years


	61. Epilogue: Thirteen Years

The nightmare was long and dull, a thudding of sensations like deep bass drums, striking so slowly that it reverberated through her being. There weren't any particular images that she saw. Only the sensation of fear. Of abandonment. Of confusion and terror. She wanted it to stop. She wanted things to make sense again.

It wasn't an issue of opening her eyes, and dismissing the dream; the dream lingered, long after her eyes could see. It clung to her, demanding that it be the only thing she saw or heard. But slowly, like a curtain being drawn away from a window, it parted. It parted, and she realized that the indistinct shapes she saw constructed a face, and one she knew fairly well. She blinked, slowly. It felt like her eyes had been coated in tar, so much effort was needed.

"...Kori?" she asked. The Tribesman leaned back, sitting on a stool next to a bed, a fatigue in his dark blue eyes, and a fading bruise on his face. "Where am I?"

"Mori-Sakai Sanitarium," he said simply. He gave a shrug. "You were out of it for a few days, Yoj. Had a lot of people scared."

She blinked, then shook her head. "Ozai. I had to find..."

"Dead. Dead long before you even started looking for him," Kori said gently. "It wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't my fault?" she said, bristling. "Then Zhao is still on the Burning Throne?"

"No. Azula," Kori said. She stared at him, poleaxed. "I know. Shocking. But a lot's happened in the last few days. Saved the world, you might say."

"Is she awake?" another voice came from the other side of the door – which lay open to the hall in what had to be a gross violation of sanitarium security procedure. She pushed herself back on the cot that she found herself sitting on, even as Kori tucked the glowing water from his hands into their flasks. "I thought I heard her voice."

Another Tribesman, one she knew and set her teeth into a grit, appeared, stepping into the threshold, looking down at her. He was a middle-aged man, a tribesman with pinned back hair and a beard that followed his jaw and chin. The man who claimed he was her father.

With a snarl, she reached for the fire of the candle, and tore it, expanding it even as she did so, so that she could sent a blast of inferno at him.

Only the candle didn't so much as flicker. Instead, a cup on the table tipped over, and spilled onto the floor. The man gave a step back, his hands up before him. "Hey, it's alright, Hikaoh..."

"My name is Yoji," she snapped. The man nodded.

"I don't care what I have to call you. I just want my daughter back," he said.

"I will never 'go back'," she said. "You... You couldn't protect me."

"It haunted me for years," the man said with a nod, and an expression that showed real and long-standing pain. "I would have given anything to know that you were alright. That you were safe. Even if it was as you are now."

"You're lying."

"He's not lying," another voice came, and the middle aged man stepped aside. Yoji's eyes bulged wide, as she saw something utterly impossible. Omo, in the flesh, stepping into the room. "Turns out, not every parent that 'gave their children to the Children' did so willingly."

"No. This can't be possible," she shook her head. Omo sighed, and pulled up at his shirt, exposing his side. Just at the bottom of his ribs, there was an uneven star of scar-tissue, indented at its center.

"Not impossible, just very, very unpleasant," Omo said. He gave a shrug. "On the plus side, I did manage to lead Long Feng's army to an absolutely crushing defeat. I wish I could have seen his face when he ran off with what was left of his army. He's probably back to the East by now."

"W...why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you send a message?" she asked, hurt entering her voice the same way it had the older man's expression.

"I would have, if I could have. But..." he shook his head. "Look, I heard how things went so wrong with Zhao and everything. But we've got a chance to make it right again. We're loyal to the Burning Throne. And the Fire Lord even decided not to have us all executed for... well... trying to assassinate her, so I consider that a noble pursuit."

"I don't... this is..." she held her hands up, trying one final time to summon the flames into them. Nothing. She stifled a sob, but tears still came to her eyes. "I'm not a firebender anymore..."

"That doesn't bother me," Omo said.

"Yoji," the older Tribesman said, his word choice obviously very deliberate. "My name is Hakoda. I know that you feel overwhelmed... but if you ever want to talk to me, to the rest of your family – and _you do have a family_ – we will be there for you. That's the thing about Tribesmen. We always have family, we always have clan, and we always have Tribe," he turned to Kori. "We can still wait if that's what you feel is best."

"No," Kori said. "Might be better for her to get used to this on her own."

"What?" Yoji asked.

"Apparently I've got a mother and a sister living in the southernmost reaches of the planet," Kori said with a neutral shrug. "I figure it might be high-time to actually meet them."

"You're... you're leaving," she said. "To go to them?"

"Call it a vacation," he said. "Agni knows, we all deserve one."

"...what do I do now?" Yoji asked. Omo sat down on the bed beside her, taking her hand in his. Just that feeling... it felt good. He looked into her eyes, and gave a tilted smile.

"That, Yoji, is entirely up to _you_," he said, to the nodding of two Tribesmen beside him.

* * *

><p>The palace was much as Ursa remembered it, but subdued. There was a pall over the entire place, one that reminded her of the quiet terror all had to live with under Azulon. She knew that killing him was the only proper course, after he demanded Azula killed. She was not going to sacrifice her children for an old monster. And in doing, she inadvertently created a younger one. She expected that Zuko would repulse her, feeling scorned for her obviously unequal treatment of the two of them. Instead, he welcomed her back with open arms. She expected that Azula would be dead by now, the way that she was acting last... and instead...<p>

Her daughter was sitting in the center of a 'U' shaped arrangement of tables, well down from the Burning Throne itself, surrounded on all sides by maps, charts, and paperwork. She seemed to flash between them fast enough that the arrangement was probably built around her to keep up with her, rather than her adjusting to it. She didn't even notice Ursa until she was practically right in front of her. And when she did, it was a flick up, registering her with eyes so much like Ursa's own, before giving a nod, and returning to her work.

"...Azula?" Ursa asked.

"Yes, Mother?" she asked.

"...what are you doing?"

"Planning," she said.

"For what?"

"I have several years to put into place an incredible amount of social changes and compromises to prevent civil war or retributive genocide," she answered clearly. The accent which had haunted every word she spoke since she first took her sickness was gone entirely, as though it never was. "This 'deadening' actually works for me for a change. Nobody will have enough passions to be riled into rebellion. At least, not for a while."

"You're not... surprised to see me? Or angry?" Ursa asked. At that, Azula did stop with her scheming, and looked up.

"When you and I spoke last, I was... not myself," Azula said primly.

"Azula..."

"What is it?" she asked, impatience starting to eat into her tones. Which sounded more like the Azula that Ursa had known all those years ago.

"Are you alright?" Ursa asked.

"I will manage," she said quietly. Ursa was for a moment confused. Surely she couldn't be taking Ozai's demise so hard...

But then again, Azula was still Ozai's daughter, and unlike her brother, she never tried to deny that fact.

"But that isn't important now. What is, is finding a way to 'end the war' such that nobody wants to immediately start another one," Azula said.

"Azula?" the Avatar said, popping into the room with all the haste of a monsoon wind, a grin on his face... and some brown thing dangling from his arms. "I found Kuchi!"

Her expression brightened just a bit, as the boy whom by all rights should be Azula's enemy let the brown beast down, and it bombed happily toward Azula, before tackling her onto her back, and licking at her face. And Azula... _laughed_. Ursa just watched it all with the dull confusion of a hammer-struck hippo-cow. The Avatar sidled up beside her, a sunny if tired smile on his face.

"So you're Azula's mom?" he asked. "I'm Aang! I'm the Avatar."

"So you are," Ursa said.

Gravely chuckling came from Ursa's back, and she watched as Iroh and Zuko both entered, the former holding what looked to be a one-year-old girl. So that would be Ozai's marital indiscretion, then? There was a hot sting of betrayal at that. The years before Azula's sickness were hard ones, and the only comfort that she had before the children was in Ozai's idealism. That he could be a _better_ Fire Lord than his father had been. And part of her, even now, still wished that she could have that man back, as he was, in that time. Now, gone forever.

"I thought that it might be best if we all had a nice long talk," Iroh said evenly. "As a family."

Azula finally pushed the brown beast off of her, where it sat, wagging its stub of a tail, tongue hanging out of its mouth, and she gave Iroh a nod. "That would probably be for the best," she said. "Avatar?" Ursa said.

"Yes?" the airbender monk said distractedly.

"Some privacy?" Ursa asked.

"No, he should probably be here for this," Azula said, snapping her fingers and having some aids bring seating for them all. Azula, with the five-point flame of the Fire Lord in her hair. She sat down, and looked to the Avatar, then back to Azula.

"..._why_?" Ursa asked.

"Long story," Zuko said, rolling his eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue:<strong>

**Thirteen Years**

* * *

><p><em>A Year Later:<em>

The pall that hung over the South Water Tribe – or rather, _The_ Water Tribe, as there was no longer a 'North' to distinguish itself against – wasn't the same as the one which had blanketed the world. No families were expanding, though that was to be expected; besides a few children conceived _before_ the 'end of the world', and born _after_ it, the South had become a stagnant place. And so too had the world. But the faces staring back at Katara and Sokka were by times familiar, and by times not. Some old familiar faces. Bato and his wife. Ogan and Sedna and pale-skinned, amber eyed Benell. Kori – who was also Ked. But the one who stood at the forefront, the one who had a face flat of emotion and grim of stance, was Gran Gran.

"You were cast out of this place," Kana said gravely. "Your actions brought woe to our people, and you return. What right have you to come here?"

"The right of a child of Niira-Qatouravut," Katara said with equal gravitas.

"And what reason should you be forgiven your transgressions?" Gran Gran asked, her voice as ruthless as the tradition demanded she be. Katara could tell that it hurt her to say what she said, but... she had to say it.

"We have done great service to the Tribe," she said. "We have brought home a broken and scattered people, to make both greater. We have returned the stolen children of the Lost Generation. We have ended the World War."

"We have saved the world," Sokka added, somewhat flippantly to her listing. She shot him a 'would you please shut up!' look, one that he flinched when he realized the importance of what was going on.

"Your _father_ brought the tribes together," Kana said. "The same Fire Nation prince who was the source of your banishment freed the Lost Generation. The Avatar ended the World War."

That was something that Katara hadn't prepared for, but knew was part of the judgment. She sucked cold air through her teeth, then looked her grandmother dead in the eye.

"I have saved the life of the Avatar," she said.

"And so did I," Sokka said with a nod.

There was quiet murmuring through the crowd. Most simply watched, mildly baffled – those from the North had their own traditions, divorced from the South's own. Those who spoke were neighbors and old friends. Old rivals. Kana turned to those behind her. "Does this warrant their return? Have they done enough to erase their debts?"

"Yes," Sedna said immediately. Ogan gave a silent nod, adding his agreement to hers.

"She has saved my own life as well. Without her, I would be a corpse beneath Ba Sing Se," Bato added.

"They have saved all of us," Yue's voice cut through the cold and the wind. She moved to Kana's side. "If they remain banished, then I will join them."

"Then," Kana said, a twinkle coming to her eye, "to prevent a mass-exodus of our Tribesmen, I lift the exile from your people. Welcome to the Water Tribe once more, Katara and Sokka, children of Hakoda. Welcome back, Hik–" Dad immediately let out a chirp, and leaned in on Kana's other side, whispering something into her ear. "Welcome back, _Yoji_."

The third of them looked pretty miserable, bundled in twice as much clothing as was needed, but then again, so too were most of the other Lost Children. The only reason she looked like she wasn't going to run away was because of the earthbender next to her. "_See? That wasn't so bad_," Omo said, his baritone holding just a hint of mirth.

"_These people are crazy to live somewhere this cold_," their sister muttered.

"_Yup_," Omo agreed. "_And it's in the blood, obviously_."

With the formalities over, Sokka pelted up to Dad, talking animatedly with both he and their new step-mother. Tanuuit was still every bit as meek as she'd been under Arnook's fist, and Dad didn't force her to be anything else. If she wanted to be in the background, he let her be. It was the same reason that when they got their sister back, she was still Yoji. Whatever it took was good enough.

"So!" Kori said in moderately accented Yqanuac, as he walked forward to Katara's side. "I'm surprised to not see Nila – and thus, surprised to see Yoji as civil as she's being – with you when you came back."

"Yeah," Katara said with a shrug. "They broke up a couple months back."

He gave her a full look at that. "Really? And here I thought it was a match made in a special sort of hell."

"Well, come on," Katara said evenly. "They're both teenagers! And they get on each other's nerves, and they argue constantly... I'm amazed they lasted as long as they did."

"True enough, Katara, true enough," Kori said. He turned to Yoji, who glared at him. "_And this must be a shocking experience for you as well_."

"_Go die_," Yoji muttered.

Kori chuckled. "_Ah, you never change, do you?_" he asked. He looked to Omo. "_She giving you any trouble?_"

"_Not really,_" Omo said. "_Now that you're not around, she's not annoyed nearly as often._"

"_If you want, you can come to Dad's house any time you want_," Katara said, pointing at the Chief's Palace – which was a grandiose title for a pretty simple two-story construction of expensively earthbent soapstone and granite. A lot of buildings were starting to rise up in stone. With so many people in one place, the migratory lifestyle of the South was coming to an end. Yoji gave a nod, before moving back into Omo's proximity. It was obviously one of the only comforts of the familiar that she had right now.

Everything in its time.

With the crowds dispersing, Katara went to her father, who was already waving a momentary farewell to Sokka, who was off to parts unknown. "Dad?" she asked.

"Katara," he said. "It's been too long since you were home, and that's a simple fact."

"Well, we had to earn our way back," Katara said with a roll of her eyes.

"Tradition is part of the Water Tribe. You can't just ignore it because it's inconvenient," Hakoda said. He guided her along the streets with a hand at her back. "So what's going on up in the 'civilized world'? I don't get a lot of news down here."

"Well, Long Feng limped back to Ba Sing Se, which you're probably aware of," Katara said. "Azula's got a lot of... well, a _staggering_ amount of stuff she needs to do. I don't know if she even bothers to sleep these days. And Aang, well... He's practically working himself to death like she is."

"I hope those two would find a way to make it work," Hakoda said with a distant note of happiness in his voice.

"Dad, he's fourteen, and she's sixteen! People don't just 'fall in love' like that," she pointed out.

"I saw the way he looked at her," Hakoda said quietly. "Like there would never be anybody else in the world who would make him whole. I know how that feels Katara. I felt that way about your mother. I don't doubt that one day, _she'll_ see _him_ much the same."

"Then what about," she motioned behind them, to where Tanuuit had vanished completely.

"Different," Dad said. "Different reasons, looking for different things. It's not the same as Kya, and I never expected it would be. She needs somebody to help her shine, and she wants somebody to help heal a wound in her heart," Katara shook her head slightly. "Katara, she's a good person. Just... not very fiery."

"That wasn't for you," she said.

"Ah," he said, motioning ahead, which likely indicated Sokka. "You're worried about him?"

"He's been... different," Katara said. "On edge. Snappy, ever since the thing with Nila."

"I wouldn't blame her," Dad said softly. "She's going through a lot right now with her own family. And losing her brother... it injured her in a way I'm pretty sure she doesn't know how to express."

"Oh, she doesn't lack for ways to express it," Katara said with a laugh. "Usually very loudly, and punctuated with gunshots."

"She'll find her level," Hakoda said. "And what about you? We've done a lot of talking about other people, so what about you?"

"There's not much to say," Katara said. "Still training my waterbending, still trying to teach Aang, when he wasn't busy with everything else. I'm just glad to be home. Have some time to rest."

Hakoda nodded. "That's what _a lot_ of people need right now."

* * *

><p>In a dead tree, surrounded by shadows that leaned away out of fear, the chittering of legs sounded, as a great body began to shift and move in the darkness. There was a spark, oily and foul, in the center of that place, where it had come across great distances through a void greater than any that most could imagine. But for Koh... well, he could imagine rather a lot.<p>

"_I see what's become of you. And I am honestly surprised. I would have thought you would balk at the critical moment. Instead... you chose to be selfless._"

The Face Stealer spoke as his body coiled 'round that spark, that guttered and grew with his words. A face, with a distant almost-smile, blinked into being, as Koh leaned in close. The spark stretched out arms and legs from its mass, the darkness, the oiliness gathering into a pair of black eyes, and a black gap for a mouth. It stared back at Koh. Unafraid.

"I'm... feeling a bit hungry," the corrupted, the diseased spirit said. Its eyes pulsed and flexed, but it was not an expression. If it was, Koh would have taken it. "And I feel like... I should have somebody for dinner."

"_You have a new life, Irukandji, God of Terror. What will you do with it?_"

Black eyes looked up to Koh's own. The stretching of the maw was something like a smile without being an expression, something like lunacy in something like a face. "Oh, I can't _begin_ to describe. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner! The things I can see, the things _I could do_! Spectacular! And..."

"_And you will not do them here. This place is too wounded. To unsound_."

The twisted spirit leaned away from Koh, as he uncoiled, blinking its face into the demonic mask that so unsettled the likes of Avatar 'Aang'. It turned to look at Irukandji in profile. "You can't tell me what to do," Irukandji declared, thrusting out a thunderbolt-finger. "I am greater than..."

"_You are diseased, and corrupted. And now, you are an integral part of reality. I find the irony spectacular. I couldn't have planned better_."

It continued to uncoil, its back-end chittering up the dead wood, until only its face, its foremost claws remained in sight, outside of those shadows.

"_And there are things that you have not seen. People you have not met. Wouldn't you rather... a change of scenery? Wouldn't you rather a change of... pace?_"

Irukandji, or what Irukandji had become, gave that not-quite-a-smile once more. "Yes. Yes, I think I'll enjoy that rather immensely," it turned around, lightning snapping off every movement. "I wonder if I can find some nice psychopath to eat. Nobody'll mind if I trim the crazies. And who knows?" it cast a last look over its shoulder, by pressing its features through the back of its head, "_I might even find a world where the Avatar doesn't win..._"

* * *

><p><em>A Year Later<em>:

There was a headache working its way into the backs of Azula's eyes, which let her know that yes, she had been up for twenty-four hours straight again. The rising sun didn't so much fill her with vigor and vitality, as a sick sensation in her stomach and a disappointed dread of the work that she'd have to face once she woke up from her inevitable spate of unconsciousness. To her credit, she'd done a remarkable amount of legislatory and administrative work in the last two dozen months, her 'free pass' to do the disruptive and anger-riling things while the people around her didn't care about disruption, and didn't have the anger to be riled.

"You should rest," Zuko said, as he gave a stretch, before kneeling down at her side. As Azula's 'heir', he had a lot of work to do as well. Only he, bereft of the monumental responsibilities of her position, actually got to sleep from time to time.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," Azula muttered.

"You'll die if you don't sleep," Zuko reminded her.

She shook her head, though, kneading her brow as she did. "This is all going to explode once people start _caring_ again. There's got to be something I'm overlooking."

"Zuli, you've done more in two years than Ozai did in six, and you didn't take part in a genocide, so that means you're already a better Fire Lord."

"Heh," she offered. "Don't call me Zuli."

"It's my right as an older brother," Zuko said blithely, a smirk on his face. Now that his hair was pinned up properly, the burns on the side of his face and neck were obvious once more. Once, they were a symbol of shame for him. Now, they were the badges of survival, that he had taken the worst that her father could give and came back fighting. For that reason alone did the Embiar put up with him. "Azula. Go to bed," he said. "I can take care of this."

"Fine," she muttered, getting to her feet and shaking off a moment of dizziness; she'd been in one position for so long that her blood had pretty much pooled, and getting out of it was a bit of a shake to her system. She started to walk toward the passage that ran parallel the Burning Throne – an edifice that hadn't had anybody sit on it in the better part of a year and a half, since her 'official coronation' – and towards the bed-chambers. She only gave a fraction of a mind to reaching her own private rooms. They were rather far away. So she immediately decided that the first unoccupied room that she found, she was going to sleep in it.

She had almost reached the door when the great portal into the Burning Throne Chamber was thrown open with a bang of metal against wood. Azula stopped, turning back, as she heard the rattle of metal armor upon a running man. Woman, actually. The armor was red and gold, the plate of the Children, and the woman within it looked not much older than Azula herself. "Lord Zuko? Where is the Fire Lord?"

"She is indisposed," Zuko said.

"I'm right here, Zuzu," Azula said loudly from her near-escape. "What is it?"

"You gave us an imperative to monitor the city," the Azuli Child said.

"And you were to report to me the first instance of a new pregnancy," Azula prompted, approaching her servant. Many of the Children were shocked that she didn't have them disbanded, or executed, considering their antagonism of her in the past. Azula knew the value of loyal, competent agents. They weren't something to throw away lightly.

"Which honestly I never understood, but..."

"It is a matter of grave international importance," Azula pressed, standing before her agent. "And may I presume...?"

"Yes, Fire Lord," the Child gave a nod and a brief bow. "A tanner in the outer city-limits recently threw a celebration for his wife's first expected child. We've verified from... some unusual sources... that she would be three months pregnant at most."

"Three months," Azula said. She turned to Zuko. "Then that means things are going to start coming flying apart in earnest."

"Azula. Go. To. Bed," Zuko said, pointing.

The Child gave Zuko a confused look. "I don't have time to sleep. Things are returning to normal, and that means I'm out of time. I need..."

"To sleep. And if I have to, I will burn everything on this table so that you have no reason not to," Zuko said, pointing at the almost innumerable reports and orders out-going that she'd spent her hours working on.

"You wouldn't dare," Azula's eyes flashed.

"You know I would," Zuko answered, his arms crossing. Her lips twisted, and then she rolled her eyes.

"Fine. If only to keep you from ruining all my hard work," she muttered, before heading out once more. Sleep would be the last thing on her mind, she predicted. Instead, she had to prepare, now more than ever. There would be recriminations, people baying for blood, for cash, for power. And she had a visit to make to somebody half-way around the world, at this opportune time. Probably not the wisest of decisions, but Agni damn it all, she wanted to see him _squirm_. She reached the first unoccupied room, and lay herself on the bed without so much as removing her slippers, prepared to spend some time thinking.

It was about thirty seconds before she was asleep.

* * *

><p>"Is that paperwork I hear?" a familiar voice pulled Zuko away from his appropriated work, as a familiar face entered. Toph Beifong, large as life. And growing larger, so it seemed. She must have gained almost a foot in the last two years. She was still far shorter than Zuko, but she was certainly... something. She sauntered into the chamber of the Burning Throne as though she owned it – which was to say she walked as she usually did, before plunking herself down on the cut obsidian floors on the other side of the tables. "Zuko, you poor, sad sap. Sittin' here playing with numbers when there are heads to crack."<p>

"You know full well that I'd be cracking heads if it meant that we didn't have to fight another war next week," Zuko said patiently. He held up a sheaf of paper and gave it a rustle for her to hear. "This is doing exactly that. So I do my part."

"Peh," she dismissed with a wave of her hand. "Come on. Your sister won't know if you've goofed off for an hour or two. And besides, you're a frickin' prince! If you can't run off and leave problems for your liege, then what's the point?"

"Toph, I can't just..."

She removed the option by reaching across the table and grabbing his wrist, and physically hauling him past his work, scattering it as he stumbled, until he was being drawn out of the chamber. A few guards rattled weapons, looking mildly confused and concerned, but a shake of Zuko's head had them return to their stations. Toph was a known presence here... and known also were her tendencies.

"Fine. You got me out of the room," Zuko said, passing the paper he'd held to somebody outside, flicking his head back toward the table as a silent order. "I suppose you've been making trouble for the last few months?"

"You know it!" Toph said. "Dropped by Sokka and Twinkletoes up in Yu Dao. Almost started a war. Stopped a war. No biggie," she said.

"How is Sokka doing, these days?" Zuko asked, still being led along by Toph's strong, callused hand.

"Oh yeah, he just broke up with Nila."

"He did that years ago."

She shot a look to Zuko's right, one of strained patience. "No, I mean that he got back together with Nila, then they broke up again," she said.

"...why?" he asked.

"I don't know. It had something to do with an acrobat and an earthbender," she shrugged.

"Acrob... Ty Lee?" he asked.

Toph snapped her fingers. "Yeah! That's the one!" she said. "I hear it was a massive blow-out. Explosions and everything!"

"I wouldn't want to be on Nila's bad-side," Zuko muttered.

"So you're _sane_, then," Toph said. "Bet ya' a hundred gold Weight that they'll be married in a couple of years."

"Sokka and Ty Lee?" Zuko asked.

"Sokka and Nila," Toph said.

"But you just said..."

"I know what I said," Toph cut him off, as she barged through the doors that lead into the courtyard. It was a very different place than Zuko remembered from his childhood. For one thing, even now, in the depths of Fire Nation winter, it was still hot, dry, and sunny. The sunlight which had been a so-long-wished-for blessing had also been something of a curse, though; a lot of farm-land tended for a generation was now hopelessly dry, and required expensive irrigation to plant. A lot of farmers walked away from family lands, because they didn't have the money to adapt.

Toph, though, either didn't know about that or didn't care – likely a combination of both – and turned to Zuko, a smile on her face, and a little bit of a blush near the bridge of her nose. "So, now that I've gotten you out of that dungeon..."

"What is it with the two of us and dungeons?" Zuko asked with a distant smile.

"I'm half-way thinking that you like being tied up and beaten," Toph gave a laugh, blind eyes shining.

"Depends who's doing the beating," Zuko said, then stopped. "Wait, I didn't mean..."

"HA!" Toph bellowed. "Ah, there's a reason I like you."

She finally released his hand, but he took absolutely no effort to move away from her, instead closing in behind her, his arms wrapping 'round her belly, drawing her close. She let out a self-conscious little grunt at that, like she didn't want to be seen like this. Too bad. "I missed you," Zuko said. And with a smile cast straight ahead of her, as she had no real need to turn it toward its destination, she answered:

"...I missed you too."

* * *

><p><em>A Year Later<em>:

Long Feng was having a long night. After years of quiet and calm in his city, things were starting to unravel in ways that he could neither predict nor understand. Once placid and controlled citizenry began to complain, to lash out against the people of the Dai Li, as though that weren't directly feeding their own demise. Didn't these people know that the only thing the Dai Li existed for was to keep their lives safe, orderly, and placid?

It was one of many sleepless nights that he'd had, and likely would be only one of several more this week. He stepped out from behind the badgermole baldachin and skirted the throne, preparing to head to the 'royal library'... but something arrested him before he could begin that crossing.

There was somebody sitting in the throne, draped in shadows.

"Who is there?" Long Feng demanded, fists raising, the stone crackling slightly at his feet.

"...There once was a viper and a turtle-duck," a woman's voice said there. "They were trapped on a river-bank, as a forest-fire burned toward them. 'Allow me onto your back and swim me across', asked the viper. But the turtle-duck denied him. 'If I bear you, you will bite me, and we will both die', he said," Long Feng began to look around, scan the room, to see if this was as it appeared – unlikely – or something altogether more strange. "...but the viper swore to the turtle-duck 'the fire will burn me to death if I don't cross this river. I know the doom that awaits if I bite you'. And the turtle-duck accepted that. The viper took to the turtle-duck's back, and the turtle-duck began to swim. But when they reached the center of that river, the viper bit the turtle-duck. As the turtle-duck grew weak, flailed, started to drown, it looked to the viper and asked 'why have you done this? Now we will both die'. And the viper answered it..."

"Because it's my nature," Long Feng finished.

"No," the woman said, and ignited a ball of blue flame above her palm, displaying the visage of Azula... and she wore the regalia of the Fire Lord, as all the reports had indicated, despite his every disbelief. "The viper said 'I can swim'."

Long Feng took a step back. "What are you doing here?" he demanded of the intruder.

"I wouldn't bother calling your Dai Li agents. They have been... momentarily indisposed," Azula said. She rose, keeping that ball of flame above her palm. "You were right, you know? What you said that day. I wasn't a player in your game. That's what happens when you play the game another has set out for you; you're a slave to their rules. So I refuse to play," and a smirk came to bright red lips. "Only now, I play my own game. How does it feel, to be a mere piece on the board?"

"You speak bravely, but you are not in the Fire Nation anymore," Long Feng pointed out. "This... bragging... will not earn you anything, and will probably cost you far more than you know."

"You keep believing that you matter. The age which is coming has no place for you. You can flail and fight all you want, but your words are meaningless, your acts, sad and doomed to fail," she said. "The Earth King is going to have his throne back. You aren't going to be anywhere near when it happens. The future is coming, and you're not in it."

"I make my own future."

"And again with the haughty proclamations," Azula rolled her eyes. "Considering the sheer amount of time I've considered the joy of popping you like a zit, your intransigence i–"

And for an instant, she was gone.

An instant later, she was standing there again, only she had a sheen of sweat and her clothes were singed and ripped. She looked around for a moment, a haunted look to her, before steeling herself and locking eyes with him once more. She cleared her throat, her stance shifting from one of immediate combat to one more refined and overpowering, if with an odd sense of a form of tension that he had a fair notion he wouldn't be able to manipulate hiding behind those eyes. "...is the last thing I want to hear ab– out of you," she said, catching herself as though she'd had to remember what she was talking about. Still, Long Feng was off-put enough to not take that for weakness, but the side effect of something very, very strange. She took a sashaying stride toward him, not in seduction, but of pure and unabashed _authority_, manifested in feminine form. "But I'm going to be _nice_. I'm not going to kill you. Instead, I'll just wait until the Avatar comes for you, sooner or later. Because he will. And when he does, you're going to regret the things you did against him."

"So you are his messenger girl?" Long Feng asked, leaning back and away from her.

She gave a condescending smile. "No. Consider me a courier. I deliver messages, and I get paid for it. Of course, _you'll_ be the one paying; I've already extracted my fee," Long Feng glared at her. "Don't be so brusque; it's not like _you_ deserved to have the Earth King's Seal to begin with. And I must say, even if Aang _doesn't_ bother knocking on your door, I think that your days are numbered all the same; there's a fire in the people of Ba Sing Se, one that's been simmering for a long time... and all it needs is some tinder to burst into flames. So I'm giving you a friendly warning. Run. While you still can."

"I will not run from my duty," Long Feng said.

She shrugged. "So be it. Don't say I didn't warn you," she waved behind her as she walked away, her voice sing-song and overly bright.

"Guards. Restrain the Fire Lord and return what was taken," Long Feng ordered. Nothing happened. No agents – who should have been closing in the entire spiel – leaping out of the shadows to capture her. Just the faint slap of her bootheels on the floor as she moved away in her pool of azure light.

"Momentarily. Indisposed," Azula said, continuing to walk. Then, there was a rumbling sound that echoed through the halls, as something massive and furry – six legged – walked into the pool of light at the far end of the hall, where Azula was walking. At its brow was not the Avatar, as Long Feng had presumed, but instead a woman in orange robes, blue tattoo vanishing into her hair. "Right?"

"Yup," the airbender nun – one whom he in retrospect had seen very briefly years before – said with a nod. "Do you think he'll be angry about the hole we made in his roof?"

"What hole?" Long Feng demanded. Azula answered by, just before she reached the beast, tearing lightning into her hands, and casting it at the ceiling at the center of the Earth King's throne room. There was a great crack of rock breaking and falling, an aperture to the outside world appearing there. Azula smirked, and was lifted up on a gust to the bison's back.

"That one," Azula said.

"What happened to your dress?" the nun asked, as the bison let out a grunt and rose off of the floor.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Azula muttered, shaking her head. Then, a symbol of the chaos which had become Long Feng's life, the pair of them rose up, slipping out of that new-minted hole, and vanished into the night.

Forget sleepless nights; Long Feng was in for sleepless _months_.

* * *

><p>Aang was, as he frequently found himself, sleeping with a book in his hands. It was a habit he'd gotten into in the last few years; as one of the two remaining airbenders, he had to preserve their lore, even if within his own mind. Having Malu to take up the slack was a big help, but even <em>just<em> reading the histories of Yangchen, Ilu, Moho, and Vajrapata was like trying to build a mountain one grain of sand at a time. Considering everything else he had to do, the only time he had to read was the scant few minutes he took between when he begrudgingly set aside his duties, and when he fell asleep.

When he woke up, it was to the opening of a door.

There were instincts instilled in him, years before, that snapped the sleep out of his mind in a heartbeat. He spun out of his bed, whipping the book onto the table near the door; if nothing else, it would startle whoever decided they were going to barge in on him at this heinous hour in the morning. He lit a bolt of flame above his hand, to give him a look at who this intruder was.

He stopped dead, when he saw Azula.

And she didn't look in the best of states.

"Azula?" Aang asked, letting his defenses fall. She stood at the door, as though unsure what to do with herself. "Is something wrong?"

"I... I need..." she took a few steps into the room. Her robes were torn and burnt. Had somebody hurt her? The very thought of it set Aang's pacifist blood to a very non-pacifist boil. He kept the fire in his hand, but he simply held the other open. There was a twist in Azula's face, as though she were trying very, very hard not to cry.

She gave up on that, rushing into him, the impact of her dropping the two of them onto his bed. Aang just stared at the ceiling, utterly befuddled, while she started to sob quietly, clutching him very, very close. "It's alright, Azula. You're safe. I've got you."

For some reason, that just made her weep harder. He scooted up, pulling her with him so that the connection between the two of them never broke. He'd be the last to say he was happy about how infrequently the two of them saw each other, of late. And when they did, it was always all business. It burned every time he left; he was leaving the love of his life behind. She was here now, though. He didn't know why. All he knew was that she needed him. That of all the people in the world she could go to, she came to him. She wept, so he held her close. Stroked her hair. Told her that everything was going to be alright.

She didn't say a word for the longest time, simply vented what felt like an entire lifetime's worth of tears. And he might have been right about that, he reckoned. When she finally slowed, not releasing him in the slightest, but her breath evening out, he leaned aside, looking into eyes that couldn't seem to stay on his. "There. Feeling a bit better?"

"This... shouldn't be my life," Azula said quietly.

"What?"

"I'm supposed to be a broken, used up, discarded wreck of a girl," she said, her voice still carrying the aftershocks of her spell. "Brutalized and... and..."

"Hey. Hey," he said, tipping her chin up so that she would look him in the eye. "What's got that thought in your head? You know that people care about you. You're not alone."

"I just... just got a look at what my life was _supposed_ to look like," she said quietly. Aang was a bit confused by that, only to be made worse when she continued. "So many paths, I could have taken, and in every one of them I'm just..."

"Azula, whatever it is that you saw, it doesn't have to hurt you," Aang said. "You are who you are, who you chose to be," he was truly grasping in the dark, but if there was one thing about reading a lot of old stuff, it was chalk full of wise proverbs and such. "You don't need to be afraid."

"I thought I was alright," Azula said quietly. "But I can't get it _out of my head_. I'm _not_ supposed to be Fire Lord. _Zuko_ is. I'm not supposed to be free; I'm supposed to be locked away, for _everybody's_ safety. I'm not supposed to have friends, or..."

"Shh," he hushed her. And it was telling of her state that she didn't bristle because of it. "Your uncle told me once that destiny can be a funny thing. So your life could have been different, worse even; why should that matter? Your brother loves and supports you. You have a _nation_ that believes in you. You have the loyalty of some of the best people I've met in my life, and it's loyalty that you earned."

"Then why can't I accept this? Why doesn't it feel real?" she asked.

That broke Aang's heart just a bit. She was so used to things going terribly wrong, that she couldn't believe when they went right. "If it doesn't feel real, then try something else. You have people who love you, Azula. If you can't believe anything else, believe that."

"...love," she repeated. She took a shuddering breath, then looked at him. Gods, but he could lose himself eternal in those eyes. "...do you love me?" she asked, her voice very, very small.

"Desperately," he said, because there was no other answer he could have given. It seemed to strike her like a blow. Tears welled in her eyes once more, but this time, she pulled herself closer, and into a kiss that was years too late as it was. It wasn't the same desperation that she'd shown before the Day of Black Sun, or even the sad parting when he left the Fire Nation. This one had a quieter need.

If she couldn't believe this was her life, then he'd just have to believe it for her. And that meant that he'd have to convince himself, first. When she drew back, she bit her lower lip for a moment, staring at him from an inch away. Then, she pulled herself close to him once more, resting her head against his shoulder. "...I think I love you, too..."

After a few minutes, Azula was asleep, there beside him. Aang was up till the dawn began to break; he couldn't stop grinning.

* * *

><p>"This is insane!" Sokka shouted, pulling at his hair.<p>

"This is my responsibility, and I don't expect you to understand," Nila said, her tones clipped and hot... which was to say, just about the same as they always were, only with just a touch more vitriol.

"Why do I even bother talking about this?" Sokka muttered, turning away from her and her chalkboard full of madness. Physics and equations, gravity versus velocity, chemical formulas, trying to turn substance into power in the biggest way possible. With a few minor blasphemies against his gods uttered under his breath, he stormed through the doors, crashing them open before him. The people moving through the Royal Fire Academy did so with a now renewed zeal, a student body returned to life after years of listlessly going through the motions. There was lost time, and they wanted to make it up.

"Break up with Nila again?" Zuko asked with a smirk on his face from where he was waiting, just outside the danger-area of the doors. Sokka turned to him, his face writhing.

"She's... Gods, there are days I just want to strangle her!" Sokka said, miming a choke-out as he did.

"This is almost a sad joke at this point," the firebender said as he fell in with Sokka.

"What?" Sokka asked.

"You and her," Zuko gave a nod back behind him.

"I... She... GAH!" Sokka simply didn't have words.

"There's got to be something that brings you back to her. After Ty Lee. After... what was her name? Suki?"

"Yeah... well..." Sokka waved the notion away.

"Things are heating up again," Zuko said. "Have you heard the latest out of Azul?"

"What a mess," Sokka said, shaking his head. "I never thought they'd be able to have a civil war through that... what did Aang call it?"

"A 'Meager'," Zuko said. "I'd be surprised if there's any power-players of the old-guard left in that country by now."

"Any word from Maya?" Sokka asked, as they had to split wide apart and let a gaggle of frankly quite attractive students pass between them. Sokka even turned to walk backward, watching them go; Tenger Etseg be praised for hot weather and skimpy school uniforms.

"Not since the rails got sapped," Zuko said. He shook his head slowly. "Like you said. It's a mess."

"I just hope that the whole 'civil war' thing out there doesn't bleed in here," Sokka said, as the two began a descent toward the atrium that had beams of light reaching down from the hot Embiar sun. He then gave a chuckle. "Man. Can't believe I'm hoping for strength and stability in the Fire Nation. Strange days."

The two continued to press through the student body, which didn't either recognize or care about their passage. It wasn't until they'd passed through the perpetually open doors, out into the sunlight, that Zuko spoke again. "Have you given thought to Azula's idea?"

"Yeah, honestly," Sokka said. "But it seems kinda ridiculous. Putting all the elements in one city? All of our cultures? Just seems like it's a catastrophe waiting to happen."

"She said it worked 'last time'."

"Yeah, well, 'last time' isn't necessarily 'this time'," Sokka pointed out.

"True enough. For one thing, we're already missing a war from her history... obviously since the Earth King doesn't rule in Ba Sing Se," Zuko said. "But the broad strokes are a lot more than most have. And her United Republic? Bringing people together is a good thing. We've had a generation of fear and death, and a lot of people are still showing the scars of it," Zuko self-consciously ran his fingers along the scars on his ear and neck. "...what we need now is a lot of love, and healing."

"All you need is love," Sokka said. "Maybe you should make that into a song."

"Laugh it up, Tribesman," and Sokka did exactly that.

So much so that he managed to catch a glimpse of something flying at the two of them. Sokka shoved Zuko out of the way, and hurled himself away, as the bottle full of burning jelly broke and ignited. There was a cry of terror that rippled through the crowd. Sokka was to his knees quickly, a hand on each of his space-sword and his boomerang.

"Death to the race-traitors!" a call came from the crowd. They parted quickly, revealing a young man, probably no older than Sokka himself, wearing a drab and form-concealing robe, readying another flask of that explosive whatever-it-was. Sokka whipped his boomerang forward, and it cut the distance before intercepting the bottle... which exploded, coating the terrorist in his own flammable concoction. His angry screams quickly changed timbre to terrified, pained screams, as he flailed and ran, quickly inundated in flames.

Sokka caught his returning weapon, and had to drop it immediately, stamping the sticking flames off. "What... the _hell_... was that?" Sokka asked, in the stunning silence that followed, before the klaxons of approaching constables began to rise.

"Something unforeseen," Zuko said. "Turns out, there's some people angry that we didn't 'win' the World War. Who knew?"

"...remember when things were simple?" Sokka asked.

"You mean when I spent all my time trying to kill you and capture Aang?" Zuko asked, brow raising.

"Yeah. I miss those days."

* * *

><p><em>A Year Later<em>:

"I realize how much hardship that they faced under my father and grandfather's rule, but that _doesn't negate_ the fact that the Fire Nation has suffered as well," Azula said, leaning forward on her seat at the table. She was one of two delegates from the Fire Nation. There'd been three planned – Azul would sooner or later be a factor in Fire Nation politics... if they ever stopped fighting themselves – but at the moment, only the representative from Ember, a grey haired and mutton-chopped man from Fire Fountain City, sat at her side. To her left, was the delegation from the Water Tribe. She didn't know him from a hole in the ground. Husband of the next chief, or something. A few others were with him. Opposite them were the representatives from the Earth Kingdoms. Opposite Azula herself, though... there was the Avatar.

"That doesn't excuse the things which happened under the Fire Lord's rule, and the military is not immune to the consequences of its actions," Aang said evenly. "They want..."

"I don't care what they want!" Azula roared. "I am not going to pay reparations for a war I didn't lose!"

"Fire Lord Azula, restrain yourself!" Aang shouted back at her. "This is a place of diplomacy, not an Agni Kai arena!"

"You could have fooled me!" Azula snapped at him. "There's no point to any of this. Your lackeys," she gestured sternly at the trio from the East, "obviously have their mind made up and you're just going to roll over and agree with them. This is a farce, this is a circus, and I_ will not_ have any part of it!"

With that, she rose from her seat and stormed away with such gusto that her swirling robes blew some of the reports off of the table as she went. She cast the doors open to her exodus, and stormed down the hallway, muttering darkly under her breath. She continued that path, stewing and wrathful, until she was out of line-of-sight from the 'congress' which had formed out of the ashes of the war. Then, a glance, up and down the hallway. Nobody was watching her.

So she ducked into a closet. And there, she started to wait.

The time stretched out, as she waited in that confined and dark space. Until there was a slow, light rapping against the door. When it happened, she threw it open fast, so fast that it almost hit the knocker in the face, before she grabbed him by the collar and hauled him inside. While a great portion of the strength she'd cultivated as a young teenager had atrophied into a more 'feminine' threshold, she could still manhandle somebody as spindly as, say, Aang.

"You took long enough," she said, eyes locked on his.

"They wouldn't let me out," he said, those grey eyes practically smoldering as he leaned back on the door, pressing it absolutely shut. "I've been _waiting_ for this..."

"Do yourself a favor, and stop talking," Azula said, her hands at his shoulders, and a very, very warm smirk on her face.

"As you wish, love of my life," Aang said. Azula felt herself melt a little, just hearing that. She didn't stay melted long, though; she was a woman of action. And she was turning him into a man of action himself.

So it was of no surprise to either involved that over the course of the next few seconds, they'd both ripped off each other's clothing.

* * *

><p>Consciousness returned slowly, leadenly. Shapes appearing before eyes not entirely able to perceive them. Her limbs felt like they were carved – poorly – out of wood, and when she raised one, to try to wipe the sweat from her brow and more or less punched herself, the simile completed itself.<p>

"Ooooooow," she drawled, the word moving past dry tongue, crackled lips. How could she be both overheating and sweaty, and at the same time so dry?

"Did... did she just make a sound?" a voice came from the indistinct morass around her. High toned. Feminine.

"Probably not," another voice. Familiar. Male.

"No, I'm pretty sure she just moved," the woman said again.

"Maryah, she hasn't so much as twitched for years. I..."

"Why does my tongue hurt?" she finally managed to croak.

"Hisui!" and then there was a face above her. It didn't look familiar, even though the voice was. For one thing, there was a lot more beard on it. "You're... you're awake!"

"I'm really thirsty," Hisui croaked once more. The bearded one vanished, and another face – silvery-eyed, hair glossy black, took it's place. "...Maryah? You look... different."

"It's been a while," the woman said. Something bumped into Hisui's lower lip, pouring something cold and wet in. Water. Oh, how long had it been? She coughed, sputtering her first mouth full out, until her brother helped raise her a bit, so she could drink without drowning. As she blinked, slowly things came into focus, her ability to see restoring after so long doing... well... nothing.

"Did we win?" Hisui asked.

"Yeah. We did," Hai said.

"What are you two talking about?"

"Brother-sister stuff," both managed to say as one, even though one grumbled to do it.

"Why do you have a beard now?" she then asked, after taking another drink.

"Hisui... it's been a while," he said, stressing the last word.

"...couple weeks?" she asked.

"Not... quite," Maryah said. Hisui finally could see things clearly, and thus, she could clearly see that her hands were almost skeletal. So too the arm connected to it. The feet, the legs that poked out the bottom of the blanket could well have belonged to a mummy. "It's been, well, a few years."

"Years?" Hisui asked.

"Yeah," Maryah said. "A few things have changed."

At around that point, Hisui saw what she was talking about. Namely that Maryah had a belly which quite obviously spoke to advanced pregnancy. The atrophied woman stared down there for a moment, then up at Maryah's face. "You're pregnant."

"Marriage can do that to you... if you're not paying attention," she shrugged. This was Hai's home, then. And it was a house just on the precipice of adding one more to it. Her cot was set in a corner of the kitchen, where she could be watched over most of the time. They'd taken care of her for _how long_?

"Hai? Hai?" she asked. Her brother finally returned, a bowl of something that smelled pretty appetizing. "Tell me something..."

"What is it, Sis?" he asked.

"...why can't I World Eye anymore?" she asked, as she tried to open her sight into the realms beyond.

"...That could take a bit of explaining," Hai said.

"...try me."

"You don't have your own soul anymore," Hai said with a wince. She stared at him. "If the Avatar told the truth, he 'made a deal with the _hate-engine_', whatever _that_ is, to keep you alive."

"I'm not a shaman anymore?" she asked.

"No. You'll just have to learn from scratch," Hai said.

"And for the record, you now work for Fire Lord _Azula_," Maryah said. She shrugged. "Who knows, she might even give you your back-pay."

"What happened to Zhao?" Hisui asked with a scowl on her face.

"That's the thing... nobody's really sure," Hai said, frowning for a very different reason. "In the mess after everything went dim, we lost track of him. Haven't heard a damned thing about him in years. Hell with him."

"So everything's alright?" Hisui asked, laying down once more.

She saw the glance that the two of them gave each other.

"Sure is," Hai said.

Even in her weakness, her mental fog, she knew he was lying.

* * *

><p><em>A Year Later<em>:

Every grim prediction that Azula had given him had come true, in one form or another.

He sat in the chair of his home, which was now located in a nondescript part of the Upper Ring, as more suited his station as Regent for the Earth King In Absentia. His mind slowly turned over everything again, for the third time this morning, trying to find the breaking point. The one critical thing which would turn things to his favor. It was somewhere. He just had to find it.

The riots had started almost on cue, after Azula left in the night. He was so certain, back then, that she had left agents of the Avatar and the Fire Nation to foment rebellion and sew discord, but every time he reached the top of a chain of angry citizens, he found nothing – absolutely _nothing_! – that would connect it to anything outside the walls of Ba Sing Se. Somehow, tens of thousands of formerly loyal and content citizens of his city decided that they preferred open rebellion, independently of each other, and without anybody pulling their strings. His assumption that the vengeful waterbender was the source of these troubles died a sudden death just as the waterbender in question had. Which meant that for all of this madness, there was nobody to blame.

Nobody obvious, anyway.

Long Feng knew that there had to be something he wasn't seeing. All of this, the timing of it, it didn't make sense otherwise. He'd had two and a half years of peace and prosperity after his failed attempt to capitalize on the Day of Black Sun, not so much as a mugging in the streets. He'd called even then that it seemed slightly unusual. Crime could be made low in Ba Sing Se, but this... it was different.

"You're going to cause yourself harm if you keep going on like that," Dun said from the oven, which he slaved over to make lunch. In the distance, the heat was enough to cause thunder to roll on the horizon; heat lightning, the winds and rains somewhere far away.

That was something, at least. At least Ba Sing Se wasn't on the verge of dying of thirst anymore. And all it had cost him was several of his most trusted subordinates, a monumental labor of will, and all of the rest of Long Feng's hair. Ba Sing Se would survive, as it always had. But if the best parts of it died, the beating heart of it... he wasn't going to allow that to happen.

"I know, Dun," Long Feng said softly. The other half of his life just gave a sad look, before returning his attention to the dumplings that were coming along quickly. "There has to be something I can do."

"You have to admit to yourself that you can't do everything. Nobody could. Not even the Avatar," Dun pointed out with a spoon pointed back at him, despite not turning to face him. Long Feng's jaw tightened at that. The Avatar. It'd all started going wrong the moment that impertinent relic of a by-gone era landed inside his city's walls. He had a spike of quite unhelpful anger at simply hearing the word. Wrath and rancor wouldn't help him. He needed to be focused, calm, cool-headed and collected. This was not an opponent he could bludgeon into submission like a worthless street-tough. No, the Avatar, and everything that he had sparked was something which had to be out-_thought_, rather than out-_fought_.

Long Feng rose to his feet, and opened the door to the air outside. "Don't leave without dinner. You've done that too many times as is," Dun called after him.

"Of course," he answered back. "...thank you."

Dun simply nodded, and went back to cooking. Long Feng slipped out the door, and took a step aside, before leaning against the wall of his house. The breeze was minimal, just enough to trace along the lines of sweat that were starting to press out. As summers went, this one was quite hot. Hotter than that bizarre one in the year of Black Sun, the year of the Comet, by far. He stared at the clouds in the distance, as they slowly, imperceptibly rolled closer, giving the promise of another douse of rain. What had once been a once-in-a-generation miracle, now happened every other week or so. Strange days.

He kept watching those clouds, listening to the thunder that rumbled so quietly over the distance, inevitable as the storm they preceded. He watched, and he thought. He thought... and things began to line up. His eyes, still locked on those clouds, weren't seeing anything, but a solution started to come about. It was only partial as yet, but it was a start. A few orders to the Secretariats of the Lower Ring, where the riots had prompted the Dai Li to lock down the entire Ring, and it would become a victory with every bit the inevitability of those clouds. Just a few words.

He practically sighed at the relief passing through his mind. It would be work, hard work, and a lot of it, but he could restore Ba Sing Se to what he always wanted it to be; the greatest city on the face of this planet.

The next thing to pass through his mind, unfortunately, was a metal slug traveling slightly faster than the speed of sound.

There was another rumble, almost like thunder, that reached Long Feng a second later, even as he collapsed. There was a sound of something being dropped in the house, and then, a voice. "No... no no no, please no," Dun repeated. "Gods no, don't do this... You can't..."

Looking through a spy-glass from a rooftop in the Middle Ring, just over a mile away, Nila gave a nod as she saw the grey-haired man cradling the still and lifeless body of Long Feng. It had taken her years to learn the science of this weapon to the point that she now had. The physics of it. Windage and drop-over-distance. Just to match the precision of a shot she'd made years ago, by complete accident, not far from here. She took a breath, one that came in slow, and flushed out years worth of anger and insatiable hate. "_That was for Ashan, you son of a bitch_," she whispered in Altuundili. Then, she picked up her rifle, and prepared for her escape from Ba Sing Se.

It'd be easy. She was friends with an airbender.

* * *

><p>"Is it just me, or do we do dungeons, <em>way<em> too much?" Toph asked, as Zuko cut the bonds holding her off of the floor – a condition that Zuko knew from experience hurt like hell. Of the two of them, besides the rope-burns on her wrists, she looked a lot better off than he was. His left eye was almost swollen shut, and he was pretty sure he bit off a bit of his tongue.

"This was your idea," Zuko reminded her.

"Yeah, and you should have told me not to," Toph said, trying to punch him in the gut for back-talking her, but she instead let out a hiss and rubbed at her aching shoulder. "Did you gack the guy at least?"

"Nah, just beat him unconscious and trussed him up for Aang," Zuko answered her, as he gently guided her toward the door, which lay blown open from the outside.

"Wuss," Toph chided.

"We need him alive," Zuko said with a shrug. When they reached the upper floor, where Skanda, once crime-lord based out of Azul and now festering tumor in the newborn Republic City. And it had taken a lot of restraint to simply beat the hell out of him; his fetish for teenaged girls had not diminished as he aged. "...Infiltration, huh?"

"Shut up," Toph shifted her weight against him, making him stumble, before delivering a kick into Skanda's gut. "But for the record, he's working for some guy he calls 'Blue Eyes'. Turns out he's not the top link."

"There's always another one, isn't there?" Zuko shook his head, pushing the door open for her, which caused her to throw a look back in his general direction. The building and street outside it were filled with a swarm of constables who'd come in at Zuko's command for the sting. They were probably still in the process of running down the stragglers that had made a break for it.

"Chief Beifong? Are you alright?" an idealistic young sergeant named Wei asked.

"I'll be fine. Get them to the interrogators; we've got another level on this thing."

"Again?" Wei asked, amber eyes drooping slightly.

"I know. It's like these butt-holes don't know that only good-guys are supposed to organize," she said. Her confident smirk turned flat for a moment. "On the double. I didn't get this post by bein' pretty; people expect me to get some shit done."

"Of course, ma'am," Wei said, before heading off to Zuko-knew-not-where. When he did, Zuko allowed himself to slip his arm around her waist.

"How about we just stay away from dungeons for a little while," Zuko whispered to her ear.

"Yeah. Work hard, play hard," she said. She cleared her throat, and spoke up. "Take over. I'm running this one in."

"Yes, ma'am," somebody called.

"Given any thought to the proposal?" Zuko asked.

"Nah."

"You're killing me, Toph," Zuko said.

"Yeah, well... I'll get hitched when I feel like it," she said.

Zuko shook his head. "You're going to do it. I think I know you by now."

"Psht," she scoffed, before shifting her weight into him again, this time pushing him out of the street and into a slightly darkened alley between two buildings. When they were out of easy-sight, she turned, her own hands circling his neck and hauling him down so that she could plant a kiss on his lips. "Like I said," she said, from less than an inch away, blind eyes shining. "...I'll do it when I wanna."

* * *

><p><em>Two Years Later<em>:

"You do realize this is going to end in disaster?" Azula asked, sitting with her hair done into an impressive array of braids and ringlets. It was a fashion which came in near the end of her longest life, one that had baffled her at the time – grey haired and gap-toothed didn't suit the look – but today? Today she felt like trying it.

"So you keep saying," the Avatar said with a smile on his face. In her opinion, he looked good. Not in the orange robes. Still had some hair, though it was cut far shorter than he'd had it on that fateful day before she left to find her father. It made the beard that was swiftly growing in look a great deal less ridiculous. "Personally? I think they'll just be glad that they don't need to flinch every time the two of us walk into the same room."

"I'm shocked they didn't figure this out," she said.

"Well... you are a very good liar," Aang said with a dopey smile. Which was to say, his most usual expression when the two of them were in private. There came a tapping at the door, which both of them turned toward, though she with a great deal less agility; her hair wasn't the only remarkably intricate thing about her today. There came a creak as the door swung, and revealed a face that neither had seen in a very long time. "...well I'll be."

"I told you I'd be here in time," Maya Azul said. The years had made a hard woman out of her, but it wasn't surprising, considering that she spent half a decade in the center of a civil-war.

"You didn't say anything," Azula countered.

"You don't read your mail, then," Maya said. "Thought you could use some good news, to go with the event."

"Really?" Aang asked, taking his feet.

"You're talking to the second elected leader of a new Azuli republic," Maya spread her arms dramatically.

"What happened to the first?" Aang asked.

"He was in office for six weeks," Maya said with a roll of her eyes. "Then we found out _how_ he got into office, and there was a bit of annoyance amongst the voters."

"Annoyance as in...?" Aang prompted.

"Has anybody found his body yet?" Azula asked.

"Nope," Maya said. She then spun a chair to sit in it, folding up her legs as she did. She looked a lot like she had when she left them all behind, heading to the Far West. Probably a lot of time with minimal nutrition and a lot of sleepless nights stunting her growth, while at the same time giving her wrinkles premature for her actual age. Even Azula had thought that the death of this twisted Montoya Azul would have been an improvement, caused things to shift towards more political sanity. How foolishly optimistic she had been. "So. Getting married to the Avatar."

"I know. Shocking," Azula said.

"Isn't it bad luck to see her before the ceremony?" Maya pointed idly at Azula.

"Not by my tradition," Aang said brightly.

"Then I guess I'm glad that I made it in time," Maya said with a shrug.

"Just in time, in fact," Aang said, tilting his head. "...because I'm pretty sure I can hear the music starting."

"Finally," Azula said with a shake of her head. The beautician finally stopped hovering around her like a fruit-fly and let her stand. The dress was one of opulence and frippery, in Azula's opinion. It was the same dress that Ilah had worn marrying Azulon, and the irony was not lost on the woman who bore the feminization of his name. "Come. Find a place to stand."

"No seats?" Maya asked.

"If you'd shown up several hours ago, you might have been lucky. Instead, _well_..." Azula said with a sarcastically mocking shrug. Aang moved to her side, and she hooked her arm through his, as the door was opened for the two of them, and they began their 'procession'. Instantly moving to Azula's side of the pair were Ty Lee, in her brightest, happiest pinks, with an enormous grin on her perpetually happy face. Mai, her hair somewhat grown out but nothing like the lives Azula once lived, was in much more somber colors, just beside the acrobat. Par for the course, that. The third, and by far the smallest, was Azula's little half-sister, Hibana. That whore Fujitsuna had the unmitigated _gall_ to name her Tsuru? Well, the beaming seven-year-old was obviously a Hibana, a little sparkle, instead of some woman's tool. The little girl practically radiated, like this whole wedding was for her.

"You are so beautiful," Aang whispered to Azula, as Sokka and Zuko joined at his side.

"Hours of work and a remarkable amount of money," Azula answered back, as they all passed through a second arch-way, and into the great expanse that all of the many, _many_ guests found themselves in.

"You'd be beautiful in rags and filth," he said.

"And you think telling that to your bride during her wedding's a good idea?" Azula asked, her tones cold. Aang winced and leaned slightly away from her, until he saw the smirk at the corner of her mouth. He gave a slightly relieved chuckle, as they approached the Sage who would oversee the union, Iroh at his side representing her 'departed' father.

"You're so mean," Aang said. "And I'm okay with that."

"You'd better be," Azula said. She certainly was.

The two turned, facing each other. He in finery based on but not drawn entirely from his airbender heritage, she in her dress of scarlet. All of her friends, new or old, watching. Her mother, smiling with the look on her face that Azula wouldn't have believed in those anguished years: Pride. Her people, watching just as proudly. The five point-flame in her hair, and it there because she _deserved_ it. All things considered, this was one of the happier days of all the lives she ever lived.

* * *

><p>As weddings went, this was a pretty good one, Sokka figured. Aang and Azula were flitting around – well, Azula didn't <em>flit<em>, per se – being the blushing bride and gracious groom, while the others either joined in high-minded conversation with the upper-crust of Fire Nation society, or got completely shit-faced with the rest of them. Sokka had, of course, opted for the latter. "You know..." his older sister, who was definitely more drunk than he was, said with a tone of profoundness, "I still want to kill you some days."

"Do I deserve it?"

"Yup," she said happily, before quaffing again. "Oh... serioustly though. I'm glad that... that I didn't kill you. 'Cause then you wouldn't have invited me to the party, and I wouldn't be having this..."

"I think you've had enough," Omo said, lifting the cup from her hand.

"I will destroy you!" she snapped at him, bristling with all the indignation that a drunk could have. "Wait. I can't destroy you."

"And why not?" the earthbender asked.

"'Cause you're too pretty," she then set into giggling. Sokka could only shake his head. She still refused to go by Hikaoh, but that was her choice. Having their sister back, even if she went by Yoji, that was something that they'd never thought they'd have. And having a giggly assassin for an older sister was somewhat surreal. The last time he'd seen her this drunk was at her own wedding – which she had only begrudgingly invited her siblings and father to – but she had shown much he same character of now once she'd gotten a bottle into her. Omo could only shake his head, a little smile on his face, as he scooped her up. "Whoop! I'm flying!"

"Yes, Yoji. You're flying," Omo said. "Seriously. She never does this."

"She should do it more often," Sokka raised a cup to her, where she continued to giggle and whisper slurringly into the earthbender's ear. He simply carried her away from the party, where she'd obviously had entirely too much to drink. It was weird. After that first time she sat there, drunk and earnest, they actually managed to start having a family relationship. Tenuous as spiderwebs, sure, but it was still family.

"You know, I should probably take her cue," Zha Yu, who was sharing Sokka's table, said. With a shrug, he continued. "Sul doesn't like when I come home completely drunk. You know how it is."

"No, I really don't," Sokka said. "See you around, Mountain King," he raised his cup, to the departing earthbender. But, by simple chance and coincidence, that would be the final time that Sokka laid eyes upon the Mountain King for the rest of his life. That left Sokka on his own; Kori – who went by Ked only when he was with his parents and sisters – had already broken off chasing after some of the other party-goers, while Katara and her very-soon-to-be husband were in the middle of a knot of middle-aged dignitaries. What kind of world was it that a woman of twenty... Sokka paused, looking at his cup. "...I should probably stop drinking. I can't remember how old Katara is."

"Twenty one... I think," A familiar voice said, causing Sokka's head to spin so fast that he probably pulled something. Luckily, he wasn't in any condition to feel it.

"Nila?" Sokka asked. It was, indeed, her. She was dressed for travel, which was to say, she was covered in grit and wore none of the finery expected of this event. She and Maya were two peas in a pod in that. "What are you doing here?"

"I was invited by the bride," she said, as she handed off a cup to somebody passing her by.

"Yeah, but you never said you'd come," Sokka said.

"No... no I didn't," she said. She took the seat abandoned by Yoji, taking a deep breath, and staring out at the crowds. Her breath smelled faintly of rum. Sokka offered her the cup, which she took. Kind of surprising. "They seem quite happy together, don't they?"

"Please. Nobody's as in love as those two," Sokka said with a wave. "It's almost a little nauseating."

"But does it have a future?" she asked.

"Definitely. He'll never leave her. And she'll kill anybody that tries to get between 'em," Sokka said. He looked to Nila once more. The years had been much kinder to her than they had been to Maya. Nila was still hardly ample of bosom, but that didn't matter, considering what time had done for her backside. He could write a poem about that... But he found himself distracted. Time hadn't changed her drastically. Instead, it had _ripened_ her. Her lips, once thin, now plump. Her nose, once a hatchet, now simply proud and prominent. Her eyes, well, her eyes were _always_ gorgeous.

"You are staring, Tribesman," Nila said, as she drank.

"I can't help it. Y'r something worth staring at," Sokka said.

"You are a boor," Nila said with a shake of her head.

"You ever wonder why we couldn't make it work?" Sokka asked.

"We're too stubborn. Too arrogant. Too smart for our own good. Too fixated on being right," Nila rattled off quickly.

"Yeah..." Sokka agreed. "And still..."

"We're probably going to do it again," Nila said with a nod, and a little smile on her face.

"See, that's our prop–blem," Sokka said, stifling a hiccup. "We're too smart. So how about... how about we do something really, really stupid?"

"Are you out of your mind?" Nila asked. Then she rolled her eyes. "Oh, I know the answer to that."

"Face it," Sokka said, shifting his chair so that it faced hers close enough that their knees touched. "You _loved_ being with me. You were always s-so happy. Even when you were pissed – and you got pissed _a lot_ – you were happy."

"...yes," she said, her eyes sliding shut, tattooed hands pushing lustrous hair away from them. "With nobody else has there been that... what ever that was."

"You see?" Sokka said. "So how about this? Try something dumb. Something really dumb," Sokka said.

She emptied the glass in a single long pull.

"Very well. Let's get married," she said, slamming the goblet down.

"...I was going to say 'get naked and run through the streets', but _that's_ intriguing," Sokka said. Nila instantly looked mortified.

"You weren't..." Nila said, her face darkening with what he'd learned over the years were her very infrequent blushes. She rose, pulling at her clothes, turning away from him. "I should go... I didn't..."

He rose, and caught her, pulling her back to him. When she did, seemingly by instinct, her hands wrapped round his waist and the side of his neck – the burned side, as was her custom. There was a fraction of a second, where the two stared at each other from about a nose's length away from each other. Then, dumb as rocks, drunk as goat-hounds, and crazy as a sun-crazed fox, the two collapsed on each other, with the kiss both knew was coming, but neither had the courage to start.

Not until they were both drunk.

* * *

><p><em>Two Years Later<em>:

Honestly, Zuko couldn't remember the last time he was in this much pain.

Of course, crawling out of a carriage that exploded around him tended to smart a little. He flopped his way away from the ruins, trying to shake the daze from his head. To get his bearings. To defend himself from whatever was about to come at him. He knew an assassination attempt when he saw one, and he had a pretty Agni-damned good look at this one. He'd just shifted to sit, his back to a dead Ostrich-Horse that had been driving the thing, when a thought hit his mind, one he'd been too stunned to think about otherwise.

"...Toph," he said.

Ignoring his battered body, he pushed himself to his feet, and limped through the carnage. The streets had emptied quickly after the blast, but the flames were already licking and consuming the wooden structures of this new-born city. This was going to get worse, no matter if his unknown assailants succeeded or lost. He shoved away searing wood, trying to dig into the carriage. She could still be in there.

"Toph! Come on! Tell me you're alright," Zuko pleaded, as he furiously firebend the heat away from his hands so that he could shift burning wood without so much as gloves. There was a creak, followed by a crash, as a section of the burning cart crumbled. Zuko winced. There was a loud pop, as a chunk of wood he was trying to heave cracked free of its mooring, snapping back and hitting him right in the left eye. He let out a yelp of pain; he'd bent the heat away from his hands. His face was a different matter.

He clutched at his eye for a moment, even as the alarms only now began to sound in the streets of Republic City. He started to kick the wood, to try to reach the inside... He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten out in the first place. "Toph, I'm coming! Please, be alright!"

"Why are you shouting?" a voice like the gift of a benevolent god asked him. He limped around the carriage, to the far side of it. And there she was, sitting in the ruins of a produce stand which had collapsed around her, but she was there. She looked hurt... she was bleeding.

"Toph!" Zuko limped quickly to her and pulled her out of her 'crater'. Her own hands tapped their way along his face for a moment as she was born upward. "You're..."

"I've had worse," Toph muttered. She wasn't particularly pale, so that was something. "Your eye..."

"I've had worse," Zuko echoed. He cupped her face with both raw hands. "Don't _ever_ do that to me again. I don't know what I would have..."

"Zuko, you're panicking. Shut up," Toph said, but kindly. "I'm fine. My leg hurts like shit, but I'm _fine_."

"I'm... I'm going to _kill_ that son of a bitch," Zuko muttered, eyes burning as they stared into the distance, as though somehow they could lock on the one responsible for this

"You think this was Zhao?" she asked, before hissing as he helped her up.

"Yeah, don't check on the airbender. She's _fine too_," Malu said, limping out of a door past Toph. Well, door-_frame_. As she came, she too was bleeding, and was in the process of plucking a shard of glass from her tattooed forearm.

"Good god, _are_ you alright?" Zuko asked. It was a valid question, as she was five-months pregnant.

"Aang's going to want to hear about this," Malu muttered, ignoring such petty concerns as her own physical health. She prodded at a gash on her neck that looked almost like a shallow mirror of the nearly-life-ending wound that Katara had suffered at the hands of Montoya Azul. He'd taken too long to die, that man. Zuko nodded.

"I figured he'd pick a fight. Just not like this," Zuko said.

* * *

><p>It was a rare thing to see Aang in a rage.<p>

"How many this time?" he asked, simmering quietly. Unlike his bride, he wasn't given to explosions of anger and wrath. Instead, it bubbled in him. He usually forced it into a form which wasn't destructive, but when he got angry, you could tell. This was beyond anger. Those were the eyes that Katara had seen on him when he talked about that day in Azul.

"Too many," Katara said. "I never thought he'd have so much support."

"It makes sense," Azula said. Ten years ago, Katara would never have believed that she'd see a day when _Azula_ was a calming presence for _Aang_. But then, she'd never thought she'd see the day when a desperate dictator would rally all of the people that were outraged by the end of the World War, and turned them into a landless army against _him personally_. "There are few good things I can say about the man, but he knows his politics. He knows how to manipulate people."

"This has to stop. Today, this hour, this minute," Aang said, stabbing the surface of the table with his finger. The thump of it caused the great, brown, furry bulk which was a now fully-grown saber-toothed moose-lion – Kuchi – to turn a black eye toward him, before settling back down into its nap. "If I have to, I'll go out there and..."

"Get yourself killed? Not an option," Azula cut him off. Aang turned to her. "Like I said, he knows how to manipulate people. He knows that you won't stand for people being hurt in your name. He expects you to do the empathetic and rash thing of trying to 'limit the damage' by dealing with him personally. And that is why you are the only person who _can't_."

"Zuli, this is _my_ responsibility," Aang said.

"It's just as much mine," she said quietly. "I should have killed him a decade ago."

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Katara asked, drawing both back to the topic at hand. "He's hurt people we care about, and gotten a lot of people angry. He's playing us. Or he's trying to. So what do we do?"

"I don't know," Aang said. There was a long pause. "But I know somebody who might."

* * *

><p><em>Two Years Later<em>:

"Do you remember the promise I made, all those years ago?" Emperor Zeruel asked, as he leaned down at the man who was held to the ground, his hands manacled and his feet fettered. "I swore that I would destroy you for what you'd done to my people. I swore it before God, and by God, I'm going to fulfill it."

The end of Zhao's insurrection had come not with a bang, but with a long series of whimpers. Whimpers that Sativa had personally pulled out of him, one gasp at a time. Piandao had watched as they manufactured Zhao's decline. With so little left for her, Sati took a particular delight in it. It was still sad to the old, one-handed swordsman. Her son's death seemed the straw that broke the eel-hound's back. After that, she and Nila drifted apart completely. And only because Piandao was more stubborn than an earthbender did she not drift apart from him. She was hurting, and she felt adrift. A world at peace – even as tenuous a peace as this – didn't have a place for people so versed in the art of war, and she knew it.

He was probably the only person she had left in her life.

Every morning, he thanked Agni that he didn't find her hanging from the roof-beams.

"I was wrong," Zhao said, his burned eye in the same glower that it always held. "I thought she was trying to win the World War... I was wrong."

"You were wrong in more ways than that," Piandao pointed out. Sativa was just standing there quietly, a distant look in her emerald eyes. Agni's blood, but it looked the same as the thousand-mile gaze that Sharif had worn. He'd only seen it once on the boy, but once was enough. "We had finished, Zhao. The War was over. We were _healing_! And this? You tore at a healing wound, and for _what_?"

Zhao didn't have an answer for that.

Zeruel beckoned somebody closer. A common soldier of the Whalesh army. His armor was the same muted grays that pervaded the nation. "Your weapon," he beckoned. The soldier flinched, then hurriedly handed over his spear. Zeruel turned unnaturally orange eyes to the lad. "Your _other_ weapon."

The soldier looked down, to the maul that hung from his hip. It was unadorned, a haft of wood and a metal bludgeon for a head. He pulled it from his belt, and handed it to his liege. Zeruel turned to Zhao once more. "I do this not for my own vengeance, but for the glory of God," he said.

"Do me a favor," Zhao said from where he was, forced down to his knees. "Just _shut up_ and do it."

Piandao took Sativa by the shoulders and turned her away, walking with her into the mists of the early morning shores of Pulse. It was very warm here, not surprising since the Fire Nation was barely a thousand miles north, but it still _felt_ different. What was about to happen, Sati didn't need to see. Not because she hadn't seen the like of it or worse before, but because, honestly, he knew exactly how fragile she was now. She didn't need to see this ending.

"Are you going to be alright, Sati?" Piandao asked.

"...no," she answered. It was like when Sharif died, so died her spirit. Like when he was gone, she stopped believing that she had a place in the world at all.

"It's still not too late to talk to your daughter, to ask for forgiveness," Piandao said.

She slowly shook her head. "She would never give it. The things I said, the things I did to her in her childhood? I failed her in every way. She deserves to hate me. I deserve to be hated."

"Sati, please, don't talk like that," Piandao said. She turned a look to him. Focusing on him, just for a moment. Then, she sighed, and nodded. He wished she wouldn't. He wished she would tear a strip up one side of him and down the other, like she used to when he pushed her too far. He wished that she hadn't lost her son.

He wished she hadn't lost her family. Gently, he pulled her close, walking down the shores of Pulse. They had never married, the two of them. They simply didn't have enough left in them to make it official. But still, he loved her as much as the first day he woke beside her. And in her wounded way, she did as well. Which was the reason he never found her hanging from the roof-beams.

Two wounded soldiers walked into the morning mists, while an Emperor beat a man to death with a hammer in the distance behind them.

* * *

><p>"Well, he looks like he's in a good mood," Malu said, as her twins bawled and stared around with wide-eyed interest, respectively. She managed to carry both with her without an inkling of discomfort or difficulty, a feat which left Katara, a mother only once, somewhat jealous. Her own little girl was a handful and a half at the best of times. And at the worst, they tended to find her on the top branch of the nearest tree, despite being scarcely more than two years old.<p>

"That shouldn't come as any surprise," Katara answered.

"You're talking over my head again," Azula said, her annoyance plain. "And of course he is happy. He's going to be a father."

"It seems like everybody's getting that way," Katara said.

"Except Zuko and Toph," Malu said. She frowned for a moment. "Wait, are they married yet?"

"Of course," Katara said with a wave of her hand. "Although seeing Toph around him is a weird kind of adorable-disgusting sensation. She could do _so_ much better."

Azula and Malu shared a look, one of conspiracy, that Katara couldn't unravel. The former rose to her feet, warding Katara away with a look when she moved to help. It was a look which clearly said 'I can do this on my own, I'm not an invalid'. Strange how she was so able to read those looks. And sad, how the man who'd been her first teacher in deeply vocal glances was already a year in the ground. She never even learned the laconic archer's real name. Azula smoothed her robes as she stood. They all turned, looking out over Ba Sing Se, which had a cacophony in its streets, but for a change, it wasn't one of rage and rebellion. Instead, there was open celebration throughout all of the three Rings. The Earth King sat once more upon his throne, and for a people so intertwined with their traditions as the Easterners, that was a cause for celebration.

She'd lost track of how many drunk nobles she'd seen in the last hour, tottering through the gardens of the Earth King.

"I never thought I'd ever see this sight," Azula said quietly, gazing out upon the gardens of the Royal Palace. Out on the grounds, mocking and teasing the nobles, sat Sokka and Nila. When Nila noticed she was being observed, she gave a friendly wave, which Azula returned. Throughout everything, those two had become fast, if odd, friends. "Strange days."

"Not strange," Malu said. "I think we've all earned a bit of peace and quiet."

"We earned peace and quiet when we saved the world," Azula pointed out as she turned from the window, a finger raised. "Now, we're owed interest."

Katara turned, to head back into the building which the three mothers or mothers-to-be all shared. The party continued inside as it had out, with people wheeling through the great dining hall that lay below their raised hallway. There were a lot of faces that Katara knew well, down there. And there were a few faces that she knew _weren't_ there. That _wouldn't_ be there. Faces like Iroh, or Bumi, or Zha Yu. Even Momo. But that was time. It didn't care how much you'd done, how big your name was, when its tally was due in full.

"And there he is," Azula said, a warmth in her voice that a younger Katara would have been shocked to hear. Aang was indeed below; not drinking as so many others were, but instead performing for their delight. Katara had to laugh at him, beaming like a fool, as he made being the Avatar into the ultimate party trick. Everybody was caught up in his excitement. Yue, for one, was laughing so hard she was crying a little. There was a little smile on Azula's face, one that was almost afraid of itself. Not surprising, considering what she'd been through.

"Yeah. Can't keep his excitement to himself," Malu said. Her eyes widened. "Speaking of, have you gotten any leeway in reclaiming the North?"

"Speaking of? That's got to be the worst segue I've ever heard," Katara laughed, but the laughs didn't last. "No. No, I can't even find people who want to go back up there. It'll probably be abandoned within a couple decades."

"Wow. That's really sad," Malu said, comforting the bawling child while keeping the happy one able to intently gaze across the whole wide room.

"It happens," Katara said. The permanent loss of the _North_ Water Tribe 'just happens'. The loss of the Four Great Cities 'just happens'. Then again, they could have lost a lot more. She was about to speak again when there was a crash below, as a number of delicate objects which had been spinning on bowls of air slipped the Avatar's grasp, because he'd finally looked up.

"Azula!" he called up to her. "Flame of my life, what are you doing up there away from the party?"

Whatever answer she was going to give was cut off by him bounding up to their higher level in a single airbending-enhanced leap, one that landed his feet right before hears, so that he had the choice of either flattening her, or doing as he did, and twisting her into a kiss that left her bowed back and her eyes going a little dopey. When he finally drew her back up, and her attention returned, she turned a golden eye toward Katara, in silent warning that if she told anybody about Azula's even momentary dopiness, there would be blood to pay. "Wow," Azula said.

"I love you so much," Aang whispered into the side of her neck.

"Of course you do," Azula said. Then, she leaned up, whispering something into his ear that, by the din below, Katara couldn't hear at all. But she had a _pretty good idea_ what the firebender said.

* * *

><p>Two Years Later:<p>

Tzu Zi was weeping... but for once, that wasn't a bad thing. She and Rai Li were standing on that shore, shoes sinking into golden sands, but as instructed, remaining well back from the surf. Mostly because the fluid that lapped at these shores definitely was not water. The two of them looked out, into the fog that lay over the Sea of Souls, where the two of them had been brought. There was something ragged here, in Nila's mind. Like the dangling end of a rope that had snapped so long before. She still knew her way through the Spirit World, even though it was now nothing like how it was in her youth. Almost like the knowledge of it grew as the realm did.

Little did she know that it was actually the opposite.

"I don't see anybody," Sokka said, where he stood next to her.

"You wouldn't," Nila said. "I know this place; you can only see the memories of those that you remember. It is an odd feedback loop."

"Really?" Sokka asked, from his place directly at her side. He looked out to the waters, and slowly, his expression became agape. "..._Mom_?"

"So now you see?" Nila asked. Sokka just stared, before breaking that and turning to her, and offering her a silent nod. "Ever since this place returned... I keep coming here."

Sokka sighed, his head hanging. He pulled Nila a little closer to him, which was slightly awkward, because her stomach kept getting in the way. And here she thought herself so smart, only to have herself dealing with a hyperactive son, and then an unborn infant – _twins_, she was reliably warned – on the way! As much as the two of them were smart, they tended toward great idiocy, sometimes. "You're looking for him, aren't you."

Nila felt tears running down her cheeks, despite not wanting them to. Pregnancy also made for mood swings that even _she_ knew were irrational and insane, while she was having them. But right now? Now she was fairly certain that she deserved a good cry.

"He is gone," Nila said, as Sokka pressed a kiss onto her forehead. "He is gone as though he never were. There are not even memories of him. Not even..."

"Hey. Nila, hey," he said. "We still remember him," he turned her away from the Sea of Souls, toward the forest which began back from it. There was something haunting about this forest, though. It looked like a fire had raged through not long ago; the trees seemed... _burnt_. "_Everybody_ will remember Sharif Badesh bin Seema din Nassar. They will remember what he gave. He is always going to be with us."

"Sophistry," she muttered.

"Yeah, well," Sokka said with a roll of his eyes. "If nothing else... you'll always be able to remember him for what he was, instead of what he wasn't."

"An uncommon observation from you," Nila noted, even as she tried to kill a snivel, only to have it break free and run amok.

"I'm an uncommon man," he said. He glanced behind them. "Should we bring them with us?"

"No," Nila said. "Let them have some time with their father. They deserve it."

"An uncommon observation from you," Sokka mirrored.

"I am an uncommon woman," she parroted back, before a smile split her lips a bit, and he lowered a kiss onto them. The two walked through the Burnt Forest, away from the Sea of Souls. Toward where Malu waited at the gates. Back toward the real world.

* * *

><p>"Booooooored," Hibana said from the table. Her jaw was propped on the heel of her hand, and she had a glassy expression as she succeeded well at not being interested in anything that the Fire Temple had to offer, from its shining golden towers to its ancient architecture. But then, Hibana was a teenager, and teenagers, as a rule, didn't care about history.<p>

"Hiba, show some respect," Aang said quietly.

"I'm so boooored!" Hibana complained. "There's nothing to do here!"

"There's plenty to do here," the Avatar said. "You could talk to the sages. Learn about the old days, or you could..."

"You know what I'm hearing? Blah blah old stuff blah blah creaky old guys blah boring," Hibana sing-songed in exactly the manner Azula used to when she was being sarcastic. Now, since he'd gotten to know her a bit better, and she just had to keep things interesting, she'd moved on to other cues. She leaned toward him. "Come o-o-o-on! I'm supposed to be on Ember Island right now with all of my frie-e-e-e-e-nds! Jia's dad got a new house and we were going to have a party!"

"This is important to your sister," Aang said. Hibana turned away, her arms crossing before her chest with a level of indignation that only a teenager could reliably produce.

"Well, it's still stupid and boring," she muttered.

Aang sighed, shaking his head. There were impossible feats like ending the existential threat of Imbalance, and then there were _impossible_ feats, like getting Azula's teenaged sister to be rational. He turned away from her, and beckoned to one of the passing scribes. The middle-aged man – how strange it was that so many of the people in positions of authority who deferred to him were still _older_ than him, the Avatar mused – shuffled over to him. "Keep the princess out of trouble... if you can. I've got to have a word with my wife."

"Of course, Avatar," the scribe said. Aang then moved past him, out the doors toward the back of the complex. There was a hermitage built right into this place, this once-Storm King architecture overtaken by the Fire Nation. The last decade had been quite kind to places like this. It was renewed in a way that some places like the city once called Summavut definitely didn't share. That was a sore point to him; the city which was once the spiritual heart of the North was now barren, even its Fire Nation miners having abandoned it. Likely, it wouldn't see civilization again... ever. Too many ghosts.

The land behind was covered in sparse grass, for the simple reason of their altitude. It didn't reach high, barely rustling past his ankles, as he approached the building in the farthest reaches of the monastery. He could see his wife, the love of his life, outside it, looking in. Tuckered out and sprawled over her shoulder was their daughter, their little miracle. Of the lot of them, the only pair who hadn't had a child yet were Zuko and Toph; Sokka and Nila's little boy was barely a day younger than little Miko. The girl looked dead asleep. Her mother on the other hand... she just stared into the hut.

"Are you going to be alright?" Aang asked her, slipping his arm around her waist. Azula's eyes were a little reddened, as though she'd spent the last hour trying not to cry. It was plain why. Within the hut was a gaunt and emaciated man, his head shaven, his jaw clean. He sat on the floor, his legs curled up under him, and he stared blankly into the distance as his mouth recited mantras. The only thing which set him apart from any of a hundred other Sages was the red streak of burned flesh that reached toward his elbow, and the two missing fingers from his hand.

"Maybe," Azula said. "Some days... I wish he could recognize me. Even with what that would mean."

Aang nodded. Thirteen years had transformed the once Fire Lord Ozai just as it had everybody else. Once the most powerful and feared man in the world, now a hermit monk with no name living in the humblest of rooms at the back of a temple. It wasn't until the first time that Azula had brought Aang to see him that he truly believed her, that he was a changed man. Changed, but not necessarily for the better. He'd retreated into himself, and there was no sign that he would ever leave.

He didn't want to think about what he'd have to do if that old Ozai awoke. It would probably break Azula's heart.

"See, Miko? That's your grandfather, there," Azula said. But the girl over her shoulder was completely pooped, and not offering so much as a mumble. Azula shook her head slowly, leaning in to Aang for a level of comfort that she obviously needed. She was still an absolute inferno when she wanted to be, but when it was just the two of them, she let herself be just Azula. Just the girl from the iceberg. The girl who led an army against a malevolent god, despite near-certainty that it would get her killed. The girl he fell in love with. "We should go. Leave him to his prayers."

"If it hurts so much, maybe you shouldn't come back next year," Aang said. Azula shook her head.

"Somebody has to look after him," she said quietly. Aang just nodded. He pulled her a little closer. "I suppose you've picked out a name already?"

"I've got a few in mind," Aang said. She wasn't showing it at all, but she was probably a few months pregnant. "Do you realize you never told me what I named my children? You know, back in your past life."

"And I never will," Azula said. Aang smiled a bit.

"If it's a girl, we should call it Aimei," Aang said.

"And if it's a boy?" Azula asked. She then pointed sternly at him. "And we're _not_ calling him 'Bumi'."

"...Tenzin's a good name for a boy," Aang said, staring straight ahead. He didn't notice, but Azula almost face-palmed at that. "Come on. Your sister is losing her mind."

She gave a distant laugh. "Probably," she said. He turned her away from the door, toward that courtyard which led back to the main complex. "Aang?"

"Yes, Zuli?" he asked.

"I love you," she said, her hand squeezing his where it lay at her side.

He still smiled when she said it, even to this day.

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>And that's it, ladies and gentlemen. From odd beginnings, to calamitous lows, and finally back to soaring heights. But looking back, if I'd known then what I know now, I'd have entitled this work 'The Point of Balance'. Ah, well; too late for that now, eh? This story began because I had one scene that I wanted to write; Aang and Azula trapped together on the way to Omashu. From that, everything else came. In terms of ambition, this work was pretty much my pinnacle, until my enthusiasm latched on to Avatar of Victory (which believe me, will be quite a bit bigger when it's done). This was also the first time that I actually structured my story before beginning to write it. And even then, there were curveballs.<strong>

**The first curveball came in the form of Malu. When I introduced her into the narrative, it was going to be more a 'fighting from within', and 'dying with dignity' story on her behalf, one only hinted at when she and Aang clashed. But when I threw her at Sharif for the first time, I knew that she was going to have to have a much bigger part to play in my story. So instead, she joins Team Desert, and all follows after it. With that upgrade of narrative purpose, I had to hit the gas on the enemy as well. I'd originally pictured it as something utterly unthinking, a dumb brute that destroyed things accidentally wherever it went. But, then I started writing chapter 19, and the way things evolved... It surprised even me, honestly. I don't know how she was recieved in the grand scheme of things, but in terms of how her narrative arc came about (by complete accident), I'm fairly happy with it.**

**Now, a point of some contention with some readers (particularly newcomers) is and always will be the inclusion of original characters. The big ones that debuted in this story were the Badesh Siblings and the Mountain King. A funny thing is, while I was accused of using the Mountain King as a pseudo-self-insert, the truth is, I didn't base him on me. There is one character who has a lot of me in... her. Nila? Save for the whole 'being male' thing, when I was a teenager, I _was_ her. Or to be more accurate, I was 'season one' her. In her, I got to take a look at the kind of asshole I used to be... _Hopefully_ used to, some days its hard to tell... and give my head a shake. The evolution in her character is much the same as my evolution in writing style. It started out rough (I didn't even start thinking with her 'accent' until the second book), and refined as it went until it was something which could have stood on its own in just about any setting. She's really smart, really arrogant, and frequently enough really wrong. Like I was, when I was a dumb teenager.**

**That's not to say there isn't some of myself in Sharif as well. Sharif represents my greatest terror; losing the use of my mind. Besides stuff involving the eyeball, there is nothing which wigs me out harder. The second scene I had planned for this was Sharif's sacrifice, him holding back the dark while dramatic music swelled. Needless to say, I knew from the onset that he was a dead man. I just hope I did the dead-man justice.**

**In terms of world-building, this one takes my cake. I've put more thought into how this world works than any other. Hell, I even ran through some of the histories of Eastern empires and kingdoms to get a grasp of how those cycles operate. It was because of that by which I realized that the Creators had no concept of _time_. While Avatar can certainly be lauded for not having a status quo, and allowing technology to actually advance, they don't seem to understand that _ten thousand years is a really long time_. That's twice as much time as you need to get from Ancient Egypt to _today_. If you want ten thousand years of human civilization which comes to a head in the Roaring 20's, then you need at least one massive Reset. Thus, the Monolith. That got me thinking about what airbenders would have to do under the control of earthbenders, which in turn gave birth to the idea of the Storm Kings. Three thousand years of history is admittedly quite a bit as well, but it's a great deal more palatable than ten thousand.**

**Which brings us to the Spirit World. My image for a bleak and dying Spirit World came first and foremost from the Russian game, Turgor. It had a sort of breathtaking, tragic beauty to the places you went. You could tell that they once held life... but then it just went away, one drip at a time. I wanted that sort of aesthetic for the realm I created. But forgive me if this sounds a bit conceited, but I'm fairly certain that I have a more nuanced Spirit World than does canon, and mine intruded on the series even as I watched it in the form of headcanon. There's just so much that you can do with spirits, and it's a criminally underused plot device in this show/other fics.**

**Finally, the flagship pairing of this story. Aang and Azula. Azula and Aang. The pacifist monk, and the mildly sociopathic princess. As far as crack-pairings go, this one is right at the top of the heap, and typically for one reason; there's no reconciliation between the characters and the relationship they could have. Fics jump straight past the aspects which evolve a meaningful relationship, in favor of a more 'hey there, I tried to kill you a few times. Want to exchange spit?' type of interaction. Thus why despite being tagged an Aangzula story, it took fifty (count 'em, 50) chapters before they first kissed. Relationships, romantic in particular, are hard. They take time. Making an Azula which could pair with an Aang typically makes an idiot or a doormat out of Azula. In reverse... well, most instances of the reverse, Aang's in chains when the relationship starts, and he tends to stay there. I might be off-base, but my understanding of Azula is a person who has absolutely no threshold for error, and she knows it. If she isn't perfect, she's discarded. That kind of stress would break _anyone_. Any Azula that could be in a healthy relationship - yes, healthy is a key word, there - would have to come to terms with that, and find a means of confidence based inside herself, rather than what mommy and daddy think of her. In a phrase, she needed to grow as a person before anything could work. That's why it took _years_ between them recognizing mutual attraction, to making something out of it.**

**This isn't a 'happily ever after' story. There is no 'ever after'. There's only an 'and then the _really_ hard work started'. Not to say it wasn't worth it, though. They earned a happy ending, and only by undoing the end of the world.**

**One final thing: Nila's real name? My semi-canonical answer to that is 'Veronica-Elizabeth'. Yeah. No wonder she goes by Nila.**

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_A Lifetime Later_:

She couldn't stop crying.

The sobs tore at her lungs, reaching in with frigid fingers and raking them all the way up her throat. It hurt to cry, and she couldn't stop crying. Tears that leaked from her eyes froze on her cheeks; another pain amongst many right now. Everything was wrong. Everything that she'd ever tried to fight for, tried to be... it was gone. Stolen away from her. Ripped out of her.

Tui La, this was like being spiritually raped.

She kept sobbing, as bright blue eyes – darkened perhaps by suffering – looked ahead of her. Two paces, then the precipice. She knew that there were hard, jagged rocks at the bottom of it, and a long time to fall before she reached them. She couldn't go on like this. With her being tied in knots and denied to her. She was a failure. A failure as a friend, a failure as a student, and a failure as the Avatar.

Now the only thing that she could hopefully not-fail at, would be letting the mantel of Avatar go to somebody new, before she wasted any time with it. With a shuddering breath, Korra pressed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the pain. She also tried to ignore the niggling doubts in her mind. What would this do to Mako? Or worse, to Bolin? If nothing else, she wouldn't have to suffer the accusing glare of Asami anymore. She tried to save him. She really, really did. But Amon... but _Noatak_... Hiroshi saved Tenzin and the others, and Korra couldn't even return the favor. By the gods, wasn't there _anything_ she could do right?

She could hear crunching in the snow nearby. Then, hissing and popping, as though somebody had started a fire. "Go away, Tenzin," Korra said, without looking up. "I just want to be alone."

"Nope, I'm pretty sure you didn't," a woman's voice said to her. It almost sounded like Mom... Korra turned blue and angry eyes toward that sound... only to have them gawk open wide. Because there were two people squatted beside a fire, which was slowly melting the snow around it. One of them was a middle aged Tribal woman whom she'd never seen before, but at the same time looked extremely familiar.

The other was Avatar Aang.

"But... He locked my bending away," Korra said, taking her feet. The woman shrugged, and pointed to Aang.

"A wise man..." she began.

"Thank you," Aang said brightly, smiling toward her.

"...once told me," the woman continued, "that our times of deepest despair, we are ready for the greatest of change. And right then? What you were doing right now? Well, you've opened the floodgates."

"Wh...who are you?" Korra asked. The woman rose, cracking her knuckles, popping her neck, and rolling her shoulders...

Exactly like Korra would.

"And right there, she figured it out," This impossible older Korra said, cracking a grin. "Man, I'm smarter than I think I am."

"How is this possible?" Korra asked.

"Long story," Korra waved past her... to where every Avatar was arrayed behind they two, stretching past the ice, past the horizon. Into infinity. "But things are about to _change_."

It smashed through her with the force of a hurricane, lifting her from her feet as her vision became limned with white. Her arms moved of their own volition, and the snow swept up in a great band with them. The stone rumbled and the crags lifted and shifted. Flame was streamed out of the fire, flowing around her as a serpent.

She was in the Avatar State.

She was bending all the elements. She was _whole_.

She settled into her boots, feeling a bit dizzy. The Avatars were gone... save one. Her older self, only now she appeared as a blue-tinted specter. "I... What are you?"

"You. In about thirty years, plus some _really_ stupid decisions," the older Korra said. She looped her arm 'round the younger Korra's shoulders, and began to guide her back toward where Tenzin and Lin and all the others who survived were waiting. "So I'm going to change some things. Like not letting Raava, and all the Avatars before me, get destroyed. And not letting that whole bloodbender witch-hunt go on as long as it did. Figure I'd like to live to see my own grandchildren for a change. What's wrong? You look like you're about to fall over."

Korra blinked away her comically stunned expression, with the deluge of unknowable facts simply washing over her as water over a turtleduck's back. "I'm... My Avatar Spirit mentor is... _me_? How is that possible?"

"It involves traveling universes, an asshole spirit who made good, and a lot of 'impossible' stuff," the older Korra raised a finger in a very academic way. "For example: I'm stunned that Mako and Bolin are even alive; where I come from, they were _Azula's_ _grandkids_. You know, instead of Ursa and Wei and Jinora and Ikki and Meelo and Rohan and Iroh and Zai and... Well, there are _a lot_ of them this time. I guess destiny just doesn't sweat the small stuff. Like genealogy. Or causation..."

"That's... _okay_," Korra said, warding her future self from rambling further, and confusing her all the more. She kept walking, one set of feet crunching through the snow. Then, a thought occurred to her."So... you know my _future_?" Korra asked.

"Something like it. Not quite the same. My Hiroshi was a dink, my Katara – and Aang for that matter – got killed by Azula..."

"Wait, what? Aang's _wife_? The woman who let me_ live in her house_ for two years? His _wife_ murdered him."

"I know! It's crazy! Buuuut, she was a lot _angrier_ than your Azula. Like I said. Different." she said with a laugh. "I mean, 'cause of that whole 'Yue surviving and having a scad of grandkids' thing, you're never going to have to worry about Unalaq and your creepy cousins – you do still have creepy cousins, right?" to which the younger Korra could only numbly nod. They might be family, but Eska and Desna were, indeed, creepy. "Hell, they might even be on your side for a change! Oh, but damn. That means no 'Nuktuk'... Sooooo, you're going with Bolin? Pretty good choice. A little wild, but a great guy when his head isn't in the clouds... or up his own ass – don't let his ego get away from him, _it ain't pretty__,_" Older Korra said, before giving her younger self a nudge. "And gotta say, you dodged a bullet on Mako. Hate to say it, and I love the guy, but that man is walking heartbreak."

"...good to know?" the younger Korra said. She did make a note of it. Bolin could be a bit... excessive, in some ways.

"But enough of that," the older Korra said. The shade of the impossible Avatar – her own incarnation standing before her – clapped her hands onto the younger's shoulders, an iron-hard grasp as every single mote of mirth departed with such speed and thoroughness that the younger was somewhat alarmed by the older's sudden solemnity.

"We need to talk about_ Vaatu._"


End file.
